Why I'll Be Seeing Ender's Game

(EDIT: Upon being presented with new facts, in fact, I shall not see it.  Read here to see why.)
In case you’re not aware, Orson Scott Card is the kind of guy who’s happy to spend his paycheck on anti-gay causes.  (He’s also a little crazy with his Obama-as-Hitler theories, which doesn’t help.)  And now the big-screen version of his greatest book, Ender’s Game, is hitting the screen in November – and a lot of my friends are boycotting the film.
I don’t blame them.  But I’ll be there.
Thing is, if I thought Orson was getting more money out of this, I’d stay at home in a New York minute.  But Hollywood is famed for being the place where authors have zero power, and I will personally eat all of my hats if OSC is getting any money on the back end from the film’s success.  He got paid when they optioned his novel, which means that basically, it’s too late to prevent OSC from profiting from the movie.  The cash is in his bank.  The movie’s been floating around in Hollywood for so long, one suspects he’s spent it already.
Orson Scott Card will profit handsomely from the movie tie-in books – I know from bookstore experience that getting your book shoved to the front table with a movie backing it means that your sales will go up considerably – but again, that’s not anything “boycotting the movie” will prevent.  His sales will go up riotously even if Ender’s Game tanks, as he’s got a classic book that most people in sci-fi considered a “must-read” before he started spewing bile, so realistically, I’m not stopping him from earning cash off that.
And given that there’s nothing I can do to stop him from making money, I figure I might as well see the film.  The trailers look good, if a bit misguided (what I find compelling about Ender’s Game is Ender’s isolation and intellect, his being forced to grow in effective ways that truncate his humanity, and the trailers make him sound like The Chosen One), and I loved the story even as I acknowledge that certain elements of it are problematic.  So I’ll dump the eight bucks to go see it, and see whether it’s a good film (assuming the reviews aren’t “STAY AWAY!”), and turn my brain off for an hour or two.
Because I don’t think my attending or not-attending will send a significant message.  Me boycotting the Chik Fil-A across the street is something I’ll do because I think it’s effective on some level; OSC’s already got his cash, and the money I shell out at the box office is going to people who are largely for gay rights.
I’ve registered my personal complaint against OSC by not having purchased any of his books since he began frothing in such a manner – haven’t picked up any sequels since Ender’s Shadow (which I loved), and when I re-read Ender’s Game, I went out of my way to borrow a copy from a friend.  And that, I feel, hurts him more than the movie.
Now, this brings up the question of, “How dare you want to punish someone for their political views?” which always arises in here, and the summary argument is, I am not obligated to give my money to talented assholes.  If I think OSC’s a jerk, “not rewarding his bad behavior with cash” is something that’s an option to me, because my money?  Is mine.  I don’t have to hand it over to people I find personally repugnant.  That’s not a “boycott” so much as “I would feel bad knowing that I’m buying books from foaming idiots when there are books just as good available from nicer people.”
(Which is fair.  Some people dislike me personally, and don’t read my stories because that would make them feel bad.  I support their efforts to cleanse me from their lives.)
It’s like going to the Starbucks where the guy gives you a coffee, but whispers that he hates your wife under his breath as he serves the espresso.  You can argue all you like that the focus should be on the coffee, but realistically you’re never buying just a coffee, you’re buying an experience.  And if the experience surrounding that coffee is sufficiently unpleasant, there’s a pretty good indie coffee shop across the street.
But even more than that, OSC is a particular target because he’s spent his money campaigning to hurt and restrain people I love.  This isn’t just “Orson Scott Card is an asshat”; it’s “Orson Scott Card is spending some percentage of his income on causes I find toxic.”  If I found out that Stephen King was the head of the “Starve A Kitten” foundation, I’d have a similar reaction.  For most authors, I’ll just say, “All right, she’s a jerk, I’ve got better books to buy,” but OSC escalated by funneling his profits towards thwarting gay marriage.  I do not want to donate to anti-gay marriage, even in a roundabout way, nor do I want to see anti-gay marriage causes funded, so I want OSC not to prosper.
It’s a little mean.  But he clearly believes in his cause, and as such I think he’s smart enough to see what it’ll cost him.  Should he continue, he’s made his choice, and I’ve made mine.  Trying to argue that his stance shouldn’t influence mine is basically saying that I shouldn’t have stances.  I’ll debate that.
And my choice is that the movie isn’t going to really hurt OSC at this point.  Worst-case scenario is that Ender’s Game is a huge success and they try to option Speaker for the Dead (if they haven’t already), in which case I think Hollywood will be Very Unhappy at trying to turn that dissatisfying sequel into a movie.  But I doubt that’ll happen, because Asa Butterfield will be too old by then anyway.
So I’ll pay my cash to see what I anticipate will be a B- movie, with lots of loud explosions and none of the striking heart that made Ender’s Game such a moving experience.  But that’s okay.  I like explosions.

