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Both of my sons came to me, separately, oddly moved by Kim Jong-il’s death. At first I found it puzzling. He was old and a pretty nasty dictator, why the feelings? My youngest said, he’s been a part of our jokes since I can remember. And he began singing the song from TEAM AMERICA WORLD POLICE: I’m so rone-ry, so rone-ry… Yes, in bad taste from the word GO but consider the source, the geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone of Southpark (and now Book of Mormon) fame. There aren’t many world leaders who created a bigger target for humor than Kim Jong-il. He was odd looking, full of strange eccentricities (Hollywood movies, porn stars, stealing Japanese actors), and presiding over a kingdom that was much less funny. In the tradition of the Kim Jung dynasty each leader is supposed to be addressed by outrageous fawning phrases like Dear Leader, Father, Fearless Leader and Generalissimo. His people live in one of the most restrictive countries in the world. Compare the global night map of lights of civilization and South Korea burns bright while the North is dark. There were rumors that the population turned to cannibalism (mostly children) during the famine of 1992. Not so funny. So we bid adieu to the Easy Target, The Little Prince, The Strange One, The Weirdest One. May your the son of the continuing democratic dynasty be more human. Note: That’s my own portrait of The Strange One.

I consider my myself a fan of The Chuck. FIGHT CLUB is an amazing piece of writing and a great movie. I actually came across the material first some years ago it when it was published as the short story “Project Mayhem.” I thought it was amazing, put it away somewhere and eventually the book appears, then the movie.

I have to admit I’ve had trouble getting into his other novels (HAUNTED and SURVIVOR) but I’m not convinced I just wasn’t in the right mood for them. I’ll try them again. Last night I attended his live chat with Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio at the Fitzgerald Theater in St Paul MN. It was a good show, though I found Ms Miller’s playful antagonism a bit grating and some of her questions could have been more thoughtful. I mean, can’t you ask anyone if they’re afraid of death? This is The Chuck; ask him something more clever.

During the long silences before he answered some questions I sensed partly a setup was coming, partly he was messing with Kerri, and partly he seemed to be connecting the question with one of the good stories that he tells at these kinds of things. His stories were excellent and I won’t try to re-tell them, but one involved a French vet hazing ritual of the candidate being sewn inside of a dead horse while unconscious. Good stuff.

I admire The Chuck’s productivity, a novel a year. Wow. Though one wonders if that might be at the cost of something else? Let’s not go there. I mostly appreciated him as a thoughtful, original, voice–more rare than one would think in this so-called “creative” age. He thinks things out for himself and comes up with theories like why all American fiction revolves around three characters: The Martyr, The Rebel and the Observer. I like how he takes his brain seriously though he can no longer qualify as an outsider, dropping how he spent a week in Spain with the other geniuses – Sedaris, Lethem, and Chabon. He earned it; he can brag. Just please, keep it brief, original and interesting. I was interested (selfishly) that his new novel DAMNED is told from the point of view of a (dead) 13 year old girl in hell. My narrator of CUTE EATS CUTE (plug acknowledged) is neither dead nor in hell but they’re near the same age. We may have even more in common when ZOMBIES IN SPACE comes out. Hint: the narrator is dead.

I’m sitting down to work on my novel and my mind is buzzing from an exposure to the degree of “smart” in contemporary television. My sixteen year old son was my guide. I’m not a big TV watcher (don’t start with categorizing me, not yet) but I do watch “my shows” which tend to be the high end dramas like MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD and THE KILLING. It seemed everything I peeked in at TV comedies I found sitcoms like TWO AND A HALF MEN with laugh tracks that seemed like the shows I watched as a kid only much much raunchier. THE OFFICE changed that for me. I did become a fan but found that I wasn’t compelled to “keep up” lest I miss some nuance of culture. The writers, though very saavy, still seemed to look down on these poor saps stuck in a non-sexy jobs at a paper company in Scranton, PA. There was no getting around the sense that some smart ass twenty something in Hollywood (granted some also act on the show) wrote the material wondering what poor saps in Scranton ate for lunch and how they could make that funny. Still, what was different was a depth of character and a willingness for the show to be not only funny (laughing at weird people) but also get inside of them in ways more traditionally done in “drama.” There were poignant moments and no laugh track. But THE OFFICE avoided many controversial topics (religion and politics) though they were fearless in jumping into diversity training, sexism, and class.

