The Men Who Built The Torment Nexus*

     It's a trope from The Onion and like a lot of satire, it's realer than real.  The essay linked below explains how zillionaire techbros have looted science fiction for settings and widgets while discarding the philosophy and warnings to rot.  Is the future not what you were promised?  Yeah, me, too, and here's one big reason why.
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* Title riffed from Alfred Bester's short story, "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed," which you should read if you haven't.  It's almost reassuring.  Or is it? 

Good Fun

     Marvel has spun, well, webs with all the permutations of their "Spider-Man" character.  The core character was popular with my male peers in Junior High and High School: here was this wisecracking kid like them, except he usually knew the right thing to say and he had superpowers!  I thought he was fun, if implausible.  Given similar powers, the zit-faced boys I knew were unlikely to rise to his level of heroism -- or verbal cleverness.

     I admit it: I was never a huge fan of comic books, not even when they started to call themselves graphic novels.  The horror/SF comics were screamingly derivative, often "borrowing" SF plots or entire stories without so much as a nod to the original and I found that offputting.  For pure mindless fun, "Doc Savage" reprints were a better value for my money.

     But Spidey was his own thing, not a sanctimonious stuffed shirt.  Not a millionaire, or invulnerable, or a rebooted Norse god, just Some Guy who stumbled into superpowers, and that was kind of cool.  The thing is, he kind of wasn't entirely original; he had a pulp precursor, much darker: The Spider was the alias of the entirely human (if slightly gadgety) crimefighter Richard Wentworth, maybe the number three hero pulp after The Shadow and Doc Savage.  The Spider ran to greater moral ambiguity (and bloodthirstiness) than the other two and gave rise to a movie-serial version of the protagonist with a much more spidery look, and between the pulp and the films, helped inspire the later comic-book hero.  The teen angst was all from Stan Lee, though, and that's really the emotional driver of the graphic novel character.

     All this is to set up writing about the entirely entertaining Amazon Video streaming series, Spider-Noir.  It's spun from the "Spiderverse" notions Marvel's been shoveling through a kaledeoscope in recent years, but what's come out this time* is a back-crossing between the modern-day four-color hero and his pulp ancestor that's half film noir and half graphic novel (and about ten percent Republic-type serial).  Seedy PI Ben Reilly struggles to make a living, having put away his past as a costumed superhero after personal tragedy, and then....  Then, of course, plot happens.  It's not any more plausible than any other superhero tale, or most film noir for that matter, but it's as engaging as any of them, with a reasonably good take on the 1930s setting and nice acting, cinematography, effects and editing.  It's good fun.  They've managed to explain or at least lampshade most of the incongruities, too.  It's unlikely to alter your worldview, but it's at least as good a value for money as an old pulp magazine or a modern graphic novel.
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* They'd already done a similar thing, "Spider-Man Noir," in print and animation, the latter with the same actor (Nicholas Cage) as the TV series.

Clever Cicero, Time Traveler?

      The Roman lawyer, writer and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is greatly admired for his command of language.  Like Shakespeare centuries later, he introduced new words and conventions of form that persisted ever afterward.

     And like the Bard, he was fond of wordplay -- but how could he possibly have invented a riddle that works the same in English as it does in Latin?  Sheer luck, of course, the same chance that preserved his words and Shakespeare's.

     A greeting:
     "Mitto tibi 'navem' prora puppique carentum."*

     In English:
     "I send you a 'ship' lacking stern and bow."

     Something of an "Aenigma a patre," I suppose.
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* I have here taken the cheapest/easiest transcription of written Latin.  For Romans vowel "u" and the consonant "v" were distinguished only by context, as readily as we skip through the myriad inconsistencies of English orthography.  While contemporary fancy inscriptions and (probably) professional scrolls would have written MITTO TIBI NAVEM PROPRA PVPPIQVE CARENTVM at best and probably abbreviated many of the words in standardized ways, Cicero himself probably jotted it down in a chicken-scratch cursive not too unlike a modern doctor's handwriting, with a character like a cross between a "v" and "u" and what looks to our eyes like a ruthless disregard for getting the letters on the same line; Romans didn't see 'em the same way we are taught. 

