Thinking About Comments

In the past, I’ve put up at least one post with closed comments, where I didn’t even want to see agreement about it, just wanted to get my word out and leave it.  I may take that approach more going forward, depending on the nature of the post.  Most of the time comments will be open, occasionally they may not – if I remember my thinking from this particular morning.

It has to do with why I’m making a post in the first place.  You may have noticed I cover a broader range of post types than some others on the network.  Sometimes it’s a creative exercise I’m making public for fun, sometimes it’s creative writing.  Sometimes it’s art criticism or response.  Sometimes I’m reacting to a shitty news or opinion article, sometimes expressing my view of the world, which is different enough from the mainstream that I feel justified in casting another voice into the void.  I probably have a few more post types I’m forgetting.

In mind of that, which posts would I not want comments on?

Mainly political things.  Not all of them, but some of them.  Sometimes I wonder if I should even discuss politics because it ain’t always great for my health.  I’ve been queuing (jeezis what a spelling on that word) posts so that by the time you read them they are days old, sometimes over a week, and you are about to see a few political posts, but eh…

Man I’m tired.  Woke up too early, no choice about going back to sleep on this particular morning.  I hope I can retire someday.  So tired.

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Slices of You

Things are easier to cook when they’re thin.  You don’t have to cook them as long, so there’s less risk of overcooking if you watch what you’re doing.  And more importantly, less risk of some shit being burnt on the outside and raw or cold on the inside, which is an absolutely vile result.  I’m willing to bake or nuke something that comes with simple instructions, but otherwise it’s slicin’ and using a frying pan.

It’s also cool because you can get more of that crisp element of frying.  The outer edges and surface get crisp, and the thinner what you’re cooking is, the more of each bite that will posses that quality.  If it’s a vegetable I’m cooking, thin slices.  I don’t like the crunch of veggies, and thin veggies get soft faster in the pan.  Soft veggies for flavor, crisp meat or cheese… That’s the goods.

Even when cooking isn’t a consideration, I cut thin.  I got the idea from David Lynch.  Not to sound like a freak; feel like I’ve been mentioning him too much recently.  Some years ago I was watching an episode of Twin Peaks where Joan Chen was being tormented by (spoiler), losing her mind in the kitchen.  Her mental state was illustrated by having her slice an apple.  In America we almost always slice apples in wedges of roughly equal dimensions, but she was slicing it thin, like cheese or deli meat.

The scene had a sensuous quality, but maybe I just imagine that because Joan Chen is too beautiful.  Surely, she wasn’t supposed to be seen as erotic or romantic in that moment, not exactly.  But she can thin slice me any day, I tell you whut.

There’s an Electric Six song called Slices of You, and it’s not one of their best.  It’s fine.  But I think of this part from the breakdown, sometimes when I’m joanchenning an apple: “Everywhere I go, people ask me Valentine, what’s your recipe for love?  And I always tell them the same thing.  Cook the hell out of it, and SLICE IT.”

Anyway, I think about this often enough that I wondered if I’d already written a blog post on the subject, and I searched the archive here.  You know how many occurrences of the word “slice” there are on this blog?  I haven’t written about this exact subject before, but I’m starting to wonder if I have a problem here.

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Creativity Feels Like…

Do you know what’s going on in your mind, when you’re doing something creative?  Of course not, like, biologically speaking what’s going on in there is so complex that the best experts on the topic have kind of a glimmer about it, and the rest of us not even that.  But what’s it feel like?  That’s information.  Sometimes we can have a pretty good idea of how our minds are operating.  It’s a kind of data, if one that is inherently very subjective, and can be essential.

Marcus asked, what do you think is going on in your mind, when you’re being creative?  To get at that, we need at least a workable placeholder definition for creativity.  Narrow things down a lot, so we don’t have to write a five hundred page tome on the subject.  In his examples, he was not looking at art.  He was talking about problem solving.  One could look at any human task as a place where creativity can be applied.  Let’s say, it’s generating an idea for how to perform a task, that is at least new to you, in that moment.  You might piece it together from things long ago learned and forgotten, or you might just use observation and reason as a springboard to a novel approach.  The novel approach in that example is the creative act.

