Patrick LeClerc's Blog, page 2
April 11, 2019
Highlights of SPFBO ’18
SPFBO 4 has been a terrific experience, and a much needed boost all of the authors, myself included. I want to give a lot of credit to Mark for taking the initiative in making this happen, as well as to the judges who did put a lot of hours into this contest. I can only […]
April 8, 2019
An Open Letter to Fantasy Fans Everywhere
We are the finalists of the 2018 Self Published Fantasy Blog Off, also known as SPFBO 2018. The contest has brought us together from across the globe and the far-flung corners of our favorite genre to celebrate speculative fiction and the possibilities of self-publishing. We believe that independent publishing is a force for good in […]
April 6, 2019
If You Didn’t Like Captain Marvel It’s Probably Because You’re a Horrible Person
Wednesday, March 20th, 2019
I saw Captain Marvel with the family this past weekend, and I have to say, it was just a really solid, fun, kick ass movie. It was pretty much everything you could ask for in an action movie. I had seen some bad reviews, and I’m gonna have to say that they all seem like excuses not to like what is, at its core, just a damn fun film. And any soundtrack that features Garbage, Heart and Hole pretty much has me hooked.
Now I will excuse people who just don’t like superhero movies or action movies. This was not Citizen Kane, nor was it trying to be. But if you liked any of the Avengers movies and you are trying to justify not liking Captain Marvel, well, you’re probably just awful.
It had great action, a reasonable plot to hang things on, a nice twist and some really terrific actors. And I’m just gonna say, one of my new favorite heroes.
I loved the character of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. She was a perfect action movie hero. I loved the swagger, the cocky smile, the wisecracks. The fact that she just took charge because she was the character who knew the most about what was going on and was the best qualified to deal with it, so of course she should be in the driver’s seat.
If Brie Larson as a cocky fighter pilot who bends the rules and saves the day bothers you but Tom Cruise as a cocky fighter pilot who bends the rules and saves the day doesn’t, you’re gonna need to figure out why, and I suspect you won’t come out looking good.
Which brings me to the main thrust of my argument in this post. The movie got a lot of pre release trolling from people who for some reason, didn’t like a film they hadn’t even seen, because they felt somehow excluded or threatened that somebody else was going to be the target audience. These people are like the Grinch, except it’s not their hearts, it’s their dicks that are two sizes too small.
Captain Marvel is a hero who inspires. Now, I’m an old, straight, white guy. There are plenty of straight, white, male heroes on film from whom I can be expected draw inspiration, and I am confident enough that I’m OK with the fact that Captain Marvel may not have been written specifically for me. Representation does matter, and if a superhero movie with a kick ass female lead is aimed at inspiring young women, maybe let’s see that as a good thing.
I saw critical reviews complain because she started off badass and remained badass, didn’t have a real montage-style transformation. I saw complaints that there was no romantic interest. Well John McClane and Maverick and Indiana Jones and everybody Schwarzenegger ever played all started out badass and stayed badass. Maybe they had a moment of doubt to overcome, but they were never not heroic. And as far as the lack of a romance, she’s on a time sensitive mission to save the world. She’s not here to flirt. She’s here to kick ass and chew bubble gum and she’s all out of bubble gum. So stop making excuses to dislike the film.
Now, I will repeat, I loved this character. I didn’t have a crush on Captain Marvel. And I’m going to make this distinction, because I think it lies at the heart of the unjustified hate this movie has gotten. I had a crush on Black Widow. I had a crush on Wonder Woman. But I didn’t want to be with Captain Marvel. wanted to be like Captain Marvel.
Larson played the role with swagger and humor and warmth. And the moment of doubt she has to overcome, when she looks back over her life to all the times she’s fallen, and then the film segues into a montage of all the times she got the hell back up? When she embraces her humanity and throws off her alien shackles and unleashes righteous vengeance?
Well that’s just Goddamn epic.
And if you can’t appreciate that, well…
You probably are a terrible person.
I saw Captain Marvel with the family this past weekend, and I have to say, it was just a really solid, fun, kick ass movie. It was pretty much everything you could ask for in an action movie. I had seen some bad reviews, and I’m gonna have to say that they all seem like excuses not to like what is, at its core, just a damn fun film. And any soundtrack that features Garbage, Heart and Hole pretty much has me hooked.
Now I will excuse people who just don’t like superhero movies or action movies. This was not Citizen Kane, nor was it trying to be. But if you liked any of the Avengers movies and you are trying to justify not liking Captain Marvel, well, you’re probably just awful.
It had great action, a reasonable plot to hang things on, a nice twist and some really terrific actors. And I’m just gonna say, one of my new favorite heroes.
I loved the character of Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel. She was a perfect action movie hero. I loved the swagger, the cocky smile, the wisecracks. The fact that she just took charge because she was the character who knew the most about what was going on and was the best qualified to deal with it, so of course she should be in the driver’s seat.
If Brie Larson as a cocky fighter pilot who bends the rules and saves the day bothers you but Tom Cruise as a cocky fighter pilot who bends the rules and saves the day doesn’t, you’re gonna need to figure out why, and I suspect you won’t come out looking good.
Which brings me to the main thrust of my argument in this post. The movie got a lot of pre release trolling from people who for some reason, didn’t like a film they hadn’t even seen, because they felt somehow excluded or threatened that somebody else was going to be the target audience. These people are like the Grinch, except it’s not their hearts, it’s their dicks that are two sizes too small.
Captain Marvel is a hero who inspires. Now, I’m an old, straight, white guy. There are plenty of straight, white, male heroes on film from whom I can be expected draw inspiration, and I am confident enough that I’m OK with the fact that Captain Marvel may not have been written specifically for me. Representation does matter, and if a superhero movie with a kick ass female lead is aimed at inspiring young women, maybe let’s see that as a good thing.
I saw critical reviews complain because she started off badass and remained badass, didn’t have a real montage-style transformation. I saw complaints that there was no romantic interest. Well John McClane and Maverick and Indiana Jones and everybody Schwarzenegger ever played all started out badass and stayed badass. Maybe they had a moment of doubt to overcome, but they were never not heroic. And as far as the lack of a romance, she’s on a time sensitive mission to save the world. She’s not here to flirt. She’s here to kick ass and chew bubble gum and she’s all out of bubble gum. So stop making excuses to dislike the film.
Now, I will repeat, I loved this character. I didn’t have a crush on Captain Marvel. And I’m going to make this distinction, because I think it lies at the heart of the unjustified hate this movie has gotten. I had a crush on Black Widow. I had a crush on Wonder Woman. But I didn’t want to be with Captain Marvel. wanted to be like Captain Marvel.
Larson played the role with swagger and humor and warmth. And the moment of doubt she has to overcome, when she looks back over her life to all the times she’s fallen, and then the film segues into a montage of all the times she got the hell back up? When she embraces her humanity and throws off her alien shackles and unleashes righteous vengeance?
