Monthly Archives: November 2018

This Haunts Me

All mass murders are terrible to contemplate. The fact that they are so terrible and seemingly without reason leads many to decry mental illness for no sane person could desire to perpetrate such an act but that significantly misrepresents what mental illness is and distances us from the reality of not only the events themselves but also the truth about our own human nature. Blessed and cursed with an active and detailed imagination when these dreadful murders occur I often find myself thinking deeply about what it must have been like, what the events themselves must have felt like to the people trapped in those living nightmares.

The recent, and it’s a sad commentary on our culture and our times that I refer to it as the recent rather than as a singular event, mass murder at the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks California dogs my thoughts more than other recent acts of horrendous evil and it comes down to a single fact, a single person; Telemachus Orfanos.

Telemachus, who was not even thirty years old and who had also served when his country called by enlisted in the United States Navy died along with dozen people when a gunman opened fired at the Borderline Bar but more than the senseless slaughter I am haunted by the fact that Telemachus had survived the Las Vegas a year earlier when scores of people were murdered.

He was not the only person at the Borderline that had also been at the Las Vegas concert. Both events were centered on Country Western music, thousands had attended the massive concert, and the locations were not that terribly distant but the sheer concept that people who had survived one mass slaughter were a year later subjected to another is truly horrifying and for Telemachus to die at the Borderline would seem to underline that horror with a specificity that refuses to release me. At odd times of the day, when mind may wander, I find myself thinking about that night. How must it have felt when those shots first began ringing out, what terrible flashbacks did that prompt, what thoughts if any passed though his mind before he died?

It would hardly be surprising if someone established a foundation in Telemachus’ name. I have written before on the power of individual identity versus an amorphous and intangible number. This undoubtedly is the reason this person’s story refuses to depart from my mind. Eleven other people died that night, each one had a full life with twists, turns, highs and lows, but Telemachus’ story, easily grasped and powerful transcends being woeful statistic and real tragedy is that it shouldn’t be that way. We can’t hold a dozen points of view, a dozen stories, a dozen lives in our heads but we can picture one smiling man, a veteran, and only time will tell if he becomes a symbol.

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The Man Passes, the Ideas Persist

Yesterday Stan Lee one of the principle architects of Marvel Comics, which left a massive impression on our culture, passed away at age 95. Normally I am not one to write eulogies to passing celebrities. My own relationship to death is complex and idiosyncratic but for Mr. Lee I want to talk about the ideas the man pushed from the very start of his career right up to his final days. He was an entertainer, crafting or assisting in the crafting of dramatic stories filled with action, excitement, and stunning visuals but when the plots have faded away, when the reveals transform into clichés, and the characters melt into history the moral philosophy of his work will endure.

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.”

That bit of knowledge from Spider-Man is perhaps the best known of Mr. Lee’s philosophy but there is more compacted into that simple sentence than the call for heroic action from those capable of heroic deeds. If great power compels great responsibility then any amount power also requires an amount of responsibility and while it is never directly expressed, over and over again throughout the long and continuing run of the Marvel Universe we see the responsibility wielded by those with only a little power. We all have the power to hurt, with cruel words, with casual bigotry, with careless indifference, we have the power to make the world a worse place and therefore we have the responsibility to make it a better one. It in on us to utter kind words, to reject all forms of bigotry, to care about our fellow people both as individuals and collectively. The heroism Stan tried to teach us was not fantastical powers but rather in the ability to care and act. In that way he called on all of us to be the heroes we could be.

No One is Perfect, Heroes Least of all

One of the defining divisions between early Marvel and the competitors is that the characters were flawed. They suffered from doubts, they suffered from egotism, and even as they saved other they needed saving themselves. Without the burden of perfection the lesson is clear, we are all heroes. Heroes make mistakes but they learn and correct, guided by the clear morality of what is right and what is wrong.

In the world of comic books villains wear colorful costumes and make clear and grandiose statement of their intent but Stan helped us recognize the villains among us, even as they hid in disguises, masquerading as concerned leaders while steering us away from our better natures and he taught his that our voices are our power and our responsibility. If we just ‘shut up and sing’ as are standing aside as clearly as Peter Parker did when the robber escaped before killing Uncle Ben. You want honor the man who gave you so much, stand up, speak up, and use that voice as he wanted you to.

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I’m So White

A few months ago I took one of those DNA tests that helps determine your ancestry and genetic traits. While the results are not particularly surprising it is interesting to see jus how shockingly white I am. Of course anyone who has seen me burn in the sun would intuitively understand my ancestry is European. By the numbers my genes would indicate that I am 98.3 percent European, with a full 64.5 percent from Britain and its islands. Another nearly 14 percent is designated to French and German ancestry which means I am perpetually at war with myself, followed 4 percent Scandinavian, 2 percent Iberian, 1.5 percent comes from Sub-Saharan Africa almost a third of a percent of me is Finnish.

