Synchronicity swirls and other foolishness

I just got back from my second concert in several months, this one by Suzanne Vega. I first heard her music in 1986, a few months after her first album came out. I was in college, had MTV on, and saw the video for her utterly brilliant song "Marlene on the Wall' (video link). The next day I went out and bought the album, and loved pretty much all of it, and then several months later I saw she was coming to St. Louis, in a (thankfully inexpensive, since I was a poor college student) small venue on the waterfront, and I went to the show, and loved it.

She has a new album out, and my partner and I went to this show, and she started off with “Marlene on the Wall”. It was a very good, if slightly odd show, in that by far the majority of the songs were from either her firs two albums or her most recent album, with no more than one song per album (if that) from her other seven albums.

15 or so years ago I began hearing more about how people have increasing difficulty talking to their parents or other relatives who listened to faux news and thus inhabited increasingly divergent media universes than they did. I never had that problem – my parents (and now just my mom) are basic centrist liberals who have never watched (and would never) watch faux and enjoy the Daily Show. We didn’t always agree on politics (me being a democratic socialist), but we very much lived in the same media universe, and our facts were mostly the same.

Now I have a similar problem, because my mom watches NBC, ABC news, or CNN and reads the Washington Post, and I don’t and instead get my news from Bluesky, What the Fuck Just Happened Today? (which is awesome), Daily Kos, and similar lefty sources. Recently I discovered my mom hadn’t heart of the costumed protests (starting with frog guy) in Portland, hadn’t heard of any but the largest No Kings protests, and most concerningly had no idea who JB Pritzker (the governor of Illinois, and by far the most credible 2028 presidential candidate on our side) was or how he'd been standing up to 47, and she also hadn’t heard or seen anything about 47’s increasingly obvious mental decline (like the recent video of the Japanese PM leading him around, which reminded me astonishingly much of how my mom used to lead my dad around while he was still mobile (he died of Alzheimer’s). OTOH, she has heard of Gavin Newsom and has also heard news reports that he is (gag) the only possible Democratic candidate in 2028). That’s what you get when billionaires own all large-scale media in the US, because billionaires almost universally support authoritarians.

I went to GenCon this year, for the first time since the pandemic. The day before I left, I checked in for my flight (on American Airlines) from DC to Indianapolis (I visited my mom first, since that means I can arrive in time to see the convention w/o needing a red-eye flight), and an hour after I did so, I got an email from American saying they’d changed my flight so that it left Friday evening and had me spending the night in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, before arriving the next day at 10 am. Obviously, I canceled that flight and eventually found one that worked almost as well from Southwest.

The convention itself was visibly different in a wealth of subtle ways – definitely more women, possibly 50/50 on Friday and no worse than 3:2 on Saturday. Also, at least on Friday, there were a surprising number of people in wheelchairs and other mobility devices, but somewhat fewer on Saturday. Less happily, they outnumbered people of color on Friday by at least 20:1, and there wasn’t a higher percentage of people of color on Saturday.

In addition, they served notably more alcohol at the (generally quite delicious, and very large) food cart pod. However, the biggest change was an extension of what I noted in 2018 & 2019 – fewer RPGs and RPG companies. RPGs are thriving, but increasing numbers of people purchase then via kickstarted or buy them as PDFs, neither of which are helped much by a company having a presence at GenCon. Also, most of the RPG companies there focused more on board and card games. In addition, as a clear sign of living in the fascist US, there were far fewer non-US citizens there and several non-US companies (that I was eager to talk to) simply weren’t there, and that was a very sensible choice for them.

Finally, I either picked up no RPG work there or will pick up some UTTERLY AMAZING work. I talked to the quite new company putting out an RPG of Brandon Sanderson’s awesome Cosmere series (Mistborn, Stormlight, and others). I love his books, and the company is quite flush with money since the did a $15 million dollar kickstarter (a factor of more than 7 greater than any other RPG kickstarted I know of), and have recently released the PDFs and had samples of the print books at GenCon). I also wrote extensively for the Mistborn RPG Crafty Games put out and also for the Alloy of Law supplement for that game).

In any case, especially with my having worked on the Mistborn RPG, there were potentially interested having me write for them, which given their books look gorgeous and the rules and writing both look solid, I’m very eager for, and then I asked their per word rate – which I almost couldn’t believe – it’s twice the highest word rate I’ve ever been paid for RPG writing. So, I’m both eager and hopeful, but am also now looking at maybe doing DragonCon or Origins instead, especially since very few people I know were there.

I’ve been thinking about protests. I’ve been to two in the past few weeks (obviously about 47 & Muskrat), and they were fun, I especially enjoyed the chant of “Delay, Deny, Depose” at one, but I also think they are a complete waste of time. I didn’t used to, and then the George Floyd protests happened. I was very hopeful, that horrible situation and overall monstrousness of the police seemed perfect for protests – the situations that needed changing were all local, massive number of people showed up all over the US, but the end result was very little.

