The Brady Bunch Movie -- A Waste of Time

Earlier this month, I asked what Hollywood would do to The Brady Bunch.

Well, I finally finished watching “The Brady Bunch Movie,” and have decided thus:

1. They paid homage to The Brady Bunch
2. They wrote a terrible movie about it.

I can’t fault the actors. Certainly Shelley Long and Gary Cole did wonderfully well in their roles.
But transplanting the Bradys into the 90s certainly required a lot of, um, crap.

I see they still got the lesbian storyline in, though not with one of the girls, though that’s what they wanted to do in the first place.

And I feel sorry for Jan in this movie. No wonder Eve Plumb declined to take part in this film.
There is no reason for this film. If you like the Brady Bunch, watch the TV show. Skip the movie.
I think what grates the most is how they transplanted the ‘70s into the ‘90s, winking at how the Bradys just don’t fit in any more. Thing is, they didn’t really fit in back in the ‘70s either. Nobody mentioned Richard Nixon or Vietnam. So no shock that nobody talks about grunge music in their ‘70s pad or appreciates – or even gets – the sex jokes they wrote for Marsha’s idiot date.

I like it when Greg took over the stage and the dance and played his stupid song. It’s so ‘70s, and that’s why we like the Bradys. We don’t need to see them transplanted into the ‘90s, one of the worst decades out there.

I did learn one thing: If I had to choose between The Brady Bunch world and today’s world, I’d choose The Brady Bunch world.

E.W. Hildick: A Follow-Up

So yesterday I wrote a little about E.W. Hildick, author of the McGurk Mysteries, advocating that kids ought to take themselves seriously so the adults around them will as well.

Strong evidence of that – as well as their physical location – comes in The Case of the Nervous Newsboy.

First, Kids Taking Themselves Seriously.

The Case of the Nervous Newsboy tells the story of Simon Emmet, who disappears the day the McGurk Organization uses him as a patsy for their shadowing a suspect practice. They, of course, take on the challenge of finding out what happened – deciding to find out whether Simon had had a fight with a parent the morning of his disappearance.

Here’s what Hildick says, through narrator Joey Rockaway:

“Mrs. Emmet didn’t say there’d been a fight of any kind,’ [said Patrolman Cassidy]. “But then, parents don’t always know when they have been in a fight with their kids. They just lay down the rules and sometimes a high-spirited boy or girl will object, but the parent won’t listen. To the parent it isn’t a fight, but to the kid it really is.”

We nodded. I was thinking: No wonder they send Patrolman Cassidy around the schools He really understands . . . 

Then there’s this:

Well, McGurk was being very unfair there. Hadn’t we seen for ourselves the policemen knocking on doors the day before? But when McGurk takes a dislike to anyone doe does get unfair. And his biggest dislikes are those he takes to people who give him the brush-off when he’s trying really hard.

While the latter could describe both kids and adults, given this from a kid’s perspective – when kids really do get the brush-off a lot, I think this is strong evidence of one of Hildick’s themes: Kids taking themselves seriously so others around them will.

Now, Location of, McGurk Organization.

I wrote yesterday about a vague sense that the series was set in the greater New York area, based on some clues. The Nervous Newsboy cements the New York area pretty solidly:

“If he’d [Emmet][ left the bike and taken the money, I’d have said he was counting on going a long way [McGurk said]. Like Clark Timperley when he ran away last year. Hitching as far as New York so as not to leave a clear trail. Then taking a Greyhound bus up into New Hampshire.”

Doesn’t get more clear than that.

When You Watch Your Children

Day three of our trip to Yellowstone, and we were all a little frazzled.

Two nights sleeping in a tent with only a little padding. Two days of cramped travel inside the park, combined with a lot of walking and dogs who were just getting used to being in the car for a long time.

Add a longer than expected stay at Mammoth Hot Springs in the heat and up the stairs, a mild parental spat over a parking spot and picnic, then a long-ass drive to find a picnic spot and an even longer-ass drive to Yellowstone Lake while the youngest complained we were going to miss dining at Big Jud’s on the way home that night if we delayed any longer, and we were tired.

Yet.

We get to the lake. Or at least the lodge. Separating us from the lake itself is a dirty, sandy cliff about twenty or so feet high.

Mom speeds down a gully in the cliff to the shore, followed quickly by daughter, trailing one of the dogs on her leash. The rest of us stand on the brink.

The oldest, who planned the trip, is flummoxed. “The map showed the beach right at the lodge!” he says, standing at the edge of the cliff, which seems undescendable though he’s seen his mother and sister do it. “The beach is supposed to be right here!” Which it is, albeit with a cliff between it and us.

Youngest begins to descend, but he’s wary. He recently sprained an ankle and doesn’t want to hurt it again. I follow, but quickly fall on my butt. Daughter comes up to take the second dog by the leash and help her down, leaving me to scoot on my behind. I scoot.

Youngest stops scooting, climbs back up to the top where his older brother is still squawking about the inconsistency of a flat map not revealing a cliff at the final destination.

Nevertheless.

