Auxiliary Memory

I Can’t Take It With Me?

by James Wallace Harris, 7/3/21

That old saying warns us we can’t take it with us, but where does our stuff go when we say goodbye to this plane of existence? If I go first, Susan will just haul all my crap down to Goodwill. If she goes first, I’ll do the same for her. But if Susan goes first, who will process all my cherished possessions?

Before my mom died, she gave some of her stuff as little personal gifts to people she knew at church, or in the neighborhood, or relations. And the stuff she didn’t give away, she assumed either I or my sister would take after she died and cherish for the rest of our lives. We didn’t tell her we had other plans. After my mom died I went through her house looking for sentimental things like photographs, letters, and a few books. My sister wanted more of the knicknacks. My mom’s closets and extra bedrooms were jammed with things she’d had been saving since the 1945 when she married my dad. I told the ladies we had hired to sit with my mother when I was at work that they could have anything they wanted in the house except the stove and refrigerator. The house was clean enough to sell when I came back.

If I was kind and considerate, I’d get rid of my junk now. I’ve been getting rid of stuff for years, but there’s enough left to fill the pickup several times over. When I was young I thought I wanted a smaller house for when I was older, but now that I’m older, I don’t want that at all. This house has become the perfect size for our junk. Susan and I have divided our home into our individual territories. I junk up the den, two bedrooms, and one hall closet. Susan fills up the living, dining room, one bedroom, and the other hall closet. We both encourage the other to get rid of their stuff, but we don’t.

I’m not religious, but what if there was a heaven, and what if we could take it with us? What if St. Peter allowed everyone to bring one U-Haul trailer full of Earthly possessions to heaven, what would you take? Imagine everyone getting a luxury two-bedroom condo in paradise, how would you decorate it? (I wonder if they have the internet up there?)

My friend Connell has been moving out of his house where he’s lived since the 1980s and into a two-bedroom condo. He’s been selling his stuff on Craigslist. I wonder if I should set up an eBay account and sell off my stuff too? But it would be so much easier and put it off until I die and let Susan deal with it. Now I know why I always planned to go first.

JWH

Don’t Let Apple Lossless Music Confuse You

by James Wallace Harris, 6/19/21

I’m afraid I totally confused my friend Annie when she asked me to help her upgrade her music system to play her iTunes playlists simultaneously in multiple rooms. I made the mistake of excitedly telling her about Apple’s new Lossless Music. Explaining Hi-Res Music to your friends won’t be easy. Later, I realized I had forced poor Annie down a rabbit hole of abstraction and technology standards she really didn’t want to know.

All Annie wanted was to buy speakers that would work in a whole house configuration, and she thought she wanted them made by Bose. The speaker she loved was a Bose dock for her first iPhone. Regrettably, it became useless a few years ago when she upgraded her iPhone with a lightning connector. She still laments its loss. Her son bought her a bluetooth soundbar. It actually sounds better than her old Bose dock, but connecting to it hasn’t always been smooth. She had seen an ad for Bose speakers that could be bought for each room of the house and would play in unison, which became her dream music goal.

I should have said, “Sure, go get those Bose 300 or 500 speakers.” Instead I told her they wouldn’t work with Apple’s new Lossless Music. “Why is that?” she ask. I tried to tell her. I even demoed bluetooth, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect to illustrate the different ways to stream music and how they would be used. I also demoed compressed, lossless, and Hi-Res music. She was impressed with what she heard, and said she wanted to get a whole house speaker system that could do Hi-Res.

I really should have said right then, forget Hi-Res Music and just buy the Bose or Sonos speakers. Her son recommended Sonos. I like Bose and have a pair of 301s for my computer room, and Rtings.com gives the Bose 300 a slight edge over the Sonos One. See their recommendations for all home speakers. In this group they prefer the Sonos Move first, and Bose 500 second.

That’s when we fell into Alice’s Wonderland of configuring a Lossless system that she could play from her iPhone. I had to explain why bluetooth was out, and at a minimum she’d need equipment that supports AirPlay2, and even then it would only be CD quality at best, that the higher levels of Hi-Res and Dolby Atmos wouldn’t be possible with Bose or Sonos currently.

