David Dubrow

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2020: The Year That Wasn’t

December 28, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

How do you sum up a year spent in limbo?

We did a lot of waiting. At first we locked everything down and waited in our homes for two weeks to “flatten the curve,” give our beleaguered TikTok nurses a break. That didn’t work, so we waited longer. Don’t go outside. Kids can’t use the playground, let alone attend school. And yet the curve didn’t swell enough for us to flatten. Some of us poked our heads out. With masks on, of course. If you’re not wearing a mask you could literally murder someone. Your value as a human being is measured in how enthusiastically and frequently you cover your countenance. We fucking love science.

You’ve heard it all before.

In mid-December I withdrew the entire Appalling Stories series from circulation for a host of reasons, none of which involve any drama. In 2021 I’ll reissue certain stories in a Best Of omnibus. There’s some work there I’m proud of. Some of it’s funny, some of it’s disturbing.

I don’t own a small business that the lockdowns have closed, so any complaints I have involve my relative luxury not being luxurious enough. If you’re concerned about the state of the culture, you’re full, warm, and sheltered. Too many of us have slipped down a notch or two on Maslow’s hierarchy because of our reaction to the pandemic. I can’t help but think about them, and it’s shameful to bitch about the rest of it.

And yet, and yet, and yet. When your biggest fears are allayed, the smaller ones grow to take their place. So damn you, Hollywood, and damn the election shenanigans, and who’s going to hold the Chinese accountable for their appalling treatment of the Uighurs if we don’t? Save it. Save. It.

I didn’t write while my son was doing virtual learning from March through June. Kept him on task. Read, read, read. Reading is fundamental, you know, and if the writer’s kid hates reading it’s kind of a gigantic fail for me, so keep reading. During “recess” we drove to closed playgrounds and threw the frisbee around. School ended and he got all A’s. For staring at a screen. When he went to summer camp I got back to writing. Then school started: brick-and-mortar school. With masks on. Oh well. A week into the new school year I found that I’d written myself so deeply into a corner in the new series that I couldn’t find a way out. I spent weeks wrestling with it. One and a quarter books in, I had to conclude that the series was fundamentally hosed: none of the pieces fit together. So I put it in a drawer, this thing with superheroes and nanotechnology and ancient aliens, and moved on to something else. Space opera. Finally, progress: notes, character outlines, a story outline. Words on a page.

I didn’t watch a lick of TV for months, but got back into it: Korean dramas. My favorite this year was Misaeng. So good I made the wife watch it. She binged it like heroin. Korean dramas lack American cynicism and American preachiness, and they unabashedly manipulate you. Who cares? The storytelling satisfies. You can deconstruct it easily, and you find that the basics, done right, always work. They don’t subvert expectations: they give you what you want. Other series weren’t so good, like Rugal. Hated it, but the sunk cost fallacy gripped me in its fist. I was able to punch out of Bad Guys for similar reasons: dumb, unwatchable. Chief of Staff, both seasons, was very good. Same with The Good Detective. Strangers from Hell wasn’t bad.

Went on some classic reading tears to fill up my brain with good words. Reread Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and then ate up all of Flannery O’Connor’s fiction, both short and long form. O’Connor wasn’t a great novelist, but as a short story writer she could not be beat. Unforgettable stuff. John O’Hara is another great one, though I stuck to his novels rather than his innumerable short stories. Then to John Steinbeck, because why not? Now I’m back to John Updike, whom I haven’t read since my early 20’s. John, John, John. Go figure.

Read/study more, write less: my new cri de coeur. So I don’t update this blog terribly often. If I give away my words for free all the time, why should you buy them?

That was my 2020. There are many people for whom this was a great year, and you know who they are.

2021 will be better if we make it that way. Take care, and God bless.

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The Invisibility of the Conservative Artist

October 9, 2020 by David Dubrow 4 Comments

The panjandrums of the online right often bleat that conservatives complain about the culture but don’t do anything about it.

