#(misses her writing major cohort more than she realized)

[canarymemories]

hi i'm thinking about making a little writing support group server 🥺 would any of u be interested in it

[v8pontiacgirl]

04July2021

I’m still in shock that issues are likely caused by horrible allergies that are likely caused by mold in my house. Due to memory issues, I decided to make a timeline of the last six years, when this started.

September 2015–moved into the house. I was working full time, going to school full time and experiencing allergy issues, such as a sore throat, headaches, and very dry eyes (to the point that I was no longer able to wear my contacts). I actually kept getting allergic conjunctivitis, so I switched to my glasses full time. I’d been able to wear contacts for about 15 years without issues prior to this.

February 2016–injured my knee and found out I had a discoid lateral meniscus with a tear that was hanging up in my knee joint. It took months to get any kind of relief for my knee because the tear didn’t initially show up on the MRI, and because discoid meniscus issues usually show up earlier in life if they are going to be a problem, I wasn’t taken seriously. During this time, I was having issues working because of pain and inability to walk. Also started having more issues with being harassed at work by coworkers. I began to work less and less until I finally quit in September. I had already finished out school in June. I would have had to transfer to a community college two hours away to continue my degree in the fall, and since my knee was being problematic, I decided to hold off.

October 2016–Had my knee surgery. About a week or two afterwards, I got my first vertigo spell (although I didn’t realize it was vertigo at the time). This would become the first of many instances that I would deal with “flares” that would make functioning very difficult for me.

October 2016-March 2017–Some days were better than others. I went to the doctor and blood work and many tests were done. My thyroid levels fluctuated a little, but ultimately seemed ok eventually. Everything else looked normal, except my white blood cell count was always elevated. I was told I was perfectly healthy. The dizziness? It was POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), a chronic illness that I had been diagnosed with in 2005 that honestly had never given me too many issues in the past, as long as I stayed hydrated and ate salty foods. I was given some common POTS meds to help me retain water, but, as medications typically do not agree with me, I had too many side effects and was unable to take them.

April 2017-August 2017–I’d been feeling better for about a month (since March), and I was anxious to be back in school. Culinary school had caught my eye a few months prior, so I signed up for the spring cohort. I was in the evening cohort, and I was realizing that my allergies were being aggravated by *something*, so my mornings from 7am to noon were spent cleaning, and from noon to about 8pm, were spent at school. I was able to complete two terms of culinary school. There was to be about a little over a month break from the middle of August to the end of September before fall term began. I went to California in August after finishing Summer term for a few days to visit friends. After returning, I started to feel like I was going into another “flare”. Gradually, my health got worse and worse.

September 2017-February 2018–by the end of September, when it was time to go back to culinary school, I was bedridden. The vertigo was so bad that I was unable to do anything except remain horizontal. For about six months again, my health was unbearable and I was unable to function.

March-April 2018–I finally began to feel a little better in March and April (also around the time when I started to get outside to do more garden things), and decided that I would try to go back to culinary school for summer term (the cohorts had changed because of a new director, and so there were classes I could take toward my degree). It’s really interesting that my heath was generally better the more I was able to get out of the house.

June 2018-August 2018—I was doing a lot of outdoor garden things in the afternoons and going to school for several hours every morning. I was even hired to help cater a wedding in August. My health seemed mostly under control, with only minor symptoms.

September 2018-December 2018—The end of September, I began my fourth term of culinary school. I also joined the culinary team, so pretty much all of my time was spent at school, even most of December, when the other students went home for break, I stayed at school trying to perfect my dish for competition. I was fatigued, but my health was mostly stable.

January 2019–After a *very* brief break, I was back in school for one whole day of winter term. I was definitely feeling fatigued because I hadn’t really gotten a break (and probably, in hindsight, because my allergies had really worn me down, too), and I was told by the coach that he was kicking me off the team because he was concerned my health problems would hold the team back, and he wanted to win. My health had not been an issue that he had seen at all, but he just thought it was too much of a risk to keep me. If I wouldn’t have disclosed that I had health problems when I tried out for team, I don’t think this would have happened. Anyway, I was pretty angry, especially after all the time I’d put in. Since the coach was also the director of the school, and there had also been an issue with the instructor quitting and a new instructor having to take over at the end of the last term, I decided that this culinary school really wasn’t worth my time or money any longer, so I quit. Immediately after, I bought the rest of the books that I would have needed for school and began to teach myself techniques with sugar and chocolate. I decided I was going to start focusing more seriously on Spoon Life Bakery, my cottage bakery business that I had started in July 2017.

February 2019-March 2020—I was the most busy I’d been in a while. Garden projects, baking projects, and painting projects took up all my time. From August 2019 to the beginning of March 2020, I was more busy than I wanted to be with my short lived restaurant project. The restaurant actually opened in October, but there was a lot of prep work prior. All of this kept me out of the house for most of the day. I was exhausted, but not symptomatic. Basically, during this time period, I was either outside, or at another location for the majority of the time. During the rainy months (December 2019-March 2020), the basement of the house flooded. It had always been musty and damp down there, but it had never flooded like that.

March-May 2020—I closed the restaurant in March, and began to be at home a lot more often. I started going hard with Spoon Life Bakery again, baking out of my home kitchen. I got back into Jiu Jitsu. I was doing ok, but by May, I started to feel like something wasn’t right again.

May-December 2020—My health “flared” a little during this time. It wasn’t as bad overall as it had been, but some days were better than others. Some days the vertigo made me bedridden. It was unpredictable. In May, I had to quit Jiu Jitsu again because I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t have the stamina to keep doing it.

January-May 2021–I’d had enough descent days that I decided to try to try to go back to Jiu Jitsu, or rather, a self defense class based on Jiu Jitsu. This class ran twice a week through March, and I was able to keep up and not miss a class. The basement flooded again, so we moved the dehumidifier into the storage room where the majority of the water was coming in. After self defense was over, I started regular jiu jitsu again in April, but felt much more exhausted than usual. My vertigo was getting worse to the point that it was always present. I took a break from Jiu Jitsu again in May.

May-June 2021—My throat was so sore, that I thought I had tonsillitis. My left ear was plugged. I felt like I was getting sick with some sort of virus, except it went on for weeks without getting better. I saw an ENT in mid June. He thought maybe I had Meniere’s, but didn’t officially diagnose me, since I needed to get a hearing test, which is scheduled for this month, and at the time of writing this has not happened yet. Other than that, he didn’t see anything else that alerted him. Soon after, I began to get very sick with horrible vertigo. I was bedridden again.

July 2021–Until the 2nd, I was in an absolutely horrible flare that had lasted without relief for about two weeks. I was convinced that this was just my life now, and in desperation, I called the doctor. She told me to come in that same day. Normally, I don’t leave the house when I’m feeling my worst. I had to keep laying down at the doctor’s because my vertigo was so bad. The doctor performed her usual tests, and looked in my nose. She informed me that it was very inflamed and swollen and she wasn’t sure how I was able to breathe out of it. I admitted that every morning, my nose is stuffed up pretty badly. She prescribed the Montelukast, that I’m unable to take because of side effects, and told me that she really thinks that allergies are causing my vertigo because the ear nose and throat are all connected. At first, I was discouraged with this diagnosis, because I felt like she was brushing off my symptoms. *Just* allergies?! I couldn’t believe allergies could cause such severe symptoms.

We made a few more stops after visiting the doctor, and when I’d been out of the house for about an hour and a half, I miraculously started feeling a little better. What?? Was the doctor right? I knew my house was probably triggering my allergies, but I didn’t think it was *that* bad.

Getting out of the house for two hours brought me out of one of my worst flairs. I’m now about 99.9% that mold in my house, specifically the basement, is making me sick. I’m going to keep testing this to be sure, but I’m now filled with some hope that I may be able to lead a much less depressing life. Time will tell.

[theherocomplex]

NaNoWriMo 2019 Post-Mortem

Words Written: 80,931

Highest Word Count Day: 11/03/19 -- 7,224 words.

