CanLit on fire: who can win this game?

I had an immediate reaction to this meme (or whatever it is): truer words were never spoken! Of course, if you truly embrace this perspective you're seen as crass. But what is a writer to do? I've said many times that we don't expect a trained concert pianist to play in an empty hall. But that's the equivalent of what professional writers are expected to do.  That is, those who aren't at the top of what is starting to look like a literary slag heap.

I'm a little sick of being disappointed, and I do try to comfort myself with the three novels I did get published (NOT self-published, by the way - I had to wangle contracts from three different publishers). I also have three or four manuscripts stashed in my computer, and ran one in parts (Bus People - if you wanna see it, the link is here) on this blog. I think ten people looked at it. I just think if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, and in this case it wasn't. 

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2016/10/bus-people-quick-links-to-parts-1-12.html

But was there some sort of weird karma going on? If not karma, then guardian- angel-ship, which I absolutely did not believe in. But maybe something was protecting me from "success", after all: the kind of success that lifts the privileged class out of the slag heap of anonymity and onto the shoulders of the gods (while selling lots and lots of copies).

It seems the game changed before I could catch up. I was only interested in writing well, which I believed would result in having a healthy readership. I don't think that's an unreasonable goal. But it didn't happen, and now I know it won't.

But my melancholic acceptance of failure was disturbed by the current CanLit "dumpster fire" which is threatening to consume the whole industry (and yes, believe me when I say it IS an industry, though that's not such a bad thing - we all need to pay the rent). Though someone came down hard on me for posting the wrong piece on this (though there is no such thing as a RIGHT piece on this!), I will share a link (below) which gives you some idea of what's been going on in the schoolyard. If nothing else, it will give you an idea of the sheer complexity of the situation, how twisted and tangled it has become. Worst of all, it has made some writers afraid to say anything, knowing they risk having their most innocent comments mangled and distorted by the monstrous sharks of social media.

What vexes me is that NO ONE has yet said anything at all about how Twitter has poisoned the well: without even having to face your adversary, and having spent an entire nanosecond composing your thoughts, you can fire off the most hateful volleys, only to be met by a Greek chorus of approval from somewhere before your enemy fires back. Without context, and I mean ANY context at all, even relatively innocent statements can appear to be soaked in poison like a lethal dart.

I will be accused of being a crusted barnacle for saying this, but in the past, if a writer read something in a magazine that made her furious, and she wanted to write a letter to the editor in protest, she would have to take the following steps: find a piece of paper and a pen, compose it, fold it up, address it, find a stamp, walk to the nearest post box and drop it in. At any point, she might think better of it, or at least rewrite it. Then, after a long wait, perhaps weeks or months, it might be published (likely severely edited). But once a tweet is tweeted, there is no taking it back. 

Poison darts are poised everywhere, and can't even be deleted because someone will take a screenshot and use it as a weapon. Those who wish to have a future as a published author are on thin ice, and it doesn't help that the stodgy, arthritic, unmoveable CanLit establishment is sawing a hole in it.

Speaking out is risky. NOT speaking out is crippling, and plays into the hands of elitist powermongers interested only in disenfranchising marginalized groups who MIGHT bring fresh perspectives to the table, if only they were allowed to. But the reins of power, not to mention the purse strings, are in the hands of the Big Few - bestselling writers, hotshot agents, major publishers. So perhaps some unknown angel prevented me from getting what I thought I wanted.

Or not? Are the grapes sour? Who gives a shit, at this point!


CanLit-dumpster-fire-disaster



If you'd rather not wade through this long piece, here's a short excerpt which demonstrates how rancorous and confusing this has become:

Then, a new twist: B.C. author Angie Abdou wrote on Facebook that she in fact had notified Kay about Wunker's post as "part of a conversation about troubles raging in the [CanLit] community and how those issues are making their way into the classroom." But by the time Abdou went back to look for the post to send it to Kay, Wunker had unfriended her. So Abdou asked Bok to screen-cap it. In her confession, Abdou apologized for unintended consequences against Bok and Wunker; she called Wunker "a committed teacher and writer." She then left Facebook and Twitter. (On Thursday, Abdou provided The Globe with a statement. "I made a mistake, and I'm extremely sorry. I did not intend to betray anyone's confidence or to harm the reputations of anyone involved.")


Are you with me still? . . . No? Well, don't feel bad. Neither am I. The twists and turns of it are giving me vertigo. Come OFF it, people! Try to come up with some sort of armed truce, before the whole thing collapses and entire books are lost due to discouragement and pain. Creativity will be extinguished along with the flames. If people are not allowed to express themselves, if works of real literature (NOT TWEETS!) die on the vine, everyone loses. Everyone. Do you hear?