PARKS AND RECREATION is something else again. Amy Poehler’s character of Leslie Knope dives into a territory that I’m not sure actually exists in real life, but is oddly fearless. For example, clearly Leslie sees herself as a feminist (she hopes to be president of the US one day) but when she lists her heroes, they are women in politics from “both” camps, including Sarah Palin. Now we know (wink-wink) that no one on the writing staff respects Ms. Palin. We know this. So making Leslie respect her is not unlike THE OFFICE writers (this is the same team, after all) trying to imagine what poor saps in Scranton like to do after work. PARKS AND REC people are poor saps that live in Indiana, though we begin to see some postmodern types (for lack of a better word) that seem to at least try to live in contemporary America. At two extremes are April, an attractive but angry and dour twentysometing and Rob Lowe’s character Chris Treager who could actually live in Hollywood with his 2.8 percent body fat and obsession with forced cheerfulness. Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) is a bold step into controversy, though I find at times he’s too cartoonish. He’s a self-defined libertarian which apparently in Hollywood means you eat only meat, like guns, try to avoid all human emotion. Not the subtlest sketch.

Moving on to COMMUNITY. My son said I should start with Season Two as it took the show the whole first season to realize that Joe McHale’s character Jeff Winger was too negative and crabby to be the center. Instead they’ve made him a part of an ensemble cast that includes the character Abed Nadir a Polis/Palestinian-American obsessed with pop culture. There’s an African-American Christian, an atheist socialist, a Jewish goody-goody, a near daft oldster (Chevy Chase). But it’s the content of the humor that’s out there. For example, the show I saw (Season Two, Episode Five) called “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” had the Christian character trying to “hire” the Palestinian character (because of his web saavy) to make her a youtube video to spread the good news of Jesus. Abed sees it as an opportunity to do a “meta” project in the style of Charlie Kaufmann (ADAPTATION). OK. So few people my age (close to Chevy’s) could give you a good definition of meta. In fact, unless you follow film and pop culture many people of any age (or for example the characters in THE OFFICE or PARKS AND REC) could give you a quick definition of meta. OK, maybe Aziz Ansari’s character could, but still. So COMMUNITY not only dares to use Jesus in a sketch, but has a Palestinian character making a meta film about Jesus. I was a bit shocked at their boldness, something you do see in Charlie Kaufman films (e.g. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH where a woman enters the body of a man showering and squeals with delight at the parts that feel fun to wash.)

So my question (stay tuned) for “serious” fiction writers, is what is our mission vis-à-vis edginess when TV is smarter than we are?

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Since my latest novel has veered toward the classic sci-fi, I have been more aware of when alien invasions have popped up in the real news. It started on August 15th, when Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman suggested in a televised interview that what was needed to get the economy going was something like the plot of an old Twilight Zone episode where a group of elite scientists faked an alien invasion to unite the people of earth. His reference, all arguments of economic viability aside, caused a mild storm in the comic fan world. First he was thinking not of the Twilight Zone, but an episode of the Outer Limits, Architects of Fear. Secondly, Architects did not produce the results of a united earth, but was a sad tale of the failure to transform a normal human (Robert Culp, no less) into an alien monter who was supposed to walk into the UN and do what Micheal Rennie does successfully in The Day the Earth Stood Still. In other words, Krugman confabulated (i.e. to fill in memory gaps with fabulation) the failure of the elite scientists in one show with the success of a real alien on another (major) film.

I hesitate to write anything against Facebook. It’s not that this fun site is a worldwide Big Brother (yet), though it could be that I’m giving voice to “Boomer” complaints about a method of communication that was invented and adopted with enthusiasm by people younger than me. By the standards of my age, I am moderate “new adopter” and having been willing (granted with some reluctance) to admit that what we used to call “sitting in front of a screen” when the kids were small is now so much more. It’s fun, it’s music, it’s news, it’s “staying in touch” with people, it’s even where I go for “movies” now. Still, one has to remain with one’s own reality however curmudgeonly that seems.

(Segue). When I was in high school, I ran with a crowd that I have mostly lost touch with. The one exception was my “best” friend and we have managed to stay connected mostly via (yes) occasional hand-written (remember cursive?) letters, rare phonecalls and even rarer visits. We both have each other’s email addresses, of course, but someone email hasn’t suited us. Call it Boomer prejudice. Whatever. Over the years (in PF, Pre-Facebook times) I have wondered occasionally what happened to the “other guys” in my group that in my memory seems like a slightly darker take on Happy Days. Mostly I remember “Woodwarding” which was when you’re lucky enough to have a friend with a car while you are in high school and you drive up and down the mile road markers of Detroit’s great spine. In those days (also PC, Pre-Cellphone) we actually waved at cars of girls doing the female mating dance of Woodwarding. Sometimes you were able to communicate by “hand gestures” that both vehicles should end up at the Big Boy drive-in where the flirtations might (but often didn’t) involve laughing, talking, maybe even getting a “phone number” of a girl’s parents’ landline that you may or may not call later. I’m talking forty-five years ago if you have to know. A long, long time ago in a universe far, far away. With the advent of search engines, People searches, LinkedIn and Facebook, I posted the name of my high school. I found a trickle of people who went to my school; or they found me. Mostly they were not my woodwarding friends, some of them not friends at all. One even an “enemy” (bully) if such a think can last forty-five years.