Well that’s just Goddamn epic.
And if you can’t appreciate that, well…
You probably are a terrible person.
Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth
Recently, I had to confront one of the writer’s biggest challenges: the Bad Review. Well, it wasn’t exactly my first rodeo. I’d had like one or two bad reviews over six years, then I entered the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off, made it into the finals, so I was riding high, and got something like seven or eight brutal reviews in a month’s time. So it wasn’t my very first time, but it was the first time I felt really beaten up.
One thing that came to the forefront of my thinking was boxing. When I was very young, my dad and my paternal grandfather were big into boxing. My grandfather had boxed in his youth. Muhammad Ali was a household name. Fight posters and cigar smoke are my two clearest memories of my grandfather’s house. It was a thing in my life, so boxing metaphors work for me. And the thing about boxing is that, if you get in the ring, yeah, you need to be able to throw a punch and to move and to guard yourself, but ultimately, you need to be able to take a punch.
It’s going to happen. If you put your work out there, it’s going to get reviewed, and some people aren’t going to like it. We may love the good reviews, and I’ve been very fortunate that most of mine have been positive, but sooner or later, somebody’s gonna land a glove on you.
So how do you take it?
Ideally, you need to do three things. Most people don’t. Many people can get through one or maybe two. But to be great, you need to do all three.
First of all, you need to get back up.
These things happen. And they hurt and they suck, but it’s part of the game. It’s a part that you agreed to, tacitly at least, when you put your work out there. It’s not unfair. It hurts, because when we write, we basically stand naked on a stage, and that’s a very vulnerable place to be. But you decided to be there. So the first test is: Can you get back up? Can you write another book?
Maybe you need to shake your head until the double vision goes away, and maybe you need to spit out a few teeth, and maybe you need to stagger over to your corner and hope you have a good cut man, but if you don’t get up, your only option is to throw in the towel. To admit you don’t have what it takes to be an author.
Nothing wrong with not being an author. There are plenty of other things you could be doing with your time, and lots of them are more fun or pay better.
If you are committed to writing, if you are passionate about telling your story, dig deep, deal with the pain, but get back on your feet.
This step is the only really essential one. If you can take the abuse and keep getting up, you are a writer. You can keep putting out books and collecting bruises. But if you want to be better, you need to go further.
The next thing you are going to need to do is keep your composure. Don’t lash out at bad reviews. You may feel attacked, because somebody is talking shit about your baby, but critics are doing exactly what you asked them to do. What they are supposed to do. Here, the boxing analogy is particularly apt, because it’s the other guy’s actual job to punch you, so you really can’t fault him for it. If you were better at boxing, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten hit. If you were a better writer, you wouldn’t have gotten a bad review. You got in the ring, or you sent your book out for review or you clicked on the review link at Goodreads. You agreed to this, don’t blame anyone else.
If you react by lashing out, you will hurt your reputation. You will come across as whiny and thin skinned and will turn off readers and other reviewers. You will be burning bridges in a market that is very dependent on bridges.
So say “thank you” and move on. If you need to swear and throw things before you can calm down and say “thank you,” that’s fine. Take some time. But turn off the computer or at least log off the site with the bad review and have your rant in private.
If the first step takes grit and fortitude, this step takes control. Self assurance. Sang froid. Cool.
Brush the dust off your shoulder like Luke Skywalker at the end of The Last Jedi.
If you have the grit to get back up and the cool to shrug it off, you can do fairly well. You can keep writing and not alienate the readers and reviewers.
But if you stop there, you are missing the one possible benefit to the whole ordeal. The final challenge, and probably the toughest.
Can you listen to the review, and can you learn from it?
This takes both some humility, and enough confidence so that you can hear your efforts trashed without breaking down. It also requires some introspection and the ability to separate valid criticism from that which isn’t valid. No book is going to make everybody happy, and if the review is something like “I just read The Walking Dead and it was awful. I don’t like walking or the dead” you can probably ignore it. But sometimes critics have a point.
That can be tough to swallow. You need to really take a hard look at what you’ve written, and consider the case against it, rather than just giving a knee jerk defense. Yes, you cried tears of blood while writing it, but sometimes just trying really hard doesn’t win you any awards. The thoughts of your critics can give you insight into what you could do better, if you have the strength of character to stare into that abyss.
The third is the hardest, for me at least. Growing up as a little guy with a big mouth, I learned to take a punch early on. Learning not to lash out, to just smile through that split lip and shrug it off was harder. But the final lesson, the hardest lesson, is what will make you better. There’s no shame in getting floored by a left hook you didn’t see coming. But until you learn the gap in your defense that let that punch in, and you fix it, you’re never going to shine.
So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna get back up, shake it off and be thankful for the chance to learn, to grow, to be a better writer?
It’s up to you.
But the ref is counting.
One thing that came to the forefront of my thinking was boxing. When I was very young, my dad and my paternal grandfather were big into boxing. My grandfather had boxed in his youth. Muhammad Ali was a household name. Fight posters and cigar smoke are my two clearest memories of my grandfather’s house. It was a thing in my life, so boxing metaphors work for me. And the thing about boxing is that, if you get in the ring, yeah, you need to be able to throw a punch and to move and to guard yourself, but ultimately, you need to be able to take a punch.
It’s going to happen. If you put your work out there, it’s going to get reviewed, and some people aren’t going to like it. We may love the good reviews, and I’ve been very fortunate that most of mine have been positive, but sooner or later, somebody’s gonna land a glove on you.
So how do you take it?
Ideally, you need to do three things. Most people don’t. Many people can get through one or maybe two. But to be great, you need to do all three.
First of all, you need to get back up.
These things happen. And they hurt and they suck, but it’s part of the game. It’s a part that you agreed to, tacitly at least, when you put your work out there. It’s not unfair. It hurts, because when we write, we basically stand naked on a stage, and that’s a very vulnerable place to be. But you decided to be there. So the first test is: Can you get back up? Can you write another book?
Maybe you need to shake your head until the double vision goes away, and maybe you need to spit out a few teeth, and maybe you need to stagger over to your corner and hope you have a good cut man, but if you don’t get up, your only option is to throw in the towel. To admit you don’t have what it takes to be an author.
Nothing wrong with not being an author. There are plenty of other things you could be doing with your time, and lots of them are more fun or pay better.
If you are committed to writing, if you are passionate about telling your story, dig deep, deal with the pain, but get back on your feet.
This step is the only really essential one. If you can take the abuse and keep getting up, you are a writer. You can keep putting out books and collecting bruises. But if you want to be better, you need to go further.