When An "Idiot Plot" Isn't, Maybe

     Writing -- and chairing the critique group -- has me in the habit of taking a critical look "under the hood" of books and TV/movies/radio shows.  One of the gotchas is what SF writer (and critic) Damon Knight called an "idiot plot," though he gave credit to James Blish for originating the term

     Simplest form, it means a plot that only works if one or more of the characters ignores something that is obvious to the audience.  Now, that's one thing if the plot is just an excuse for razzle-dazzle (the Ginger Rogers - Fred Astaire film Top Hat is often cited, but nobody cares: you're there for the dancing), and something entirely different in a serious work.

     No spoilers, but-- The most recent season of For All Mankind has a crucial plot development that only works if a very smart character misses a point that should be entirely clear to the audience and perhaps the other characters involved, based on past behavior.  They miss it, and keep on missing it, several times.

     Now, the individual involved has been set up as a deeply focused and somewhat neurotic person, probably neuroatypical* and everyone else in a position to work out what happened has a vested interest in staying mum -- so is it really an "idiot plot," or were the writers playing a deeper game?

     Flip a coin.  Much as I love the big, rich story, I've got to admit I'm there for the sets and the characters, for the broad sweep of an alternative history, one in which the Space Race went on and on.

     Moral?  You can get away with it -- if you're as quick on your feet as Fred and Ginger, if you're that gifted at choreography (in the broadest sense), if you're willing to subtly lampshade it, if you've got the sets and costumes and skilled photographers and editors (and/or literary chops) to pull it off.  I think For All Mankind managed the trick, but it's there if you look for it.
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* It's not original with me, but inclinations and skill sets that make for good scientists have a lot of overlap with some autism-spectrum behavior patterns, so much so that it has often been pointed out that while there's zero evidence that vaccines cause autism, there's a pretty good case to be made that autism causes vaccines.

Lookit Me! I'm Almost Human!

     I chaired the critique group this morning, and that went well.  It's usually pretty draining -- the cost of being an introvert -- but afterwards, I actually managed to get nerved up to walk over to Fat Dan's and enjoy a late lunch with Tam.  (Adequate coleslaw -- look, I'm judgemental about that dish because I like it -- and a very good toasted pastrami and corned beef sandwich on rye, with Swiss cheese and brown mustard.)

     It might not sound like much, but it's been months since I had a meal out -- and months since I walked that far.  I'm having a lot of trouble with social anxiety these days, and with my knees, and it's much too easy for me to just avoid it all: to have minimal social interaction, not go to new places, order online as much as possible and avoid physical exertion.  I'm trying to break those habits, reinforced during the pandemic (except for walking -- Tam and I were taking daily walks around the block for a couple of years), and it's slow going.

     One step at a time.  I can do this.  I've done it in the past.  The knees get better when I get out there and interact with the world, and so does my ability to deal with people.

Entertainment, We Got

      It turns out if you go looking up an SF writer from the golden age (and it's always somebody's golden age in SF), you might get an unexpected bonus.

     William Tenn was one of the best humorists the genre has yet produced, from biting satire to gentle comedy.  In real life, he was Philip Klass,* electronics geek, technical editor and, later, a professor of English, teaching writing to a number of students who would go on to fame, or at least decent incomes.

     And one of his last published stories, On Venus, Have We Got A Rabbi! is a classic of at least two genres.  He read it on the radio back in 2002: his voice, and very much the voice of his narrator, a humble TV repairman.  On Venus.  A few hundred years in the future.  And oh, the trouble they have had there!

     Absolutely worth your listening time.  Or your reading, you'd prefer.
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* And not, as it happens, Philip J. Klass, aerospace and electronics geek and UFO debunker.  That's a whole other guy. 

The Churn

     In the novels and TV series The Expanse, spacecraft mechanic Amos Burton makes many references to "the churn," a period of time when everything is in flux before it settles into a new normal.  There's even a novella in the book series and an episode, part of a narrative arc, in the TV series with that title.

     It's an inflection point, a place where the slope of the curve changes.*

     It's where the United States is now.  Up or down?  Authoritarianism or our imperfect-but-striving republic?  War or diplomacy, guns or grain?

