Personal - Death Is Bad

Puppies Prove Impotent

Aug 222016

This year’s Hugo winners

All the Puppy News That’s Fit to Print!

I’ve been gone since Wednesday, at WorldCon (woo woo!). I’ll start with the Hugo Awards, since that’s the big thing everyone cares about. They were AWESOME. Pat Cadigan was entertaining as hell, everyone loved her. Last year was high drama due to all the Puppy Poo, so the emotional imprint of this year’s awards wasn’t as high. But on the other hand, it was nice to have a mostly-normal awards ceremony again, which focused primarily on the artists and the joy of the awarding. There were a couple No Awardings again, and Neil Gaiman delivered an EPIC smack-down to the puppies, but it wasn’t the focus of the ceremony.

The Puppies were again shown to be impotent during the event. This night was literally the optimal-case scenario for the regular fan community, I don’t think a single result could have gone better. Vox’s strategy of slating “human shields” absolutely backfired, almost as much as the Tingle slating, it was glorious to behold.

WorldCon Community to Vox Day

I checked Vox’s blog the morning after, out of curiosity, and he of course was crowing about his great victory. I guess if you define victory as “We fucked up the nominations”, then yes. But I got the impression he was trying to say the victory extended into the awards as well? Man, good luck to him spinning that one. The community showed once again that a small tantrum-throwing minority can game the nominations, but they speak for no one else. He is, as Scalzi said, the wad of chewed gum stuck on history’s shoe.

I heard from someone who couldn’t attend that the livestream of the event was a clusterfuck. While we were having a grand time in the auditorium, free of Puppies, they were showing their colors online as trolls. Our friend stopped streaming after a while, because the chat was such a frothing ragestorm. WorldCon would be well served to switch to a streaming company that pays a moderator or two to watch the channel.

Speaking of throwing a tantrum, there wasn’t NO Puppies activity this year. You’ve probably already heard of the State of Short Fiction panel kerfuffle (wherein Puppy-sympathizer David Truesdale, who was supposed to be moderating the panel, instead launched into a rant about SJWs ruining SF and hijacked the entire hour with shenanigans). It was one of two panels going at the same time that I was torn between attending, and I ended up going to the OTHER one, since I’d been to a short-fiction panel the day before. I chose poorly. :( I missed out on the most-talked about event of the con. It was a fantastic conversation piece, even better than Tingle-talk. This was a great year for chatting with people you don’t know well! :)

While not widely reported (since everyone pretty much focuses on Truesdale’s cock-up and expulsion), there was a large guy in the audience who stood up at one point to berate of the panelists for turning his back on Truesdale during his rant, and shout about the panelists “lack of respect.” (reportedly “It’s people like you that are the problem!” or similar) A member of my Colorado writer’s group (call her “Lady M”) was sitting directly in front of that man, and she was scared she would get hurt. Now yes, I always hate reports of “I was afraid for my safety”, because a person can’t control someone having an irrational fear-reaction of them (happens all the time to young black men). But I felt really bad for my friend, as she’s an incredibly sweet and funny lady in her 50s, and normally a really tough cookie. Feeling scared is a shitty feeling.

Also, I can understand her fear, because I think I ran into the same guy. I attended the WSFS Business Meeting on Sunday, to vote in 3SV and EPH. During the meeting a big dude took the floor out of order, and nearly refused to yield. Though he did return to his seat, he was angry and aggressive for the entire 3SV debate. He had the beefy look of ex-military or ex-cop, and his tone and body language was very much “gearing up for a fight.” I was glad I was one row from the front in case anything happened, but I really did NOT want anything to happen! He was fuming and arguing with officers during the break, and finally stormed out before we came back into session. So no harm done. Guess he just needed to vent and get stuff off his chest. But I can see why even our normally-assertive Lady M was intimidated if it was the same guy at the Short Fiction panel.

Anyway, that’s it for the Puppies this year. With EPH now in effect it’s nearly impossible for them to sweep a category anymore. Given that, I assume they won’t bother to throw down another $40 next year just to be ineffectual again, but who knows? It might be worth it for some people to get their annual rage-fix. If so, 3SV will be ratified next year and we’ll finally be done with their tantrums forever.

