Steven Barnes's Blog, page 49

My Tenth Block. Sigh.

Racism is the belief that one group, defined by race or ethnicity, is overall less capable or moral than another.  It is not “hating” people, although it can certainly lead  to hate and fear. It doesn’t mean there aren’t members of “that” group you do not honor, respect, or even love.   And yes, I think it is a disease found generally on the extreme Right (there are balancing diseases on the extreme Left, yes, but frankly, I don’t see them as being as virulent at the moment, and they aren’t m...

Saw Steve Muhammad Thursday…

[image error]I saw my dear friend and karate instructor Steve Muhammad yesterday, and he’d not seen the Black Panther trailer. He was astonished. “They let them DO that???” he asked. “We’ve got to support this! This will wake people up!” Yes, we do. And yes, it will. This is a new time. And as T said, our show is for the Woke, and the Awakening.

Every Saturday, we’re giving the same message: that Afrofuturism is specifically filling in the mythological “gaps” torn in the diasporic fabric, without which no...

Earning My Air

I didn’t realize I was supposed to give the Keynote speech at Willamette Writers Conference until the night before.   I went to bed Friday night asking my unconscious mind to give me the answer.

 

I woke up Saturday morning with the following thought: “there is someone in that room who is about to give up.  Not on writing…on life.    I have to speak to them. Help them. Give them hope, show them the way out, if possible.”

 

But how?   One of my natural tendencies is to go into teacher mode. Bu...

Why I prefer “Fallout 4” to “A Handmaid’s Tale.”

There is a horrible scene in the movie “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” where Leatherface, the monstrous, hulking, inhuman cannibal, hangs a girl up on a meathook and then dismembers one of her friends.  The actual dismemberment takes place in the foreground, just below the edge of the screen.  Can’t actually see it.  The real horror in the movie is watching the girl, dying, trying to pull herself off the hook.  In most movies, because young women of childbearing age are the most precious adults in...

Is this the ultimate success pattern?

8:15 AM

I’ll be giving three talks at the Willamette Writer’s conference this weekend.   One on Afrofuturism, one on “A book a year in a sentence a day” and one on Lifewriting.

 

Lifewriting is where it all began. I’d studied various success strategies most of my life, ranging from THINK AND GROW RICH to Musashi and others, but it was a hodge-podge. Then one day about 28 years ago I was teaching a “Writer’s Toolbox” class at UCLA, and we were motoring.  I mean, I was really on fire that day,...

The Story of Medicine Mouse

(When Nicki was a baby, when she was sick we would give her medicine.  And there were shots, and suppositories, and things we rubbed on her chest, and dropped in her ears…and pills or fluids we fed to her.   “Mouth Medicine” we called it. And she repeated that as “Medicine Mouse.”   I loved that, and later, when she was worrying about something bad that had happened to her weeks before, I told her this story:)

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Once there was a baby bird,  innocent and trusting, surrounded by peace in the e...

Perpetual Emotion Machine

 

IN a recent discussion of cynicism, someone said that hers was the result of having been frequently disappointed.   The following comment was made in response:

 

“I have a very good friend who isn’t on Facebook who is kind of in this category. When life kicks you down and then kicks you WHEN you’re down from the time you’re a child and continues to kick harder for not having skills that you should have from a childhood of not-kicking, it tends to make you very skeptical about good things. 

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Driftwood and Seagulls

There are signs sailors used to know they were getting close to land: driftwood.   Seagulls.

 

When you start writing, there are signs that you are getting closer to your goal of publication: hand-written notes on your rejection slips used to be a great one.

 

“Maybe” instead of “no”.  A kiss instead of a handshake. Lots of indications that you are making progress.

 

My goal is ONE MILLION AWAKE, AWARE, ADULT HUMAN BEINGS.   What does that imply?   That there are far too many sleeping, oblivi...

I’m going to be honest: I’ve never seen anything on telev...

I’m going to be honest: I’ve never seen anything on television at the conceptual level that would be necessary to pull off CONFEDERATE without seriously offending a large chunk of their audience.   It would take an act of either genius or obsession to manage it.    I can think of a show that would please white Southerners. Or white people in general.   But I have a difficult time imagining a show that would please black people. And I’m not sure at all I can imagine a show that made the majo...

On Love and “Deathbed” Values

A gentleman named Rob Pray wrote: 

9 hrs ·

“Nothing to post this evening. Just a quick history. About a decade ago I went through one of those fun events in life, a heart attack. I had ignored symptoms and in doing so I complicated things. My ventricle was damaged and I underwent open heart surgery. It was amazing what they could do. There was one point when, well when I was more aware of the world we can’t see, and in that place for some moments that seemed like a very long time I saw, felt...