Category: Journal

I’ve been under the weather again, and that, combined with constant stream of political ugliness and some family problems have left me feeling as though I don’t have much to say. I’m still not sure I do, but I feel like I need to clear the deck a little before I get back in to the swing of things.  My skin decided to do it’s “I’m going to react as though I’m allergic to any and everything” bit again. It was bad enough that I had to go back to the dermatologist and get some steroids in to my system. Steroids are magical and all, but they do suppress the immune system and so, while the allergic reactions cleared up, I picked up some infections as well. As it turns out, I’ve now reached the point where penicillin based antibiotics are Not Good At All for me, so there were some knock on issues from that.  I’m functional, and I haven’t missed work except to visit the doctor a few times, but I’m not going to put on a brave face and pretend that this has been fun. I’m not sad or anything, just a little beat up. ———- I just finished reading extraordinary book, and, while I’m glad I read it, it didn’t do my mood any good. It’s called My Lobotomy by Howard Dully and it’s about exactly what you’re thinking it’s about. Dully was lobotomized at age 12 by Dr. Walter Freeman, the man who invented the ice pick lobotomy. Dully’s parents requested the procedure and, when the operation failed to “fix” Howard, they made him a ward of the state. Things got worse from there. The book is Dully’s telling of his own life. It’s remarkably non-judgmental and he doesn’t shy away from blaming himself for his actions. He spent his entire life knowing that something was wrong with him and wondering what he had done to deserve being lobotomized, what his parents had said to the doctor. He is eventually allowed to see the Dr. Freeman’s archives and all of his notes on his own case. There’s no easy closure in the book, but it’s unflinchingly honest at heartbreaking in places. For example, when he’s working as a school bus driver for special needs children, he comments:  “Sometimes, I would look at a kid and think, There but for the grace of God go I.” That’s the guy who had ice picks poked through his eye sockets when he was twelve. I’ll try to remember that the next time I feel like complaining. ———– My dad’s not doing well. He’s been in the hospital the last couple of days with pneumonia, and the medication he’s been on has been as bad, if not worse, than the disease. The good news is that the switched medications and the scary side effects disappeared. He should be coming home from the hospital soon. There’s a lot of good stuff about getting older (no, really!) and there’s a lot of good in my life, but this part’s pretty lousy.  On the plus side, I just started Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and, after just getting my toes wet in it today, it’s going to be amazing.  

Those policemen in Dallas did not deserve to die. Neither, though, did the vast majority of people of color killed by the police. There is no contradiction in saying these two things unless you think there’s a war, unless you see it as “us” against “them.” Philando Castile and Alton Sterling did not deserve to be killed. Attempting to justify their killings by posting their criminal records or showing their mug shots on TV is abominable. Attempting to cover up the actions that lead to their killings is criminal*.  This has to stop. Black lives matter, although you sure as hell wouldn’t know it by watching the news. On the left the selfie the news chose to broadcast when reporting on a white woman arrested for the beating death of a homeless man. On the right is the mugshot the news used for the victim of police violence. The problem isn’t just with law enforcement; it’s everywhere. I’m not an activist. I wouldn’t call myself woke by any means. I’m not the person to look to for solutions, and these are failings in myself I need to address. I’ll say this, though: I’m done caring at all about what one politician or another does with their e-mails or how clever their tweets are. My voting this November is going to be based on nothing but justice, and by justice, I mean “treating people of color the way white people are treated.”   Anyone, from the presidential candidates down to the city council, who supports escalating violence or more killing, is a candidate I will vote against even if they’re running unopposed. Any candidate whose response to the current situation is that we need more police and more military weapons for them, I will do everything within my limited power to oppose. Any candidate saying “All Lives Matter” is one I will vote against. Any candidate who supports for-profit policing and for-profit prisons? Fuck you.  Any candidate in an election who offers anything concrete to make this situation better will get my vote, regardless of their party. I am a one-issue voter now.  I have had, for the most part, benign encounters with law enforcement. Until law enforcement treats people who don’t look like me as well as they treat me, we don’t have law. Until the justice systems treats people who don’t look like me as well as they treat me, we don’t have justice. Until our country treats people who don’t look like me as well as it treats me, we don’t have a country, or at least, not one worth being proud of.