Hinterland Who's Who - Woodchuck (a. k. a. Groundhog!)

Marshmallow Friday

A friend of mine sent me this sticker, which at first I thought was some sort of dancing macaroni. Doing a TinEye reverse image search, they turned out to be . . . marshmallows! Marshmallows, all squashed and screaming. Why, I don't know.

I don't make these things up, I swear. But since it's Friday, and I want to do something really stupid. . .

I call this Somewhere Under the Rainbow.

Field of Screams.

I Can't Think. . . I Must Be Pink.

Mall-O-K!

Mallow-Slide!

Bubble Hum!

Marsh Mashup

Splop!

Marshma.

ASTONISHING FIND: 3D Movies from the American Civil War!

AMAZING DISCOVERY: Actual motion pictures made during the American Civil War! 

Yes. . . here they are, in all their quaking glory: real movies from 1860, fully 28 years before the so-called "first motion picture",  Roundhay Garden. While Roundhay (filmed in 1888) lasts barely a second, these Civil War movies go on forever! They simply never STOP!

(Roundhay Garden, 1888, which lasts barely a second).

As if this weren't incredible enough, these remarkable historical 
artifacts are filmed in 3D!

Burn the textbooks!

Discard all known film studies!

Fie on Edison, what did HE know!

To fully understand the phenomenon of 3D Movies from the American Civil War, we must take a look at film technology. When still images are rapidly displayed in sequence, the illusion of motion is created. So it was with Roundhay Garden (5 frames). But just LOOK at these amazing Civil War images! An astounding illusion of motion is created using, in most cases, only two or three frames. And it never stops! The movement just continues. This would have driven Edison crazy! 

As is the case with all serious creative endeavours, these superb historic dramas prove the maxim "less is more".  With a mere jerk, twitch, and spasm, this remarkable gentleman transports us to another time, another place. And look closely at the details, the furniture, the clothing, as it wobbles and lurches and twists, to fully appreciate the eerie 3D effect! 

As with all major historical discoveries, disagreements and controversies have arisen, particularly about the state of mind and health of these subjects. Eager to push their own petty agendas, some historians have suggested that they may have had untreated neurological disorders.  Seismologists have a very different interpretation of the same data, as do entomologists who have suggested the possibility of a parasitic invasion. 

Few give credence to the cynical claim that these movies are dismissable because they (in the words of one ignorant critic) "have no plot". But what they admittedly lack in story line, they more than make up for in sheer mesmerizing sameness. Only the subtle shifting from one frame to the next creates that uncanny sense of motion: the vertiginous feeling that the floor under your feet is being violently shaken.

Along with thoughtful historical interpretation has come the usual  lunacy from extremists. Suggestions that this fine lady is sitting on a Hula Chair is not only disrespectful but impossible (unless she is, as one disreputable quasi-historian has hinted, a time traveller). The suggestion that she is astride one of those Victorian  medical vibrators is equally ridiculous, though it would explain why her suitor can't keep his eyes off her.

Film historians are beginning to discuss possible titles for these newly-discovered Civil War epics. A working title for this particular motion picture is, "The Man Holds Up His Hat".

"The Men Lean On The Clock."

"Shake, Rattle n' Roll."

"I Lost My Boots in San Francisco."

"Can't Stop Fiddling with This Pencil".

"I AM Sitting on a Hula Chair".

"Don't Go to My Barber, He Can't Trim a Beard"

"Yep - I Told You It Would Happen".

Blogger's explanation. OK, I hate explaining myself, but a friend of mine asked why he was seeing only flickering old photos and not movies. Well, technically he IS seeing movies, but they're only two or three frames long. These were taken for stereoscopes - your old Granny might have had one. This was a viewer with double-image cards that, when viewed as one image, "sort of" looked like 3D. The effect is kind of like those gifs from ten or fifteen years ago that everyone raved about. The effect is an optical illusion from having two slightly different perspectives shuffled back and forth. So I would assume the photographer snapped two photos from slightly different angles. This is why some of them have alarming changes in body posture, heads bobbing up and down, people disappearing and reappearing, etc. BUT, technically speaking, these ARE movies! I will post a link below written by a historian, claiming the same thing. So I'm not quite as ditzy as I seem. 

motion-pictures-from-the-civil-war

Mental health: let's NOT reduce the stigma!

Every day, and in every way, I am hearing a message. And it's not a bad message, in and of itself.

It's building, in fact, in intensity and clarity, and in some ways I like to hear it.

It's about mental illness, a state I've always thought is mis-named: yes, I guess it's "mental" (though not in the same class as the epithet, "You're totally mental"), but when you call it mental illness, it's forever and always associated with and even attached to a state of illness. You're either ill or you're well; they're mutually exclusive, aren't they? You can't be both at the same time.
We don't speak of diabetic illness. We don't speak of Parkinsonian illness. We don't speak of - you get the idea. Although these are chronic, ongoing disease conditions that a person must live with on a daily basis, we use different language to describe them that does not imply the person cannot ever be well.

