The Snow White Selfie Shoot

Being a princess isn't all dancing around in long skirts and communing with nature. Often you are expected to develop artistic skills, making you more of an ornament to the court. Sketching and music are reasonable pursuits.

If you have a wicked stepmother, things are different. You may be expected to labor, with chores so difficult that it makes taking care of seven miners for room and board seem like a good deal. Fortunately, you can often get your animal friends to help you, or at least not get in the way.

Well, maybe not cats so much. Woodland creatures might work better.

But greyhounds are kind of like deer, right?

The witch with the apple looks awfully familiar. Is she really just my stepmother?

I thought apples were supposed to be good for you.

I was tired anyway.

I have to wake myself up, because there's still no prince.

Maybe that will be a different story.

Dressing up: Halloween edition

If you have been following along, there were four components to dressing up. One was going bare-legged more. I may take a break on that one for a few months, but it was the easiest to do.

Next up was trying cosplay. I did that at Comic-Con and it was fine. That brings us to Halloween.

Because the point of this is reconciling with my appearance - as I am - I had been leaning toward Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She is full-figured and still owns her sexuality. She may be evil, but her self-esteem is strong. There were Ursula costumes available, but the tentacles seem to drive the price up. In a way very similar to Comic-Con, the date started sneaking up on me where I would have to do something soon or miss it.

One of the first things I realized is that a big part of my not dressing up for years is the dread of trying to find something my size. Everything is standard, and standard is smaller than me. Still, the internet has made shopping easier. I searched on plus size Halloween costumes and started finding some options, including options for me.

I am very grateful for halloweencostumes.com. Suddenly there were many options, and they weren't even all sexy. There were multiple choices available, with some out of stock and some much more expensive than I could justify. The best option ended up being Snow White. From new Disney villain to original Disney princess? I hadn't been a princess since fourth grade. But somehow there I was ordering it.

Even though they had extended sizing (as opposed to only regular and extra large), so it was reasonable to believe it would fit, I was still scared. I have gotten so used to feeling like a freak and a monster that I had to have a backup plan, where if it didn't fit I was just going to wear all black and the witch hat I have from a few years ago. It fit. I could be a Disney princess.

I had wanted to wear it somewhere to really make it count for growth and achievement, and there just wasn't anywhere to go. I had been thinking karaoke, but before Halloween I had been invited to another karaoke thing, so really, all I did was hand out candy. There were two things about that.

First of all, the younger kids seem to enjoy having the door answered by someone in costume. I don't remember it happening when I was young, so I wasn't expecting that. But anyway, okay, dressing up can involve thinking of the children.

The other thing was that I did still feel like I needed to do something more with it. Make the most of it. I'm trying to heal years of self-doubt here. I figured out what to do, and that will go up tomorrow.

That just leaves dressing up nicely sometime over the holiday season. That can involve using clothing I already own, which will be very helpful. It will need to involve going out though.

At some point I will figure that out, and it will be a blog post. With photos!

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/09/dressing-up.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/09/my-first-cosplay.html

Curses

I found an intersection between the personal and the political blogging. One of the books on the long reading list was Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr, and last week I used profanity politically:

https://www.facebook.com/sporktastic/posts/10154786172239074?pnref=story

I was very angry, but still collected. Using the F-word so generously was a deliberate choice. There was some shock, which I think caused people to read it in a different frame of mind than they might otherwise do. I believe my first public use of profanity was effective.

(Because of the ensuing discussion, that has become its own thing where I am doing daily Facebook posts that I futilely try to keep short, but may be useful to some and can free up the blog for the personal stuff which is probably more effective anyway. If we're not friends on Facebook and you want to be, let me know.)

I don't believe it would have been nearly as effective if I swore on a regular basis. It's not a new habit, but it was a tool that I used, and one that I have been thinking about differently since reading the book.

First of all, let me recommend the book. There is etymology and history and a lot of the interrelated things that you might not think about. For example, many words for bodily functions were not considered obscene when families were sleeping in the same bed and using the privy at the same time. That changed as privacy became a thing, which was related to bigger houses with more rooms which related to economic trends and the historical events that set the economic trends in motion.

I thought about how we use swearing a lot while reading. It didn't change my overall views, but it reinforced some things. When I talk about profanity as a tool, it goes back to the reason I read the book, and the swearing that I would have justified even years ago.

Like so many thing in the building of the long reading list, it started with a tweet. One girl tweeted that her mother called her b*tch and c*nt more than she ever heard her own name. (Yes, I will still be editing them out most of the time. But I didn't edit the book title - that asterisk is on the cover.)

It seemed profoundly sad, and yet there was a strength to the way she tweeted and the way she is in general. I was thinking of all the ways that girls and women are addressed - sometimes openly diminishing but often not obviously so - that's why I needed to check the book out. And the book wasn't really about that, but it was still a really interesting book.

