Foster on Film

When I started writing this I was going to name it “Handicapping the Hugos,” but then I saw that some unknown writer, who also swiped my idea for a book series focusing on a coming season (mine was Spring is Coming. Think that would sell?) had done his own handicapping, and with that title. So, a re-title, a bit of a re-write to go in his order if you want to compare, and away we go. (If you don’t like the whys, skip down 5 paragraphs)

The Hugos are usually hard to call, and this year the unknowns are too high. Those unknowns are the large number of new voters. There’s over 2000 more votes than last year. The winners will be determined by who those 2000+ are. One possibility is that they are “unaligned,” coming into the Hugos due to the added publicity, but not having any political views. I find that incredibly unlikely. I’ll give it a 1%. I think these new voters fall into one of three categories.

Puppy Supporters – And extreme ones. No one jumped into this because they have a mild interest in upsetting the apple cart. No, if they’re pups, they’re frothy, and will be voting for the party. Their only problem is since most of the candidates are from the party, sometimes their voting strength will be defuse. But in a few categories, a small number of people could rule. Chances are they haven’t read many of the works.

Anti-Pups – That’s me. The goal is to stop the pups from destroying the Hugos in the long term, knowing that this year is already a lost cause. The racism and sexism, not to mention the reactionary philosophy of the pups are what brought in these voters. They’ll use “No Award” often, and tend to vote against any pup. There will be some cross-overs (in dramatic presentation categories, and where the nominees made it clear they want nothing to do with the slate that got them there), but for the most part, slate candidates will get nothing from these folks.

Fandom Defenders – These are the folks who want to pretend that if we just act as we always have (except to vote this year) things will be OK and people will be happy. These people will be operating with the philosophy that each work should be considered on merit alone, so will cross over as they see fit. However, they will see the pups as attacking fandom, so they will be suspicious of pups, and no matter their general philosophy, they won’t vote for Vox Day or John C. Wright. If they are more informed, you can add Tom Kratman to that list. Chances are they’ve haven’t read all the works. Continue reading »

The recent outpouring of anger over the slaughter of Cecil has brought to mind Eugie and a fundamental truth about her.

An aside: For anyone who’s somehow missed it, or is reading this three years from now when everyone has unfortunately forgotten all about it, Walter Palmer, an American and human pile of waste paid enough to support a family for a year, to travel to Africa, bribe some officials, and than murder, behead, and skin a lion. To do this, he lured the lion out of a nature preserve where it would be illegal to kill it, wounded it with an arrow, and then followed it about until finally killing it with a rifle much later. The vile slimeball made one mistake. He killed a collared and very friendly and popular lion. He’s stated that there was his error, as it is apparently just fine to kill less popular animals. It also turns out it wasn’t legal to kill lions on the land he lured it onto, and hopefully that will bite him in the ass before this is done.

There’s been a great deal of outrage on social media over this senseless act, but in my streams, it has been controlled—nearing on polite (except when someone wants to use it to point out some other issue). It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a more basic, savage, unrestrained response that I noticed what was missing: Eugie’s voice. Oh, not on the Internet where people go to howl at the wind, but to me. Eugie would have been livid. Her anger would have been fierce, her expression pure. Eugie was a creature of anger. Or as she would put it, she was on good terms with her malice.

This anger was not pointed at me. We hadn’t had a fight in well over a decade. Maybe two. Too long ago to remember. She would snap, when some external influence was ripping at her (cancer comes to mind), but immediately apologize and it would be gone. I was not the target. And her true targets would seldom know it. She was not much for useless displays. Though at home, she would lay in my arms and pull down the vengeance of the universe on the very deserving.

As I said, she was a creature of anger. That’s not a surprise. She had a difficult relationship with her mother, a woman who never understood this culture and why her daughter couldn’t be a good Chinese girl—and considering how I saw her mother reacting to those who shared her background, I don’t think being a good Chinese girl would have helped. Eugie went through foster homes, and once jail—unlawfully as was grudgingly admitted later. Growing up in a racist society was a factor as well: years of “slant-eyes,” the racial slur of choice for central Illinois children in the ’70s. Racism against Asian Americans is present everywhere, yet no one notices it, and it becomes funny, if you are capable of seeing the humor. I met Eugie in a college progressive organization. They were fighting racism on campus, and no one ever said anything about Asians. Apparently it only affects others. Ah, with allies like those…

Back in those years Eugie’s anger was less focused than it would later become. Not wild, not out of control, but not the laser it would one day be. Even then it served her well. It had protected her and gotten her away from home at age sixteen—an excellent age to leave home by the way. Everyone should get out at sixteen, but that’s a matter for another time.

You see, for her, rage was a shield. Nothing could harm her through it. Racist comments were burned away. The crassness and stupidity all around, and a past most couldn’t deal with, she walked through, secure and strong. She had no need for trigger warnings. No fear of uncomfortable realities. Where I face the discomforts of the world bolstered with pride, she did it with fury.

