Strikethrough that! What a lame expression. If it gives me joy, then it ain’t (and moiself isn’t) guilty.
Look what I’ve rented for three months.
* * *
Department Of The Book I’m Not Recommending
…well, sorta, if not wholeheartedly: Women Don’t Owe You Pretty,[1] by Florence Given. However, I’m still thinking about the book, almost two weeks after finishing it. So, for moiself, that counts as a recommendation.
WDOYP was this month’s choice for the book group [2]moiself hosts. As described in this post, Book Club has themes for each month. Seeing as how March is Women’s’ History Month, Feminist/pro-woman titles is this month’s theme.
One BC member said she had a problem getting into WDOYP, at first (me, too). As in, it took us several chapters to get used to the Ms. Given’s prose patterns, and we (mistakenly, ultimately) felt that with regard to both content and style the book was aimed more towards young(er) women, and not cranky, been-around-the-block-and-back feminists like ourselves. The afore-mentioned BC member, who grew to like and appreciate the book, nailed it in her description of the author’s tendency toward curt prose and didactic, bullet-point ideas: “I felt like I was being shouted at.”
Upon reflection, I’m thinking that many of the contradictions I found in the book are not so much contradictions as they are the author’s attempts to deal with the conundrums inherent in being a feminist in this or any society. Given decries the culture and political, social, and economic systems wherein women are raised to put their appearance at the forefront and to dress and behave for the male gaze– systems she wants to dismantle or at least overhaul. Yet she stresses how we must not criticize women who doorganize their appearance for the male gaze, because they have been socialized to do so.
As I was pondering this sticky wicket, for some reason I turned to the book’s back cover. Checking out the authors’ photo is something I almost never do, [3] but this time I did, and I didn’t know whether to guffaw or smirk. Was the picture that Given (and her editor/publisher?) chose – Given clad in a no-bra midriff top, her wide-eyed gaze smoldering beneath her Charlie’s Angels hairstyle – meant to be ironic? As in, was it an intentional a juxtaposition of the author’s premise and exposition – that women do not and should not present themselves for the male gaze – with an image of the author which references the most male-gazieest pop culture female characters ever?
Or perhaps, moiself thought, she’s just young and vain? In the book, Ms. Given mentions – always in context to whatever she’s shouting writing about yet more often than I found necessary – being aware of her privilege as a “slim, pretty, white woman.” Sure, she’s committed to feminist principles…but she’s also an occupant of those here-I-am-look-at-me, InstagramTik-Tok, self-promotion, social media worlds [4] which so many people her age [5] inhabit. A quick search revealed to moiself that Given is quite active on those sites – sites which, as many therapists and [other/older] feminists point out, promote unhealthy body images and are detrimental to the mental health of girls and women.
Given makes you go, girl type noises re women and girls who “choose” to dress in what might be seen as a provocative manner, as long as those females are doing it for “themselves” or because it’s what *they* like, and thus they are expressing their authentic, feminine selves… Yet how can they reliably know that those styles and modes – that *any* styles and modes – of dress and presentation are what they truly like? How can you know what your “authentic” likes are/self is, when you’ve been propagandized (read: poisoned) all your life about what is appropriate female attire and physical presentation?
Case in point: high heels are poor podiatric shoe choices bad for you – that’s a medical fact, not a style opinion. My encounters with women who describe themselves as progressive and feminist yet still think stiletto heels are appropriate dress-up attire have always chapped my ass (and heels) – I want to grab those women by their shoulders (but caefully, because they might topple over) and sputter,
“ *Who* told you these contraptions are appropriate and/or attractive?!?”
Your only excuse for such a “choice” of footwear would be if you were a native of the planet Cripfemme, where the females have only three toes: two short ones on the side and a very long pointy one in the middle. Otherwise, do you expect moiself– and yourself – to believe that you came to this conclusion on your own, without any outside influences, and that this kind of shoe is practical and comfortable?
Something tells me the leader of Planet Cripfemme looks like this.
All in all,WDOYP was a good book for discussion and reflection (obviously, as I am still doing so). Despite her overuse (IMO) of relationship buzzword descriptors (e.g., “toxic”), the author has some insightful phrasings and framings of various issues, including the chapter wherein she delineates the “misogyny tax” women pay, and another chapter dealing with the prejudice against single women:
“ ‘Single’ doesn’t mean ‘waiting for someone.’ Choosing to be single is an autonomous choice, and a lot of men fear autonomous women and gender-nonconforming-people. It reminds them that we have other purposes on this planet than to serve them…. When people make autonomous decisions about their bodies and their lifestyles, they are met with a whole spectrum of resistance, and this is particularly true for marginalized people. Anything that deviates from the narrative society has written for and about you is shamed and unaccepted.”
Overall, I’m glad I read it. Note: WDOYP does contain trigger warnings on a couple of chapters dealing with sexual assault and harassment. [6]
* * *
Department Of Yet Another Adjective That Moiself Does Not Want To Hear Y’all Use As Noun
But it’s too late, as its informal usage has already entered certain dictionaries. [7]
I’m talking about creative, when used for a person or an occupation. We got your firefighters, we got your x-ray technicians, your IT specialists, your butchers and bakers and candlestick makers…and now we have Creatives®. It’s no longer a mere modifier (“What a creative floral arrangement” or “Those kids are full of creative energy.”) It is being used as a noun, and thus preceded by an indefinite article.
The hubris of those who would so refer to themselves, moiself can scarcely imagine. Except that I don’t need to imagine it, as twice this week I heard more than one person [8] do this (which is what sparked this rant post):
“As a creative, I…”
“I am a creative, and so I….”
* * *
Department Of Because We Are Sheep, That’s Why
I’m noticing a new thing at one of the grocery stores where I shop. Just inside the store’s entrance there will be a couple of young-ish men and women, standing alert and dressed more formally than most people do for picking up some produce. These folks try to make eye contact with shoppers who enter and exit the store, and when they do, they approach the shopper and ask, “One quick question?“ Whether you say yes or no, they proceed with the question:
“What is your current mobile service?”
I’m surprised and disappointed to have observed so many shoppers answer this question despite the uncomfortable, oh-please-leave-me-alone-I-just-want-to-get-some-salad-veggies looks on their faces.
Why do people do that – answer questions from strangers, when they know what’s coming and don’t want to be subjected to a sales pitch? They seemingly feel obliged to respond to that intrusive query…which, okay, is not asintrusive as, “What is your current underwear size?” but which is nonetheless personal. Your utility services and bills – that’s personal finance info, and none of anyone else’s business. What is it about human nature that so many of us respond? Oh yeah, because we are….
From what moiself has observed, the Mobile Service Shillers® work as partners: one stands near the entrance/exit doors, another about 20 feet inside the store. I’ve seen them signal to each other, with eye and/or hand gestures and head nods, indicating (I deduced) a shopper they did not engage. Thus, if the first one doesn’t “get “ you (or is talking to someone else) the other has a shot, either when you’re entering or leaving the store.
Up until recently I have observed the MSS-ers closely but never answered them, until the past two weeks when I grew tired of ignoring them and decided to engage. Since then I’ve been approached four times while pushing my cart on my way out of the store, and I’ve answered four times.
“Hello! Excuse me; what is your current mobile service?”
Time #1: Moiself smiled perkily and said, “None of your business.”
Time #2: I donned my best non sequitur expression and replied, “Spatula.”
Time #3: “As an all-natural family we communicate via strings tied to paper cups.”
Time #4: This time, the MS Shiller® got specific, and asked if my mobile service was____ or ____ (the two most common carriers in this area ). “Neither,” I replied, opening my hand and mimicking the flip phone gesture Captain Kirk made when he was going to request Scotty to beam him up. “I use my Star Trek communicator.”
“A communicator!”Mobile Service Shiller® overly enthusiastically gasped. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him signal to his partner with a shake of his head, as if to say, “Nope – leave this one alone.”
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week:
“Men often ask me, ‘Why are your female characters so paranoid?’ It’s not paranoia. It’s recognition of their situation.”[9]
May you never confuse recognition with paranoia; May you give yourself permission not to anawer shilllers of any kind ; May you have a happy day celebrating being Irishin America; [10]
[3] Writers should be read and not seen ( Moiself included). I generally doesn’t care or want to know about an author’s physical appearance and/or personal life.
[4] Worlds which seem, IMO, to mainly consist of constantly posting images of yourself, over and over and over….
[6] Although, thinking of a friend who appreciates those warnings, there was also material earlier in the book and outside of those chapters which I thought could be difficult for someone who’s been raped and/or abused.
[7] Misapply any word long enough and it’ll get an entry.
Dateline: Friday morning; watching a movie on TV while warming-up on my elliptical machine before my streaming yoga class. When Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone takes a commercial break, I discover a new (well, to moiself ) tactic in the using-the-fear-of-living-to-sell-stuff campaigns. Along with “anti-aging” potions, there now is at least one skin product company that is promoting their products as “ageless.“ Hmmm So, if you use their serums and creams and lotions you can be ageless. Which, if I understand the meaning of the suffix -less, means you will no longer have age – you know, like people who don’t yet exist, or are dead.
Sign me up!
And what a convenient segue to…
Department Of Topical Topics
Dateline: Sunday 1:30 pm-ish; MH and I driving home after dining out. During lunch we’d discussed our previous evening’s watching of the first three episodes of season 3 of Star Trek’s Picard. We talked about what we liked and didn’t like plot-wise, and what we both found distracting and disturbing: the “new face’ in the cast, [1] which was actually a familiar face, or should have been. Translation: we were both saddened and disappointed by the draconian visage of actor Gates McFadden (Star Trek/TNG’sDr. Beverly Crusher), yet another actor who oh-so-obviously had drastic self-mutilation “work done.”
How moiself cringed to behold her…and I’d been looking forward to seeing her character again. I’d just listened to McFadden’s most recent podcast: I’ve listened to many episodes of it, where I’ve learned that in addition to being an actor and choreographer, McFadden is also passionate about her work as a theater director and acting teacher. I don’t know if she’s still teaching acting, but if she is, I’m wondering how she would counsel novice actors – in particular, female actors – re the thespian principle of how your body is your instrument…and your face is attached to your body and is the most expressive part of your instrument, but so many actors now seem to view their face as an ornament – passive and decorative, not active and expressive – which needs periodic refurbishing.
McFadden and most of the TNG cast are making guest and/or recurring appearances on Picard. Assuming McFadden’s fellow TNG actors hadn’t seen her in a while, [2] here’s another thing I wondered: one by one, as her former castmates are filming their scenes in which Dr. Crusher and their respective characters have roles, they see her grotesque altered appearance for the first time, backstage, and…how do they react?
They *are* actors, so it’s likely that, after a truly sincere, “It’s so good to work with you again!” they convincingly spew the obligatory, “You look great!”…or just change the subject. [3]
I feel so bad for – nope, wait, I do not. Not gonna apologize for my honest reaction. I’m just so sad to know that if I were to have met her, I’d be stifling my What happened to you – you look terrible?!? Whatever you did, let it wear off and DON’T DO IT AGAIN reaction, which would be a cruel thing to say to anyone. And after it’s done – when it’s “too late” – no one is likely giving her honest feedback.
What kind of a shallow and shitty world makes her think that she had to do that to herself? And who LIES to her (who lies to *anyone* who does these procedures?) after her face has been sliced the pulled and stitched and bloated and tells her she looks great, or at least somehow better?
It’s unfair/not nice, I know. Female actors encounter a loss of work if they age naturally, then get criticized when they attempt to mask their age surgically. But…oh, Ms. McFadden…Gates, Gates, Gates, girl…things aren’t going to change unless we decide to change them, by not capitulating to the sexism and agism which drive such decisions. And if you’re not moved to rebel by realizing the dirty cultural and political standards that drive the plastic surgery industry, what about trying a dose of this reality:
* You don’tlook “better” after cosmetic surgery – no one who undergoes these procedures does. * It calls attention to your aging, and your fear of it; you look distorted, not younger.
Before
After
Après lunch I opened the LA Times app on my phone, and saw the latest Steve Lopez column. Longtime journalist Lopez started a new project several months back, which the Times announced thusly:
“…we are thrilled to announce that Lopez is launching a new column, Golden State, which will explore the challenges, and occasional thrills, of aging.
Nearly 6 million people 65 and older live in California, and that number will nearly double by 2030. That growing demographic grapples daily with care-giving shortages, age discrimination, isolation and health issues. … They are negotiating relationships with adult children and with grandchildren. In some instances, they’re raising their grandchildren. At the same time, many people 65 and older continue to be at the top of their game….”
And the focus of Lopez’s most recent column?
“We live in a society obsessed with youth, fearful of death and allergic to wrinkles. But actress Mimi Rogers, who is 67, is having none of it…. It’s refreshing to see a big-name Hollywood actor age naturally and gracefully rather than grotesquely.”
Mimi Rogers had contacted Lopez about another article he’d written. They corresponded, she agreed to be interviewed about her recent acting roles, and then…
… she was happy to speak her mind…about ageism, longstanding societal pressures on women to look young, the double standard for men, and ‘the plastic surgery nightmares we see all around us.’ ‘This is me, this is my face,” Rogers says, ‘and I’m not going to show up with fish lips.’ Rogers said she feels fortunate to have been able to consistently find work as she has aged, and she revels in her current role on Bosch: Legacy… a full-on, artful and talented lawyer who plays her age while fighting for her clients and her causes. In many ways, Rogers said, this is a good time for older actors because streaming of high-quality shows has opened some doors. But biases and double standards are still firmly in place. ‘It goes back to when Cary Grant was cavorting with 22-year-olds’ on screen,’ Rogers said. ‘I think it’s better in Europe, but a lot of women talk about this idea that past a certain age, you become invisible. It’s like your sexual currency is gone, and that currency goes away much more rapidly for women.’ We’re at something of a ‘turnstile moment,’ says University of Michigan cultural critic Susan J. Douglas, author of “Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media.” Stereotypes about female aging persist, she said, but there’s been a pushback and ‘a visibility revolt’ in which actresses, including Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, ‘are still opening movies and TV shows, and political figures, including Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, are ‘staking a claim to be visible in public life.’
Moiself’s insertion: Yeah, stake that claim….even as people like CNN Newscaster Don Lemon (age 57) keep saying (and thinking) shit things like this: [4]
CNN host Don Lemon shocked his co-host after saying that Nikki Haley, who recently announced her plan to run for president in 2024, and other women over the age of 50 aren’t in their “prime.”
On Thursday morning’s episode of CNN This Morning, Lemon and co-host Poppy Harlow discussed Haley’s recent comments about requiring competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. “This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable. I think it’s the wrong road to go down. She says people, you know, politicians are suddenly not in their prime. Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime. Sorry. When a woman is considered in her prime is in her twenties and thirties,” Lemon said. (Newsweek 2-16-23)
More Lopez column excerpts (from “ ‘This is me, this is my face’: Actress Mimi Rogers on aging naturally, without cosmetic surgery,” my emphases, LA Times 3-4-23 )
‘Mimi’s position is so important to the rest of us, because celebrity culture often sets the standard for everyday women — the standards of slimness and beauty and looking young,’ Douglas said. Many women, Douglas continued, face a “punishing” dilemma — especially those in entertainment and public life. Wrinkles can threaten their livelihood, but ‘if you go under the knife and don’t look like yourself, you’re attacked for being narcissistic or wanting to hold on to the past. So it’s really hard to win.’ And then there’s the multibillion-dollar ‘anti-aging industrial complex’…diligently grooming the next cult of warriors in the fight against the inevitable. “…it’s really quite a brilliant campaign,” said Douglas. ‘They are now marketing Botox to people in their 20s, and if you get people to be phobic about aging when they’re young, you have an ever-replenishing market for your products.’ “
* * *
Department Of Silly Moiself…
…for doubting that Yet Another Bonehead remark® could come prancing out of the mouth of Senator Ted Cruz.
Last Saturday morning, I saw this social media post from a friend who is a longtime activist [5] in the National Gay Pilots Association:
NGPA Stands with Transgender Aviation Community On March 1, 2023, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “It gives no comfort to the flying public that their pilot might be a transgender witch but doesn’t actually know how to prevent a plane from crashing…” The NGPA strongly condemns Sen. Cruz’s transphobic statement and welcomes the opportunity to educate Sen. Cruz and members of the Senate Commerce Committee on effective Crew Resource Management, how an inclusive flight deck is a safe flight deck, and how to be a supportive ally to Transgender aviators across the industry. Read the full press release here.
I had to look up the video (here it is) of Cruz’s comments; I thought the report of it might be an exaggeration, because I couldn’t quite believe that anyone would utter the words “transgender witches” with regard to anything FAA-related.
Someone needs to cast a spell on that man.
Also, as a member of the Flying Public ® (and therefore qualified to speak for ALL OF US), I know that witches have a millennia of skillful flying under their belts hats. Thus, I’ve no problem with witches of any gender orientation being involved with aviation. In case my opinion on the matter isn’t clear, behold my favorite of my car’s many bumper stickers:
* * *
Department Of Speaking Of Boneheads
I don’t read many comic strips anymore, in part due to my (mostly but not exclusively) subscribing to online newspapers. Even when MH and I subscribed to three “dead tree” newspapers and moiself would scan the comics pages, I hadn’t paid attention to Dilbert in years if not decades. I thought Dilbert was a clever idea when it started – the cubicle culture was a fresh and ripe venue for satire. Eventually it seemed to me that Dilbert kept repeating itself. [6] I stopped checking it out because I found it boring; also, there was a certain undertone of…smugness(?)…I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Moiself didn’t know the strip was still running until its creator, Scott Adams, got into a brouhaha after he got ahold of some wicked Maui Wowie decided that the world needed to hear his WTF?!? opinions on race relations he broadcasted on his YouTube channel. [7]
Adams reportedly has a history of airing “problematic” views (including statements that can be taken as anti-COVID vaccination, claiming he lost job opportunities because he is white, and questioning the Holocaust death estimates). On February 22 he posted a rant (YouTube livestream ) wherein, after referencing a poll by the conservative-leaningRasmussen Group that found only a slim majority of Black Americans agreed with the weirdly phrased statement, “It’s okay to be white,” Adams said that Black Americans are “a hate group” and advised white people to “get the hell away” from them.
Historical context:
“The phrase ‘it’s okay to be White’ was popularized in 2017 as a trolling campaign meant to provoke liberals into condemning the statement and thus, the theory went, proving their own unreasonableness. White supremacists picked up on the trend, adding neo-Nazi language, websites or images to fliers with the phrase….
‘Anyone who did know the history of it or who had a suspicion about the history of it might react to that Rasmussen question with some skepticism,’ said Nicholas Valentino, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who studies racial attitudes and public emotions. ‘And that wouldn’t be a sign that they didn’t like White people.’ (“A poll asked if it’s ‘OK to be white.’ Here’s why the phrase is loaded.” The Washington Post, 2-28-23 )
Did Adams not know (or care) about that tricky phrase’s history? Did he wonder, even for a moment, about that poll’s question’s phrasing?
I have no idea. However, IMO what some other cartoonists have said is equally or more troubling than Adams’ rant.
( Excerpts from “Cartoonists say a rebuke of ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams is long overdue,” my emphases, NPR news 2-28-23 ):
“…(other) cartoonists say Adams has a long history of spewing problematic views… ‘It begs the question, now that everyone is piling on him, what took so long?’ said Keith Knight, an illustrator known for his comic strips The Knight Life, (th)ink and The K Chronicles…. After receiving widespread pushback for his offensive rant, Adams described himself as getting canceled. But (some) cartoonists argue that he is simply being held accountable for his remarks. ‘By Adams saying he’s been canceled, its him not owning up to his own responsibility for the things he said and the effect they have on other people,’ said Ward Sutton, who has contributed illustrations to The New York Times, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. ‘He’s trying to turn himself into a victim when he himself has been a perpetrator of hate.’ …Similarly, Hector Cantú, best known for his Latino-American comic Baldo, said he believes in freedom of speech, but not freedom from repercussions. ‘Don’t gloss this over by saying it’s politics or it’s cancel culture,’ he said.‘If you’re going to offend people, you risk paying the price.’
Seriously?
Do some deep yoga breaths, Cantú, and consider this: How do you define what the “price” is?
A blanket statement like If you’re going to offend people, you risk paying the price could be used to justify anything, as long as someone feels “offended.”
* What about “the price” Salman Rushdie has paid ? After all, he “had an effect on” – he “offended” – many, many people. * What about the attack on the French newspaper, Charlie Hebro (12 murdered ; 11 injured) by an Islamic terrorist group, after the satirical publication ran cartoons that many people found offensive? * And what about Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who, in collaboration with Somali-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a TV film which criticized conservative Muslim clergy for perpetuating views that are anti-women and anti-gay? van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on the streets of Amsterdam for his “offensive” views and films, [8] and Hirsi Ali received numerous death threats and had to go into hiding.
Look: It’s no surprise to moiself that Adams’ rant makes him sound like a Major Dickhead.
That’s *General* Dickhead to you, ma’am!
There are reasons I chose to stop reading Dilbert. And newspapers are, of course free, to choose which strips they will carry and which they won’t, for whatever reasons. But, hello, I am greatlytroubled by Cantú’s comment. I believe Cantú’s attitude is a danger to intellectual liberty and freedom of expression – I suppose I should say I’m greatly *offended* by him, and then, what? I could be justified in making Cantú risk paying the price…whatever price I decide is appropriate re the depth of my umbrage?
* * *
Department Of Must See TV
So much to complain about, this past week!
Thus, I was happy find something worthy of anti-complaint. Moiself did something I’ve never done before: I wrote a letter to the producer(s) of a TV show. Here it is, in its entirety:
The 3-2-23 episode of Grey’s Anatomy (“All Star”) was a stunner, for me. First, the obligatory listing of my commentary credentials:
* I worked for nine years in women’s reproductive health care; five of those in a private OB-GYN practice and four in various Planned Planned Parenthood clinics.
* I am a human being.
The episode’s storyline which inspired me to write featured a young mother who suffered intractable non-treatment-responsive, devastating, postpartum depression after the births of each of her two children. She and her husband suffered a contraceptive failure and she was faced with a third, unplanned pregnancy. She chose to terminate her pregnancy to save her own mental health and to be able to be a fully present mother to her two young children.
What was stunning for me was when I realized how rare it was – what I was seeing. How refreshing to see a storyline involving a woman’s decision to have an abortion presented so forthrightly – as in, not involving hysteria or judgment, but wherein a patient needing medical services was able to make the best choice for herself and her family, and was able to do so legally, and with competent and compassionate medical care. Having worked in an abortion clinic, I also appreciated the depiction, once again competent and compassionate, of the abortion procedure itself.
May you be part of the aging naturally visibility revolt; May you be wary of how you react when you are “offended;” May you cherish the comical absurdity of terms like transgender witches; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I almost didn’t recognize her…except that she was identified as Dr. Crusher.
[2] They’ve all been pursuing other gigs since the series went off the air and the last TNG movie was made, which was over 20 years ago.
[3] And how many of the male cast has had cosmetic procedures? Hard to tell, although, typically, males are “allowed” their wrinkles (and can use facial hair to a certain extent to hide sagging chins and lip and mouth lines). Patrick Stewart, who plays Jean Luc Picard, certainly looks *near* his age, but his forehead is suspiciously taut.
[6] Without announcing, “this strip is a rerun.” Hey, everybody needs a vacation…
[7] Yep, I didn’t know Dilbert was still running and also didn’t know Adams had a YouTube channel.
[8] van Gogh was already dead when his murderer used a knife to pin a death threat to Ali on van Gogh’s chest. Ali subsequently went into hiding under government protection.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Whatever Stupid Thing You’ve Done, You’ll Feel Better About Yourself After Reading This
Dateline: Wednesday, ~ 8 am; trying to squeeze in some advance dinner prep – mixing up a plant-based Caesar salad dressing – before my 9 am streaming yoga class.
Usually, I turn the blender off, LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO, when I tap down/add more ingredients, etc. But I was just going to scrape a bit of the dressing down the sides of the blender, and it was such a smallspatula…
Before I knew it the blender blades grabbed the spatula, whirled it around and ejected it, along with most of the blender contents. My hair and face were blotched with salad dressing, as were parts of the kitchen, including the ceiling, nearby cabinets and counters, appliances, the kitchen floor…. Lemon juice, caper brine, Dijon mustard and other acidic ingredients in the dressing stung my eyes (and the next day I noticed blotches of acid burns on my face – hopefully, the marks will fade/heal in a few days). [1]
After I rinsed my eyes and face and beheld the kitchen, moiself’s heart sank. Where to start? I called upstairs to MH: “Uh, I need your help down here…” He descended the stairs; I led him to the kitchen carnage and said, “Now, you can’t laugh, because I could have blinded myself.”
Later, after we’d cleaned up as best we could, MH tentatively asked, “Can we laugh now?”
This is my contribution to the never-ending, You think *you* did something stupid? Listen to this!, make-everyone-feel-better campaign. This was a public service on my part.
I happened to have a haircut appointment that afternoon, and my haircutter got a kick out of my explaining why she might find bits of dried yellowish gunk in my hair. I’d managed to clean most of it out, then stopped when I remembered, “Ah yes, I’m getting a haircut in a few hours and a professional is going to wash my hair….”
* * *
Department Of Yeah, We All Know How, Sooner Or Later, Drunks Who “Lose Their Way”
Decide To Defraud The Government And Buy A Lamborghini
“An Orange County man who fraudulently obtained $5 million in pandemic relief loans and then spent the money on lavish vacations, luxury sports cars and his own personal expenses was sentenced Friday to 4½ years in prison…. Mustafa Qadiri…obtained the funds by submitting loan applications to the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which Congress created in March 2020 to provide emergency aid to small businesses struggling to survive amid COVID-19 related shutdowns and other business interruptions…. Qadiri…filed the applications…on behalf of four separate Newport Beach companies, none of which were actually in operation at the time…lied about the companies’ employee numbers, falsified bank balances and created fake tax returns…. Several friends who wrote character references for Qadiri…described him as a caring and generous man….successful in business early in life, then suffering from alcohol abuse in recent years — which caused him to lose his way.”
“I must have lost my way,” said the pope, when he woke up from his latest bender and found this new popemobile in his driveway.
* * *
Department Of I’m Still Thinking About This
Dateline: early eve, February 5. Texting with a friend who was watching the show, moiself realized the Grammies were on and I’d forgotten about it. I quickly turned on the TV, but ended up switching back-and-forth between the telecast and a recording of the latest SNL, because the Grammy Awards show was, for the most part, IMO, rather tedious.
I know it’s not an award show these days unless someone gives a speech about how progressive and inclusive they or their idols are. So, there was that. But another, unexpected drag was having that panel of non-industry folk (read: music fans) giving their take on why *their* favorite song should win the Record of the Year award. Really? If I wanted to hear the opinion of average Joes re what song they like I’d get together with a bunch of my neighbors and we’d just talk about it.
When I’m watching a show celebrating the arts, I’m watching for the art being celebrated. If the show is (ostensibly) about celebrating popular music, I’m watching for the music performances, not the speeches. Perform, y’all, not preach! I want to see the performers sing and play their songs, more than I care about whether or not they get an award.
And then: the MF (Madonna’s face) brouhaha.
“Look, I don’t know exactly what has happened to Madonna’s face, but like the rest of you I can neutrally observe that most 64-year-olds do not emerge from the back-end of middle age with a brow line as smooth and hard as polished river rock. Earlier this week she appeared at the Grammys looking rather [insert your own kind or unkind adjectives; I’m not going to do it for you], and people noticed in a very big way, and by the next morning news outlets like the Daily Mail had lured in a whole scalpel of plastic surgeons to dissect what they believed had gone into the situation, and into Madonna.
Soon the artist herself responded via Instagram. ‘Many people chose to only talk about Close-up photos of me Taken with a long lens camera By a press photographer that Would distort anyone’s face!!’ she wrote…”
“…and no, I do not understand her capitalization rules but I am reprinting them because with Madonna you never know when something is a mistake and when something is a curated message. ‘Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny That permeates the world we live in.’ She is right, of course, about the misogyny in particular. The takeaway from President Biden’s State of the Union speech was, his best performance in years, not what is going on with his eyelids? but the takeaway with Madonna — an icon who has been steering culture since Ronald Reagan was in office — was, did Madonna’s face eat Madonna’s face?” (excerpts from “The unacceptable Look on Madonna’s face: We seem so horrified when women age, no matter how they try to do it.”
Monica Hesse, The Washington Post, 2-9-23 )
I was watching that part of the Grammies show, where Madonna (who apparently hasn’t toured/has stayed out of the public eye for a couple of years) introduced a couple of performers. A part of me still wants proof that it is/was Madonna who did so. Is DNA photo analysis a thing yet? Had she not been introduced as Madonna, moiself would not have recognized one of the most recognizable figures in pop music. And I assumed the long-distance filming of her – not a still photographer’s shot, but the camera filming her, while she was speaking – was because the camera operators were equally appalled and thought that a closeup would be…well…even more cruel.
