Caitlín R. Kiernan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-06-05 02:18 pm
greygirlbeast) wrote2011-06-05 02:18 pm
Entry tags:
"Some say that Heaven is Hell. Some say that Hell is Heaven"
Sunny and cool again today.
About half an hour after I made the blog entry yesterday, there was a fairly bad seizure. I spent most of the remainder of the day in bed. Spooky brought me Ranier cherries and slices of chipotle cheddar. I sketched and read. Just before sunset, I began to feel better, and had a bath, and dinner, after which I felt much, much better. Another hour, I was good as new. But, all of yesterday was lost, workwise, and now I have to scramble to try to make up for the lost time. I'd like to be back at work on Blood Oranges by Tuesday. I mean to have another three chapters written by the end of the month, at least.
But today, I have Vince's illustration of "Figurehead," and it's the fifth of May, so today pretty much has to be assembly day for Sirenia Digest #67. Tomorrow, I'll make a furiously determined effort to finish up with the galleys of Two Worlds and In Between. Oh, and I need to proof the galleys of "Fish Bride," which is being reprinted in the second issue of S. T. Joshi's Weird Fiction Review. And there are contracts, and...
I need to be writing. There's too much writing needs doing not to be writing.
---
Hopefully, a fair number of you read last month's "book of the month" selection, Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy (if you didn't, or haven't finished, don't apologize; nothing here is compulsory). I mean to write more about Under the Poppy, but I'm going to do so when I'm just a little more awake than I am now. I had a double-dose of the Good Worker Bee Pill last night, and I feel like it.
This month's selection for Aunt Beast's Book of the Month Club is Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants:
You may have seen the movie, which I liked a lot and is a fairly faithful adaptation. But it's no substitute for the novel, which you ought to read. Also, Spooky says the Audible.com adaptation is pretty good. It's unabridged, so you might go that route. Either way, book or audiobook. But, with the actual book-type-book, you get cool vintage circus photos.
---
An utterly moronic article in the Wall Street Journal, "Darkness too Visible," by someone named MEGHAN COX GURDON. Hey, it was in all caps on the website. Truth in journalism, right? The article carries the provocative subtitle, "Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" Anyway, obviously Gurdon isn't at all happy about "dark" themes in YA literature. In fact, she's pretty sure that books like Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Game are mangling the minds of impressionable teens everywhere and will, I don't know, lead to mass suicides or something of the sort. The article is...well, read it if you must. But it's most entirely angrifying, fair warning. In response, a Twitter hashtag, #YAsaves, has sprung up, and editors such as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_datlow and authors such as blackholly have weighed in (lending their support to YA).
Look at this stinking shithole of a world, people. You really want to sugar-coat literature for the young'uns? You really want to try to insulate them from the difficulties of being a teen, or the hardships they're going to be facing very, very soon (if they aren't already)? Here again, we have the threat of warning labels rearing it's censorious, myopic head.
Whether I'm writing for an adult or a YA audience (and now I do both; also as my agent recently pointed out, Silk, Threshold, and Alabaster would likely now be considered YA), I mean for my fiction to be triggering. That's not a word that ought in speaking of art carry negative connotations. This is the very objective of art, and most especially including fiction: to trigger. To elicit in the mind of the reader a powerful emotional response that will move them, change them, upset or inspire them. We do not "protect" readers from this, else there's no point in writing or reading. We create art that will get their attention and make them think, and will help them survive some nightmare/s past, present, or future. Hey, other kids beside me cut. Other kids have survived rape. Other kids are gay and trans. And, fuck, look at this Catniss chick, what a kick-ass role model. And even if the reader has not experienced or is experiencing some personal trauma, just maybe these books will cause them to behave towards those who have with a little more understanding and sympathy.
Oh. I almost forgot. Gurdon hates dirty words, too. And she segregates the sexes, recommending "books for young men" and "books" for young women." It's still 1945, right?
