I have made very little secret, in the past, of my dislike for the comic book character of the Winter Soldier. I have always found him to be emblematic of a certain trend in superhero comics that I'm not fond of, a desperate need to pretend that the genre doesn't have its roots in juvenile fiction and a tendency to paper over everything that could be considered immature with the same overcompensatory obsession with violence, guns and ruthless brutality. Retconning Bucky into a Super Seekrit Black Ops Assassin always felt kind of pathetic to me, even before they transformed him into a Super Seekrit Black Ops Cyborg Soldier.
(Um, for those of you who don't know, according to Brubaker even before Bucky became the Winter Soldier, he was a ruthless assassin killing off Captain America's enemies from the shadows so that Cap could continue to be a star-spangled propaganda machine, and the whole "camp mascot, cute kid, bad puns" thing was a ruse to divert suspicion. Y'know, just the way that Jack Kirby intended.)
Actually, that's kind of the point. I feel like when you write for a shared universe, there's a certain responsibility to respect the work that came before you, and I feel like turning Bucky into a merciless shadow assassin for the US government because you think it's "uncool" that Captain America used to hang out with a teenage boy in short shorts. If you don't want to deal with that part of Captain America's history, that's fine. There are a lot of other things to do with Cap. But retconning it into something nasty and dark and mean always struck me as an unprofessional way to play in the big sandbox.
(And frankly, if you'll allow me a second parenthetical aside in three paragraphs, it felt emblematic of Brubaker's treatment of Cap's mythos in general. I was never the biggest fan of the Jack Monroe Nomad, but I thought the character had been well-written in the past and had potential for more stories, and turning him into a mentally unstable psychotic and then killing him off just to show everyone how badass the Winter Soldier was left a bad taste in my mouth. It was, again, disrespectful of the character's history.)
So with all that said, why am I not just okay with but enthusiastic about the Marvel Cinematic Universe Winter Soldier? Because it's not a retcon. They are not leapfrogging the character from Point A, pun-happy kid who has the dream job of being Captain America's sidekick, to Point Z, grim and merciless gun-toting cyborg who kills people because That's What Cool Heroes Do. They're telling the story of Cap's childhood friend, the guy who always looked after Cap and fought alongside him in wars small and large, who was turned into something terrible against his will and is trying to reclaim his humanity. That's not the story Kirby told, but it's also not a repudiation of it. I can take that Bucky Barnes and that Winter Soldier on their own merits, and enjoy them for what they are.
And in a month or so, I get to see the next installment of their story. I can't wait.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Monday, March 28, 2016
Review: The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies
There are really only two problems with the Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies by Peter Normanton. Unfortunately, they're both really huge. (Perhaps they're the Mammoth Problems with the Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies? No? Okay. Please yourself.)
The first isn't so bad--the author includes a number of horror movies like '28 Days Later', 'Living Dead at Manchester Morgue', and 'Night of the Living Dead' that aren't actually slasher movies at all. They're zombie movies. Now, I love a good zombie movie as much as the next person, and probably significantly more than the next person depending on who the next person is. But a guide to slasher movies should be aware of what a slasher movie is. In specific, a slasher movie is one that foregrounds the persona of the killer or killers with an intent to make them distinct or unique in some way. (There are also a number of cannibal movies, which kind of blur the line because usually it's an entire group of people acting as the cannibals, but I can at least forgive those because often the cannibals are recognized as unique and distinct individuals. Zombie movies, though, are about a faceless horde.)
This means that there's less space for analysis, because the book is stuffed full of movies that don't belong in it. It also means that the sequels are footnotes at the end of each entry, which is a shame because frequently the tone of a slasher franchise changed over the course of each entry, and it would be worthwhile to look at the way that (for example) Freddy changed from being a grim and vicious child molester to being a malevolent trickster-god, or the way that the mythos of Michael Myers got progressively stranger with each installment.
Worse, though, was the decision to file the movies alphabetically with an index at the back showing their chronological progression, rather than filing them chronologically with an index at the back showing how to find them in alphabetical order. This is absolutely gutting, because what analysis there is of the movies focuses on the way the genre developed as different filmmakers explored the motifs and translated the idea of the Italian murder mystery known as the giallo into American horror...and how a new generation took a genre that had become trite and formulaic and began experimenting with that formula.
So you can imagine how the book is impacted disastrously by having hugely influential films like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in the back of the book under 'T', while something like 'Hostel' is about a third of the way in. Any attempt to derive meaning or insight gets lost in the random shuffle of movies, and the book becomes a confused recitation of random details without context. I really wanted to like this book--Normanton clearly knows his stuff, and there's a lot of obscure movies in here that clearly illustrate his ideas about how the genre evolved. But the lack of organization turns it into something of a slog. Unless they fix this problem in a revised and updated edition, I wouldn't spend your time or money.
The first isn't so bad--the author includes a number of horror movies like '28 Days Later', 'Living Dead at Manchester Morgue', and 'Night of the Living Dead' that aren't actually slasher movies at all. They're zombie movies. Now, I love a good zombie movie as much as the next person, and probably significantly more than the next person depending on who the next person is. But a guide to slasher movies should be aware of what a slasher movie is. In specific, a slasher movie is one that foregrounds the persona of the killer or killers with an intent to make them distinct or unique in some way. (There are also a number of cannibal movies, which kind of blur the line because usually it's an entire group of people acting as the cannibals, but I can at least forgive those because often the cannibals are recognized as unique and distinct individuals. Zombie movies, though, are about a faceless horde.)
This means that there's less space for analysis, because the book is stuffed full of movies that don't belong in it. It also means that the sequels are footnotes at the end of each entry, which is a shame because frequently the tone of a slasher franchise changed over the course of each entry, and it would be worthwhile to look at the way that (for example) Freddy changed from being a grim and vicious child molester to being a malevolent trickster-god, or the way that the mythos of Michael Myers got progressively stranger with each installment.
Worse, though, was the decision to file the movies alphabetically with an index at the back showing their chronological progression, rather than filing them chronologically with an index at the back showing how to find them in alphabetical order. This is absolutely gutting, because what analysis there is of the movies focuses on the way the genre developed as different filmmakers explored the motifs and translated the idea of the Italian murder mystery known as the giallo into American horror...and how a new generation took a genre that had become trite and formulaic and began experimenting with that formula.
So you can imagine how the book is impacted disastrously by having hugely influential films like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' in the back of the book under 'T', while something like 'Hostel' is about a third of the way in. Any attempt to derive meaning or insight gets lost in the random shuffle of movies, and the book becomes a confused recitation of random details without context. I really wanted to like this book--Normanton clearly knows his stuff, and there's a lot of obscure movies in here that clearly illustrate his ideas about how the genre evolved. But the lack of organization turns it into something of a slog. Unless they fix this problem in a revised and updated edition, I wouldn't spend your time or money.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Definitely One of the Ninety-Nine Percent
You know how I said John Scalzi was right about 99% of the time? Well, he did an essay recently that I really strongly feel is a must-read, because this is one of his best of that 99%.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/03/23/reader-request-week-2016-5-pronouns/
I don't talk a ton about it, but I am the father of a trans child, and the issues he talks about in this essay are part of my everyday life as a parent. He really does a great job of hitting every important point, including the bit about having the self-awareness to understand that you're not going to get it right the first time and that you need to keep trying and not get defensive when someone points out that you got it wrong. Basically, this is really good Trans 101 stuff, and it deserves a read.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2016/03/23/reader-request-week-2016-5-pronouns/
I don't talk a ton about it, but I am the father of a trans child, and the issues he talks about in this essay are part of my everyday life as a parent. He really does a great job of hitting every important point, including the bit about having the self-awareness to understand that you're not going to get it right the first time and that you need to keep trying and not get defensive when someone points out that you got it wrong. Basically, this is really good Trans 101 stuff, and it deserves a read.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Batman v Superman: A Non-Review
I am given to understand that 'Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice' comes out this weekend. I hope it is enjoyable for the people who go and see it, and I hope you understand that I won't be in that number.
I've tried to be pretty low-key about not having any desire to see it, because I really don't want to be That Guy on the Internet. You know, the one who decides to inflict his personal tastes on everyone by insisting that anything that looks bad to him must be empirically awful and if you liked it, you're a bad person with bad taste? Yeah, That Guy is a jerk. Let's go egg his house.
...it has been brought to my attention that That Guy is hypothetical. Also? That's not his house. Put the rest of the eggs away.
Seriously, I don't want to get into an argument about the merits of the movie. I'm not even saying it's bad. It may be a perfectly good superhero movie--it's just that it looks like it's taking a number of aesthetic elements I really don't like and using them in conjunction. I don't like Zack Snyder's libertarian, hyper-conservative ethos when it's applied to...well, a lot of things, but especially Superman. A person who works on an adaptation of 'The Fountainhead' in their spare time is not going to fundamentally get a hero who operates on principles of pure altruism. That's actually the point of Luthor, in Grant Morrison's view--he literally can't trust Superman because the concept of true altruism is so alien to him that he imputes motives to the character that aren't there because otherwise Superman makes no sense to him.
(Not that I'm saying Snyder is like Luthor, but I'm saying a libertarian Objectivist doesn't have enough of a grasp on altruism to write Superman in a manner that's true to the character.)
