Rosemary Clement-Moore's Blog

1. Become more active on social media.

1. Do less catastrophizing.

2. Change FaceBook status to “Marooned on a desert island.”

2. Scotch “abducted by pirate” rumors.

3. Stop second-guessing.

3. Be more decisive.

3. Set realistic goals.

4. Rearrange bookshelves.

4. Color-code bullet journal.

4. Organize notes into Personal Knowledge System.

4. Stop procrastinating.

4a. Stop reading articles about how to stop procrastinating.

5. Send Happy Holiday Cards before the holidays.

5. Send Happy Holiday Cards before Twelfth Night.

5. Wish Friends, Readers, and Relations a Healthy and Happy New Year.

Wishing you peace and joy in 2022.
(Photo by Tamara Menzi on Unsplash)

On Sunday, I’m jumping in the car with one of my best friends and driving from Dallas to Denver. It’ll be my first trip anywhere in two years, and I am alternately thrilled and terrified. I’m thrillified.

Photo by Charlie Firth on Unsplash

And it’s many more miles from Dallas to Denver. So I have a checklist from a travel website of things to take on a road trip: first-aid kit, flashlight, USB cables, wet-wipes and hand sanitizer, a water bottle, tissues, sunscreen, lotion…

Dude. These are the contents of my everyday bag, plus the carabiner, paracord, utility tool, and half a CVS.

I guess that makes Item #1 easy:

My everyday bag. Actually, four bags: A car bag with stuff I’ll want in the car like a sweater, my knitting (because I have to have something to do with my hands), plus any other just-in-case things that I don’t always have in my purse, like toilet paper (because rest stop bathrooms) and dental floss (because you can clean your teeth and also cut cake with it). An overnight bag so I don’t have to lug my whole suitcase into the motel for a stopover. My suitcase full of stuff for wherever I’m going. An extra folded duffle (or two) for the trip home—because somehow my stuff always multiplies.
Tunes. I have a “sharing the car” list and a “no one is listening” list. Both have a lot of can’t-not-sing-along songs, but the “by myself” list contains 100% more show tunes.
Snacks. Websites recommend things like nuts and dried fruit and peanut butter on celery. I recommend stopping at Buc-ee’s for Beaver Nuggets. I can’t recommend that because they stores are always elbow to elbow and…sigh Mask-up, people. However! You can buy Beaver Nuggets online. They’re like Corn Pops, but salty-sweet like kettle corn.
A list of roadside attractions. Carhenge? Biggest ball of string? The future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk? Sweet road trips are made of these. (I really did stop in Riverside, Iowa—I swore to my mom it would only take a minute, and she timed me as I followed the tiny little sign down a lane between buildings to grab a selfie.)
Road Trip Games. You know the ones… Road trip scavenger hunt. License plate bingo. I spy. And if you’re traveling with other people, you can ask each other questions from the “Proust Questionnaire.” Or if your car-trip buddies are all writers, you can ask your characters the same questions, which is bound to be more interesting.

I’m posting on Instagram and Twitter again, so you can follow along on the road trip and see if we stop at anything interesting. And if you have any suggestions for road trip music or favorite car snacks, leave them in the comments or message me on social media. (As I point to the fancy icons at the top of the page.)

Cover photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I’ve given up being a Texas apologist, but there are a few things that this state gets right, like barbecue, Tex-Mex, and Shiner Bock.

One thing Texas does not do, is seasons. I’ve put up Christmas lights in shorts and a tank top, and I maybe wear my winter coat a dozen days a year, and those are non-consecutive.

But we do have October. Here are some of the things I honestly love about the tenth month of the year:

Goldilocks weather

If the first cool morning brings a promise of fall weather, October fulfills it. Enjoying my morning coffee outside when the humidity is low and the temperature hovers around 65 degrees is a rare and special pleasure.

Spring has bluebonnets, which are nice, but it also has tornados, which are not.

Halloween My nephew’s terrifying halloween costume.

By “Halloween,” I mean the commercialized scary/funny holiday. Decorated houses, candy, festivals, and terrifying creatures that don’t include Santa Claus. I love spooky movies (ghosty ones, not so much the stabby ones). And scaring ourselves for fun makes a nice change from, you know, all the other stuff to worry about.

Also, there are mini candy bars. And everyone knows minimizing things makes them more delicious.

Oktoberfest Not actually named Chad…as far as I know.

