Spoon River Revisited: Albertus Mink

Albertus Mink

Opa always talked about the Old Country

About leaving the Netherlands after the war

The voyage from Le Havre on the S.S. George Washington

And seeing that lamp raised at the golden door.

They were heading for relatives in Idaho

But their money ran out at the train station in Chicago

So they stayed there to work and raise enough money

To buy that Idaho ranch they dreamed of.

So Opa worked in the meat packing plants for six and a half years

And when it came time to leave – the ranch was bought and paid for –

He said he couldn’t go because the cows

“Oh, the poor cows,” he said.

They end up in the meat packing plants in Chicago

When their money runs out.

He sold the ranch at a loss and bought a chicken farm in Joliet

And fed everyone on eggs.

I died at twenty, heir to the Joliet Ranch

And at the wake my brothers sold it for development.

Good riddance. Chickens smell.

He could have farmed potatoes instead,

and Joliet could have been our Le Havre.

Mostly Mediocre, but Fraught with Peril

The 2.3 regular readers of this blog may know that I’ve got a minor pet project where I write poems reminiscent* of those found in Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology, only “updated” for today.

They’re mostly mediocre I will admit.

Masters had one clear advantage. Well, several**, if I’m honest:

1. He’s a good poet, where I am mediocre
2. The times he wrote in were less politically correct
3. Spoon River was a small town, or so I imagine (this being the time of the Rebellion Against the Small Town in American literature) and was relatively racially homogenous.

Maybe you see where I’m going.

I’m white. Whitey, probably. And a modern collection of epitaphs from a more modern, more urbanized Spoon River would necessarily call for a wider variety of epitaphs from dead people of various races. And while Masters occasionally threw in an epitaph from a Chinese resident of Spoon River and got away with it, I’m not certain in these more perilous times if a writer of my lowly caliber could get away with writing anything but more Whitey epitaphs. Because if I did attempt something more, ah, ethnic, there’d be hell to pay.

I’ve only done a handful of them, of which I’m mostly proud.

Elliott Finn

Ahmed Youssef

Rubinia deSpain

John Dickey

Marcus Jessup

BONUS: Albertus Mink

Of those six, I’ll let you guess which one has me the most nervous. No fair looking at the links first, because I express the nervousness on the particular epitaph.

What to do?

Make it a collection from more than Whitey, clearly. There are bound to be others out there interested in Spoon River Anthology, who could write for different characters with the ethnic equivalent of a doctor standing there watching them to take the curse off it.



And attention Kmart shoppers, this is not out of any desire to be politically correct or to avoid cries of cultural appropriation. Well, maybe a little of the last one. Remember the mediocre thing I mentioned earlier? Maybe a few of us mediocre poets of diverse backgrounds could work on this together. And we wouldn’t be restricted to writing only our race, but a trusting group could vet each others’ work and help steer the project out of the most troublesome waters. Or something like that.

So this won’t happen. Because I don’t know many other poets. And this is a niche product.

So for the meantime I’ll stick with my mediocrity, and point the critics to this post. Maybe they’ll get distracted by my wonderful spelling of “reminiscent” and forget everything else.

*This is my latest spelling bugaboo. I tend to want to toss in an extra “I,” so I’m trying not to do that anymore.

**This is not an all-inclusive list by any means. There are probably a few more reasons why ELM is a better poet and person than I am, but I just don’t have the time.

Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to

Sometimes they come to me dumb. Other times they leave after I have performed a dumbification.

Generational Advice – for What it’s Worth – from a Disaffected Member of Generation X

First of all, I have to look up disaffected: dissatisfied with the people in authority and no longer willing to support them.

Which, of course, reminds me of this:

“‘We Shall Overcome’ is a song which, in various languages, is common on every known world in the multiverse. It is always sung by the same people, viz., the people who, when they group up, will be the people who the next generation sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ at.”

~Terry Pratchett

The more things change, you see, the more they stay the same.

When someone says you’re from a particular generation, don’t stop to combat the stereotypes, indulge in your generation’s pre-set Five Minutes’ Hate, or what have you. Ask the person applying the label what they stand to gain from labeling you.

Because what’s going on here requires another definition: Pigeonhole; a category, typically an overly restrictive one, to which someone or something is assigned.

