Psychogeography? What's that? An enormously rich worldbuilding topic

I attended a fascinating panel at WorldCon in Reno about Psychogeography, featuring David Cake, Cory Doctorow, Ian McDonald, and Renée Sieber - and I was amazed at how well it fit my worldbuilding interests, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts about it. Here's a (rather daunting) quote from the convention program: "Psychogeography is variously defined as 'the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals' or where psychology and geography meet in assessing the emotional and behavioral impact of urban space."

Think about it this way. What kind of physical spaces do you move through as you go through your day? How many of them have been planned by you? If it's the furniture in your home, you've probably been able to decide where it went on your own. But how about the layout of your house? How about the layout of your neighborhood, or the neighborhood where you work? The public spaces in your town, or in the towns you've visited as a guest? Each of these physical layouts will influence the way you move and potentially the way you think.

Here's an example from my local area. I have a mall nearby - within walking distance of my house, if I care to take the twenty minutes required. But do I walk there? No... not unless it's Christmas season and I don't want to get involved in the traffic (in which case I have walked there on principle). The way the place has been laid out is inimical to pedestrians. It's an indoor mall surrounded on all sides by broad parking lots which add a full five minutes to the walk even when I'm going quickly. There are no pedestrian entrances to the lots, and no pedestrian walkways leading across them. You have to walk right through all the car aisles to get to the main entrances. Is it any wonder that nobody walks there?

In the typical medieval town, there was always a market square. This was a central open space where people could gather to sell their goods, and gather they did. Those squares could also potentially be a place where unhappy people could gather to protest. If there were a ruler who didn't want unrest, he might crack down on the people, but it would still be hard to get rid of that central gathering space.

One interesting example mentioned by Cory Doctorow about London was that a lot of the London buildings had been destroyed by bombing after the second world war, and the planners of the city had to rebuild them, so they were thinking about making the streets easier to navigate by straightening them and making the streets rectilinear. However, the people refused to go along with this, and insisted on moving markers and traveling the paths they remembered of the old tangled road system, and in fact in the end the old roads were restored almost precisely as they had been.

Think about the cities you know, and how different they "feel" based on the way they're laid out. I think of Kyoto, Japan, where the north-south-east-west grid layout meant I never felt entirely lost even when I didn't know where I was, and where I learned my cardinal directions in a way I never had comprehended at any previous point in my life. I compare that with Tokyo, where you have to follow directions with absolute precision because the streets are not on a grid and a single wrong turn can diverge you into a totally different neighborhood where side connecting streets are not certain to deliver you back to your previous path. I compare each of those cities, with their narrow streets and tightly packed neighborhoods, with the wide-streeted towns of California where the lack of density means it takes twice as long to get anywhere and walking to the grocery store is an impractical plan...so neighborhoods are larger and people who live near one another are less likely to encounter one another in the street unless they happen to be walking to the local school (the local school being a very interesting "meeting point" and a huge creator of solidarity across the surrounding neighborhoods).

I'm sure you can already see the worldbuilding opportunities bursting out of this topic at every seam. What are your spaces like in your world? How wide are streets? Where do people gather? How easy is it to travel using various modes of transportation? My underground city of Pelismara is five levels deep and organized on a radial system, which means that it's actually rather compact and easy to traverse, especially at the deeper levels. People who use vehicles can cross it very quickly. People who walk have to be in excellent shape (for all the stair-climbing), but can get across town in relatively short order.

The panel at the convention also talked about technology and how it influences the use of space. Surveillance was one of the major discussion points here. The sense that one is being watched and recorded in any given public area can totally change behavior... but won't always do it the same way. During the discussion we also talked about the perceived "space" of the internet, Twitterverse, etc. Clearly, as seen in many instances of unrest across the world including China, the Arab world, and other places, the texting arena, and the Twitterverse, have become hotly contested virtual spaces where people can "gather" and their governments in response try to exert control over them by controlling the "space." In a city, these real and virtual environments lie side by side, and augmented reality can potentially blur the boundaries between them so that two different people can experience the physical spaces in entirely different ways. Mind you, our own subjective judgments of spaces can already cause us to experience spaces in vastly different ways, as I have previously discussed, but the possibility of augmented reality will only magnify that effect.

This is an enormously rich opportunity for worldbuilders, as you can see. I hope this very brief and cursory introduction gives you plenty of ideas for going back and considering the links between spaces and thought in your own stories. Have fun with it!

