Since I just told you of the passing of Angel Arango, I thought I’d share my thoughts on first meeting him, and why it was a crime I hadn’t learned of him earlier.

The following originally appeared in the December 9, 2002 Science Fiction Weekly (issue #294), which merged with SCI FI Wire in 2009 and morphed into Blastr in 2010. (FYI—I’ve been editing sites for Syfy since—gulp!—2000.)

90 Miles and a Million Light-Years From Home

I just got back from a visit—a visit which a year ago I would have said was impossible—to Cuba. For citizens of the United States, such legal visits are not an easy thing to pull off. Travel under a General License is limited to six very narrow categories, and I was lucky enough to fall into one of them. So during the week of Thanksgiving, I—along with Locus publisher Charles N. Brown and Locus executive editor Jennifer A. Hall—went to Havana to research the current state of Cuban science fiction. We timed our trip to coincide with the conference Cubaficción 2002, so that we’d be able to meet with as many Cuban writers, artists, editors and fans as possible.

Modern science fiction started out as an American invention, but now that over three-quarters of a century has passed, it has developed a presence throughout the world. Listening to the international voices of SF can change the way we feel about all SF. Last year, for instance, I visited Chengdu, the capital city of the Szechuan province, to visit the headquarters of Science Fiction World magazine and discover how things are done in China. That experience was so enlightening that this year I decided to reach out to yet another foreign community of the fantastic to learn more about its unique flavor of SF. As it turns out, though Cuba is only 90 miles off our shores, compared to China it is a far more distant country.

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Angel Arango, one of the founding fathers of Cuban science fiction, died recently at age 86. We met in 2002, when I was lucky enough to attend Cubaficción in Havana. He’d been publishing science fiction since the ’60s, and seemed a piece of living history.

I took to him immediately, and looking back on it now, I suspect that, as he was the Jack Williamson of Cuba, my love for Jack bled over a bit into my feelings for Angel, which is what caused, I think, that instant connection. He’d seen a lot over his decades writing science fiction in that country, and I wanted to learn what his time had been like.

I’m not fully conversant with the details of his life—I’ll leave the telling of those to others—but I did want to note his passing, and to make sure you took a moment to think of him as well.

So I’d like to share what’s perhaps his most famous short story, “El planeta negro,” originally published in his 1966 collection of the same name. I’ve scanned the version below from the 1983 anthology Cuentros Cubanos de Ciencia Ficcion, a copy of which I picked up at a book stall during my time in Havana.
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Two months ago, Irene and I were lucky enough to be part of the initial seating at Range on the first of its pre-opening preview nights, which surprisingly resulted in me being interviewed by the foodie site Eater about the experience. Saturday night, we headed back to the Chevy Chase Pavilion with two other couples to see how Bryan Voltaggio’s newest enterprise was coming along … and to try a few of the dishes even we didn’t have room for the first time around.

We hadn’t intended to repeat ourselves, but there were a couple of dishes so good that eating at Range and not ordering them would rank as some sort of sin. So we once more ordered the cornbread with bacon marmalade, as well as the Brussels sprouts fried in bacon. (Are you noticing the bacony theme here?) The rich, smoky spread contrasted well with the light cornbread, and those Brussels sprouts … man! Never before have vegetables seemed as enticing as candy. Which is why we went through two orders.

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I had two dreams featuring a similar theme last night, and yes, I’m 100% sure they actually were two dreams, rather than a single dream shifting time and place, because I was awake between the two, getting up and scribbling down the initial dream before falling back asleep.

In the first, I was at a science fiction convention, only it was far classier than any science fiction convention I’ve ever been to. It was more like a classy Park Avenue cocktail party, with a bar, and waiters circulating with canapés, and someone tinkling away at a grand piano. As I wandered with drink in hand, I saw Chip Delany in the distance, and went over to greet him. Although in the dream he was still the age he is now in real life, he was trim the way he was in his youth, and filled with vigor, with no need of a cane.

“You once more look like a god,” I told him, amazed at his transformation.