Ferrett's Stupid Nail Tricks: The Latest Nail-Related Weirdness

“Your salon really does love finding new and interesting polishes, doesn’t it?” asked Little_ribbit.  To which my response was, “Replace ‘salon’ with ‘me.'”
Basically, if it’s new and crazy, I want it on my nails.  (Next up: Nail wraps from Espionage Cosmetics.  Nebula, Circuit Board, Steampunk, Time Lord, Zombie Killer.)

Would You Like To Read About A Masturbating Wizard? Who Wouldn't?

Alex Shvartsman’s second Unidentified Funny Objects anthology is out today, featuring stories by some of the funniest guys in SF.  I am not in this edition, proving that Alex has improved his taste since the first book.
But the second book has some slam-dunk authors in it, like Ken Liu, Robert Silverberg, Jim Hines, and Mike Resnick.  I anticipate it’s gonna be full of clever, funny stories, as the last book was.  And to whet your appetite for this book, I’m linking to my rather bizarre story from UFO 1, “One-Hand Tantra,” about a man who casts spells by…
…well, I’ll just give you the opener.

“The path of most wizards is solitary,” Loefwyn’s father had told him when his power had first manifested itself. “Your path, my dearest and only child, is more solitary still.”
To this day, Loefwyn wished he had never become a masturbatician.
As his father had promised, Loefwyn’s singular sex magic had given him a decent living. He’d just scraped up enough cash to build the obligatory wizard’s tower, a ribbed rock column jutting up to advertise his unique talents. Masturbaticians were rare, effective ones even more so . . . and both Loefwyn and his spells were potent indeed. Intrigued merchants dropped by to witness the town’s newest oddity–even as they hesitated to shake his hand.
Now, royalty–minor, vicious royalty, but royalty still–had hired him. Enspell Griselda the One-Eyed, and Loefwyn’s success was all but guaranteed.

You can read the whole thing here – and if you like that, then buy the new book.  If you don’t like it, then assume that they’ve gotten much better at filtering out things like this and buy the new book.

Creative Solutions, Or: I Bet That's Why That Guy Had $12 Million In The First Place

From the obituary of Robert Taylor:
“Robert Taylor knew he had a winning idea for a product the moment he thought of it.  Looking at the mess a bar of soap had left on his bathroom sink, he spotted a gap in the market for a bottled liquid soap dispensed by a pump. Realizing bigger companies would quickly copy his idea, he borrowed $12 million – every penny his business was worth – and ordered 100 million little plastic pumps from US manufacturers, creating a back order so huge that no rival could buy pumps for at least a year.”
Props to you, Robert Taylor.