I don't like any take on Batman that focuses primarily on his emotional damage, and I don't like any take on the Batman/Superman relationship that focuses primarily on Batman's egotistical need to prove himself superior to Superman. I'm pretty much over Frank Miller's take on the character; I find it reductionist to the point of being one-dimensional, and I think it limits the number of stories you can do about Batman. And further, I think most of the stories you can produce with the Miller Batman tend to show the character as unsympathetic and selfish, fighting crime primarily because it makes him feel strong and powerful rather than because he genuinely wants to help others.
I'm not interested in a story where Batman and Superman hate each other; I feel that it's a view of both characters that's tremendously disrespectful to decades of their histories, and that it really misunderstands what John Byrne was trying to do when he wrote the original 'Man of Steel' mini-series. Byrne was trying to show how two men of very different backgrounds could come to respect each other's commitment to their shared ideals, but everyone took it as, "Batman sees Superman as a wimpy boy scout and Superman sees Batman as a thug," and that characterization got locked in by Frank Miller (who unsurprisingly loves vigilantes and hates altruists).
And very little of the stuff around the edges that I've seen so far appeals to me, although I'm willing to credit the idea that Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman will be great if she's given something to do. I don't think Doomsday is necessary, I like the idea of Facebook Luthor but not enough to see a movie for it, and the cameos by the rest of the Justice League seem forced and desperate, like Warner Brothers is trying too hard to jumpstart a mega-franchise.
Now, I could be wrong about all this stuff. If I start hearing reviews that say, "Wow, this movie is nothing like what you saw in the trailers," I may decide to see it and I may like it. But I ultimately feel like this is not a Batman/Superman movie for me. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying you shouldn't see it, I'm not saying you should feel bad for liking it. I'm just saying that it's rooted in a vision of the characters that's never appealed to me, and I've got better things to do with my time and money.
But if you're wondering what I think...well, now you know.
I've tried to be pretty low-key about not having any desire to see it, because I really don't want to be That Guy on the Internet. You know, the one who decides to inflict his personal tastes on everyone by insisting that anything that looks bad to him must be empirically awful and if you liked it, you're a bad person with bad taste? Yeah, That Guy is a jerk. Let's go egg his house.
...it has been brought to my attention that That Guy is hypothetical. Also? That's not his house. Put the rest of the eggs away.
Seriously, I don't want to get into an argument about the merits of the movie. I'm not even saying it's bad. It may be a perfectly good superhero movie--it's just that it looks like it's taking a number of aesthetic elements I really don't like and using them in conjunction. I don't like Zack Snyder's libertarian, hyper-conservative ethos when it's applied to...well, a lot of things, but especially Superman. A person who works on an adaptation of 'The Fountainhead' in their spare time is not going to fundamentally get a hero who operates on principles of pure altruism. That's actually the point of Luthor, in Grant Morrison's view--he literally can't trust Superman because the concept of true altruism is so alien to him that he imputes motives to the character that aren't there because otherwise Superman makes no sense to him.
(Not that I'm saying Snyder is like Luthor, but I'm saying a libertarian Objectivist doesn't have enough of a grasp on altruism to write Superman in a manner that's true to the character.)
I don't like any take on Batman that focuses primarily on his emotional damage, and I don't like any take on the Batman/Superman relationship that focuses primarily on Batman's egotistical need to prove himself superior to Superman. I'm pretty much over Frank Miller's take on the character; I find it reductionist to the point of being one-dimensional, and I think it limits the number of stories you can do about Batman. And further, I think most of the stories you can produce with the Miller Batman tend to show the character as unsympathetic and selfish, fighting crime primarily because it makes him feel strong and powerful rather than because he genuinely wants to help others.
I'm not interested in a story where Batman and Superman hate each other; I feel that it's a view of both characters that's tremendously disrespectful to decades of their histories, and that it really misunderstands what John Byrne was trying to do when he wrote the original 'Man of Steel' mini-series. Byrne was trying to show how two men of very different backgrounds could come to respect each other's commitment to their shared ideals, but everyone took it as, "Batman sees Superman as a wimpy boy scout and Superman sees Batman as a thug," and that characterization got locked in by Frank Miller (who unsurprisingly loves vigilantes and hates altruists).
And very little of the stuff around the edges that I've seen so far appeals to me, although I'm willing to credit the idea that Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman will be great if she's given something to do. I don't think Doomsday is necessary, I like the idea of Facebook Luthor but not enough to see a movie for it, and the cameos by the rest of the Justice League seem forced and desperate, like Warner Brothers is trying too hard to jumpstart a mega-franchise.
Now, I could be wrong about all this stuff. If I start hearing reviews that say, "Wow, this movie is nothing like what you saw in the trailers," I may decide to see it and I may like it. But I ultimately feel like this is not a Batman/Superman movie for me. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm not saying you shouldn't see it, I'm not saying you should feel bad for liking it. I'm just saying that it's rooted in a vision of the characters that's never appealed to me, and I've got better things to do with my time and money.
But if you're wondering what I think...well, now you know.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Friendly Advice for the Production Team of 'Cutthroat Kitchen'
Hi folks!
Look, we all know that social media is pretty awesome, especially if you're a basic cable TV show looking to drum up enthusiasm for your series that could translate into a bump in the ratings. People love to talk about television on social media, and even to watch shows while chatting with other viewers about what they're seeing live. That provides a real incentive to find ways to get your show "trending", in order to get people to switch over to see what's happening. We all get that.
And yes, it's fun to come up with clever topic hashtags, funny and quirky things that will get the public curious about what's going on with your show at that moment. Silly, funny little hashtags like "#hashtaghashtagpan" can create a little bit of excitement and, well...buzz...that one would hope translates to a few extra viewers. And since those viewers help pay for the show (indirectly through advertising, let's not explain your own business model to you) then it's understandable that you're always looking for new quirky tags.
But here's the thing about the Internet and social media...they're used for a lot of different things. Some of them are things that, well...only grown-ups talk about. Special, grown-up things that don't necessarily involve cooking or television, except for the people for which both of those things are very important to their grown-up activities because of a special rule we call Rule #34. And it's important to remember that those grown-ups, talking about grown-up things, are on the same social media as everybody else, and the only thing that really divides them is the topics they talk about.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if one of your contestants does happen to slice off the tip of their finger, as happened in the March 13th episode, it's probably for the best if you don't try to get it trending with the hashtag "#justthetip". Because there are two very different meanings to that particular phrase, used by two very different groups of people, and trust me when I say that neither one of the groups who use it want to think about the other meaning when they're very...emotionally invested...in using it in its current context.
Okay? Okay.
Look, we all know that social media is pretty awesome, especially if you're a basic cable TV show looking to drum up enthusiasm for your series that could translate into a bump in the ratings. People love to talk about television on social media, and even to watch shows while chatting with other viewers about what they're seeing live. That provides a real incentive to find ways to get your show "trending", in order to get people to switch over to see what's happening. We all get that.
And yes, it's fun to come up with clever topic hashtags, funny and quirky things that will get the public curious about what's going on with your show at that moment. Silly, funny little hashtags like "#hashtaghashtagpan" can create a little bit of excitement and, well...buzz...that one would hope translates to a few extra viewers. And since those viewers help pay for the show (indirectly through advertising, let's not explain your own business model to you) then it's understandable that you're always looking for new quirky tags.
But here's the thing about the Internet and social media...they're used for a lot of different things. Some of them are things that, well...only grown-ups talk about. Special, grown-up things that don't necessarily involve cooking or television, except for the people for which both of those things are very important to their grown-up activities because of a special rule we call Rule #34. And it's important to remember that those grown-ups, talking about grown-up things, are on the same social media as everybody else, and the only thing that really divides them is the topics they talk about.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if one of your contestants does happen to slice off the tip of their finger, as happened in the March 13th episode, it's probably for the best if you don't try to get it trending with the hashtag "#justthetip". Because there are two very different meanings to that particular phrase, used by two very different groups of people, and trust me when I say that neither one of the groups who use it want to think about the other meaning when they're very...emotionally invested...in using it in its current context.
Okay? Okay.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Why I Avoid "Dream Cast" Lists
Right now, there's a lot of buzz about who the next Doctor Who companion will be. I've heard some interesting names being floated for the part, but I've also seen some "here's who they should cast" lists. Those tend to be very frustrating for me, because most of the "dream cast" lists that you see on the Internet tend to boil down to, "Here are people who are already doing a ton of stuff in sci-fi/fantasy and who are up for every third part in any genre movie or TV series you'd care to name! Wouldn't it be awesome if they were in this, too?"
And while the answer is usually, "Yeah, sure," (I mean, who doesn't want to see David Tennant in more things?) it feels very insular and limiting. The honest answer, especially for Doctor Who, is that I want to see someone I've never heard of. I want to see someone who isn't on my dream casting list, or even my casting list at all. I don't have the resources that a casting director has, and I don't get tons of headshots and resumes crossing my desk. Why should I be lobbying for anyone to get a part?