This was all very cool and fun seeing where my material came from before it reached this particular evolutionary dead end. (I have no kids.)

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Everyone’s P.C.

P.C. of course is short for Political Correctness and the term is often tossed about in a derisive manner. It as many meanings, sometimes it is about the things you are not allowed to questions, sometimes it is about simply recognizing that human being come in a bewildering assortment of flavors and that there is no one correct way of being a person. In one of it’s most common manifestations the concept is expressed in the re-naming of things, positions, or ideas. What was once perfectly acceptable falls out of fashion and is replaced with a new term usually meant to carry greater consideration and less negative connotation, such as Trash Collector transforming into Sanitation Engineer even though no advanced degrees are involved.

What I find fascinating is that every stripe of political division has their natural P.C. and like rebellion it is only wrong in the third person. When others employ it the technique in never called being politically correct but the intent is the same. Consider the difference between the terms ‘mercenary’ versus Private Military Contractor. That may be a little obscure consider instead Pro-Life vs. Anti-Abortion, Rich vs. Job Creators, Torture vs. Enhanced Interrogation, examples are nearly endless.

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum you employ various shades and colors of your own P.C. and bristle when others fail to utilize the terms you prefer.

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Thoughts on Diegetic Elements in Fiction

Last night I watched a video critiquing what the author thought were overly simplistic interpretations of the film Annihilation (2018.) He was specific in considering that for this movie theme and metaphor were not subtext but textual and any attempt, in his opinion, to understand the narrative without grappling with the thematic thrusts was doomed to misunderstanding the film, its point, and critically, it ambiguous ending. His analysis got me thinking about diegetic and non-diegetic elements in fiction.

Roughly speaking a diegetic element is one that exists within the fiction construction and can be experience by the characters of the narrative. The best example of this is the use of music in film. A diegetic song is one that the characters of the movie can hear and react to, such as the music playing on a radio that the character silences by switching it off. Non-diegetic music is the film’s score used to cue the audience about the scene but is unknown to the characters, such as the classic shark’s theme in Jaw (1975), which precedes the attacks but doesn’t exist in the world of the film.

All narratives have diegetic and non-diegetic elements, a novel’s narrative is usually told in a voice that is not detectable by the character’s of the story, particularly when it is a third person or omniscient narrator, and even elements such as typeface which impact the reader are examples of prose non-diegetic elements. Whenever an author chooses to ‘tell’ instead of show, and there are plenty of times when that is the correct choice, they are engaging a non-diegetic element. They are breaking away from the ‘reality’ of the world to explain a concept to the intended audience.

Another non-diegetic element, and one beyond the control of the author, is the ideas and worldviews that the audience brings to a narrative. What I bring to a story as I read it influence how that story and its themes are received. The author may have very clear intent on their part as to what their themes and sub-textual messages are but once the tale is told that have zero control over the messages that others may take from their works. John Carpenter with his film They Live (1988) intended it as a commentary on conservatism and specifically Reaganism however neo-NAZIs bring their racist worldview see the film as commenting on a idiotic concept of a global Jewish conspiracy. They take a non-diegetic theme that Carpenter never intended.

Bringing all this together when we artists are creating our works I think it is important to keep one mind on the diegetic and non-diegetic elements of the work. Select them carefully, deploy them for intended effect, and always be humble enough to understand that even a piece of flash fiction carries alternative meaning for different people.

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Trump’s Poisoned Well

Last night I won a bet for a donut. A conservative friend had a few months ago wagered that Senator Cruz of Texas was going to win his re-election by 10-20 points. Under normal and recent political conditions he would have been on safe ground with that stand, Texas is very Republican, by 538’s standard it is 16 point more Republican than the average US state, and Cruz’s opponent was not running as a conservative Democratic choice but rather as an openly liberal politician. In recent history those two factors would have combined for a GOP blowout but that’s not the environment we are in and why I bet that Cruz would not win by such margins. (I never bet that Cruz would lose, the odds were always against that outcome.) Last night Cruz won by 3 points, in Texas, against liberal Democrat, in the context of an economy with unemployment under 4%. And on the same night the GOP lost control of the House. To me only one thing truly explains these atypical results – Trump.

The Republican Party has become the Party of Trump. Those who do not stand with Trump have been chased out of the party and more and more candidates no only embrace Trump personally but emulate him to court his supporters. In order to win the primaries a Republican needs to be like Trump. But as we witnessed last night there are great swaths of the general electorate that are repelled by Trump and his brand. To be clear that is not universally true, the GOP has expanded their senate holdings, though the battleground favored them in that respect, and they look to gain some Governorships in George and Florida while losing Wisconsin and Kansas.

