Greg Bear on Politics in Writing

"To handle the issue [terrorist action in "The Wind from a Burning Woman"] honestly, I had to make the “Burning Woman” fight for a cause that I, myself, would cherish. One editor, reading the story for an anthology on space colonies, rejected it because it didn’t overtly support the cause. It would have been dishonest to force the story into such a mold; however pleasant or unpleasant the result, my stories must work themselves out within their own framework, not according to some market principle or philosophical bias. It may be remarkable that, with such views, I’ve come as far as I have in publishing."

--Greg Bear from the "Preface" to The Wind from a Burning Woman.

I invited Greg Bear to write for an anthology that proposed a fascinating new ethos. And he said, "Stay away from ethos." My point was an SF-nal one: So many interesting ways of seeing the world. Let's go for a swim. He could have played the game yet opposed the ethos, too. 

His perspective, I think, could be summed up by the above. Each story has it's own way of thinking. Even as I felt he'd misunderstood, I admired as his staunch position about the writer being outside any set of predisposed rules.

Harlan Ellison vs. Gene Roddenberry in the "City on the Edge of Forever" Arena: Which Was Star Trek Script Better? the Original or the Televised?

I'm a big Star Trek buff but also a Harlan Ellison fanatic where, as a lad, I'd read everything I could get my hands on--a mesmerizing voice that still energizes me to this day. 

This strange collection of essays and variant on a teleplay have been loitering in the to-be-read pile  for awhile--a kind of novelty item, I figured. But it's more interesting than one might suppose.

The first third is Harlan Ellison setting up this epic battle between the titans. Harlan Ellison's original version won the Writers Guild of America Award. Meanwhile, the televised version won a Hugo. It is consistently rated the best Star Trek episodes. I don't mean to suggest that Roddenberry's contribution matches Ellison's, but he at least oversaw the rewrite.

Does the play need a third of the book to explain itself? It is pure Ellison--always a plus. But it is too long.* If you love Ellison, you'll read it, anyway. Wikipedia may cover the gist, so I won't summarize.

Ellison takes his gloves off and goes after Roddenberry, but in Ellison's favor, he quotes his critics when possible. The last several pages are the responses of writers and actors who either worked in Star Trek or actually had an actual impact on the script. They yield substantive angles on the debate and, of course, weigh in on Ellison's side.

Shared plot setup without spoilers:

The Enterprise is heading to investigate a time anomaly. The crew beam down to a planet to find a "city" there. A time irregularity occurs. Spock and Kirk investigate to restore the timeline.

My perspective on this battle may differ from most. In part, I trust the spirit of what everyone mentioned in the book says, bearing in mind that Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme song [never used], which allowed him to get a split the composer's royalties (the clip with Tenacious D is a bit crude but funny):

Discussion with Spoilers Galore:

So let's start with the aired script's opening: The usual bumpy spaceship bit. They pair this with a sick patient on the bridge. There's some sort of unnamed risk with using "cordrazine," but McCoy is the doctor. He knows what he is doing, yet he accidentally overdoses himself.

Let's leave aside the space "turbulence"--a bit corny and a bit too often used, but okay, maybe. Let's leave aside the madness. Also overused, but okay. 

The turbulence ends as soon as McCoy injects himself. Also, McCoy's madness ends when it's no longer needed either. Can it be so dangerous if you can just wait it out? Lock him in his quarters until the effects wear off. They were going to go back in time and catch him before him before he injects himself (maybe it happens and they just don't show that). We should probably leave aside the time paradox of stopping McCoy before injecting himself (then who stops him if he doesn't do it?).

Now the opening does seem like a logic mess when you pause to consider it, but maybe because the improbabilities are just the set-up, we buy them. We'll grant those.

One advantage to Ellison's version are the space pirates, which as is implied, some of the crew might have been made up of the same people. Not too many. It would be improbable that so many births would have been the same. But it would be a fascinating philosophical quandary that one could evolve a wholly different ethos if time had taken another path. This may have been an absurdity for Roddenberry: Either the perfect future lies ahead or it doesn't.

However, someone should decide how a pirate timeline fits in to this story. Perhaps that theme might be about how people decide what someone else's fate should be. Who gets to decide? Why?

Ellison's opening brings up the interesting part. Roddenberry was apparently telling people that Ellison made Scotty a drug dealer, which isn't true. Ellison made up a crew member who dealt drugs--the ostensible baddie of the tale. This is an intriguing perspective. The Star Trek crew are flawed.

Roddenberry rejected the idea as apparently no one on the ship was bad. Now that's fascinating. It would help to know your idealistic future before sending writers off to write stories for you. It would be more realistic to have a crew member go rogue (although I'm not sure if they'd discussed the monetary system yet, which might make a black market system pointless). 

But the fascinating bit is how it pits the realistic against the utopian. The utopian aspect is part of the show's charm and unique draw. After all, this is politically correct before politically correct was a thing. It showed the universe as it should be--cooperation between races and alien species toward a common goal. 

But it is unexplored how they got here--not to mention improbable. Even if you start with everyone on the same page, one of the crew is bound to get bitter about any story's outcome and start poisoning the atmosphere of the work environment.

Now Roddenberry is from another generation. He was trained to go along with society, served in armed forces, and later in the police department, so his perspective had to be one of obedient cooperation. Their Federation does work under military conditions. Still, it seems probable that this would go awry. Even the military has need of the law and courts. So not everyone is perfect.

But that is part of Star Trek. So I get why Roddenberry used Scotty's name--to show how [to him] immediately ludicrous it was to consider having any upstanding member of the crew misbehave since they all were upstanding. You can probably locate episodes where crew stepped out of line, but at least we can see why Roddenberry used temporary madness instead.

One wonders if part of the secret sauce that made this episode the most popular show is this tension between realism and idealism. Maybe Ellison sensed this on some level and was putting it to the test.

My problem with the use of the new crew member is that the addiction or the character's personality isn't well utilized. Does he deserve his fate? Would the members of the Enterprise have allowed this? Shouldn't they have called for an end to this?

It may that a Guardian of Time sees the violation of time as a crime punishable by eternal death, but we'd need to understand that ahead of time. And how could the guy have known that his act of kindness was a greater cruelty? Maybe that's part of Ellison's intended theme. It does open a can of worms, but it would be interesting to dive into them.

One of the things I liked about the televised script better is the earlier appearance of Edith, granting more time to develop more of a relationship (did they maximize this?). The closer the connection between the Captain and Edith, the more we'll feel the pain.