The other night, we were watching the Shanghai episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. During an early segment, Bourdain was eating dumplings with billionaire Zhou Lin. Out of the blue, Zhou Lin posed this dilly of a pickle: “But the difficulty nowadays, it’s just the technology is so advanced, we don’t really need that many people to do things that many people used to do. And what’s the population? Seven billion people? The world probably doesn’t need that many people working anymore. So the question is: What should human beings do, you know? How can you let them not do anything and then still live a good life? I dunno. It’s going to be a big issue facing the whole world.” That seems like a really good question, doesn’t it? Oversimplifying things, wages are determined by the need for labor versus its scarcity**. Automation increases the productivity of each worker, which reduces the need for labor and decreases the scarcity of workers. Toss in an increasing population and you’re bound to eventually reach the point where there’s not enough work, meaning “jobs which pay a living wage”, to go around. Adam Smith wasn’t the prophet of our times; Ned Ludd was.  Maybe that Marx fellow was on to something. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”* is the sort of thing that would address exactly this problem if not for one little problem: Human nature. That’s what Zhou Lin is talking about when he asks “How can you let them not do anything and then still live a good life?” People who work get tetchy when they see other people getting the same rewards by not working***. This is the guy I’m thinking about. We’re approaching the end of capitalism as a viable system, or rather, it’s already failure is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed****. What can be done, going forward? Most of the ideas I can think of can be classified three ways: 1) Band-aids: Temporary solutions to try to sustain the existing system a little longer while we try to sort things out. A mandatory shorter (four day?) work week would increase the scarcity of labor. Heavy taxes on automation would do the same, albeit in an inflationary way. Higher minimum wagers would fall in to this category as well. 2) Unrealistic: Most socialist/communist solutions fall into this category. Eliminating the power of accumulated, unproductive wealth might work, but it’s as likely to be effectively implemented as banning guns in the United States. Setting a maximum wage, ending inheritance, and no longer treating unearned income like it’s better than earned income are some common sense measures that would never, ever, ever make any headway.  3) Monstrous: Fewer people would make the problem less severe. A big die-back would accomplish this quickly. Forced sterilization and/or setting a limit on the number of children people can have would be less extreme and take longer but would eventually arrive at the same place. To be perfectly clear, I think these are monstrous and incredibly bad ideas.  That’s a long way of saying that I obviously do not have the answer. I don’t know what a society where one’s livelihood is not defined by work or productivity or wealth would look like. Someone’s going to have to figure it out, though. The relationship between work and making a living is broken. So long as the trend towards more automation and greater population continues. it’s only going to get worse.   * Yes, I know this phrase is properly attributed to Louis Blanc, but Marx popularized it. In fairness, Blanc was riffing on Étienne-Gabriel Morelly: “In accordance with the sacred laws, nothing will be sold or exchanged between citizens. Someone who needs, for example greens, vegetables or fruits, will go to the public square, which is where these items will have been brought by the man who cultivate them, and take what he needs for one day only.” Yes, I looked it up in Wikipedia. I’d love to say that I knew all of this off the top of my head, but that would be fibbing. ** Yes, increased productivity drives down prices, increasing the standard of living and creating additional need for work in other service industries. The relationship between automation and population in terms of wages isn’t 1:-1, but the two are negatively related and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you a bill of goods. Goods likely produced by below-sustenance labor and sold to you on overpriced credit.  *** You also get hack philosophers writing subtle-as-a-falling-anvil polemics about the few heroic productive people and the mass of parasites who leech off of them. Funnily enough, everyone who reads these novels thinks that they, the reader, are among the heroic productive people. Fortunately, most people outgrow this sort of thing the day they get out of college. **** Apologies to @GreatDismal

For the first time since the second world war, neither of my parents have to wear glasses.  That’s something that’s a little hard for me to wrap my head around. In the second half of their seventies, both of them have better vision than they’ve had at any point in their lives. I know laser eye surgery has been around for a good while now, but my folks had never expressed an interest in it.  The idea that any part of my body would function better in my seventies than in my twenties feels ridiculous to me. From a strictly physical standpoint, everything other than my ability to grow hairs on my ears seems to be heading downhill. Will I be faster, or hear more acutely, heal more quickly, or be able to sing without people giving me that “at least you tried” look when I’m seventy five?  Last week, my father’s vision was so poor that he was essentially unable to read even with absurd looking prescription lenses. Today? He doesn’t need any vision correction at all. That’s magical.  (This seems like a good time to link Will B. Mackintosh’s essay A Declension Narrative of Paperwork again. It’s a good reminder that things are, in general, getting better, although you wouldn’t know it listening to all of the folks who long for the good ol’ days.) ————————————- One more thing I’m noticing from binge watching The Twilight Zone: In a sense, it’s weirdly similar to The Sandman. So many of the stories involve frontiers, earthly and otherwise, where reality seems “soft,” where things can meet across time and space in ways they wouldn’t otherwise. There’s far more theremin and Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone, of course….