This is true insofar as you look at the issue from their perspective. It’s not objectively true, as I proved with the Appalling Stories anthology series: there I worked with several right-leaning writers to publish short stories intended to appeal to normal people. And at least a few other publishers focus on fiction written by conservatives, mostly in the science fiction genre. So there are, in fact, many conservative content creators. They’re just not successful enough to earn notice from conservative media’s bright bulbs, such as they are.

The reasons for this lack of success are manifold, but the two most important are the lack of quality among conservative writers and the isolation of the political right.

This lack of quality is evident in the overwhelming majority of fiction being published today, either filtered through the Big 5 publishing gatekeepers or unfiltered through Amazon’s distribution network. Most people, especially those calling themselves writers, can’t write well. This isn’t a problem specific to the political right, but it is a major contributor to conservative failure in publishing. The self-publishing explosion has eliminated all barriers to putting one’s work out there, but when one’s work is substandard, it falls to the reader to determine good from bad. Readers will buy a book if it has a great cover, attractive ad copy, and a genre they’re interested in reading. Because most writers can’t afford to buy great covers, let alone write good copy, their books fail. Most of the time this failure is deserved, despite that readers don’t know the difference between good and bad writing. They like what they like, whether it’s Fifty Shades of Grey or The Great Gatsby. If you want to appeal to right-leaning customers with any chance of success, you have to write books about space marines or post-apocalyptic survivalists. Anything else is all but doomed to fail; the conservative fiction market is just that tiny.

More to the point, most books published within the last ten years suck out loud. Particularly self-published books. Including those written by conservatives.

Isolation is the other major factor to conservative invisibility in the culture. The American left has successfully branded itself as the way things just are, so their messaging doesn’t include politically freighted language that the average reader will recognize. Conservatives often brand their material with terms like “liberty,” which turns off readers who just want to be entertained, not preached to. Conservatives also make the mistake of trying to appeal to a conservative audience, a group that automatically looks askance at material designed to appeal to them. As a writer, you want to appeal to everyone interested in your genre, not just a subgroup of like-minded individuals on social media who will click a heart button but not a Buy button. Secluding yourself on a tiny conservative island with other tiny conservatives won’t get you eyeballs, and it definitely won’t get you sales. When non-conservative fiction writers find out that you’re right-leaning, they’ll ostracize you at worst and deliberately ignore you at best.

But you’re a conservative/libertarian/conservatarian (ugh), so you should get help from right-wing media, right? Yeah, no. Conservative luminaries (the Twitter-addicted commentators on sites like Townhall, PJ Media, and The Daily Wire, for example) ignore conservative content creators for several reasons.

First, they’re paid to ignore you. They’d tweet less if they were paid to solve problems instead of complain about them. That’s why you see so many of the same columns written in the same places by the same people over and over and over again. Doers do, writers write. Conservative writers are not doers. Maybe some were once, but they’re not now. The problems they’re writing about exist as long as they’re paid to complain about them. So asking them to acknowledge that there are indeed conservatives creating culture is, in effect, asking them to deny their own revenue stream. Those who are being paid to write, that is. Many aren’t. When it comes to quality, you can’t tell the difference between paid and unpaid writers on the vast majority of these sites: they’re equally leaden and uninspiring. Same with the podcasters.

Another reason why they won’t acknowledge you is status. If you’re an unknown asking for a hand up, it means you’re a lower-status person, and they simply won’t risk their higher status to help you. Why should they? If you were any good, you’d be a higher-status person like them. That so many of them have achieved their status through successful networking rather than quality of work is something they can’t afford to think about; Impostor Syndrome is rampant in the media industry, and to look at oneself too closely in the mirror risks fracturing a deservedly fragile self-image. Between that and the standard in-group/out-group behavior, there’s no upside to acknowledging your existence. You’re not in the clique.

They’ll link each other’s dreadful, boring, banal pieces all day long, because that’s how they maintain status within their network, but you just don’t rate. Deal.

