A Reminder: I Don't Know About Obamacare, and Neither Do You
Obamacare is complicated. Really complicated. And it’s a complicated thing dropped into a thing so complicated that nobody understands how it works, which is to say The US Economy.
If you have a very clear idea on how things are going to go, you’re probably wrong, and even if you’re right it’s probably in that “stopped clock” sense of things.
At this point, Obamacare is out there. And it’s really impossible to know what effects it’ll have on the US economy, or on people, or whether it’s a success or a failure, and at this stage you’re all looking at the kid’s head crowning and debating, “This baby will be a Harvard Graduate and a stockbroker!” versus “This baby will be a serial killing hobo!”
We do not know. The first days of the second Iraq invasion were awesome and all the Republicans were like WOO HOO DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE and then it went poorly and the Democrats went SEE THIS WAS ALL A BIG MISTAKE and then the surge happened and things aren’t great, and certainly way more expensive than we thought, but not a total fucking loss on the war front but not a slam-dunk success either.
I suspect Obamacare will, in the end, be a mild plus with a lot of expense and inconvenience. But how would I know? That’s dependent on literally every state and federal politician in America having their say and input on it.
Is it a fiasco or a fine thing? Shut up. Give it time. Judge it for what it is or is not doing now! Speculate! But spare me the absolute proclamations.
Interesting Writing Techniques: Stephen King
I wasn’t all that impressed by Doctor Sleep. But Doctor Sleep did one thing in such an obvious fashion that it taught me a vital trick that Stephen King uses in almost all of his good novels.
Because in Doctor Sleep, unlike The Shining, there’s no real ticking clock for the heroes. They’re being chased by the True Knot – a group of elderly vampires who feed off of psychics. But it’s established that if Danny and Abra hid, there would be a good chance the True Knot couldn’t find them. And maybe the True Knot would have easier prey to find. Which usually isn’t that compelling a story, because hey, if the heroes can slink away and the villains might wander off, then who the heck cares?
The trick is, thanks to a plot twist earlier in the story, it’s revealed that the True Knot has to capture Abra, or risk dying. It’s the villain who has the ticking clock, not the hero. And Doctor Sleep is a little lopsided here because yes, the heroes could still hide and maybe the True Knot would just die on their own, but they go out and face down the True Knot because It’s The Right Thing To Do.
That wasn’t quite as satisfying. But then I thought of all the great Stephen King books where the villains are having their stakes raised at the same time as the protagonist is:
Yes, Dennis is slowly figuring out his friend Arnie has been taken over by the ghost of Roland D. LeBay in Christine – but Roland/Arnie is also being investigated by the police thanks to Will Darnell’s drug dealing, and the noose is closing tighter around Christine.
In The Stand, the heroes are struggling to survive – but Randall Flagg is going mad because there are things he can’t quite see, and some of his most trusted lieutenants are leaving him, and goddammit why are things crumbling now that he should be ascendant. (The same can be said of IT‘s terror that the children are something new to IT.)
In Under the Dome, Big Jim is trying to cover up both his meth operation and his lunatic son, and hold on to control of an increasingly erratic and demoralized police force.
As writers, we’re frequently told “raise the stakes,” which often translates to “make things worse for the hero.” Which leads to a mostly-static antagonist, who exists only to pile hazards upon the heroes.
But King often makes things worse for his villains, which is a beautiful trick now that I recognize it: it allows him to start out with villains who hold all the cards, making them seem unbeatable. And then their power gets chipped away by the actions of the heroes and their own mistakes, slowly raising the pressure on them, until by the end confrontation they’re beaten down and desperate. The reader’s more involved because she knows that not only is this showdown important for the heroes, but knows that the villain’s got it all riding on this as well. This is vitally important for not just one but two people, and as such even though we know good will mostly triumph (this is a Stephen King book, after all), we’re equally invested in seeing how the villain fails.
Part of this is just because Unca Stephen gives his antagonists the same careful attention to characterization as his protagonists, of course – and if you have them on-screen for as long as Stephen often does, you’ve gotta give them some character arc. But I think of all the stories I’ve read where the villain exists in his own hermetically-sealed world, with no problems at all aside from this pesky hero… and it’s not nearly as satisfying as the villain fighting on two or more fronts, with the hero exacerbating his existing problems.