No, I'd greatly prefer to discover a new actor or actress through Doctor Who, or through any number of other sci-fi/fantasy movies. Let them be the next Matt Smith, or the next Tatiana Maslany, or the next Michael B. Jordan. The casting director's job should be to range far and wide and discover someone brilliant--if they've only found the people we all know about already, they're not working hard enough.
And while the answer is usually, "Yeah, sure," (I mean, who doesn't want to see David Tennant in more things?) it feels very insular and limiting. The honest answer, especially for Doctor Who, is that I want to see someone I've never heard of. I want to see someone who isn't on my dream casting list, or even my casting list at all. I don't have the resources that a casting director has, and I don't get tons of headshots and resumes crossing my desk. Why should I be lobbying for anyone to get a part?
No, I'd greatly prefer to discover a new actor or actress through Doctor Who, or through any number of other sci-fi/fantasy movies. Let them be the next Matt Smith, or the next Tatiana Maslany, or the next Michael B. Jordan. The casting director's job should be to range far and wide and discover someone brilliant--if they've only found the people we all know about already, they're not working hard enough.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Discredited Argument I'd Like to Stop Seeing Of the Day
"I'm not racist when I say Character X was white in the comics and should stay white, I just want them to stay faithful to the source material."
There's usually more to this argument, generally centered on the failure of the latest Fantastic Four movie (which is unambiguously blamed on casting Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch and not on any of the other changes they made from the original comic) and on how Marvel has been so successful because they stayed faithful to their source material.
So, let's just take care of this one now, shall we? Bucky Barnes is not an orphan and "camp mascot" who meets Steve Rogers for the first time after he becomes Captain America. Bucky also did not get strapped to a missile that was launched over the Atlantic and exploded, plunging him and Cap into the icy waters. The Red Skull is not a masked Nazi handpicked by Adolf Hitler as his personal attendant. HYDRA is not created by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who is not a World War II era Nazi and does not wield the Satan Claw as his signature weapon. Arnim Zola is not a bio-android wearing a TV screen on his chest that shows his original face (although that could still happen, Russo Brothers!) The Falcon is not a street-smart hustler whose memories were altered by the Cosmic Cube (which is not called the Cosmic Cube and does not have the same properties or origins as the Cosmic Cube). He does not have a trained falcon. Whiplash is not seeking revenge on Iron Man for the destruction of his home village at the hands of a man wearing stolen Stark technology. Volstagg is not a comedic figure whose cowardice and incapacity in a fight is played up whenever the character appears. The Destroyer is not animated by the consciousness of a living person. The Chitauri are not shapeshifters and have not been infiltrating human civilization since before World War II. AIM is not an offshoot of HYDRA headed by MODOK. Iron Patrior is not Norman Osborn and is not a super-villain seeking to masquerade as a patriotic hero. Ultron was not created by Hank Pym. Hank Pym was never Giant Man, Goliath, or Yellowjacket. The Purple Man is not actually purple. The Abomination was not a KGB spy who bombarded himself with radiation in an attempt to become a second Hulk. Sam Sterns is not a janitor from Boise. Drax is not an undead revenant created by the forces of the cosmos to murder Thanos. Nebula is not a cosmic con artist pretending to be Thanos' grand-daughter to make use of his reputation. Ronan is not an officially sanctioned law officer of the Kree government. Korath is not a blue Kree scientist who gave himself superpowers. Rocket is not a jet-booted swashbuckler created as a therapy animal for a planet-sized insane asylum. Yondu is not from a thousand years in the future. Yondu is not a wise and noble mystic from Alpha Centauri. Yondu does not use a bow with his arrow. Yondu is not disinterested in consuming human flesh. Star-Lord is not...oh, let's just say that Star-Lord is not anything Star-Lord ever was in the comics and leave it at that, okay?
In short, Marvel has taken vast liberties with every single aspect of their source material, and 99% of them have been greatly adored. It is significant that the only ones some people even notice, let alone take issue with, are the ones that change the skin color of their favorite characters. Let's not pretend otherwise, okay?
(Feel free to link to this post any time someone is making this argument online and you don't want to just retype it all, by the way.)
There's usually more to this argument, generally centered on the failure of the latest Fantastic Four movie (which is unambiguously blamed on casting Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch and not on any of the other changes they made from the original comic) and on how Marvel has been so successful because they stayed faithful to their source material.
So, let's just take care of this one now, shall we? Bucky Barnes is not an orphan and "camp mascot" who meets Steve Rogers for the first time after he becomes Captain America. Bucky also did not get strapped to a missile that was launched over the Atlantic and exploded, plunging him and Cap into the icy waters. The Red Skull is not a masked Nazi handpicked by Adolf Hitler as his personal attendant. HYDRA is not created by Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who is not a World War II era Nazi and does not wield the Satan Claw as his signature weapon. Arnim Zola is not a bio-android wearing a TV screen on his chest that shows his original face (although that could still happen, Russo Brothers!) The Falcon is not a street-smart hustler whose memories were altered by the Cosmic Cube (which is not called the Cosmic Cube and does not have the same properties or origins as the Cosmic Cube). He does not have a trained falcon. Whiplash is not seeking revenge on Iron Man for the destruction of his home village at the hands of a man wearing stolen Stark technology. Volstagg is not a comedic figure whose cowardice and incapacity in a fight is played up whenever the character appears. The Destroyer is not animated by the consciousness of a living person. The Chitauri are not shapeshifters and have not been infiltrating human civilization since before World War II. AIM is not an offshoot of HYDRA headed by MODOK. Iron Patrior is not Norman Osborn and is not a super-villain seeking to masquerade as a patriotic hero. Ultron was not created by Hank Pym. Hank Pym was never Giant Man, Goliath, or Yellowjacket. The Purple Man is not actually purple. The Abomination was not a KGB spy who bombarded himself with radiation in an attempt to become a second Hulk. Sam Sterns is not a janitor from Boise. Drax is not an undead revenant created by the forces of the cosmos to murder Thanos. Nebula is not a cosmic con artist pretending to be Thanos' grand-daughter to make use of his reputation. Ronan is not an officially sanctioned law officer of the Kree government. Korath is not a blue Kree scientist who gave himself superpowers. Rocket is not a jet-booted swashbuckler created as a therapy animal for a planet-sized insane asylum. Yondu is not from a thousand years in the future. Yondu is not a wise and noble mystic from Alpha Centauri. Yondu does not use a bow with his arrow. Yondu is not disinterested in consuming human flesh. Star-Lord is not...oh, let's just say that Star-Lord is not anything Star-Lord ever was in the comics and leave it at that, okay?
In short, Marvel has taken vast liberties with every single aspect of their source material, and 99% of them have been greatly adored. It is significant that the only ones some people even notice, let alone take issue with, are the ones that change the skin color of their favorite characters. Let's not pretend otherwise, okay?
(Feel free to link to this post any time someone is making this argument online and you don't want to just retype it all, by the way.)
Monday, February 22, 2016
The All-Kidding-Aside State of the GOP Race
And now there are only five. A dying race, ruled by a dying emperor, imprisoned within themselves in a dying land.
No, wait. That's 'The Dark Crystal'. In the GOP race, they're not dying quickly enough for anyone's tastes. (And not metaphorically enough for some, but that's a whole other story.) We are down to five candidates, with the departure of Thank-God-He-Failed-Or-They'd-Dredge-Up-Neil-in-2024 Jeb Bush: Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump.
More importantly, though, there are only three viable candidates; Kasich and Carson have struggled to break out of single digits, with Kasich's only finish within sniffing distance coming in New Hampshire, immediately after Rubio's worst debate performance. Neither one of them stands even a microscopic chance of getting the nomination. That puts it at a three-way race--Cruz, Trump, and Rubio.
I can pretty much guarantee you that the GOP establishment would just as soon it be Rubio. They're terrified of the possibility of Trump actually getting the nomination--he's a gaffe-prone disaster whose every utterance is an airborne toxic event, and having him tied to the Republican brand would be exactly what they don't want in an election year that's probably going to have pretty high Democratic turn-out anyway. Cruz has his own problems; he has historically not worked well with his fellow Republicans, and there's some bad blood there. So they want Rubio.
And Rubio is doable. Not easily, but he is. Cruz and Trump are basically drawing off the same pool of voters, and I don't realistically think that Kasich supporters will go to Trump or Cruz. Carson supporters may go to Trump or Cruz, but I don't think he'll leave the race for anything short of an autographed selfie with Jesus. Kasich, on the other hand, could be lured into conceding with the promise of political considerations either personal or for the state of Ohio. (What they used to call "bribes".) And Kasich plus Jeb equals probably about fifteen percent of the GOP vote, enough to shift the conversation if they all break for the same person.
So if Kasich is lured into conceding, and he endorses Rubio, Cruz and Carson and Trump split each other's votes and Rubio winds up being the nominee. Which means the Democrats will win, because he's a callow dimwit who's less interested in the actual business of governance than he is in imagining himself to be a bigshot politician, but it's not like Cruz or Trump are going to shear moderates away either. Basically, I think what Republican insiders are hoping for at this point is to nominate someone who isn't such an obvious hot mess that he screws up their chance to keep the House and Senate. If they win the Presidency as well, that's great, but they really just don't want to backslide.