Cultural expectations about food

Food is very cultural. Our overall menu and sense of what is edible have built up over thousands of years, during which we've learned things like, "Gee, tomatoes actually aren't poisonous." A good thing to know. We've had massive changes in world food culture, such as those that came about after trade began between the Americas and the other continents of the world (chocolate!). What we eat and do not eat may seem "natural" but it is mostly the product of learning. It can become very extreme, and it is subject to fads, as are most other aspects of culture.



Here is an example that has been in my face lately with all our travel adventures. When I was little, a children's menu was a relatively new thing. I suppose it was the effect of the social "promotion" of children from people who should not be seen or heard to people who should be included at restaurants (a development I approve of). I remember that the children's menu typically featured smaller portions of adult meals. This was nice for those adults who didn't want to eat as much food (though some restaurants didn't allow adults to order from the children's menu). These days, though, the children's menu doesn't have smaller versions of adult dishes. It has what our culture expects children to enjoy eating. Chicken nuggets. Fries. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Pizza. Macaroni and cheese. Hamburger/cheeseburger. And that's about it. Can you think of anything else you've seen on a kids' menu? Fish and chips I suppose, at a stretch. I've given up looking at the children's menu these days because my children don't really like anything on that list except pizza and burgers, and they can't be eating pizza and burgers every time they go out.



The funny thing is, this kind of expectation is self-enforcing. Parents worry that their kids won't like vegetables and so they act all scared around vegetables and don't feed them to their children. Parents worry that their kids won't like spicy food, so they don't feed it to them - not even in mild doses. Suddenly the routine centers around bland non-vegetable food - so should we be surprised when that's what kids tend to ask for? I'm actually not here to talk about parenting and food, but you can see that this is an important piece of the entire food culture of a society. There is also science and health and how those relate to food choices... it's definitely a complex mix.



If you're creating a society, imagine what its people will eat, as a start. But consider also the food culture of that society. How food is grown, and where, will affect its value and availability. Then there is how important food is as a social activity, and as a ceremonial activity. I mean, how would anyone ever go on a serious date if not for food? Some societies place a special value on regional foods, while others have one big staple that rules the diet surrounded by other smaller ingredients. Some societies have tons of available spices and others do not. Would your people flavor their food predominantly with herbs? Or would they prefer the bland?



There are a thousand questions that can be asked, and if you can spend some time thinking about them, your world will become much more interesting.





P.S. This could easily become an entire dissertation or more, if I started talking about the quantity one is expected to eat, and how, and when, and eating disorders, etc. Suffice it to say that I encourage you to explore food culture to the extent that you can as you are creating your world!

Should I meet writers, or write (or blog)? The writer's dual identity

This is a trick question, of course. It's never an either-or prospect. Of course we writers should go out and take the opportunity to meet other writers in person. Of course we should seek out agents and editors and introduce ourselves. But we can't ever forget about the writing. It's the writing that makes us writers.



This issue is at the top of my mind because I've been in a place for the last little while where I haven't had time to write. That while will soon be ending, fortunately. Janice Hardy this morning told me that I shouldn't feel bad because I have been very productive, just not productive in the writing part of my life.



I think I'm at peace with it at this point. However, I'm the kind of writer who feels a sense of loss if she can't write. If this were not the case, I don't think I would have chosen to be a writer, but the Muse is usually rather demanding for me. In a few days I'll be sitting down beside her, shaking her shoulder and saying, "I'm back. You can wake up again - sorry about that."



There are two parts to a writer's professional identity. For this post, I'll call them "Face" and "Voice."



My trip to WorldCon last week was all about "face." Of course, it was also about raising my spirits, getting me to feel connected to the community, and all of that. But I was achieving that by enacting my face as a writer. I don't see this as something controlled or disingenuous. I'm calling it "face" from an anthropologist's point of view, which is to say that this is something we do with limited conscious control, just by being ourselves. When I meet writers and get to know them, I want to know what they look like, and what they sound like, and what they are interested in talking about, and what they are working on, and how they think about what they are working on. All of this together - the verbal and social aspects of the writer - are the "face."



When you're working with face, however, you get very little sense of "Voice." Your voice as a writer is your work. It's not what you say about your writing, but the writing itself. When I was at WorldCon I kept saying to myself, "Wow, after this I have to go home and write some awesome stuff, just so I can continue to deserve these fabulous people." The writing is the part of you that endures. It's the part of you that people experience when you're not standing in front of them. Because of what a writer does, it's as much "you" as your face - and in fact, it's more you than your face most of the time.



