Ajax Minor's Blog, page 11

Harvey Weinstein, Carmine and Predation

Is Harvey Weinstein a sexual predator? Is that a rhetorical question? Seriously. What amazes me, as a male and having been a manager, is that this stuff still goes on. Don’t these guys read the papers? Get a washcloth, a bar of soap and take a shower. Seriously.

But there may be a couple of factors driving this kind of behavior. One may be deeply psychological while another involves the process of becoming acculturated to entitlement.  An article appeared in Scientific American a few years ago that discussed the similarity between psycho/sociopaths, and SOME people in positions of great authority, such as Politicians, military commanders and CEOs. It was found that they all shared one trait in common: viewing other persons as objects to be used or abused to achieve their objectives. ‘Others’ were like furniture.

Perhaps more common in our experience is the sense of entitlement shared by many who have been successful. Bill Clinton, when asked why he had engaged in a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, said, quite honestly: ‘because I could..’. A great editorial in the New York Times in the ’00s spoke of such people as behaving as if ‘every light is green’, and treating general rules of behavior as ‘suggestions’.

So I think we can all agree that Harvey, for whatever reason, is a lowlife.

My Book, The Girl From Ipanema

What about my character Carmine in ‘the Girl from Ipanema‘? He is ‘girl crazy’, to put it euphemistically with an anachronism. One of Buford Stemp’s jobs is to keep him in check. Buford has mixed success. But is Carmine a younger Harvey? Well, if he’s not a predator he’s certainly ‘on the prowl’, which is what predators do. But he goes around with his objective tattooed onto his forehead and backs off when refused.

Is this reprehensible behavior? I don’t think so, but you tell me what you think. Is it inappropriate? Yup. So how do we train a Carmine?

Hopefully, you will see Carmine grow as the story unfolds. I spoke before about the question as to whether characters or plot drives a story. I believe it’s character development that will hold a reader’s interest, otherwise why not put the damned book down. More specifically though, it occurs to me, without introducing a major spoiler, that one protection against predatory sexual behavior is the ability to form a deep and meaningful relationship with another person. You’re happy and fulfilled. What more would you need?

Now, that being said, I will confess that I often have ‘impure’ thoughts. I’m a guy. I love females for everything that they are and we males are not. That includes admiring the feminine form. Sorry, true confession. Is that hardwired? Probably. But you tell me.

However, the trick is to keep your thoughts and your hands to yourselves guys. I was chastised mildly by a female friend in my blog ‘Wonder Women in Sports Broadcasting‘ for referring to Suzy Kolber’s voice as low and sexy. This was to contrast it with a complaint about Beth Mowin’s voice as ‘ like my ex nagging me’, a claim I violently dispute. But it was also an intellectually honest statement on my part.

Once again, I love women for everything that they are. But if you’ve read my blogs and my books you know this already.

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The Second Amendment and Post-Apocalyptic America

What does the Second Amendment have to do with my book, “The Girl from Ipanema?”

This blog is not a place to muck around in current events; there is plenty of that out there already. I usually write about theoretical or general issues rather than topical. Recently, however, I have commented on Women in Sports (Solheim Wonder Women and Wonder Women in Sports Broadcasting). Since women are prominent in my work I’ve felt there is justification in publishing my thoughts.

Once again, I believe that current events are relevant to my fantastical fiction—especially the recent shooting in Las Vegas and its subsequent debate about gun rights, in relation to my second book, “The Girl From Ipanema”—and I wanted to write about that here.

What does the Second Amendment have to do with my book, “The Girl from Ipanema?”

The Girl from Ipanema is set partly in a ‘World turned Upside Down’ (hence the subtitle), by an ecological catastrophe. After the Apocalypse, necessity forces a rupture in the political geography of the USA. Boundaries are drawn based on both economics and culture. Some of the new divisions are known as:

the Rocky Mountain Republic;
the new Confederate States;
the Republic of New York and Venice;
and others.

Could such a thing happen here?

A Deep Philosophical Divide

Yes. There have been cries for secession from such politically polar opposite places as Texas and California. But there is a deeper reason. THE United States of America almost didn’t happen at all. Ratification, though unanimous among the original thirteen states, was a closer run thing than is widely known. An excellent book on the subject is Pauline Maier’s Ratification.

There has always existed a deep philosophical divide between the proponents of States’ Rights and a central Federal authority. This tension was very much at the root of the problems that resulted in the Civil War and that same tension exists to this very day.

Which brings us to the Second Amendment, a touchstone for both sides of the political divide and symbolic of the wide gulf that still separates us in America. Once again, sadly, we have had to talk about gun rights and gun violence in the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre.