If someone wants to understand you by slapping on a label based on your birthdate, beware. They don’t really care about you much at all, outside of your desirable (or not) demographic and your disposable income (you see the “disaffected” part of the Gen X label does apply in my case, but I swear it’s only by coincidence).

This brings to mind another quote:

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.”

~The Dread Pirate Roberts

Now that there is cynicism, supposedly another Generation X trait. But it comes from William Goldman, born in 1931 and thus pigeonholed into the Silent Generation, which appears to be just as “forgotten” as Generation X.

But here’s what’s more significant: Who cares?

Any generation is going to produce cynics, those disdainful of authority, and those ready to be marketed the likes of mood rings, Woodstock, avocado toast and “experiences” over “things.” And just as equal in any generation are those willing and able to make a buck of pigeonholing the rest of us into whatever demographic or divide they can conjure up to make us self-aware and woke and pitiable while at the same time EMPOWERED and ALWAYS willing to buy what they’ve got to sell.

I’ve read a lot about the presidency of Richard Nixon, an intellectually brilliant man who let his paranoia drive his actions. There were plenty of people singing “We Shall Overcome” at him, and at pretty much anyone in authority at that time. Dave Barry describes the Nixon Era as a battle between people who figured there weren’t enough Americans over in Vietnam killing people and others who figured there weren’t enough Americans at home killing each other. So, you know, messed-up times. And I seem to recall that we’ve had messed-up times before that. And since. And this dividing of people into generations may satisfy some innocent sociological need for definition, but it’s been seized upon by the marketeers and the radicals and weaponized to the point there are plenty of people out there from whatever generation you might care to mention who think everyone outside their own little shitty pigeonhole is a moron.

So here’s a little advice from a guy in Generation X, who read Douglas Coupland’s “Generation X” and recognized a bit of himself in Paul Fussell’s “X” generation from his book “Class.” (Both books, by the way, are dated, but if you’ve got time for only one, read Fussell. His is better.)

Stop it. Stop thinking you have to march in step with whomever it is selling you something. Or march away. March all you want. Just keep your jackboots off others’ faces, even if they’re marching in a different direction.

Or, as Moe Szyslak* puts it best:

*If you’re “triggered” by The Simpsons, watch this instead:

And remember that the most popular show nowadays treats rape like a recreational activity.

FENCING!

Week ago, I wrote about the "fun" summer I was looking forward to as we work -- and very hard -- at keeping our humble abode and associated property from crumbling to the dust.

Fencing, I thought, would be the best place to start. And the most necessary, as the southwestern corner of the fence was basically resting on the Turpin's bushes for support.

So after one weekend, this was the result:

One more weekend, and we've got about a third of the back fence done.

It's supposed to rain this weekend, so I don't know that we'll get much beyond this. I'd like to keep up the head of steam, so we'll see. Another couple of weekends and I could have this done.

I say I, but the Turpins have helped quite a bit. They've sold their house, so getting at least the back fence done ought to feel like a bonus to the new owners.

At least if it rains like it's supposed to, I won't have to turn the sprinklers on this weekend.

Applying What I Read

About a week or so ago, I wrote about how I thought Temple Grandin’s “Animals In Translation” would be a good resource for any author using anthropomorphic animals as characters.

I don’t know what she’d think of me using her book in this manner, but I did find some useful stuff. Here are a few examples:

You need to know something about animals’ color vision to predict what visual stimuli they’ll experience as high-contrast. The breakdown is pretty simple: birds can see four different basic colors (ultraviolet, blue, green, and red), people and some primates see three (blue, green, and red), and most of the rest of the mammals see just two (blue and green). With dichromatic, or two-color vision, the colors animals see best are a yellowish green (the color of a safety vest) and a bluish purple (which is close to the purple of a purple iris). That means that yellow is the high-contrast color for almost all animals. Anything yellow will really pop out at them, so you have to be careful about yellow raincoats, boots, and machinery.

Clearly I can have a character – and I think just one or maybe two at the moment – have color fixations. No matter what I do, I need to amp up the visual universe in Doleful Creatures.

For a normal human being, almost nothing in the environment pops. That means it’s practically impossible for a human being to actually see something brand-new in the first place. People probably don’t like novelty any more than animals do, but people don’t get exposed to much novelty, because they don’t notice it when it’s there. Humans are built to see what they’re expecting to see, and it’s hard to expect to see something you’ve never seen. New things just don’t register.

