And now there are three - Writing with David.

As most of you know, Jeanne and I are now working with David Gerrold on the Stardance adaptation. How's it going, you say? Take three strong and passionate personalities and put them in a room together (or, actually, since I'm in Memphis, David is in L.A. and Jeanne is in BC...put them on a conference call together.) No, we haven't come to blows - but we're all learning to hear and be heard by each other, and making real progress. My wife tends to leave the house during these calls as my voice slowly gets louder and louder as our meetings progress and I begin shouting out run-on sentences that start out "What if we do this?" Jeanne is somewhat more reserved, but stern, David is...diplomatic.

David is quite direct, though he couches his directness in a cushion of tact and praise. He will stop us and throw a hand-grenade suggestion into our midsts, and while Jeanne or I might initially rail against the suggestion, we talk out the implications and see how this radical change in our thinking can send us in a direction that often makes the story come together.

While adapting a literary piece for the screen, one’s original intention is to be as true to the source as possible. That intention can become a fool’s errand in the screenwriting world. The things that bring the reader deep into a piece like Stardance, the sharing of the narrator's thoughts, are much harder to show cinematically. Even with the many adjustments that Jeanne and I have made in our adaptation, we have found ourselves lost in the caverns of some of our previous choices not knowing how to extract ourselves.

David is blasting us out. Spider is throwing us flares now and again, helping to light our way as well. I have the line belayed...I'm running out of metaphor. I better save it for the cows.

(Q: What's a metaphor? A: To keep cows in.)

Jeanne’s Dance — Inconceivable Mutual Benefit

We've had quite a few requests to post this clip. Here's video of Jeanne's dance at the "We Dream for Jeanne" benefit.

It’ll Be No Tribble Atall, Now…

We have BIG news to report, and a bigger favor to ask.

Short back story (if you’ve been on Mars) – Jeanne has been sick, and Jim is doing his best to continue writing “Stardance,” and so far Jeanne approves, but the going has been a bit slow as hospital stays, surgery, doctor visits and most recently chemotherapy have gotten in the way of Jeanne’s direct participation in the process.

End back story – here’s what’s new.

Jeanne says to Jim “What if we get a pro screenwriter to help?” Jim says, “Sounds good, as long as the screenwriter is good and we can afford her/him – it should speed us up and give us some new perspective.”

Jeanne, feeling “Time Pressure” asks some writer friends what it might cost to hire such a gun, and one of them says “Hey Jeanne, I’ll join your little team. I can carve out three months for you starting as soon as next month.” Jeanne and Jim say “You’re ON!”

Hopefully the title gave it away, that generous writer is David Gerrold. This is the man whose first pro sale was Star Trek’s “The Trouble with Tribbles,” way back when. More recently he penned the Nebula and Hugo winning “Martian Child,” and scripts for Babylon 5 and Twilight Zone, among others. In between these impressive bookends David has done a slew of television writing and script doctoring plus he has written loads of fantastic SF prose. Not only is he an old friend of Jeanne’s but Jim has been a fan of his novels for a long time.

So, here’s the pitch. Counting what we have in the donation kitty, a chunk directly from Jim’s savings, and the generous donations of a few special Starseeders, we have rustled up the first third of David’s fee. That buys us a month and gets us started. I know we’re asking a lot, but we’re holding out our Buddha Bowl one more time, to ask for your help.

There’s a Paypal link on the Supporters page http://www.stardancemovie.com/supporters.html
We promise to add your name to the list of Honorary Stardancers you’ll find there, if you can find it in your pants to help us. (Presuming your name isn’t listed there already. If it is, we’ll put it in boldface, with asterisks.)

David’s talent, experience, discipline, and ferocious energy will be a godsend to us both, particularly while one of us is dealing with chemotherapy. From here, things should go back into high gear again.

Oh, and if you’re listening to the theme music on this website’s home page, we recommend you not use your computer’s built-in speakers…or there’ll be no treble atall, Captain.

Love, Jeanne and Jim.

Inconceivable Mutual Benefit

Before I danced at my benefit concert, I told the audience that my Zen teacher Reb Anderson Roshi describes the fourth and highest state of samadhi as the collective realization of "inconceivable mutual benefit"....exactly what we were all experiencing together at that moment. What an extraordinary event. I felt bathed in love and warmth and kindness and support. Matt Maxwell and Michelle Meyrink had everything running smoothly on tracks, and the musical talent was absolutely top notch, even for Bowen Island. My sister Laurie startled the dickens out of me by appearing as a Surprise Guest at the beginning of the evening, all the way from Dartmouth MA....bearing with her a video of my youngest sister Dori Legge singing a song she had just written for me, "Three Wishes," accompanied by her guitarist husband Donn.