I’m just reading Looking Back, the memoirs of Lou Andreas-Salomé. She’s best known for her associations with Friedrich Nietzsche, Ranier Maria Rilke, and Sigmund Freud. I suppose it’s inevitable that a woman in that era would be remembered primarily for the men in her life, but that would be selling her short. Nietzsche described her as the most intelligent person he ever met, although he may have been a little biased as he was pretty obviously crushing on her pretty hard. The memoirs are frustrating in they’re not particularly revealing about the woman herself. She writes extensively about the people in her live and she’s extremely generous in her recollections. She had a happy childhood, loved her family, and appreciated the best qualities in the exceptional men whose acquaintance she made. She spends entire chapters on Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud, as well as author and friend Paul Rée and her husband, Friedrich Karl Andreas. She’s discreet as to the exact nature of her relationships with these men, even her husband. Although Salomé was raised in Russia, she writes very much in a distinctly German style. If you’ve read Nietzsche or Hesse, you’ll recognize the dense structure, alternately ecstatic and technical. The first few chapters discussing her childhood and of her leaving the church are a bit of a slog, but if it stick with it, it’s easier going from there on out. The impression you’re left with is one of a woman who refused traditional relationships, possessed a wildly curious and capable intellect, and retained a child-like nature, with all the good and bad implied, well into middle age. I just wish it was more than just an “impression” and she’d shared a little more of her own self in her memoirs. ————————————— On an unrelated note, we’ve been chain-watching The Twilight Zone and it’s been an eye-opening experience. It was imaginative and way ahead of its time, but it’s almost jarring how good the photography looks. The last time I saw the Twilight Zone, it was over broadcast television on an old CRT TV. Streaming on a good, but not great, modern television, it looks so much crisper and sharper than I remembered. That suggests that the recording technology, even way back in the sixties, was remarkably good, but when broadcast over VHF into a tube television, the quality of the image degraded enormously. Oh, and as Nicole pointed out, just about every Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror bit was lifted directly from The Twilight Zone. 