If Cruz drops out, on the other hand, all bets are off. I don't see Rubio picking all of those people up, even if a lot of them probably wouldn't go to Trump either. (I assume that if you're a crazy religious libertarian nutbag and you haven't already supported Trump, it has to be due to personal antipathy.) That could deliver the nomination to Trump, who will probably explain three days for the election that this was all a Stanley Milgram-style psychological experiment to see if the American people would vote for the worst human being imaginable and that he really wishes President Clinton/Sanders the best of luck.
Hey--it could happen. Certainly wouldn't be any crazier than anything else this electoral cycle.
No, wait. That's 'The Dark Crystal'. In the GOP race, they're not dying quickly enough for anyone's tastes. (And not metaphorically enough for some, but that's a whole other story.) We are down to five candidates, with the departure of Thank-God-He-Failed-Or-They'd-Dredge-Up-Neil-in-2024 Jeb Bush: Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump.
More importantly, though, there are only three viable candidates; Kasich and Carson have struggled to break out of single digits, with Kasich's only finish within sniffing distance coming in New Hampshire, immediately after Rubio's worst debate performance. Neither one of them stands even a microscopic chance of getting the nomination. That puts it at a three-way race--Cruz, Trump, and Rubio.
I can pretty much guarantee you that the GOP establishment would just as soon it be Rubio. They're terrified of the possibility of Trump actually getting the nomination--he's a gaffe-prone disaster whose every utterance is an airborne toxic event, and having him tied to the Republican brand would be exactly what they don't want in an election year that's probably going to have pretty high Democratic turn-out anyway. Cruz has his own problems; he has historically not worked well with his fellow Republicans, and there's some bad blood there. So they want Rubio.
And Rubio is doable. Not easily, but he is. Cruz and Trump are basically drawing off the same pool of voters, and I don't realistically think that Kasich supporters will go to Trump or Cruz. Carson supporters may go to Trump or Cruz, but I don't think he'll leave the race for anything short of an autographed selfie with Jesus. Kasich, on the other hand, could be lured into conceding with the promise of political considerations either personal or for the state of Ohio. (What they used to call "bribes".) And Kasich plus Jeb equals probably about fifteen percent of the GOP vote, enough to shift the conversation if they all break for the same person.
So if Kasich is lured into conceding, and he endorses Rubio, Cruz and Carson and Trump split each other's votes and Rubio winds up being the nominee. Which means the Democrats will win, because he's a callow dimwit who's less interested in the actual business of governance than he is in imagining himself to be a bigshot politician, but it's not like Cruz or Trump are going to shear moderates away either. Basically, I think what Republican insiders are hoping for at this point is to nominate someone who isn't such an obvious hot mess that he screws up their chance to keep the House and Senate. If they win the Presidency as well, that's great, but they really just don't want to backslide.
If Cruz drops out, on the other hand, all bets are off. I don't see Rubio picking all of those people up, even if a lot of them probably wouldn't go to Trump either. (I assume that if you're a crazy religious libertarian nutbag and you haven't already supported Trump, it has to be due to personal antipathy.) That could deliver the nomination to Trump, who will probably explain three days for the election that this was all a Stanley Milgram-style psychological experiment to see if the American people would vote for the worst human being imaginable and that he really wishes President Clinton/Sanders the best of luck.
Hey--it could happen. Certainly wouldn't be any crazier than anything else this electoral cycle.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
From the Yelp Reviews of the Hotel California
Power seemed to be out when we checked in. Staff was helpful, though, providing a bellhop to guide us by candlelight to rooms. Other guests were noisy and disruptive, and walls were thin causing us to hear their voices all the way down the corridor. 2/5, would not stay again.
Wine selection highly limited, and appears not to have been restocked in the last forty-five years. Loud and obnoxious guests kept us up all night singing, management was unresponsive to concerns. Outdoor dancercise program was a nice touch, though. 1/5
Restaurant service terrible. "Farm to table" generally does not mean that they bring a live animal into the room and stab it repeatedly in front of you. Animal was not killed humanely, and staff appeared to be unable to end its suffering. 0/5, very disturbing, especially to the children in our party.
Staff extremely rude. Night desk clerk attempted to detain us for unexplained reasons despite the fact that we had already settled our bill and checked out. On the other hand, the "Anytime Check-Out" system was convenient and easy to use. 1/5, do not recommend.
Wine selection highly limited, and appears not to have been restocked in the last forty-five years. Loud and obnoxious guests kept us up all night singing, management was unresponsive to concerns. Outdoor dancercise program was a nice touch, though. 1/5
Restaurant service terrible. "Farm to table" generally does not mean that they bring a live animal into the room and stab it repeatedly in front of you. Animal was not killed humanely, and staff appeared to be unable to end its suffering. 0/5, very disturbing, especially to the children in our party.
Staff extremely rude. Night desk clerk attempted to detain us for unexplained reasons despite the fact that we had already settled our bill and checked out. On the other hand, the "Anytime Check-Out" system was convenient and easy to use. 1/5, do not recommend.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Review: All the Birds in the Sky
If nothing else, 'All the Birds in the Sky' deserves a ton of credit for the way that it more or less vaults over the high-concept obviousness of its premise like Evel Knievel jumping eighteen double-decker buses. (I should probably stop there, because I don't think I'm going to write a better sentence than that, but I'm going to press on.)
What I mean by that is that as soon as you hear that it's a story about a girl who grows up to be a magician and a boy who grows up to be a genius scientist and that they have to team up to save the world, there's a certain degree of ossification of concept that happens immediately. You just know that the magicians don't cotton to rigid hide-bound scientists, and the scientists hate the irrationality of magic, and they don't get along and it's up to these two best friends to find some way to make the two work together, because thesis-antithesis-synthesis is pretty much ingrained into SFF authors as an easy way to get a three-act structure out of their idea.
But Charlie Jane Anders avoids the obvious plot structure, more or less, by taking the audacious approach of ignoring it completely for a good three-quarters of the book. Instead, she focuses primarily on protagonists Laurence and Patricia initially as damaged kids from messed-up families whose friendship is just about the only thing that keeps them alive through their childhood, and later as slightly damaged adults who are recovering from a lifetime of trauma and who wind up becoming friends all over again. And oh yes magic is real and so is weird impossible super-science. It's actually a brilliant approach to the material, and the majority of the book flies by in an immensely readable fashion.
The end does suffer a bit from having to come back to the premise--there's a bit of Idiot Ball plotting as Laurence and Patricia suddenly find themselves on opposite sides and spend a bit of time assuming the worst about each other in an unconvincing manner--and I'll admit to not entirely liking the way that all the romantic sub-plots developed, but I confess that could be due to unfair expectations on my part. I'm a big fan of Charlie Jane Anders, and she's awesomely sex-positive and non-heteronormative, and I kind of thought that would come out more in the book than it did. But I've always felt that one of the cardinal sins of a reviewer is saying, "The author didn't write it the way I would have," so I will freely give her a pass on the latter issue.
Overall, the book is charming, witty, human and moving in a very fresh and modern way. It feels like a novel about people who live in a fantastic universe, rather than a fantasy novel, and I hope Charlie Jane Anders takes that as the compliment it's intended to be. I greatly look forward to her next work.
What I mean by that is that as soon as you hear that it's a story about a girl who grows up to be a magician and a boy who grows up to be a genius scientist and that they have to team up to save the world, there's a certain degree of ossification of concept that happens immediately. You just know that the magicians don't cotton to rigid hide-bound scientists, and the scientists hate the irrationality of magic, and they don't get along and it's up to these two best friends to find some way to make the two work together, because thesis-antithesis-synthesis is pretty much ingrained into SFF authors as an easy way to get a three-act structure out of their idea.
But Charlie Jane Anders avoids the obvious plot structure, more or less, by taking the audacious approach of ignoring it completely for a good three-quarters of the book. Instead, she focuses primarily on protagonists Laurence and Patricia initially as damaged kids from messed-up families whose friendship is just about the only thing that keeps them alive through their childhood, and later as slightly damaged adults who are recovering from a lifetime of trauma and who wind up becoming friends all over again. And oh yes magic is real and so is weird impossible super-science. It's actually a brilliant approach to the material, and the majority of the book flies by in an immensely readable fashion.
The end does suffer a bit from having to come back to the premise--there's a bit of Idiot Ball plotting as Laurence and Patricia suddenly find themselves on opposite sides and spend a bit of time assuming the worst about each other in an unconvincing manner--and I'll admit to not entirely liking the way that all the romantic sub-plots developed, but I confess that could be due to unfair expectations on my part. I'm a big fan of Charlie Jane Anders, and she's awesomely sex-positive and non-heteronormative, and I kind of thought that would come out more in the book than it did. But I've always felt that one of the cardinal sins of a reviewer is saying, "The author didn't write it the way I would have," so I will freely give her a pass on the latter issue.
