More Spam than you ever Spam wanted to know about Spam

While clearing out my files in preparation for a new Sunday School year, I came across my Spam notes. A couple of years ago, I taught a lesson about prayer in which one of the talking points was that insincere prayer is like sending spam to God. So along with the lesson handouts, just for fun, I included one with the same title as this post. Just for fun, here it is:

Hormel Foods is not fond of the fact that people call electronic junk mail “spam.”

The term, of course, is not meant to disparage the famous tinned meat.

Spam (the meat product) was one of the few meats excluded from British food rationing during World War II. As a result, many Britons grew heartily sick of it.

This disaffection with Spam led to a 1970 sketch on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in which a couple dine at a restaurant at which every dish contains Spam. When a patron asks for something without Spam, the waitress recommends “Spam egg sausage and Spam, that's not got much Spam in it.”

Near the end of the sketch, a group of characters start singing the praises of Spam — “Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam — lovely spam, wonderful spam —” ad nauseum. They soon drown out the dialog between the diners and the waitress.

In olden days, before the World Wide Web, geeks used an Internet predecessor, Usenet, to communicate. Messages were sent to a central address and distributed to all participants.

Sometimes, topic threads would be drowned out by marketers sending advertising messages to the Usenet server and, therefore, to each individual participant.

The geeks naturally termed this noise, which drowned out the topic of discussion, “spam.”

Obviously, a disproportionate number of geeks are Monty Python fans.

My research about Spam at the Hormel Foods Web site uncovered a recipe for Spam Cupcakes, along with many other dishes that might have been served at that Pythonesque restaurant.

Hormel Foods loves the Monty Python sketch, probably because Eric Idle's character says “I love Spam!” Video screeens showing the sketch in a mock cafe are a key feature of the Spam Museum.

You can find photos and a descriptive walkthru of the museum here. An exhibit professional reviews the Spam museum here, and over here, on a site that features tourist reviews of roadside attractions, one woman calls the Spam Museum "...fabulous! It's like a really great children's museum, except with potted meat products."

The museum gift shop sells the Spamalot commemorative tin of Spam. And Hormel's website includes a link to a Spamalot game. Catapults and cows. Just for fun.

The accidental rhythm section

I have previously mentioned Perri Klass's "Knitting Fantasies" column, which originally appeared in the Winter 2003 issue of Knitter's Magazine. An excerpt:

Duane Ellison Photography | iStockphoto

I have felt for years that classical music would be enhanced by knitting. I know, I know, the needles might click, even the whisper of yarn against yarn would be enough to upset some music lovers. I have no intention of pulling out my knitting at the symphony. I just know that if only I could, I might have a chance of reliably achieving that state of mixed concentration and relaxation which so often eludes me…"

I was not bold enough to attempt this stunt at the symphony, either. But when our church hosted a free piano concert by Sergei Kossenko, I figured it was worth a try.
It was nearly a successful attempt. No one complained. In fact, one of the ladies, a new knitter, changed seats to sit next to me so she could watch how I do it.
I had already pulled out my knitting when Mr. Kossenko made his introductory remarks, and when I spoke to him for a few minutes after the concert, he said nothing about the knitting.*
But the clicking of the needles did indeed prove too distracting -- for me. I found myself alternately trying to knit in time with the music or to knit quietly. Both were difficult, so I wound up hardly knitting at all. Although this was an interesting exercise, it's one I won't repeat. Except maybe, as Klass suggested, at an outdoor concert, where airplanes and sirens provide a greater source of distraction.

* He generously spent some time explaining to me the meaning of "Navazhdeniye," the title of a piece by Prokofiev. Mr. Kossenko listed it in the program this way, although English sources usually use the French title "Suggestion Diabolique," which is not accurate. He said diabolical is the wrong word, because it implies evil intent. Based on the conversation I had with Mr. Kossenko, I would describe "navazhdeniye" as a surreal delusion with overtones of doom, but free of malicious intent. I think he's right to give the title in Russian. It's good to learn new words.