A couple of months or so ago, I tweeted a question asking if readers could more easily list their top ten films, books, albums, TV shows, or restaurants. Since I miss LiveJournal and love making list, I thought I’d share mine. All of these lists are subject to change at any moment, and they’re personal favorites as opposed to what I think are the “greatest” works in the media. I started with films , albums and then novels.   Just for grins, I’m going to switch to one that isn’t on the list: comics (both series and stand-alone graphic novels.) The Sandman – Neil Gaiman and many great artists This is the comic that really drove home the message that comics were a unique and powerful medium for stories. Neil Gaiman mapped out an expansive, incredible arc for Morpheus, but the beauty, for me, is in the stories within stories. The title character is often just an observer or a catalyst for the tale in question. It’s really extraordinary stuff. The breadth of his craft, his ability to switch voices and genres like as quickly as the Lord of Dreams takes and discards names…just read it an enjoy. If I had to pick one book from the set, it would Season of Mists, which turns expectations on their heads in such a brilliant and, in hindsight, obvious way. Kelly Jones’ art sure doesn’t hurt, either. Phonogram – Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie I’m loathe to put recent reads on the list, but this Phonogram is one of the most surprisingly deep, touching, and relatable works I’ve ever experienced in any medium. It’s a comic about people who use music to perform magic, at least on the surface. That’s a great enough idea to make it a must-read, but it unfolds into something so much bigger. It’s a mediation on how people experience art, how they relate to it, how scenes burn out and then re-emerge as revivals and how people deal with the past and the fact that the past is the past and not the present and so on. The second volume, Singles Club, is probably my favorite, but all three are musts Planetary – Warren Ellis and John Cassaday A comic about comics that never gets cute about it and somehow sticks the landing. Almost every issue is a self-contained homage/pastiche/whatever of a particular genre.  Instead of getting lost in commentary on the medium, it’s a big mystery story that unfolds in thrilling fashion. Cassaday is up to the challenge of telling a wildly different story in a different style every issue. An utterly brilliant idea an execution that does it justice. Do yourself a favor and just start at the beginning and read it all the way through. Casanova – Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon I won’t even try to describe this book. Reading it is like doing your very favorite drug in your favorite place to do it. I avoided Casanova for years because the title, of all things, didn’t do it for me, but that was really dumb of me. I guess it’s sort of a conspiracy/super-spy/pansexual/robot (cyborg and the big kind)/family story, only it’s much stranger than that. Moon and Ba are like no other artists on this planet. They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but they fit this book perfectly. This is another one you just have to start from the beginning.  Locke & Key – Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez Horror doesn’t work for me. I understand that craft that goes into creating horror, and I respect it, but it just doesn’t do anything for me. Locke & Key is the sole exception to that rule. The thing that makes it work is the incredible balancing act Hill does in plotting the story. The heroes have all of the power but none of the knowledge of how to use it. The villains have all of the knowledge but none of the power. The tension comes from how the balance shifts, and there were numerous “Oh no, there’s no WAY they can get out of this moments.” It’s absolutely gripping and it never, ever cheats the reader. Doom Patrol – Grant Morrison and a stack of artists Other than some old Dr. Strange books from the 70’s, I wasn’t really familiar with “weird” comics. When I first picked up Doom Patrol, I’d already read Dark Knight and Watchmen, so you’d think I would have been prepared, but nothing could possibly have made me ready for “The Painting That Ate Paris,” a story about a group of Dadaist villains, led by a man who isn’t there, who entrap Paris in a recursive painting, each level representing a different artistic style. “The Painting That Ate Paris” is the essential volume, but know that the epilogue to that one is brutal.  Transmetropolitan – Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson A Hunter S. Thompson-esque journalist in a near-future dystopia, as written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Darick Robertson. On the off chance you need any other reason to read it, there’s a PSA which has the best description of voting in a democracy you’ll ever encounter (look it up yourself, no way I’m linking it here.) It’s tough to single out an essential volume. “Year of the Bastard?” That’s probably the one. Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson I know this is completely different than the other ones on this list, but it’s such an extraordinary work of art that I had to find some list to put it on. The set up would have been too cute in the hands of any other writer, but Watterson…heck, why am I even writing this? You know Calvin and Hobbes. It’s the best comic in the history of ever.  Tank Girl – Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett and then others If your only knowledge of this book comes from the unfortunate film, you’re missing it. Lori Petty gave it a great go, but she was never going to be allowed to portray the sheer profanity of the comic version. Tank Girl is a freight train of cursing, drinking, violence, shagging, crime, and somehow, it’s hilarious. Some of the post-Hewlett books have been solid, but the first two collections are the alpha and omega of Tank Girl. Flaming Carrot Comics – Bob Burden A powerless hero…

