Wampum and whomp ’em

Let’s talk about the devaluation of the dollar and how it is going to affect us. (Look, I’m older and in “instruct the young folks” mode. Humor me, as this s relatively short.) Financial currency like the US dollar is simply an agreed upon means for exchange. It has no intrinsic value. Humans must say, “this has value, I can use it to exchange for goods and services.” Essentially, we’ve made it up as a convenience.

Scarcity stabilizes, or “backs” a currency. If we used river pebbles for currency, for instance, there would be no way to set a value because everyone could just go get more pebbles. The backing resource has be rare. The example that comes to my mind is because I grew up on Long Island, where the Montaukett nation of Amerinds (as well as tribal nations from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island) made wampum beads out of the rare purple interiors of Quahog clams. Wampum was treated as currency in most of the Eastern native American tribes. It had no intrinsic value other than consensus, and was back by it’s rarity.

When a currency falls apart it is often because it is no longer rare. Governments may attempt to print their way to prosperity, and producing lots and lots of currency, but this lack of rarity dilutes the backing asset. With a fiat (fiat means “because I say so”) currency it becomes a matter of believing in the backer’s word.

Printing too much currency works for a while. Unsuspecting people get their money, do their business and don’t realize that the money is getting less and less valuable as they go. It’s a gradual slide, hard to see.

People wake up to the reality when in the span of a few days the cost of a cup of coffee goes from two bucks to 200 bucks. This can happen when large amounts of the “believe us, it’s good!” fiat currency gets returned to a country when the rest of the world no longer wants it because they’ve lost faith in the word of the backers. This happened to the Wiemar Republic. It happened to Zimbabwe. I happened to Venezuela. And there is absolutely no reason it cannot happen to America.

Understand this: We tend to get the explanation backwards. We call it hyper-inflation, but it’s really hyper-devaluation. The cost of the cup of coffee did not change, nor did its value. The money lost value. In simpler terms, in this situation the coffee is backed by more stability and scarcity than the currency.

I’m getting to my point, I promise.

The reason people invest in precious metals, land, original art, and blockchain currency (Bitcoin etc.) is because governments can’t just print more of it. Rare items’ values are like the cup of coffee: stable and predictable. When the fiat currency gets blown asunder these things maintain their value.

I’m tell anyone to buy anything. I don’t care how you invest.Personally, I’m buying actual coffee.

But I’d be less than kind not to warn you that fiat currencies like the Federal Reserve Note usually, historically, only last about 50 years. And it looks like time is running out.

Free online gardening workshop!

Hello, all:

I’ll be doing a free workshop in the THRIVE Personal Growth Community, on December 6, on the topic: How to Grow Food Even with Little Space or Experience, based on my new book Grow Food at Home. Today’s the release date for that on all but Amazon, which should happen in a few days. https://books2read.com/u/b6z7yp

If you’re worried about supply chain issues at the grocery store, or just want to eat healthy, don’t despair. Why not grow some of your own food? It’s easier than you think.

In my workshop, you’ll learn:

  • Why right now is the perfect time to plan your spring garden
  • Types of gardens (in-ground, container, hydroponic, greenhouse) and ways to get around space limitations
  • How to decide what to grow, based on your location (using the USDA Zones and state Cooperative Extensions)
  • Can’t-fail things to plant
  • Great resources for seeds, bushes, and dwarf trees
  • How to prepare the ground for your plants
  • Common mistakes and how to prevent them
  • Preservation techniques for your harvest

Join us and learn how to get started on the joys of growing your own food!

After my presentation, they’ll open the floor for your gardening questions. Show up live to get answers.

Here’s how to join. https://htsmembership.com/membership/#join

Wendy S. Delmater

What I did with my summer vacation: Camping

Last month I did some end-of-summer camping with my grown son at Heckscher State Park on Long Island. Their home is small, and it’s better for me to stay elsewhere, but the last few trips soured me on the local hotels: over $200/night and the quality had nosedived to take-it-or-leave-it levels during the pandemic. Even an Air BnB room rental on Long Island would, unless in an unsafe neighborhood, cost enough to cut my trip short. Wait–I knew what to do! We had a tent and sleeping bags. We’d go camping!

My son Chris and me in our dome tent.

