Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 40

Submissions Don't Matter

And "The Golden Stringed Guitar" is back again.  

1980 (What's in your head, in your he-ee-e-ead, Romney, Romney Romnee-ee-ee)

At the time, I was 5 and my parents were getting divorced, so a lot of my recollections of the year are...  Well, I had other things on my mind than the two benevolent looking old men on my TV screen.  But tell me, those of you who remember or who looked into what was going on back then if I am the only one who noticed this.  

I am fascinated with narratives; they are stories, they are human relationships to stories.  They are also the strongest persuasive tool in human interaction.  Facts are meaningless on their own.  Violence and authority extend to the line of sight of the violent authority.  Narrative embeds both fact and authority (and a fear of violence, like as not) in your head.

Narrative can pick and choose from history, too.

Now 1980 was a different time than this, but there were some similarities.  Inflation, energy crisis, I am not certain it was up to what we have now, whether in another 30 years this is either going to be comparable to stagflation in the late 70s or the Great Depression (or, in my darker imaginings, the lead up to the Civil War).  It's no surprise that Romney is going to be selling himself as the second coming of Ronald Reagan, because that's what the Republicans have, but there is a difference, and it's one that I've just sort of caught that bothers me.  I don't know if it will work or not, but it worries me that it even registers on my radar.

Tell me if you don't see it.

Morning in America was sort of predicated on a calculated sacrifice of people - mostly labor unions and a large number of people pushed out of the social safety net, but others as well.  It's one of the things that made Reagan so much more attractive than Carter.  From here, it reads, and this is based more on all the 80's stand-up routines I took in as a kid which formed my political education, that Carter was telling America we all need to sacrifice, and Reagan was telling us we didn't.  Well, a few people.  Black people.  Latin@s.  Union workers.  Homeless people.  The mentally ill.  No one that matters.

The fact that we sacrificed those people really did not change our financial situation, that came from shifting money around, spending like a whale on the strip in Vegas and got sustained by a cyclical boom in the 90s (for which I am crediting Clinton no more than I am crediting Reagan, thank you.  Presidents do not control the economy, they just benefit or suffer from it like the rest of us, for the most part - Reagan managed to kick the real crisis down the line a little further, so when George II tried to do something similar and a pair of wars besides, well, we were in bust, and the crisis was too big to continue to kick forward.  Also, two wars).  

In Connecticut, I am used to this sort of thing.  We had a huge surplus during the Rell administration which did not, in fact exist, it was conjured out of accounting, and when Malloy took over, he pulled back the curtain, but now he has the task of not being the governor under which our surplus became a deficit (though it was all along) and the things he's doing to avoid that make me want to tape him in a bin full of hornets and kick it down some stairs.

Anyway, is it just me, or is there a narrative that takes something of the "oh, you won't be sacrificed, only the people who deserve it" narrative from 1980?  Only this time, the sacrifice is all women, all children, along with the usual target when sacrificing time comes around?  And does it not come, also, with serious talk from serious people (all serious people, lest you be considered unserious) of austerity, not only necessary, but good, right, moral, deserved.  

I, despite not believing in a deity comprehensible to human minds or relevant to human existence, despite being a witch, no shit, am still a Lutheran.  I got raised that way, I am programmed that way.  Jesus is coming look busy.  I believe work, effort, toil, success makes me a better person, as much as I know it is not so.  I believe that the work I do for my wage is not, in fact, a service I provide for just compensation, but the way I prove I am deserving of the charity of my employers (that is Reagan's fault as much as it is Protestant theology), because my employers are my closest approximation to God.  I believe all these things in my heart and no amount of work on the part of my brain will dislodge them, but the notion of austerity as a virtue makes me want to get a time machine, grab Martin Luther and John Calvin and knock their heads together until the only sound that comes from is my wet hands clapping.

I don't buy the morality of austerity.  In fact, given where the burdens of austerity are going to fall, and the fact that it would and will take lives, I can only see it as a moral evil.

The 2012 election cycle is promising the worst of both worlds in terms of what was offered in 1980.  Reagan's asperity and Carter's austerity.  It's a narrative so strong that no president can defeat it, so I don't have hope or expectations for this cycle, but the fact that Romney is fully and enthusiastically embracing the narrative, the fact that it's his selling point and the fact that people seem to be responding to it makes me very, very angry.

Through the Gate: Submissions Wanted! (SUBMISSIONS DO MATTER)

I sent them three poems this morning.  
AND SO CAN YOU!
(Well, maybe not this morning, unless you are currently in the Alaska time zone).
STILL.

----
Originally posted by mitchell_hart at Through the Gate: Submissions Wanted!Dear lovers of fantastical poetry,

I am pleased to announce the unveiling of my new magazine, Through the Gate, a quarterly devoted to fantastical poetry.


It is currently open to submissions.  Please read the guidelines page if you are interested in submitting.  Signal-boosting and submissions are both very much needed!  Please spread the word!

Testing...

Set free of all that limits you.  Set free.  Set free.  Without restraint.  Without excuse for failure.  
Except that it's a distorted mirror.  A carnival grift.  Mugs and suckers.

Every system carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Buer.  5 legged radial demon.  Appears when the sun is in Sagitarius.  U+2650 ♐ Kaus Media, Ascella (the armpit), Alnasl (Nasl, El Nasl), Nushaba (Nash) and Warida.[6] Alnasl is derived from the Arabic النصل al-naşl meaning "arrowhead".[8] Nushaba is derived from the Arabic Zujj al-Nashshaba meaning the same as Alnasl.

Every system carries the seeds of its own destruction.

YOU MONSTERS ARE PEOPLE

Every system carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Goats?  Animals and Music.  A top that spins them all up. 
"This skeletal frame has no more bones to break"

Every system carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Note to Self:

Dr. Bronners is a little brisk 'round the nethers.