Overall, the book is charming, witty, human and moving in a very fresh and modern way. It feels like a novel about people who live in a fantastic universe, rather than a fantasy novel, and I hope Charlie Jane Anders takes that as the compliment it's intended to be. I greatly look forward to her next work.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
2016 GOP Projections
There are now two primaries in the books for the Republican Party...and while everyone has focused on the winners, Cruz and Trump, it's distant last-place finisher Jim Gilmore that's got my attention. Gilmore finished with 12 votes in Iowa (not 12%, 12 votes) and 123 in New Hampshire. Everyone is saying this pretty much means what it seems to mean--no nomination for "Happy" Gilmore this year! (May not be his actual nickname.) But I'm projecting a very different result. Let's look at the timeline:
February 20: Jim Gilmore picks up 1,234 votes in the South Carolina primary. Still relegated to a joke mention at the back of the Rachel Maddow Show.
February 23: Jim Gilmore nabs 12,345 votes in the Nevada primary. Pundits mention his growing base of support, but suggest that he may be peaking too late to have a chance at the nomintion.
March 1: Super Tuesday brings about a wave of shocking events. Gilmore picks up over a hundred thousand votes in Alabama, and over a million in Alaska (the entire population of the state and then some). Pundits begin to suspect that something strange is happening, but nobody imagined the early returns in Arkansas, where ten million people cast their vote for Gilmore. This is well over five times the population of the state, and his opponents are quick to allege voter fraud until it's pointed out this is based on exit polling. People are, it seems, being summoned into existence spontaneously by deep-seated need the universe feels for a Gilmore nomination.
The disaster continues as Colorado reports a hundred million distinct voters all supporting Jim Gilmore. Journalists frantically check the records of these new specimens of humanity, but everything checks out--birth certificates, citizenship papers, the whole package. Reality is warping and shifting at a terrifying rate as history is altered to accommodate the ascendance of former Governor Gilmore.
By the time Super Tuesday is over, more than ten quadrillion new citizens have inhabited the states, causing massive and insurmountable infrastructure issues. Many of these new Gilmoroids die in the ensuing food riots over the next few days, but their votes are still counted, giving Gilmore an insurmountable lead in each state. President Obama begs the GOP to cancel the remaining primaries and anoint Gilmore the candidate by approbation, but Reince Priebus insists that the democratic process must be followed to the letter.
March 5: Over a hundred quintillion new citizens are created in the next wave of primaries, enough to carpet the entire continental United States to a depth of twenty feet. The voting process is bogged down in an endless line, as the process of counting eligible votes now is estimated to take longer than the entire span of human history to this date. President Obama declares a state of emergency, but the Gilmoroids have enough manpower to overwhelm the entire combined militaries of the human race.
March 6: Puerto Rico holds its primary. The earth shifts a small but measurable amount in its orbit as a sextillion new humans are instantly summoned into existence. By this point, the earth has sustained total ecological collapse as a single breath of the Gilmoroids consumes all the planet's oxygen at once. Humanity begs Gilmore to stop the process, but he has no idea what caused it to happen. All he can do is declare himself President in the hopes that it will stem the unending flow of Gilmore-worshiping parodies of humanity.
March 8: Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi all hold their primaries on the same date. Earth collapses into a singularity from the added mass.
So the outlook is a bit bleak, on the whole. But at least it beats the alternative, President Trump.
February 20: Jim Gilmore picks up 1,234 votes in the South Carolina primary. Still relegated to a joke mention at the back of the Rachel Maddow Show.
February 23: Jim Gilmore nabs 12,345 votes in the Nevada primary. Pundits mention his growing base of support, but suggest that he may be peaking too late to have a chance at the nomintion.
March 1: Super Tuesday brings about a wave of shocking events. Gilmore picks up over a hundred thousand votes in Alabama, and over a million in Alaska (the entire population of the state and then some). Pundits begin to suspect that something strange is happening, but nobody imagined the early returns in Arkansas, where ten million people cast their vote for Gilmore. This is well over five times the population of the state, and his opponents are quick to allege voter fraud until it's pointed out this is based on exit polling. People are, it seems, being summoned into existence spontaneously by deep-seated need the universe feels for a Gilmore nomination.
The disaster continues as Colorado reports a hundred million distinct voters all supporting Jim Gilmore. Journalists frantically check the records of these new specimens of humanity, but everything checks out--birth certificates, citizenship papers, the whole package. Reality is warping and shifting at a terrifying rate as history is altered to accommodate the ascendance of former Governor Gilmore.
By the time Super Tuesday is over, more than ten quadrillion new citizens have inhabited the states, causing massive and insurmountable infrastructure issues. Many of these new Gilmoroids die in the ensuing food riots over the next few days, but their votes are still counted, giving Gilmore an insurmountable lead in each state. President Obama begs the GOP to cancel the remaining primaries and anoint Gilmore the candidate by approbation, but Reince Priebus insists that the democratic process must be followed to the letter.
March 5: Over a hundred quintillion new citizens are created in the next wave of primaries, enough to carpet the entire continental United States to a depth of twenty feet. The voting process is bogged down in an endless line, as the process of counting eligible votes now is estimated to take longer than the entire span of human history to this date. President Obama declares a state of emergency, but the Gilmoroids have enough manpower to overwhelm the entire combined militaries of the human race.
March 6: Puerto Rico holds its primary. The earth shifts a small but measurable amount in its orbit as a sextillion new humans are instantly summoned into existence. By this point, the earth has sustained total ecological collapse as a single breath of the Gilmoroids consumes all the planet's oxygen at once. Humanity begs Gilmore to stop the process, but he has no idea what caused it to happen. All he can do is declare himself President in the hopes that it will stem the unending flow of Gilmore-worshiping parodies of humanity.
March 8: Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan and Mississippi all hold their primaries on the same date. Earth collapses into a singularity from the added mass.
So the outlook is a bit bleak, on the whole. But at least it beats the alternative, President Trump.
Monday, February 08, 2016
Review: Gulp
Mary Roach is a goddamn national treasure.
I almost stopped the review right there, but I should probably clarify. She's an immensely talented writer with a number of books ('Stiff', 'Spook', 'Bonk', 'Packing for Mars' and 'Gulp') that take a look at the science surrounding topics normally considered too taboo or too obscure for discussion and distill them down into a collection of facts so fascinating that you'll find that taboo breaking down just a little bit as you read. She discusses orgasms in an MRI machine and composting of human corpses with a slightly horrified thrill that drags you right along with her, and by the end of each of her books you'll feel a little bit smarter.
'Gulp', her latest book (I'm hoping she's due for another soon) is no exception. It's all about the way we process food, from the front--there's a lovely introductory chapter about the way we process flavors--to the back, with a chapter on the cutting edge of fecal bacteria transplants. Along the way, you get to learn about a man with a fistulated stomach who was so valuable to medical science that he had to tell his family to shoot anyone who tried to collect his body, about the science of making pet food palatable, about the tricks and tips for smuggling objects in your stomach, and all about the importance of swallowing to satiety. And how someone found that out the hard way.
It is a little squicky, don't get me wrong. Reading about a guy who had to chew his food and spit out the bolus into a little funnel that went directly into his stomach (due to damage to the esophagus) is actually a bit harder than reading about body disposal. But even if 'Gulp' is a little harder to read than 'Stiff', it's still filled with the amazing and fascinating tidbits that make Mary Roach so readable and entertaining. And even though she freely admits to not being a scientist herself, in many ways that helps her make a better book about science--she is constantly going to scientists and saying, "Could you please distill your work down to a level understandable by a layman?" The results tend to be far more informative than if a scientist had written them.
So yes, you will gulp down 'Gulp', one slightly wince-inducing but absolutely fascinating chapter at a time. Because Mary Roach is a goddamn national treasure.
I almost stopped the review right there, but I should probably clarify. She's an immensely talented writer with a number of books ('Stiff', 'Spook', 'Bonk', 'Packing for Mars' and 'Gulp') that take a look at the science surrounding topics normally considered too taboo or too obscure for discussion and distill them down into a collection of facts so fascinating that you'll find that taboo breaking down just a little bit as you read. She discusses orgasms in an MRI machine and composting of human corpses with a slightly horrified thrill that drags you right along with her, and by the end of each of her books you'll feel a little bit smarter.
'Gulp', her latest book (I'm hoping she's due for another soon) is no exception. It's all about the way we process food, from the front--there's a lovely introductory chapter about the way we process flavors--to the back, with a chapter on the cutting edge of fecal bacteria transplants. Along the way, you get to learn about a man with a fistulated stomach who was so valuable to medical science that he had to tell his family to shoot anyone who tried to collect his body, about the science of making pet food palatable, about the tricks and tips for smuggling objects in your stomach, and all about the importance of swallowing to satiety. And how someone found that out the hard way.
It is a little squicky, don't get me wrong. Reading about a guy who had to chew his food and spit out the bolus into a little funnel that went directly into his stomach (due to damage to the esophagus) is actually a bit harder than reading about body disposal. But even if 'Gulp' is a little harder to read than 'Stiff', it's still filled with the amazing and fascinating tidbits that make Mary Roach so readable and entertaining. And even though she freely admits to not being a scientist herself, in many ways that helps her make a better book about science--she is constantly going to scientists and saying, "Could you please distill your work down to a level understandable by a layman?" The results tend to be far more informative than if a scientist had written them.
So yes, you will gulp down 'Gulp', one slightly wince-inducing but absolutely fascinating chapter at a time. Because Mary Roach is a goddamn national treasure.