If you don’t know, Oktoberfest is kind of like St. Patrick’s Day— a celebration of heritage (in this case German) used by guys named something like Chad or as an excuse to drink to excess. (See also, Cinco de Mayo.) And while I do love some Shiner beer, I also love food.

Mmmm…pretzels

Especially pretzels like this. Try them with this cheese dip.

So, why are there so many Oktoberfests in Texas? Americans weren’t the only ahem immigrants ahem who came here when this was a colony of Spain and then Mexico—there were Irish, German, Czech, Polish… That’s why San Antonio dyes the river green on St. Patrick’s day, why West, Texas has the best kolaches, and why Tejano music has a polka beat.

And if you want to know the right ice cream pairing to go with your beer, the Ben & Jerry’s website has got you covered. Which, speaking of…

Ben & Jerry’s Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream

Look, I know I roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of Pumpkin Spice everything. After working at Starbucks, if I never see another pumpkin spice latte, it will be two soon.

But as soon as this shows up in the freezer section, I know that fall has truly arrived. The world keeps turning. Sunrise, sunset.

Here’s the recipe for molasses cookie bowls to hold your pumpkin cheesecake scoop.

Not an ice cream fan? How about Pumpkin Tacos? (Seriously!)

The Sirens Conference

I learned about the Siren’s Conference when I was invited as a keynote speaker. (The theme that year was “Hauntings.”) I’ve attended every year since. I’ll be there this October 21-24, despite the fact that the DFW Writers’ Conference is happening (online) the same weekend.

The official description of the Sirens Conference goes like this:

We are dedicated to discussing and celebrating the remarkable work of women, nonbinary, and transgender people in fantasy literature and other speculative spaces.
We are as smart as a scholarly conference, as passionate as a fan convention, and as ambitious as a networking weekend, with just a bit of the respite of a personal retreat.

It does feel part retreat, a little bit summer camp, a smidge college, mixed with a con, but minus that guy on every panel who thinks good SF died with Robert Heinlein.

If by “hike” you mean sit by the fire and drink spiked cider…

The presentations range from deep to insightful to inspiring to fun. There’s always some idea I end up looking at in a different way. Most of all, I’ve made friends who feel like family. I know that sounds hokey, but people come back every year for a reason.

This year’s theme is “Villains,” but everything about next year is still a closed guarded secret and stays that way until the big reveal on Sunday morning at the conference breakfast.

mmmm…breakfast

*sigh* I thought I’d get through item five without mentioning food, but I blew it with the mention of breakfast. I think my subconscious is telling me I need to eat something.

Do you have a favorite thing about October or about fall? An event or activity that you look forward to every year? A delicious recipe to share now that I’ve made you all hungry with talk of pretzels and bratwurst and pumpkin cheesecake? Leave ‘em in the comments, and if I try any of your suggestions, I’ll be sure to take pictures for us to laugh at later.

“Sabbatical” sound so much better than “I just can Internet right now.”

There are plenty of articles about disconnecting or going on a social media diet. And really, does “Twitter and I are on a break right now” need elaboration in 2021? Probably not.

Ghosting on most of the Interwebs—well, okay, it was actually scarily easy to do, despite the benefits of (and enjoyment I get from) staying in the loop with readers and other writers.

This isn’t a post about why I (or anyone) should sip at the straw of social media rather than try and drink from the firehose.

This is a list of reasons why I’ve blown the dust off of readrosemary.net and written myself into a mixed metaphor.

Five Reasons to End a Social Media SabbaticalI really need to write to someone other than myself. (See above. It’s like Inception up in here, you all.) The first sense of fall in Texas is like the first hint of spring in places where it snows. I want fling wide the windows and clear out the closets and, I don’t know, bake things.

Maybe Pumpkin Spice things.

Pumpkin Spice Everything

(But probably not.)

My point is…I want to DO things.

(Imagine if I lived somewhere temperate. I’d be unstoppable.)

I turned in a new manuscript.

It’s not just that I’m incredibly superstitious about talking about projects while I’m working on them. It’s that I can admit that I binge-watched both seasons of The Mandalorian (and had ice-cream delivered from the store) when I have, you know, things to do. (And a budget.)

I am actually… DOING STUFF. Stuff that you might like to know about because it’s online.

And they’re coming up, like, really soon.