Lowest Word Count Day: 11/19/19, 189 words (life/work stress, sigh). 

Projects: Vam Lin (original novel, for which the vast majority of those words were written); A Lesson in Drowning (DA2 longfic); various WTNC bits for the sandbox I’ve created with @kindervenom​. 

Thoughts

Wow. First off, this is a personal-best year for me; I’ve passed 60K for the past few years I’ve done NaNo, but this was definitely the year I pushed myself most. 

I went into Vam Lin with an extensive (for me) outline, which was a huge change from how I usually operate: most of the time, I know the beginning and ending of a piece, as well as a few magical cookie moments I want to hit along the way. This year, I plotted out the entire arc of the book, along with breaking it into three acts, which were then broadly plotted as well. Before NaNo got started, I spent a night writing up a timeline for Vam Lin and making worldbuilding and character notes. 

All of this prep, along with having the idea of this story in my head for months, meant I was already extremely familiar with the world before I got started. 

I also set a preliminary word-count limit on each chapter, aiming for 2,000 words per chapter, both to give myself some leeway when I went back to edit and expand, and to give myself the illusion of momentum (nothing like seeing finished chapters piling up to make you feel like you’re succeeding!). 

And then: 

I planned to write the book in Rowan’s first-person POV; 

but I realize the first night it should be in third-person; 

then I wrote the first eleven chapters -- 

-- only to realize the pacing was a mess, Jian was almost completely absent from those chapters, and that the story was missing a lot of personality with the third-person narration. 

SO. I restarted the novel on 11/11, after aking a few nights to replot and bring Jian into the story in the first chapter so that the Rowan/Jian relationship took center stage. I also expanded my word count goal for each chapter to 3,500 words in this draft. 

The end result of that was an immediate shift in both the energy of the story, and in my engagement with the story. Rowan burst into life, sarcastic and wry and kind (and very reckless), and with Jian and her cohort of fellow mage-soldiers to bounce off of, every scene was fun to write. For example: 

I tear my eyes from my plate to meet his. He's smiling close-lipped, eyes gleaming. Delighted by the game, delighted by —

"Rowan," says Matthias, loftily, "isn't allowed to play. She cheats."

I wheel on him, my fork poised and ready for the attack. "I do not! Just because I have a better sense of smell than you doesn't mean I'm cheating, you wretched excuse for —"

Across the table, Mel starts chanting Fight! Fight! Fight! as Matthias laughs and I jab my fork at his arm. Holly buries her face in her hands, clearly despairing over the loser humans conspiring to humiliate her in public. And Jian — Jian starts laughing, a startled sound, like it's taken him by surprise as much as the rest of us.

I stop trying to skewer Matthias. As one, we all turn to look at Jian, along with a few people at other tables nearby, and stare while he tries to get his laughter under control. It's more of a giggle now, hummingbird-quick, no less endearing for the very visible fangs.

"Sorry," he says, a moment later. "Sorry, it's just — is this your first response to everything, Rowan? To start stabbing?"

I have a feeling the question isn't rhetorical, but I let the rest of my cohort answer for me with a chorus of Yes and You have no idea and She's our stabby girl and we love her. Jian's eyes hold mine, still gleaming.

"Wonderful," he says, like he means it.

I ended up with eleven completed chapters for Vam Lin, which I adore, and that form the first part of the story. I’m sure that will grow after I finish the book, but I’m about as content as I can be with a first draft. 

Since I got to the end of chapter eleven on 11/28, I decided to leave Vam Lin at that stopping point, and to switch my attention to ALID. It’s a major shift, mentally and emotionally, to go from the very plotty, action-filled loud world of Vam Lin, back to ALID, where everything is careening toward a very dark, claustrophobic conclusion. I ended up not getting a ton of words written, but I replotted sections of this last arc, and feel pretty good about moving forward. 

So what’s next? Finishing ALID by the end of the year, and then turning my focus back to Vam Lin while I polish ALID for posting, and Slow Grows the Coral (a Patreon reward novelette) for inclusion in a little monster-lover anthology I’m working on. I’m also planning to submit something for a wlw fantasy anthology, so the next couple months are pretty busy! 

My goal is to have Vam Lin done, and given a first editing pass, by the end of March 2020. At that point, I’ll be looking for alpha readers who hear “post-apocalyptic supernatural romance Tam Lin retelling, with vampires” and say “yes, please!”. 

Overall, this was a very successful month. I wrote every day, I did morning pages every day, and I love what I started. Now it’s a matter of clearing the deck, as far as fic is concerned, because the more I write original fiction, the more I want to focus on that. 

[clovis-enthusiast]

Little thought about The Tyrant’s Tomb. [SPOILERS!!!!]

oKAY, so I’m gonna start off by saying that, as usual, Rick Riordan’s writing style never fails to impress and draw me in to keep reading and not stop until I’ve devoured every last word. I was DESPERATE to read this book because it took me longer to get it than usual, and I was trying to go into it spoiler free (aside from reading the snippets that Uncle Rick posted on his Twitter every now and then.) I pretty much managed to do so, and it made the experience that much more emotional for me. I went into The Burning Maze KNOWING that Jason was going to die, but I had absolutely no idea what I’d be facing in this book.

Camp Jupiter

I’m just gonna flat out say it; I was never really all that interested in Camp Jupiter in the beginning. I didn’t like the majority of the characters (aside from Dakota who is my legal son) and the camp structure (though accurate to the Romans) seemed too strict and harsh to me. The ranking systems confused me, and it all in all just did not appeal to me the way Camp Half-Blood does. However, the more I read, the more attached I grew, and although I still MUCH prefer Camp Half-Blood and would choose it in a heartbeat when choosing between the two camps, it still became an interesting place to read about. I ADORE the idea of New Rome and the sharp contrast of silly demigods like the fifth cohort vs. the strict rules and upbringing of the camp.

When Jason died in The Burning Maze and the next book was set to take place surrounding Camp Jupiter, I grew excited. I REALLY wanted to meet more of the demigods of the Roman camp and explore them more (mostly Dakota but I digress.) Although I knew reading about everyone’s reactions to Jason’s death would be hard, I fought through it and was somewhat surprised by the lack of grieving that was presented. I mean, the ENTIRE first few chapters were ALL about Jason’s coffin and Lester and Meg grieving and trying their best to get it to camp but when it actually got there there really wasn’t that much of an uproar. At first I thought that was strange but looking back at it the Romans are brought up to be strong and not let emotions take over them, and people like Hazel have to show absolute strength. Besides the camp was already in mourning over DOZENS of other campers at the time.

That was another thing that sort of bugged me. I was absolutely ITCHING to meet some new characters and granted I got a few, but the majority of the ‘newer’ characters had already been killed and served only as the undead army.

THAT WAS SO FUCKED UP. It was one thing that I think Rick did a really good job with in upping the deep and darkness of the Riordanverse series. Can you imagine fighting your undead comrades and friends?? Like holy shit, that was emotional. I was super worried I spoiled something for myself on Istagram bc I read a post someone made about Jason trying to get the undead Romans to follow him instead or direct them away from camp, but I should have known it wasn’t true since he was literally burned.

Frank

Speaking of burning, I ACTUALLY thought Rick killed Frank off. Up until this book, I hadn’t really realized how much I loved this man. His character is just so well-written and likable and when he sacrificed the wood, I was like NOOOOOOOOO. I was SO grateful he came back in the end because I was sure Rick would never hear the end of THAT one if he allowed it to really happen. On the bright side, my baby boy can now enjoy his life with a little bit more vigor and less fear now that the stick is gone for good.

New Characters

Lavinia Asimov: Okay, Lavinia is a REALLLLLLLY weird character to me. She reminds me a lot of Lou Ellen to be honest, but for some reason, she doesn’t appeal to me as much as Lou Ellen does. (Maybe it’s just because I tend to prefer minor characters) Her rebelliousness seemed a little too... forced at times?? And her whole thing with the dryads and fauns was kinda weird too, but I guess since she likes Poison Ivy, it makes sense. However, she kinda did grow on me, I suppose, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her.