Tomorrow, a journal-ish post of my weekend, with pics! Had such a good time!

Me and some friends at the award ceremony

Performance Art

Personal 4 Responses »

Aug 152016

all-the-world-is-a-stage-william-shakespeare In my review of Seraphina I wrote “I never feel like I’m being honest with the world, everything is a dance performed so I am not shunned”, and someone wrote in to ask me 1. How did you learn to do this, and 2. How do you feel ok about doing it (or the need to do it).

I learned, eventually, because all of society is bent to making one learn this. I don’t feel special in this regard, I assume nearly everyone in the world has the same experience. But when something is that ubiquitous, it’s not really all that interesting to talk about, right? “Hey Bob. How’s the sky, still blue? You eating food, drinking water? How about that.”

I learned by watching my parents drive home from church, fighting, yelling. Sometimes consoling my mother when she broke down. Then hosting a dinner party where everything is great. You don’t let outsiders see problems. It makes you weak.

I learned by growing up in a strict household, with rules I couldn’t abide. When I was young, I would sneak around to watch Saturday Morning Cartoons (which was forbidden). I couldn’t not watch Captain N. But I had to do it quietly, never letting on that earlier in the day I’d been breaking the rules. It was stressful, and sometimes my parents were already awake and I couldn’t pull it off that day.

On the playgrounds, I often pretended I knew what kids were talking about when we played whatever movie or TV show was currently popular. Basically it’s just running around anyway. And I didn’t want to be left out.

I learned to always, always be performing from my religion. Maybe the irreligious have times when they can let their guard down, when they don’t have to play any role for anyone. But those with an omnipresent god who take their faith seriously are NEVER without an audience. Every waking moment you are on display, being watched and judged.

I did not have many friends growing up. I was performing for authority figures—parents and God—rather than peers. It was a very hard switch to make, and it took me quite a ways into my adulthood. But now I’ve adapted, and my life outcomes have drastically improved since I started performing masculinity. It isn’t even all that hard, and the rewards are myriad.

Learning to perform isn’t too hard, everyone is willing to teach you. They can’t help it. Watch what makes people smile, or laugh. What makes them want to engage with you, rather than wince and move away. It actually feels good. Just make sure these people are the kinds of people you WANT to perform for. I never perform religiosity, for example. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area where I don’t have to.

When you actually fit in, many of the rewards are self-generated. At least they are for me, and I suspect most people are hard-wired to feel pleasure naturally from such a situation. Intellectually, sure, maybe it’s a bit appalling. But so is almost everything about life in a physical reality, if you look at it the right way.

I prefer to find the roles that best fit me whenever possible. The Enthusiastic Geek is a fun one. And when possible, I try to stay with the audience/friends I most like to perform with. Because ultimately, we’re all performing together, for each other. And every now and then if a mask slips, your friends are the ones who are most happy to nod, smile, and keep playing along.

Published Again! Swords v Cthulhu

Personal, Writing 7 Responses »

Aug 012016

I have been published again, this time in an anthology! My story “Of All Possible Worlds” appears in the Swords v Cthulhu anthology which is available now. You can get it from Amazon, or the publishers website (which has it in electronic version as well as paperback), and likely many other book sellers. I am very proud of this story, so I will talk about it a bit below. But first – what other people have said (both about the anthology, and about my contribution)

Aksel Dadswell said: “One of the best Lovecraftian anthologies out there, and one of the best anthologies this year in general” & “The truth is, there are a lot of Lovecraft-inspired anthologies oozing out of the woodwork every year, and it’s just a matter of statistics that not all of them are going to be as original or scary or fun as they could be. Some of them, though, exceed all expectations, and Swords v Cthulhu is one of them.”

He does mention my story specifically at one point, noting “Just as the protagonist walks through the world as if in a dream, so the story feels like a waking haze. Dreams ooze into reality and back again with sickening ease. At one point the narrator proclaims that “every nerve had been frayed down to its raw, bleeding quick,” and I certainly felt that way, vicariously experiencing the horror myself. There’s a pleasing kind of bloody circularity to the story that gives it that little bit of extra weight, too.”