October 1-2, 2021 — Roanoke Writers’ Conference (online).

Put on by the Roanoke Public Library, the RWC starts at 6pm on Friday with the keynote “Importance of Eggs Benedict to Your Career as an Author” with James A. Owen. (I don’t want to miss this.) Then all day Saturday there will be a full slate of workshop sessions with all kinds of writers.

I’m speaking in the afternoon, along with my friend and shenanigan-enabler, Rook Riley, in a session called “Beyond Book Bibles and Binders.” (Keeping track of the details in your writing projects, from research to writing.)

Tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for teens. For all the details on the event, how to attend online, and how to buy tickets, visit the Roanoke Public Library and the Event’s Website.

October 9, 2021 at 11am — DFWWW Writers’s Bloc (online) — Finding the Core of your Story (aka “Rosemary’s Pitch Class”)

Hosted by DFW Writers’ Workshop. So, I teach this class on how to compose a pitch for your book (as in, pitching it to an agent or editor, or writing a query letter). And I’m pretty good at it, not because I’m an expert in marketing but because I love taking about stories and seeing what makes them tick. Like a mad scientist, kind of. Because, you know, you want your book to electrify people. (You thought I was going to say “come to life,” didn’t you? Psych!)

It’s really about finding the most compelling elements of your concept and using them effectively, whether it’s to write your book, revise it, or make someone say, “I want to read that now.”

So even though this class is extremely useful to anyone who is going to send out query letters, or say, have the chance to pitch their book at a conference like DFW Writers’ Conference (online, October 23-24, 2021), it’s really about finding the most compelling elements of your concept and using them effectively, whether it’s to write your book, revise it, or make someone say, “I want to read that now.”

The webinar is absolutely free and anyone can attend. You do need to register ahead of time so you’ll have the link and instructions to log in on Saturday, Oct 9th. You can do that by following this link. I’ll talk for about an hour and then take questions until we’re done or they mute me on the Zoom.

(The class will be recorded and DFWWW Members can view it anytime. Also, have I mentioned that DFW Writers’ Workshop is meeting online now and will likely have hybrid (online and in person) meetings when it’s safe to do so?)

There is no reason five.

This could have waited for a website redesign, or a rebranding, or a podcast launch. It was supposed to go up on the first Friday in September.

And I could have looked for some auspicious time, for the right moment, and for every line, metaphor, and image to be perfect.

In which case it might have taken me until NEXT September.

Fact: There’s never a right time for tackling anything–a goal, a project, a change. (And if a golden ticket arrives to say “now’s your chance!”, it certainly won’t be when you have ample time and energy.)

So, to recap:

Talking to yourself is fine, but talking to other people (from the comfort of your home, even) is better.Fall is the best. I haven’t forgotten how to write.There are TWO chances to see my Lockdown Haircut (which is actually the same as my normal haircut) in the next two weeks:The Roanoke Writers’ Conference (Online, Oct 1-2)DFWWW’s Writers’ Bloc (Online, Sat, Oct 9 at 11am)Plus…The DFW Writers’ Conference is online, as well, and many awesome writers, agents, and editors will be speaking. It’s a chance go to a stellar conference without having to travel. (I won’t be there, though, because I will be at the Siren’s Conference in Denver!)There’s never a perfect time to start something fresh, which means now’s the time to do it!

It’s been so long that Rosemary-the-Author has, you know, interacted with human beings, I forget that there’s a protocol. A protocol that includes actually letting people know you’re going to be somewhere. I’ve got some nifty events coming up for writers and readers.

EVENTS
June 8-10

DFW WRITERS CONFERENCE — Dallas/Fort Worth

I will be attending and speaking at the 11th Annual DFW Writers’ Conference in Dallas/Fort Worth June 8-10. I’m slightly biased because this conference is put on by my home team, the DFW Writers’ Workshop (where you’ll find me almost every Wednesday night). But every year there’s a great lineup of speakers, agents & editors, and a number of success stories. So I’m not totally blowing smoke when I say, this is a great investment in your career.

This year the keynote speaker is YA author SCOTT WESTERFELD, who, I don’t know, you might have heard of. He’s written some things. I’m pretty excited about that. For a list of other speakers, and what the conference has to offer (besides the chance to meet me), go to the website.

