Category Archives: Personal Observation

Fleeting Magic

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Bear with me. This one is going to be rambly and possibly incoherent but I’m going to do my best to tie it together.

I read an article recently by an author I have had an opportunity to interview before. This article (linked here) is about people idolizing celebrities. The author states it differently, however that’s what it amounts to. Idolizing, much like western religions have taught against for many hundreds of years in fact. I have written in the past about my experiences with relatively famous or infamous people and how I felt about them versus how I felt about their work or how they have portrayed themselves in their public facing persona. Your protest may vary. This is why I wanted to try to pull these thoughts together. This isn’t going away. People are always looking for the next wondrous thing that will give them good feelings and happy memories. In reference to the title of this post, Fleeting Magic, the things that we tend to find the most valuable or particularly special are things that do not necessarily last.

I have worked behind the scenes for some conventions that brought in celebrity guests. My experience with those particular people actually matches relatively closely to what is presented in Scalzi’s article. The people I wanted to meet the most, frequently turned out to be the worst people to meet. The people I met without expectations from me generally became my favorites.  Working behind the scenes and being part of the creation of an event rather than a consumer of an event has helped me shape this point of view. Creative people are putting on public faces. I’ve seen a pro at work and she was amazing (cold read of a work that she just crushed) and when she walked off stage, out of sight from the crowd she said, “that was a really hard room to work”. She was right, but the people she performed for had a very different view of the entire experience. For them, the magic was there.

I have often daydreamed about being successful. I think most people do. I do not daydream about being famous. I don’t want to be famous. These days that’s far too invasive. There will, without question, be people who appear from my distant past with stories of how rotten I was at the time. They’re probably not wrong. Everyone is the villain of somebody else’s story. I don’t want or need to relive any of those times. I have grown and changed. I’m working on my version of success and being a better person every day. The real question, or catch, here is can you be successful (particularly financially) and not become famous?

How you define success is the most important part of that question. What is success to you?  I guarantee success from your point of view does not match success from my point of view. One of my written goals when I started creating (both artwork and writing)  was to become successful enough to be an invited guest at a science fiction convention and not have to pay to go. I have, in fact, achieved that first goal. It’s not my only goal, but it is the first one I have achieved. It is something that makes me happy. It is not something that makes me famous nor does it make me any money. I get to continue to do some of the things that I genuinely enjoy and visit and chat with other creators in the genres I love.

Where is the fleeting portion of this?  That’s easy to pinpoint. My behind the scenes convention work is done. Those conventions, no matter how  wonderful they were, no matter how amazing my team was, are done. The company is defunct and those teams disbanded. There are wonderful memories from that time, but they are just that, memories. They were snippets in time that gave me a view into event creation and minor celebrities behind the scenes. I suspect that my interactions with celebrities, both good and bad, are what have given me my disdain for putting them up on a pedestal. As is stated in the article, they are just people. Those people are doing their job and trying to get paid. That’s it, nothing more. Sometimes those people are wonderful, sometimes those people are assholes. Pretty much how people always are. Even your favorite people have bad days.

Should a bad day count against the person? Maybe not. Will it count against them in YOUR book? You bet it will. It will color all of your thoughts and interactions with them going forward. Will they notice? Unless you see them every day, no they will not. They probably won’t remember. If an egregious transgression comes to light, some heinous act that you will not stand for, should that destroy the joy that you once had from their creative work? Maybe not,  but it will certainly color your point of view from that day forward. It will make you not want to give them money. It will make you question what went into that thing you love and have you wondering if that thing that has been brought to light was part of the process of making the creation you’ve enjoyed so much.

I wonder if media, including social media and sports, have become the modern equivalent of religion. People are searching for something or someone to believe in. They want an example to look to. This makes failings and shortcomings significantly more devastating when they are discovered. Thing is, this happens. People are people and they will screw up. It’s fair to be disappointed and it is also fair to withhold further support from somebody whose actions have been proven to be in opposition to what you support. Don’t give money or fame to those who stand against what you believe in. Simple, right? Just how well do you know them? How well do you know the structure of your religion? Where are the lessons and will they survive being brought into the light of public scrutiny?

