Christopher Tuthill's Blog, page 6

Book Festival

On Saturday, March 29, I’ll be at the Poughkeepsie book festival with copies of my novel The Osprey Man. Every child gets a voucher for a free book, and there are activities for the whole family. Hope to see you there!  https://poklib.org/bookfestival/

The Mysteries of Academia

Many years ago, a young man took a job as an academic librarian. Fresh out of grad school, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he came equipped with several semesters teaching college courses. He was penniless, but couldn’t wait to get to work!

In his first semester, he had a teaching observation from a professor who had never taught before. How is this possible, you ask? Is this some kind of Kafka story, where someone who has zero hours of teaching conducts a teaching review?

Tis an arcane mystery of academia. She disapproved of the young man’s teaching style, though he had taught for many semesters more than she had, and she yelled at him in front of his young students, who were horrified and commented upon it after she left. He got a poor teaching review, but pressed on and taught and worked hard. He thought of quitting many times. He couldn’t understand why some in the pecking order got paid so much more while doing almost nothing. But he ignored it, and eventually came up for tenure.

The senior professors he worked with tried to vote him down, because they felt he hadn’t produced enough high quality peer reviewed articles in the right journals. He’d done many times the amount of work these senior people had done in the same time period, but they wanted to haze him, as they enjoy doing this sort of thing to every new person who has the nerve to try and do their job. Had they published much high quality, groundbreaking research? you might ask. The question is moot, the answer is of course, no. But they enjoyed making people miserable, since they themselves were.

Years later, he wonders why he ever entered academia in the first place. He’s looking to get a much needed raise through a promotion, and these same arrogant, lazy, self-serving people are going to try to stop him. Why? Because they can.

So, busk at a subway station. Build a better mousetrap. Wait tables. Be a longshoreman. Anything but academics.

Some thoughts for 2025

Watching videos constantly on your phone, and endlessly scrolling through bullshit will rot your goddamn brain and cause anxiety.

Phones ruined our politics, our classrooms, and everything else they touch. They atomize attention spans, foster isolation, and ruin your ability to think. We have an internet troll who can’t read as our president, and that would have been impossible without this amazing technology that everyone told us would improve everything.

Which leads me to my next thought:

AI is bullshit and will hurt us even more than phones have. Once again, everyone I know tells me how amazing generative AI is. It’s a wonderful tool that will improve life. Yes, just as the smartphone did. I have students who insist a chatbot ought to be able to write their papers, that writing is a waste of time, that AI is inevitable and we must use it for everything.To which I say , fine. Knock yourself out. Why not have AI woo your girlfriend for you, as well? If you care so little about expressing yourself, at improving your creative faculties and your ability to think clearly, why not just sit in a VR room all day eating McDonald’s while your AI avatar makes all the important decisions for you?

No matter what anyone says, I’ll never be convinced that comic books are a good replacement for reading complex prose. Comics are fine. I love them. “They’re a valid art form!” You insist. No doubt this is true. Years ago however, it would have been self-evident and uncontroversial to simply say that comic books are not the same reading experience as a complex novel or nonfiction book. This was an obvious fact. Today, though, I get scolded for saying it. Yes, there are great comics. Yes, certainly there are artists who have pushed the boundaries of the medium. I am not debating the value of comics–that is a different argument than what I am saying, which is that comics should not replace learning to read difficult prose. And no, none of those comic books are the same kind of experience as reading Ulysses or Swann’s Way. I don’t want to argue this. I don’t care who has written a Pulitzer prize winning comic book. Saying they’re equally worthy is like saying Journey is the same as Mozart. Sorry.

While video games are great, none of them reach the complexity or demand of you what a well written book does. I don’t care about, and am uninterested in arguments to the contrary. I love games, and they may help with certain motor skills, planning, thinking through problems and so forth. That is great. It’s wonderful, and games can be an awesome learning tool, but again, that is another conversation. What video games will never do is require you to read long blocks of complicated prose, a skill which has has been almost obliterated in just a generation or two.

I feel strongly that a literate society is something that is critical to a functioning democracy. I’ve heard it said that culture is changing, and no doubt that’s true. We are becoming post-literate, with whole generations of people who can vote, and who constantly share and post all kinds of lunacy on the internet, but who can’t read anything more challenging than a meme. They can’t tell the difference between good and bad information. My own generation is guilty of this, and helped elect the moron currently in the white house. But I fear we can descend even lower than this guy, given enough time. If you think it’s gotten bad now, just wait. As the saying goes, there’s nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse.