Poison Ivy: I REALLY wished we could have met her even just once. Lavinia would not shut up about her and was CONSTANTLY rebelling against the rules in camp just to see her, so I wanna know just what kind of a character she is. I’m sure she would have been very interesting and sassy to have been Lavinia’s love interest lol

Pranjal: He’s a good boy!!! Not quite sure how to pronounce his name properly, but his appearance is adorable and I LOVE the fact that he’s a son of Aesculapius because he’s one of my favorite gods soooo... I really wish we could have seen more of him!! He’s kinda like Clovis in the way that he has like one important part, gets mentioned like two times afterwards and then never again :^/

Aristophanes: he’s a cat,,, i love him,,, 

Harpocrates: This was SO interesting and out of the blue to me having gone in spoiler free!! He’s earned a new spot up in my favorite gods list because of how interesting and mysterious he is. His concept was great and although i was sad to see him sacrificed, I hope that he and Sibyl are together wherever they are bc that was damn cute and made me so emotional afgkjldg why did Apollo have to be such a dick as a god,,,

New names with little to no info: Carl (Roman demigod,) Reza (Roman demigod,) Reginald (faun,) Felipe (faun,) Harold (faun,) Lotoya (dryad,) Buster (unicorn,) Muffin (unicorn,) Whagadoodle (unicorn,) Shirley (unicorn,) Horatio (unicorn,) One Eye (pegasus,) Small Ears (pegasus,) Boost (pandai,) Ida (Roman demigod,) Caelius (Roman demigod,) Thomas (Roman demigod,) Colum (Roman demigod,) and Terrel (Roman demigod)

Lester/Apollo

MY BOY HAS GROWN!!! He’s so human now, and I’m so proud. He doesn’t even second guess sacrificing himself or humiliating himself to save his friends. I just... I have a lot of feelings over his character development. Rick handles him SO well, and I just,,, I love him,,, i am,,, in love with him,, i would date lester papadopoulos

Meg

She’s grown to be such a doll!! I was SUPER annoyed by her in the first books, but now she’s my daughter. I love that she’s actually expressing emotions other than ‘annoying 12 year old’ now. Like I wanna protect her.

Reyna

She was a pretty good character in this book and her leaving the camp was a HUGE surprise to me. I kinda wish she was still praetor because idk Hazel just doesn’t rlly seem as fit for it as Reyna was, and I like Reyna a lot, but idk i guess it’s coolio. I was also glad Rick cleared up all the romance discourse about her too though the way he did it was kinda weird (she literally was using the word ‘ship’ out loud like wh-- and i don’t remember the venus thing at all so maybe i missed it from a different book? idk it came out of nowhere to me)

Ella and Tyson

I actually like Ella a lot now!! I used to find her quite annoying, and her relationship with Tyson felt forced, but now that I had the time to get used to her and figure out her character a little more, I do like her. She sort of treats Tyson weird, but I think towards the end, I fell for their relationship more. Tyson was literally excellent, show-stopping, breath-taking, amazing,,, like YESSS KING I LOVE YOU AND YOU PEANUT BUTTER-SMELLING SELF (that one scene where he just started dancing and apollo didn’t know if it was for the ritual or just bc he felt like it killed me)

Character Deaths

Dakota: I AM NEVER GOING TO GET OVER THIS ONE FOLKS. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY TIMES I HAD TO REREAD THE SAME SENTENCE TO MAKE SURE THAT I WASN’T HAVING A NIGHTMARE. I PHYSICALLY CANNOT BELIEVE THAT RICK KILLED HIM OFF. I’M STILL EMOTIONAL OVER IT, AND JUST AJSDHF;AMNJ ‘;  NOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS THE SECOND SIBLING POLLUX HAS LOST IM GOING TO  S C R E A M  HE WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS AND HE DESERVED BETTER DAMN IT I’M LITERALLY IN SHOCK LITERALLY DO NOT TALK TO ME LIKE I’M STILL IN SHOCK FROM CREST’S DEATH IN THE LAST BOOK TBH AND NOW THIS??? NOW I’M SCARED CLOVIS IS GONNA DIE JSDKLFKS the only thing that gives me comfort is that Jason can be with his friend in Elysium now fuckkkk,,, rick why did you do this to me,,, I LITERALLY CANNOT EXPRESS HOW UPSET I AM I WILL  N E V E R  HEAL

Don: Don was sort of a comic relief character in SoN, and it was very sad to see him go. He reminded me a lot of Grover, and his death scene with Lavinia ACTUALLY made me tear up. THIS BOOK MADE ME SO EMOTIONAL GOD DAKOTA AND DON WERE LITERAL BABIES RICK GIVE THEM BACK

Bobby: listen,,, we never even met this kid rlly and i was still super sad when lavinia had to kill him again and hannibal is without him and just ughhh whyyy

Julia’s mother, father, AND foster parents: HOLY SHIT RICK WASN’T THAT KIND OF OVERKILL??? I felt so bad for the poor girl, especially cause she’s like six??? But it’s very sweet that Terminus adopted her. I really liked that.

Jacob: AAHHHAHA this one made me sad too!!!! he was such a minor character, but he reminded me of Damien White and Ethan Nakamura (if he were allowed to actually be a kid,) so I think that’s why I was sort of partial to him. The way he died was SUPER horrid too, so I just,,, im big sad for him (on a good hand, he went down F I G H T I N G)

Mentions of anything relating to Hypnos or his children

Yes, i am keeping track, sue me. Somnus was mentioned one time in this book as one of the gods Apollo briefly considered summoning to his aid, and it is presumed he has some sort of tribute at Camp Jupiter had he not before. You’ll make another appearance someday Clovis, I know it :’^D 

Final Thoughts

I literally CANNOT wait for the next book (which I presume is the last one.) From what it seems, we’re returning to New York, so Camp Half-Blood will be present. I can’t wait to see my babes again, and I’m REALLY hoping more minor characters will be allowed to shine (cough clovis cough) but like i KNOW some will die and just,,, im sad,,, dakota’s death has wrecked me,,, but on the side note, the new book is coming out in my last year of school!!! i’m so excited because this series holds emotional value to me like i’ve literally gone through my high school career with trials of apollo like it was with me the whole time and it’s one of the only things that keeps me going. i just,,, i have no words to express how much this series and all the others mean to me...

thank you so much for keeping me going, uncle rick. i can’t wait to see how this all ends :^) <3 

[randomnotesonrandomness]

"Literature can save a life. Just one life at a time."

Teju Cole on carrying and being carried. Translation, refugees, new words.

New York Books, July 5, 2019

A reproduction of a scene from an ancient Greek vase depicting the flight from Troy, with Aeneas carrying his father Anchises on his back, nineteenth century

The English word translation comes from the Middle English, which originates from the Anglo-French translater. That in turn descends from the Latin translatus: trans, across or over, and latus, which is the past participle of ferre, to carry, related to the English word “ferry.” The translator, then, is the ferry operator, carrying meaning from words on that shore to words on this shore.

Every work of translation carries a text into the literature of another language. Fortunate to have had my work translated into many languages, I am now present as an author in the literature of each of those languages. Dany Laferrière, in his 2008 novel I Am a Japanese Writer, expresses this slightly strange notion more beautifully than I can:

When, years later I myself became a writer and was asked, “Are you a Haitian writer, a Caribbean writer or a Francophone writer?” I would always answer that I took the nationality of my reader, which means that when a Japanese reader reads my books, I immediately became a Japanese writer.

Much is found in translation. There’s the extraordinary pleasure of having readers in languages I don’t know. But there’s also the way translation makes visible some new aspect of the original text, some influence I didn’t realize it had absorbed. When I think about the Italian translation of my work, I can feel the presence of Italo Calvino and Primo Levi, unnerved and delighted that I mysteriously now share their readership. When I’m translated into Turkish, it is Nâzım Hikmet’s political melancholy I think of. Maybe those who like his work will, reading me in Turkish, find something to like in mine as well? In German, perhaps even more than English, I sense the hovering presences of writers who shaped my sensibility—writers like Walter Benjamin, Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch, and W.G. Sebald, among many others. Thanks to translation, I become a German writer.