Yes, your (ostensibly) shared ideology suggests that they should help you out. Their bleats about the lack of conservative culture while you’re right here drawing comics and writing books are frustrating to hear.

The good news is that you don’t need them. Not even a little bit. The podcasters, columnists, and professional tweeters, no matter how famous they are in the tiny subgroup that is online conservatism, are not going to make or break your career. Only you can do that. Your lack of success isn’t their fault, and they can’t make you succeed, even if they were inclined to. So stop asking.

What you need to do is create less, read/sketch more, and eventually produce quality material that people will talk about regardless of political affiliation. Save your money until you can afford a cover that will catch the reader’s eye. Model success; don’t just ask for it, and model successful writers in your genre, not dime-a-dozen columnists. There’s a reason why their work is free to read on Twitter/Townhall, and your work costs money.

Unless you’re writing a conservative column, don’t ask conservative columnists for help getting eyeballs on your work. It’s like trying to market ketchup to people who like barbecue sauce. Even though some of these columnists write fiction themselves. Have you read it? I tried. It’s terrible, particularly the apparently popular stuff with plenty of Amazon reviews. You’re probably better than that. A tiny minority of writers can do both fiction and non-fiction well, like Michael Walsh. You’re not him. The other columnists aren’t him, either. Yes, you want to be popular. Yes, you want the big royalty checks. Your favorite conservative luminary won’t get you those things, even though he says conservatives should do exactly what you’re trying to do.

Online columnists are storytellers, too, but the difference is that they don’t do nearly as much work as you do in bringing a piece to market, and it shows in the final product. The story outline is written for them by the New York Times, New York Post, and Fox News: all they have to do is put an angry gloss on it. The audience, fattened on free content, is entirely undiscerning as long as the meat is red. The marketing is done through Tweets. There’s really nothing special about the work, intellect, or personality of the people you’re angry at for not helping you sell your book.

Eschew them and go elsewhere.

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A Few Thoughts About the Business of Writing

October 5, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Selling books is nothing like you expect it to be. This is not to say that it’s harder than other vocations, though it is difficult. It’s that in the world of 21st century publishing, you have to work at things that you became a writer to avoid: chiefly, sales and marketing. Nobody who writes anything except books on salesmanship says, I spent hundreds of hours writing and editing and polishing and sweating and bleeding over this book; I can’t wait to get out there and grind, day after day, trying to sell it.

Most of us think that sales and marketing mean posting about your book on social media. Nothing could be further from the truth. Facebook and Twitter do not sell books. Even if you buy ads. Social media helps drive traffic to free content, but it does not sell your book. Asking your friends and family to spread your Amazon product link doesn’t sell books, either, even if you’ve got a big family. Email bookselling services like BookBub and Ereader News Today are costly to use, and you’re lucky if you sell enough through them to make it worth the expense. There’s definitely a helpful ego boost when you’re successful using them (however you measure success), so they’re not to be entirely despised. Psychic income means a lot when you spend so much time alone with your imaginary friends. Just know what you’re getting into.

There are no guaranteed sales methods: there are only gambits that may work for you. If you’ve got a good cover, good advertising copy, and a good concept, those help. Except when they don’t. Writing more books helps. Sometimes. Getting more successful writers to blurb your book might help. The amount of luck involved is more a factor than anyone wants to admit. Everyone in the Western world is writing and publishing books through Amazon. With all that competition, how do you succeed? How do you turn an expensive hobby into a money-making venture?

The good news is that you don’t have to write well to make a profit. Many terrible books sell. So quality (or lack of it) is no barrier to success. It does help to have a great cover. Readers know the difference between a great cover, a good cover, and a mediocre cover. The overwhelming majority of book covers are mediocre at best, even the ones you paid good money for. Even the ones I paid good money for. People do judge a book by its cover. When we had a good quarter, the CFO of the publisher I worked for would cynically joke, “Good job, art department.” It used to bother me. It doesn’t anymore. Readers are more likely to buy a book with a great cover and unlikely to buy a book with a mediocre cover. Player/game: you know which one to hate.