Again, amping up the visual world is going to help a ton. My characters have got to notice things that I would not notice. So I’m going to have to think hard about the kinds of things they should notice.

The price human beings pay for having such big, fat frontal lobes is that normal people become oblivious in a way animals and autistic people aren’t. Normal people stop seeing the details that make up the big picture and see only the big picture instead. That’s what your frontal lobes do for you: they give you the big picture. Animals see all the tiny little details that go into the picture.

Again, emphasis on that visual world, and the itty-bitty thing that make it up, not just the big picture.

Every year several ranchers are dairymen are killed by cattle challengers, and it’s my opinion that the best way to prevent dangerous attacks on people is to raise highly social grazing animals like cows and horses strictly with their own kind. They should look up to people as a benevolent higher power. You don’t want a cow directing any cow aggression at humans.

This is why The Lady shows up as a woman when she wants to be highly persuasive. She wants to be seen as that higher power. That some animals – like Jarrod – can see through the disguise to the worm/dragon she is kinda spoils things for her. Hence part of the continued animosity. This is something I need to put greater emphasis on.

In. Dr. [Joseph] LeDoux’s [researcher into the neurology of fear at New York view, this is one reason why therapists see so many fears without any obvious cause in their patients. What they’re seeing are secondary downstream fears that developed after the conscious-content of the original fear was forgotten. Th new fears are like stand-ins, or substitutions, for the old one. This may sound strange, but it happens a lot, especially to people with phobias. As Dr. LeDoux says, “phobics can sometimes lose track of what they are afraid of.”

Another character trait to work with on Jarrod. He’s so frightened of everything he’s not really sure what he’s frightened of anymore.

'Squadron Leader Captain Buster has been Murdered.'

To dig your own grave is quite a sight,
But to bury yourself is not very bright.
There are more to kill, and the job will be done.
Now there are five, soon there’ll be a lot less.

We may have been the only family to regularly rent “The Private Eyes” along with that boxy VHS player from the video store attached to the plant shop. Oh, maybe there were others. But that one came home with us often.

And now Tim Conway, who wrote most of “The Private Eyes,” and whose improvisational moments on The Carol Burnett Show are forever part of my mind, is gone. He died today at 85.



Mr. Conway’s elephant stories. They are funny. But their impact on his co-stars, particularly Carol Burnett, was atomic in nature. Watching her hold her head, hearing her groan as his story goes on, as the audience ramps up the laughter. Then the scene explodes when Vicki Lawrence delivers her improv line.

These are real people. People we invited into our living rooms. There are a few today like them, like him. And I don’t mean to fall into the cups of nostalgia, but Carol Burnett was right, remarking on his death, that Tim Conway is one in a million.

He found his comedy niche, his writing niche, and stuck with it. Always the co-star behind the star.
You’ll be missed, Mr. Conway.

And I feel sad you never got to go after the Wookalar.

Tonight, I will eat some lettuce and a light bulb in your honor.

'Doris Doesn't Know it Either'

RADAR: And now, for the third time tonight a request from our commanding station manager that moldy oldie, "Sentimental Journey."

BJ: Again? Colonel there's gotta be something special about that record for you.

COL. POTTER: Yeah, there is, but I don't know if I should tell you boys.

HAWKEYE: Oh, come on, Daddy. We want a story.

COL. POTTER: Well, every time I hear that song - it reminds me of a very special young lady. - Mildred? - No, after Mildred.

HAWKEYE and BJ: Oh-ho!

COL. POTTER: Happened about a dozen years ago when I was stationed at Fort Dix. One night, some of the boys and I went up to New York to hear Les Brown and His Band of Renown. Well, I was sort of just lookin' around when suddenly, walkin' across the dance floor there she was, this willowy blonde beauty. I was in love. Well, the band started playing. The vocalist started singing "Sentimental Journey." I looked up to see that I had fallen in love with Doris Day. I'm glad Mildred wasn't there. I couldn't have handled it. I have never taken her to a Doris Day movie. I've seen 'em all alone. Sometimes I feel bad that Mildred doesn't know. But then I remember, Doris doesn't know either.

