Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 35

That Smell

Of incompetence dressed as our talking heads in our media that's really just driven by the algorithms trying to maximize clicks and scrolls and what have you. So I see this article rolling about the stream. Seems good most people say (I wonder if it's just the headline that attracts them, because that's really the only thing going for it), so I check it out. 
I mean, I too like the headline, and I'm thinking that I've seen some examples of "increasing diversity" that seemed like an old (older than me) person's view of simply following a rule rather than adhering to the spirit of the law [1] which is basically try to get more diversity (which they aren't). 
And so the article starts on a horrible note by linking this article. Thing is, it claims the article is a "more and more minorities being published" article. And while that is true only in the most basic sense of the idea, the article is actually a breakdown of how superficial that increase is (no where near reflecting the actual diversity of the country or authors in general, and mainly coming from a very very low start) and how many publishing houses have their upper echelons (and thus decision-makers) as not diverse, to say nothing of what the $ divvying looks like. 
Which is a shame because it does start with a good example of what isn't "diversity" in terms of reviews (only a certain person of a certain minority group can review a book about said minority group... and hopefully by said minority group). 
But basically the OP goes on to say that the little increase that has happened should be applauded and that minorities should be happy with this. 

This shift should be regarded with a generosity of spirit: editors trying to bring new voices into the field, as authors and reviewers. It wasn’t so long ago, after all, that new books by nonwhite authors were hard to find. The few that did make it through to the mass market were covered, oftentimes in a clumsy, patronizing manner, by white male reviewers.

Why applaud the less than good outcomes? Not even worrying about the $? Seems like an absolute pointless thing for an essay that has an otherwise good thrust:

For the first 10 or so years of my career, I was asked to review only Asian books. I would usually agree, even though I assumed that my identity was why I had been chosen. After a while, I stopped taking those assignments because I felt as if I had been pigeonholed and also because I didn’t think my personal background really brought any particular insight to the book. When I would pitch reviews of books by non-Asian authors, I would usually be ignored.

Yeah, I agree, that "review segregation", again, needs to stop not because it's some woke thing but because it's an odd manifestation of it by someone who doesn't exactly know what they're doing and is actually acting out in racist ways (and how much are now simply institutional ruts so not sure what to label those). So I do disagree with the author that there's any or much good faith or that the decision is solely being made for fear of the woke twitter mob. [2]
That being said the author has a good gist. There has to be a certain universality to writing and reading that needs to be taken into account and if we don't (I can only imagine this exists on the internet, who in real life thinks this way?), we lose a lot. 

In the weeks since my book came out, I’ve received quite a bit of feedback, both good and bad, from readers of all backgrounds. I do feel a great intimacy with many of the Asian readers, but they certainly aren’t the only people who have responded and whom I’ve connected with. Some of the most illuminating conversations I’ve had have been with Black, South Asian, Latino and Jewish readers who take the book for what it is and then forcefully argue their own reads. These talks have been about a wide variety of subjects and even include some pointed disagreements, but the baseline has been the understanding that there is a universality to the immigrant experience, whether your people came to the United States last year or three generations ago.

Yeah, that's some good truths there. But my point is work on the increase in diversity of all sorts of voices (reviews and authors) then also work on mixing experiences when it comes to reviews.... make sense? Thoughts?
[1] There are a million examples of this. Basically old white men who are out of touch and come up with follow the "woke" rules, but that don't actually deal with what the undercurrents mean. FA had a race commission that ended up fining Baloteli for a comment (about his own race, and adopted mother, btw) while they allowed other actual forms of racism to go untouched (and there's plenty in Soccer). 
[2] I'm not saying that's not nothing as many, a diverse set I would say, online think that is fine. But we do lose out when such segregation happens and I do think it's bad faith for the most part. 
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huh?