The next thing you are going to need to do is keep your composure. Don’t lash out at bad reviews. You may feel attacked, because somebody is talking shit about your baby, but critics are doing exactly what you asked them to do. What they are supposed to do. Here, the boxing analogy is particularly apt, because it’s the other guy’s actual job to punch you, so you really can’t fault him for it. If you were better at boxing, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten hit. If you were a better writer, you wouldn’t have gotten a bad review. You got in the ring, or you sent your book out for review or you clicked on the review link at Goodreads. You agreed to this, don’t blame anyone else.
If you react by lashing out, you will hurt your reputation. You will come across as whiny and thin skinned and will turn off readers and other reviewers. You will be burning bridges in a market that is very dependent on bridges.
So say “thank you” and move on. If you need to swear and throw things before you can calm down and say “thank you,” that’s fine. Take some time. But turn off the computer or at least log off the site with the bad review and have your rant in private.
If the first step takes grit and fortitude, this step takes control. Self assurance. Sang froid. Cool.
Brush the dust off your shoulder like Luke Skywalker at the end of The Last Jedi.
If you have the grit to get back up and the cool to shrug it off, you can do fairly well. You can keep writing and not alienate the readers and reviewers.
But if you stop there, you are missing the one possible benefit to the whole ordeal. The final challenge, and probably the toughest.
Can you listen to the review, and can you learn from it?
This takes both some humility, and enough confidence so that you can hear your efforts trashed without breaking down. It also requires some introspection and the ability to separate valid criticism from that which isn’t valid. No book is going to make everybody happy, and if the review is something like “I just read The Walking Dead and it was awful. I don’t like walking or the dead” you can probably ignore it. But sometimes critics have a point.
That can be tough to swallow. You need to really take a hard look at what you’ve written, and consider the case against it, rather than just giving a knee jerk defense. Yes, you cried tears of blood while writing it, but sometimes just trying really hard doesn’t win you any awards. The thoughts of your critics can give you insight into what you could do better, if you have the strength of character to stare into that abyss.
The third is the hardest, for me at least. Growing up as a little guy with a big mouth, I learned to take a punch early on. Learning not to lash out, to just smile through that split lip and shrug it off was harder. But the final lesson, the hardest lesson, is what will make you better. There’s no shame in getting floored by a left hook you didn’t see coming. But until you learn the gap in your defense that let that punch in, and you fix it, you’re never going to shine.
So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna get back up, shake it off and be thankful for the chance to learn, to grow, to be a better writer?
It’s up to you.
But the ref is counting.
February 12, 2019
Self Reflection, Courtesy of the SPFBO (Warning: Explicit Language. Like More Than Usual)
This past year I entered my debut urban fantasy/self-indulgent EMS novel into the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off. It’s done better than I had expected, making it to the final round against some pretty good books. The contest is still running, but the finals are an even tougher group, so I’m not expecting to win, but getting the book in more hands, particularly those of book bloggers is a prize in and of itself.
SPFBO has been good in terms of increasing my sales, of making new connections, expanding my friends list, and a number of new reviews.
That last had seemed a mixed blessing at first. But not now that I’ve had time to think about it.
The book is pretty niche. It’s urban fantasy without vampires or werewolves, or even much overt magic at all. It had dribs and drabs of historical flashbacks, as the protagonist is immortal, but it’s not really historical fiction. Technically, maybe sorta there’s a paranormal romance, if you count a subplot relationship between a normal human and an immortal who appears pretty much as a normal human. And there’s a huge emergency medical services component, which people outside the field might find less accessible.
Prior to entering the contest, people who picked it up were those who had a connection to the rather unique take, and EMS people who liked fantasy loved it. Reviews were great. But that’s being a big fish in a very very small pond. I’m sure when he wrote Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain expected it to do well with cooks. It was success outside of that circle that surprised him.
So, right or wrong, I had gotten used to four and five star reviews. I’d gotten cocky. And I made the finals, which did little to dispel my cockiness. Until I started getting some reviews from people who had picked it up because of the contest. People who may read a lot of fantasy, but don’t run in my regular circles.
Now, I didn’t get terrible reviews, but I got a bunch mediocre ones, and one thing in particular kept coming up. It has been seen as a having a bit of a sexist, male gaze, testosterone, swinging dick vibe.
I was surprised by this. Not just because it hadn’t come up before, but because I’d tried pretty hard to make the female characters competent and independent and as fully drawn as the male ones. So my fragile male ego was stung by this criticism.
My first instinct was defensive. I wanted to fight back, deny any such claims and prove my accusers wrong. Which is about as testosterone fueled, swinging dick as a response can be. I found myself falling back on the defensive on two points.
First, these readers were often fans of Grimdark fantasy. Readers accustomed to protagonists who were at least tacitly accepting of, if not directly involved in things like rape, torture, cannibalism, infanticide and razing villages full of innocent civilians. And they’re going to clutch their pearls when two paramedics make small talk in the ambulance about which of the new ER nurses they want to bang? It was like hearing Genghis Khan walk up covered in blood and ashes and say “Not cool, man. She’s somebody’s sister.”
Nothing like a little unjustified righteous indignation to start the day.
I came around to realize that while a fantasy villain, or even an antihero, and it can be tough to tell them apart on some days, may be terrible, but it’s terrible at a nice safe distance. It’s unlikely the Dark Lord’s horde is going to sack your village and carry you off to slavery, but the low key objectification might strike too close to home, be too much a part of the miasma of shittiness that makes your life crap every day.
The second defense was authenticity. I solemnly swear that the tone and content of the work conversations is one hundred percent faithful to what I hear very day. Everything is couched in terms of sex. We’re always getting fucked. Usually in the ass. By management, by dispatch, by the Trickster Gods of EMS who can wait for hours while you do nothing them make the city explode the moment you try to eat a hot meal. Almost anything management is announcing or enacting is discussed in terms of non consensual sodomy. I’ve heard it said on more than one occasion that we’ve been fucked so often we hardly notice until we hear the grunting behind us. The occasional good thing is described equally vulgarly, as “hey, the company is giving out gift cards and hand jobs today.”
Before I became and EMT and then a Paramedic, I went into the Marine Corps right out of high school, and after graduating college in the middle of a recession I worked installing water services, fixing broken water mains in the dead of winter, plowing snow, unloading trucks, and other blue collar, male dominated, physical jobs. Where we were always “getting fucked.”
So, a high testosterone, swinging dick atmosphere is what I’ve grown accustomed to. But I always thought that I was above it. More enlightened. A bleeding heart liberal. Pro LGBT rights, feminist (really), and borderline socialist.
Mostly because I though that women and the poor and people of color and non-straight people were getting fucked worse than I was. So even when declaring my more enlightened positions, it always comes back to this. If there’s a version of Godwin’s Law involving comparing things to sodomy rather than Hitler, then it applies to every workplace conversation I’ve had in the past thirty years.