I trust my translators utterly. Their task is to take my work to a new cohort of my true readers, the same way translation makes me a true reader of Wisława Szymborska, even though I know no Polish, and of Svetlana Alexievich, even though I know no Russian.

Gioia Guerzoni, who has translated four of my books into Italian so far, has worked hard to bring my prose into a polished but idiomatic Italian. Recently, she was translating an essay of mine, “On the Blackness of the Panther,” which ranged on various matters, from race, the color black, and colonialism, to panthers, the history of zoos, and Rainer Maria Rilke. It wasn’t an easy text to translate. In particular, the word “blackness” in my title was a challenge. To translate that word, Gioia considered nerezza or negritudine, both of which suggest “negritude.” But neither quite evoked the layered effect that “blackness” had in my original title. She needed a word that was about race but also about the color black. The word she was looking for couldn’t be oscurità (“darkness”), which went too far in the optical direction, omitting racial connotations. So she invented a word: nerità. Thus, the title became: “La nerità della pantera.” It worked. The word was taken up in reviews, and even adopted by a dictionary. It was a word Italian needed, and it was a word the Italian language—the Italian of Dante and Morante and Ferrante—received through my translator.

Translation, after all, is literary analysis mixed with sympathy, a matter for the brain as well as the heart. My German translator, Christine Richter-Nilsson, and I discussed the epigraph to my novel Open City, the very first line in the book. It reads, in English, “Death is a perfection of the eye.” The literal translation, the one Google Translate might serve up, would be something like “Tod ist eine Perfektion des Auges.” But Christine sensed that this rendering would equate “death” with “perfection of the eye,” rather than understanding that death was being proposed as the route to a kind of visionary fullness. So she first thought of “Vollendung,” which describes a finished state of fullness; then she thought further, and landed on “Vervollkommnung.” Vervollkommnung is a noun that embeds the verb “kommen,” and with that verb, the idea that something is changing and coming into a state of perfection. That was the word she needed.

Christine also knew that what I was calling the eye in my epigraph was not a physical organ (“das Auge”), it was the faculty of vision itself. But I didn’t write “seeing,” so “des Sehens” would not quite have worked. In conversation with my German editor, she decided on something that evoked both the organ and its ability: der Blick. So, after careful consideration, her translation of “Death is a perfection of the eye” was “Der Tod ist eine Vervollkommnung des Blickes.” And that was just the first sentence.

A young woman from Bonn named Pia Klemp is currently facing a long-drawn-out legal battle in Italy. Klemp, a former marine biologist, is accused of rescuing people in the Mediterranean in 2017. If the case comes to trial, as seems likely, she and nine others in the humanitarian group she works with face enormous fines or even up to twenty years in prison for aiding illegal immigration. (Klemp’s plight is strikingly similar to that of another young German woman, Carola Rackete, who was arrested in Italy this week for captaining another rescue boat.) Klemp is unrepentant. She knows that the law is not the highest calling. As captain of a converted fishing boat named Iuventa, she had rescued endangered vessels carrying migrants that had been launched from Libya. The precious human lives were ferried over to the Italian island of Lampedusa. The question Klemp and her colleagues pose is this: Do we believe that the people on those endangered boats on the Mediterranean are human in precisely the same way we are human?

When I visited Sicily a couple of years ago and watched a boat of rescued people with bewildered faces come to shore, there was only one possible answer to that question. And yet we are surrounded by commentary that tempts us to answer it wrongly, or that makes us think our comfort and convenience are more important than human life.

Because Pia Klemp’s holy labor takes place on water, it reminds me of an earlier struggle. In 1943, the Danes received word that the Nazis planned to deport Danish Jews. And so, surreptitiously, at great personal risk, the fishermen of north Zealand began to ferry small groups of Danish Jews across to neutral Sweden. This went on, every day, for three weeks, until more than 7,000 people, the majority of Denmark’s Jewish population, had been taken to safety.

Currently in my own country, hundreds of people die on the border in the name of national security. Children are separated from their parents and thrown in cages. A few years ago, I visited No Más Muertes (No More Deaths), a humanitarian organization in Arizona that provides aid to travelers by leaving water, blankets, and canned food at strategic points in the Sonoran Desert. These are activities that the US government has declared illegal. The organization also conducts searches for missing migrants, and often locates the bodies of those who have died of hunger or thirst in the desert.

A young geographer named Scott Warren, working with No Más Muertes and other groups, has sought to help travelers cross safely. He provides water and, when possible, shelter. For this holy labor, Warren was arrested and charged last year with harboring migrants. Although the case against him recently ended in a mistrial, the US Attorney’s Office in Arizona is seeking a retrial. Warren is far from the only No Más Muertes volunteer to have been arrested as part of the government’s war on those who offer life-saving help to our fellow citizens.

Can we draw a link between the intricate and often modest work of writers and translators, and the bold and costly actions of people like Pia Klemp and Scott Warren? Is the work of literature connected to the risks some people undertake to save others? I believe so—because acts of language can themselves be acts of courage, just as both literature and activism alert us to the arbitrary and essentially conventional nature of borders. I think of Edwidge Danticat’s words in her book Create Dangerously:

Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, a future that we may have yet to dream of, someone may risk his or her life to read us. Somewhere, if not now, then maybe years in the future, we may also save someone’s life.

And I think of a friend of mine, a filmmaker and professor from Turkey who signed a letter in 2016 condemning the slaughter of Kurds by the Turkish state and calling for a cessation of violence. She was one of more than 1,100 signatories from universities and colleges in Turkey. In response, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government initiated investigations of every Turkish signatory, accusing them all of terrorism. Most, my friend included, now face long trials and prison sentences. Many have been fired from their jobs or hounded by pro-government students. Some have already been jailed.

My friend and the other academics were carrying their fellow citizens. With the stroke of a pen, they attempted to carry them across the desert of indifference, over the waters of persecution. For this, they face consequences similar to those faced by Pia Klemp and Scott Warren: public disrepute, impoverishment, prison time. My friend finds herself in great danger for her stand, and so now it is her turn to be ferried to greater safety, because she did the right thing, and we must, too.

[zwei-the-penguin-with-a-pen]

‘Bloody Poetry’

Ilia had never seen this coffeehouse so packed out before tonight. Was every Faunus in Menagerie in the place? She and her coworker had been pushing teas and coffees back and forth and sideways. Her start-of-shift smoothie had melted before she'd even gotten the chance to taste it. Honestly, you would have thought Puma Thurman was performing.

But no, it was some other Faunus Ilia had never heard of... The poetry slams at the Beastly Beans coffeehouse always drew crowds, but this Blake Belladonna person must have been someone special.

A bird Faunus in Ilia's line ordered a mango smoothie, so she constructed a frozen masterpiece from a blender into a cup, garnishing with a shred or two of mango zest. The bird man flipped her more than a few extra Lien and complimented her scales. Ilia blushed and hoped her entire body wasn't turning red.

"So, Cobalt, how was your trip to Atlas to see the Mechanical Girls concert?" She asked as she prepared a particularly difficult iced latte. Her teammate's silvery hair bounced as he flipped it out of his eyes.

"Getting there was a pain in the neck, sure, but the Girls were incredible! NEOPOLITAN HUGGED ME! I also got to chat up Penny Polendina. She listens to so much amazing music. I spazzed so hard when she spoke to me!" The boy with the glimmering silver hair bragged. Meeting one's favorite band is certainly an experience to behold.

"Amazing! I still remember meeting Flynt Coal after one of his gigs! You know, there are still people who think his 'Killer Quartet' is really four other people? It's just him and Neon Katt, really."

