A new read among others—and re-reads

Have I ever pre-ordered a book? I don’t know about the past, but on January 8 of this year I pre-ordered the new novel by Armistead Maupin, a few weeks after I saw his Facebook page announcing the publication of his latest novel, Mona of the Manor, likely to be the final novel in Maupin’s Tales of the City series of novels. The book arrived Monday (photo above). This was also a bittersweet thing.

Nigel had all the original Tales of the City books, and when I arrived in New Zealand to live, I read the first three. Auckland reminded me a bit of San Francisco, which I’d visited earlier that year, because of its waterfront and hilly streets. There’s no reason why I hadn’t read the books in the USA, I just didn’t—though I’d been aware of them since I was at university, and newly out, in the early 1980s. before I emigrated, I watched the first series of the TV adaptation of the books, and Nigel and I watched the second and third series together. We bought them on VHS, and we re-bought them on DVD (though I’m pretty sure that buying the DVDs was just Nigel’s doing).

Maupin began a series of sequels, though at first he didn’t call them that, with Michael Tolliver Lives in 2007, which I bought for Nigel. I also bought him Mary Ann in Autumn (2020), and also The Days of Anna Madrigal (2014), but I don’t know if he ever read that one (by that time he was mostly into audio books, which helped make his work commute much better). Mona of the Manor, then, is the first Armistead Maupin book that Nigel never got the chance to read, and, obviously, I was keenly aware of that fact when publication was announced. If anything, that awareness made me more determined to pre-order.

Nigel and I also bought the non-Tales book, “The Night Listener”, and we managed to read it before the movie came out. Actually, by “we” I mean me: One way or another, Nigel got through a lot more books than I did (as I’ve said many times, I’m a very slow reader). Nigel already had Maupin’s other non-Tales novel, Maybe the Moon, and both of those books had characters from Tales as supporting characters.

It’s clear that I have a long personal history with the Tales books, even if I’ve only read the first three books in the series. Right now, I think I’d like to start from the beginning and continue in order until I get to the newest one. We’ll see. Back in 2008, I published a post about book memes and said that the Tales series was what I’d want with me if I was on a desert island. I also said, “These will, one day, be books I re-read.” Yes, well, only three of them would’ve been be re-reads, and that hasn’t changes in the sixteen since I wrote that post. The other seven novels would still be new to me.

Buying this new book completes the set of Tales of the City novels in my personal library, and that appeals to me for many reasons. It’s bittersweet, too, though, because Nigel never got the chance to read Mona of the Manor. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it enough for both of us.

When something, even a new book, is connected to me so personally, and those connections include memories about Nigel, it’s understandable that I’d feel reflective. This time, it’s mostly happy memories and feelings, just tinged with the bittersweet. As time’s passed, this has become far more common than having memories that only make me sad. Now, I’m mainly just excited to see how time affected Mona. And Anna. And Mary Ann. And Michael. No matter how long it takes me.

A surprising thing

People may think that after 20 months on this grief journey, there wouldn’t be much that surprises me anymore, but, actually, there are plenty. People have an amazing capacity for kindness and support, and today I saw another example of that, one that was both unexpected and also the most unusual.

I’ve known writer Matt Burlingame for many, many years now, and he’s one of the nicest and kindest people I’ve met through podcasting. Nigel heard me talk about him, and finally met Matt through Pride 48. These overlapping circles have now become complete: Matt has included Nigel in the Dedications page of his new gay romance, Last Romance (that page is the image in this post). The Kindle edition of the book will be released on July 1. This act of remembrance really touched me.

When Matt first shared the image above with me, I cried when I saw Nigel’s name. It wasn’t long or loud, but it was enough to make Leo look up at me to see what was going on. The thing is, Nigel read a lot of gay romance novels, beginning many years ago. He began with Kindle editions, then, later, he switched to audiobooks from Audible. I told Nigel he should read some of Matt’s books, but I have no idea whether he ever did. Regardless, he would have been touched to be remembered—I can see him with that little smile he’d get when he was pleased about something, but didn’t want to look pleased about it. He was always intensely modest. But I also know he’d be happy that this made me smile—and remember him, too.

I think it’s awesome whenever people remember those we’ve lost. There’s a common myth, I think—one I’ve talked about before—that grieving people don’t want people to talk about the lost loved one, but I’ve never met anyone for whom that’s actually true. If anything, they want the opposite: They definitely want their loved one’s name to be spoken, to hear happy memories and funny stories, especially things they may not have heard before. I certainly want to hear Nigel talked about, for him to be remembered.

There’s a quote that’s attributed to anonymous artist Banksy: “They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” I have no idea whether he actually said that, and there are other versions around, along with an anonymous version from a different angle: “He who is remembered, never truly dies”.

The point here is that as long as a person is remembered, they’re still with us. That’s another reason why it’s so important to speak the names of those we’ve lost, especially while there are still those who remember them from first hand experience.

Sure, a reader of a Dedication page won’t know who, specifically, this Nigel listed there was, but they will know that Matt thought enough of that Nigel person, and those he left behind, to speak his name in print. Same for the others also remembered. For me, and probably others, that means the world.

Obviously a gay romance novel isn’t for everyone, but he’s written a variety of things over the years (you can check out Matt’s author page on Amazon to see some examples). But you don’t have to into the genre to appreciate when a kind person does something that touches someone else, and Matt’s inclusion of Nigel in his new book’s Dedication page did exactly that.

Thanks, Matt.

A useful book – eventually

This isn’t a book review, at least, not just that. It’s about a book, yes, but also how I came to buy and read it, and how all that meshes with my current life.

There a lot of books dealing with grief, many written from particular perspectives (like religious views) or specific types of grief (like losing a spouse, child, or furbaby). It’s probable that the real value of any of those books, like all books, will be determined by the reader, and no one else. It turns out, “Arthur’s Law” also applies to books.

All of which has been on my mind a lot over the past 17 months as I’ve seen recommendations for books on grieving suggested to me directly, or from what I’ve seen online. The thing about that is that anyone like me, in the midst of profound grief, will almost certainly have issues with trust: When so much we held to be true and certain is ripped away from us, who and what can we ever trust? Book recommendations are merely one of the more easily jettisoned things at a time we can trust nothing.

Even so, back in December, 2019, when I was still quite new to deep grief, a dear friend of mine I’ve known for some some three decades (and who has gone on to become a licensed marriage and family therapist) suggested a book to me, Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss. He noted that many people thought of it as a kids book, but that he’d given it to many people of all ages as a way to help them with their pain. He told me, “Probably kid stuff for you, but sometimes it's the easy stuff that helps.”

At the time, I was in the midst of organising for my new house in Hamilton, and then moving, and then selling the old house, and then came the Covid lockdown, and then—well, I just never got around to getting the book—or any other book on grief, for that matter.