So, fuck off, MEGHAN COX GURDON. You have the nerve (and are dumb enough) to recommend Fahrenheit 451 - a novel about book burning - in an article calling for censorship. Have you read Bradbury's book, MEGHAN COX GURDON? Do you understand the meaning of the word "irony"?
I'm sure there are many others who responses will be more "civil" and "politic," but I don't feel this nonsense deserves the effort required for either. However, if you'd like to see a really good and thoughtful response, read this post bykylecassidy, or this post by Laurie Hall Anderson.
---
Last night we watched what must be one of the worst films ever committed to celluloid, Chris Sivertson's I Know Who Killed Me (2007). Two words, Lindsay Lohan. Why did I inflict this upon myself? I don't know. Plain and simple. This film is so bad...never mind, there are no adjectives in the English language capable of expressing of the badness of this film. Lohan can't act. The script...wait, what script? Silverton can't direct. The cinematographer spent the whole film in the crapper. It's like after-school-special torture porn. No, that would be better than this movie. Never mind.
---
Last night, Spooky and I measured Telara as best we could. Choosing as our standard the distance between Lantern Hook to the south and the Chancel of Labors in the north, we arrived at a base measurement of 5,500 meters, which I then used to get a north/south measurement on Telara, at the widest visible point of the (sub)"continent". And that measurement was 7,333 meters (+ or -), or about 4.5 miles. I was stunned. Truly. I'd expected to arrive at a measurement of at least 15 miles. As a point of comparison, the island of Manhattan is 13.4 miles long (or 2.97 Telaras).
Okay. Enough. Work awaits.
Angrified,
Aunt Beast
About half an hour after I made the blog entry yesterday, there was a fairly bad seizure. I spent most of the remainder of the day in bed. Spooky brought me Ranier cherries and slices of chipotle cheddar. I sketched and read. Just before sunset, I began to feel better, and had a bath, and dinner, after which I felt much, much better. Another hour, I was good as new. But, all of yesterday was lost, workwise, and now I have to scramble to try to make up for the lost time. I'd like to be back at work on Blood Oranges by Tuesday. I mean to have another three chapters written by the end of the month, at least.
But today, I have Vince's illustration of "Figurehead," and it's the fifth of May, so today pretty much has to be assembly day for Sirenia Digest #67. Tomorrow, I'll make a furiously determined effort to finish up with the galleys of Two Worlds and In Between. Oh, and I need to proof the galleys of "Fish Bride," which is being reprinted in the second issue of S. T. Joshi's Weird Fiction Review. And there are contracts, and...
I need to be writing. There's too much writing needs doing not to be writing.
---
Hopefully, a fair number of you read last month's "book of the month" selection, Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy (if you didn't, or haven't finished, don't apologize; nothing here is compulsory). I mean to write more about Under the Poppy, but I'm going to do so when I'm just a little more awake than I am now. I had a double-dose of the Good Worker Bee Pill last night, and I feel like it.
This month's selection for Aunt Beast's Book of the Month Club is Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants:
You may have seen the movie, which I liked a lot and is a fairly faithful adaptation. But it's no substitute for the novel, which you ought to read. Also, Spooky says the Audible.com adaptation is pretty good. It's unabridged, so you might go that route. Either way, book or audiobook. But, with the actual book-type-book, you get cool vintage circus photos.
---
An utterly moronic article in the Wall Street Journal, "Darkness too Visible," by someone named MEGHAN COX GURDON. Hey, it was in all caps on the website. Truth in journalism, right? The article carries the provocative subtitle, "Contemporary fiction for teens is rife with explicit abuse, violence and depravity. Why is this considered a good idea?" Anyway, obviously Gurdon isn't at all happy about "dark" themes in YA literature. In fact, she's pretty sure that books like Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Game are mangling the minds of impressionable teens everywhere and will, I don't know, lead to mass suicides or something of the sort. The article is...well, read it if you must. But it's most entirely angrifying, fair warning. In response, a Twitter hashtag, #YAsaves, has sprung up, and editors such as
ellen_datlow and authors such as blackholly have weighed in (lending their support to YA).Look at this stinking shithole of a world, people. You really want to sugar-coat literature for the young'uns? You really want to try to insulate them from the difficulties of being a teen, or the hardships they're going to be facing very, very soon (if they aren't already)? Here again, we have the threat of warning labels rearing it's censorious, myopic head.
