No longer stealing your credit cards, no longer teasing you with a slinky night gown, no longer offering you a way to spend a quite five or ten minutes while your loved one is watching Bert Newton, no longer the site you wish I had begun, yes, we’re back to the non-pornographic normal.

I know, we’re all disappointed.

In case you’re curious, it appears the site with the domain name got hacked, and that was why anyone drifting through over the last few days was treated to the girl in the pink underwear. Not much that I could do about it, I’m afraid, so I’ve kept myself busy elsewhere. For example, I have been reading about post-apocalyptic narratives and in my head I’m trying to compose a list of what I’ve seen and read, and what I haven’t, and what worked and what didn’t. Right now, however, I can’t seem to get past the fact that I thought A Canticle for  Leibowitz was awful.

This morning, I got a knock on the door. When I opened it, I found a solid guy in his late fifties, dressed in a dark grey suit, and holding a leaflet.

“Thanks for coming to the door,” he said.

“Sure,” I replied.

“I’d just like to invite you to a seminar we’re giving.”

Now, usually, I just say no, thanks, and leave it at that, but for no particular reason I could put my finger on, I took the flyer. As soon as it was handed to me, I knew I had done the right thing, for across the top were the words, “How Can You Survive the End of the World?”

Beneath it was written, “You are warmly invited to come and listen to the answer.” Well, neat, I thought. The end of the world is coming. I’m in the fame of mind for that. I figure there will be fire. The ground will open up. Planes fall from the sky. The world, as you and I know it, says fuck you all. Of course, the leaflet I had been given by the now departed man, had a white guy in a yellow shirt leading his daughter (who wears a bonnet) and his red haired wife, standing in a green meadow, people following behind them. They’re heading towards the light, leaving behind the story, just as the white and black people behind them. There’s no Asian people, or Indian people, mind you, but I suppose when the sky turns black and everything goes bad, there has to be someone for these well dressed men and women to wave at when they head out of town.

On the back of the leaflet, there was a huge collection of people, and dates for the convention, which, no prizes if you guessed it, was behind held by the Jehovah’s Witness people. For a moment, I considered going–surely, I thought, it would be good for me to learn how to watch for Jehovah’s Day, and at the very least, I might find it amusing. I could spare a couple of hours for that.

Yeah.

Well.

Apparently learning to survive the end of the world is a three day symposium, held at the Acer Arena in Homebush Bay. Now, in case you don’t jump that link, Acer Arena is known for being the place that people like Pink and monster trucks go too when they have to put a show on, and usually designates that quite a few people will be there. The Jehovah’s Witness people, it seems, think that surviving the end of the world will bring in the same crowds as Pink being hit by a monster truck (tell me you wouldn’t go and see it) and do so for three days. Which, hey, it might just do so, what do I know? I mean, I didn’t even think that there were that many Jehovah’s Witness people in Sydney.

I’ve not yet decided if I won’t go out and check it for a laugh, but since it runs from 9.20 to 4.55 on each of those days, I suspect laziness and not giving a fuck will get the better of me, but you never know.

Today’s speculative fiction argument began with this table of contents:

Here are the contents of The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF edited by Mike Ashley.

1. “Out of the Sun” by Arthur C. Clarke
2. “The Pevatron Rats” by Stephen Baxter *
3. “The Edge of the Map” by Ian Creasey
4. “Cascade Point” by Timothy Zahn
5. “A Dance to Strange Musics” by Gregory Benford
6. “Palindromic” by Peter Crowther
7. “Castle in the Sky” by Robert Reed *
8. “The Hole in the Hole” by Terry Bisson
9. “Hotrider” by Keith Brooke
10. “Mother Grasshopper” by Michael Swanwick
11. “Waves and Smart Magma” by Paul Di Filippo *
12. “The Black Hole Passes” by John Varley
13. “The Peacock King” by Ted White & Larry McCombs
14. “Bridge” by James Blish
15. “Anhedonia” by Adam Roberts *
16. “Tiger Burning” by Alastair Reynolds
17. “The Width of the World” by Ian Watson
18. “Our Lady of the Sauropods” by Robert Silverberg
19. “Into the Miranda Rift” by G. David Nordley
20. “The Rest is Speculation” by Eric Brown *
21. “Vacuum States” by Geoffrey A. Landis

* = New story written for this anthology

You’ll note, fairly quickly, the lack of female names in the book, followed, I imagine, by the lack of racial diversity.