Back in 2019, it sold for about NZ $50, which at the time was about two thirds higher than the price in the USA. Recently, I was ordering something from Amazon and decided to add the book to the order. It had gone up in price in the meantime (from US$ 18.50 to US $19.76), plus shipping, though since it was only part of the order, the portion for the book would be minimal. The only online seller I could find it from here in New Zealand (one I’d ordered from before) currentlyoffers it for NZ $49.67, which, in US dollars, was nearly twice the price I could get it at from Amazon: US $35.60.

The pricing was one of the reasons I hesitated buying the book in 2019: As I’ve said many times, books are quite expensive in New Zealand, and while I will support NZ owned and independent booksellers here when I can, in this case the only NZ site I could order it from (a NZ company with operations in several countries) would’ve had it shipped from a supplier in the USA, not NZ, so the benefit to NZ would’ve been minimal. And the reason I mention all that is because all of it was cluttering up my mind at the time I first heard about the book: At the time I was unable to process things in my mind in a clear or linear fashion, not with everything that had happened and was happening in my life.

That’s a shame, because I think it would’ve helped back then, because it still did all this time later.

Tear Soup is a really nice and simple book to help anyone understand the process of grief, whether their own or someone else's. The book's presentation in the format of a simple illustrated storybook, much like that for children, makes it accessible to anyone, maybe especially including people who don't like to read.

The story centres on Grandy, “an old and somewhat wise woman” who “just suffered a big loss in her life”. Her specific loss is never mentioned, which keeps it universal, but by including her husband, Pops, her grandson, Chester, and Grandy’s friends, the book can explore how various people react to and process grief.

When I read the book, there were several times I thought to myself, "Yes! Exactly!" because it reflected so much truth that I learned through my own grief journey, things I’ve talked about on this blog (especially in my “A Survivor’s Notes” series of posts). However, the metaphorical use of soup to represent grief gave me a new way to look at what I've been going through.

There are extensive resources and helpful suggestions at the end of the book, and that, too, can help anyone dealing with a grief journey, again, their own or someone else's. It's very useful even just for that.

It’s not a perfect book (there’s no such thing, anyway), and one important thing to be aware of is that despite the way the book is presented, it may not be appropriate for young kids without guidance from an adult. This is mainly because one illustration features a bookshelf with book titles illustrating different things someone might be grieving about, including suicide and death of a child, among others, and parents and caregivers will probably want to supply guidance.

Another thing to be aware of is that there's a scene in a church with gentle religious talk, but religious nonetheless. Anyone who isn't religious may find that somewhat annoying. On the other hand, those who are religious may appreciate having their beliefs reflected. I also think that the section can help religious people understand why a grieving religious person might become angry at the god they and the grieving person both believe in, or perhaps why reject it or their shared religion. In any case, it's not a large portion of the book, and I don't think it would be a major issue for anyone.

The book, then, is an accessible way to understand grief, whether one's own or that of a grieving person we want to be supportive of. Young children, though, may benefit from being guided through the book by an adult.

I know all that now, but maybe not if I’d read it at the time it was first suggested to me. There’s simply no teacher like that of experience and time combined, and together they can result in understanding that’s very difficult for any book to offer. However, in this case, the book presented a lot of what I’d learned on my own, and seeing that reflected was both validating and empowering.

The recipe for Tear Soup is everywhere, whether we look for it or it’s given to us. Sure, we each need to make our own alterations to the recipe, but learning how to make Tear Soup? That’s actually the easy part—when we’re ready.

What I read: Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schwiebert, Chuck DeKlyen, and Taylor Bills (Illustrator), print edition, 54 pages (including endnotes). Published by Grief Watch, 1999.

Internet Wading: August 2018 edition

This month’s Internet Wading collection of links is mostly serious topics. It happens.

Let’s get the politics out of the way first, shall we? Okay, let’s! First, Catherine Price tells us “How to Break Up with Donald Trump”, which isn’t necessary for most people, of course, but it’s actually for people who oppose the current regime. Short version: Walk away from the screen.

Cheap, often silly, shots sully political debate, and David Shariatmadari took on one: “'Virtue-signalling' – the putdown that has passed its sell-by date”. Apparently it passed that date in 2016, when The Guardian published the piece, but it’s still true. And one of the most annoying of the slurs the rightwing loves so dearly. Yawn.

Meanwhile, a truly important Internet Rage, “'Elitist': angry book pirates hit back after author campaign sinks website”, which is about as dumb a reason for “outrage” as it sounds. I laughed at the Internet Outrager who fumed, “writers are the most pretentious pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. I’ll find another way to pirate your books assholes.” So, people expecting to be paid for their work makes them “pretentious pieces of shit” and "assholes", but refusing to pay someone for the work they’ve done does not. Okay, then.

Get away from the keyboard! Because “Good Things Happen in Book Stores”. Well, duh! But don’t stay too long or you may buy too much and have a new problem: “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them”. I actually heard about that quite some time ago. And, no, I do NOT have that problem, no siree!! [quietly hides piles of unread books…]

There are REAL problems in this world, of course, including one that people are ridiculed over constantly. But, it turns out that gluten intolerance is “Not just a fad: the surprising, gut-wrenching truth about gluten”. This was actually a fascinating new (to me) look at a problem that people in my life have been affected by.

Combining tech issues and culture, “Japan's Emperor Is Stepping Down Soon, Which Could Cause Major Headaches for Computer Calendars”. This isn’t a problem in the West, but it did remind me of the “Y2K bug” that wasn’t, but this apparently really is a problem.

History! “How One Woman Brought the 'Mother's Curse' to Canada” talks about the filles du roi in 17th Century French Canada, and so, one of humans’ best understood genetic mutations.

“Sulphur, Sicilians, and the Exodus to the USA” tells us about sulphur mining in Sicily, men who eventually migrated to the USA. I never knew that sulphur mining was done naked. Actually, I never knew anything about sulphur mining. Or that any mining was done naked. So, it was a new information gold—sorry, sulphur—mine.

Going back even farther, “Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?” In this article on The Atlantic, Adam Frank takes “A look at the available evidence”. The article tells us about how speculation can help us understand the cycles of civilisation.

And, there has to be at least one non-serious thing: “5 Stupid Things You Won't Believe Have Been Around Forever”. This is actually more interesting than the click-baity title would suggest.

And finally, Roger Green wrote recently about old posts that keep getting read long after they’re published, and he said of the post: “It’s sort of like drunk tweeting, only in a longer form. And without the alcohol, but WITH sleep deprivation.” That could probably explain most blogging, to be honest. In that post, Roger also talks about how he keeps track of ideas for blog posts, something I talked about at the end of my July Internet Wading post. And, as it happens, this is my 31st post for August, so my goal for this month has now been met. Yay, me!

And that’s another month done. Happy Wading!

Weekend Diversion: Overrated?

The video above is the first in a new series from Vox, “Overrated”, which, as most things do these days, has its own Facebook Page. The page talks about a number of different things, and apparently the Facebook Page is the main portal for this effort, which is a change from the way this sort of thing would have been done in the past.