Why should this matter? It's only a name, isn't - it doesn't change anything, does it?

I beg to differ. The name "mental illness" itself is problematic to me. It seems to nail people into their condition. Worse than that, nobody even notices. I have never in my life heard anyone mention it, because in the public consciousness, it does not exist. In fact, "mentally ill" is a compassionate term (so they say), if leaning towards pity and tinged with dread. But it is is definitely preferable to "psycho", "nut case", "whack job", "fucking lunatic", and the list goes on (and on, and on, as if it doesn't really matter what we call them). If these terms shock you, if you don't believe people use them often and on a daily basis, pay attention to people's reaction every time there's a news story when someone's behaviour seems over the top, whether violent or not ("Ah, he's just a whack job/nut bar/loonie" - dismiss, dismiss, dismiss). If you call them on it, they give you the standard "can't we say anything any more?" line that obliterates awareness.

There's something else going on that people think is totally positive, even wonderful, showing that they're truly "tolerant" even of people who seem to dwell on the bottom rung of society. Everywhere I look, there are signs saying, "Let's reduce the stigma about mental illness."

Note they say "reduce", not banish. It's as if society realizes that getting rid of it is just beyond the realm of possibility. Let's not hope for miracles, let's settle for feeling a bit better about ourselves (hey, we're really helping raise awareness!) for not calling them awful names and excluding them from everything.

I hate "stigma". I hate it because it's an ugly word, and if you juxtapose it with any other word, it makes that word ugly too. "Let's reduce the hopelessness" might be more honest. "Let's reduce the ostracism, the hostility, the contempt." "Stigma" isn't used very much any more, in fact I can't think of any other group of people it is so consistently attached to. Even awful conditions (supposedly) like alcoholism and drug abuse aren't "stigmatized" any more. Being gay isn't stigmatized either. Why? Compassion and understanding are beginning to dissolve that ugly archaic term, detach it and throw it away.

"Let's reduce the stigma" doesn't help because it's miserable. It's the old "you don't look fat" thing (hey, who said I looked fat? Who brought the subject up?). Much could be gained by pulling the plug on this intractibly negative term. Reducing the stigma is spiritually stingy and only calls attention to the stigma.

So what's the opposite of "stigmatized"? Accepted, welcomed, fully employed, creative, productive, loved? Would it be such a stretch to focus our energies on these things, replacing the "poor soul" attitude that prevails?

But so far, the stifling box of stigma remains, perhaps somewhat better than hatred or fear, but not much. Twenty or thirty years ago, a term used to appear on TV, in newspapers, everywhere, and it made me furious: "cancer victim". Anyone who had cancer was a victim, not just people who had "lost the battle" (and for some reason, we always resort to military terms to describe the course of the illness). It was standard, neutral, just a way to describe things, but then something happened, the tide turned, and energy began to flow the other way.

From something that was inevitably bound to stigma in the past, cancer came out of the closet in a big way, leading to all sorts of positive change that is still being felt. But first we had to lose terms like "victim", because they were unconsciously influencing people's attitudes. We had to begin to substitute words like "survivor" and even "warrior".

One reinforced the other. The movement gave rise to much more positive, life-affirming, even accurate terminology. The turning of the public tide shamed industry into coughing up some funds. That's exactly what needs to happen here. We don't just need to "reduce the stigma": we need to CAN that term, spit on it, get rid of it once and for all, and begin to see our mental health warriors for who and what they really are. They lead the way in a daring revolution of attitudes and deeply-buried, primitive ideas, a shakeup and shakedown of prejudice that is shockingly late, and desperately needed.

Why do we need to do this so badly? We're caught and hung up on a negative, limiting word that is only keeping the culture in the dark. I once read something in a memoir that had a profound effect on me: "Mental illness is an exaggeration of the human condition." This isn't a separate species. Don't treat it as such. It's you, times ten. It's me, in a magnifying mirror. Such projections of humanity at its finest and most problematic might just teach us something truly valuable. Why don't we want to look?

POST-BLOG. I've been posting this on Let's Talk Day for several years in a row now. Because it got twelve views last year, I thought I would run it again. I am not sure why I continue with this, except that it seems to satisfy some need in me. But when I try to put the message "out there", I find there is no "out there". The internet is all about numbers, totals, likes, views, and popularity, a thing I cannot bear because I thought I left the high school mentality behind a long time ago. So I do this for the only reason that matters to me: because I want to.

Meowingtons

Meowingtons.

I am your worst nightmare