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Writings As Bait: Author Phishing

Few things feel so good as having a big fish on the line. The anticipation, the excitement, the joy of landing a big one is universal.

This metaphor extends to authorship. When writers put their egos on the line through their books, they make themselves vulnerable. They become vulnerable to all kinds of promotion blandishments, publishing deals, and marketing schemes–good and bad, legal and not. . And that includes phishing.

What Is Phishing?

Author Phishing

Behavioral scientists describe the term as “a form of social engineering and a scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information about themselves. installing malware  such as viruses, worms, [etc.]” For our purposes, it involves playing upon the ego and gullibility of wirters and authors to spend money on worthless or nonexistent entities and promotions designed to promote their writings.

An Author Anecdote

This issue wasn’t a problem until my books appeared for sale on my Facebook and Google business pages. My newsletter piece celebrating National Unfriend Day in the November issue describes how scammers began inquiring about promoting my books to various reading groups.

Reading Group Inquiries

Reading Groups & Author PhishingInterestingly, the first approach came from an alleged reading group came from a library in Glasgow, Scotland. The scammer said all the right things, how much he admired my book, Mission: Soul Saacrifice, how much he admired its premise, and how it fit perfectly his group’s reading interests.

The Flashing Red Light

Knowing British readers seem more attuned to fantasy and supernatural themes, proceeding to the next step seemed the logical thing to do. Logical, that is, until he asked for advance money for “promotional purposes.” My involvements with most book groups in the States don’t require any upfront advance before making a personal appearance either in person or via a Zoom call.

This red light prompted a call the Library with which the group was allegely associated. The reference librarian there declared he had never heard of such a group. So, I declined their offer and thought that was the end of it.

But, no. Soon, groups all over the United States and elsewhere requested my appearing before their reading groups–money in advance, of course. Perhaps, these blandishments were due to pressure of the upcoming holidays. Or, it may have resulted from  or the sharing of my information over the Internet. But, no matter how many requests I deleted in my mailbox, more kept coming in.

Phishing Detection

Most of these phony requests were easy enough to spot. Some wanted to promote novels I’d written over twenty years ago. Others addressed me last name first, i.e. Dear Mr. Fietzer William or not at all. One addressed me properly, contained all the correct details, and in the proper order. However, they appeared in a font different from that of the inquiry–clearly a cut-and-paste job.

The Boldest Author Phishing Incident

But a request from a reading group in Melbourne, Australia topped the others for deception and sheer gall. A check on the veracity of the request uncovered a legitimate reading group existed in Melbourne. It turned out to be the headquarters of a world-wide network of reading groups, one located in Indianapolis. The request for appearance apparently came from the group president herself.

Only, the inquiry didn’t actually come from the president. Having been scorched several times, I queried the group’s contact person whether their president had contacted me about a Zoom call promotion. She replied the president told her she had not. This was the first time a scammer had impersonated the president of a real club to solicit funds from unwary authors.

What Can Be Done?

The president did provide a two-step list of actions to take (in Google) if readers or writers receive similar requests in the future. They are:

Report Phishing within Gmail (Desktop):

  1. Open the suspicious email in your inbox.
  2. Click the More icon (three dots) next to the Reply button.
  3. Select Report phishing.

Step 2

Report Fraudulent Activity to Google:

  1. Navigate to the Gmail abuse form in a web browse.
  2. Provide your contact information, the subject and body of the email, and any available message headers, which contain information about the email’s origin.
  3. Submit the report to Google.

Despite taking these actions, the president doubted these fraudulent perpetrators would be caught. However, the number and persistence of the requests I’ve received since then diminished significantly.

Author Phishing: Conclusions

Author Phishing Affects AuthorshipIt’s clear after this experience that a lot of scammers are out there willing to separate writers from their pocketbooks. True, they may act anonymously or impeersonate real people from legitimate institutions. However, most of the time their attempts are easy to spot. Or, uncovering their deceit is a simple matter of practicing due diligence.

Nonetheless, in this season of holiday commerce and gift-giving, it’s always wise to check what’s happening the other end of the phishing line. That promotional opportunity you’re about to land with a giddiness that someone’s finally interested in what you have to say? Watch out! It may leave you dangling from a scammer’s hook after fleecing you out of hundreds of dollars or more.

Take care.

What do you think? Let us know in the Leave a Reply section below. Thanks.

 

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Reflections: Post No-Kings-II

In the wake of all the No-Kings-II rallies last weekend, some sober reflections are in order.  Let me promise in advance this will not be an anti-Trump screed (go to some of my other blog posts for that).  Instead, let’s look at the practical as well the spiritual gains these protests achieved.  In short, what was accomplished and where does the movement go from here?

Post No-Kings-II Benefits

Looking south along Hwy 9 during No Kings II rally.

1. Identification:

No-Kings-II rally in Poughkeepsie NY
Looking south along Hwy 9 during No Kings II rally.

First of all, the 2700+ No-Kings-II rallies produced a sense of continuing identity. The second rally proved the first No Kings rally was not a fluke. Instead, it revealed the  growing momentum of  spirit among people united against Trump’s authoritarianism. As Ezra Levin, co-founder of the progressive movement Indivisible, pointed out,  the numbers of people attending each of the three major rallies increased by 40-50 per cent each time.

2. Communication:

Second, preparation for the event required for each rally fostered increased discussion and networking among those who attended. This communication occurred not only face-to-face, but via telephone, email, and social media connections as well. New personal acquaintances sprang up.  And out of this our social and political knowledge evolved.

For example, my wife and I became familiar with organizations and movements such as Neighbor To Neighbor and 5 Calls. In the absence of any local group in the Poughkeepsie NY area, we established PK Power, a local group affiliated with Indivisible intended as a discussion and local action group to support nation-wide anit-authoritarian protests.

Such initiatives, personal and collective, foster a sense of community and support among those involved. Many pundits running the gambit of political persuasion speak out against the Trump’s regime’s intimidation tactics designed to dispirit his opponents. Our groups counter his minions’ activities through their shared resistance. And they provide a sense of unity, a serious psychological support against his followers’  stsrong-arm tactics.

3. Actionability:

No-Kings-II rally in Poughkeepsie NY
Looking north along Hwy 9 at the several thousand who participated.

Finally, these Infivisible rallies and information sessions provide concrete solutions to counter government behaviors that seem overwhelming and intractable. Certainly, when a constitutional legal champion like Marc Elias describes the Trump team’s lawlessness inside and outside  the criminal justice system, their fearsome actions mimic the unrelenting and unfeeling relentlessness of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator characterization.

Unlike Rebecca Solnit‘s incisive is mildly scatalogical assessment of late-stage Trumpism, Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin have provided workable, scalable, and legal activities to counter the lawless actions of  paramilitary organizations like ICE and the extra-legal mechanizations of people like Stephen Miller. Small-scale protests and local acts of resistance are effective and can be scaled up to national level actions.

Drawbacks

Rally poster at the Poughkeepsie NY No-Kings-II rallyMuch like Trump’s minions, resistance under the Indivisible banner is not perfect. The following reveals some of our movement’s shortcomings:

1. Speed:

No-Kings-II rally poster
Rally poster at the Poughkeepsie NY No-Kings-II rally

Unlike the Trump regime with its comparatively small nucleus of participants, people operating under the banner of resistance groups must coordinate with a much greater number of participants. So many diverse groups with their differing goals and initiatives make collective mobilization difficult and unwieldy.

2. Transparency:

Now that Indivisible has organized three separate mass protests against the Trump regime, its operational tactics are clear. Trump’s minions operate in secret and behind closed doors, but mass protests are public and readily knowable. The threat of disruption, incarceration, and violence remains a constant threat.

3. Fatigue:

Maintaining the energy level that fuels protests and peaceful acts of rebellion is always difficult. While the Magas and Trump’s enablers have their zealotry to sustain them (not to mention prison-time accountability should they fail), the people who participate in the No Kings rallies have only their decency and conscience to sustain them. The temptation to give in to their apprehensions is always there.

After No-Kings-II

Sign from No-Kings-II rally, Poughkeepsie, NY
Sign at the Poughkeepsie NY No Kings rally.

What happens now? Ezra Levin says plans are in the works for a third national day of protest. His organizers and participants need time to recharge and reorganize. In the meantime, Indivisible offers a variety of actions and sources for local grou[s to consult.

Judging from discussions I’ve had with fellow rally-goers and PK Power-Indivisible  participants, the time for wake-up calls passed long ago. Tearing down the East wing of the White House demonstrates that fact literally and figuratively. Many people (the majority, I hope) want action. They want to take back the government that is rightfully everyone’s ours. Rallies like No Kings II and organizations like Indivisible provide the ways and means to accomplish it.

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Plausible Deniability from Babbage to Kirk :

Plausible Deniability: Charlie KirkMany people, myself included, first heard the concept of plausible deniability in association with right-wing political activist, Charlie Kirk.  But, did you know that the concept first appeared in the writings of the 19th century “Father of the Computer” Charles Babbage? The concept  enjoyed a checkered, sometimes unsavory reputation since then but received revived attention with Kirk’s horrendous assassination.

What Is Plausible Deniability?

First of all, a definition with some exampless is in order. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, plausible deniability is “the ability to say in a way that seems possibly true that you did not know about something or were not responsible for something.”  For example, an athlete may claim that taking a legistimate medical prescription may be the cause for his/her positive drug tests. Or, an organization pretends that websites run by  representatives are autonomous thus enabling it to disstance itself from controversial statements and claims made by those sites.

Origin and History of Plausible Deniability

Plausible Deniability: Charles BabbageAlthough the concept may have existed throughout human history as the Wikipedia entry  claims, it never received formal recognition until Charles Babbage described it in his Ninth Bridgwater Treatise.  There he depicted it as a deceitful but common political process whereby committee members could maintain deniability regarding sensitive or unethical decisions. It required “a few simply honest men” on a committee who could be conveniently, and temporarily, dismissed when a “peculiarly delicate question” arose. In that way, one of those absent members could “declare truly, if necessary, that he “never was present at any meeting at which even a questionable course had been proposed.”

Plausible Deniability: Allen DullesThis abstract concept lay dormant until 1948. Then, a series of National Security Council (NSC) papers defined “covert operations” committed in behalf of the U.S. government “are so planned and executed that … if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.”  Later on In 1952, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA( Director Allen Dulles coined the term “”plausibly deniable” for operations committed in the government’s behalf.

From there the term reappears regularly in political histories, especially American, over the last forty years.  Coverage of events as disperate as the Cuban invasion, Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, and the Wagner Group’s invasions into Ukraine, Syria, and Africa all reference the term. Even the unbiased Australian media outlet, The Conversation,  speaks of how Kirk’s radicalism evolved from the “casula denigation and dehumanization of the ‘enemies’ . . . into the “dark and sarcastic humor that allow[s] for plausible deniability while still spreading hate.”

Context’s Role

It appears that connotations associated with plausible deniability have changed over the past 150 years since Babbage defined the concept. Whereas he spoke of it in terms of a political ploy used by bureaucrats in the course of their indvidual infighting, the CIA institutionalized it as a procedural weapon against their opponents to evade accountability for their actions.

In Babbage’s case, he wrote of it within the context of the early 19th century’s debate over religion and science.  Whereas, philosopher David Hume‘s rejected miracles as a part of the laws (including human) of nature, Babbage envisioned them as part of God’s divine plan.  Similar to today’s human computer programmer, he envisioned the deity as having “the supreme ‘foresight’ to encode apparent adaptations and deviations into the universe from the beginning.”

Such foresight applies to miracles as well. Rather than a violation of nature, Babbage stated that miracles “follow preprogrammed rules that are too complex for human comprehension.” Therefore, in regards to the existence of such miracles, “it is ALWAYS possible to assign a number of independent witnesses, the improbability of the falsehood of whose concurring testimony shall be greater than the improbability of the alleged miracle.”

Plausible Deniability in the Modern Age

Currently, the idea of plausible deniabilty is neither as loffy nor as philosophical as Babbage’s conception. The telling difference is a procedural one based on economies of scale. Instead of being applied on an individual level, entire governments work to employ deniable plausibility on a mass scale as a part of institutional policy.

Beyond the examples cited above, even computer networks (ironically from Babbage’s viewpoint) can be set to relay certain types of broadcasts automatically. For instance, the original transmitter of a file becomes indistinguishable from those who are merely relaying it. Organized that way, those people who first transmitted the file can claim that their computer had merely relayed it from elsewhere.

Conclusion

It seems ironic that the religious man who conceived of the notion of plausible deniability as part of his defense for God’s existence should have it used for dubious ends such as Watergate and the CIA’s overthrow of countries. Perhaps some of it stems from his mechanistic view of the universe and of the god that created it. The son of a banker and a mathematically gifted polymath from an early age, Babbage seldom appearss to have viewed people as anything other than chess pieces to move around to fit his theories.

In fact, most of his work in his appropriately titled book, The Economy of Machines and Manufactures, delineates  the “careful division of labor” from a managerial rather than a worker standpoint. He restricts his view of human input within the factory system to the time period for recover of training costs.

Plausible Deniability: Babbage's Analytical EnginePerhaps if the conceiver of the Analytical Engine had viewed plausible deniability in a less narrow, more humane light, his legacy as originator of the concept would be less harsh. No individual can anticipate the future’s regard for his work with certainty. Howver, a more flexible, humanistic view of God and the universe might have softened or even nullified today’s ethos. A cultural mindset that promotes worker productivity at the expense their well-being, institutionalizes plausible deniability, and influences radical activists like Charlie Kirk..

What do you think? This post provides another entry in an occasional series about the Trump administration’s impact on our culture (see Shelley’s Unsung Poem & Anti-Trump Protest among others). Let me know in the Leave a Comment section below.

 

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Things Found Searching Other Things

Ever fallen down a rabbit hole while investigating a topic? I have–numerous times. The side diversions of things found researching other things are what make it fun and, hopefully, enjoyable to the reader.

The trick is not to engage in an information dump at the expense of the reader’s patience. A great practitioner of walking that fine line was a syndicated columnist who wrote a column entitled “Things Found on the Way to Other Things.” His column appeared in the Saturday edition of the Wisconsin State Journal back in the 1980 and 1990s. Factoids then, today they’re referred to as nuggets or Easter Eggs. Regardless of time or terminology, they’ purvey the context or back ground of an interesting tidbit of information.

Things Found: A Shaggy Dog Story

Things found: shaggy dog storyThat is what we have here. Originally, this blog post intended to deal with stressed individuals’ growing use of AI and Chatbots instead of human professionals for emotional and psychiatric treatment. (More on that below). However, in the process of developing that narrative, one thing became quite apparent. Despite my previous  blog on the related topic of the mental health of family caregivers, I possessed little expertise on the merits or pitfalls  of psychiatric Chatbot treatment.

Consequently, this shortcoming forced me to expand the scope of my topic and the  research attending it. Being a writer and published author prompted me to approach the topic from a viewpoint more in keeping with my vocational ballpark. Numerous novles and short stories come to mind that depict unreliable or delusional narrators. Edgar Allan Poe‘s “The Telltale Heart” and Henry James‘ “The Turn of the Screw” are two famiiar examples. In fact, the caareers of such gothic horror novelists as William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, or Steven King wouldn’t have existed without their mentally disturbed protagonists.

Enter Fyodor Dostoevsky

Found things: drawing of Raskolnikov by BoklevskiyYet, whatever the brilliance of Faukner’s Quentin Compson or King’s Carrie White characterizations, their fictional progenitor has to be Rodion Raskolnikov in Feodor Dostoevsky‘s Crime and Punishment.  Published in 1866, it depicts the killing, retribution, and redemption of an impovershed law student who seeks to justify his hubris by proving he is as “exceptional” as Napoleon Bonaparte was a half century before.

As it turns out, he is not. Rather than having the strength of will he admires in his idol, he suffers from the weakness of conscience, of humanity, in committing such an ignoble act regardless how deserving or corrupt his victim. Since that time, many anti-social personages, famous and ignominous, have sought to distinguish themselves and justify their cruelty and inhumanity in a similar way. Unlike Raskolnikov, none of his successors achieved redemption.

So What?

At this point, you might wonder what this plunge into things found amongst the weeds of literary history has to do with psychiatric chatbots and AI. Well, hang on. We must dig deeper before all becomes clear. One interesting sidelight about Dostoevsky’s creation is his protagonist’s last name. It derives from the Russian term for schismatic, a reference to a member of the Old Believer movement of the early 18th century in Russia.

Though the term suggests a breaking away or splintering from the religious norm, it also reflects the traditional values of the anti-reform dissenters. These people rebelled against Tsar Alexey‘s blending of the traditional Russian Orthodox Church with its Greek Orthodox counterpart. After years of persecution under czarist and  communist authorities, the Old Believers’  strict morals and rejection of all things western now enjoy a renaissance throughout Russia and beyond in the 21st century.

Things Found: The Upshot

Found Things: Cultural UpheavalThe historical relevance of this literary correlation now seems more applicable. As in 17th-century Russia, the adoption of new ways of thinking and acting are seldom affable. In times of great cultural upheaval such as ours, adherence or reversion to the old ways is an inevitable expression of conscience for some. For others, it justifies the cruelty and persecution meted out to those who differ from themselves, whether culturally, ethnically, or intellectually.

It is an old game. Pundits and politicians take advantage of change for their own ends. Professional research indicates that AI and ChatGPT are no match for the caring and concerned treatment of the metally disturbed by a trained, human professional. The trenchant issue is a matter of appropriations and values. Because psychological AI has advised one patient to murder his parents, should that single diagnosis invalidate all AI psychological advising, particularly where there is a lack of funding or staffing? Doesn’t this also mean we should reexamine our priorities regarding these considerations?

Weighty concerns. While you consider them, recall your own reading habits. Particularly you boomers: think back on the Saturday section of your newspaper if you received one. Do any of you remember the syndicated column mentioned at the beginning of this blog? If so, identify the columnist in the Leave a Reply section below. I’d love to hear from you.

 

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Hidden Secrets of Colonial Foodways Revealed

Ever wonder why you eat the things you do? Is it the taste? Your Upbringing? Cultural heritage? A combination of all three?

Poughkeepsie Partnership

Colonial Foodways: Chef Robert PerilloThese issues and more formed the basis of Culinary Institute of America  food historian Beth Forrest and Chef/Professor Robert Perillo‘s presentations at the Town of Poughkeepsie’s Senior Center Wednesday night, July 17th. This first in a series of lectures, tours, and film screenings is partnered by the Poughkeepsie Public Library District and the Town of Poughkeepsie  Historic Preservation Commission.  It kicked off monthly celebrations of our country’s 250th anniversary with a free, full-course dinner that typified the standard cuisine Americans ate during the formative years (18th century) of our nation.

Colonial Foodways Dinner

If you expect (as I did) such a meal would be monotonous and bland, think again. Chef Perrillo and his cadre of CIA student volunteers/aspiring chefs set before each of the hundred-plus attendees platters filled with samples from a variety of food stuffs. These included items as varied as smoked fish, collard greens, and apple-pickled asparagus. In addition, almond pudding and election cakes served as dessert washed down with ginger beer, raspberry-rose drink, or water.

Power Dynamics of Colonial Foodways

Colonial Foodways: Food Historian Beth ForrestProf. Forrest’s pre-dinner presentation provided an overview of the food items available to the average american’s palette. Sugar and salt were scare commodities at this time, so cooks emphasized the savory side through local herbs and animal fat. Sorghum, nuts, and berries formed the basis of most desserts.

A hierarchy of cuisines formed early iin our history. Indigenous dishes including local game such as turkey ranked at the apex with European and African food sources such as okra falling below that. This hierarchy reflected greater cultural themes of environment, heritage, and identity that shaped colonial America well into its future. One example:  Americans originally disdained corn and potatoes as foodstuffs meant only for the poorer classes. Meanwhile, apples came to be prized for their sweetness and their trees prized as property markers.

Colonial Foodways & the Columbian ExchangeColonial Foodstuffs and the Columbian Exchange

As a result, food preferences then and now reflect the evolving power dynamics implicit in food availablity, selection, and preparation. The cultural interchanges among nations of  also occurred in the food stuffs they consumed.  This Columbian Exchange, a term coined by Prof. Alfred W. Crosby, introduced new plants and animals to both hemispheres. For example, European explorers introduced horses to Native Americans. And indigenous Americans introduced Europeans to the tomato.

More Colonial-Related Events to Come

As mentioned above, this dinner introduces a variety of similarly entertaining and thought-provoking events associated with our Colonial Heritage. To learn more, grab a copy of t the Poughkeepsie Public Library District’s newsletter, The Rotunda. Or you can go to their website and look under the “History & Current Events” section for their list of current related presentations.

Let me know what events you attended and why. If none of these events suit your taste (Get it?),  let me know that, too. As always, leave your comments in the Leave a Reply section below. Thanks.