Whether I'm writing for an adult or a YA audience (and now I do both; also as my agent recently pointed out, Silk, Threshold, and Alabaster would likely now be considered YA), I mean for my fiction to be triggering. That's not a word that ought in speaking of art carry negative connotations. This is the very objective of art, and most especially including fiction: to trigger. To elicit in the mind of the reader a powerful emotional response that will move them, change them, upset or inspire them. We do not "protect" readers from this, else there's no point in writing or reading. We create art that will get their attention and make them think, and will help them survive some nightmare/s past, present, or future. Hey, other kids beside me cut. Other kids have survived rape. Other kids are gay and trans. And, fuck, look at this Catniss chick, what a kick-ass role model. And even if the reader has not experienced or is experiencing some personal trauma, just maybe these books will cause them to behave towards those who have with a little more understanding and sympathy.
Oh. I almost forgot. Gurdon hates dirty words, too. And she segregates the sexes, recommending "books for young men" and "books" for young women." It's still 1945, right?
So, fuck off, MEGHAN COX GURDON. You have the nerve (and are dumb enough) to recommend Fahrenheit 451 - a novel about book burning - in an article calling for censorship. Have you read Bradbury's book, MEGHAN COX GURDON? Do you understand the meaning of the word "irony"?
I'm sure there are many others who responses will be more "civil" and "politic," but I don't feel this nonsense deserves the effort required for either. However, if you'd like to see a really good and thoughtful response, read this post by
kylecassidy, or this post by Laurie Hall Anderson.---
Last night we watched what must be one of the worst films ever committed to celluloid, Chris Sivertson's I Know Who Killed Me (2007). Two words, Lindsay Lohan. Why did I inflict this upon myself? I don't know. Plain and simple. This film is so bad...never mind, there are no adjectives in the English language capable of expressing of the badness of this film. Lohan can't act. The script...wait, what script? Silverton can't direct. The cinematographer spent the whole film in the crapper. It's like after-school-special torture porn. No, that would be better than this movie. Never mind.
---
Last night, Spooky and I measured Telara as best we could. Choosing as our standard the distance between Lantern Hook to the south and the Chancel of Labors in the north, we arrived at a base measurement of 5,500 meters, which I then used to get a north/south measurement on Telara, at the widest visible point of the (sub)"continent". And that measurement was 7,333 meters (+ or -), or about 4.5 miles. I was stunned. Truly. I'd expected to arrive at a measurement of at least 15 miles. As a point of comparison, the island of Manhattan is 13.4 miles long (or 2.97 Telaras).
Okay. Enough. Work awaits.
Angrified,
Aunt Beast
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I would write AMEN to this in twelve-foot-high letters if I could.
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Hallelujah!
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Oh, folks have been attacking YA literature long before it was even called that.
Yep.
People like Meghan Cox Gurdon do not deserve "civil" and "politic" responses. Personally I have no patience with anyone one who would stand between someone of any age and books they want to read.
And yep again.
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Thanks for the WSJ link. I have read the article. As a fledgling YA author and former teacher, these thoughts ...
1.
Meghan Gudron is Not From Planet Earth. Her article constitutes the reminiscences of an adolescence circa 1958. That she would use Hinton's seminal The Outsiders as a benchmark is telling. Was the novel important? Yes. Did it launch YA fiction? The industry perhaps, but she seems to neglect such important writers as Louisa May Alcott, Oscar Wilde, Ian Fleming (all of whom wrote for young adults long before Hinton) - to say nothing of Robert Louis Stevenson whose Treasure Island addressed some pretty raunchy themes (murder, robbery, alcoholism, kidnapping, mutiny) for his time or ours.
