Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

The question is: can I write a story that passes this test?

I did a journal search just a few minutes ago, and it looks like the last time I wrote about this was 2014, and the test has had minor tweaks since then. So here's a refresher:

1) There’s Disabled Character
2) Who’s an active participant in resolving their own conflict*
3) That conflict does not center on their disability.
4) They’re still alive and disabled at the end.

Now, back in 2005, I had a brief run at writing original Literary wonder tales (fairy tales) for people, on commission. And one of my first gigs was to write a story for a young man, for his 21st birthday; he too, had CP (cerebral palsy), and during my visit with him, to learn what sort of story he wanted, he told me that he did not want any characters in the story to have CP, and that "C.P. Doesn't belong in fairy tales."

And at the time, I agreed with him -- wholeheartedly. I mean, I've seen that kind of representation shoehorned into stories, and it never turns out well -- it oversimplifies the disability, and

But as the years have passed, I began to question that. After all, there are all sorts of people represented in fairy tales: butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, kings, and beggars, and shepherds and thieves, soldiers, sailors, old women, young girls, etc. Why should we exile ourselves from the genre?

So, for last year's NaNoWriMo, I set out to write a wonder tale with a protagonist with C.P. -- not naming it as such, but accurately describing C.P. (that she can't walk, that "her tongue is slow in her mouth," etc.). And, as usual, I got to the 50K mark, but did not end up with a finished story.

So Camp NaNoWriMo is starting in a couple of days, and I woke up this morning and just decided to try and write this story as a shorter 10K novella.

The thing is: the goal she wants (even if she can't articulate it to herself at the beginning) is to get her family (which by the end of the story. is just her sister and herself -- because their parents were elderly when they were born) out from under the oppression of the neighbors' ableism and superstition.

Part of me thinks that does pass point 3 of this test. But my Inner Critic thinks maybe it doesn't...

I'll keep you posted.

*[E.T.A.: Forgot the footnote to point 2: unlike, say: Tiny Tim, who's only there to inspire Scrooge to be better, or Stevie, from Malcolm in the Middle, who's only there to illustrate that Malcolm is cooler than the other kids, because he deigns to be Stevie's friend, etc.]

I figured out my answer to the question:

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

My answer?

To be able to get any thing I reach for, in a timely manner.

And yes, I'm limiting it to concrete things-- not concepts or goals (like, say: "Convince world leaders to give up war," or "My perfect love partner."

But I am including: scratch any itch.

This power might manifest in super stretchy arms. Or maybe a hand could detach itself and scurry after something. Or maybe I could levitate. If someone I cared about needed a hug, I would definitely teleport.

Yup. That's it. That's the power I want.

1) Have I mentioned here, yet, that I started a Soundcloud account, so I could post my reading aloud of my poems -- right now, especially, the poems in my book The Monsters' Rhapsody: Disability, Culture & Identity? There are 30 poems in the chapbook, and so far, I've done the first two: The Monsters' Rhapsody and Anthem (For the People of No Nation). I still plan on making videos of the poems, but I also want to have them up on multiple platforms, and there's less of a mental block in making them audio only.

2) I'm just so discouraged by the Impeachment, knowing ahead of time that it's a foregone conclusion that Lord Dampnut will be acquitted because of blind party loyalty.

3) Here's a video I watched this last week, about how the word "Straight" came to mean "Heterosexual." It's nice to see the privileged center of our culture get interrogated, sometimes, too (Wuth human-edited closed captions):


4) I can't remember if I've shared this before, but I'm sharing it now, anyway, because I just had it for lunch, and it was really tasty I make this in a microwavable, moisture resistant paper bowl, so I don't have to worry about cleanup):

Smooth, "natural style" almond butter (The kind where the oil separates from the solids, if you leave sitting for very long,* thinned with egg whites (I use the pre-separated whites from a carton, because spasticity), until it's a an even thick consistency, like heavy cream, seasoned with salt, sugar and cinnamon to taste. Into this mixture, toss small, mouse-bite sized pieces of somewhat stale bread (Martin's whole wheat potato bread is my favorite kind, so far), and stir them around until there is no puddle of liquid in the bowl, and the bread bits are evenly soaked through and squishy. Zap in the microwave until the egg is fully cooked and firm (I use a 700 Watt oven, and it takes 3 minutes. If I put raisins in the mix, I'll add a bit of water, and zap the thing at 50% power for two minutes, and full power for another two minute, so the raisins can hydrate before the egg mix is fully cooked. This also works with peanut butter. But cashew butter comes out with a weird texture.

