Tyree's Tuppence

by Tyree Campbell

Peering Through The Haze

"There is a place in north Ontario . . . ," sings Neil Young in the headset as I compose this, and already I see the glimmer of a bleak and desperate story I want to write at some point.  I assemble my images and they merge into a collage, some distinct, some requiring still more detail, and I jot notes, and file what I see.  When I'm ready, I'll write it:  a moody piece that, like "Sentimental," will take me a while to recover from. 

The refrains of "Helpless" fade in my ears, to be replaced by a haunting guitar solo, the lead-in to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," and more images queue up for attention.  I remember that I first heard this song eons ago at a bar on the first floor of a Korean brothel in one of those harshly-named villes just south of the Demilitarized [yeah, right . . . ] Zone, where neither the camaraderie of us off-duty sentinels in uniform nor a carefully nurtured alcoholic haze can dispel the utter alienness and loneliness of that land.  Wish you were here.  Is there anybody out there? 

And before the song ends, I think, in rapid succession, of Larry Dennis and Jim Baker.

Wish you were here, Jim . . .

Larry is still with us, of course, but his beloved online magazine, EOTU, is not.  For reasons of health he has closed it.  The other day I wrote on our messageboard that Larry and I had the briefest of communication:  I'd submit something, he'd glom onto it like it was the last popsicle in July, and send me some money.  Other than that, I don't know a smegging thing about him.  And it bothers me that I don't.

Maybe that's why I've selected this particular music for the evening's writing; that, and maybe the extra finger of Glenlivet. 

The music morphs to Mary Hopkin's "Temma Harbour," one of the first lesbian love songs ever recorded, though Hopkin, devout and pious and at one time a Beatles protegee, would be astonished and perhaps dismayed to know this.  Not sure how that song got onto the evening's playlist.  Maybe I mis-clicked during the selection process.  I spin WinAmp on, find the Joan Baez and Mary-Chapin Carpenter duet "Diamonds And Rust."  Yeh, that works:  mood reacquired. 

And now it's raining.  Figures.

Where was I?

Larry Dennis, right.  His was a labor of love, like Jim's.  I don't know that Larry ever made much money with his magazine--it's tough to turn a profit, or even to break close to even, in the small indies.  I'm going to assume he loved what he was doing more than he profited by it.  EOTU published some verrrrrry good stories . . . thanks, Larry.  Get well . . . and get back here.  Dreams need you.

"Sardinia" by Capercaillie is playing now.  Not sure why that's on, either, but Karen Matheson has one of those smoky voices that soothes the ear even when the tempo is set at Irish-jig speed.  Livens the mood somewhat.  And Irish jig leads me to Mark Anthony Brennan.

Mark was half [which half?  dunno . . . ] of SDO, publisher of the online zines SDO Fantasy, SDO Detective, and SDO Ghost.  Like Larry, Mark had the good sense to grab everything I sent him.  And I had the good sense to grab everything he sent me, which until recently was all of one story, "Josef," which made it into our Casablanca-in-Outer-Space anthology In The Outposts Of Beyond.  Not long ago SDO closed down--server problems--and Mark and I held some informal discussions of what to do next, because he and Dave Bowlin, the Sintrigue half of SDO [which I suppose makes Mark the Dot Org half], will continue publishing, but in print.  [There's a blurb to this effect in the June Between Kisses, but you'll have to go there to read it because I'm not about to upstage my own newsletter].  There's no need to go into detail about our discussions--I've never been one to advise-and-tell :-D.  Suffice it to say I told him what my experience has been, he listened, and maybe it will help.  Hope so.

See . . . there's no competition here . . .

Okay, lemme just back up.  Not long ago an individual who shall remain nameless asked me why the &%$# I supported other indie publishers in Between Kisses and in some of my editorials and so forth.  I had no convenient snappy retort [one always thinks of these things two weeks later] except "Because!"  But here's my thinking on this matter.

First . . . and, as important as this is to me personally, this is really a minor point:  because some of these other indies publish me.  Publicity for them gets my name out there. 

And second:  because the reality of small indie publishing is that even as a mega-entity we-un's cannot accommodate all the publishable [and presumably profitable] material available. To the extent that SDO and EOTU and Sam's Dot and other indies publish many of the same writers, we're not in competition with one another or for any particular piece or any particular writer.  If Penny Ehrenkranz or Lawrence Barker or Lee Clarke Zumpe have a story they want to submit somewhere, Mark Brennan and I do not meet at dawn on a beach for a duel with rotten artichokes at twenty paces.  That's not how it works.   [Besides, the maximum effective range of the .83 caliber artichoke is only seventeen paces].

What happens is, each indie has its own cachet, its own presentation, its own reputation.  Basically, if we present the material of our contributors in appealing formats, respond in a reasonably timely fashion to submissions, and--above all--are reliable with our payments and [as appropriate] contributors' copies, we're going to get more than enough quality submissions to satisfy the space requirements of our publications.  It's that simple.

But wait!  There's more!

A moment ago I alluded to labors of love, referring to Jim Baker and Larry Dennis--and many others, I'm sure.  We like what we do.  We write science fiction and fantasy and we also publish it.  We are attracted to dreams of adventures in outer and inner space.  Unable to go there physically, we travel there vicariously in stories.  And we encourage others to dream, to travel, so that one day our species will reach other worlds, other galaxies, perhaps other universes.  We, the writers and editors and publishers, believe in that destiny, however far in the future its fruition.  We hope it will happen.  We want it to happen.  And this--Sam's Dot, SDO, EOTU, and all the rest--is our contribution.

It's not easy, this trek.  It's long nights reading submissions, and formatting this, and adjusting that.  It's long nights neglecting one's own writing and one's own dreams.  J Erwine told me the other day that he thought Jim would want us both to be writing more.  Yes, I know, I know . . . sigh . . .

I'm workin' on it . . .

Jim's spirit lives on in Sam's Dot.  Mark Brennan changed formats, is all.  And maybe Larry Dennis . . .

And now the playlist has Mary Hopkin's "Those Were The Days."  Oh, my friends, we're sadder but no wiser/for in our hearts the dreams are still the same . . .

Past Tuppence:
March 2005
December 2004
September 2004
June 2004
March 2004
December 2003
September 2003
June 2003
March 2003
December 2002
October 2002
August 2002
June 2002
April 2002
February 2002
December 2001
October 2001
August 2001

Read more from Tyree Campbell in any of the following:

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 4

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 3

Sex and the Single Alien
An anthology

Nyx
A novel by Tyree Campbell

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 2