Mid-Term election typically drew fewer and more committed voters and while I have not yet seen final number this mid-term looked to buck that trend bring a larger and more diverse set of voters to the polls. If, and this is a big if, these voters have become more engaged and are not a fluke of the times, then that does not portend well for the Republican’s in 2020. Though of course nothing that far off is even close to becoming set in stone, between now and then there will be investigations, crises, unexpected events, and an unknown economy, but this year should have been a very good year for the party in power had it not been poisoned with Trump corrosive, insulting, and repellent nature.

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Election Day Is Here

As millions go to the polls here are a few thoughts about the current state affairs in our nation.

I wonder where is this populism’s popularity? Trump and his take over of the GOP is often branded as populist and yet not only is Trump himself unpopular but I struggle to think of any policy that he or his administration has chased or achieved that is popular with the general population. Not his tax policies, not his immigration policies, not his health care policies, not his foreign policies, none of these are generally approved, so what exactly is his populism?

It is with sad amusement that I watch in some friends the death of political cynicism. It is good that the cynicism has died but it is sad that it took an event as extreme as the election of a racist con man to the presidency to bring it about. A few years ago I stood on the stoop of a store after hours discussing politics with a group of writers and one voiced the cynicism masquerading as wisdom that it didn’t matter who you voted for because all politicians were the same. I was rebuffed when I countered that it always mattered and now that person is a fervent member of the resistance. This particular bit of cynicism is often found in the young and is used by them to justify their non-participation, hopefully along with my friend this has been burned out of millions. Voting always matters.

Speaking of youth that brings to mind the saying, often attributed to Churchill that if one is not a liberal by 18 then you have no heart and if you are not a conservative by 30 you have no brain. Not only is this misattributed and terribly simplistic studies by political scientist have shown that it is wrong. In general the political beliefs that people form as young adult tend to remain their core value throughout their lives. Additionally what forms their core political beliefs as young adults is not careful consideration of competing philosophies but the major political events, moods, and crises of their times. If the Vietnam War drove you left you tended to stay left the rest of your life, the same for Reagan pulling you right, and that makes me wonder what will be the generational impact on our politics by Trump?

Nate Silver has said that his model’s predictions, 85% of a Democratic House and about the same for a Republican Senate has a 40% chance of being wrong in one of those contests. A 40% chance that either the GOP retains total control of the legislature or that they lose it all. If that were to happen, in either direction, the political earthquake will be felt and its aftershocks, for years. I think our current period, the last two years, would appear as the calm before the storm.

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Movie Review: Bohemian Rhapsody

This will rock you.

Or at least it rocked me. Certainly the reviews, both professional and casual, are mixed over this movie, and as such your reaction is going to depend a great deal on your viewpoint and what you bring to the auditorium.

Bohemian Rhapsodyroughly covers from when Freddie Mercury joined Queen 1970, though that was not the band’s name at the time through their Live-Aid performance in1985. The story focuses on the charismatic Mercury following him through what is a fairly standard rock-star narrative arc, his early days of establishing his performance styles, the twin paths of his evolving understanding of his own sexuality while dealing with the poisons that fame and success bring, and the eventual revelation that real meaning in life is found in friends, love, and art. One common thread in the negative reviews is that this film’s execution brought little that was new in the way that this familiar path was presented and that may be true. I myself have seen few musician bio-pics and as such have not had the form beaten into my brain. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I found all the performances to be endearing and believable, I was emotionally invested not only in Mercury’s arc but the entire band as well. Having glimpses at who wrote which songs and such brought to me a greater understanding of who Queen was beyond their flamboyant front man,

Another thread I have seen in reviews concern the treatment of Mercury’s sexuality and his relations with both men and women. I though there several reviewers have missed critical points in the part of the story and the one that perhaps best exemplifies the off-base interpretation is Sheila O’Malley’s at rogerebert.com.  Let me point you to two observations she made about the film.

 

He falls in love with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), and looks shocked and disturbed when a trucker gives him a seductive side-eye at a restroom in middle America.

 

In the scene earlier in the film where Freddie first sees Mary, the woman whom he would love for the rest of his life, he not only is captivated by her beauty but give looks of interest to a handsome man also in the same setting. When Freddie is speaking on an outside pay phone at a truck stop in America and the trucker gives him the come hither look Freddie’s reaction to me is not of a man shocked and disturbed, but rather of a man tempted and frightened by that temptation. it was clear that the scene depicts the trucker ‘cruising’ for anonymous gay sex and it leaves unanswered the question if Freddie followed him into that restroom.

 

Later, Mary says to him, “You’re gay, Freddie,” and he responds, “I think I’m bisexual.”