The King of Dogwood Street, Chapter Three

In the last installment of The King of Dogwood Street, (a comedy of good, evil, and home improvement), Billy Joe had a day of reckoning when the police showed up to put an end to his drunken property destruction.

In chapter three, he and his dimwitted buddy, Travis, are in the town lockup trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Will they escape? What charges might they face? Will they drive their arresting officer crazy? And will Billy ever overcome his hangover? Read on to find out!

Chapter ThreeDownload

If you missed previous installments, you can find them below:

New Project

Chapter 1, Part 2

The King of Dogwood Street, Chapter Two

Storytelling Panel in Poughkeepsie

If you are in the Poughkeepsie area, stop by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship this Sunday, where I’ll be part of a panel on storytelling. It’ll be a fun time, and there will be books for sale from the authors on the panel. https://www.uupok.org/welcome/upcoming-events

Happy New Year!

War of the Rohirrim

My twelve year old son, who loves Tolkien, said, “It’s like they took one line and made an anime movie about it.” Indeed, my boy. This grim, humorless trek through Middle-earth had a few fun moments, but not nearly enough of them to justify its two plus hour running time. Miranda Otto and Brian Cox are pretty good. This film’s entire raison d’etre appears to be that WB was about to lose the license to make more cash-generating adventures in Tolkien’s world. I give it a B-. For all its flaws, it’s still much better than the awful slop amazon keeps pushing at me. I hope Andy Serkis’ return in 2026 is more fun than this was.

Kafka and Belle da Costa Greene at The Morgan Library and Museum

I was at the Morgan Library and Museum this week and wanted to give a brief reflection on their current exhibits, and how much I enjoyed them. We are lucky to have this museum in New York, and I can’t recommend a visit highly enough. Originally, it was J.P. Morgan’s personal library, and later became a public institution. There are always different exhibitions there; over the years, I’ve seen things ranging from Blake engravings, to Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, to Tolkien, to Dickens, among others. If you live in or near New York, by all means go for a visit. They also have lectures and concerts regularly, and every Friday evening is free admission from 5-8. Educators and students also receive a discount.

Franz Kafka

I made this recent trip for the Franz Kafka exhibition, which was every bit as wonderful as I’d hoped. There were many of his handwritten manuscripts, journals, letters, photographs, and other personal effects on display. Anyone with an interest in him and his work should definitely go. It gave me a more intimate look into his life and work, and I found something quite haunting about it. Such a tragedy that he died so young, and it made me wonder what else he might have accomplished had he lived longer.

Kafka’s work has meant quite a lot to me, especially when I was a young man, and so I was very pleased to see him celebrated at the library. I still recall the chills I got reading The Metamorphosis as an undergraduate, and the feeling of urgency I had in finding the rest of his stories and books and reading those, too. I was so inspired that at one point I wrote my own little comical story about a superintelligent, powerful cockroach, which won an award from my college’s literary magazine. I am sure it was embarrassingly bad, but I had so much fun writing it.

I particularly enjoyed the handwritten copy of the Metamorphosis that was on display, and which was accompanied by contemporary textbooks of insect larvae and roaches. I had not thought of the Darwinian connection before seeing it laid out in this way, but as the display suggested, these were somewhat new fields of study at the time, with which Kafka would have been acquainted, and may have inspired him to write the story. Kafka is, of course, a towering figure in modern literature and his influence on contemporary fiction and culture is hard to overstate. This exhibit did a lot to help me appreciate him more as a human being and an artist. Photos of him and his fiancee, as well as details of his ill health, lent a very personal touch to a writer who sometimes can seem very remote and cryptic.

Belle da Costa Greene

After having seen the effective, thought provoking Kafka exhibit, I moved back to the first floor to see the other exhibition, about which I knew nothing. But what an experience visitors will have in learning about the life of Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of the Morgan. She was an amazing person who built the Morgan’s collection of rare books and manuscripts, and was a well known authority on these treasures. In the process of creating the library, she traveled the world to make acquisitions, and shaped it into a world class institution.

Belle’s father was the first black graduate of Harvard, and Belle and her family passed as white in segregated America. Much of the exhibit explores this part of her life, and it’s a breathtaking biography.  She was a brilliant scholar and a cultural force at the Morgan, but a lot of her life was tinged with tragedy. The details about her her nephew were quite moving; he was a soldier in World War II who committed suicide when his fiancée learned he was not white and broke off their engagement. The exhibit gave other harrowing examples of stories like this, of ‘passing’ blacks in a segregated country.