 

 

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Authorship Game-changer: Trump 2.0

Game-changer: AuthorshipThe four months after my blog post  on Trump 2.0 show him to be the  institutional game-changer many of us dreaded. My post at that time discussed how to cope with the impact of his administration in general terms. This one addresses his impact and how to deal with it in more specific and personal areas: independent authorship and publishing. The discussion below itemizes some general points with my persaonl commentary.

Game-changer in General Publishing

An Artificial Intelligence (AI) meta-search on the topic breaks down Donald Trump‘s impact on the publishing industry into five key areas:

  1. Trade and Tariffs
  2. Government Funding
  3. Freedom of Speech
  4. Author Mobility
  5. Shift to Digital Formats

Of these, items 1 and 3 may be the most significant for independent authors. The others can be dismissed for the purposes of this post.

Why?

Many independent authors already embrace digital formats through ebooks and audio formats. Government funding primarily benefits researchers and non-fiction writers in general, i.e. anyone whose income derives from government grants. In regards to author mobility, Trump’s policies affect those writers who have significant readership in other countries. A prime example is Curtis Chin . He claims to have lost ten thousand dollars per speaking engagement due to cancellations on American college campuses.

On the other hand, Item 3 strikes at the heart of the independent writers movement–freedom of expression. Without independent writers, publishers, and bookstores, readers would receive their information only from the corporate legacy publishers and the writers who work for them. The current news cycle demonstrates how easily information from these sources is compromised and homogenized.

Trade and Tariffs: A Personal CaseTrump 2.0: Game-changer

That leaves Item 1. It provides an anecdotal example of Trump’s impact on indendent authorship. Aside from increased printing and shipping costs, Trump’s tariff ban reduces the already-narrow profit margins independent authors and publishers rely upon to survive. These authors either purchase paperback copies of their manuscripts from a bulk printer like IngramSpark or buy them at wholesale prices from an independent publisher. Either way, the retail markup on these items depends upon what reader traffic will bear.

In recent years, with the increasing number of books published annually (circa two million) and the increasing implementation of author giveaways to generate reader interest, the markup margin grew smaller and smaller. Based on personal experience, the top price readers expect to pay for mid-range fiction paperbacks ranges between 15 and 19 dollars. Charging more than that dampens reader purchases because it infringes on what the price range of hardcover genre fiction–$20 – $25.

Since small-press publishers charge authors 55-65% wholesale per item, price increases anywhere along the supply chain (paper, shipping, etc.) diminish the profit authors receive. Add in the initial outlay of purchasing books in bulk from printers like IngramSpark and the giveaways cited above, independent authors face a difficult time making ends meet. Trump’s 2.0 tariff policies along with his cultural ntimidation tactics chill freedom of speech and diminish writers’ livelihoods.

Authorship Game-Changer(s)Game-changer(s): What We Can Do

Some game-changer solutions lurk within the examples above. The Alliance for Independent Authors recommends (with my comments):

  • Monitoring your print supply chain–know where your books are printed and shipped
  • Diversity production–utilize Print on Demand (POD) options
  • Stay informed–consult reliable trade news sources
  • Consider other sources–ebook and audiobooks are unaffected

These bullet points summarize what independent authors can do to maintain the quality and affordability of their products. Furthermore, authors need to reinvent themselves as business enterprises.  That means deriving income from a variety of writing-related sources, not just their books.

In addition, readers can do their share.  Support local independent book stores. Write brief reviews in Goodreads or BookBub about the books you enjoy. Take a flyer on a book by an unfamiliar author at the next writers conference or arts-and-crafts fair you attend. Part of the enjoyment derives from discovering a fresh, distinct voice. That’s what independent writers are all about.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions not given above? Give me your suggestions in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Triple Crown’s Shocking Slide

Triple Crown of American Thoroughbred RacingLast Saturdaky, Journalism won the Preakness Stakes. Almost immediately, racing touts wondered whether he and Sovereignty, the Kentucky Derby winner, would have a rematch in the Belmont Stakes, the last leg of thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.  In prior years, this wasn’t  an issue. The Derby winner and its runnerup would face each other again in the Preakness. And barring injury, they’d square off again for the deciding race in the Belmont.

However, that didn’t happen this year. As NBC Sports Steve Kornacki pointed out, Derby winners haven’t raced in the Preakness in three of the past five years. This recent development reflects  the Preakness’ decline in importance in particular and the Triple Crown in general.

The question is: why?

Triple Crown: Pro Forma Reasons

Currently, the most popular reason is the Preakness is scheduled two weeks after the Derby. Judged by current training practices, that timing  is too close to the Derby for competing horses to run to their best ability. For that reason many trainers of Derby winners and losers alike skip the Preakness and run their charges, if at all, in the Belmont, five weeks later.

The standard claim is that participating in three high-level stakes races within five weeks time is too grueling a schedule. Most race horses don’t run on in such a demanding schedule any more. For example, when Flightline won Horse of the Year honors in 2022, he raced only three times. All three were scheduled two-three months apart.  After winning the last one, the Breeders’ Cup Classic, he was retired undefeated. His entire racing output consisted of six races, four of them stakes.

If Flightline could win Horse of the Year by winning just three races, why risk the possibility of injury by racing more often? Granted, he won all three by impressive margins and against the best competition, but should his example set the standard for every other thoroughbred?

Triple Crown: Injury Prevention Argument

Injuries are a concern at any time, particularly life-threatening ones. Indeed, famous horses like Justify (last Triple Crown winner) and Ruffian, champion mare, had their racing careers cut short or died from racing injuries. Trainers, owners, and track managers heeded the public outcry over injuries suffered by horses racing at all levels of competition. Tracks were resurfaced, restrictions placed on jockey tactics, and drug enforcement policies strengthened and enforced.

In light of that, racing horses fewer times seems a step in that same protective/preventative direction. Such measures, however, don’t seem to help. Justify (6 starts–all wins) and Ruffian (11 starts–10 wins) both broke down after a reduced number of starts. They may be extreme examples, but the brevity of their racing careers indicates reducing a horse’s number of starts is not preventative. It does not prevent them from suffering career- or even life-ending injury.

If preventing injury doesn’t address the issue, the answer must lie elsewhere.

Triple Crown: Look at the Literature

Triple Crown: Black BeautyThe treatament of horses in thoroughbred racing long has been subsumed under the rubric of animal welfare in this country. Anna Sewell wrote her 1877 novel Black Beauty in part to champion animal (and human) rights.  As the major means of conveyance in the 19th century, the maltreatment of horses was a common sight.

As was the racing of horses. Exterminator and Stymie, to name two examples, raced well over 200 times between them in the first half of the 20th century. Purses were smaller then, and a horse needed to race more times to stay in oats and pay its entry fees. One might argue these two were geldings and would produce no further income once their racing days ended. However, even Secretariat, Triple Crown winner during the third quarter of the 20th century, raced over twenty times before retiring to stud.

The theme of a beloved horse being sacrificed to satisfy human obligations is a powerful one in 20th-century literature. In a previous blog post, Five Books that Transformed My Life, Walter Farley‘s Black Stallion series ranks number five. One title in particular stimulated my interest in horses and thoroughbred racing: The Black Stallion’s Courage. Predicated on the premise of a retired athlete returning to his sport to rescue the family business, this book produced my lifelong fascination with horse-racing lore and traditions.

Horse Racing and Sportsmanship

At this point, you might be asking yourself: so what?Triple Crown: Walter Farley

The book provided pre-adolescent me with an insight as to why people love their equine friends so much. And it exposed me to the traditions and procedures that constitute thoroughbred racing in America. Some regional biases, too. The Metropolitan, Suburban, and Brooklyn Handicaps make up the handicapped horses triple crown in New York racing. At the time of  the story’s publication (1956), they traditionally ran on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and the last day of the Belmont spring meet. No horse The Black’s age (7) ever came out of retirement, carried the crushing weight assigned, and won.

Classic plot tropes, all of them. Yet they emblematize the lore that fascinates fans much as winning the batting triple crown does in baseball. It’s the small horse owner pitted against the giant stable, a champion fighting overwhelming odds, David and Goliath.

The Connection

Fine, but–

The connection between fiction and real life occurs when Alec Ramsey, The Black’s owner and jockey, reins in his horse rather than winning the race to rescue from serious injury a jockey riding beside them struggling to regain his seat.  Alec’s humanity and sportsmanship overcomes the financial pressure to win and restore his small, fire-ravaged stable. That  fictional depiction reveals the best aspects of the sport in real life and keeps it alive.

Triple Crown: At the Wire

Horse racing in the 19th century was termed “the sport of kings.” And it still is. It costs money to feed and run a horse. The temptation to retire a male  horse to stud at the first instance of success is always there. So are  the pitfalls if an owner waits too long. The men who owned race horses two centuries ago were wealthy men, yes. But their wealth granted them the luxury of being sportsmen, too. As such, they thrilled at the competition of evenly matched steeds struggling mightily for the lead.

Unfortunately, perhaps, race horses primarily became investments in the 21st century rather than projections of male competiveness. When then President Reagan initiated the economic shift to the wealthier classes, one of the first things this group did was investing in horse farms rather than building factories. Siring 15 or 20 offspring every year for 10 or 15 years became much more profitable (and safer) than risking a horse’s safety and earning potential on the race track. This impetus grows ever stronger with every investment manager who advises his investors to invest in thoroughbred racing stock.

Is it any wonder then that multinational syndicates like Godolphin with horse farms scattered across the globe show only passing interest in racing Sovereignty in the Preakness after his hard-fought Kentucky Derby win? Or why the Triple Crown loses more of its appeal with each passing year?

You be the judge. Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below.

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Shelley’s Unsung Poem & Anti-Trump Protest

Shelley's Unsung Peem: portraitDid you know the British poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote protest poetry? Neither did I. He is most famous for penning the early 19th-cen romantics poems such as “To a Skylark” and “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.” As such, Shelley seems more a romantic dreamer like John Keats or William Wordsworth than a political firebrand like Lord Byron. Certainly, the titles of his poems appearing in my college sophomore lit course suggest little emotional expression beyond romantic passion.

Protest Literature’s Context

Imagine my surprise when his name turned up on a Google AI search for protest literature! (Yes, I confess to resorting to AI to write this blog post) Not that I expected to uncover many names or a curated list like for some of my other literature lists. Most protest literature reacts to a particular historical event such as the French Revolution (see Les Miserables). Another example is  the American Civil War (see Red Badge of Courage).  As such, it provokes a real life call-to-action in its readers like the Muckraker writings of Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell.

Shelley’s Unsung Poem: DiscoveryShelley's Unsung Poem: 1832 cover

That search did turn up an interesting sub-category, however–protest poetry. Among the many names listed, (most of them mid-20th century), Shelley’s “The Masque of Anarchy” stood out. My unfamiliarity with this poem is hardly surprising since it was not published during Shelley’s lifetime. In fact, it wasn’t published until 1832, nine years after the poet’s death. Why? Its editor, friend and poet Leigh Hunt, thought “the public at large had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse.”

Shelley’s Unsung Poem: Content and History

The seeds for this type of poetic expression first appeared the previous year when Shelley published his “The Revolt of Islam.” In it, he expressed some of the passion which  served as the epigraph in the Hunt publication: “Hope is strong; Justice and Truth their winged child have found.”

However, this assertion received its full voice the following year. Outraged at the deaths of 18 people who died from a cavalry charge into a crowd of 60 thousand people demanding parliamentary reform, the Peterloo Massacre inspired Shelley to replace the unjust proponent of authority of his time, “God, King, and the Law,” with a new form of social action, “Let a great assembly be, of the fearless, of the free.” Stated as such, literary experts such as Paul Foot and Richard Holmes consider it the first modern expression of nonviolent resistance and the “greatest  political poem ever written in English.”

Shelley’s Unsung Poem: Legacy

Many change-makers have used Shelley’s unsung poem’s meter and imagery to inspire their political efforts. Educator and activist Howard Zinn used the poem’s “very special power” to inspirte and educate the members of the American labor movement. Students at the Tiannamen Square protests in 1989 and protestors at Tahrir Square in 2011 recited the poem during their protest vigils. Shelley’s line “Ye are many-they are few” inspired the campaign slogan “We are many, they are few” used by Poll Tax protestors in 1989. And Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, used a variant of that line for the subtitle of his 2016 book, Saving Capitalism.

Relevance to Today’s Anti-Trump RrotestsShelley's Unsung Poem: Kingston rally

The parallels between 19th century injustices and authoritarian brutality should be apparent to anyone. Moreover, Shelley’s appeal to nonviolent tactics inspired Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others as an effective way to combat government oppression.

More than that, however, Shelley’s poem identifies the tactics and energy reserves urdinary citizens have available to change things for the better. Rather than confined to some out-of-way, dusty shelf, poets and writers like Shelley remain relevant to today’s problems. Brutality and government overreach occur in every century. Shelley and today’s poets and writers provide the vision and inspiration to overcome injustice non-violently.

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Special Perks of Grandparenting

Birthday cake: Perks of GrandparentingAre there any perks associated with being a grandparent?At first glance, It seemed doubtful to this Baby Boomer. Oh sure, everybody says they welcome taking care of the grandkids in hopes of witnessing their first smiles. But as they grow up, those moments dwindle in significance compared to our expressions of relief when our babysitting obligaations are over.

Grandparent Memories

That opening question springs from our attending our five-year-old grandson’s birthday party last weekend. Watching the event unfold through the plate glass window at Kangas recalled a similar incident I witnessed at a Boston area McDonalds years before. A glum elderly gentleman dressed in a gray suit and tie sat at a table in the middle of the restaurant. Around him a half-dozen six-year-olds gamboled about blowing on noisemakers and shouting “Happy Birthday” to his grandson at the top of their lungs.

That recollection haunted me for years even after we had children of our own. It certainly didn’t make the prospect of waking early on a Sunday morning, driving 70 miles to an unfamiliar location (Queens NYC), and witnessing a bunch of raucous children any rosier despite the opportunity of escaping Trump’s invective for a day.

Alleviating Anxiety

To deal with other instances of this kind, my solace comes from a source  consulted many times before as a writer: the pages of a novel. Surely, I reasoned, authors more esteemed than I must have  dealt with this problem in their stories.

You’d think so, but it was an unpleasant surprise to discover the dearth of grandparent angst depicted in literature. Out of 319 books dredged misup by computer AI, only a handful dealt with the misgivings of being a grandparent. Most were bildungsromans, coming-of-age stories where the protagonists are children learning to cope with their rampaging emotions and apprehensions over becoming adults.

Perks of Grandparenting: Casting About

“Rightfully,” some readers might say. After all, children have the majority of their lives still before themd. Their environments, their families, and the decisions made from such nurturance form a recognizable story arc authors have used for centuries. Such narratives reflect the commonly accepted reality that elderly people, including grandparents, most of whose life narratives are behind them, should accept their roles as guiders and nurturers of succeeding generation(s).

However, assuming such subsidiary roles doesn’t address the needs, aspirations, and emotions of the elders involved. Are they supposed to be satisfied with playing that non-player character (NPC) role? It recalls the grandfather/narrator role played by Peter Falk in the film version of William Goldman‘s  The Princess Bride. Is imparting one’s wisdom and experience off-screen sufficient recompense for aiding a boy’s slumbers? Would such consignment alleviate the misery of that grandfather experienced at that Boston McDonalds decades ago?

I think not.

Resorting to Science: Nostalgia’s Role

Birthday Party: Perks of GrandparentingMemories come in many forms and provoke a variety of emotions. As instanced above, not all of them need be sentimental or heart-warming. A recent study by researchers from the University of Buffalo and Kyoto University found that nostalgic people may be more inclined to strengthen and maintain long-term relationships than those who aren’t. The reason why: when people reminisce about the good times spent with loved ones, they appreciate them more and strive to maintain those relationships. According to study co-author Kuan Ju-Huang, this means that those positive attachments “may be more likely to last, even as our lives, interests, and responsibilities change.”

What this means for the individual depends upon his or her personality. Those of us who observe life, such as writers and artists, tend to protect their inner selves by  objectivizing life’s activities and relationships. Those who take more active roles subjectivize their life’s activities and relationships. Neither approach is more correct than the other.

However, the former approach can be a two-edged sword. Observation does enable the individual to take a more objective approach to life. Yet, iit also distances him/her from the warm, emotional connections that foster long-term relationships.

Perks of Grandparenting: Abbey RoadPerks of Grandparenting: Acquisition

Reflecting furather on my Boston anecdote, no one can say for sure whether that grandparent enjoyed his grandchildren’s birthday experience. Based on my one-off observations, he wasn’t. Perhaps, inwardly he was, but was unable to express his joy at his grandson and his friends’ celebration. Maybe his being there was all the affirmation he could manage.

Consequently, it’s unwise to pass judgment on what that grandfather should have done or on his level of involvement. Perhaps he participated in all his grandchildren’s life events with that same level of tolerant misery. However, he also could have forged the first link in the chain of family nostalgia by standing up and dancing around the table with his grandson’s friends in celebration of one of life’s milestones.

We’ll never know. But as one Boomer icon concluded on their album Abbey Road, “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

What do you think? Place your comment in the Leave a Reply section below.

 

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Vital Tips to Cope with Trump 2.0

Trump 2.0Since the presidential inauguration, Trump 2.0 has proven as threatening and dangerous to our values and freedoms as he promised. Political pundits categorize it as a hostile takeover, government readjustment, or a coup. Whatever one calls it, the times are not a-changing for the better. Rather, they are provoking people’s flight-or-fight responses. In short, they evoke all the symptoms of W. H. Auden‘s Age of Anxiety –on steroids.

What To Do?

However, this is not a screed about about how dire life will become under the second Trump administration. Nor will it reassure you with platitudes about our leaders and the courts are pushing back until the next election. Trump and his allies won’t wait that long. In fact, there is every reason to believe Trump’s campaign promise that “in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.”

Guidelines to Cope with Trump 2.0

Perhaps not on an institutional level, there are things you can do as an individual, however, to alleviate stress induced by the current political chaos. Much as family caregivers must cope with stress, we must cope with the political stressors that stymie our actions to restore our democratic power and authority as responsible citizens.

Stay Informed

The first action to take is to stay informed. Find out as much as you can from various news sources including traditional (legacy) and alternative media, social groups, and online sources. Examine issues from the other side’s point of view and determine whether their arguments hold water. Or whether they bother to defend their actions at all.

Take a Break

The second seems contradictory: take a break. After you’ve taken in all you can handle, turn off the TV, put aside the PC, find a quiet spot, and get in touch with your inner self. Rather than a dearth of information, we drown in the firehose of information available in the 21st ceintury. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Hold your breath and release it applying counts of four to each action. Other relaxation techniques include mindfulness, yoga, and tai chi. Learn which technique works best for you, stick with it, and regain your quiet center.

Share What You’ve Discovered About Trump 2.0

Once you’ve recentered yourself, the next thing to do is share the information and opinions you’ve collected with someone else. Start with family members and close friends, then work outwards. Contribute to social media groups. Join their discussions. Britain’s Mental Health Group and the Mayo Clinic encourage people combatting anxiety to socialize. More than that, challenge those thoughts and worries causing your ill health.

Why? because this same approach works for addressing political ansieties, too. Defending your opinions against others forces you to look outside yourself and recognize the thoughts, feelings, and convictions of others,  people who could become your allies.

Trump 2.0: Save DemocracyGet Involved

Take the next step: After you’ve espoused your opiniions on social media and elsewhere, take action. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this. Write postcards to underserved minorities. Call, write, or email your congressional representatives about issues you care about. Serve on committees. Even more proactive: participate in marches, sit-ins, and other acts of civil disobedience to dramatize your convictions.

Hold Trump 2.0 Accountable

The purpose of your activity involves dramatizing your convictions in a way that impacts the most people. Not only does it put Trump and his minions on the defensive, it also forces our representatives to do their part and stand up against the usurpation of their constituents’ rights and liberties.

On the individual level, taking such proactive actions reduces personal anxiety. On the institutional level, it encourages others to take heart and stand against those people who unlafully and immorally are trying to take over our government. Department of Justice lawyer Brendon Ballou said it best on the mpact of outside agitation on employee pushback. “Public outrage gave us courage and the knowledge that we were, in fact, working in the public interest. Advocacy on the outside made advocacy on the inside possible.”

Trump 2.0: Personal Note

Trump 2.0 vs. Viet Nam GenerationThese observations arise from the convictions of a confirmed Baby Boomer who experienced the divisiveness caused by the Viet Nam War.  My rebelliousness then stemmed from my countercultural attitude toward the social mores of the political  establishment. The irony is not lost on me that despite my convicitions remaining the same, I now must defend that culture’s values, constraints, and instituions.  That’s how instutionally powerful conservative America has become over the past 60 years.

However, taking some of the actions cited above holds out hope that with our united effort the United States can become a haven for freedom of choice and democracy once again.

What do you think? Let me know in the Leave a Reply secion below.