Well done, Mr. King. Well, maybe not in Doctor Sleep, but thanks for making it obvious enough that I could elucidate it.
If You're Arguing For The Affordable Care Act, Please Don't Do This
Okay, so Obama lied when he said that nobody would have to change their insurance plans. Fair enough. I’m not thrilled, but then again I never took that seriously; I figured as with any big government shift, there would be winners and losers, and not everyone could be a winner. So Obama shouldn’t have said that.
And a lot of the insurance plans people are bitching about losing are just completely useless. I mean, to the point of “You’re throwing away $100 a month on this plan, because so much as a single claim would have shown you this wasn’t worth having.” These are the plans so terrible that the government basically had to outlaw them, as they preyed on the ill-informed.
But still.
Still.
If you’re arguing that someone’s old insurance is terrible but this new insurance is only $50 more a month, do not make that sound like it’s a snap-keep decision. Yes, it’s probably the better call. Yes, if they get into serious medical trouble – if – this will ensure their care.
But when you’re poor, paying an extra $50 a month for something that doesn’t do jack shit now is a pretty big fucking deal.
When you’re poor, pretty much any extra expense can blow you off-course. A blown tire, an emergency tow, a sick kid, all that stuff can mean the difference between the rent and being out on the street. And so telling someone who’s already not doing particularly well, “Hey! You need to shell out $50 that does absolutely nothing unless you’re having a major medical problem!” makes you sound like the kind of clueless liberal who everyone hates.
No. It may be that their insurance plan was ripping them off before, and now they get a better one. That $50 may save their life. But it may definitely mean their kids are eating ramen noodles for the foreseeable future, and if they get that blown tire they have less room to maneuver.
Don’t diminish that pain. Don’t ignore it. Take it straight on the chin, and regret its existence. That is all.
So What Podcasts Have I Liked? A Bunch Of Small Reviews.
A while back, I did a secret test of you folks. I wrote an entry saying, “It’s funny, I know nothing about how to listen to podcasts, or even where to download them. This is like starting over technologically.”
And I waited.
Sure enough, people treated this observation as though I had desperately, urgently, requested a list of the finest podcasts in the land. The comment threads were filled with, “Well, I like” and “You should listen to…” as people flooded me with ZOMG NIGHTVALE WHY ARE YOU NOT LISTENING NOW.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. But it’s just proof that people are a high-pressure hose of barely-repressed recommendations, just looking for the vaguest excuse to spray your face sopping with whatever they like. And people aren’t particularly picky about their recommendations, generally, as witness last night when I said, “So what short (20 minutes or less) podcasts can you recommend?” and a third of the responses were basically “FUCK YOU, FERRETT, MY FAVORITE PODCAST IS HALF AN HOUR AND I KNOW IT BUT I’M GOING TO RECOMMEND IT DESPITE IT COMPLETELY NOT MATCHING YOUR CRITERIA. ALSO, NIGHTVALE.”
But as it turns out, I like short podcasts. The longer ones tend to ramble on forever, and I’d rather have people thinking carefully about what they have to say for fifteen minutes rather than hearing ninety minutes of guys saying anything that comes to mind. The two-hour ones have been like listening Saturday Night Live renditions of NPR, where erring and umming people never have to cut away to commercials.
What Have I Enjoyed Thus Far?
Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. Yes, I know, I said I like short podcasts, but Ken and Robin are very good about giving everything in short chunks, switching discussions just as they threaten to become redundant… and of the three episodes I’ve listened to, only one segment (“What would have happened if Lovecraft had lived?”) utterly failed to connect. They talk about GMing techniques and history in interesting ways, and they’re both pretty good conversationalists, so I’m happy to listen.
Writing Excuses. The thing about this podcast is that it’s utterly noninformative to me. The podcast is directed at an audience that’s usually discovering their style, and so I don’t think I’ve heard the gang say one thing yet that I haven’t gone, “Oh, yeah, I knew that.” But a) it’s nice to have one’s biases concerned, and b) Mary, Howard, Dan, and Brandon are all so entertaining that I could listen to them debate about the Dewey Decimal system. Plus, it’s short. And they recommend some interesting books.
The Dissolve. The Dissolve has taken the place of Roger Ebert in my “movie reviewers I trust” pantheon, and listening to them discuss movies is entertaining – especially since Tasha Robinson and Scott Tobias disagree eruditely and entertainingly.