I used to camp all the time when I was younger so this would be fun. My husband, who was staying home this time, good-naturedly dragged his tent down from the attic and showed me how to assemble it. My son enthusiastically endorsed the idea and asked if he could come along.

Heckscher Park is the loop in the center of the map.

Heckscher State Park is on the South Shore of Long Island, across the Great South Bay (our inland waterway) from Fire Island. It has miles of bay beaches, hiking trails, bike paths, boat ramps, picnic areas, playgrounds, waterfront cabins and a nice campground. We had a campsite close enough to the communal rest rooms and showers that we could use their lights to make trips there in the dark, a grill we could use, and a water spigot. Very basic, but such a nice change of pace. And we were surrounded, with lots of space in between, by people who had their young families with them or were camping instead of using a hotel for the US Open.

Our campsite.

We set up our tent, and I sprayed it with Scotchguard because it might rain and I knew from experience that a dry tent is a happy tent. As you can see from the below photo, the leaves were just starting to turn. And it did rain one night! But we were nice and dry.

Our ritual was to make a nice breakfast at the campsite, and then since the park had almost no cell service and no wifi, we’d go out to a Starbucks to use out phones, check our email, and such.

And we’d toast each other: “To Camping!”

Our first night there we had dinner with some friends of mine at Key Largo Islip, on the bay. Live music, and we’re all writers so the conversation was great. Chris loved meeting them, the food was marvelous, and sunset over the bay was awesome.

Key Largo Islip with my buddies Frank and Mike–the Sci Fi Guys.

But experimentation told me that our first night sleeping on the ground would be hard for me at my age, so on the way back we bought a cheap dorm mattress topper at Target, and that did the trick.

The second day we went for a walk on the beach and I picked up shells while my son and I caught up on things. We had a lot of memories about this park where we’d go for cookouts, to launch an inflatable raft, or even to just drive through in the very early morning since it was right next to their elementary school. We’d see deer and foxes and great blue herons and raccoons. We had some trouble with trash pandas getting into our food–they tore open some cereal–and trying to get into our tent at 4 in the morning, but at least it was not bears. That’s one of the things I love about Long Island: no poisonous snakes, no bears. Just dumpster-diving raccoons.

Trash panda!

The raccoon that was trying to get into our tent woke us by feeling all along the edges of our tent and groping our heads, shoulders, and various body parts. It shrugged off my rather forceful elbowing and made a couple of circuits of the edges of the tent, and of us, through the fabric. Very weird feeling. No, we have no more frosted mini wheats. Go away.

My son and I also went out to see a movie–Thor: Love and Thunder–which was fun. Those of you that know me well know that I RARELY watch movies, even at home, so this was an event for me. My son really needed a vacation so I think he had an even better time than I did.

We also went hiking and saw a lot of “tick taxis”–I mean deer–because there is a huge herd there that they publicly feed in the winter as a tourist attraction. When we were hiking we saw deer treatment areas to try and control Lyme disease. We checked ourselves and neither of us had any tick bites. Hooray for Deet!

Those white signs to the right of the trail in this photo were for a deer treatment area: Keep out!

We also made a day-long foray into NYC together, but that will be the subject of another post.

Hamilton

I’m visiting my son in Florida and last night he streamed the filmed live version of musical Hamilton on Disney+. The musical was as excellent as all of my friends insisted, and I’m very glad I finally got to see it. What was unexpected was all the members of the “crew” were singing actors and stage hands, and each scene change happened without a close of the curtain…so the action never stopped. What really stood out to me was the fact that almost the entire musical was in song, with occasional lapses into mere speech for emphasis.

The lyrics were routinely insanely good and clever, so you’d have to watch it over and over with a pause button in your hand to appreciate all the turns of phrase. Some of the music was beatboxing, and one song was actually rap, but it all fit seamlessly. Updating certain subtle things made history come alive, like when the Thomas Jefferson character[1] lamented that as ambassador to France he’d missed “the late 80s” and it made me internally hitch the 1780s to the 1980s in my mind and feel like someone from over 200 years ago was a contemporary—a real person.

I did not know that the guy who played Hamilton himself was also the playwright. Like my son and his wife, I’d want to see it live but balked at the $200-per ticket price. Still, I have to admit that a recording with closed captions was probably better for my comprehension.


