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indeedsir_backup2007-10-03 06:28 pm
shiplizard.livejournal.com) wrote in indeedsir_backup2007-10-03 06:28 pm
Entry tags:
Jooster in sci-fi
Long time lurker, first time poster, and if this has been pointed out before I apologize sincerely.
It's Jooster! In widely-read, professionally published sci-fi.
There is a sci-fi writer named Spider Robinson, whose writing I will not compare to a summer's day, but rather to a Reeses cup. His writing is sugary, without much merit and extremely self-indulgent. But it's also sweet and comforting and familiar, of at least adequate quality as candy goes, and at times you find yourself wanting to consume it in large quantities.
Robinson's characters bump elbows with such notables as Jesus (on a pogo stick, in fact), Nikola Tesla, and Robert A. Heinlein's cat, so this shouldn't have come as quite such a surprise.
I was craving mind-candy in large quantities, so I picked up one of his stories about Lady Sally's Whorehouse (it is a wonderous place where everyone is happy. An enlightened brothel run by a time-traveler from a utopian age. The narrator is a PI investigating a disturbance in the House, and being exposed to the wonders of enlightened sex.)
I hadn't read Lady Slings the Booze in at least two years, before I read Wodehouse or saw the BBC adaptations, and when I read through it this time, something that had always puzzled me before snapped firmly into place.
See for yourself: here, Joe Quigley is meeting just some of the varied staff of artists.
--Over huevos rancheros I met more of the staff. A stacked, short-haired blonde babe called Cat, stunning in a mauve bodysuit that fit her like a sheen of psychedelic persperation. A quite, darkly handsome guy in his twenties named Tony, who wore dark slacks, a net shirt and a single earring, and looked like the young De Niro. A sweet Chinese girl named Mei-ling, unselfconciously naked and built like a three-quarter scale model of Marilyn Monroe. A happy-go-lucky gal in a jogging suit whom everybody called Juicy Luicy who never stopped telling jokes, good ones. ... A tall greying gent named Philip, with the best body I ever saw on a guy in his fifties. He was dressed only in brief deim shorts and slippers, and most of the other artists, male and female, seemed to find reason to touch him a lot as the afternoon wore on. A pleasantly dignified bald old coot named Reggie, a good forty years older than Philip, wearing a splendid silk robe; he spoke (seldom) with a British accent, even more refined than Lady Sally's, and had an odd knack of seeming to walk without moving his feet, sort of shimmering along as if he were on greased wheels despite his advanced years. I kind o f wondered how much use he could be in a whorehouse, but I guess it's like they say: if you can't stir it, you can always lick it. And experience must count for something.--
But no, you cry. Certainly not. (Actually, I doubt you're crying that.)
But Mr. Robinson is never content to let his subtle homages remain subtle, and so he proves it, some dozen chapters later, while the main characters are in the cafeteria once again, discussing with Nikola Tesla how best to save the world from a pacifist terrorist.
In the most depressing way possible.
--Just then there was a mild disturbance at a nearby table. Reggie, the aged Brit I'd met on my previous visit to the cafeteria, was being braced by an agitated client. He was also a Brit, and nearly as aged, dressed expensively but in appalling taste; he might as well have been wearing a sign saying RICH QUEER. He had allowed his voice to rise in pitch and volume, and was close to hysteria. "But I mean, dash it all! I've lost Bingo and Tuppy and Sippy and Corky and Rocky and Biffy, all the Drones are gone, Aunt Dahlia-- even Aunt Agatha, impossible as it seems, turned out to be mortal-- I mean to say, old man, you're simply the only thing left on Earth that I understand.
Reggie didn't seem at all embarrassed; if anything there was compassion in his ancient eyes. "I'm very sorry, sir," he said gravely. "you know you are welcome to visit me regularly... but you must make your own way in the world now."
"But why?"
"Because, sir, I do not play that scene anymore. As the poet Wordsworth said, 'A Briton, even in love, should be a subject, not a slave!' I have come to agree."
Reggie's client stood up. "Blast the poet Wordsworth! In fact, dman the man, and his heirs and assigns! No, hang on a minute-- wasn't he the cove who worked that wheeze about a thousand pine tables?"
"'And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food,' yes, sir," Reggie agreed.
"Well, there you have the thing in a nutshell!
Reggie looked pained. He took a deep breath and said patiently, "I can only repeat my suggestion that you form a liason with Master Henry or Mistress Cynthia."
The man's shoulders slumped. "Not the same," he said. "You only made me surrender one garment at a time. And they won't let me talk. Oh, very well, I suppose there's nothing left to say." He spun on his heel and headed for the door, face contorted with grief.
Reggie's face was still impassive... but a single tear was trying to solve the maze of wrinkles that led to his chin. "Goodbye, Bertie," he said, so softly that I'm sure the guy never heard him.
No one had exactly been staring, but suddenly the conversations in the room were more animated.--
Passages transcribed from Lady Slings the Booze, Baen paperback, pages 130 and 253-254.