So we know what doesn’t work, we know what might work, and we know what helps. If you’re going to spend money on your book, focus first on cover (don’t do it yourself). Then advertising copy (don’t do it yourself). Then genre/concept/story (that’s all on you). Everything else is so far outside the bounds of consideration that it’s not worth thinking about, including editing. Oh, you should have the book professionally proofread and laid out, but nobody notices these things unless they’re poorly done. And if readers really like the book, they’ll ignore them.

It’s nice to be part of writing groups, because they help motivate you to keep writing. If you’re writing for the ego boost, join some groups and they’ll Retweet your Amazon link. Dopamine’s a good drug. Some of your fellow writers will give you writing tips. Even personalized writing tips. If you’re smart, you’ll ignore these tips, unless they’re offered by writers who are as successful as you want to be. Don’t take advice from people who haven’t succeeded. If they knew what they were talking about, they’d be doing it already. Including me.

Most writers don’t write well. They don’t read good books themselves, they don’t model success properly, and/or they just can’t produce anything but leaden, lifeless prose. This probably includes you. And me. It doesn’t matter: readers can’t tell the difference between good and bad writing. Look at the Amazon bestseller list in any genre for proof. There’s nothing wrong with that: people like what they like. Separating book sales from book quality is something few writers want to do, emotionally speaking. If it sells, it’s automatically good, right? Don’t burst the bubble.

Finally, don’t do what you see everyone else doing, particularly if they’re not terribly successful doing it. Giveaways, $.99 sales, bundling your book with like books, and review trades do not bring in respectable money. If you define success as selling three books a month instead of one, go for it. If your definition of success is more ambitious, save your money to buy that great cover. Hire a great copywriter. And acquire your comfort substance of choice if these things don’t work out. Paying a utility bill or monthly mortgage with book royalties is real money, and it’s why I don’t badmouth writers who can do it, even if their books are unreadable.

You have to be lucky. You have to write more books. You have to keep after it.

Otherwise, take your boring, poorly-written trash off the digital shelves and void the field for serious writers. You’re the horse crap that obscures the occasional pony.

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Update 8-28-2020

August 28, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

When I’m not writing and rewriting, I’m planning and outlining. When I’m doing none of those things, I’m glowering at nothing, willing the words to come. They rarely obey. So, things are more or less normal.

—

I’ve talked about author Joseph Hirsch in this space before, with my reviews of his disturbing science fiction novel Touch No One and his crime novel My Tired Shadow. He also contributed to Adam Howe’s anthology Wrestle Maniacs with a sort-of prequel story to My Tired Shadow.  He’s really quite a prolific writer, so don’t take this as an exhaustive listing, and he dabbles in everything from horror to drama to even romance. I envy his skills and output.

A more recent title of his is the sci-fi novella My Uncle’s New Eyes. It’s a taut, slow-burn thriller that keeps you seared to the page, and by the time you’ve read the last word, stick a fork in you: you’re done. A tale of lost memory, bizarre science, and shocking betrayal, it follows troubled teenager Michael when he’s sent to spend time with his uncle Jimmy “Grim Reaper” Reeves, a former boxer living in the desert with a beautiful, mysterious caretaker. Hirsch has a way of getting under your skin, making you feel everything his characters experience, and My Uncle’s New Eyes shows what a supremely skilled writer can do at the top of his game.

—

Season 3 of Dark, the German sci-fi show I talked a bit about here, wraps up the series in a way that’s minimally satisfying. SPOILERS FOLLOW. The Schrodinger’s Cat concept introduced in this season didn’t add anything valuable to the mythology, and the Origin Trio were too obviously shoehorned in as last-minute antagonists. Clausen’s subplot went nowhere. Eva cutting Martha’s face was silly and unnecessary. Noah, a child murderer, made a terrible hero. Where everything fell down for me was the end, which reflects the problem with most of today’s science fiction. There was nothing aspirational about it; the only way to fix things was for the characters to annihilate themselves. In a universe without God or an objective moral standard, all you have left is the amoral nihilism of pure science. Also, it was funny that they had to limit Mikkel’s appearance, due to the actor’s having grown ten inches between seasons. Kids.