     This is not one man's decision, no matter how much the figurehead who's tried so hard to nail himself to the prow of the ship of state may smirk and preen, no matter how much his enablers, handlers and flacks claim otherwise.  We're coming up on critical midterm elections, and it's a time for choosing.

     What do you want?  More imperial presidency, and not just from one man or one party, but a growing trend like the one that twisted ancient Rome?  Or back to the brawling, boisterous and, yes, flawed tripod of American Constitutional government, with a noisy, arguing Congress, an overworked Executive bound by law and a court system that is not open to the highest bidder?

     Our country prospered under the system we put in place 237 years ago.  We'd gotten ourselves well shut of kings, and we needed something that was almost unheard of at the time, a system suited to growing cities, the sparks of industrial production, hard-headed farmers and romantic pioneers.  It was never perfect but the general trend was to make it more accessible, more evenhanded, less corrupt, more free.  It shouldn't be given up without a fight.
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* Strictly speaking, it's where the curve reverses, but the metaphoric use is considerably looser than the mathematical one.

Frustrating

     It's nice to be published.  Another one of my short stories made the grade in an anthology by a new publishing company formed by four writers and academics during the pandemic, and it's a good-looking book, full of fiction, photography, poetry and art with strong links to Indiana.  It pays in street cred and an author's copy, but hey, it's not like anyone else was running after my typewriter, waving cash.  The fictional stereotype aside, writing isn't a job so much as it is something to do while starving (unless you have a day job, in which case you do the day job instead of writing).

     The publishers have a launch party coming up, which promises to be a nice time with a little public (or at least peer) recognition for the contributors.

     It's at very much the wrong time and place for me -- over an hour away, on a day when Tam has a paying work commitment to be elsewhere.  So I'm going to have to miss it.

     The event would have been difficult.  I prefer to be a background lurker, a listener and not a talker.  On most subjects, I couldn't carry my end of an in-person conversation even if I had a spare hat to carry it in.  But it would have been useful, a chance to observe people interacting while claiming to work for the caterer or cleaning crew.*

     Oh, well.

     NOTE: Due to my employer's strict social media policy, I cannot share the title of the book.  This blog only exists because I have been able to maintain reasonable anonymity.
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* True fact: my work ID badge carries the title "Maintenance Technician," and if I forget and wear it outside the building, when people ask about my Exciting Media Job, I explain that I help clean the place up.  It's, er, not untrue.

Reading List

     While Donald Trump and Peter Hegseth's supposedly butched-up military machine is stumbling its way through a war of choice in the Middle East, incompetently led and sometimes reluctantly (but competently) served, it might be time for a touch of perspective on current events.  So here are some suggested readings:

     "The Screwfly Solution," by Racoona Sheldon (Alice Sheldon, more famous as "James Tiptree, Jr.")
     The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
     Practically anything by Ursula K. LeGuin -- I'm presently enjoying The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, a 2002 collection of her short fiction.

     All of them examine power, and how things break, and how helpless so many people are willing to be while it happens, and (in some cases), how it might begin to heal.  We're presently oversupplied with boys who like the sound of smashing altogether too well -- social norms, people's lives, economies, edifices, anything that looks even a little fragile.  But there is a season for all things, and they mustn't be allowed to pursue ruin forever.

A Book And Some History

     Paperback books really got their start after World War Two as the pulp magazines were fading away -- but Uncle Sam gave them one heck of a jumpstart.

     As anyone who've served in our armed forces can tell you, service life, even during a global war, consists of a great deal of "hurry up and wait."  Once the traditional idle vices of the soldier and sailor have been used up -- complaining; telling more or less true stories of misadventure, home life or even derring-do; smoking; and idle speculation about what the brass have in store next -- and the pastimes so often assigned by non-commissioned officers (polishing shoes, peeling vegetables, making beds, shining the shiny things and painting the painted things) have been wrung dry, what's left?

     Assuming fighting, drinking and/or sex are off the table (which they usually were), one of the more portable options was reading.  But supplies of Astounding, G-8's Battle Aces, Spicy Detective or even Ranch Romances were a bit scarce, especially close to the various fronts, and the magazines were too large for easy shipping -- or a uniform pocket.  Besides, the War Department wanted to have a little say about the content; some of those pulps, well, phew.  Hardback books were even more unwieldy than pulp magazines, and they couldn't hand out Reader's Digest to everyone in uniform -- there was a war on, and paper was strictly rationed!