I also realized I might have falsely advertised what she could hear when I demoed everything on my Bluesound Powernode 2i and Klipsch floorstanding speakers. So I got my Amazon Echo Studio from my bedroom to show how it compared to the Klipsch/Bluesound performance. The Sonos One and Echo Studio are roughly comparable, although most reviewers rate the Sonos better. I bought the Echo Studio to try out Hi-Res and 3D music. I told Annie the Echo Studio with Amazon Music HD could play Hi-Res and 3D spatial music if she subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited ($7.99 since she’s a Prime Member), and it would work in a whole house configuration with other Echo speakers. But again, this might be a distraction.

Actually, I was surprised by how well the Echo Studio sounded in my den. In my bedroom it sounds pretty good, especially paired with a second Echo Studio, but not nearly as great as a single Echo Studio in the den. Evidently, the den has great acoustics. Annie was very impressed with the Echo Studio.

It was here that I tried to explain that speakers sound different according to placement. And there’s a good chance she and I (we both turn 70 this year) won’t be able to hear the difference between MP3, CD, and Hi-Res music files. I, myself, have been chasing the Hi-Res dream for years, always thinking I’d find that Nirvana where Hi-Res music sounded as different as night and day over CD sound quality. I’ve never found this audio El Dorado. There have been times when I listened very intently and thought I was hearing things on SACD or with MQA that I hadn’t heard before, but I’ve never been sure if I wasn’t just hearing things I never previously heard because I hadn’t paid attention to it before.

I’m trying to convince Annie that the things that count are subscribing to a streaming music service, getting good speakers, finding the best place to put them, and playing music loud enough to hear the details. I believe Spotify is a better deal right now than Apple Music, Tidal, or Amazon HD because it’s interface is better, because of Spotify Connect, and Spotify is used so widely that articles about music often link to Spotify playlists. Plus selfishly, I want my friends to have Spotify so we can share our playlists. Spotify Connect support is almost universal, and that does away with the whole iPhone to music system connecting protocols like bluetooth and AirPlay. I have three streaming music systems in my house, and all three work with Spotify Connect. Only two work with AirPlay, and just one with MQA.

On the other hand, Annie has many years of songs purchased on iTunes. To switch to Spotify would require rebuilding all her playlists, and committing to $9.99 a month. I pointed out that the Amazon Echo Studios would work with Spotify, or if she wanted get Amazon Music Unlimited for $7.99 a month. However, iTunes doesn’t work with the Echo Studio.

Probably, the best thing for Annie would be the Bose 300 or 500 like she thought she wanted at first, or the Sonos. Then if she wanted now or later, subscribe to Apple Music for $9.99 a month. I’m guessing Apple will eventually offer something like Apple Connect, or AirPlay Connect and Sonos and other speaker makers will support Apple Lossless, but that means waiting to buy future products, or replacing her sound system again. And I think that’s probably a chimera now and in the future.

Apple Lossless Music is a great deal since it’s free with Apple Music, but only for people who have the DACs to support it. For most people, buying a portable DAC like a Audioquest Dragonfly or Helm Bolt DAC/AMP and a pair of good open back headphones would be the cheapest route to testing Hi-Res music. Many audiophiles already have this equipment, but for newbies, moving to Hi-Res Music will require a lot effort and money, and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

[Sorry, Annie, for all the confusion I caused.]

JWH

Why Am I Peeing 30 Times a Day and Other Mysteries of Getting Older?

by James Wallace Harris

I am being forced to become a detective, but the mystery I must solve is not one of who did it, but why is my body out to get me. Sometime in the future we will all die, but before we’re done in we’ll fear many possible assassins. For most of us, our murderer will be a natural cause, but which one? Our last years will be spent running away from various suspects, always looking for clues to who our real killer will be. But the older we get, the more suspects show up, complicating the mystery.

All my friends in my age group suffer from something, many have dodged several bullets, and a few haven’t. Like all the machines we’ve owned over our lifetime, our bodies will wear out, part by part, until they can’t be fixed anymore. Unfortunately, being a machine that’s breaking down is not a fun experience. Like an old car, we never know which part will need repairing next. And continuing this metaphor, most of us aren’t skilled repairmen. We can only guess about what’s causing our breakdowns, and even when we do hire an expert, we never know if we’re getting the right repairs.