Also, instead of being told what their goal is, to find a cryptic focal point in time, Spock works up an apparatus with early 20th century materials to find the focal point. The problem is what is Spock's apparatus? Is it a TV? Why is it seeing newspaper articles? Why is it seeing articles from the future? Does Spock already know how to see in the future? Why not do that in all episodes then with fancier equipment and solve problems before they occur?

The Guardian of Time might as well have just told them what the focal point is for that era.

There's one last problem for both scripts. Why kill Edith? Why couldn't they have taken her into the future with them? There has to be a better explanation for this. Why must she die instead of being transported into the future with them, especially if Kirk is in love with her. This has to be at least debated.

It'd be cool to see an updated version of this, combining the best of both scripts:

1) Harlan's opening, but with a story use of addiction or the use of somebody so irresponsible with his ethics: disposing of and manipulating people so easily, so cruelly. It needs to play a more vital role in the unraveling of the tale.

2) Since our baddie is a vital aspect of this version, his story/character should be developed a bit more. Does he deserve his fate? Should he be rescued? If no, why not? If so, what do you do with him afterwards?

3) Why does Edith have to die? This needs to be clearer. It would make more sense to get upset over the televised episode of Star Trek than Tom Godwin's "Cold Equations" because there's no reason for her death. Ellison's script seems to have taken Godwin's scenario to heart and has two men die for this one female, suggesting the cruelty of fate. They serve as foils or counterpoints to Edith's demise. At least her death had value. Maybe one can only go backwards into time. That would explain why Edith had to die.

4) Develop James and Edith's relationship so we believe the relationship is a bit more than a momentary attraction. His pain should be more palpably felt. 

5) Space pirates or not? How do they fit in with the new theme?

All of these changes would suggest a two episode or movie development. If it's a movie, one might think more deeply about the theme.

*Note:

A scan of Ellison's other new editions suggests this is a common issue--introductions growing too unwieldy in their length, like a lawn left to grow knee-high weeds. His essays can be fun, energetic, but maybe future editions should leave off the introduction to the introductions or, for the completists and for the curious, thrust it into a back appendix. For now, new readers should skip them.

Greg Bear on Why He Writes, and Why He Writes Science Fiction

I have friends who believe the world will come to an end in twenty or thirty years.... Serve everybody right, they seem to say. 

What they are actually saying is that within the next few decades—certainly within the next sixty or seventy years—they will come to an end.... The future does not really exist, certainly not the far and unknowable future. Why talk about it? 

They are still my friends, but they are... wrong.... The future will come, and it will be different, unimaginably so. Then why do I bother to try imagining it...?

I’m willing to bet, in our deepest hearts, that we all hope one of our more optimistic imagined futures, or some aspect of a literary time to come, will closely parallel reality. Then we will be admired for our perspicacity....

Perhaps. But it will be accident, not prophecy.

Like my pessimistic friends, I'm not going to live forever....

But when I write, I not only live to see one future, I experience dozens...

When I write, I’m immortal.

--Greg Bear from The "Preface" to The Wind from a Burning Woman

Notes:

A perfect quote for his passing. I also like his willingness to forge friendships with those he disagrees with.

"Webster" by Greg Bear

 

This first appeared in David Gerrold's Alternities.

A lonely, middle-aged woman, whose reproductive years are coming to a close, uses a dictionary, using the words the make a man of her desire, her design. But it doesn't go as planned.

Discussion (with Spoilers):

I wanted to read his stories in a roughly chronological order, but I don't presently have his earliest, which he apparently considered too immature (written when he was fifteen).

This is his earliest story Bear collected for Complete Short Fiction of Greg Bear series (clearly a misnomer), which appears in volume one, Just Over the Horizon.

He rewrote the fantasy for this new volume. He economized in some places, expanded in others, reshuffled the order a bit on occasion. Some choices seemed sage, but some less essential. A very few of his early stylistic and sound choices I wanted back in the text. Towards the end, the rewrite improved the text.

The imagination and wonder are relatively rich for his sophomore publication outing. It flips the genders on the old Pygmalion tale, albeit following George Bernard Shaw's version, more than Ovid's. 

What makes it work is how he makes us care. We want her to succeed, which makes the tragedy sting.

Deepfakes or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and [Insert Your Verb] the Ai in Art

 

I'm interested in chatter about AI than the product itself. The primary problem is that there's no mind behind it. The mind behind the work is part of why I read, why I watch, why I take in any kind of media. I want to know how others think. The mind behind the writing is what makes a work powerful.

Experimental writing is vibrant if people put thought into it. If not, it's a tome/tomb of half-legible graffiti. Dear writer, please don't waste people's time pondering something you didn't time to ponder yourself. AI? Uh, no thanks.

One person did almost get me to buy into their thinking, and I was instantly riveted because, wow, this is actually a new thought, unblindered by cult politics, but it usually breaks down within a few paragraphs.

An example of non-AI that knocked me out immediately: A kid was supposedly falling off the cliff, but there was an obvious place to put your foot. Put your foot there! Good god, man, put your foot there and climb out!

Imagine a string of such incidents, idiocies--minor or major. Does AI discriminate, choose what might work well in this instance? Or will be as likely to select the problematic as the brilliant? The accidental juxtapositions might create fascinating, but will the parts connect? If what you do can be replaced by AI, then you will be replaced.

Here's the paradox. I don't oppose repurposing words. Good art could be produced by planting a mind behind the AI. However, the people who would want to use AI are not the people who can make good art. They want short cuts. Rather, to make good art out of AI, you'd have to oppose it. You'd have to be willing to put in the same amount of time to sculpt words as if you spent the time writing them yourself. It is only by critical thinking that the work of AI can have any value.

I discussed John Hughes's work here,which has relevance here. He, however, did his own selecting, so seems a better choice than leaving it to something else, but so long as a mind orders the material it might, in theory, be worthy of the term "art."

It's hard enough to order one's own words, let alone someone else's. I don't oppose art made through AI, but it will be hard to make it yours.

This is interesting, but way too long. Yet they come up with some interesting uses of AI in media, but it remains in a grey area (the interesting stuff was name-dropping famous older actors whose looks may be rewound to earlier version):

Ursula K. Le Guin on Novels and Good Novels

 "In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find—if it’s a good novel—that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have been changed a little, as if by having met a new face."

--Ursula K. Le Guin, "Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness"

American Psycho [Analysis]: Worth the Hype? the Controversy?