I think, someday, we will sort this out and come to some balance. Perhaps. Right now I believe the best thing that people can do is practice moderation with any form of media. As Mr. Scalzi suggests, do not put creators on a pedestal. Do not idolize athletes. Change your priority. Enjoy art or sport in all its forms, but not at the expense of what is real and around you every day. Most people don’t get to interact with the famous or successful every day except through the media. Take some time and get away from your screens. Go outside and meet your neighbors. Go volunteer locally, do something good, treat people around you with kindness whenever you can.  It’s not a big ask and that’s what I think will make it successful. Handle the small things and enjoy the things around you. When you have the opportunity to participate in something that could be magic, take that opportunity. Create that magic. Be part of that team. If it doesn’t last, just know that being part of that magic has given wonderful memories to others that they will carry with them. No matter how fleeting your magical creation is, enjoy it and cherish it.

Combo Platter

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In catching up with my news feeds and other posts that I have missed over the past few weeks I found two that have some synergy. The first is a post about how much science fiction is created and published each year.

SFF is Too Big?

There are so many stories published at this point that no fan, no matter how quickly they read,  can keep up with what’s out there. There are hundreds and hundreds of stories that come out regularly. I particularly enjoyed the math portion of the article that showed a certain rarity of story from decades ago. It seemed that it could have been my faulty memories from when I was young that the stories I enjoyed so much were so desperately hard to find. As it turns out, the numbers show it actually was hard to find those stories, as fewer of them were published each year compared to today’s standard.

This is certainly not a post, or commentary about how things were better back in the day. I don’t believe that. Things may have been more clear, or more clearly defined with less overlap,  however, it didn’t mean that things were better by definition. I enjoy the simple fact that I have a huge number of choices when I’m looking for a new thing to read. I say “thing” simply because it might be a novel, it might be an anthology, or a series of blog posts, or an online published story or a graphic novel… you get the idea. There are SO many choices out there. I love it.

The second post is Just Plain Good.

The post praises things simply being ‘good’, and enjoys recommendations that match that qualification. Quality and popularity are not always meshed together, in either direction. There is a modern standard that they discuss where reviews and commentary need to be hyperbolic in order to get attention. I agree with the author of this post that there is a need to be circumspect in our word choice.

I have been posting my book reviews for many years. I always try to show why I felt the way I did about any given work. I have some small understanding of how difficult it is to get any work published, so I always hope that an author reading my review understands that my review is precisely that, mine. My opinion and nothing more. I also attempt to avoid hyperbole. I have a special and specific shelf of books in my house that hold the books that have truly changed me or impacted my thought process so much that I return to them again and again. It’s a single shelf and that’s it. There are so few it’s easy to keep them in one place. I’ve written essays in the past about what sort of works changed me. I don’t want to be extra dramatic or willfully polarizing. I hope the clear and simple choices I make in reviewer terms will help people who read my reviews to understand how that affects their choice.

That all seemed a little convoluted as it fell out of my head. Let me see if I can explain this more clearly. If you read my review of a book, then you go read that book and you agree with me, you could then trust that my next review might better match for you.If you read my review of a book, then you go read that book and you think, “my God that was terrible! How did he praise that? I hated it all”, then you could understand the next time you read one of my reviews that if I loved it you won’t. I often find that an ‘opposite’ reviewer is just as helpful as one I match well with. That is the idea behind being as authentic as possible. If you find a match, then you will look to that person or those reviewers, whoever they may be, as a trusted source for finding the next thing you want to read. The screaming noise makers just don’t fit that category.