But after some reflection, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe authenticity isn’t a defense, exactly. Maybe there are ways to be faithful to the spirit of EMS and to show our little world with a bit less casual sexist vulgarity. Maybe if that is the authentic reality of our industry, we should maybe work on that and not revel in it.
So maybe those reviews weren’t fucking me.
Maybe they were showing me some things I may not have wanted to see, but probably should.
So, if nothing else, I will be a better writer, and maybe a bit more aware at the end of the day.
Not that I’d mind a win. Just sayin’
SPFBO has been good in terms of increasing my sales, of making new connections, expanding my friends list, and a number of new reviews.
That last had seemed a mixed blessing at first. But not now that I’ve had time to think about it.
The book is pretty niche. It’s urban fantasy without vampires or werewolves, or even much overt magic at all. It had dribs and drabs of historical flashbacks, as the protagonist is immortal, but it’s not really historical fiction. Technically, maybe sorta there’s a paranormal romance, if you count a subplot relationship between a normal human and an immortal who appears pretty much as a normal human. And there’s a huge emergency medical services component, which people outside the field might find less accessible.
Prior to entering the contest, people who picked it up were those who had a connection to the rather unique take, and EMS people who liked fantasy loved it. Reviews were great. But that’s being a big fish in a very very small pond. I’m sure when he wrote Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain expected it to do well with cooks. It was success outside of that circle that surprised him.
So, right or wrong, I had gotten used to four and five star reviews. I’d gotten cocky. And I made the finals, which did little to dispel my cockiness. Until I started getting some reviews from people who had picked it up because of the contest. People who may read a lot of fantasy, but don’t run in my regular circles.
Now, I didn’t get terrible reviews, but I got a bunch mediocre ones, and one thing in particular kept coming up. It has been seen as a having a bit of a sexist, male gaze, testosterone, swinging dick vibe.
I was surprised by this. Not just because it hadn’t come up before, but because I’d tried pretty hard to make the female characters competent and independent and as fully drawn as the male ones. So my fragile male ego was stung by this criticism.
My first instinct was defensive. I wanted to fight back, deny any such claims and prove my accusers wrong. Which is about as testosterone fueled, swinging dick as a response can be. I found myself falling back on the defensive on two points.
First, these readers were often fans of Grimdark fantasy. Readers accustomed to protagonists who were at least tacitly accepting of, if not directly involved in things like rape, torture, cannibalism, infanticide and razing villages full of innocent civilians. And they’re going to clutch their pearls when two paramedics make small talk in the ambulance about which of the new ER nurses they want to bang? It was like hearing Genghis Khan walk up covered in blood and ashes and say “Not cool, man. She’s somebody’s sister.”
Nothing like a little unjustified righteous indignation to start the day.
I came around to realize that while a fantasy villain, or even an antihero, and it can be tough to tell them apart on some days, may be terrible, but it’s terrible at a nice safe distance. It’s unlikely the Dark Lord’s horde is going to sack your village and carry you off to slavery, but the low key objectification might strike too close to home, be too much a part of the miasma of shittiness that makes your life crap every day.
The second defense was authenticity. I solemnly swear that the tone and content of the work conversations is one hundred percent faithful to what I hear very day. Everything is couched in terms of sex. We’re always getting fucked. Usually in the ass. By management, by dispatch, by the Trickster Gods of EMS who can wait for hours while you do nothing them make the city explode the moment you try to eat a hot meal. Almost anything management is announcing or enacting is discussed in terms of non consensual sodomy. I’ve heard it said on more than one occasion that we’ve been fucked so often we hardly notice until we hear the grunting behind us. The occasional good thing is described equally vulgarly, as “hey, the company is giving out gift cards and hand jobs today.”
Before I became and EMT and then a Paramedic, I went into the Marine Corps right out of high school, and after graduating college in the middle of a recession I worked installing water services, fixing broken water mains in the dead of winter, plowing snow, unloading trucks, and other blue collar, male dominated, physical jobs. Where we were always “getting fucked.”
So, a high testosterone, swinging dick atmosphere is what I’ve grown accustomed to. But I always thought that I was above it. More enlightened. A bleeding heart liberal. Pro LGBT rights, feminist (really), and borderline socialist.
Mostly because I though that women and the poor and people of color and non-straight people were getting fucked worse than I was. So even when declaring my more enlightened positions, it always comes back to this. If there’s a version of Godwin’s Law involving comparing things to sodomy rather than Hitler, then it applies to every workplace conversation I’ve had in the past thirty years.
But after some reflection, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe authenticity isn’t a defense, exactly. Maybe there are ways to be faithful to the spirit of EMS and to show our little world with a bit less casual sexist vulgarity. Maybe if that is the authentic reality of our industry, we should maybe work on that and not revel in it.
So maybe those reviews weren’t fucking me.
Maybe they were showing me some things I may not have wanted to see, but probably should.
So, if nothing else, I will be a better writer, and maybe a bit more aware at the end of the day.
Not that I’d mind a win. Just sayin’
December 6, 2018
Diversity in Speculative Fiction, or Where the Hell is my “Black Widow” Movie?
Recently, I saw one of the Avengers movies on TV, and started thinking about all the Marvel Universe movies, and kept coming back to the Big Question. No not “Is there a god?” or “What is the meaning of life?” or even “What the fuck happened to bring about the 2016 election?” but “Where is the Black Widow movie?”
Now, we have heard that female led action movies aren’t successful. We’ve heard that the studios are aiming for the male 18-34 year old demographic. We’ve heard a lot of bad excuses wrapped in marketing douchebag vernacular.
Now let me explain why this is all a pack of lies.
Working through this logically, there are people who will never buy a ticket for a super hero movie (hi Mom!) regardless of who the character is. So set that audience aside. You’re not getting their money. Concentrate on the millions of people who are showing up for the Marvel blockbusters. How do we make a film that those people will pay good money for?
If we look at the potential audience for a superhero movie, I think all of them fall into at least one if not both of the following categories: People who will think it’s empowering to see a strong female action hero save the day, and people who want to watch Scarlett Johansson kick ass in a black catsuit.
Now, if they get both of those groups, (most of whom overlap, really. I mean, the Venn diagram is pretty much just a circle) I think Marvel can maybe afford to lose the asexual misogynist market.
It’s time to stick a fork in the idea that main action movie hero has to be a man, preferably white. The signs are there that things might be changing, Wonder Woman made a ton of money, as did Black Panther. The latest Mad Max installment had a female characters front and center, moving Max himself almost to the sidelines. Aqua Man no longer looks like Flash Gordon in flippers. There’s a Captain Marvel movie coming out soon. Jessica Jones showed us that women can play damaged, cynical, alcoholic detectives every bit as well as men can. These are all encouraging signs. The industry is starting to realize that people will pay good money for a solid action movie, even if the hero doesn’t look like Chris Evans. Or Chris Pine. Or Chris Pratt.