That particular issue will come up more with the Slut! book, which we will get to.

For now, just words? Or not just words? It's both. We can use language carelessly, and have results we don't intend. We can use language deliberately and be very harmful or very helpful.

I try and use my words in a good way, which may incorporate shocking people, making them uncomfortable, and even offending them. Even when I get it wrong, I can promise you that I have thought about it.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-very-long-reading-list.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/08/profanity.html

Band Review: Pura Fé

Pura Fé is also one I found through the Women of the Four Winds tour, but it has been much easier finding and listening to her music. Some of her links focus on her trio, but there is a lot of information available, and while there are no upcoming shows listed the history shows some fairly recent dates.

One thing I appreciated is that while she has a variety of styles she can perform in, the albums are very focused. The songs selected for each album go together well and form a good whole. On Hold the Rain you hear Blues, and the guitar on the final track, "True Freedom" is blues sublime. For a disciple of Charley Patton and an influencer of Taj Mahal, that makes sense for Pura Fé. But then on Follow Your Heart's Desire you hear the influence of her First Nations heritage more, and then on Caution To The Wind you hear more jazz and it is a different mood again.

This unity makes each album more effective, so that a mood and message is conveyed without great effort on the part of the listener. It also provides a good reason to put in effort, listen more deeply, and hear why and how the album took its respective form.

I enjoyed the bounce and the romance of Caution To The Wind (maybe I just needed to feel something more "up" this week). Even while that appealed to me, it also includes the haunting and beautiful, "This is Progress". It works, and belongs there, but it stays with you in a different way.

There is a lot being offered here.

http://purafe.com/

https://www.facebook.com/purafetrio/

https://www.youtube.com/user/purafe

https://twitter.com/purafetrio

Band Review: Wayquay

Wayquay was also part of the Women of the Four Winds tour.

She makes interesting use of techno elements without it really becoming techno music. I would classify it still as rock, but synthesizer is used as an accent, emphasizing and affecting the mood of each song. There are aspects to "Navigate" that remind me of early Blondie. It is completely distinct, but if people like punk disco melding with rap, that could be a reason to check Wayquay out.

I also sometimes hear a Blues influence, like on "Overnight", but the overall impression is that she gets some really interesting musical textures, taking tracks in different directions.

I could not find evidence of a strong social media presence, with a Soundcloud and Twitter that aren't used and the music on Myspace and Youtube not being very easy to navigate, so there is room from improvement there. For right now going to Myspace and clicking on "Music" and "Play all" is the best bet, and it won't be as many songs as it looks like. Still worth doing.

https://myspace.com/wayquay

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS_KXZtSfGbtgfiV4ZcpdNw

Regrouping

I guess I am not done with this election after all.

I'm not sure how much that changes what I have had in mind to write for next. On one level, I feel like any self-improvement and examination I want to do had better be done quickly, because life feels very unstable.

On the other hand, how much has it helped? All the reading where I try and understand everything, and all the times where I engaged tenaciously and with care, what has any of it really accomplished? Not that I expected to influence the election - I said I didn't think I could. Even so, seeing that there are that many people who chose racism and fascism, well, I see the attraction of nihilism. What is the point?

But realistically I'm not going to become a nihilist.

I care and I try. My personality is pretty well set. It has been hard feeling so poor and isolated and tied down, like there's not much that I even can do, but a lot of people are talking about organizing. Maybe there are things I can do that I haven't thought of.

This is something that I thought I would write about today anyway. A week ago I had hope for the election, but not a lot for myself. I have come to see how much the last job loss and this one hurt my employment prospects. It doesn't matter whether there was an economic downturn or how good I was at different jobs; it's like taking a pay cut then and looking while unemployed means that I will have to take another pay cut. Realizing that when I am contemplating become Mom's home health worker - which fills several needs but is a cut in pay and prestige - well, it looked like a pretty bleak future.

What helped was not that now everyone has a bleak future, but before that a friend reached out and came and got me, solving all concerns about time and transportation and money. She gave me a chance to talk and laugh and maybe cry some but also to be enjoyed. Then another friend called and set up a time to get together. I knew I needed socialization, but I was too low to muster the effort to arrange it. People came through for me.

Then, after I got home from that, a message I had sent a while ago (August 30th actually) suddenly had an answer, because I had reached out to someone, and we got to relate to each other, and boost each other. I do have some impact.

So I have to keep being me, because I don't really know any other way to be.

It does feel like I might start swearing.

Back to me

While I do still have things to say about the state of the world, I have been needing to get back to personal writing, and maybe today is the right time. I have some stories with some hardship, but also there were people who were good to me, and maybe that makes these stories good for this time. After all, for as much as ordinary people can be horrible, they can be good too, and they often are.