*Oh, and an easier way of dealing with oil separating out of nut butters: if you have a few days, weeks, or months before you have to open the jar, just store the jar upside down, and let the oil redistribute its own damned self.

5) I know that last week, I said I wouldn't talk any more about the Spongebob Musical for a while, but when my brain gets hold of a good story that has flaws, it tends to worry at those flaws like a tongue wiggling a loose tooth. So, here are three of them:

• After watching the musical, I got intrigued as to its origin. And that's when I learned that the creator (Stephen Hillenburg) originally wanted the show to end after 3 seasons. If Nickelodeon had allowed that to happen, instead of relying on the show to be a weight-bearing pillar of the network, then the Tina Landau and Kyle Jarrow would have had more leeway, emotionally, to go a little bit darker, and not stick so closely to the tone of a Saturday Morning cartoon, because the primary audience would be people who were kids 20 years ago, instead of people who are kids, today (that said, I think kids today can totally handle a darker emotional tone than grown-ups give them credit for. Not that the executives who oversaw each stage of the production would understand that).
  
• One of the things that bothered me about the play was that the Spongebob's main goal of the entire plot was to save his town and realize his potential as a hero. But in the script, his happy ending was getting to be manager of the restaurant; that just seemed like a big anticlimax. I've since learned that that particular plot point was a callback to the first Spongebob Movie. It's occurred to me that they could have picked up the play after the events of the movie -- with Spongebob already manager, but still frustrated, because everyone is still treating him like a little kid (because even though he has a manager's responsibilities, he still likes to blow bubbles, and eat ice cream).
  
• One of the darker emotional threads of the story that the play pulls back from is that all four of the core characters share a similar angst of not being heard -- of no one understanding that each of them bring something important to the table. That's why it really annoys me (the more I think about it) how the script has it as a running joke that Spongebob always interrupts Patrick mid-sentence. That's not "BFF" Behavior. Just Saying.

And that's five.

Today – Today (10 August, 2019) is the 35th Anniversary of the movie called "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension"

What is this movie with such an unwieldy title, you ask?

It’s a:

• Sci-fi spoof
  
• Comic book hero movie parody (for a comic book hero that doesn’t actually exist)
  
• Anti-fascist
  
• Anti-military-industrial-complex
  
• Unabashedly Chaotic Good (with emphasis on chaotic)
  
• An art film
  
• Underrated to an almost criminal degree
  
• FREE on YouTube – Legally free; not a bootleg (~ 102 minutes)

It also saved my relationship with my mother.

Our relationship had always been strong, but after flunking hard out of my Freshman year at university, it was clearly at a tipping point, and it was hard to be around each other in the muggy heat of August without feeling angry, sad, or both at once. It's a testament to my mother's wisdom that she suggested we take a break, go to a movie theater with air conditioning, and see this movie that had just opened and looked interesting. We emerged back into the sunlight with our diaphragms aching from laughing. And from that day forward, whenever things got tense, we'd quote lines to each other to lighten the mood.

We were both convinced at the time that it would rise to the status of Cult Classic on par with “Rocky Horror Picture Show” – that even people who hadn’t actually seen it would at least recognize catchphrases and characters for cosplay and the like. That didn't happen at the time. But maybe it will happen someday.

"Spoilers" below the cut, if you want to call them that. Though I'm of the opinion that the strength of this film has less to do with plot points than it does with execution:

( Why I believe 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension' is a wonderful, uplifting, and ultimately Antifa, Political film (an enumerated list): )

But ... Tumblr, you know: it may suddenly take off three months from now. In the meantime, it's not exorcised from my mind yet, so I'm posting it here, now (slightly edited to mesh with Dreamwidth's format).

What if we really have had contact with extraterrestrial aliens, already?

Roswell, New Mexico.

