A Toast to Spider Robinson
Jun. 30th, 2025 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeBecause we live like we will have to move or go couch-surfing at a moment’s notice, we have gotten pretty ruthless about our physical possessions. Nothing destroys sentimentality like having to lug it on your back over and over! So many of our childhood beloved books have been weeded; we got what we needed from them and thus liberated them unto new adventures.
There is one exception: an omnibus of the first three Callahan’s books, by Spider Robinson. We replaced our paperback with a hardback, but have been in continuous possession of the stories since 1998, a tenure only Piers Anthony and Roald Dahl were ever able to rival (and they both have been weeded down to a fanfic floppy and a paperback we didn’t buy til adulthood, respectively).
Of all our childhood favorite authors, Robinson has aged the best. He’s a compassionate writer who writes about people who care, about each other and in general. The Callahan’s series is what he’s most known for, and what we loved most growing up, but it’s not his best; I argue that’s the first Stardance book. But Stardance was a book we didn’t really understand til adulthood; Callahan’s we were able to understand (well, understand ENOUGH) even as kids. The basic premise of those early books go as such: someone walks into a bar with an insoluble problem, and they walk out with the knot untangled. It’s very episodic, product of originally being short stories published in magazines over the course of a decade. Some of the stories are silly and lighthearted; others are deathly serious. There isn’t a damn one of the stories we haven’t loved at SOME time in our life. The most magical kind of story is one that grows with you, so that you are forever discovering new gems and interpretations.
When we were kids, we were in a family that saw caring, real caring, as a weakness for crybabies. You couldn’t work together for more than a hot second, and there could be no equals, no love, only the asses you lick and the asses you kick. It was a family that was anti-meaning; life was random chaos, signifying nothing, a sadist’s Dada, so nothing you did really mattered.
So to see a book, written by an adult for adults (and thus not propaganda for children), where truly listening to and caring someone could save the world... that was revolutionary. It’s hard to express what an oasis that was in the family’s desert. Those books gave us a model for what that listening and caring looked like in practice, what a good life could MEAN. It might sound insane to look for social skills and life wisdom in a sci-fi book, but it was what we had, and the crazy thing was, it worked. Robinson planted the seed for the people we became.
As kids, we enjoyed the stories for what they were: compassionate entertainment. As adults, we read them at times to advise us on a best course of action. (“Involuntary Man’s Laughter” was our silver bullet for cases of envy for many years.) Before the big crash of 2012, I (Rogan) would read “Unnatural Causes,” the story of moral courage and cowardice, of Tony Telasco finding his guts, and wonder if I/we could ever do it, whether surviving that way was even possible.
Now here we are, well into adulthood, and when we read these stories, we realize that we have come to embody so many of the things the stories inspired in us. Unusual but loving friends and community? Yes. Living honestly as ourselves, able to withstand tragedy and loss? Yes. Slowly helping others and the world, one inch at a time? Yes, yes, yes.
The heroes of Callahan’s weren’t rich, famous, or glamorous people. They were ordinary folks, night watchmen and out-of-work musicians and doctors and ex-ministers and ex-junkies and bartenders. They could come from anywhere, be anyone. All that mattered was, they had to give a damn.
In his Backword to the omnibus, Robinson writes, “Some years back I got a phone call at 4 AM from a total stranger in California. God knows how he got my unlisted number. He declined to give his name or even his town. His voice was flat. He said he was on the verge of suicide. He didn’t want to talk about it. And the deciding factor would be this: would I tell him, please, if Callahan’s Place really existed, and if so how to get there?
“I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times in the last decade and a half. I gave it my best shot. I don’t think what I said pleased him. I think he was expecting highway directions and perhaps a secret password. But all I could tell him was the truth. I hope he believed me.
“‘You’re standing in it,’ I told him.
“And so are you. And so am I.” (xiii)
It sounds hopelessly banal to say that we’ve built ourselves to the point that we carry Callahan’s Place with us in our heart now (metaphorically, there is no bar in our headspace). But it is something to be proud of, I think. I think our original girl would be happy to know that. And Robinson will never know we exist, but I hope it’d please him to know that his works (and not just Callahan’s, but The Free Lunch and Stardance and “the Magnificent Conspiracy” and “Satan’s Children” and “It’s a Sunny Day,” and all the others) helped us escape a slaughterhouse of an upbringing and, I’d hope, bring goodness to the world. His works planted the seeds for who we’ve become, and we are proud of who we’ve become.