About a month ago I had a doctor's appointment. I had rescheduled twice due to financial concerns, and I knew I just needed to get it over with. The rescheduled time happened to be while my younger sisters were out of town, so leaving Mom alone was a worry. My older sister was going to pick her up and have her hang out for a while there.

She was a little late (and didn't even offer me a ride to the bus stop or a MAX station or anything), but I made the bus that I needed to and was not going to be late.

I felt good about that. I also felt good because I had been getting more patient with Mom. I had been able to field her questions more gently. I wasn't actually getting her to believe we were at home, but there hadn't been any really bad moments for a few days. Yes, there were concerns about paying for this appointment and concerns about being out of insulin, but it still kind of felt like I was handling my life better.

Then I got to the doctors office and found out I was a day late.

Against all odds, there was an open slot an hour later, and they could get me in. I got that set up, then went to the bathroom and spent a few moments crying and hating myself. I wasn't getting better! I was just a stupid bonehead who couldn't get anything right! I didn't even know what day it was!

Maybe it was the strain of that day, or having Julie and Maria gone, or something about the time at Misty's apartment, but that night Mom was really persistent about asking to go home, and then she asked about her church calling - from which she had been released, at my request, because I had been doing it - and then there were bruised feelings again, and neither of us handled it well. And then she forgot it, which is the one good thing about this disease.

That was a hard day, but things happened that needed to happen. I got some more insulin samples to keep me going a bit longer, and my doctor recommended an alternative that is more affordable. It involves going to Wal-Mart, because they are the only ones who carry it, so there goes my last vestige of pride in social consciousness there, but I always understood that there were people needed to go there. Now I am one of them.

The good part is that people were helpful. The office manager was so kind. She saw how on the edge I was, and talked me down. I mean, I still needed to cry, but some kindness can really help. My medication will be about $100 a month instead of $900. I'll take that.

And I was not better with Mom that night, but I was the next day. I am spotting new things that give me ideas for how to help. There are things I can't fix, so there are always adjustments to be made. That will keep happening. I will keep getting new blank slates with her, and if that's less than ideal, there are ways in which it helps.

So I'm pretty reluctant to congratulate myself on getting better now, but I am at least not getting worse.

The devil inside

This post could have easily been titled "Sympathy for the devil". It was inspired by a recent run of think pieces trying to empathize with the Trump voters, because they have had it rough, and they aren't being racist on purpose.

I can give credit for not being evil on purpose, but I think deliberately evil masterminds are still pretty rare. However, when people are ignorant or greedy enough to downplay qualms - so they have this feeling that something might be kind of bad here but ignore it for whatever self-interested reason - that leads to a lot of horror. I can't give too much credit for that.

I do see value in trying to understand how people get this way. If you want to dismantle that, a base understanding should be helpful. Sympathy for them over sympathy for the people who are being racially profiled, or underpaid, or having their neighborhoods filled with toxins, or having their voting rights illegally stripped in an effort to maintain this abusive status quo, well, that seems misguided, and improperly prioritized.

This post is really more for those who feel guilt coming from both sides. Maybe you are socially conscious, and you try to be aware of your privilege but you have friends and family members who buy into it all. Letting them say it is uncomfortable and arguing with them is awful.

This is your periodic reminder that people can do pretty awful things without being worse than the average person. You have to make peace with that.

I'm going to speak a little more religiously today, starting right in with the Sermon on the Mount:

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"

(Matthew 5:46-47)

The publicans were reviled as a class, but even they were civil with family and loving with friends. You do not have to be a great person to do that. Some of that comes from cultural expectations, though natural feelings play a part.

We have bad feelings too, though, and there may be times when it is culturally acceptable to be abusive. Some of our more famous examples come from Vietnam, but one example that stuck with me came from a book, Facing the Enemy by Dean Hughes.

I believe it was part of a series; I was given it as a gift. It followed the adventures of a young Mormon boy in Far West Missouri. This book covered the Haun's Mill Massacre, but he also learns of the Danites - a band of Mormons seeking vengeance on the settlers around them. He helps a woman forced out of her home by Danites, but there is also a part where his mother is nearly raped by non-Mormons who are forcing the Mormons out of the area.

What happens is that she speaks very calmly to the men and tells them that she hopes they will tell their families how brave they were, and they slink off. That wouldn't always work, but in this case it did, and it went along with the discussion she then has with her son, reminding him that they have wives and children that they love.

The men at Haun's Mill who hacked an old man to death with a knife and shot a little boy in the head were human too. They may not have considered Mormons fully human, because they could be murderers there and then go home and plant crops and share meals with their families, but people do that. You can be appalled by it, but it still happens.