2.
Meghan Gudron probably IS From Money. I suspect Meghan adolescence likely consisted of an endless round of tennis matches and Cotillions. Where else could she have avoided the seamy reality of life as it has existed for youngsters since forever but particularly since the 1950s in Western culture? (I offer Harlan's Web of the City by way of illustration.) Don't get me wrong. I'm glad her youth was neat-o keen. But she needs to realize that not everyone else's was the same. And if we get into the even touchier non-PC subject of adolescence in the Third World (particularly as I experienced it working with Central American refugees in the 1980s), well we're going to spin off into a whole other tangent of righteous indignation and her article contains enough of that for all of us, thank you very fucking much.
3.
Meghan Gudron Is Terminally Clueless. Where does she live? I mean really? How long has it been since she road a bus or spoke to an actual real live teen (or one of those nice colored ladies who probably dust her parlor). Has she even been inside a real public high-school since her graduation back when Ike was President? (- the idyllic, Harrison Bergeron-esque world for which she so obviously pines.) The one I taught in in South-Central Tucson was a fucking prison. Only reason I survived there was my wits, my hard head, 30+ years of martial arts training and a willingness to pack a crowbar in my briefcase. Code Blue lock-downs and gang wars were more frequent than I care to relate.
Look, I don't mean to rant (although I probably have). But Caitlin, your blog is probably the one place I could offer these thoughts in a forum where I won't be dismissed as a dick, self-promoter or crack-pot. I know you're (1) a big girl who (2) has seen some shit and who (3) won't hesitate to knock my dick in the dirt if I get out of line in your house. (So if I have, apologies.) But the lily-white world Meghan Gudron lives in has no right to comment on where YA lit has gone (and must go) and it won't stand the light of day outside whatever exclusive literary circles in which she hovers. YA lit is something about which I am passionate and to which I am committed (- although I probably should be, too.)
I am glad that you - as a writer of "dark" fiction - are planning to publish some YA. Fuck yeah. Welcome to the monkey house. Break in through a ground floor window and help the rest of us tear some shit up. Please.
Thanks for listening.
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I do love this post. Thank you.
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And I love your work. Keep it coming.
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Still, teens will read what they want to read, no matter how hard you try to censor the materials aimed at them. When the 'Twilight' *coughTOILETcough* series came out, I was reading Nabokov and 'Battle Royale', and intentionally working my way through the banned book list. If anything, people like her expressing their opinions will only have a reverse effect on the age group they believe they're 'protecting'. So ha.
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I was reading Nabokov and 'Battle Royale', and intentionally working my way through the banned book list.
Booya!
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The Wall Street Journal stopped being a newspaper when Rupert Murdoch made it part of Fox's empire.
You have the nerve (and are dumb enough) to recommend Fahrenheit 451 - a novel about book burning - in an article calling for censorship.
Some days I just want to go around with a T-shirt that reads "IRONY FAIL."
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The Wall Street Journal stopped being a newspaper when Rupert Murdoch made it part of Fox's empire.
This is true of all papers owned by that man.
Some days I just want to go around with a T-shirt that reads "IRONY FAIL."
Works for me.
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But at least, unlike Lindsey Lohan and Julia Ormond, I was not in I Know Who Killed Me a serious contender for worst film I have ever seen. I did not write it or produce it. I merely made the mistake - I am doing a lot of that today - of ordering it from Lovefilm on the assumption that it cannot be as bad as its reputation. It is indeed so much worse than its reputation as to take the breath away.