One show I can wholeheartedly recommend is the Israeli series Shtisel, about a Haredi (ultra-orthodox Jewish) family in Jerusalem. It does a good job of swimming in the dramedy realm, where the laughs are balanced by touching moments. Michael Aloni as Akiva makes you completely forget about his less sympathetic role as Himmler in When Heroes Fly. If I had a complaint, it’s that the show occasionally meanders in a less focused way, but with so many characters, it can’t be helped.

—

I’ve also done some writing for Romans One.

In this piece, I discussed despair:

Despair is where the Adversary lives. God, who is all good all the time, has a specific plan for you, and when you embrace despair, you deny God’s presence in your life. Despair represents the loss of faith, the false notion that you’re not equal to God’s plan for you. Obviously when something truly terrible happens like the loss of a spouse, parent, or child, despair is an easy pit to fall into. In the aftermath of a horrible assault, despair can seem like the only option. Despair is soul-crushing, and when you’ve truly experienced it, you remember that feeling for the rest of your life.

I also addressed the bromide of tolerance, arguing for less of it:

Too often, though, the reality is many college kids, fattened on a diet of Captain Planet as children, Howard Zinn as a teen, and Cornel West as a legal adult, are now working on a new college degree: screaming obscenities into a black cop’s face during a race riot. They think that’ll look good on a resume, and, sadly, in some quarters it just might.

Rather than pushing back early on, parents let it go. Rather than deciding enough was enough at the very beginning, they find themselves here.

And I offered the heretical notion that politics won’t save us:

If you want to change what’s going on instead of merely watching it, you have to focus on culture: art, media, education. This means doing more work on top of your 9 to 5. If you don’t like statue toppling, church defacing, and drugstore looting, you need to run for your local school board and win. You have to become a teacher who refuses to propagandize her students. You have to make movies. You have to write books. You have to paint pictures and put on plays and make music that elevates the values you hold dear.

—

I won’t sign off with “Stay safe,” because safety is overrated, and nothing important or good happens without some risk. Instead, I hope that whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, you’re having a great time and are with people you love.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: book review, dark, joseph hirsch, judaism, romans one, shtisel, television reviews

Joseph Simonet

July 8, 2020 by David Dubrow 13 Comments

This was from the last shoot I did with Joseph

I want to tell you about my friend Joseph.

In all ways, Joseph was a big guy: tall, muscular, enormous personality and generosity. Both a polymath and an autodidact, he was always amazingly well-read. He was possessed of a terrific sense of humor, and could go from more dry, subtle jokes to my kind of fifth-grade bathroom humor at any time. An absolutely enjoyable fellow to spend time with under any circumstances.

Joseph’s business was martial arts and fitness, both of which he did better than anyone else I ever worked with. Always experimenting, always learning, always innovating, he had achieved mastery in a number of martial arts, including Tracy’s Kenpo, Pentjak Silat, Wing Chun Kung Fu, Doce Pares Eskrima, and even Yang style Tai Chi Chuan, among others. Over time he began to bridge the gap between martial arts theory and real-world self-defense, making him a truly formidable instructor-trainer.

He had several higher-profile clients, including former Detroit Lions player Mike Utley, whom he helped with physical rehab after Utley’s paralysis, and former Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland.

I got to work with him on many instructional video projects, and the DVDs still hold pride of place front and center on my video shelf. He was a great man to work with: professional, eager, high-energy, always on.

Earlier I said he was a big guy. He’s now suffering from primary progressive aphasia, which is a type of dementia. It’s a dreadful thing to happen to such a great man. Dementia takes you away from your loved ones before it kills you, and for this to happen to Joseph is awful in a way that’s impossible to describe.