[1] Who was usually comic relief, but in an historically accurate way: the guy did have an ego as large as a mountain. That he was played by a black man with a long afro and a purple frock coat and breeches tells you how he played on that ego beautifully.

What I did with my Summer Vacation: Savannah

Savannah was, as advertised, a very gracious and unique southern city. There were frequent avenues with park-like medians filled with ancient and carefully-nurtured live oaks covered with Spanish moss. It boasts of lots of cobble-stoned or brick streets, and unique architectural features: it featured almost-half the city tinted like Charleston’s Rainbow-Row and fancy railings on urban patios. And flowers, flowers everywhere. There were also frequent “squares”: small parks with greenery, benches, and landscaping.

The drivers were courteous and not at all stress-inducing. There were lots of pedestrian walkways across the streets; drivers behaved and gave them the right of way. They’d better: it looked like tourism was Savannah’s major source of income. The last time I saw that many obvious visitors I was in New York City. And this meant that the area was designed to separate the tourists, graciously, from their money.

This was apparent when we stopped for decent coffee across the street from The Basilica of St. John the Baptist at a quaint (i.e. expensive) little shop called Mirabel. We had to wait until a worship service was over, and what better way on a muggy day than to sit in air-conditioned comfort sipping java? Well, a little box of about a dozen dark-chocolate-covered orange half-slices, a water-colored post card of the cathedral front, and two coffees cost us over $20. Eek, but it was money well-spent.

Once the basilica was reopened to visitors we wandered across the street and inside. It, too, was air-conditioned and would have to be to not have moss growing on the carved wooden pews! And Jennifer Boone was right: the place was worth seeing. It was built in the same pattern as a medieval European cathedral with the same flying buttresses and arches. I’ve seen larger, but only one more magnificent and that only because it was a celebration of architectural lines rather than ornamentation. It had a rose widow above the main entry, green marble columns, a magnificent organ, and the usual stained-glass windows depicting the life of Christ.

Looking back from the altar to the rose window and organ: frescoes!

There was statuary and it had the usual prayer candles. (I lit one. $2.) But what really set it apart was a huge baptistery, huge carvings between the side windows—the stations of the cross done as wooden dioramas—and all the frescoes. So many frescoes!

Above the pew-level wainscoting there was a two-foot-high patterned border along the walls done in colors taken from the marble columns in fresco containing gold leaf. Above the stained-glass windows at the sides of the church there were frescoes of the life of Christ. Above the altar there were two levels of frescoes about the saints interacting with Christ, especially the basilica’s patron St. John the Baptist. And above it all the ceiling vaults between the arches were frescoed in a dark blue studded with gold-leaf frescoed stars. Magnificent!

Frescoes and stained glass above the altar.

And all of this had been rebuilt after a fire in 1898 gutted the building. We took a lot of photos and had some taken of us there. And on the way out we bought a rose-window Christmas ornament. He was going to buy it with a credit card but they only took cash or checks. It was $20 but they accepted the mere $12 cash I had in my wallet. And we noted copies of Catholic newspapers celebrating the end of Roe v. Wade.

After we walked back to our parking spot Brian continued to drive. Despite the forecast it was nice out so we tried for the a ferry ride but will have to do that from one of the street trolleys or tour buses, as there was absolutely nowhere to park. Another day, perhaps. Instead, we found The Prohibition Museum and a paid underground parking lot nearby. Before we left our car we had a picnic lunch from our cooler so we could make up for the expense of the coffee shop. Thus fortified, we braved the warm and humid air, grateful that at least we were underground and would not have solar gain turn our car into an oven while we were gone.

Brian paid for the museum: a somewhat reasonable $17.50 each, and we got out money’s worth. The place was absolutely fascinating and had translations in Chinese, German, French, and Spanish for the major exhibits. Lots of period machinery for an enraptured Brian to gawk over; lots of art-deco things and items like flapper clothing for me to enjoy. Although I’d heard of Carrie Nation I had no idea who she was: migod, her signature move was that she went into saloons and broke them up with an axe! She was invariably arrested and fined, and paid her fines out of speaking fees and selling commemorative axe-themed stick pins, charms, and souvenirs. There were authentically dressed and life-like waxwork statues of all the major players in the prohibition drama, as appropriate—and Carrie Nation’s was imposing.