June 22-24

SOONERCON — Oklahoma City

I will be getting my nerd on with my friends at SOONERCON, a Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention in Oklahoma City, June 22-24. Lots of cool guests, lots of panels. The Guests of Honor are author Carrie Vaughn and artist John Picacio. I just got my schedule, and I’ll be talking about things like representation in YA, romantic subplots that don’t suck the badass out of your story, and why the heck are people cranked about a female Doctor Who when it’s 2018 for crying out loud.

Anyway, this is a lot of fun, and for every time I roll my eyes at Big Bang Theory, I like seeing people at SF Cons that might not have given them a try ten years ago. Or, like me as a teen, wouldn’t even know where to start. Start with a local con, because you have a lot of access to the pros, and everyone is usually super friendly to newbies. (See next item)

September 22-24

FENCON — Dallas, TX

Another local SFF convention. I just confirmed I’ll be here, but the website has info, like the fact that Larry Niven is the Guest of Honor. It’s also the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. So there’s that. Mark your calendar.

October 25-29

SIRENS CONFERENCE — Vail, CO

Another annual favorite of mine, the Sirens is a literary conference dedicated to the diverse women in fantasy literature. The website describes it as “community that invites all attendees—readers, certainly, but just as importantly, scholars, librarians, educators, publishing professionals, authors—to converse as peers.” The “converse as peers” is what sets Sirens apart. No one is there to network or pitch anything, just to talk about women’s representation in literature.

I was invited as a speaker five years ago, and I’ve gone back whenever I can. “Literary conference” may sound a little stuffy, but it’s not at all. I highly recommend clicking here to check out the website if it sounds at all interesting. 

OTHER NEWS

I am working VERY HARD on a project. YES, I have been working on it for a VERY LONG TIME. It’s not the only thing I’ve been doing since Spirit and Dust came out (you might check out my friend Kara Connolly’s book if you’re jonesing for something that reads pretty much EXACTLY LIKE AN RCM book if I’d written a time-travelling swashbuckling adventure novel), but it’s the thing that’s been keeping me tied up like the guy in Misery, minus the broken leg. (*crosses self*)

So this is me, headed to the computer every morning:

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Seriously. I look JUST LIKE THAT.

Maybe I’d type faster without the sword in one hand.

TTFN,

Rosemary

 

New Year’s Resolutions are crap. We can all just acknowledge that, right?

The whole “breaking resolutions on January 2nd” thing is not just a joke but a tired joke. Besides, “Goals” and “plans” are much more concrete and useful. I know this because of all the How to Be Productive articles I read when I should be being productive. Lifestyle blogs are big on focus. Like, pick a word that’s your theme for the year, like “flourish” or “persist” or “gratitude.”

Yeah, me too, Scully. Sure it’s nice to hand-letter in your #BuJo with your watercolor brush pen or whatever, but is it useful?

AND YET…

At the beginning of 2016 I declared it to be “The Year I Get my Shit Together.”  (Because the unofficial themes of 2014 was “The Year My Life Cratered” and 2015 was “The Year I Lay Amid the Rubble of My Life and Felt Sorry for Myself.”)

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Seriously. I said this aloud and often, in that “I’m making a joke but not really joking” way. I put it on a Post-It note and stuck it on my computer monitor. I WROTE IT IN MY BULLET JOURNAL. I mean, I didn’t make a whole decorated page or anything. But I made, you know, a bullet point. That’s how official it was.

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And you know what? It worked. I mean, no one ever totally has their shit together (no matter what their Instagram looks like), but I made substantial progress toward my goals.

Then 2017.

I didn’t declare the year anything. There didn’t seem a point because the rest of the world was declaring it a dumpster fire. I was back to lying in a crater, only this time  under constant bombardment from the media, social media, and this echo chamber of “OMG EVERYTHING IS AWFUL AND PEOPLE ARE AWFUL AND EVEN THE EARTH IS TRYING TO KILL US.”

Which is not 100% true.

You see, the thing about depression and anxiety—

Wait. Quick sidebar. I don’t think I’ve ever talked seriously about this. I struggle with depression, which is something that a lot of people can relate to. But I also have this panic thing, but not like from normal stuff like, you know, 2017, but from things like watching 3D movies, or going to IKEA, or unloading the dishwasher.

Okay, back. So with depression, you tend to go straight to the worst case scenario and view problems in an “all or nothing” way. Like, “Well, I haven’t gotten anything done and it’s already noon, so I might as well CALL THE ENTIRE DAY A LOSS and binge-watch Inkmaster. Because OBVIOUSLY I am a complete FAILURE.”