Teodor Reljic reviewed every single story in the anthology here! I think that means he liked it. In the review of “Of All Possible Worlds” he says “A story with grit and teeth, told by a surrealist street performer who would just as soon slit your throat for all your cash rather than simply accepting your busking tips.” :) I take that as praise! To dispel any doubt he mentioned on twitter “Loved this Ancient Roman mindfuck”, so there’s that.

This is the teaser from my story that the editors posted on Facebook:

“Darkness flickered at the edge of my vision. A shadow swooped through the air, movement where there should be none. I strained to look at it but there was nothing to focus on. An inexplicable presence descended to the savage’s side, and as it touched the sand, it finally resolved into a discrete thing with surfaces and heft.

Its body was that of an ox-sized crow, but bare of any feathers. Black skin stuck tightly to jutting bones. A jagged beak took up the entire face, its upper mandible curving down from the top of the skull. The wings consisted of long arms webbed to the body in the manner of bats. Cricket-like legs folded beneath it.

The Colosseum grew still. Even the gladiators gaped at this intruder. With a shout of glee, the barbarian wizard hopped on the monster’s back, throwing his arms around its neck. It leapt upward with a beating of its wings, a deafening squawk piercing the sky.”

Alright, so about writing the story itself. I’ll make this brief and spoiler-free.

The primary plot driver is my fear and loathing of dreams. Not just nightmares—all dreams. Every dream is an epistemic nightmare to me, because they implant events into my memories that NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. This is extremely disturbing to me. My memories are me. They are the most personal record I have of what I am, and I’m already well aware that they are a shitty, corruptible record. I’ve always had a poor episodic memory. I can’t recall names well. I often embarrass myself in conversation by re-asking things that people have already told me which were fairly important events to them. I’m pretty sure I will lose everything I am via Alzheimer’s some day. So the absolute last thing I want is to start generating random, non-real events on the fly and sneakily implanting them into my self-archive. You know that fear transhumanists have of an outside entity hacking into your brain and rewriting your memories to alter you? It was nicely portrayed in the opening scenes of Ghost In The Shell, to use a well-known example. I have that, all the time, and the outside entity is my own fucking brain!

Sometimes the dreams are so unrealistic I’m able to brush them off as obvious forgeries (one of them is retold almost exactly as it happened within the story). But many are realistic, and I only discover them out of luck. I don’t know how many of my memories are like this. I assume/hope only a very small percentage. But that fear is always there. How much of my life is a lie?

I tried to demonstrate that fear in the story, and maybe make the reader feel a little bit of it as well.

Influencing this fear is also the common transhumanist “What if this is all a simulation?” fear, which I consider very related. “Wake up, Neo.”

Finally, if this is all a simulation, why is it such an awful one? Why is violence the final arbiter of all things? God could have made a world where humans were physically unable to harm each other, and he didn’t. That was just one more thing in a long litany of things that led me to doubt the God hypothesis in the first place. But if there was a God… the fact that the world is as it is says a lot about Him/Her/It.

My copies just arrived, so I haven’t read any of the other stories within yet, but a lot of them sound awesome, and I plan to over the next month or two! That being said, I’m kinda side-eyeing our publisher. The book seems to have had two different release dates (July 12 for Amazon, Aug 1 for all other wholesalers? Was that intentional?), and there still aren’t electronic versions available at Amazon or B&N. /shrug. Hopefully an oversight that will be resolved soon.

Why the old Ghostbusters sucks

Personal 4 Responses »

Jul 262016

I haven’t seen the new Ghostbusters yet (I do plan to), but I already know I’ll like it more than the original. Because I hate the original Ghostbusters.

Which is a damn shame. It’s an awesome concept. It is the triumph of science over religion. Our tech is better than your magic, and by the power of knowledge we will make this world safe for us. And any man can pick up a proton pack and fight the mystical, so it’s also the victory of the common man over the chosen elite – gods and priests. Great stuff!