The age of this movie approaches a quarter of century--its silver anniversary. It is probably in the top 10-20% of films--worth rewatching. But it was hard for me to buy into it.

I remember spotting the book by Bret Easton Ellis in the bins and my being attracted to the title yet put off. I have a recollection of some claiming it was overrated, a must-read by others. My experience of the film must have been similar, hearing opposing opinions, and running into the show in the late beginning and sensing jarring double tones. 

It is not a movie you can pick up anywhere. You must start at the beginning with the opening credits:

Feel the contrast of tones. Yet feel how they meet, collide, slide past one another, compliment and negate. It's all well done.

The opening title and the knife create one expectation, then serve up another. But both exist together with the elegant yet playful music, set against plates decorated as much for design as for taste. The laundry list of foods is probably outside most people's checkbook, let alone taste buds.

We come upon the men gathered at a table with crude joking contrasted with serious business discussion, adding a dash of confusion over who and where Paul Allen is.

Now Paul Allen was a real person, one of the wealthy who helped Bill Gates forge the early PC revolution. So there's that play going on here as well since the Paul Allen discussed here is fictitious and has nothing to do with the early PC revolution. But this play, this contrast, this misdirection, this confusion--all play into the story.

Stop here if you haven't seen the film and you plan to do so. Spoilers lie ahead--thematic along with suggestive ones.

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The book was apparently accused of being "overly violent and misogynistic." [Wiki] I can't form an opinion of this, without having read the book yet. As for violence, well, it's been outdone (before and even more so after). 

 

As for misogyny, the movie is written and directed by women. It piques my curiosity about the work of these two ladies due to the risks they took here. 

 

I did read the novel opening and it has a quite different feel from either it's detractors or even the director and the screenwriter's rendition here. But I will have to revisit this at a later date.

The theme is interesting, rather blatant -- for those who are seeking such things. At no point did I view it as an attack on women. Maybe? There is misogyny, but it's part of a greater blindness to people. Such a viewing would have to leave out the rest of the film. It's strange to mistake design for flaw.

 

A better theme? Capitalism kills? Or, at least, it makes you want to. It is cleverly played not just in the dialogue and scenes, but also in the music lyrics themselves. I thought the theme was going to hang itself (the same kind of problem that people have there being real vampires), but it pulls its head out of the noose in the nick of time. So that the theme ends up being a bit more ambiguous towards its theme. It explains some luck, but the 90 degree turn is a bit too fast. It might be worth planting clues and making it a bit more realistic. However, because of that turn, a whole new question has to brought to the table. Is the movie about what it seems to be?

Note, too, how the film plays with what the actual genre of the story is. It starts in one place, suggests the primary one suggested in the title, shifts naturally into the detective, and then becomes...

Check it out if you haven't already. Watch it again. Rich, nuanced (despite initially appearing anything but), it repays multiple viewings.

The British TV Mystery -- Successes, Drawbacks

 

The British are known not just for their rich literary history but also for their mysteries: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercules Poirot. It's their most common export to American television.

My parents used to stay up to watch British mysteries--a highlight of their Sunday evenings--preferring their intellectual engagement over the American variety although they watched American variety as well. Dad, despite or because of having been in the FBI, never lost his penchant for police investigations.

Mom, however, has become a powerful story-telling barometer. If the story is good enough, she'll stay awake. If not, she sleeps. It's not that she does this intentionally, but a good story will keep her up. Show her a literary adaptation, and she'll remain rapt.

Now why should she still love British mysteries if half lull her to sleep? One thing they're selling is their culture. What is ordinary life in England like? They often will show a pub, a committee meeting, a family home, a school house, a police department. Whatever. How aware they are of this? Keenly? Or not so much? Americans at least recognize it as one sponsor is a cruise line that briefly advertises at the beginning and end of a show. So the mystery is a vicarious travelogue.

Clearly, this alone, however, won't hold one's attention

There's almost always a status quo scene, which American shows may skip. But it plays a vital part of setting up the story. Now if done right, the status quo scene(s) can hold one's attention. An episode of Midsomar Murders Spanish dance scene at a local dance hall that held fairly strong tension as people displayed their attitudes. This led into the first murder. 

These status-quo scenes can be rich and powerful opportunities not just for culture, but also character, which can make the mystery memorable. But sometimes the British mysteries trudge a bit too slowly--I'd qualify this "for American taste" but how is that we remain rapt for the British literary adaptation? 

Beside tension and characters, another powerful draw is the unraveling through-thread that provides a pull throughout the story. It is the scaffolding that allows us to cobble together the story from the investigation. Take the compelling game of the power of attorney in "Sauce for the Goose." While the murder itself may be absurdly improbable, the unraveling of this game of power is riveting.

I'll come back to this topic again later.

The Art of Telling --> [Case Histories: Olaf Stapledon, Molly Bloom, Jack Williamson, H. P. Lovecraft]

Sometimes the explanation, the As-you-know-Bob is the jewel most worthy of study

Of course, we have the famed "Show, Don't Tell" phrase--a useful tool for writers to remember.

And then people say, "No, we need both!" and proceed to show when showing is useful (in the moment) and telling is useful (summarizing).

But sometimes the telling is the only only thing. Take Olaf Stapledon. Here's a guy whose ideas remain fresh a full century after he shed them like a dog's fur coat in the spring. What he writes in one sentence, others would whittle out a whole novel about.

The problem with Stapledon is that he's a chore to wade through--if you want narrative. One cannot read it as fiction but as a highly concentrated dose of speculation. Here's an interesting example, if not his most remarkable [from The Starmaker]:

The universe in which fate had set me was no spangled chamber, but a perceived vortex of star-streams. No! It was more. Peering between the stars into the outer darkness, I saw also, as mere flecks and points of light, other such vortices, such galaxies, sparsely scattered in the void, depth beyond depth, so far afield that even the eye of imagination could find no limits to the cosmical, the all-embracing galaxy of galaxies. The universe now appeared to me as a void wherein floated rare flakes of snow, each flake a universe.

The final sentence is the icing that the cake has been building up to, layer by layer, sentence by sentence. What does it mean? Since a universe is a universe, it's probably metaphorical, not unlike the phrase "worlds within worlds": a droplet of pond water containing an abundance of microbiological variety. Here, though, what looks like a star is an entire galaxy, full of star systems.

Clearly, though, whatever's said in telling has to be interesting. Interesting to whom? There's some subjectivity, of course, especially for those seeking confirmation bias. But to those who seek it, novel syntheses. Accumulating ideas and building something intriguing about them.