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Year of the Snake–Your Breakthrough in 2025

Breakthrough in 2025

Will the Chinese year of the snake witness your breakthrough in 2025? That depends. First, it depends on what your goals are. Second, it matters whether you regard January 29th as a starting point for new beginnings. Or is it another fabricated holiday like Quitter’s Day, or one few people celebrate like Festivus? Finally, it depends on how much power you attribute to celestial bodies influencing your life here on Earth.

Belief as Breakthrough in 2025

This isn’t a screed defending astrology against missile attacks from logical minds like those of the fictional physicist, Sheldon Cooper. Nor is it a celebration of one of the mystical forces that pervade our existence. But, it does acknowledge that people for thousands of years organized their lives around the motions of the sun, moon, planets and stars. Their cultural impact cannot be denied.

However, what seems surprising is how the motions of these eternal bodies should be interpreted so differently by so many different groups of people. It’s easy enough to say that different people have different ideologies. But, what does that explain, if anything? The demands of living–building shelter, finding/raising food, having offspring–remain common to everyone. If the stars belong to everyone as the song says, why didn’t those experiences produce a common world view when ancient people peered into the heavens?

Culture’s Role in Providing Breakthroughs

The answer seems to lie in setting and circumstance. Though there are many varieties, subcategories, and offshoots of astrological interpretation, the most fundamental and influential boil down to two: Greek or Hellenistic astrology and Chinese. Both forms of thought originated with the observations of the Babylonians and spread throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

For the Greeks, this Babylonian influence combined with ancient Egyptian or Decan teachings to create a horoscopic astrology, i.e. one reliant upon the ascension of 36 groups of stars to a specific moment in time to interpret the purported meaning behind the alignment of the planets at that moment. 

For the Chinese, the Babylonian observations intermingled with the concept of the Four Pillars of Destiny to create a lunisolar calendar based on a sexagenary cycle (60 years) of time measurement. Unlike the Greek system, Chinese astrology employs the locations of the sun and moon to derive their significance upon the individual within the context of that sixty-year cycle of time measurement.

The disparity between the two systems results in an emphasis upon the moment (Greek) versus the annual (Chinese). Consequently, the predictions of the former rely upon the individual’s birth at a particular point in time whereas the Chinese system focuses upon generational/ancestral influences on one’s birth.

Perspectives on Snakes

Another disparity between the two astrologies involves their perspectives towards symbolic animals, especailly snakes. Like many other religious traditions, Chinese astrology venerates snakes for their dual nature. On one hands, they symbolize harvest, spirituality, and good fortune as well as guardianship. On the other, they embody cunning and secrecy.

In western culture, snakes represent evil, particularly Adam’s fall in the Christian religion. Other Abrahamic religions such as Judaism and Islam interpret Adam’s fall from grace due to Satan’s imparting knowledge to Eve. In that scenario, Satan is characterized as a snake. The Gnostics take that depiction a step further by saying Satan’s wisdom provided direct spiritual contact with God rather than achieving it through expiation or good works.

Part of this difference occurs due to the lack of distinction in the definitions of snake and serpent. Westerners tend to view the terms as interchangeable. Thus, snake and serpent are identical. Dragons are a variant form under this general heading. Chinese culutre, on the other hand, regards snakes as protectors of grain and produce.

For this and other reasons, the Chinese distinguish the fifth animal in their zodiac as a dragon, characterized as bold, outgoing, charismatic, confident, intelligent, and lucky. On the other hand, they particularize the sixth zodiac of their zodiac as the wood snake. Unlike the Western snake or serpent, the wood snake helps man by eating rodents and other pests. Consequently, it possesses qualities of charm, intelligence, and creativity, while sometimes being secretive or ruthless.

Breakthrough in 2025: Jupiter’s Influence

A happy coincidence in Chinese astrology results from the frequency with which Jupiter/Zeus revolves around the sun. Requiring 11.86 earth years to orbit, Jupiter’s periodicity closely matches the five twelve-year cycles comprising the sexagenary aspect of the Chinese calendar. Regarded as a symbol of wisdom, growth, and fortune in both cultures, Jupiter generally proves a benign influence upon personal goals and aspirations.

Breakthrough in 2025: Final Thoughts

The coincidence cited above offers the direction a person should take regarding one’s goals and a personal breakthrough in 2025. Many cultures regard the snake as emblemizing renewal and/or rebirth as depicted by the ouroboros on the left.

This blog post may have oversimplified the complexities involved in astrology and its influence on human behavior. Still, the more positive choice among the two major astrologies disccused here for a breakthrough in 2025 falls to the Chinese version.

May the Year of the Snake prove a fortunate one for you and yours!

Breakthrough in 2025: Final Thoughts

What do you think? Let me know in the Leave a Reply box below.

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Year End Review And The Tyranny Of The Blank Page

Tyranny of the Blank Page

The end of the year offers conscientious writers the opportunity to evaluate their year-long assault against the tyranny of the blank page. Such a self-assessment can be defined any number of ways. A simple page count is one of them..But is mass productivity the proper measure of a professional writer? Or should it be quality? If the latter, how should such quality be measured?

Sportswriter Red Smith famously declared writing was easy. All one needed to do: sit down at a typewriter and “open a vein.” Given writing’s inherent difficulties and our current cultural and political turmoil, it surprises no one that writers seek a protectiveing force or idea, a champion, to mitifate the stress of filling the blank page.

Tyranny of the Blank Page: Backstory

The genesis of this concern comes from a writers’ discussion on Reddit. One of its more inflammatory headline declares “The number 1 rule of writing: Nobody wants to read your work; you have to make them want it.” Like many such online discussions, none of the commenters offered a good or even novel suggestion how to make readers want to do so (Those who possessed such a secret were using it to promote their own work). However, in keeping with the tone of the headline, some proved quite frank about the difficulties they encountered trying to reach an audience.

Beyond the customary shibboleths of knowing one’s audience or making sure your writing the best it can be, one suggested that writing for fame and fortune was an illusion. Measuring success by the number of books sold is a quantative mistake. The actual financial winners are the publshers and printers who have supplied the authors with their inventory. For every one in a million author like J. K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman, there are 999,999 others whose work never sells and probably never will. What little comfort these folks have lies in the group solace in anthropologit Margaret Mead‘s snide reassurance, “Always remember you arte absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”

Tyranny of the Blank Page: Self-Evaluation

Appreciating the Reddit folks’ candor still left the question of what to do. Should it be a long, hard look at my work over the past year? What about the years preceding it? Should they be included as well? Moreover, should writing be abandoned entirely? If so, what avocaation replaces it?

Fortunately, my wife emailed me such an assessment titled “20 Questions to Ignite Your Best Year.” Similar to several of my writing lists, such as “Fast Writing: Ten-Step Process,” this assessment was thorough and particular. It identified ten questions regarding the past year and another ten anticipating what to strive for in the following year. The most crucial for this discussion involved the initial two regarding the past year: What stands out as your most cherished moment of the past year? and Which accomplishment are you most proud ot?

Distinguishing between a most-cherished moment and an accomplishment necessarily implies a distinction between an emotive event and an achievement. They are not one and the same. If they are, it suggests one’s sense of fulfillment lies in the abstract, in material things rather than in the emotive or socially interactive. The remaining questions built upon this subtle distinction as it applied to past actions and how this set of values applies to future endeavors.

Tyranny of the Blank Page: Personal Application

The questions raised were existential. Should I quit? Or should I continue writing? The relative paucity of my book sales, particularly after Covid, provided plenty of material reason not to continue. On the other hand, my most cherished moments occurred while expressing a thought or emotion exactly as intended. Doing so provided a frisson of satisfaction, an “Amen” moment of truth experienced nowhere else. Moreover, having readers compliment those narrative points embellishes that feeling of certainty in a thought well-expressed. In those moments giving up writing seems as impossible as preventing Picasso from transforming a discarded bicycle seat and handle bars into a bull’s head and horns.

What To Do?

Given this insidght, my choices became clear. In the past, my writing existed in the mystery/thriller genre. Back then, mystery writer Raymond Chandlers advice served as my touchstone in this regard. Chandler wrote of his detective, Philip Marlowe, “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. . . . .the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.” Nevertheless, enthralling as Philip Marlowe’s investigations are, they presuppose an answer for everything. The hero always deduces the right solution. On the whole, right triumphs, if only for a little while.

In the decades since, people learned human deduction is not infallible. In fact, some situations lie beyond human reasoning. Consequently, writers’ options multiply. Do they resort to a higher power? Engage in cynicism and dystopias? Or escape into art like William Butler Yeats or Andre Malraux?

Those artists and authors are orders of magnitude above me. Yet, it also seems to me that putting my writing out there to sink or swim on its merits is the best way to deal with present-day culture and society.

In addition, it also might be OK to imbue my hopes and dreams for the future in the two champions that appear to the right of this paragraph. With Zaraoar (Pokemon) and Darth Vader (Star Wars) having my back, current events don’t seem nearly as bleak.

Tyranny of the Blank Page: Zaraora & Darth Vader

What do you think? Tell me in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Why Turkey Became the Exclusive Thanksgiving Meal

This Thursday as you celebrate another holiday by enjoying your Thanksgiving meal, ask yourself this question: Why turkey? Why not eat spaghetti? Or steak? Or some other type of fowl?The answer might surprise you as it represents the result of a serious amount of 19th century political and social lobbying. And its champion point proved an unexpected source: a Boston writer who believed a woman’s proper place was in the home. That writer: Sarah Jesopha Hale.

Cultural Context of the Thanksgiving Meal

It’s not as if the idea materialized out of the blue. One of America’s strongest cultural legends involves the Pilgrims celebTrating the survival of their first year in New England. To show their gratitude, they decided to celebrate with a First Thanksgiving at which they invited the native Americans who had helped them. However, historians claim that the main dish at that first meal likely was not turkey, but chicken or wild game instead. Though families in many states adopted celebrating the “First Thanksgiving” with a splendid meal, the practice largely remained confined to the New England states

Hale Steps In

However, by 1854 more than thirty states reported celebrating the event in some unofficial fashion. At the same time, tensions between the abolitionists and the pro-slavers had reached a fever pitch. By then, many people agreed with Hale’s assessment that a national holiday celebrating Thanksgiving could help Americans “put aside sectional feelings and local incidents” and unify the republic.

Hale seemed in some ways particularly qualified to promote such a concept. Born in New Hampshire where her family annually observed a day of thanks, she devoted an entire chapter in her first and best-known novel Northwood: A Tale of New England, to describe such a holiday feast. An accomplished poet (“Mary Had a Little Lamb”) and editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book for over forty years, she acted as an ardent supporter of women’s education (helping found Vassar College) and fundraiser for the Massachusetts Bunker Hill Monument and George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate.

Hale and Lincoln

Still, Hale’s efforts to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday had come to naught by the outbreak of the Civil War. The uncanny coupling of Thanksgiving with victory celelbrations by the presidents of both antagonists (particularly Lincoln after Gettysburg) spurred acceptance of a national observance of a day of thanks. Within a week of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, his Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, drafted an official proclamation that Thanksgiving should be observed on the final Thursday in November, a move both men hoped would help “heal the wounds of the nation.”

Practical Concerns About the Thanksgiving Meal

However, Lincoln’s pronouncement did not institutionalize turkey as the main course at Thanksgiving. Though Hale advanced Thanksgiving as a unifying national holiday, she never envisioned everyone eating turkey to celebrate it. In fact, her main argument defending Thursday as the appointed day of celebration was that it gave women time to prepare a substantial for the holiday while providing enough time afterward to prepare the traditional Sunday meal as well. Consequently, pragmatic considerations come to the fore to accomplish this end. John M. Cunningham’s entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica supplies three solid reasons for turkey playing the central gastronomic role:

  • they were raised primarily for their meat;
  • a single turkey was large enough to feed an entire family;
  • turkeys were plentiful in the United States.

Hale may have been a staunch advocate for political and social unity, but her vision sprung from a deep-seated set of traditional values. In her view, women should be allowed to own property, for example, but only to operate within the domestic framework of home and hearth.

Hale’s Thanksgving Meal Legacy

Sarah Jesopha Hale’s impact on our national culture cannot be denied. Without her lobbying state and national leaders for over 50 years, our annual feast of devouring a fowl Benjamin Franklin once advocated for our national bird might never have happened. Born from an honest fervor to preserve national unity, consuming turkey to celebrate a national holiday provides one of the few instances left to us to preserve and strengthen the sense of a shared national identity.

What do you plan to eat this Thurday? How do you feel about the day in general? Give us your thoughts in the Leave a Reply section below:

Turkey emblematic of national Thanksgiving

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Terrifying Secrets of Family Caregiver Poor Mental Health

Kathy Bates as caregiver Annie Wilkes in Misery

Have you ever suspected that the family caregiver for your invalid parent or a dementia-ridden relative may be suffering mental health problems themselves? Experts at the Mayo Clinic estimate approximately “1 in 3 adults in the United States is an informal or family caregiver” whose value figures to over a trillion dollars annually. Perhaps because of the hidden nature of this unpaid compensation, its beneficiiaries fail to recognize, much less appreciate, the debilitating health care issues these unpaid workers experience.

Impact of Caregiving on Caregivers’ Health

The psychological toll on unpaid health care providers is enormous. The Family Care Alliance claims that “Higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and other mental health effects are common among family members who care for an older relative or friend.” Moreover, some stress indicators are obvious; others are subtle. Manifestations of these health effects include:

  • Higher levels of depression
  • Emotional stress
  • Frustration over lack of progress
  • Loss of self-identity and esteem
  • Loss of control over their lives
  • Feelings of exhaustion
  • Cognitive decline

Sources of Stress for the Family Caregiver

Stressors beyond the lack of financial compensation can impact the health and performance of family caregivers. Canada’s in-home care provider The Key cites five factors that influence caregivers ‘ mental health:

  • Conflicting opinions regarding care–squabbles among siblings may necessitate consulting a health care professional
  • New routines–adjusting to the patient’s changing needs can promote caregiver stress
  • Juggling multiple roles–children, employees, and social groups also place demands on a caregiver’s time and emotional capacities
  • Health concerns–maintaining one’s health while giving care can add stress to one’s overall well-being
  • Lacking time to recharge–providing even a short respite from patient demands is essential to provide quality care and prevent provider burnout.

Stressed Caregiving Can Lead to Harmful Behavior

Without the safeguards mentioned above, the actions of the family caregiver can lapse into more dangerous behaviors to themselves and to their patients. Studies show caregivers are more prone to increased alcohol and substance abuse including psychotropic drugs. These studies also show that family caregivers tend to show more hostility than non-caregivers. Furthermore, family caregivers “who are at risk of clinical depression and are caring for a spouse with significant cognitive impairment and/or physical care needs are more likely to engage in harmful behavior toward their loved one.”

Family Caregiver Options

Nobody wants to entrust the well-being of a loved one to a potential Annie Wilkes. To avoid such a possibility, let’s celebrate , National Family Caregiveres Month this November in the same spirit we celebrated Black History Month this year. The Caregiver Action Network (CAN) offers the following advice to caregivers (if you are one) and their families (if you’re supporting one):

First of all, caregivers and family members must be specific about their help offers by stating explicity what task(s) they are willing to do. Identifying specific areas of responsibility lessens misunderstandings and conflict in the future.

Second, family members need to help the caregiver in performing the housekeeping chores necessary in the daily care of the patient.

Third, family members and friends must continue to invite them to family outings and special events. Even if the caregiver’s duties don’t allow them to participate, such invitations alleviate the caregiver’s sense of isolation and neglect.

And finally, family members should check in with the caregiver frequently. Many caregivers feel isolated and alone in discharging their duties.

In sum, money is not the sole compensation caregivers need for discharging family obligations. Love and loyalty deserve their own special recogntion. Thoughtful treatment and understanding among all involved parties can ameliorate the financial under-compensation, repressed resentment, and stress all family caregivers experience.

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Trump’s ‘Killer’ Figures of Speech

Donald Trump's Uses of Figures of Speech

Former president Donald Trump says he wants to unite America but the rehetoric of his speeches reveals his underlying sinister and destructive intent. This is not a new revelation. Scads of his speeches and diatribes before, during, and after his presidency refer to murder, bombing, or the “taking out” of people and/or problems with which he disagrees. What is novel is how the figures of speech in his rhetoric has become routine in our country’s everyday political discourse–the “banality of evil” if you will.

But is it? Has Trump kindled a new ferocity or beastlness in our speech? Or has the blood-thirst always been there, waiting for someone or something to tap into and reignite it? Let’s find out which.

Rhetorical Classifications

People employ numerous forms of rhetorical devices to communicate with one another. Our daily conversations contain both literal and figurative language. The former denotes the exact meaning of the word or phrase, the latter promotes an intensified or persuasive effect. Few of us speak in a literal fashion all or even much of the time. Instead, most of us employ the tropes and schemes of figurative language to persuade or convince others to conform to their way of thinking or behaving. A fine example of this occurred during Ruben Gallego‘s address to the Democratic National Convention last month (See my August newsletter for more details).

Figures of Speech Examples

De Epending on the source, figures of speech can be broken into over 250 sub-categories. Of the two major categories cited above, tropes, words that carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify, are more commonly used in everday speech. Some of the most common are:

  • Allegory–a metaphoric narrative in which the literal elements indirectly reveal a parallel story of symbolic or abstract significance
  • Aphorism– briefly phrased, easily memorable statement of a truth or opinion, an adage.
  • Euphemism–substitution of a less offensive or more agreeable term for another
    • Hyperbole–use of exaggerated terms for emphasis.
  • Metaphor–an implied comparison between two things, attributing the properties of one thing to another that it does not literally possess.
  • Metonomy–a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept
  • Snowclone–alteration of a cliche or phrase pattern
    • Zeugma–use of a single verb to describe two or more actions (cf. my August newsletter for a fine example)

Trump’s Most Characteristic Figures of Speech

The examples identified above reflect most of the tropes contained in language Trump commonly uses in his speeches and online postings. Among these, three merit special mention: aphorism, euphemism and hyperbole. Trump’s use of aphorism appears ad nauseum in his phrase, “Make America Great Again.” He employs hyperbole every time he characterizes one of his actions or those taken in his behalf as “perfect.”

However, hIs employment of euphemism is particularly notable. A 2019 USA Today analysis of 64 of his rallies held between 2017 and 2019 revealed Trump used the word “invasion” nineteen times when discussing the topic of immigration. He employed the zoomorphic term “animals” in regards to the immigrants themselves. But among them all, “killer” proves to be Trump’s euphemism of choice. It appeared almost three dozen times in his speeches at those rallies.

Benefit of the Doubt

Some including myself back then dismissed such characterizations as political rhetoric designed and confined to appeal to the prejudice of his followers. And on one level, it is just that. Yet, on another, why does it appeal to them at all? Does his audience actually believe all, most, or even many of the people crossing our borders are cutthroats and murderers?

Probably not. Certainly, many Americans customarily employ the term “killer” in their daily conversations. How often have you heard “[Name of your favorite sports team] really killed them in the fourth quarter.” Or, “I really killed [Name of my opponent] at [card game, sports activity]today].” Examples of hyperbole, sure, but they also express the speakers’ emotional attitude, their satisfaction in annihilating their opponents to the extent they had no recourse left. In short, they lost.

On a personal note, I grew up in Wisconsin, a place where following the Green Bay Packers is, if not a religion, a certain conversation starter. Among all their great players and coaches over the years, the one who most stands out, who headed them during their glory years was Vince Lombardi. His motto: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

So What?

My father preached Lombardi’s aphorism like a mantra to me and my brother during our teenage years. Certainly, fathers in dozens of Wisconsin households and all across the country advocated the same to their families. Yet, as important as the content of the expression is the brevity of the idea it expresses. Those same people would shy away from endorsing a concept like winning at all costs is an acceptable form of moral behavior. However, embedding the idea within a witty turn of phrase renders it more supportable and justifiable, ennobles it, in fact.

The same logic applies to winning football, or any endeavor for that matter. If sports aphorisms serve as a metaphor for our daily lives, then the amassing of yardage, the imposition of will becomes a justifiable, even honorable pursuit. Better yet, beating our opponents and by extension, those who disagree with us, into submission becomes a laudatory pursuit. To do so, such that these others, the opponents, have no recourse, no means of fighting back thus becomes an enviable goal in itself.

Connection to Trump’s Figures of Speech

But, one might say, that’s just Trump being Trump. What impact can his language have over the rest of American society?

Plenty. His role as a former president and current Republicqn nominee gives his language an outsized status and power few other individuals possess. His customary hyperbole kicks up a duststorm of obfuscatory ideas, some contradictory, others unrelated, from which he can shield the identity of his true intentions. In short, the quality of his rhetoric transforms him into a figurative Loki of ideas, a veritable shapeshifter in expressing his ideas and opinions.

Moreover, the amorphous quality of his language resonates with others to do the same. Case in point: Mark Robinson, current Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. At a July church gathering, Robinson declared during his address that “some folks need killing.” Spoke in the context of dealing with “evil people,” his target of such violence remained unclear. What was clear, however, was the absolutist nature of his solution–the total annihilation, the killing of the other–applicable to anyone different from him and his beliefs.

