Should of stuck to bananas

 

There used to be a café on Old Compton Street in Soho, London, called Patisserie Valerie. Its location, opposite the 2is coffee bar, where British rock and roll first materialized and a few streets away from the row of studios where the music for the British Invasion was recorded, made it a place of pilgrimage for me. I arrived in London in 1976, and as soon as I'd mastered the Tube, I visited Soho and went to bask in the remaining vibes.

Everyone in Patisserie Valerie appeared almost magically hip. Everyone inside radiated cool. On my third or maybe fourth visit, I ordered a coffee and a millefeuille, chose a table, and sat down. 

The tables were communal. In England, at least back then, no one ushered you to a private table. You selected your own. The cafe was empty, and I sat alone with my thoughts and thousand layered, flaky pastry filled with crème anglaise. 

As I looked out of the window, someone must have decided to share my table. I don’t remember seeing him sit down. The first he impinged upon me was when he stood up abruptly and declared in a high, feminine voice, “Really! Some people do NOT know how to eat!” 

I watched him go, chewing my mouthful of flakes. After some time it dawned on me that he’d been watching me eat the difficult confection and I had somehow failed to live up to his standard of decorum.  He must have been disappointed at my lack of contrition. 

Somewhat later I read of a millionaires/movers-and-shakers party where the men sat down to a meal but the women hired to decorate the party were only allowed to eat a banana, “The only food that can be eaten delicately.” 

I should have stuck to bananas.

The House Opposite that lights up at dawn to presage the coming of spring...

The House Opposite that lights up at dawn to presage the coming of spring isn't looking too good right now. Its lesser-known manifestation, the House Opposite That Lights Up at Dawn in October put on a poor showing this year. 

The first couple of days of the phenomenon, it was misty. On the last day, a faint glimmer in the leftmost upper window appeared. On closer examination today, that's the only window remaining in the building. There's a tree growing in front of the window, too, which isn't helping. 

Gone are the blinding glints of yesteryear.

Two days ago, a faint glimmer, upper left.

Today, misty vista at dawn.

DIGITAL IMAGINING: Wordfest OC at Saddleback College, October 2024

 

From left to right: Brett Myron, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Amy Cameron and Rylee Robles. 

Friday 18th October was Wordfest OC at Saddleback College. 

The day featured poetry readings, a talk on Latinx voices, a conversation with Gustavo Arellano, a workshop on creative writing headed by Sarah Rafael Garcia and a discussion on artificial intelligence, DIGITAL IMAGINING: Creative Writing in the Age of AI. 

I was particularly interested in the last one. The panel included my Creative Writing teacher Barbara DeMarco-Barrett along with Brett Myron, Amy Cameron and Rylee Robles. 

Barbara's main point was that AI (or rather large language models, LLMs) is being 'trained' to write by hoovering up every book, article, blog post, and Reddit post along with any other digitized text. The texts are (in all modern cases) under copyright, and no one was paid for their participation - and not even informed about the project taking place. The products of this surreptitious activity are being sold for money. 

Ethically, writers are owed compensation for this unpaid work. Barbara mentioned that Amazon (the bookseller) now limits individuals to uploading three books a day in order to at least slow down the flood of machine-generated stories and novels. Soon there will be a mass transfer of wealth from current copyright owners and future writers to the owners and users of "Generative AI." 

Whether a LLM "reading" a text for its own use constitutes unlawful copying is yet to be decided by the courts, but cases of an LLM's output matching the input closely, i.e. plagiarism, has already been detected and apparently court cases are proceeding.

Amy talked about Narrative Magazine, where co-founder Tom Jenks has banned people submitting machine-generated text and updated the magazines robots.txt file to disallow web crawlers from 'hoovering' the magazine's contents.  I submit to a lot of speculative fiction magazines, and can confirm that most have strong policies banning AI-written submissions. But how to recognize and prevent it? Amy said that at UC Irvine, use of AI is not "policed" but she can recognize it because it "sounds robotic." She admitted that a time may come when she would be unable to recognize machine output.

Rylee, a high school senior, took a different tack. She is a Marvel fan and asked an AI if it could put her in a Marvel movie--and it made her a superhero. She said that her group created characters with AI and within 45 minutes they had produced three stories that gave representation to everyone in the room. As a base layer to build off, she said, it helped people create their stories. 

The panel discussed whether AI could be a valued part of the creative writing process in that way, by producing a "kernel of an idea."  Barbara said prompt generators (programs that give you ideas for characters, setting and/or plot) had been around for years, and AI was an "unnecessary" improvement. Amy said "rising waters lift all boats" and Google Search had raised the standard for good and mediocre writers alike. She felt that AI would do the same, and it was important "to have a boat in the water" -- get used to generative AI -- or be left behind. 