We already think in all caps all the time. We don’t need everyone shouting at us 24/7 that THINGS ARE THE WORST THEY’VE EVER BEEN.

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Did bad things happen? Yes. Natural disaster? Injustice? Ineptitude and assholery? Check. But before any of that, everyone I knew decided that 2017 was going to suck. That was the focus word, and then when bad things happened, the discussion was  more useless vitriol and hyperbole than a call to action.

ANYWAY. 2018.

While January 1st is cosmically arbitrary, it happens near the winter solstice, and across cultures, there’s a mindset of renewal this time of year.  Maybe if we all decide 2018 will be better, we can make it so.

That’s not magical thinking, that’s stating intent. I can’t just wish to get my shit together and it happens. But I can put it on a Post-It note and stick it where I will see it every day and think “What am I going to do today to make this happen.”[image error]

SO what is this the year of?  Well, getting my shit back together is a little on the nose, and it’s not very affirming to remind yourself every day that you dropped the ball and now you have to chase it down. I want something based on what DID work last year.

You know what worked? WHEN I GOT OFF OF TWITTER. Around about November I stopped reading social media, limited my news intake to headlines, and turned down the volume the talking heads–including the ones in my real life. It isn’t that I don’t care—but when you can’t separate what you can control from what you can’t (let alone let go of the latter), it just gets to where you can’t control anything at all.

Now, how to put that into a positive, actionable plan?

So I’m downstairs making myself a butter and honey sandwich, AS ONE DOES, while I free-associate. Batten down the hatches? Stay the course? Eyes on the road? Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…

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That’s it. I need to just keep swimming. To be less Marlin, more Dory.

Yeah, I’m laughing, too. I need to stop overthinking, not give it up entirely.

But you know who is a good role model for this?

 

Face it—BB8 is the real hero of Star Wars VII and VIII. Those rebels would all be toast if not for him. He keeps rolling, keeps his head (most of the time), and keeps his sense of humor.

And his name ALSO ends with an 8. So happy 201(BB)8, everyone. Just keep rolling…and I’ll just keep writing.

[image error]Khaleesi out.

Every November my social media stream fills up with people talking about writing a book in a month. I usually have to take a break from The Internets during this period because I stress year round about not writing fast enough, so I don’t need extra pressure.

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However, the writing has been going, and we’re almost at the halfway through November mark, and I haven’t posted anything anywhere in weeks and weeks, so here’s some free advice that I’m really good at giving and not so great at taking. (Even though the wisdom of this has been verified by third parties.)

“Every artist was first an amateur.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

Something I really like about the NaNoWriMo website—the “official” source—is that the emphasis is not on getting published, or even necessarily on anyone reading the novel. It’s about telling a story. Making art. It’s about non-writerly people exploring their storytelling voice by writing at a speed that stays ahead of the internal editor that says “What are you doing? You can’t write a book! You’re not a writer!”

Incidentally, that voice doesn’t go away, no matter how many books you’ve actually written. I also like this advice because it’s along the lines of “If they can do it, so can I,” which is literally the thing that made me finally stop talking about writing (see below) and finish a cursety-curse book.

“You have to write the book that wants to be written, and if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” —Madeleine L’Engle

That voice in your head? It’s going to tell you your ideas are stupid and juvenile and cliched. Tell that voice to go suck an egg. It’s your book and you can write it the way you want to. NaNoWriMo’s founder, Chris Batty’s book No Plot, No Problem helped me finish my first book (Not during NaNoWriMo, but whatever) because of this advice:

Write a list of things you love in books, no matter how cliched or silly your inner editor thinks they are.
Write a book with those things in it.

The first draft of your book is for you. The next draft(s) are for an editor. Then one way down the line is for the reader. (That’s not a quote; that’s me. Or it’s me quoting me.)

“You fail only if you stop writing.” —Ray Bradbury

Something I don’t like so much about the NaNoWriMo gestalt that takes over my Tweetstream is the idea of “winning.” It’s great if NaNoWriMo inspires you to put your thoughts and ideas into 50,000 words. But if you finish a book, you win, no matter how long it takes you.

“Every first draft is shit.” —Earnest Hemingway

I need to tattoo this on the backs of my eyelids.

