[The Author Speaks] – Page 6 – Further Annotations

FAQ update: Gender and Pronouns

Posted on February 14, 2016January 24, 2021 by blablablaandgabbler

We just updated our FAQ to reflect a question we’ve been getting a lot:

Why do you guys use “s/he” or “he/she” so much when talking about each other? Why not use only gender-neutral pronouns such as “they/their”? That’s a good point. The main reason is the Narrator and I are cis-gendered. We don’t want to abuse a gender-neutral pronoun because, when we do finally reveal who we are, we don’t want to undermine a whole group of people who do use the they/their. It’s not our pronoun and we want to respect those who do identify with they/their. Though, you may see us drop a few they/theirs in the novel because English is an illogical chimera of language.

Hope this clarifies some things for you, Reader.

The English Language, basically.

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

B&N | Amazon | Etc.

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: ‘The damage James Patterson Inc. has done to publishing’ by Paul St John Mackintosh

Posted on January 12, 2016April 18, 2021 by blablablaandgabbler

“One important component of that admass approach was fighting the impression that books contained literature…

Mahler even comes out with a more reasonable explanation (than pure greed) for Patterson’s use of co-authors – who Patterson does credit, after all. “To maintain his frenetic pace of production, Patterson now uses co-authors for nearly all of his books,” Mahler explains. “This kind of collaboration is second nature to Patterson from his advertising days, and it’s certainly common in other creative industries, including television.” This also helps Patterson position himself competitively against other blockbuster authors. The point is that Patterson Inc. has created FMCG-level demand whereby a certain acreage of shelf space needs to be filled each season, and if Patterson himself can’t churn out enough words to fill that space, others are going to have to chip in to stock the supermarket shelves. Patterson Inc.’s productivity becomes hostage to its own success.

Mahler outlines the book world that the gospel according to Patterson Inc. has left us with. “Under pressure from both their parent companies and booksellers, publishers became less and less willing to gamble on undiscovered talent and more inclined to hoard their resources for their most bankable authors. The effect was self-fulfilling. The few books that publishers invested heavily in sold; most of the rest didn’t. And the blockbuster became even bigger.”

Is it fair to blame these developments all on one guy, however influential? Yes, all these potential opportunities were lying there in American bookselling and retailing already, just waiting to be exploited. But I don’t believe such changes are inevitable, and I certainly don’t believe how they develop is predetermined. America’s taste would probably have remained how it is with or without Patterson, because you can fool some of the people all of the time. But his influence has been responsible for spoiling the earth for other writers and writing, and turning traditional American publishing into something more like a monocrop ecology, where only one species dominates and the rest clings to survival along its fringes.”

Read the rest on TeleRead.

Cached version.

JAMES PATTERSON WILL TAKE YOUR $90 TO TEACH YOU HOW TO WRITE — ER, I MEAN FIND A GHOSTWRITER.

And

WHY LITERATURE IS NO LONGER ART.

B&N | Amazon | Etc.

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: “Entry 6: I rolled my eyes so hard at The Revenant” by Amy Nicholson

Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by blablablaandgabbler

“I rolled my eyes so hard at The Revenant that I hallucinated I was sitting next to Mad Max’s Imperator Furiosa, who’d take one glance at these goofballs and sneer, “You wanna get through this? Do as I say.”

…I’m the goofball who didn’t adore Carol. You’re all bear wrestling over who’s the biggest fan, but I merely admired it, though I worshiped Todd Haynes’ previous feature, the slippery and cerebral Bob Dylan anti-biopic I’m Not There. Yet, to me Carol felt airless. It was all chilly good taste, as impeccable as Cate Blanchett’s closet. Dana, which outfit was your fave? I’d trade my whole wardrobe for her steel-blue suit with salmon scarf and fur coat, even though I’d look like a real weirdo at the grocery store.

The problem could just be that I feel like Rooney Mara hasn’t shaken off the shackles of David Fincher. He gave her a great cameo as a normal, real world girl in The Social Network. And then he bleached her eyebrows, pierced her nipples, and drained her blood for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. His unrecognizable creation slouched across red carpets like a goth Barbie doll, and ever since she’s conflated acting with dressing up and looking blank.

For my money, she’s out-acted by Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg in any scene in American Ultra, another movie about true love in a treacherous world. (Ducks to avoid David’s spitball.) Their stoner CIA action-comedy shouldn’t work. It’s the tonal opposite of Carol: bright, messy, sweaty, and loud. Stewart and Eisenberg are surrounded by chaos. They’re hunted, gassed, strangled, stabbed, and stun gunned. But their romance radiates off the screen, especially in the quiet moments where Stewart curls next to Eisenberg in bed like they’ve spooned for a thousand nights. Even better, they’re dimensional characters who accept each other’s weaknesses. Stewart knows he’s self-sabotaging and lazy, and she still wants to fight for their future. So did I. David dismissed it as “Pineapple Express without the laughs and The Bourne Ultimatum without the thrills.” I think it’s a love story first, and I’ll flat-out say it’s the best love story of the year.