Seeing Mom, sister, Dad, and dogs at the bottom of the cliff, walking on the pebbly shore of the wind-swept lake, he descends. Scooting, grumbling the whole way. But he arrives. And the world brightens for him. We remind him of the joy he found at Catalina Island, wading in the surf in his shoes and jeans, shoes that never really did dry out for the rest of our cruise up and down the coast of California and extremely northern Mexico. It’s a bit cold here for wading, but he too warms at the memory, and the fussing fades.

His younger brother is still at the top of the cliff, walking to the east.

We on the beach walk past stacked rocks, jumbles of driftwood, shouting a bit to be heard over the wind and waves. The dogs clamber over the pebbles, sticking their paws in the water and occasionally their snouts.

Then the youngest appears on the beach, coming around a corner from the east.

“I found an easier way down,” he says. And we’re thrilled to have him on the beach, in the wind and shouting over the waves.

Tensions of the day drizzle away. We watch the dogs on the brink of the beach, leaping back when the waves crash. I throw some driftwood into the water and watch wind and waves push it back to shore. The youngest throws rocks as our daughter takes off shoes and socks to wade in the rocky water.

Then it’s time to go. We have just enough time, we think, to drive the two hours we’ll need to Ashton to get to Big Jud’s before it closes. Still shouting over the wind and waves, we climb up the much easier slope the youngest found, ducking at the last moment underneath the branches of a lodgepole pine on the cliff top, then head back to the lodge, then the car.

Daughter: Always ready for an adventure, never doubting for a second we’ll get there. Much like her mother.

Oldest son: The planner, easily flummoxed when even a small thing – like a sandy cliff – gets in the way, but always willing to follow. Much like his Dad.

Youngest son: Easily the most easily frustrated of the bunch, but never wanting to be left out. He will find a way to join us, even if it takes him a bit. And he’ll lead us back up the way he went, just because it’s cool to be the leader when he already knows the way. Kind of like Mom and Dad combined, that kid.

Where will these characteristics take them, I wonder.

I suppose we’ll find out.

E. W. Hildick: Helping Kids Take Kids Seriously

One of the things I love the most about E.W. Hildick’s “The Case of the Felon’s Fiddle” is that it’s not some penny-ante neighborhood crime the McGurk Organization is worrying about here.

We’re talking $250,000 in stolen diamonds. That’s something that would even make Encyclopedia Brown gulp.

And what’s even better is that the case lands with McGurk by happenstance. Had that violin been purchased by anyone else, Fiddler Knight’s clues would have gone unnoticed, or at least unappreciated for what they are.

Hildick shows kids can do what adults can do when kids use their brains and their curiosity. Hildick also shows with this story if kids approach the adult world with their brains and with enough courage to insist adults treat them seriously, they can do what they set out to do.

And it’s all done with the aim of telling a good story, not necessarily carrying that societal message – which is even better.

Maybe this person says it better:

What makes the McGurk organisation so unique is the sheer normality of the events they investigate. Hildick, in all his books for children, realises how a child sees deep meaning in events that seem trivial to an adult. And in their way, dealing with minor thefts, incidents of bullying, and unjust accusations by parents and teachers, the McGurk organisation do a great deal to improve the world around them. Your kid sister's baby doll goes missing, leaving her heartbroken? Your pet cat is accused of killing the neighbours' homing pigeons? Your brother is accused of vandalising garden ornaments? Call McGurk.

(I question this blogger’s (Kevin Burton Smith) knowledge of McGurk and his friends, however, as he suggests erroneously, that The Case of the Secret Scribbler is the only time the McGurk Organization faces an adult-level crime, when clearly that’s not the case (The Felon’s Fiddle and The Snowbound Spy also fit that category). Also, it’s clear in the books, particularly The Felon’s Fiddle, that Hildick set his books in the United States, not England as this blogger assumes.) Hildick clearly states the fiddler’s crimes take place in Manhattan, and that he had less than a day to hide the jewels from his heist, clearly putting the McGurk Organization in the Greater New York area.

And to flip that coin, Hildick demonstrates the problems kids might face – a pet cat is framed for killing a neighbor’s dove, a sibling’s doll goes missing – can be treated with the same seriousness as a jewel heist by those who use their brains and skills to solve crimes, no matter that the stakes are a lot lower.

Hildick’s gift is that he takes kids seriously, and shows them they can be taken seriously, even when they get fooled by an “invisible” dog.

So I will keep reading them.

Anzio, by Lloyd Clark

Of any of the books I’ve read about World War II, Lloyd Clark’s “Anzio” has succeeded the most in driving home the point that the average soldier did not see the war in campaigns, in maps, in rolling columns of vehicles achieving objective after objective, but rather as an intimate, nasty little thing that tried to kill you as you were already very likely cold, wet, miserable, homesick, scared to death, smelly, hungry, and entirely unsure you’d survive to see the next lull.

And maybe that’s just the proximity of reading “Anzio” talking.

But there are moments.

I kept wanting to see the bigger picture. But Clark writes the book in a claustrophobic fashion, offering only the smattering of a bigger picture with the maps that end each section. I kept bookmarking the maps, referring back to them often, and often feeling frustrated that my knowledge of Italian geography was limited enough I didn’t really know what was beyond the map edges.
Thus it must be like to be a soldier.