I’m currently dealing with two medical mysteries. The primary one is why do I pee thirty times a day. I went to a urologist and had a Urolift assuming it was a common male problem of an enlarged prostate. Although the Urolift improved flow, the procedure failed to stop my excessive peeing. Evidently, I had two problems.

Before the Urolift I had hoped the procedure would fix me and I’d be back to normal. However, I’m learning in old age we seldom get back to what we once were. Atul Gawande analyzes that hope of returning to normal in his book Being Mortal. We all believe doctors can fix us, but that isn’t always true, especially the older we get. That’s when we try to fix ourselves with sleuthing our own medical mysteries.

I’ve been watching many videos on YouTube about the causes and cures of frequent urination. I feel myself grasping at straws hoping to find any help. For example, Dr. Oz recommends consuming ground flax seeds to calm an overactive bladder, and Dr. Berg recommends following a keto diet to reduce insulin resistance that can cause frequent urination. My own urologist has prescribed Myrbetriq to relax my bladder muscles but it made my prostate/bladder ache, and my urges to pee stronger and somewhat painful. Katy Butler warned in her book The Art of Dying Well against anticholinergics, the common medicine prescribed for overactive bladders, because of their dangerous side effects. My own internist is against them too. Evidently, a large number of older people have overactive bladders and we’re all looking to solve the mystery of why it’s happening to us and how to fix it.

I’ve taken a different approach. I had hoped the Urolift would have left me peeing like a teenager again, which the sale testimonials promise, but when I informed my urologist that magic hadn’t happened, he said it took months and years for my bladder to learn its current habits, so it might take just as long to break them. I went home feeling relieved with this bit of hope. In fact, for several days after that office visit I only peed 24 times a day. But then the frequency went back up.

I wondered if that was a clue. Could that sense of relief brought on by hope have relaxed my bladder, even just a bit? Could I consciously try relaxing my bladder through stress reduction or meditation? I bought a chem flask with a milliliter gauge and have started measuring my output, along with logging my frequency. A healthy person will pee 250-400 ml when they go and maybe up to 800 ml when they really hold it, but I only produce 50-70 ml during my frequent visits to the bathroom, and even less when my bladder is having fits.

From what I’ve learned people of all ages can have urine retention, but it’s more common in oldsters. I already know that several of my organs are wearing out, so why not the bladder? But if it’s a matter of muscles, either for contraction or relaxing, can I make changes with exercise, diet, or mind control?

By the way, those are some of the many approaches we take when trying to solve our own medical mysteries. There’s several, often approached in this order:

Time will make it go away
Prayer will heal it
Diet will help it
Exercise will overcome it
Pills will cure it
Surgery can repair it
Meditation can relax it
Alternative medicine might fight it

When you have a medical mystery you keep trying to solve it like a complex Sudoku puzzle. We always want to believe we can fix something and return to normal, but part of aging is the realization that some things are out of our control.

But what’s particularly frustrating is assuming something can be fixed if only we can find the right evidence and clues. The trouble with medical problems is all the variables and interactions. It’s almost impossible to get a definitive answer.

While working on my pee problem my gallbladder said, “Hey, pay attention to me!” Turns out I have gallstones. I’ve had a couple minor gallbladder attacks, but since I’ve seen someone with a major attack I’m positive I don’t one the kind requiring an ambulance. At first, I thought, let the doctors rip out my gallbladder because I’ve known a number of people that’s had that procedure. Then I started learning about possible consequences of living without a gallbladder. After ultrasounds, bloodwork, and a CT scan, my doctor has recommended a wait and see attitude. While doing all that poking around though, they also found fatty deposits and a cyst on my liver. So I feel like a ticking time bomb. But these new issues only adds to the list of my failing parts and systems.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m boo-hooing in my blog. I’m just reporting on a mental process I find interesting about getting older. And like I said, I know so many people with all kinds of medical problems, nearly all of them worse than mine. In fact, I can’t think of anyone my age or older I’d trade bodies with.

I’ve just reached an age where stoicism is the only practical philosophy. I know one of my organs will fail, and murder me, but not which one. But does it matter? It will be out of my control. The frustrating thing is thinking we can control things, and we can to a very limited degree. But evidently, part of aging is learning when we can’t.