Why oh why can't we have a better press corp? Saw this article on amazon and books and how it had changed everything and I wondered if it was, perhaps, going to provide some insight. Thing is, I have a couple odd issues with the same old Amazon tales told and would like to see more numbers [1]. 
But this article isn't that. Again, it rarely stated what evidence showed that Amazon was taking over the entire reading market (let's think of fiction market alone, nevermind fake news etc[2]) and simply thought in terms of books and ebooks. Fair enough. It has a decent amount of interesting takes (it's a review of a book, fyi) about the plethora of new genres that kindle has allowed to grow because of the way it feeds customers exactly what they want. 
Highest Grossing Book Apps

But what about the other markets of webnovels and what have you? Once again, there is little being done to actually see what all these apps are bringing in and comparing that to what the novel/ebook world looks like. Even if we're to look away from these other forms of writing (also a continuous stream of chapters, always hooking the reader, and many times with erotica as a selling point), the article at no point gives numbers for how much of the market Amazon now accounts for (and how much of, say, ebooks sold by them are from publishing houses, so the profits are split... etc etc). 
No, only one semi-stat is sputtered and it does little to edify a damn thing, while only barely supported the narrative. 

Again, why is this so hard to find and write up? There's a story going on out there about openly fictional narratives [3] and how the internet has affected that but dammit it all if I haven't read or heard about it just yet. 

[1] One is that Amazon took out bookstores. Last I checked, about 5-10 years ago, it was Border and B&N that took out your brick and mortar stores. Then Amazon took these behemoths out. I was also under the impression that independent bookstores (who knows with covid now) were on the rise after the fall of B&N et al. But, again, no one has ever stated otherwise with actual numbers to back their stories up. 
[2] These other forms of fictional narratives don't always present themselves as fiction {1} and so for this argument, for now, I'll         {1} the quintessential, and perhaps edgy reply to "most popular/influential American fiction" is             usually Book of Mormon, and though it's true, it's sold as non-fiction so outside the purview of the above article and most discussions. 

[3] And one about fictional narratives dressed as the real as well, but that's for another day. Also, note I found that 3 years ago Wattpad (9th on this list) was a 400M$ company. Whatever that means. 
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Wretched of the Earth

Been 60 years since this book was published. The Wretched of the Earth . It was far more nuanced than what many people would claim it is (and many on the left do use it as some radical screed). I mean, it may be radical, but only to those who don't like looking at facts and drawing logical conclusions. Some weak points, and I do wonder how Fanon would take the current refugee issue, to say nothing of what's happening from Climate Change. 
In many ways, there is some hope in the book and though he warns about post-independence problems, I would like to hear what he has to say about the myriad of revolution-betrayals worldwide. 
And I think his simple repeating of the people who have survived the evils of the French (torture massacres etc) and their mental state... yeah this is the strongest part of the book IMO. 
And I also finished Random Family . A stark story about a Family in the Bronx. Definitely recommended. 
Hell, I even reread some parts of The Leopard . Mainly to see if my comments were good and if that start was as good as I remember. Also the foreword. Good stuff.  
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COINTELPRO and the State of the JFK assassination

FBI astroturfing back in the 70s by funding a bunch of anarchist mags.

And sure, the Church committee exposed these things, but the astroturfing and agent provocateur stuff goes on to this day. 
On that note, plenty of smart folk tell me that the things like "conspiracy behind the JFK assassination is just that" and that includes Chomsky. Yet I would think that the assassination has something about it (like the Epstein "suicide") that makes smart people go "mmmm." In fact, I sense that most people who do want to use the word conspiracy [1] for saying " well who else would have done it" when, well, who else was behind it then?
Any how, that the CIA and Biden want to keep what is essentially old news secret, only further backs the conspiracy theorists. I mean there is a small chance that the CIA just wants it to be secret because they label plenty of stuff secret just out of a show of power rather than it needing to be secret, but that's something we should take into account. Seriously? What do they have to hide. And, anyways, I'm of the mind that whatever they're protecting (themselves or some one off general who went off the reservation... which still happens btw) might not affect what we know directly but might speak to unchecked powers in our national security state (deep state, whatever). 
Your thoughts?