It's Jooster! In widely-read, professionally published sci-fi.
There is a sci-fi writer named Spider Robinson, whose writing I will not compare to a summer's day, but rather to a Reeses cup. His writing is sugary, without much merit and extremely self-indulgent. But it's also sweet and comforting and familiar, of at least adequate quality as candy goes, and at times you find yourself wanting to consume it in large quantities.
Robinson's characters bump elbows with such notables as Jesus (on a pogo stick, in fact), Nikola Tesla, and Robert A. Heinlein's cat, so this shouldn't have come as quite such a surprise.
I was craving mind-candy in large quantities, so I picked up one of his stories about Lady Sally's Whorehouse (it is a wonderous place where everyone is happy. An enlightened brothel run by a time-traveler from a utopian age. The narrator is a PI investigating a disturbance in the House, and being exposed to the wonders of enlightened sex.)
I hadn't read Lady Slings the Booze in at least two years, before I read Wodehouse or saw the BBC adaptations, and when I read through it this time, something that had always puzzled me before snapped firmly into place.
See for yourself: here, Joe Quigley is meeting just some of the varied staff of artists.
--Over huevos rancheros I met more of the staff. A stacked, short-haired blonde babe called Cat, stunning in a mauve bodysuit that fit her like a sheen of psychedelic persperation. A quite, darkly handsome guy in his twenties named Tony, who wore dark slacks, a net shirt and a single earring, and looked like the young De Niro. A sweet Chinese girl named Mei-ling, unselfconciously naked and built like a three-quarter scale model of Marilyn Monroe. A happy-go-lucky gal in a jogging suit whom everybody called Juicy Luicy who never stopped telling jokes, good ones. ... A tall greying gent named Philip, with the best body I ever saw on a guy in his fifties. He was dressed only in brief deim shorts and slippers, and most of the other artists, male and female, seemed to find reason to touch him a lot as the afternoon wore on. A pleasantly dignified bald old coot named Reggie, a good forty years older than Philip, wearing a splendid silk robe; he spoke (seldom) with a British accent, even more refined than Lady Sally's, and had an odd knack of seeming to walk without moving his feet, sort of shimmering along as if he were on greased wheels despite his advanced years. I kind o f wondered how much use he could be in a whorehouse, but I guess it's like they say: if you can't stir it, you can always lick it. And experience must count for something.--
But no, you cry. Certainly not. (Actually, I doubt you're crying that.)
But Mr. Robinson is never content to let his subtle homages remain subtle, and so he proves it, some dozen chapters later, while the main characters are in the cafeteria once again, discussing with Nikola Tesla how best to save the world from a pacifist terrorist.
In the most depressing way possible.
--Just then there was a mild disturbance at a nearby table. Reggie, the aged Brit I'd met on my previous visit to the cafeteria, was being braced by an agitated client. He was also a Brit, and nearly as aged, dressed expensively but in appalling taste; he might as well have been wearing a sign saying RICH QUEER. He had allowed his voice to rise in pitch and volume, and was close to hysteria. "But I mean, dash it all! I've lost Bingo and Tuppy and Sippy and Corky and Rocky and Biffy, all the Drones are gone, Aunt Dahlia-- even Aunt Agatha, impossible as it seems, turned out to be mortal-- I mean to say, old man, you're simply the only thing left on Earth that I understand.
Reggie didn't seem at all embarrassed; if anything there was compassion in his ancient eyes. "I'm very sorry, sir," he said gravely. "you know you are welcome to visit me regularly... but you must make your own way in the world now."
"But why?"
"Because, sir, I do not play that scene anymore. As the poet Wordsworth said, 'A Briton, even in love, should be a subject, not a slave!' I have come to agree."
Reggie's client stood up. "Blast the poet Wordsworth! In fact, dman the man, and his heirs and assigns! No, hang on a minute-- wasn't he the cove who worked that wheeze about a thousand pine tables?"
"'And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food,' yes, sir," Reggie agreed.
"Well, there you have the thing in a nutshell!
Reggie looked pained. He took a deep breath and said patiently, "I can only repeat my suggestion that you form a liason with Master Henry or Mistress Cynthia."
The man's shoulders slumped. "Not the same," he said. "You only made me surrender one garment at a time. And they won't let me talk. Oh, very well, I suppose there's nothing left to say." He spun on his heel and headed for the door, face contorted with grief.
Reggie's face was still impassive... but a single tear was trying to solve the maze of wrinkles that led to his chin. "Goodbye, Bertie," he said, so softly that I'm sure the guy never heard him.
No one had exactly been staring, but suddenly the conversations in the room were more animated.--
Passages transcribed from Lady Slings the Booze, Baen paperback, pages 130 and 253-254.
no subject
"Keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you view the world."
And Apollo scoffs and moves away.
Also, Two Dangerous Ideas he showed an inkling of thought.
(That blond one. Not much going on upstairs, is there?)
no subject
no subject