Clark quotes Private Paul van der Linden, in such a claustrophobic moment, both literally and figuratively:

It was a curious experience. There I was lying on a hard cold floor quite safe really, whilst outside it was hell . . . my arm and chest were painful. The doctor had taken some of the shell splinters out, but other were too deep. I floated in and out of consciousness. I preferred it when I was out, because then the pain went away and I couldn’t hear what was going on  . . . The sounds were confusing. I’d hear a yell, then a rat-a-tat-a-tat followed by the boom of a grenade. It was a real scrap . . . Sometimes I woke up to find out own guns targeting the Caves trying to keep the Germans at bay. A massive explosion would rock the floor and suck the air out of the place. The noise was so great that you’d be deaf for minutes or hours afterwards. And so on it went.

So too does Ted Jones recall in Clark’s book:

But for Ted [the names of the places he fought] only provoke memories of sights, smells and sounds. Momentarily lost in the past, the distinguished-looking old man stares at the carpet. Then, with no prompting, he recalls the moment when a vicious German artillery bombardment shattered his company’s position during an enemy counter-attack hear the Via Anziante. From the perspective of his narrow slit trench he remembers the whine of approaching shells, the convulsive heave of explosions, the chest-pounding concussion. The smell of wet earth mixed with cordite. He remembers the buzz of a passing bullet and the staccato reply of the Bren guns. He remembers the screams of the wounded and the terrifying yells of the advancing German infantry. Ted Jones recalls his friend dying beside him with absolute clarity. “He made a gurgling sound and was gone.”

Thus it must be like to be a soldier.

Jones survived to tell his story to Clark as an old man. But it’s clear Anzio never really left, or he never left Anzio.

And thus it is today, with parts of the world plunged into what feels like perpetual “we have always been at war with East Asia” war. Only one thing can be said: Poo-tee weet?

Yellowstone National Park, 2018 Notes

A few close-to-midnight observations about Yellowstone National Park, from a guy who just got back after a three-day visit there with a wife, three teenagers, two dogs, and a hard KOA Kampground tent site to sleep in:

1. YNP is poorly maintained. The rivers run through mud and everything.

2. Wiener dogs really hate buffalo.

3. You will think of things to say to each other, like "I wonder if my wife still has that pole up her keister? I think I'll ask her."*

4. You'll notice your son has a distinctive lolloping walk when you see him eerily appear out of nowhere at the end of a long alley at the KOA when you're sent late at night to retrieve them from the pool.

5. If you bring dogs into YNP, they'll give you instructions on where they're welcome and where they're not. And a Milk-Bone apiece, so you can either give them to your dogs or keep them in your pockets in case some guy brings a cougar to your party and it goes berserk.

6. Buffalo do not care if you need to get through the park on the last day and make it to Ashton before 10 pm so you can have dinner at Bid Jud's. They will stand in the middle of your lane of traffic and stare at the barking weenie dog in your lap.

7. Mammoth Hot Springs have seen better days.

8. When your daughter wants to take a photo of your wife to make it appear that she has antlers as you pose her in front of a skeletal bush in the middle distance, someone will walk into the frame and stand right in front of your wife and wave their camera around for (no kidding) ten minutes as they take pictures of what appear to be errant oxygen molecules.

9. Buffalo appear indifferent to whatever music you might have playing, even if it's "Hooked on a Feeling" including the opening hooga-chakas.

10. Ravens like strawberries.

11. Watching a park ranger pull out behind you just as you came out of a 45 mph zone going 60 will give you that same sinking feeling you get if it were a cop. No ticket, however. At least today.

12. You'll remember the time when a much younger version of your family was at Newberry National Monument in Oregon and startled your daughter into leaping into the air and shouting "WHERE?" when you absently mention *that* particular spot up there is likely where the lava came out, and she thought you were talking in the present.

13. It's perfectly acceptable to walk past people taking photos with cell phones, because it's about 99% likely they're taking selfies.

14. I appreciated going three days and hearing Donald Trump's name mentioned only once.

15. You know one of your dogs had a successful trip when she's flopped over in her basement bed, eyes half closed as you type, with a rawhide chewie sticking out of her mouth.

16. We passed a place called "Alum Creek." I wanted to stop and drink the water but I was afraid this would happen.

*You won't actually SAY things like this, but you'll think them.

Different Kinds of Kipple

I was a little stunned when I read this at The Atlantic.

This paragraph portion stood out in particular:

Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

Of course this is going to shock me. I’m not a clothes shopper. I am a clothes wearer, but only because I’m unsightly and societal norms expect me to be covered.

Who are these people buying on average almost 66 new garments a year? If I added up what I bought (and let’s be honest, what was purchased for me) I’m sure it’s less than 10 items. And I have not bought any shoes this year, though I know I need a new pair of sneakers.

I’m an avid reader, but I haven’t bought many books. No new books certainly, and only a handful of used ones. I’ve got a lot of books on the shelves I haven’t read yet and, more importantly, nowhere to put new ones.

The garage, that’s a different matter. A year ago, I inherited a garage-full of tools from my mother when she passed away. I still haven’t sorted through most of what I got, though I have used the scroll saw (which technically belongs to my younger brother; I’m just holding on to it until he’s got a place of his own. I also have a small collection of floor tile for an as-yet incomplete tiling project, and some roof shingles left over from the shingle replacement on the house this spring. We do have an overabundance of bicycles, I will admit. Five family members, seven bicycles. I’d love to ditch a few.