Now, I’m not in love with Doris Day. But Col. Potter’s story from “Your Hit Parade,” an episode of MASH, shows Day’s impact not only on people, but on popular culture. She was big. Very big. More than 600 songs and 40 movies big.

I’m not sure I’ve seen one of her pictures all the way through. They’re a bit before my time. You’d think the music would be too, but my mother loved Doris Day. She sang sometimes along with her. I remember in particular Mom singing “Sentimental Journey” along with Mrs. Day, described by Les Brown, bandleader with whom Day made it big: “I’d say that next to Sinatra, Doris is the best in the business on selling a lyric.”

Ignatius Riley likely saw some or most of her movies, and relished them secretly while reviling them publicly – and loudly enough to get thrown out of the Prytania Theater in John Kennedy Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces.”

“Good grief. Is this smut supposed to be comedy?" Ignatius demanded in the darkness. "I have not laughed once. My eyes can hardly believe this highly discolored garbage. That woman must be lashed until she drops. She is undermining our civilization. […] Please! Someone with some decency get to the fuse box. Hundreds of people in this theater are being demoralized."

More evidence of Doris Day’s cultural power.

I love her songs. Maybe they’re sugary. Maybe they hark back to an era when the United States had problems. Though you could very well say the same of contemporary musicians.

And yet she sang without Autotune. And with power. Unlike many of today’s singers. Her songs are of an era that likely can’t come back, because singing like what she did just doesn’t happen today, unless it’s campy or retro or whatever. We may have love songs, songs of unrequited love and such today, but none of them are sung by the likes of Doris Day.

And I have to confess: I didn’t realize she was still alive until news of her passing came today.
Maybe she’s singing in heaven now. Surely, she has fans there.



Of all of her songs, this is the one I remember most, some from the radio, some from Mom singing along:

Spoon River Revisited: Elliott Finn

It continues.

Elliott Finn

We used to do things in Spoon River.
My Great Uncle John helped build the city’s first schoolhouse
From the sandstone foundation to the lightning-rod on cupola for the bell
And Great Aunt Gladys was one of many who baked rolls
And sold them
To raise the money to buy the bell
Great Uncle John placed there.
Great Uncle John led the men digging the canal
That drained the swamp on the east side of town
Where the railway built its yard
And brought industry to Spoon River.
And Great Uncle John was more than a strong back
Twice they elected him mayor
Thrice to the school board.
He died of a heart attack digging a new well.
I was felled by a Honda
As I stood in the street
shoveling dirt
Into the pothole the city said they would fix
But never did.
Bury me with that shovel
It belonged to Great Uncle John.
I have no heirs who know the shovel’s story
And if it’s to end its life dusty and ill-used,
It may as well be in the box with me.

Letters to Liam #2

8 May 2019

Dear Liam,

Thank you for your help this weekend working on the fence. It might have felt odd, having to help out with a chore like that while you’re on your mission. After all, missionaries who leave home don’t have to worry about lawns, or sagging fences, or whatever other sundry chores Mom and Dad might have had them doing at home before they left. (Those poor squirrels, though. We’ve destroyed their dog-safe highway across the backyard. I watched one on the fence Sunday night as he got to the end and saw no fence to walk on, with Daisy running tight little circles on the ground right nearby. So he had to jump into the tree, probably taking our names in vain.)

But I remember doing lots of things like that in France. In Perigueux, my first area, we spent a good portion of a rather chilly day cleaning terra cotta roof tiles for a family who was adding a room onto their house. They were an interesting trio. Dad was a member of the branch there and led the choir. He loved singing, and was the one to take us to the local Catholic church for Midnight Mass and other events where singing was involved, because he loved to hear it all. Mom was not a member, but attended church more faithfully than did the branch president. Both of their cared for their little toddler, whom they loved very much. Spending time with them, scrubbing dirt and algae off those tiles while wearing rubber gloves and scrubbing with cold water, was one of the highlights of the first five months of my mission. I often wonder if Dad still goes to church, if Mom ever joined, and what their little boy is doing now. So maybe it felt like a chore working with me on that fence. But if you look at the time you have on your mission serving others as time to get to know them and learn to love them as the Savior would have you love them, your time will be better spent.