His daughter Carly is asking for your help to defray the cost of his care. Please click the link and give what you can. Or if you can’t afford to, share the link far and wide. Just a few years ago, Joseph had it all: a martial arts school in Wenatchee, Washington; a huge, beautiful property in Chelan; and a wife and family. This illness has taken so much from him, and he deserves comfort.

I wish you could’ve met Joseph when I knew him. I’m lucky to have been his friend.

I’d never ask this for myself, no matter what. Please help my friend Joseph.

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Update: 6-1-2020

June 1, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

Over the last several weeks of distance learning for my son and dealing with the other effects of the Corona crisis, I’ve found time to read books in the wee small hours.

A notable effort is Alex Berenson’s nonfiction book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence. The issue of pot in America is so fraught with misinformation, competing political narratives, and controversy that before Berenson’s book it was impossible to determine fact from fiction about any of it. After Berenson’s book it’s still impossible, but what Berenson does is shine a spotlight on the potential dangers of marijuana, and how we did so little research of any kind before decriminalizing it in major areas of the U.S. There’s a massive difference between cannabinoid oil used for medicinal purposes and the THC in today’s marijuana, and pot lobbyists have exploited ignorance about the one to promote use of the other. We don’t know a great deal about both long- and short-term use of today’s strains of pot, and yet we’ve accepted marijuana as a cure-all for everything from insomnia to nausea to anxiety. Berenson does as well as anyone can to cut through the jargon and misinformation, but there’s so much garbage that his book can only be considered a necessary first step to understanding a subject few people seem to want to get to the bottom of.

—

I first discovered Jonathan Carroll’s novels in the house of friends who let me stay with them the first few weeks I moved to Colorado decades ago, and I’ll be eternally grateful to them for both their hospitality and library. At the time I started with Carroll’s Sleeping in Flame, a book about a man who discovers that he comes from a far stranger and yet more familiar place than he realizes, and he has to come to terms with a nightmarish legacy that threatens to turn his entire reality inside-out. Surreal, bizarre, and yet matter-of-fact, it’s the perfect introduction to Carroll’s incredible universe of magical realism. Over the years I acquired every Carroll book I could get my hands on, and enjoyed them all.

But, as it turned out, I’d read some of them out of order, namely the Answered Prayers series.

Answered Prayers follows the lives of people touched by the surreal, all of whom know each other in some way: Walker Easterling, Cullen James, Weber Gregston, and others. Odd names, yes. And, like most of Carroll’s books, at least some of the action takes place in Vienna, Austria. While I don’t think I missed anything by reading them out of order, over the last few weeks I reread the series in order of publication, getting the overarching story in full:

  1. Bones of the Moon
  2. Sleeping in Flame
  3. A Child Across the Sky
  4. Outside the Dog Museum
  5. After Silence
  6. From the Teeth of Angels

After Silence is a bit of an outlier, referencing characters from the other novels but lacking the magical connection that binds them. Outside the Dog Museum is kind of a frustrating read, with the protagonist a difficult person to like and a lot going on without much resolution. From the Teeth of Angels is the most disturbing work of the series, and leaves an unsettling mark on you long after you’re done reading it.

—

In addition to reading, I did some writing for Romans One.

This piece talks about going somewhere outside of Hollywood for your entertainment:

You can rail about empty Hollywood tripe produced by hateful narcissists every single day, but until you make the difficult and necessary choice of not watching it, even the stuff you like, you’re contributing to a horribly corrosive system that will never change on its own. The more time and money you give them, the more sewage they’ll pump out.

And here, I discuss social media:

The use of social media, with its laughing/crying emojis, eye-rolling gifs, and relative anonymity, separates the true self from the internet version in ways that make us all seem awful and unlovable. The consequences of ruining someone’s afternoon over a disagreement are minimal, at best. Pile-ons are encouraged. If your ideological opponent says something patently stupid, it would be wrong not to ratio him. Right? Teach that “dummy” a lesson.