JWH

I Marie Kondoed a Whole Building

by James Wallace Harris, 5/27/21

Well, to be honest, I didn’t hold everything that was in our old workshop and ask if it sparked joy, or even sort the building components into separate piles for reallocation considerations. I just asked the contractor if he could demolish the entire building and take it and its contents away. And they did.

But what a relief! What a weight off my shoulders! After Susan’s parents died she wanted to buy the house she grew up in, and I reluctantly agreed. Well, it made her happy. I did think it was neat the house came with a workshop full of woodworking tools and a small greenhouse. I imagined building and growing things. The house also came fully furnished with every closet stuffed with marvelous treasures her mother found at yard sales. Her dad hadn’t used the workshop in years and it had become their mini-storage unit. That was a dozen years ago and we’re almost through getting rid of their junk – and ours.

About seven years ago I decided neither Susan or I would ever do any woodworking or gardening and hired 1-800-Got-Junk to remove the now broken down greenhouse and clear out the workshop of ancient rusting woodworking machines and boxes of once cherished possessions. It took three of their trucks and a big check. But it felt great. My soul felt immensely lighter.

Then we started using the workshop for our overflow junk. A few years later I had the walls of the workshop replaced and painted because I feared our junk would go bad from neglect. That was even more money. Then this year I realized the roof was leaking and contracted to have it replaced. I also worried about the workshop all the time because a neighbor’s tree is dying, and it leans over both the power lines and our workshop. What a psychic burden.

I knew the plywood decking of the roof would need replacing along with the shingles, but when they started on the first sheet, the roofer called me out to show how the 2×6 rafters were so rotten they couldn’t nail the plywood to them. They offered to replace or brace the 2×6 beams, at even more expensive.

That’s when I knew there was no chance of that building ever bringing me joy. By the way, joy was defined as possible home resale value. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that we’ll probably die in this house and resale joy was a fading fantasy anyway. So I asked the roofer if they also demoed buildings and he said yes. I said, “Let me save a couple of things, and then I want you to take the building and everything in it away.” I kept two ladders, a push broom, a rake, a shovel, a pair of hedge clippers, and a couple cans of old house paint. (I’ll probably get rid of them too.) I told the roofer workers they could have anything they wanted. Susan told a neighbor.

Even though the value of our house went down, I felt wonderful seeing the finished job. Not only did I get rid of tons of possessions and responsibilities, but I no longer have a place to put all our extra crap. That’s quite freeing. And now I don’t have to worry about my neighbor’s tree falling on the workshop. Oh, it will take out the power lines and probably pull down a couple power poles, but I’m trying hard not worry about that.

Susan saved one four-foot long wooden level of her dad’s. She figured her brother might want it for sentimental reasons, and I overheard her talking to Johnny telling him she’d try and keep me from throwing it away. I’ll try hard, but Johnny better come soon. I’m already looking for more things in the house to throw away. I’m making Susan nervous eyeing the attic. Boxes have been going up there for a dozen years, but they never come down. Why?

I fantasize about a completely empty attic. Wouldn’t it feel so good?

JWH

How Will We Remember the 1960s?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/16/21

Anyone who knows me, or reads my blog, knows I’m obsessed with memory. Even before my memory access speeds began declining I’ve always felt a desperation to hang onto what I learned even though I know most of it slips naturally away. I guess all those tests in school gave me a complex about poor recall.

Memory has many fascinating aspects, especially all the ways our memories fool us. We believe things are true because our memories tell us they’re true. Even when confronted with conclusive evidence, we often prefer what our memories tell us to external facts. All through my sixties I’ve been examining what I thought I remembered from growing up in the 1960s. Too often, the impressions I’ve maintained have proved wrong.

Because of an online discussion about science fiction in the 1960s my instant recall told me there must have been several hundred great science fiction novels published during that decade. However, as the discussion progressed my memory had trouble dredging up all those great titles.

My memory gave me the illusion there were enough wonderful science fiction novels published in the 1960s to fill a huge bookcase. Where did that impression come from? I assumed because my memories told me I read hundreds of science fiction novels I loved while growing up. Were those memories true? Thinking about it now I realized there are a number of ways to double check my brain’s records:

Look up the actual number of successful SF books published in the 1960s
Recall and list all the books I remember reading in the 1960s
Recall and list all the SF books from the 1960s I read in later decades
Research the memories of my contemporizes about what they read
Find out what books young science fiction fans read today from the 1960s
Read what literary scholars studying the 1960s consider the best SF books

I realized that my initial reaction to the online discussion was I wanted young people to replicated what I found great in the 1960s. That’s a typical old person hope, but it’s completely unrealistic. Newer generations are busy consuming all the books coming out in their own decade. What they read from past decades is always very minimal.