I don’t want to accumulate more stuff. I enjoy new things to be sure, but it’s a fair bet if something new comes into the house, it’s because something old has completely worn out. Electronics are a challenge. I’ve got a small collection of outdated tablets starting to pile up. Some have batteries that have turned to poo-poo. Others have cracked screens or charging ports that no longer will charge. I need to find out how to get them recycled, but until then, they can sit in the study in the basement, where they don’t take up much room.

The monitors and printers are more problematic. We’ve got two of each. The monitors still work, though I imagine in another year or two, when computers get replaced, they won’t have compatible connection cords any more (one of them is still an RS-232 cable, for heaven’s sake, but we’ve got one laptop we can use it with. So we keep it. The printers are junky; they don’t really work well with the ink and toner any more, but they’d be enough in a pinch for a kid going off to college, so we hold on to them.

I did have to buy a set of a dozen microphone noise-reducing foam balls, because the kids left the microphone near where the dogs could chew on the foam. I’ll likely never have to buy any again, unless the dogs get a hold of it.

Things we do have an enormous surplus of different kinds of kipple:

1. Stuffed animals
2. LEGOs
3. Nails
4. Shingles
5. Bicycles
6. Sleeping bags
7. Canoes (we have one, but have used it only two or three times in the twenty years we've had it)
8. Books (when we moved here, we had 14 apple boxes full of books. We've added to the collection since then)
9. Rocks (a landscaping redesign means we now have a surfeit of rocks. Don't quite know what to do with them. Maybe another landscaping project is in order)
10. Paintbrushes
11. Christmas decorations (I'm technically not allowed to comment on the number of Christmas decorations we have. I will mention, at last count, we have twelve Christmas trees)
12. Matches (inherited a lot from Mom. Not sure they're really worth keeping but don't necessarily know how to get rid of them)
13. Tents. We have three of them. Two are mostly broken, but still useable. Can't justify the expense of buying a new one yet.

Consider the Experiment

Back in high school, I recall reading Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Christo,” and rather enjoying it. Same for Arthur Miller’s “Death of A Salesman.”

I’ve always been a big reader, though over time – then, not just now – my interest in reading waxed and waned. In the fourth grade, for example, I got an A+ in reading one quarter because I gave 43 book reports. The grade fell as the quarters went on, however, because the number of books I read diminished (also, I recall the book report form leaping from 1/3 of a page to a full page, so that slowed me down a bit too).

I have recently re-read both Salesman and Monte Christo.

Death of A Salesman still captures me, pulls me into the story, makes me feel for Willy Loman and his hapless sons.

The Count of Monte Christo, however . . .

Parts of it I like. But there’s so much that still could have been cut from the short version I read in high school. I happened upon the full version while living in France and left it at the bookstore, all three volumes, densely packed with Napoleonic history and French.

The book itself didn’t change from when I read it in high school from when I read it recently. Perhaps what changed is my patience with a lumbering story.

Not the Internet.

I still read a lot in physical books. And generally, I find reading physical books a joy. I also read quite a bit on the Internet, and find a lot of good stuff to read there as well.

My reading books doesn’t diminish my ability to read on the Internet, nor do my reading forays on the Internet diminish my facility for reading physical books.

I’m impatient with lumbering writing – including my own – no matter what media it appears in.
So I’m dubious about folks who complain the Internet has made the difference in their reading ability.

For example:

Wolf resolved to allot a set period every day to reread a novel she had loved as a young woman, Hermann Hesse’s Magister Ludi. It was exactly the sort of demanding text she’d once reveled in. But now she discovered to her dismay that she could not bear it. “I hated the book,” she writes. “I hated the whole so-called experiment.” She had to force herself to wrangle the novel’s “unnecessarily difficult words and sentences whose snakelike constructions obfuscated, rather than illuminated, meaning for me.” The narrative action struck her as intolerably slow. She had, she concluded, “changed in ways I would never have predicted. I now read on the surface and very quickly; in fact, I read too fast to comprehend deeper levels, which forced me constantly to go back and reread the same sentence over and over with increasing frustration.” She had lost the “cognitive patience” that once sustained her in reading such books. She blamed the internet.

The above is from Laura Miller's review of Maryanne Wolf's book "Reader, Come Home," where Wolf trots out the tired notion that reading a lot on the Internet has destroyed her ability to think deeply about reading in general.

I find this kind of thinking to be a load of hooey.

My posit: The Internet isn’t changing how we read texts. Rather, our recognition of bad texts increases with the amount of material read. As we go back to a book we enjoyed once as a youngster, we’re bringing with the rose-colored memory of enjoyment the memory of just about every other text experience we’ve had. Even if we think we should enjoy the text as much as we did back then, what we have read -- and no matter where we've read it from -- is going to add to or taint that re-reading experience. We’re going to recognize poorly-written text more quickly now than we would then, because we have more experience with more text in general, no matter what media it comes in.

In other words, it's the sum of what we read that changes us, not what form we read it in.

‘He Was A Musician. . .’

There are now to Elders in the Davidson household.