—

Reading books and avoiding the social media dopamine circus make me more into the person I want to be, so I’m going to continue to do that. I encourage you to do the same.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: book reviews, hollywood, jonathan carroll, me me me, romans one, social media

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"It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church." --Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

"Squop chicken? I never get enough to eat when I eat squop chicken. I told you that when we sat down. You gotta give me that. I told you when we sat down, I said frankly I said this is not my idea of a meal, squop chicken. I'm a big eater." --John O'Hara, BUtterfield 8

I saw the 1977 cartoon The Hobbit as a little boy, and it kindled a love of heroic fantasy that has never left me. Orson Bean's passing is terrible news. Rest in peace.

Obviously, these young people have been poorly served by their parents, but the honest search for practical information should be lauded, not contemned.

You shouldn't look at or use Twitter, and this story is another perfect example. There's so much that's wrong here that it would take a battalion of clergy, philosophers, and psychologists to fully map it out, let alone treat the issue.

This is the advertising copy for Ilana Glazer's stand-up comedy special The Planet Is Burning: "Ilana Glazer‘s debut standup special is trés lol, and turns out - she one funny b. Check out Ilana’s thoughts on partnership, being a successful stoner adult, Nazis, Diva Cups, and more. Hold on to your nuts cuz this hour proves how useless the patriarchy is. For Christ’s sake, The Planet Is Burning, and it’s time a short, queer, hairy New York Jew screams it in your face!" This is written to make you want to watch it.

In the midst of reading books about modern farming, the 6,000 year history of bread, and ancient grains, I found this just-published piece by farmer and scholar Victor Davis Hanson: Remembering the Farming Way.

"I then confront the decreasing power of the movement in order to demonstrate the need for increased theorizations of the reflexive capacities of institutionalized power structures to sustain oppositional education social movements." Yes. Of course.

You should definitely check out Atomickristin's sci-fi story Women in Fridges.

As it turns out, there may yet be some kind of personal cost for attempting to incite a social media mob into violence against a teenage boy you don't know, but decided to hate anyway because reasons.

One of the biggest problems with internet content is that the vast majority of sites don't pay their writers, and it shows in the lack of quality writing. It's hard to find decent writers, and harder to scrape up the cash to pay them. This piece is a shining example of the problem of free content: it's worth what you pay for.

If you're interested in understanding our current cultural insanity, the best primer available is Douglas Murray's The Madness of Crowds. Thoughtful, entertaining, and incisive.

More laws are dumb. More law enforcement is dumb. The only proper response to violence is overwhelming violence. End the assault. There's a rising anti-semitism problem in New York because Jews who act like victims are being victimized by predators. None of these attacks are random. Carry a weapon and practice deploying it under duress. Be alert and aware. I don't understand why the women Tiffany Harris attacked didn't flatten her face into the pavement, but once word gets around that the consequences of violence are grave, the violence will lessen.

When are you assholes going to understand that this stupidity doesn't work any longer? Nobody gives much of a damn if you think we're sexist because we don't want to see a movie you think we should see. It only makes us dislike you that much more, and you started out being an unlikable asshole. Find a new way to shame normal people.

The movie Terms of Endearment still holds up more than 35 years later, and if you're looking for a tearjerker, this is your jam. One element that didn't get a lot of mention is, at the end, when Flap, with a shrug, decides that his mother-in-law will become the mother of his children once Emma dies. He abandons them, and nothing is made of it. This always troubled me.

You need to read this story the next time you feel the urge to complain. And if you need a shot of admiration for another family's courage, check this out.

Progressive political activist and children's author J.K. Rowling finds herself on the wrong side of a mob she helped to create. The Woke Sandwich she's been trying to force-feed others since she earned enough f-you money doesn't taste as good as it looks when she's obliged to take a bite.

I need you to check out The Kohen Chronicles and pray for this family. Their 5-year-old son has cancer.