In other words, younger generations and scholars get a distillation of the past. Not only that, but they are going to interpret the past by current day mindsets. The chances of them experiencing what I remember is very small. So why do geezers want their cherished past persevered? Is it to validate their own memories? Is it the hope of keeping the things they loved alive across time?

For whatever reason, I want the essential aspects of the 1960s remembered accurately by history. The trouble is I’m not sure I correctly remember the 1960s myself. I’m probably not. Maybe what I’m doing is trying to write my own correct history now that I’m older and working on my wisdom skills.

For the purpose of this essay I’m using science fiction novels as one tiny test case of remembering the 1960s. I have a model in my head built from memories of what the 1960s were like. I’m interested in the mental models people are constructing today about that decade. Even focusing on this one microscopic piece of pop culture leaves many problems regarding memory to consider.

Is my white male American viewpoint of the 1960s science fiction too limiting? Do my contemporaries who were women and minorities remember 1960s science fiction differently? Bookworms growing up in Russia, China, Brazil, Vietnam, etc. will have experienced a much different decade than I did. For the purpose of this essay, I’ll focus on the U.S., however Great Britain plays a large role in my memory too. I also read fanzines back then where readers from around the world, including countries where English wasn’t the standard language, reviewed books. But this only provided hints of what science fiction was being published in foreign countries.

The online discussion I mentioned above got started because we read a link to “An Uneven Showcase of 1960s SF,” a 2019 review from The Los Angeles Review of Books covering The Library of America’s two volume set American Science Fiction: Eight Classic Novels of the 1960s, which remembers these eight novels:

Poul Anderson, The High Crusade (1960)
Clifford D. Simak, Way Station (1963)
Roger Zelazny, … And Call Me Conrad (This Immortal) (1965)
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon (1966)
R. A. Lafferty, Past Master (1968)
Joanna Russ, Picnic on Paradise (1968)
Samuel R. Delany, Nova (1968)
Jack Vance, Emphyrio (1969)

Our group was asking: Are these books really how literary history will remember 1960s science fiction? Personally, I don’t believe any of them will make it to the long term pop culture memory of 2050. However, Library of America does give us a clue with their other published science fiction books. That’s because their famous uniform volumes focus on authors and not works. So far they have published sets on these SF writers:

PKD also produced significant work in the 1950s and 1970s, but it seems his 1960s novels are the most remembered. Le Guin’s career covered decades but her most famous science fiction came out in the 1960s and 1970s. Vonnegut is also mostly remembered for his 1960s novels. Bradbury was mainly famous for his work in the 1950s, and Butler for work in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Library of America will not be the sole arbiter of who remembers science fiction from the 1960s, but I do believe they have made good guesses so far, at least for American Sci-Fi. But using Library of America and the SF authors they favor, are these then the science fiction novels future readers will remember 1960s science fiction by:

The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick
A Wrinkle in Time (1962) Madeleine L’Engle
Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut
Martian Time-Slip (1964) by Philip K. Dick
Rocannon’s World (1966) Ursula K. Le Guin
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick
Planet of Exile (1966) by Ursula K. Le Guin
City of Illusions (1967) by Ursula K. Le Guin
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
Ubik (1969) by Philip K. Dick

Of course this leaves out works by the most famous science fiction writers working in the 1960s, the so called Big Three of SF:

A Fall of Moondust (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) by Robert A. Heinlein
Fantastic Voyage (1966) by Isaac Asimov
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert A. Heinlein
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke

Actually, The Big Three of SF writers were more famous for their work in the 1950s. Probably the single most remembered work of science fiction from the 1960s is Dune by Frank Herbert, and that’s because of all the movie versions. But growing up in the 1960s the two most famous new writers were Delany and Zelazny. Will any of their most famous novels be remembered? They each got an entry in the LoA set, but what about their other 1960s novels?