"Must be nice to make copies of yourself. This rush would be running a lot more smoothly." he nicked. Ilia frowned, the skin of her face turning dark blue.

"I think we're running as smoothly as one of my masterpiece shakes! Look at this crowd! Look at that tip jar!"

"How about looking at that tea you're prepping before you waste it all over the floor?" He jabbed. She took notice of the dispenser in front of her just in time to stop the machine from pouring so the cup would not flow over. "Good save, Chameleon Girl!"

"Shut it, Dog Ears!" She mocked, rolling her eyes at her cohort. She sealed the tumbler mug with a lid and wrote the customer's name on it. She realized as she wrote 'Blake Belladonna' that this was tonight's performer. "BLAKE!" She yelled into the crowded mess. A feline appeared soon enough, long and flowing black hair and golden eyes. Ilia surveyed the poet, perhaps a bit more closely than she should have done.

"How much do I owe, ma'am?" Blake asked, though Ilia took a moment to realize what she'd heard.

"It's on the house, since you're tonight's talent!" The chameleon replied, still gazing intently at the beautiful creature before her.

"Oh, lovely. Here then, buy yourself a drink, too." Blake thanked her and passed her a large Lien bill. She flipped another one toward Ilia. "For good measure, here's one for the wolf boy."

"Thank you so much! Good luck on your performance!" Ilia grinned at her, pocketing one of the Lien bills and passing the other to Cobalt.

"You know, I think I've heard her poetry before somewhere. She's supposed to be incredible." He mentioned, one of his wolfy ears twitching. Ilia could not wait to hear Blake's poems.

After what seemed like an eternity of slinging drinks, Blake finally took the small stage. It was little more than a nook in the front window of the coffeehouse, but she fit in well enough.

"Before I get going, can I just thank the Beastly Beans for having me? More importantly, whoever made this tea deserves a fat raise. This is the best tea to ever pass my lips! I really appreciate it!" She announced, holding up her tumbler with a smile. Ilia was glad everyone was looking Blake's direction, seeing as she could already feel herself blushing.

"That would be Ilia, Miss Belladonna!" Cobalt called out, pointing at his teammate. Her scales turned bright red at that.

"Ooh, a chameleon! Well, aren't you righteous in red!"

"She looks better in blue!" Cobalt replied. Ilia could have kicked him in the shin for that remark.

"Well, don't be shy! Let's get a look at you!" Blake suggested. Ilia glowered at Cobalt before stepping out from behind the counter and allowing her scales to turn a deep blue shade. "Breathtaking in blue, to be sure!" Blake announced, clapping for the barista. Ilia blushed bright red again, keeping the blush around her face this time.

She resumed her position behind the counter, mixing coffees and smoothies for her hordes of customers. Blake's poetry took Ilia's mind away. The way she spun a story, the lyrics and the melody that flowed without music. Her cadences mesmerized Ilia.

'...And that's when I decided I would never write again

Because I was no poet, just an addict with a pen

Now I just recite, using my heart as my ink jar

Bleeding up and down the pages until I see stars

Through expressing these feelings I realized I was not alone

It's a bit of a different feeling bleeding all over a microphone

I'm used to hiding in shadows, changing like a chameleon

Still remember my own hell, and never thought that I would see the end

August burned red and October turned blue

Frozen in my December until my year began anew

Now I'm bursting onto this scene like vibrant spring flowers

And all my suffering was worth it, because now I've found my super powers'

"Thank you all so much for having me! I have been Blake Belladonna for your listening displeasure!" Blake announced as she finished her final poem. The crowd cheered raucously for Miss Belladonna. The majority of the crowd filed out, though a few stuck around to chat Blake up. She took a comfy seat on a small couch in front of the stage.

"Hey, I got you another one of those teas..." Ilia coughed out as she approached Blake. She was alone now, reading on her Scroll. She looked up from her electronic book, smiling at Ilia and taking the tea. She looked around the room for a moment, then back at Ilia again.

"It looks like I'm your only customer now. How about you have that drink I bought you?"

"I would, but I'm supposed to help clean up." Just then, Cobalt appeared with a cup of coffee in one hand.

"I'll get the place clean. Talk to your girl, Scale Face." He whispered, passing her the coffee and poking her in the shoulder. She nodded and thanked him quietly. The two of them chatted the time away until Cobalt absolutely had to lock up for the night.

"So yeah, you should come perform again as soon as you can." Ilia suggested as the two of them walked outside and Cobalt locked up behind them. The poet nodded.

"More importantly, I think we should hang out sometime." Ilia blushed a bright red at the suggestion. She and Blake tapped their Scrolls together to trade each other's information. The two Faunus women hugged tightly and parted ways.

"Ooh, is our Lizzy Lizard in love with the Black Cat?" Cobalt nicked at her. Ilia punched him in the shoulder.

"Shut your furry face, Wolfsbane! And thank you for not blocking my frock back there!"

"Don't mention it. Now when some tasty shot of mocha comes in and I wanna chat him up, I hope you would do the same for me."

"Always, Furball! You know I can't stand to block a frock." The two shared a laugh as they walked home to their apartment complex. Living two doors apart and working in the same place was expressly convenient.

Ilia could not wait to see Blake again. \/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

Day Six: A Character Introduced in Volume 4

I chose Ilia because I’m saving Blake’s parents for another day, we don’t know a hell of a lot about any of Salem’s minions, and I refused to write about that sorry excuse for a father Jack Frost or his arsehole son Shitley. 

Also, there seems to be a connection between Ilia and Blake. I don’t know if they were together but they were pretty close knit at one time.

I would say I ship them a little bit. I could definitely see something between them.

Coffeehouse AU where Blake is a spoken word poet and performs at a coffee shop where Ilia works.

Also, this one made 1,360 words. So I’d say I’m well ahead again. I do have that bus ride tomorrow and the next day, but I’ll try and update on time. See ya next time!

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Lady Bearica Andrews

This anything-goes entertainer makes up one third of the self-deprecating nightlife collective The Nobodies, who are finally getting their props as of late: a Glam nomination in December, and the the go-ahead from Bob the Drag Queen herself to take over the Slam Awards in January. Let’s catch up with Lady Bearica Andrews and get the T on the Ki!

Thotyssey: Hey Bearica! Welcome back! You've been traveling--tell us a little about your journeys.

Lady Bearica Andrews: I just returned from a much needed trip home to the West Coast. I was there to see one of my best friends tie the knot... and to give shows for the first time in the LA area. 

Side note: love weddings... all of them. I'm going to have a major gay wedding someday with all the Hetero-Normative-Wedding-Accouterments.

I hope you do! Any madcap adventures out there?

Nothing crazy--although on the first night back I went to every fucking gay bar in Long Beach. Dropped a certain New York queen's name in order to have an “in” with Morgan McMichaels (fucking sweetheart, that one).

Had a chance to hook up with one of my longest all-time crushes on New Years Eve night...but turned him down. WHY?! Ugh. Who goes on vacation and becomes a prude?

The biggest potential mishap was booking a show in LA the night of my friend's wedding, which was a billion miles away in Orange County.

But luckily I have amazing friends, who'll pick me up anytime, any place, and feed me full of booze when we get to wherever I'm supposed to be--much like [my cohorts] Ariel Italic and DJ Accident Report at any given Nobodies show.

So, is Cali is your native land? 

NOOOO! I'm a Kansas boy...Born in Coffeyville, Kansas (on the border of Oklahoma) and raised in Chanute, Kansas (home of some really great people and a huge fucking Wal-Mart).

At 25, I decided it was time to finish my Bachelor's and get out of Kansas and see something else, so I moved to Long Beach, California.

I got residency. Became a townie. Fell in love. Blacked out a few times. Long Beach is one of the most diverse cities in the US. I relished being a “minority” for the first time, learning the nuances of race and nationality, and culture. I also realized, despite my perceived open-mindedness, no matter how much I thought I had educated and separated myself from the small-minded privileged behavior I was raised in, ignorance runs deep.

