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2003 VarleyYarn Index © 2003 by John Varley; all rights reserved |
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January 2003 - WILDLIFE REPORT: We walk on the beach nearly every day. At low tide there is a LOT of beach, and at high tide the water comes close enough to the State Park kiosk as to be almost alarming, considering that Pier Avenue slopes gently AWAY from the water. A real big wave could crest the three or four feet of elevation that backs the high-tide line and come surging down the street, or at least it seems that way. There are signs advising what to do in case you hear the sustained sirens warning of an approaching tsunami. The signs say "Get your ass to high ground!"... |
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January 8, 2003 - 66 etuoR no skciK ruoY teG I had been planning for some months to go to Big Spring, Texas, for Xmas 2002. The whole family was going to be there, for the first time in maybe 30 years. |
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January 18, 2003 - Pismo Beach Butterflies The Pismo Beach monarch butterfly experience really comes in three stages. |
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January 31, 2003 - Moy Mell New Years Eve, and the street is filling up with revelers. This is Pier Avenue, a four-lane road about 1/4 mile long, between Rte. 1 and the beach. Just before you get to the sand there is a kiosk where state park rangers collect the user fees for people wanting to use the beach. Both traffic lanes headed for the ocean are full, though not as bad as at Thanksgiving, when the lines stretched halfway to the highway. |
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February 2, 2003 - Phil Spector I first became aware of Phil Spector in a book of essays by Tom Wolfe, THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE-FLAKE STREAMLINE BABY. He sounded like a very sick puppy. |
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March 5, 2003 - The Great Mardi Gras Temperance Disaster The town of Lompoc (Lom-POKE, not –POCK) was founded in 1874 as a temperance colony. Efforts to keep it dry were tough right from the first, though. No sooner did the good women of the People’s Union League tear down one saloon than another sprang up to replace it. |
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May 14, 2003 - Toward a New Bill of Rights I It started with drugs. Once they decided you didn’t have the right to determine what you put into your own body, for good or ill, the gloves were off. The government is now able to confiscate your car, boat, or home if it finds even a marijuana seed in them under the downright brilliant theory that it is the car, boat, or home that is committing the crime of drug possession, and it is up to you to prove your property is innocent. |
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June 23, 2003 - The Varley Files The We live on the beach, like Jim Rockford. We walk on it almost every day, and every day it is different. Sometimes it’s the people, like a few days ago a man walking his pet pot-bellied pig named Penelope. |
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June 23, 2003 - Stars In a message dated 01/30/2002 10:31:48 AM Pacific Standard Time, Janis Ian wrote: I doubt you have heard of me, but I am a semi-famous singer/songwriter whose life and writing were changed when I read your story "The Persistence of Vision." |
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July 15, 2003 - Toward a New Electoral System A while back I offered my plan to modify and modernize the Bill of Rights. I have decided to tackle another aspect of the body politic that seems to me ripe for an overhaul. That would be our system of Federal elections. |
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August 7, 2003 - Arnold Sch-----------ger is running!!! Well, I hate to say I told you so ... no, forget that, I might as well tell the truth, I don’t mind at all saying I told you so. I did, didn’t I? And did you listen? Maybe next time you will. |
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August 15, 2003 - The ’03 Recall in 10 Haikus The Recall has gotten so exciting that I was moved to something I seldom do: write poetry. The sheer gargantuan size of the event would seem to require an epic on the scale of the "Inferno" or "Paradise Lost," but you’re in luck. Election day is near so there’s no time for anything but haiku. |
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December 5, 2003 - Mikey Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!!! We just heard the news! The greatest event of the millennium ... hell, probably the greatest event of all human history ... is coming to the Central Coast! The Michael Jackson trial will be produced, directed, and performed ... IN SANTA MARIA!! |
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December 16, 2003 - The Revised Twelve Days of Xmas Because there seems no other rational way to treat the holiday these days except to satirize it, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve parodied "It’s a Wonderful Life," "A Christmas Carol," and written a short piece of fiction based on a character named Ferdinand Feghoot that used to appear in "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" in the ‘50s and ‘60s … |
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December 23, 2003 - Rock 'n Rock At about 11:13 yesterday morning UPS delivered a package to me here in the RV. I took it inside and opened it, saw it was a copy of a manuscript I’d asked for from Susan Allison at Penguin/Putnam. I was looking at the first page at 11:15 when everything began to shake. Our first thought, it being Condition Orange and all, was "Al-Qaeda!" |
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December 31, 2003 - Y2K+4 Have you heard about the new computer crisis? It’s called Y2K+4, and you’d better start protecting yourself right now. For reasons not entirely clear to me (but almost certainly the fault of Bill Gates), at midnight tonight computers will suddenly believe it is 1904, with potentially disastrous results. Experts are not entirely sure what all the effects will be, but there are some speculations... |
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