Currently, the movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stands at 55% at Rotten Tomatoes. Don't forget that these are the same reviewers who not only adored the absolutely execrable The Last Jedi, but insisted that you were a MAGA hat-wearing incel white supremacist manbaby for not loving The Last Jedi. So either The Rise of Skywalker is an objectively bad film, or it simply wasn't woke enough to earn plaudits from our movie-reviewing moral and intellectual betters.

It's easy to hate the older pop bands like Genesis for their popularity, but they were capable of genius, and it shows in No Son of Mine.

If you want to know which identity group has more clout, read this story of the Zola ads on the Hallmark Channel.

Rest in peace, René Auberjonois. I remember you from Benson as a kid. As an adult, I remember you as Janos Audron in the Legacy of Kain video game series. You made every role you were in a classic.

Elf on a Shelf Follies, Part 2:
8-year-old: I wrote the elf a note! I hope he writes back.
Me: What did you write?
8yo: I asked if he has any friends.
Me: What if he says it's none of your business?
8yo: *eyes grow dark and glittering* Then I'll...touch him.
Me: Ah. Mutually assured destruction, then.

Elf on a Shelf Follies, Part 1: My 8-year-old got an Elf on the Shelf the other day. The book it came with tells a story in doggerel about this elf's purpose, which is to spy on the kid and report his doings to Santa Claus, who would then determine if the kid is worthy for Christmas presents this year. The book also said for the kid not to touch him, or the magic would fade, and for the family to give the elf a name. I wanted to name him Stasi. I was outvoted.

Actor Billy Dee Williams calls himself a man or a woman, depending on whim; his character Lando Calrissian is "pansexual," and his writer implies that he'd become intimate with anyone or anything, including, one presumes, a dog, a toaster, or a baby. J.J. Abrams is very concerned about LGBTQ representation in the Star Wars universe. This is Hollywood. This is Star Wars. This is what's important to the people in charge of your cinematic entertainment. Are you not entertained?

The funniest thing on the internet today is the number of people angry over an exercise bike commercial. Public outrage is always funny. Always.

One of the biggest mistakes the United States has ever made since WWII was recruiting for clandestine and federal law enforcement organizations at Ivy League schools. The best talent pools were/are available from local law enforcement and military veterans, with their maturity and, most importantly, field experience. We've been reaping the costs of these terrible decisions for decades, culminating in a hopelessly politicized, sub-competent FBI and CIA.

Watching Fauda seasons 1 and 2 again in preparation for season 3 to be broadcast, one hopes, in early 2020. Here's my back-of-the-matchbook review of season 2.

Every day I try to be grateful for what I have, even in the face of the petty frustrations and troubles that pockmark a day spent outside of one's living room, binge-watching Netflix. We live lives of ease in 21st century America, making it enormously difficult to do anything but take one's countless blessings for granted. Holidays like the just-passed Thanksgiving are helpful reminders. There's a reason why people call the attitude of a thankful heart practicing gratitude, not just feeling grateful. You have to practice it. You have to remind yourself of what you have. It's the work of a lifetime.

Held Back: A Recent Conversation.
8-year-old: Oh, and Jamie was there, too. He was in my first grade class two years ago.
Me: Wasn't he held back a year?
8yo: Yeah. It's because he kept going to the bathroom with the door open.
Me: No way!
8yo: And girls saw.
Me: That's not right. They're not going to hold a kid back a whole year over that.
8yo: Well, that's what he told me.
Me: Sounds fishy.
8yo: I believe him.
~fin~

It's right and good to push a raft of politically correct social justice policies on everything else under the sun, but when social justice invades Hollywood, that's just a bridge too far, says Terry Gilliam. Sorry, Terry: you helped make this sandwich. EAT IT.

Rob Henderson's piece on luxury beliefs will have you nodding your head over and over again...unless you subscribe to these luxury beliefs, in which case you'll get mad.

I've made the Saturday bread from Flour Water Salt Yeast so often that I've memorized the recipe. It never disappoints. Never. The same recipe works well for pizza, too.

Liberty doesn't mean the freedom to do anything you want. The true definition of liberty is the ability to choose the good. Anything less is libertinism.

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