Being a published novelist, all my “people” have encouraged me to use the social media to promote my book, which I more or less have done with varying degrees of enthusiasm over the months. I have even paid for ads on Google and Facebook, speaking of “early adapting” and so forth. I have a website and sporadically have an interest in updating it. I had pretty much given up looking for my woodwarding buddies when one contacted me. After forty-five years he doesn’t say wow, how are you? Or what’s your life been like? Or where do you live? What do you do? None of the niceties of ancient times. He found one of my older posts on my site and basically criticized it/me/the implied political position. He scolded me, in other words. After forty-five years, a face I mostly remember as part of these late night adventures in my teens is now an old man with strong political views who crabs at me. Maybe he thought it was playful. Fun. Maybe. But maybe I would rather have my “lost” memories of “lost” people more than connecting so superficially with people I once knew. What really do you have to say to each other? You’ve lived this long not seeking each other out, and suddenly technology makes it so easy. So you say “Hi!” You “wave” like we used to do to those cars of girls on Woodward Avenue. Or you flash the bird; make a gesture.

It’s irritating of course. Not so much the scolding. I’m kind of used to that (if one ever gets used to being scolded). I tried to put words to the feeling and I came up with vampiric. Follow me here. The “vampire” of the Internet sucks out my memories (for what purpose I don’t know; it could be nutrition). My “old memories” (the fresh faced pal now a curmudgeon) are soiled if not stolen and replaced with “reality” – there’s a old man out there I used to go to school with who is more interested in crabbing out his opinions than “connecting” in an civilized way with me. In other words, he cares about me less than a comment he’d toss at a talking head on the “television”—“what the heck does that so-and-so know?”

Small point? Maybe. Maybe not. I realize we are moving, have moved, into a new world of instant communication. I realize there is no going back. Look, I have a Kindle, but I understand all those people my age (there’s even a television commercial to this effect) who “love” the feel of paper, the heft of books, etc. Books will remain in print, but they will be different. Things don’t seem to go away totally, but like people who are into vinyl records (“the sound is better”?) the defenders of the old decamp into fringe movements, hobbies essentially.

Part II

While I’m at it, the other problem I have with Facebook is that it has an assumption that controversies are seriously divisive. The assumption is that you can “put it out there” and show people what you believe in (global warming, for example). What you think others should believe in; fight for. If your “friends” disagree with you, well, what’s a little disagreement among friends. Only here’s the catch. At the same time we are getting so much better at superficial communication and “connecting” we are getting worse at being able to have civil conversations with people who disagree with us. The Other Side, so to speak. I see it not only with politics, but also religion. I know a number of evangelical Christians who in person have never mentioned their beliefs directly but online I see how they think and what they think about. This insight doesn’t (necessarily) make me closer to them. If anything, it’s a “line in the sand” showing where they stand. This is a line, mind you, that does NOT show up in the “real world” where we have inter-acted many times. So THE Facebook’s ethos encourages you to put it out there in a way that in “real life” you would either not do out of politeness or because you know you don’t have the skills (or wherewithal) to drift from chit-chat to combat over your “beliefs” which depending on who you are could be held with passion or disinterest. Essentially, Facebook makes us all as naïve as a (forgive me) eighteen year old who doesn’t (yet) understand that there can be good and decent people on both sides (that is, all sides) of a question.

This gap between what you’d share in polite company and what you’d put online has the same “vampiric” quality of pulling things out of you (e.g. blood as opinions) that you are not necessarily ready to “give”. I didn’t plan for this to move so heavily into the vampire theme, but let’s flesh it out so to speak. The vampire’s classic seduction is often a kiss. You (victim)[and here I’m picturing the classic Dracula and fraulein scenario] are impressed with the culture of the vampire. He wears a dinner jacket and speaks in a Romanian accent. When the deadly kiss comes, you are (often) willing, at least willing to “give” what you thought he wanted—intimacy. But he doesn’t want intimacy. He wants your blood. If he likes you he might make you a vampire, too, but mainly it’s about your blood. He doesn’t care if you die in other words. The Internet (ok we’re talking mainly Facebook) is like this. It sucks out our information with a promise of intimacy. It leaves us weaker, perhaps dying (in some spiritual sense). It doesn’t love us.