We talked a bit about how he had gotten as fit again as he once had been, but then he seemed a bit miffed, and told me that he was a little upset I was talking about all that instead of asking after his child. So I apologized, for in the dream, he and his partner had recently adopted a baby, and I’d known that, knew the kid had health problems, and felt a bit embarrassed for not asking how he was doing. (more…)

I never met Edward Brinkerhoff Taylor, Jr., who died a few days ago at age 76, but I’ve got an idea he was a hoot.

I only know the man through his obituary that appeared in today’s edition of the Washington Post, which I read because, hey, I always read obituaries. I like seeing the shorthand of a life, and in this case, those final words made me laugh.

Because “despite his best efforts to the contrary,” Taylor “was honorably discharged from the Army,” owned “a series of convertibles bought and wrecked in his retirement” and regretted that he’d “outlived a number of the more venerable restaurants of the capital region and Midtown Manhattan, of which he was a habitual patron.”

I suspect, though I could be wrong, that Taylor had a hand in crafting his death notice, because of the wit that made it stand out from the other far more traditional notices which filled three pages today. Perhaps it’ll turn out that instead was due to his daughters having inherited his spark, but I’ll bet he gave them a few wry tips before lifting that glass of Tanqueray and saying, “end of story.”

Makes me want to start taking notes for that eventuality which I hope is still many decades off. Why leave it up to others, who in their attempts to be respectful might be far too circumspect to tell any sort of truth?

Earlier today, I told you about my hunt for a 30th anniversary gift that led me to purchase a page from Love Tales #73 (May 1957) for Irene, and it occurs to me you deserve to see the rest of the original art from that story,

Page 4 of “The Wrong Kind of Guy!,” drawn by John Tartaglione, has been hanging on Irene’s wall since 2006. Amazingly, I was able to find the splash page, page 2, and page 3 online as well, scanned and uploaded by their owners.

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Well, Valentine’s Day was this week, which means my thoughts turned to romance … romance comic books, that is. It reminded me of a dichotomy I noticed several years ago between the covers to romance novels and the covers to romance comics, a difference I’ve never seen anyone mention. And so I figure I should mention it to you here now so that you can go, “Oh, Scott, you dummy, where have you been, everyone already knows that!”

It started for me back in 2006, as Irene and I were approaching our 30th anniversary. I decided that, because of Irene’s love of both romance novels and comic books, I’d buy her the original art to a romance comic book cover for an anniversary gift. What I soon discovered, as I studied all the art then for sale from dealers, was that romance comic book cover art was terribly sad, and not at all suitable to celebrate three decades of love!

Somehow, even though our house has always been filled with both romance novels and comics, I’d never noticed this.

Take a look at the covers to a couple of random romance novels. (more…)

I heard back a little while ago from whoever runs the Pimsleur Approach Twitter feed in response to my contacting them about their company’s presumably unauthorized use of Isaac Asimov in its advertising.

Here’s what they had to say.

I’m happy to hear that the Good Doctor will be set free. Still waiting to hear back to my follow-up question asking what bizarre mix-up could have led to this happening in the first place, though—after all, Asimov didn’t get there on his own.

In case you were wondering, this morning, 48 hours after I first noticed it, the face of Isaac Asimov is still being used to tout Pimsleur Approach on the front page of the Huffington Post.

Only today, poor Isaac is doing it twice!

I’m hoping that since it’s no longer a weekend, someone at one of those two companies will quickly take notice of the fact that this is presumably an unauthorized usage and quickly put an end to it.

But what do you think the chances are of that?

I’m not only obsessed with what I’m going to eat in the future—I’m also fascinated with what I could have eaten in the past. Which is why when I discovered that the New York Public Library maintains a database of restaurant menus going all the way back to the 1850s, I immediately rushed back to the oldest bill of fare I could find—this ragged Revere House menu from May 18, 1851.

I’ll have some of that corned beef with dandelions, plus some pigeons in cases on the side, please! How about you?

Anybody got a time machine I could borrow?