2010 FWA conference fast approaching

Here's me and Chris Coward
at the 2009 RPLA banquet

Photo by Karen Lieb

The Florida Writers Association conference will be held Oct. 22-24 at the Lake Mary Marriott, which is a lovely facility. The association is expecting about 350 people to attend. Most of these will be aspiring writers who are developing their writing skills or who are promoting their work for publication. Many FWA members are published writers like me, working to take their writing to another level.

Agents and publishers also attend, and faculty members are accessible through much of the conference. And of course the Royal Palm Literary Awards are presented Saturday evening. My science fiction Christmas comedy “The Feast of Stevens” is in the running this year in the published short story category.

Through July 31, the full conference fee is only $289. On Aug. 1 the fee goes up to $309, and on Sept. 22 it goes up to $329. Daily rates are available, as are tickets to the awards banquet only, for people like my patient husband, who yearly sits through lots of writerly talk to see whether I go home with a plastic plaque.

Building your business -- whatever business you're in -- is all about building relationships. The FWA conference is a great place to establish relationships that will build a writing business. For more about the faculty, workshops, and opportunities for manuscript critiques, see www.floridawriters.net.

Imparting wisdom, or something like it

Mark Victor Hansen’s seminars for writers are usually pricy, so I readily accepted a colleague’s invitation to attend a three-hour session free. The seminar was held in a hotel dining room packed with a diverse crowd, all ready to take visions from thought to print.

Some of them seemed like Hansen groupies. They laughed excessively at every stale joke (e.g, “I slept like a baby…woke up every two hours crying.”) and recited statements along with him. I felt a little creepy, like an investigative journalist infiltrating a cult of personality.

Free seminars usually conclude with sales pitches. I was prepared to consider buying a book, but I expected to pick up a few how-to pointers from the free part first. I was disappointed.

The best part of Hansen’s talk concerned the future of publishing: audiobooks, e-books, vooks, and mobile distribution, for starters. His proposition that the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen (pictured), which was developed as a note-taking device, could be a medium for interactive audiovisual books is fabulous. Hansen admits to being an investor in Livescribe.

Halfway through the session, I was still waiting for some how-tos.

Hansen offered inspirational aphorisms (“When you are your authentic self you are unstoppable”) and loads of anecdotes about traveling to exotic locales with his high-powered buddies.

He started to lose me early on by dragging out that moldy old legend about Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen, a doozy debunked by the best.

That he got the story about the Princess of Wales being assassinated by the land-mine cartel straight from Mohamed Al-Fayed did not diminish my skepticism.

And his offhand remark that one of his pals “owns the Yankees,” coming so soon after George Steinbrenner’s death, was shocking. (The buddy’s name was not Steinbrenner.) Perhaps he meant his friend was part of the group that bought the Yankees back in the ’70s. But the late Mr. Steinbrenner bought out the other investors years ago.

As the misstatements mounted, my confidence eroded. By the time the sales pitch came, there was little left. That the pitch was high-priced and “one-time only” made it easy to pass.

One of my notes says, “If you know the ‘why,’ the ‘how’ will come.” As Hansen said that, its seemed to make sense, or I wouldn’t have written it down. But now it seems inaccurate. I know why I want the lawn to look nice: so the homeowners’ association will stop leaving those notes on my door. But the hows of lawn-growing have yet to come.

That’s what teachers are for: imparting the how. But Hansen’s free speeches, it seems, contain only motivation. To get instruction, you must buy his products. But here’s the problem: If I can’t trust what he says, and his free talk doesn’t demonstrate an ability to instruct me in my weak areas, why should I buy the product? Maybe there are better ways to invest that money in my business.

As I walked to my car, I recalled a comment Hope Clark recently made in Total Funds for Writers: “…many people who take time away from the day job and family to attend a conference, won’t necessarily invest that same time in the writing itself.”

Those three hours would probably have been better invested in my writing. Ah, well, at least I got a blog post out of it.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Photo by Gayle Lindgren | stock.xchng

This Independence Day, I’m thinking about those who preceded us. The founders who forged a nation of laws, not men. The indigenous peoples who chose to fight no more forever. And the immigrants who came -- and still come -- yearning to breathe free.