I can't tell you whether in any one situation it is worth engaging or not. My brother was here recently and ended many thoughts with "if you keep voting the way you do". We didn't bite because we promised Mom we wouldn't, and hey, he clearly does know how we vote, so we at least don't need to clarify that.

I did call him out once, a different time, to straight out ask if he was calling us stupid, and no, he was not going that far. It might have helped a little. I messaged another guy on Facebook, and he still contradicts my posts, but he has stopped doing so with name-calling. Progress? Enough progress to be worth the effort? I don't know. I just do what feels right at the moment, thinking about things all the time.

But there is one other story that comes to mind. It came from the documentary Slavery By Another Name, which I recommend, but I am only going to link to a short clip here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHUyrcHDbMw

Her great-grandfather killed eleven men because he had been illegally using them as slaves after emancipation, and he didn't want to get into trouble for it. Her family through him told a story of hardened criminals trying to escape so they could have their patriarch not be a mass-murderer.

If she can process that, you can process your uncle telling racist jokes or your cousin voting for Trump. You can see their humanity and know that they are wrong at the same time. Humanity is messy, but it's what we've got.

I still can't tell you how to handle your holiday dinners.

Band Review: Michael Bucher

Michael Bucher ended up on the review list when his manager followed me. I'm not sure I even realized initially that he was Cherokee. Then, when researching him, I found something alarming:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/02/10/cherokee-folk-musician-michael-bucher-loses-three-fingers-accident-159133

Of course the first thought on seeing that a guitarist has lost three fingers is horror, and knowing that he sings too doesn't really change that, but in the article he sounded very optimistic.

“This is only a transition in my life and nothing—I mean nothing—will stop me from playing the songs of my ancestors for the benefit of my fans in Indian country.”

It struck me more because one of my characters has been through that. In Family Ghosts an injury temporarily keeps one guitar player from playing. It is emotionally grueling, with a lot of fear about whether recovery will even be complete. He takes comfort in Django Reinhardt and Tommy Iommi, and their triumph over injuries, and that is something that can happen. I can only wish Michael Bucher all the best. I believe there will be more music.

For his currently existing music, there is a nice variety. I appreciate that "Never Meant to Make You Bleed" doesn't devolve into country, which would have been an easy way to go. Some songs are very blues-y, especially "Fat Cats", with along with "Dirty Water" underscores Bucher's social consciousness. His personal content is full of links for important causes, especially suicide prevention.

Native elements are more pronounced in some tracks, like "Eagle Song", but even when the song is more traditionally rock, there are often important messages drawing from history. "Don't Forget About Me" is powerful and true.

Bucher also has a lovely instrumental version of "Amazing Grace".  It may give the greatest sense of what was lost in the accident, but does not lose hope of it being found again, even if the way it is found cannot currently be seen.

http://www.michaelbucher.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CherokeeMusicianMichaelBucher

https://www.reverbnation.com/michaelbucher7

https://www.youtube.com/user/michaelbucher

https://twitter.com/MichaelBucher

Band Review: Davidica Little Spotted Horse

Davidica Little Spotted Horse first came to my attention because of the Women of the Four Winds tour, as featured in For the Generations. I had thought she was the organizer, but she has been performing as well.

One thing that has been frustrating is that I know she has more music than I am finding. Between ReverbNation and MySpace I have found a total of four songs, but she refers to at least one other, and it stands to reason that a touring musician will have more than four songs in her repertoire.

Based on those four, there is a driving rock pulse to her songs, perhaps most evident in "U Trust Who" and "Inside My Head", with lyrics conveying how you can feel torn despite being mentally clear.

The most emotionally resonant for me was "I Walk Among the Dead", building on a sense of isolation through loss that becomes inescapable, and yet it is ultimately moving without bringing you down.

Every link I could find is down below, though she is showing up now in many videos from the Standing Rock protest.

https://www.facebook.com/dsecondpage.littlespottedhorse

https://www.reverbnation.com/davidica

https://myspace.com/davidicamusic/music/songs

http://cowbird.com/d-little-spotted-horse/profile/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Cr9xQm6utTTfJeNizjRxQ

Some kind of monster

Going along with the trend to not give Hillary Clinton proper credit, many have not appreciated the many things she has done right with her campaign. It is a good campaign with a good staff and strong policies. She has great debating skills. Still, with all of the things she is doing well and has going for her, a lot of her success is attributed to the horror that is Trump.

It is easy to wish someone more acceptable had won the Republican party nomination. Less people would have to feel conflicted about their votes, and a reasonable comparison between the two candidates could have been more likely to happen, but it has been feeling like this is inevitable.