So a toast of endless blessings to Spider Robinson. May his glass never run empty.
There is one exception: an omnibus of the first three Callahan’s books, by Spider Robinson. We replaced our paperback with a hardback, but have been in continuous possession of the stories since 1998, a tenure only Piers Anthony and Roald Dahl were ever able to rival (and they both have been weeded down to a fanfic floppy and a paperback we didn’t buy til adulthood, respectively).
Of all our childhood favorite authors, Robinson has aged the best. He’s a compassionate writer who writes about people who care, about each other and in general. The Callahan’s series is what he’s most known for, and what we loved most growing up, but it’s not his best; I argue that’s the first Stardance book. But Stardance was a book we didn’t really understand til adulthood; Callahan’s we were able to understand (well, understand ENOUGH) even as kids. The basic premise of those early books go as such: someone walks into a bar with an insoluble problem, and they walk out with the knot untangled. It’s very episodic, product of originally being short stories published in magazines over the course of a decade. Some of the stories are silly and lighthearted; others are deathly serious. There isn’t a damn one of the stories we haven’t loved at SOME time in our life. The most magical kind of story is one that grows with you, so that you are forever discovering new gems and interpretations.
When we were kids, we were in a family that saw caring, real caring, as a weakness for crybabies. You couldn’t work together for more than a hot second, and there could be no equals, no love, only the asses you lick and the asses you kick. It was a family that was anti-meaning; life was random chaos, signifying nothing, a sadist’s Dada, so nothing you did really mattered.
So to see a book, written by an adult for adults (and thus not propaganda for children), where truly listening to and caring someone could save the world... that was revolutionary. It’s hard to express what an oasis that was in the family’s desert. Those books gave us a model for what that listening and caring looked like in practice, what a good life could MEAN. It might sound insane to look for social skills and life wisdom in a sci-fi book, but it was what we had, and the crazy thing was, it worked. Robinson planted the seed for the people we became.
As kids, we enjoyed the stories for what they were: compassionate entertainment. As adults, we read them at times to advise us on a best course of action. (“Involuntary Man’s Laughter” was our silver bullet for cases of envy for many years.) Before the big crash of 2012, I (Rogan) would read “Unnatural Causes,” the story of moral courage and cowardice, of Tony Telasco finding his guts, and wonder if I/we could ever do it, whether surviving that way was even possible.
Now here we are, well into adulthood, and when we read these stories, we realize that we have come to embody so many of the things the stories inspired in us. Unusual but loving friends and community? Yes. Living honestly as ourselves, able to withstand tragedy and loss? Yes. Slowly helping others and the world, one inch at a time? Yes, yes, yes.
The heroes of Callahan’s weren’t rich, famous, or glamorous people. They were ordinary folks, night watchmen and out-of-work musicians and doctors and ex-ministers and ex-junkies and bartenders. They could come from anywhere, be anyone. All that mattered was, they had to give a damn.
In his Backword to the omnibus, Robinson writes, “Some years back I got a phone call at 4 AM from a total stranger in California. God knows how he got my unlisted number. He declined to give his name or even his town. His voice was flat. He said he was on the verge of suicide. He didn’t want to talk about it. And the deciding factor would be this: would I tell him, please, if Callahan’s Place really existed, and if so how to get there?
“I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times in the last decade and a half. I gave it my best shot. I don’t think what I said pleased him. I think he was expecting highway directions and perhaps a secret password. But all I could tell him was the truth. I hope he believed me.
“‘You’re standing in it,’ I told him.
“And so are you. And so am I.” (xiii)
It sounds hopelessly banal to say that we’ve built ourselves to the point that we carry Callahan’s Place with us in our heart now (metaphorically, there is no bar in our headspace). But it is something to be proud of, I think. I think our original girl would be happy to know that. And Robinson will never know we exist, but I hope it’d please him to know that his works (and not just Callahan’s, but The Free Lunch and Stardance and “the Magnificent Conspiracy” and “Satan’s Children” and “It’s a Sunny Day,” and all the others) helped us escape a slaughterhouse of an upbringing and, I’d hope, bring goodness to the world. His works planted the seeds for who we’ve become, and we are proud of who we’ve become.
So a toast of endless blessings to Spider Robinson. May his glass never run empty.