 

As I remember the film this is factually inaccurate as the line are delivered in reverse order as O’Malley has presented them here. In the scene Mary and Freddie as are having difficulties and Freddie is trying to confess his new understanding of his own sexuality, Mary has already stated that she has known that not only is something wrong between them but that is has been wrong for some time. Freddie says that he thinks he is bisexual and Mary responds with “You’re gay.” This makes the scene play out very differently. Freddie still unwilling to accept himself for whom and what he is tries to make a half-measure and Mary, with a more objective viewpoint, doesn’t allow a half lie to stand.

Bohemian Rhapsodyexceeded my expectation and left me thrilled and moved not only by Freddie’s journey but the loved ones he traveled with along that all too brief road. The film to me is ultimately about love, love for you friends, love for kindred souls, love of art, and learning to love yourself in an honest and egotistical manner. My recommendation is hurry and see it.

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The Importance of Finishing

Today I will finally complete the rough draft of my latest short story. This story has been quite a challenge to get down into a first draft. Most short stories I write are complete within a few days or at most a week or two but this one I started in mid August and the now it is the first week of November before I get to the end.

There was a time many years ago when quite a few of my short stories crashed and burned if the processes stretched out too long. Getting stuck in the middle, feeling lost in the narrative, usually resulted in me abandoning the project and moving onto to something newer and fresher. This is nothing unique to myself; it is a common impulse among writers to feel the allure of a fresh project come along while you struggle with the current piece.

I deeply feel that one of the most important skills a writer can posses is achieving completion. Even if what you finish is deeply flawed and never shown to anyone it is important to get to that ending. Quitting can become a habit, one that robs you of the chance to learn, to grow, and sometime to achieve heights you didn’t know you could obtain.

This project I honestly thought I would abandon. I write complete stories while this one languished unfinished but I always returned. I knew my final line, I knew the point of the tale, and I just had to force myself to discover the mysterious middle.

There’s now the easier task of editing and then trying to get some feedback on the story. Perhaps it was too much for me and it’s not executed well enough to submit anywhere, but it is completed and that in itself is a victory.

 

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Pilot Review: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Netflix has launched a new interpretation of the Sabrina The Teenage Witch. Originally from the Archie comics Sabrina is perhaps best known from the 90’s sitcom starring Melissa Joan Hart. Netflix’s new showing has ditched the half-hour, brightly lit, sitcom format for an hour of moody and horror themed dramatic episodes. The core setup remains the same, Sabrina is a teenage who lives with her two aunts and all three are descended from a long line of witches and Sabrina navigates the complexity of a life that exists in two separate worlds, the sorcerous and mortal. Where the 90s show played it life and decidedly family-friendly, Netflix version is violent, dark, and hews closer to a traditional view Christian of witches complete with pacts, blood rituals, and bonds to dark powers.

In the pilot episode, and the only one I have seen so far, Sabrina is quickly coming up on her sixteenth birthday one that is very special among the witches. On her birthday she is expected to receive her ‘dark baptism.’ sign her name in the Dark Lord’s book, and give herself in congress with the Dark Lord. Once this is done she will leave her old life behind and take up studies at the witches Academy of Unseen Arts. However Sabrina has a life among her mortal friends including a boyfriend Harvey and she is finding it difficult to commit herself to the life her aunts and the rest of the magical world expects of her. Things are complicated when a mysterious witch murders and replaces on the high school’s teachers Miss Wardwell, player with delicious evil by Michelle Gomez proving she has true evil acting chops beyond Doctor Who’s Missy. Things get darker when taunted by three other young witches known as ‘The Weird Sister’ (how’s that for a Macbeth reference in what was inspired by a 90s teen sitcom?) is it suggested that the accident that killed Sabrina’s parents was far from accidental.

As I noted above the mythology borrows heavily from the Christian view of witchcraft. In addition to repurposed phrasing and imagery, such as the Dark Baptism,’ there also are symbolism directly lifted from Christianity, such as forbidden fruit as an access to knowledge. I have seen some concern and negativity direct towards the show from those who consider themselves the modern adherents to pagan and Wiccan lore. Of course as with all things artistic what you bring with you will impact how the art works or does not work for you and that is neither good nor bad it simply is what it is. A more common approach in popular media is to play witchcraft towards the Wiccan traditions. (Yes, I am looking at you Buffy The Vampire Slayer.)  Both approaches ate valid and I am interested in see is Sabrina decides to follow up the implications or borrowing heavily from Christian mythology. (I was also intrigued by Buffy’s explicit rejection of the Christian worldview and yet deciding to continue to have the Vampire repelled by crosses and crucifixes.)

I enjoyed the pilot and will be following up with more episodes until I either finish the season or it does something to break my interest.

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