And they ruin it all right away by focusing on Peter Venkman. The reason I hate Ghostbusters is because I hate Peter Venkman. Right in the opening scene he is shown to be a fraud. He’s supposedly a scientist, and he presents himself as such, but he doesn’t give a damn about the quest for knowledge. He fucks up his own experiment to hit on a girl. He’s on the leading edge of paranormal research – an untapped frontier that will radically change everything we thought we knew was true!! And yet when his male subject displays possible psychic powers (correctly getting “wavy lines” after a series of motivating electric shocks) he completely ignores this. He keeps telling the female subject she’s correct (she’s not), which not only means he’s canceled his experiment on a whim, but which will also likely bring disrepute on his field of research when the lady will inevitably go out and claim she’s been scientifically proven to have psychic powers when that’s clearly not the case!

I have a very deep respect for the scientific process, and the power it’s given us. And I have an emotional attachment to the Quest For Truth. I tend to view science with downright reverence. To see a supposed scientist crap all over science like this pisses me off to no end. I feel an actual religious-style outrage. It’s like I’m a religious person seeing a priest in a movie intentionally desecrating the rituals of my faith. Fuck Venkman!

The hero of the movie should have been Egon. He is the true scientist – he does the research, he created the proton packs. He is the interesting character. (He was also my favorite character in the cartoon.) Instead we spend the entire movie focused on a creepy, quasi-sexist asshole. And we’re supposed to like him??

I actually hate Bill Murray in everything he does. Maybe as a person he’s great, but as an actor he always plays this exact same character. The asshole who doesn’t care about anything. Generally, if I see a movie has Murray in it, I know I won’t like it, and I don’t bother to see it. The only exception is Groundhog Day, both because it’s one of the best scripts ever written, and because in that movie Murray’s character gets his comeuppance for all his assholery, and after hundreds of years finally manages to be beaten into a likeable person! It is nice to see redemption stories sometimes.

In summary – science good, Murray bad.

An Award Nomination!

Personal, Writing 3 Responses »

Jul 112016

sidewise logohome2007 Hey, you know the short story I wrote last year, “Red Legacy”? It’s a finalist for the 2015 Sidewise Award for Alternative History!!!

It’s interesting… I didn’t originally intend for this to be an alternative history story. I was just going for supervillain origin story. But I’d long been enraptured with Lamarckian evolution. It is the perfect evolutionary theory for communism, because it’s so damn optimistic! Darwinian evolution is a horror, as I expound on in the story. You get born with random genes, and then you find out if they’re good enough by being killed by nature (or, if you’re lucky, avoiding that). The selection process is needlessly cruel, and the determination of your worth (fitness of genes) is capricious and beyond your control. It’s a lot like Calvinism. You’re already saved or damned before you’re born, which one is the case is entirely beyond your control, and you have to go through this entire painful BS “life” thing just to find out which one you were fated to. :(

Lamarckian evolution, OTOH, is quasi-fair! If you work hard, you are rewarded. It closes its eyes to the cruel nature of reality, and embraces a comforting fantasy, because that fantasy is the way the world SHOULD work. Which, IMHO, is exactly the same thing communism does. And both failed for the same reason. Reality doesn’t care about what you think is fair.

Anyway, I wrote before about how much I love that Ted Chiang takes apart the world, changes one thing, and then puts it back together to see how it would run with that one thing changed. I don’t think I did quite that, I cannot aspire to Chiang-levels of writing. But I tried. If Lamarckian evolution is true, that’s a big change. It affects a lot more than just my one scientist in her laboratory, it alters how everything on earth works. I can’t get into all of them in a short story, but how does the world look different in ways that are relevant to the plot? If societal structures stayed similar to what we’re familiar with, what effect would that have? If the world looks like how the Soviets of the 50s envisioned it, how could that be explained in Lamarckian terms?

And so you get things like Europe’s aristocratic killer-elite. :)

Anyway, I am thrilled and honored to have been selected as a finalist for this award, and I look forward to meeting my fellow nominees at WorldCon next month!

Denver Comic Con 2016 – Literary Track success!

Personal No Responses »

Jul 012016

For the second year running I’ve worked as Coordinator of the Literary Track for Denver Comic Con. This means putting together the programming (mainly panels), scheduling it, and stocking it with speakers from our handful of invited guests (this year Terry Brooks) and our healthy pool of local authors. Overall, everything went great. Where there were flurries of frantic near-disaster, it was well-hidden from the panelists and the attendees. :) And honestly there was really only one such flurry this year, so we’re doing well! Some parts still need improvement, but every year we’re improving.