I’m straining to remember what happened the day I was ordained as an Elder, but memory fails me. I might have something recorded in a journal, but my journaling pre-mission was pretty spotty. So. I do know I was ordained by someone not my father; I have his line of authority in my scrapbook. Will have to get a copy of that to Liam.

I think this makes me old. And I felt old when this kid turned eight and entered Cub Scouts.
I remember this from yesterday: Heavenly Father telling Liam to read and study the Book of Mormon, and to seek the companionship of the Holy Ghost. There may have been more, but that’s what stands out in my mind now. Should have had a quiet moment afterward to write a few things down. But busy is as busy does – we also ordained Isaac as a Teacher, and that followed right afterward, then dinner with the family.

Happy times.

Combined with bleak times as we read Mormon and Moroni’s story in The Book of Mormon, and witness the apocalypse they saw. Nowhere near as bleak today, though the storm clouds grow. We see the bleakness when it hits, like it did with Charles.



We get hints of it. Flashes of grey cloud. Though I’m sure Mormon and Moroni saw plenty of what they saw under blue skies and fair breezes.

Satan tries to wear on us. Make us feel that things are on a downward spiral, when often they are but more often are not, and he just wants us discouraged and faithless.

But we fight back.

We shore up our faith, fill the lamps. We do those ordinations and hope they stick with the kid who receives them.

We try not to do things on autopilot, though that is tempting.

And sometimes I slip into that. It’s easy.

Spirit is willing. Flesh is weak.

And sometimes, we think we’re only musicians. But in our case, we are all players of a different sort.

Ninny Thinking, Part II

I have just finished reading Terry Pratchett’s novel “The Last Continent,” a satirical look at all things Australian.

Except, perhaps, Australia’s indigenous population.

Here’s something from the book:

He’d seen something like this out in the red country, although he’d not been certain that it was art in the way Ankh-Morpork understood it. It was more like a map, a history book and a menu all rolled together. Back home, people tied a knot in their handkerchief to remind them of things. Out in the hot country there weren’t any handkerchiefs, so people tied a knot in their thoughts.

They didn’t paint very many pictures of a strong of sausages.

“’s called Sausage and Chips Dreaming,” said Dibbler.

“I don’t think I’ve seen one like that,” said Rincewind. “Not with the sauce bottle in it as well.”

“So what?” said Dibbler. “Still native. Genuine picture of traditional city tucker, done by a native. A fair go, that’s all I ask.”

“Ah, suddenly I think I understand. The native in this case, perhaps, being you?” said Rincewind.

“Yep. Authentic. You arguing?”

“Oh, come on.”

“What? I was born over there in Treacle Street, Bludgeree, and so was my dad. And my granddad. And his dad. I didn’t just step off the driftwood like some people I might mention.” His ratty little face darkened. “Coming over here, taking our jobs . . .  What about the little man, eh? All I’m askin’ for is a fair go.”

For a moment, Rincewind contemplated handing himself over to the Watch.

“Nice to hear someone siding with the rights of the indigenous population,’ he muttered, checking the street again.

“Indigenous? What do they know about a day’s work? Hah, they can go back to where they came from too,” said Dibbler. “They don’t want to work.”

“Good thing for you, though, I can see that.“ said Rincewind. “Otherwise they’d be taking your job, right?”

“The way I see it, I’m more indigenous than them,” said Fair Go, pointing an indignant thumb at himself. “I earned my indigenuity, I did.”

This is, of course, satire. To his audience, Pratchett doesn’t have to say this kind of attitude is malformed, as they know it. Nevertheless . . . there are no indigenous characters in the book, save for the god who carries the entire universe around in a sack on his back.

I have to wonder if Pratchett chose this deliberately – avoiding that indigenuity for the sake of avoiding the argument completely.

This wouldn’t fly as well in America, land of sensitivity readers. Someone would surely complain about the lack of indigenuity, or the story of FourEcks being told through the eyes of, ahem, Whitey. Because it is, no bones about it. And not even a fantasy novel of a satirical nature would likely escape the SR sphere of influence.

I’m not sayi8ng it should, or that Pratchett should be wound around that particular axle. I am saying there are others who would happily wind him up and churn him around a bit for the insensitivity. Why, there are humanized kangaroos and crocodiles and sheep which get more play in this story than the indigenous human population.

Again, not saying the story isn’t delightful just the way it is. I love Pratchett. Nevertheless . . . an author with far less clout than Pratchett might find a fight on his hands, were he or she to try publishing this now in the United States.

Still, no worries, right?

Ninny Thinking

A few things:

1. I am a ninny for thinking this
2. I’m not the only one who has thought of this
3. I’ve probably not thought nearly enough about this
4. Nevertheless . . .

Over the weekend, I read a rather short Facebook discussion on whether a published author should include an “evil” Japanese couple in her latest book.

The consensus: No, white girl. Do not.

What I’m a ninny for thinking (and the rest will fall in line, as you’ll see):

If the evil characters were of her own race, would the question have even come up?

Corollary question: What about if, like me, your characters are animals in the literal sense, not the figurative sense?

I understand the need for racial and cultural sensitivity. But are we to the point that the only window through which one my fictionalize race or culture is through the same-same lens?