It took me a while to remember when I last felt like that one had to be this careful expressing one’s opinion on a political issue. I’m used to disagreeing with people, less good at expressing it. I’ve learned to keep my opinions to myself for the sake of not spoiling the evening out with friends. But the Madison protests are upping the ante. Many people I know are directly affected (a good friend is a teacher in Hudson), or indirectly (a good friend’s sister is also a Wisconsin teacher, in Madison no less). I also know people not yet affected, a prison administrator in the union, who looks fearfully at “it” spreading to our state however unlikely that looks at the moment. Room for debate, pretty slim for starters, shrinks even further when people feel they or their loved ones are directly impacted. There is an assumption that their passion outweighs any possibly intellectual exercise that might align oneself with the abstractions the dark forces use to bolster their arguments. I call it the “Cyclist Paradox.” When I drive on narrow country roads, the cyclists’ arrogant disregard of safety and my right to be there is maddening. However, when I’m on a bicycle, I see that the carbon-spewing behemoths full of dangerously distracted drivers as a menace to all living things. It all reminds me of being at draft age during the Vietnam War. Since I didn’t know anyone going over (let alone wanting to) and I was in danger of being drafted, there wasn’t much room for discussion of the “domino theory” of communism taking over all Southeast Asia. If someone expressed any support for the war, I felt they were in effect saying, “You go over there. Fight for this theory and possibly die.” Emotion trumps policy discussions every time. The sad thing is that in the decades between Vietnam and today’s budget crises we have gotten no better at talking through tough issues calmly. If anything, given our rabid 24/7 desire for dramatic news, it’s probably gotten worse. I wish I could end this with a solution. I’d sure like to hear one.

An interesting story ran today on the invasive species, the red lionfish (family Pterois volitans, order Scorpaeniformes). Though far from “cute” the lionfish is certainly an impressive if not beautiful creature. It’s always interesting when humans are presented with choices about which species is good and which needs eradication. Often the reason for eradication is that the species is invasive, but it helps when they are also predatory on other “innocent”  (i.e. cute) creatures. In this case the lionfish has a nefarious habit of eating everything in its path, including many of the tropicals we love to put in fishtanks and oogle when we snorkle in Hawaii. Some invaders avoid this fate like the ringneck pheasant imported from China years ago as a gamebird. Now, it’s an accepted part of our rural landscape and beloved of hunters and wildlife artists. Perhaps it hasn’t displaced any local gamebirds, but certainly some creatures noticed it horning into their ecosystem. The lionfish story is interesting partly because if you knew nothing about it, you might think it’s as gorgeous as anything it eats. We’re unlikely to witness any protests about the efforts to eradicate it on its route into more northern waters. I just like these little paradoxes. They keep it messy. Like life.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704658204575610721532882174.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

“CUTE EATS CUTE” is about a controversy in a community plagued by too many deer. Though set in Minnesota, the events unfolding in Cayuga Heights, NY seem to be playing out like my novel.

CAYUGA HEIGHTS — The Tompkins County village of Cayuga Heights is moving ahead with a controversial plan to control the deer population within the village limits. The board intends to hire a consultant to come up with a formal environmental impact statement for the plan

Officials figure there are about 200 deer living within the 1.8 square miles that comprise the village. The animals have damaged gardens and property. Some feel are a threat to public safety.

The plan calls for capturing and neutering 20 to 60 does and killing the rest. The venison would be donated to the Southern Tier Food Bank. Mayor Kate Supron said “We can’t make everybody happy, that’s a given. But we would like to bring the population down to a level we consider safe and healthful.”

Opponents have formed a citizens group to fight the deer culling plan. They’ve launched a campaign that has stirred emotions in Cayuga Heights and surrounding communities.

James LaVeck is among the opponents. “Ultimately we have a small group of influential resident who don’t want to put up fences to protect their gardens and instead they want to bring in out of town gunmen put out bait piles and shoot down human habituated deer in people’s backyards.” LaVeck told CNY Central.

For more information, Cayuga Heights has published its deer management plan on its website.

The opponents have their own website.

http://www.cnycentral.com/news/story.aspx?list=~%5Cnews%5Clists%5Clocalid=420467&id=459815

Magee, a young African American, got into a fight in the unit with a Native American (attacked him in his cell as the story goes) and Gray (the African American guy who was painting abstracts and didn’t have that much time left) went to help (as the story goes). Gates is in the Hole (solitary) for six months of this eight months left, plus they tacked on two more months. Eight months of solitary! The weapon was a sharpened end of a paintbrush and since they were both in art class Jack had to do some fancy footwork (via email, excuse the mixed metaphor) to avoid inventorying all our brushes. The inmates can order art supplies and have them in their cells, including brushes and pencils. So we’re down two guys.

Armando came to our Character First discussion today. The first non-white (I hate how race conscious this place is!) to attend. I think he did it for me and I was happy about that. We discussed “Faith” as a virtue (trying to avoid religion, which was not easy). Armando offered many details about Jim Jones’ fiasco in Guyana as evidence that “false faith” exists. True dat.