Day: August 10, 2023

The Writing Moment

I feel liberated. Released. Like I’ve been locked up in a building and now the doors have been opened and I can go anywhere.

Yeah. Finished the first draft of another novel.

I also feel humbled and happy. Satisfied.

I struggled with finishing. Kept running into a wall with where those final chapters would go. I had to reach the odd realization and understanding that the character is not me. The character had much more to give, more to use. They understood things that I did not. I just had to let go and accept that. Once that finally took place, the ending fell into place, and here we are.

Now it must be edited, revised, etc. But the storyteller is free to start another tale. Almost as if signaled, I saw something and a new adventure began taking shape.

As it’s always been.

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Alternate Realities

This is not a review but a brief commentary about Barbie.

I did an informal poll last night when sitting with my beer gang. These are generally enlightened and educated, elderly men and women — our youngest is 61, and I’m in the middle at 67 — who retired from professions as university professors, botanists, biologists, medical doctors, NASA scientists, aerospace engineers, high school teachers, database administrators, software engineers, and forensics scientists. Yes, we have at least two of each in our group. They’re all ‘woke’ to various degrees. None of the women were there last night, just the men.

So I did a survey. I was surprised that none had seen the Barbie movie, and only one wanted to see it. All of them enthused about Oppenheimer, though.

I’d seen Barbie and enjoyed it. I had moderate interest in the doll’s story and the battles against the patriarchy — though very real — and matriarchy, toxic masculinity, and false choices dumped on people because of gender. No, my thing was the alternate realities aspects, the other existence where Barbie and Ken and their brethren resided, versus our reality.

I’ve always been a sucker for these. Loved Pleasantville for that reason, along with Men In Black, the original Matrix, Flash Gordon, 12 Monkeys, Ground Hog Day, Inception, and the whole Doctor Who series. Add Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, Good Omens, and Papergirls to the list of worthy TV series about other dimensions. I’ve probably forgotten same, but want to stress, these are not about alternate history or future science fiction. The core of these offerings to me must be that these movies and television shows actively involve other dimensions. Things are happening there. Those involved in our reality don’t know it, but are solidly face-planted into the other reality and must cope with the new reality that there are other realities. I love the genre because it challenges our certitude about reality, which I find rude, arrogant, and short-sighted. Of course, that approach works for most, so, shrug.

Barbie worked for me for that reason. Besides solid acting and production values, the expected jokes and observations about genitals and identity, the paradigm shifts faced were clearly exposed. There was a too neat, too clean resolution to that — but, hey, it’s a comedy — and a I-can-skip-the-lecture at the end delivered by Rhea Perlman as Barbie’s inventor, but it was solid fun about realities colliding.

I recommend the movie and pity those who won’t see it for whatever premature reason they’ve devised. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: reflective

We’re about to rock Thursday, August 10, 2023 — or is it about to rock us?

It’s a comfortable morning in Ashlandia, where the children are young and the parents are hopeful. 70 F and sunny now, 91 is on the books as the expected high. Relative humidity is hovering around 41%. Mild breezes carry mountain chills into the valley as the sun’s heat starts taking over.

My thoughts are with Hawaii today. The photos, videos, and tales emerging from the islands are saddening, soul-killing. Hawaii for me was a beautiful exotic place to visit, almost like paradise. It’s painful to think of those wonderful people and lands burning. Not too much different from what it was like to see Italy burning, Spain, California, Australia, and other places around the world in the last few years. Whether Hawaii’s disaster is linked to climate change, I don’t know. Fires do happen but so many devastating fires and disasters have been witnessed in the last ten years, the tension of impending collapse feels like it’s increasing. There is evidence that climate change is happening, and accelerating. For us not to try to mitigate what we can is such a depressing, defeatist, and selfish attitude that my dismay rises to disbelief. That so often the excuse for not doing something is that it will be bad for business is appalling.

I paused for a bit to remember the many places I visited and how fortunate I was to have visited them. Too often I forget how privileged I’ve been and am. It’s a side effect of privilege, one of several, that you ended up taking these things for granted.

The Neurons plucked “The Best of Times” by Styx out of the mental repository. It’s playing full tilt in the morning mental music stream (Trademark uncertain), brought on by the lyrics, “Rumor has it, it’s the end of paradise.” So often when we look back, we have a moment that we think of as the best of times. Those are generated by relativities of who you are, where you were, your expectations and disappointments, really, your reality. I think about future generations and what they’ll look back upon, and wonder. Fortunately, beyond the broader landscape of existence, people have their own bubbles of being. It’s in there where we take comfort as we can, and stock hope for something better.

Time for coffee, or as I dub it, ‘coffee time’ (trademark rejected). Say positive and hopeful, even optimistic, and let’s keep moving forward. Peace out, as they used to say.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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