THIS A SIGNAL BOOST FOR A FRIEND

Originally posted by xjenavivex at THIS A SIGNAL BOOST FOR A FRIEND Originally posted by green_knight at Urgently Needed: Clients

Urgently Needed: Clients

I'm trying bridge a cashflow problem that is posing an unsurmountable obstacle for me on my own. I am currently freelancing full time, but due to the vagaries of publishing, there is a two month gap between non-negotiable bills and payments being due. So I am looking to acquire clients, great and small, as soon as possible.

Please go to green_knight 's journal post Urgently Needed: Clients to read more and see if you can help.

A fable

Originally posted by ann_leckie at A fableOnce upon a time, there was a cafeteria. Now, this cafeteria had been in existence for decades, and for a long time it was the habit of the people who worked there to actually put bugs in the food. Sometimes they said it was because the customers deserved to eat bugs. Sometimes they said that it was good for the customers to eat bugs--extra protein, extra crunch, and hey how was it any different from lobster? They only wished they could have so many bugs for lunch! Because, of course, when they made their own lunches bugs were conspicuously absent. And some workers didn't really ever wonder why, it was just how they'd always done things.

After a lot of noisy and sometimes violent protest, the cafeteria workers stopped deliberately putting bugs in the food. Some resented this and felt they ought to still be able to, but many had realized that, in fact, finding half a roach in your chicken caesar salad wasn't actually much like a lobster dinner. Many had come to the realization that putting bugs in people's food was really a pretty nasty thing to do.

So that was good. But because for a long time nobody had really cared if bugs accidentally got into food (because they were already putting them there on purpose) the workflow in the kitchen included lots of points where bugs could crawl into that day's turkey sandwich. And the kitchen was, in fact, densely populated with bugs. Because until recently, it hadn't bothered anyone, it had just made it extra handy when you wanted to pop a couple more into the soup.

The cafeteria workers were very focused on avoiding the deliberate act of planting bugs in the lunch. And that was good. It improved the cafeteria a lot. But there were still a lot of bugs in the food. So the customers went to the manager and complained.

This angered the manager a great deal. Were the customers saying she was the sort of person who would put bugs in people's food? She most certainly was not! She had never put a bug in anyone's food. And neither had any of her staff. How dare the customers complain? Surely being accused of bug-planting was just as bad as--perhaps worse than!--eating a few roaches. She certainly felt it was. (Of course, she had never put a forkfull of mashed potatoes in her mouth only to discover they were suspiciously, horrifyingly crunchy, so she really had no basis for comparison.)

The customers explained that actually, they didn't think any of the staff was deliberately planting bugs. Still, no efforts had been made to keep bugs out of the food. All they really wanted was for the manager to call in an exterminator and then make sure the staff got some basic food safety and sanitation instruction.

But this was out of the question. To do that would be to accuse her staff of planting bugs in people's food, which was obviously a seriously bad thing or the protests that had instigated recent reforms wouldn't have been so loud and violent.

No, the problem wasn't that there were still bugs in the food. The problem was, the customers bringing up the problem. Their complaints were causing the problem. If they would just be quiet and eat, like nice customers, everything would be fine. If there were still problems, customers ought to fill out a special form--seventeen pages long, with lots of detailed questions, ten pages of which were to contain an essay on why it might not be pleasant to find bugs in your food. Because the manager needed to really understand that part of the situation before she could take any action. Bad penmanship, of course, would cause a form to be rejected. Any hint of an actual complaint would cause the form to be rejected. But this form was, the manager insisted, the only viable way to address any problems the customers may have imagined they had with the food. Which couldn't possibly have any bugs in it.

To this day, the manager insists that there are no real problems with the food. Customers who complain are oversensitive, or have a chip on their shoulder, or just hate cafeteria workers. Customers who try to complain with the approved form are brandished as proof there are no actual problems. The food has fewer bugs in it than a couple of decades ago. Which, that's great, but you know, one roach on your pizza is too many.

All it would take to fix things would be some basic sanitation measures. It's almost--almost!--as though the manager and her staff had some kind of investment in not acknowledging the bugs in the kitchen. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe she, and the other workers, can't actually see how bug-filled the kitchen is, because it's been like that for decades and it seems perfectly normal.

Maybe one day the manager and her staff will finally see that the kitchen is crawling with bugs. On that day, the manager will likely cry out, "Why are you making me feel so guilty for being the kitchen manager? I didn't build this kitchen! What do you expect me to do about it?" And she'll sit down and weep bitter tears at being bullied by those mean customers for something that just isn't her fault.

But I won't feel very sorry for her.

Submissions Don't Matter

King of Pine is back, again.  Hello, King of Pine.  Nice to see you in town, King of Pine.

Well, got a place to send it, next.  And I'm in editing mode, since the stupid Peryton story makes me mad just with it's existence.

Submissions Don't Matter

"The Golden Stringed Guitar" is on its way.

Here, We Cross is Here, Indeed

Originally posted by rose_lemberg at Here, We Cross is Here, Indeed

The fabulous chapbook collecting 22 queer and genderfluid poems from Stone Telling 1-7, edited by yours truly and made possible by the tireless work of Jennifer Smith, is here! At least, it is available to purchase through Amazon. I have not yet seen a copy myself, but it is available to order, as if by magic!!! (we are using a printer which is an Amazon affiliate).

AND YAY, the first Stone Bird Press title!!! This is an ongoing adventure, I am telling you.

“Here, We Cross” is a glorious little book. The poems are heartbreaking, true, tremendous, lyrical, powerful. Go grab a copy – it’s 10$.

Originally published at RoseLemberg.net. You can comment here or there.