In this video, “Vox's Phil Edwards investigates the largely unheralded business reason behind the success of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird." In this particular case, the story isn’t about whether the novel itself is overrated so much as how it became so—what’s the opposite? Rated? It’s actually a very interesting story, I think.

Like Phil, I read To Kill A Mockingbird more than once, and for school—though in my case it was a more realistic two times. In fact, to this day it’s the only book I’ve read twice (so far, but more about that in due course). When I first read it, in the mid-1970s, I just assumed it was being assigned because it won the Pulitzer Prize, and because it had been a movie starring Gregory Peck. But now that I look back on it, ALL the novels we read in my high school English classes were paperbacks that we were expected to buy. The other literature books we studied—poetry and drama compilations, Shakespeare, and also the book-length epic poem John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét, were loaned to us by our school. I’m guessing that their choice of novels to teach may have been based in part on how inexpensive paperbacks still were at the time.

I don’t personally think that To Kill A Mockingbird is overrated, and one day I may read it again—just because. Or, maybe I’ll watch the movie again, because I haven’t see it in decades. Maybe both.

I hope future videos in this series focus mostly on how something became so popular or talked about, and not too much on whether the adulation is justified. There are enough fights on the Internet as it is.

Book Talk: The Complete Wendel

The Complete Wendel
by Howard Cruse, introduction by Alison Bechdel

This is a book I actually finished in June, around the time I finally posted my “Book Talk” post about Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One by Chas Addams. In fact the main reason I published that post was to get it out of the way before I talked about this book. And then I got busy with things and forgot. Oops.

As I pointed out many years ago, I’m a slow reader, and under the best of circumstances it can take me a fair while to get through a book. That was true with this book, too, though I was faster than normal because—well, here’s my GoodReads review:

Reading this book was like visiting old friends: I read many of the comics back when they were new, and in the cast of characters I saw many people I knew in real life. The characters were fun, had distinct personalities, and were definitely gay. They also had both a libido and sex lives, which wasn't common in those days. In fact, "Wendel" was the first gay comic dealing with real life and what gay people went through. It inspired other comics artists, such as Alison Bechdel ("Dykes to Watch Out For"), who wrote the introduction to this collection.

The comics were written in the 1980s and included the topics of the day: Ronald Reagan and the rise of the "Religious Right", the 1987 March on Washington, and, of course, the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Those old enough to remember those times will recognise the feelings of annoyance and even anger and rage—and, too often powerlessness—about what was being done to gay people at the time. Younger people can get a first-hand view of those times through these comics, and the characters who reflected the experiences of the witnesses to those years. And yet, it was all presented with Cruse's humour and good natured storytelling.

So, sure, this book is a document of the time it was written, but it's far more than that. It's a whole cast of characters, most of them gay, all of them with full personalities and lives that mainly just entertain us. The rest is a bonus.

Visiting them again was fun, nostalgic, and well worth the time.

Because I enjoyed “visiting them again”, I read it quite a bit faster than I wanted to. Still, some of the stories had a lot to read, and that helped moderate my speed a bit.

I know not everyone is a fan of comics, and I’m not necessarily, either—it really does depend on what it is. In this case, I loved the comics back in the day, so I started out liking them. However, I never read all of them when they were new because I didn’t have access to them. So, this wasn’t just re-reading stories, it was also reading the ones I missed. In that sense, it’s a bit like the Addams book.

Among the books I have on my current reading pile are ones that are new (to me) and one that I first read decades ago. One of the new ones has been going well, the old one, not so much. But they’ll be subjects of posts in due course. Apparently, I’ve started something, no matter how long it takes me to get there.

What I read: The Complete Wendel by Howard Cruse, print edition, 288 pages. Published by Universe Publishing, 2011.

This post contains an affiliate link to Amazon.

Book Talk: ‘Happily Ever After’

Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One [Kindle edition] by Chas Addams

This is not a new book, nor is it one I read recently. It is, however, a book to which I have strong nostalgic ties, which makes it all the more surprising that I didn’t mention the book before now.

To begin, the review I left on Amazon’s site (via Goodreads):

This is a collection of cartoons by Chas Addams, many of which had been unpublished. They give an overview of Addams' offbeat and often macabre humour. His cartoons inspired the 1960s TV series "The Addams Family", and some of the cartoons in this collection hint at that.

One drawback with the Kindle edition is that the captions are sometimes on a different page than the cartoon they refer to. Not the end of the world, sure, but it interrupts the flow and the visual aesthetic of what is mostly a book of illustrations.

I bought this book because my parents had a copy of his book, "Addams and Evil" when I was growing up, and I spent many hours looking at that book. Fortunately, some of those cartoons are included in this collection, along with ones I'd never seen. Together, they reminded me of what I liked about Addams all those years ago.

All of which makes this a good basic collection of Addams' cartoons, though it would be nice to see some of his older books re-issued. Still, it's a good place to start.

That review because is the gist of what I think of the book, including the flaws with the Kindle edition (reviews on Amazon criticised the print edition as being “cheaply printed”, and I’ll have to take them at their word). Were it available, I’d have preferred Addams and Evil, his 1947 anthology I mentioned in the review—it was a better anthology, I think—but the virtue of this one is that it includes cartoons from later in Addams’ career, which is a good thing.

But as is sometimes the case, this one book alone isn’t all there is to the story: Addams’ work was a beginning point for me.

I spent hours trawling through Addams and Evil when I was a kid (I’d already seen The Addams Family TV show by then), and I loved it. Whether this is where it began, or Addams merely touched a part of my personality and sense of humour, I went on to become a fan of comics that were somewhat outside the mainstream, such as “The Far Side” by Gary Larson, or the “Life in Hell” comics by Matt Groening, who is now better known for The Simpsons and Futurama. I bought Groening’s Work is Hell book when it was published in 1986.

So, Chas Addams prepared me to like cartoons that were offbeat, often darker, sometimes macabre, and not necessarily totally mainstream. In other words, all the things that, say, Mary Worth wasn’t.

However, throughout, I’ve preferred cartoons published in newspapers and magazines—both mainstream and, especially, alternative—mainly because of ease of access. When I was younger, I thought that all comic books were about super heroes, which didn’t interest me very much. If I’d only known.

My sense of humour still favours the offbeat, often darker, and sometimes macabre themes I’ve enjoyed ever since I first encountered Chas Addams work when I was a child. This book, while far from perfect, was a wonderful reminder of what I loved so much when I was a kid, and what I still love.

What I read: Happily Ever After: A Collection of Cartoons to Chill the Heart of Your Loved One by Chas Addams, Kindle Edition, 176 pages (print edition), Published by Simon & Schuster, June 16, 2008.

Footnote: I bought the book in January, sort of a birthday present to myself, and I posted the review to Goodreads in February—just about the time we were getting ready to move, which explains everything: I didn’t have time to blog about it then, nor since then, either, apparently. Also, this post contains an affiliate link to Amazon.