I'm still learning about my privilege. Like every fucking day. While, I grew up surrounded by what I still consider to be mostly good people; people who'll change a tire on the side of the road; give you the shirt off their back;  I started to see the cracks.

Many people live their entire lives without ever seeing the cracks! 

I had always been envious of people deeply routed, and continually involved their culture and history. I didn't feel I had that at the time. Living in California, is when I first realized 'Gay' or 'Queer' is a culture. It has a history. And I got angry that I wasn't taught this. And my Voice started to grow.

What were you studying in Long Beach, by the way?

I went back to do film & poli sci/history. I got scared of the idea of learning to make films and missed performing, so I went back to theatre. But I tried to study as many other things as I could. Lots of history.  A little Film. A little poli sci.

The Great thing about the theatre department at Cal State Long Beach, is that they made an effort to educate us, and encourage us to educate ourselves in other areas.

Did you create the Bearica character there?

Short answer: no. Theatre helped me to become more myself. And to learn that you are the character, and the character is you. How can there be a separation? I forget where/who this phrase comes from: "It's (the character) not me, but it's not not me.” Which is kind of what's interesting/confusing about nightlife and drag to me.

So what eventually got you to New York?

I wanted to move here, turned 30, and decided it was time.

Did you have a plan for what you wanted to do here?

After college, I didn't know that I wanted act anymore; I lost interest in theatre. My first professional audition, I forgot to bring a headshot, and while that may be just a rookie mistake, I saw it as a sort of sign, or whatever. 

I moved home to Kansas to 'root myself'. Fell in Love. Made some really good friends. Fell Out of Love. And then moved back to California to take a class that had been life-changing for many of my peers. I still didn't know I wanted anything to do with performing; I just knew I needed to take this class, with this teacher, before I moved on.

I was also writing a play about a fictionalized drag queen during Stonewall. So that was another excuse to be here 

Oh, sounds interesting! Did you ever complete that project?

I haven't. But this class was where the idea was born. The teacher was Alexandra Billings, who is now on Transparent. She is the single most phenomenal person I've met in my life. She gets it. She saw me. She can probably see you too. No need to meet. She's that person.

How did Bearica make her debut?

Drag was born out of perceived necessity, right? Shakespeare needed a ‘woman’ on stage. I needed to take a view from that stage, rather the dressing room, in order to write this character. Really, I just needed to give myself permission to get up there. 

I haven’t completed this play yet, maybe I won’t. But, drag has most definitely taught me how to tell a story in a way that seems less daunting than putting pen to paper.

Bearica, originally Bearicunt Lotta (LOL!), born on a Halloween like all of us queens, actually debuted at the Monster, on the very same stage as this year’s Slam Awards! Holly Dae’s monthly competition. Sandi Beaches, who is sadly on an indefinite leave of absence, helped name me, and pushed me to the stage. She’s my OG drag sister. 

I did some crazy mashup of “Rose’s Turn” and “Glitch Mob” in a straight-jacket. Everyone was confused. I was elated. Holly forgot my name. I love that kind of contradiction. I love a mashup.

So, the Slammies are part of the Nobodies' history! Your right-hand gal Ariel italic told us how you two sort of became the Nobodies at the 9th Ave Saloon after a Slam ceremony.

Yeah, that's where we met. everyone else was headed to Westgay. Ariel and I are old, and way less cool than most, so we ended up holding up the bar at 9th Ave (my favorite spot in HK), made the bartender laugh, and weaseled our way into hosting Drag Race--much like we weaseled our way into hosting The Slammies. This Friday is pretty special. Full circle moment in many ways. At the end of the day, ask for what you want, yes?

Tell me a little about the Nobodies, which consist of you two and DJ Accident Report. You've hosted eclectic shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan and beyond, including the viewing parties and a pageant you all created at Eastlands over the summer: Mx. Nobody! 

Mx Nobody! What a great privilege, to be able to provide a space for such a diverse group of artists to come together and push themselves, and each other. Can't wait for Mx. Nobody 2017!

One element that defines you all is this ruthlessly self-deprecating sense of humor. Where does that come from, you think?

Self deprecation? Doesn't that just come natural to all of us?

The tongue in cheek title of our first show 'Nobodies Hosting Drag Race'  clicked with people--it felt different, so we went with it. It took the pressure off us too, and allowed us just to have fun, making fun of ourselves before anyone else had the chance to. 

Nightlife can be a really difficult world to navigate, especially when there are about a billion other artists (believe me, I counted) raising their voices to be heard. We just wanted to carve out our own space. Once that show was over, Accident Report joined, and  The Nobodies were born; and for that I must say I'm sorry and you're welcome.

Which "type" are you in the Nobodies? Like, if you can break it down to one-dimensional character types like in the Spice Girls (the slutty one, the butch one, the one who can sing, etc.) which one are you?

Well... Eric, DJ Accident Report, is definitely the Angry one (we actually have a segment in our 'Nobodies Talking Shit' shows called 'Shit Eric Shorey hates”). I’m the Late one, and Ariel is the Let's Get It Together one. We all pop out of the same garbage can, though.

It was nice to see you three nominated for a GLAM this year, though. Did that catch you by surprise?

Yeah. We fucking freaked out! I was in Kansas City hanging out in my cousins living room, probably high af. Ariel texted me and I made some kind of yelp-laugh-noise that made their dog jump. I mean, I was secretly hoping for a nomination, and that validation was really motivating. 

Oh! And so glad to have presented Ari Kiki with her award! She's been such a great Nobodies supporter, like a jockstrap for your tuck. So glad to have her performing at [this year’s] Slammies! 

Congrats on your win, by the way. Well-deserved! I personally loved your “uncle jacket!" 

Haha, thank you.

What really caught me by surprise was the misprint on the card I was presenting Best Photographer from. 

Wait what was the misprint?

Oh, it was a very Steve Harvey moment. The card had double one name and left out another.

Yikes!

But the screen had it right. The crowd was, like, chanting the name left off, and off course it was a Brooklyn girl--Santiago. So when I finally turned around saw his name and said it, everyone thought he was the winner and started cheering. The stage manager was so mad. I was like, 'Sorry for your technical difficulty, girl.” Whatevs.

So, you all are hosting the SLAMs (aka the Slammies) this weekend, at Monster. What a great fit! The Slammies, of course, are the nightlife awards that cruelly/lovingly reward the “worst” of nightlife, all in good fun. Bob the Drag Queen used to host them, but had to abandon them when Drag Race fame called.

The Nobodies of course have personal ties to the Slammies, but what specifically motivated you all to want to take up the hosting duties for the revival?

You're right... it is a good fit. And it's where Ariel and I met. I don't know though...we just really wanted the event to happen. 

We had another segment in our Talking Shit show called 'Drag Queen Drama' where we'd do dramatic readings of the drama from the previous week. I think holding up a mirror in this community, and poking fun at our missteps is funny. We all get drunk together and do/say stupid things...it’s not that deep! Let's laugh about it. 

It's been an interesting transition for us, going from random shows in front of a pool table in a sports bar in Bushwick to taking on such a beloved / divisive event as the Slammies. From the beginning, the intent was to bring all different types from every borough together to shake hands, slap asses and laugh. The previous Slammies were very, very Manhattan-centric, and we saw an opportunity for The Nobodies to be the East River that connected everyone; we're the garbage floating on top. if you need to walk on us to get to one another, so be it.  

There’s been some drama with the changing of the guard, though!

I've heard some talk about our “perceived intentions,” and I'd like to clear a couple things up: the nomination process was left up to the public. If there's anything we've learned this year, it's you need to fucking vote! 

Did we have to make some decisions on the final candidates? Yes. Some of the categories are confusing, but so is the concept of an Anti-Awards Show. I remember Erika Klash saying something at the last Slams, like "I don't know whether to be honored or embarrassed,' but she just went with it. And that's the spirit. Do we really think you're not going to be on Drag Race? No! Well, maybe. Who cares? 