Anger was always her protection, though it was less necessary over time. It became her fuel. It would drive her to do more, learn more, become more. Be smarter, quicker.

People don’t understand anger, or perhaps I should say they fail to understand their own anger. They let it simmer inside, eating away at their mind, their humanity, their happiness, and then erupt, saying or doing something stupid, and then it fades away again. That’s the reaction of children, and children who never grew up. It controls them. Eugie controlled it, or better, focused it.

The internet is filled with angry rants, vicious diatribes. It’s taken anger to a performance art, with screaming and obscenities tossed about as if this has great meaning and will change the world. It doesn’t and it won’t. It’s children with keyboards, even if the children are thirty.

Eugie would use it to create. Have you read her horror stories? None of them are collected currently. I’ll have to do something about that. Each is bestial, harsh. They are heavy and merciless; exactly what horror should be, and almost never is. Each tale was born of rage. In later years, she wrote less horror, but the rage can still be found, in dark fantasies, such as The Bunny of Vengeance and the Bear of Death or light ones, like Trixie and the Pandas of Dread.

Anger is what got her through her cancer treatments, until it no longer mattered. It chased away pain and kept her spirits up. On her last visit to the hospital, she was particularly uncomfortable. She couldn’t breath, and pain was lancing through her. I called a nurse, who proceeded to tell Eugie how she had no say in her own treatment. Eugie’s eyes blazed and she snapped at the nurse to leave. She turned to me and smiled saying that now that she was angry, she no longer felt the pain.

She would joke about how people reacted to us, particularly to her. How often someone would say she was gentle and good natured and kind. She was kind, or could be. But not gentle. Never gentle. It was my job to be the voice of reason, of calm. I was the nice one. She was lightning. She was beauty and intensity. If she was a goddess, she would be vengeance. Because of those perceptions, when she did let the fire through, people would jump. No one expected to see that fire and didn’t want to see it again, except me, but then, I was immune.

She loved The Avengers. It was her favorite cancer viewing movie. There are many reasons for this, but one is Bruce Banner’s secret. When he said, “That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry,” Eugie cried out gleefully, “Yes!” Someone else understood her, someone besides me. Not that she’d like to be compared to The Hulk—too brutish. Now She-Hulk… maybe. The façade of calm over the seething power of anger, all tightly focused, that was her.

She subtitled for first collection of short stores, And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice. She was referring to herself. She was whimsy and malice. I’ll save the whimsy for another time. For today, it’s malice, and that is one of the ways Eugie was spectacular.

So I just got in from cutting the lawn–cutting the lawn under the blazing, life-sapping, blinding Georgia sun. Sweat dripping down my face, a general feverish heat clinging to my skin. But hey, now I have shorter grass. And there was no one to stop me going out to do so. You see, Eugie didn’t care about lawns. At all. Not a bit. Short grass, tall grass, poison ivy, triffids, it was all the same to her. As long as it stayed outside, it could be a jungle or a desert, she didn’t care.

She did care about me going out and working in the lawn, or better stated, she cared that I not do so. She cared because it was unpleasant, and she didn’t want me doing things that were unpleasant, and because physical labor in such heat was unhealthy. My health and happiness, those were things she cared about.

Now I didn’t disagree with her in any way. I am sure that someone, somewhere, can come up with a psychological explanation for people wishing to have the fronts of their homes covered by a one inch green carpet of living symmetry–something about people’s inability to process anything different I suppose–but I haven’t heard it yet. So I was in complete agreement with Eugie, yet I would still attempt to go out and cut the lawn. This was not for me, or her, but because of the bizarre organization that people happily forfeit their freedom to: The Home Owners Association. I didn’t want trouble from these forces from the twisted inferno. So, from time to time I’d put on my ripped pants and an old t-shirt and head toward the door, and hear:

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to cut the lawn?”

“No.”

“But it’s getting like, a foot long.”

“It’s too hot. And that’s too much work. It could make you sick. It’s not good for you and I want you healthy. Come sit with me on the couch.”

“The HOA is going to freak.”

“Fuck them. What are they going to do? They can put a lien on the house, which will matter when we want to sell the house. But we’re never selling the house. So, fuck them. Come sit with me.”

And I would. And that would be that. And that is one of the ways Eugie was spectacular.

The 4th of July is almost upon us. A US holiday, and the first 4th that I will see alone. Luckily, I haven’t held much affection for Independence Day since I was a kid, when I used to go to a local carnival, and I have no problems with those memories. My wife and I had no traditions for the 4th and formed no great memories connected to it. For the last ten years, its been that day that the skunks were frightened. It has the same emotional resonance with me as the 3rd of July or the 13th of June. It is an oddity of life that I appreciate days that mean nothing to me. So this is my first 4th, but not my First, with a capital “F.”