     But that digest size just about fit military pockets-- In 1942, a bunch of publishers, booksellers, librarians and authors got together (only so very slightly encouraged by the Office of War Information) to create the Council on Books in Wartime, under the motto, "Books are weapons in the war of ideas," and they intended for America's warriors to have the best armament possible.  They dreamed up (among other things) Armed Services Editions, genuinely pocket-sized, lightweight paperback books to suit every reader (within reasonable limits).  ASE reprints were hammered out by the millions, everything from William Makepeace Thackeray to Edgar Rice Burroughs, from H. P. Lovecraft to Thurber, Tolstoy and Thoreau.  They were printed on digest-sized presses, two books at a time, and then cut in half, resulting in a book longer than it was tall, just a little smaller than postwar paperbacks.*

     They were widely popular, carried, read, shared, swapped, and passed from hand to hand until they fell apart.

     And then, not too long after V-J Day, the presses...stopped.  As life returned to normal, the paperback book started showing up, filling the spots pulps once occupied.

     Elsewhere and years later, the delightful lunatics at Field Notes, who gave us the motto, "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now," were casting about for a new project.  Their line of notebooks includes constant variation, and they decided to do one rather wider than it was tall -- or vertically-hinged; it's got a cover on both ends for the two orientations, one short and wide, the other tall and skinny.  And someone in their office with an eye to history, or perhaps to recent books about history, saw it was just about the same size as an Armed Services Editions book.  They borrowed the bright primary color covers of the wartime books for theirs, and....

     Ordinary minds might have thought, "H'mm," and moved on.  For Field Notes, it was an opportunity.  ASE printed mystery novels, including a couple by Raymond Chandler, but Dashiell Hammett (a WW I veteran who had re-enlisted in 1942, despite being 48 years old and suffering from tuberculosis) was skipped.

     So they fixed it.  You can buy their brand-new, near-perfect match ASE edition of The Maltese Falcon right now.  It's a good story, well worth reading even if you have seen the film -- and the book and film are a remarkable example of how to go from the page to the screen.  Not everything makes the leap, but it's surprising how much does, and in which ways.  And you can hold in your hand the same kind of book that troops serving in WW II held, passing time in print while an entire world hung in the balance.

     I'm not getting paid to shill for Field Notes.  It's fine by me if you pick up a $1.50 used copy to read instead, or not at all; multiple versions have come out since the story was first serialized and with the film, it's practically an institution.  Copyright was renewed in the mid-1950s, so royalties from the Field Notes reprint will go to whoever presently holds the rights.

     It is indeed the stuff that dreams are made of -- but I'm not asking you the play the sap for me.
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* Alas, the paperback book is no more.  Paperbacks comprise something more than seventy-five percent of the Roberta X Library of Science Fiction, Fantasy and (separately shelved) Mystery, so this hits close to home for me.  Literally; bookshelves are what we have in the dining and living room instead of wallpaper.

Back To It

     After more than a week of distractions, I played catch-up after work today today with my hobby writing -- or, as it happens, with other people's writing.  I still had a couple of manuscripts to go over before the critique group Saturday!

     The writing in the group remains pleasantly competent.  After several years of beginner's classes, it's nice to review work in which the flaws are mainly typos and occasional infelicitous phrasing.  And this month, a new thing: a screenplay!

     Formatting a TV or film script is like writing a haiku, or perhaps a sestina: the format is fixed, inflexible and tricky.  The usual advice for new screenwriters working "on spec" is to do a slightly expanded stageplay script instead, with all of the dialog and a few hints as to scene, setting and blocking.  (Like a Shakespeare play.)  After all, the final script is always a group effort, and, as I said, the format is tricky.  --And the one I just critiqued is, as near as I can tell, a very fine example of a full shooting script, in all its conventions.

The Ipcress File...Again?