Of course, the pundits had to weigh in via the various news outlets. Judging from what I read, some of the op-ed writers needed cognitive enhancement even more than Madonna thought she needed Botox. I’m thinking of author Jennifer Weiner’sNY Times guest essay. Her essay title alone is worthy of a cosmetically enhanced face palm: “Madonna’s New Face Is a Brilliant Provocation”
Oh, deary dear deary deary. Ms. Weiner, y’all be trying to sell us a big festering turd on that one. That “new provocation” is the same old capitulation to the wolves of sexism and ageism wrapped in the sheep’s clothing of cosmetic “enhancement.”
(excerpt from Weiner’s essay) “…Beyond the question of what she’d had done, however, lay the more interesting question of why she had done it. Did Madonna get sucked so deep into the vortex of beauty culture that she came out the other side?….
Perhaps so, but I’d like to think that our era’s greatest chameleon, a woman who has always been intentional about her reinvention, was doing something slyer, more subversive, by serving us both a new — if not necessarily improved — face and a side of critique about the work of beauty, the inevitability of aging, and the impossible bind in which older female celebrities find themselves….
‘I have never apologized for any of the creative choices I have made nor the way that I look or dress and I’m not going to start,’ [Madonna] wrote on her Instagram on Tuesday. ‘I am happy to do the trailblazing so that all the women behind me can have an easier time in the years to come.’
Thank you, oh great one, on behalf of all the women behind you, for taking this trailblazing burden upon yourself!
Moiself will let a couple of letters-to-the-NYT-editors writers have a go:
Ms. Weiner quotes Madonna as saying, “I am happy to do the trailblazing so that all the women behind me can have an easier time in the years to come.” I am curious, how does this represent trailblazing? Cosmetic surgery for approval or attention, even self-approval, seems less like trailblazing and more like objectification. To see more women aging naturally in the media spotlight would be the definition of a trailblazing and daring example to set. (ST, Los Angeles)
Jennifer Weiner writes, “I’d like to think that our era’s greatest chameleon, a woman who has always been intentional about her reinvention, was doing something slyer, more subversive, by serving us both a new — if not necessarily improved — face and a side of critique about the work of beauty, the inevitability of aging, and the impossible bind in which older female celebrities find themselves.” Please. As a 65-year-old woman, I can tell you: Having extreme surgery is certainly not a new way to “ ‘critique’…the work of beauty, the inevitability of aging, and the impossible bind” in which all older women find themselves…. It strikes me as extremely sad that so many beautiful women in their 40s, 50s and 60s think that erasing their years cosmetically — cutting themselves open, pulling or pushing their skin and rearranging their faces — is a reasonable approach toward getting older…. (IK, Brooklyn)
Here’s the thing, Weiner, and all y’all other defending-Madonna pundits: I (duh and of course) am with you on the sexism and aging thing, and about criticizing the culture that “makes” women think that they have to cosmetically mutilate enhance themselves to hide the physical manifestations of continuing to live (i.e., aging). But your opinions are only half correct. Yes, the culture blah blah blah, but cosmetic procedures are also an individual choice, especially for someone with as much money and influence as Madonna.
Does Madonna, or any other performer, sincerely want to be radical and provocative and trailblazing? Then show – *be* – an honest portrait of individual aging. Madonna’s extensive work reinforces, rather than critiques, the unfairness and stereotypes of women and aging, and does *nothing* to change or challenge the ”impossible bind” re women and their appearance, nor does it recognize the power of the individual to dare to age publicly, gracefully, and even proudly.
I highly doubt that an Isis-backed, terrorist-funded, plastic surgeon’s team kidnapped Madonna at gunpoint. No one forced her to do the procedures she chose. Societal pressures, schmessures – of course that exists. But to somehow paint Madonna (or any woman who succumbs to the real and pervasive social coercion to erase wrinkles/dye hair/hide any evidence of aging) as a victim is infantilizing. Would we do the same for men, in a slightly different but ultimately related topic – as in, would we excuse misogynistic behavior by noting that society was primarily responsible? Would we accept the rationalization of the bricklayer who, when called out for cat-calling women who pass by his construction site, says in his defense, “Yeah, I know it’s not right, but this is the society I live in, and I was raised to see women this way.”
Sure, females in the public eye, from news anchors to performers to politicians, have been enculturated to see themselves and other women in a certain way…and in Madonna’s case she absolutely participated in setting up her ever-youthful, hyper-sexualized image that can only and ultimately boomerang and provide a then vs. now, comparison downfall. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Consider poet/singer/songwriter/photographer/author, Patti Smith, who at age 76 continues to produce her art. Not only is there no evidence that a surgeon’s scalpel or Botox syringe has ever penetrated her skin, Smith doesn’t even dye her graying hair. [2] But then, Smith never based her music and art on her appearance or sexual allure (as Madonna definitely did/does, whether or not you think that by her doing so she exploits or critiques the phenomenon). Smith’s music and poetry – her body of work – have always focused on what’s beneath the surface, unlike so many female performers where their body of work is entangled with their the presentation of their physical bodies.
…and speaking of so many performers, when I beheld many of the other/younger female performers I saw on the Grammy show [3]…. Oh, dear, I felt so old.
I felt like I wanted to be their Wise and Beloved Auntie® whom they invited backstage; I wanted to tap them on their shoulders, point to Madonna and say,
This could be you someday. Have you noticed how your male musicians/actors/emcees/performer peers are not showing as much skin as you are, and have you thought about why?
You’ve been lied to if you think that displaying your sexuality means you are taking control of it and are not in fact being defined and exploited by your appearance. By creating this body of work that has more to do in some ways with your body than your work, although you may want to keep working on the work, your actual body will crease and change and fade…and then what?
When you make your face and your body such a vital focus in your presentation of your art, *that* will be what your audience will focus on. They’ll be writing and talking and posting about *you* one day – and not about your work, but about how your face looks like a rhino’s ass.
May you not need reminding to turn off a blender when you poke it; May you never confuse greed with “losing your way;” May you fight the misogynistic powers that tempt you to embrace “anti-aging”; [5]
[4] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[5] And remember that the only sure fire way not to age is to die.
Department Of A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do
Dateline: Sunday, 10:30 am-ish. MH sits across from moiself at our breakfast table, with his copy of Saturday’s NY Times crossword puzzle. He’d started it yesterday but stopped when he couldn’t finish a small section of it. As he’s revisiting the puzzle he tells me he’d made a mistake with one four letter answer, whose clue was “____ stage (concept in psychosexual development),” and that fixing that one answer allowed him to figure out the rest of the puzzle:
“I had to switch from oral to anal.”
I look up from my own (KenKen) puzzle; MH pauses for a moment, then says,
“I need to rephrase that.”
* * *
Department Of Only A Certain Kind Of Geek Will Get This One
MH and I – and MH and I translates as, MH – did a clearing-out-space-in the-atticproject at the end of the year. A significant portion of space-which-needed-clearing-out was taken up by a dozen or so crates of LPs. MH moved them to floor the Cat Wall Bedroom ®…
…where we could sort through them. In the next couple of weeks, hundreds of albums were whittled down to a select eleven, set aside by MH and/or moiself for sentimental reasons. [2] Almost all of those eleven you can get somewhere else…but since, for example, there’s no guarantee of finding this gem of mine online or elsewhere, it stays:
The LPs are gone, given away/donated, and the bed in the Cat Wall Room is now covered with hundreds of CDs awaiting a similar culling process. We haven’t had a working turntable in two decades; up until a few years ago I’d still play CDS, but my new laptop doesn’t have a disk reader. It feels like the end of an era, of sorts, as we’ve belatedly acknowledged that we no longer “consume” (shudder) music in the same ways we used to. We still attend live music shows but listen to recorded music in different ways now. [3]
Side observation: as we were going through the records MH noted that the digitization of the everyday makes gift-giving more difficult: it used to be that an album or a book was an easy and “safe” bet for a friend’s birthday present. [4]
There was one LP I came across which surprised both MH and I, as in, neither of us had *any* idea it was in our collection. I have no memory of “making” this record [5] and MH has no memory of receiving it. Its front and back covers:
The bean/peas theme, I assume, comes from a running joke between us, from our dating days. One day, early in our courtship [6] when we were out driving Somewhere® on our way to do Some Thing, ® MH pointed out to me a bumper sticker (on the car ahead of us) which read, Visualize World Peace. He said that whenever he saw or heard that slogan his mind turned it into, “Visualize whirled peas.” Apparently, so did entrepreneurial others, for not long afterward I saw (and bought for him) a t-shirt…
…which he has to this day.
But wait – there’s more.
When I saw the album I’d made for him, moiself removed the record from its sleeve and discovered that I’d also altered record’s label, with track listings fitting the cover theme.
Side B
I’ve Bean Working On The Railroad (Pete Seeger)
I’ve Bean Lonely Too Long (The Rascals)
You’ve Bean In Love Too Long (Bonnie Raitt)
I’ve Bean Searching So Long (Chicago)
I’ll Bean Back (The Beatles)
Could This Bean The Magic? (Barry Manilow)
Side P
Give Peas A Chance (John Lennon and The Plastic Ono Band)
Peas Of My Heart (Janis Joplin)
Peas Train (Cat Stevens)
Peas Peas Me (The Beatles)
(What’s So Funny About) Peas, Love & Understanding (Elvis Costello)
Peasful Easy Feeling (The Eagles)
Peas Come To Boston (Dave Loggins)
Peas Peas Peas (James Brown)
I’d done that at least 35 years ago. At this point, attempting to remove the labels and the album’s covers might damage both the alterations as well as what lies beneath; thus, it’ll have to remain a tantalizing mystery as to what record I bastardized blinged to make that compilation. [7] However, if we find a working turntable on which to play it….
* * *
* * *
Department Of A Worthy, If Unsettling, Read
“The New Puritans,” by Anne Applebaum, TheAtlantic. The article is over a year old but moiself just got around to reading Applebaum’s thoughtful and disturbing thesis – on how mob social justice tramples democratic ideals and threatens intellectual freedoms. The article begins with a recollection of The Scarlet Letter, Nathanial Hawthorne’s classic tale of Hester Prynne, a woman who bears a child out of wedlock. Prynne is subsequently exiled by her Puritan peers, many of whom themselves are guilty of the same sin for which she is scorned: (excerpts from the article; my emphases):
“We read that story with a certain self-satisfaction: Such an old-fashioned tale! Even Hawthorne sneered at the Puritans, with their ‘sad-colored garments and grey steeple-crowned hats,’ their strict conformism, their narrow minds and their hypocrisy. And today we are not just hip and modern; we live in a land governed by the rule of law; we have procedures designed to prevent the meting-out of unfair punishment. Scarlet letters are a thing of the past.”
“Except, of course, they aren’t. Right here in America, right now, it is possible to meet people who have lost everything—jobs, money, friends, colleagues—after violating no laws, and sometimes no workplace rules either. Instead, they have broken (or are *accused of* having broken) social codes having to do with race, sex, personal behavior, or even acceptable humor, which may not have existed five years ago or maybe five months ago. Some have made egregious errors of judgment. Some have done nothing at all. It is not always easy to tell.
Yet despite the disputed nature of these cases, it has become both easy and useful for some people to put them into larger narratives. Partisans, especially on the right, now toss around the phrase cancel culture when they want to defend themselves from criticism, however legitimate. But dig into the story of anyone who has been a genuine victim of modern mob justice and you will often find not an obvious argument between ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke’ perspectives but rather incidents that are interpreted, described, or remembered by different people in different ways, even leaving aside whatever political or intellectual issue might be at stake.…..
…Hawthorne dedicated an entire novel to the complex motivations of Hester Prynne, her lover, and her husband. Nuance and ambiguity are essential to good fiction. They are also essential to the rule of law: We have courts, juries, judges, and witnesses precisely so that the state can learn whether a crime has been committed before it administers punishment. We have a presumption of innocence for the accused. We have a right to self-defense. We have a statute of limitations.
By contrast, the modern online public sphere, a place of rapid conclusions, rigid ideological prisms, and arguments of 280 characters, favors neither nuance nor ambiguity. Yet the values of that online sphere have come to dominate many American cultural institutions: universities, newspapers, foundations, museums. Heeding public demands for rapid retribution, they sometimes impose the equivalent of lifetime scarlet letters on people who have not been accused of anything remotely resembling a crime. Instead of courts, they use secretive bureaucracies. Instead of hearing evidence and witnesses, they make judgments behind closed doors.”
Journalist/historian Applebaum has previously studied and written [8] about how the political and social conformism and oppression of the early Communist period and other totalitarian dictatorships was the result “…not of violence or direct state coercion, but rather of intense peer pressure,” along with the fear of what will happen to you and your family if you violate the norms, and of how such fear leads to intellectual stifling.
But, the author notes, you don’t need government coercion to obtain the same results. In our country, Applebaum writes, “…we don’t have that kind of state coercion. There are currently no laws that shape what academics or journalists can say; there is no government censor, no ruling-party censor. But fear of the internet mob, the office mob, or the peer-group mob is producing some similar outcomes. How many American manuscripts now remain in desk drawers—or unwritten altogether—because their authors fear a similarly arbitrary judgment? How much intellectual life is now stifled because of fear of what a poorly worded comment would look like if taken out of context and spread on Twitter?”
In her article Applebaum goes on to write about the people whose stories she investigated, whose violations of the sudden shifts in social codes in America led to their professional and/or personal “dismissal or…effective isolation.” It is a disturbing read, to see what happens to a variety of disparate persons, whose only commonality is that they have been accused of breaking a social code, and subsequently find themselves at the center of a social-media storm because of something they said, or supposedly said:
“… no one quoted here, anonymously or by name, has been charged with an actual crime, let alone convicted in an actual court. All of them dispute the public version of their story. Several say they have been falsely accused; others believe that their ‘sins’ have been exaggerated or misinterpreted by people with hidden agendas. All of them, sinners or saints, have been handed drastic, life-altering, indefinite punishments, often without the ability to make a case in their own favor.”
The cases Applebaum cites show that cancel culture/mob condemnation can happen on all sides of the political sphere, and evince a tangible, nonpartisan lesson:
“No one—of any age, in any profession—is safe. In the age of Zoom, cellphone cameras, miniature recorders, and other forms of cheap surveillance technology, anyone’s comments can be taken out of context; anyone’s story can become a rallying cry for Twitter mobs on the left or the right. Anyone can then fall victim to a bureaucracy terrified by the sudden eruption of anger. And once one set of people loses the right to due process, so does everybody else…. Gotcha moments can be choreographed. Project Veritas, a well-funded right-wing organization, dedicates itself to sting operations: It baits people into saying embarrassing things on hidden cameras and then seeks to get them punished for it, either by social media or by their own bureaucracies.