I think we made a mistake by not opening ourselves up for noms, though. The Slammies are meant to be about the community, bringing it together, ya know? but if it makes you uncomfortable, let me know, I'll take you off the ballot, silently and discreetly. But come direct. And I appreciate those who have.

How do you think the show will go?

Here’s's the Real Deal: I am really excited to bring in a fundraising component to the Slam Awards.  All the door proceeds will be going straight to the Trans Justice Funding Project. and I am so thankful for the support of our co-producer, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, who'll be provided us with some scents to give out at the door: first come first served, with a door donation of $15 bucks or more. 

With BPAL, our local sponsor House of La Rue, Mitch Ferrino and the Monster Bar, and the support of our Nobabies and friends, I think we have put together another kick ass show. And Bob the Drag Queen, she was probably just sick of us talking about it. Really though, I have to thank her for trusting us to do this show. Oh, and Jessye Herrell will be taking photos!

So come. Have fun. Maybe make a new friend, or a family, like Ariel and I did. We have performances by GLAM AWARD winners Will Sheridan & Ari Kiki, and Mx. Nobody contestant Miss Cuntstrude. Also, a Secret Surprise Award!

Madness! Do you have any predictions on who will "Misty Meaner" the shit out of the proceedings this time around (i.e., cause a scene and destroy shit)? The actual Misty Meaner again, maybe?

Hopefully! There has been some talk about it. She is nominated for Cunt of the Year, so...

Anything else coming up for you and the Nobodies?

Well, we've been talking to Catland in Bushwick. The owner is amazing, and she has a really great space. We did an event there in October called “Nobodies Worshipping Satan.” It went really well, and I am excited to get back into that space. 

Also, “Nobodies Hosting Drag Race” will return, of course. And personally, I am excited to introduce cousin Shelley to NYC. I think she is flying in Friday from Kansas, so she'll surely be at the Slammies. Come over and help me give her a warm New York welcome:

Hi Shelley! Okay, last question: what's something that the world may not know about Lady Bearica, but should?

Oh God. that’s a toughy...

First and foremost, I'm a fan of drag, I'm a fan of people. I want to support you. I may not be at every show, but if you need me, let me know. Going through the Mx. Nobody Pageant at the same moment as the Pulse shooting, really tested me as an artist and person. It changed me, like it changed so many others. 

Take a moment to check in with each other, look each other in the eye. We are a community: the T the L the G the B the I the Q. Don't forget to be where your hands are... stay present. 

Wow. okay. There you have it, Serious moments with Bearica. 

Also... #wearethenobodies!

Thanks Bearica, see you Friday!

Lady Bearica Andrews and the Nobodies will host the SLAM Awards at Monster on Friday, January 13th (7pm). She can be followed on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Writing Report April 4, 2020

Unless there’s an emergency or we need to move Soon-ok’s mom back to her apartment from the rehab hospital (she’s recovered from her fall but developed a mild case of flu -- ///not/// coronavirus, they tested for that -- so we’re waiting for the final okay), we’re not leaving the house until May except for tending our plots at the community garden (see previous post).

We did two last grocery runs on Friday (Costco) and this morning (Whole Foods) and we are as set as we’re gonna be for the rest of the month.  

Meat and dried foods / nuts we can get delivered through Butcher’s Box and Thrive, we’ve pared back our meals so we’re eating enough but not too much, the TV / radio / Internet are working, and even if those weren’t, we’ve got hundreds of books.

So we’re good.

Writing that makes me realize how luck and privileged we are in this situation.

Thanx to Soon-ok’s pension and our combined social security, we can get by comfortably.

We’re basically homebodies, so other than missing meetings of my writer’s group or the monthly Christian Comics Art Society meeting, or not being able to just pop out and go window shopping, we’re doing 85% of what we were doing before the pandemic.

There was a lengthy silence among the various markets where I’d sent my short stories when the lockdown started, but now as people get a handle on working from home those publishing ventures that survived the initial lockdown are not getting back to contributors.

Some (as noted previously) have already imploded / dissolved / evaporated; I doubt seriously at this point they’ll come back in any form.

Others seem to be doing at least the courtesy of clearing their decks so nobody is left in the lurch, wondering what happened to their material.

The world after the coronavirus is going to be much, much different. 

Not in any big ways, such as the dystopian worlds of The Postman or Mad Max, but in myriad small / subtle / almost invisible ways that will add up to a huge cultural change.

This is not just one generation succeeding another (though the Boomers’ era of dominance has definitely ended, even if the tail of the dinosaur is still quivering), but a change in the way the entire culture perceives itself.

Print is dead, at least in its traditional form.

Oh, there will still be books published, but that’s going to be a secondary market for writers, a niche market the same way live stage shows ceased being the default mass market for of entertainment once movies and radio arrive but went on to have healthy lives aimed at more tightly defined audiences.

eBooks ala Kindle and various online forms of publishing are going to be the new mass market, and as either Mark Twain or Josef Stalin once said, “When it’s steamboat time, you steamboat.”

So I’m reallocating my writing efforts: More will appear here in short form, if I find an online writing site that’s a good fit I may start writing there, books will still come out (hopefully at a faster pace than originally planned).

I’m not writing off (=snerk!=) games and media writing, but I’m not chasing those brass rings anymore.  Too many hoops to jump through.

(Though if somebody wants to hire me…)

Because of Soon-ok’s mom and other important-but-not-serious family business, as well as reorganizing our garden and preparing for the lockdown, my productivity took a major hit last month (and hasn’t really improved by this moment).

I am still writing, and shortly will transcribe a new fictoid for posting early next year, so the fires are still stoked, the motor’s still purring.

(Indeed, I finally got an insight into an idea I had decades ago that might very well be a perfect fit for some online writing site; more on that in months to come.)

Of course, if you follow Twitter or are on Facebook, the Internet is currently crawling with folks determined to start writing and / or finish that Great Novel / Screenplay they’d once begun.

There’s going to be a lot of competition out there, but I’m not going to worry about that.

The writers who truly succeeded, the writers who matter were the ones who wrote to please themselves and while happy to share their efforts with the world, would have kept on keeping on regardless.

I’m in that category (the “keep on keeping on” portion, that is).

It’s going to be a radically different world in 18 months.

David Brin (cited elsewhere; go read Duty Now For The Future once observed that the great cultural leap forward happened between 1914 (the start of WWI) and 1919-20.

He cites kitchens as one of his cultural yardsticks: The homemakers of 1900-1914 would have easily comprehended and been able to work in a 1880 kitchen…or an 1860…or 1840…or 1800…or 1700.

It wasn’t that radically different.

But by the early 1920s, while old style kitchens were still plentiful, they were dying out, replaced by newfangled electric kitchen with newfangled technology such as affordable consumer refrigerators instead of ice boxes, toasters, waffle irons, mixers, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

The jump in that five year span was greater than the jumps of the previous two centuries.

And the homemakers of 1920 -- as quaint and as antiquated and as inefficient as their “labor saving devices” were -- could easily understand the functions of a contemporary kitchen, even if the individual bells and whistles might prove a trifle confusing.

Ditto the office worker of 1900 to the office worker of 2020.  

We’ve sure got a lot more gadgets than they had, but they could grasp what a cell phone was used for because they had landline phones, they’d comprehend a desktop computer was a blend of typewriter and adding machine and tickertape and telegraph, Skype and Zoom would not be alien to anyone familiar with a party line.

The cultures of 1920 and 1990 are a lot closer than we imagine…

…but they’re also a lot different.

(I’d be remiss not to acknowledge there were other cultural changes that occurred after 1920 that drastically changed our world, and at some point in the future I’ll write on all that…but not today, not today…)

We’re about to see a big change in everything, and the future is going to belong not to those in one particular birth cohort or another, but to those who can see that future unfolding before them.

Catch you on the other side.

  © Buzz Dixon

[therightnewsnetwork]

Who’s Telling the Truth in Washington? Anyone?

If you are among the small cohort of Americans who want to know what is really going on—rather than simply wanting more ammunition to support your preferred political team—then you have a problem: It’s hard to know who is telling the truth.