My great-grandfather Harry came from England in 1922 and settled in Detroit. Being an auto worker in Detroit was better than being unemployed in Cornwall.

As much as I’d like to believe every immigrant longs to come to America because of the democratic foundation of our great republic, the simple truth is, many come because in their homelands, they were unemployed.

Amnesty is the flashpoint at the center of the immigration reform. Are we willing to forgive those who don’t have proper documentation? For years, I’ve resisted this idea. If Grandpa Harry could go through proper channels, so can others.

Arizona has drawn a lot of fire for its immigration law, even though it mirrors federal law. Kirk Adams of the Arizona House of Representatives answered concerns that "law enforcement can simply walk up to a person and say, "'Can I see your papers?'" in this article. An excerpt:

…officers can only attempt to determine a person's immigration status during "lawful contact," which is defined as a lawful stop, detention or arrest. Any "reasonable suspicion" can be derived only through the investigation of another violation or crime.

I cannot blame the huddled masses for pursuing happiness here, though I do wish they’d go about it properly. And if a person is suspected of one crime, surely it makes sense for the police to see whether he committed any prior crime -- including that of entering the country illegally.

But many illegal immigrants have been living and working here for years, with no other criminal charges against them. The Apostle Paul instructs us to forgive as we have been forgiven. Although complete amnesty seems excessive, I’m inclined to allow a path to citizenship for those without proper papers, if they’ll admit their wrongdoing and pay their back taxes.

The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the problem isn’t the undocumented workers. The problem is the employers. Which is why I was pleased to see the Arizona law also targets those who do the hiring. If no one were giving undocumented workers jobs, they wouldn't be here.

We are a nation of laws, and the laws we have deserve enforcing. But the sentence need not be deportation for those who scrub our floors and pick our vegetables, even if they did jump our sea-washed, sunset gates.

Breaking out and splashing down

I want to give a Blatant Plug to P.A. Baines, the first member of the New Authors Fellowship to land a book contract. His Alpha, renamed Alpha Redemption, will be published this fall by Splashdown Books. At left is the cover art by Zoë Demaré, also of the NAF.

The fellowship grew out of the critique-partner atmosphere of last year's Marcher Lord Select contest. I post about once a month on the Fellowship blog.

Speaking of contests, my poorly named A Gift With Which To Serve was a runner up in the Novel Journey contest, apparently getting no help from a name change to The Prophet's Chronicle. The judges wrote, "Very good story. Initial set of characters needs work--tripped from the beginning, not realizing there were three different people on stage. A little smoothing out and this piece could be awesome!"

Slightly discouraging, because I thought I'd smoothed this opening out already. Ah well. The folks at my new, live-in-person critique group, Word Weavers, can have at it next month.

All about the money

Once again, the key theme coming out of a space industry discussion -- today it's a task force meeting in Orlando -- is funding.

Funding - or the lack thereof -- is the reason for the spaceflight gap. The shuttle and its replacement can't both be fully funded at the same time.

Several participants at today's meeting -- including self-professed geek MJ Soileau from the University of Central Florida -- said what we really need to keep our high-tech workforce employed is money. Soileau said UCF is submitting a grant proposal to fund work at the fabrication facility that was donated this week. He urged the cabinet members at the meeting to "grab it out of the stack and fund this sucker" so UCF can put people to work.

Whether you talk to people in workforce development, economic development, or high-tech startups, it all comes back to funding. The only way to retain Florida's position in the aerospace industry is to feed it money. That also happens to be the only way to maintain America's position in human spaceflight.

---

The NASA Railroad carried the last space shuttle solid rocket booster segments across the Indian River Kennedy Space Center. Six cars transported the segments to Titusville from the ATK solid rocket booster plant in Promontory, Utah. The booster segments would be used for shuttle Atlantis on the "launch on need," or potential rescue mission, for the final scheduled shuttle flight, Endeavour's STS-134 mission.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett