She Done Me Wrong

October Newsletter

(see the original post on Patreon for more pictures and links)

So, there I was, mad at my mother in law.

Pavlina and I take pre-bedtime walks. Often she's mad at someone at work, and I have to talk her down. This time the roles were reversed, and what my anger lacked in frequency it made up in intensity. Pavlina tried agreeing with me ("yes, it is unfair"). She tried disagreeing with me ("no, the budgie room really was a mess"). "What have you read recently?" She asked, trying to divert me onto other topics. I told her I didn't want to talk about what we were reading and just stomped along in silence for a few minutes. Pavlina, the Ferrari of wives, waited patiently.

I started at the surface. It's late at night. Too late to get angry about how dirty the budgie room is. It's a mean trick to tell the girls that the budgies will die if their room is too messy. This is just you, mother in law, getting tired and throwing a tantrum at the end of the day.

But I'd just read Nonviolent Communication (see below), which said that my job in an argument was not to judge or to diagnose. That made me angrier! What was wrong with me that I couldn't follow the precepts of Marshal Rosenberg? And what were they again?

You made me...no wait...I am angry because you...because I was having father-daughter-time watching cartoons with the girls and suddenly you're up in the budgie room yelling at them. The story I'm telling myself (with a nod to Brene Brown) is that you're jealous of the girls and want them doing things with you and not with me and that's...not true. Whew!

This had all happened internally, and it felt a bit silly to say it out loud to Pavlina. What sort of idiot am I that I come up with all these rationalizations for the rivalry between son- and mother-in-law, a story so cliche that entire languages have evolved ways to deal with it? And I felt selfish.

Why selfish, I wondered. My other father-daughter time is taking the girls to the park, where they play with their friends and I read stuff on my phone. Did I feel guilty about that? Yes. Especially since what I'd read was a Substack newsletter.

Since I subscribed to a bunch of Substack newsletters in the summer, I had stopped reading the Economist so much. The newsletters were more gripping, somehow, more vivid. Given the choice, I reached for them rather than the news magazine. I knew that by doing so I was eating my ice cream before my broccoli, but I hadn't done anything about it.

Anyway. This newsletter I read in park. It was a story about an American man (presumably real) who's wife done him wrong. She called the cops after he yelled at her. The cops put the man in the system. The system made the man go to counseling. When the man was at counseling, he wasn't working, and the wife divorced him. The story ends with the wife and her unemployed boyfriend living off the husband's alimony payments while he only refrains from suicide because he wants to see his children. She done him wrong!

You can see why this story gripped me, a husband and father who's worried about the news coming out of his home country. And you can see why then I went home and got mad at my mother-in-law. Yes, the story I read on Substack was designed to upset me and manipulate my emotions. No, it didn't have much to do with my actual problem and certainly didn't suggest a solution. It was ridiculous of me to take this fable written by some guy on Substack and map it onto my life. And yet, I kept thinking of that unemployed boyfriend. I kept thinking she done me wrong!

I admitted all this to Pavlina, and finally it was out of me. Yes, I had been quite silly, but saying it made me less so. And I could take some credit. I'd unsubscribed from that newsletter before that fight about the budgie room. Even before I blew up, I knew that something was off. The story I'd read had hooks, and I was wise enough to cut off their source.

My friend Paul Venet told me about how when he was an art teacher, he made his students read the newspaper between classes. "Because it was a class on anatomy and perspective, and the news is full of anatomy and perspective!" I didn't ask him what he meant by that because we only had an hour to talk, but anyway I know that I need to read the news. Without it, I would have less to talk about with friends, and to inspire my stories. But you are what you eat.

No, I haven't quit Substack. I just unsubscribed from that newsletter (and, later in the month, a few others). The ones left, like the Economist, ought to inform rather than convince. They're for me to eat, rather than the reverse.

***

In other news, Fellow Tetrapod finished its first month of serialization with 20 followers and some inspiring comments. By now (the middle of November) there's more. I think the experiment is working so far. You can read a more detailed introspection here (scroll down). 

I haven't had much time for non-Fellow-T stuff, but I did work a little on the script for the First Knife sequel (Pavlina calls it "Second Spoon"). Artyom (now safe in an undisclosed location) matched the words to his flabbergasting pictures.

I made a pretty picture of my own and a short Halloween story to go with it. And I found out about maptoglobe.com.

***

Finally, I read some books last month.

The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

This book seems to me like a sequel for the sake of a sequel. The Moties are a species driven by biology to expand endlessly if they ever get out into interstellar space. Oops, looks like they're going to get out (this was rather deftly foreshadowed, by the way). And who better to negotiate the compromise between we-annihilate-them and they-annihilate-us than a man who was horribly traumatized the last time he met Moties? Despite that potentially interesting problem, we don't get much character development. Worse, the problem of and solution to the Moties isn't very interesting. But I do want to go back and read A Mote in God's Eye.