The science fiction and fantasy genre has struggled with this for some time. Insular and isolated, the largely white, largely male fandom has been too hesitant to admit the wider populace to its ranks. They want to see Elves and aliens. But not chicks or brown people, except as token sidekicks and props. Look at the internet outrage from the notoriously cranky Star Wars fan base at a black Stormtrooper or Rey, who is basically Luke, but with ovaries.
This attitude needs to die. We need to be better. We need to show that the Speculative Fiction genre is built on possibility. For everybody, even people who don’t look like Steve Rogers. I won’t say “who don’t look like us” because, honestly, not many of us look like Steve Rogers. So keep rewarding good choice with your book or movie ticket dollars, and help open up the genre, make it more inclusive.
So we can get 90 minutes of Scarlett Johansson being empowering and trailblazing.
In a catsuit.
Now, we have heard that female led action movies aren’t successful. We’ve heard that the studios are aiming for the male 18-34 year old demographic. We’ve heard a lot of bad excuses wrapped in marketing douchebag vernacular.
Now let me explain why this is all a pack of lies.
Working through this logically, there are people who will never buy a ticket for a super hero movie (hi Mom!) regardless of who the character is. So set that audience aside. You’re not getting their money. Concentrate on the millions of people who are showing up for the Marvel blockbusters. How do we make a film that those people will pay good money for?
If we look at the potential audience for a superhero movie, I think all of them fall into at least one if not both of the following categories: People who will think it’s empowering to see a strong female action hero save the day, and people who want to watch Scarlett Johansson kick ass in a black catsuit.
Now, if they get both of those groups, (most of whom overlap, really. I mean, the Venn diagram is pretty much just a circle) I think Marvel can maybe afford to lose the asexual misogynist market.
It’s time to stick a fork in the idea that main action movie hero has to be a man, preferably white. The signs are there that things might be changing, Wonder Woman made a ton of money, as did Black Panther. The latest Mad Max installment had a female characters front and center, moving Max himself almost to the sidelines. Aqua Man no longer looks like Flash Gordon in flippers. There’s a Captain Marvel movie coming out soon. Jessica Jones showed us that women can play damaged, cynical, alcoholic detectives every bit as well as men can. These are all encouraging signs. The industry is starting to realize that people will pay good money for a solid action movie, even if the hero doesn’t look like Chris Evans. Or Chris Pine. Or Chris Pratt.
The science fiction and fantasy genre has struggled with this for some time. Insular and isolated, the largely white, largely male fandom has been too hesitant to admit the wider populace to its ranks. They want to see Elves and aliens. But not chicks or brown people, except as token sidekicks and props. Look at the internet outrage from the notoriously cranky Star Wars fan base at a black Stormtrooper or Rey, who is basically Luke, but with ovaries.
This attitude needs to die. We need to be better. We need to show that the Speculative Fiction genre is built on possibility. For everybody, even people who don’t look like Steve Rogers. I won’t say “who don’t look like us” because, honestly, not many of us look like Steve Rogers. So keep rewarding good choice with your book or movie ticket dollars, and help open up the genre, make it more inclusive.
So we can get 90 minutes of Scarlett Johansson being empowering and trailblazing.
In a catsuit.
Why I'm Sick of the Chosen One
It’s a trope we all know. It’s been used by some of the most beloved authors in some of the best known works, the foundational works of fantasy and science fiction.
But I don’t like it.
OK, anything can work if it’s done reeeaaaally well. But if you want to pull off a “chosen one” story and not have my eyes rolling, you have to be very, very good.
My biggest issue with the trope is that the chosen one is usually chosen very poorly. It’s always some hick from the sticks who has no idea what they’ve been chosen for, and no skills or competence at the task that needs doing. They are chosen by birthright factors beyond their control. When they do shine, it’s because of some mystical innate thing. Nothing they had to work for or practice or try to get good at. They just happen to be the orphan with the most Midichlorians. Your basic Chosen One is the mystical version of the trust fund brat who gets the dream job you actually worked hard for because the CEO of the company roomed with his dad at Phillips. Why does the universe never choose somebody who’s actually good at the job?
And to underscore just how incompetent and poorly suited the chosen one is for their role, they need a squad of actually competent but oddly un-chosen ones to do all the heavy lifting. They have a wise mentor who teaches them pretty much everything. This is popular in fiction because it allows the author to build the world and the backstory. I get that. It’s less of a distracting info dump when Gandalf or Obi Wan or Dumbledore is trying to tell our hero how the universe works and to stop bumbling around Moria or the Death Star or Diagon Alley. The reader is being educated along with the useless protagonist, so as a lazy way to get your world building out, sure, fine.
But the competent group that has to hold our hero’s hand and act as expendable training wheels on the protagonist’s bicycle are the really interesting characters. The ones I care about. The ones that I would rather see in the spotlight. Without Han Solo or Hermione or Aragorn, the hero fails, evil triumphs and the world/galaxy/whatever is plunged into despair. And for what reward? The wise mentor always gets to die. Often as not, the competent crew of companions lose a few members, and the Chosen One steps forward over the corpses of his more worthy protectors to do the One Thing that they are Chosen for, saving the day.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I still say Boromir got a raw deal.
But I don’t like it.
OK, anything can work if it’s done reeeaaaally well. But if you want to pull off a “chosen one” story and not have my eyes rolling, you have to be very, very good.
My biggest issue with the trope is that the chosen one is usually chosen very poorly. It’s always some hick from the sticks who has no idea what they’ve been chosen for, and no skills or competence at the task that needs doing. They are chosen by birthright factors beyond their control. When they do shine, it’s because of some mystical innate thing. Nothing they had to work for or practice or try to get good at. They just happen to be the orphan with the most Midichlorians. Your basic Chosen One is the mystical version of the trust fund brat who gets the dream job you actually worked hard for because the CEO of the company roomed with his dad at Phillips. Why does the universe never choose somebody who’s actually good at the job?
And to underscore just how incompetent and poorly suited the chosen one is for their role, they need a squad of actually competent but oddly un-chosen ones to do all the heavy lifting. They have a wise mentor who teaches them pretty much everything. This is popular in fiction because it allows the author to build the world and the backstory. I get that. It’s less of a distracting info dump when Gandalf or Obi Wan or Dumbledore is trying to tell our hero how the universe works and to stop bumbling around Moria or the Death Star or Diagon Alley. The reader is being educated along with the useless protagonist, so as a lazy way to get your world building out, sure, fine.
But the competent group that has to hold our hero’s hand and act as expendable training wheels on the protagonist’s bicycle are the really interesting characters. The ones I care about. The ones that I would rather see in the spotlight. Without Han Solo or Hermione or Aragorn, the hero fails, evil triumphs and the world/galaxy/whatever is plunged into despair. And for what reward? The wise mentor always gets to die. Often as not, the competent crew of companions lose a few members, and the Chosen One steps forward over the corpses of his more worthy protectors to do the One Thing that they are Chosen for, saving the day.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I still say Boromir got a raw deal.
