THANKS & other stuff
By Alex Ness
October 18, 2021
(All images are copyright their respective owners & are
used only in fair use. Click to enlarge.)
Interview week was again a great deal of fun, and was a wonderful time of robust learning for me, and I hope for others. I'm grateful for the time each of the interview subjects gave, as well as the answers shared with me. Everyone who seeks to be creative, or is interested in how artists create gains from reading how others think, and create benefits from reading the words about the process. Everyone involved in creative arts knows that learning to improve and learning how to make your work better doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I'd like to say, I know time isn't free, and no one has more hours in the day just because they want more, as such, I am grateful that the people took the time and effort to respond.
THE COMPLETE LINK & THANKS LIST:
Chris Staros
Alan Dean Foster
Richard LeDue
Joe Monks
Anna Mocikat
Dave Wheeler
Bob Giadrosich
Josh Howard
Jeff Crandall
FAREWELL NORM, SCREW YOU DAVE, WHAT THE F JON, & CB That was stupid
I
was a fan of and appreciated the style of Norm Macdonald. I don't know
that he was moral, but he was human, so he had flaws like we all do. I
liked his rogue personae, his humor's presentation, and in ways my humor seems to some people who've noticed to be similar but from this point in
time, I don't know that his humor influenced my own, or that old white
guys after a while end up thinking or saying things in a certain
fashion. It is true his humor is a far greater one than I have. I get that. And, I do know people who despised his humor, others who thought he was
funny but likely a prick. And I haven't any idea the reality. But now,
he has died and I'll miss his humor.
Dave Chapelle is a comedian
I haven't liked, nor shared the outlook of. In his latest Netflix
comedy event, he shits upon people who are Transgender. Now, I do
understand that he isn't a transgender person, and that he doesn't think
they are "normal". I'd suggest that normal isn't always a
good thing, and being different isn't always or even usually a good
thing. He benefits from a society that is diverse, open to change, and
in America in particular where he undoubtedly makes most of his money,
we have rights, that are given by birth, to all who exist. I don't
usually dismiss someone's work as ignorant, and in this case, I think he
works for other people, but not me. I definitely wonder, while he
has a right to express an opinion, why should he be allowed to attack
any group of people. To make the point somewhat more open to hate, I
wonder why if he considers certain speech to be racist, that he is
allowed to use a similar kind of speech for a different group than the
one he identifies with. That could be a male heterosexual, or black, or
human comedian. Why is he doing what he doesn't like being done when it is done to himi?
Jon Gruden resigned from the Las Vegas and Formerly Oakland Raiders.
Over the last four years you could see him begin to change the
organization and perhaps turn it into a winner. But the NFL released
emails from him, written prior to his joining the Raiders. He used
racist, homophobic and misogynistic phrases and commentary, and shared images that were not taken with consent of those depicted. In the
present era I think there is room for vulgar speech in private, I am not
saying it is right, only that, the limits of who might be harmed are
far smaller than when in public. In the present I've certainly changed
my personal behavior to make certain I don't offend where I am not
intending offense, but in my public commentary and public speech I refuse to be
so foolish as this. I realize, in fact I guarantee that I might be an
idiot, I might be unpopular, foolish or silly, but it is unbelievable to
me when people who lead others are so self absorbed as to not realize
what they are doing. A simple slip of the tongue might be foul, but it
might not necessarily reveal the human heart saying it. But taking pen to paper
and write or say this, or worse, using a permanent form of information thing like print or recorded
video? Only a fool would do such things.
Marvel Comics
Editor in Chief and occasional writer C.B. Cebulski has recently been
roasted on the internet, and perhaps in person, for having written under
a false name, Akira Yoshida, and having made comments that he was
Japanese and was a member of Japanese culture. There is something called
Yellowface, where a white actor takes a role that is Asian in
ethnicity. There is also something called a pen name or ghost writing. I've little to say about this situation since I am not as familiar as I
try to usually be. I think it is one thing to use a pen name and create
a false name and background to make it sound more authentic. I've
been told he used the idea that he was Asian to gain advantage, to seem
an expert, to be someone the white guy behind the name was not. I think
that is rather inappropriate. I don't suggest pen names are wrong, and
ghost writing is a means of an author helping someone tell their story,
even if the person whose real name is used is not themselves a great or
even good writer.