There was a general agreement that current AI models produced output that lacked nuance, did not adequately express human emotion, and in Brett's case, was "not weird enough." 

During the audience question time, a listener mentioned that sometimes an apparently clear prompt will produce an AI output that "goes in the wrong direction." Rylee answered that sometimes human communication does that too, and the opportunity to rephrase and redirect the AI is good practice for clear communication in general. 

And on that high note, I'll finish. 

Blood Fiction v3 book signing - Lyle Hopwood and other authors

 

A good time was had by all at the book signing for Blood Fiction v3 at Book Carnival in Orange on Sunday.  Thanks to editor Mark Sevi (shown in photo, speaking) and Anne, the proprietor of Book Carnival. 

And to everyone who came to listen to us authors read and bought books to sign. 

Blood Fiction v3 is available from Amazon, in print and ebook. Two stories by me- Lyle Hopwood - in this volume (and one in the previous one, v2.)

Batley's Torchlight Procession, 7th October

 

Tomorrow night, in Batley, it’s the annual torchlight procession. This historic tradition, sometimes called the "Lourdes of the North," brings together the Catholic community of Batley and surrounding areas in a display of faith and devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The first I ever saw of it, I was 11 years old. There were hundreds of people walking past our maisonette, each with a candle glowing in a paper holder. They sang, or chanted“Ave Maria.”  The line of reverential people went on, in the cold Autumn night, for almost half an hour.

My own family was not religious. I’d been to a protestant church two or three times in my childhood, and a Catholic church never. I had never seen churchy people outside a church or churchyard, and the effect on me was much like that of a somehow unsuspecting local of seeing the Padstow ‘Obby Oss come past unexpectedly. To my eyes, it was a “folk tradition” of people venerating an unfamiliar entity – a Wicker Man scenario, but reversed, as I was the pagan, and they were the Christians. (And, as far as I know, they didn’t barbecue anyone afterward.) There are many Festivals of Light at this time of year, and now, fifty years later, I can slot the procession in as one of these – comparable with Diwali, held this year on October 31^st, Imbolc and Kwanzaa. It’s one thing to read about it in a book, quite another to see people enacting it on your literal doorstep.

The procession was kicked off in 1951 by the arrival at St. Mary’s of Father Gallon, lately of St. Patrick’s Sheffield. The event is still organized by St Mary of the Angels Catholic Church on Cross Bank Road and has become a significant part of Batley's cultural and religious calendar.

The procession begins at St Mary's Catholic Primary School and wends its way to St Mary of the Angels Church. This route through the streets of Batley creates a river of light and sound. The sight of hundreds of flickering flames moving through the streets is visually stunning and moving for spectators and participants alike.

Like many public events, the Batley Torchlight Procession went into hiatus due to the pandemic. The 2022 procession marked a triumphant return, with the community embracing the opportunity to participate in this august tradition.

KAOS: When Greek Myths Meet Pop Music Nostalgia

Despite my best judgment I ended up watching KAOS on Netflix.  The premise seems to be, "What if O Brother Where Art Thou met American Gods and had a threesome with a high school book of Greek Myths?

Which sounds fine, I guess. The main problem - or attraction - is its use of a device I call Stolen Valor. (I'm aware that calling something Stolen Valor that isn't Stolen Valor is in itself Stolen Valor, but I can't think of another name.) This Stolen Valor - Mark II, perhaps - is bringing in legendary slices of pop music at chosen moments to substitute for an Eyeball Kick the visuals can't provide. I can understand why it's done, but the calculatedness takes me out of the moment. 

The very first scene of the series is double-underlined and italicized by the use of the stonking introductory riff of Dire Strait's "Money For Nothing." Whatever you may think of Dire Straits and their legacy, there's no doubt that guitar sound makes the heart beat faster. What was weirder is the director kept it going when the vocals started, yea unto the line "Look at them yo-yos." Slight loss of dignity there, I thought. 

One after another the hits kept coming, with a high point for me being a few bars of The Kills' "Future Starts Slow," another track where the guitar sounds as if it's about ready to burst its skin and swoop down to eat your face. 

By the third of fourth episode I'd gotten used to it, and then they used just a smidgen of Dawn Penn's 1993 reggae classic "You Don't Love Me (No No No)."

It was so good to hear it again, only to have it fade out after the 30-second-long scene was over.

The song goes all the way back to Bo Diddley's "She's Fine, She's Mine" of 1955. Which may be the best version, IMHO. 