But while this form of mob justice can be used opportunistically by anyone, for any political or personal reason, the institutions that have done the most to facilitate this change are in many cases those that once saw themselves as the guardians of liberal and democratic ideals. Robert George, the Princeton professor, is a longtime philosophical conservative who once criticized liberal scholars for their earnest relativism, their belief that all ideas deserved an equal hearing. He did not foresee, he told me, that liberals would one day “seem as archaic as the conservatives,” that the idea of creating a space where different ideas could compete would come to seem old-fashioned, that the spirit of tolerance and curiosity would be replaced by a worldview “that is not open-minded, that doesn’t think engaging differences is a great thing or that students should be exposed to competing points of view.”
(Excerpt from “The New Puritans,” by Anne Applebaum, 8-31-21, The Atlantic, my emphases )
Three cheers for the old Puritans.
* * *
Department Of Things That Make Me Smile Number 892 In The Series Sup-Department Of Things That Make Me Love My Fellow Snarkers
From “The Week” 2-10-23, a section of news blurbs listed under and heading Good week for/Bad week for:
Good week for: Plain English, after the Associated Press amended a policy, advising staff to avoid “dehumanizing ‘the’ labels, such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French…” Online wags had wondered if people in France should be called “people experiencing Frenchness” or people “assigned French at birth.”
May you enjoy a trip down the Memory Lane of your own storage space; [10] May you steer your social justice passions clear of the New Puritanism; May you, at some glorious point in your life, experience Frenchness; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Sorry, but after the previous Star Trek reference I think I am owed at least one bad pun as a segue.
[2] Son K stopped by to take a few, thinking he might get a turntable…eventually.
[3] I for one still listen to music on my car’s radio.
[4] However, most people will still “tolerate” actual/physical books, as MH put it.
[5] Although of course it is something I would – and apparently did – do.
[6] I never would have used that word then but for some reason it’s fun to use it now.
[7] Probably/hopefully the album was one I found at the bargain bin at Tower records, an album for which I paid no more than $1.25 for and which deserved to be papered over, ala The Best of the Osmond Brothers or Havin’ My Baby – The Worst of Paul Anka.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[10] An actual street in my actual hometown. Actually.
Department Of Here We Go Again Sub-Department OF Preview Of Coming Grievances Attractions
( Sub- Department explanation: the next three blogs will deal with various aspects of The Writing Life As Moiself Sees It ®) …
This is part three of a three-part series. Parts one (The Awards I’m Not Winning, 1-27-23) and two (The Platform I’m Not Building, 2-3-23 ) are available to sentient beings by following the links.
* * *
Occasionally moiself is asked, by those who self-identify as either writers or “aspiring writers,” for my advice via my AS-A credentials (“As a published writer, could you give me some tips on….”). The advice being sought typically has to do with how to get published. However, on some occasions it has also been – and I am so not making this up – on *what* to write:
“I really, really want to write fiction, but I don’t have any ideas for a story. How do you come up with your ideas?”
I was gob-smacked the first time I heard that question, but managed not to blurt out my first thought: “Holy self-awareness, dude, then fiction writing isn’t for you.” Instead, I leaned closer to him (this was at a book/literature fair) and said, sotto voce,
“Just between you and me, there’s this guy wearing a dark gray trench coat who hangs out in Pioneer Square on Thursday evenings between 10-11 pm, and for $50 he’ll give you a list of story ideas he found that fell off a truck….”
Last year I received an inquiry from the adult son [1] of a friend of a friend who wanted to pick my brain about the writing and publishing worlds. This prompted me to organize, in a marginally coherent form, the notes I’d been taking notes for years on the subject. Thus, the following essay (which may be of little interest to those outside the writing “world,” and if that’s you, not to worry – the usual amalgam of political rants, feminist/humanist daydreams, punz and fart jokes will return next week).
Although what follows is quite lengthy – and by lengthy I mean, thoughtful and detailed– it is the gist of what I might say if someone held a gun to my head (and moiself really hopes that nobody will do that) and ordered me to answer the question,
In five words or less, what would you advise to aspiring fiction writers who want to write for publication?”
My answer, under those circumstances:
Ha! Don’t do it.
And if those four words are enough to discourage you from writing for publication, then you shouldn’t.
* * *
“Sometimes your job as an artist is to be invited somewhere and ensure they never invite you back.” [2]
RAT-A-WOF (Robyn’s Advice To Aspiring Writers Of Fiction – yes, I know I need a better acronym).
Once upon a time, Writer’s Digest[3] asked a handful of writers the following question: “What advice would you offer a person who aspires to a writing career?” My favorite responses included:
“Sorry – if I had any advice to give I’d take it myself.” (John Steinbeck)
“The…writer needs talent and application…. If you want to write just to make money, you are not a writer.” (James Thurber)
“Beware of advice – even this.” (Carl Sandburg)
*****************
Despite my relative-to-almost-complete lack of literary notoriety, I’m occasionally asked what advice I would give to aspiring writers. I have two bits of counsel. The first: never ask other writers for advice. The second (should you dare to proceed after the first) is a two-parter: aspiring writers should stop aspiring and start writing, and just as importantly (if not more so), they should read. If more guidance is requested, well, then, you asked for it…
My Advice To Newbie or Aspiring Fiction Writers ®
Don’t do it.
If you ignore #1 and proceed, develop a hide so thick whale sharks envy you. [4]
Aspiring writers should stop aspiring and start writing.
Anyone who can be deterred from writing fiction should be.
Never ask other writers for advice.
There is no #6. What were you expecting, after #5?
Aren’t those bits o’ counsel a tad harsh?
More like honest and direct.
Writing fiction, like old age, ain’t for sissies. You must tell the truth and run, in both the writing itself and in the dicey area of offering — or accepting — advice. And yes, my Prime Directive of Fiction is, “Those who can be discouraged from writing fiction should be.” Or they should at least be strongly encouraged to analyze their motivation for writing, as opposed to their motivation for “being a writer.”
Do you feel as though you have to, need to, write — as if you’ve received The Call to do so, and that you in some way have no choice in the matter? If so, I’d recommend seeing a mental health professional to help you figure out the neediness part.
“I love living the life of a famous writer. The trouble is, every once in a while you have to write something.” (Ken Kesey)
The most important questions for an aspiring fiction writer to ask are, Do I like to write?Do I want to write? Do I have ideas, and do I want to do — am I ableto do — the actual process of writing?
I used that quote from Kesey not just to engender a chuckle of wry appreciation; it illustrates an Important Point (the capitals and italics also help). Many more people want to Be a Writer — supposing it (the writing “lifestyle” or profession) to be glamorous, well-paying and prestigious — than actually want to write, which can be lonely, frustrating, tedious, and which, especially for the free-lancer (working in any genre), requires an enormous amount of self-discipline and motivation.
*****************
Competition and “Success”
– For every Big Name Writer® whose byline is familiar even to non-readers and whose works are ubiquitously displayed in the high-profile stands at bookstores and in racks at the supermarket checkout stand, there are thousands (a conservative estimate) of unknown writers, slaving away at the office or classroom or café during the day and at their desks or computers at nights and on weekends.
– Several years ago The Writer magazine noted that, of the 275+ million people living in the USA, approximately 60 make a “good living” writing fiction; i.e., they are able to support themselves solely by writing and are not dependent upon another income (from a spouse or family member or two or three “other” jobs of their own). Sixty out of 275 million. DO THE MATH.
– Full-time fiction writers make an average of <$7,000/year from writing fiction (TheWriter, 1993…adjusting for inflation will not make this statistic any more palatable). [5]
– The National Writer’s Union’s survey found that most freelance fiction writers make under four thousand dollars a year from their writing, and only sixteen percent made over thirty thousand a year. [6]
*****************
Fun with Statistics (read: How good are you at dealing with rejection?)
I hope you like dessert, as in, the writer’s daily slice of humble pie:
Someone out there always say no.
The vast majority of queries you send out, whether to editors, agents or publishers, will receive a standard rejection. That’s the way the business is. You won’t be told why they rejected your manuscript (which can be frustrating), but there’s a good reason for that: what doesn’t work for one agent or editor might work for another.
If this happens over and over and you really want to know what’s “wrong” (or just not working well) in your manuscript, get it critiqued by a professional, neutral party. [7] But keep in mind that even if your work is brilliant, it might not be the right match for particular agents/editors/publishers. It’s analogous to finding someone to marry: it has to be the right person at the right time, and there are many other fish in the sea (especially for agents, editors and publishers).
Here is an example of one of the more gracious rejections letters, from the literary journal Zyzzyva, which also contains an important truth for writers to keep in mind (my emphases):
“Thank you for offering your work for consideration. I regret to say that we do not have a place for your work at this time. Please forgive us for passing on your work and for doing so without further comments or suggestions. I would like to say something to make up for this ungraciousness, but the truth is we have so little space, we must return almost all of the work that is submitted, including a great deal that interests us and even some pieces we admire.“
The grim stats: Duotrope (a service for writers) keeps track of submission and rejection stats, and has this standard disclaimer for these stats: “Rejections are often underreported, which skews the statistics in favor of acceptances. Most publishers have a lower acceptance rate than indicated here.” For Zyzzyva, the reported rejection rate is 98.73%.
* Typical statement from a literary journal (this one from anderbo, which, although a non-paying market, is flooded with submissions), re their stats: “We are able to use less than ½ of one percent of submissions.”
* Milkweed Press, a respected literary publisher, receives over 3k submissions per year and publishes ~15 books per year (a 0.5 acceptance rate). Albert Whitman Publishers (children’s literature) receives 5,000 manuscripts per year and publishes 30 titles.
* The New Yorker, arguably the most renowned/respected/influential market for fiction, receives 4000 submissions per month (and tends to draw from its stable of “established” – read: “name” – writers). It publishes one story per issue, has 47 issues per year, giving it an acceptance rate of < 0.01%.
* From an agent’s website: “We receive 1,000-1,200 queries a year, which in turn lead to 2 or 3 new clients.” (acceptance rate 0.03 %, rejection rate 99.97%)
Unfortunately, I could go on with the grim statistics citations. Everyone loves an overnight success story, which is why those stories of the author with the hit first novel – a truly rare phenomenon, which is what makes it newsworthy – is what you hear about (and not about the 19,000 other authors who have had rejection after rejection). And many authors/books now considered classics had quite the rocky road to being published (and some of the most critically praised authors and artists never had their work bought or published while they were alive). Just a few examples:
* Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 40 publishers until it found a home.
* Emily Dickinson died unpublished.
* C.S. Lewis sent more than 800 manuscripts out before he made a sale; Ray Bradbury, also around 800.
* Gone With The Wind was rejected by more than 20 publishers.
*Jerzy Kozinski’s The Painted Bird was rejected by the same publisher several times, and one of those times after that same publisher (a different editor) had accepted it.
* F. Scott Fitzgerald was told by an agent, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.”
* Karl Marlante’s debut novel, the widely praised Matterhorn, languished in literary purgatory for 30 (yes, thirty) years before the author could find an agent/publisher.
Even if you are published, what are your chances of having your book reviewed? From Authors Guild Bulletin and Publisher’s Weekly (2007): “Three thousand books are published daily (1,095,000 per year) in the U.S. Six thousand were reviewed, less than one percent of the total published.”
* From an article in The Writer: “It isn’t enough to have an incredible story, a well-written manuscript, and a dream. Did you know that out of the hundreds of thousands of books published each year in this country (by traditional brick-and-mortar publishers), about 95% of them sell fewer than 500 copies?”
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“Anyone who can be discouraged from writing fiction should be.” ( R. G. Parnell )
How I love quoting myself. And I’m not the only writer who does so:
“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.” ( Variously attributed to Oscar Wilde and/or George Bernard Shaw)
But seriously, as you may have deduced by now, “Anyone who can be discouraged from writing fiction should be” is my writing advice motto. Because if that’s all it takes – *my* discouragement – to discourage you, then you haven’t got what it takes. And even if you do “have what it takes,” (however that is defined), the art and craft of writing is one thing…and the nasty, competitive, scam-filled and financially unrewarding (for 99% of writers) business of getting your writing published – that’s quite another thing.
The legitimate [8] publishing opportunities for beginning (and even veteran) fiction writers have drastically shrunk over the last fifty years. No longer are most mainstream magazines publishing fiction – whether short stories or novel excerpts – and the few remaining ones which do will not even look at your work unless you have a “name” or are represented by a literary agent. [9] So, the markets for your work are mainly literary journals, most of which are associated with university English departments and thus staffed by (cringe) MFA writing students. Translation: your work is going to be “judged’ by those people who are stupid/vain/gullible/pretentious/naive ignorantly idealistic enough to be paying tuition (or worse yet, accruing loan debt) for an MFA. All this, and no pay for your work. [10]
Yep: you will be paid nothing, but it will cost you something. The majority of literary journals and other venues for fiction writing “pay” in the form of free copies (or, worse yet, that dreaded word, “exposure”). [11] (Because you of course can turn around and pay your SCBWI and Author’s Guild [12] dues and Poets & Writer’s and The Writer subscriptions, as well as postage and toner cartridge and paper supplies, by trading those free copies….)
What with the “digital revolution,” markets for writers now include online journals. Some of these online journals are associated with universities and MFA programs and some not…and all mostly have the same “pay” policy ( “We regret than we cannot pay our contributors…but we offer exposure….” ).
Many journals, and even publishers, have started charging submission fees for potential contributors, (even those journals which are non-paying markets). Or, they only publish via their contests. There are thousands of literary contests (it seems like every journal, and a growing number of literary presses, has one nowadays, in addition to – or sometimes replacing – their regular submissions venues). [13] This has the effect of diluting the distinction of winning a writing contest or award – it’s about as meaningful as a kids’ soccer team award (“Every kid gets a trophy for participating!”).
There are so many literary contests, it seems that sooner or later every writer will be able to claim to be “an award-winning writer.” (for more fun-poking at this trend see my blog, The Awards I’m Not Winning 1-27-23) Some of these contests have nominal financial prizes for the winners (which are funded by the contest/award entry fees), but, other than The Big Ones (The Pulitzer, et al), don’t be fooled into thinking that your “winning” the Michael Shaara Award For Excellence In Civil War Fiction[14] gives you publishing cachet, or ultimately means anything to anyone inside (or outside) the publishing world.
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Writing classes and workshops and conferences and MFA degree programs
I do not recommend any of the above and have boycotted them on principal. Thus, I cannot offer any advice from experience if you’re interested in attending, say, a Sci Fi writers conference.