I’m struggling to wrap my head around anything useful with U.S. presidental election sucking up so much of the air right now. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to write about it, I just want it to be over, but it’s so pervasive. So, let me get this out there and maybe I’ll be able to move on to something else going forward. I’m not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton*, but I’m going to be voting for her for President and that’s not going to change. I wish that the U.S. had a viable liberal opposition** but until we do, I’ll support what passes for “left” in the general election. Hillary Clinton would be center to center-right in most other countries, but she’s better than the alternative. That’s doubly true this year. Let me tell you a story: Decades ago, my father owned a business that did business by contract. One of their clients employed him and his company to do some expensive work, which they did. When it came time to pay, the client offered my father ten percent of the contracted amount. My father balked at this and the client told him “You’ll take this amount or my lawyers will tie this up in court until your pissant company is out of business.” You can probably guess how this relates to the Republican candidate this year. You’ve heard plenty of stories about how Trump University was a scam that bilked people out of their savings and then some in exchange for something worth less than a bag of beans. He also has a history of stiffing people he’s agreed to pay. There are, of course, countless reasons to oppose Donald Trump, but for me, these are the big ones.  Thomas Frank wrote what I think is a very important piece on why people support Donald Trump. It’s not the racism. It’s not the self-aggrandisement. It’s the populism. Trump paints himself as a champion of the people who have lost their jobs overseas. I get that. What Frank doesn’t mentions, as its not in the scope of his piece, is that it’s all a lie. Donald Trump has built his empire on screwing the people he’s courting. He’s the kind of guy who’ll look you in the eye and tell you you’ll take ten percent of what you’re owed and that you’ll like it.  That’s where I stand. That’s not likely to change barring some shocking new information. Now I can get back to stuff that’s non-political like, um, the Hugo Awards. *sigh*   * Sorry my Bernie friends, but the people have spoken and Hillary Clinton is their choice. Please consult Mr. Scalzi if you’re not clear on this. * *Dear Greens: Until you start working at a grass roots level and getting mayors, state legislators, and even U.S. legislators elected I’m not taking you seriously. Showing up every four years for the Presidental election isn’t convincing me.

I’ve read article after article going after Chuck Klosterman for his prediction, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that rock music will eventually be distilled to a single artist in the mind of popular culture. The prediction appears in his new book, But What If We’re Wrong . I’m biased. My awareness of music neatly coincides with the rock era. I love rock music and would love to see it last forever.  I can understand the arguments against this thesis and I have a lot of sympathy for them. But, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and try to side with Klosterman on this one. Here are some reasons he could be right (note: I haven’t read his book yet. I’ve read the reactions of people who think he’s wrong, so I could well be repeating his arguments without knowing it): 1. 100 years is a long, long time. Most entertainment loses any relevance long before that. When I was in high school, books written in the 1880s used a very different language than what I could enjoyably read. Without relevance, it’s hard to argue that it will stick in the cultural memory. 2. In fact, I’ve never heard of most of the authors of the 1880s even though their work may well survive. Print is pretty durable. The fact that the work of rock musicians will still be available does not imply that they will be remembered. 3. Genres tend to dilate as they fade into the rear view mirror. I remember the 80s like they were yesterday, but if you go by the radio, most bands only had one song, and there are fewer and fewer artists from that era getting any airplay. Heck, the 90s have already been culled to the Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, and Nirvana. 4. The subgenres get it worse. Reggae = Bob Marley. 5. Content is being created much, much faster than it was, pushing the old stuff further back faster than what we experienced. In the 80s, 60s music was “classic” and 50s music was so alien as to be unlistenable. This process is accelerating 6. Revivals make the old stuff seem even more alien, not less (see: Stray Cats, The or read Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s marvelous Phonogram books). 7. Musical genres have historically had about a 30 year shelf life. Over the last 100 years, the most popular genres have been marching band, dixieland, crooners, swing, jazz, proto-rock, rock, and now rap and R&B. You can break it out however you like, but the idea that rock will still be culturally relevant and well-remembered in popular culture in 100 years seems unlikely. 8. “Pop culture” IS culture and everything else is old people stuff. Popular culture is the only culture that matters.Some people might have you think that classical music, ballet, and theater are “real” culture, but for the people who are creating and experience the culture of 2016, Justin Bieber is more important.  