That is where the synergy comes in with the article about science fiction publishing becoming too big. Finding a reviewer or a series of reviewers you can trust to give you honest and clear opinions on things, without exaggeration, will help you sift through the hundreds and hundreds of choices and perhaps even guide you to finding works that you would never have otherwise found. I suppose it’s very similar to panning for gold. You spend a great deal of time trying to wash away the grit and find the shiny treasure that you can then show to others. 

Revel in the multitude of choices that you have when looking for your next entertaining read.  Look for, or perhaps even become, a trusted source for your circle of friends. It takes time to learn and see the pattern of things you enjoy,  but once you find it, be authentic about it. It’s okay to say that something is good and that you enjoyed it. Everything you read doesn’t have to be a revelation of the highest order, nor does it have to be something that you despise and would publicly denounce. Sometimes just finding something enjoyable is enough.

This is how I approach my reviews and why a one-star or a five star are so vanishingly rare among my reviews. The highest high or lowest low truly should be rare. Reviews should not fall into the same category as The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Scream and yell on too many occasions and people will presume that is your default setting. Keep panning for that gold and be sure to share your treasured fines with others.

Important History

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I don’t get political on here. I have opinions on lots of those things, but this is part of the place where I go to make sure I can get away from those things. I’m writing about this because it is of personal interest and it matters to me and to many who are dear to me. I won’t tolerate political nonsense being posted here. It’s mine, I own it, I will chuck you out. You have been warned.

It’s pride month. This doesn’t apply to me, but it applies to many family and friends. It matters. One of the other things that matters is knowing history. Where did some of these things come from? Can you dig a little deeper and learn the real stories behind things you’ve only heard about? You can, and you should.

Last night I took some time and I watched the documentary about a straight Jewish couple that owned and operated one of the most well know, dare I say important book shops and pornography businesses related to gay culture. The documentary is called “Circus of Books”. Yes, it’s been out for a few years now, but there are occasions when it takes time to get back to things on your list.

Check out the trailer here:

As you might have guessed from what I titled the entry, this is important history for the gay community and for first amendment rights. Hearing the story of the owners and the family they maintained while running not just a book / porn shop but also a chunk of the gay film industry for a long time was fascinating. The access was absolute since the film maker is the daughter of the owners. She interviewed her parents, her brothers, her parents friends and even some of the employees. It was shocking to hear how they fell into this business and just kept going.

Hearing the portion of the tale from the 80s and the AIDS crisis was jarring. It’s one thing to know history. It is quite another to live it, and have those around you die during it.

That was one of the things that leads me to a small point of criticism for this show. I believe the film maker pulled some punches because it was her family. Yes, she had the access, but I think both the portion of the story during the AIDS crisis and the ending really lacked… something. I wanted there to be more umph with the story or more of an emotional wrap up and point at the end. Yes, I think it could have had pointy bits about freedom of expression as well – but in all it was a slow watch. It felt all of the hour and 40ish minute run time. It left with this note of, “well, that’s it, the store is closed” and went to the credits. I felt like there could have been more.

Seeing the business itself, in bits and pieces, it also looked like an operation that failed to adapt. It’s not that a shop like that couldn’t survive, it was more that it would take an investment of time, money and innovation. Even from the glimpses in the film there were swinging doors that looked like one wouldn’t want to touch them (just worn and old, I’m sure) and the filing ‘system’ was a drawer filled with handwritten notes and pages taped to walls. It felt like a place that needed to change and just didn’t. Perhaps the owners were tired and just wanted to retire. It was put forward as the owners just not making enough money to call it sustainable.

Having said that – I still recommend it. Go and check out the history because it matters. Watch and see what has come before and who those people are. The show ends with the closing of the store, but I have gone out looking on the web, just to see, and the shop appears to have been sold / reopened and looks like it’s going strong with an online presence. From their site:

“Book Circus opened in 1960 and with the very cruisy Vaseline Alley behind the store quickly became the epicenter of the gay community at that time. In 1980 and through the AIDS crises it became the iconic Circus of Books, WeHo’s version of Stonewall. In 2020 it has been reimagined and reopened with the addition of Circus of Books West. Both Stores also feature The Gallery @ Circus, an upscale gallery representing LGBTQ+ artists.”