TIME AND THOSE WHO TRAVEL THROUGH IT
“Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple.” Robert A. Heinlein
Someone recently told me that I live in the 1980s regarding my taste and ideas. I am not debating that, whether or not I agree. I do, however, find it interesting how people see others as being a product of their era. Perhaps, every different era of life might come with weaknesses and advantages, as well as a distinctly different outlook than the current time. I saw this over and over growing up. I was a child in the 1960s and spent the 70s in teen and preteen times. I'm aware that the 60s seemed to many to be an era of burning down the previous cultural truisms. Whether it came from the civil rights movement, the failure in Vietnam, or the generation coming into its own presence, being a generation that was born from parents who'd seen World War Two happen, there is considerable debate over why such cultural changes happened.
What sealed my perception that each generation is thought of as being very different from one another, with specific outlooks and traits, came when I recently wrote a review of a book regarding the JFK Assassination, and a person replied, well yeah but your generation sees conspiracies in everything. Now, that I will debate. I think that the time between the start of the Cold War to the end of the Cold War can be shown that conspiracies happened, in government, in cultural events, in murders, and peace movements. Not all conspiracies or secret actions were evil, mind you, but security issues, secrecy and desire to create a change leads directly to events and had to involve conspiracy.
“She climbs up thread and down; she braids and unbraids history's hair.” Amal El-Mohtar
However much we might wish it to be, time isn't a concept that is flexible, soft or without form or function or even portable. Time itself, apart from any cultural purpose or fictional views, doesn't exist. It is a mental concept/construct is used to order events and give a perspective to evolution and progress of a society or tribe or kin group or individual. As such, it becomes used in mental views or fiction, often, as a force in and of itself, but that doesn't really work. I've thought about life recently and how things have taken over the awareness and attention of people in modern society. We seem shocked that Global Warming has happened, (or not shocked at all), or seem to be amazed and horrified how Covid has seemed to be or has been so bad, when we are modern global society that seems much brighter and able than people of the past and therefore should know better. The perception of progress of human culture and time is surely a double
edged sword. The reason for this is that we see ourselves as so much
brighter and how we've achieved so much, but we also are often unaware
of the accomplishments of the past human societies. We've
also absolutely been in worse situations from natural disasters, including meteor and comet strikes to wars to
plagues and disease, and due to those things the human past is a place we are well relieved to no
longer be.
We've become a society that has a perception based around the
importance of the current moment over
that of historical knowledge or a lack of esteem or belief in the achievement of generations
prior to our own. While human progress has continued to move forward, the truth is, we have levels of grade school and levels of teaching and difficulty of subjects because we build from childhood to adulthood in the knowledge we acquire, how we learn to use that and retain what we've learned. If it constantly feels like we've elevated
our own perceptions of worth, by doing so we ignore the progress of the
past.
Modern perceptions of worth are not a problem, because the truth is we know more, and are advanced in our collective knowledge. But belief in the present era's superiority is a problem. This is due to a perception of the inevitability of progress leading to hubris, and the
inevitability of the human culture to thrive is false because if there were a disaster, we could lose it all. We've arrived
where we have from forces of both progress and regress. We've advanced
medicine, but had do so due to terrible disease, plagues and more. If a virus mutates as much as we learn, we might lose it all. Our
life expectancy has risen to such a place that modern people assume it
the normal of the human species, but less than 200 years ago average
humans rarely lived to 70 years of age, let alone being the common life
expectancy. So, for me, as a historian and poet, both occupations
requiring observation of the past and present as a whole, I understand
the fascination with time travel.
One aspect of time travel that
is well used involves how one sees the human future. Rarely are there
visions of utopias, but I think the worst dystopias that are shown are also mostly
unlikely. However one thinks and feels, about the present will leave an impact upon one's visions of the future. And beyond the present, what happens might be a result of the creative talent's intellectual outlook, fears,
or hopes and not something based upon the present events.
Time travel is a concept and idea that occurs in
television, comics, movies, novels, and games. But it varies in how
well it works, and how it works. First, not every creative talent
considers time to be a natural, permanent feature of human minds. Some
view time as an artificial construct. As such, time could be paused for
a people or place, due to isolation or event. Travel can happen with a
machine or long sleep. Time is a subject for exploration, or instead,
it is damaged and someone must fix it.