Personally, I like rock. I still listen to it, even the new stuff, but even I can see that it’s being pushed to the margins. I’d hope that the things that mean so meant so much to me would continue to resonate throughout the ages, but realistically? I’ve had my turn. My grandfather, who played in big bands, used to play me records of the giants of his era whose names I didn’t know. My eyes glazed over when he told me their stories. I’m not proud of it, but I was 18 and, like many 18 year old, I knew everything worth knowing already. It’s probably better for everyone if we keep making space for each generation to create their own culture and not expect them to venerate ours.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re not signed up for Warren Ellis’ newsletter, Orbital Operations, you’re missing out and you owe it to yourself sign up immediately. Go ahead and do it now. I’ll wait. This is where you sign up. For the most part, I dislike reading reviews of books because that almost invariably leave me less excited about picking up the book. Even glowing reviews have this effect, which probably says something about me, but let’s not go there. Contrast that with this, the final paragraph from this week’s discussion of Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station: And, yes, it does tell its own story, one that is as much myth and legend as sf. Interrupted love, the culture of abandoned robots, designer babies with imaginary friends and released AI as wild djinni. The book is bigger than it seems, and I’m still thinking about it, unpacking the layers of it. I recommend it highly. It’ll stay with you for days, because every idea in it has more ideas under it. It’s all of science fiction distilled into a single book. That is a how to get me excited about a book. Seriously, sign up for the newsletter. You won’t regret it. Or, if you do, I probably won’t hear about it so I’ll just assume you had no regrets.    

We left the window slightly open last night during the thunderstorm and light show. The cats thought this was the most exciting thing they’d seen in ages, so they zipped up and down the length of the occupied bed all evening, making excited noises and fighting with each other for a spot by the window. After last night’s thrills, tonight’s a relatively quiet evening, ideal for a little catching up. I recently read Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. It’s a history of Latin America from a decidedly economic perspective, and a Marxist one at that. It’s an unpleasant book to read as Galeano makes a strong case for placing the blame for the lack of economic development in Latin America on the people who sought to get rich at the expense of (and often on the backs of) the people living there. It’s well written and it’s a story worth telling, but it’s not a fun book to read. If you look at it from just the right angle, and maybe squint a little, it echoes one of the messages of William Gibson’s The Peripheral. One of the recurring themes of science fiction (and human history, I suppose) is that there are few things worse than contact with a superior civilization. In most cases, this means a militarily superior civilization. After reading Galeano and Gibson, I think it might be even more ruinous to encounter a civilization more advanced in its economics.  So, to clear my palate, I’m re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. It wasn’t in my queue, but I wanted something a little more pleasant to read. I love Vonnegut’s voice. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a comedic book without enjoying the author’s voice. With a thriller, or Serious Literature, or whatever, a writer can get away with having an unremarkable or even grating voice if the story and characters are strong enough. With a book that’s meant to be funny, the writer doesn’t have that luxury. If their voice is irritating, I won’t laugh, and I won’t enjoy the book. On a side note, my sister is about to watch Liverpool play against Valencia in the Europa League final. The match is long over, but she recorded it and is watching it now. Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians live in four dimensions and see time as a solid, all moments existing at once and forever and it is pointless to try to change what will happen since it’s already occurred. For my sister’s sake, I hope that this is not true and the match will end differently than it did when I saw it, but I doubt that it will. Anyway, I’d forgotten just how delightful it is to read Vonnegut.  Vox published an article today purporting to show a relationship between how people commute and how happy they are. People who ride the train are the second happiest, just behind people who can walk to their jobs. I’ve no idea if this survey is valid, but my experience agrees with their conclusions. Commuting is awful. It’s bad enough that we have to work; having to spend my time, my attention, and my money to get there and back is even worse. Anything that minimizes one or more of these factors increases my happiness significantly. Having the good fortune to be able to read in peace and not have to deal with traffic or parking? I’m pretty lucky to have that option. I’m about one year in to my “reading books on the train” initiative. I just did a quick hand count and it looks like I’ve read twenty-nine books during my commute over the last twelve months. That makes me happy. The time on the train is “found” time, time I was wasting messing around on my phone and increasing my stress levels before and after work. Carrying a book on the train was an easy habit to pick up and it’s easy to keep with it. I still have a longish list of books on my “to read” list, so I bet I’ll be doing this for a while.