Thursday, February 04, 2016
The Failure Mode of Clever
Apparently while I was out sick, John Scalzi wrote a piece on impostor syndrome. Now, in general I'd say that my opinion on John Scalzi is that he's right about 99% of the time, but when he's wrong he puts his foot in it hard and tries to pretend his shoe doesn't smell. This is one of those times he put his foot in it hard.
Because I honestly don't even understand the point of this piece. It's John Scalzi telling everyone he doesn't have impostor syndrome. He says he's not bragging about it, but my question is, if this isn't a brag, then what is it actually supposed to be? Is it some sort of advice to people who do have impostor syndrome? If it is, it's beyond terrible into actively cruel. His first suggestion-not-suggestion is that he never suffered from impostor syndrome because he knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of fourteen on.
Again, I don't know what this is if it's not a brag, because as advice, it's not just useless but outright harmful. Telling someone, "Hey, the reason I don't have impostor syndrome is that I knew I wanted to be a writer from a very young age. You should try that," is going to undermine their self-confidence, feed into that crippling sense of doubt that's at the root of impostor syndrome, and convince them that everything their negative self-talk tells them is actually true. Because here's a famous, successful writer who's everything they want to be saying to them that no, real writers know it deep down in their heart from a very young age so they never have to worry about it.
To understand why this is a horrible, horrible thing to do, imagine transposing it to a more commonly discussed mental illness, clinical depression. Imagine someone offering to you, as entirely unsolicited advice about your depression, "Well, I suppose it's never been a problem for me because I've had so much to be happy about. I don't know why other people don't have that." Can you picture the way it would make someone feel to be told that the part of themselves that's lying to them and suggesting the things that bring them joy aren't good enough or true enough is actually right? Can you imagine why this is an awful thing to say to someone even if you didn't intend it to be that way?
His second piece of not-advice-but-certainly-not-a-brag is that he never had a problem with impostor syndrome because everybody liked his writing. Which is a) again, a horrible thing to say to someone with impostor syndrome who might be reading this, because they already tend to magnify any criticism they get and a famous author telling them, "Oh, nobody really criticized me" is going to further magnify it, but b) shows a complete and total lack of understanding of the problem so thorough that it magnificently disqualifies Scalzi from writing this essay.
Because the problem with impostor syndrome isn't just that you magnify criticism. It's that you disbelieve praise. The thing that is utterly gutting about impostor syndrome is that you assume anyone saying nice things about you and your work is deluded or lying, that it's only a matter of time before they find out who you really are and turn that praise into withering scorn. People with impostor syndrome get praise all the time, just as much as Scalzi if not more. They just don't believe it when they hear it.
Points three through six are all pretty much reiterations of the same theme--Scalzi had success early on, was proud of it, and when he hit a stall in his career he just dug deep and recommitted to writing. Again, this is sod-all use to anyone suffering from impostor syndrome, and completely misunderstands the problem in a way that only someone utterly oblivious to their own privilege can. People with impostor syndrome don't have a problem attaining success, they have a problem believing their success is genuinely due to their talent and that they don't deserve it. Scalzi's point four is absolutely flabbergasting in its sheer boneheadedness--it's, "When I succeeded, I was proud of it. That may be one of the reasons I don't have impostor syndrome." That's not even a reason, it's just a tautological reiteration of the fact that he doesn't have impostor syndrome. It's like saying, "Maybe one of the reasons I don't have the mumps is that my glands aren't swelling up?"
All of this would have been bad enough, a sheer mountain of smug lack of self-awareness as he proceeds to sanesplain people's mental illnesses to them, if not for his first comment to the person who called him on his crap. He said to them, "You do understand that I don’t actually care what you or anyone else expects from me, yes?"
So that's John Scalzi, telling people who are mentally ill and upset with him for casually dismissing their very real problems in a fit of oblivious privilege that he doesn't care. Apparently this piece wasn't written for them.
But it's not a brag. Because he said so.
Because I honestly don't even understand the point of this piece. It's John Scalzi telling everyone he doesn't have impostor syndrome. He says he's not bragging about it, but my question is, if this isn't a brag, then what is it actually supposed to be? Is it some sort of advice to people who do have impostor syndrome? If it is, it's beyond terrible into actively cruel. His first suggestion-not-suggestion is that he never suffered from impostor syndrome because he knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of fourteen on.
Again, I don't know what this is if it's not a brag, because as advice, it's not just useless but outright harmful. Telling someone, "Hey, the reason I don't have impostor syndrome is that I knew I wanted to be a writer from a very young age. You should try that," is going to undermine their self-confidence, feed into that crippling sense of doubt that's at the root of impostor syndrome, and convince them that everything their negative self-talk tells them is actually true. Because here's a famous, successful writer who's everything they want to be saying to them that no, real writers know it deep down in their heart from a very young age so they never have to worry about it.
To understand why this is a horrible, horrible thing to do, imagine transposing it to a more commonly discussed mental illness, clinical depression. Imagine someone offering to you, as entirely unsolicited advice about your depression, "Well, I suppose it's never been a problem for me because I've had so much to be happy about. I don't know why other people don't have that." Can you picture the way it would make someone feel to be told that the part of themselves that's lying to them and suggesting the things that bring them joy aren't good enough or true enough is actually right? Can you imagine why this is an awful thing to say to someone even if you didn't intend it to be that way?
His second piece of not-advice-but-certainly-not-a-brag is that he never had a problem with impostor syndrome because everybody liked his writing. Which is a) again, a horrible thing to say to someone with impostor syndrome who might be reading this, because they already tend to magnify any criticism they get and a famous author telling them, "Oh, nobody really criticized me" is going to further magnify it, but b) shows a complete and total lack of understanding of the problem so thorough that it magnificently disqualifies Scalzi from writing this essay.
Because the problem with impostor syndrome isn't just that you magnify criticism. It's that you disbelieve praise. The thing that is utterly gutting about impostor syndrome is that you assume anyone saying nice things about you and your work is deluded or lying, that it's only a matter of time before they find out who you really are and turn that praise into withering scorn. People with impostor syndrome get praise all the time, just as much as Scalzi if not more. They just don't believe it when they hear it.
Points three through six are all pretty much reiterations of the same theme--Scalzi had success early on, was proud of it, and when he hit a stall in his career he just dug deep and recommitted to writing. Again, this is sod-all use to anyone suffering from impostor syndrome, and completely misunderstands the problem in a way that only someone utterly oblivious to their own privilege can. People with impostor syndrome don't have a problem attaining success, they have a problem believing their success is genuinely due to their talent and that they don't deserve it. Scalzi's point four is absolutely flabbergasting in its sheer boneheadedness--it's, "When I succeeded, I was proud of it. That may be one of the reasons I don't have impostor syndrome." That's not even a reason, it's just a tautological reiteration of the fact that he doesn't have impostor syndrome. It's like saying, "Maybe one of the reasons I don't have the mumps is that my glands aren't swelling up?"
All of this would have been bad enough, a sheer mountain of smug lack of self-awareness as he proceeds to sanesplain people's mental illnesses to them, if not for his first comment to the person who called him on his crap. He said to them, "You do understand that I don’t actually care what you or anyone else expects from me, yes?"
So that's John Scalzi, telling people who are mentally ill and upset with him for casually dismissing their very real problems in a fit of oblivious privilege that he doesn't care. Apparently this piece wasn't written for them.
But it's not a brag. Because he said so.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Maybe They Thought It Was 'GTA: San Andreas'?
I watch the movie 'San Andreas' last night alongside my wife, who is always up for a Big Dumb Disaster Movie. (The irony is that she also loves to read about geology and vulcanology--half her enjoyment is derived from picking apart the terrible science.) This one has a lot of Big and a lot of Dumb, but I think what bothered me most about it was that it also had a lot of Lazy and a big chunk of Uninteresting, served with a side of Creepy.
The plot, for those of you who missed it, is that the Rock is a frankly terrible human being who steals a rescue chopper in the middle of a natural disaster, abandons his responsibilities to thousands of people in desperate need, and goes after his perfectly capable daughter who has already told him at the halfway point of the film that she's safe and looking for a way out of the city. Along the way, he loots a truck, illegally barters it to some perfectly nice elderly couple (leaving them holding the bag for the inevitable grand theft auto charges) for a light plane which he ditches in mid-air to crash God knows where, then jacks someone's boat. This is the hero. This is the sympathetic guy.
The unsympathetic guy is his ex-wife's new husband, who alerts rescue authorities to the daughter's danger instead of freeing her himself, then wanders around the movie for a while looking for something to do before getting squashed like a bug.
Oh, and Paul Giamatti is in the movie, although he's really not so much "in the movie" as he is "generally movie adjacent". He plays a seismologist who warns people about the earthquake, and we're told saves lives because some of the people listened. He does not interact with the protagonists or antagonists at all, and the movie would be absolutely no different if every scene he was in was excised completely. Which I'm sure he lobbied for hard.
The thing that's hard to get away from is the bizarrely solipsistic tone of the film. The massive 9.1 earthquake that devastates Los Angeles and San Francisco is only ever shown in long shots and convenient set pieces involving the main characters. Everyone else, the entire population of both cities, is treated either as a convenient prop for the Rock to rescue, an obstacle to make their lives less convenient, or a faceless and panicky crowd to fill out the background while the Rock poses or Alexandra Daddario flirts with Hugo Johnstone-Burt. (Honestly, that may be the point of the otherwise entirely superfluous Giamatti scenes, to make people feel better about watching all the mass devastation with bland platitudes about people evacuating the city.)