Okay, okay. I know it’s cliché.

But hear me out. Besides, I’m offering this as a “What if--” a story prompt, if you will -- not a revelation of some nefarious conspiracy, nor a claim that I’ve figured out the Truth that They don’t want anyone to know.

If there is a single “Big Truth” out there, a) I don’t think anyone can know for sure what it is, and b) if we ever do find out, I don’t think it would be anything terrible or scary, after all (maybe a little sad).

Anyway --

On July 3, 2017, the BBC World Service rebroadcast an interview with the son of one of the men who found the remnants of the “alien craft” (Major Jesse Marcel).

I won’t link to it here, because website itself is inaccessible (audio with no transcript). But if you want to look it up, the keywords I used just now were “BBC World Service,” “Witness” (the name of the program), and “Roswell.”

Jesse Jr. was 11 at the time, and at the time of the interview (in 2010), he came across as sincerely convinced that the bits and pieces his father brought home to the kitchen table were: a) actually alien, and b) not at all like the scraps of weather balloon that were revealed to the public shortly after.

[Caveat] He was 11 at the time, and his father woke him up in the middle of the night to show him what he’d found. It could very well be that he was convinced by his father’s enthusiasm, and that his father was motivated by his desire to find something alien, so that neither of them were seeing these artifacts clearly. And over the years, Jr. could have doubled down on his belief in order to defend his father’s honor. [/Caveat]

Two details of the interview made my ears perk up, and take the idea that there really was some kind of “alien incident” at Roswell, 70 years ago a little more seriously:

1. Jesse Marcel Jr. insisted that his father made no mention of any alien bodies at the crash site -- and that the first mention of the Pentagon hiding “specimens” didn’t crop up until the 1970s.
   
   
2. When asked by the interviewer: “But why Roswell?” Mr. Marcel answered that the site was radioactive, because of all the nuclear testing, and surely, the aliens would want to investigate that. When the interviewer asked: “But why haven’t they been back?” he answered that he didn’t know.

But, as all our most serious-minded scientists (even the ones who are imagining life outside our solar system, and puzzling through ways to test for it) will tell you: Real-world interstellar travel takes a very, very, long time.

So: here’s what I’m imagining might have happened:

Around the time that predynastic Egyptians were domesticating the donkey, astronomers living on the planet that we are now calling “Kepler-425b” turned their telescopes to the sky, wondering if there were intelligent life on other planets like theirs.

...

Around the time that Alexander the Great was trying to establish an empire, their technology has advanced enough to send forth a ship in our star’s direction, carrying an unmanned probe, which has been programed with instructions to home in on any signs of proof of life -- especially intelligent life.

The ship is capable of traveling at incredible speeds -- almost half the Speed of Light -- but even so, those idealistic astronomers know they won’t live to receive any answers that that little probe may discover. It’s all for their future generations, if they are still around, to reap.

That little probe finally makes it to its destination 3,000 (Earth years) after it set out: a little, rocky planet third out from its star -- a medium-sized star just like the one it set out from. And as it gets closer, the signs of life are unmistakable. And closer still: the signature of enriched Uranium, and Plutonium! Exactly what it was sent to find. It comes in closer, maneuvering with the planet’s gravitational pull, preparing to send its message back home.

Except it crashes. It never gets to send that message. It gets dismantled; its parts get hidden away, and only those Earthlings that are thought to be delusional by others of their species believe it ever existed at all.

But the descendants of the civilization that sent it forth have no idea of its fate. They won’t even start looking for its message to arrive for another 1,400 years.

---

But (I hear you say)! Isn’t there another star with seven Earth-like planets, that’s much, much closer?

Yes, there is: a star we call “Trappist-1.” But it’s a dwarf star. The planets in its habitable zone are very likely tidally locked. This means that there’s a good chance the civilizations that arose on them have no concept of “Distant Stars,” much less develop the desire and the tech to venture among them (because the habitable zone on their home planet's surface is bathed in continual twilight, so they never see distant stars).

But I could be wrong about that. Still, if the scenario I outlined for the astronomers of Kepler-435b had played out on one of Trappist-One’s planets, instead:

For a probe traveling at almost half the speed of light to arrive in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, it would have had to leave its home while we Earthling Americans were engaged in our Civil War -- killing each other over whether some of us have the right to own others of us.

