It was, in truth, an eager youth
Who halted me one day.
He gazed in bliss at me, and this
Is what he had to say:
"Why, mazel tov, it's Asimov,
A blessing on your head!
For many a year, I've lived in fear
That you were long since dead.
Or if alive, one fifty-five
Cold years had passed you by,
And left you weak, with poor physique,
Thin hair and rheumy eye.
For sure enough, I've read your stuff
Since I was but a lad
And couldn't spell or hardly tell
The good yarns from the bad.
My father, too, was reading you
Before he met my Ma.
For you he earned, once he had learned
About you from _his_ Pa.
Since time began, you wondrous man,
My ansestors did love
That s.f. dean and writing machine
The aged Asimov."
I'd had my fill. I said: "Be still!
I've kept my old-time spark.
My step is light, my eye is bright,
My hair is thick and dark."
His smile, in brief, spelled disbelief,
So this is what I did;
I scowled, you know, and with one blow,
I killed that rotten kid.
1966
Author's remark: "Mazel tov" is a Hebrew
phrase meaning "good fortune" and it is
used by Jews as a joyfyl greeting on
jubilant occasions - as a meeting with
me should surely be.
I JUST MAKE THEM UP, SEE!
Oh, Dr A.-
Oh, Dr A.-
There is something (don't go 'way)
That I'd like to hear you say.
Though I'd rather die
Than try
To pry,
The fact, you'll find,
Is that my mind
Has evolved the jackpot question for today.
I intend no cheap derision,
So please answer with decision,
And, discarding all your petty cautious fears,
Tell the secret of your vision!
How on earth
Do you give birth
To those crazy and impossible ideas?
It is indigestion
And a question
Of the nightmare that results?
Of your eyeballs whirling,
Twirling,
Fingers curling
And unfurling
While your blood beats maddened chimes
As it keeps impassioned times
With your thick, uneven pulse?
It is _that_, you think, or liquor
That brings on the wildness quicker?
For a teeny
Weeny
Dry martiny
May be just your private genie;
Or perhaps those Tom and Jerries
You will find the very
Berries
For inducing
And unloosing
That weird gimmick or that kicker;
Or an awful
Combination
Of unlawful
Stimulation,
Marijuana plus tequilla,
That will give you just that feel o'
Things a-clicking
And unsticking
As you start for celebration
To the crazy syncopation
Of a brain a-tocking-ticking.
Surely _something_, Dr A.,
Makes you you fey
And quite _outre_.
Since I read you with devotion,
Won't you give me just a notion
Of that shrewdy pepper-up potion
Out of which emerge your plots?
That wild secret bubbly mixture
That has made you such a fixture
In most favoured s.f. spots -
Now, Dr A.,
Don't go away -
Oh, Dr A.-
Oh, Dr A.-
1957
THE FOUNDATION OF S.F. SUCCESS
(With apologies to W.S.Gilbert)
If you ask me how to shine in the science-fiction line as a
pro of luster bright,
I say, practice up the lingo of the sciences, by jingo (never
mind if not quite right).
You may talk of Space and Galaxies and tesseractic fallacies
in slick and mystic style,
Though the fans won't understand it, they will all the same
demand it with a softly hopeful smile.
And all the fans will say,
As you walk your spatial way,
If that young man indulges in fights through all the Galaxy,
Why, what a most imaginative type of man that type of man must be.
So success is not a mystery, just brush up on your history, and
borrow day by day.
Take the Empire that was Roman and you'll find it is at
home in all the starry Milky Way.
With a drive that's hyperspatial, through the parsecs you will
race, you'll find that plotting is a breeze,
With a tiny bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward Gibbon
and that Greek, Thycydides.
And all the fans will say,
As you walk your thoughtful way,
If that young man involves himself in authentic history,
Why, what a very learned kind of high IQ, his high IQ must be.
Then eschew all thoughts of passion of a man-and-woman
fashion from your hero's thoughtful mind.
He must spend his time on politics, and thinking up his
shady tricks, and outside that he's blind.
It's enough he's had a mother, other females are a bother,
though they're jeveled and glistery,
They will just distract his dreaming and his nessesary
scheming with that psychohistory.
And all the fans will say
As you walk your narrow way,
If all his yarns restrict themselves to masculinity,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man that pure
young man must be.
1954
THE AUTHOR'S ORDEAL
(With apologies to W.S.Gilbert)
Plots, helter-skelter, teem within your brain;
Plots, s.f. plots, devised with joy and gladness;
Plots crowd your skull and stubbornly remain,
Until you're driven into hopeless madness.
When you're with your best girl and your mind's in a whirl
and you don't hear a thing that she's saying;
Or at Symphony Hall you are gone past recall and you can't
tell a note that they're playing;
Or you're driving a car and have not gone too far when you
find that you're sped through a red light,
And on top of that, lord! you have sideswiped a Ford, and
have broken your one working headlight;
Or your boss slaps your back (having made some smart crack)
and you stare at him, stupidly blinking;
Then you say something dumb so he's sure you're a crumb,
and are possibly given to drinking.
When events such as that have been knocking you flat, do not
blame supernatural forces;
If you write s.f. tales, you'll be knocked off your rails, just
as sure as the stars in their courses.
For your plot-making mind will stay deaf, dumb and blind to
the dull facts of life that will hound you,
While the wonders of space have you close in embrace and
the glory of star beams surround you.
You begin with a ship that is caught on a skip into hyperspace
en route for Castor,
And has found to its cost that it seems to be lost in a Galaxy
like ours, but vaster.
You're a little perplexed as to what may come next and you
make up a series of creatures
Who are villains and liars with such evil desires and with
perfectly horrible features.
Our brave heroes are faced with these hordes and are placed
in a terribly crucial position,
For the enemy's bound (once our Galaxy's found) that they'll
beat mankind into submission.
Now you must make it rough when developing stuff so's to
keep the yarn pulsing with tension,
So the Earthmen are four (only four and no more) while the
numbers of foes are past mention.
Our four heroes are caught and accordingly brought to the
sneering, tyrannical leaders.
"Where is Earth?" they demand, but the men mutely stand
with a courage that pleases the readers.
But, now, wait just a bit; let's see, this isn't it, since you
haven't provided a maiden,
Who is both good and pure (yet with sexy allure) and with
not many clothes overladen.
She is part of the crew, and so she's captured, too, and is
ogled by foes who are lustful;
There's desire in each eye and there's good reason why, for of
beauty our girl has a bustful.
Just the same you go fast till this section is passed so the
reader won't raise any ruction,
When recalling the foe are all reptiles and so have no interest
in human seduction.
Then they truss up the girl and they make the whips swirl
just in order to break Earthmen's silence,
And so that's when our men breaks their handcuffs and then
we are treated to scenes full of violence.
Every hero from Earth is a fighter from birth and his fists are
a match for a dozen,
And they just when this spot has been reached in your plot
you come to with your mind all a buzzin'.
You don't know where you are, or the site of your car, and
your tie is askew and you haven't a clue of the time of
the day or of what people say or the fact that they stare
at your socks (not a pair) and decide it's a fad, or else
that you're mad, which is just a surmise from the gleam
in your eyes, till at last they conclude from your general
mood, you'll be mad from right now till you're hoary.
But the torture is done and it's now for the fun and the paper
that's white and the words that are right, for you've
worked up a new s.f. story.