The blessings of Swedish summer

When I come out at nine in the evening, after 13 hours at work, it is still daylight. Works wonders for the mood, despite cold rain.

Tong Angning wins Ao Anling memorial award!

(Created by Nicolas Krizan.)

The names are "translated" with a webtool i found linked from a comment to the wonderful alternate history of science fiction, as it could have been if the genre had developed in the same way but in China.

And what you see on the photo is of course the permanent part of my Alvar Appeltofft award. (The money is long gone. I actually used it for running a convention -- am I not a trufan!)

Very short 12 hours

There was no post here yesterday. I was busy all day with a 12 hour fanzine. The idea is to gather some fans during twelve hours and produce a fanzine in this time. We were nine fans having a good time, and seven of us produced text for the fanzins. It's just very strange how fast 12 hours pass! I will really miss these people when we move to Canada.

Just a link

I can't think of anything interesting to write about today (and I don't know if anyone is interested in this blog anyway, don't know how to advertise it) so I'll just post a link. The next time I read The Years of Rice and Salt I'll have this study guide as a companion.

Kim Stanley Robinson has been something like my favourite author for a long time --- at least he is the author I talk about most.

The Alvar award

The Alvar Appeltofft memorial award is given to a Swedish science fiction fan every year, for "extensive and important idealistic work of lasting worth to Swedish science fiction fandom".

I got this award for the year 2000, and I'm very proud of it. Traditionally it has been given to young and enthusiastic fans, to encourage more fanac. In the last decade there has been a shift towards giving it for lifetime achievement, and so for example Lars-Olov Strandberg (you might remember him as Guest of Honour at Interaction, the Worldcon 2005) got it in 1999 after more than 40 years in fandom. He was worthy, no doubt, but I think it's good if the prize is given to up-and-coming fans more often.

So this year I try to run something of a campaign to convince fans to vote for Johan Jönsson. He's very active, running several online projects and writing in every magazine and fanzine in reach. Most of it in Swedish, but he wrote about maps in fantasy on Strange Horizons, an article which was discussed at The Mumpsimus.

If I could find my digital camera I would show you the piece of art that came with my award. Maybe another day.

(Updated the sentence commented by Johan A.)

Do men hate women?

Via Making Light I find that Joss Whedon posted a sad and angry text about "honour killing" and about how men sometimes tend to think about women. He also speculates a bit in why:

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I’m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they’re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they’ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, “If all we do is hunt and gather, let’s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let’s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.” It’s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it’s entirely true.

I'll tell you what I think. I think "womb envy" is close to the truth, but I think the whole thing has much simpler roots. Economy. Men want to know that their children are their own, especially in cultures that give great importance to lineage. This is why the idea of "ownership" of women so easily develops, and spreads.

Also, I don't think that men generally hate women, but I do think that people have an ugly tendency to group together and develop an internal culture that is more or less hostile to other groups. This is an instinct we have, and that we will have to learn to deal with. Everyone of us.

That said, I have to add that in my experience men and women can often be friends and work well together. We shouldn't forget that. In Sweden we also generally stress the importance of fathers, and I think a father can attach to a child just as well as a mother can if he's only allowed to (and allows himself). I like men, and like to think well of people.

Carolus Linnaeus festival week

One of the most famous scientists from Sweden is Carl von Linné, internationally better known as Carolus Linnaeus and sometimes called "the flower king". It is 300 years since he was born, and the celebrations are going on for the whole year and especially this week. I know some people who are already very tired of Linnaeus, but I still think it's fun. There are lots of flowers all over town. Tomorrow is the birthday, and the Emperor of Japan is here for the occasion.

The best thing about Linnaeus I've seen so far was an interview in the Sveriges Natur magazine. Yes, an interview. First I thought that it had to be slighly embarrasing, but then I realized that the answers were almost literal quotes from things Linnaeus himself had written and it was actually very well done.

Dark matter ring

This is cool: a ring of dark matter has been seen (well, indirectly) from the gravitational lensing effect in a galaxy cluster. See the Hubble Site news release for more information and figures.

Steampunk Magazine

In my wanderings across the Internet I recently stumbled upon Steampunk Magazine, "bringing the punk back into steampunk". I read it, and liked it a lot. It has a nice fanzine attitude, I should write a Letter of Comment and a proper review.

In the first issue there was among other things an interview with Michael Moorcock, inspiration for those who want to build weird and odd instruments, and four steampunk stories (at least one of them is to be continued). It strikes me as interesting that two of the stories features mohawk haircuts in funny colours (punk=mohawk?), and the other two contains airships (airship=steam tech?). Well. It's fun anyway, and I do recommend it. I'm glad for the material on Thomas Truax, for example -- fun steampunky music.

Futures and past

I just discovered that you can find some of Nature's sf Futures stories online. That's nice, I'll have to print them (otherwise I'll never read them).

As a small presentation of myself I'll link to the old inteview in The Antarctic Sun. It's always strange to see what someone else says about yourself, and I guess I'll never get used to journalists. But it's fun:

But particles are only part of her life. Davour said her spare time includes reading and buying books, writing for a science fiction fanzine, organizing sci-fi conventions, dancing the Lindy Hop and Tango, and singing haunting vocals about vampires for a dark electronica band based in Uppsala, Sweden.

If you want to know more about the band Elektrubadur you can find an listen to some songs on the website. The band is sort of dead (or at least sleeping very deeply) since a long time now.

Fan activity

One of the ideas with this blog was to communicate with fans and fandom outside Sweden. I'm not up to speed yet, but now I've decided to try to update at least once per day for two weeks just to get it going. Every day I will also add at least one link to the side bar.

I will have to make some excursions into the LJ swamp sooner or later, I guess. I've tried to avoid it, but I know that LiveJournal is where a lot of fans hang out.

Hopefully there will be a GUFF losers fanzine -- I'm writing for it now and I know that Johan wanted to do that as well.

Right now many of my friends are at Åcon, and I'm not there! Åcon is a small literary sf convention on Åland (a group of islands between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic sea) with Hal Duncan as guest of honour.

Well, well. At least I got a pub meeting this week. Farah Mendlesohn (not easy to spell!) visited Uppsala (and so did John Clute and Edward James). I was travelling and couldn't hear Farah's lectures at the department of literature, but I came back in time to meet Farah and Edward and some fans (and some people from the department) at William's the pub where we use to meet.

This was really nice, the best things about fandom: talk about interesting and unexpected things, talk about books (I love that), meet and make friends.

Nailing my thesis

In Sweden the PhD thesis is defended after printing, and it's printed after being judged as "good enough" by the supervisor (and the professor responsible for the graduate education). The defense is an important ritual, but it's very rare that you don't pass at this stage. The worst that can happen is probably that I look stupid in front of a lot of important people -- but let's hope not.

Yesterday I got my printed thesis delivered. I then delivered the prescribed 80 copies to the University library and signed a paper to allow it to be electronically posted. This has to be done three weeks before the defense. If I want to I can also physically post the "nailing sheet" on the wall in the University building. This I will do on Monday, since I really like rituals (and also the idea that people who go to the building can see what's going on in research). This is where I use the nail. Then I will nail the whole book to the wall at the Ångström lab for everyone there to see, and give the traditional nailing party at my department.

Now I just hope that I have enough copies printed.