There is history, and there is hope. That’s a great message for Pride Month.

Unispired

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This is when the real work of writing happens. When there’s no muse. There’s not a ‘special thing’ going on or any sort of ‘hey – look at the shiny distraction’ moments.

Putting words on a page isn’t an easy thing… or more correctly it’s not an easy thing to do well. Like any other muscle, the ability to write efficiently and effectivly requires practice. Anyone can splash words acorss the empty screen, but it’s a challenge to create.

I’m certain I’ve talked aobut this before, but I will again because that post was likely lost here (but my irritation clearly was not). There was a time when I was reading the ‘paper’. Not technically on paper anymore, but same idea. There was a column – written by a PAID columnist – that basically said “I’ve got nothing to say” in about 500 words or so. It was infuriating. That’s absolutely terrible – a columnist holding a position and potentially bumping some other important story and having NOTHING to say, and writing exactly that.

So, as a writer striving to be an author of a published novel (someday), this is where the work is. There’s no muse here. Just a blank page looking for more words in the story.

There is work in progress, but writing there means not neccessarily writing here. We shall see how it all shakes out…

What do you do when you’re not feeling inspired? How do you push past it?

Getting Away

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I absolutely recommend taking whatever chances you can to go someplace new. Travel, see things, meet people and experience what a new place has to offer. I understand the trip my family took isn’t something everyone could afford to do, but this applies to any sort of travel. IF you have the chance, go.

We’ve taken two trips recently – both of them out of the country.

Our first trip was thanks to dear friends who invited us along to Niagara Falls when the eclipse happened. The weather wasn’t great and we didn’t really get to see the eclipse, but the trip itself was worth the effort. We got to see a true natural wonder and spend time with friends. There were very few time commitments and allowed us to just go and enjoy time away.

Our second trip, not long after this journey to Canada took us all the way across the Atlantic to Switzerland and France.

My daughter was an exchange student in France for a year. We took the opportunity to leverage her language capabilities and go to see some of the places she had been. We went to visit people we knew as well – our exchange daughter lives in France, so visiting her was added to the route. We flew to Geneva.


We stayed and toured there, then took the train into France to meet the host family where my daughter lived. Next up was the train across the country to Le Mans to see our exchange daughter and her family. Along the way we got to experience life less like a tourist and more like somebody living there. We didn’t go to any specific tourist destination, but rather took in various places and experiences along the way. We didn’t rent a car, we took the train. We walked and learned some of the public transport systems. We got to tour both the modern aspects of the cities we were in, and the older parts of the cities.

Cathedrals were two stops that were absolutely worth going to see. We went to both the cathedral in Geneva and the cathedral in Le Mans. Standing inside those structures, getting the true sense of scale was wonderful. It’s easy to understand how people would be in awe of these towering places and the beauty they delivered. Not major tourist spots. No planned tours, but absolutely worth the effort to go.

And that’s really the point. IF you have the chance, GO. Get out. See something new. Add weird things to the list of things you’ve done. Now I can say I’ve had McDonald’s on 3 continents – and I can say I’ve eaten actual ratatouille in France. Run the gamut, see all the places, and do all the things. You’ll be glad you did – and maybe, you’ll make some friends along the way.

Gaps and Dumps

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I didn’t realize the gap I’ve had since the last time I was on here and posting. I really wish there were a way to tie the things I post to my other social media here… that I understood and could easily use.

There was one, very early on and that functionality was taken away. I don’t understand how to make it work – nor do I particularly want to. I already do so many things I absolutely do NOT want to add “web developer” to that list. I really hate programming and program languages.