But the version I grew up on - from the iconic Immediate Anthology of British Blues Volume 2 - is "You Don't Love Me" by Tony TS McPhee.  With me it's always the guitar sound.

Author signing event for Blood Fiction at Book Carnival, Tustin

Flyer for book signing - details reproduced below

I'll be at a book signing event for Blood Fiction v3. Other authors will be there, along with Mark Sevi, our esteemed editor and story curator. 

October 13th at 2pm at Book Carnival, 348 S. Tustin Street, Orange, CA 92866. 

Snacks and door prizes will be provided - along with book signing, obvs. 

Even if you don't want to meet the Blood Fiction authors, come along - Book Carnival is a wonderful bookshop. Just mosey in and browse!

 

"Good fortune will nod, if you carry upon you Joan the Wad"

 

Joan the Wad is a figure from Cornish folklore, known as the Queen of the Pixies. (Jack O’Lantern is their king.)  In Devon and Cornwall, to the south of England, pixies are little mischievous sprites. The word is often pronounced “piskies.”

My Joan the Wad

They are depicted, rather uncharitably I thought, in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as a kind of flying Gremlin.

In folklore, they are fairy folk, little people with a supernatural aspect, associated with both streams and fire. They can appear as a kind of will o’ the wisp. Both Jack O’Lantern and Joan the Wad carry a torch. (A “wad” is a dialect term for a bundle of straw, used as a torch.) Joan the Wad was said to use her torch to lead travelers astray on the moors, but on other occasions could be helpful to people who were lost. Joan is often depicted nude, symbolizing her connection with nature.

During the 19^th and 20^th centuries, little figures of Joan the Wad were produced for humans to wear as lucky charms or carry in their pockets. They’re still made, I understand, as souvenirs for visitors to Cornwall. They are made of brass and depict Joan nude, seated, with her arm over her head. My mother carried one in her purse all her adult life. Unfortunately, I don’t know where her Joan ended up after she passed away, but a few years ago I was fortunate to find one exactly like it, and I keep it in a pocket.

"Good fortune will nod, if you carry upon you Joan the Wad"

Blood Fiction v3 now available to order - two Lyle Hopwood stories within

 I'm very pleased to announce that I have two stories in Blood Fiction v3 (curated once again by Mark Sevi). 

Crossmatch is a tale of exhausting on-call work in a hospital blood bank, with a twist at the end. 

Mummy Wheat is a story about pregnancy, birth, and death, but not in the usual order. There's a digression on Mummy Wheat, once found in Ancient Egyptian tombs and guaranteed to sprout upon planting, even after thousands of years accompanying a mummy deep in an underground tomb.

The picture of mummy wheat, above, was posted on X by 

@PetrieMuseEgypt

. Sir Flinders Petrie himself gets a namecheck in the story. Though mummies and preserved wheat may sound dry (because they are) the story lives up to the name 'Blood Fiction'!

Bouncing Down Tiller Road: A Tale of Bins and Bras

Apropos of nothing much, I remembered the time I was running down the sidewalk of Tiller Road, London, and woman shouted out of an upper window, "You should wear a bra. Den you woudn go bouncin' down de road!"

I remember it because I was wearing a bra at the time but couldn't work out how to get that information across while running for whatever I was late for.  It's less memorable than the time I walked towards the stairwell, saw a woman holding a baby, and said, not unreasonably I thought, "Hello, baby." The woman replied, "F*ck off, you lesbian c*nt." Ah, memories of the East End.

The property was Hammond House, where students from Queen Mary, University of London were housed. It's on my mind because I'm writing a story about a garbage chute. A lot of the properties in London had them. They have access hatches in the stairwell on each floor, which you open and chuck your rubbish into. In theory, it goes down a kind of chimney and lands in a dumpster. In practice, it often looked like the photo below. 

Hammond House garbage chute 1979. Model is Tina. Photo by Rosie (I think.)

The thin shafts are easily blocked, and the overall amount of crap residents can throw away has increased massively since these flats were built. 

Hammond House was leveled in 2012. The new block appears to have the same arrangement. Due to the magic of Google Street View (1), you can examine the lack of progress. 

Hammond Rubbish Chute, 2009

Hammond House Gone, 2012

New block Garbage Chutes, 2022

As you can see, the method for ridding yourself of household garbage has yet to be updated significantly.

(1) An exciting story by me combining magic and Google Street View is available in Blood Fiction v2, ed. Mark Sevi.

Updated Bibliography: Lyle Hopwood

 

Bibliography

Now with links! 