     I found Len Deighton's not-quite-Everyman spy Harry Palmer the long way 'round and in reverse, starting with the book series by Charles Stross, a crossover between British spy novels and Lovcraftian horror,* The Laundry Files.  That led to Deighton's books (well worth reading) and from there to the films starring Michael Caine (well worth watching), and when one of our streaming services offered a preview of the updated, reimagined TV series version of the first novel some months back, of course I watched it.

     But it was one more streaming service, and expensive at the time, and there wasn't much else on it I wanted to see, so--  Maybe later.

     Much later, AMC finally re-released the series 1990s Remember WENN, (set in a small, independent radio station between 1939 and 1941 or so) and the first two seasons were available with ads on a free streamer.  I watched those, found it to be just as good as I remembered and wanted more.  The last two seasons were only on a couple of pay services, and one of them seemed like a better deal than the other.

     It wasn't until I'd signed up for it and saw their line-up that I realized why: they've got the TV series version of The Ipcress File, too.  So I've been watching it.

     The director and actor's Harry Palmer isn't Micheal Caine's.  The plot isn't exactly Deighton's either -- but he hadn't bothered to name the character to begin with, and the new guy is as delightfully competent and cynical as his predecessors in print and on film.  It's very stylish fun, set in a lovingly recreated 1960s (minus a few anachronisms most viewers will never notice) and I'm not entirely sure many of the reviewers figured out we're getting Harry's take on the story -- and Harry's looking up from fairly low on the class-system totem pole, with a complete lack of respect for the people who are supposedly his betters.  This is very much not James Bond, without bothering to sneer at the Bonds of fiction; Harry's much too busy to bother with that sort of thing.  He'll leave it to the empty suits who came from proper families and went to the right schools.

     They've taken such liberties with the plot that I'm not sure how it will end -- and I'm looking forward to finding out.
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* And also between computing history, a bit of math theory and a stack of D&D-type gaming, as things go on.

There Is Still No Antimemetics Division

     I read and enjoyed There Is No Antimemetics Division in both text forms, and it turns out there's a short film, as well.

     It's well done, and if you enjoy this sort of thing, here you go.

Pulp Fiction

     I wrote yesterday in a rush, and at first sight, it implies something I had no intention of saying, something I don't believe in: I said recent events were like a scrambled Atlas Shrugged, lacking John Galt.

     Ayn Rand was a huge fan of pulp fiction when she was younger, translated stuff in Russia and the pure quill once she came to the U.S.  Those stories were generally cast in the Gothic mode: there's a clear conflict between good and evil, a villain -- and a hero.  Robin Hood, Zorro, general Western Sheriffs, the Continental Op, Philip Marlowe, Batman, G-8, Doc Savage: they appear at key moments, solve the crime, vanquish the bad guy(s), save the day!   When Rand turned to novels, she used archetypes for her characters; of course she had a hero.  It's larger-than-life pulp.  A lot of famous literature is, if you take a step back.

     In real life, the guy who rides in big and bold to save the day is as likely to be a villain as a hero, if not more likely -- Napoleon springs most readily to mind, but you can fill in the blanks.  Good guys getting through tumultuous events and carrying the gen. pop along are likely to be committees: the Founders and Framers of the American Revolution and U.S. Constitution; the leaders, generals and admirals of the Allies in WW I and II.

     A recent news commentator opined that the Democrats are unlikely to sweep the midterm elections despite widespread disapproval of Republican performance in office, because voters see Dems as "weak" and the GOP as "strong."  Since when did we stop rooting for the underdog?  We got into two world wars a bit late, on the side that looked weak -- because it was the proper side; because the other guys were authoritarians with no respect for individual freedom, for freedom of the press, freedom of religion.  Unlike the pessimistic commentator, I don't think we we've lost that.

     We're Americans.  We dance right up to the brink.  So far, we've always known when to step back.

     (PS: Tam said, "So you're rehabilitating Ayn Rand?"  I don't think so.  She fell for her own fiction; you shouldn't.  There are a lot of interesting ideas floating around in fiction, SF especially, everything from The Moon Is A Harsh Matters to The Dispossessed and beyond.  None of them are guidelines around which to remold society, a project that always involves oppression.  One of the overlooked things about the governments that arose from the American Revolution is that in large measure and at every level, the people involved were trying to hold on to what they had and keep it going, not knock it flat and build a New Citizenry from the rubble and ash.  For better and worse, there weren't any huge departures from the trajectories they were already on.  Eventually, the most contradictory elements came into conflict....)