Since I hear the schick-schick of David sharpening his knives—c’mon, at least cook me first!—let’s keep talking about the best use of violence.

This year’s most ghastly deaths weren’t in The Hateful Eight. They were in PG-13 blockbusters like Jurassic World, which murdered a babysitter for a punch line. We’re supposed to laugh when she’s swallowed by a mosasaur, because her character is a pain. In The Avengers: Age of Ultron, armies of aliens are laser-blasted for thrills. No wonder Ultron concludes that the best way to save the planet is eliminate all the humans. “Yippee!” we hoot when Iron Man and Hulk smash up a city center. But what about the civilians cowering in the shrapnel? The drivers of the cars that get flung around like Nerf footballs? Hollywood seems to shrug, “No blood, no foul,” but death isn’t a romp. Bloodless CGI casualties are numbing, and that mentality is starting to feel increasingly dangerous.

At least when Quentin Tarantino cold-cocks Jennifer Jason Leigh, he wants us to squirm. His bruises hurt. Mark and David are right to argue that Tarantino has a conscience. I’d even say that extends to his use of the N-word in Django Unchainedand The Hateful Eight. A Civil War–era movie where white racists didn’t use the word would be as sanitized as a Marvel massacre. Like his physical blows, Tarantino means us to feel it.

Of course, I get the skepticism. Tarantino’s been obsessed with that word for two decades, often incorrectly. Remember in Pulp Fiction when the character he played groaned that his house wasn’t “dead [N-word] storage,” a bad line made worse because he said it himself? He’s grown up since then, and I’d rather give him the space to bushwhack through America’s racial angst—and maybe even make mistakes—than reward tidy, safe spectacles that simply pretend that everything’s fine.“

Read the rest. [Boldface and photo curation mine]

B&N | Amazon | Etc.

#BLAThoughtOfTheDay: Only dipping your toe

Posted on September 20, 2015March 21, 2024 by blablablaandgabbler

blog1

Gabbler recently recommended Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis. I, however, have reservations about recommending the book (yes, I have read it too).

As someone who may be particularly knowledgeable about what it is to be a non-human animal, let me say this. While the fable itself is fine, and the scenario is certainly interesting (Hermes and Apollo give human intelligence to fifteen dogs they find at a veterinary clinic for a bet to see whether or not even one of those dogs will die happy), the story ultimately has little impact on how we understand our own said “intelligence” or the human-animal relationship.

Dogs were chosen as the subject for the experiment, and, since so, a population from a more diverse pool should have been employed. I was disappointed that no dogs from, say, a kill shelter were involved, no dogs from a dog fighting ring were involved, no dogs from the meat trade were even thoughts. The dog characters did not have diverse backgrounds, and how might that have changed the story? This was one way Apollo, Hermes, and Alexis himself avoided real dog-specific issues. None of the dogs really had to grapple with the higher forms of exploitation and oppression their own species faces every day at the hands of human intelligence. Instead, we get a thought about what dog culture might be if dogs could analyze it as such. But what is culture when in reality there are so few instances of allowing them to even exist together? Perhaps Alexis should have considered rez dogs or even wolves. They already have a social structure that need not be contrived.

The story focuses on the symbol of the collar and leash, dominance in a pack/household, the existential nature of dogs trying to be dogs despite a human mind. This dance around the real plights a canine faces in our world ultimately made it a too-comfortable read, and, I think, kept the humans in the story (and the humans reading the story) from being confronted with the evils and sadness “human intelligence” is capable of.

But the bet itself was cool. Gods should gamble more often. Oh wait, that’s all they do.

B&N | Amazon | Etc.

This post was updated in 2024.

Irony in the Irony

Posted on September 15, 2015September 15, 2015 by blablablaandgabbler

‘To begin with, Pearson admitted to using a pseudonym, and his rationale—explained in an “interview” published by Cow Eye Press—echoed Pynchon’s stance on literary fame and public figuredom. “I’ve always had a severe distaste for all the mindless biographical drivel that serves to prop up this or that writer,” said Pearson. “So much effort goes into credentialing the creator that we lose sight of the creation itself, with the consequence being that we tend to read authors instead of their works. In fact, we’d probably prefer to read a crap book by a well-known writer than a great book by a writer who may happen to be obscure.”’

Read the rest.