Based on the way Clinton has been covered, there is no reason to assume that the press would take an interest in her policies against anyone else. We have pretty diametrically opposed candidacies now, so if the media can't take an interest in that, what would interest them?

Based on the way the Republican party has continued to race-bait and promote profits over people, this was eventually the type of candidate that they were going to get; it might as well happen now when we are on the verge of electing the first woman to the presidency.

If you really want to see how ugly racism, misogyny and greed - corporate or otherwise - are, perhaps there is no better candidate than Trump to point out the difference in direction. And, based on how modern politics has been going, with no desire to even know that someone on the other side can possibly have anything good about them, perhaps Clinton is the only candidate who makes sense.

I should specify that in this pre-election political writing, I am not trying to convince anyone to vote for Clinton who wasn't already going to. I doubt my ability to, and I have been pretty sure that she already has the votes (though I admit feeling some fear as we get closer). However, if some people can at least make peace with a Clinton victory, and know that it is not rigging or fooled people but that there were legitimately many voters who chose her with good reason, I would like to help with that.

That is partly remembering one women at church the Sunday after the 2008 election, so mad at me for getting what I wanted, but also so scared because this was going to trigger such horrible times. And, with marriage equality, maybe her worst fears did come true, but it felt like she had something more apocalyptic in view, and here we are, still.

It is also knowing how many people say that racism is worse today and blame President Obama. Well, racism may be more visible - which is not quite the same as being worse - but is it really his fault? If racist people can't handle that a Black man was elected twice, is that on the Black man or the racists?

I know sexism is more visible now because people who haven't noticed it before are noticing it now. Having a viable woman running has increased the feeling of threat, and having Trump spewing his garbage has empowered it.

On the same day two Twitter contacts shared stories. One's mother was told that she couldn't really understand politics as a woman. The other's sister was hit on by a guy, politely declined, and was told that he couldn't wait until after Trump won and women would have to be on their knees. Those are the kinds of people Trump is bringing out of the woodwork, and helping them feel legitimized when before it wasn't okay to say those things.

Trump has appealed to the worst, and then made it worse. I don't know how far that spiral can go.

Whatever I can do against it, I will.

Communicating

I have been meaning to write about James Comey for some time now.

It wasn't a big thing, so it wasn't high priority. There are always a lot of other things to write. Now he is more pertinent, but it is kind of different and kind of the same.

Months ago when Comey recommended that there should be no criminal charges filed regarding Hillary Clinton's e-mail and spoke to Congress about it, I know that many people praised him for making a reasonable decision, and some were mad due to their certainty of criminal charges always being appropriate if your last name is Clinton.

I remember noticing that the way he gave the news was kind of nasty. He had no cause for indictment, but he didn't want to exonerate her either which seemed very personal. The way he phrased it was reluctant and with a lot of insinuation. I felt like that came back to bite him when he was being questioned by pro-indictment members of Congress, and he got a little testy with them. What did you expect to happen?

I thought that there might be a future post about how what we say is important, and speaking truthfully may not only mean not actively lying, but also the clarity of expression. I didn't think it would go beyond that.

It seems clear now that Comey has let his personal preference affect his judgment. Even if federal charges don't happen, and even if he keeps his job, he has lost moral authority and the respect of colleagues, which will make leadership very difficult.

In that light, it goes beyond how we communicate to the bigger choices we make, and whom we are. What do you value most? If it comes down to your political preferences versus your integrity, which wins? And yet, it kind of is the same point, because who we are inevitably informs what we say. We can try and hide what we think and know, and keep information back, but often we don't even know what we are revealing. I don't think Comey meant to show himself as petty and irritable then, but he did.

The thing is, we could be having better discussions about the e-mail. For example, when I first looked it up, I was explaining it to my sister and the minute I said "Blackberry" she said "Oh!", and she got it completely. She was a part of that time when everyone had a Blackberry (and called it a "crackberry") and when you had to jump through various hoops to use it with your private e-mail -- a process which many chose to avoid.

I thought it was interesting because that was happening at a very technology-forward company, and yet they were not keeping up with the technology in a very real way. I thought about how you would make those decisions, to get the right balance of taking advantage of the newest technology and also being secure. (I don't know the answers for that, but I know whom I would ask if I wanted to get into it.)

That we don't generally talk about prosecuting Colin Powell for also using a private server, or how we know the State Department server was hacked while Clinton was Secretary of State but that there is no evidence that her private server was hacked, or about the Bush White House losing 22 million e-mails while we focus on Clinton's thirty thousand e-mails tells me a lot about the hypocrisy involved. So does comparing the amount of news coverage that focuses on Clinton's e-mail versus coverage of Trump's cheating people, rape charges, charity abuse, race-baiting, and destroying e-mail evidence in lawsuits. That is a problem against which I feel impotent with rage.

