Sins of omission

Somehow in my voracious hoovering up of all things Golden Age SFian (as we all know, Bob, the Golden Age is from 12 to 13), I entirely missed Frederik Pohl's work. Sure, he may've snuck in as a short story here or there, since our basement library, where my mother's meticulously organized science fiction shelf—alphabetical by author for standalone novels, year of publication for anthologies and Amazing Stories back numbers—had its share of bricklike Year's Bests. But he never really stuck out (and my habit of ignoring bylines didn't help), so I glided past him with little more than name recognition.

A few years ago, though, Pohl spoke at the National Book Festival, mostly humoring questions about what Robert Heinlein was like and seeing the tent fill up with Neil Gaiman fans hunting for advance seats. He was thoroughly gentlemanly and, though obviously getting on in years, sharp and gracious, not to mention funny as hell. I promptly started haunting the used bookstores, huffing dustmites and getting gleefully confused by his Heechee books; of course if we encountered alien technology, we would spend the first thirty years trying to figure out which bits of it were valuable and which were junk food wrappers. I didn't want to slap the narrator halfway across the room, he used Ya as an initial for the character's Russian wife (too many people would've used Y), and the people in his stories seemed three-dimensional even after they'd crossed the event horizon in black holes. I've been kicking myself about the missed chances ever since.

And now, come to find out, he's got a blog. God bless the future; it's not everything we hoped for, but in some ways it is much much more.

The things we carried

Turns out it's a good thing that I'm on my new kick of not leaving the house without a bullet-proof layer of SPF Avogadro's Number, because mosquito-repellent toxicity can maybe get me instead.

I spent six weeks during the summer before senior year working at an archaeology field school in Alaska's squashy bush country. Taiga, or huge flat stretches of land where the permafrost level is about 6 inches below the surface, is mosquito-breeding heaven: With almost no hills to speak of, drainage is minimal, and water that doesn't make it to one of the slow-moving rivers ends up pooling in large shallow ponds on top of the frozen zone, broken up somewhat by muskeg, a squodgy mass of vegetation that has been described as feeling like wet mattresses. Mosquitos breed there in astronomical numbers, providing a bountiful food source for the local avifauna and attacking anything warmblooded without mercy. 

Most of Alaska's wildlife is at least somewhat protected by thick bushy fur, so given the choice between trying to find a landing place on a bear's snout and diving for unprotected human flesh, the average Anopheles alaskabastardicus will invite three million of her fellows to join the Homo sapiens buffet. Oh, and due to circumstances beyond our control, we spent a night and most of two days without a netted outhouse. Our bare bums must've seemed like Christmas to the skeeters, and we all swiftly lost our senses of humor about bites in private places. We spent the six weeks in a permanent haze of Deep Woods Off, pure deet smeared on our clothes, and incense-like smoke from mosquito coils, which contain some sort of insect neurotoxin that probably doesn't do much good for humans. From where we sat, slapping incessantly at the bugs, going without some sort of chemical protection would've been the road to madness. Even our two vegans weren't above cheering the deaths of our hungry tormentors.

Obviously deet isn't really good for you, though it was the lesser of two evils. As we packed up, one of the other students grimaced, "I have a new baby niece to meet when we get home. Better hit the sauna for a few days first; if I touch her now, I think she'll shrivel up like plastic in the microwave." We did end up spending quality time in the McGrath firejumpers' sauna, trying to sweat out all the toxins in the haze of menthol-oiled steam (and the story about how that evening involved meeting various locals whilst mutually nekkid was funnier after the fact). Maybe it worked: Sarah's niece survived her first encounter with her aunt.

I'm still going with sunblock. Should the fates call me back to the bush in high summer, too, I'm still bringing the Off.

Zelda looks lonely

Short notice, but for anyone who's free and interested tonight: Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and A Primate's Memoir, will be speaking at the National Geographic tonight, the better to introduce a film called "Killer Stress." Tickets are $18 for nonmembers, show starts at 7:30, and if his iTunes U podcasts are any indication, it'll be worth the price of admission.

[ETA: ALERT ALERT ALERT: The Magnetic Fields at the Lisner on October 28. I have neeped before about how Stephin Merritt's sad mean angry awkward funny regretful ugly beautiful love songs rock my socks, and it goes without saying that ticketing for this show is already in the works.]

[ETA2: The ETA-ening: Neil Gaiman will be chatting on the Post's website from noon to 1:00 PM today. Ask about the bees.]