I moderated two panels this year, which you can listen to in their entirety.

Can’t We Get Along? Cultural Exchange vs Appropriation

I was nervous as hell going into this one, but it went really damn good! I hope I managed to push the discussion window back towards the direction of “Look, it’s ok to borrow from other cultures, remixing is all that creativity is” while still being respectful and considerate of other cultures.

The Writing Process of Best Sellers

This one was really fun to do! It was also cool as hell to get to interview Terry Brooks, who was formative to me in my early years (Jr High and early High School). I know it’s heresy to say, I still prefer his version of Lord of the Rings, because I really don’t need to hear about how everyone in the Shire is related to everyone else and their local politics for twenty freakin pages…

Anyway, he was super nice, as where Kevin and Carrie, and the whole panel was interesting.

Cosplay! This costume came to my attention during the Damsels Not In Distress panel, as she stood in the back the whole time. Later on I bumped into her and it turns out that the armor is nearly impossible to sit in, so she rarely does so. This was her second year cosplaying this, and she got special socks and arch-support in her boots this time, which made it easier. Apparently last year after cosplaying this costume in less-specialized boots for 1.5 days (again, almost never sitting down), eight of her toenails turned black and fell off! The things artists do for their art. :)

IMG_20160617_183851326

Mei! Woot!

IMG_20160618_185939124

LION!!

IMG_20160617_185532432

Looking forward to do it again next year. It’s a ton of work, but it’s totally worth it!

More on 5th Season

Book Club Review, Personal 5 Responses »

Jun 272016

Lilith_Third_Impact This post will have tons of spoilers for The Fifth Season. If you want to read this book (and again, I suggest you do!), it’s a good idea to skip this post for now, and maybe come back when you’re done.

OK, let’s continue.

There are a number of moments that really stick to me. When young Damaya is told the foundational myth of their culture, and is swelling with pride and excitement about how she’s going to be just like the hero, and then is told in no uncertain terms “You are the villain. You are the monster we are defending ourselves from. You are Other.” The punch of being forced into the role of the hated enemy is visceral. And it allows us to feel empathy for this culture, and the things it must do to survive. That will be handy, since our protagonists are the villains of this world, and we will have this touchstone of learning to fear and hate the villains to come back to, established from very early on in the story.

Honestly, starting out the story with Alabaster destroying the world and wiping out humanity was an equally genius move. It tells us right from the start that this culture’s fears are justified.

Of course what makes a Tragedy a Tragedy is that the Tragic Figure (in this case, the Sanzed Empire) brings about their own destruction. Fifth Season portrays this beautifully, showing us exactly how Damaya is turned from a normal, spirited child, to the very monster that their society so fears. Much of the book is dedicated to showing this process, so I won’t restate every case of it, but my favorite is when she and Alabaster are forced to breed more children. In the initial scene, she comes to the realization that Alabaster is more traumatized by this than she is. He fears it more, and hates it more, and that fear is partially reflected as fear of her. And she LIKES this. She’s no longer entirely a helpless victim, this gives her a measure of delicious control. She is more the aggressor in this rape than he is, and that is a comfort. That sort of “the abused comes to embrace dealing out abuse of her own” is the type of detail that makes this novel so moving. Not because Jemisin thought to include it (something to this effect is required in this sort of story), but because she made us feel it too. We felt that measure of joy and relief in getting to be the powerful one, this one time, even if it does make us monsters. That is good writing.

But what really sealed this for me, and why I found this book so effecting, is a scene very early on. After the mayor of her town helps her to quite an extant – and does so without hedges or questions or compulsions! He puts himself at some personal risk to use his power to help her, because he is a genuinely good person and believes that is the Just thing to do – she is forced to kill him (and at least a dozen other innocent people near her) in order to fuel the magic to defend herself. And she doesn’t feel bad about it. Because he is part of this society. She just saw her husband murder their son, out of fear and hatred. And:

“The kind of hate that can make a man murder his own son? It came from everyone around you.”