So here is just something else that I found interesting. It appears that a lot of the messages in question for Clinton related to planning Chelsea's wedding. People were skeptical that they could all be that, but I have seen others confirm that for a wedding like that, forty thousand e-mails would not be at all unusual. And that was just such a horrifying thought, that so much e-mail could be necessary. I can see how it would happen, but even more I see why you might elope.

Magic at the drive-in

Rick was a misfit at school.

He was pretty nerdy, it is true, but there were other nerds and they had friendships. There were definite social circles in the school, but things were fairly friendly between them. Rick could have made friends, but was hampered by his overwhelming sense of utter superiority. It made it hard for him to enjoy other people, and for them to enjoy him.

Rick could have gotten involved with computers or chess or something with a club; that could have led to more socializing and even a potential career path, but that never happened. Instead he got into the occult. With the right coven, even the occult can be somewhat social, but in his case it wasn't.

It was the combination of Rick's superiority and his occult leanings that led Rick to the drive-in that night.

He had been having some minor success with divination and enchantment, but he wanted to do something bigger. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to create some mayhem. Not liking people may have increased his tendency toward the destructive, but also many of the source books he had been reading were relatively malevolent.

Orson Welles was an influence too. Rick knew the legends of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, and mass hysteria seemed appropriately big. That would make people take notice.

That also gave him the idea to capitalize on some kind of entertainment. An audience is already voluntarily submitting to the power of suggestion. If you could manipulate the suggestion - and exploit it - that should increase the impact.

It was October, and nearing Halloween. The drive-in theater was a popular hangout on weekends anyway, but this weekend there would be a horror movie featuring famous monsters. There wasn't an exact spell for what he had in mind, but there were enough similar ones that Rick believed he could adapt and create a ritual to make the horror real. That would do it. That would make for a night that everyone would remember.

Rick was off to a great start. It was a crisp fall night with a glorious moon. The football team had won their game the night before, so no one was moping or grounded. A night when everyone was free and wanted to be outdoors would really pack them in.

Rick arrived before the gates opened. There was some shrubbery along the back that provided him with ingress and shelter, and being in the back would give him an excellent view.

Obviously he needed to wait until the sun was down for maximum effect, and the movie should be well underway. It had to be after the dramatic tension was established and before it started to dissipate. Without having seen the movie before Rick had to guess, but really, it all seemed to work out. There they were on the screen: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolfman. Then there they were off the screen.

It had worked; now it was time for mayhem.

Dracula's main waking sensation was thirst, and he just happened to be situated near a car containing Jane Thompson.

Jane was an unusually tall girl. It was not currently fashionable to be quite that elongated, and she often felt awkward about it. Jane had never fully realized the elegance of her swan-like neck, but Dracula appreciated it right away.

Brett Cummings, the tallest member of the basketball team, had asked Jane out, and he was enjoying the height similarity. However, his metabolism was much faster, and this was already his second trip to the snack bar. That left Jane alone in Brett's convertible, convenient for the Count, but less so for Jane.

Dracula approached the car silently, stealthily. The maiden was completely unaware of his presence as he closed in on her, leering over her.

Rick never had time to understand the key shortcomings of his plan. The Frankenstein's Monster he'd conjured up was very literary, and thus obsessed with punishing his creator. Somehow he understood that in this case the responsible one was Rick, and not Dr. Frankenstein, but he still had all the resentment that he would have had against Dr. Frankenstein. The creature made a beeline for Rick, who got out a short scream just before the throttling began.

The Wolfman wasn't literary at all, but drawing from his movie roots he was tortured by his affliction. Seeing the full moon and finding himself once again clawed and fanged and hairy, he let out a howl of despair.

When Rick screamed, some heard it, but they were watching a scary movie and there had been little screams and gasps all along, so no one thought too much about it.

The howl was noticed. People turned and saw a wolf man in their midst, howling impressively. That was a shock. Now there were more screams and they were louder. What was going on?

Then there was the scream to end all screams. Jane may not have noticed Dracula sneaking up on her, but when he pounced it was impossible to ignore. Jane was a soprano in the choir; compared to Jane's scream Rick's was but a whimper. Every eye turned to Brett's convertible, and Dracula, bending over Jane's neck.

If the crowd hadn't been sure what the presence of the Wolfman meant, seeing Dracula there too made it obvious: this was the best movie promotion ever!

Everyone broke into a round of thunderous applause.

Rick's spell was based on the suspension of disbelief, but also on fear. The audience did believe in what they were seeing, but they believed it was actors and effects. As much as they loved it, they weren't afraid of it.

That ruined everything.

One moment the monsters were there, and the next they weren't. No one was quite sure where the monsters had gone, but that in itself just made it more amazing. It had all been carried off so smoothly!

