_www.FantasyLibrary.com [Visit Who Is Joseph Teller?] Synthesis & Synchronicity 029

Synthesis & Synchronicity #29

October Is The Strangest Month in my life in general, so it is no great surprise that it continues to be such. It has always been a time of chaos, upheval, bouts of mania and occasionally deep depressions. It is a time of great decisions, changing gear from one season to the next (Autumn isn't a season its a cusp of two seasons, as far as New England is concerned) and a watching for portents of the coming year. It ends, of course with the combo pack of momental dates, my Birthday and Halloween (or Sam Hain as many of us prefer).

Local Politics: It is also a time when Cambridge, our home city, turns its eye towards local politics with a vengeance. The City Council meetings get heated, nasty and often very weird. This year is proving no exception, especially with a much feared rent control question coming up on the ballot. A recent meeting was ended prematurely because of this very issue, as one member attempted to force a non-binding recommendation vote thru the council about the rent control question. Rather then take a vote on a subject that was not officially on the docket, and which many of the council members was thought unnecessary to take a specific stand on, they decided to end the evening's session of the council, with some 30 pieces of outstanding business yet to be brought up for the night. (All of this was covered in the pages of the Cambridge Chronicle newspaper).

The usual suspects were behind the attempted ramrod of the question into the council to begin with, and here our fun begins. The man who proposed it is one whom the other owners (husband & wife) in our condo building support and have put a lawn sign up for on our building. We don't support the current rent control question, as we think the bill involved goes too far and is too limiting for owner-occupied properties (like the one we live in) but we also don't support the opposing organization or this particular city council member's re-election.

Kiralee, Cindy and I remember too well our many years not as property owners but as renters, and we still sympathize with renters (and have many friends in that same position). When the old rent control was removed in Massachusetts as a whole (a removal forced thru by the same folks opposing this bill), it was done so with some very nasty fine print. The fine print did a lot more than just change how rent prices and increases were handled in the 3 cities in Massachusetts with rent control. What it did was drastically strip away rights, tenants protective organizations and the appeal process in many cases of eviction. It was one of the many changes that made us decide to become homeowners.

(Other things were going on at the time that added to our decision. This included collusion between the realtors and city officials in the city we were living in at that time to force rent hikes across the board. All done to suit the needs of a specific major developer, so he could get a new construction property filled by raising the values of rental property in general in the city. This also ended with the doubling and tripling of local rents, even on buildings that were in poor condition.)

Anyway, we have a certain feel for the need for more tenants rights, not less, and possibly some form of rent control, and this is causing a bit of friction with the other owners in our building. They wanted the condo association to make a political donation to organizations opposing rent control, and we had no such desire.

Add in our own preferences, primarily for a number of first time candidates (and the one sitting official who helped bring in the new smoking ban in all the resteraunts, bars and clubs in the city) and the friction is sure to produce some problems for us along the way. We don't think like property owners who have rental property, because we aren't. We tend to think fairly liberally and lower class rather than upper class because we're struggling middle class folks at best. And of course in Cambridge politics is always a hot bed of life, discussion and activity like no other place on the east coast shy of Washington DC.

Sports : I'm not a sports fan, but it cannot help to be noticed the on-rushing potential of a Red Sox vs Cubs World Series. There are many who say that is a sign of An Oncoming Apocalypse, the freezing over of the Christian's Hell, or the Arrival of a physical incarnation of Eris upon the streets of America. It cannot help but send a bit of fear down the spine to think what would happen if it is indeed the Sox who break their standing curse. Think how insane Boston will become if it happens.... and how annoying the fans.

National Politics : I don't say too much in public and on the net about the subject of National Politics, as we all know that the current administration is all too willing to mark anyone who opposes their rule or who fails to believe in their infalability as a traitor, unAmerican or potential terrorist these days. I will mention that I do keep up on the subject, and am looking forward to Michael Moore's new book Dude, Where's My Country which is due for release on Tuesday Oct 7th. There is a media embargo going on in regards to the book before its release, but Michael has said in email that it will include his attempt to violate the Patriot Act on every single page. He also has said it is his attempt to do his part to see the current administration exposed for criminal activities, and hopefully lead out of the White House in handcuffs before the next election. He definitely is getting a much larger first print run (1 million copies worldwide) compared to the last book (which started with a mere 50,000 copies that almost were pulped by his publisher in the aftermath of September 11th, and went to 53 reprintings to date).

I made the rounds of some of Harvard Squares bookstores, and all of them had to look the book up in their catalog databases, as they were unaware the book was coming out. Evidently the pre-release publicity on the book has been VERY low key. All of them assured me the book was on order, but none of them had received copies or could be sure they would actually have the book on the shelf for tomorrow's release date. This could mean that the distributors supplying the Boston Area have once again dropped the ball (by accident or on purpose) on what should be a big selling volume.

Squid Gods : Nick Pollotta's new Bureau 13 fiction novel, That Darn Squid God is due out later this month from Wildside Press but we'll have to order it online rather than from our favorite local SF/Fantasy & Gaming store (Pandemonium Books & Games) because the publisher discounts are far below those of most other small press publishers, so that they would make almost nothing from carrying the book. Sigh.

I do try to do my shopping locally, but it seems that Cambridge itself conspires against me doing such and getting what I want for a fair price. The high cost of being a retail outlet (rents etc.) are making it often cheaper, easier and more convient to buy stuff online. Distribution problems are not helping things. I tried to get some Call of Cthuhlu related game books recently only to be told at the store that the distributor claimed they were out of print. So I got home, hopped online, and checked the publishers websites, and found that they were not only in print, but could be bought direct from them online easily. The Distributor-D20 conspiracy seems to be in full swing to avoid carrying backstock of non-D20 materials and outright lying to the stores about what is and is not in print.

For that matter, even when things are obviously out, available and should be shipping, the shipments appear to have been delayed for no apparent reason. This happens regularly, so one never knows if a trip to the store is going to have anything new on the shelf (and if you wait until the store sends out its new arrivals email newsletter the items will be gone most of the time by the time the newsletter actually comes out since it can be weeks late). Sigh

Deadline Looming Well, I want to get this up on the website before the content becomes moot. My email remains bogged down with virius spam, and my life remains overly complex. I have to get a lot of preparations done before next Sunday's Game, so I'm going to cut myself off now...

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