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward.” —Robert A. Heinlein

I meet a lot of people who enjoy talking about writing a lot more than they enjoy putting their butt in the chair and their fingers on the keyboard. So shut up and write.

Also, I read an article by Patricia Cornwall ages ago that said if she talks too much about her plots, she loses the impetus to write them, because she’s already told the story. So there’s that.

“For God’s sake, leave it alone and fix it in the rewrite, you moron.” —Rosemary Clement-Moore

I’ve made myself some desktop/iPad wallpapers to remind myself of these words of wisdom, and I figured you might like them, too. If you click on the images, they will take you to the full sized .jpg. Images are from Pixabay used with a CC 0 license. Later you’ll find them in the “For writers: Handouts and Fun Stuff” tab.

Enjoy, and happy writing (or reading)!

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Just for the over 21s:

 

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Soldiers with the Texas Army National Guard support relief efforts to residents of Cyprus Creek. (US Army National Guard photo by: Capt. Martha Nigrelle)

I wrote a very long and chatty post that I was going to, well, post today, but my friend Kara tweeted a link to this excellent article on Consumer Reports about how to help victims of Hurricane Harvey, and I wanted to give it a boost. Only it turned into a whole post.

You can skip to the linky bits at the bottom if you want.

Some people this week have asked how I’m faring, but Texas is really really big and I’m far away from Houston. But I lived in South Texas for a long time. I went to church and did my grocery shopping in Rockport. The pictures out of there made my heart hurt. They’ve been eclipsed by the utter devastation in Houston, but it doesn’t lessen the impact of the damage on the lives of people in Rockport, Port Aransas, Port Lavaca and Corpus Christi.

If I still lived on the family ranch, though, I would have been blown all the way to Oklahoma. But I don’t. I live in Fort Worth, which is only part of the way to Oklahoma.

The Coast Guard assessed damage and offered search and rescue assistance during an overflight from Port Aransas to Port O’Connor.

(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Johanna Strickland.

While living down there, we had one near-miss hurricane and one that did major damage to the house. But nothing was lost that couldn’t be replaced. I look at these pictures and think, I can’t honestly compare anything in my life to this. It’s like your friend breaks her arm and you’re like, “Yeah, this one time I broke my pinky finger.”

But when I recall my small-but-still-major-to-me hurricane, I just know how lucky we were to have family who rushed down to help, to be able to drive (once the water went down) to the town over and get a shower and a Whataburger.

The Coast Guard responds to search and rescue requests in the greater Houston Metro Area Aug. 28, 2017. 
U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Johanna Strickland.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to leave on a raft, or airlifted out, with just the clothes you’re wearing. So many people–and it’s always the people with the least resources, by which I mean money–have lost literally everything. They will be rebuilding their lives, but for no, they are dependent on the kindness of strangers. That’s a whole different kind of terrifying than rising flood waters.**

So. Hurricane Harvey.

[image error]Bakers trapped by high water in the El Bolillo Bakery spent two days making pan dulce for evacuees. This is one of my favorite stories because it ends with two of my favorite words: sweet and bread.

Let’s talk about the Coast Guard, the National Guard, and Air Guards from all different states who have been working their butts off. You can click here to go to the Coast Guard’s pictures of the Hurricane Harvey Response. Check it out. Bring Kleenex.

Not to mention all those amazing pictures of volunteers and just, you know, ordinary people going out with boats and jet skis and canoes and rescuing people and dogs and horses and women in labor. I’m getting verklempt thinking about it.

Like I said on Twitter this week. I still believe that individuals are, overall, much more good than bad. And sometimes human beings are pretty good in groups, too.

So, what can you do?

If you, like me, want your money to go as far as possible. I don’t want to repeat everything Consumer Reports (or this other very useful article by the New York Times) said, but here’s some cherry picked info and links.