Hardly a stunning new insight. But it bears down with more weight now, because the public is confronted with competing narratives from what an English professor would call two unreliable narrators: the press and the Trump administration.

Take the press first. It’s well known that, with a few salient exceptions, the media tilt heavily to the left. That tilt shows up in decisions about what subjects merit scrutiny, how much scrutiny they deserve, and the tone of that scrutiny. Some of the decisions are conscious, some less so. (Nobody ever issued a newsroom memo stipulating that stories should sometimes call the NRA “the gun lobby” but must never call NARAL “the abortion lobby.” It just happens.)

But even if you set political slant aside, the media sometimes get stories badly wrong. Think of Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” memos about George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard. Or Rolling Stone‘s retracted cover story about a rape at U.Va. Or CNN’s retracted story about how the U.S. military used sarin gas against defectors. Or The New York Times‘ reporting on Saddam Hussein’s purported weapons of mass destruction—reporting The Times eventually recanted. Partly. Sort of. With qualifications and so on.

That combination of ideological slant and human fallibility gives Republicans reason to be skeptical of the press. So doubt is a natural reaction when a long train of allegations against Donald Trump, based largely on unnamed sources and unseen memos, dominates the headlines.

Say this much for the establishment press, though: For all its shortcomings, it doesn’t lie to your face. Newspapers and news shows are not going to run with a claim they know is a steaming pile of bogus.

Politicians and their henchmen do. All the time.

At this writing, the most recent case in point involves House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. At a meeting of Republican congressional leaders last June, McCarthy said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” (Dana Rohrabacher is a Republican congressman from California.) House Speaker Paul Ryan swore those present to secrecy, but the remark was caught on tape.

Asked about the comment on Wednesday, Brendan Buck—a spokesman for Ryan—said it “never happened.” McCarthy spokesman Matt Sparks said the very idea that his boss would make such a comment “is absurd and false.”

Reporters then told the spokesmen the comment was on tape. “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor,” Buck said. Sparks agreed, calling it “a failed attempt at humor.”

As lies go those are venial sins, not mortal ones. Officials are guilty of far worse falsehoods—some of which are now infamous:

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Bill Clinton said in a televised public statement. Clinton also was fined $90,000 for lying under oath in a sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Jones.

Hillary Clinton lied early and often about her emails. Then she lied about lying: After FBI director James Comey’s testimony before Congress exposed her lies, Clinton claimed on TV that “Director Comey said that my answers were truthful.”

In 2013, as director of national intelligence, James Clapper was asked whether the National Security Agency was collecting “any type of data at all” on American citizens. Under oath, Clapper answered, “No sir,” and “not wittingly.” The revelations by Edward Snowden later revealed those statements to be egregiously false.

Ronald Reagan swore to the American people that his administration did not trade arms for hostages in the Iran/Contra scandal. He was later forced to concede, “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages.”

The list could run on and on without ever getting into murkier questions, such as: Was George H.W. Bush lying when he said “read my lips: no new taxes”—or did he really mean it at the time? Was Barack Obama lying when he said, “if you like (the health care plan) you have, you can keep it”—or did he simply not realize he could never keep that promise?

For the sheer frequency and magnitude of falsehoods, though, nobody can come close to Donald Trump. He, his spokespeople, and members of his administration lie so badly about so many things—and so many that are checkable—it is almost funny. From claims about the size of his inaugural crowd to his recent assertion that he coined the decades-old economic term “prime the pump,” the president is a geyser of untruths. (One count puts the tally for his first 100 days alone at 492 “false or misleading” claims.)

So if you’re trying sincerely to separate fact from fiction in the current climate, don’t supinely accept the truth of any story that gets published. But don’t automatically assume it’s wrong, either—especially if somebody in power wants you to.

This column originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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from http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/whos-telling-the-truth-in-washington-anyone/

[patriotnewsblogger-blog]

Who's Telling the Truth in Washington? Anyone?

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/whos-telling-the-truth-in-washington-anyone/

Who's Telling the Truth in Washington? Anyone?

If you are among the small cohort of Americans who want to know what is really going on—rather than simply wanting more ammunition to support your preferred political team—then you have a problem: It’s hard to know who is telling the truth.

Hardly a stunning new insight. But it bears down with more weight now, because the public is confronted with competing narratives from what an English professor would call two unreliable narrators: the press and the Trump administration.

Take the press first. It’s well known that, with a few salient exceptions, the media tilt heavily to the left. That tilt shows up in decisions about what subjects merit scrutiny, how much scrutiny they deserve, and the tone of that scrutiny. Some of the decisions are conscious, some less so. (Nobody ever issued a newsroom memo stipulating that stories should sometimes call the NRA “the gun lobby” but must never call NARAL “the abortion lobby.” It just happens.)

But even if you set political slant aside, the media sometimes get stories badly wrong. Think of Dan Rather’s “fake but accurate” memos about George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard. Or Rolling Stone‘s retracted cover story about a rape at U.Va. Or CNN’s retracted story about how the U.S. military used sarin gas against defectors. Or The New York Times‘ reporting on Saddam Hussein’s purported weapons of mass destruction—reporting The Times eventually recanted. Partly. Sort of. With qualifications and so on.

That combination of ideological slant and human fallibility gives Republicans reason to be skeptical of the press. So doubt is a natural reaction when a long train of allegations against Donald Trump, based largely on unnamed sources and unseen memos, dominates the headlines.

Say this much for the establishment press, though: For all its shortcomings, it doesn’t lie to your face. Newspapers and news shows are not going to run with a claim they know is a steaming pile of bogus.

Politicians and their henchmen do. All the time.

At this writing, the most recent case in point involves House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. At a meeting of Republican congressional leaders last June, McCarthy said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” (Dana Rohrabacher is a Republican congressman from California.) House Speaker Paul Ryan swore those present to secrecy, but the remark was caught on tape.

Asked about the comment on Wednesday, Brendan Buck—a spokesman for Ryan—said it “never happened.” McCarthy spokesman Matt Sparks said the very idea that his boss would make such a comment “is absurd and false.”

Reporters then told the spokesmen the comment was on tape. “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor,” Buck said. Sparks agreed, calling it “a failed attempt at humor.”

As lies go those are venial sins, not mortal ones. Officials are guilty of far worse falsehoods—some of which are now infamous:

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Bill Clinton said in a televised public statement. Clinton also was fined $90,000 for lying under oath in a sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Jones.

Hillary Clinton lied early and often about her emails. Then she lied about lying: After FBI director James Comey’s testimony before Congress exposed her lies, Clinton claimed on TV that “Director Comey said that my answers were truthful.”

In 2013, as director of national intelligence, James Clapper was asked whether the National Security Agency was collecting “any type of data at all” on American citizens. Under oath, Clapper answered, “No sir,” and “not wittingly.” The revelations by Edward Snowden later revealed those statements to be egregiously false.

Ronald Reagan swore to the American people that his administration did not trade arms for hostages in the Iran/Contra scandal. He was later forced to concede, “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages.”

The list could run on and on without ever getting into murkier questions, such as: Was George H.W. Bush lying when he said “read my lips: no new taxes”—or did he really mean it at the time? Was Barack Obama lying when he said, “if you like (the health care plan) you have, you can keep it”—or did he simply not realize he could never keep that promise?

For the sheer frequency and magnitude of falsehoods, though, nobody can come close to Donald Trump. He, his spokespeople, and members of his administration lie so badly about so many things—and so many that are checkable—it is almost funny. From claims about the size of his inaugural crowd to his recent assertion that he coined the decades-old economic term “prime the pump,” the president is a geyser of untruths. (One count puts the tally for his first 100 days alone at 492 “false or misleading” claims.)

So if you’re trying sincerely to separate fact from fiction in the current climate, don’t supinely accept the truth of any story that gets published. But don’t automatically assume it’s wrong, either—especially if somebody in power wants you to.

This column originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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