The Upshot of Trump’s Figure Language

Robinson exemplifies the “banality of evil” mentioned above and cited so often by mainstream media. The ordinary quality of his speech combined with the hyperbole contained within it reflect the absolutist, right vs. wrong quality of his thinking. For him and for Trump, the world is a battleground between good and evil. In such a dystopian worldview, there can only be winners and losers because the only ones fit to live are those who possess the correct qualities that merit living. What those qualities might be are reserved to the individual who defines them.

That condemns everyone to the fate of isolation from everyone else–alone to fight with whatever powers one has. That is a fine working scenario if one believes in a merciful god willing to provide assistance, but what about those who don’t believe in such a deity? Or those who believe in a deity that differs from the one the first person has chosen? Or those who believe in none at all?

Based on the evidence, an alternative solution may be to resonate with those individuals whose language patterns contain figures of speech which acknowledge the uncertainty of human existence and which accept the inclusion of new ideas, beliefs, and life styles.

However, embedding these figures in the everday speech of our leaders is not enough. Perhaps the best way to dampen the evil that pervades the human spark of life is to counter it with a backfire flame of compassion, unity and tolerance. It might not extinguish the evil that exists within us, but it may help in recogizing and accepting its existance in all of us while nurturing the good impulses within ourselves as well.

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List of Best Cyber Security Thrillers

Cries of Dismay

Cyber Security Thrillers

OH, NO! Not ANOTHER list! On cyber security thrillers, yet. Aren’t there enough esoteric lists already?

Actually, no. At least, not of this type. When super reader Ben Fox of Shepherd.com approached me to compile a list of five notable books on a topic of my choice, I, too, was skeptical. My “To-Do” list immediately popped into mind (if you operate an online business, you know what I mean). If not that, doesn’t everyone have a list of usernames and passwords (mine’s over 50) they’ve squirreled away so well they can’t remember where it’s hidden? Outside of supplying a topic for my blog, why does the public need another recommendation list?

Raison d’etre for Cyber Security Thrillers List

First of all, there’s familiarity. Everyone who consults Amazon’s book list or pores through Goodreads or BookBub knows the format. All three of these sites and many others provide curated lists of recommended reading material. Their recommendations may be based on reader comments or ranked by sales figures, but they do separate the worthwhile reads from those that help pass the time. Author disclaimer: among time-wasters, reading rates as one of the best.

David Wllechinsky's Book of Lists

Second, there’s the pragmatism factor. Lists help us get through the welter of distraction, routine, and stress that constitutes daily living. As David Wallechinsky, co-author of The Book of LIsts, explained, “because we live in an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information, . . . lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming.”

Third, lists have a rich and prodigious heritage. Aside from the Wallechinsky series mentioned above, Wikipedia devotes an entire article titled “List of Lists of Lists” which identifies all the articles within its pages that list other list articles. Furthermore, each of those pages provides links to other lists devoted to a particular topic.

Nor is this heritage limited to size and scope alone. Author Umberto Eco wrote a book in collaboration with the Louvre entitled The Infinity of Lists describing lists that appear in many major literary works. The topics explored range from Hesiod‘s list of the progeny of gods to Rabelais‘s list of bottom wipes.

Why My Cyber Security Thrillers List Is Different

Rationale

People make up lists for a variety of reasons and purposes. Some, as alluded above, help us organize our day. Others enable us to remember the details of our lives that have no other integral relationship other than appearing on that list. Still others enable evaluation by placing more noteworthy or valluable items ahead of others based on some arbitrary or objective scale. This latter form of listing is called ranking.

Educational Value

Eco's book of literary lists

My book list differs from other book lists in Ben Fox’s site because it identifies what are the best technothrillers that employ metadata as a major plot point. Readers claim to be familiar with the concept, but few thrillers depict applying it in a significant way. My research revealed fewer than ten books utilized the concept of metadata in their plots. Of these, only five contained principal characters who manipulated metadata for their livelihood . In most cases, the villains used metadata to further their ends.

Cyber Security Thrillers Methodology

As a result, my emphasis shifted from the conceptual to the pragmatic. Who would be more likely to use metadata to repulse miscreants using it for their nefarious schemes: cyber experts. More particularly, that meant protectors of computer information and technology, i.e. cyber security experts. My leisure reading produced several candidates; my research identified several more. Among these candidates, only five thrillers contained protagonists who used metadata in a significant way to do their jobs and protect their communities.

Cyber Security Thrillers Outcomes

Accordingly, I ranked these five thrillers on the basis of how prominently metadata appears in the storyline with this caveat. Little is more boring than reading about the hero applying hypertest (HTML) or Java script to foil crime. Along with character arc, rising action, and vivid description, the author also should display some familiarity with the intricacies of metadata to thwart criminals. By that reasoning, the best thrillers should suggest how the cyber hero or heroine’s cyber knowledge defeated the villain(s). It was on that basis I ranked the five titles chosen.

Wrap Up and Send Off

This Cyber Security Thrillers list doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive. Others may choose or recommend different titles than those selected. Yet, these titles represent the best integration of concept and narrative that I have read or listened to. In the course of compiling this list, one thing surprised me. Though Metadata Murders was written over twenty years ago and readers are more comfortable with the concept, its practitioners aren’t more prominently featured in techno- or cyber-thrillers. Regardless how you view that fact, this link will take you to my list of the five best cyber thrillers written over the past two decades.

My list will be published Monday, August 5th. Click on this link to the Shepherd recommendations site:

https://shepherd.com/best-books/technothrillers-with-a-cyber-security-protagonist

Read it, select one or two for your pleasure, and tell me what you think in the Leave A Reply section below.

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Is the New Immortals Series Fantastique?

Fantastique from the Beginning

Fantastique objects in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

Readers, critics in particular, often classify fantasy literature into many different types. In Wikipedia Fantastique is just one of over two dozen categories and subgenres. The distinctions sometimes seem arbitrary and overlap with obvious and more developed categorizations such as science fiction/speculative fiction, and horror.

Despite their importance for sellers and bookstores, these distinctions seldom matter to authors who write in the fantasy genre. After all, would William Shakespeare, care whether The Tempest fell into the romantic fantasy or paranormal fantasy camps? Or whether Prospero’s application of the supernatural seemed internally consistent or not? The important thing was that Prospero’s supernatural talents captured the audience’s attention then and captivate our amazement four centuries later.

So, how does the above correlate with the subject of this article’s title? Until I identified the five titles that influenced my decision to become an author, their subject matter never seemed coherent nor affected my arc as a professional writer. But before exploring how this exercise impacted my writing career, however, let’s examine what is meant by the term, Fantastique.

Definition of Fantastique

Fantastique is a French literary term that falls under the larger category of Fantasy fiction. LIke other forms of fantasy, fantastique stories contain supernatural elements in their narratives. Unlike other subgenres such as fable, high/low, or sword and sorcery, however, fantastique tales insert the supernatural into an otherwise realistic narrative framework. And unlike dark fantasy or magic realism stories, fantastique stories portray an element of doubt about the existence of the supernatural.

The Fantastique literary genre as defined by Todorov

According to the Bulgarian critic, Tzvetan Todorov, this element of uncertainty distinguishes it from the marvelous contained withn the English conception of Fantasy fiction. This narrative tension between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, the logical and the illogical separates such stories from what Todorov characterizes as marvelous or conventional fantasy in which magical or supernatural elements and events occur in a normal or familiar way.  

The injection of the supernatural into an otherwise realitic portrayal of events places fantastique stories between the uncanny and the marvelous. Uncanny stories push reality to its limits as in Edgar Alan Poe‘s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” On the other hand, the characters in marvelous stories regard supernatural elements as being quite normal. J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series is a prime example.

Fantastique’s Literary Heritage

Defined this way, fantastique literature contains many significant works in its canon. Identifying a few of the better-known titles includes:

Other eminent contributors to the genre include H.P. Lovecraft, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Matheson, Steven King, and Clive Barker.

Why the Fantastique Designation Matters

On the Macro Level:

It matters because so many talented writers’ works can be identified as belonging within this particular subgenre. Their inclusion goes beyond literary pigeon-holing or reevaluation of individual author’s neglected works, however. Many of the works listed above achieved distinction before Tudorov consigned them into this particular genre. Rather, their inclusion reflects the authors’ appreciation and apprehension regarding the amazing, the phenomenal, and the absurd.

Authors ranging in temperament from Sartre to Lovecraft acknowledge the power of the supernatural yet remain hesitant regarding its actuality. As playwright John Van Druten laments in his play Bell, Book, and Candle, “There’s always a rational explanation for everything if you look for it.”

On the Micro (Personal) Level:

It matters because placing my recent series Escape the New Immortals within Todorov’s classification explains my career arc as an author. My first published novel, Penal Fires, was an initial stab at the psychological thriller, little more. My second, Metadata Murders, was also a thriller, but this time along technological lines. The main plot device–the Internet–revealed the promises and pitfalls of that recent invention. The crux of its storyline involved the preposterous, almost supernatural, potential for identify theft and murder via the dark Web.

Consequently, creating a narrative involving a conflict between a psychologist-turned- shaman and a band of psychic vampires from the collective unconscious doesn’t seem such a surprise, In retrospect, it seems a rational if excessive thematic development in my growth as a writer.

A Fantastique Summation

In Escape the New Immortals

My personal commitment to the Fantastiqu concept appears most strongly in the first two novels of my Escape the New Immortals series. In an otherwise ordinary and rational world, each of the protagonists encounters a supernatural entity in unconscious reality from which they must escape. Each of them, Victor, Miriam, and Todd at times doubt the veracity of that experience. Their individual story arcs reflect the internal conflict of coming terms and ultimatelly vanquishing those supernatural beings whose existence defies rational explanation. In short, their acceptance of supernatural reality ultimately enables them to vanquish their foes in the rational world.

From Five Books Transformed My Life

It is said the strongest believers in heaven and a deity are those who fought hardest against it. Saul of Tarsus before he became St. Paul comes to mind. Two examples from more recent literature appear as the top two in my most recent blog post, Marcel (Remembrance of Things Past) and Lawrence Darrell (The Razor’s Edge) seek something not of this world. For Marcel it is what’s often mislabeled as deja vu–the recreated sensory experience. His tasting of the madeleine cookie he remembered as a child provides the reader with a supernatural depiction of primitive time travel.

For Lawrence Darrell, the fantastique aids him in finding the meaning to man’s existence. He never finds the answers he seeks, but he always continues the search. His healing trick for his stressed-out friend involves no more than his trying to hold onto a coin. His inability to do so demonstrates that the supernatural power for healing our tormented souls lies not in the power of others but within ourselves.

Little from these examples is rational; none of it seems real or true. Yet these occurrences continue pervade ordinary reality every day, doubtful as that may seem. That is why they and my novels fall under the label of the fantastique.

What do you think? Give your opinion in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Five Books Transfomed My Life

The Problem and Criteria to Resolve It

It’s almost June–that summer time of year when authors, writers, and readers convene to discuss the intricacies of writing. At such events, attendees often ask which books influenced the guest authors the most. Asked another way: which books are their favorites? It seems a facile question, but a difficult one. How do you identify the most influential books when you’ve read so many? How do you whittle the influencers to a manageable number–say five book? Every author impacts your artistic sensibility in some way, big and small, positive or negative.

After mulling this over, it became clear there was no objective criterion to rate those books that influenced me. Gut instinct ruled my decisions instead. Rather than overthink it, the following five titles became those which first entered my mind. Like the five poems previously identified for last year’s Valentine’s Day, Here are the top five books ranked in revers order that influenced me as an author.

5. The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

This wasn’t the first novel I read as a kid. Farley’s The Island Stallion holds that distinction based on our local public librarian’s recommendation. But Farley’s depiction of the bond formed between a boy and a wild male horse while trapped on a desert island transfixed me with its exoticism and sense of adventure.

Subsequent volumes in both series fascinated me to the point of imitation. In fact, my first novel attempt was entitled Black Phanton. Unfortunately, it only remained an attempt. I never wrote the text, only designed the cover. The books gave me a lifelong fascination with the sport of kings and its lore, but I never owned a horse nor learned the practical aspects of caring for one. That experience provided my first lesson about writing, though: know your subject.

4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

1st ed. cover

After my debacle with the Black Stallion imitation, my reading tastes changed. This occurred during the time of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin and Laika (first dog into space). Consequently, I became interested in all topics involving the heavens and supporting sciences. My reading tastes changed too. I read the novels and short stories of the many authors who appeared in the compendium called A Treasury of A Science Fiction. Thrilling stories by Heinlein, Van Vogt, Sturgeon, and Pohl were just a few of the writers inhabiting its pages.

Above them all stood Isaac Asimov whose collection of short stories chronicled the evollution of man’s relationship with the creation in his own image. Asimov’s stories were subtle; his ideas complex, yet told in a direct, never condescendingway that made the most complicated concepts accessible and understandable. This style he carried over into his nonfiction works as well. His work on the elements in the periodic table became a special favorite.

3. One, Two, Three . . . Infinity! by George Gamow

1, 2, 3 ...Infinity

By the time I was reading Asimov’s explanation of the elements, it seemed clear to me I was headed toward a scientific career of some kind. All of my high school classes were college-preparatory with as much a scientific emphasis as I could muster. Thus, it surprised me when my senior English teacher, Mrs. Greene, presented me with a copy of the above volume a week before my graduation.

One, Two, Three . . . Infinity! introduced me to the then novel concepts of the Moebius strip and Einstein’s space-time continuum. However, the content, did not surprise me so much as the fact that this flinty, sharp-tongued high school teacher, feared by many, should honor my graduation with a copy of one of her husband’s (local newspaper editor) favorite books. Perhaps she thought one day I might write one of my own. Certainly, I remembered her gift when I changed my college major from chemistry to English.

2. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time

Up to now, my choices follow each other in chronological order. But, at this point, I must skip ahead to my life in the army after graduating from college. Rocked by the cataclysmic social and personal unrest caused by my induction into military service during the vietnam War, I took refuge in reading novels, sometimes as many as four or five a week.

These books were more than mere escape, however. Reading them completed the education I never received in college. They taught me the value of the hook to lure the reader in, the pacing to keep him/her turning pages, and how to bring a story to its climax and suitable ending. This choice, however, did more than that. Reading it showed me how an author could bring to life a distant period in time and space as seen through the focal point of a young boy reliving the taste of a madeleine upon his tongue. It also taught me about love, obsession, and perversion–all motives never expounded upon in my college texts.

Honorable Mentions

Before naming my number one literary influence, it is the custom of such lists to mention items which didn’t make the cut. There are two in my case. The first is the Scrooge McDuck comic book character who appeared in a series first created by Carl Barks. Not only does he provide the financial means for his adventures (important groundwork for any story), but as a protagonist Scrooge provides insight into a nuber of myths and legends. One story in particular, Barks’ “The Seven Cities of Cibola” inspired movie directors George Lucas and Steven Spielburg’s film Raiders of the Lost Ark. A great endorsement indeed, though Barks’ story needs no such endorsement.

My second honorable mention belongs to the ouevre of Raymond Chandler, particularly his The Big Sleep. His sardonic take on the private eye tale through his avatar, Phiip Marlowe, is entertaining and insightful of 1930 and 1940s Los Angeles. My own authorial voice would never contain such smart-aleck delivery, but that didn’t stop me from reading Chandler’s entire output in one week.

1. The Razor’s Edge by William Somerset Maugham

Collier ed. from my uncle's library

This book most inflluenced me to write. Its protagonist, Larry Darrell, asks the same questions I’d been asking ever since my mid-teens. What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? And since we are, what should we do with our lives? Like the others cited above, it contains more exotic locales with a variety of intriguing, sometimes off-beat characters. It also contains its fair share of soul-searching. Darrow doesn’t achieve his goal, but unlike the protagonists of Sartre and Camus, he finds solace in striving toward that goal of self-knowledge and understanding. That message is what makes me return to it time and again–a mental reset as it were.

Denouement

There are my top five. You may not like their style or agree with the the philosophies contained in them. Discovered during my formative years, they come from a different era which draws further away with every passing year. However, the themes they address are timeless. The answers they seek may be out there. Or they may reside inside in each of us.

It’s up to each of us to continue the search and tell our own narratives about our philosophical expeditions. In the meantime, read. Read all you can this summer–and beyond. Maybe you, too, will find that book that sets you off on your first great adventure, imaginary or real. Reading one or all of my influences might help put you on that quest!

What are your favorite books?pu

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Has Moneyball Ruined Professional Baseball?

Moneyball cover

Opening Pitch

It’s just the end of April and fans already are lamenting the injuries to pitchers in the major leagues. Sports pundits like Michael Wilbon reported five starting pitchers have gone onto the injured reserve list from one team alone. He attributes these injuries to high school coaches emphasizing their teenage ptichers throw hard in every game. However, that symptom reflects an underlying truth. The actual reason these young pitchers throw hard is because that’s the only way to catch the attention of MLB scouts. And why do they want to reach the major leagues? Because that’s where the big money lies. And what determines who gets that big money? Moneyball!

What Is Moneyball?

The term originated in a 2003 book by Michael Lewis entitled, Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game. In it, the author propounds his thesis that the traditional guideposts used to evaluate a player’s value are outdated, subjective, and flawed. Examples of such outmoded measures for hitters are batting average and runs batted in. For pitchers, such measures include complete games and earned run average.

Instead, Lewis advocated the use of sabermetrics, an empirical, detailed, and objective analysis of player performance. Judged by these criteria, a player’s on-base percentage and his slugging percentage provide superior indicators of a his value to his team.

For pitchers, concepts such as WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched) and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching statistics) replace earned run average (ERA) and strikeouts. Though these measures seem arcane, their objective remains the same. That means providing an objective determination of a pitcher’s effectiveness in mastering aspects over which he has complete control, i.e. strikeouts, home runs, hit batters, etc.

A refinement of this latter statistic is DIPS (Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics) developed by Voros McCracken. Using this method, Voros showed that w that there is little to no difference between pitchers in the number of hits they allow or balls put into play—regardless of their individual skill levels. Such a metric quantifies the independent value of each player. However, it also exposes their vulnerability. In short, they’re interchangeable. And expendable.

Why Moneyball Matters

At this point some readers might wonder what any of these metrics have to do with pitchers’ arm injuries. The key lies in the book’s subtitle: Winning an Unfair Game. Ever since the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in 1922 that baseball was an entertainment rather than a sport, the game was not subject to anti-trust constraints. Unlike other professional sport activities, teams based in large metropolitan areas, have enjoyed an unfair advantage in revenue and income. In light of this asymmetric competitive structure, teams based in smaller markets sought ways to erode the more populous’based teams’ competitive advantage.

Ways and Means

One way involves moving to cities and metropolitan areas willing to offer generous terms on stadiums, concessions, and the like. An alternative approach requires reducing overhead, more specifically, player-development. Rather than spend money on scouts and minor league farm systems, sabermetrics makes a convincing case for drafting players out of college. As professional football and basketball realized, college players developed the skills and maturity necessary to compete at the professional level with little cost to the teams that draft them.

Consequences

This development may seem a callous and self-serving way of controlling costs, and it is. But it also provides a way to level the economic playing field between the wealthier and poorer (comparatively) teams. It also factors into why the number of minor league divisions have dwindled from four (A,B, C, & D) to one: A.

Another consequence is fan support. Besides eroding baseball’s wellsprings for players and local fan involvement, it reduces the value of the individual performer. In seeking out those players that “are undervalued in the market,” the Oakland Athletics became baseball’s first team to embody what Lewis characterizes as “the ruthless drive for efficiency that capitalism demands.”

Costs

But at what price? If everyday players are measured by their power figures alone, it’s little wonder they strive only to hit homeruns regardless of their strength, size, or hitting ability. In regards to pitchers, it’s little wonder that they learn to throw as hard as they can for as long as they can. Why? Because another pitcher can be called in to replace him with the same effectiveness. If such is the case, how does management’s attitude toward its performers affect their morale and willingness to play?

What Can Be Done?

It’s been over twenty years since Moneyball hit the market. In that time, numerous baseball general managers incorportated it into their operations with varying degrees of success. While it did enable the Oakland As to identify the value of players other teams overlooked, the impact of sabermetrics reduced performance quality and thus fan enjoyment. Teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins did break through to the World Series, but sold off their best players when they renegotiated their contracts for more money.

Recent Approaches

Rob Manfred, the current commissioner of major league baseball, implemented several proposals to upgrade the game’s quality. Most are cosmetic. The most effective of these, reducing the time between pitches, speeded up the game and reduced its duration overall. However, baseball with its defined innings and at bats was never a dynamic ebb-and-flo game like soccer.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred

Another factor is fan sophistication. Being around for as long as it has, hardcore baseball fans appreciate nuances like the sacrifice bunt or the inning-ending double-play. Such accomplishments require skill, self-sacrifice, and team spirit. Suck emotional and subjective qualities seem lacking in today’s ballplayer. And which are not encouraged by team management.