I’m willing to share

I’m aware that many of my friends in the USA are determined to avoid the hoopla on January 20 USA time when Don’s regime begins. Not everyone will be taking part in protests, and need something constructive to do. Toward that end, I’m willing to share my birthday celebration.

Because of timezones, January 21 here—my birthday—is January 20 in the USA. That day I’ll be focused entirely being the birthday boy, and far too busy to take any notice of what happens in Washington, DC. So, it occurred to me, why not share this as something for others to focus on?

Obviously, I’m not seriously suggesting that everyone actually celebrate my birthday, however, everyone can still play along. Think of it as an “Experience a Bit of Arthur’s World Day”. Here are some suggestions.

Drink New Zealand wine. Any excuse is a good one for drinking New Zealand wine. Although, since the actual swearing in part will be at 6am NZ time, it may be a bit early for me, there’s no reason others can’t enjoy it—especially since it may help one get through the day. New Zealand is particularly known for its sauvignon blanc and its pinot noir, but I also quite like New Zealand pinot gris (known as pinot grigio in other countries; although there is a difference between the two, and NZ pinot gris is mostly similar to pinot grigio), which is becoming popular and known overseas, too.

Read a New Zealand author. There are so many to choose from—far too many for me to list, but others have done so. Goodreads has a list of “Books By New Zealand Authors” along with user ratings of the books, which may be useful. Or not. Wikipedia has a plain list of New Zealand authors, which is probably not that useful. To find out more about any particular author, the New Zealand Book Council offers what it describes as “the most comprehensive collection of information about New Zealand writers on the Internet”, in searchable (and surprisingly frank) listings about New Zealand writers.

Something to watch. Okay, maybe reading New Zealand authors after having some New Zealand wine might be a bit difficult, so how about some New Zealand movies? NZ Onscreen has snippets about the “Top 10 NZ Feature Films”—in their opinion, and, no, neither the Lord of the Rings nor Hobbit movies are on the list. The last three on this list are relatively recent, and Once Were Warriors is a brutal and honest film about life among urban Māori in the early 1990s. People still talk about—and debate—the film. But Whale Rider and Boy, which also cover the modern Māori experience, may be more, um, accessible. I’d also add What We Do in the Shadows, a horror/comedy from the guys in Flight of the Conchords. It was directed by Taika Waititi, who directed Boy, and Jermaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords.

Similarly, IMDb has a listing of “The 20 Greatest New Zealand Films of all Time”, though not all are actually New Zealand films—they were made by New Zealanders or in New Zealand. Wikipedia has a long list of New Zealand films which also is made up of movies “produced or filmed in New Zealand”, so it includes the Rings and Hobbit movies, among others.

Maybe just listen. Okay, okay, after a few more glasses of a nice New Zealand wine, even a movie may be too challenging, so how about some NZ pop songs to listen to? The Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) has produced a list of what they say are the “Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time”. We actually own them on CDs of the artists, and also through CDs put out by APRA called Nature’s Best. Interested in more recent music? How about the “Official NZ Music Charts” listing of the Top 20 NZ singles. Let’s make it easy: You can even listen to the official chart on Spotify.

Those are just a few things anyone can do to play along on my birthday, and also avoid the events in Washington, DC. It’s a win/win, in other words. What can I say? I’m a giver.

Have fun!

Footnote: I really shouldn’t need to say this, but, this is a tongue-firmly-in-cheek post. I’m taking advantage of the convergence of my birthday and the hoopla happening at the same time in Washington, DC, which people really are looking to avoid, in order to promote some of the things I love most about New Zealand. And, who knows? Depending on how the next couple years go, some Americans may find the stuff in this post a sort of preparation for a move to New Zealand…

Geeky holidays

Every March, social media fills up with people wishing each other a “Happy Pi Day”. It turns out, there are others, too. Yesterday was another of those days, something I learned about today—and about other days, too.

I never paid much attention to Pi Day because it’s talked about using American date format—month/day/year. So, Pi Day is March 14 because 3/14 are the first three digits of the numerical expression of Pi. I suppose the best time to observe the day would actually be 3/14 at 16:00 (4pm), because 15:09:26.5358979, or, just before 3:09pm and 27 seconds, has a stray zero in the“09”, which would drive math nerds round the bend; better to round it.

In our part of the world, which like most countries uses the day/month/year date format, Pi day can’t exist because there’s no fourteenth month. Or, can it? I learned today that there’s actually a Pi Approximation Day on 22 July because 22/7 is the fraction approximation of Pi.

I learned about that today because my sister sent me an email wishing me a happy “Square Root Day”. One thing leads to another, of course.

So, I Googled “Square Root Day”, and it turns out that it’s an actual thing, created by a high school teacher and “celebrated on days when both the day of the month and the month are the square root of the last two digits of the year,” like, 4/4/16. The next one isn’t until 5/5/25, then 6/6/36, both of which I ought to live to see, but 7/7/49 is a bit iffy, 8/8/64 even more so, and 9/9/81 seems highly improbable—though you never know! At least Square Root Day works regardless of date format.

But the nerdy fun doesn’t stop there!

There’s also Mole Day, “celebrated among chemists, chemistry students and chemistry enthusiasts on October 23, between 6:02am and 6:02pm”. I never really studied chemistry, so this one was beyond me; I’ll let Wikipedia explain it:

“The time and date [6:02 10/23] are derived from Avogadro's number, which is approximately 6.02×10²³ defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance, one of the seven base SI units.” [Links in the original]

I recognise there were words in that explanation…

What these three days have in common is that they celebrate the fun and excitement of people who are really into math and science, and that’s great by itself. They may also help keep people aware of the science and math that’s behind every single aspect of the universe, and maybe it’ll encourage them to answer their own question, “what’s that all about?!” That’d be even better.

There are also plenty of days dealing with pop culture, like Star Wars Day on May 4 (“May the Fourth be with you”), and its corollary, May 5, “Revenge of the Fifth (a reference to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith).

Another similar popular date is May 25, both because the first Star Wars film premiered on May 25, 1977, and also because it’s known as Towel Day, a tribute to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, who died on May 11, 2001 (the significance of towels, for the uninitiated, is explained in the link). The day has since been observed as Geek Pride Day.

There are even cult literary events, some with specific days, too, like Towel Day, and also Bloomsday, held on 16 June to commemorate the life of author James Joyce, because Ulysses is set on that date (the name is derived from the protagonist of the novel, Leopold Bloom).

I’m sure there are plenty of other days observed by geeks, nerds, and fans, and probably all of us fit into one or more of those categories at some time or other, including me: How else to explain how a simple email could send me into a vortex finding out about sometimes obscure and definitely geeky holidays?

It was worth it, though.