Going by this definition, creativity must involve something like originality.  It doesn’t have to be “pure” originality, just new to you at the time you’re resolving your task.  A huge reason this discussion is happening is the advent of “generative AI,” which has motivated a lot of humans to draw lines around what, if anything, could only be achieved by human beings.  I don’t have that emotional motive.

I have a different one, which is to defend humans that want to work with AI from abuse, but I’m going to leave that aside here, just to answer the question.  Because it is a question that has some interest when stripped of that particular argument.  I recently said that I am “throwing myself into creativity” as a way of coping with grim realities, but what does that mean?

I’m writing, doing writing exercises, and using AI art to illustrate ideas.  Some of these things are idle as games, some of them are chasing lofty ambitions.  To keep the controversy out of this post, we’ll ignore the AI art and focus on the writing.  And because the AI art has influenced my process for writing MonsterHearts and Spooktobers, I’m going to ignore those too.  Let’s just contemplate the long form prose.

When you’re writing a work of prose, there are many cognitive tasks involved, some disparate and some very intertwined.  How they are performed can vary a lot with the task, so I pretty much have to try and separate and simplify these.  Let’s restrict the scope of my analysis to “Coming up with the Concept,” which a lot of people seem to regard as the “most creative” part of the act.

Coming up with the concept can be that bolt of lightning that hits you out of nowhere, but that’s very unusual.  Most of the time, I’m starting from a desire to write a story, deciding what my goals are, and spitballing how I’m going to achieve them.  Some examples:

A long time ago, I randomly watched a cheap-ass 1970s anime and thought, in a fit of hubris, “I could do that!”  Not having to hand-paint celluloid and use film, animation has gotten a lot more achievable, but no, of course I cannot, as an individual, make a cartoon series.  Not without devoting my life to it, and having a lot more resources.  But in response to this dubious inspiration, I outlined a single season of an anime show, a parody of Star Blazers, Gundam, Macross – that kind of shit.  It was very fun and I haven’t forgotten the idea.  I still poke at it, from time to time.

Cognitively, what was going on there?  See a thing, feel “I could do that,” and then take the first direction with it that popped into my head.  In this case it was parody, which is deceptively easy to write.  Good parody is probably a lot more difficult.  I don’t think Weird Al bats a thousand with it, and he’s the expert.  But parody, like other types of art, is reactive.  I look at what somebody else did, do the same thing, but throw my own flavor on it – in this case, just highlighting whatever I regarded as absurd from those shows.  Plotwise, it was Space Battleship Yamato (1974) but transplanted into American culture in the ’90s – and what I remembered of being a teenager, since all anime characters have to be snot-nosed kids.

So I was consciously crafting a pastiche of previous art I’d consumed, and transforming it by using related experiences and ideas from my own life and culture.

Let’s look at Centennial Hills.  That was conceived when my husband and I first challenged ourselves to do a turbo writing event.  At that time we were aiming for fifty thousand words in three days, which I still have not achieved.  He did make the score, but doesn’t want to hurt his hands like that anymore, and we only turbo when we can line up four days in a row now.

I can no longer remember which of us came up with the idea to both use stereotypical UFO pilots in our stories, but we did.  Mine were grey and his were green.  His greenliens were amusing monsters.  My greyliens were inspired by a very sketchy and legendary youtube short called “E.T. 2,” in which a Communion-type alien comes to earth and gets wasted on alcohol and drugs.

That was classic dudebro humor – take something innocent and make it into the “adult” version, like making cartoons fuck.  I thought, what if I show both sides of that, to express my views about people, the way we really are?  Hence two aliens get split up, one having innocent misadventures with a little girl, and one falling in with crappy scumbags.

Creatively speaking, what was I doing here?  Um…  consciously crafting a pastiche of previous art I’d consumed, and transforming it by using related experiences and ideas from my own life and culture.  Much more elaborately than the anime, but still…  Is this all there is for me?

Let’s take a third idea, one I have not written yet.  In response to the unfortunate passing of David Lynch, and my husband’s aeternal lament that there is no new art for him anymore – that he long ago consumed all the art he was ever going to be interested in and now there’s nothing left – I decided to write “The Best Novel That Ever Existed” for this particular audience of one.  To do this, I’ve been looking at all the things he likes and dislikes about his favorite narrative art ever, seeing if I could derive unifying themes that could be deployed in an original way by yours truly.