The Dream Master (1966) by Roger Zelazny
Empire Star (1966) by Samuel R. Delany
Babel-17 (1966) by Samuel R. Delany
The Einstein Intersection (1967) by Samuel R. Delany
Lord of Light (1967) by Roger Zelazny
Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny

There were many novels I loved or remember reading great reviews from back in the 1960s that were missed by the Library of America set. I’m not sure how famous they are today, or if they are still worthy of reading:

A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Flesh (1960) by Philip Jose Farmer
Rogue Moon (1960) by Algis Budrys
Venus Plus X (1960) by Theodore Sturgeon
Catseye (1961) by Andre Norton
Dark Universe (1961) by Daniel F. Galouye
Time is the Simplest Thing (1961) by Clifford Simak
Little Fuzzy (1962) by H. Beam Piper
The Dragon Masters (1963) by Jack Vance
Lords of the Psychon (1963) by Daniel F. Galouye
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963) by Walter Tevis
Davy (1964) by Edgar Pangborn
Simulacron-3 (1964) by Daniel F. Galouye
The Wanderer (1964) by Fritz Leiber
All Flesh is Grass (1965) by Clifford Simak
Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison
Destination: Void (1965) by Frank Herbert
The Genocides (1965) by Thomas M. Disch
The Age of the Pussyfoot (1966) by Frederik Pohl
Earthblood (1966) by Keith Laumer and Rosel George Brown
Make Room, Make Room (1966) by Harry Harrison
Mindswap (1966) by Robert Sheckley
The Witches of Karres (1966) by James H. Schmitz
The World of the Ptavvs (1966) by Larry Niven
The Butterfly Kid (1967) by Chester Anderson
Camp Concentration (1967) by Thomas M. Disch
Chthon (1967) by Piers Anthony
Lords of the Starship (1967) by Mark S. Geston
Restoree (1967) by Anne McCaffrey
Soldier, Ask Not (1967) by Gordon R. Dickson
Those Who Watch (1967) by Robert Silverberg
Why Call Them Back From Heaven? (1967) by Clifford Simak
Dimension of Miracles (1968) by Robert Sheckley
Dragonflight (1968) by Anne McCaffrey
Hawksbill Station (1968) by Robert Silverberg
The Last Starship From Earth (1968) by John Boyd
The Masks of Time (1968) by Robert Silverberg
Of Men and Monsters (1968) by William Tenn
Past Master (1968) by R. A. Lafferty
Rite of Passage (1968) by Alexei Panshin
The Andromeda Strain (1969) by Michael Crichton
Bug Jack Barron (1969) by Norman Spinrad
Fourth Mansions (1969) by R. A. Lafferty
Macroscope (1969) by Piers Anthony
The Pollinators of Eden (1969) by John Boyd
The Ship Who Sang (1969) by Anne McCaffrey
A Specter is Haunting Texas (1969) by Fritz Leiber
Up the Line (1969) by Robert Silverberg

And what about British invasion SF writers who made such a big impact on the genre in the 1960s:

The Trouble with Lichen (1960) by John Wyndham
The Wind from Nowhere (1961) by J. G. Ballard
A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess
The Drowned World (1962) by J. G. Ballard
Hothouse (1962) by Brian Aldiss
Greybeard (1964) by Brian Aldiss
The Dark Light Years (1964) by Brian Aldiss
The Whole Man (1964) by John Brunner
The Squares of the City (1965) by John Brunner
Colossus (1966) D. F. Jones
The Crystal World (1966) by J. G. Ballard
Earthworks (1966) by Brian Aldiss
The Watch Below (1966) by James White
Chocky (1968) by John Wyndham
The Final Programme (1968) by Michael Moorcock
Pavane (1968) by Keith Roberts
Report on Probability A (1968) by Brian Aldiss
Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner
Barefoot in the Head (1969) by Brian Aldiss
Behold the Man (1969) Michael Morecock
The Jagged Orbit (1969) by John Brunner

Or from the rest of the world

Solaris (1961) by Stanislaw Lem
Planet of the Apes (1963) by Pierre Boulle
Hard to Be a God (1964) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Second Invasion from Mars (1967) by Arkady and Boris Strgatsky
His Master’s Voice (1968) by Stanislaw Lem

If you were born after the 1960s, especially after the year 2000, how many of these novels have you read, or have even heard about? Years ago, I wrote an essay about what I thought might be the defining science fiction novels of the 1960s. At the time I guessed these dozen would be remembered:

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (1961)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1963)
Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (1966)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein (1966)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968)
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (1968)
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1969)
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)

I stand by these twelve for now, but I believe in the long run, only a few, if any, will be remembered by the reading public in the 2060s. Dune has the best chance of being remembered, but will it really go the distance? It was #35 on PBS’s The Great American Read, the only 1960s SF novel on the list, so that’s one indicator.