My birthday x2

Yesterday was my birthday and so was today, as is my customary practice. What's the point of dealing with the problems of having been born in one hemisphere and living in the other if every once in awhile I don’t use that to my advantage?

Interestingly, I often run across people who assume I mean a Northern v. Southern Hemisphere thing, but I don’t: I mean Western v. Eastern. I was born in the USA’s Central timezone and now live in the first timezone the other side of the International Dateline. Put another way, I was born in one day, and I now live a day earlier. Yes, that often confuses me, too.

So, yesterday was my “first” birthday—the date of my birth. Nigel gave me a Kindle Paperwhite. He gave me my first Kindle for my birthday back in 2012, though it seems longer. I loved my original Kindle, but there was a problem: It was really only usable in bright light. That low-contrast screen had become a problem, and meant I could only use it in the daytime (and then, only in bright daylight) or with a lamp, neither of which were always convenient. So, I didn't use it very much.

The Paperwhite has a much higher-contrast screen—more like a real book, actually—and a built in light. This makes it much better for me. I have a lot of books waiting to be read (most of them were free), and now I may actually be able to do so.

Nigel recognised there were issues with my Kindle, and fixed them for me. Have I mentioned recently that I have the best husband in the world?

That evening we went for dinner at Sal’s Pizza in Takapuna (photo above). We got a half-pepperoni/half cheese pizza and some mozzarella sticks. Yummy as always. Pizza—specifically, American-style pizza—is one of my mostest favouritest foods, and I think part of the reason is the warm familiarity of it: I grew up eating it. Sal’s does “New York style pizza”, and it’s quite authentic. We’ve been there a couple times with American expat friends when they’re visiting from Wellington. Sal’s also stocks Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which recently entered the New Zealand market.

A downside to yesterday was that I couldn’t enjoy a birthday wine—I was too full of pizza, and too thirsty for water once I got home. I had a very small glass to celebrate, but that was it.

Yesterday was also a very productive blogging day, mostly because I decided to just do stuff I enjoyed. Today I recorded a new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, but otherwise had a more normal day, though I still kept a leisurely pace and relaxed day.

And that’s the end of my 48-hour birthday extravaganza for this year. A normal weekend lies ahead, and a normal week after that (the full new schedule finally resumes on TV One on Monday, including the Midday news).

It was a good birthday this year. In fact, they pretty much always have been.

The obligatory birthday selfie.

Common sense won

Sometimes, common sense prevails. Sometimes the wowsers and self-appointed morality police are reminded that in a diverse society, they don’t get to dictate things. Sometimes, the good guys win. That just happened in New Zealand.

Last month, a far-right “Christian” professional activist, Bob McCroskrie, caused an award-winning young adult novel to be banned, the first time that had ever happened in modern New Zealand, when he objected to the book being freely available, without restriction. I told the story of that soap opera last month, and it’s a long tale, so I won’t repeat it all here.

The important thing is that the professional wowser lost. Again. The Film and Literature Board of Review not only rejected Bob’s latest complaint, they restored it to the original status the book had before Bob’s first complaint: It is unrestricted. And that's final.

Which makes Bob’s whining about the Board’s "flip-flop decision" especially funny. The book was unrestricted, Bob complained, it was reclassified R-14 (which was unprecedented for a book), something that amounted to de facto banning since neither libraries nor bookstores have R-14 sections. The Chief Censor changed the rating back to unrestricted, Bob complained again and ended up with Board essentially upholding the access the Chief Censor had originally given the book. In this case, the Board’s “flip” “flopped” it back to the original status of the book.

Bob was sure he’d win his latest appeal, particularly because the Board’s chair, rightwing Christian Don Mathiesson, had originally favoured making the book R-18—the same rating as pornography, which would have restricted the award-winning young adult novel to adults only. When Bob launched his last appeal, Mathiesson took the extreme and bizarre step of banning the book outright, even though doing so clearly contravened the Bill of Rights Act.

Bob, was gleeful when the book was banned, even though he hadn’t asked for that, and he pretty obviously thought he’d win his appeal. Bob declared it was only the beginning of a book-banning frenzy: "Hopefully we have set a precedent and people start bringing other books to the fore that they are concerned about."

Well, this matter has been settled once and for all, and Bob lost. Again. Don was outvoted by the Board he chairs. Again. The wowsers lost. Again. And the grown-ups won.

Where Bob was once giddy with the prospect of imposing his view of morality on everyone, now he’s livid: "A dangerous precedent has been set,” he declared, “and parents will now feel disempowered and that their concerns will be ignored regarding similar books which they may not want their young teenagers and pre-teens to be reading."

Too frigging bad.

I have a radical solution to Bob’s problem: Maybe, just maybe, parents could, oh, I don't know, BE PARENTS! If the pearl-clutchers like Bob and what’s probably only a handful of parents he represents cannot be bothered to pay attention to what their children are reading, how is that society’s problem? These wowsers also bitterly complain about TV shows they don’t approve of and try to get them banned so no one can watch—instead of using the “off” button on their own damn televisions.

Society is complex nowadays, which frightens the wowers and pearl-clutchers. It’s absolutely true that with the Internet alone, maintaining parental supervision of children isn’t easy. But good parents, first, inculcate their children with good values so the kids can tell right from wrong and also what their parents don’t approve of (the two are NOT synonymous). Then, parents need to maintain a dialogue with their children so they know what their children are doing, to the extent possible, and can discuss the new ideas and information with them.

But teenagers will always push the boundaries—that’s their job as they work to establish their own identity. No parent can stop or prevent that, which is precisely why the most reactionary parents will try and ban the things they don’t approve of, because they know that, ultimately, there’s no way to keep their teens from accessing what mainstream teens do.

It’s too bad that Bob and the other wowsers are frightened by modern society. I pity them for their inability to grow and progress as society does. But I absolutely reject their constant attempts to dictate what’s appropriate or moral for everyone: They have absolutely no right to do so. There’s a HUGE difference between having a different opinion or worldview, and forcing it onto everyone else; the first is a human right, the second is tyranny.

Common sense won in New Zealand. Once again, the wowsers and self-appointed morality police were reminded that in a diverse society, they don’t get to dictate things. This time, the good guys won.

Postscript: Into the River by Ted Dawe is once again available for New Zealanders to buy on Amazon, as is the Kindle edition. Both were blocked when the book was banned.

Let’s ban the banner

Freedom of expression isn’t absolute—we all know that. But any government seeking to restrict freedom of expression ought to have a damn good reason. New Zealand just temporarily banned a book, and there was no good reason to do so.

The book in question is a New Zealand young adult novel, Into the River by Ted Dawe, an award-winning novel that has had a fraught relationship with government censors. It’s a twisted tale, but before I talk about its journey from award to banishment, a little about New Zealand’s censorship system.