I just explained it to a friend in AIM
rkaveney2 (01:09:31): Yes, it is one of the total ultimate stinkers
rkaveney2 (01:09:54): The silliest plot ever
rkaveney2 (01:10:00): There is a missing girl
rkaveney2 (01:10:12): An earlier missing girl has turned up dismembered.
rkaveney2 (01:10:24): And dead
P (01:10:33): Generally that comes with dismembering, yes
rkaveney2 (01:10:36): She turns up dismembered but alive
rkaveney2 (01:10:49): Missing hand and leg
P (01:10:51): AUGH
rkaveney2 (01:11:03): She swears she is not who they think she is, but a passing stripper
rkaveney2 (01:11:11): She looks just like the missing girl
rkaveney2 (01:11:33): She keeps swearing that they need to keep looking
rkaveney2 (01:12:04): The feds read a story the missing girl wrote about a passing stripper and do DNA tests - she is identical and they reckon it is PTSD fake identity
P (01:12:26): Twiiiiiins
rkaveney2 (01:12:42): Actually, she is the identical twin of a baby father bought from the crack whore who was having twins in the same ward.
rkaveney2 (01:13:02): And she was not kidnapped by the serial killer - her amputations are TWIN STIGMATA
P (01:15:17): ... wut
rkaveney2 (01:15:28): I know, right
rkaveney2 (01:15:53): So we have Lindsey Lohan with an artificial hand, a missing leg and on crutches FIGHTING CRIME
P (01:16:13): Mostly when you add "fighting crime" to something, it gets BETTER
P (01:16:20): In this case, no
rkaveney2 (01:16:24): With Julia Ormond wittering in thebackground
rkaveney2 (01:17:09): Turns out the serial killer is Mean Piano Teacher punishing smart girls who decide Chopin is Too Hard by taking away their capacity to make music which they have misused
P. (01:17:37): Oh ffs
rkaveney2 (01:17:43): He also has a vast collection of stained glass and artificial legs in his basement for reasons that escaped me because I kept being distracted.
rkaveney2 (01:18:15): There is a whole set of people on the interweb who think the movie is much maligned and that in fact it is a brilliant portrayal of someone's dying dream
rkaveney2 (01:18:31): Were the film not so crappy, this might almost be plausible.
rkaveney2 (01:19:01): Lilo plays the only stripper who never takes off her underwear
rkaveney2 (01:19:21): And looks amazingly healthy for someone reared by a crack whore
It has even taken away the memory of Hugh Grant as Chopin in Impromptu which bored me in the earlier part of the evening and the new ep of Heroes which is amazingly cracktastic.
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I think it was the whole twin think that best typifies it's idiocy.
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Yeah, so... I can be wrong about that.
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Please. I love you. But don't say "hate on." That phrase makes my gorge rise. "Hate" is sufficient.
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After some cursory, VERY cursory websearching, it seems Ms. Cox-Gurdon is actually a fairly young woman, or at least not far into middle age. Which is to say, she's probably not any older than you, Ms. K; likely, younger. According to some other blog posts (whose opinions seem to be no less skewed, although in opposition to hers), she may be considered a "former feminist" in favor of sacrificing eduction and career for the serenity and accomplishment found in homemaking and domestic management. So, yeah.
Actually, I know exactly what I was reminded of with this kind of hysteria that Cox-Gurdon brings up. Quoted/edited here to obscure the original maligned media:
"Supposing you get used to eating sandwiches made with very strong seasonings, with onions and peppers and highly spiced mustard. You will lose your taste for simple bread and butter and for finer food. The same is true of reading strong ... books. If later on you want to read a good novel it may describe how a young boy and girl sit together and watch the rain falling. They talk about themselves and the pages of the book describe what their innermost little thoughts are. This is what is called literature. But you will never be able to appreciate that if ...you expect that at any minute someone will appear and pitch both of them out of the window."
Ignoring the ambiguous and dated racial undertone of the opening of the quote, this kind of argument has been made countless times before. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you view the history of the media in question) with the above, it had a very real and lasting effect on popular consciousness and culture of 20th century America and the formation of youth literature.