Do we remember the pop culture of the past because of the artists or their works? We remember books by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen from the 1800s, but did their stories stick to us first, or was it something about Dickens and Austen that make us read their work? I believe “Eleanor Rigby” survives because we can’t forget The Beatles. That Baby Boomers love of The Beatles was passed on to their children and grand children.

Even with one hit wonders like Little Women (#8 on the PBS list), I believe Louisa May Alcott is why we remember her book. Somehow her powerful personality anchored her in time. Ditto for literature of the 1920s. Don’t we really remember the novels of the 1920s because of our fascination with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Lawrence, and Joyce? Or do their biographical reputations grow as more readers consume their books?

My guess is the current public’s sense of 1960s science fiction comes down to Philip K. Dick and all the biographical attention he’s getting, and because so many of his stories have been filmed. Back in the 1960s, Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were the Big Three of SF, mainly because of their successes in the 1950s. Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are still remembered today, getting special editions and new readers, but my hunch is Heinlein’s appeal is fading, and as a teenager in the 1960s he was my J. K. Rowling. In other words, my cherish memories will not be how literary historians remembers science fiction the 1960s.

I just don’t see modern bookworms hanging onto to most 1960s SF writers today. In terms of literary cults, I’d say Ray Bradbury might be next after PKD, and possibly Ursula K. Le Guin. Dune is the major SF novel from the 1960s, but there seems to be little interest in Frank Herbert. Look how Tolkien has become legendary as a figure of literary interest. I consider that a clue to future literary remembrances. If the public doesn’t also take an interest in an author, I think it’s less likely their books will be remembered.

At the last World Con a Hugo award was given to a speech that’s erasing John W. Campbell’s reputation. Will Heinlein and Asimov be next? As much as my memories tell me that Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were great, I’m not sure the collective pop culture memory feels the same way. This makes me sad, but I’ve got to come to terms with it.

When I take the time to think about what I actually remember, and compare those memories to external data, I realized I did read hundreds of SF during the 1960s, but the vast majority of them were first published in the 1950s. I joined the Science Fiction Book Club in March of 1967 and often got its two main selections. At best that could have been 60 new titles, but sometimes the main selections were 1950s reprints, so I figure the number was smaller, and I didn’t read every book. Thinking about things, I read many 1960s SF novels after the 1960s, in fact I’m still reading for the first time SF books from the 1960s. But even with all them, I could not assemble a list of hundreds of great SF books from the 1960s.

My memory was mostly wrong. I was able to find just under a hundred titles for this essay. I’d bet that between 1,000-2,000 SF novels were published during the 1960s, which sounds like an impossible lot, but it takes only two years nowadays to publish that many SF titles.

Memory has always been a distillation process. Each night we forget most of what happened the previous day. I don’t think the Library of America picked the most memorable eight SF novels to remember the 1960s. But then every science fiction fan who lived through the sixties will recall a different eight titles. And it would be unfair for me to want my eight favorites to be the ones remembered. However, I’d really love to know what eight SF novels from the 1960s will be remembered and read in the 2060s. Who will be the Jules Verne and H. G. Wells of the 20th century?

Update: 5/25/21

Because of a comment below by my old friend Jim Connell I realized asking a 15-year-old SF fan today about 1960s is like asking me back in 1965 what I thought about science fiction from the 1910s. At the time I had not even read A Princess of Mars or Tarzan of the Apes, or even The Skylark of Space. Over the next fifty-five years I would eventually read several novels, both literary and science fiction from the 1910s, but I can’t say I’m intimate with the pop culture of that decade. I’ve read 9 of the 70 books listed here for the 1910s, and know of several more from movies and reading about them.

Thus my memory of science fiction from the 1910s gives me roughly an idea of what younger people might know about science fiction from the 1960s.

JWH