We are more divided today than at any time since the period leading up to the Civil War. Certainly, differences were expressed more violently during Vietnam, but once the last chopper took off from the rooftop of the American Embassy, it felt as if much of the raw animosity took off with it. Today, polarization goes deeper and reflects a difference in philosophy dating back to ratification, as I have said.

One solution would be to declare the American Experiment a qualified success (or failure) and hold a Constitutional Convention to redraft a governing document. Not ready to go there? We might at least think of rewriting the Second Amendment to once and for all establish gun ownership as an individual and inviolable right and, at the same time, set well defined and reasonable limits on firearms.

What is wrong with the Second Amendment?

What is wrong with the Second Amendment anyway? Let’s focus for a minute on form rather than substance.

The Constitution proper is one of the driest, and therefore most clearly written documents in our history.  Only Article 1.8, the General Welfare Clause, has any wiggle to it; and for reasons explained obliquely by Hamilton in Federalist 34. However, some of the Amendments are a bit more syntactically muddled than the Constitution proper.

The Second Amendment is probably the most poorly written. Is ‘militia’ part of a list or is it a qualification? Who knows?

THE SECOND AMENDMENT

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

However, it occurs to me that recent events have put its broadest interpretation, by the N.R.A, into conflict with another part of the Constitution proper. The Preamble, in which it is stated that one of the purposes of the document is to ‘insure domestic Tranquility’. It is true that only one case, ‘Jacobson v Mass (1904)‘, directly based a claim on the Preamble; and it has often been stated that the Preamble has no substantive power.

Perhaps it is time to reconsider the Preamble.

Domestic Tranquility is in Dire Jeopardy

The Founders were disciples of Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau in believing that the purpose of the Social Contract was to protect individuals against direct threats to their persons and property resulting in the State of Nature.

I believe the Preamble is the foundation upon which sits the entire structure of the American Social Contract and that ‘domestic Tranquility’ is in dire jeopardy.

So do we go down the road followed by the United States in “The Girl From Ipanema,” or bite off a small piece of the problem and figure out a way to swallow it?

The post The Second Amendment and Post-Apocalyptic America appeared first on Ajax Minor.

Bittersweet

This week I’m letting it all hang out and publishing a poem. I’m exposed here since I don’t consider myself a poet. But as a prose writer I think poetry is a great exercise. It helps you play with tropes, which will make your writing more engaging and colorful. Most prose writers just don’t do it. It’s hard.

A few have done it well, such as, surprisingly, John Cheever. Barbara Kingsolver also has some lovely phrases. And Lauren Oliver will make you dizzy,  her metaphors come at you so quickly.

I always carry around a copy of my favorite modern poet, Sylvia Plath’s, work. She was the ultimate master of figures of speech I think. And ‘poet speak’ is unusual. When deconstructed the phrases make absolutely no objective sense. And yet the reader immediately understands what the poet is trying to say. In my new poem, ‘Bittersweet,’ I speak of memories as ‘ghosts’, then ‘bits of chocolate’.

Really?

Plath has a marvelous simile where she speaks of a babies’ cries rising ‘like bright balloons’. Crazy but we immediately get it. The language resonates and amplifies by conjuring up a picture, which is as we all know worth a thousand words!

Poetry also focuses the mind. Of course a poem does not require the time to produce that a novel does. But there may be even more effort in getting the damned thing to hatch. And it performs the same function, as an exercise, which a short story will do for a novelist. It requires economy.

So if you want to write, begin with a poem. It doesn’t have to be the Iliad. Play with it. Put it away for a bit and let it cook in your brain. Poetry will make you a better prose writer.

Read my poem, “Bittersweet,” here »

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UPPRE

So what is UPPRE? Well, it’s a site devoted to the Lifestyles of people from a variety of walks of life. And it has an International flavor. UPPRE contacted my agency, Smith Publicity, about doing an interview with me as an author. Great opportunity. And did I say the slant was International? Well, UPPRE is headquartered in Malaysia! Of all places.

I found the experience worthwhile and want to share it. Many interviews I’ve had focus on the ‘human interest’ part of our story of losing a child. UPPRE was curious about that, but also asked insightful questions about the writing process. I’ve atttached a link and will be sharing some of their and my thoughts on FB later in the week.

Turning Grief Into Prose

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Wonder Women in Sports Broadcasting

As with many things, female announcers may be an acquired taste. But once acquired they are to be savored. Sort of like caviar.

Well, we’re back after taking a week off. True confessions: my social media guru was on vacay and, being a Boomer, I still need her to hold my hand on FB and when I tweet!

I was going to post a poem this week and talk a bit about the craft, of which I know little. But an article in the NYTimes Sports Monday section got my attention. It concerned women broadcasters in sports and the negative reaction by some male fans to having a female in the booth. The reason this was a hot topic was because recently ESPN chose Beth Mowins  to do play by play on the late Monday Night Football Game. Complaints were lodged by male viewers about her voice ranging from “grating” to “shrill” to “like listening to my ex nag at me.” Whoa!

A few weeks ago I did a rant about the weak media coverage of the women’s pro golf Solheim Cup. All of this is relevant to my writing, since as I’ve stated my stories have strong female characters. Not by design but because it’s just representative of my attitude toward girls and their role in my own life. Now I’d like to do a ‘soft rant’ about sports announcers.

I’d listened to Beth Mowins over the past few years doing play by play of college games and couldn’t understand why she hadn’t been given a shot at the pro game. So I rocketed out of my chair when I heard her voice on MNF. I happen to like her voice. Which may all come down to  personal taste; and which may be the case with the negative comments quoted above (kinda doubt it). But more than that I like the her knowledge, poise and use of her vocal talent to reflect the tenor of the action on the field.

Want to talk about irritating voices? With apologies I have to nominate Gary Koch as my least favorite voice. That being said he is also knowledgeable and highly professional. But his intonation is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. At the other end of the spectrum we have the snoozers. As far as knowledgeability and professionalism go Judy Rankin is at the pinnacle. But maybe a hint of inflection from time to time when something exciting happens? Okay. As for the guys, Jim Nantz is also the consummate pro and, as he lives in my area, a very gracious gentleman. But I wonder what the voice over of the Hindenburg disaster might have sounded like had he been on the newsreel.

Alright, how about a few positive comments? My award for the best announcer in sports is Kelly Tilghman. She is so smooth she’s frictionless. And smart. And ANYTHING but shrill. I’ve never heard her miss a beat in any situation, the comment about Tiger notwithstanding; which I guess proves that being the best does not mean being perfect. She is great but she is human.

So now that Beth has torn the pigskin ceiling what next? Hopefully Suzy Kolber will come off the bench. Again, like Kelly, you can’t bitch about her voice quality. Smoky, low. Sexy? Broadway Joe and I would answer that question the same way and in the affirmative. AND she played football. Which is more than can be said for a terrific announcer like Joe Buck.

So I’d ask all of my buddies out there to suck it up and give the girls a chance. As with many things, female announcers may be an acquired taste. But once acquired they are to be savored. Sort of like caviar.

 

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Before I Fall: A Review

Okay, so I finish the book and sit there stunned. WOW! And for a fleeting moment I have this rush, as if I’ve actually discovered a great talent. Then I read on and find out that “Before I Fall” was a New York Times Bestseller. As one of Lauren Oliver’s characters may have said: DUH.

The book is brilliant. First, it is a morality play, a Pilgrim’s Progress for the entitled. Sam’s journey is not completed on one road, but on a half dozen that must be traversed before she ‘gets it right’. And her friends, ‘bitches’ all, still have redeeming qualities, or at least aspects of their behaviors that provide an explanation for how they came to be who they are. One is burdened by insecurity and guilt, another likes to cook, of all things!

But I’m sure all of this and more has been said. So, being an author myself, I’d like to make a comment about style. Lauren is a master of tropes. Her imagery is original and viscerally arresting, even when not pure metaphor—–“the classroom folds in two and all of the distance disappears between us.” Most prose authors struggle with figures of speech. Tropes are more the province of poets. I always carry around a copy of ‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath (my all time free verse fave) for inspiration. But few of us pull it off well, and infrequently at best. John Cheever and Barbara Kingsolver come to mind as masters.

My only quibbles are that she does it so well she uses one trope, simile, to excess. Toward the end of “Before I Fall,” they start coming fast and furious. It’s almost exhausting, kind of like Tom Robbins’ humor. And she telegraphs the simile with the omnipresent ‘like’:

“The house smells like polished wood and rain, and just a little bit like chimney smoke, like someone’s recently had a fire.”

How about:

“The house smells of polished wood and rain and a bit of chimney smoke, as if someone’s recently had a fire.”

She does not use the simile preposition, ‘like’, all of the time but will sometimes let the image speak for itself without a marker.

This is better:

…she says, “balled up tissues, which I left floating in the toilet…little blooming flowers of pink.” still a simile but without the neon sign ‘like’.