Conan The Historical Preservation

     Robert E. Howard's house, now a museum, is falling apart.  The Foundation running it needs our help.  While the author of Conan the Barbarian -- and a great many other cracking good stories featuring wonderful characters in fantastic situations -- hasn't lived there in quite some time, having ended his own life in 1936 -- the house still stands, restored much as it was.

     Few fantasy and SF writers get much physical recognition; Robert A. Heinlein's houses in Bonny Doon and Colorado Springs (much changed) bear little memory of him; you can look at Octavia Butler's typewriter, but not her workspace; Ray Bradbury's basement office has been recreated here in Indianapolis with original artifacts and there's a museum dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut not far away.  But the actual places where it happened, where the magic met paper?  Those are few and far between.

     You can help save Conan's birthplace.

Labor Day

      Here's to everyone doing physical work for a living, which includes me at least half the time.  I have done it all day, every day, not digging ditches but up and down ladders, in and out of trenches, stringing coaxial cable and smiling at the customers no matter what, and that kind of work is almost always underpaid.  But it's got to be done.

     I worked for myself, last night and today.  The fan bearing in the fridge got worse last night and the hot side was very hot indeed.  Rather than hope all the protective measures held while the fan screamed out its last and I tried to sleep, I pitched everything that was sensitive -- a couple of bouts of food poisoning have made me timid about food safety -- and put the fridge in icebox mode.  It held up okay overnight with the cold packs I had stockpiled in the freezer (keep your freezer full, with paths for airflow; it's more efficient and the gelpacks come in handy) and I added ice today.  More ice tomorrow, and that should get it to delivery of the new one, with cold soft drinks for Tam and cold UHT milk and Reese's Cups for me along the way.

     A fair part of the day, I spent clearing away books in the library/dining room so there will be a wide path from the front door to the kitchen.  It was overdue work, and there's still more to do.

The Great Crash, 1929

      I finished John Kenneth Galbreath's book about the stock market crash and, almost in passing, its connection to the Great Depression that followed.

     He closes with some interesting observations, listing major contributing factors.  At the top of the list, extreme income inequality.  The problem as he sees it is that the whims of a few major players can make an impression that the chaotic urges of thousands of lesser lights cannot -- unless they're following the lead of the big guys.  There'd been booms and busts during the era of the "robber barons" a few decades earlier and the phenomenon of extreme wealth for a very few came back even harder in the 1920s.  Look around: we've got that again.

     He follows that with "bad corporate structure," the kind of trusts and holding companies that concatenated during the boom years before the Crash, companies that existed only to own the stock of companies that also existed only to own stock and so on: while they amplified gains, they also amplified losses, so that when things went bad, they kept getting worse.  While that kind of thing is a lot less likely today -- and you can thank New Deal reforms and regulations for the reduced risk -- any novel financial instrument carries similar risk, as the sub-prime mortgage crisis awhile back revealed.

     "Bad banking structure" comes in for censure, and that got a post-Crash restructure, too.  Some of it has been rolled back.  Good, bad?  I don't know; ask an economist.  Ask three of 'em, and you'll get four different opinions. 

     Next, "the dubious state of the foreign balance," and Galbreath credits high tariffs with helping to create the problem.  They were not nearly as high then as they have become in the last few months.  Ouch.

     The stock market has "circuit breakers" these days: if prices start plunging, trading is suspended.  While that may sound like a cheat, one of the main reasons for it (past putting brokers in time out to ponder their actions) is to let the record-keeping catch up.  On multiple occasions during the 1929 crash, the decline and subsequent trading, sell-outs, bankruptcies, etc. got so far ahead of the data coming out of the stock market that nobody knew what was going on until hours after the close of trading; some people "lost everything" not once but multiple times.  They ended up in holes too deep to claw their way out of.  These days, the market can still crush you -- but it's a lot less likely to keep trying to wring out more afterward.