The thing about writing fiction: except for fiction’s “one percent” (the Stephen Kings, et al) it is difficult-to-impossible to make a living doing what you do. Even if you are a regularly published author, so you have to cobble together other gigs: [15] speaking/reading/workshops…. Imagine a profession where you can’t make a living doing what you do, so you have to scheme to get paid talkingabout doing what you do…which isn’t doingwhat you do.
“The only way to make money from writing is to fleece (other) writers. Exposure! Networking! Sigh.” (Anonymous writer, on a SCBWI forum )
My lack of interest in and even objection on principle to writing classes and workshops is that they cannot help but be formulaic; also, I think that they either consciously or inadvertently promote art by consensus. It’s possible, of course, to learn or to be taught basic elements of composition, grammar, spelling and punctuation, from a teacher or from your peers – you can even get some pointers on point of view, and you can certainly learn through the example of writers who inspire and impress you. [16] But I think the proliferation of writing classes, programs, and “How to Write a Damned Really Good Novel” seminars has more to do with the infiltration of the Cult of Celebrity into the writing profession than from any demonstration of these programs’ supposed “effectiveness.”
There is a desire on the part of many beginning and intermediate writers to rub elbows and Ipads with famous, beloved, or (often self-professed) Important and Successful ® Authors. It’s possible that many authors who teach writing workshops, classes and speak at seminars sincerely love teaching and value being someone’s mentor or muse. However, a driving force behind the workshops/classes/seminars business is one of the literary world’s dirty little economic secrets: teaching and lecturing to wannabe fiction writers provides a more reliable source of income than does writing fiction.
“It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money
writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.” ( W.H. Auden )
BTW: Conferences and workshops where you can meet editors and agents and get two minutes to pitch them your manuscript and/or ideas – you will pay for this (such conferences and workshops charge hefty fees to attendees), as the editors and agents are usually paid to be there. It reminds me of a Tupperware party, or those other home businesses in which the hosts are making money off of their friends, relatives and neighbors.
My advice re writing classes and workshops and conferences and MFA degree programs: save your money and buy more books instead! Which is related to:
Content/Genre/Topics
“Bad news: everything of (human) significance has already been written. Good news: most of it is out of print & long forgotten.” (Joyce Carol Oates)
“If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing
that’s read by people who move their lips when they’re reading to themselves.” ( Don Marquis, American humorist, journalist, author 1878 – 1937 )
My advice re fiction subject matter: write something just out of your reach. Try to write the stories someone might tell you you’re not ___ enough (young; old; experienced; successful; American; European….) to write. However, given the current political climate of fiction publishing, be prepared for someone from the self-appointed Literary And Imagination Appropriation Police ® to tell you that you don’t have the “right” to write that kind of story or character (insert world weary sigh).
Most likely, you already have ideas about what you want to write about, whether your interests and story ideas might be classified as literary or genre. So, go for that. And (1) read *everything* – across categories and genres – but (2) craft your own voice. And remember: the first is relatively easy, and no one knows how to tell you to do the second (no matter how much they are willing to charge you for their “sure-fire” Find Your Own Voice Writing Technique Seminar).
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Miscellaneous principles, opinions, and unsolicited advice
“Of all the higher arts, it (writing) is the most self-taught…in the end, you have to find your own way.” (John Updike, from an interview published in The Writer, June 2001).
I couldn’t agree more or say it better…which is why I find myself using another writer’s words (ahem) to illustrate one of my most strongly held convictions: that fiction writers should walk their own paths and develop their own voices. This conviction is one reason I never advise fiction writers (actual or aspiring) to take writing classes and/or workshops, whether one-time seminars, intensive weekend retreats, or MFA or other degree programs in “creative writing” or whatever. (And if I ever am found to be making bucks from teaching a writing seminar or somehow profiting from the promotion of such programs, you’ve my permission to pelt me with a ream of plutonium-laminated rejection notices).
Some writers join or form writers support groups, wherein group members meet on a regular basis to network, offer support in the never-ending struggle to attain publication, and/or critique one another’s work. While I can appreciate the appeal such groups hold for some folks, I’ve never had any interest in them. My time to write is limited and therefore valuable to me; also, I have a life inside, outside, and intertwined with writing. I’ve been doing this for a while; I’ve a tough hide and can handle rejection (and acceptance) without group therapy or validation. I am fortunate to enjoy doing what I do (well, the actual writing part – it should be obvious by now what I think about the Bizof Publishing). I like to write; however, talking about writing— even with other writers — isn’t writing. Besides, I can barely stand my own first drafts – why would I want to read someone else’s? 😉
“The rise and influence of MFA programsis not nearly as pernicious as the whole notion of ‘workshopping’ literature. In what other art form would a creative artist claim as his own a work that has the thumbprints of a dozen or more people on it? The best that can be said of MFA programs is that they give participants a sense of community, time and space to write, and exposure to the business of literature. The best that can be said of workshops is that they train writers to respond and compromise rather than to catch fire. These developments may account for the blandness of much contemporary literature. They also say something about the character of our culture and the ability of workshops to really impart anything except the tyranny of taste. Finally, it might be that good reading is actually the portal to good writing. How much better time would be served by carefully reading Joyce and Proust.” (Michael Keating, from his letter to the editor, Poets & Writers, July/August 2003; emphases mine)
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So, after all that, you still want to write fiction for publication?
Here’s what you need to do:
READ! Anything and everything, non-fiction as well as short fiction, novels and poetry.
WRITE! Yep, there’s no way around it. Write whenever you can, whatever you can. Keep a folder or journal of observations, ideas, opinions….
GET AN EDUCATION! (But major in something — anything — other than “writing.”)
GET A JOB! Find or create something you enjoy doing (or can at least tolerate) that pays the bills AND leaves you with enough physical and emotional time and energy to write. You will not be able to support yourself or your family solely by writing fiction — get used to this idea.
GET A LIFE! What do you expect to write about? And I must firmly explain what I mean here, lest it be thought for one nanosecond that I would encourage anyone to pen anything resembling a memoir. It’s not that there is a ready-made audience for the incredible story of YOU, thinly disguised in every tale you tell. Rather, this advice is meant to encourage you to collect experiences and observations, from and about which you and the characters you create may extrapolate, imagine, expound upon, confirm, deny and challenge. A writer is (or should be), above all else, naturally curious. Live, look, listen, imagine, question…and then write.
READ! And encourage others to do so (do you want a market for your work, or what?)
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Oh, and one more fun thing
When word gets out – to family, friends, co-workers, neighbors – that you are a writer, be prepared for the following “I-Just-Have-A-Small-Favor-To-Ask-Of-You” scenario (from a letter to Carolyn Hax’s marvelous advice column, “Tell Me About It”):
I am a writer by profession — meaning I get paid to do what I do. I am constantly asked to edit someone’s community newsletter, write something about someone’s kid who plays lacrosse to send to college coaches, or write someone’s family Christmas letter. (I hate those things, but anyway.)
When I quote my hourly rate, I get the hurt look and, “Oh, I thought you’d just do it for me as a friend,” or — in the case of a newsletter — “Oh, I just thought it would be fun for you; it is a good cause and probably would not take much time.”
You wouldn’t think of asking your son’s soccer coach, who is a podiatrist, to fix your bunions for free (“I thought it might be fun for you – it’s probably be easier than your other surgeries, and you’re so good at it”), or try to wrangle a free housecleaning from your neighbor who works for Merry Maids. But there’s something about knowing that you work in an “artistic” field which brings out the mooch in everyone.
It doesn’t even matter to these freeloaders favor-askers, when you protest that you are a writer of fiction, not grant proposals/term papers/college essays/office brochures. In their eyes, you are a writer, which means that you can just whip out anything, right? Your writing and editing skills will be coveted by others, enough that they will ask you to do work *for* them, yet not enough to be compensated *by* them.
I can count on the fingers of one hand – if that hand had lost three fingers in a tragic panini press accident – the number of times someone has asked for my professional writing skills and what I would charge for the project they had in mind. In every other case, I very quickly discovered the Favor Asker’s assumption was that I would do the work for free…for them…for the honor of being asked, and…for “the exposure….”
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If you still want to write fiction (or already are writing, and are ready to start investigating publishing opportunities), here are some resources to help you navigate the logistics of submitting your work to publishing venues.
Self-publishing disclaimer: I have not gone that route and thus will not offer advice to anyone who wishes to self-publish, except to note that I have negative opinions as to that option – which seems to be one of last resort. If your work wasn’t good enough for regular publishers (something several self-published authors I’ve met at book fairs and/or literary events told me was their opinion – about their own work! – which is why, they said, they “had to” self-publish…and gee, could I give them some tips about how I got published by a “real” publisher?), self-publishing won’t make it any better.
Self-publishing seems to be a workable option for some writers in the non-fiction genres. Still, every self-published fiction book I’ve read (this an anecdotal opinion, not scientific data) has literally screamed amateurish, from the cover art and font and graphics to the content and copy editing, and I’ve noticed that their authors have scrambled for “real”/traditional publishers whenever they can.
( The rest of this article contained three pages of the resources previously mentioned. Moiselfshall spare you the effort of skipping through them. You’re welcome. )
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May you treat yourself to something amazing – if you‘ve managed to make it this far, you deserve it; May moiself be done with critiquing the writing/publishing profession…for now; May you ignore that inane groundhog prediction and hope for an early spring; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] The advice I give in this article is not what I would say to a child interested in writing.
[2] Variously attributed…to someone. Who knows, maybe I said it.
[4] Everyone uses rhinos as the epitome of thick-skinned mammals, but the whale shark has the thickest skin of all living creatures. Who knew? Well, now *you* do.
[5] And these stats may be even lower, what with the rise of eBooks, and the resulting internet piracy cutting into author’s royalties.
[6] From the Nov-Dec 2005 SCBWI journal. These stats are still valid when adjusted for inflation and population changes, as per current Authors Guild and other sources. I am too lazy to update the citations.
[7] As in, not anyone who knows you personally; not your uncle, no matter how much of a great English composition teacher he is. You will need to pay for this service.
[8] Having your story “published” on your or your friend’s blog or website does not mean that your work has been published.
[9] Although, like The New Yorker, they will lie about this in their writers’ submissions guidelines. That is, they will claim that they are “open to unagented submissions,” but, as one former TNY editor staffer revealed, they have *never* published anything from the slush pile ).
[10] Beckett, the avant Garde/tragic-comic/black humor Irish novelist, poet, playwright, director, essayist, most famous for his play,”Waiting for Godot.” Becket also provided one of my favorite anti-privilege quotations, regarding his peers studying modern literature at Dublin University (“Dublin university contains the cream of Ireland: Rich and thick.”)
[11] And you have to report the cover price of the “free” copy as income. So, you received three copies of The Gnarled Kneecap Quarterly ($10.95 per copy) upon their publication of your short story. Come time to do your writing business income taxes, you have to report $47.85 worth of income for which you received no cash payment.
[12] The SCBWI – Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and The Authors Guild, are the two preeminent associations for writers. Members receive their quarterly periodicals, and access to their online data bases of tutorials, publishers, markets, etc.
[13] I wrote an essay making fun of that phenomenon, which one editor told me was unpublishable because, as he pointed out to me, “…practically all literary journals have contests and lack a sense of humor about it.” But it was published, in a (now defunct) Portland-based journal.
[14] other than to you, your grandmother, and perhaps Michael Shaara’s son, who started that award in remembrance of his father, a writer of – wait for it – Civil War fiction. Yes, there’s a genre for everything.
[15] This, of course, is common to any artistic field. Very few artists, from painters to potters to sculptors to musicians, can support themselves by sales of their art alone, and most teach classes, have “day jobs,” or arrange other gigs from which they cobble together a living wage, or may be supported by their spouses, or have a patron, which was especially common during the Renaissance. And you may have heard of the stereotypical actor/screenwriter who waits tables at nights and goes on auditions (or hassles agents or publishers) during the day….
[16] And you can (and should) do this by reading their writing.
Department Of Here We Go Again Sub-Department Of Preview Of Coming Grievances Attractions
Sub- Department explanation: the next three blogs will deal with various aspects of The Writing Life AsMoiself Sees It ®) …
This is part one of a three-part series. Parts one and two feature essays I wrote several years ago. The essays have the following commonality:
(a) I was satirizing a certain aspect of the writing/publishing life;
(b) More than one editor to whose journal(s) I submitted these essays wrote, in their kind and complimentary rejection letters, that although they personally liked the article they could not publish it and, added that they felt it incumbent to warn me that that the article might be unpublishable due to my making fun of the process – i.e.; gnawing at the hand that was supposedly feeding me – despite the essays being clearly intended as satirical (“You realize that many people in this world [1]do not have a sense of humor about what they do….”)
The first amusing (to moiself ) if flattering rejection letter confirmed what I had suspected. “I really, *really* like your essay,” the editor wrote, “… but do you know this is essentially unpublishable?”
Do I know that literary journals and magazines are not known for having a sense of humor about themselves? Dude, trust me, I’ve figured that out.
And yet the essay did find a home. In an edited version, one which the magazine’s editors retitled, for some reason, as Author, Author, [2] and later in its original form in another journal. [3]
The subject for the essay had been bouncing round my devious mind for some time. I’d been taking mental notes for years about the proliferation of writing awards, but the impetus for putting it down was reading an announcement, by someone, moiself didn’t know well, on social media, about how a poem they’d written had won the prize for Desiccated Ego Quarterly Review’s Contest For Best Emo-Themed Lyric Soliloquy By An Emerging Writer Under Age Thirty. [4]
Instead of feeling happy for them or sending congratulations, I found moiself cringing on their behalf, as I found it rather…amateurish.
Sure, do a humble brag when you win a Pulitzer, but Desiccated Ego Quarterly Review’s Contest ForBest Emo-Themed Lyric Soliloquy By An Emerging Writer Under Age Thirtysounds like something your mother dreamed up. Except, of course, it wasn’t the writer’s mother – it was an editor…and a publisher, and another and another – such contests and awards were madly multiplying. And they continue to do so. Even more than they years ago when I was still actively submitting work, more and more literary journals list this change in requirements on their writers guidelines:
“Submissions currently excepted only through our contests.”
There is a fee, of course, for submitting, which the journal justifies clarifies with a circular explanation along these lines: the journal’s prize/contest entry fees help fund the journal as well as the prizes the journal awards for said contests.
Which means that contest “winners”– in perhaps a momentarily/financially insignificant way, but in an ultimately significantly unethical (IMO) way – have been a party to purchasing their own prize.
YOU CAN BE (OR ALREADY ARE) AN AWARD-WINNING WRITER!
Calling all non-award-winning writers (you know who you are): It’s time to add a trophy title to your nom de plume. It imparts that certain je ne sais quoi, literary cachet; besides, with all the opportunities out there, what’s your excuse for *not* having one?