I also enjoyed going to the temple with you on Friday, even though I flopped like a dead fish in the parking lot. I knew going into the building that I had a little bit of parking lot dirt on my left knee, but I wasn’t too concerned. If the guy at the desk noticed anything, he didn’t say a word. All that mattered was that I was there, I had a valid temple recommend, and the Lord wanted me there, despite the tumble in the parking lot. As I was in the locker room changing clothes, I noticed I had a bit more filth on both knees than I thought initially. And it struck me that even though form the knees down I looked like a street bum, it didn’t matter. I was worthy in the eyes of the Lord. Staying worthy is important.

So is making sure you stay healthy. Part of the reason I flopped over in the parking lot is that I’m not in the best shape. I’m tubby and need to exercise more. That would help fix some of the underlying problems, high blood pressure being one of them. So as you serve your mission, look for ways to exercise. You don’t have to do drastic things – running mile after mile – but finding time to get up and walk for a bit, even for ten-minute stretches at a time – will help you a lot. I know on the days I get out more and get exercise, I feel better. Although I did walk a couple of miles on Friday, before The Floppening . . .

I’m also excited you got your last palm and merit badge from Brother Sewell. Not everything we do in life will come with such visible rewards, but it is nice to get the recognition once in a while. You’ll soon see yourself on a plaque at the church, and on the map at the stake center, indicating you’re serving a mission. That plaque will be a fun memento of your missionary years, but I guarantee the things you’ll cherish most are the memories you gather, and the more you write them down, the more you’ll remember them.

They don’t have to be momentous, exciting things. They could be as mundane as helping Dad take a fence down an occasionally giggling because he’s bending over and you can see his butt.

Love,

Dad

A Good Source for Anthropomorphic Writers

Anyone hoping to write novels with anthropomorphic animal characters would be greatly served by reading a bit of non-fiction first, namely Temple Grandin’s “Animals in Translation.”

Grandin has spent her career helping make slaughterhouses more humane. That may sound like an odd place to draw from for cutesy behavior in a fantasy novel, but Grandin has focused on animal behavior in her work, and that focus on behavior, particularly the section I’m reading now on what makes animals frightened in ways that humans might not recognize, ought to be a great help for any author wanting to make their anthropomorphic creations more realistic.

That may sound like a contradiction in terms, But wouldn’t it be fun to read more books where animals behave more like animals, even if they’re being used to tell a story humans might be interested in.

Richard Adams, in Watership Down, succeeds at this. He drew on non-fiction in the form of “The Private Life of the Rabbit,” by R.M. Lockley, to write his adventure story of rabbits on an adventure of survival.

I’ve read a lot of these kinds of books, from the early Beatrix Potter and “The Wind in the Willows” to more modern takes, and most of them fall into two categories (which I love very much):

1. Twee animals with clothes on. They are animals, and have a few animal traits, but generally behave like humans.

2. Animals in Tropetude. No clothes, more animal traits, but still wonking along as if they had half-human brains plotting conquest and revenge and whatnot.

A sharp writer with Grandin as a guide could augment the second and make the animals more animal-like as they struggle with the bigger bits of philosophy the writer cares to toss into that particular salad.

I’m reading right now about what Grandin has noticed causes fear in livestock. Don’t know if this translates across the species, but it gives me some things to think about as I write Doleful Creatures, as fear is a primary presence in the book. Reading and implementing what Grandin writes could help me move the book further from Camp 1 to Camp 2. Not that Camp 1 is bad; that’s where the book started out in the first place. But it’s moved to Camp 2 gradually, and I think I like it better there.

The book also gives me a few ideas for The Hermit of Iapetus. The more I think about that character, the more I think he is autistic. And while I have an autistic son to draw inspiration from (and enough from my own life) seeing it in print will also help me better in the translation.

Letters to Liam #1

NOTE: Our oldest started a two-year service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He'll work with local service organizations and church entities to help people with food storage, family history, temple laundry, and other locations. I promised him I'd write him a letter every week, if he'd write to us or keep a journal. This is the first installment.

Dear Liam,

So you’ve started your mission. Maybe part of you is disappointed that you’re not starting it at the Missionary Training Center, there for three weeks or three months, depending on whether you were going to learn a language. Serving a local mission may not feel like it’s got the glamor of serving elsewhere. Particularly since you come home every night.