Both of these sides are worth working on.



You should go to conventions and be on panels and meet people. It's very important. But you should never stop writing completely, because if you stop writing, you're not a writer. I'm not talking about those crazy hiatuses due to life and stress and everything. I mean, don't ever shake your Muse's hand and say "it didn't work out" if you want to be a writer.



Similarly, your voice is indispensable to your writer's identity, but it doesn't have that many chances to speak. It depends on the generosity of an editor who sees you story and can be inspired. Thus, it's critical for you to use your face to help create your public identity as a writer.



Okay, so at this point I ask, "Where does the writer's online presence fit in?"



I see it as somewhere in between the face and the voice. It's not really your "face" unless you're actively on a Google Plus hangout somewhere. But it's not really your voice unless it's actually your fiction. It's a go-between environment, where both face and voice can be maintained, with limitations. Your blog about yourself can establish an identity for you and contribute to face; your blog about writing can hint to readers about your writing style and contribute to voice. It all depends on what you do with it. A hangout can contribute a little to face and allow you to represent yourself as someone who writes (and help your productivity, in the case of writing hangouts). Online fiction contributes to your voice but may not reach as many people as you hoped if you're posting it yourself without pay. An online identity must be constantly and consistently maintained and grows only very slowly - but it's worth doing if you can make it work within the constraints of your life, because it can help bind face and voice together and strengthen both.



It's something to think about.

Link: Ceremony and Fantastika: Watching the Hugo Awards

I highly recommend this insightful and thought-provoking article by John H. Stevens over at SFSignal. It will certainly get you looking at awards ceremonies in a different way... and may even give you ideas for your own writing!

Link: Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor

I thought you might enjoy the beautiful art on this site. Check it out if you like science fiction and fantasy art and self-respecting women!

Culture Share: England - The Routemaster

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: London Monsters discusses "The Routemaster," also known as the London double-decker bus.

The trusted red Routemaster with its rounded corners and open rear platform was for many city dwellers their preferred way of getting around London. As a youngster, I could travel from Leafy Barnes to Liverpool St Station for 60p and would spend an hour or so people watching as the streets passed by. Every inch of the ‘red elephant’ was carefully hand crafted with purpose, from the solid oak upper floor to the yellow bell cord summoning the driver your intention that you were about to vacate the bus at the next stop. The chord was truly democratic device, leaving passengers a way of communicating to the unseen driver in the cab at the front. The windows had chromed knobs that rotated and wound down the window slots for added ventilation, unlike the sealed Metro monsters of today.

Designed by Londoners for Londoners who travelled by bus, its oncoming growl summoned millions from their newspapers and novels as it approached. The wide front grinning grill and the bulky engine purring like a cat as people hopped on and off. Passengers were so close together that they were obliged to talk as though they were friends, usually about shared experience on topics that they shared: the state of the roads, the traffic and that ever-popular British subject, The Great British Weather.

The conductor, usually a cheerful Jamaican, would whistle a tune as we creaked and bounced our way along London’s famous landmarks: ‘Olympia, ‘Barkers’, ‘The Albert’, ‘Knighty Barracks’, ‘The Ritz’ and the ‘Dilly’, all names that rolled off the lips of the cheerful conductor as he rolled out tickets on the steel roller ticket dispenser, strapped around his hips and shoulders like one of those modern baby carriers.

The Routemaster was a really intimate space bringing people closer together than would be allowed today. The favoured seats were upstairs at the front, giving panoramic views of London’s streets as it weaved through traffic in a pre bus-lane era. Many boys (and a few girls) played ‘Bus Driver’ games on early trips around town. Other favourite spots were the back seat above the curved stairs at the rear, just the right size for an intimate couple with wandering hands and a taste for a hint of privacy. The rear window provided surreal framed images of legs and arms passing diagonally as passengers squeezed past each other in the confined intimacy of the rear steps.

Passengers were squeezed together on tartan benches who swayed in unison as the bus turned this way and that, stitching together the villages of London from Archway to Peckham Rye. Some of the Routemaster bus routes weaved their way right across the capital and took several hours. It was, for some cross-London travellers, a home from home.

This piece appeared in London Monsters (copyright 2011) and appears thanks to Simon Rogers, who lives in London. Any comments good or bad are welcome at: London.monsters@gmail.com

Article: How zoo animals responded to the DC earthquake

I found this fascinating link thanks to NPR. Animals at the National Smithsonian Zoo responded to the earthquake in widely varying ways, some even before the shaking started.