Admit it, you’ve had an experience similar to the following. Scanning the bio notes of an article in a writer’s magazine, you discovered that the article’s author had received a literary award, the title of which you had to practice saying several times before you could utter it in one breath:
“The Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellweather Prize For Fiction in Support of a Literature For Social Change.”
Pulitzer, schmulitzer; *there’s* an award you don’t see every day. Although if present trends continue, you probably will.
No disrespect intended towards the esteemed (and multiple award-winning) Ms. Kingsolver, whose once-eponymous award now goes by the more succinct, “The Bellweather Prize.” As awkwardly extensive as I found the earlier title, it was nice to come across any award named after a living woman instead of a member of the Dead Literary Guys Club. Still, I’ve never been able to get that erstwhile, très specific award title out of my mind. It reminds me of, well, of other très specific or obscure literary award titles I’ve seen in the classifieds ads, the Grants and Awards announcements, and the Member News sections of writer’s publications.
Computer literate literati are just a Google away from discovering the astounding number of writing awards, contests, grants and fellowships available to actual or aspiring authors. Award titles and descriptions can be quite entertaining, and so once upon a keyboard I decided to keep a file of literary awards’ names, categories and sponsors. In a few months that decision was followed by another one: to delete the file, whose page count had surpassed that of the first draft of my first novel. I feared for the storage space on my hard disk; I feared for my attitude even more.
I hold a hopeful snobbery about writing, and am ambivalent about the proliferation of literary prizes. I want writers to eschew the self-celebration and celebriti-zation that infests popular culture. Moreover, the proliferation of Something, even Something with good intentions, can ultimately demean its significance or value. There’s the Oscars, Cannes, Sundance…and then there’s the Toledo People’s Choice Film Festival.
At the risking of sounding like the George C. Scott of author-dom, I’m leery of prizes for art in general and literature in specific. I reject the notion that, intentionally or otherwise, writers should compete with one another, or that there are universally accepted or objective criteria for judging the “best” of works that are written – and read – by gloriously subjective beings. Then again, I can understand the motivations for award-giving in any field of endeavor, including writing (“Our work must be important — see how many awards we have?!”). And who wouldn’t enjoy having Pulitzer Prize-winning author attached to their byline?
An award, any award, can bestow a certain distinction. Thousands of novels and poetry collections are published yearly, most fading quickly into obscurity. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll give the impression you’re Someone To Watch ® if your back-listed-so-fast-it-left-skidmarks chapbook receives “The Award for Southwestern Pangendered Speculative Flash Prose-Poems.”
Relax, take a cleansing breath, and stop composing your bio notes for the entry form. There’s no such award. Yet.
To get an idea of the number and variety of literary prizes, flip through the classified ads section of any writer’s magazine, or check out their on-line versions. One prominent writer’s website has over *nine hundred* Awards & Contests listings, a number added to weekly if not daily. Whatever your personal traits or writing genre, there’s a prize or contest – and, of course, an entry fee – waiting for you.
Anything in particular for which you’d like recognition? If it’s for religion or spirituality, among the hundreds of awards are the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards, the American Academy of Religion’s Best First Book in the History of Religions, and the Utmost Christian Poetry Contest. If you’re inspired by regional affiliation, try the Saskatchewan Book Of The Year Award or The Boardman Tasker Award For Mountain Literature.
You might impress potential publishers (or failing that, the crowned heads of Europe) with a majestic title: The Royal Society Of Literature Award Under The W.H. Heinemann Bequest. If you’d like woo corporate America, seek the General Mill’s The Cheerios® New Author Contest. Are you between the ages of eleven and 111? Go for The Geoffrey Bilson Award For Historical Fiction For Young People, or the The Solas Awards Elder Travel: The best story from a traveler 65 years of age or older. And there’s no lack of prizes vis-à-vis gender, ethnic, and sexual identity, including the Women’s Empowerment Awards Writing Competition, The Association Of Italian-Canadian Writers Literary Contest, and the Emerging Lesbian Writers Fund Award.
Perhaps you’d rather be esteemed for subject matter. If you cover the timeless concerns of war and peace, the Michael Shaara Award For Excellence In Civil War Fiction, or Japan’s Goi Peace Foundation International Essay Contest may be for you. And let us wave our olive branches in tribute to one of the more interestingly named awards in this or any category, in hopes that, with perhaps a little nudging, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will reinstate their now-retired Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest (it took a serious peacenik to wield a Swackhamer).
Don’t worry if your themes are comparatively prosaic; writing awards are not limited to life’s essentials. From sailors (the U.S. Maritime Literature Awards) to horses (the Thoroughbred Times Fiction Contest) to zombies (Dark Moon Anthology Short Story Writing Contests for Horror Writers), if there’s a topic, there’s a prize.
Awards even pay tribute to literary length. Writers in it for the long haul have the Reva Shiner Full-Length Play Award, while those pressed for time may try the Short Prose Competition for Developing Writers. Not to be out-shorted is Glimmer Train’s Very Short Fiction Award; covering the remaining short bases is the Fineline Competition For Prose Poems, Short Shorts, And Anything In Between. And for literature with a discernable shelf life, behold the Perishable Theatre’s Women’s Playwriting Festival prize.
My excuse for not having even one measly award title escorting my nom de plume is likely related to the fact that I don’t enter contests (perhaps one day I’ll discover that I’ve won “The Chinook Prize for the Pacific Northwest’s Un-entered Fiction Contests“). My nonparticipation notwithstanding, the number of literary awards continues to expand, and they’ve got to be conferred upon somebody. Chances are greater than ever that almost all writers will have their fifteen minutes to don some sort of authorial laurel wreath. Yes, dear writer, *you* could be an award-winning author. There’s probably something wrong with you if you’re not.
My favorite prize name strains credibility, yet is listed as a writing award. And so, fellow writer, considering the abundance of awards, in your quest for recognition and cool author’s bio notes, please save this one for me: the Wergle Flomp Poetry Contest. If my entry prevails I will receive a monetary prize and publication of my poem, plus that accolade for which no value can be calculated:
The right to henceforth refer to myself, in author’s credits and future contest entry forms, as a Wergle Flomp award-winning writer.
The End
about the author A long, long time ago a sixth grader named Robyn Parnell won some kind of Isn’t America Groovy?! essay contest. Since 1975, when she acquired a trophy resembling a garden trowel (High School Journalism Day, Orange County, CA), Parnell has remained an award-free writer. She hopes to one day be the deserving recipient of The Robyn Parnell Prize in Support of Imaginative and Distinguished Prose in Support of Robyn Parnell.
“Although I’m an atheist, I don’t fear death more than, say, sharing a room in a detox center with a sobbing Rush Limbaugh.” ( Berkeley Breathed, Pulitzer-Prize-winning (ahem!) American cartoonist, creator of Bloom County and Outland,
as quoted in The Quotable Atheist, by Jack Huberman )
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May you judiciously choose which humble brags to share; May you never win an award which bears your name; May your concepts of afterlives not include boorish talk radio hosts; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Which moiself took to be the editorial/publishing side of the “world.”
[3] In the now-indefinitely-on-hiatus, dislocate magazine: a Minnesota journal of writing and art, 6-11-20.
[4] Not the award’s exact title, but you get the idea.
[5] All award names listed were actual, active awards, at the time the essay was written; some may have been discontinued or had their names changed.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, http://www.ffrf.org
Dateline: Saturday; mid-afternoon; on my way to drop off donations to Goodwill. Driving south on a throughway street which bisects residential areas to its east and west, I pass a blue sign on the left side of the road [1] . This sign directs you to find:
ARISE
CHURCH →
The sign is bent in the middle, which causes moiself, at first glance, to miss the I in the top word.
All those headed to the church of the Holy ARSE, turn right.
I like big butts and I cannot lie….
* * *
Department Of, Oh, Ya Think?
Dateline: 6:45am last Saturday. A dear friend is in the hospital, recovering from life-altering [2] surgery. I found a respected medical clinic’s website and looked up information on radical cystectomy, the surgery he has undergone. From the site:
“The procedure to remove the entire bladder is called a radical cystectomy. In men, this typically includes removal of the prostate and seminal vesicles….
“After removing your bladder, your surgeon also needs to create a new way to store urine and have it leave your body. This is called urinary diversion.”
Under risks associated with urinary diversion there is the following bullet point. Which I had to read several times to assure moiself, yep, that’s what it says. Apparently, one of the risks following removal of your bladder is:
* Loss of bladder control (urinary incontinence)
Really.
Yeah; kinda difficult to control an organ you no longer have in your body.
Department Of Gawddammit It’s Like They Know I’m Coming In…
And so they put this right where I’ll see it. Because a sculpture like this, displaying both the talent and whimsy which moiself so admires in art…and which the artist oh-so-appropriately-not-to-mention-appealingly named, “Speckled Twerp”…they know who’s going to take it home.
At first I tried to divert moiself by falling for this charming piece, called…wait for it…Yellow Chicken.
But the twerp in me would not be denied.
“Are we all clear on the new installation? Have the twerp piece where she’ll see it, and maybe distract her first with the chicken….”
* * *
Department Of Things You Talk About With Good Friends After A Good Lunch
The Miriam Webster online dictionary has a special link for those and other “funny-sounding words,” but that’s not enough, sez moiself (and friends agree). There needs to be a special day set aside, or declared, to encourage the usage of these words.
* * *
Department Of Why Has It Taken Me So Long To Realize This?
I don’t use marjoram. As of last Wednesday, there is no longer a jar of marjoram in my Wall O’ Spices ®. You know how it is, when you redo your kitchen’s spice holding system and buy those pre-printed spice jar labels which of course include one for marjoram and you think, “Ah yes, a classic spice,” and so you give it jar space but then forget that you never use it because…you never use it.
Nor is there a marjoram jar or tin on the cabinet shelves filled with refills for spices I commonly use, and less-commonly-but-still-occasionally-used ones, from amchur and asafetida to celery powder to gochugaru.
When I last encountered a recipe calling for marjoram [3] I used up the pitiful amount I had left. And when looking for more, I found none in the bulk sections of several markets, and I wasn’t about to pay $8.99 for a small jar which would go stale before I would use even 10% of it.
Thus, for perhaps the first time in my adult life, I am marjoram-free.
Gopnik is a professor of psychology and researcher into cognitive and language development. She spoke with C+V podcast host Alan Alda about her (and other people’s) research which shows how children are generally curious about their world; thus, children are interested in science and have innate abilities for experimentation and theory formation…then tend to lose interest in the subject itself as they age. Gopnik, along with many other scientists, argue that this is, in great part, because of the way science is taught:
“Suppose we taught baseball the way we teach science. So for the first five years you’d be reading about baseball games, and maybe you’d be reading about some of the rules. And then in high school you’d get to reproduce famous baseball plays…and you would never get to play the game until you were in graduate school…. That’s kind of the way we teach science – you don’t really play the game, you don’t really *do* science, until you’re in graduate school.”
* * *
Department Of Here We Go Again Sub-Department OF Preview Of Coming Grievances Attractions
( Sub- Department explanation: my next three blogs will deal with various aspects of The Writing Life As Moiself Sees It ® ).
Dateline: Earlier this month, researching and updating guidelines for literary journals and publishers. [4] What I find in my research confirms one of many reasons moiself rarely submits my work anymore. For example, I come across this, from the guidelines of a self-proclaimed “international” journal:
“Submissions are open to all, but we particularly welcome work from….
First Nations and POC writers, the LGBTQI+ community, and writers with a disability.”
Should I decide to send my work to this journal I, like any writer submitting work to any journal, would not be doing so in person. I’d submit material as per their guidelines: either online via their submissions portal (the default nowadays) or via mail (much less common, but still used). Either way, the journal’s editors can neither see nor hear nor speak with me.
My first name may or may not indicate my gender; my surname might convey an impression (which could be a false impression either way) as to whether I am or am not a First Nations and POC writer. How will the editors know if I am a LGBTQI+ community, or a writer with a disability, unless I declare this in my cover letter? And if I do so, will the journal’s editors then “particularly welcome” my story due to my personal particulars that they have particularly decided to find particularly welcoming?
Moiself can’t help but suspect that the content of my work will be read and judged differently under such circumstances. Which moiself finds both ethically odious and disturbing. Speaking [5] both as a writer and *especially* as a reader, I don’t give a flying buttress’s butthole…
“Excusez-moi?!?!!”
…about writers’ “identities” or “qualities.” I’m interested in the quality of the *stories* they write, not in who or what they *are.*
May you remember to make someone a sandwich; May you support the reform of how we teach science in schools; May you not be hornswaggled into giving a tarradiddle’s colleywobbles
about doing things widdershins; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] You’ve seen those signs, with names of churches or other businesses located in an otherwise residential area.
[3] In itself a rare thing, and I have found that the recipe either won’t miss it or that oregano will do just fine – or even better – instead.
[4] (I’ve addressed complained about this issue previously, in this space.
[5] There should be at least five footnotes in this post.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, http://www.ffrf.org
Department Of The Partridge Of The Week
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
Goodbye to Shirley (Mama P), Keith, Laurie, Danny, Tracy – to all the Partridges until next season.
Wait – she can’t just box us up like those friggin’ elves…can she?
* * *
Department Of Putting It All Away
The holiday decorations, that is.
Even Cablefish gets a Santa hat in my house.
The Mantle of Red Pointy Things. ®
This one tried to hide, but I found him anyway.
Farewell, Holiday feasting.
It’s a wistful day. Moiself plays seasonal music, from Misty River’s Midwinter album to Run DMC’s Christmas In Hollis, on repeat, while I pack away the adornments.
* * *
Department Of Here, But Not There, And Why
Dateline: Tuesday morning 7:45 AM. It’s high tide; thus, I’m walking on a road which parallels the beach, and not on the beach itself.
About 100 yards ahead of me a man and his big shaggy dog cross the road and start ambling in the direction I’m going. Out for the morning poop walk, moiself assumes. The dog is sniffing and sniffing and sniff sniff sniff sniffing clumps of grass, driftwood, and bushes along the road. It stops several times for a longer sniff, almost assuming the classic squat position, then continues until it finally reaches the magic point. By then I have caught up to man and beast, as the latter prepares to do his business and the man prepares his picking-up-dog-business bag.
As I pass them by I am wondering about the dog, So, why *that* spot? It looks identical to the one you sniffed fifty feet back. Was it particularly aromatic with…familiarity?
“Oh, I remember! I pooped here yesterday, and it was grand. I’ll poop here again!”