Okay, enough. One thing I loved in her essay ‘My Greatest Hits’ was the ‘crazy confession’ that she never totally understood Sam’s statement that ‘certain things go on forever’. Lauren said that “it sounds insane, but I didn’t totally understand it.”

Believe it or not, we authors do write things we don’t totally understand. In Sun Valley Moon Mountains, a beautiful Fish, a trout, appears three times; and I even drop out of POV and write in 3rd person omniscient.

What is the Fish? Is it important? YES. Do I really know what it is? NO. Go figure.

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#SolheimWonderWomen

I’d like to touch on the Solheim Cup contested last weekend between professional golfers from the US and Europe.

We’re going to wander a bit, but not too far. Last week we discussed Charlottesville. Really not very relevant to the Ur Legend. Unless of course you’ve read the rape scene in The Girl from Ipanema. Anyway, I’d like to touch on sports. Women’s sports, specifically the Solheim Cup. It was without a doubt one of the most thrilling golf competitions I’ve ever watched. Not only was the skill level superb, with players like Lexi Thompson of the US sinking 50 foot eagle putts, but both sides traded blows like Ali and Frazier. One competitor would sink a 10 foot birdie putt and her opponent would match it. Thrilling!

So what’s the issue? Media coverage (no, this is not a Trumpian harangue). Network TV covered the Cup for the first time in 15 years. They knew when the matches would end. No sudden deaths in Match Play. But they chose a time slot that allowed only ‘Recorded Earlier’ broadcast. To add insult to injury, the New York Times (MY paper!) did not have a single word written on the Solheim Cup. Now I know sports are entertainment and the ad $$ rules. And I know women’s sports are not the draw that men’s are. But C’MON! Not a single word in the Times. SAD, as our Fearless Leader would say.

As you all know by now women are my favorite gender. All of the female characters in my stories are strong. If you don’t believe me, read my books. I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how it turned out. My take on women says something about how I view the world.

Anyway, get on Twitter, go to #SolheimWonderWomen and have a good rant!

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The Bloodbound: A Review

“The Bloodbound,” by Erin Lindsey is a different kind of fantasy. And that is a very good thing. Although I love Tolkien, as was purportedly said by another Don at a reading of Tolkien’s latest chapter of the Ring: “Please!! no more f$%#ing elves!” As a fantasy writer myself, I like ‘different’.

Read the book “The Bloodbound,” by Erin Lindsey

In a very good sense, it is a ‘quiet’ fantasy. While there is plenty of action in “The Bloodbound,” the most satisfying reading involves being drawn into the emotional lives of the characters. Some have objected to ‘love triangles’, but this one involves not just the heart, but adherence to duty and tradition. It is engaging to participate in Alix Black’s emotional evolution.

The theme of duty is reflected as well in the difficult calculus of adherence to one’s word, by treaty, and commitment to country over allegiance to a sovereign. It is difficult to parse the ethical conflict inherent in the rift between Prince Tomald and his brother King Erik. The author’s long experience in the nuances of international relations and the ethical questions of ‘good and evil’ that are not simply determined, served her well in this story.

One final note. Another aspect of this fantasy that is noteworthy is the simplicity of the ‘magic’ in the story. Often fantasy writers endow their characters with magical powers, rings or wands or staffs, that conjure up all sorts of solutions to the jams into which their characters find themselves. Lindsey uses one: Blood, for both antagonist and protagonist. It is refreshing. Perhaps that is because it is the kind of ‘magic’ I prefer to have my characters employ.

In short, Kudos!! Read the book “The Bloodbound,” by Erin Lindsey, available on Amazon here »

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Hello from an Alternative Earth!

I’m Jaq. If you’ve read Sun Valley Moon Mountains, you know me already. But this is my first foray onto Ajax’s website. Again, if you know the story behind the writing of SVMM, you know that Ajax found my manuscript in a closet. I had left it in my own closet on Alternative Earth. Since then it’s functioned kind of like the magic closet in the Nornia Chronicles (Narnia on your worldline; there are small and subtle differences between our worldlines as they diverge). Anyway, he left me a copy of a Podcast he did with Connie Dunn. One of her questions was: How do you think the world is organized conceptually and what difference does it make?

Again, in SVMM it made one hell of a difference. But Ajax asked me to share my own thoughts, since SVMM was a fantasy (I think). Anyway, it’s always made a big difference to Ajax and me. Not a surprise since we share, basically, the same brain.  But to the point. Does it make a difference whether you think the world as we experience it appears to us precisely as it IS and is external, objectively, to our own selves? Or is it a product of mind or something else?