The best way to rectify the situation may require reemphasizing these finer points of the game. Measure player effectiveness in bunting situations to advance the runner, for example, and reward those sacrifices accordingly in player contracts.

As for pitchers, put an upper limit on the number a squad can carry at any one time. Ten seems a good cutoff figure. Then, reward those pitchers for their efforts to stay in games longer and pacing themselves. If manaagement encourages pitchers to pitch more innings, complete games may again be a useful meaure of a pitcher’s contribution to his team.

Moneyball’s Tenth Inning

In summary, Moneyball wielded a profound impact on major league baseball by providing the means to discover a few hidden or overlooked gems on the playing field. Its truly incisive metrics provided the objective means to value ballplayers by their individual capabilities alone. However, this viewpoint also proved pernicious. Pitchers in particular, suffered. Their careers shortened in many instances because of their combat with hitters striving to make that extra-base hit. Consequently, pitchers learned to throw faster and harder to get these hitters out. This effort put more strain on their arms which resulted in more injuries, removed them from participating, and reduced their value to the team that hired them.

Because pitchers are already in more danger of burnout or arm injury, each team needs more of them. However, more pitchers reduces the relative value of each one, particularly if each pitches fewer innings each season. Already devalued in baseball’s salary structure for not being everyday players, pitchers seen through the Moneyball lens tend to be the units that allow general managers to reduce a team’s salary structure overall. Unlike Filk music musicians of varying abiilities who are allowed to participate for the sheer joy in performing, Moneyball’s metrics provide the means for baseball’s general managers to weaponize sabremetrics for the reduction or elimination of players’ livelihoods. Accepting that fact is what professionalism has come to stand for in the twenty-first century.

What do you think? Write your thoughts and reactions in the Leave-A-Reply box below.

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Escape Rooms: Not for Faint of Heart

Fun and Fantasy of Escape Rooms

Most of us enjoy repeating pleasurable experiences. Whether they involve fishing in a favorite trout stream or reenacting a scene from a memortable movie, people enjoy imagining how they would act if they could single-handely land a giant tarpon or bring the fiendish Professor Moriarity to justice. Escape rooms offer a chance for engaging in such fantasies. At least, that’s what we thought when we signed up for one to celebrate my wife’s birthday. However, we discovered not everyone is comfortable with having the fantasticl come to life.

What Are Escape Rooms?

Escape Room apothecary equipment

Before discussing our escape room experience, let’s examine the concept. Escape rooms are one or more rooms in which players engage in “live-action, team-based games [in which they] discover clues, solve puzles, and accomplish taskes.” Most often, the goal is, as the name implies, to escape the game site within a given time frame.

The themes of these games originate from popular culture such as the exploits of Sherlock Holmes or the writings of Edgar Alan Poe. These two luminaries formed two of the offerings in the escape room we contacted. However, because of my wife’s interests in medicinal herbs and J.R.R. Tolkien, we chose to escape from a magic apothecary’s shop, perhaps echoing the tribulations suffered by Charles Dickens‘ heroine Nell Trent in The Old Curiosity Shop.

History of Escape Rooms

Origins

Although escape rooms seem a relatively new concept, the idea of escaping from a room or situation occurred as early as the 1970s. The advent of point-and-click adventure games led to the development of interactive in-game objects. The earliest of these, Planet Mephius, came out in Japan in 1983. Its popularity led to the first interactive trapped-in-a-room scenario with John Wilson’s Behind Closed Doors in 1988.

From Video Game to Physical Reality

These and other virtual reality games prompted Takao Kato to wonder in 2007 “why interesting things didn’t happen in my life, like they do in books.” The result: the Real Escape Game, the first experiential entertaintment game created in 2007. From there, the number of real life escape rooms proliferated throughout Asia and Europe, reaching the United States in 2014. As of 2022, gaming experts estimate escape rooms number over 600 sites in the U.S. alone.

Escape Room Overview

As the name implies, the “rules” are (deceptively) simple. Find clues leading to escaping the room within the allotted time, usually 45-60 minutes. Anywhere from two to ten players participate at any one time, and the challenges are usually more mental than physical. Depending on the theme, different games require different skill sets although expert knowledge in any field is not required. Any information required to solve a puzzle should be provided within the room’s contents.

Since the overall goal of the experience is entertainment, well-designed rooms contain provisions to insure a successful escape. Hints in the form of written notes, audio clues, and video instructions help players along in their pursuit of escape. In our game, the gamemaster provided helpful suggestions through messages that appeared in a “magic mirror.” As our allotted time dwindled, these hints grew more and more direct. Fortunately, we managed to escape and win the game with a little under three minutes to spare.

Escape Room Strategies

Exiting an escape room requires the employment of several basic skills. problem-solving, lateral thinking (thinking outside the box), and teamwork. The group must direct its efforts to solve a sequence of challenges or puzzles to unlock the door and leave the room within the allotted time. Puzzles may include word games, cyphers, riddles, and basic mathematical problems. Physical activity may include searching for physical objects, navigating mazes, or assembling clues.

Escaping our room involved all of these skills and activities. The six adults broke up into pairs. One pair investigated and activated the alchemical and pharmaceutical equipment in the room, another pair assembled and interpreted clues, while a third monitored the time limit and hints provided by the dungeon master. None of this activity was planned or formally agreed upon beforehand; to our our relief and surpose it just happened.

Escape room magic mirror

Escaping our room involved all of these skills and activities. The six adults broke up into pairs. One pair investigated and activated the alchemical and pharmaceutical equipment in the room, another pair assembled and interpreted clues, while a third monitored the time limit and hints provided by the dungeon master. None of this activity was planned or formally agreed upon beforehand; to our our relief and surpose it just happened.

Cautions and Controversies

Adult Impressions

Our reactions seemed to typify those following the adult escape room experience. No one coordinated our activities, but we surmounted the challenges and obstacles within the room and escaped. Despite the lack of direction and low-level anxiety, the adults employed teamwork and crisis management to solve the puzzles.

Reservations

Though the adults said they had fun and enjoyed the experience, some expressed qualms about deriving enjoyment from artificial entrapment. Granted our confinement was voluntary, but what if we had failed? In all likelihood, the gamemaster would have granted us extra time. But what if we were actually trapped? What if the door remained closed, the gamemaster had a stroke, and we remained sealed in the room like Boris Karlov in The Mummy?

Empathy

My August 2022 post on reading to one another seems relevant here. It mentions Neil Postman‘s 1984 prediction from his book Amusing Ourselves to Death. There he discusses how television’s sacrifice of quality information for corporate profit could become boring reality. Moreover, such entertainment desensitizes those who watch it. Similarly, interactive real-life games advances people’s detachment from the emotional information in physical reality one step further. If they derive enjoyment from physical entrapment, does escaping that reality desentitize them from the plights of people trapped in real-world predicaments? How empathetic can we be to the victims of human trafficking or enslavement, for example, when our escape is just minutes or a safeword away ?

One might argue that voluntary participation makes all the difference. Choosing one’s entrapment negates any guilt that might accrie about people stuck in real-life situations not of their choosing. However, the thrill one feels about being trapped in a situation seems cheap knowing one can escape at any time. Just say the safe word, and the catharsis derivied from achieving that objective diminishes as well.

Children’s Response

My grandsons’ reactions to the escape room experience seem instructive at this point. Aged seven and four, both boys went willingly into the apothecary room and explored the phials, bottles, and rudimentary pharmacy equipment within. But when the youngest spotted a small, hissing dragon painted in a corner of the room, he retreated to his mother’s arms for the rest of the hour. The older boy coped by hunching down in an out-of-way corner and played Mario Cart on his cellphone. After our escape, neither boy expressed enjoyment of the experience until the astute gamemaster rewarded with magic wands for their courage and perseverance.

Escape Room Takeaways

Caregiver Options

Critics might say the boys’ uneasiness could have been avoided if the adults had practiced due diligence in choosing the theme. Child-oriented versions of escape rooms do exist. However, the magic apothecary theme seemed least threatening among the choices available at this particular escape room.Other options include disignating one of the adults to stay with the boys, leaving them with a sitter, or having them stay home altogether. But since they too wanted to engage in their grandmother’s birthday celebration, that didn’t seem a viable alternative.

Silver Linings

On the other hand, the boys’ witnessed trusted adults coping as best they could in a mad scramble for clues to free themselves. They could regard this in years to come as a learning experience, enlightening if not enriching. Perhaps if more precautions had been taken, the youngsters’ apprehensions would have diminished. At the same time, it’s also true that their fears were more genuine than the adults’ satisfaction in achieving their make-believe goal. Given the proliferation of these establishments throughout the United States, caring parents and grandparents should review these establishments beforehand and ask questions. Some horror-themed escape rooms, for example, employ escaping from physical restraints like handcuffs or zip ties, so be careful. Make certain to keep the mental and emotional demands of the escape room experience age-appropriate. That applies to kids and adults alike.

Empathy

Regarding the desensitization aspect, how many kidnap victims seek to relive their experiences watching movies like Saw? Time and distance may lessen the psychological impact of what they felt, but reliving the experience, even in make-believe, dulls the emotional sensitivities of those who play such games and disrespects the legacies of those who endured, suffered, or died in real-life bondage.

What do you think? Write your thoughts and reactions in the Leave-A-Reply box below.

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Geek Out with Filk Music

Discovering the Soundtrack of Fandom

Filk Music at Boskone 61

One of the most enjoyable aspects of attending a professional convention is discovering a new fact, idea, or way of thinking. Waiting to do an author reading at the Boskone 61 convention (where I’d power-performed twice already as a panelist), I decided to attend the {Song Circle) Celestial Bodies concert. After all, I reasoned, wouldn’t hearing some classical music, say Gustav Holst‘s The Planets, ease my performance anxieties?

Little did I suspect that this decision would provide my first encounter with a different form of geekdom–filk music. Everyone knows (or thinks they do) what a geek is–an expert or enthusiast obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit. However, how many know what a filk enthusiast is? I was about to find out.

History and Etymology of Filk Music

Part of my surprise about filk music stemmed from the uncertainty of what it is. The primary definition for Filk comes from aeroscientist Jordan Kare’s article in Sing Out magazine where he quotes musician Nick Smith of the Los Angeles Filkharmonics describing filk as “a mixture of song parodies and original music, humorous and serious, about subjects like science fiction, fantasy, computers, cats, politics, [etc.}” with the conclusion “almost anything goes at a Filksing.”

On the other hand, critics such as Jeff Suwak in Rawckus magazine credit filk as being more than a muscial genre but as a bona fide subculture. Like a band of ragtag heroes in a fantasy novel, Filkers challenge the suppression of the human creaative impulse. They may dress up as wookies and pirates to sing about their favorite sci-fi and fantasy films, but “Breaking the restraints of the imagination and embracing one’s true self, no matter how silly or socially-questionable that self may be, is the whole point.”

Given this lack of precision, it’s unsurprising that the term originated as a misprint in Lee Jacobs‘ essay “”The Influence of Science Fiction on Modern American Filk Music.” Cited repeatedly for amusement by the editor of the Amateur Press Society, the term became associated with the genre while still an informal occurrence at sci-fi and fantasy conventions. Only when writer Karen Anderson used it to describe a song written by her husband, sci-fi novelist Poul Anderson, did the term become formally recognized.

Filk Music--Mr. Spock
Leonard Nimoy–an honorary filker

Filk Music Structure and Types

From those humble beginnings, filk music evolved into the more formal and systematic performances I witnessed at the Boskone convention on Sunday. Rather than impromptu sessions on hotel stairwells or out-of-the way nooks, filk music now serves as a designated feature in conention schedules. Its musicians play a variety of insturments, the acoustic guitar and keyboard predominating, and they perform in filk circles. Though loosely organized, this arrangement permits egalitarian access with each performer politely awaiting his or her turn to perform.

The most common types of performance are these three: Bardic, Chaos, and Token Bardic. Bardic structure permits each participant to perform in turn around the circle. Chaos provides no sequential structure; performers shout out to play after the previous perfromer has finished. Token Bardic combines the previous two by doling out poker chips to the performers which they can toss into the center of the circle to claim the next turn.

Regardless of structure, filk music emphasizes respect for all music and all performers, whatever their expertise or proficiency. Everyone can participate; tips and suggestions are the only criticism.

Cultural Impact of Filk Music

Over the years, filk has matured from ad hoc performances played and enjoyed by sci-fi fans to a distinctive genre with its own jargon (filkspeak, a subcategory of fanspeak) and subgenres. Some examples are hymnal speak (group singing from a hymnal), filkhogs (performers who sing more than their fair share of songs), and found filk (songs not written as filk but show a folkish love of incongruities). Filkers even have an award for the best example of their music–the Pegasus Award–given annually at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest.

Despite all the above, filk’s sense of ingenuousness and gentle satire remains. Amy Kucharik, the moderator of the song circle I attended, stated during our Messenger dialog that she remained “uncertain whether my music qualifies as ‘filk’ per se (vs music with nerdy concepts and pop culture references) but it was so much fun to be at Boskone.” Performers and listeners still do it for the enjoyment of the music and the rebelliousness of their self-expression. As ethnomusicologist Sally Childs-Helton puts it, “We have taken our right to be creative and to literally ‘play’ in the best sense of that word.” Given the recent political and sociological excesses attributed to overzealous fans, aren’t the orderly and egalitarian actions of devoted musical geeks something to celebrate?

Filk Music

What do you think? Write a comment in the Leave a Reply box beowl.

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Memorable Days Not Honored as Holidays

Introduction

Some days are so significant they are remembered despite the fact they are not celebrated nationally, unlike Christmas or the Fourth of July. Nor are such days designated to provide secular alternatives to holidays most people celebrate such as Festivus. The days in question are those where people recall exactly what we were doing on the date the days occurred. Based on the discussion on my Facebook feed, January 6th, 2021, the date of the insurrection against the peaceful transfer of power in the federal government, constitutes one of those memorable days.

Yet, however significant the events that occurred on that particular day may be, today’s discussion focuses on what you were doing or feeling when you heard or saw the event. How did learning the news make you feel? Angry? Elated? Disheartened? All three?

All of those emotions surged through me on January 6th. And they still do three years later. But it wasn’t the first time I felt those emotions. Reflecting back on my experiences, there have been a number of times events beyond my control made me remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and how I felt on those fateful days.

The List

December 6, 1941

Well before my birthday, but this is the date that launched the paradigm. Everyone alive then says they know exactly where they were when they heard the Japanese military had bombed Pearl Harbor. The date is not celebrated formally, but everyone recognizes it as the original Day of Infamy.

August 6, 1945

This date marks the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. A second bomb destroyed Nagasaki three days later, and the Japanese government surrendered several weeks after that. Neither bombing marks the official end of World War II, but their consequent impact on world events never has been more significant.

February 3, 1945

The Day the Music Died according to singer Don McLean had significant impact for a generation including many of my older friends. For me this time marked the verge of my teenage years which included listening to rock and roll on the radio. Iowa is close to my home state of Wisconsin, and I remember how cold and snowy it was that night as it was during most winters back then. The-conditions were so terrible that Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens should never have climbed into that small aircraft which they plummeted them to their deaths.

November 22, 1963

The news of Kennedy’s assassination dumbfounded me. How was it possible? Who did it? A million more questions popped into my head when the news of the shooting came over the school loudspeakers. Neither the frog I was dissecting in my introductory biology class nor not much else got done the rest of that day. Our last classes ended a few minutes early–small consolation for dealing with such an earth-shattering news.

November 15, 1969

the largest anti-war protest march in our nation’s history occurred on this date. Over a half-million protesters filled the Wasington Mall to demand an end to the Vietnam War. I and three of my college dormitory friends took turns driving across the country to participate in the march and its ceremonies. Proud, exultant, and inspired as all of us felt then, it still seems impossible that it could take six more years before the war ended and I’d get drafted in the process.

August 9, 1974

Not only was this the day President Richard Nixon resigned from office, but it also marks the day of our wedding anniversary. Living in Boston at the time, it was tempting to think all the cheering everywhere was for our nuptials. In truth, however, it expressed how grateful the people of the only state who voted for Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, were for Nixon leaving office.

September 11, 2001

The collapse of the World Trade Center is not a day most New Yorkers are likely to forget. At the time, my wife and I lived in Minneapolis and I had surgery the previous day to repair a torn cruciate cartilege in my left knee. Confinement to the davenport forced me to witness the nightmarish repetition of the two planes crashing into the buildings and their horrifying collapse.

Conclusion

The above entries identify some of the events that changed my life during the past seventy years. You may quibble over the stature of some of the entries or point out others that I have omitted. You may even wonder as I did about the twenty-year gap between the last entry and January 6, 2021. It’s not that few significant events occurred during that time; rather, many of those peak events like the Wall Street collapse or the Crimean invasion served as precursors to the insurrection three years ago. Consequently, many of us feel an ongoing anguish in its aftermath and for our prospects in the days ahead. But what I’ve learned over that time tells me that such feelings never last. And if that assessment is not significant or memorable, little else is.

What do you think? Click on the Leave a Comment link above to leave your reply.

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Unusual Secular Celebrations to Beat Holiday Blues

Introduction

Secular Celebrations - Xmas bough

The holiday season can be stressful, and holiday blues are not imaginary. While the connection between holilday celebrations and suicide rate increases has been debunked as myth, a survey by the American Psychological Association found that “38% of people felt their stress levels increased during the holiday season.” Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a form of clinical depression known to increase during the winter months in the Northern hemisphere due to changes in the duration of sunlight. These changes affect our body rhythms, neurochemical balance, and mental outlook when darkness lasts longer and cold weather keeps us cooped up indoors.

Many factors contribute to our mental outlook during the holidays, isolation being one of them. Another can be the perceived discrepancy between the joy celebrating the holidays is supposed to bring and the reality of our personal and political lives. If the joy and peace on earth celebrating a deity’s alleged date of birth seem lacking, where does one turn to receive such comfort during the long, dreary, lonely days of winter? Other orgranized religious holidays such as Kwanasaa and Hanukkah are peculiar to the ethnic groups in which they originated. And, similar to the pagan holidays of Saturnalia and St. Lucy’s Day, they serve as calendrial placeholders in substiituting winter solstice celebrations for the Christmas holiday.

Atheists, agnostics, and undecideds should have some means of expressing and expunging their hopes and fears during the holidays. To meet that need, let’s go beyond the evolution of Father Christmas by identifying three unusual secular celebrations to beat those holiday blues:

Burning the Clocks

Secular Celebrations - Burning the Clocks

An “antidote to the commercializaation of Christmas,” the Burning of Clocks event parades willow-made clocks and lanterns through the streets of Brighton England down to the beach. Upon their arrival, a raging bonfire consumes them to the accompaniment of fireworks. Regarded as an investment of the participants’ “wishes, hopes and fears,” the festive burning of these symbols signals the passage of time and spiritual rejuvenation for the upcoming year.

Festivus

Arising from an episode of the Seinfeld TV sitcom, Festivus has grown into a secular holiday observed all across the nation. Celebrated on December 23rd as an “alternative to the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas season,” it spoofs traditional ceremonies with its bare aluminum pole stuck in a living room corner, wrestling competitions among household members and guests, a joyous feast, and “an airing of grievances” about disappointments suffered throughout the year. Building on its initial popularity, notables such as former Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle have helped promote its rituals and pageantry to such an extent that it has been recommended to become a formally-recognized national holiday.

Secular Celebrations -Festivus

HumanLight

Secular Celebrations -- HumanLight

HumanLight is a humanist holiday also celebrated on the 23rd of December. The New Jersey Humanist Network founded the day in 2001 to commemorate the holiday season without encroaching upon other religious and secular events occuring during the same timeframe. Its goal is to promote “positive, secular human values of reason, compassion, humanity and hope” Aside from the injunction not to use the event to criticise religion, celebrations can be as individual as its sponsors choose to make them.

Summation

More such secular celebrations of the December holidays exist. In fact, Midwinter Day destroys the confines of time and space by celebrating the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration during the continent’s southern winter solstice in July. But going to such extremes isn’t necessary. The examples above show that the spirit of winter solstice celebrations is not confined to religious spectacles alone. Atheists and agnostics need not feel isolated and depressed. They, too, can celebrate the holiday season in a way appropriate to their belief systems. And isn’t the human spirit that motivates all these festivals, secular and spiritual alike, the value most worth celebrating and sharing?

If you care to add to this list or feel differently about such events, tell us by clicking on the Leave a Comment link above to leave your reply.

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Why Shamans Are Important

Curandero shaman example of why shamans are important

You may not know it, but shamans are important to you. In fact, you encounter them every day without realizing it. Given the ascendancy of doctors and scientific practice in Western medicine, shamans and their therapies are dusmissed and/or ridiculed as so much pseudoscience like witches, faith healers, and the evil eye.

So, why pay any attention to them? What do they have to offer? What makes them so important? Before delving into that, it helps to know what they are.