Short Stories

The Technophobe (1988) in Back Brain Recluse #10 ed. Chris Reed

Sensonomicon (1988) in Back Brain Recluse #11 ed. Chris Reed

The Fathers (1989) in Back Brain Recluse, #13 ed. Chris Reed

The Outside Door (1989) in Interzone, #28 ed. Simon Ounsley, David Pringle

Feminine Intuition (1990) in Dream Science Fiction #23 ed. George P. Townsend

Milk (1991) in Edge Detector #3 ed. Glenn Grant

David Cronenberg's "Alien" - Novelisation by J. G. Ballard (1993) in Interzone, #75 ed. Lee Montgomerie, David Pringle

Pace Car (2021) in Interzone #290/291 ed. Andy Cox

Jump Jiving (2022) in Eldritch Science #8 ed. George Phillies

Sundown (2022) in The Writing Disorder, Winter 2022 ed. C. E. Lukather

Blackpool Tower (2023) in BFS Horizons, #15 ed. Pete. W. Sutton

Autonomous (2023) in Aurealis, #157 ed. Dirk Strasser

Sunless (2023) in IZ Digital April 2023 ed. Gareth Jelley

Nine Dioptres (2023) in IZ Digital May 2023 ed. Gareth Jelley



Short stories in anthologies

The Technophobe (Technophobia) (1990) in Unter die Haut (Under the Skin) Phantastische Erzählungen amerikanischer Autorinnen Gebundene Ausgabe ed. Karin Ivancscis und Peter Hiess

The Outside Door (Die Tür nach Draußen) (1990) in Unter die Haut (Under the Skin) Phantastische Erzählungen amerikanischer Autorinnen Gebundene Ausgabe ed. Karin Ivancscis und Peter Hiess

Feminine Intuition (Weibliche Intuition) (1990) in Unter die Haut (Under the Skin) Phantastische Erzählungen amerikanischer Autorinnen Gebundene Ausgabe ed. Karin Ivancscis und Peter Hiess

Milk (Die Milch der frommen Gewalt) (1989) in Der Riss im Himmel (The Crack in Heaven) Science-Fiction europäischer und amerikanischer Autorinnen Gebundene Ausgabe ed. Karin Ivancsics

Lokitoo (2023) in Union, A Dragon Soul Press Anthology ed. J. E. Feldman

Writ Large (2023) in Blood Fiction v2 ed. Mark Sevi

Cargo Cults (2023) in Emanations Zen ed. Carter Kaplan

The Burn Out (2023) in Fission #3 ed. Eugen Bacon and Gene Rowe

The Naiad (2024) in Unauthorised Departures, ed. Rick McGrath

Pace Car (2024) reprinted in in Unauthorised Departures, ed. Rick McGrath

Autonomous (2024) reprinted in in Unauthorised Departures, ed. Rick McGrath



Audio

Crossmatch 2824 (2024) in Creepy Pod narrated by Megan McDuffee

Unauthorized Departures ed. Rick McGrath (Terminal Press 2024)

Three stories from me and many more in this excellent anthology of speculative fiction. Unauthorized Departures, edited by Rick McGrath, from The Terminal Press.

Available from Barnes & Noble (and probably elsewhere)!

SpaceX contrails in So Cal, April 1st.

SpaceX launch from Vandenberg, April 1st 2024, seen from from San Juan Capistrano

 

Swallows Day Parade 2024

The San Juan Capistrano Swallows Day Parade was held during a rare March downpour today. We didn't stay to see the whole thing, having worn non-waterproof hoodies.  

This pair stood out with their spectacular horses. 

Apart from that, we wandered around until we lit on a stall selling "Crab Fries."  We both ordered Crab Fries - for $24, which seemed a little steep. When the time came for them to hand them to us, the guy said, "There's two of you? And you both ordered the fries with crab?" We nodded, and he charged us another $28, saying that he would forgo the $4 he'd accidently left off the first charge. So we had two plates of French fries lightly scattered with crab meat for $52, to be eaten off paper plates in the pouring rain of the general milling-around area.

As STB said, "We'll probably be his only customers today so maybe that's fair."

Maybe. 

We also spent some time looking around the Blas Aguilar Adobe and talking to the lady about the museum collection.  That didn't cost us anything but was worth five times a plate of fries. 

Panhe, the Native American celebration in San Clemente, has been postponed due to the inclement (no pun intended) weather so we will have to outfox tomorrow's gale at home. 

Panhe 2024 is on Sunday, March 2024

 

Edit: Postponed until October

https://sanoparks.org/2024-panhe/