[1] Again, why do we have the word same word for Qanon as we use for known conspiracies? I mean come on. There has to be something to describe the latter as on a different plane as the crazy. 
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Reign of Terror

Just finished Reign of Terror . It's a good book and a worthwhile read, but I sense that it's kinda sorta not complete? Don't know, felt that something was missing. Still I think it's worth you getting. Perhaps I'll have to think more on it to give it a good review. 
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Calling all NYCers! Krzysztof Wodiczko: The Art of Un-War

It's a documentary that I may or may not be in. I was at least videoed for it. Maybe I'm on the cutting floor somewhere. Still..,:Krzysztof Wodiczko: The Art of Un-WarIs the name and if you're in NYC you can see it today (and should). Here's more information on it in terms of being able to support it or being able to stay updated on the information for the doc. 
I met the artist when he had a call for veterans to help with a Lincoln project (for Union square NYC) and I think it was actually contentious as I was no peacenik at that time (more nihilistic, tbf) but have come to agree with much of what he does. Check it out if you can. 
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On cancel culture etc.

If we had a worthwhile media, or even a worthwhile set of elite talking heads, instead of the grifters we do have, there would be a better discussion of what cancel culture actually entails in its many many forms. Some of it actually aligns with the cultural wars in the US (and worldwide, tbf), but some of it doesn't. [1]
An example is Norman Finkelstein being cancelled by Palestinians for not being sufficiently pro-BDS. Some bullshit if you ask me. [2] Especially given that his views on BDS and the great march of Return aren't bad things to discuss. But a better example of censorship in colleges is given here and this seems like a better analysis of it all. And note how many pressures on free speech are silent (and powerful). 
Beyond all this is the bullying that goes on online (in many forms both implicit and explicit and which could be blamed for the rise in teenage self harm (especially for girls)) and can sometimes overlap with what's in the cultural wars [3]. That being said, there are real powers and real money to be had in silencing critics. So you have this method as well. 




Read the whole thing, it's pretty good. There are simple copyright thieves who then use the tech companies bare bones report mechanisms to silence their critics. But this method is also 
[1] For whatever it's worth much of cancel culture is from the right, though it has been picking up from the left recently. Still the power resides in the right so one must never get that twisted. 
[2] I'll say it once, and as many times for the people in the back, much of it is part of internet culture (silencing, while also knowing that to a certain extent time given, or signal boosting matters in terms of censorship etc), but much of what the left is doing matches up with what I'm used to seeing from the right. So though I'm against it, I don't know how much of it is simply acknowledgement of how power and speech actually does work and working towards an end goal (and fuck maybe they're right, this is the way to fight). Take the Chappell issue in that only a Black Trans woman was fired, so though I appreciate David, he missed the powers that exist in the world. Make sense?
[3] Also kinda complex as people don't actually know what appropriation or a host of other things mean, they do know it's taboo so they will use ill-defined (in their minds) terms to lash out at others and silence them. 
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Signal Boosting.

I've written about signal boosting and how that can seem to control the narrative (while having ostensibly "pure" and good faith actors doing the talking[1]). Well here's an example of workers movements you're not hearing about. 


And you will only ever hear of these places if they're in Russia or China or some place our elites don't like. Not here at home. Here they'll talk about lazy not wanting to work types. So it goes. 
Now if they actually have a need to signal boost these stories, they will. Have fun  out there. 
[1] For example, x is rarely heard, until that person needs to be heard for, say, the deficit narrative. This is more than looking for an expert when the need arises. This is active changing of the internet narrative with these voices. 
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Short Story Of Mine.

Cute and short over at Patreon. Scifish, and that might be the start of my next novel. Yikes! Enjoy it responsibly. 
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Moar

Thoughts of 103 African writers on the latest Nobel lit. Lotta shade about Ngugi, but fair enough, I suppose I'd be in that boat too. 

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