Just Throwing This Out There
A while back, fellow QM editor Ray posted an editorial arguing against the thrown knife in literature.Check it out here:
http://quantummusebooks.com/fantasy-s...
He’s not exactly wrong, per se. But while he made some good points, I feel I have to stand up for this time honored trope.
Right out of the gate, I’m going to admit that thrown knives are either an improvised weapon, using a fighting knife in a way for which it was neither designed or intended, or the character is using a purpose made throwing knife, which is bad for melee fighting, and a less effective missile than many other weapons. And throwing a knife well takes a lot of practice compared to other weapons, so you’re working harder to be less effective than if you had a gun or a bow or a crossbow or whatever.
So, yeah. Lots of arguments against thrown knives.
Here are a few in favor.
One:
Style. The thrown dagger is a staple of pulp fantasy. Without thrown knives, Lankhmar would be like Cleveland on a rainy Tuesday. How’s Vlad Taltos going to defeat the sorceresses of the Left Hand without chucking a few knives? Maybe this falls into the category of swashbuckling heroes swinging from chandeliers or pirates swinging across to the enemy ship in the rigging with a dagger in their teeth, but I give a established tropes a pass when used as Leiber intended. Now, I wouldn’t let my Space Marines throw daggers at enemy snipers, but my fantasy rogues are going to do it. It’s all a case of respecting the conventions of the genre. There’s a time and a place where they’re expected. If Oswald is carrying a case of throwing knives into the book depository, you’re probably doing something very wrong.
Two:
A throwing knife is easy to conceal. Assuming we’re in a medieval fantasy world, where your character can’t carry a Walther PPK, the throwing knife slipped into a boot or up a sleeve gives them just about the only feasible discreet weapon. Hard to conceal a bow or spear or wheel-lock pistol or trebuchet about your person. And they aren’t bulky or awkward to carry. For a cunning rogue a few throwing knives make a lot more sense than other options. It’s tough to wind a crossbow while hanging from a ledge, and climbing through a window with a longbow on your back is like trying to move a panel of sheetrock through a revolving door.
Three:
And lastly, while throwing your knife is less effective in general than just holding onto it and shanking your enemy, it’s not always a bad option because with a thrown weapon, all the bad stuff happens way over there. An agile, lightly armored cat burglar or street rat might not want to get within stabbing range of the hulking barbarian with the broadsword.
So for all these reasons, I’m fine with the odd thrown dagger. Just set the stage. Make sure there is a reason your character chose that option. Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen hauling a siege crossbow into the opera. It’s tricky to do well so make the reader believe your character has practiced with thrown knives. Maybe have one strike hilt first or flat once in a while to show that it’s not an easy weapon to use. Since the character is throwing his weapon away, maybe make it a point that a character who specializes in thrown knives carries a number of them.
In short, thrown daggers are like most things in fiction. To make them believable, you have to do your homework and paint the reader a picture.
http://quantummusebooks.com/fantasy-s...
He’s not exactly wrong, per se. But while he made some good points, I feel I have to stand up for this time honored trope.
Right out of the gate, I’m going to admit that thrown knives are either an improvised weapon, using a fighting knife in a way for which it was neither designed or intended, or the character is using a purpose made throwing knife, which is bad for melee fighting, and a less effective missile than many other weapons. And throwing a knife well takes a lot of practice compared to other weapons, so you’re working harder to be less effective than if you had a gun or a bow or a crossbow or whatever.
So, yeah. Lots of arguments against thrown knives.
Here are a few in favor.
One:
Style. The thrown dagger is a staple of pulp fantasy. Without thrown knives, Lankhmar would be like Cleveland on a rainy Tuesday. How’s Vlad Taltos going to defeat the sorceresses of the Left Hand without chucking a few knives? Maybe this falls into the category of swashbuckling heroes swinging from chandeliers or pirates swinging across to the enemy ship in the rigging with a dagger in their teeth, but I give a established tropes a pass when used as Leiber intended. Now, I wouldn’t let my Space Marines throw daggers at enemy snipers, but my fantasy rogues are going to do it. It’s all a case of respecting the conventions of the genre. There’s a time and a place where they’re expected. If Oswald is carrying a case of throwing knives into the book depository, you’re probably doing something very wrong.
Two:
A throwing knife is easy to conceal. Assuming we’re in a medieval fantasy world, where your character can’t carry a Walther PPK, the throwing knife slipped into a boot or up a sleeve gives them just about the only feasible discreet weapon. Hard to conceal a bow or spear or wheel-lock pistol or trebuchet about your person. And they aren’t bulky or awkward to carry. For a cunning rogue a few throwing knives make a lot more sense than other options. It’s tough to wind a crossbow while hanging from a ledge, and climbing through a window with a longbow on your back is like trying to move a panel of sheetrock through a revolving door.
Three:
And lastly, while throwing your knife is less effective in general than just holding onto it and shanking your enemy, it’s not always a bad option because with a thrown weapon, all the bad stuff happens way over there. An agile, lightly armored cat burglar or street rat might not want to get within stabbing range of the hulking barbarian with the broadsword.
So for all these reasons, I’m fine with the odd thrown dagger. Just set the stage. Make sure there is a reason your character chose that option. Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen hauling a siege crossbow into the opera. It’s tricky to do well so make the reader believe your character has practiced with thrown knives. Maybe have one strike hilt first or flat once in a while to show that it’s not an easy weapon to use. Since the character is throwing his weapon away, maybe make it a point that a character who specializes in thrown knives carries a number of them.
In short, thrown daggers are like most things in fiction. To make them believable, you have to do your homework and paint the reader a picture.
July 18, 2018
Just How Anti Do You Like Your Heroes?
This is an important question, both for writers and for readers. The anti hero has gain prominence lately, and there are a lot of reasons for that. But it’s less a question of “should my protagonist be flawed?” and more a question of “how flawed should my protagonist be?”
The perfect hero, the knight in shining armor, has fallen out of favor. Although, to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember him ever being much in favor, outside of children’s fiction, and legends. Possibly the best known and most recent truly spotless heroes would be in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Other than Boromir, the members of the fellowship are about as flawless as you can get.
Even there, the real viewpoint characters are the Hobbits, who aren’t anti-heroes by any stretch, but are the easiest to identify with. They’re more or less everyman characters, simple folk thrust into the role of hero by a situation. While they never venture into the moral grey area that defines an anti-hero, the can show enough fear and doubt that lets us in. Allows us to empathize a bit. It’s hard to really identify with Aragorn, but we can identify with Sam or Frodo, who are allowed to express fear, hunger, fatigue and doubt, so long as they carry on with stiff upper lips. Those moments of vulnerability humanize them.