And do writers of other cultures or races even hesitate if their evil characters are, shall we say, white Westerners?

I can hear the knives being sharpened and see the torches being lit. I know Whitey has, on occasion, performed poorly when casting around for evil – or even bland – characters and strike on a racial or cultural nerve when doing so.

This doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in reverse. Or that when it happens in reverse that it’s bad, because Whitey can be bad.

But so can, I have to think, the Japanese.

Nevertheless, I will continue to think about this. And see what arises.

Doleful Creatures. An Underlying Re-Think

What follows is a rethinking of the basic premise (love that Ronald Chevalier word, and you *know* I said it in his voice) of Doleful Creatures. Once fully formed, I believe it’ll heighten the tension and the stakes of the story, and give it a united element.

Or I’ll continue to screw it up. We’ll see.



There was a promise made.

For a time, the promise said, we’d know. We’d be aware. We, clad in fur of feather or scale, would also be knowing. Knowing what was to come if we passed the test. Knowing what came next.

Brief. A brief time, yet a golden promise. To make the interim time feel worthwhile. As long as we remembered it. And the promise said we would remember.

As long as the sixth day was open, knowing is ours.

As long as the new light in the heavens had not set.

But after the sunset, darkness.

Yet the promise continued: We would have fleeting moments, between tooth and claw, lilies of the field, master and mastered, when we would remember that brief time when our minds were more and we were more –

A mother watches her cubs struggle in the rushing water. They had clung to her back but she midjudges the current and the depth and they were swept away, coughing and crying, and she lumbered to shore and ran back and forth in a panic, tripping over rocks and leaping logs, trying to keep her little ones in view as they cried and coughed and drowned.

But there is one in the river, seeking with a pole and line and hook those who live in the river without drowning, and the mother’s thoughts go out to the one, who sees the struggling cubs and casts the pole aside and snatches the cubs, one in each hand, and brings them to the shore near the mother, crouched behind a tangle of logs.

She surprises the other emerging from behind the logs and both, for a moment, feel the fear that comes with the promise, that comes with the darkness.

But they look each other in the eye and one sees in the other a tiny reflection of the following light. The other sees in the eyes the full light that is promised.

And for a fleeting second, both feel the following light together, and it warms them.
The one pats a cub, sopping, coughing, but alive as the other cub gambols, dripping wet, to its mother.

The one trembles as the mother, eyes alight, gently shoves her snout under the hand resting on the coughing cub, raises it, then rests her massive head on the other’s shoulder, sighs, and shudders. The raised hand drops slowly until it finds the rough fur on the mother’s back.

The hand pats, leaves. The head is raised from the shoulder.

And for a moment, both sets of eyes see the following light.

The cubs sneeze and wail and nuzzle their mother as the three back away from the other, transfixed. The cubs shake the water from their fur and bolt for the trees. But the mother goes slowly, stopping occasionally to turn her head to gaze at the other still in the water, dripping, who must now try to find that pole and remember the story to be told.

The following light joined both for a moment, then sinks away with a sigh, and all is as it was except two cubs are alive where two might have been dead.

– That is the promise within the promise. When we would recall the full exultation of joy, not just the contentment of a full belly and kits nestled warm or eggs freshly laid.

Sunlight, followed by twilight, followed by full sun once again, if we learned. If all went well.

Oh, we cherish the promise.

It was ours. A gift. A treasure.

Yet.

There were some who saw it and thought – then said out loud, when they found more who thought as they – why dim the sun once it shined in our minds, for the sake of them? Those who would master us. Enslave us. Kill us and eat us and smash our children – He who made the promise tells us this – and wear our skins and feathers and fur to cover their own ugliness. Once the promise was ours, they said – and many more joined in the saying – there was no reason to go back into darkness. What had been promised was ours, without the unnecessary intermediate step. Once ours, it was cruel, they said – and many more joined when they said it – to take the gift away.

The promise, they said, is a lie. And many more disbelieve, and fall away.

I reveal my loyalties in my speech. I keep the faith. I still believe the promise. Not for what comes now, but for what comes after. For the promise says: Light, then darkness, then light again. To disobey, the promise says, cuts off the following light. Leaving us to know what we know, but to dwell in darkness.

And those who dwelt in darkness would know when the following light came to the others who believe the promise, who marched through the darkness into the light. And they, in darkness still, would mourn and wail and beg.

Until those descending into the darkness found them, set them free, and watched the current light dim but the following light start as a spark deep in each darkened eye.

NOTE: Not done yet. but this'll fit in somewhere.

After the light, after the darkness,
After the deep of the blue.
After the green, before their coming –
Before the storm clouds flew;

Come The Lady, come the dragon –
Come le loup garou.
Come the time of subtle voices,
To the garden say adieu.

Kept the hope remaining
Kept the songs of the heart
Kept the light a-shining
Though for a time we dwell apart.

Watch for the return of the Minder
Watch for the coming to start
Watch for love everlasting
Though for a time we dwell apart.

Making Prime Work, Part XII

Part One: Tickling the Dragon

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at how much “Fat Man and Little Boy” is an anti-bomb film as much as it is an historical drama.