Television's Dr. Who is loved by many. Each doctor is a time lord, from a dimension different than earth. I loved Patrick Troughton's Dr, the rest I liked enough, and the stories were almost always best with Cybermen, Daleks, and great alternate history concepts. The Time Tunnel, from the 1960s was pretty much just ok but not from bad scripts or ideas. It had a good concept, but the result was never anywhere as good due to limits of the era. That's ok, but it is one of the series I wouldn't watch again. There are a number of fun shows that aren't necessarily good. Quantum Leap was a successful show that many viewers loved, and it uses time travel, but I really did not enjoy it. TimeCop had potential, and was worth the attempt, but it didn't last long enough to fully develop.
The best comic for time travel is easily Pax Romana. I think the reason for the higher quality of it comes directly from the fact that time is an active and lush component of the story, it introduces concepts of modernity on a level playing field with the past. The comic Aztec Ace was fun, but not truly serious. While I thought it had far more potential than result, I did buy it and liked it a great deal. I think that X-Men Days of the Future Past is fine, it uses time as a concept and played out well by the creatives. It has limits for some people, as it lingers on the edge of serious but utilizes a concept that some disbelieve in. The concepts of racism and genocide within concept of superheroes does work, but it requires more suspension of belief than a story told straightforward without costumes and heroes and villains. If one likes superheroes to begin with the allegory works well, as the verisimilitude is well created.
Any discussion of the novels about time travel has to begin with and include HG Wells and his book The Time Machine. While limited by the known world of the era it was written, it opened the door to every other work, I think. Poul Anderson's High Crusade is the best written and most fun novel involving time travel. A medieval era kingdom experiences an alien visitation, and then humans do what we are good at, and the visitors learn how dangerous even medieval humans can be. Anderson wrote often about time travel, and he was a great author. Edgar Rice Burroughs told tales that don't involve travel by mechanical means to the past, but discovery of lost lands that have never evolved or changed due to progress and science. They are fun but far less effective than Poul Anderson's works.
The various time travel RPGs shown are offered without my having played most of them. Timeship was half baked and tried to cover so much ground it didn't cover what it could have at all well. Time Travel Gurps was good, but less good than many of the other settings/themes as other Gurps books. The rest shown have been reviewed well, but I can't say, I didn't play them. However, I must say, I don't really find myself moved by most game systems, so for me the setting or theme needs to be much better than the system used, because if I am going to learn a new system, I need to like what the game is about. Gurps is a great game system.
Time After Time involves HG Wells trying to solve the mystery of the Jack the Ripper killings, and I think while I didn't love it, I liked it. I do like the movie The Terminator, and time is bruised by the many intrusions from the future in the series. Predestination sounds like a religious movie, but it is not. It has a few major plot twists that should not be revealed, so I'll just say it is based upon a Robert A. Heinlein short story titled All You Zombies, and it is freaking amazing in print, and the movie does a great job with it.
“I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes—to come to this at last. Once, life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed.” H.G. Wells
I was asked by an emailer why I cover so many works that seem to be different than my own personal interests or beliefs, such as might be found in my degrees in history and political science. They then asked why do I seem to like all of them? First off, I don't know that anything I have discussed here fell out of reach of anything I've experienced. I try to use my experience and knowledge to help the reader understand why I think what I do. I'm uncertain the specific items they are looking at. I do know that they think I am an intellectual, but I am not. I try to think on everything but intellectual suggests having an outlook that implies high brow, or elitist ideals. That isn't me.
As I developed my academic mind during grad school I learned that I couldn't teach well enough to change the world, and that I rightly perceived that academia would be unlikely to accept someone like me, someone who tried to teach through stories and rapport versus hard facts and politically proper political views. But I also realized, the world is enormous, and most of it moves me, and has value. One way to grow intellectually is to understand others who you do not know enough about, or know anything but stereotypes about. So, I tried reading books, translated, from various people, and that helped me grow, and I ate food from those places, and I developed an appreciation for them, despite being alien to them. I did this as often as I could, but at some point I realized, there is a destination that can be too far to travel, whether through literature, popular culture or food.
Sometimes the unknown is a dark abyss. Into that abyss I stare, gaze, and attempt to know the world around me but it is enormous. Sometimes I learn and experience that world. Other times I fail to digest all I consume or find, or I get overwhelmed by the entirety of it all. I want to taste every single culture and ideal but it might be true, that I don't have the wisdom and intellect to do so. I have to distinguish between knowledge of, versus knowledge. One might know of a concept, but that isn't the same and knowing it. The abyss is occasionally impenetrable. So the enclosed quote from Nietzsche I think is appropriate as an answer to the person writing the email.
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