The quote is from Dr. Fredric Wertham, by the way. He was trying to protect youth and society from Juvenile Delinquency (good luck there). Cox-Gurdon, on the other hand, seems to only really want to protect youth from ... what, exactly? Lurid literature? Literature that might cause someone to actually think outside of their privileged situation? I'm at a loss.
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Which is to say, she's probably not any older than you, Ms. K; likely, younger.
I was completely unconcerned with her age, and had no knowledge of it. Though, I think Kyle suspected she was quite a bit older. So, she's a living fossil.
Cox-Gurdon, on the other hand, seems to only really want to protect youth from ... what, exactly? Lurid literature? Literature that might cause someone to actually think outside of their privileged situation?
Both, I'd wager. And to protect parents from parenting.
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Sorry, I think I was responding to some of the other comments making personal assessments of her upbringing based on the article. I'm pulling myself away from that at the moment, because it's really not important to the matter at hand.
There's one more thing that I thought about here, and that is: even if I, as a reader, am not a person who's life or sanity or safety is improved by identifying with or discovering characters like myself in a novel - I am improved by the knowledge of such events. I may be a very privileged individual, socially secure, racially/economically favored, with a family devoid of life-threatening dysfunction - but how many people have had their eyes opened to a world more full of suffering and injustice through stories like these? Is it impossible to imagine that a story featuring social isolation, mental turbulence, or other travails might just make one otherwise disinterested passerby, one "normal" person stop and reassess their empathy toward others? One could try debating that stories written of extreme circumstances and suffering inspire others to go on and commit these self-same acts. But I think it is inarguable that these same stories inspire far more people to act against that suffering, even if it is just to write their own story down.
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Sorry, I think I was responding to some of the other comments making personal assessments of her upbringing based on the article. I'm pulling myself away from that at the moment, because it's really not important to the matter at hand.
Regardless of her actual age, she's clearly living in another decade. So, I think we should speak of her apparent effective age.
but how many people have had their eyes opened to a world more full of suffering and injustice through stories like these? Is it impossible to imagine that a story featuring social isolation, mental turbulence, or other travails might just make one otherwise disinterested passerby, one "normal" person stop and reassess their empathy toward others? One could try debating that stories written of extreme circumstances and suffering inspire others to go on and commit these self-same acts. But I think it is inarguable that these same stories inspire far more people to act against that suffering, even if it is just to write their own story down.
Or, as I said above, "And even if the reader has not experienced or is experiencing some personal trauma, just maybe these books will cause them to behave towards those who have with a little more understanding and sympathy."
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*facepalm* Sorry about that.
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Here's hoping the seizures leave you be.
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Here's hoping the seizures leave you be.
Thank you. This one came as a surprise.
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For crap's sake, did GURDON never read Victorian literature in high school?? Nothing YA I've read recently was as horrific to me as the implications in "Jane Eyre" or "A Little Princess."
All evidence seems to indicate she has not.
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For crap's sake, did GURDON never read?
All evidence seems to indicate she has not.
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I am so sorry - that really was incredibly, incredibly bad. I can't exactly say I blame it on LiLo. Not because I think she should be defended, but that whole film was just dreck - salvaging it was far beyond her lack of skill and I would offer up that the blame firmly rests upon the shoulders of the director and producers.
Ugh. I had managed to forget that movie had even existed.
D.
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Ugh. I had managed to forget that movie had even existed.
Apologies for the reminder.
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I Know Who Killed Me is the sort of movie that, with a little nudge one way or another, might've been brilliant. When you're making a nonsensical thriller, you need to go big or stay home, and this one needed to go huge. There was a line in the ScreenIt! synopsis that gave me hope:
Dakota uses her robotic prosthetic arm to break the glass on the top of a coffin.
I adore that sentence and wish the movie were worthy of it.
Incidentally, Chris Sivertson was an early collaborator of Lucky McKee's. Imagine McKee making the film, with Angela Bettis in the Lohan role, and you've got what this could've been.