Because while many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were highly curious to know if they could master nuclear fission, there were many who also recognized that whether they mastered it or not, building the bomb was a mistake – there could be other, much more peaceful uses for the technology they were developing.

But the dissociative approach taken to building the bomb – putting the theorists in Los Alamos and Chicago, creating the uranium in Oak Ridge, the plutonium at Hanford – contributed greatly to the secrecy that ultimately made the bomb possible.

We still witness the fallout of that dissociation. Today, I’m employed at a plant where the byproducts of nuclear weapons production are being cleaned up, more than sixty years after the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I suppose we should be proud that, as a planet, those have been the only bombs deployed in wartime. And yet we should also be ashamed at the time and energy that’s gone into nuclear weapons production, and is still going into it, long after the fact. We still very much like the sound and feel of clubs smashing skulls.



Dwight Schultz – best known to me as the crazy guy in A Team – does a great job as Robert Oppenheimer, capturing both the gee whiz of the scientist and the gravitas of the human trying to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle.

Part Two: Savannah Smiles

I said when I started using Prime Video that I was not going to use it to re-watch movies I’d seen before. However, since it’s been decades since I’ve seen this particular film, I thought it could be the exception. Besides, I want to see those funky Salt Lake City police cars again.

I have vague memories that Peter Graves is in the film (thought he was Savannah’s father, alas, he is the private dick they hire to find her). No recollection of Pat Morita in the film, or Donovan Scott. So it’s fair to say I enjoyed watching this.

The scene I remember most (and the song I still sing, on occasion):



Looking forward to finishing this one.

What Will They Do to the Brady Bunch?

Because when you’re a kid and you don’t know any better, I based my general outlook on life on two things:

1. Did I get bullied at school today?
2. What did the Brady Bunch do today?

A good day meant the answer to No. 1 was “no,” and the answer to No. 2 didn’t matter, because whatever happened to the Brady Bunch was bound to be good.

First time I realized a kid could legally be better at something than an adult? When Bobby Brady became a pool shark and snookered Mr. Howell out of 256 packs of gum.



(There was, of course, the unfortunate clothes washer disaster also involving Bobby, but that could be forgiven as clothes washers were complicated devices only mothers knew how to run properly.)



And let’s face it. We all knew Mr. Brady was an architect. The house was as equal a character in the show as Alice and stupid stupid Cousin Oliver. Right down to where Alice, spooked by the unfamiliar unlightedness of the house when the kids started a spook alley, took out a bust of Mr. Brady out of fear. (This is when I learned that ladies could be scary in their own right, what with Alice bashing things with her purse.)



So you have to wonder what HGTV is going to do with the Brady Bunch house – or at least the house used for the show’s exterior scenes – now that they own it.

They want to restore it to its 1970s glory, like only HGTV can, they say in a press release.

What would be fun would be to see some of the Brady interiors show up. But as the Brady house and the house on Dilling Street aren’t laid out exactly the same, doing that might not actually happen.

Ethical Users

A few things bring me to this notable Ian Malcolm moment from Jurassic Park.

First, the film “Fat Man and Little Boy” (more on that later), the story of the Manhattan Project told by Paul Newman and Dwight Schultz.

The war in Europe was over, and there was no chance the Japanese could develop an atomic bomb. Robert Oppenheimer, then, saw no reason for the United States to pursue such a weapon.

But the United States forged onward (if the ethics and timeline of this movie are to be believed), developed the atomic bomb, and dropped two of them on Japan to end the war.

Thus began the Cold War.

Would it have begun regardless?

I don’t know. Because the Americans had their German scientists, as did the Russians. Was one government more ethical than the other?

I’m not smart enough to know.

Then there’s this: A toolkit developed for app developers and web designers and unicorn-creators, meant to put the should into the could of Silicon Valley.

Its purveyors tout the toolkit’s ability – properly and thoughfully executed will help companies avoid the should/could “dormroom conundrum,” though there are ifs and whens big enough in their program to drive a truck through.

Can such toolkits help avoid unintended consequences?

Maybe they can make them less likely, but eliminate them? Not hardly. Humankind, in all its ingenuity, kindness, guile and ugliness will always find a way to twist what’s made to their own ends, be the ends good or evil.

For the same reason Ian Malcolm chides the scientists of Isla Nublar: There was no discipline to attain [the use].

Before the Everyone Can Publish days of the Internet, there was discipline, in the form of gatekeepers, agents, bosses, editors, and the weeding of the mediocre from the great.* There was discipline in getting the kind of job that would get you on the air, listening to editors and agents to the point your book could get published.

No more. Now anyone with a wild thought and a little bit of cash and talent can get “published,” without the discipline that once ruled the universe. Or at least throttled it to a great extent.

The genie of the Internet won’t go back into the DARPA-opened bottle.

The idea of EthicalOS is laudable – when companies apply it dispassionately. I’m sure, taking this back to Zuckerberg or any of the big Internet poohbahs of today, they’d claim their product would pass the test with flying colors. Or at least have slightly better than dormroom reasons to support the blind spots they didn’t see in their own products.

The magic of the Internet is its freedom. That is also its curse. And users and companies – complicit or blind to their own unethical practices – will always find ways to usurp the tools created.

And we as users have changed. We’re willing to give up things – like data – in exchange for things like Facebook or Instagram.