Or, perhaps the pup’s motivation is more sinister than celebratory:
“Aha! This is the poop-place of that poodle I despise. I’ll show him…”
I’m sure many dog owners [2] have their theories (or even certitudes) about the phenomenon of what makes the Perfect Poop Place. ® But the thing is, only the dogs know. And they do not volunteer this information. I’ve tried asking discretely and quietly, when their owners cannot hear me. The doggies have yet to reveal their secrets.
And someone is always watching.
* * *
Department Of It’s Not Too Late To Make A Resolution To Treat People Like People Sub-Department Of The Problems With Cherry-Picking Quotations
I saw this, posted via the Facebook book group, The Christian Left, last week:
“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” – Leviticus 19:33-34 (ESV)”
TCL is, as far as moiself can tell, a group of Christians who advocate what they see as the more humane/liberal side of Christianity. Thus, I assume this posting was meant as a wake up (read: shaming) tactic, or reminder to their conservative/borderline-racist Christian cousins, with regards as to how the latter treat migrants and asylum seekers.
Fine; okay. Shame such folks whenever and however you can. However….
How do those on “The Christian Left” react when their conservative cousins do the Bible-thumping in reverse? That is, when conservative Christians share other quotes from their Bible, which they deem equally valid guidelines for modern day living? Such as….
* “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Leviticus 18:22 (ESV)
“Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother,
heir blood will be on their own head.” Leviticus 20:9 (NIV)
* If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you.” Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (NIV)
* “Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.” Leviticus 25:44 (NIV)
* “For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord.
Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death.” Exodus 35:2 (NIV)
image from Pinterest “conversative Christian quotes.”
Far better to do the right thing, to treat other people as what they are, members of your own species, because it is the right thing to do and because of just that – that they are your fellow human beings- rather than to have one’s morality based on conflicting interpretations of pre-scientific, Iron age “scriptures” written by people who thought the earth had four corners and floats on water [3] and that their god wanted them to ban handicapped people from making temple offerings or even approaching the altar [4] and that leprosy, aka Hansen’s disease, could be cured by following their god’s detailed instructions, which are, in a nutshell, [5]
Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the live bird in the blood of the dead one.
Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Repeat. Finally find another pair of birds. Kill one and dip the live bird in the dead bird’s blood. Wipe some blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle the house with blood seven times…. (Leviticus 14)
I go into a laboratory and create a unicellular organism that will kill millions of people. I infect flying/biting insects to serve as the delivery system for that organism. If I release those insects, am I evil? Without exception every theist I have asked says, “Yes.” I then ask them to explain malaria. (anonymous)
* * *
May you be amused by considering the whys/wheres of dog-poop-depositing; May you treat your fellow human beings as fellow human beings; May you put away your holiday to the sound of some excellent tunes; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[5] A most appropriate container, as medical scientists have discovered that Hansen’s disease can be cured with antimicrobial MDT (multi drug therapy).
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Happy Little Christmas Eve
Whaddya mean, what’s Little Christmas Eve? It’s tonight, December 23, as in, the eve before Christmas Eve.
LCE is an obscure – to everyone but my family – holiday supposedly celebrated in my maternal grandfather’s ancestral, tiny Norwegian village. It was one of my favorite special days, when I was a child. It still is . [2]Moiself has continued that tradition with MH’s and my family. We have a special LCE dinner, but unlike Christmas Eve dinner, which always features lefse, the LCE menu varies year to year. After dinner, each child gets to open one of their Christmas presents. The most memorable aspect about my childhood LCEs was the “rule” that our house was lit only by candlelight, during the dinner meal and thereafter, until bedtime.
I was fascinated by candles; thus, it was a magical night for moiself. Candles everywhere; no electric lights allowed! If you went to the bathroom, you carried a candle.
How we never managed to burn the house down, I don’t know. Guess those elves were watching over us.
* * *
Department Of About Those Elves….
“Oh, yeah, so you all liked thatElf on a Shelfthing?” (Misinformed persons who feel compelled to ask about all the elves in our house during this time of year)
Much of moiself’s house’s holiday décor, in all its tacky seasonal glory, is in homage to my mother, who died six years ago on Christmas Eve.
Marion Parnell loved Christmas and especially her Christmas decorations, which included the tradition (which her family started and mine continues) of placing certain kind of elves – the kind with small plastic, doll-like faces and bendable, felt costume-clothed bodies, [3] all around the house. Like the one above, a rare yellow-green costumed variant.
The idea was that from any vantage point, whether you are sitting in the living room or getting a drink from the kitchen sink, an elf is casting a friendly eye upon you. Some of our elves indeed are on a shelf, but most perch atop curtains, peek out from bookcases, lurk behind candlesticks, nestle behind dishes and clocks and art and….
But, this “Elf on a Shelf” thing? Never heard of it, until recently. EOAS is, apparently, a picture book about…honestly, I don’t know or care what it’s about. I looked it up: the book has a 2005 publication date. Neither I nor MH knew about it, nor had our two children (DOBs 1993 and 1996) grown up with EOAS as part of their kiddie lit repertoire. My extended family on my mother’s side has been putting up elves since the early 1920s, so none of these #!*&#?! EOAS references applies to elves on MY shelves, okay?
Y’all must excuse moiself if (read: when) I respond with a yuletide-inappropriate profanity should you mention that book to me. Actually, moiself finds it funny how much it irritates me when someone, after seeing or hearing about our houses elves, makes a reference to the book – such as the antique store owner who, when I asked if her store had any elves and began to describe what I was looking for, said, “Oh, you mean, like that book?” My customary cheerful/holiday visage darkened, and I answered her with utmost solemnity.
No. Nothing. Like. That. Book.
Which might not be entirely accurate, seeing as how I’ve never read nor even seen the book…which may indeed be about something akin to *our* family tradition. I just want…oh, I don’t know…attribution, I suppose. WE THOUGHT OF IT FIRST, OKAY? So, stick that Elf-on-a-shelf in your Santa Hat and….
* * *
Christmas with a big deal in my childhood. My parents didn’t have as much $$ as many of my friends’ parents did; still, they made sure there were always very-much-appreciated presents awaiting my siblings and I under the tree Christmas morning. [4] Later, when my parents’ children grew up and had children of their own, something…happened.
I don’t remember getting (from my parents) gifts that I thought were inappropriate or that I didn’t want. I made a wish list before the holidays, at my parent’s request, and they usually chose from that. Fast forward to their gifts to MH and my children, their grandchildren. Excuse my yuletide jargon, but whatthefuck?
The following reflection was inspired by a Hidden Brainpodcast on gift giving. When a guest on the show mentioned inappropriate, “message” gifts, I remembered trying (unsuccessfully, I think) to talk my parents out of a gift they were planning on giving to an extended family member. Alarmed by his weight gain and his family history of heart disease, they told me they were planning on giving him a gym membership.
This got my mind going to my parents’ Christmas gift fail with my kids. Which I expounded upon a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (okay; from my March 2016 post, The Gifts I’m Not Authenticating):
When K and Belle were kidlets, there were many, many, many – and did I mention many? – years where it took us up to four weeks (or more!) post-Christmas to find enough room in the garbage can for all of the non-recyclable packaging materials which were indigenous to gifts that came from A Certain Side of The Family.
Read: my side. Specifically, my mother. [5] Mom was abetted in her trashing of the planet abundantly swathed present-bestowing by the good folks at Lillian Vernon. Are you familiar with that catalog company? If so, you have my sympathy.
My mother discovered the Lillian Vernon catalog (too) many years ago. Once she did, there was no turning back. The catalog became her go-to source for gifts for her grandchildren, and a more wasteful source I’ve yet to encounter. Why a four-inch tin-plated Model T replica needs to be encased in enough Styrofoam insulate an entire Uzbekistan village is a mystery to me…but that, apparently, is the shipping policy at Lillian Vernon.
The excessive packaging was one thing; the gifts themselves, ay yi yi. All made in China, of substandard construction [6] –– and accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.
This crap is authentic, guaranteed.
Most bewildering of all was how inappropriate the gifts were. Not inappropriate as in giving a life-size Uzi replica to a five-year-old; rather, inappropriate in that the gifts had no relation to what K and Belle actually wanted.
I’ll never forget K’s reaction the year he opened his present from Grandma M, dug through the layers of packaging and…oh, um….yeah…a set of miniature antique automobile replicas? Perhaps for some child, somewhere, that would have been a welcome present. K had no interest in “antique replicas” (even those that came with certificates of authenticity). Thus K, along with his sister, got an early introduction to practicing the art of Present Face.
It was (kinda sorta) terrible to laugh at the gifts, but we did – after I gave K & Belle the usual parental reassuring (“Grandma means well”). Year after year, my mom gave her grandchildren stuff they neither wanted nor needed. I tried to figure it out, thinking aloud to MH one Christmas, after K & Belle had opened their respective/bewildering (but authentically certified!) LV boxes: It’s as if my mom is using suggestions based on someone’s idea of gender and age:
Here are gifts for Boy Child, ages 9-11, and for Girl Child, Ages 5-8….
Which, I would discover, was exactly what my mother did.
In year three or four of the They Sooooo Do Not Want These Things (the year of the antique replica cars) phenomenon, I resolved to find out what was going on. I tried to be gentle during my Christmas Day phone call to my parents – I tried to tease out what made them think K would be interested in a set of Ford Model A and T cars? I could have used a verbal sledgehammer, for all of my mother’s obliviousness. [7]
I do all my Christmas and birthday shopping from the catalog, my mother explained. (actually, it was more like bragging than explaining). I have all the categories covered – they list them for girls and boys, of any age. When it’s time for a Christmas or birthday I go to the boxes in the garage or under my bed and pick one out!
Hmmm…yeah. Say, Mom, for next year, how about if you ask K and Belle what *they’d* like? Or they could send you a gift list, like you used to have me write up for my birthday and Christmas. K really likes to draw – there’s an artist’s pencil set he’s interested in, and Belle loves Legos, and….
That’s okay, I already have next year’s Christmas presents picked out!
Birthdays, too! I keep them all in a big stash under the bed.
K’s and Belle’s birthday presents are ready to go – it’s so convenient.
Oh, here’s Dad….
I was more direct with my father: “This is difficult to say…I want my kids to be grateful for any gift, but Dad, it’s like the presents are from a stranger who doesn’t know them. It’s nothing they are interested in. Why doesn’t Mom ask them what they’d like? They’d love to tell her.” He just didn’t hear me (“Well, that’s how she likes to do it.“), and changed the subject.
Later that day I sought email counsel from my older and younger sisters. It wasn’t just my family’s dilemma – they’d both dealt with the LV catalog gift-gifting issue, and had tried everything from dropping hints to being directly confrontational. Their advice: Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Learn to live with it.
MH and I raised K and Belle to look at gifts as just that – gifts, not entitlements. We encouraged them to find something about which to feel grateful for any present they received; we advised them to never expect nor request presents, but to be gracious and specific when asked by someone what you’d like for your birthday, or Christmas.
K and Belle dutifully wrote thank you notes to Grandpa Chet and Grandma M. After years of getting presents they didn’t want, it became somewhat of a family joke ritual: on Christmas morning, along with our gift-opening accouterments we also set out a direct-to-Goodwill bag for the Lillian Vernon haul, and there was a special ceremonial flourish when a Certificate of Authenticity assumed its rightful place in the paper recycling bin.
Along with the droll (okay; snarky) comments and laughter which became a part of our gift-opening, there were genuine hurt feelings, for both me and my children. It sliced at my heart, the first time K and Belle looked at me with sad-round eyes and said, Why don’t they ask me what I want?
It was so effin’ impersonal; it showed no interest in them as individuals. My mother took pride in being done with her present shopping months (even years) in advance…and took no interest in finding out what her grandchildren actually wanted. You can learn a lot about children by asking them what they’d like for a present – it can be a segue into finding out about their hobbies and interests and talents, about finding out who they are and what they like to do.
Instead, it was This Christmas Belle gets something from the “Girl Toys Ages 6-9” bag under Grandma M’s bed. My mother even mixed up the presents one year: K got a gift that was meant for his cousin. The gift tag read, “To X, Love Grandma M” (cousin X, my younger sister’s second son, was the same age as K)!
At my suggestion (and with my father’s encouragement), my parents switched to giving checks to their grandchildren a few years back, a practice my mother continued after my father died. Now, the LV catalog present years are the stuff of family lore. Back then, it was Yet Another Life Lesson ® for my children (and their parents) in tolerance, acceptance, and loving people as they are, warts/quirks and all. Looking back, a part of me is even grateful for the experience, which provided us with one of our favorite family code phrases:
Belle: What do you know about that new cafe downtown? Moiself:
I haven’t heard much about them, only that each menu item comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. Belle: Whoa, thanks for the warning.
* * *
Department Of Food (and beverage?) For Thought
In 2020 (the last year for which there is complete information) there were 11,654 “alcohol-impaired”-related auto accident deaths.
Which means that the remaining 70% of auto accident deaths were caused by ijiots who drink bottled water, coffee, soda, juice, energy drinks, et al, and/or talked or texted on their phones and/or were otherwise impaired by their own stupidity, incompetence, and inattentiveness.
“At this season of the winter solstice, let reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell;
there is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition which hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
[2] And arguably, I still am somewhat child-like (or, ish).
[3] Many of the oldest ones have a tiny Made in Japan sticker on them, and date from the 1950s or earlier, or so I was told by one antique shop dealer.
[4] Which, BTW, is the only proper day to open your Christmas gifts. If MH’s family had been a, “We-open-our-gifts-on-Christmas-Eve!” kind of family, we would not have married.
[5] (my mother has since died, but at the time I included this “Content reassurance”): my mother is alive, albeit in poor physical and mental health. We speak at least once a week; she doesn’t remember our phone conversation from the previous week (nor often what I said five minutes ago). She is a shut in, in her own home, with 24/7 care by patient and loving attendants. She has no access to the internet, doesn’t read my blog, doesn’t know I write a blog, doesn’t know what a blog is….
[6] I was going to write shoddily manufactured…there’s just no nice way to put it. That shit was cheaply made.
[7] And it was my mother’s doing. As was common to many men of his generation, my father gladly ceded the birthday and holiday gift-choosing tasks to his wife.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
And about that fight…. Why am I not ending it? Because the controversies over the issues and principles involved seem to be (still, WTF) lingering in some tight-spirited and fearful minds.
I ran across the sentiments moiself so objects to last week when moiself heard a snippet of a radio interview with some book reviewer. But I was most butt-frostingly reminded of The Fight ® when I recently heard Fresh Air host Terry Gross’s 1993 interview (rebroadcasted 12-14-22) with Octavia Butler, the late great, ground-breaking Black female science fiction author.