We learned that the famous revival preacher Billy Sunday was a prohibitionist and used to be a major-league baseball player. We saw numerous prohibition materials like magazines, flyers, ribbons, and sheet music. And there were KKK in the prohibition movement, too. The plight of farmers and distilleries who lost their businesses was explored, and the explosive growth of the FBI as an enforcement bureau and of prisons was chronicled: it reminded us very much of the whole mindset behind our country’s attitude and enforcement of marijuana laws, with the same resulting lawlessness. In the case of Prohibition it lead to the rise of the mob. Bathtub gin and home stills were described, with examples. NASCAR got its start from Ford V-8 racing contests so rum and moonshine runners could out-speed the feds and revenuers. Walgreens went from an obscure single Midwestern pharmacy to 600 stores based on their prescribing alcohol for “medicinal purposes.” The tour ended with a Speakeasy with a working bar (we did not indulge), and a film based on newsreels from that period, and then an exhibit about the end of prohibition.

You had to say a password to get into the Speakeasy!

I did not know that before Prohibition 40% of our national budget was from taxes on alcohol; Prohibition gave us Federal income tax instead (and now, also). I had no idea that Prohibition had changed our national landscape so profoundly. Again, money well spent.

Laser Tag in Traffic

Road trips.

My sons have memories of some really fun ones from New York to New Hampshire.

But with me as a single mom with three young energetic little boys, it could’ve been a real challenge to make the trip bearable. Then I had an inspiration.

All it took for me to entertain three young boys on an eight-hour drive was simple: Cheap laser tag guns that their grandfather had sent them.They were sold as a two-player game where you would have a laser tag gun and a target vest. We didn’t the vests for what I had in mind.

Since the “guns” shot infrared beams, we would keep score of how many people we could get to slow down on the interstates by shooting at their radar detectors. It worked!

Using this a night required a bit of an adjustment, though. The laser tag guns had flashing lights. So if I was driving in the dark I had them cover the lights by wrapping the gun with a towel, which also covered the speakers so that they less noisy.

Since I was paying attention to traffic, I would spot cars going over the speed limit for them. Anytime a speeder was coming our way I’d would say something like, “We have one coming up on the left! Three, two, one, GET EM!!”

… and then my sons would mercilessly fire at the speeder with their infrared laser beams of justice! Points were awarded for any vehicle that would slow down after our invisible barrage. They took turns, and whoever was not firing the laser acted as scorekeepers, so all three of them were involved.

One of the best hits we ever got was on a semi who must have gotten onto his CB radio to tell everyone else in a convoy that his radar detector had tripped. Four tractor trailers slowed down at the same time.

“….that doesn’t just count as one!” I laughed as I instructed the scorekeepers.

Time flew by, and so did the miles on that trip.

A year later my sons had a NEWER laser tag gun which they used when we took a trip from New York to Virginia. We soon discovered this gun was much, much more powerful when it did things like repeatedly open and close a distant Walmart’s receiving bay doors. And we discovered the new gun beam was not as tightly focused when we were repeatedly targeting an arrogant speeder in the interstate: it also kept setting off the radar detector for an elderly couple who were on the opposite side of our car. And we were not sure what it set off in that police cruiser, but we–ahem!–hid the gun for a while.

When the highway patrolman got off at an exit we went back to setting off the arrogant speeder’s radar detector (and, sadly, despite our best efforts the poor elderly couple kept getting the penumbra of our shots–I’m sure they thought their detector was malfunctioning.) When the arrogant speeder was gnashing his teeth and on an exit ramp we let him know he’d been had when we held up the laser tag gun where he could see it, flashing lights and all, set it off again, and grinned like mad things, laughing uproariously. When we last saw him he was shaking his fist at us.

Ah, memories.

Miracles on a Shoestring

A&A once was described as doing miracles on a shoestring. That was nice, if a little misplaced. And no, this is not a plea for money. It’s about you, the writer.