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The opening to Molly's Game is a mini-essay within a larger narrative essay. Does it belong to the larger essay? 

Sort of--one could argue against it--but it's characterizing and setting the stage, not to mention delivering the best part of the movie. The character voice-overs analyzing the situation is actually some of the best stuff in the movie--as well as the final delicious morsel, which circles back to the opening if only to touch base. 

Note the similarity between the Molly's Game opening monologue and the above quote from Olaf Stapledon:

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Addendum:

I forgot to add two other key examples of telling, that lift what might be ordinary tales to another level. One is Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, an admirable cross-contamination of the horror novel and the SF novel. There's a chapter about 3/4s of the way in, that makes the novel remarkable, out of the ordinary, unforgettable. And it's all done in telling.

Likewise, the best part of H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness is another explanation also located about 3/4s of the way in (rough guessitmate). In the above link, I mostly discuss style for some reason, probably meaning to discuss Olaf Stapledon comparison but forgetting to do so. So this is my belated rectification. Here's a link to the actual story.

Robert E. Howard's Conan and Charles Saunders' Imaro

It's hard to say what age I first read Robert E. Howard's Conan books. Other kids read them, but it looked over the top. When I did give it try, it was swamped in ornate, awkward language. I looked down my nose at Howard's work. How could any serious reader imbibe this garish garbage?

I happened to read another Howard story where the prose was lean and spare. And I was stunned. The guy could control his language. What at first appeared as an inability to write was actually an intentional, atmospheric construct. So I revisited Conan and came to appreciate its appeal.

I often try things multiple times. Sometimes we miss things the first time around.

Howard died at thirty, in 1936, before any of his stories were collected into books. The first collections, twenty years later, would have probably been similar to other popular magazine collections that publishers were publishing at the time, looking to capture the post WWII interest in books. 

But what about the ordering? As he aged and he might have felt differently toward his characters; he might he have created a more consistent series of novels about this barbarian. The work itself had already suggested a progression of character. Might he not want to clean them up for public?

Conan went through several paperback editions a decade later. L. Sprague de Camp tried to put the series in order and wrote material that put Conan together in an order that made sense to him. The editions stirred up enough interest to fight the legal battles that would eventually become the most popular Conan film: the 1982 Conan the Barbarian, putting Arnold Schwarzenegger on the Hollywood map. There were several subsequent attempts--live action and animated--but they seemed unable to recapture the public's interest.

The 2000s tried to attempted to create a more Howard-centric chronology. This modest revival of interest in Conan may have led to Imaro's revival:

#

 

Charles Saunders' Imaro is a book I'd been meaning to get to. In the 70s, Saunders had been inspired by Conan to write several of his own stories, leading to a few appearances in the fantasy annuals and a 1981 mosaic collection and two sequels, but the second novel took him three years to write, and by then his audience was dwindling and he was unable to finish the series. The publishers weren't interested in a fourth novel.

I'd expected Conan in Africa, but the prose was more controlled. Some might complain that it doesn't rise to Conan's inventiveness, but it has something over Howard's invention: the feel of a novel. The stories build on what's gone before, and Imaro grows from what he's gone through. The past impacts the present. Saunders infused some maturity on the tales. I'd have loved to do a comparison of the early tales and the two subsequent novel versions.

Twenty years after Imaro's first book publication, a fan out of Australia encouraged him to resurrect the character and finish the series. So he did. At first, when the fan contacted him, he didn't have much interest as he'd moved away from this type of work, but he got back into it and found a publisher. 

He excised one story from the series because of it's possible connection to political events in Rwanda that mirrored what he'd written first. Much as one admires his desire to have his fiction not cause damage, it also makes me want to read the original to see what he wanted removed. He revised and added new material. It might be worthwhile to compare the two editions.

Anyway, if you like Conan or are curious about a Conan-type character who experiences growth, this is an interesting book.

Pulp Fiction, Nearly Thirty Years Later

Pulp Fiction [PF] came out almost 30 years ago. If the audience or critics ranked their favorites of the 90s, I bet it would come out on top. It's hard to argue with Titanic or Silence of the Lambs--popular films in their time that people continue to talk about--but PF should still rank the highest. 

 

This might surprise some, for reasons I'll discuss below, but I still think it'd be at or near #1. My favorites of the 90s weren't nearly as big. Time Out and Rotten Tomatoes rank it #1. Probably others. (A bunch of other movies I should rewatch.)

I don't recall my first viewing or if there were multiple viewings, but my latest viewing differed from the first. My first viewing loved everything. There was a coolness about it. The title, the characters and their blithe approach to murder, the way the film repurposed old things and made them feel new and refreshing, the memorable dialogue, the funky plot. Memory told me this was one of the greats.

I rewatched it to see what made it tick, and was surprised. The plot, while beautifully intricate, is rather thin. It's almost like the movie was composed of Tarantino's favorite outtakes (i.e. "Kill your darlings") from every script he'd ever written. Memorable lines, albeit asides. They don't actually advance a plot. Rather, these are show pieces. Dialogue that actors would love to speak. If I suggest Tarrantino is show-boating, this isn't bad-mouthing. It works.

Crazier still is how he brings in five decades of film and music together in one work. I suspect this aspect would be lost on younger generations. They'd probably only see the plot unless they did some deep-diving into movie and music history.

The cussing, when I'd first watched it, felt normal after I'd worked on a ship that had deployed a similar barrage. Since PF, everybody and their dog has drowned the media in cussing so that it's lost its original power. Some find a barrage hilarious, but to me, it's like saying, "Nissan that Nissan guy!" Okay, so what? But Tarrantino makes the swear words hilarious, spins straw into gold-plated art.

The title, while cool, detracts. Crime Stories might be more accurate but less compelling. Only Bruce Willis's story feels pulpy. 

 

One description called it a gang story. Follow the characters. This isn't a gang story--even if it's a pervasive element--at least it's a far cry from being a typical gang story.

The movie uses these definitions, for pulp/fiction:

1. soft, moist, shapeless mass or matter.

2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper.

Is this a self-critique? Or maybe a modus operandi? "rough, unfinished" and "lurid" and "shapeless"? Apart from "lurid," which is accurate, only in a nonliteral sense does the title sort of work. Shapeless, sort of--you could ask a number of scenes why they were included--but some of it is beautifully sculpted, and it has finish (some of it, pyrotechnically so) if a little rough in places. Certainly it is not your usual blockbuster. Maybe this is what they had to do to justify the film to the producers (or critics) who might have complained.