It was the main topic of conversation for days. They shared details of where they had been parked, and what they saw. Almost everyone had seen both the Wolfman and Dracula. Some claimed to have seen Frankenstein attacking a guy, but the guy disappeared with them so he must have been in on it.

(And without Rick there, no one pedantically asked if they didn't really mean the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created, and not Frankenstein himself.)

They tried to find out more. Teens peppered the drive-in owner, Mr. Woolner, with questions about how he did it and whom he'd hired. The more he claimed ignorance of the entire thing, the more they thought he was a genius. Eventually his protests became less earnest, and more winking. "It was exciting, wasn't it? I can't tell you anything beyond that."

They asked Jane as well, and mostly believed her when she said she hadn't been in on the plan. It made her think, though. If the guy playing Dracula had picked her to be the victim - and she had seen so many beautiful victims in the movies - maybe she didn't need to worry so much. It raised regard for her, where both people who thought she was acting and those who didn't started thinking of her as more attractive. Jane was crowned homecoming queen just three weeks later.

It was fun to talk about through Halloween, but the excitement did die down. Homecoming, Thanksgiving, and then getting into Christmas kept everyone pretty busy. Life returned to normal in the way that it always does.

But there are also always some events that mean more, and stay with you more. That night was one of them.

In the rapidly approaching future, drive-ins were going to become much less popular, and yet that one thrived. The town had a fondness for it, and kept going back long after the other local drive-ins had closed down.

The night remained a golden memory - a legend of the town. Years later people would bring it up, "Do you remember?" After enough time had passed even people who hadn't been there would remember that they had.

Rick should have been proud, if he could have known.

Band Review: Dear Boy

Dear Boy was recommended by Hunter Burgan of AFI, and he was right.

An alternative rock band from Los Angeles, their music is acoustically interesting and emotionally moving.

This is not a great analogy, but if you love the Johnny Marr aspects of The Smiths, but not so much Morrissey's melancholic pretension, you could love this band. Fans of New Order should also enjoy, though Dear Boy is more guitar-driven.

There are two problems with that preceding paragraph. One is that I don't want to spend too much time comparing them to other bands; they are themselves. (Though it does make me wonder what a Johnny Marr/Peter Hook collaboration would be like.) It also could make the band sound dated, which would not be fair.

They may pull from older traditions (there is a cover of The Psychedelic Furs' "The Ghost In You"), but they put their on stamp on it, and it's a good stamp.

Personal favorites have been "Local Roses", "Come Along", and "Oh So Quiet", but there are some cool jazzy elements on "Green Eyes" and "Funeral Waves".

Actually, just listen to all the tracks.

You should check them out.

http://www.dearboyofficial.com/

https://www.facebook.com/dearboyofficial/

https://www.youtube.com/user/dearboyofficial

https://soundcloud.com/dearboyofficial

http://dearboy.bigcartel.com/

https://twitter.com/dearboyofficial

Band Review: Pears

Pears is a punk band from New Orleans. I put them on the review list after they were recommended by Dave Hause.

When I started listening, the first thing I noticed was how fast they were. Songs are short, quick punches, in glorious punk tradition.

As I read their biography, "fast" became a theme. They released a demo within days of forming, wrote an album in 14 hours, and recorded the album within five weeks of their formation. Even for punk, that's pretty fast. After that, learning that their version of "Judy Is A Punk" is one second shorter than the Ramones' is not surprising, though still pretty impressive.

Must-hear songs include "Snowflake" and "Green Star", but it is interesting to hear a track like "Dizzy Is Drunk" with its delicate piano and know that they can do other things. That impression is less drastic but still there on tracks like "Doorbell", where the intro could easily go with a less hardcore song, but doesn't need to. "Cloverleaf" has traces of a suburban sitcom -- it at least knows the territory -- but then it isn't.

Although Pears has their own Youtube channel, videos are also available through the channel for their label, Fat Wreck Chords.

The band is currently touring with NOFX. There are stops in the Pacific Northwest, but they are selling out fast, with Portland tickets already gone.

http://pearstheband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/PEARStheband/

https://www.youtube.com/user/PEARStheband

https://twitter.com/pearstheband/

Building up

This train of thought comes from a couple of things I have seen recently.

One was this video, Martha and Sara:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUD7swQkgGA

It is the story of a family whose daughter was born deaf, where she would not be able to learn to speak without immediate intervention. Things I never thought about were how they had to keep refitting for hearing aids with a growing child, and even how soon you need to intervene to allow for speech. Knowing that, I was not surprised that it was expensive.

They raised an accomplished and independent daughter. Two things that helped them were the State Children's Health Insurance program and legislation that required public schools to provide resources for children with disabilities. Those were things that Hillary Clinton worked for.