Definitions

Shamans from different cultures
Examples of different types of shamans

There are as many definitions of shamans and shamanism as there are indigenoous pagan religions in the world.  Each has its own set of spiritual beliefs and practices that arise from them. Some form the basis of their community’s form of medical treatment; others constitute the basis of their religious practices, and some comprise a set of practices for leading a full and healthy life. A few even allow their practitioners to enter other people’s minds or the astral plane to communicate with their ancestors. Even the word “shaman” comes from the Russion word “saman” which derives from the Tangusic language of Eastern Siberia and has been applied by Western anthropologists as something of a catchall term for such practitioners.

To encompass the range of these differing philosopies is next to impossible. But for purposes of this blog piece, let’s borrow the relatively straightforward definition in the glossary of the second edition of my novel, Mission: Soul Rescue. It states there that a shaman is “a religious practitioner capable of entering the spirit world through altered states of consciousness to direct psychic energies into the physical world for healing, divination, or helping humans in some way.”

Examples of Why Shamans Are Important

Mr. Natural
Mr. Natural–pop culture example of why shamans are important

Pretty heavy stuff, eh? But, as mentioned above, not as strange or exotic as you might think.  One example: the practice of pharmacy evolved out of the practices of apothecaries and druggists during the late middle ages. Pharmacy shops began to appear in Europe as early as the twelfth century. At that time herbalists concocted the nostrums and remedies that cured the sick and healed the injured. Much of their lore reappears today  distilled in the essences and formulas of our modern drugs and treatments. Atropine from atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade) is a prime example.

More to the point–examples of shamans pervade our culture through our books, TV, and our movies. If you’ve read the exploits of Marvel Comics First Flight (Shaman) or played the role of Nightwolf in Mortal Combat’s fighting game franchise, you’ve encountered a shaman. Rafiki (The Lion King) and Venus (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) are two more examples of shamans in popular culture.

Farther afield but within the realm of shamans-as–spiritual-mediums are the 1960s countercultural favorite, Mr. Natural and the 21st century’s Elsa from the movie Frozen. Even orthodox relgion has its share of fictional shamans. Father Joseph Dyer (Exorcist III) and DC Comics’ John Constantine come immediately to mind. Not all of these examples embody shamanism in the strictest sense defined above, but they indicate the depth to which shamanism pervades our cultural landscape.

What It Means

Example of neuroscientist investigatiing consciousness

“So What?” some of you might be thinking. All of the above examples are fictional fantasies; they have no counterparts in ordinary reality. Or do they? Elon Musk and the people at Meta Platforms are working feverishly to create what CEO Mark Ruckerberg calls the first metaverse to “help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses.” A number of scientists including notables such as Heather Berlin are exploring the neural basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity.  Science educator Isaac Arthur‘s YouTube videos focus on futurism, artificial intelligence, transhumanism and other related topics.

Now that the social stigma is gone, researchers are exploring the mental health benefits of mind-altering drugs such as Lysergic acid dimethylamide (LSD) and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a compound commonly used by Shuar, curandero, and other shamans of Central and South America. in their spiritual rites and medical practices.

The accumulating evidence suggests that the divide between the explorations of material science and the spiritual journeyings of contemporary shamans is narrower than ever before. It took scientists over a half century to create the “magic” that imbued Spock’s tricoder and today’s smart phone. In similar fashion, today’s digital engineers are creating entryways that blend  the material  reality of the body with the unconscious reality of the mind into one cohesive fabric. With their history of venturing into the spiritual realm of the unconscious, shamans have a major role to play in shaping that integration for everyone’s benefit.

What do you think?

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Fast Writing: Ten Step Process

Fast Writing
Ten Tips To Fast Writing

One panel on which I’m participating at the Multiverse Convention in Atlanta (Oct. 20-22)is titled Fast Writing. Though uncertain what the panel topic originators mean by this term (maybe the panelists will define it), here is my ten-step process for overcoming the greatest fear of most writers–the tyranny of the blank page.

Outline before you begin

Fast Writing: Outline
Outline Before Starting to Write

Whether writing a novel, creating a procedure to accomplish a task, or responding to a question on a blue-book written exam final, preparing even a simple outline takes only a few minutes. Organizing your thoughts this way keeps you on task and enables you to meet your deadlines, whether 30 minutes or six months.

Decide whether you are an organic or architectural writer

Particularly in writing fiction, understanding your creative style can save time and effort. Architectural writers, such as many mystery writers, work from detailed outlines They need to know the plot points to place the clues for their readers. Organic writers take a more fluid approach. They start with a basic concept or conflict and build their stories from there. Discovering which type of writing style suits you best takes time and practice, but results in less time and dissatisfaction overall.

Don’t Fret Over Deadlines

Fast Writing: Deadlines
Deadlines Can Be Our Friends

Consider them your friends instead. Without meeting deadlines, most projects never would get done and stories would never get written. There’s always one more fact to research or another way to write a scene. It’s called procrastination.

The secret to keeping the deadline monkey off your back is having a plan. Break the interval between when you receive the assignment (now) and the time the assignment comes due (future). Once you know how much time you have, you can break it into its component parts. For example–to write a 60,000 word novel, give yourself six months timeframe. That means writing ten thousand words a month spread over thirty days, or prodlucing three hundred thirty words a day. That’s roughly one and a third pages assuming you’re writing a standard double-spaced mss. using 12-point arial or Times Roman font face. Taking off weekends, (more on that below) would leave approximately twenty workdays per month, which stretches daily production to 500 words per day., roughly two type-written pages–a very achievable goal–IF you stick to it.

Write Freely.

Free Writing: Let It Fly!
Let It Fly!

This injunction is the one  I violate most frequently. And one I expect the panel will address. In other words, don’t pause to correct spelling and grammar errors while writing. Allow the prose to flow out of your fingers onto your word-processing keys as you compose. Even in this simple sentence I violated this rule twice to correct for spelling and word usage. On the other hand, exchanging word-processing for handwriting is more applicable to today’s writers. Corrections made  at the moment words are placed on a page helps set up the verbiage and verbiage to follow (Remember organic vs. architectural writing).

Stop mid-scene.

Fast Writing: Stop Mid-Scene
Stop in Mid-Scene

The next several steps apply more to fiction rather than non-fiction writing, but they’re applicable in the second instance, too. In this instance, mid-scene means concluding your narrative at a point where the action has built in intensity and you’ve reached your word and emotional quotas for the day. Ernest Hemingway advised this point in the story was a good place to quit and resume the action the following day. In my experience, few things in writing are more difficult than restoring interest in the next scene after you’ve reached an emotional climax in the one preceding it.

To remedy the mid-story tyranny of the blank page, i.e. a new chapter, end your day’s writing in mid-climax. Or, if you’ve reached a determining plot point, end the scene with a question or problem your protagonist needs to resolve in the next scene or chapter. If all else fails, take Raymond Chandler‘s advice and have the villain come through the door with guns blazing.  That keeps the reader turning pages and forces you, the writer, to figure out what happens next (See Step one–the need for a good outline).

Revise What You Wrote the Previous Day

Fast Writing: Revise
First Revision

The guidebooks say most writingis rewriting. Revising the day after gets you staDrted on that process  to a polished final manuscrpt. It also helps get you into the emotional flow of what you plan to write today. Think of the following day’s revision as a mental warmup for the current day’s writing.

Take Breaks Every So Often.

The ergonomic specialists at HealthCentral.com recommend standing up and getting away from the desk every 30-60 minutes.  Taking a break refreshes the mind and relieves body stress as well as renews your energy to continue writing. The creative meenergy of your prose flows from the critical and emotional energies of your mind, so recharge by taking a break  on a regular basis.

Meet Your Quotas

Though this seems to contradict the previous step, it reinforces the point expressed in Step 2. Take breaks, but organize your time. If you adhere to the writing schedule outlined in Step 3 on a daily basis, you’ll meet your weekly, monthly, and overall objectives based on the timeframe you set.

Allow Ideas to Percolate

Fast Writing: Subconsious
Let Ideas Percolate

Perhaps you do end a scene on an emotional downturn and don’t know how to continue. Or you don’t know how to get your protagonist out of a complicated or dangerous situation. Take a break, take a shower, go for a walk, do anything that takes your focus off the problem that vexes you. It’s not for nothing life advisors recommend you sleep on an idea before making a decision. Allow your subconscious to work on the problem while you devote your time and attention to other issues. You’d be surprised how many problems can be solved this way.

Live!

Enjoy life as much as possible. To fuel your writing, your creative self must have raw material from which to draw. This, to me, seems the underlying injunction to much method acting. In order to embody the emotion, they must experience it first. And that means living. It holds true for writers as well. Beginning writers often are advised to write what they know. Thinking they don’t have sufficient life experiences, they make something up. But their narratives ring hollow because they haven’t experienced the emotion or situation themselves.

Of course, taken to extreme, this means crime writers need to commit the crimes about which they write. But, rather than commit some illegal or immoral act, they can research or interview those people who have experienced or committed such acts. Those instances aside, a writer can share those experiences all of us feel: love, friendship, betrayal, hatred–the list goes on.  The importaint point is that in order to make your writing genuine, you need to experience those emotions yourself. And that takes time. And organization.  Something, hopefully, this list has imparted.

The Upshot

All ten of these steps are recommendations. Like my advice in “Five Steps for Power Panelists,” they are most honored in the breech more often than not. But adhering to them most of the time should result in the outcome(s) you desire–a completed first draft ready for substantive revisions should they be necessary.

Which of these steps do y ou employ? Do you have other fast writing you employ that help meet your goals? Tell us in the Leave A Reply section.

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Five Tips for Power Panelists

One fantasy convention down and another to go (Multiverse in Atlanta, Oct. 20-22)! As another part of an informal series on authorship and writing hacks, here are five tips for power panelists that make panels work for them and their audiences.

1. Be Prepared

Five Tips for Power PanelistsThis one seems obvious, but involves more than mere familiarity with the subject. Too often, fantasy writers view a topic through their individual lens.  That can be illustrative, but such a narrow focus may not apply to all varieties of fantasy or science fiction. Power panelists realize the differences between writing low or high fantasy, for example, or young adult and middle-grade, are quite distinctive and engender differing perspectives on the nature and focus of writing fiction for their audiences.

How to address this? Acquire some familiarity with the work of your fellow panel members breeds respect and cooperation in your discussions. Cultivate some knowledge of your fellow panelists’ perspectives by checking out their website or emailing them for their opinions before the event.

BTW, being on time and staying on topic helps, too!

2. Consider Your Audience

Five Tips for Power PanelistsThis tip elaborates on what appears above. Just as writers slant their stories to the values, interests, and expectations of their readerships, power panelists direct their responses toward the topic at hand with their audience in mind. Does it consist primarily of writers or academics? Or is it composed primarily of readers and fantasy fans?

In most instances, it combines both. Therefore, power panelists keep their participation in the discussion on a level available to everyone. Don’t delve into fantasy trivia or writing esoterica unless the audience indicates they wish to pursue the topic more deeply. Most importantly, power panelists aren’t condescending to them or their fellow panelists.

3. Encourage Audience Participation

Five Tips for Power PanelistsFor some panel members, this tip may contradict the concept of a panel discussion, i.e. a discussion among the members of a panel. Regardless of that, some of the best discussions I’ve witnessed resulted from questions or observations contributed by the audience. If a topic is provocative enough in itself, or if the panel discussion of it is sufficiently free-flowing and involving, such discussion conduces a dialog between the panel and its listeners. Not only does such involvement measure a power panelist and a panel’s success as entertainers, it liberates creative ideas panel members may never have considered.

4. Set Limits to the Discussion

Five Tips for Power PanelistsThis point may be in the convention guidelines, but it bears repeating. Power panelists respect the ideas and beliefs of all participants, panelists and audience members alike. To facilitate that respect, the moderator should lay out the ground rules before the start of discussion. Most often, that means reigning in those individuals whose enthusiasm for a particular topic overwhelms their inhibitions and consideration for others.

One method to establish control: agree upon an absurb or nonthreatening safe word like “sandwich” at the beginning of the discussion.  tactfully subdues an overzealous panelist or audience member who overextends his or her say on the topic under discussion.

5. Keep Things Short and Simple

This last tip harkens back to the first. Kristen Arnold of “Panelist Do’s and Don’ts” recommends introducing yourself in two or three sentences. She advises to “Be ready to support your points with concrete examples and crisp, concise stories that humanize your message and drive it home.” Easier said than done, but striving for brevity this way enables power panelists to set the conversational tone and identifies themas someone whose contributions are worth a listen or writing them down!

Summing It Up

Serving on a panel or being a moderator can be a tricky thing. Power panelists know having a discussion with people they meet just before taking their seat at the podium can be nerve-wracking. Such unfamiliarity makes having a natural and free-flowing discussion difficult, much less informative or entertaining. However, following these five tips should make involvement in such discussions an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

What are some power tips you employ when you are a panel member? Have you witnessed or participated in some panels where these tips failed or backfired? Tell us in the Comments section below.

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Rule of Seven Hack for Authors

Rule of Seven in Marketing
Rule of Seven Hack for Authors to Reach Target Market

One of the new concepts discussed at the  2023 Imaginarium Convention this past July was how the Rule of Seven affects promoting author fiction. Originally coined by American movie moguls in the 1930s, the concept states that potential customers, i.e. theater-goers, must see or hear about a film at least seven times before commiting to watch it. While this rule-of-thumb may have worked back then, does it still hold true for marketing in the digital age? If so, how does it work for authors?

Then And Now

Drawing public attention to a new Ruitem or service was more difficult in the 1930s. Fewer advertising outlets existed, and promotional techniques were less sophisticated. Radio, newspapers, and magazines acted as the prime purveyors of information and promotion. Consequently, movie studios flooded the few media outlets available with theatrical movie previews and stories about the stars in those movies in magazines such as Star and the Hollywood Reporter.  Such activities still go on today with promotional budgets far beyond the cost of creating 1930s films devoted to alerting and (for the most expensive films) deluging the movie-going public with information about the latest cinematic releases.

Paradigm Shift
Rule of Seven Hack for Authors

However, today’s fiction-readers receive information about new and favorite writers from a firehose of media outlets. Advertising and promotions inundate them to such an extent that repeated exposures to the same message or brand may have a counter-productive effect. Research from the University of Sussex suggests that “being presented with the same message over and again could actually do more damage than good.” In short, people tune out.

An Antidote

Rule of Seven Remedy
Remedy–Rule of Seven Hack for Authors

Rather than continue to hammer the promotional message to an increasingly resistant buying public, the answer may lie in less repetition and more diversity. Results from that same study indicate repeating a strong promotional message may be counter-productive. As a result, the target audience becomes saturated with the message and “they gravitate toward novelty.”

But not just to anything new or different. People enjoy a blend of the new with the familiar. Repeated exposure to the new product or service remains key so long as it is interlaced with more customary concepts and ideas.  As the researchers concluded, “What appears to be key is variety.”

Importance of Branding

Of course, The Walt Disney Company (Disney) has millions of dollars to flood the media with their variety of products. Most authors, including myself, have little or none. Yet authors can take a page out of the Disney playbook and hone it to scale. Disney’s theme parks and merchandise still serve to promote its movies and cartoons, the bedrock of Disney’s various enterprises.

Branding to Sell Your Novels
Branding as Applied to Rule of Seven Hack for Authors

Authors and writers can do the same. They may not have the resources or exposure of the Disney Corporation, but even its founder started out with pen and paper and an idea from which he sought to tell stories. Fiction writers have their own ideas and imagination to draw upon. And unlike the writers and artists for Disney, they can intersperse the promotions for their books and stories with narratives of their own unique experiences–promotional branding in written form. In fact, such product promotions may be stronger on an individual level because they can take a more personal and familiar approach.

What It All Means

Promoting one’s fictional works in the information age needn’t be as daunting as it first appears. The Rule of Seven still applies. Yet applying that rule must ssume a different form. Due to the multitude of advertising outlets and competitors, authors, particularly fiction writers, must know their brand and the audience(s) to which their brand appeals. More important than appearing on a dozen social media platforms like Facebook or Tik-Tok, they must develop their brand. Why? Because their books are projections of who and what they are as artists. And knowing that, hacking deep inside themselves, they can project their ideas through personal interactions with readerships (and buyers) receptive to who they are and what they have to sell.

What do you think? Let us know in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Is Russia Trolling Walt Disney?

First Inkling

Indiana Jones 5Like other film goers of the Boomer generation, I cut my movie-going teeth on adventure films like the Star Wars trilogy and (especially) Indiana Jones. Though they basically contain B-movie plots given A-list treatments, their over-the-top audacity and sheer enthusiasm made up for any shortcomings in probability or plot construction.

When Disney announced the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (IJ5), I welcomed the fan reviews despite rumors of rewrites, production delays, and on-set ego conflicts. After all, what business endeavor, particularly an artistic ones, doesn’t have its share of creative differences?

However, the overwhelming negativity of many reviews, particularly those appearing on YouTube, surprised me. Titles like “How Could Indy Flop This Badly?” and “Indiana Jones Is a Total Disaster for Disney” hyperbolized the film’s failure while providing little basis for their declarations. Many reviewers’ analyses seemed totally specious. Some ascribed the movie’s failure to Phoebe Waller-Bridge‘s inadequate performance.  Others blamed Harrison Ford as being too old for playing the role. A few perceived deeper, managerial forces at work which forced director James Mangold to reshoot scenes and alternative endings for various audiences.

Due Diligence

Due DiligenceNone of these criticisms made a lot of sense to me. If the film was this bad, mainstream media critics would roast it as well. However, most assessments tended to resemble the one provided by Inverse‘s Alex Welch which concluded the film “offers a surprisingly nuanced take on the power and utility of nostalgia.”

Reserving our judgments on that evaluation alone, my wife and I attended a Monday matinee performance and were enthralled the entire 142 minutes of run time. We left the theater shaking our heads. What gives?

Common Assessment

At first glance, It appears many of the film’s most negative critics have their own political and social axes to grind. Some, like Midnight’s Edge, berate Disney films in general for imposing a “forced diversity” component upon the audience.  Others, like Ryan Kinel, creator of RK Outpost, go further, blasting Disney films for promoting what they consider “sjw (social justice warrior)/woke content.”

All of this type of negativity John Mangold and Quora commentator, Chris Walters, dismiss as part of a growing yet grudging fandom menace.  Walters encapsulates the group’s feelings this way, “many who are unhappy with anything after the original three [Star Wars]  movies, they don’t like Lucas tinkering with the original three movies. They don’t like the three prequel movies, although some of the dialog and Jar Jar Binks are terrible. And they definitely don’t like the three movies that Disney released to finish the Skywalker saga.”

Could It Be Something Else?

Russian Troll FarmsBut is this “fandom menace” comfined to Disney alone? Or is it more widespread and insidious? Finding reliable sources disscussing this topic is difficult. However, in one critical response toward The Last Jedi, researcher Morten Bay declared the backlash to that film should be regarded with more than a grain of salt. His study, “Weaponizing the Haters,” discovered 50.9 % of the negative reviews were “politically motivated or not even human.” In actuality, these fan base disagreements are “deliberate, organized political influence measures in disguise.” Their purpose–“increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society.”

Unfortunately, Morten is not so precise as to identify or give the number of Russian websites involved in such trolling activities. He also dismisses the total involvement by these trolls to no more than 21 per cent of the total online discussion. Still, provoking such dust-ups and amplifying discord through local and national media offers a tremendous return on sowing doubt and cultural uncertainty.

Conclusion

Given the rate of return, trolling a cultural icon like Disney by criticizing the movies they produce seems like a soft power weapon whose use is difficult to resist. As Vitaly Bespalov, a former operative for the St. Petersburg troll farm says, “Putin doesn’t see any conflict in such operations. He sees trolling of any kind as ‘an equivalent step to the so-called ‘negative actions’ that the West is doing against Russia.” Regarding the West’s reaction, he concludes “I think they are not used to these black games. They are more naive.”

What do you think? Let us know in the Leave a Reply section below.

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AI Threatens Publishers & Writers

AI in Book PublishingArtificial Intelligence (AI) already affects writers and the publishing industry. However, the recent release of ChatGPT threatens authors’ livelihoods on a whole new level.  In a Publisher’s Weekly opinion piece, electronics publisher Thad McElroy calls the recent innovations in AI a “game changer.” He believes “every function in trade book publishing today can be automated with the help of generative AI.” And if this assertion is true, “the trade book publishing industry as we know it will soon be obsolete. We will need to move on.”

Death knells for the publishing industry have sounded before. Remember word processors, automated printing, and “Print Is Dead”?  McElroy does, and other writer/publishers seem to agree with him. For example, Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur gmailed that the cost for Amazon’s print-on-demand service is schedeuled  to increase on June 20th. This decision affects writers and publishers alike. If the industry’s need to move  on is real, the question becomes “To What?”

