For those who are curious: Yes, I am relatively silent right now. It’s the traditional crush of the holidays, where the time available to work on things shortens, but the amount of stuff to work on doesn’t… Not helped by the fact that, thanks to terrible timing by the fates, it’s the week of the month that I have to write catalog copy for Comix Experience as well as Thanksgiving. Every spare moment is being spent creating content and trying not to go mad in the process… but, on the plus side, I’m hoping that I can just take Thursday off almost entirely if not completely so that I can actually have a holiday for once. We live in hope…
Random Thought
One of those ideas that comes to you when you’re half-asleep, and then by the time you’re awake, you realize you have neither the time nor the financial wherewithal to make it happen: I imagined a pop-culture digital magazine (As in, Kindle single or Apple Bookstore thing, or both) anthology called It Can’t Be…! But It Is! that I would curate, with each issue featuring, say, five longform essays by writers I love centered around one particular subject.
File Under: One Day, Maybe.
“It’s An Impressive Sight, Isn’t It?”
The Hidden Reason Why I Was So Silent Yesterday
I’m not entirely sure whether it was a weekend that was fuller of stuff – Not even necessarily interesting stuff, but stuff nonetheless – than I’d intended or what, but yesterday was one of those days where my brain just wouldn’t work. I worked the entire day, but just wasn’t productive in the way that I wanted/needed to be (In the end, I finished work somewhere around 10pm, because deadlines are deadlines and don’t wait around for inspiration; I started closer to 7am, though, and only took off around three hours in between), and just the idea of actually concentrating on what needed to be done seemed exhausting in and of itself.
These days happen, sometimes; the days when you’re just done, through no fault of your own. You’re out of juice, and all you really want to do is stop, sit back and relax, maybe read some more of that Gene Wilder autobiography that you’ve surprised yourself by getting into. It’s normally a sign that overwork has taken its toll and a vacation is needed, which might be the first time that’s actually happened in a timely manner, considering that Thanksgiving is around the corner. The first hint should’ve been the disruption in sleep pattern last week, now that I think about it…
“Truth Prevailed”
Every four years, the race for the White House ends in accusations of deceit. Each side says the other spent millions of dollars to lie and skew the outcome. This year’s post-election accounts of backstage calculations and fateful turning points continue that tradition. But if you read these accounts carefully, you’ll find a happy surprise beneath the spin and recriminations: Lies failed. Truth prevailed.
From here.
Something that I’m becoming surprised by, in the inevitable post-game analysis of the Republican’s losses in Tuesday’s elections, is the quickly apparent sense that not only were the Republicans lying to us, but that they were apparently lying to themselves, too. There’s a CBS piece that puts it into perspective, somewhat, but the short version is, the Republicans appear to have entirely bought into their own narrative wholeheartedly, to the point where any contradictory information was immediately dismissed as biased and false. Let’s be honest, here; that’s kind of terrifying, because it sounds like something that would make you really worried about a friend, if they started doing it. It sounds paranoid and, yes, kind of insane, or at least dangerously delusional.
The question is, I guess, whether the Republican Party en masse can move back to reality in the wake of the loss, or stay in their persecuted alternate world, plotting and scheming to “take back America” by any means necessary. I hope for the former, but fear for the latter.
This seems appropriate, at this point:
“You’re the Source of my Hope”
No Big Deal
I know, I know; I’ve been more silent here than usual since yesterday, but it’s just down to work and – for once! – seeing friends and talking instead of writing here. Nothing worse than that, for a change. Which doesn’t change the fact that I have to catch up on things here again, but still.
(The image is from Low Life by Rob Williams and D’Israeli as it appears in 2000AD Prog 1808, by the way; a comic strip that manages to mix comedy and something close to horror in a surprisingly good, somewhat deceptive way.)
“That Stubborn Thing Inside Us That Insists, Despite All The Evidence to the Contrary”
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.
Seriously. That man can make rhetoric sing.
I didn’t realize how nervous I was about the election last night until Obama won, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me, I have to admit. That line about “the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism” (Craig Ferguson’s summation of the appeal of Doctor Who, in case you were curious) has never felt more true to me than watching Obama triumph last night.
Vote For Me And I’ll Set You Free (Slight Return)
This is the first time I’ll have voted in a US Presidential Election; I only became a citizen in 2009, after all, and so I missed the chance to vote in the historic election of America’s First Black President by a matter of months, somewhat frustratingly for White Liberal Bragging Rights purposes. Nonetheless, it’s nice to feel as if I have a voice in this whole thing after living here for a decade, you know? I am a big fan of democracy and voting and that big ball o’ wax, despite the fact that – as a 38 year old man – I have only ever voted in three general elections.
That’s not my fault, I promise; the 1997 election in the UK was the first one I was able to vote in, and I did – I can still remember a good friend telling me that he’d voted Conservative because, really, they were all the same anyway, and my feeling of I don’t know if I can stop myself wanting to argue with you until you finally admit that you’re wrong as I listened – but then I started doing the Transatlantic thing before the next British election. I remember voting in the 2001 election, but by the time the 2005 one came around, I was firmly in the US and en route to becoming a US citizen.
The 2004 US election, I missed entirely. Obviously, I couldn’t vote, but I wasn’t even in the US for the majority of it; I was flying back to Scotland to be with my family following my mother’s death. I have unhappy, unformed memories of catching a connecting flight in Amsterdam, trying to find a television showing international news to find out whether or not George Bush had won a second term, as silly as that sounds. The 2008 election, we watched avidly from our couch; I remember clearly the sense of Everything will be different now when Obama’s win was announced, as well as mild disbelief that he had actually won.
I admit to having some sense of anticlimax about voting, this time; the way Oregon does voting is by mail ballot, so there isn’t the “entering the booth and punching the ballot” experience at all. I actually filled in the ballot more than a week ago, sent it off the next day, but it’s only really today that I feel as if I actually participated, if that makes sense. Viva Democracy, and may your guy win – as long as he’s the same as my guy, of course.
“Shut Up and Deal”
Re-watched The Apartment last night, remembered (a) how loopy the morality in old comedies can be, (b) how great Jack Lemmon was in his prime (Who today can do the nebbish, well-meaning thing as well?), and (c) how ridiculously cute Shirley MacLaine is in that movie with her short hair and heart on her sleeve.