The internalized revulsion that leads a good man, a man she loved, to this sort of hate-murder of his own children, is not a flaw in a single man. It is not an incidence of mental illness. It is the well-known (and at least partially desired) result of this society. It cannot live in one man. It is the product of all of society, of everyone who participates in it, who accepts it, and does nothing to change anything about it. EVERYONE is complicit, and EVERYONE is equally deserving of condemnation for participating in and profiting from it. So when the complicit, even the friendly ones who smile and shake your hand, are caught up in the cycle of death they helped create, they are only getting exactly what they deserve. Very similarly to this excerpt from The Woman’s Room:

“Like a Jew just released from Dachau, I watch the handsome young Nazi soldier fall writhing to the ground with a bullet in his stomach and I look briefly and walk on. I don’t even need to shrug. I simply don’t care.”

Perhaps we’re bothered by this scene, occurring as it does very early in the novel. This scene is letting us know where we’re headed. Because the thing that this novel does is take us from the point of being just another average reader, to embracing that the world must be destroyed.

I spoke of this in Episode 7 of The Bayesian Conspiracy (“Kill All Humans?”), but if you haven’t heard it – when I was in college, I was pro-annihilation-of-mankind. Because all life is suffering. On net, existence is more pain than joy, and the most moral thing to do is end it all as quickly as possible.

I feel a lot better about life now, and no longer hold these views.

But a part of me still feels that. A part of me looks at the sealed box of Neon Genesis Evangelion DVDs on my shelf and thinks “Maybe I should watch that again…” A part of me suspects maybe I’m just in a local-maximum in my life right now, and eventually things will revert to misery, and that’s the natural and inevitable state of all human life.
This novel guides the reader to that place. It takes an entire novel to do it, because you can’t do it in less words than that. But it shows anyone who is willing to read it how one can come to that conclusion. No, not just shows – it makes the reader feel it as well. It brings understanding of that emotional state, on an emotional level. It allows others who read it to be, however briefly, Broken in the same way that I am/was Broken. And I appreciate that deeply.

I assume not everyone will get quite there. And I’m not sure people who have never felt that state in their past will feel as strongly about this book as I do. But to me, it was absolute perfection. That’s why I loved it so much. I hope others do too.

[EDIT: prediction time – since Alabaster has already doomed humanity to extinction, but *still* wants Essun to make it worse, his ultimate goal isn’t just the destruction of humanity. I’m thinking he has a plan for restoring/recreating a moon, which requires this level of destruction to make it happen, and he can’t do it alone. So even in this, he’s still trying to heal the world. :) ]

Con Panelists

Personal, WorldCon 1 Response »

Jun 162016

First – I’ll be at Denver Comic Con this weekend. You can find me presenting at these two panels, feel free to come up afterwards and talk to me. :)

Panel	Room	Day	Time
The Writing Process of Best Sellers	506/507	Saturday	1:00 – 1:50
Can’t We Get Along? Cultural Exchange vs Appropriation in Writing	506/507	Saturday	4:45 – 5:35

But to the meat:

I go to a lot of panels at lit cons. And I’ve found that the topic of a panel almost never matters – the important part is the quality of the panelists. If I find a good one, I’ll follow them around for a day or two. Cruddy panelists can make the most interesting topic boring, and great panelists can make the simplest panel fascinating. Now that I’m in charge of putting together literary programming for DCC, I’m trying to nudge more people to be better panelists. For that reason, a couple days ago I sent out this email to all our lit panelists. I’m keeping it here for easy reference, so I can send it out again in coming years. But I also think it’s good advice for anyone who is going to be on any panel.

When you’re on a panel, you’re selling yourself, and not your books. The audience is there to see interesting humans saying interesting things, and interacting with each other in fun ways. They are there to participate vicariously in a conversation. And no one in a real conversation tries to sell their book (or if they do, their friends always groan at this point). Last year Anaea Lay published a fantastic article on this – “On Marketing: Don’t.” – which lays out exactly why this is a bad long-term sales strategy, and how to be more effective while being less overbearing. I highly recommend it.