But I’ve felt this in my heart since we started you on the mission process: Heavenly Father will send you where He needs you to be.

I don’t doubt that the people you help on your mission here need the help of a representative of the Lord just as much as people anywhere else on Earth.

One of the people I admire the most from the scriptures is Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter had great faith – he was the only apostle to walk on water, as he saw Jesus doing – and yet he suffered from the same self-doubt and fear that all humans do, as we saw when he noticed the waves and the tempest about him and sank into the Sea of Galilee when only moments before he had been walking on that tempestuous surface. I think I admire Peter the most because he is like us: He is willing, yet he is human. He strove so much to be faithful and loyal to Christ, yet as Christ foretold, on the night He was betrayed, Peter denied three times that he even knew Christ. But Peter went on to serve:

So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? Ye saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him, Feed my lambs.

He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. (John 21:15-17)

God asks us constantly, as Jesus did with Peter: Do we love him? And like Peter, we try to show our love to God through feeding his sheep. God’s sheep here at the family history center, the temple, and in other places you will encounter them, need feeding – though we may appear to be well-fed already.

As you serve your mission, you will see opportunities where your family might serve as well. Please look for these opportunities and bring them home to us, so we can get out of the busy rut that we’re in and do more to serve the God who gives us life. As I look at our lives, I see the epitome of what Elder Dallin H. Oaks describes in his talk “Good, Better, Best,” wherein he commends many of us for making good choices but admonishes us to strive to make better choices in how we spend our time.

As we’ve discussed as a family, we need to make better choices in how we spend our time. Your missionary service can help us make those choices.

Not to put all the pressure on you. Just show us options.

And as I said in the stake president’s office, please record your thoughts and experiences as you serve. Take pictures with the people you work with. You may find, over time, that you develop strong friendships with some of the people you serve with regularly. You’ll come to cherish these memories, and the more you have recorded outside your own head, the more you’ll actually remember. When I look at my mission pictures and read my journals, I’m often surprised at what I remember.

We’re proud of you, son. Do your best.

Love,

Dad

Authors Fight Back!

Sounds like authors can (and should) fight back against the Twitter mobs.

Blood Heir, first in a debut trilogy from author Amelie Wen Zhao, is back on track to being published in November after a – and how do I tread carefully here? – mob of Twitter young adult literature enthusiasts got the book shut down before it was published because some felt it was . . . icky.

Some felt the story was “an offensive likeness of American slavery and black oppression,” though it was set in a fictional world and though the author stated she was writing about contemporary human trafficking in a fantasy setting, per Slate.

Past life experiences intruding on present times, or so it seems, if I were a Ghostbuster.

Here’s what Slate says:

In hindsight, [Amelie Wen] Zhao’s handling of the episode is a master class in turning an online backlash into a boon. The move allowed her to make a public gesture toward taking her critics seriously, while also winning sympathy and support from the many people who view the YA community’s self-appointed representation police with distaste. Although the withdrawal looked like a defeat at the time, it also boosted Zhao’s profile significantly. The announcement of the book’s return was granted flattering coverage in the Times. And the novel itself will be published less than six months later than originally scheduled. The return of Blood Heir is a reminder that for all the agita about free speech and “Twitter mobs,” so-called cancellation isn’t always permanent in the wider world.

They’ve also got a pretty good run-down of other authors who have fallen into the Twitter machine, including one whose book was unpublished even after he was one who heaped scorn upon Zhao. I write a little bit about the situation here.

James Lileks – again – writes something on a similar vein, as he writes about modern cartoonists frowning on the then-countercultural work of cartoonist R. Crumb (I don’t much like his stuff, though I can see the place for it):

But don’t worry! Just because the culture deemed something anti-social, then made space for it to exist on its own terms, then deemed it anti-social again by the new standards that arose from the lifting of societal restraintsm - well, that doesn’t mean that could happen to you!

Just to make sure it doesn’t, though, create your art with an eye towards every possible objection from people whose identity status means they have absolute moral authority to cancel you and your work. 

If you don’t, you are abetting future violence. Hell, you’re practically committing future violence.

Let's see what sort of art comes out of this. Let's see how brave that world will be.

It’s fun and games to crap on the creations of others until it’s your creation getting crapped on by the bandwagoners of today.