THAT DAY

I'm reading The Writer's Library by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager. Interviews with writers--"what books turned you on?" The first three surprise me:

1. JONATHEN LETHEM. I don't share his obsession with crime & lowlife, but we do share a taste for outsider writers like Dick, Borges, and Calvino. Even his childhood tastes--he too vividly recalls Robert Sheckley and Clifford Simak, and those science fiction paperbacks with covers by surrealist Yves Tanguy.

2. LAILA LALAMI: colonialism and being made unreal and rooting for your enemies cuz you can identify with others... until eventually you lose patience with making allowances. Better a badly written book that sees you than a well-written one that slanders you (her example, Paul Bowles, got force-fed to me too, in school at age 13.) Lalami frees me to ignore anointed writers who don't nourish me--or even poison me. Polished prose or not.

3. LUIS ALBERTO URREA: as a kid he read & loved the science fiction pulps I did, like Andre Norton's Storm on Warlock. I shared his fascination with the telepathic mutant wolverines, but Urrea also identified with Lantee the slum kid, stuck amid Nordic snobs, then stranded on an alien world fighting the creepy Throgs. I found his struggles potboilery, forgettable--until, 100 pages in, we meet the Wyverns and he's thrown into their matriarchal dream-oriented culture. That's when the book came alive for ten-year-old me. Why?
   1. I liked the Wyverns' dream-based society; better than America. I had vivid dreams, like them; but also, I have a sixth sense rather like the Wyverns and the mutant creatures in the book, though I didn't know at age ten that others lacked it; I was baffled that the (white male) Survey officers found the Wyverns rather creepy. As my so-called peers found me creepy. Esperphobes!
   2. I felt repelled by the characters Urrea saw as foreground--as did the cover artist. A beetle-like Throg, a snarling wolverine, and Lantee as a scowly white gun-totin' boy. What attracted me was the lone, backgrounded Wyvern--one of my earliest sexual feelings, and my first flash of xenophilia ever. I was even more attracted to them in the sequel, Ordeal in Otherwhere--less violence, more gender politics.
   3. I faced Wyvern-like sexism at home, and mainstream fiction hadn't helped. Andre Norton's books did. I started to see my mom as a scaly Wyvern matriarch who didn't grant me full personhood--since males are scum.

   What a lesson! A book's different for each reader. Provided you read it. After the interview is a list of books discussed--minus Storm on Warlock. Other SF, even pulp SF, made the book's lists--if the characters are human. But the majority in Warlock and Otherwhere are furry or scaly. List furry fantasies? No, we will unlist it. We will unsee it.

   At least we never unsee people.

THAT NIGHT

A twentyish woman carries around her pet parrot in a large bag. The parrot peers out, curious, commenting.

But now the human has to turn into a raven, so she asks me "Could you carry my parrot bag?" The parrot seems to trust me, so I say "Sure."

She hands over the bag, shakes herself, and grows black feathers. She flies along, and I follow, talking with the parrot.

When the raven crosses a pond, skimming low and slow, hunting food, I have figure out how to follow. Can I wade? Go round? No, it's steep and rocky. Swim? And drown the parrot! Or... levitate strongly enough to keep the parrot-bag dry! Unsure I can, but I try.

I will hard, and rise a foot, a yard, two... At that height I cross the pond's lily-freckled face.

The raven skims below me, snatching at crawdads and happily crunching them.

On the far shore, a stair. Climb. Gradually the steps go from stone to a wooden indoor stair between floors of a ski cabin. Occupied by yuppies--expensive wine bottles all over, half of them full.

The raven mutters "Guess I better..." and reluctantly reverts to human. Mostly. Keeps her black feather-hair and big old clawed chickenfeet.

Meanwhile the parrot explores--hops and peers around. Never flies! Some old injury? Never taught how?

Oops! The parrot falls down the stair. Looks stunned. Alarmed, I go down and cradle the parrot. It stirs and recovers.

Find some food--some ricelike seeds. Taste it. Bland. The parrot tastes it. No more enthused than I am.

Spot some scissors and warn the parrot "Dangerous! Sharp!" Then generalize--"Anything sharp or metallic is dangerous." But then, I feel endangered here myself. I'm on edge around these upscale humans; fear their sharp, metallic judgments. Like: "You're an irresponsible pet owner."

When I'm not; I'm just a sitter. For the pet bird of... the other bird. The one who's learned to pass.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Animal people: Storm Over Warlock and Ordeal in Otherwhere have telepathic conversations with mutant furry critters and scaly aliens. Such books are unfit for any Writer's Library. (Mind you, Warlock really is just a potboiler til the Wyverns show up. But I still do like Otherwhere.)
• Pet bird who can't fly: in Storm Over Warlock, Lantee, in his dream-initiation, relives meeting his long-dead pet seraph Trav, who flew poorly; an old wing injury.
• She flies over water, & I do too: in Storm Over Warlock's sequel, Ordeal in Otherwhere, a conservative Wyvern faction banishes Charis to an islet; with her animal friend Tsstu's help, she teleports out. Both Wyvern and human bigots underestimated them!
• Creature falls but recovers: in Warlock, Taggi the wolverine's stunned fighting a much larger forktail.
• Bland unappetizing food: 1: on Warlock, Lantee ate wild roots to survive. 2: I ate rice noodles today. Eat less carbos! Fattening AND dull.
• On edge around the privileged: 1: Lantee, slum kid, in the Service. 2: Luis Alberto Urrea, identifying with Lantee. 3: Me, autistic, an outsider everywhere.
• ACTION: correct for my timidity around insiders! 1: I've got health problems I can't get doctors to address usefully--do I need to be louder? 2: Quit deferring to mainstream literary tastes! All those bottles of yuppie whine. Oops. Wine.

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