 

How to best help the victims of Hurricane Harvey, the money part:

You can check out any charity through sites like Charity Watch. Not just to avoid scams (though there is that), but also you want to give to a charity where only a small percentage goes to operating costs.
To get the most bang for your buck, give to charities already on the ground. For instance, Americares can provide $200 in aid for ever $10 you give. They know what’s needed and they have the infrastructure in place to collect and distribute where it will do the most good. Direct Relief and the Humane Society of the U.S. are two others.
Local charities are also good choices, like Food Bank of Corpus Christi and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. (Because you know who has infrastructure like nobody else? The Roman Catholic Church. I think they invented it. Anyway, they aid people of all religions and none. Contrary to Dan Brown novels there’s not a quiz or a secret handshake.)
Unless an on the site organization puts out a specific call—Like the Texas Diaper Bank—money is usually far more useful than good. One, someone on the other end has to figure out what to do with them when there are more immediate concerns, like health and safety. Two, most of these organizations can get a lot more for the dollar than we could at the supermarket.
Think about the future. There’s a huge immediate need, but it takes a while to rebuild a life. Think about charitable giving for the next year. You can set up monthly donations automatically at a lot of organizations.

[image error]Americares distributes medical supplies and basic health needs all over the world, and they are working overtime in Houston. Here is a link to what they’re doing in Southeast Texas.

How to best help the victims of Hurricane Harvey, the non-money part:

Open your home. Airbnb is waiving all fees until Sept. 25 for people who can provide (free) accommodations to evacuees.
Donate blood. (This is one of those things where there’s always a big rush and then crickets the rest of the time. Donate now, but definitely donate later, too.)
Adopt a Pet. Look online, call your local shelter…there are going to be lots and lots of displaced pets. Every house is better with a dog in it.

I totally did not mean to plagiarize paraphrase that whole article. But at least here you got my commentary. So, you’re welcome?

Houston underwater is a huge hairy big deal. Meanwhile, the world will keep turning, North Korea will keep poking East Asia with a stick, and the president will keep saying tone-deaf nonsense. But if ever there was a time to just chill the heck out and be nice to everyone, this is it.

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There are a lot of things I don’t know about. One of them is what it’s like to be black in the South. I can empathize as a human being, and I can generalize from my experiences as a woman, but when a cop pulls me over, my biggest fear is that my insurance rates are going to go up if I get a ticket.

But my grandparents lived in Nazi occupied Holland. My grandfather hid under the floorboards so he wouldn’t be taken to the work camps. The Nazi soldiers shot through the walls of my grandmother’s home when they came looking for hiding Jews. I didn’t find out until I was older that some of Oma’s family died in the concentration camps. When I asked her why she never told me that, she said, “We were lucky it wasn’t worse. Who am I to complain?”

There are no two sides to that.

ANyway. Fast forward a quarter century to Dallas, Texas. My mom didn’t come to the U.S. until she was in high school. That’s when she had her first American History class. All she really remembers about that class was the teacher introducing the unit on the Civil War by jumping out of the closet wrapped in the Confederate flag and shouting “The South shall rise again!”

Me, when she told me this: O.O

Mom: True story.

Me: I hope he had on more than just the flag.

Mom: Yes, but I always felt really icky about anything to do with the Civil War after that. (Pause) You know, it’s illegal in Europe to display the swastika or Nazi flag.

Me: Yeah, but we have this thing called the first amendment.

Mom: sigh I guess.

But despite this or because of this, even my mom (who didn’t remember much after the Rebel Flag Incident), asked me to explain the difference between a statue of Robert E. Lee and one of George Washington.

Me: pushes up nerd glasses I’m so glad you asked. Let ruin your morning and tell you about this thing called the Jim Crow laws…

Mom, who is no more racist than anyone else in her generation, nevertheless had no reason to doubt the misinformation that these Confederate monuments in question now were put up after the Civil War to honor the dead.

The immorality of slavery is not complicated. People and politics, though… Which brings us to Robert E. Lee.

Lee is this near mythic figure to people in the South—honorable, conflicted general, brilliant and heroic commander, reluctant to fight, but given no option when the North invaded Virginia. Some of that is probably true. What he was, really, was a complicated guy, full of contradictions. (Here’s an article from 2003 that’s trending on Smithsonianmag.com.)

Myth, reality, heritage, history… it’s completely irrelevant to the current discussion about Confederate monuments on public land.

When is a statue of a guy on a horse not just a guy on a horse?

It comes down to intent. The monuments that people are talking about aren’t heritage—they’re propaganda. They were erected to normalize racism and intimidate black people.

They were part of the post-Reconstruction blowback as the “white is right” crowd retook control of the legislatures in the ex-Confederate states and began to systematically dismantle the rights of blacks in every way they could.