After intermission I got up onstage and danced a dance of shared love and bliss. Spider was the last act, singing two love songs to me (one by him, and one written by my elder sister Kathy Rubbicco); then I joined him for his finale: James Raymond's beautiful song for Crosby & Nash, "Lay Me Down."
The concert took in a substantial amount of money which will be a huge help to us in the weeks to come. But more would still be most welcome: you can send donations via PayPal and Jan Schroeder continues to run her science fictional Dream For Jeanne Auctions on my behalf. I literally can never thank enough all of you who have contributed already, for your kindness and accompanying words of support and love. It means a lot to know that I've touched so many lives so intimately.

The Third Act

For over 2500 years, Buddhists have studied the question of how one can best live in the presence of death. In a sense, a life-threatening disease makes Buddhists of us all, waking us from the illusion of immortality, suddenly and from that time forth.

As some of you know, I’ve been dealing with a rare biliary cancer for many months. It has already taken my gall bladder, bile duct and most of my liver…and it’s not done yet. It looks like in a matter of weeks I’ll be facing chemotherapy, in an attempt to at least slow its progress.

I originally came to Buddhism as a result of a Near Death Experience, or what I now call the Bodhicitta Awakening of arousing the mind of enlightenment. So for decades now, I’ve been studying the matter of living and dying. I’m not afraid of death. But I do fear pain, nausea, and diminished capacities.

Despite this I have been surrounded by loving friends and family. Above all else, I’ve been blessed with my beautiful granddaughter Marisa Alegria.


I feel I have so much to be thankful for….and whenever my time comes, I will not have a lengthy list of regrets, of opportunities missed or things left undone. As a matter of fact, my partner Jim and I are steaming away on the Stardance screenplay. With luck I’ll be there for its premiere.

There are many things I need as I prepare for my third act—supplements, prescription drugs, counseling, expensive alternative therapies, etc—and they all cost money…money I don’t have. So, after all these months of being silent and private about my illness, I recently said yes to my close friend Michelle Meyrink when she asked if she could organize a benefit concert for me. http://www.spiderrobinson.com/images/Dream%20for%20jeanne.pdf
Others have since jumped in, including my Vancouver Buddhist sangha, Mountain Rain Zen Community, and a dear friend in Florida, Jan Schroeder, who has been auctioning donated items (such as rare Babylon 5 scripts and other SF memorabilia) on eBay for me. Goods or services can be donated for the auction by contacting Jan at dreamforjeanne@aol.com. Several other methods of helping out, including a straightforward PayPal donation account, can be found at http://wedreamforjeanne.blogspot.com/.

Another way to help would be to buy our books from Amazon by clicking-through from Spider's site, so we can get the affiliate commission. We’ve spent decades holding up visions of humankind’s highest evolutionary potential while entertaining you enough to keep you turning pages.

Any help you can offer is gratefully appreciated by Spider and me.

In the meantime, I continue to work on, as Roshi Joan Halifax titled her latest book, BEING WITH DYING: Cultivating Compassion And Fearlessness In The Presence of Death. Which aptly describes the human condition, don’t you think?

A 40 year old vision of the future?

I watched "Moon" today. This film is fantastic - true to form, hard science fiction, literary...yeah, this is one of the very rare ones. Kudos to director/co-writer Duncan Jones (David Bowie's son, no less, who should know a thing or two about existential astronauts.)

While watching this film, I noticed something; from a production design standpoint, the "future" hasn't changed much in the past 40 years. There are exceptions to point to, no doubt, but take a look at these images from various space based films of the last 40 years and you tell me, is this progress?

2001 (1968)
Solaris (1972)


Alien (1979)

Mission to Mars (2000)

Solaris (2002)

Moon (2009)

The most striking vision of the future seems to be "padded walls" - perhaps we will need them due to the high cost of health insurance, or due to a propensity for beating our heads against them.

Speaking of which; I've been doing a lot of thinking about how the "future" we are envisioning in Stardance should be described, especially the space habitat and space factory and the like. I'm thinking perhaps we should be a little more vague...leave those thoughts up to a very talented art department during pre-production.

Oh well, back to the asteroid mines.

Zietgeist - Guy Laliberté - Space - Art

It seems Mr. Cirque Du Soleil is on his way to the ISS on a "Poetic Social Mission" - we wish him well. Through Space Adventures (our friend Peter Diamandis' company, who helped us in our Weightless Research) he will embark on high to bring attention to his "One Drop" foundation. No word on weather he plans to dance, but he seems to be taking a page out of our fictional playbook, to unite humanity around an extraterrestrial artistic event.

We're so glad to witness again that, as with so much of SF, life not only imitates, but embraces art. I know that Spider and Jeanne are proud to see the concepts they brought forth in their Stardance series of novels begin to come to fruition in real life, and both Jeanne and I agree that this bodes well for our film.

Exciting times we live in, folks.