Those astronomers would’ve started listening for a return signal from their unmanned probe around the time Ronald Reagan was threatening to bomb the Russians with that same purified uranium. That signal was that was fated never to arrive.

Those astronomers might’ve shrugged their equivalent of shoulders, and wrote it off as a valiant, but failed, attempt.

If, however, they were determined to find us, and make contact, because they’re even more optimistic and friendly than we are, and allowing time to build a second probe to send it chasing after the first one...

That second “message in a bottle” wouldn’t arrive here until almost 2100.

If they already had a second probe ready to go, and their tech advanced in the meantime, and they manage the miraculous traveling speed of three-quarters Light Speed -- we might get a second chance to say “Hello. Sorry about the misunderstanding,” in 2042-ish.

...Assuming we don’t destroy our ecosystem and die off, thanks to global warming, by then.

okay.

So maybe this story’s ending is more than a little sad.

(I think I've glimpsed the singularity of the Fermi Paradox ... And it is us)

---

Oh, and most of the time I spent writing this was looking up names of stars, and crosschecking the timeline of human civilization.

It's the fourth "Magpie Monday" of the year, already!

dialecticdreamer has embarked on her monthly writing marathon called "Magpie Monday," and is seeking prompts. She's named it "Magpie," 'cause she thinks prompts are the shiniest, and she loves to collect and use them. Her post explaining how it all works is here:

http://dialecticdreamer.dreamwidth.org/227683.html


I recommend her work -- she's adept at fuzzy, gentle fiction that never descends into twee or schmaltz, so if you're having a bad day, and need some kindness, pop over and give her some suggestions.

She does have a PayPal tip jar -- all proceeds go to paying medical bills -- though donations are voluntary. This month's theme is "Schooling vs. education" Help yourself by getting a wonderful story. And help her pay some serious bills for a serious cause.

dialecticdreamer has embarked on her monthly writing marathon called "Magpie Monday," and is seeking prompts. She's named it "Magpie," 'cause she thinks prompts are the shiniest, and she loves to collect and use them. Her post explaining how it all works is here:

http://dialecticdreamer.dreamwidth.org/211002.html

(And, once I've thought up my own prompt, this signal boost earns me another 100 words of story).

I recommend her work -- she's adept at fuzzy, gentle fiction that never descends into twee or schmaltz, so if you're having a bad day, and need some kindness, pop over and give her some suggestions.

She does have a PayPal tip jar -- all proceeds go to paying medical bills -- though donations are voluntary. This Month's theme is "Bucking the system"

So now, I'm ready to tackle "The Ugly Duckling."

[Edited -- put more words in my rant, and then put it behind a cut, in case you just want to skip to the fluffiness]

That means it's time to embark on an image search, so I know how the heck to describe my main character. Three photos in, and I'm overwhelmed with the urge to kill you all with an Overdose of Cute.

( The usual rant behind this cut )

(You may want to wear some cuteness-filtering glasses. Don't say I didn't warn you):

1) http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ca/d9/f7/cad9f7899ff8cd3a050786113775df7a.jpg

2) http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/9d/b3/22/9db322a1a2b53461fdb289431b474912.jpg

3) http://www.fotothing.com/photos/af9/af9f10d875c63a142338bbed14053823.jpg

4) http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/03/article-1203971-05EEE05F000005DC-611_964x684.jpg

5) https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/91/264807734_489ced7d99_z.jpg (Okay, so adolescents are awkward. But that's true regardless of species).

So she's looking to collect as many shiny prompts as she can. Go -- give her things to build stories around!

She lays out the mechanics Here; this month, the theme is "Transformations"

Some of ysabetwordsmth's close family are dealing with a bad batch of mayhem. They're stuck in Albuquerque, need to get home to (As ysabetwordsmth puts it) "Chicagoland," and they need to buy a car sturdy enough to get them there. They've set up an emergency fund here: https://www.paypal.me/TrevorEdwards

And every little bit helps.

So -- can we give them a happy story to tell at next year's Thanksgiving table?