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I Know Who Killed Me is the sort of movie that, with a little nudge one way or another, might've been brilliant.
Well, I'd argue it needs a big shove, not a nudge. But I kept thinking about what David Lynch or Neil Jordan could have done with it. The director was clearly trying to ape both.
I adore that sentence and wish the movie were worthy of it.
Agreed.
Incidentally, Chris Sivertson was an early collaborator of Lucky McKee's. Imagine McKee making the film, with Angela Bettis in the Lohan role, and you've got what this could've been.
Hah! I said the same thing to Spooky, while we were suffering it!
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The Lohan thing, the parts were all there, but it needed a director who looked at the script and said 'This is fucking goofy — let's run with that.' At the very least, De Palma after taking some psilocybins. Instead you just sort of had a lot of violence that was more unpleasant than it really needed to be, and poor Lohan trying to exorcise some demons. I actually like her, and I like the idea of what she was trying for here, but the movie just isn't bad enough to be fun.
Also, the woman who runs the strip club played the scary bum in Mulholland Drive.
*Needless to say, I can't listen to this now with a straight face. **
**Not that I ever could, really.
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Yeah, definitely part Laura/Madeleine, part whatever the fuck Jordan was getting at in In Dreams. I really need to watch In Dreams again, because usually bugfuck thrillers are up my alley, but that one escaped me; maybe I just wasn't in the right mood.
I actually loved In Dreams, though I've always felt like I was the only one who did.
Also, the woman who runs the strip club played the scary bum in Mulholland Drive.
She was the only thing in the movie that struck the appropriate chord a utter bugfuck weird.
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And, of course, I agree with "triggering" people through all kinds of art, and other avenues, too. Trigger away.
Also, I HATE that you have seizures. I really, really do.
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It's the 5th of June, not May -- maybe this was mentioned already? (Erm, I didn't read every word of every comment.)
Whichever. In the end, what's a month, give or take.
And, of course, I agree with "triggering" people through all kinds of art, and other avenues, too. Trigger away.
It's a living. Sort of.
Also, I HATE that you have seizures. I really, really do.
Both of us.
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I think we were watching the Disinfo series DVD, anyway she was definitely soliciting an explanation of whatever it was and an interpretation of the underlying message. So I pointed out to her that art doesn't necessarily say anything, much of the best art asks. It asks the viewer to think about something, it challenges the viewer to invest it with meaning.
Beauty for beauty's sake is one thing, but we didn't need a thousand recuts of Bladerunner clarifying the meaning. It, like so much in this world, was a far better question than it could ever be an answer.
The world we live in demands ambiguity and questions, but too many people living in it demand dogma and answers. Modern society is made up predominately of people too immature to handle it.
Censoring art because a viewer doesn't like the meaning they invest in it is a bit like saying that because wool sweaters make me itchy no one should have wool sweaters. It's stupid. Wool sweaters don't hurt anyone, some people love them, and my discomfort at wool sweaters is hardly reasonable grounds to force wool lovers to wear fleece or polyester.
Yes, art is a woolly sweater. Actually that sounds like a song.
Oh art is a woolly sweater,
It makes some people itch,
But some people like the texture,
So shut up you stupid bitch.
No you can't take away my sweater,
MEGHAN COX GURDON
No you won't take away my sweater,
Not from my cold, dead hands.
Some people groove on corduroy,
Well now I just think that's mad
Some people wear ugg boots outside
Some wear spots with plaid,
But you can't take away my sweater,
MEGHAN COX GURDON
No you won't take away my sweater,
Not from my cold, dead hands.
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Part of the reason that children and young adults respond to "dark themes" is because, as you point out, the world around them is full of darkness. Stories are a way to help them grapple with that in a safer way, they always have been. They're also good entertainment.
It seems as though the author if this article has built up a nice fantasy world of "how it used to be" in her head and then wrote based on that. Heaven forbid she let the truth stand in the way of a good opinion.