Of course, we’re all here to expand our audience. At the beginning of each panel, panelists will introduce themselves, and that is a perfect opportunity to mention your current book. Do so then! But afterwards, make the audience like you by giving them what they came to the panel for – an interesting conversation, or informative advice. This doesn’t mean you can’t mention your books at all. If it is relevant to the conversation, please do so. But keep these mentions as supporting details, rather than the focus of what you’re saying. (eg: “When writing I often ask myself, ‘can this character be a woman’? And in the case of Story X I decided yes, and this made the story better because [anecdote demonstrating how story-telling in general is improved, or whatever]”) To quote Anaea Lay (from above) “forget your product … sell you. You’re a complete person with a full range of interests and you’re willing to share a part of that with people.”

Be interesting and entertaining. If you are, people will remember you, and seek you out to buy your books. Have you seen actors and directors being interviewed on TV? Do they give plot synopses, and talk about the magic system of the world, and discuss the backstory of the character they played? Or do they talk about what it was like to work on that movie, and the people they met, and things they learned in the process? (It’s usually the second one). So talk about the process of writing, not the product of it. Otherwise you’re just like the parents that go on for hours about their kids, and everyone is too polite to say how boring that is.

Orlando

Personal No Responses »

Jun 142016

I ain’t gonna say much, cuz there ain’t much to say. I will link this though:

“9. When I turned twenty-one, I could go to the clubs. Get dressed up, wear a coat to hide the outfit, pile into a car with friends, roll down the windows in the summer, sure, blare the music, sing along, roll the windows up when a car or truck pulled up alongside and shouted threats, hope they don’t follow, drive to the club, look around before parking to make sure no-one is staking out the street or parking lot, hide anything valuable in the car, lock it, walk to the club. Wait in the line to get in, all laughter and flirting and nervous grins and nervous shuffling and happy nervous everything, be grateful for the door-minder who was watching the sidewalk, pay, walk in.
Walk in.
Walk, strut, ease on in, breathe, breathe deep and happy and smell the smoke and beer and sweat and none of that matters because here, here no-one waits to catch you in the act of being gay.
Put vigilance down.
Put vigilance down, and dance.
[…]
14. The shooter went to a place of refuge, of joy, of celebration. He went to a place where queers go when we are told we are too queer to be seen anywhere else. He went to the place where all the shoving and flaunting of queer would have been hidden away from him.
[…]
I cannot stop anyone from murdering anyone else. I don’t have that power. But I am … done. I am done with letting the jokes and remarks slide by. I cannot continue to passively agree that I am a punchline, a threat, a bogeyman, a cautionary tale. I just, … I am done.
I can’t stop the Orlando murders, or any other murders of queers.
But I am done being complicit.”

– Sigrid Ellis, The road to murder is paved with microaggressions

(and yes, I dislike the use of the term “microaggression” here, but whatevs, it’s just a word and this essay is powerful)

Romance? This is madness!

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Jun 132016

In the wake of last week’s revelation about this mysterious “romance” feeling, I sought out romance-feeling friends. After talking with them a bit, I think I have some idea of what this “romance” thing is. And if I’m right, I’m glad to be rid of it.

Features that differentiate “romantic liking” from “friend liking”:

* intense affection

* exciting, thrilling feelings

* feelings of emotional vulnerability

* intense feelings of euphoria when thinking about or interacting with your crush/partner

* intensely missing the crush/partner and strongly longing for them when they’re not around

I recognize all those feelings! Particularly those last two — That is what I called “Lust”. I experienced it in high school, and then intensely in college. Allow me to say right now – those are SHIT feelings, and I don’t ever want them back. They are literally crazy-making. I did the stupidest, most insane things of my life in relation to those feelings. They were exhilarating, and crushing, and in the end I terminated all contact with the focus of these feelings for my own sanity. It still took me a year to functionally get over them.

I can see why those feelings are enticing. They are a powerful narcotic, as good as any drug, and with just as much behavior-changing ability. And they’re destructive as hell, IMHO. Why would I ever want to go back to that place? That feels like a terrible idea to me. I’d much rather stay being myself, rather than a hormone-led crazy-person. At least I know the love I feel for my best friend/lover is real, and a part of my core self. Not some biological high.

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