Alternatives

To thwart the apocalypse before it happens, McElroy offers a nuanced analysis of the problem with a pragmatic solution. Since AI promises to take over all the production aspects of publishing, it’s best for everyone involved to accept that fact and discover the opportunities ChatGPT and its kindred programs provide. In terms of the book-production process, for example, McElroy equates the current situation to 1988 when publishers linked the MacIntosh computer to the Linotype printer.  Dramatic increases in output resulted in exchange for increased editorial errors and mediocre page design. But readers accepted this “good enough” product quality in exchange for easier access and wider availability of resources.

Acceptable Quid Pro Quo?

Whether this exchange was equitable remains debatable. For his part, McElroy Definition of Quid Pro Quo itemizes the opportunities AI offers in terms of acquisitiion, production, and marketing. In his view, AI could depose Amazon, the over-charging, 800-pound gorilla in the publishing industry. While independent publishers like him might welcome the overthrow of their competition, individual entrepreneurs, writers, and artists could find themselves shoved further down down the publicity and marketing chain.  McElroy’s  analysis is astute, but relies heavily on his approach of book publishing being an information-dispensing industry.

Making a Choice

For authors, particularly fiction writers, the question boils down to what inspired them to become writers in the first place? Was their decision based on the promise of fame and fortune? Or because they needed to express themselves, to write something no one had ever said or thought before? Was their choice inspired by images carefully crafted on the page or by graphs and equations neatly presented on an I-pad?

George Bernard Shaw in 1911As individuals, people respond to differIent stimuli differently. George Bernard Shaw once claimed “It is the mark of the truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.” Most of us, however, are not so swayed nor sympathetic to their impact. To impel action, people need the emotional stimulus that well-honed words on the page provide. Most of us, writers and readers included, remember a favorite book or story that stimulated our imaginations, one that prompted us to write something as good, as beautiful, as true.

A Personal Note

For me, that story was Walter Farley‘s The Black Stallion. In its honor I created a coverThe Black Stallion binder for my proposed work, Black Phantom. The binder remained empty for years, however, because I had no access to horses of any kind. Finally, when the chance to ride one did happen, I clung to the saddle horn for all I was worth while the horse galloped back to its stall for a fresh bucket of oats. However, the action, the adventure, the thrill of that incident stayed with me. Like Farley’s narrative of a boy’s enduring love for his horse, these qualities inspired the path I’ve chosen these many decades later.

This is not to say others of a more analytical bent cannot be inspired by facts and figures derived out of the multiverse of mental calculations. One of my favorite scientific authors, Carl Sagan, was at home in the professional realms of astrophysics and education. His respect for science and logical thinking came through in every book he wrote. But, his  passion did, too. In his most popular book, Cosmos, Sagan’s awe for the universe and its mysteries flies off every page, stimulating and resonating his audience with its own.

The Decision

Pros & Cons of a DecisionFor these individuals and the people inspired by them, “good enough” is not acceptable.  Publishing information remains limited to the quality and accuracy of its sources. The 1960s adage, “Garbage In, Garbage Out” (GIGO), still holds true. Currently, Chatbot writing, no matter how proficient or well-supported, cannot be as affective as human writing because it has no soul, no sense of self to be inspired by directed words on a page. To be certain, it can define the word “metaphor” and provide examples of one, but it can’t deliver one that moves human readers because it has no feelings of its own to be moved.

The reading public already drowns at the firehose of information provided by the predecessors of artificial intelligence. Do they wish to be inundated by the information tsunami that ChatGPT threatens to unleash? Probably not. Yet, the answers to such questions remain to be answered. As participants in the publishing world, everyone must decide which choice will insure our survival. As with so many other issues in this uncertain world, make your best informed decision, then wait and see.

What do you think? Put your response in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Does Being A Melungeon Matter?

Melungeon familyMelungeon–a particular yet ominous-sounding word which happens to rhyme with dungeon in English. Sometimes spelled malungeon or melongeon, the term has several meanings. The broadest of these, according to Merriam-Webster, is “one of a group of people of uncertain ancestry in the southern Appalachians, especially of eastern Tennessee.” They are said to have particular identifying  physical characteristics and possess certain magical powers. Many people want to be melungeons; others fear the identification. And certain celebrities are accused of it. What is the truth? Why does it matter?

Origins

To begin with, the origin of the term is uncertain. It originally applied to a number of families of mixed ancestries, primarily European, Native American, and Sub-Saharan African, who practiced endogamy(mating within a specific social group, caste, religious denomination, or ethnic group). In the first half of the 19th century, some Caucasians used the term to denigrate anyone with certain physical characteristics that distinguished them from the rest of the white population. After the American Civil War, racial stratification became incorporated into America’s laws and mores. As a result, the term’s application broadened to include anyone with dark hair, brown eyes, and swarthy complexion.

History

Many people who had some or all of these alleged Melungeon characteristics consequently adopted  coping strategies to avoid the social, legal, and economic stigmas associated with the designation. Some claimed Portuguese descent; others claimed Native American ancestry, Cherokee being a favored tribal affiliation. By the mid-20th century, many had assimilated into their communities or moved, but terms such as “Black Dutch” and “Black Irish” still persisted.

Personal Context

Waylon Jennings performing in 1976The reason for my interest in the appelation is two-fold. First, my father’s side of the family perpetuated the notion that our dark complections and brown eyes stemmed from our Cherokee heritage. Second, my research into the background of country-western singer Waylon Jennings uncovered the fact that his family line descended from the Shipley line of eastern Tennessee with “a lot of Indian blood mixed in.” This included Cherokee and Commanche, which he accepted as part of his Black Dutch heritage.

Importance

Whether this slur contributed to Jennings’ outlaw persona remains open to question. Having grown up within yet apart from an endogamous community, it factors into my feelings of being an outsider. Such feelings may or may not matter depending on what you want our society to be. My post on Black History Month could be a good place to start your involvement.

Whatever your feelings about this topic, words do have impact.  In a world where a person’s features are scrutinized to determine which side of the cultural divide they’re on, an outmoded, exclusionary, yet stubbornly persistent designation should have no place in a free and truly liberated society.

What do you think? Let me know in the Comments box below.

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Discover Media You Can Trust

Discover Media You Can TrustIn your reading, did you discover media you can trust? Do they cite their sources and check their facts? Or do such constraints seem to get in the way of a good story, convincing opinion, or solid argument?

Reading Reservations

These reservations among others occurred to me while following the links in a story about Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems that appeared in the Science & Technology section of the news website 1440.  The snippet contained two articles which contained stories about artificial intelligence ChatGPT programs creating biased narratives about a conservative American professor and an Australian shire mayor. The programs falsely accused the former of sexually harassing his students and the latter of accepting bribes before he ran for office. Two tawdry instances among many others that show artificial intelligence programs cannot be trusted–right?

Following the reference trailDown the Rabbit Hole

Perhaps. But dig a little deeper and it turns out that the updated bersion of the bot story correctly identified the mayor as a whistle blower who “was not involved in the payment of bribes.” As for the professor’s implication that the reason why a ChatGPT made up a quote, cited a non-existent article, and referenced a false claim against him is because “the algorithms are no less biased and flawed than the people who program them.”  However, his claim that  “recent research has shown ChatGPT’s poltical bias” fails to stand up against even casual scrutiny. Following the link to his source reveals that quote comes from an article, “Danger in the Machine: The Perils of Political and Demographic Biases Embedded in AI Systems” which appears on the website for MI, an abbreviation for the Manhattan Institute.

More Sleuthing

Detective workOK. At this point, case closed. Or is it? One instance appears on the BBC News web page, the other on the web page of a “leading free market think tank.” Both sources for these links appear reliable, but consider the context in which these articles appear. The BBC is government-owned entity renowned for being “the world’s oldest newscaster” according to Wikipedia;  MI or the Manhattan Institute, formerly the Manhattan Iinstitute for Policy Research, formerly the International Center for Economic Policy Studies, is a conservative think tank originally founded in support of supply-side economics and privitization of government services during president Reagan’s administration. Two less-in-common resources would seem likely to be paired in the same article.

The Conundrum

Does this mean both viewpoints are equally valid? Or do both contain biases of their own that mitigate anyMBFC logo objective evaluation of the issue? My procedure: when in doubt in the 21st century, conduct a Google search. The first result of a “media bias” search turned up Media Bias Fact Check (MBFC) whose first menu item contains a list of nine bias categories in a continuum ranging from Least Biased to Left Biased to Right Biased to Conspiraacy-Pseudoscience.  Each of these categories identifies media outlets, newspapers, websites, and social platforms in alphabetical order from around the world. Each entry is measured and evaluated against a system of standards designed to measure the source’s objectivity, honesty, and reliability.

Site Evaluations

How did the two web sites measure up? About as expected. The BBC ranked slightly left of center on the bias scale, their credibility  marred only by their occasional use of emotion-laden headlines and some questionable. left-leaning sources.  The Manhattan Institute received a Right bias rating that almost reached Extreme due to their lack of transparency about their funding, their use of poor sources, and one failed fact check. The overall result showed the BBC wavered very slightly to the left of the center point denoting complete objectivity on the MBFC continuum while MI landed on the Extreme right of the MBFC continuum because of its blatant promotion of right-leaning philosophies and causes.

Take-aways

What does this investigation show?

  1. Tracking down the credibility of content and its sources can be a time-consuming rabbit-hole of a search.
  2. Even the most reliable sources can fall victim to sensationalized claims and headlines.
  3. Some news outlets (Radio Free Europe and Al-Jazeera come to mind) are not the biased sources their detractors claim them to be.
  4. Many impostor sites, both human and AI-written, dispense false information under such banal titles such as the Southwest Minnesota Herald (Metric Media alone drives over a thousand of such impostor web sites that look like legitimate local news sources).
  5. Though alphabetical, MBFC’s listings tend to cluster around T and A because initial articles are included as part of the title.

Note of Warning

Chatbot logoMBFC is only one of several sites devoted to information objectivity and bias-identification. Many media experts regard Snopes as the gold standard in this area. MBFC has its flaws to be sure, e.g. its founder admits that its grading scale is by no means rigorous or scienfific. Still, it does identify and evaluate unexpected and unknown sources which contextualizes the information you and I read and base our opinions/decisions. If an article or website tells a good story or promotes a strong opinion, MSFC is one place you can consult to evaluate the quality and reliabity of the content these media sources use in telling it.

What do you think? Tell us in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Writing Tips: Rule Of Three

Last month we identified the five best love poems to honor St. Patrick’s Day. This month, we examine the Rule of Three in celebration of good writing.

Rule of ThreeWhat Is the Rule of Three?

The Rule of Three is a writer’s guideline for conveying the most information in the briefest amount of space in the most effective way possible.  The rule applies to characters in a story, words in a title, or adjectives in front of an idea. Advertisers use it for its brevity, poets for its rhythm, and comedians for their wit. Growing out of the oral tradition of story-telling, the Rule of Three possesses something of a mythic quality by enabling audiences to comprehend and remember concepts in a train of thought.

Examples

The Rule of Three appears everywhere:

  • In folklore: The Three Little pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Three Billy Goats Gruff
  • In literature: The Three Musketeers, the three ghosts which visit Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,  the Three Witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
  • In religion: the Three Wise Men who visited Jesus after his birth, the three gods (Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma) of the Hindu religion,  the three aspects of god in the Christian trinity.
  • Expressions and Catchphrases: Tom, Dick, & Harry–a phrase used to describe anyone or people of little consequence; “Turn on, tune in, drop out” phrase of the 1960s counter-culture movement; “Veni, vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)” attributed to Julius Caesar.

Special Instances

The last set of examples above exemplifies the use of the tricolon in good writing. They achieve a symmetry  of expression through the parallelism in their number of words or syllables and in the likeness of their concepts. Those progressions whose concepts increase in weight or magnitude are called ascending tricolons; those expressions that do the opposite are called descending tricolons. Bicolon (two) and Tetracolon (four) are other forms of this type of parallel expression.

Words of Warning

Enjoyable and succinct as these forms of expression are, an author should be careful in employing them in his/her writing. So many of this type of expression, the bicolon in particular, have crept into common usage that using them in an original text is considered lazy or unimaginative writing. Describing a story as “cloak and dagger” or a character as “tall, dark, and handsome” is as much a writing faux pas as opening a story with Snoopy’s sendup of Edward Bulwer Lytton‘s “It was a dark and stormy night.” And reversing the order of a common binomial expression like “law and order” or “bride and groom” is a particularly egregious errror unless intended for comedic effect.

What It All Comes Down To

Writing should be fun. For me as for most writers, nothing is so satisfying as stating our themes and ideas in a way that was “ne’er so well-expressed,”  to borrow from the poet Alexander Pope. If you can compress a theme or idea into a rhythmic paralielism like the examples above–great. If knowing the concepts behind such constructions aids your writing so much the better. The measure of a writer is in doing so wisely and well. Not every Tom, Dick, or Harry can do it.

Are you up for that challenge? Tell us why or why not in the Leave a Reply section below.

 

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Top Five Poems for Valentine’s Day

Paper heart decoration for Valentine’s. Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

It’s that time of the year again (Valentine’s Day) when awkward swains and self-conscious partners must express their devotion to a chosen one. If any of you heeded my suggestion in an earlier blog post to read to each other every week, you’ll have found plenty of material for voicing your feelings. If not, poets.org, interestingliterature.com, reedsy.com, and The Norton Guide of English Literature helped me winnow my top five love poems out of many for you.

#5 Vivien’s Song–Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tennyson wrote a great deal of romantic poetry laden with overt and repressed feelings for his friends, countrymen, and nation–Idylls of the King being one example–but few love poems. This sonnet, which begins  “In love, if love be L ove, if Love be ours . . .” moves from tentative uncertainty to an all-or-nothing roll of the dice hope in seeking fulfillment.

#4 How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)–Elizabeth Barrett Browning

This may be the most direct expression of love in the English language. Ms. Browning’s poem ranges over space, time, and creation in the expansiveness of the poet’s feelings. She and Robert Browning may be the Victorian poster children of star-crossed lovers, but she leaves no doubt regarding the breadth and depth of her feelings for her husband.

#3 Love Sonnet XI–Pablo Neruda

If Browning’s sonnet describes the intellectual depth of feeling for one’s lover, Neruda’s poem provides its earthy opposite. Seldom has the passion of love in the lusty dynamism of a prowling puma been described more viscerally than in this poem.

#2 The Good Morrow–John Donne

This poem, written before the author became a clergyman, depicts his amazement at the void in his life before he met his loved one. Love is so transformative that it makes their “one little room an everywhere” and so complete that he is forced to make the ultimate affirmation “If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.”

Runners-up

Before introducing my top choice of this count-down, let me add that restricting my choices to five short poems (sonnets) eliminated several poems that might would have cracked this top-ten listing. Sir Philip Sydney, Rainer Maria Rilke, Maya Angelou, Rumi, and Lord Byron (among others) could have made this list. But rather than broach the brink of uncertainty and second-guessing, I  limited the list to a manageable, worthy handful.

#1 Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (Sonnet 18)–William Shakespeare

Who else but the Bard? Several other of his sonnets are almost as fine, but his extended metaphor in this one plays out in a way that’s sensuous, direct, and cerebral all at the same time. And this during a period right after the Gunpowder Plot which shook England to its core. No surprise the Brits voted this their greatest poem.  And after taking the Discovery page’s five-question personality quiz whose algorhythm matched my personality to the Bard’s masterpiece. who am I to doubt that kismet guided my selection?

Wrapping It Up

I hope this list proves helpful. If you choose any of the five, your chosen one should be pleased when reading your choice. Links to my sources are included in the text which allow you examine my omissions and make your own decisions. If none of these prove suitable, their inadequqcy may inspire you to write your own declaration of love. After all, the 21st century needs its moments of loving self -expression, too. We all do.

If you do decide to take the plunge, let me know, and we’ll present your love-sonnet in our March posting. Good luck to all of you on February 14th!

 

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Beware of Readers Who Want Only Free Books

Bounty of the Harvest

Thanksgiving is a time for celebrating the harvest. The resulting bounty in my case has been small since the publication of my new novel, Mission: Soul Sacrifice, occurred at mid-year. Consequently, opportunities to sell copies of it at art festivals and book fairs have been minimal (blame Covid-19 and price inflattion) or nonexistetn other than as free books.

Print Is Not Dead

For many years such downticks in the economic and social well-being of the country didn’t matter. Non-fiction books and novels still remained solid present choices and reliable stocking-stuffers for the holidays. And the demise of printed communication Marshall McLuhan predicted didn’t happen. Sixty years later, the number of books published each year continues to skyrocket. Their mutant forms–audio, digital, e-reader, etc.–underscore this assertion.

Supply and Demand

That is a major part of the sales problem, however. There is too much product. Even before digital and audio books made inroads into the paperback share of the book market, independent and traditionally-published authors gave away the sweat and blood of their labors. At my last major book fair, for example, readers strolled up and down the aisles toting a shopping bag (sometimes, two) filled to the brim with free copies.

Similar to the citizens of Venezuala who luxuriated in the unearned cash bestowed by the country’s vast oil reserves, American readers are used to free handouts at book fairs and writers conferences. Why pay the nominal asking price when a Kindle Prime subscription offers free copies from many notable and less-known authors? Meanwhile, the books of authors who don’t participate in the Kindle program are readily available (for free) at the next local book fair or writers conference.

Pump-Priming

What to do? For many authors the solution appears to follow recent political trends. Double down. Prime the pump. By aping the deficit-spending philosophies of the Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan presidencies, authors hope to stimulate reader purchases by advertising through reading program promoters such as Goodreads and BookBub. By giving away a small number of their books, writers hope to attract a percentage among those who didn’t win the chance of satisfying their desire by purchasing their books instead.

Free Books and Marketing

Will such ploys work? The jury’s still out. Past giveaways prompt anywhere from two to ten per cent of overall participants to purchase copies of the titles in which they had entered. In some instances, that led to hundreds of purchases by readers otherwise disinclined to do so. One caveat remains, however. The success of previous presidentail pump-priming efforts occurred during a depression and a recession. These are instances where not enough goods enter the marketplace. Book publishing, on the other hand, currently experiences a surfeit of product. Too many books chase smaller, fractionated readerships. As a result, readers can be very selective in their choices which perpetuates and institutionalizes giveaways in the marketing cycle.

What Happens Next?

On a personal level, the reading public’s opinion regarding the bounty of my writing labors comes to a head after Thanksgiving. On December 1st, the winners of my Goodreads giveaway will be chosen and announced. After sending out their copies, the names and addresses of those who purchased the book will be sent to my email address and I’ll fulfill whatever orders are sent my way. Whether that’s one, a couple, a dozen, or hundreds, I’ll let you know in my blog posts and upcoming issues of my newsletter.

What do you think will happen? Let me know in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Powerful Black Cats: Foes and Familiars Found in Fiction

Black cats have a dubious reputation associated with Halloween. They have been regarded as evil omens of sorcery for centuries, particularly as familiars and shape-shifting embodiments of witches.

Popular Fiction

Holding such a dubious distinction, it’s no wonder black cats have inspired and/or been the center of popular fiction during that time. We’re all familiar with the cartoon treachery of Sylvester or the magic adventures of Felix the Cat. Some of us may even recall Krazy Kat‘s unrequited comic book love for Ignatz, the brick-throwing mouse as well (Tom & Jerry fans take note).

Children and Young Adult Fiction

Black Cat Literature

But black cats appear in literary fiction, too. The covers shown alongside depict nine feline characters from children’s or young adult fiction chosen by Arapahoe Libraries. Dr. Seuss/Theordore Geisel‘s Cat in the Hat and the black cat in Coraline are perhaps the most famous, but Thackery Binx who appears in Hocus Pocus, and Salem Saberhagen, a former warlock who appears in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch have their followers, too.

Literary Fiction

Selene & Friend

On the adult side, Wikipedia identifies no less than six black cats which serve as “notable feline characters from notable literary works of fiction.” These include:

Alonzo — T. S. Eliot — Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats;

Behemoth — Mikhail Bulgakov — The Master and the Margharita;

Black Tom — H.P. Lovecraft — The Rats in the Walls;

Kitsa — Lynn Reed Banks — The Indian in the Cupboard;

Kitty — Nick Bruel — Bad Kitty; Pluto — Edgar Allan Poe

Pluto — Edgar Allan Poe — The Black Cat

A not-insignificant list.

Sylvester

So, this Halloween (or your next Read to Each Other night) while you’re waiting for the next band of the trick-or-treaters to knock on your door, try reading one of these stories to pass the time. Who knows? One of these shape-shifting felines might just creep into your imagination and stay there!

Do you have any other stories or suggestions to add? Let me know in the Leave a Reply section below.

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Brevity: Not In The Soul of Writing Algorithms

Algorithm definition

“Brevity is the soul of wit” according to William Shakespeare, a famous quote whose expression matches its content. The context for the line, however, comes from his play, Hamlet. In Act I, the king’s counselor, Polonius, embeds and embellishes the meaning of his statement within a lengthy and fulsome preamble whose style subtly undercuts the essence of his obseration.