Colorado dropped qualified immunity, which was exceedingly awesome, and a number of cities dropped cops in schools, which is also good, but essentially nothing else happened after weeks of protests, and all of the places that cut police budgets have since restored and often raised them. In short, the George Floyd protests seemed to me to be an absolutely perfect focus for social and political change, and it largely wasn’t. So, other than making ourselves feel good, is there any point in going to protests?

The US is in serious trouble. I’m uncertain that the US will survive and I’m also certain that I’d celebrate if it balkanizes [[1]], because I no longer support or believe anything positive about this nation. One primary reason the US is so fucked up is abundantly clear - a level of pervasive racism where abundant number of white bigots would rather have a situation where they suffer as long as people of color suffer more – from numerous polls, that’s definitely why we don’t have single payer health insurance, basic income, or anything similar. I don’t understand this – I deeply loathe MAGAts and other reactionaries and fascists, but as long as I and people I care about are all getting free healthcare &/or basic income, I literally don’t care if they are. This level of racism has been present in the US for my entire life and I see no evidence of it improving, but far worse things are likely coming soon.

For example, 45’s pardon of the Jan 6 traitors was monstrous, but I’m even more concerned about Texas governor Greg Abbott’s pardon of Daniel Perry last May. Perry is a racist psychopath who killed BLM protestor Garrett Foster. Perry was convicted of murder, and then Abbott pardoned him, which is deeply troubling, both in that case, and also going forward. Abbott pardoned Perry not because he thought he was innocent or anything about the case other than the fact that Abbott approved of Garrett Foster’s murder. That’s horrifying, and I’m worried we’ll see more of this.

Maybe we won’t or will at most see one or two a year from Abbott and likely DeSantis. However, what happens if all of the MAGAt governors decide to simply pardon anyone who murders someone on our side or who they otherwise disapprove of? I’m not certain this is likely to happen, but I also think that anyone claiming that it definitely can’t or won’t happen is delusional.

If this does happen, I’ll write to the governor of my state and ask that she start pardoning people who murder Proud Boys and other fascists. To be clear, I don’t want to write such a letter, but them killing us with impunity and us not being able to do so is worse. Of course, if any of this happens, we’re also stumbling rather swiftly towards civil war.

Similarly, I have no idea if large scale mass deportations will happen, or if we’ll see nothing more than a slight uptick in deportations and lots of racist rhetoric. However, if we do, I strongly approve of California Gavin Newsome’s statement about actively resisting them, which depending upon how active the resistance is, could also end up with the US swiftly stumbling towards civil war. Civil war is obviously bad, but I’m uncertain if it’s worse than mass deportation of millions of both documented and undocumented immigrants (since we all know, they won’t be too careful about who they grab and deport), especially since I firmly expect that mass deportation will soon become mass murder - remember that Hitler first planned mass deportation of German Jews, but it was too difficult and expensive, and mass killing wasn’t.

[[1]] I honestly don’t expect the US to balkanize and I especially don’t see it happening without a horrific civil war, but if by some chance Oregon leaves the US to become part of Canada, Greater California, or whatever, I’ll absolutely celebrate the fact that white bigots in the South and Midwest will cease to have any say in the laws and policies I live under. Also, given my strong expectation of this election, my ability at predicting anything about US politics is clearly very limited, so maybe we’ll get very lucky, and we end up with balkanization w/o civil war. I’d be shocked if this happened, but also overjoyed.

I watched the finale of Superman & Lois last night. I’d read spoilers, but it was still difficult to watch, if also very well done. In addition to the content of the show itself, it was also the last of the CW’s “arrowverse” or “arrowverse” adjacent shows, which I enjoyed for the last 12 years. I watched most of Arrow, the first three 3 seasons of Legends of Tomorrow and The Flash, the last season of The Flash and a season each of Batwoman and Black Lightning, all of the crossovers, and all 6 seasons of Supergirl, all of Naomi, all three seasons of Stargirl, and all four Seasons of Superman & Lois. In all cases, I stopped watching because the shows got too grim (but surprisingly, The Flash got notably less grim in its final season, and seemed to largely become found family drama with occasional superpowers, which was delightful).

Despite most of the shows eventually getting to grim for me, I loved the arrowverse, and especially that unlike Zach Snyder’s (IMHO terrible) DC films, they were made by people who loved and treasured comics. I think my favorite moment of gonzo comics silliness was it (IIRC) season 2 of The Flash, Captain Cold (who had a gun that shot “cold” was breaking into some high security facility with a (naturally visible) laser alarm system. To get through it, he fired his cold gun at the laser beams, and the froze solid, fell to the ground, and shattered – he froze light, it was hilarious and I utterly loved it.

As for the finale itself, as anyone with any interest in Superman & Lois likely knows now, the show ended with a fast forward from Lex Luthor’s defeat to Lois and then Clark’s lives and their eventual dying of old age. It was touching, well done, and sad, but it was also hard for me to watch, in large part because with the incoming regime in the US, it felt way too on point to have Superman die. In any case, I loved the arrowverse and miss having it to watch.