I do think there's an interesting idea behind all this, believe it or not. I think you could make a movie that would be legitimately compelling about a rescue worker whose family is in the city he's helping save, one where he struggles with the moral dilemma of helping his loved ones or saving dozens of lives. But it would have to be a movie where the main character was actually aware such a moral dilemma existed, and the Rock's character is principally there to be steely determined and to Save the Girl.
(Who, again, would have been fine if he'd just told her at the halfway point, "You're doing great, keep right at it and let me know when you get to a refugee checkpoint!" instead of telling her to head directly into the middle of the burning collapsing city so that he could rescue her with the helicopter he stole.)
Watch it for the collapsing buildings, gleefully imagine the Rock being arrested afterward, and you'll feel okay about it all.
The plot, for those of you who missed it, is that the Rock is a frankly terrible human being who steals a rescue chopper in the middle of a natural disaster, abandons his responsibilities to thousands of people in desperate need, and goes after his perfectly capable daughter who has already told him at the halfway point of the film that she's safe and looking for a way out of the city. Along the way, he loots a truck, illegally barters it to some perfectly nice elderly couple (leaving them holding the bag for the inevitable grand theft auto charges) for a light plane which he ditches in mid-air to crash God knows where, then jacks someone's boat. This is the hero. This is the sympathetic guy.
The unsympathetic guy is his ex-wife's new husband, who alerts rescue authorities to the daughter's danger instead of freeing her himself, then wanders around the movie for a while looking for something to do before getting squashed like a bug.
Oh, and Paul Giamatti is in the movie, although he's really not so much "in the movie" as he is "generally movie adjacent". He plays a seismologist who warns people about the earthquake, and we're told saves lives because some of the people listened. He does not interact with the protagonists or antagonists at all, and the movie would be absolutely no different if every scene he was in was excised completely. Which I'm sure he lobbied for hard.
The thing that's hard to get away from is the bizarrely solipsistic tone of the film. The massive 9.1 earthquake that devastates Los Angeles and San Francisco is only ever shown in long shots and convenient set pieces involving the main characters. Everyone else, the entire population of both cities, is treated either as a convenient prop for the Rock to rescue, an obstacle to make their lives less convenient, or a faceless and panicky crowd to fill out the background while the Rock poses or Alexandra Daddario flirts with Hugo Johnstone-Burt. (Honestly, that may be the point of the otherwise entirely superfluous Giamatti scenes, to make people feel better about watching all the mass devastation with bland platitudes about people evacuating the city.)
I do think there's an interesting idea behind all this, believe it or not. I think you could make a movie that would be legitimately compelling about a rescue worker whose family is in the city he's helping save, one where he struggles with the moral dilemma of helping his loved ones or saving dozens of lives. But it would have to be a movie where the main character was actually aware such a moral dilemma existed, and the Rock's character is principally there to be steely determined and to Save the Girl.
(Who, again, would have been fine if he'd just told her at the halfway point, "You're doing great, keep right at it and let me know when you get to a refugee checkpoint!" instead of telling her to head directly into the middle of the burning collapsing city so that he could rescue her with the helicopter he stole.)
Watch it for the collapsing buildings, gleefully imagine the Rock being arrested afterward, and you'll feel okay about it all.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Review: I Know I Am, But What Are You?
I've been a huge fan of Samantha Bee's work on the Daily Show for years. She's always had such amazing delivery--she slips the joke in like a dagger, working it into innocuous-seeming conversations in a way that almost leaves you wondering whether she meant to say that, or it just slipped out. She's a brilliant comedian, and so when my wife saw her book in a used bookstore, she grabbed it for me because she knew how much I liked her.
The book was...a little different. It was funny, don't get me wrong, but it straddled that same line between "funny" and "deeply uncomfortable" that made some episodes of 'Fawlty Towers' pretty much impossible to watch. Bee has a chapter about her teenage years, where she was so deeply socially awkward she couldn't even get raped. She has a chapter about her hideous taste in clothes and her ugly hands. She has a chapter about how awful she looks naked. She has a lot of chapters that go well past "self-deprecating" and into "self-loathing". In short, the things she says in this book are generally the sort of thing you only expect people to say about themselves with hordes of angry teenage Communists standing behind them with guns.
(Yes! A little Cultural Revolution humor just to liven things up! It's that bleak of a book.)
Again, I don't want to suggest it wasn't funny, because it really was at times. There's a very amusing explanation of the book's back cover, which features her re-enacting sex acts with her Barbie dolls (her mother had absolutely no fucks to give about propriety and figured the sooner her kid was educated about sex, the easier her life would be) and an extremely funny explanation of how she met her husband (they performed together in a touring Sailor Moon show for kids). It's not without its charms. But this is a bit on the bleak side for me, and I laughed at 'Super'.
In short, read at your own risk and don't be surprised if you simultaneously want to give Samantha Bee a hug afterwards and are too icked out by her to do so. I actually think that was what she was going for.
The book was...a little different. It was funny, don't get me wrong, but it straddled that same line between "funny" and "deeply uncomfortable" that made some episodes of 'Fawlty Towers' pretty much impossible to watch. Bee has a chapter about her teenage years, where she was so deeply socially awkward she couldn't even get raped. She has a chapter about her hideous taste in clothes and her ugly hands. She has a chapter about how awful she looks naked. She has a lot of chapters that go well past "self-deprecating" and into "self-loathing". In short, the things she says in this book are generally the sort of thing you only expect people to say about themselves with hordes of angry teenage Communists standing behind them with guns.
(Yes! A little Cultural Revolution humor just to liven things up! It's that bleak of a book.)
Again, I don't want to suggest it wasn't funny, because it really was at times. There's a very amusing explanation of the book's back cover, which features her re-enacting sex acts with her Barbie dolls (her mother had absolutely no fucks to give about propriety and figured the sooner her kid was educated about sex, the easier her life would be) and an extremely funny explanation of how she met her husband (they performed together in a touring Sailor Moon show for kids). It's not without its charms. But this is a bit on the bleak side for me, and I laughed at 'Super'.
In short, read at your own risk and don't be surprised if you simultaneously want to give Samantha Bee a hug afterwards and are too icked out by her to do so. I actually think that was what she was going for.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
"Leave Britney Alone" Is Actually Kind of Good Advice
I've decided I'm officially over people wishing pain and suffering on celebrities, even as a joke. I made this decision after reading an article on the Gawker network about an extremely sketchy "wildlife sanctuary" that's actually pitching itself more as an exotic animal petting zoo for the super-rich. My feelings on the zoo are pretty strong (short version: It is terrible and exploitative and endangers the animals and humans) but my feelings on the commenters saying, "Oh, I really wish the Kardashians would get mauled by a lion!" are even stronger.
Because no. The Kardashians do not deserve to get mauled by a lion. They do not deserve to die in a fire, they do not deserve to get disfigured by acid, they do not deserve to be locked in jail. They are guilty of nothing more than being famous for their looks and for making you aware of their existence. Wishing harm on someone for making you aware of your existence is really kind of a terrible thing to do to yourself--that's a lot of anger to carry around, even if you're "joking" when you do it. (I put that in quotes because many of the commenters actually said, "I'm not even joking.")
The same goes for Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Adam Sandler, and anyone else who is probably more famous and less talented than they deserve to be. I can appreciate being irritated by the fact that success does not always accrue to the deserving, but letting it rise to the level of actually desiring physical harm to come to people simply for not deserving everything they've got doesn't make anything happen to them and it forces you into a slow, grinding, unpleasant ordeal of rage that I can't imagine is healthy.
So yes, do leave Britney alone, at least in that sense. Let's all just try to keep some perspective, and remember that these people aren't actually bad. In a world where Donald Trump is causing measurable harm to people in the form of inciting crowds to attack protesters, getting angry at Justin Bieber for making teeny-bopper music seems like an overreaction. Leave the hyperbole behind, ignore the Kardashians (which is actually quite easy to do with only minimal effort) and enjoy the life you have. You'll be happier.
Because no. The Kardashians do not deserve to get mauled by a lion. They do not deserve to die in a fire, they do not deserve to get disfigured by acid, they do not deserve to be locked in jail. They are guilty of nothing more than being famous for their looks and for making you aware of their existence. Wishing harm on someone for making you aware of your existence is really kind of a terrible thing to do to yourself--that's a lot of anger to carry around, even if you're "joking" when you do it. (I put that in quotes because many of the commenters actually said, "I'm not even joking.")
The same goes for Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Adam Sandler, and anyone else who is probably more famous and less talented than they deserve to be. I can appreciate being irritated by the fact that success does not always accrue to the deserving, but letting it rise to the level of actually desiring physical harm to come to people simply for not deserving everything they've got doesn't make anything happen to them and it forces you into a slow, grinding, unpleasant ordeal of rage that I can't imagine is healthy.