New Zealand has two entities involved in censorship. The first is the Office of Film and Literature Classification, which is an independent agency that, for the most part, gives ratings to books, movies, video games, and recorded music, so that children can’t access “inappropriate” material. Most of the arguments over ratings are about what is appropriate for children and at what age, with fundamentalist Christians arguing for the greatest possible restrictions in nearly every case, sometimes arguing that materials should be banned altogether.

However, very little apart from pornographic material is ever banned altogether, and all the wowsers on the religious far right do is waste taxpayer money as government bodies are forced to deal with the radical right’s frequent pearl-clutching over something they don’t approve of and think should be withheld from everyone because of their disapproval.

When someone—usually, but not always, for fundamentalist religious reasons—doesn’t like a rating something’s been given, they can lodge an appeal with the Film and Literature Board of Review, which is under the Department of Internal Affairs, the government department charged with enforcing censorship. They have the power to review and change ratings made by the official censors, the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

There are two people who play prominent roles in this saga: Bob McCroskrie, head of the fundamentalist “Christian” pressure group, “Family” First. Bob and I have verbally tussled many times, many documented on this blog. There are very few things (any?) that we agree on, but we’ve kept our interactions pretty civil despite all that.

The other player is Don Mathieson, a Queen's Counsel, who is president of the Board of Review. He is a conservative Christian and edited a book called Faith at Work, and he also contributed an essay to it. The book is promoted with the statement, "Faith goes beyond church on Sunday. It must impact on every area of life." He also wrote a criticism of the Anglican Church in NZ’s proposal to develop a liturgy for blessing same-gender couples (whether or not the church agreed to perform marriage ceremonies for same-gender couples). He was adamantly opposed on conservative doctrinal and theological grounds, and much of his rhetoric struck me as displaying clear anti-gay animus.

So, the system and actors explained, here now is the chain of events. Although shortened, you may want to pour yourself a cuppa before going on:

In July 2013, the month after the book won Book of the Year at the NZ Post Children's Book Awards, the Department of Internal Affairs referred it to the Office of Film and Literature Classification after receiving complaints about it (organised by Bob, I imagine). The Censor rated the book M (unrestricted), but with a note about the content) in September. Labels indicating the rating were not ordered, since it wasn't age-restricted.

"Family" First then appealed that rating to the Film and Literature Board of Review. In December of that year, the Board mainly upheld Bob's complaint, but imposed an R14 rating, meaning it was restricted to people aged 14 or older. That rating had never been used under the Classification Act before then. The Board also did not order stickers be placed on the books, which was also unusual for an age-restricted item.

Bob, however, wanted it rated R18, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the book, of course, which was intended for older teen boys. Don Mathieson, the board president, wrote a dissent—which is apparently a very rare thing to do—saying the book should have been rated R18. Like Bob, he objected to the supposedly foul language and the sex scenes in particular.

In March of this year, Auckland Libraries asked the Censor to review the rating. They pointed out that since libraries and book shops don't have an R14 Section (and most don't have an R18 section, either), there was no practical way to have the book freely available to people 14 and over. This clearly placed a burden on libraries and bookshops as well as restricting freedom of expression for people legally allowed access to the book. Whether that's permissible under the Bill of Rights Act for THIS book is a main point of contention.

Last month, the Censor removed the restriction. Normally, a rating is reviewed after three years, so the Right is claiming the Censor’s removal of the restriction was "illegal". It was unusual, but that doesn't necessarily make it illegal.

Four days after the restriction was removed, Bob again complained (of course), and that's when Don banned the book altogether. It is legal to possess a copy, but it cannot be shown, lent, or given to anyone else (even a spouse, for example), and it must not be displayed. Individuals can be fined $3,000 and organisations $10,000.

The ban is temporary, until the Board of Review reviews the restriction. No one—including “Family” First—is seeking a permanent ban, they just want to prevent kids from having access to it, and Bob wants label stickers on the book.

As it happens, the ban was one of only two options that Don had under the law: The other was to allow the book to be sold without restriction. The Board has no power to put the reclassification on hold while it considered Bob's complaint, so Don banned it rather than allow it to be sold or lent unrestricted. This was to be expected when he clearly thinks the book should be available to adults only, but it was nevertheless an unprecedented action—no book has been banned since the current censorship law was enacted.

Interestingly, anyone who's affected by the ban can file a request that the ban be lifted. This could include someone who wants to buy or borrow the book, a librarian or bookseller who cannot supply the book to meet demand, etc. I believe, but am not certain, that Don can do as likes about the objections to his ban, including reject them out of hand.

Book Talk: ‘Defining Marriage’

Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love by Matt Baume

I watched Matt Baume's YouTube videos for years, sharing many of them on this blog, and because of them, I came to think of him as sort of the storyteller of the fight for the freedom to marry in the USA. So, I expected his book would be an expansion of that, especially telling some of the stories that went on in background. I wasn't disappointed—it was all that, and more.

What I didn't expect was how often I'd find tears in my eyes, especially from reading the stories of people who I'd never even heard of before, but who were important players in the battle. I was also surprised at how often Matt's stories brought up strong memories of my own, like when I learned that California's Proposition 8 had passed; many of those memories were painful.

I’d forgotten, until I read this book, how awful election night 2008 turned out to be, and my story mirrored some of those in the book. At first, it was all exciting (I live-blogged the election night coverage), but I went to bed pretty sure that, as I put it then, “hate might win” in California. I was madly refreshing my browser hoping, hoping, HOPING that there’d be a sudden turnaround for the good guys, but it never happened.

The next morning, I was still happy that Obama had won, but it was bittersweet, to use a wildly inadequate term. The profound sadness I felt about California made it hard to feel happy about the new president-elect. I never wrote about about that on this blog, though I later wrote about many other aspects.

Still, the book also included plenty of laughs and happy stories, as I read about the things that led, ultimately, to full marriage equality in the USA. It was great to get them in the context of the larger decades-long story of the struggle.

Toward the end of the book, Matt talks about the profound change in strategy in 2012, a change that led to victory in four out of four states in which marriage equality was on the ballot. Like most people, I wasn’t aware any of that was going on, though I did notice that the ads seemed much better in 2012.

However, sometime later I saw an article about how to talk about marriage equality. Instead of “rights”, it said, talk about commitment and responsibility. Instead of justice or equality, talk about freedom, and, most especially, talk about love. I took that advice to heart.

I’ve never mentioned this before, but when New Zealand had its own battle for marriage equality, I shifted my own rhetoric based on that advice. For example, a typical way I phrased it was, “the government should allow loving same-gender couples to make the same legal and public commitment to each other as opposite-gender couples”.

I still used the term “marriage equality”, since it was by then already well established in the public discourse, but I also started using “freedom to marry”. But I always talked about love, commitment, responsibility—all the things the radical right claimed we were incapable of, but that the people we needed to win over valued.

So, without even knowing it, I was employing the same strategy that worked in 2012 in the USA. Nothing had changed in my attitude—just the way I talked about it. And it was weird. I wasn’t the sort of person who went around talking about love—until I realised how important it was to talk about the reason that the freedom to marry mattered so much.

