I just read Robert Silverberg’s memoir Other Spaces, Other Times: A Life Spent in the Future. There was one part in particular I thought was interesting. As a recent college grad, Silverberg was supporting himself by writing formulaic junk fiction for a number of second-tier sf pulp magazines that would accept anything he wrote — often without bothering to read the stories — and paid the equivalent of several thousand dollars per story. (Man, those were the days.) Silverberg was taking full advantage of this, churning out stories at a ferocious rate, sometimes two a day, and planning to retire by thirty. His friends thought he was squandering his talent, and encouraged him to slow down a bit and write more ambitious work and actually, you know, revise, and submit his work to the top markets, but Silverberg’s response was that the top markets almost always bounced his stuff, and he didn’t think they’d be interested in the sort of thing he really wanted to write anyway, so from a financial standpoint it just didn’t make sense to take the time and risk of aiming higher. Finally one of his friends (Fred Pohl) assumed the editorship of one of the top-tier magazines (Galaxy) and made Silverberg a deal. He said basically, “I want you to write the best work you’re capable of, and here’s a chance for you to do it risk-free. If you send me a story and say, ‘Fred, this is the best work I’m capable of,’ I promise I’ll buy it, no questions asked. Anything you send me like that, I’ll buy. But if I read the story and don’t feel it’s the best you’re capable of, I’ll still publish it, as promised, but after that the deal’s off … Oh, and don’t under any circumstances tell any other writers about this.” Seems like a pretty ingenious tactic for getting the best work out of a writer, and it seems to have worked, as it motivated Silverberg to write some of his best material.
Archives for July 2010
How Do We Know That Catnip Makes Cats Hallucinate?
So I just bought a replacement scratch pad for my cats, and it came with some catnip. On a whim I decided to look up “catnip” on Wikipedia — because just what the hell is that stuff anyway? — which is where I discovered to my surprise/delight that “The plant terpenoid nepetalactone is the main chemical constituent of the essential oil of Nepeta cataria and acts as a feline attractant. This chemical enters the feline’s nose, and produces semi-hallucinogenic effects on the cat.”
Whoa, wait just a minute there. Semi-hallucinogenic? Holy crap.
Anyway, several hours later, when I had finally stopped chuckling at the thought of making my cats hallucinate, I started wondering: Hold on. How would they even know something like that anyway? What, did they run some clinical trials and give the cats a follow-up questionnaire or something? I went looking for answers.
I.e., I googled “catnip hallucinogen.”
And came up with a thread about the potential psychotropic effects of catnip not on cats, but on people. For example, this one caught my eye:
“Hello good sirs, madams. I have just smoked a big bowl of catnip out of my marijuana smoking water pipe. Being a doctor of brain surgery i have decided that catnip gets you high. I have an ounce of catnip and we are going to smoke all of it ill respond soon enough. if it doesnt work for you then f*ck your sh*t”
Well geez, I thought, if a doctor of brain surgery says it works, this must be for real.
But then I read:
“you have got to be fist fucking me. All you big floppy donkey dicks that claimed I would get high from this here cat mother fuckin nip can warmly accept my t bag in appreciation for your lies. fuck you( however, the expirience is well worth the unclimatic result because it’s funny as shit telling people that you just smoked catnip. p.s. to the kid who said he regularly smokes catnip, you are the biggest fuck ass of all time.”
Makes it sound a bit more dubious. Though really who are you going to trust, a doctor of brain surgery or just some random guy on the internet?
This individual makes a valid point, I thought:
“why the hell wold you even smoke it to see if the effect is the same as for a cat? When’s the last time you saw a cat smoking it? If you were trying to see if it worked for humans, wouldn’t you just eat it or rub it around your face?”
And apparently this is not some isolated phenomenon either, as this news story demonstrates:
“In at least one Twin Cities pet shop, it takes a note from his parents nowadays for a teenager to lay in any big supply of catnip. Owners of other stores have taken to questioning their youthful customers closely about large-scale purchases. They know the reason for the sudden popularity of catnip in the Twin Cities and nationwide — and it isn’t the one a young man gave the owner of a Hennepin Av. pet shop: ‘I have,’ he explained, ‘a GREAT, BIG cat.’ The fact is, the kids are smoking the stuff, apparently in dubious pursuit of a low-budget thrill.”
Seriously people, what the hell?
Anyway, I still haven’t found an answer to my question about how do we know that catnip makes cats hallucinate.
Cut Copy Hearts On Fire Music Video
Ha. This video is awesome:
In one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books there’s a guy and it’s always raining everywhere he goes, and he’s pathologically depressed because of it, and he keeps a journal of everywhere he travels just so he can show people and they can check it that yes, it always, always rains wherever he is. Then at the end of one chapter it briefly switches to the point of view of the rainclouds, and it turns out that they regard this guy as a sort of rain god, and the best way they can think of to show their love for him is to follow him everywhere he goes and shower their rain down upon him. This video sort of reminds me of that.
Lightspeed Magazine July 2010
Here’s the cover of the July issue of Lightspeed magazine, which features fiction by George R. R. Martin, Tobias Buckell, Carol Emshwiller, and Genevieve Valentine. The gorgeous cover art is “Artificial Dream” by Julie Dillon. As always, you can chip in a few bucks and download the entire issue now, or drop by the website throughout the month and read the content as it’s released for free online.