Search Engine Optimization

One would think the many automated writing assistants available today strive to adhere to Shakespeare’s dictum, but such is not the case. Perhaps it’s the influence of the media or the constraints of writing a blog post which seeks to optimize reader discovery through online search engines (SEOs). Whatever the case, the algorithms driving the writing software which evaluate the quality of posts such as this one encourage neither brevity of expression nor sincerity of soul.

Take, for example, the content within this post’s headline. Nine words long, it started out with six, which met the optimum length requirements. Nonetheless, the SEO software scored it fifty out of one hundred points, a good first effort. Subsequent attempts bumped up the score ten points, good but well short of the 75 needed to merit a satisfactory rating. In playing off the Bard’s quote, “writer algorithms” became a replacement for “wit,” a lengthier, non-rhyming noun more appropriate to the post’s subject matter. Despite these improvements, the software rewarded my attempts with a score in the mid-60s; better but still short of the goal.

Style vs. Substance

Only when the nondescript preposition “in” was inserted between “brevity” and “the soul” in the headline did the writing software bless my efforts with success. The semantic difference between being the essence of something or operating as just another attribute of that something didn’t matter. The important point appeared to be that adding “in the” to the title improved the emotional content of the headline despite the fact doing so added to the length of the title.

Implications

What should we make of this result? Artificially intelligent writing software encourages emotionally charged and/or misleading headlines to attract the attention of search engines on the Internet. Given the volume of prose spewedonto the Internet every day, such attempts would seem a minor deception in order for a writer’s copy to receive a glance, much less a full reading. But extend that approach to the full length of each and every article compounds the deception, skewing readers’ emotional reactions in the process. Is it any wonder our cultural life is so polarized when the content of our reading material is emotionally charged straight from its initial headline?

What do you think?

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Revive an Old Entertainment Custom: Read to Each Other

Tired of the old TV shows? Exasperated by the new ones? Do reality programs, video-streaming, and subscription access leave you cold? Indifferent? Outraged? (All three?)

My wife and I feel that way, too. Aside from news about the latest headline-grabbing politician or an occasional PBS documentary, there’s little on evening television that keeps a mature couple amused and/or entertained between weekends. Cultural critic Neil Postman‘s 1984 prediction of television sacrificing the quality of information for the sake of advertising and corporate profit has become an all-too-established (and boring) reality.

What to do? We examined many differing forms of evening entertainment. Athletics and/or exercising seemed mistimed: it elevates our blood pressure right before bedtime. Movies are a more expensive form of television–action heroes fighting animatronics in front of green screens. And performance art of all kinds is reserved mostly for weekends which compounds our weekday problem.

Our solution? We went retro. How? By entertaining ourselves. Though both of us like music, neither of us is musically gifted. But we both like to read. So we decided to read selections fromour favorites to each other. Novel, short story, poetry: it doesn’t matter so long as it holds significance for one of us. Or both.

My wife says she has two selections in mind for our first session? As for my choice, since the date of our wedding anniversary happened earlier this month, I decided to resurrect a poem by John Ciardi I read for our marriage vows nearly a half-century ago. “Men Marry What They Need” appears below:

Men marry what they need. I marry you,
morning by morning, day by day, night by night,
and every marriage makes this marriage new.

In the broken name of heaven, in the light
that shatters granite, by the spitting shore,
in air that leaps and wobbles like a kite,

I marry you from time and a great door
is shut and stays shut against wind, sea, stone,
sunburst, and heavenfall. And home once more

inside our walls of skin and struts of bone,
man-woman, woman-man, and each the other,
I marry you by all dark and all dawn

and have my laugh at death.
Why should I bother the flies about me? Let them
buzz and do.
Men marry their queen, their daughter, or their mother

by hidden names, but that thin buzz whines through:
where reasons are no reason, cause is true.
Men marry what they need. I marry you.

Like it? Try dusting off an old poem or story you like and read it to your special one. You may not be Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning (we certainly aren’t), but who knows? Doing this could inspire me to write one myself for our next read-to-each-other evening.

I’ll keep you informed.

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In Homage to the Merry Pranksters

Novelist Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Governor Gavin Newsome seem to have little in common other than being or having been residents of California. Yet their offbeat approaches toward The Establishment of their respective times are markedly similar. Kesey tweaked the blue noses of the East Coast and mainstream America with his psychedelics-infused bus trip(s) while Newsome mocked the vigillantism of the gun-totin’ religious right when he signed California Senate Bill 1327 into law.

Kesey’s roadtrip and attendant antics of the Merry Pranksters presaged the Hippie movement, the counter-cultural revolution, and the social-political insurrections of the 1960s such as the Chicago Seven. Their nonconformist acts inspired the political activities of the Youth International Party (Yippies) and spawned the musical phenomenon of Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and their Deadhead followers which continues to this day.

Estimating the impact of Newsome’s political gambit is more difficult to say. Spoofing the Texas state legislature’s anti-abortion approach by institutionalizing citizen vigilantism is an aggressively original and highly risky legal approach. Though the objectives of the bill and several others related to it are meretorious, they make the gun restrictions of an already safe state (comparatively) even stricter, and it is by no means certain the Supreme Court fight Newsome anticipates will ever occur. Some political experts dismiss the idiosyncratic bill as so much political posturing and part of Newsome’s opening salvo in a presidential bid in 2024.

Yet placing bounties on gun and parts manufacturers and distributors may not be as quirky and perverse a strategy as Second Amendment supporters would have you believe. In times when assaults on our national capitol and individual rights have become the norm, it also may be time for more such quirky, quixotic, and non-conformist acts in the spirit of the Merry Pranksters to occur.

What do you think? Let me know in the Leave a Reply section below:

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New Novel Debuts the End of June!

Who: Author William Fietzer

What: Discusses and Reads from his New Novel

Where: Poughkeepsie Public Library – Adriance Branch (Charwat Meeting Room)

When: 7 p. m. June 30th

Signed copies, door prizes, treats and more (Register below)

He stopped them once . . . now all of hell has joined them in revenge.

Though psychologist and shaman, Dr. Victor Furst, rescued the soul of his ex, Evelyn, from the spiritual realm of Hades, he remains uneasy about Basil Zarkisian, the psychic vampire who imprisoned her soul. Will he keep his part of their Faustian bargain?

Hearing the U.S. embassy in Armenia has been bombed, he learns Zarkisian’s rebel group, the Anausavareds (New Immortals), claim responsibility for this and for the region around Mt. Ararat, their ancient kingdom of Hayastan.

Meanwhile, his ever-resentful step-daughter, Miriam, is confined to a military hospital’s psychiatric clinic, but her soul is incarcerated in Tartarus, a prison in Hades. Must Victor rescue her soul as well?

Not only Miriam’s soul is at stake. The U.S. military threatens retaliation, the nuclear option not out of the question. A widening, dimensional rift in the sky over Mt. Ararat reveals thousands of devils massing for invasion. Scores of people may die with millions more becoming living storage batteries for Zarkisian, the psychic vampires, and their devil master, Lord Ahriman.

Can Victor, Evelyn, and Miriam put aside their resentments long enough to stop the carnage?

Mr. Fietzer has done it again! His latest creation weaves a complex tale that in ways is as educational as entertaining. His characters’ odysseys travel through strife and war on Earth with sojourns through a complex rendition of Hell in multiple forms from various myths and aims of worship from ancient Greeks through Zoroastrianism. Never a dull moment, the wild ride has many twists and turns that will keep you turning pages. Well done again, sir.

                     — John J Higgins, author of the Archangel Jarahmael series

Check out New Publication for author information and more.

Register Now!

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How Larry Woiwode Inspired My Life, I Think

Author Larry Woiwode

Earlier this week I was shocked and saddened to read the New York Times obituary of author Larry Woiwode. We were not close nor can I say he influenced me in any tangible way. But for a brief while, he was my creative writing instructor at the University of Wisconsin in the spring of 1974.

It was a period of great emotional stress in both our lives. After the success of his first book, What I’m Going to Do, I Think, Larry was struggling to complete his master opus, Beyond the Bedroom Wall. I was struggling to find myself returning to graduate school after a traumatic interval of military service during the wind down of American involvement in the Vietnam War. According to the Times, writing this blockbuster nearly cost Mr. Woiwode his health, his wife, and his sanity. But it never showed in his conduct of our class nor in his comments about the quality and style of our writings. He was always incisive and supportive. And I, who had entertained aspirations of becoming a writer before being drafted into the Army, appreciated that.

 

Two things stand out in my memory of that class. One: Larry preached to us time and again that prose had to be written at least as well as poetry. Two: after I quit graduate school mid-semester and left for Boston with the woman who later would become my wife, Larry sent me his comments on my final short story which ended with “Best of luck to you and your chosen one.”

 

Did I need this blessing to justify my decision? I doubt it. Has it made a difference in how I view the world and my success within it? Perhaps. Though we write in different genres with different philosophies, I’ve always strived to maintain the reverence for the printed word that he did. That has shaped my life more than anything.

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Russian Identity and the Fate of the Superfluous Man

A Superfluous Man (Eugen Onegin) idly polishing his fingernails.

Yesterday’s matinee performance at the Metropolitan Opera of Pyotr Tchaikovsky‘s opera, Eugene Onegin, was superb, of course. Tick off the categories: music–gorgeous; set design–evocative; singing–sublime; and acting–engrossing (I actually felt sorry for Onegin despite his well-deserved fate; Igor Golovatenko‘s portrayal was that good!).

But this post is not a review so much as an addendum. One aspect that didn’t receive much attention in the playbill was the notion of the “superfluous man,” a concept central to Alexander Pushkin‘s prose poem of the same name on which Tchaikovsky based his opera. The idea originated as an offshoot of the “Byronic hero,” the antithesis of Napoleon’s “Great Man,” a concept which dominated much of 19th-century literature. Unlike Napoleon, Pushkin’s conceit is of a man born into wealth and privilege who possesses a cynical disregard for social norms and is filled with existential ennui, a thematic staple for Russian authors ranging from Mikhail Lermontov to Ivan Turgenev to Ivan Gonchorov. A product of what one critic called “a by-product of Russian serfdom,” the superfluous man is fated to a life devoid of love or purpose. As a result, his major course of action is to manipulate, degrade or pacify others in order to gain more comfort and security for himself because he has little belief or interest in using his power for the common good.

Aside from the privileged background, do the above character traits remind you of anyone contemporary? Let me know in the Comments section.

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Second Installment Is On The Way!

It’s taken a while for the manuscript to be worked into respectable print form and some fine-tuning remains to be done, but the second installment in the Escape from the Immortals series is close to publication through Cactus Moon Publishing. The video clip gives a taste of what Mission: Soul Sacrifice is all about. Enjoy!

More information about Prepublication Orders and the like will come out once we schedule the book’s publication date. Meanwhile, let me know what you think of the video, my forthcoming novel, or this website by leaving a Comment in the Leave a Reply section below:

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Is Invading Ukraine Just More March Madness?

Much as I’d like to dwell on the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team and their chances in the NCAA tournament (Go Badgers!!), devoting a post to this American brand of self-indulgence seems especially superficial considering the military madness hreatening Ukraine, the United States, and the rest of the world (see my blogpost “The Unfulfilled Right and Sinclair Lewis“) . Instead, we’re delving into the origins of the idiom which heralds spring’s onset. Something in the air this time of year may cause such folly to occur.

Many scholars associate the notion of “March madness” with the madness of the March Hare in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Borrowed from the British idiom, “mad as a March hare,” the expression captures the exuberant, even violent breeding behavior of European hares in early March. It also has a long history having first appeared in playwright John Heywood‘s collection of British proverbs published in 1546.

In Lewis’ story, the Hare acts as he does because the Mad Hatter “murdered the time” in the course of singing to the Queen of Hearts. As a result, the hare now acts riotously as though it were always teatime.

The fatal ramifications of the Hatter’s actions provide the common thread in the origin of a related expression “mad as a hatter.” Whether it derives from the mercury poisoning of 19th-century hatters, the compassionate acts of 17th-century hermit, Roger Crab, or the pronunciation approximation of the English word “adder” with “hatter” meaning “venomous as a viper,” the expression has adopted a fatal and fatalistic connotation.

Regardless of its origins, the expression’s historical associations are profound. Abraham Lincoln‘s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was shot and killed by Union army soldier Thomas H. Corbett. Though Corbett was arrested for not taking Booth alive as ordered, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton released him from prison because of the public’s regard for him as a war hero. He returned to his original occupation of hat-making upon release, but said to have grown more mad than once realized, he was thrown into an insane asylum from which he escaped and was never seen again.

It is entirely possible such unrelated events result from pure coincidence. In Corbett’s case it’s likely the pressures of being the person who killed Lincoln’s assassin stoked whatever “madness” was said to characterize his behavior before he entered the Union army. Though idioms do express a culture’s regard towards the way things happen, they don’t explain how or why they do. It’s equally possible we have reached the point where hyperbole is reality. Athletes and coaches, professional and amateur, have backed away from competition in recent years because the mental and physical demands are too great. In some instances, they or their families were threatened with bodily harm by overzealous fans.

So, ask yourself: when cheering hard fouls or cursing referees’ during the rough-and-tumble play that marks athletes’ performances: am I engaging in a socialized form of venting the angst in my everyday life? Or am I freeing more primitive urges which subjugate in a violent way any and all people with whom I disagree, much as Russia is now doing with Ukraine?

What do you think? Leave a Reply and let me know below.

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How to Actively Celebrate Black History Month

It’s not easy to know how to support Blacks and other people of color in America when you’re an older white liberal like me. Criticize or offer advice and you sound patronizing or racist. Stay detached, and you’re not helping their cause. Donate money and it seems another conscience-easing handout.

Yet you want to contribute something–your time, your effort–what? Blacks’ status as second-class citizens in this country fuels my outrage. I want to do something about it, something more more dynamic than donating money or marching at a protest rally no matter how effective such actions may sometimes be.

What to do?

A little research reveals there are many ways to become more actively involved. One of the best is to maintain minorities’ ability to express their political opinions at the ballot box. The right to vote remains the cornerstone to participating in everything America represents or has to offer.

Through legislative and judicial machinations, vested interests have curtailed that right, however. Voter suppression, particularly for Blacks and people of color is a reality in Texas, Georgia, and several other of states with more seeking to follow their lead.

Yet, the cause is not hopeless. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Black Voters Matter Fund, Common Cause, and dozens of other groups are partnering to erase voter inequities through phone banking, texting, and letter-writing state legislators.

One group that offers the most bang for your activist buck is the Center for Common Ground. Its stated mission is to “to educate and empower under-represented voters in voter suppression states to engage in elections and advocate for their right to vote.”

From amending the filibuster to postcarding “underserved communities,” Common Ground provided organizational tools that transformed my political impotence into activist reality. And isn’t channeling outrage into resiliency and courage part of what Black History celebrates?

Let me know your thoughts in the Leave a Reply section below.

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The Unfulfilled Right and Sinclair Lewis

In the aftermath of the January 6th Insurrection it’s become fashionable to compare the Trump administration’s overreach to the Nazis takeover of Germany’s government during the 1930s. Nowhere does this analogy seem more apt than in Sinclair Lewis‘ dystopian novel, It Can’t Happen Here.

Lewis’ fascist antagonist in the novel, Senator Berzelius (Buzz) Windrip, resembles Louisianna populist senator Huey Long more than he does Adolf Hitler in word and deed. For that reason, people sometimes minimize the significance of the comparison between the architect of World War II (and the Holocaust) and the folksy champion of the “Forgotten Men” in 1930s America.

Yet, the narrative’s setting during the Great Depression compares well with the second decade of the the twenty-first century in several respects. One is the rise in political autocracy common to both periods. Another is the increasing political and cultural divides such absolutist attitudes engender. And third is the economic disparity between the Haves and Have-nots in each society despite contemporary America’s affluence vis-a-vis its Depression-era predecessor.

Early in the novel, Lewis quotes protagonist and newspaper editor Doremus Jessup’s ineffective and lazy hired man, Karl Ledue. “What burns me up” he says “isn’t that old soap-boxer’s chestnut about how one-tenth of one-percent of the population at the top have an aggregate income equal to forty-two percent at the bottom.” What upsets him is the existence of the working poor–people who earned $500 or less even during prosperous times who “had the honor of still doing honest labor.”

That “old chestnut” figure Ledue cites compares significantly with economist and former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich’s statistic that one-tenth of one percent of Americans currently own 35 percent of the nation’s wealth and income. You might observe the percentage drop in comparative overall income between the periods indicates the overall improvement in economic equality between the poorest and richest segments of our society. Others would note economic inequality is still with us after 85 years despite all attempts to reduce this divide.

At this point it seems Americans have two choices. Economic inequality either remains a permanently endemic feature of our country’s capitalist society; or this ongoing economic disparity betrays the hopes, dreams, and trust stated in the Preamble to the U.S. Bill of Rights for government to “promote the general welfare” and must be rectified. In Lewis’ book, Jessup is imprisoned for protesting the current political and economic conditions. In contemporary society, the outlook seems similarly dire but much less certain.

Which reality–fictional or real life–would you prefer? Or believe possible? Let me know in the Comments.

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Lost and Found

When we lived in Madison, Wisconsin, the Wisconsin State Journal ran a weekly column entitled “Things Found on the Way to Other Things.” While researching his more newsworthy stories, the columnist uncovered enough incidental details, bits of trivia, and unusual statistics sufficient to fill out a weekly list of factoids and informative anecdotes. Such addenda held little significance then, but the proliferation of trivia contests and the decades-long run of TV’s Jeopardy testify to the popularity of the insignificant fact or telling detail in people’s imaginations.

The reason for supplying this lengthy explanation arises from a question often asked at author events: where do you get your ideas? If you’re a writer, you’re receptive to all sorts of inputs from your environment. Often, they’re not the result of major events like the Covid pandemic or America’s cultural divide, but small items gleaned from non-traditional news sources like cable TV or social media.

Take, for example, “Ken Fisher’s Super Quiz.” It’s a daily trivia quiz on random topics originally associated with biochemist and author Isaac Asimov. The topic of Friday’s quiz was Clothes. Most of the questions were inconsequential, but one about the term for a tailor who makes custom-made clothes stood out–bespoke. Never hearing the term used in that context before, I queried Google and found a Wikipedia article on the topic which explained the difference between custom and bespoke tailoring (the latter makes a suit from exact measurements of the customer’s torso while the former adjusts a made-to-measure suit to fit the buyer).

Significant? Not in itself, but reading the full article revealed two nuggets of information:

  1. Bespoke tailoring is protected by law in France.
  2. The new bespoke tailoring movement began in England on Savile Row in 1969.

Though neither of these developments affect me directly (a custom-tailored suit is beyond my means), they do explain why the owners of the haute couture fasion houses in Paris are so upset someone is stealing their designs in the movie musical Roberta. And maybe why John Lennon and Paul McCartney are so well-turned-out on the cover of their album, Abbey Road--Nutters of Savile Row was fiancially backed by Cilla Black and Peter Brown of the Beatles’ Apple Corps.

Clothes may not make the man, but they help explain the lasting impact that iconic cover has had on a generation of rock music enthusiasts. Like recovering a discarded T-shirt, a minor discovery like this one shows things are not lost, just buried under the avalanche of history’s advance. Future revelations of this sort may not appear in my novels, but they will be a feature of this blog in the upcoming months. Check in from time to time.to see what tidbits I’ve uncovered trolled from the back pages of People, YouTube, and elsewhere.

In the meantime, can anyone provide me the name of the reporter who wrote the column mentioned above? Let me know in the Comments section.

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Hi, everyone!

A bold image beside this text? Perhaps, but necessary to gain your attention. It may not be the conventional depiction of the phoenix, either, that mythical bird that symbolizes death and renewal, but for me it represents the rebirth of my author website.

Some of you may have noted its disappearance over the summer. Though it would be nice to say its absence was due for a scheduled overhaul (which it needed), the truth is that it became so encumbered with outdated links and outmoded plugins that it became inoperable. People trying to sign up for my newsletter or purchase my books complained the site was unresponsive or failed to connect with its intended links. For a while it served as a signpost or listserv for others to hawk their wares. Worst of all, it failed to project and protect my own musings on various topics.

Well, no more! The scattered domain registration, site-hosting, and blog posts of yesteryear (This domain has existed since 2007) are now consolidated under one banner. With ample advice and assistance from the tech wizards at Bluehost, my author website has risen from the ashes of the old with all the contentious spirit of the demon dragon image that represents it. The image also serves as part of one of three book cover ideas submitted to the publisher for the publication of my next novel, Mission: Soul Sacrifice. What their graphics designer does with it, or any of my submissions, we’ll find out in the next few weeks

Until then, beware of any rift or sudden parting of nighttime clouds. It may be the Moon, or it may be nothing. Or it may mark the onset of the invasion by the Zoroastrian god Ahriman and all his demonic minions from Hades and beyond . . .

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