But that’s kinda consciously crafting a pastiche of previous art I’d consumed, and transforming it by using related experiences and ideas from my own life and culture, isn’t it?  It’s going to be much more original than the other two, I think, but still… It exists in reaction.

But then, Marcus’s problem-solving creativity existed in reaction to the problem, yes?  Same thing?

I don’t know.  I’d like to bring in one of those “bolt of lightning” stories for comparison, but I easily forget the actual experience of those moments, and could not tell you what I was thinking during any of them.  The only one that comes to mind from recent years is when I wrote the lines, “This rhyme has no composure like a whack-ass thesis, Your boyfriend’s on macaque like a monkey rhesus,” and again, the moment literally happened when I was on the john, leaving no trace of its fundamental path in my memory.

Make of that what you will!  I’m done.

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Are Black People Smarter?

Little bit of a land mine here, but I’m feeling insouciant today, so bear with me…  I’ve talked with thousands and thousands of Americans from all walks of life, and surely my impressions of that experience are tainted by biases.  Racists annoy the fuck out of me and are foolish as all hell; people who live on the receiving end of systemic racism have my sympathy.  I also relate a lot more to poor people than to the middle class.  So are my perceptions accurate?

There are standardized tests for “IQ” other cognitive faculties, and these have problems galore – not the least of which was their origin as a method for justifying racism.  I’m not even gonna bother with links; this shit is common knowledge among those nominally acquainted with the subject and with no delusions about their genetic superiority motivating the shit out of their reasoning.

But on a practical level, numbers aside, some people are just more thoughtful than others.  I characterize this as being willing to take new information on board, genuinely try to understand new things they encounter, and able to learn.

Ability to learn is a funny thing, because as we grow out of childhood, many of us handicap ourselves on purpose.  You mean I’m never gonna need this information again?  Fuck it, I chuck it, will re-learn as-needed.  I can feel that I did this to myself sometime around age 20.  While circumstance has pushed me into trying harder, I still allow myself the luxury of not learning shit, whenever I can.  There are people who either didn’t limit themselves in the first place, or are just more wise in how they apply that limitation, more able to get back into learning mode.

Willingness to try to understand new things is obviously a useful trait to have, but we don’t need it most of the time.  Our lives can be pretty damn simple in most ways, most of the time.  Whatever else is difficult about them, it isn’t the complexity of the problems in front of us.  It can get rusty, same as what I described in previous paragraph.  But I feel like this is a little different from that issue…  That’s about memorizing a new fact, this is about understanding why that fact is so – understanding a process.

The thing the reflexively ignorant don’t get is that understanding the process makes remembering the facts easier.  Like, remembering dates in history is rote, easy to lose.  Understanding what happened in sequence – what led to what – can make the simpler facts, like dates, easier to remember.

This is practical intelligence, not fancy logic or math or knowing big words.  A small child can be thoughtful, an adult can be thoughtless, and vice versa.  By this metric, I’ve spent a vast, unspeakable amount of time talking with thoughtless people, and less speaking with the thoughtful.  Of course, the average person is somewhere in between, but still shades toward the foolish side.

If I’m talking to an 89 year old who is still very sharp, it’s usually an upper class person with an ocean of privilege behind them, who worked in academia, finance, law, etc, on the pointy end of it.  That’s gonna shade white, tho not exclusively.  But stepping back from those rarities to look at people who are still very competent, who can look at a situation involving new information and deal with it, not shut down and get angry or cry about it?

Feels like the median black person is more intelligent than the median white people, in practical ways – which are the only ways that really matter.  I’m not interested in having a conversation with somebody that has advanced knowledge but can’t be fucked to understand anything outside that domain.  I want somebody that can be exposed to new information and understand it enough to have something to say about it.  That’s just conversation, but it’s indicative of the approach to other kinds of information as well.

It’s like white people feel more entitled to not have to think about things, to put that onto other people, and have anything they need sorted out for them with zero thought involved.  Black people are used to a society that is low key hostile to them getting their needs met in every way, cradle to the grave, so they need to be able to understand the shit that comes their way.