Firsts are the closest thing to a universal I’ve found among mourners. I have heard about Firsts in every grief group, and from everyone grieving  I’ve spoken to, or those who had been grieving but seem to no longer be. They speak of Firsts. The first time something happens since the death. The first birthday, the first Christmas. The first anniversary. Every holiday is a First to survive. The often unspoken, but occasionally stated concept under this is that once you get through a First, it won’t be as bad. You’ve survived it, and now can move on.

Survivors, in the non-literal sense, has become very popular. I’m unimpressed. I’m a survivor in the literal sense, in that I survived, and she did not. I’ve no interest in playing with the term in other ways.

I’ve also no interest in Firsts.

I’ve had them. My first Christmas without her, which I got through by ignoring its existence. Her birthday–the same. There’s been many days that held some importance to us, that held special memories, and all have been little horror shows. But I take them as firsts, not Firsts. Next year I expect to have seconds, and then thirds. So far, nothing has given me any expectation that a second or third or forth will be any better than a first, and the idea is a bit insulting. As if her importance can just fade with time. It’s been nine months, and the wound is as fresh and open as it was the second week. Will it be in two years? I don’t know. I’m not that good a psychologist. That was Eugie’s area. I think it will be, and I have seldom been wrong about my own reactions, but time will supply the data.

At least there will be little new data from this holiday, and for that, I am grateful.

So, after all the screaming and shouting and threats and pain–I mean on Facebook and blogs, not in Westeros–I finally got around to Season 5 of Game of Thrones and it was…Not Bad. It was a little slow, a bit dull in spots, but had a pretty good final two episodes, so I give it a “not bad.”

What it wasn’t was frightening, edgy, shocking, or controversial. People and news writers having a slow day liked to whine and complain how this season somehow did something that hadn’t been done before. Nope. Or just did some “edgy” things too often. Definitely nope. Why people don’t want fictional bad guys to do bad things is beyond me. The complaints and “suggestions” have been amusing to read.  (The funniest comment I ran into was one that was upset that Sansa Stark had not suddenly transformed into an action hero, grabbed a weapon, and killed a far stronger individual in a non-combat situation–That wouldn’t have violated the character or the society or the story at all; I can only guess someone suggesting that has never read a book…or lived in the world.)

Now if you wish to claim all of Game of Thrones pushes the envelop, I’ll go with that. Not my envelop, but I can see how it might push someone else’s. But Season 5? No, this was a tame season. Less blood. Far less gore in general. Less sex. Less nudity. Less oppression and cruelty. Not a single head was crushed with eyes gouged out and blood spraying everywhere (now that was a season that pushed things). Really, for the first 6 episodes, almost nothing of any kind happened. Characters lounged around a lot. They discussed politics and the snow. A few unpleasant things happened here and there, but nothing that deserved much conversation.

The one thing of note for the Season was how safe it all seemed–cinematically. The camera avoided the unpleasant when it should have grabbed it and shoved it down our throats. We should be made to feel uneasy from what is on screen, not from whatever baggage we bring to the viewing.

I sound pretty negative, but starting about three-quarters of the way through the seventh episode, things picked up. Finally people (and non-people) started stabbing each other. Finally the plot progressed. It would have been better not to have so many non-event episodes, but the activity in the final eps made Season 5 one of the weaker seasons, but still acceptable TV.

We also got a few nice character deaths (I’ll skip names). Nothing nearly as satisfying as Season 4 supplied, but still, a few happy little deaths. There is talk online (as there always is) that one of the deaths will be reversed. That would be unfortunate as he was an annoying character and his death makes Westeros’s sun shine a little brighter, but I do understand the speculation. Too much time was  spent on a mystery connected to the character. Killing him makes all that time wasted–not a good thing for a TV series, or a book. Unless Martin and co have another way to make the mystery relevant, there is a structural problem if the character is not resurrected, and a general problem if he is.

As those of you who are following my every word and wait with bated breath for my next post know (that would be you Frank), I support voting No Award in all illegitimate categories this year, as well as for those with too few legitimate nominations to make the vote meaningful. That leaves 4 categories and Graphic Story is one of them. So for a change, I get to play reviewer. Looking at each nominee, in reverse order of how I will vote for them:

6. The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate

As this was a Pup slate nominee, it was getting last anyway, but it also earned it. There’s nothing wrong with it. It isn’t unprofessional or offensive or any other negative term I could come up with; it is just completely outclassed. This is a minor league cartoon book getting stuck in the majors. It is like many, many other cartoons I run into on the Internet. If I happen upon something like this, I might read one or two jokes, and then done. I wouldn’t bother to search it out again, but it was fine to have run into it.

I feel a little sorry for it. It shouldn’t be reviewed with the big boys. It is what it is and that’s fine. Award-worthy? No.

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