I appreciated the display of Belle’s own collection of books and cultural treasures. She had exquisite tastes and collected illuminated manuscripts, paintings, sculpture, and other artifacts. It was an interesting window into her personal life.

This exhibit also included many examples of illuminated manuscripts, for which Belle had a passion and much expertise. It’s a bit overwhelming seeing all of these ancient books laid out for perusal, and it’s best to take your time and look at the intricate detail of things like the Crusader’s Bible, among other medieval treasures.

I also learned that the NYPL used to have a library school, and at one point there was a course in rare books taught at the Morgan, using their resources. There was a syllabus on display that was a really fascinating look at library education from the 1920s. I’d love to take a course like this, incidentally. (I took a couple of rare books courses while doing my MLS and loved them, but to do it at a library like the Morgan would be a lifelong dream for any bibliophile.)

Belle’s life seems quite ripe for a film or a biography. And her life’s story should cause anyone to reflect on this country’s shameful past. These pernicious evils–racial segregation, passing, and other injustices–were not so long ago, and we have a long way to go to become a world that treats everyone equally. Belle’s remarkable life is a testament to what an exceptional person and scholar she was, and I was happy to see so many people learning about her. I can’t recommend the exhibit highly enough. Everyone should go.

I hope Belle would be pleased by the legacy she left at the Morgan. Her hard work and dedication live on through the collections and the stories they tell us about our culture and history.

Technology is Using Us

            Yesterday I saw an ad for a company that promises to publish eight thousand (yes, you read that right) books next year using the power of AI. I won’t link to their page because if you’re reading this, you have probably seen it, or something about it, and if you have not I don’t wish to give the tech bros behind it any more traffic, slight as it may be from this unseen corner of the internet. Even so, I feel I must write something about this, because it enraged me so much to see it.

            This company promises to cut down production times for a book from the usual 12-18 months to a few weeks. How? You might ask. I’ll tell you: they will do a horrible job of it and flood the market with unreadable trash. What truly sets these guys apart is the way they’ll steal from aspiring authors and turn out a lousy product, while happily saying they’re ‘tech disruptors’ without a shred of self-awareness or irony. They’re immensely proud of themselves and their predatory business model.

            This brings me to the larger problem of AI in general, which we are constantly told is a wondrous new tool, an inevitability, a technology that will transform everything.

            Why is this tech inevitable? Well, our tech overlords say so. They are never wrong, of course, and all their innovations have done nothing but improve our lives. Just look around—isn’t everything great? We have access to more information than at any point in human history, and the world is a veritable paradise, with only the wisest, kindest, most learned people in charge everywhere.

            In my view, AI writing tools produce junk. If you want to use it to produce your own special brand of garbage, have at it. “But it’s a tool!” you protest. “Same as a wrench or a bicycle! It will make everything better.” Yes, everything will improve, except your ability to write and think clearly, your ability to read and understand information. It will not help this at all. In fact, it will likely do immense harm to these skills. It’s a plagiarism machine, trained unethically to churn out generic awfulness. But hey, it does it very quickly, and with minimal effort. Just dump in a few prompts, and call it a day.

            Right now, higher education is in a race to see who can adapt to these AI machines quickest. Never mind the effect it may have on learning, they’ll just use it. We’re about to turn universities over to tech companies. And why shouldn’t we? What does it matter if people are educated and humane, so long as profits are healthy?

            And in another generation, some other whiz bang tech developer will come along peddling some other kind of junk, and once again every education administrator in the land will get in the marching band and beat the drum for it, no matter what it may be.

            Who cares what students are learning, anyway, except a few oddball humanities people who still actually read books, which are obsolete, dusty artifacts that any machine can produce in just a few minutes.

Welcome to Freak Show II

I’d been hesitant to post anything since election day. What can anyone say about this situation that hasn’t already been said? In my opinion, all you need to do is look at the decline of reading and critical thinking skills to understand the second rise of the sexual assaulting felon. When an entire electorate stares at screens 80 hours a week, don’t or can’t read anything challenging, and believe all kinds of disinformation and nonsense, guess what happens?

During his last term, I read more American history than is usual for me, hoping to see some similarities to our current times in our past. We have seen much worse days than this, and survived as a nation. In some of our most tumultuous eras, it was never certain that we would make it through, but somehow, we did.

I don’t know what the next few years will bring, exactly, but I will be surprised if the great dictator doesn’t try to suspend elections. He’s already talked about doing that, as well as rounding up millions of immigrants. His proposed cabinet members are a farce and a disgrace, unqualified people who hate the government agencies they’ll be running, just like last time. His voters wanted this, and we’re all about to get it.