So yes, do leave Britney alone, at least in that sense. Let's all just try to keep some perspective, and remember that these people aren't actually bad. In a world where Donald Trump is causing measurable harm to people in the form of inciting crowds to attack protesters, getting angry at Justin Bieber for making teeny-bopper music seems like an overreaction. Leave the hyperbole behind, ignore the Kardashians (which is actually quite easy to do with only minimal effort) and enjoy the life you have. You'll be happier.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Guest Blog Post (by Inconspicuous J. Normalhuman)
Thank you, Inconspicuous. A real message of hope for the next generation.
Monday, January 11, 2016
The Planet Earth Is Blue (And There's Nothing We Can Do)
I got to work this morning to find out David Bowie passed away. It was a strange feeling to learn that, like something of immense and indefinable value had been stolen in the night. I don't think that we'll ever be able to appreciate the magnitude of this loss, even those who were tremendous fans or those who were close to him personally, because one of the monumental achievements of Bowie's life and career was that he saw things that were invisible to the universe until he revealed them.
As such, I'm not really sure you can quantify the impact of his life and work. He created strange and wonderful things, ideas that inspired the people who inspire the rest of us. He found different ways of thinking about art, about life, about fame and the artifacts of culture that rise up around the people who dream for a living. I can imagine a few of the mysterious connections between the world we live in and the man who just passed out of our life--could Steven Colbert have existed without Ziggy Stardust? How many fantasy writers were touched by strangeness for the first time by the Goblin King? But I can't say that I see them all. He's too big for that.
And so I wish he had more time. Because I cannot imagine what five more years, one more year, even six more months of Bowie would have given us. I cannot imagine how he could have transformed the world all over again in that span, because he was rarer than a genius. He was, in his own way, a magician in the truest sense of the world, someone who changed reality with his thoughts and his words and his music, and even the geniuses he inspired cannot perform his magic.
David Bowie is gone, and that is a sad thing even if the world he helped make is wonderful.
As such, I'm not really sure you can quantify the impact of his life and work. He created strange and wonderful things, ideas that inspired the people who inspire the rest of us. He found different ways of thinking about art, about life, about fame and the artifacts of culture that rise up around the people who dream for a living. I can imagine a few of the mysterious connections between the world we live in and the man who just passed out of our life--could Steven Colbert have existed without Ziggy Stardust? How many fantasy writers were touched by strangeness for the first time by the Goblin King? But I can't say that I see them all. He's too big for that.
And so I wish he had more time. Because I cannot imagine what five more years, one more year, even six more months of Bowie would have given us. I cannot imagine how he could have transformed the world all over again in that span, because he was rarer than a genius. He was, in his own way, a magician in the truest sense of the world, someone who changed reality with his thoughts and his words and his music, and even the geniuses he inspired cannot perform his magic.
David Bowie is gone, and that is a sad thing even if the world he helped make is wonderful.
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Can You Have Headcanon About Actors?
Today's crazy notion, and the logical steps leading to it:
1) Peter Capaldi, as just about everyone knows, was a huge Doctor Who fan long before he was cast in the part. He was, in fact, a Who fan from childhood who followed the series obsessively.
2) Andy Lane, in the Virgin New Adventures novel Original Sin, suggested that Time Lords could have more than thirteen incarnations--the real danger, according to this novel, is that after regenerating so many times, a Time Lord would have problems keeping his current personality separated from the memories of his previous personas, and would eventually degenerate into madness as he found himself shifting mentally from one incarnation to another. This would be even more dangerous for a Time Lord like the Doctor, who had such vivid personalities in each of his different lives.
3) Peter Capaldi has a killer Tom Baker incarnation, which he's actually cracked out on screen more than once (including "Mummy on the Orient Express", where he appears to be arguing with himself using his own voice and his Baker voice.
Postulate: Peter Capaldi, lifetime Doctor Who fan, read Lane's novel and the idea stuck with him. He's taken the idea on board in a slightly modified form and is playing a version of the Doctor who has a slightly looser grip on the various different versions of himself that are rattling around inside his brain--occasionally they get argumentative in a way that his predecessors didn't have to deal with, which is contributing to his somewhat crotchety nature. It's not quite as bad as Lane made it out to be, but the Capaldi Doctor is definitely having a little trouble with the voices in his head. And occasionally, out of his mouth.
1) Peter Capaldi, as just about everyone knows, was a huge Doctor Who fan long before he was cast in the part. He was, in fact, a Who fan from childhood who followed the series obsessively.
2) Andy Lane, in the Virgin New Adventures novel Original Sin, suggested that Time Lords could have more than thirteen incarnations--the real danger, according to this novel, is that after regenerating so many times, a Time Lord would have problems keeping his current personality separated from the memories of his previous personas, and would eventually degenerate into madness as he found himself shifting mentally from one incarnation to another. This would be even more dangerous for a Time Lord like the Doctor, who had such vivid personalities in each of his different lives.
3) Peter Capaldi has a killer Tom Baker incarnation, which he's actually cracked out on screen more than once (including "Mummy on the Orient Express", where he appears to be arguing with himself using his own voice and his Baker voice.
Postulate: Peter Capaldi, lifetime Doctor Who fan, read Lane's novel and the idea stuck with him. He's taken the idea on board in a slightly modified form and is playing a version of the Doctor who has a slightly looser grip on the various different versions of himself that are rattling around inside his brain--occasionally they get argumentative in a way that his predecessors didn't have to deal with, which is contributing to his somewhat crotchety nature. It's not quite as bad as Lane made it out to be, but the Capaldi Doctor is definitely having a little trouble with the voices in his head. And occasionally, out of his mouth.
Monday, January 04, 2016
Review: Fed, White and Blue
As you may already know if you read this blog regularly, I adore 'Cutthroat Kitchen'. One of the regular judges on the show is Simon Majumdar (the vaguely grumpy sounding Brit who's actually not grumpy, just very precise in his notes on food that has been prepared under less than ideal circumstances), and he spent a good portion of the last two seasons generously allowing Alton Brown to plug his new book, 'Fed, White and Blue'.
Guess what I got for Christmas from my wonderful wife?
Actually, it feels very appropriate to get this as a Christmas present from the woman I love, because the book is mostly about a) celebrating things with food, and b) Simon's sudden life changes as a result of marriage. After years of dabbling in Americanism, Simon has gone the whole hog and naturalized himself, and this book is about him flinging himself into all the aspects of American cuisine to try to figure out just what our food says about us.
Which, look. This is not a tremendously complicated read. It's a series of relatively short vignettes in which Simon goes someplace he hasn't been before, meets some tremendously nice people, does something silly and quintessentially American, and eats lots of delicious food. You should not come to this one for a read that really makes you think. (Except for a well-written chapter on food banks and another on factory cattle farming, both of which make some salient points on ways that the American food system sometimes doesn't work like it should.)
But if you're looking for a book that makes you laugh and salivate alternately, instead, then you've come to the right place. The author does an amazing job of describing food in prose, which is an intolerably difficult skill (the only thing I can think of that's equivalently hard is describing music in prose). He also does a wonderful job of evoking the spirit of his experiences, making you feel like you've actually accompanied him on his entertaining and strange trips to Alaskan bear country and Philadelphian eating competitions. And there's plenty of dry wit--I particularly liked his description of the beer he helped brew in one chapter as "dark and a little bitter...so you know I had a hand in the process."
Basically, this is exactly what I expected from a food travelogue, and exactly what I wanted--a light, summery, breezy little read that I could get through in less than a day and find myself mentally refreshed by the experience. As books go, it's something of an appetizer, or perhaps a bit of a palate cleanser between heavy meals, but it's a tasty one for all that.
Guess what I got for Christmas from my wonderful wife?
Actually, it feels very appropriate to get this as a Christmas present from the woman I love, because the book is mostly about a) celebrating things with food, and b) Simon's sudden life changes as a result of marriage. After years of dabbling in Americanism, Simon has gone the whole hog and naturalized himself, and this book is about him flinging himself into all the aspects of American cuisine to try to figure out just what our food says about us.
Which, look. This is not a tremendously complicated read. It's a series of relatively short vignettes in which Simon goes someplace he hasn't been before, meets some tremendously nice people, does something silly and quintessentially American, and eats lots of delicious food. You should not come to this one for a read that really makes you think. (Except for a well-written chapter on food banks and another on factory cattle farming, both of which make some salient points on ways that the American food system sometimes doesn't work like it should.)
But if you're looking for a book that makes you laugh and salivate alternately, instead, then you've come to the right place. The author does an amazing job of describing food in prose, which is an intolerably difficult skill (the only thing I can think of that's equivalently hard is describing music in prose). He also does a wonderful job of evoking the spirit of his experiences, making you feel like you've actually accompanied him on his entertaining and strange trips to Alaskan bear country and Philadelphian eating competitions. And there's plenty of dry wit--I particularly liked his description of the beer he helped brew in one chapter as "dark and a little bitter...so you know I had a hand in the process."
Basically, this is exactly what I expected from a food travelogue, and exactly what I wanted--a light, summery, breezy little read that I could get through in less than a day and find myself mentally refreshed by the experience. As books go, it's something of an appetizer, or perhaps a bit of a palate cleanser between heavy meals, but it's a tasty one for all that.
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