Many of you may not be aware of what it takes to run an online genre magazine. Most of the things we accomplish are done by volunteers, of course, and a lot of love (free labor) goes into every edition of Abyss & Apex. From the editors to the webmaster to the interns, you can thank all of the wonderful people on our masthead for their untold hours of hard work. We do this because we love the genre. We do this for you, and for the next generation of writers who need a place to break in. We have very high standards, so this entrée to being published means something that authors can put in a cover letter.

But all of this is not free. There is the cost of web hosting, domain names, and above all paying the writers because authors should get paid. It costs me little over $2,500 a year to bring you A&A, with very few people donating to defray my out-of-pocket expenses. That’s okay, I guess, but I want to ask an important question. Is success in the genre more accessible to those with money? Are Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing successes mostly for the rich? And is it more a matter of time than money?

A little personal history will be needed to answer that question. I’ve been in Fandom, capital F, for a long time. Many have been here longer, but I’m not a newcomer. My first convention was in 2002; before that I did not know there was such a thing as a genre convention. What a wonderful discovery cons were! I’d found my tribe, people who loved what I loved. But back then I was a struggling single parent and getting to conventions was a huge expense, often out of my reach, and taking the time to go to one was a far-off dream. I was working a full and a part-time job, with no vacation time.

And through the years, I’ve noticed a pattern. Most of the writers and editors who were regulars a conventions had a lot more money and free time than I did. On blogs—mostly LiveJournal back then—the convention regulars I followed exhibited the privilege of financial security, of not worrying about money. This pattern was not malicious, but it was there—making me realize it would be that much harder for a writer without this relative wealth to become a success, because of the pressures of just trying to get by. Oh, how I knew those pressures!

So I became a successful engineer, and the financial burden of going to conventions and running A&A became easier, but the time pressure became a burden. Toward the end of my safety management career I made six figures, but was working 60 hours a week with 20 hours of commute time. It was a nightmare, and the time I had to work on A&A became almost nonexistent. (If you had long wait times on your submissions back then, I apologize.)

So I dropped out of the rat race, and remarried at the age of 53. I expected to have much more time, and to continue to make money at a slower pace so that I could fuel my genre passion. But, then, I had a harsh glimpse of my mortality.

First, I was unable to work because my hip went on me, due to a congenital defect not caught until I was in my 50s. Six months of excruciating pain was followed by the promise of getting my energy back in a year after the operation. Instead, my energy got worse and worse for two years, and I started to not be as mentally sharp. I wondered if I could handle A&A anymore and cast about for a successor (that did not work out). I even contemplated closing the zine. Fainting spells eventually led to a diagnosis of a severe arrhythmia: my heart was doing a horrible job of oxygenating my blood. They shocked my heart back into a good rhythm. It worked. I am back on all cylinders, rarin’ to go. But I was so long out of my field that my earning potential in safety management evaporated. Still, I was in a more comfortable place financially.

So I was poor and could not go to cons, then I was wealthy and could, and now I have to be selective. As Sophie Tucker once said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.” At least it’s better for paying for things, if not for time. I’ve never been a woman of leisure, but then I enjoy the work I choose. You can make up for some of a lack of money by hard work, if you have the time.

And this brings us back to the question, is it easier to become a success in the genre if you have money? You have to have talent, of course, but you need time to hone that talent: time when you are not worried about keeping a roof over your head or where your next meal is coming from. The privilege of not worrying about necessities is a big deal to the creative process. Worry and depression and fear can sap your emotional strength and stifle your creativity. I have incredible respect for those who surmount the odds and make a career for themselves in the genre, despite poverty and time pressures. Yes it’s harder when you don’t have the resources but it’s not impossible. We want to help.

Abyss & Apex understands. We’re here for you whether you come from privilege or poverty, leisure or overwhelming time pressure. If you carved out the time to send us something you worked hard on, we appreciate that. If you cannot make it to the important conventions, the big workshops—if you don’t have an MFA—you’re welcome here. If all you can spend is the $40 it takes to vote remotely for the Hugos, or not even that, we are not going to look down on you and think you any less of a fan.

You’re participating in this grand thing we call fandom, by writing, reading, and loving the genre. You do miracles on a shoestring, every time you have a shortage of time, or money, or both.

Keep those stories coming. We want you to win at this writing thing.

Wendy S. Delmater