     We're certain to see abrupt dips in the stock market -- if not today (seems to be mildly up so far), then eventually; we're unlikely to have another Great Crash.  Unlikely does not mean impossible, and no matter how carefully a thing has been made foolproof, new and more ingenious fools arrive every day.  Have they once again become too clever for their -- and our -- own good?  Time will tell.

Watching TV, Reading The News

     I could point out that the intersection between "I unfriended the notorious pedo for being a perv" and "I unfriended the notorious pedo for poaching two employees from my spa (one of whom is known to have later been one of his victims)" is not exactly exonerative.  I could, but you either already knew the guy was scum or you're still waving the Hooray For Him flag and will never drop it.  So what's the point?*

     Instead, I will report that Tam and I watched the entire first season of Ballard, and if you enjoyed Bosch and the follow-on, you'll probably like it.  Same city, different setting, same old grimy, imperfect LAPD.  This one's more of an ensemble effort, though the title character is certainly front and center.  She's no Harry Bosch; she's very much her own person.

     Michael Connelly is one of the all time great storytellers.  He is not a knock-your-socks-off prose stylist, but a skilled inventor of personalities, situations, and plots filled with unexpected twists and reverses.  His fiction translates exceptionally well to the screen and the film and TV writers and directors (and actors and set designers and so on) have done justice to the material.
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* I will admit that I'm curious as to what form the defensive comments will take -- will it be "Nobody's perfect," "It's totally not creepy that a rich guy employs extremely young female masseuses in his club's spa," or the non sequitur, "You just hate the Great Man?"  The latter is half true; I do loathe him, but he's not great.  Look, I'm sorry you chose to hitch your wagon to a pile of manure, but you can always get unhitched and it's high time you did.  The smell lingers. 

Some Weekend

     Once again, I chaired the monthly writer's "critique group," where we analyze one another's work, everything from grammar and word use to plot development and character behavior: "Your protagonist is an underweight ten-year-old -- do you really think she could fight off a tiger bare-handed?"

     It's fun but exhausting; I'm markedly not an extrovert, and I find a pleasant morning talking shop with a half-dozen friends exhausting.  I napped in the afternoon (instead of doing laundry) and grilled moderately-priced steaks for dinner as a treat, with baked potatoes and salad.  That left Sunday for laundry and housework; blogging had to wait.

     On politics, the merchants of balloon-filling (get it while it's hot!) were busy all weekend, especially on the Sunday politics shows.  These days, it's like going to a silent movie, and if you cared to watch, you booed at the villains and cheered for the heroes, and Little Nell got tied to the train tracks same as always.  The locomotive is just out of sight around the bend, smoke trailing upward from the stack, bell ringing, whistle hooting, and yet everyone is acting like it will never arrive.  Going to be an interesting day when it does.

     On the topic of imminent doom, I've been reading John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929, an analysis of the factors that led up to the event that marks the start of the Great Depression.  There's plenty to debate in Galbraith's politics -- though he did correctly identify the Vietnam War as a quagmire best avoided, well before U. S. involvement -- but his lively, snarky approach to a subject that could be a dull slog (and has often been, in other hands) is well worth reading.  The book, written in 1955, accurately identifies one of the clever tricks that led to 2007's sub-prime mortgage crisis and remains a red flag to look out for; the dismal science is much better at looking backward than warning of danger ahead, so props to him for that.

"It's All About Salemanship!"

     Elsewhere on social media, a writer told the tale of doing a book-signing, and having a guy come up and ask why he ought to buy that writer's book, in a friendly, convince-me kind of way.

     It's the wrong question, asked of the wrong person.  The author can tell you what their book is about, who the major characters are, and perhaps even why they wrote the book.  They can't tell you why you should buy it and read it.  Only you can.

     To put it another way: "You have clearly mistaken literature for vacuum cleaners.  That's not how books work.  Pick it up, read a few pages.  Does it speak to you?  If not, put it down, go to the shelves and try one of the thousands of other books."

     The purpose of sales is to convince you to make a choice between essentially identical items -- Hoover or Electrolux, Camels or Luckies, MickeyD's or Burger Thing.  Books are not essentially identical, at least good ones aren't, and what appeals to one reader may leave another reader cold.  Flashy covers, blurbs, promotions and yes, even book signings notwithstanding, it's the reader who works out why they ought to buy a particular book.