Off topic: the movie made 25 times its original investment, the low operating cost is somewhat surprising considering the names that worked on the film.

Minor spoilers:

I misremembered the plot. I thought it was more of a Shakespearean tragedy where nearly everyone died in the end. Instead it ends with the character who has the most compelling story: Samuel L. Jackson's. The narrative switches around and really, few of them land. Just Jackson followed by Willis but his story, while it takes us on some wild loops, isn't as surprising. Jackson's transformation is wildly surprising and feels so authentic. He reframes his whole existence in a line (rewritten from the original, btw)--plus, his newfound change is immediately put to the test. Frankly, I don't recall that at all. Travolta's character story only works in light of Jackson's as a sort of foil.

Could a writer replicate this work as a novel? I don't think so although, no doubt, many have tried.

"The difference between a short story and a novel" by Philip K. Dick

 "The difference between a short story and a novel comes to this...."

"It is in sf stories that sf action occurs; it is in sf novels the worlds occur.... Crisis is the key to story-writing,a sort of brinkmanship in which the author mires his characters in happening so sticky as to seem impossible of solution. And then he gets them out... usually.... But in a novel the actions are so deeply rooted in the personality of the main character that to extricate him the author would have to go back and rewrite his character. This need not happen in a story, especially a short one.... [T]his makes clear why some writers can write stories but not novels, or novels but not stories.... [A]nything can happen in a story; the author merely tailors his character to the event.... As a writer builds up a novel-length piece it slowly begins to imprison him, to take away his freedom; his own characters are taking over and doing what they want to do--not what he would like them to do. This is one one hand the strength of the novel and on the other its weakness."

--Philip K. Dick, The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick [originally 1968, so probably from the 1969 collection, The Preserving Machine.

"Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick

First appeared in Jack O'Sullivan's Planet Stories, reprinted by Robert Silverberg, Malcolm Edwards, Martin H. Greenberg, Damon Knight, Joseph D. Olander, Peter Davison, Susan Price, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, D. E. Wittkower, John Gregory Betancourt,  Ann VanderMeer, Jeff VanderMeer, Peter Ross.

A human crew collect their things readying to exit the planet. One has purchased a 400 lb. wub, a creature which  looks like a pig, presumably larger than a man at that mass. The natives respect the creature, but the humans--at least some of them--see it as a source of food. Even finding out the wub can read minds does not seem to deter the ship captain's appetite.

Analysis (with Spoilers)

The first reprinting of this story nearly two decades later was in Dick's own collection, The Preserving Machine. Perhaps an apt title. No one seems to have thought it demanded a second look when it first arrived. 

Robert Silverberg was the first editor to reprint it, twenty years later for his Alpha anthology, aimed at showcasing what SF he considered "literary"--a term which seems to mean different things to different people. Since Dick's story isn't necessarily highly evocative prose or rich characterizations, he must mean stories that provoke thought, which this certainly does do.

Dick's comment on "Roog" would probably apply here: "each creature view[s] the world differently from all other creatures." I will add more of his comment after I find my copy of Dick's collection.

What happens at the end of the penultimate section is vaguely worded and a little unclear. One possibility lies in the the wub's allusions to two major works of literature: the Bible (Jesus driving out demons that have possessed a herd of pigs) and the Odyssey (Circe transforming sailors into pigs)--the parentheticals are presumably the parts of the story Dick's is alluding to.

This possibility suggests that when the captain looks into the wub's eyes, he becomes the wub and vice versa. Or maybe, as the Vandermeers suggest, eating the wub makes one the "wub." This seems a strong possibility due to the allusions.

However, the other possibility is that the wub controls the captain as it did earlier, freezing the captain. So that the captain shoots himself. The wub assumes the role of captain and serves the former captain as dinner. This seems a good possibility because of the wub's early mind-control, the wub's discussion of sacrificing other members of the crew to eat, the vaguely worded "meat," and the reactions of the crew not wanting to eat the meat, due to cannibalism. Presumably if eating the meat made them "wub," at least a few others would have dug into the wub meat for supper becoming wub. But would they treat the pig as captain? Or is it controlling them to make them think of his as captain? The thing is that if the wub transfers from one creature to another, the alien probably wouldn't be a wub, but some other creature, originally, and there'd be no reason to "respect" the wub, necessarily.

The title seems to suggest that the wub is or will exist in the future or their future--physically or otherwise. Whatever's going on, the captain or the wub seems perfectly affable and chatty about the situation. In rereading, one wonders about what the native "respect" for the wub entails.

The Ship and its Cargo -- a different answer to the thought puzzle about identity

Someone proposed this thought puzzle (it is not Theseus' ship [Wiki] as will be explained after this puzzle): 

Odysseus sailed from Troy, and it took ten, long years. On the way, due to attacks of animals, sirens, insects, waves, storms, shipwrecks etc. the ship fell apart, piece by piece. As parts failed, they replaced them, one by one. When they arrived home, the ship had every piece replaced. Was the ship that left Troy the same as the one that arrived? 

[Assume this story of the ship is the more accurate one for the thought puzzle.]

It took me a day to think of a good answer for this, and it differs from other answers I've seen in the above Theseus puzzle.

The answer is yes and no.

First, each piece of wood is an individual with strengths and failings as it falls apart, the other parts of the ship have adjusted to this part's strengths and weaknesses, so that the ship's whole integrity is dependent on each part. So when a part fails and is replaced with a new part with strengths and weaknesses, the whole ship had adjusted to the old part and will treat the new part as if it were the old part. The new part has its own identity, but is also being called upon to play a new part. The ship adjusts to the new part's strengths and weaknesses.

This is not unlike a traffic slow down where the accident may be long gone, but the slow down remains. An echo of the old ship always remains. Yet, yes, there are new parts here, flowing through. 

A ship is not a ship without its contents, and in this case the crew create the ship's meaning, it's shipness. How the contents react to the ship--their habits of walking in the same places--creates unique wear, whether the parts are new or old.

If you transfer the contents to a new ship, built by the same people to same specifications, is that the same ship? No. Again, each block of wood employed is different. Also, to borrow from the cognitive-science explanation, the crew would not recognize it as the same.

This applies to humans, who are said to have replaced enough cells in seven years to be a completely new person. Are we still ourselves?

The ship metaphor translates well. Each cell replaced is an individual, yet is shaped by his neighbors. The other cells will be accustomed to certain ways of responding. So yes, sort of a new person?