These were called the Jim Crow laws and no one even pretended they weren’t meant to keep ex-slaves in their place. Say you’re an old, rich white guy and you don’t want black people to vote. First you pass a law that blacks and whites can’t go to school together. If the children of the ex-slaves aren’t where they can get to a black school, they don’t learn to read. And then you pass a law that requires you to take a literacy test in order to vote.

Boom. You’ve gotten around that pesky_ 15th Amendment_.

Now, at the beginning of the 20th century, the veterans of the Civil War are dying off, so you need to reinforce to their children that the war was noble and about protecting States Rights and not really about slavery. And while you’re spinning this myth, make sure to emphasize how much everything sucks since Abolition.

And so, monuments. I’m not saying people were primed for enlightenment. But this is the mood when a film called “Birth of a Nation” came out, causing a “revival” of the Ku Klux Klan.

And lynchings…you guys. So many lynchings. Thousands of black people killed in “extrajudicial” executions, without a trial, tortured, demeaned, and desecrated.

Mob “justice” was murder of Jews, Mexicans, Native Americans all over the country, but African Americans far and away suffered the most. It’s horrifying. But to turn away is to perpetuate denial.

This is why there can be no equivocation when it comes to hate speech and violence. None. Once someone murders a defenseless human being, the only sides are right and wrong. When you pile all your hate onto one group and then go around screaming and waving torches, that’s terrorism.

We need to recognize it for what it is, and we need to admit this is our problem. Those were Americans in Charlottesville. These hate groups live like roaches in the walls, just waiting for the conditions to be right for them to come out.

It’s up to us to make the house inhospitable to vermin. Don’t accept racist talk around you. Confront misinformation. Don’t let anyone give you shit about being politically correct when you’re simply being sensitive to somebody’s feelings. But most important, don’t turn the lights back off and pretend our house isn’t dirty.

The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.

So, what did you do to promote love, tolerance, and diversity this week?

Sometimes, a monster movie is a slow reveal. Think Jaws and Alien, both movies where the big bad is as much menace as monster until the end. We only see the bitty bits until the third act. The limits of 1970s special effects did them both a real favor. And I just watched Pitch Black (HBO/Cinemax free preview weekend yay!) where the whole premise ensure you only see parts of the monsters at a time. (This is a really under appreciated movie, if you ask me.)

Of course, that requires your humans have to be at least as interesting as the monsters. The 2014 Godzilla movie was 80% darkness and fog and 20% visible monsters and zero percent characters I cared about.

[image error] Not a problem in Kong: Skull Island. For one thing, I liked the characters. (Well, the ones I was giving a chance to. The cast starts off much larger than it ends up.) But also? So much monsters fighting! In a monster movie! Go figure. High quality fight scenes, too.

The movie is set in the Vietnam era. I didn’t know that going in (though you’d think the movie poster would be a clue). Everything has a sweaty grittiness that looks like it smells like diesel fuel, gunpowder, and jungle rot. The vibe is very Apocalypse Now, and things seem to be headed in a Heart of Darkness direction (two characters are even named Conrad and Marlow).

John C. Reilly stole the movie with a castaway character that gives all the advice no one listens to. What is it with Reilly that I’m always like: Hey! I love that guy! But then I can never remember what he’s done. (Answer: .) (Ironically, the one I do always remember is that he was Amos Hart in Chicago, where he has a whole song about being forgettable.)

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Samuel Jackson—this is no spoiler, since it’s clear from the first time you see him that he’s about one MF snake on his MF helicopter from snapping—is entertaining to watch unravel to full Captain Ahab. [image error]

OMG, Samuel Jackson as Captain Ahab. SOMEBODY MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

The others were likable and competent, which sounds like faint praise, but it’s a monster movie, so it’s not really. Brie Larson and Tom Hiddleston, to be fair, have the unenviable role of playing straight to Reilly, Jackson, and a giant ape. (Also, Captain Marvel and Loki!)

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I liked the Vietnam War era setting as an aesthetic, and it gives a certain context to the military members of the expedition, most notably Colonel Packard (Jackson) but also his troops, who’ve been slogging through the moral morass of South Asia. There are a few clunker lines that try to draw parallels with war and aggression (Sometimes there’s no enemy until you go looking for one.) But it works best if you just let it be a movie about a giant ape protecting his island from the idiots who blundered onto it (and then from the monsters those idiots woke up).

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Upshot: definitely a recommended rent. It may come to a streaming service fairly quickly, but I didn’t regret plunking down $5 to watch it in high def.