Yes, in the day job there have been more than one time that I’ve needed to learn LISP routines or some variation on visual programming or… I think the new one is python? I don’t know. I really hate doing them. They’re terrible and I am not meant for that kind of creation.

So – this is the ‘lump’ of things that will follow the huge gap. Hopefully the gaps will be smaller and the lumps less lumpy, but I’m certain I’ve said that sort of thing before.

At the Top?

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I got an email from Goodreads stating that I was in the top 25% of readers for the year last year. I’ve been logging my books on Goodreads for a number of years now and I’ve always had at least a passing interest in the tally for my previous year. When I looked back I was a bit surprised that I’ve been logging books on Goodreads since 2009. I didn’t realize this was year 15 for me.

Recently, as in the past couple of years, I’ve had a great deal of trouble achieving the level of reading I was previously accustomed to. There are a lot of factors involved there, but in the end those factors combined to stop me from reading as much as I really like.

2023 – 23 books

2022 – 9 books

2021 – 17 books

2020 – 39 books – this is actually a peak year for me

Being in the top 25% with less than two dozen books is, not surprising but a little disappointing I think. Not for me, but for the general statement that makes on how much people read (or more correctly, don’t read).

The numbers for 2023 are a good sign for me. I’m trending back up. I’m working hard at mitigating a large number of the factors that slowed or stopped me from reading. I suspect I’ll be able to meet or exceed 2023 with this year’s total. I’m not going to use a goal setting app or whatever – this is supposed to be a pleasurable thing. I should read new and interesting things and tell people about them because I enjoy it, not because some random app or goal is pressuring me to do that. I’m going to keep reading. I’m going to keep reviewing those books and posting up my thoughts and opinions on them. How many will I get to? Who knows? But I will have read a number of good stories in order to get there.

The New Year

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I’ve talked about my opinion of new year resolutions on here before. I made a resolution a long time ago to never make another one. Real change isn’t a gimmick tied to a date on the calendar. I’ve told the story about the old guys at the gym I overheard one time being grumpy and wishing the pretenders would just get over the fact they’re going to quit and get out of the way.

I related this to a guy at the gym the other day, and he had an interesting thought on the matter. Not something I give weight lifters a lot of credit for honestly.

He said, “Part of me absolutely agrees with those guys. There are going to be two or three weeks of being absolutely annoyed that I can’t get to a bench or a weight stack and wishing the quitters would do just that. The other part of me, the one who really loves this, wishes them all the best. I hope they actually stick with it and get healthy or buff or whatever it is they’re trying to do…”

It was so simple and positive. Yes, newbies are annoying and they get in the way and they don’t know the rules (or ignore them) and they’ll probably quit soon. But we shouldn’t want others to fail that way. Going to the gym to be healthy isn’t about winning some kind of competition. It’s not like they’re going to “use up” all the gym and leave none for others when they get there. People of all levels should be able to get in there and do what they do. It’s not like I’m some kind of record breaking work out monster. I’m there to do what I still can in an effort to stay as healthy as I can. I see people there who look like they’re 80 or older. I’ve seen at least two different folks with what are classified as disabilities who are there working hard at the parts they can work. Dude in the wheel chair benches more than I do by far (part of me wants to make a terrible joke about leg day, but I don’t know him well enough). I see a family that’s in there every morning trying to be healthy together.

So no matter how much I don’t care about the whole “new year resolution” thing, I’m not going to put anyone down for trying to get better. I hope you succeed. I hope you get what you need out of the change you’re trying to make.

I’m going to keep doing what I do, only (hopefully) with a little more regularity than I’ve had for a while.

Happy New Year. I hope your year is amazing and wonderful and all the great things you desire.

Driving

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Here we are – old enough to drive.

Yup. The Pretend Blog has been around for 16 years now. It hasn’t always been on my own website, but it’s always been mine, for better or worse.