But it will keep the same cargo, the same contents everywhere it goes--memories, desires, hopes. But these do shift. Is Odysseus the same Odysseus who left Troy? In a sense, yes. His dog recognizes him. He still wants to be with his wife. In a sense, no, his wife does not immediately recognize him. How could he have lived through all he's lived through be the same? But yet some of the same bilge and bilge rats linger.

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Interesting thought experiment: If someone murders someone, are they still a murderer seven years later? I suspect most will have only one answer for that.

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Despite a similar scenario--replacing parts until the new has all new parts--the Theseus ship is different. Quite different [Wiki]:

Theseus, the mythical Greek founder-king of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this legend by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honor Apollo. A question was raised by ancient philosophers: After several centuries of maintenance, if each individual part of the Ship of Theseus was replaced, one at a time, was it still the same ship? 

Here the answer is simply: No and Maybe, depending.

The difference here is the use. Odysseus was the one and only captain/owner. Theseus, meanwhile, has passed on, leaving the ship to descendants whose memory may or may not hold the original crew. A whole different metaphor is at play. The ship is now used for a wholly different purpose: commemoration. After the original passengers have all died and cannot pass on memories of this time, no crew remains to assign it the original meaning. 

It seems likely the scenario arose after a repair and someone, tired of the memorial, wants to know why they bothered remembering this ancient history and raised this thought problem in order to get out of having to repeat this stupid boat trip year every year.

This seems a very human reaction. In the Hebrew Bible--Exodus--the slaves who escape Egypt are supposed to commemorate this escape with a song, but soon they complain about how much better they had as slaves. Memory is short. Also, a very human reaction.

But someone somewhere has recorded the events, and if they did a good enough job, the ship can come close to having its original shipness.

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Hobbes apparently proposed that if someone saved all the discarded parts, would that be the ship? 

Interesting thought experiment, but no. The parts are all rotted and broken although it would be a kind of cool memorial.

"Frozen Journey" or "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" by Philip K. Dick

First appeared in Playboy.  

Reprinted in various major retrospectives by Terry Carr, Brian Attebery, Ursula K. Le Guin, Chris Hables Gray, Alice K. Turner,  Jonathan Lethem. 

This won a Playboy award and was up for a Locus.

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A man is cryogenically suspended for the duration of a journey across space. His chamber malfunctions so that he awakens ten years from his destination. He cannot be fully awakened or have his chamber repaired, so the ship computer dials up his memories for the man so he can dream pleasantly. But none of it goes as planned. 

Discussion (with spoilers):

The man keeps turning the memories into something darker, and as the ship's computer adjusts, trying to compensate, making the dreams lighter. The new, fake if dark memories bleed into every adjustment the computer makes. He can see through the illusions the computer makes.

When he arrives, his ex-wife summoned from another planet to help him adjust, he cannot accept the true reality.

Brilliant concept--at least not one I remember seeing before (although right after writing this, a newer TV show had a similar scenario, but not as thoughtfully executed. It doesn't feel like a classic but at least as profound as the great classics, so maybe it is classic? 

The story suggests that the past is preparation for whatever reality or future distorts how we view the present reality. Probably true--to an extent as we do test reality.

Terry Carr summarizes the above, more or less, and closes with "Could any computer, no matter how extensive its abilities, keep him sane?"

Is it about sanity? Maybe, kinda. But part of this summary is refuted by the story because the computer is not all powerful. In fact, it is relatively "dumb," limited in what it can do. It does see a problem, but not how to correct it. This, for me, is a critical part of the story, mentioned a few times. The computer doesn't intend to channel the person's reality--but simply to make him happier, which it fails to do.

This point in the story many not be wholly true as people (as opposed to the ship's computer) do actively try to channel people toward how they should view reality, but the basic concept is solid and thought-provoking. Perhaps it was somewhat less the case in the 70s and 80s that one might ignore the influence.

It's interesting that Dick's original title was rewritten by Playboy--probably more evocative or enticing to a reader. What's surprising is that Playboy's title is reprinted, not Dick's, despite Dick publishing his preferred title, even titled such as part of a collection. The Playboy title does suggest the man is stuck in his journey, frozen in time. 

"I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" suggests more of the protagonist's state of mind, inviting the reader in to entertain the state, the feeling of making progress, of wanting to reach the destination but never arriving. It is more empathetic (his belief that he should be arriving soon even though he already has) and, hence, more tragic toward the character's failure to accept his reality. The "Frozen" unintentionally looks down on the character.

Ursula LeGuin's The Norton Book of Science Fiction has a nice tribute to Dick in the introduction, that he was finally getting his due. However, beyond adding the usual Dick-plays-with-reality, it offers no insight into this particular story, and it doesn't really add much insight into any particular story except in broad strokes. 

A famous, knowledgeable writer once said that the anthology chose the stories for a certain brand of politics. It may not have been, but let's entertain the notion. This will take a while since it's not high priority, but I'll touch on it.

The anthology arranges stories by year, presumably to show either progression in sensibility, changes in topical concerns, quality, etc. But presumably those were the best stories from that year. Only Carr selected this story as one the best of the year. It's numbered eight on Locus (with no other award nominations), so maybe the listing by year (in terms of quality) is misleading. However, an editor may think stories were overlooked in a given year, so that may be a factor. It could be the issues facing the public during that year. Was 1980 a year of being frozen in place, compared to any other year? But if so, why doesn't the anthology discuss issues facing the field during that time?

Finally, this could be the story most representative of the writer from 1960-1990, but then the listing as stories by year would be misleading. Moreover, a lot of important writers were excluded from this collection, which would be a major flaw for an anthology with this particular title, which sounds like it has a wide-enough-angled lens to capture the full scope. The anthology was never revised, so maybe the flaws are well known as being too limited in scope to bear its current title, lacking a number of key players who helped shape the field during this era.

The anthology does use the Playboy title over Dick's. If it were a political selection, it was the positive portrayal of the ex-wife. She was empathetically drawn. Hopefully, it is not for the wise woman/foolish man (or worse men-bad/women-good) portrayals, which would be sexist if this is a consistent pattern--limiting both genders to certain roles that can be played. Hard to say from this distance. Perhaps the editors felt they needed to counteract other portrayals, but still it's problematic if it's men-good/women-bad. Humanity has lots genes, lots of differences to limit the species to a handful of portrayals. 