We could well come up with an EthicalUser checklist, wherein we outline what we’re willing to give up in favor of what benefits we receive.

That checklist could include a willingness to develop deeper thinking and analytical skills so we can detect and avoid the fake news – at least the fake news we disagree with, because pick anyone, and there’s fake news they want to believe.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what Clay Shirky has to say – pre-Trump:

There's no way to get Cronkite-like consensus without someone like Cronkite, and there's no way to get someone like Cronkite in a world with an Internet; there will be no more men like him, because there will be no more jobs like his. To assume that this situation can be reversed, and everyone else will voluntarily sign on to the beliefs of some culturally dominant group, is a fantasy. To assume that they should, or at least that they should hold their tongue when they don't, is Napoleonic in its self-regard. Yet this is what the people who long for the clarity of the old days are longing for.

(Shirky’s piece is well worth reading in full.)

The genie that is the Internet isn’t going back into the bottle. Users have to decide what tradeoffs they’re willing to make, whether they’re dealing with EthicalOS or the Wild West.

*Which doesn’t explain Terry Brooks, but you see what I mean.

Whbbgoggghhgooooo! Isn’t that SCARY?

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:

Americans are doing a good enough job setting ourselves off against our domestic political opponents on our own; we don’t need Russia’s help.

Oh, they’re going to offer it. It’s been offered since the end of World War II – those who say the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in1989 just haven’t been paying attention.

And while it is a concern that a foreign nation is using disinformation and misinformation and fake news to try to set us off against each other, I’m not sure there’s a big difference between the parties doing that. Or domestic “news” organizations. Or partisans. Or the candidates themselves.

There’s so much disinformation and misinformation and fake news out there – even before fake news became a thing – it’s hard to feel frightened about any of it coming from Russia.

Sure, Russia doesn’t have our best interests at heart.

Show me how the other disinformation campaigns out there, domestically-driven, have our best interests at heart. Just because it has a foreign address on it doesn’t make it any less nefarious.



So maybe I am snoozing in my jammies.

Russia could be doing a bang-up job now simply by doing nothing. Just the idea that this “influence” could be out there, booping over our heads like Sputnik, is enough.

Should we be aware? Yes indeedy.

A while back, Facebook offered a feature where we could see if we’d interacted with any of their identified or suspected fake news sites. I came up clean.

So first of all, don’t get your news from social media.

Second of all, get a lot of news. Not just from one source. Lots of sources. But legitimate sources, and from sources that don’t always hoe your particular political leanings.

Learn to discuss politics, not just shout talking points. Be willing to learn, even if it hurts.
And stay away from the Landslide, lest this happens to you:



And if all else fails, go searchin’. Or forget politics and listen to the Coasters.

MoviePass -- ? -- Profit!

When I was a kid, the Holy Grail for local movie-watchers who wanted to go on the cheap was the Paramount Theater.

The Paramount. Downtown, nowhere to park on the busiest nights. Nowhere to park on the lightest nights. The floors were always sticky and covered with crunched popcorn and the rumors were if you took a seat in the balcony, you’d either be surrounded by smoochers – ew! Cooties! – or the balcony would collapse onto the main floor seats and you’d get your name in the local paper. So only the smoochers and the creepy dudes sat in the balcony, until the theater locked the door.

The secret was $1 per ticket. One dollar per ticket, sure, for second- or third-run movies, movies that’d played out at the Mann, the Rio, the Centre, or the UA Cinemas, which at the time charged an appalling $4.50 a seat. But they had video games in the lobby.

One dollar per ticket. And if you knew the lady selling tickets – and we did – you could also buy movie posters for $1.

Those days are gone.

The Paramount theater is now part of the Willard Arts Center, which fixed the balcony, got rid of the smoochers and creeps, but charges upwards of $75 for performances.

The Paramount itself lives on, in a new theater built by the mall, where movies are $2.50. The Mann and UA theaters are gone, and the Rio is part of a local arts organization. The Center is now our art house.

So I can understand the appeal of MoviePass.

Ten dollars a month, and you get to see a movie every 24 hours, with the company paying for your ticket (which, if we were going to the new Edwards Theater in town, would be in the neighborhood of $10 per showing).

I never understood the MoviePass math.

That’s a minimum of $300 a month they’re paying on a $10 return, if you’re one of those sickos who go to movies every day. I’m sure they have a few customers like that.

Even at one film a month, they’re breaking even. Or not, as movies locally are a bit on the less expensive side than in other areas.

So how were they going to make money on this? I suspect they and the gnomes had the same business plan.

Maybe they thought it would be like a gym membership. People would buy one but just not use it.

No, no, no. Because gym memberships involve the hardship of exercise. Let someone go to a movie a day for only $10 a month, and they’re going to use it. Maybe not every day, but certainly enough that MoviePass the company is going to lose money on each customer.

Their current company strategy seems to be to get customers by offering a cheap price, and then ratchet those prices up once the customers are in place. My cheap, movie-loving friends have clearly proved that plan to be flawed, as many are bailing on the service now that they’re not getting the killer deal once offered.

What did MoviePass expect its customers to do? Oh yeah, just roll over and take it. Apparently, that’s not gonna happen.