One thing I heard a lot of from 2016-2020 are variations of ‘this is not who we are—we’re better than this.” No, we aren’t. This is exactly who America is and what we want. We can take a little solace in the millions who voted against him, but that’s cold comfort. A man as mendacious and vile as this should have been thoroughly repudiated.

My job is to just try and make sure my children are safe and happy. There is little else we can do. Locally, you can try and make your community better. You can volunteer and try and make your corner of the world a little more humane. Make your voice heard to your elected representatives. Beyond that, we can just hope for the best.

My wife and I don’t talk politics around our children, since that would be a crazy thing to do, and we want to let them enjoy their childhoods. We did look at an electoral map together, and they are aware who won. My nine-year-old daughter, who is a brilliant artist and incredibly smart and perceptive in ways that I was not at her age, summed things up perfectly afterward. “Bruh—it was a girl’s turn after all this time. And that guy is so dumb, and such a mean bully. Just look at him.”

Children intuitively understand things, no matter what adults might say. She knows a lying creep when she sees one. I have never seen a picture of this man where he is smiling and it looks natural, because he is a deeply miserable human being who hates himself and continues to take it out on the entire world. As soon as he starts talking, this is self-evident.

The religious people who voted for him could be the topic for an entire book. All I can say about them is that they ought to be deeply ashamed of themselves, but I’m sure they are not. He’s an imperfect vessel on a mission from Jesus, after all.

And that’s enough about elections. I refuse to follow news cycles for years on end. I’m turning it all off. It will be hard to miss the worst of what he’ll do, but there is little point in following it week after week with every new outrage.

In other news, I have a few writing projects I’m working on, and a deadline I have to meet in a few weeks. I’ll have plenty to keep me busy through the end of the year and the start of next.

One day at a time, as the saying goes.

Rings and Other Things

 In the past few years, whenever a sci fi, comic book, or fantasy media property comes out with something new, and someone has the incredible nerve to criticize it, whether it’s Martin Scorcese saying they’re not cinema, or some obscure blogger like me saying “hey I thought that was not good,” I’ve heard some version of “Be quiet and let people enjoy things” in defense of such media offerings. To which I say an emphatic, “fair enough!” since everyone is free to enjoy whatever they wish, no matter how vapid.

What’s unusual about some of the superfan accounts that social media algorithms have been pushing at me lately are the accusations of racism, ‘toxic fandom’ or other charges levied at people who have valid criticisms of these movies and shows. The last time I checked, film and media criticism have had a long and valuable history. Nothing is above criticism or interpretation, as any good writer knows.

 You can criticize something you’ve grown up with and enjoyed for decades without being ‘toxic’ or racist about it. I understand there are some white nationalists around who hated the new star wars and rings of power simply because they hate the diverse casts. Any normal person disavows this stuff.

But when I see constant fawning praise for fairly lame, mediocre offerings from gigantic, multinational, multibillion-dollar entities, and constant defense of such middling fare, and cries of outrage aimed at anyone who dares to say they don’t like it, I don’t understand. Are we not allowed to say we think Rings of Power is lousy? Because, let me tell you my friends, it is a total slog, a huge disappointment, despite the great cast and expensive effects and everything else. I disliked it and gave up after 3 episodes. I don’t read Tolkien to watch a dwarf scream at Elrond for missing his wedding, an exchange which I found to be unintentionally hilarious. Nor do I read his works to see Steven Seagal type characters beating people senseless, breaking arms and legs and uttering lame, action movie kinds of one-liners in a brutal fistfight. No thanks, amazon. Have fun, those of you who enjoy such things. People can enjoy whatever they wish, it makes no difference to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I like plenty of junk. Bad TV has a long and illustrious history. One of my favorite things to watch is Rifftrax, a hilarious program that takes special delight in poking fun at bad movies and television. However, I don’t make lengthy videos breaking down each Rifftrax episode and telling people how great it is and insisting that people who don’t see the value in it are toxic, because that would be an incredible waste of my time. It’s enough that I enjoy it. But then, I’m not seeking to have millions of fans following me for new Rifftrax content. Nor do I  wish to be a Rifftrax influencer or to monetize my enjoyment of Rifftrax. I just want to laugh and have a good time. But that’s just me, and to each their own.

Now, a group of fans riffing Rings of Power? That I would watch and enjoy, along with a big bowl of popcorn.