Today, I'm 63. It was a quiet but also a nice birthday. I spent time with Becca, a good friend visited, and last night I saw a bunch of friends. Life is good - I'm less pleased that from this coming Friday to next Wednesday, Becca and I will be visiting my mom for her 90th b-day, but it's also not for that many days. In any case, politics looks sufficiently hopeful that I'm less worried about having to flee fascism next year, and our cats are doing well, and my health is good. I need more rpg work, but that's my only complaint.

30 years ago today, in a small house in Glendale CA, where the high priestess and high priest of my coven lived, my partner Becca and I were handfasted. We met as penpals via the Mercedes Lackey fan club, wrote for several years, met twice when I was in San Diego, fell in love the 2nd time, were handfasted 3 months later, and then I move to Portland with her. Get involved with and handfasting Becca remains one of the best decisions I’ve ever made and we are still much in love.

Reading lots of SF & fantasy, I’ve read lots of series, but only two really long series (10+ books), and only a handful with more than 5 books that all feature the same protagonist - the two series are P. C. Hodgell’s Chronicles of the Kencryrath and Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels, both of which will (hopefully) end soon (1 or 2 more novels for Hodgell, 2 more novels for Brust), and both are fantasy series set in interestingly unique fantasy worlds.

The inspiration for the post came because Brust’s latest novel Lyorn came out two weeks ago. It’s the 17th novel in what will be a 19 novel series when done. I utterly loved Lyorn and think it’s likely the best thing Brust has ever written. If you aren’t familiar, Brust’s series is about a snarky (now ex) assassin in very high magic fantasy world, who has been on the run from his former employers for most of the series. In this book Vlad (the snarky ex assassin) ends up hiding from his foes in a theater where the cast is rehearsing a musical. For reasons, he’s worried that if the musical falls through he won’t have a place to hide anymore, and he also has various plots to finally stop the people from coming to kill him from wanting to (or at least being able to) do so. So, he ends up helping the theater company in a wide variety of ways, and as part of one of his several wacky plans, he even ends up in one scene of the musical.

Using descriptions based on TV, this book felt like 80% Leverage and 20% Smash (a 2012-2013 show about putting on a musical). The capers were well done, the various minor characters were memorable and good, and it also succeeded in a way that most of his novels in this series have failed. All but two (Taltos and the final unreleased novel, tentatively titled The Final Contract are about one of the 17 Dragaeran Great Houses, each of which have various stereotypes that are often at least partly true, because the first members of each house were created by god-like beings who created the setting as a very long-term experiment.

Each novel more or less focuses on one of these houses and has at least one character from that House. In most, this was a minor character and the relation between the plot and the stereotypes about the house were thin. In this one, the overall theme of honor (a defining characteristic of members of the Lyorn great house) was foregrounded, and more impressively, the most crucial of Vlad’s plans relied on a Lyorn he’d met once acting in an absolutely stereotypical fashion, which they did. The book was funny, exciting, and a whole lot of fun. It’s also the best of his Dragaeran Empire novels (including both the Vlad Taltos series and his fun but odd pseudo-Dumas Khaavren Romances), and thus for me the best thing he’s written, since I haven’t ever even managed to finish, much less enjoy, anything non-Dragaeran he’s written.

Hodgell is a notably better writer than Brust, but has written less than a third as many books in total, in part because almost half of Brust’s work are not part of this series, but more importantly, Hodgell got dropped by one publisher and had two collapse, so her writing career has been a lot more fraught, presumably due to a combination of bad luck and the sorts of misogyny that is rampant in publishing. However, the two series have one thing in common (beyond being long and coming to an end soon), they both drag in the middle.
Of course, this means different things for Hodgell and Brust. For Hodgell, this means that books 4-6 aren’t as compelling as her earlier or later works, but the later ones have been excellent. For Brust, this means that books 11, 12, & 13 (Jhegaala, Iorich & Tiassa) were sufficient dull that I never finished them, and 6 (Athyra) wasn’t much better. I think one issue was that Brust set himself out to write more than 17 novels in one series and he only had ideas for maybe a dozen. However, Hawk was good, Vallista was odd, interesting, and provided useful hints about what the entire series was building to (like in Hodgell’s Chronicles of the Kencryrath, it’s building to some vast transformational event), and while not as good as the previous two, Tsalmoth was fun.

It was another hard weekend with my cat Josie back at the emergency vet. This time we caught the fluid in her lungs really early (and totally by luck) - she'd been a little bit listless for a couple of days and needed an antibiotic for her recurrent sinus infection, and so we took her to the vet for the shots and asked them to look at her and she was doing a lot worse at the vet (presumably due to a combo of the fluid in her lungs and stress from being at the vet).

In any case, she's home now and things are better and she seems very dopey from the meds they gave her, but also clearly notably more comfortable and happier. On the bad side, the vet said we likely have weeks, or maybe a couple of months at the outside, which is really hard, but she still happily sits in my lap and purrs, so it's not all bad, but I'm going to really miss this wonderful little tortie cat when she's gone.