The I-Shoulda-Seen-That-By-Now Movie Marathon

Just a reminder: the I-Shoulda-Seen-That-By-Now Movie Marathon is next Saturday, at our house.  The ISSTBN Marathon is a long-standing tradition, where people gather to watch movies that they feel guilty about having gotten to this fine age without having seen.
(Someone always tries to go, “Well, there’s this movie I love…”  No.  This is about films you have not seen.)
My choice for this upcoming film festival: Clue, which I feel guilty about not because I feel it’s a great movie (I don’t think it is), but rather because I feel that as a former Rocky Horror-obsessed lad, I should have seen Tim Curry in all of his best roles.  Our pal Lucy is seeing The Wrath of Khan because Jesus Christ, don’t you know you don’t get your soul until you’ve watched Kirk and Spock battle Ricardo Montalban?  And Mel wants to watch Flashdance, which I’m not entirely sure how she feels guilty about not seeing it, but then again she’s a girl who loves Dirty Dancing and I assume there’s something about estrogen and 80s dance movies that is like an Innsmouth call to the deep.
So if you’re local and feel like watching, the rules are at our Evite, and just lemme know that you’re attending.  I feel like we need a couple of dramas, or at least a movie produced somewhere outside of the “1982 to 1985” range that we’re currently sporting, so all film lovers are welcome and loved as long as they choose a good movie.
A good movie, mind you.  I chose My Dinner With Andre the last time.  I’ll let the Doctor speak for me on that choice.

Is The Dog Whisperer Doing Some Weird Kind Of Good?

I didn’t expect a post on Cesar Millan to be the hot discussion of the month, but lots of people weighed in on what a jerk Cesar is.  The Dog Whisperer’s training is barbaric and unscientific! people cried, just before LiveJournal’s automated spam-handlers blocked their frothing anti-Millan links.  He’s harmful!  He’s propagating horrible disinformation about how dogs behave!
All true.  Cesar’s concept of “the pack” is actually hokum.  The study that came to the conclusion that “dogs have a strict hierarchy” was from putting different groups of unrelated, captive wolves into a pen and letting them battle it out, which is kind of like throwing various families into a lightless prison and assuming their behavior is normal.  As it turns out, there’s an alpha dog when they’re jammed together into a survival mode found nowhere in nature, but in real life wolves tend to travel in family structures.  The dogs follow their parents because their parents have been proven to be responsible.
So Cesar is peddling theories that don’t play any more.  And I’m fully willing to admit that his habit of throat-punching dogs to get their attention probably isn’t for the best, as is his theory that if a dog is scared, you “flood” the dog with his terror so he gets used to it.
Yet still, Cesar’s helped me.  His thoughts on why dogs bark may be completely akimbo, but his practical advice of “Don’t yell, just stay calm and show the dog that there’s nothing to worry about” got Shasta to bark a lot less.
And I think Cesar’s helped a lot of people, by disseminating a real truth that most of Cesar’s foes tend to overlook: as the world’s most popular dog trainer, the constant and enduring lesson of every one of his shows is, if the dog behaves badly, it’s your fault.  You are providing improper feedback for the dog.
Which is really valuable.  Thanks to Cesar, when Shasta misbehaves, I don’t get mad at her – I wonder what I could be doing better.  Which makes me less likely to mistreat her, or get frustrated.  And maybe the feedback that Cesar tells me to provide is wrong, but that conceptual shift that “It’s my job to show her what to do” is such a change that it has all sorts of behavioral fallout for me.  It’s not the damn dog, it’s the damn me.
Which is something that gets overlooked a lot.  Not to mention that Cesar’s popularity brings professional dog trainers to the fore, and makes people more likely to seek them out, thus maximizing the chance that someone will find a dog trainer who goes, “Oh God no, don’t listen to that fool.”  For all that people hate Cesar, he’s actually doing a lot of good that gets overlooked.
This isn’t a defense of Cesar.  I’m just fascinated by how complex life is.  This is a case where a self-taught dog “expert” got catapulted to the fore by virtue of working with some celebrities, and while he’s spreading some horrible habits among dog owners, quietly he’s also propagating a set of tools that’s also genuinely helpful to dogs.  And I think that as people, we tend to go, “This is good!” or “This is bad!”, in most cases it’s a weirdly mixed bag where yeah, you wish that Cesar wasn’t as popular as he was because he’s got some really toxic effects, but on the other hand if nobody had heard of Cesar Millan then a lot of people would still be blaming their dogs and not themselves.
It’s not all good, or all bad.  It’s this weird, “Well, kinda….” where I think that if you’re honest, you look at it and find it hard to nail it down exactly what sort of effect this all has.
Life’s messy.  Just like our dogs.