I had kind of forgotten about SCHIP, but yeah, it's been in place long enough that children who have been provided for through the program are grown.

If we think about Hillary Clinton's efforts toward health care, it is easy to think of it as a failure. Congress turned it down. That must have been pretty crushing, but she kept looking for other possibilities. SCHIP is associated with Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, because they sponsored it, but Clinton was a part. There was a falling out over a cigarette tax amendment and political maneuvering, but ultimately the program was created and it has done good things.

This was the other thing:

http://shareblue.com/the-significance-of-hillary-clintons-work-on-behalf-of-children/

There are not a lot of financial or political rewards for focusing on children. They don't vote, and they don't have a lot of money for making donations. They have parents and you might expect the parents to care, but I know a lot of parents whose children have been insured through SCHIP that hate Hillary. The programs are valuable, but the person working for the programs may not be valued.

That is the opposite of the pure revolutionary fervor that so many people have found exciting this election cycle. It requires patience. It requires making allies, even in the face of disagreement. It requires facing failure, brushing yourself off, and trying again. Progress may not come easily, but it can last longer when done carefully.

That is the woman I'm voting for. That is why.

I'm with her.

Berning it down

Building on yesterday's post, it would be easy to start talking about toxic masculinity, but I think that will come later. Right now it may be more pertinent to talk about white male rage in this election. It has taken an unusually ugly form with Trump, but it is worth pointing out that it was also a key part of the Sanders campaign.

Yes, Sanders had a lot of supporters who were not white men, but there are ways in which it is relevant that I want to address.

First of all, his focus on that demographic hurt his campaign. I felt like the Black Lives Matter protest in Seattle could have been what turned things around, making his campaign more inclusive and broadening his appeal to the Obama coalition. He never did that, and that's why he lost the primary.

(That coalition is also why Trump will lose the general election, so if you are mad at them about Sanders, there should be some room for gratitude as well.)

When I last wrote about this, it seemed like part of the problem was that Sanders' brand of socialism simply wasn't capable of allowing for other factors, and that limited him. I suspect the anger itself could also have been a problem.

The anger can easily be traced back to privilege, because neither President Obama as a Black man nor Hillary Clinton as a woman can display anger freely and have it interpreted the same. That the Angry Black Woman label has been applied so frequently to warm and gracious Michelle Obama further demonstrates that point.

So building your personality around anger is a privilege, but it is also a bad strategy for being effective. Sanders has been a senator for a long time, and been known for big ideas, but even colleagues who liked him struggled to identify his achievements. Barney Frank has attributed that to Sanders waiting for the revolution: "He plants his flag and expects that someday everyone will see that he was right."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernies-record-220508

That seems very similar to the depth of Donald Trump's plans, and maybe it's why revolutions in general end up falling far from their ideals.

I remember realizing once that John McCain was a contrarian more than anything else. That meant that sometimes he said true things, but not enough to make up for a lot of the other stuff that came with it.

If you are setting yourself up as an angry revolutionary you are defining yourself by your opposition. That can lead to viewing everyone not with you as enemies. It puts you in tearing down mode. So you have Susan Sarandon lecturing Dolores Huerta (from whom Sarandon could learn a lot), and Sanders wanting Cornel West on the DNC platform committee, which was a slap in the face to Obama. It means denying the accomplishments of the current administration which has had an uphill climb but has still done a lot.

And that's one thing that I see with Trump. Everything is bad now. America is the worst. It doesn't matter that unemployment goes down and stocks go up or when troops come home - everything is bad and the worst ever. A lack of willingness to see the good around you is a thief of joy. I guess if your focus is maintaining anger, joy would be a liability.

The maintained anger makes it easy to run over other people. It becomes not just easy, but necessary to shout down anyone supporting the other side. There are people believing Trump will win because they only see his supporters, forgetting that for many people who support Clinton the price of stating it openly has become very high. So then everything is rigged, but it's only rigged because you refuse to see all of the other people who feel differently.

It bothers me greatly that there are people who talk about election rigging and they mean closed primaries instead of purges of the voting rolls. There are people who matter that you are not seeing.

It bothers me greatly that there are people saying "Can you believe these two candidates?" and they really believe that Clinton is horrible like Trump, so that even people who like Clinton a lot feel compelled to keep qualifying that she's not perfect. When has there been a perfect candidate?

I will write more about what makes Clinton a great candidate tomorrow, but let me point out now that she has the most representation in her team of any candidate. Not only are there different races, genders, and ages, but she has also made an effort to include people with disabilities. She sees people.

It makes a difference.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/05/things-i-dont-like-about-bernie-sanders.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/05/and-revolution.html