Month: June 2020

Stay on target

I notice there’s suddenly much less coverage out there about the unrest in the USA. Got to keep up the momentum because the system is predicated on the will of the people running low, on exhausting the anger and inertia created by it. Where I live is historically a very White part of Canada, and the protests here are reflective of that, but the BIPOC population is growing in both numbers and voice and things are changing in bits and pieces. It’s odd to be so sheltered from it all when my friends in NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, and etc., do all the work. Here are some articles for context on how our industry is facing change (not ideally, it turns out). Regardless, change is coming. We just have to make sure it happens before the newscycle tries to move on. Let’s start with an article to remind everyone that racism isn’t just an American thing:

Tuesday newsday

Friday bits and pieces

Our daughter is moving back to St. John’s from Montreal today (her and her asthmatic boyfriend are literally fleeing the poor decision-making of that government and the bizarre behaviour of the people around this virus) so we’re going to be a bit busy. Here’s some news to see you through to Monday.

Reading: you’re doing it all wrong

Nothing better than articles that come along to tell you how those things you enjoy an do daily aren’t being done well-enough. Read slower, read faster, read more, read less. How about this? Go buy some books until the stack starts to teeter and when you get through those, think of which ones you liked best then go find others like to replenish your Wobbly Jenga Tower of Books. You can always tell its a slow news day when someone comes up with a “how-to-better” article for something everyone visiting a site dedicated to books is already doing. Like Cosmo and sex tips that always end up sticking-your-pinky-up-someone’s-ass, or Guns and Ammo and shooting-your-child-in-the-face-while-cleaning-your-supposedly-unloaded-gun.

These days, time is certainly not of the essence and, like most of us, I find myself with more than enough hours in each day. But how to make two pristine, never even been opened books last until the shackles are loosened, the doors of bookstore are left unlocked and the mask washed and put away until the next pandemic? Impossible I grant you.

But there is a way to extend the reading of a book. I will learn from that all-the-rage slow-cooking method and attempt to apply it to reading. This way perhaps I can make these long anticipated novels last far, far longer than usual.

What’s behind the nuttery of book-banning?

What makes a frothing nutbar get up at a school board meeting and start screaming about protecting the children? I mean, besides low intelligence and blind adherence to a dying ideology? Oh, according to this little article, that’s about it. Wouldn’t mind a more in depth look at this psychology/sociology behind this. It can’t just be the mind-control device embedded in each MAGA hat.

There is no logic or reason motivating these book-banning parents. Their quest for “inappropriate books” to censor stems from the fears shared by parents everywhere: the fear of losing control over one’s children. Not being able to supervise their children’s reading translates to the parent’s realization that their children may read something the parent never wants their child exposed to. The fear and anxiety of some parents are clear: they never want their child to adopt any alternative lifestyle or stray from the strict societal norms.

Thursday news dump

Laser gun post chock full of nerd pews

by Paul Vermeersh

It’s a glorious time to be a nerd (fewer gut punches and wedgies, in my experience) and I’ve recently re-embraced my dweebheritage by diving fully back in where I left off in my late teens: Dungeons and Dragons, scifi novels, and video games. If we could only get the more toxic end of the fanbase to STFU, things would be a lot nicer. I’m always amazed that people who were once marginalized (albeit mildly by comparison) are so interested in passing that on to others. Like those dudes who get knocked around by their moms or dads and then grow up to hand it out to their own kids. Bizarre. But perhaps, I thought, besides fighting the negative, we need nerds like me to speak up more about the positive . So I give to you some positive snapshots from my recent nerdlife:

Last night, for instance, just as I was completing the main questline Fallout 76 (my fourth run at the franchise), I wondered, what draws me to this sort of post-apocalyptic dystopia over say, something more hopeful? Well, the internet is always there with an answer (note: this is a libertarian site not known for its unbiased reporting, but I stumbled across this article that I at least enjoyed a bit of, so decide going in whether you want to hold your nose and read).

Dungeons and Dragons has gone to a good place in trying to cut the white/large boobs in chain mail bikinis/hetero bias/cultural insensitivity over the years, and seem to still be learning how to make the game even more inclusive. When my group of middle-aged, forward-thinking folk, finished our run throughThe Curse of Strahd last fall (a very well designed adventure) we kept wincing at the depictions of the Roma-like Vistani (don’t even get me started on Tomb of Annihilation). But that’s all being changed. Bravo, you glorious geeks.

Of course, in terms of misogyny and sexism, scifi still has a lot of catching up to do (cf, any Conan The Barbarian cover from the 70s/80s, any Piers Anthony novel of the same vintage, etc etc et al etc.). I’ve been rereading classics from my youth: Solaris, Dune, etc (and Foundation will be next), and let me tell you, some of it hasn’t aged well. But at least people are starting to ask what about body-positivity in the genre?

See, everyone? It’s not that hard to admit you were wrong and make changes. Evolution does it without conscious effort, this learning from mistakes, but culture needs intention. Keep growing, you crazy dorks!

Evaristo tears publishing a new hole

Gosh, I like her more and more each day and I have yet to read a book by her. Here she lays out some plain and obvious truths that publishing doesn’t want to hear.

Evaristo, who won the Booker last year for Girl, Woman, Other, writes in the new report of her own experiences when her 2013 novel Mr Loverman “was negatively considered by some in the industry as triple niche” because its protagonist is an older, gay, black man.

“What were they saying? That whiteness reigns supreme, heteronormativity is acceptable and old people be gone from the pages of our books because you are of little importance?” asked Evaristo. “The truth is that good literature about anything can be enjoyed by all kinds of people. Literature transcends all perceived differences and barriers. It’s partly the point of it.”

It is frustrating, Evaristo writes, to learn that “the publishing industry is still run by the predominantly white, middle-class demographic of years ago, and that the perceived target reader is a middle-aged, middle-class white woman, who apparently does not have the imagination to want to engage with writings by people of colour, which is plainly untrue”.

Wednewsday

Tuesday news

Busy day here, so perhaps not so many posts. We’ll see how it turns out.