After reading Matt’s book, and looking back at that long fight, I now think that back then I saw civil unions as being about rights, and marriage as being about love. Civil unions (and similar) provided at least some of the legal rights of marriage, but marriage alone provided the public declaration of love of, and commitment to, one the person who mattered the most to us.

Well, it mattered second most. It was having the option that mattered most. As Matt put it:

“It’s not the act of getting married that matters: it’s the freedom to decide how to define your relationships and define what you have with the person you love.”

Exactly. At its very core, the whole battle was only ever about one thing: Love. And, as I always said it would, love triumphed. And if that's not an awesome happy ending for a book, then I don’t know what would be.

What I read: Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love by Matt Baume, Kindle Edition, 229 pages, Published July 8 2015 by Matt Baume.

This post is expanded from a review I posted to Goodreads.

And now a book

A week ago today, I posted the last Marriage News Watch video by Matt Baume. Now, he’s back with his book based on his experiences in the fight for marriage equality in the USA (promotional video above).

The book, Defining Marriage: Voices from a Forty-Year Labor of Love, is available for free on Amazon for this week only, before it goes on sale.

I’ve only just started reading the book, but I can say already that it’s quite compelling. Matt has an easy-to-read, breezy style, as we saw in his videos, that almost reminds me of a friend sitting around telling you stories of what he’s seen—which is basically what the book is. I hope to post a bigger discussion of the book once I finish reading it.

According to the video, and the table of contents, I know that Matt tells the story of how we got to 50-state marriage equality, focusing on the stories some of the notable people who made it possible (some of whom we probably haven’t heard of), and also some of the lesser known stories of people who contributed, each in their own way, to the movement toward equality. He also shares his own story, which I think is an interesting dimension for a lot of reasons.

I know that e-books aren’t for everyone, but while it’s free, it’s the perfect e-book book to try. A reader does need an Amazon account, which is free, but the book itself can be read on a Kindle, of course, or by using the free Kindle App for smart phones, tablets, and desktop computers. I started reading the book on my iPad, but I’ll probably carry on using my Kindle, especially at night because it doesn’t have the light issues of electronic devices (my Kindle has no backlight and needs to be read with lamplight, just like a regular book).

I like what I’ve read so far, and I’m looking forward to learning about things I didn’t know about. While it’s free, it’s clearly a no-risk thing to do, too—unlike the tale it tells.

A Walk in the Woods

The video above is the preview for the film, A Walk in the Woods, which based on the memoir of the same name by Bill Bryson. It’s one of my favourite of his books, for several reasons, so I’m not sure if I’m intrigued or horrified. The YouTube description says:

“In this new comedy adventure, celebrated travel writer, Bill Bryson (Academy Award winner Robert Redford), instead of retiring to enjoy his loving and beautiful wife (Academy Award winner Emma Thompson), and large and happy family, challenges himself to hike the Appalachian Trail - 2,200 miles of America’s most unspoiled, spectacular and rugged countryside from Georgia to Maine. The peace and tranquility he hopes to find, though, is anything but, once he agrees to being accompanied by the only person he can find willing to join him on the trek – his long lost and former friend Katz (Academy Award nominee Nick Nolte), a down-on-his-luck serial philanderer who, after a lifetime of relying on his charm and wits to keep one step ahead of the law – sees the trip as a way to sneak out of paying some debts and sneak into one last adventure before its too late. The trouble is, the two have a completely different definition of the word, “adventure”. Now they're about to find out that when you push yourself to the edge, the real fun begins.”

First, it’s amazing how many people don’t realise it’s possible to use paragraphs in YouTube descriptions. Okay, that’s not about the movie—it's just something that bugs me.

The cast looks good, and it could be entertaining, which is why it intrigues me. But the book, while comedic, is also very serious. Among other things, it tells the tale of Rebecca Wight, who was murdered on the Appalachian Trail. I met her partner, Claudia Brenner, who was wounded in the shooting, when we were both campaigning for what became the Hate Crime Statistics Act. While we weren’t friends, we were certainly friendly. Claudia gave a moving talk about the murder, and wrote a book about it, Eight Bullets: One Woman's Story of Surviving Anti-Gay Violence.

So, a "comedy adventure" hardly seems like the right place to discuss such a horrific event, but it was a part of the book. Can other serious tales told in the book survive?

Still, I’ll probably watch the movie, eventually, at least. I’m curious how the real book is treated in the “comedy adventure”. Plus, the Appalachian Trail fascinates me. But I bet I’ll also think about my former colleague, Claudia, and her lost love, Rebecca.

Stop the presses

Newspapers are in business to make money, and they do it by trying to be first, but always by being fast. Old news is not news, after all. But Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian has proven slowing down a bit is a good thing.

Yesterday, Colleen McCullough, Australia’s best-selling author, died unexpectedly. While the paper apparently published some good coverage, for some utterly inexplicable reason, they ran a bizarre obituary that began with this paragraph:

COLLEEN McCullough, Australia’s best selling author, was a charmer. Plain of feature, and certainly overweight, she was, nevertheless, a woman of wit and warmth. In one interview, she said: “I’ve never been into clothes or figure and the interesting thing is I never had any trouble attracting men.”

This obviously did not go down well. It led Aussies to take to Twitter writing similarly bizarre obituary lines under the hashtag #myozobituary. Some of them have been downright brilliant. The story went global, as news outlets reported on the obituary itself, along with samples of the sarcastic Tweets.

What the hell was WRONG with The Australian?! According to Crikey, the obituary was written many years ago by a man who is dead. Papers have long pre-written obituaries of famous people in case they’re needed in a hurry. In this case, the editors at the paper apparently didn’t see anything wrong with the opening paragraph. I wonder if the editor responsible for this worked on his C.V. today in anticipation of being fired?

The obituary was breathtaking for its sexism and misogyny, but it was also obvious that the unnamed journalist had a strong personal dislike of McCullough, and seemed to consider her fame undeserved. It was a very bad obituary.

However, the real issue here isn’t the awful writing in the obituary, it’s the crass sexism in it and the fact that the newspaper ran it despite all its many faults. Consider the contrast of the paper's obituary when Bryce Courtney died several years ago:

BRYCE Courtenay was one of Australia’s greatest storytellers, touching the hearts of millions of people around the world with 21 bestselling books including The Power of One.

Comparing and contrasting the two introductory paragraphs, Rebecca Shaw asks in her piece in The Guardian:

Now, what do we learn from this introduction? The fact that she was a best-selling author is quickly tossed aside in order to discuss her looks and her success with men. In the first paragraph. Of her obituary. Which is meant to sum up her entire life. McCullough was a woman who penned The Thorn Birds, still the highest-selling Australian book of all time.

I’d like to think The Australian will learn from their disgrace, but I doubt they will—it IS a Murdoch paper, after all. But maybe other papers will review their own practices for such things, and I bet there will be more careful scrutiny of pre-written obituaries in the future.