Aside from that, though, most heroes have some nice, meaty flaws, and grapple with some choices and situations where it’s not as clear cut that they will just “do the right thing” or even recognize what that thing is. Many of them have a little bit of moral flexibility.
In theory, I like that. I think a well rounded character can and should have some complexity. The question is how far into the grey can they go and remain a hero.
Sword and Sorcery stores have a rich tradition of anti heroes. Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Kane. All these characters aren’t exactly good guys, but they are objectively better than the bad guys. They also lived in a world dominated by shades of grey. There were no dark lords facing noble princes of the Free People. There were certainly evil sorcerers, rampaging hordes, even dark gods summoned by deluded cultists, But the people of the worlds were, by and large, people. Neither wholly good or evil.
Detective fiction had its own variation on this character. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are heroes in this vein. Tough, hard, coarse men. The implication was that they had the necessary traits to get the job done in a world where, to quote the Bard himself, Bob Dylan, “blackness was a virtue.” What separated them from the villains of the piece was they had a code of honor. A line they wouldn’t cross.
A more lighthearted version of this protagonist is the Lovable Rogue. By definition this character isn’t a shining knight. They may be a smuggler, a highwayman, a pirate, a con man, a thief, a bounty hunter. These characters live outside the law, or just on the edge of it. But again, there are depths to which they will not stoop, and they usually oppose enemies who are truly evil, and often have the law on their side. This character has kept Hollywood afloat for about 80 years. Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Han Solo. Enough flaws to be interesting, but enough honor that we want them for our hero.
More recently, the subgenre of Grimdark is surging in popularity. The armor isn’t shining very bright, and the world is shading to a much darker grey. The setting is such that a truly good person won’t survive, let alone win the day. You still root for the heroes, because while they may be flawed. the alternative is unthinkable.
And sometimes, we can even watch a protagonist slip from anti hero to villain. We see them cross that line, and become as bad or worse than the foe. Sometimes it seems that these characters were created just to see how far we’d follow them down that dark path.
So how far can you go? Where is the bottom?
Maybe in an attempt to answer that question, or because he hated readers, or maybe because some men just want to watch the world burn, Stephen R Donaldson chose to inflict Thomas Covenant on the genre. Covenant isn’t really an anti hero, because even the worst anti hero usually has a few things that make them interesting. Covenant was self absorbed, cruel, and had sociopathic disregard for everyone around him. You can say the same for some of George R R Martin’s characters from A Song of Ice and Fire, but at least they are interesting characters. Villains with some ambition and panache. In addition to being a terrible person, Covenant was a whiny douche. Like if instead of leading an evil empire bent on world domination, Sauron just decided to show up at your place, broke and addicted to huffing paint thinner, and begged to stay on your couch, then assaulted your kids and stole your stuff and cried that the system was to blame and he has a condition, man.
May have gone on a rant there, but I loathe Covenant.
But was it because of the terrible things he did or the good he failed to do, the pain he inflicted or allowed to happen because of his inaction? Or was it because he was so insufferably whiny and pathetic? Was I repulsed by the evil or the weakness?
Anyway, Donaldson gave us a nice point on the bottom of the scale for just how awful a protagonist can be.
So, the question from which I have strayed, is: On a scale of Thomas Covenant to Sir Galahad, just how flawed do you like your protagonist?
The perfect hero, the knight in shining armor, has fallen out of favor. Although, to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember him ever being much in favor, outside of children’s fiction, and legends. Possibly the best known and most recent truly spotless heroes would be in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Other than Boromir, the members of the fellowship are about as flawless as you can get.
Even there, the real viewpoint characters are the Hobbits, who aren’t anti-heroes by any stretch, but are the easiest to identify with. They’re more or less everyman characters, simple folk thrust into the role of hero by a situation. While they never venture into the moral grey area that defines an anti-hero, the can show enough fear and doubt that lets us in. Allows us to empathize a bit. It’s hard to really identify with Aragorn, but we can identify with Sam or Frodo, who are allowed to express fear, hunger, fatigue and doubt, so long as they carry on with stiff upper lips. Those moments of vulnerability humanize them.
Aside from that, though, most heroes have some nice, meaty flaws, and grapple with some choices and situations where it’s not as clear cut that they will just “do the right thing” or even recognize what that thing is. Many of them have a little bit of moral flexibility.
In theory, I like that. I think a well rounded character can and should have some complexity. The question is how far into the grey can they go and remain a hero.
Sword and Sorcery stores have a rich tradition of anti heroes. Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Kane. All these characters aren’t exactly good guys, but they are objectively better than the bad guys. They also lived in a world dominated by shades of grey. There were no dark lords facing noble princes of the Free People. There were certainly evil sorcerers, rampaging hordes, even dark gods summoned by deluded cultists, But the people of the worlds were, by and large, people. Neither wholly good or evil.
Detective fiction had its own variation on this character. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are heroes in this vein. Tough, hard, coarse men. The implication was that they had the necessary traits to get the job done in a world where, to quote the Bard himself, Bob Dylan, “blackness was a virtue.” What separated them from the villains of the piece was they had a code of honor. A line they wouldn’t cross.
A more lighthearted version of this protagonist is the Lovable Rogue. By definition this character isn’t a shining knight. They may be a smuggler, a highwayman, a pirate, a con man, a thief, a bounty hunter. These characters live outside the law, or just on the edge of it. But again, there are depths to which they will not stoop, and they usually oppose enemies who are truly evil, and often have the law on their side. This character has kept Hollywood afloat for about 80 years. Robin Hood, Captain Blood, Han Solo. Enough flaws to be interesting, but enough honor that we want them for our hero.
More recently, the subgenre of Grimdark is surging in popularity. The armor isn’t shining very bright, and the world is shading to a much darker grey. The setting is such that a truly good person won’t survive, let alone win the day. You still root for the heroes, because while they may be flawed. the alternative is unthinkable.
And sometimes, we can even watch a protagonist slip from anti hero to villain. We see them cross that line, and become as bad or worse than the foe. Sometimes it seems that these characters were created just to see how far we’d follow them down that dark path.
So how far can you go? Where is the bottom?
Maybe in an attempt to answer that question, or because he hated readers, or maybe because some men just want to watch the world burn, Stephen R Donaldson chose to inflict Thomas Covenant on the genre. Covenant isn’t really an anti hero, because even the worst anti hero usually has a few things that make them interesting. Covenant was self absorbed, cruel, and had sociopathic disregard for everyone around him. You can say the same for some of George R R Martin’s characters from A Song of Ice and Fire, but at least they are interesting characters. Villains with some ambition and panache. In addition to being a terrible person, Covenant was a whiny douche. Like if instead of leading an evil empire bent on world domination, Sauron just decided to show up at your place, broke and addicted to huffing paint thinner, and begged to stay on your couch, then assaulted your kids and stole your stuff and cried that the system was to blame and he has a condition, man.