Taste: My Life through Food by Stanly Tucci

Unlike many celebrity writers, Tucci doesn't posture. He actually has important things he wants to say. He keeps a very narrow focus on his personal experience, recounting whole conversations from memory (he must keep a very good diary) and observing himself and others with an eye that can be ironic or even disapproving, but never cruel. And of course he's funny.

If this were just a collection of a celebrity's conversations and experiences with food and other celebrities, it would have been good enough. But then we get to the part of the book that covers the last three years. I've read a lot about the Pandemic, but more importantly, I've lived it. Tucci captured the experience with a gentle vulnerability that I haven't seen anywhere else. There's the other thing, too. It came as a surprise to me, and I want it to be a surprise to you too. Go read this book.

The Fist That Opens the Heart by Conradin

I read the short stories of the Rational Fiction Fest 2022, and this is my favorite. It was good enough that I recounted the story over cocktails (on a WEEKNIGHT!) to a couple of friends: a great kung fu hero invents a technique that solves his enemies psychological problems. He fights an Eastern sorcerer and breaks his enemy's urge to feel powerful. Crunch. Now the sorcerer is a peaceful teacher of the Nine Precepts. Then the hero turns his power on the narrator of the story. It's a cool premise well-executed. 

Paranoid Mage by Inadvisably Compelled

This might be the most fun I've had with a book all year. That sense that the whole world goes away and now it's 5pm. The last time I was so transported by a novel was the Martian. I cannot thank Inadvisably Compelled enough for consuming my weekend.

Paranoid Mage is about a man (rather than a boy) who finds out he's part of a secret magical world. And you have a rare kind of magic. Congratulations. Now it's time to train you up for the epic war we're fighting on another world.

Our protagonist is having none of that. He escapes and goes off the grid. The problem is that he doesn't know what the grid _is_. He can see magic, but he can only barely use it. Who can he trust to train him and not turn him in? But without training, he doesn't stand a chance against the magical police, who are hunting him down. It's a fascinating dilemma.

Count to Infinity by John C. Wright

This book could have been really, really good. It (or at any rate the series that it concludes) could have been a genre touch-stone like A Fire Upon the Deep. Instead, it's just ambitious. 

Here is one of my two most memorable lines in the book:

"I have two salt and pepper shakers back home shaped like two famous statues of you and her. When you put the shakers together on the tablecloth, they kiss. It is really sweet. You are the pepper."

The problem is, this is only one moment of two. The emotional and philosophical notes are all there. The plot and worldbuilding support them. But I very rarely found myself believing that these are real people. Otherwise, it's all "he went there and did this and had that conversation." A summary, rather than a story.

And then there is the utter, I'd even say contemptuous lack of editing. What was Tor doing? Certainly not pushing Wright to produce a manuscript closer to its potential, and then waiting to print it until it was ready. We get out-and-out typos like "darks stars." That's a shame. It's as if we only got a sketch of the Sistine Chapel fresco because the Pope and Michelangelo couldn't get over their personal feud.

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

Like so many other pop-sci behavioral economics books, Predictably Irrational is solidly mired in its time. It was the pre-2010s, nobody wanted another Financial Crisis, economists were trying to prove they weren't evil, and the Replication Crisis had yet to begin. There's a bit of "I'm not saying we should run the world like Burning Man, but I went to Burning Man and it was great!" 

As usual, what I liked best were the personal stories. Ariely had some real things happen to him, but understandably doesn't talk much about his traumatic medical past. Mostly he talks about fooling undergraduates into making silly decisions. I approve. 

Uncrowned by Will Wight

I'd forgotten that Uncrowned and Wintersteel weren't the same book, and was disappointed that this book wasn't Wintersteel :) But aside from that, this - my second reading - gave me a better look at Will Wight's craft. It's interesting to see how he grows his world to keep ahead of both the readers and his main character. Characters and countries that before were only mentioned in passing, now get their full-color backstories. The towering god-like powers of the last book are now (relative to Lindon) only somewhat impressive, the subsidiaries of even greater titans. Only a small amount of ret-conning is required. It's a solid piece of work.

Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg

This book was recommended by a introspective friend, bent on doing and being better. I was a little hesitant to start something so serious, but like my friend, this book is gentle above all. The basic premise is that people are driven to violence by their emotional needs. Fulfill the needs, and the violence evaporates. It's good theory, which Rosenberg supports with stories from himself and others. An argument in a taxi is averted. A battle of wills turns back into a negotiation. A woman defuses her would-be rapist. Strong, useful stuff.

See you next month