This question has been pondered as long as philosophers have been around. Plato postulated that the reality we experience is like shadows thrown on cave wall by a fire. And that we will never experience ‘reality’ directly. Aristotle was more in line with common sense. If I see a chair, it exists outside of me and independently. Now, in everyday life I’m guessing we all deal with the world as an objective, external reality. But the question has deeper implications for our view of the world.

Historically, speculative philosophy gained traction with Descartes. He wanted to know what in fact he KNEW for certain. And he arrived at the conclusion that the only thing of which he could be entirely certain was his own self as a thinking entity, because we are often deceived by dreams, illusions and other phenomena. Although the only thing he could be entirely certain of was the process of observing his own thought (“I think therefore I am”), he also believed deeply in God and postulated that since God would never deceive, the world as we experienced it was REAL.

This notion was taken to its extreme, and logical, conclusion by George Berkeley. He felt the world as we experienced it was precisely AS we experienced it. With a catch. It was all in the mind. Sound kooky? Think about it.

When I whack my thumb with a hammer, all of the experience actually does take place in the mind: seeing the injury, feeling the injury is actually experienced only IN the mind. So how does a vast universe, of which each of us experiences only a small part come to be? Well, it exists in the all knowing mind of God. Pretty snappy argument.

But there exists a material world outside of ourselves right? Maybe. There is an argument that the 3D world we experience is simply a projection off of a 2D surface, like a hologram. Maybe not so kooky. The projector could be the mind of God, or a god, as we learned in SVMM. And I think this idea of the mind of God, a god that controls ‘every leaf that falls’, was and still is fundamental to having a strong belief in God. That those things unexplained or unexplainable  can be attributed to God. An anthropologist called that the ‘Sacred Canopy’, which covered the world of the unexplainable. Of course, that canopy has been shrinking for millennia, as science has come to offer more and more plausible explanations of experience.

Which brings us to the second great Epistemological school. The Empiricists. This one is easier to get a hold of. The world we experience is as we perceive it and outside of ourselves. And it follows certain laws. How does God or a god fit in? Well, the Deists were probably closest to the viewpoint of the Empiricists. God built this wonderful watch, the visible Universe, and set it ticking; able to run on its own according to his predestined plan.  Those that hold to an Empiricist view are most likely secularists. Most likely. they believe in Science and the ability of humans, given enough time, to explain all phenomena.  That’s about it. But you can see that Rationalism and Empiricism set the tone of our relationship with our environment.

And what about Ajax and me? As stated in SVMM, we held to the system of Kant, who tried to synthesize Rationalism and Empiricism. He believed we experience a world outside of ourselves, but filtered by the structure of our brains. We see only a certain spectrum of light, hear only a range of sounds and think causally. The ‘real’ world was like the actual chair that cast its shadow on Plato’s cave wall. Beyond our senses. Unreachable but real.  Humans have been given a unique perspective. So enjoy it and suck as much knowledge from it as you can.

Oh, and if you think humans can reach beyond their sensory perceptions with the aid of ‘prostheses’, microscopes for example, and at some point fully understand the world, think again.

Take Plato’s chair. No matter how we try, could we ever experience the WHOLE chair at one time?

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Podcast Interview with Connie Dunn

I was fortunate last week to do a Podcast with Connie Dunn on Publish With Connie. Connie is both a writer and a writing coach, specializing in working with Indie authors. And BOY we need all the help we can get! It’s lonely out here sometimes in Indie Land.

Listen to the entire podcast here:
http://publishwithconnie.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/AjaxMinor.mp3

 

I had previously been interviewed by Ed Tyll. He had set up the broadcast to coincide with Father’s Day. So that interview was more about the inspiration for my Fantasy series and backstory about Linda and I losing our daughter.

While we touched on that topic, Connie and I discussed aspects of writing fiction. We spoke about the roles of inspiration and discipline, the relationship between a career and the art of composition and different genres.

My genre is Fantasy, and Connie has focused on Children’s literature. But we also explored how different people have differing views about how the world is organized conceptually and the role of human connection. These have both been important elements of my stories. Especially the underlying meta themes of Epistemology, or how we come to ‘know’ things, which is the basis for my fantasy in Sun Valley Moon Mountains, and differing ethical systems, such as Utilitarianism and Kant’s Categorical Imperative, or the Golden Rule, in The Girl from Ipanema.

For now, if you have an hour to kill, while say unloading the dishwasher, check out the Podcast above. In future weeks I’ll be writing more about the Philosophies explored in my fiction.

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