A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keillor used to be good, I swear. These rambling tales he tells these days are mere shadows of the great days when he used to structure stories as fine as The Pontoon Boat. But his voice is oddly soothing, and his voice has that fine radio erraticness of Paul Harvey – an instrument well-polished over the years, eclectic and unique and filled with strange pauses designed to draw you in and/or irritate you. So listening to him is wonderful.
Numenera: The Signal. I’m in the air on this one, because I love the trope – a Jack Who Tells Tales broadcasts dire warnings of the bizarre things in Numenera. But the delivery sounds almost too polished for me, like a news announcer, and the weirdness is often not weird enough. But it’s a delightful quick-blast, perfect for filling the bits between other longer podcasts.
Podcasts I Am Lukewarm About:
Podcastle. This is part of that whole “long commitment” thing, wherein I usually love the tales but it’s hard to listen to them in twenty-minute dog-walking/cardio workout chunks. And since these are stories, splitting them up into arbitrary segments is usually yucky. One suspects I’ll have a long drive some day, and then I will absolutely adore this.
Welcome to Nightvale. I’ll listen to more of it, I’m sure, but the first two episodes seemed weird for the sake of weird – that William Burroughs trick where I liked Naked Lunch but could turn to any page and get mostly the same experience. I’m told some storylines develop, and this is very well done, but I’m not pulled to it yet.
Podcasts On My List That I Have Yet To Listen To:
99% Invisible, The Nerdist, The Dinner Party, SF Signal
Podcasts I Should Try:
Yes, you should recommend podcasts you think I’ve overlooked – not that I can stop you anyway. (INSERT SMILEYFACE.) But in general, I like weirdly close-focus topical things that are short; the “here’s an overview of everything ever” just bores the crap out of me. I’d love to have a short Magic podcast that’s not Mark Rosewater (who I read the transcripts of instead), but they all seem to ramble on and on.
(And a special thanks to Vengeful Cynic, Ravenofdreams, and Peter C. Hayward for recommending Downcast, which has been an invaluable app purchase for this whole podcasting thing. My timing on podcasting couldn’t be better, since the gym I’m in for my cardiac rehab has zero internet.)
Why Monsters University Is Better Than Monsters, Inc.
This is a truly stupid headline, as there’s no objective criteria to determine what makes a movie “better.” But I like Monsters University better than Monsters, Inc. by a long shot, mainly because the lessons in Monsters University aren’t ones we traditionally see in kids’ films.
The thing is, Monsters Inc. is going to resonate more with a lot of people, because at its core Monsters Inc. is about what it means to be a parent – and the heartbreaking responsibilities (and rewards!) you take on when you decide to do the right thing for a child. If you’ve got a kid, that’s guaranteed to tug on the old heartstrings. But as an artist, I loved Monsters University because it’s about failure. And hard truths. And unhappy endings that become happy.
Which is to say:
1) I love that Mike doesn’t get what he wants. Too many kids’ movies tell you to “follow your dreams!” as though dreams are all attainable through hard work and stick-to-it-iveness. But the ugly truth is that some people just aren’t right for what they wanna be. Mike? Isn’t particularly scary, and never will be. Mike works harder than anybody, but sometimes sheer labor isn’t enough to get past a lack of inner talent.
Does that mean that Mike’s useless? No. All the skills he learned along the way get repurposed, repackaged, and ultimately rewarded. And that’s a valuable lesson for kids; you can, and should, strive to be the best – but you might not make it. That’s not a reason to give up; it’s a reason to fight harder. The journey will teach you things.
Get in there, ya little green guy.
2) I love that it’s a blue-collar film. At the end – SPOILER ALERT – they don’t actually make it. So how do they get onto the scare floor by the beginning of the next film?
They work from the ground up.
Humble beginnings, man. They’re jazzed, they’re motivated, and they’re best friends, and they start from the mail room and refuse to stop. This movie is not the end of their journey, but the beginning of when they really started. It’s a subtle message for kids, but I really love the concept that they spent this whole movie learning how to work – and after that enlightenment comes a crapload of sweat and toil and promise before you get to your goal.
If Mike and Sully put in their 10,000 hours, Monsters University is, like, the first 250. And I adore that the message is, “Work harder. This isn’t magic, kids.”