Feminism becomes important to the field, especially during this era, so one would expect it to be addressed, but it is certainly not the only issue, and the anthology would require a different label to be more honest to the public about the anthology's aim. But that's only the case if it were true that LeGuin's anthology is political--a hypothetical claim being entertained at present. And we'll come back to it later, fingers crossed.

Still, the story's a lovely little gem, whatever reason people selected it.  Maybe some will read it as a tale about sanity, or about gender-power dynamics, tripping some triggers. That's okay. For me, it's a potent tale with a broader application for all humanity--not a select few--about a human being whose propensity to find flaws in his own life led him to a place that made it difficult to deal with his present circumstances. Surely, that is a theme that people of whatever gender can empathize with.

"Roog" by Philip K. Dick

First appeared in F&SF. Reprinted by Anthony Boucher, J. Francis McComas,  Robert Silverberg, John M. Landsberg, Jonathan Ostrowsky-Lantz, Jack Dann, Gardner Dozois, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg, Robert Weinberg.

This was Philip K. Dick's first accepted story, but not his first published. It tells of a dog who can see aliens as garbage men.

Discussion (with minor spoilers):

While not a classic, this is utterly charming. Part of it is the perfect name for the alien which sounds a bit like how a dog might sound, barking.

What's fascinating is a debate with the famed editor Judith Merrill over the story (a debate which you cam read about over here). She thought that the description of the aliens did not match the garbage-men she'd seen. This is the kind of debate that sidetracks a lot of literal-minded fans and editors and critics. Myself included. 

Even Dick is mostly persuaded by Merrill's argument that he have lost sight of his own story. He calls it a fantasy through the dog's point of view. It could be. A realistic tale of a dog who thinks garbage men are aliens. But there are other possibilities--more interesting ones.

That's the key: Whose POV is it? It's probably not the dog's. Maybe, but probably not. Was the dog there to witness all events? Maybe? Certainly not the humans--at least not these humans since they don't seem to know what's going on (perhaps humans in a post-human-Earth era?). Maybe the aliens, but they don't seem to be there to witness everything as well.

Perhaps it is simply an omniscient narrator. The aliens, if real, admit what they're doing. They're making the dogs or Guardians seem like deluded creatures. Maybe they are. 

Or maybe the aliens are deluded into thinking the dog see them. Maybe the dogs don't see the aliens as aliens at all.

But again maybe the dogs do. Maybe they are masked and dogs can see through the disguise.

What the aliens are up to, isn't clear. Are they just after trash? Why is it an "offering urn" and why do they eat it? Do they consider themselves gods? Or do they offer it to other gods, carrying it in a blanket? Whatever is going on, it sounds sinister. And once they clear out the dogs, they will be able to execute that plan.

The Unsung Genius of Douglas Adams

"[H]e had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion." -- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Rereading Douglas Adams for the first time since I was a kid when I was mostly amused if not exactly wowed, I see his work from a different angle. It must have been that Adams did not have a talent for certain writerly crafts, so that I preferred comedic narratives by Robert Sheckley. But Adams was brilliant at other, uncommon narrative delights. 

This is a case in point. He stitches together different anecdotes, some brief, some elaborate, woven as characters move from point A to point B. I don't want to spoil it for those who hate spoilers, so skip the next paragraph if you don't want this tiny moment ruined. 

An elaborate metaphor is slowly built up and executed, metaphorically and literally, having to do with a device that contains the entire universe in a tiny thing--say, a fairy cake--so that when one experiences it, one is annihilated. However, one character manages to survive where everyone else died. He exits, worldview confirmed, eating the cake.  

Take the following metaphor he sets up as being the place where this unhappy device was placed:

 “Many years ago this was a thriving, happy planet—people, cities, shops, a normal world. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more shoe shops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly, insidiously, the numbers of these shoe shops were increasing. It’s a well-known economic phenomenon but tragic to see it in operation, for the more shoe shops there were, the more shoes they had to make and the worse and more unwearable they became. And the worse they were to wear, the more people had to buy to keep themselves shod, and the more the shops proliferated, until the whole economy of the place passed what I believe is termed the Shoe Event Horizon, and it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than shoe shops. Result—collapse, ruin and famine. Most of the population died out. Those few who had the right kind of genetic instability mutated into birds—you’ve seen one of them—who cursed their feet, cursed the ground and vowed that none should walk on it again, Unhappy lot. Come, I must take you to the Vortex.”

We think, "Ah, ha! That's why this device was created on this planet!"

But Adams pulls the rug out from under us as it was built elsewhere and placed on the planet because it was empty. That doesn't mean the anecdotes aren't connected, but he craftily shifts these anecdotes around. It's a game of three-card monte, where the cards or anecdotes are constantly shuffled around to keep you on your toes.

John Hughes vs. Scraping, ChatGPT, Plagiarism, Homage, Allusion, Pastiche, Collage

 Last year, writer John Hughes was accused of plagiarism. Joseph Earp, his mentee, recently wrote about his kind nature in this article for the Guardian--a rather sensational or click-bait headline: "My mentor John Hughes taught me how to write. Then he plagiarised my work." 

Earlier last year, Hughes wrote a defense of his work, which seems like a cursory overview, but then critics of his defense were weaker still, which makes his defense look stronger than his critics. It's actually a pretty good justification for what he was doing although a broader and deeper paper may be necessary.

The book blurb on Hughes's Someone Else does show this is his modus operandi:

"Like The Idea of Home, Someone Else uses the essay as a form of autobiography. Here, however, the essays are fictions. Or are they? Hughes tells the stories of the figures who live in his mind by making them tell his stories – and in doing so engages in an art of literary ventriloquism."

So Hughes has told people all along what he was doing. Why the surprise?

I wrote a series of poems completely borrowing Shakespeare's or the King James Bible's words about the moon in order to write a series of love poems. They were all their words, but reordered so that the final result was that their words no longer discussed what they had intended to discuss. Is that plagiarism? 

No. It is art. What is found poetry? What is erasure poetry? What is collage? 

The measure is whether the borrowing is well done. Let's take Leonard da Vinci's Last Supper as an example.

 I'd need to rewatch Robert Altman's MASH to see how this fits in, but it does seem to contribute both to the story and as commentary of the art/event (a man is going to commit suicide (or so he thinks) and his friends are sending him off with this "last" supper):

Most stagings of the Last Supper, though, have been brainless or not art. It sort of fits the image of, say, Battlestar Galactica, but it doesn't slide into the series very well--a bit stagey (but still some cleverness so some thought went into it):

You could say that MASH's use of da Vinci is also stagey. True, but they try to make it fit smoothly into the narrative. Perhaps it's worth complaining about, but it is comic, which makes it more difficult to critique.