Butler, indiscussing how and why she began writing, said she was both trying to get under-represented perspectives a voice (i.e. a voice like hers, as a black female in sci fi), but also she wanted to experience the voice of others:
“…I’ve also explored, and in a strange sense I suppose I also found out, what it might like to be a white male or whatever, you know. One of the things writing does is allow you to be other people
without actually being locked up for it.”
TG: “We’re talking empathy here, right?”
OB: “Uh hum – yes.”
That should have ended the pitiful controversy right there and then. But it’s been a long time since 1993, and “cultural appropriation,” a concept bandied about in academia in the 1980s, wasn’t so publicly applied to works of literature until after Butler’s death.
In case y’all haven’t figured out the connection between this particular blog’s title and content, the fight I refer to would be that against literary censorship – censorship of the worst kind, the kind that makes an author repress herself before she even writes, when she has an idea for a story/plot/character but fears her work will be for naught as she doesn’t have the right “personal” credentials/identity that the self-appointed Saviors of Literary Ownership Police (appropriately acronym-ed) will deem necessary…and thus they will rake her over the cultural appropriation coals.
Moiself has written about this several times in this space (a few of them cited at the end of this post, before the footnotes), and most extensively in my post, The Culture I’m Not Appropriating, 9-16-16. Since it’s my birthday week [2] and since the wise words of Ms. Butler inspired me, I shall rerun that post, which was one of my first single-subject rants examination of a thorny issue:
( from The Culture I’m Not Appropriating, 9-16-16. )
Write what you knowis, hands down/butts up, the Worst Writing Advice Ever. ® Although I despise the aggravating axiom’s existence, I took some solace in thinking that its influence has been waning….
Golly gosh gee willikers, how I love learning new things: it seems that, like intestinal gas after a vegan-chili-eating contest, that misbegotten maxim keeps resurfacing. It has morphed, and rises anew in the form of the term, cultural appropriation.[3]
I grow weary of you appropriating Vulcan culture, Lt. Kirk.
American journalist/novelist Lionel Shriver, who was invited to be the keynote speaker at the recent Brisbane Writers Festival, knotted the knickers of the festival organizers when, as reported in this NY Times article, she [4] disparaged the movement against cultural appropriation:
Write what you know; do not appropriate the culture/experience of another. This becomes translated as,Write what you are. And what you are becomes defined by someone outside of you – someone who decries cultural, ethnic, class and gender stereotypes even as they want to circumscribe your right to tell stories/craft characters based on their interpretation of your cultural what you know.
Seven years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of Poets & Writers magazine, in response to a Very Long Screed ® letter from a woman who passionately pronounced that writers must write about only those characters and backgrounds from whence they came; that is, you must write about what you know, and what you know is what you are. Screed Woman [5] commented at length about what a “true artist” may create, and at one point actually declared the following:
“I will not permit folks like _____ [6] to write of my folk, or Mexican folk, or Asian folk, or Native American folk, of folk of color as though they have a right to.”
Yes, really.
Screed Writer, without having been asked by other writers, “By the way, what do you think I should write about?” and without having been elected to the Board of Literary Permissions, [7] not only felt entitled to speak for all of her “folk,” but also for the folk of which she is not-folk – an incredibly diverse and numerous collection of humanity, whose varying and wide-ranging opinions on the issue at hand she discounted, IMHO, by presuming to speak for all folk-of-color.
Was I out of the country when _____( Screed Writer) was appointed to the coveted, “True Artist Discerner” position? ….I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but behold: for centuries, a legion of writers, from Shakespeare to Le Guin, have composed tales and created characters without your (or anyone else’s) permission. A pox upon the cheeky bastards! ….All those wasted years, merely loathing Jonathan Livingston Seagull for the story itself when I could have really censured it for being inauthentic: “How dare its author write outside his species!?”
Write what you know. Just think of the awful, intrusive, disrespectful novels penned by those who have ignored that advice.
John Steinbeck, born into middle-class comfort in California and educated at Stanford – what could he know of the struggles and dreams of the destitute Oklahoma migrant farmers he depicted in The Grapes of Wrath? And that Cathy Ames character, the initially charming but ultimately evil and pitiful wife/mother in East of Eden – how could a 1950s, upright male citizen like Steinbeck take the liberty to deduce the machinations of a turn of the century whorehouse madam? [9]
How dare Rita Mae Brown, a never-married, child-free lesbian with no siblings, presume to knowthe combination of brass and loneliness of the widowed elderly sisters and mothers whom she featured in her novel Bingo? Not only that, Brown has penned a series of detective novels featuring a cat as a sleuth-like protagonist! The nerve of her, a bipedal homo sapiens, to appropriate the thoughts and actions of a quadrapedal felis catus.
Stephen King had his first great hit with the novel Carrie. He audaciously crafted his shy high school misfit character despite the fact that he, an adult man with no demonstrable psychokinetic abilities who came from a middle-of-the road Protestant background, could not possibly knowwhat it would be like to be a much-bullied adolescent female with telekinetic powers who lived with a batshit-crazy fundamentalist mother.
Alice Walker – well, she can write about her own folk, as long as they are The Color Purple. But as an African American from a rural, Southern, impoverished, Baptist background there’s no way she could knowthe mind-set and motivations of an idealistic civil rights worker from a Northern, white, Jewish, privileged circumstances…and yet she dared to create just such a character in Meridian.
And what could Brian Doyle, a non-Urdu-speaking, white American writer and editor, truly knowabout the inner musings of a Muslim Pakistani barber, as he had the gall to do in Bin Laden’s Bald Spot ?
And don’t even get me started on that uppity Jean Auel, who created the Clan of the Cave Bear books. Auel presumed to tell tales about people who lived and died thousands of years ago – she appropriated cultures that don’t even exist anymore! And what could she, a contemporary middle-aged white woman, possibly knowabout Cro-magnons and Neanderthals of any age, gender or ethnicity?
Have I belabored this point enough? Because, I could go on, ya know.
No, please, provide even more examples; we still don’t get it…
Now then. I do not mean to dismiss legitimate concerns re the historical exploitation of the experiences of women and minorities via the platform of fiction. As one Brisbane Writers Festival attendee put it, “The reality is that those from marginalized groups, even today, do not get the luxury of defining their own place in a norm that is profoundly white, straight and, often, patriarchal.”
I do mean to dismiss three whole ‘nother kettles of wormy literary fish:
the idea that there are any “sacred” subjects – including but not limited to culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, politics, socio-economic class, dis/ability – about which writers cannot or should not write;
the idea that writers may justifiably feel entitled to try to limit the variety of voices other writers employ to comment on any subject;
two wormy fish kettles of literary nonsense are enough to be dismissed, for now.
Look: you may like a story’s plot and/or characters, or loathe the same – it’s up to each reader. What is not up to any reader, nor the self-blinder-donning, self-appointed Guardians Of Cultural Appropriation, [11] is to attempt to limit, intimidate or censor the imagination and empathy that writers use to create their stories and characters.
“I often quote myself. It lends spice to my conversation.” (Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw)
Since I am not one to ignore the example of GB Shaw, I shall end this communique with the end of my afore-mentioned response to the afore-mentioned Screed Writer:
_____ (Screed Writer) writes, with all sincerity and good intentions, I assume, that she would not write a character with certain gender/religious/ethnic attributes because she does “not wish to offend with less than authenticity.” Some might think her intentions polite and perhaps even considerate, but what I look for in a compelling story is not that its author has good manners. Go ahead, dare to “offend” me with “in-authenticity,” Better yet, let me – the reader – decide whether or not I am offended, and whether or not I find your characters authentic. Trust me; I’ve been doing this for years. I’ll be okay.
To the Write What You Know gang: can we end this dreary dialog? Go back to your corners; reflect; meditate; supplicate; read the self-help books and take the mood or perspective-altering medications that will enable you to ignore the evil voices in your head that tell you it is your obligation to shepherd, chaperone, and censor. WWYK-ers and others who deny themselves the “right” to write authentic if “different” characters are welcome to deny themselves – and themselves alone – that right. If, whether out of fear, misguided notions of respect, or any other reason, you do not consider yourself capable of creating authentic characters, then by all means, stifle yourself. Do not write beyond your self-imposed limits, perceptions and capacities, If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to write about it if you don’t want to (is this a wonderful world, or what?!), but please consider the following. Throughout the ages, many great writers, painters, and composers have suggested that it is the stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, one’s permitted zone, which is the mark of a “true” artist.
I, for one, am grateful for authors past and present who’ve written out “of the box.” Do not, ever, presume to limit another writer’s capabilities, or be so audacious as to assume you are the granter of people’s right to tell the stories they choose to tell. Gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, class, health status, religion, occupation, political affiliation – all of these authentic, influential and essential qualities ultimately pale in comparison to that most defining human (apologies to science fiction authors) quality: imagination. Write, if you must, only what you think you know, but stop proscribing the imagination of anyone but yourself. My stories will be filled with agnostic, youthful, weak-hearted Southwestern men and with elderly, vigorous, devoutly Pentecostal Asian women; with boldly blasphemous crones, timorous dyslexic adolescents, and someday maybe even a gracious if paranoid Venusian. I’ll continue to write characters who line up with the truth of the story, not those that toe a line drawn in the literary sand by some self-deputized Authenticity Posse.
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Department Of Taking A Break
There; that’s better.
Now, if only I could slap somebody upside the head with a leather-bound copy of the list of challenged, censored and banned book titles as collected by the National Coalition Against Censorship.
“Political parties and ideologies with winning ideas don’t need to ban books. Christian nationalism, however, features inferior ideas that can’t compete in the modern world without cheating.” ( Marty Essen, author, in his op-ed “Christian Nationalism and book banning,” Independent Record, 9-16-22 )
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May you refrain from brutally smiting those who would constrain the creativity of others; May you, upon further reflection, treat such constraints with the scorn they deserve; May you authentically appropriate the power of imagination; …and may the hijinks ensue.
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Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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Teasers from previous posts on this topic, in case you haven’t had enough already and/or are suffering from insomnia:
Department Of Oh Please Not This Again It is just as well that I’m a writer, not an editor. Were I editing a newspaper or magazine, I might soon be out of a job. For this is an essay in defense of cultural appropriation.
In Canada last month, three editors lost their jobs after making such a defense. (Kenan Malik, opening lines from, In Defense of Cultural Appropriation ) Excerpt from post The Woman I’m Not Born As, June 23 2017
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A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I had a story and several poems published in two different literary journals, each of which aspired, as per their “mission statements,” to give voice to the concerns of (the so-labeled) Generation X. Not only were Gen X-ers these respective journals’ target audience, the journals…in their writers’ guidelines stated that writers submitting work must themselves be of the Gen-X age range. Which I am not.
And yet, my story and poems were chosen for publication…. Although I snorted with derision when I read the afore-mentioned journals’ guidelines, I did have select pieces that I thought would be a good thematic fit for them. I also noted that neither journal requested contributor photos nor dates of birth, and thus had no way of confirming an author’s generational affiliation…. I chose to dishonor the journals’ guidelines by sending them my Gen-X-themed-fiction/poetry-written-by-a-non-Gen-Xer. The editors of the journal which published my story effused in the acceptance letter about how I had captured the particular zeitgeist they sought – about how the tone of my story was “exactly what we are looking for.”…. (excerpt from the acceptance acknowledgement letter I did not send to them): Gee, thanks – oh, and by the way, that’s the point of being a *fiction* writer. Somehow, miraculously, I was able to *get* the tone without *being* the tone. It’s called craft; skill; experience; imagination; empathy. It’s called creative writing for a reason, you ageist, imaginatively constipated twerps. ( Excerpt from post The Acceptance Letter I’m Not Sending, June 30 2017 )
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Department Of More Fun With Writer Sub-Department Of Yet Another Southern Border Crisis?
….American Dirt, in case you haven’t heard, is a novel about a Mexican woman and her son, the only survivors of their family’s murder by a drug cartel, who flee for their lives and head for the USA-Mexico border. AD was chosen as an Oprah’s Book Club selection (which almost guarantees a bajillion copies sold, plus movie options) and received glowing reviews, including from Latina authors and actors such as Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez and Salma Hayek.…until someone pointed out that the novel about Mexican immigrants was written by a non-Mexican, and the cultural identity police dog-piled on. The book’s author identifies as white and Latina and has a Puerto Rican grandmother, but that’s not Latina enough for some. Seemingly overnight the book went being reviewed as a captivating story that could “change hearts and transform policies” (Alvarez) to being “racist” and “filled with stereotypes.” Just as quickly, the author went from to literary prodigy to pariah…her publisher even cancelled book tour appearances because of “specific threats to the booksellers and the author.”
(Excerpt from post The Cheese I’m Not Cutting, February 21 2020 )
* * Department Of Idiocy Makes My Brain Hurt Sub-Department Of Let’s Just Cancel those Pesky Qualities of Imagination And Empathy, Part 102.7 In A Contemptibly Long Series Adjunct to the Sub-Sub Division Of Why My Own Profession Has Left A Bad Taste In My Mouth For Years
….I’ve little doubt that author (Celeste) Ng’s hesitation about her “authoritative voice” was due to her anticipating charges of cultural appropriation (and the very real possibility of being boycotted by publishers, who would fear such a backlash): as in, how dare Ng think that she, an Asian (read: non-Black) writer, could create a full-blooded, multi-faceted, Black character? So: * Although the Asian-American author imagined a Black woman as this lead character, she couldn’t bring herself to actually write her as such; * Nevertheless, this Asian/non-Black writer was so successful in creating a compelling story about “identity and how the roles and the context of our identity contributes to how we live and relate to others in the world” that a Black actor could identify with this lead character as Black; * And it was acceptable for the series’ casting director and other lead actor and producers to suggest casting the character as Black, and the Black actor allowed herself to take the role (“an amazing idea”), which was created by an Asian, non-Black writer…. ( Excerpt from post, The Karma I’m Not Accruing, September 11 2020 )
[2] And thus I can write about whatever I want to…oh, wait, that’s every week….
[3] The term in this context refers to “minority” writers and artists protesting the use or depiction of their culture by other/non-minority writers or artists – even to the point of objecting to “dominant culture” artists creating or including in their work characters belonging to minority cultures.
[4] Yes, Lionel Shriver is a she. She appropriated a male first name at age 15.
[6] An ethnically/culturally Jewish writer, who had previously written about how she claimed the right to write non-Jewish characters and to *not* have to write about The Holocaust.
[7] Even if she claimed to be, it would be election fraud, as there is no such board.
[8] Which was published in P & W. The letter was edited for space and not run in its glorious (read: snarky) entirety.
[9] Excuse me, did I write ‘madam”? I mean of course, Sex Worker Supervisor.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.
No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.