These days the creativity is still a struggle, but this place contains various parts of my musings, criticisms, art and general nonsense. More than 590 posts in all. That’s not a lot when spread out over sixteen years. That’s about 36 per year (or around 3 per month) on average. Thing is, “average” took a big hit from about 2016 through Covid reaching endemic stages. There was a lot of depression and inability to create during that time frame. That lingers, even now.

Creativity, and the mindset that comes with it take a long time to recover when suppressed for too long. Much like muscles that have atrophied from lack of use, creative things need practice. They need to be flexed and worked out. Sometimes they even need to be taken out and shown off to others.

I’m going to consider it work in progress. I’m going to stick with it and keep at it – after all, I am still pretending people still read blogs.

Happy 16th birthday to The Pretend Blog!

All The Discs

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There’s a meme out there with a picture of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan saying, “why of course, it’s me…”

I know that’s a hash of a misquote, but you get the idea.

Found it~

Using a physical DVD to watch a film. Yep, I know that guy, because it’s me. I’ve been one of the red envelope people subscribed to the Netflix DVD service for the past 12 years. It was an easy choice for me. Advertising and unreliable connection speeds meant I could watch what I had on hand without any fear of it failing to work or having the feel of a film wrecked by mid scene advertising… almost all the time. Yes, physical media does have issues. Yes, from time to time there would be a problem, but for the most part it was a fantastic albeit slow system. In all those years I can only think of a handful of times when either the disc was broken or didn’t work, and only once in all that time when I got frustrated enough to just digitally rent a movie when the disc failed – and that was because it failed about 60% of the way through a really good movie.

Now that system is gone.

Yesterday, Netflix DVD made their last shipment. After 25 years (for them) they’re done, and I am feeling a bit nostalgic about the whole thing. The discs have been one of a very few constant things over the years. I was able to pull down a PDF file, created by the Netflix folks, that has my history all packaged up and presented in a report. I haven’t crunched numbers for averages or anything like that, but I have looked at the list of more than 250 rentals I’ve had over that time (quick math, 250/12 = about 20 discs a year or just under 2 per month). I looked at the stats they’ve stacked up for me and wandered down the list of discs we’ve watched, remembering the stories and characters from all those movies.

It’s going to be a minute for me to process the whole thing, but I will miss it. That probably sounds weird, but it has been part of my life for more than a decade. It became something that was just there when I needed it. Recently the streaming services available to us, combined with a more stable internet experience and less available time, in general, have made streaming services far more convenient and my rental rate has fallen off. Sometimes it would be weeks before I could put together the time to sit with a friend or a family member to watch whatever it was we ordered up. Sometimes the streaming service would add the movie before we got to the disc. I’d package up the disc and send it back, eagerly waiting for the next one to arrive. It was there, and it happened when I wanted it to. My viewing experience was not subject to some vague streaming contract a studio made, nor allowed to change based on some other, unknown reason.

The best example I can think of to illustrate that off hand is Monsters, Inc. and how it’s shown on Disney+. My daughter and I sat to re-watch it the other day because it had been a very long time since we watched it originally and we were in just the right mood. We pulled it up on Disney+ and let it roll. When we got to the end we wanted to see the extra bit at the end where the company is putting on the play Mike and Sully improvised during the movie… and it wasn’t there. It was just gone. I was a bit sad, but she was downright outraged. “How dare they? This is unacceptable and look it up on YouTube right now so we can watch it!”. I think that encapsulates the whole thing. The nutshell version – streaming decided to revise history a la 1984 and the modern viewer simply slid over to another streaming service and looked up the part they knew should be there (legality of it all be damned).

So the service is gone, but physical media still exist. I’ll still be watching those, and definitely picking up my favorites in physical form so I don’t need to depend on some company deciding if Ponyo should be available or not. Yes, it takes up space on the shelf. Yes, it’s an outdated method for watching things, but it’s mine and I’ll do with it as I please.

Apparently the folks at Netflix were feeling a bit nostalgic as well. They captured the whole feeling in a quick video… now available from a streaming service.