Here we have samples of John Hughes borrowings at the Guardian.

Disappointingly, they have no analysis. It's more of a dramatic dum-dum-dum than an actual discussion. Proof of plagiarism! 

Someone needs to actually read the books in question. To know whether the borrowings are significant, one must ask

1. How does Hughes use it? 
2. How does Tolstoy use his text? 
3. How do they compliment or debate?
4. How does the borrowing add meaning and/or reflect back? 

However, Hughes borrows liberally. You can't see much of a purpose--at least not from these clips without more of the book. At present, this is a failure to read. 

It does look like rather drab borrowings, though. It may be Hughes was simply learning sentence patterns from them--a rather banal borrowing, unfortunately. It's puzzling why he borrowed so much and why the passages don't seem particularly indicative. 

An homage should be brief but enough to suggest where and what is being borrowed. For instance, "I'll be back" is a famous saying, but it requires more set-up than just those words. We'd need more. Also an homage should try to capture some particular tell-tale, briefly, that indicates what he is borrowing. It is curious.

Finally, the borrowing should be unobtrusive. That it took so long to discover Hughes's borrowings suggests his work is unobtrusive (but also not distinctive). The Altman clip is less obtrusive than the Battlestar Galactica. Should it be invisible? Should it be somewhat obtrusive so at least some people pick up on the nod? That's probably a question of taste. 

However, I don't think homage is the highest form of art since not everyone has a photographic memory. It's what many call the "Easter egg"--the piece of art that's hidden that some may uncover. There should be no guilt associated with not recognizing homages.

Earp, in the article above, seems to think this won't hamper Hughes's career, but I suspect it may. Time will tell. But condemnation, without a deeper investigation, suggests brainless book burnings--to the shame of those who complained... unless they actually did the requisite legwork and found Hughes's borrowings not especially necessary to his art.

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There's been a lot of hand-wringing over AI visual art and AI-generated stories. They "scrape" or "plagiarize" [to borrow the Guardian's accusations] writers and artists to create their "new" works. People--writers, even--find it convincing. All the people who think Hughes plagiarized without digging deeper should be banning such AI works, but though I've heard complaints, I haven't heard of any movements to block the AIs from doing their [illegal?] work.

My guess, for now, is that, without an intelligence guiding the art, human art is safe. If it should develop a method of creating intelligent art, then we can despair.

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None of the above is to suggest where I come down on Hughes as a writer, but it does suggest a method for evaluating Hughes's work.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Difficult Things; Deconstruction

There will be fights on the internet. They often concern difficult things that we need to talk about but become attacks on people or ad hominem, which is a fallacy or failed argument tactic. If an argument were a sport, this is where we see players who break the rules. Do you like watching players break the rules? Well, you're probably not a fan of that sport--or just of the rule-breaker's team. Sports have rules for a reason.

Ad hominem is not unlike all of those Westerns that use the entry point of the bullet through the back to indicate a man was murdered. If you believe Hollywood Westerns, it seems to be their sole criteria for conducting any kind of forensic examination. Ad hominem is a good marker of how well or poorly the argument has progressed.

There was a genre fight over the "Puppies" maybe a decade ago. I tried to follow the arguments and ended up being disappointed in all the players. People needed to have an important conversation, but people kept sabotaging themselves by throwing mud, which by throwing it, gets on the throwers. Worse, ad hominem is often a distortion--in full or in part--probably because the arguer has run out of debate ammo and has resorted to mud. We've just allowed ourselves to engage in debate without rules for so long that we believe falsehoods over the truth.

Far be it from me to prohibit people from engaging in mud wrestling. Many enjoy the spectacle, but please leave me out.

But if you really want to make a case and discuss these important issues, then parameters should be in place to create a healthy dialogue. Because we do need to talk about these things. We know we do. That's why we get so heated. And yes, we'd probably get heated in debating these issues and want to let slip some ad hominem, just as in sports there are fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct in games with rules. These "yellow flags" should be called. The game does not need to end but the manner under which it is executed does need to end. Without yellow flags, the fouls pile up.

Who gets to be impartial and calls the fouls? That's another issue worth discussing.

In any argument, slanders and libel only sidetrack the discussion. In doing so, you open up a whole new match that you want to play. Finish the first match before engaging in the next.

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This brings us to another subject: Deconstruction:

 

This image of Bernie Sanders from the inauguration was reproduced all over the internet in a joking manner--to be charitable. Here's an older adult, cold and alone. He was placed everywhere. It was a game a lot leaped into.

Now a well-known poet accused people of ageism. And people's feathers got ruffled. No, no, they claimed, not us. We're the good guys. (Everyone thinks they're the good guys.)

Well, according to the rules of deconstruction--as it's currently played--they were all ageist. They can't defend against it because defending only made them look worse, as if they were defending their right to be ageist.

Ageism is real. As it did the poet, the memes rubbed me wrong although among the hundreds I saw, there was one that almost got me to smile, but I forget which.

The real problem is that we don't use deconstruction correctly. It is a tool to show possibilities. Not realities. It is not scientific. Period. Let's repeat that: Deconstruction is not scientific. People who use it to prove failures in others are most likely wrong--potentially egregiously. 

Humans have many reasons for doing what they do, maybe several, maybe contradictory. Using deconstruction as it's currently played is mind-reading. Who knows the mind of a man? Certainly not other men, not at present. If sloppy deconstruction is pointed at someone, that is potentially libelous or slanderous. It impugns character. It damages their ability to do business.

Now this isn't to say the poet was wrong. No doubt, some were posting the memes because of ageism. But that doesn't mean all were. Given Sanders' being cold and alone, it may have just been unsportsmanlike conduct: taunting that their team won (or at least gloating that his team had not won), which is something we see in sports a lot, lamentably so.

This isn't to say that you can't joke about it. It looks like poor taste, but hey, own up to the poor taste in jokes. At least you're honest. As human beings, we all have our idiosyncrasies.

However, those who have used deconstruction in a sloppy manner and posted this meme should have to wear the red-letter A for "unsportsmanlike ageist"  for a few years, especially if they're not ageist, as a reminder to use deconstruction with more care. 

I jest, but in seriousness, because we have been inhibiting serious conversations for far too long--when most debates turn into mud wrestling--we have to question why. Maybe we not only don't want to understand one another but also the subject under discussion.