I might be remembering the thoughtless white people at outsized rates because of the biases I mentioned above, but also because they make a much more acrid stink about having their right to not have to think impinged upon.  I might be remembering black people who figured out some tangled bullshit at outsized rates because my unconscious bias is to assume them less intelligent, and it comes as a surprise when it should not.  I know there’s no way I haven’t absorbed that poison on a cellular level.

But I dunno.  Maybe black people are just better than us.

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Note:  If my comments are half as foolish as this post itself was, I’m gonna have to shut ’em down.  It could get offensive in a hurry.  For that matter, what I wrote could be pretty offensive to a reasonable person, and they don’t deserve to get upset because I thought it would be funny to upset unreasonable people, right?  In which case, sorry, and let’s just move along tomorrow.  I’ll leave this post up as a monument to my folly.

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Should I Write This or That?

I think I got Josefina y Blasfemia vs el Muro de Hielo to a quasi-exciting stopping point, and the story features a lady fantasizing about giving god a colombian necktie (do not google this), so you know it’s metal.  I really think people should read it, even if it isn’t finished.  Consider it a premiere for a new TV show that might get canceled.  I will finish the story at some point, but meanwhile, what’s there is compelling.

I was thinking I may continue it at one chapter a day, or every two days, until complete…  But I dunno.  One, getting the drip feed may feel frustrating to people who are at all into it.  Two, when I’m posting that, traffic goes down.  Not the end of the world; this isn’t a money-making venture.  More of a costing-PZ-money-for-dubious-return venture.

Plus I have upcoming biz like MonsterHearts and some IRL stuff that results in no posts but takes up time…  And I never did finish Centennial Hills, after getting pretty dang close.  Plus I still feel pretty bad about how many people feel sad and scared of the nazi deathclowns and feel obligated to do more encouragement even tho I don’t know what I’d say that I haven’t said before or how.  And I’d like to start getting final drafts of some projects, so I can start properly self-publishing before I die…

When I titled this post, I thought I’d be presenting alternatives to choose between, but my train of thought has broken, and I don’t know what those would have been.  But given the things I’ve mentioned, what would you most like to read here?  As I ask from time to time…

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Mottocraft

Kickin’ around some slogans, to sound all fancy-like.

Da mihi Somnum = Let me Sleep

Inter Dolores Nos Delectare Debemus =
Amid Pains We Must Pleasure Ourselves

These are my vibes du jour.

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Just Don’t Like his Face

if nature could finish the job on the scrotum elect, i wouldn’t mind.  i’d sure appreciate it.  as incompetent as he is, him staying alive is probably the least worst scenario at this point.  but i’d take competently evil replacements over him, just to not have to see his face or hear his voice ever again.  just to see every single reference to him be in past tense, damn, that would feel like a hit of ecstasy every time i saw it.  i feel the lack of that in my life right now.  c’mon.  just a tiny taste, i’ll never ask for anything else as long as i live.

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It Can Be a Surprise-EDIT some fucko told me

When word comes down, it can come down as a surprise.  My eyes are fully averted.  But at this point, I am psychically ready for this to be drawn out for more than a month.  I wish I had more material for you guys – stuff for you to read that is not that.  Sorry.

Any ideas?  Something I can knock out with a few minutes effort, more than once per day, that provokes thought?  Distracting thoughts?

Wish I had the wit of Jack Handy.  I’m more like, if Andrew Dice Clay was afraid of offending people.

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EDIT – woof.  what i said before re: we will survive, still relevant and true.

Cover Song Idea

For some reason I find myself wondering if the lyrics of “Milk It” by Nirvana could be molded to fit the tune of “We Belong” by Pat Benatar.  Just writing this down for future reference.  What is a blog for, if not memos to one’s self?  Don’t answer that.

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The End in Sight

I can see the way thru, sorta.  Marriage in three weeks, trying to paint living room dining room and foyer ahead of the deadline.  That project had stalled for ages but is making some headway at last.  Still gonna be a tight one.

Figured out how I’m going to end Centennial Hills.  Didn’t really know before, but it’s clear to me now.  Still haven’t had the time to write any more at the moment.

A month point five from now, the dust should be settling on the election.  Can’t wait.

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