Commentary began in the original post by Catherynne Valente, who wrote, “Wow…not a woman in the lot. Been awhile since I’ve run smack into that. My fragile female mind, she is…not exactly blown.” Caitlin Kiernan followed with, “Not even one single female author. Seem, that’s mindblowing.” Charles Stross was fourth to leave a comment, and he said, “Bonkers. Nothing by James Tiptree Jr., Ursula le Guin, C. J. Cherryh, C. L. Moore, or (insert list here)? I note an interesting mixture of classics with rather newer, more obscure items … where’s Elizabeth Bear? Or — Aaagh: fail!”

That went on for a bit, until Paul Di Filippo arrived and said:

Dear Friends of SF–

I generally steer clear of controversies in my senescense, having participated in more than my share as a card-carrying cyberpunk–but I simply cannot allow the unanimity of asinine comments on exhibit here to go unremarked-upon.

Every single commenter here seems to me to be committing a logical fallacy of tremendous dimension, one so big it distorts entire worldviews:

DEMANDING THAT EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE OF EVERYTHING COMPOSITE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY STATISTICALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE ENTIRE COSMOS

You know what: a potato field is not likely to contain corn plants. A pine forest might feature an oak or three, but be 99% pine trees. The Beatles were 4 white guys. Sonic Youth has no people of color! My ream of copy paper is all white, with no sheets of lettuce included!

Variety is great. Heterogeniety is great. Bias and prejudice suck. A genre–VIEWED AS A WHOLE–must feature a million different voices to be accurate and interesting.

BUT NOT EVERY SINGLE BOOK OR MAGAZINE OR BAND OR WORK OF ART NEEDS TO CONFORM TO THE LATEST CENSUS RESULTS.

A shiny coin if you can guess how it went after that?

“Paul, I’ll see your asinine and raise you a fatuous.”

“Paul, I completely disagree with your position.”

“Dear Paul Di Filippo,

What the hell is wrong with you? I mean, I feel I could answer that question on my own (you’re a man, you write SF, you have a vested interest in status quo and keeping things the way they are: to your benefit) but I’m really hoping that maybe this morning you woke up and took a FailPill or maybe hit your head on something or maybe just forgot to insert the hard drive that allows you to make logical comments and not sound like a completely out of touch, boorish, privileged jerk.”

Personally, I thought the last was a bit uncool, given that Di Filippo has always struck me (on his blog and in his reviews and fiction) as a alright sort’ve guy, and hardly one who’d promote sexism, racism, or anything of the such. But then, you know, it’s not like Tempest Bradford has ever been accused of being subtle.

From Jim Hines, in a post entitled, ‘Here We Go Again’:

Most of the frustration I’ve seen expressed over this sort of thing, my own included, comes from a very different place. My sentiment about the anthology wasn’t so much “This editor is a horribly sexist oppressive Nazi” as much as it was “Here we go again.” If you see this as an isolated incident, it might not feel like a big deal. If you see it as yet another white-male-dominated project in a long history of such, then it becomes more frustrating. As an isolated anthology it’s annoying; as a symptom of a larger and ongoing problem within the genre, it’s both discouraging and highly troubling.

Link.

Okay, I got one.

What’s the most romantic thing you can think of?

What?

Fuck you.

Fuck you.
Now, answer the question.

How’s that romantic?

I suddenly have this sympathy for girls you’ve dated.

Sir Edward Downes.

He was British conductor–

No, no.

Well, yes.

But that puts it in the wrong–in the wrong vein, man. They went to an assisted suicide clinic, and took their own lives, rather than continue to suffer through health problems. It was a final act of a couple that had been married for over fifty years. The final act of a couple that cared so deeply for each other that they could not die even alone.

You don’t think it was romantic?

You think that changes it?

He has a sir in front of his name?

Damn right it is, it’s my car we came in.

You don’t think it’s romantic?

It doesn’t mean it can’t mean something.

But–

You’re not dating some girl.

Dude, I don’t know what to tell you–I think it’s a dark and beautiful statement, and one of the romantic things I’ve ever heard.

At least it’s not flowers.

Yeah?

Link.