May have gone on a rant there, but I loathe Covenant.
But was it because of the terrible things he did or the good he failed to do, the pain he inflicted or allowed to happen because of his inaction? Or was it because he was so insufferably whiny and pathetic? Was I repulsed by the evil or the weakness?
Anyway, Donaldson gave us a nice point on the bottom of the scale for just how awful a protagonist can be.
So, the question from which I have strayed, is: On a scale of Thomas Covenant to Sir Galahad, just how flawed do you like your protagonist?
June 20, 2018
What Anthony Bourdain Taught Me
Anthony Bourdain’s death hit me hard. He was an inspiration to me, through his writing and his television shows, making an impression on both my writing and my outlook on life.
As a writer, I have to say his prose connected with me on many levels. His style was conversational, simple, familiar. But then he would drop in similes and witticisms that changed a simple sentence to poetry, without ever becoming florid or overbearing. When Bourdain got deep, you felt that it was to rip off a scab, to expose the truth, not to show off. There was a spare beauty and subtle grace to his writing. Maybe Hemingway could have pulled it off. Maybe not. Maybe Twain, if you correct fro a century and a half. I tried to take a lesson there, and I’m grateful to have stumbled across Kitchen Confidential when I did.
More than that, his words spoke to me because he was unapologetic about his opinions and beliefs, but never afraid to admit he was wrong or to take his lumps for it. I will admit that I saw something familiar in the stories of his early mistakes, his “wilderness years” of irregular employment and poor life choices. He never blamed his misfortune on his past or his upbringing or society. He knew he had come from upper middle class comfort if not luxury, and he knew that his start was one of privilege compared to many of the people he worked alongside in various kitchens. He knew that he was there by choice, a choice not everyone has, and he seemed grateful to have found a lifestyle that fit his psyche in a way probably no other job would have.
He acknowledged the fact that he got lucky with the success of Kitchen Confidential. Not that it was without merit. The book is an entertaining read by any objective standard, and I found it brilliant, but success in publishing often comes down to luck and Bourdain seemed to understand that he’d caught lightning in a bottle. I’m sure he never expected the level of popularity it achieved. He just wanted to write a book that cooks could relate to. But that success, coming when he was in his forties, starting to feel the effects of age and youthful excess catching up, making long days on his feet in a hot kitchen seem like something that maybe wasn’t going to be sustainable, was a lifeline, and he knew it. When fame gave him a forum, he spoke out against injustice where he saw it, and later in his life he wondered openly about how much his own work had glorified the testosterone driven toxicity of restaurant culture.
His other great quality, though, the one that I fell made hi a great man, was his openness to other people. His career coming up with dishwashers and cooks, often immigrants, and often undocumented ones, impressed upon him a sense of solidarity with people from other backgrounds, and helped him see that were more alike than we are different. In his later career, when he was making travel shows, his journey to distant lands and to parts of his own country so different from the New York where he spent most of his life, he was always respectful of the locals, open to the experience of meeting them and deeply grateful for the hospitality shown him. His food shows took place more often in duck blinds or a firepit in the desert or a food stall on the street or a blue collar home kitchen than a Michelin starred restaurant. But he still seemed deeply honored by every meal served him.
If Bourdain tried to teach us anything, I think it was this. To go out and experience the worked with an open mind, not to close yourself off out of fear. To take those risks, to experience life and be thankful for the opportunity.
The manner of his death hit me hard as well. I’ve seen more than enough of that, and seen too many of my comrades go down that road. This should also teach us that you never know what someone else is going through. Don’t judge. Plenty of us wrestle with our demons. Some times the demons win.
So I will try to learn from Bourdain. Be honest with yourself. Admit your mistakes, but don’t run from them. Be open to new experiences. And look for connections with your fellow humans, not divisions.
As a writer, I have to say his prose connected with me on many levels. His style was conversational, simple, familiar. But then he would drop in similes and witticisms that changed a simple sentence to poetry, without ever becoming florid or overbearing. When Bourdain got deep, you felt that it was to rip off a scab, to expose the truth, not to show off. There was a spare beauty and subtle grace to his writing. Maybe Hemingway could have pulled it off. Maybe not. Maybe Twain, if you correct fro a century and a half. I tried to take a lesson there, and I’m grateful to have stumbled across Kitchen Confidential when I did.
More than that, his words spoke to me because he was unapologetic about his opinions and beliefs, but never afraid to admit he was wrong or to take his lumps for it. I will admit that I saw something familiar in the stories of his early mistakes, his “wilderness years” of irregular employment and poor life choices. He never blamed his misfortune on his past or his upbringing or society. He knew he had come from upper middle class comfort if not luxury, and he knew that his start was one of privilege compared to many of the people he worked alongside in various kitchens. He knew that he was there by choice, a choice not everyone has, and he seemed grateful to have found a lifestyle that fit his psyche in a way probably no other job would have.
He acknowledged the fact that he got lucky with the success of Kitchen Confidential. Not that it was without merit. The book is an entertaining read by any objective standard, and I found it brilliant, but success in publishing often comes down to luck and Bourdain seemed to understand that he’d caught lightning in a bottle. I’m sure he never expected the level of popularity it achieved. He just wanted to write a book that cooks could relate to. But that success, coming when he was in his forties, starting to feel the effects of age and youthful excess catching up, making long days on his feet in a hot kitchen seem like something that maybe wasn’t going to be sustainable, was a lifeline, and he knew it. When fame gave him a forum, he spoke out against injustice where he saw it, and later in his life he wondered openly about how much his own work had glorified the testosterone driven toxicity of restaurant culture.
His other great quality, though, the one that I fell made hi a great man, was his openness to other people. His career coming up with dishwashers and cooks, often immigrants, and often undocumented ones, impressed upon him a sense of solidarity with people from other backgrounds, and helped him see that were more alike than we are different. In his later career, when he was making travel shows, his journey to distant lands and to parts of his own country so different from the New York where he spent most of his life, he was always respectful of the locals, open to the experience of meeting them and deeply grateful for the hospitality shown him. His food shows took place more often in duck blinds or a firepit in the desert or a food stall on the street or a blue collar home kitchen than a Michelin starred restaurant. But he still seemed deeply honored by every meal served him.
If Bourdain tried to teach us anything, I think it was this. To go out and experience the worked with an open mind, not to close yourself off out of fear. To take those risks, to experience life and be thankful for the opportunity.
The manner of his death hit me hard as well. I’ve seen more than enough of that, and seen too many of my comrades go down that road. This should also teach us that you never know what someone else is going through. Don’t judge. Plenty of us wrestle with our demons. Some times the demons win.
So I will try to learn from Bourdain. Be honest with yourself. Admit your mistakes, but don’t run from them. Be open to new experiences. And look for connections with your fellow humans, not divisions.