Nothing can make up for what The Australian did, though a front-page apology would help. But if editors do learn to be a little more careful, and to slow down just a little bit to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again, that will be a good result.

But The Australian really ought to apologise.

Maya Angelou's ‘Harlem Hopscotch’ Music Video

Somehow I missed the news that one of Maya Angelou’s last projects before her death in May was to collaborate on a hip hop album, but I would have been interested. The official music video for “Harlem Hopscotch”, above, has certainly caught my attention.

The album, Caged Bird Songs, is a collaboration between Angelou and producers RoccStar and Shawn Rivera, blending Angelou's words and vocal performances with hip-hop beats. Some of the vocal tracks were previously recorded, but others were made specifically for this album. The album gets its name from Angelou’s 1969 classic, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.

Back in September, Colin A. Johnson, Angelou’s grandson, told Billboard of Angelou’s attitude to the project: "Grandma loved it from the beginning." He also went on to explain the connection between Angelou and the hip hop artists: “These guys were inspired by grandma's work, which many people are, and felt like giving it a different medium of delivery to make it more obtainable to a larger group of people."

Angelou collaborated on musical projects in the past, and won three Grammys for her spoken word recordings. Johnson said his grandmother “saw (hip-hop) as this generation's way of speaking and conveying a message." I think it is, too.

To me, much of hip hop, and rap in particular, is basically spoken word poetry with a beat (though it’s not really as simple as that). And I love everything to do with spoken word, and Angelou is one of my favourite poets, and her work often had what her grandson called “street-wise commentary”, so this project sounds promising to me.

I think that the video itself is visually stunning, too. The YouTube description says of the video:

The song is about encouraging everyone, especially young people to persevere through life despite any obstacles! The game of hopscotch is symbolic of the difficulties of life and the obstacles that some face, whether they be wealthy or poor.

The description also notes that the video has “choreography from Emmy award-winning duo Tabitha and Napoleon Dumo, a/k/a NappyTabs, best known for their work on the hit television series So You Think You Can Dance.”

I love seeing artists branch out in new and sometimes unexpected ways. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but there’s never fault in the trying.

And, it’s great to hear one last project from Maya Angelou.

Ursula Le Guin on the future of literature

Last month, science fiction and fantasy write Ursula Le Guin received the USA’s National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The video above is her acceptance speech, and it’s pretty awesome.

She made a strong defence of science fiction and fantasy writers, and all writers and artists, and their role:

I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries — the realists of a larger reality.

All of which is very true. Artists can imagine a better world than we now have, and can help us make sense of the world we’re in now. But one of the potential barriers is capitalism itself. Le Guin again:

Books, you know, they’re not just commodities. The profit motive often is in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art — the art of words.

The business model for publishers is increasingly focused only what will sell big, with dwindling space on their lists for smaller or riskier books. The answer for some has been self-publishing through various e-book platforms, which can be a very good option—for some.

But not all authors are capable of doing what is still the more or less specialised work of producing e-books and, much harder, effectively marketing them. Even so, I believe that the future of publishing is digital, and that in the future niche authors will be able to find a market though that medium.

Which is not to say that printed books are going away, because they’re not—at least, not for a very long time. But we’re already thinking more broadly about what the word book means, and we’re becoming far less judgemental about the source—a publishing company or self-published. This has profound implications for the wide availability of varied voices and viewpoints, and I think that’s a good thing.

The future doesn’t have to be a dark and scary place. The artists will help us find our way.

Tip o' the Hat to BillMoyers.com. A complete transcript is also available from Parker Higgins.

James Baldwin

Today (August 2 in the USA) would have been James Baldwin’s 89th birthday. Baldwin was a writer who straddled many of the divisions in society, ones that are still evident today: Race, sexual orientation, class. He was one of the first gay writers I ever heard about—but not until my 20s, after I was already out.

The fact that Baldwin was uncompromising in discussing race made much of white society feel uneasy about him, and his inclusion of gay themes in his work—more than a decade before the Stonewall Riots—created more distance. Growing up in the mostly white, Republican suburbs, I never heard of Baldwin until I went to university in the late 1970s, and even then, only because I had well-read gay friends who knew about him.

The video above is of Baldwin appearing on the Dick Cavett Show, apparently in 1968 (no date was given in the video, and this is the source of the date; There’s also an audio interview with him by Studs Terkel from 1961 that’s worth a listen). I think it’s a good example of Baldwin’s eloquent and passionate critique that so many white people found hard to hear. Nowadays, some white people would call him a “professional black”, that is, someone who, as Roger Green put it in a recent post, a black person for whom “their profession is BEING a black person.”

But, of course, all of this stuff I learned kind of late in the game, at a time in my life when I was discovering all the famous gay people I’d never known about. Maybe this fact made me more receptive to the rest of his message than I would otherwise have been, given my background. However, it was already a time in which I had enormous intellectual curiosity, anyway, so I don’t know.

What I do know is that I was diminished by not being taught about the breadth of American literature, particularly because, in Baldwin’s case, several of his novels have been included in various lists of the best American novels. But it’s also true that I was cheated by not knowing about gay people. I’d like to think that things are better now, at least in most places, but I know that in far too many, nothing’s really changed.

So I look at artists like James Baldwin, and think about how many others there must have been that I never had the chance to hear about. I think about the courage he had in tackling prejudice on many fronts, and the artistic integrity he displayed by writing about what he wanted to write about, even if it wasn’t socially acceptable at the time. And, of course, he was a fellow expatriate, and that’s another thing about him with which I can personally identify.

James Baldwin died in late 1987 of oesophageal cancer, aged 63. Below is a video of Baldwin speaking the National Press Club on December 10, 1986, less than a year before he died. His influence, however, continues.

A book trailer

Apparently “book trailers”, videos to promote a book, are a thing now. At first I thought the idea was kind of bizarre, but, well, why not book trailers?

The book trailer above is for Moon Over Martinborough, a book by fellow gay American expat in New Zealand, Jared Gulian, and published by Random House New Zealand. The YouTube description says of the book:

“The hilarious and heartwarming tale of how two American city boys learn to become olive farmers on a lifestyle block in New Zealand.”

In addition to olive-growing, Martinborough is a wine-growing region. I’ve never actually visited the area, but I’d like to one day. Part of the reason the story interests me is that they’re doing the sort of thing that I once thought I’d like to do. Even though I eventually moved on to other ideas, I can understand why someone would want to do what they’re doing.

I haven’t yet read the book, though I’ve read the related blog, also called Moon Over Martinborough. I’ve also interacted with Jared a couple times on Twitter (meaning, it’s more like I know OF him than know him; no, we American expats in NZ don’t all know each other).

The book is available in print, and a Kindle edition is also available from Amazon (other purchasing options are listed on his site). I’ll eventually buy the book, and I may even do a “Book Talk” post about it. First things first, though.