Philosophy | MORIAH JOVAN

The Mamba

November 11, 2016November 7, 2016Moriah

A friend wrote something on her Book of Faces, and instead of taking up all her comment space, I thought I’d put it here. I felt impressed to say a couple of words, but then it went into many words and then paragraphs. OMG I take a lot of words to say a thing.

At some point in my life’s ride, I stopped thinking, planning, wishing, and dreaming and got on the rollercoaster and went for the ride to see where it went and deal with the fallout later. I did a bizarre, outlandish thing. I wasn’t afraid because I wasn’t thinking. I was moving too fast to think anyway, too fast to second-guess myself. That thing I did got me exactly what I’d been looking for. But the rollercoaster ride was twisty and … fun. It was a grand adventure, really. That was 14 years ago.¹

Then this summer, I got on a real rollercoaster for the first time in 25 years.² I didn’t really want to. I don’t like rollercoasters. But Dude and XX Tax Deduction wanted to ride it so there I was with XY Tax Deduction who really didn’t want to ride it and after the first drop, it was wonderful. Well, I rode it a few other times and the last time I rode it, I didn’t have the lap bar down quite as tight, so I wasn’t completely pressed into my seat. And on the first hill and drop, I floated above the seat just an inch or whatever, but it was a fucking grand epiphany.³

Nobody ever told me that the secret to riding rollercoasters is to keep the lapbar just a tidge loose so you can let go and float over the hill and drop.

I have very rarely felt such an intense joy in my life as I did that moment I floated over the drop because my lapbar made it possible for me to let go and physics did the rest.

Met a guy online. Married him 6 months later. Had a kid 9 months after that. My only complaint is that we were stupid about buying a house. ↩
The Mamba at Worlds of Fun. ↩
The Zulu, now? I won’t even go into what the Zulu does to me, le sigh, but I ride it as much as I possibly can and then collapse on a bench in a glorious languor when it’s worn me out. ↩

On reading – links roundup

November 9, 2016November 7, 2016Moriah

One day I saw somebody say, “Links roundups are lame.” Well, I like them, but I have minority opinions more often than not. You know what? Fuck that. I like ’em and this is my blog.

Is ‘devouring’ books a sign of superficiality in a reader? Amongst romance readers, of course, this question is fightin’ words.

Novels particularly were associated with such habits of consumption, for they became a symbol of the newly accessible literary market. Commentators described them as feeding unwholesome appetites. In turn, certain readers were linked to novel-imbibing habits, particularly women. Describing their reading as consumption was a way of denigrating them, for it positioned them as vulnerable, ignorant and morally contagious. Gustatory metaphors often implied that women read according to the flesh, in contrast to the disembodied realm of ‘rational’ masculinity.

Countered by slow reading. These (to a fiction reader) are also fightin’ words:

But Lancelot R Fletcher, the first present-day author to popularise the term “slow reading”, argues that slow reading is not so much about unleashing the reader’s creativity, as uncovering the author’s. “My intention was to counter postmodernism, to encourage the discovery of authorial content,” the American expat explains from his holiday in the Caucasus mountains in eastern Europe. “I told my students to believe that the text was written by God – if you can’t understand something written in the text, it’s your fault, not the author’s.”

Emphasis mine. I have several opinions on this, all conflicting, except that postmodernism does tend to drive me up a wucking fall because invariably the term “intersectionality” and others like it enter the conversation. They’re rabbit trails that may or may not be as interesting as the original text.

One literature professor, Pierre Bayard, notoriously wrote a book about how readers can form valid opinions about texts they have only skimmed – or even not read at all. “It’s possible to have a passionate conversation about a book that one has not read, including, perhaps especially, with someone else who has not read it,” he says in How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read (2007), before suggesting that such bluffing is even “at the heart of a creative process”.

See: Born Yesterday. No, seriously, I’m telling you to see the movie. It’s not Great Art (nominated for a Raspberry)¹, but there’s a pivotal scene with Nora Dunn’s character that is the thematic heart of the whole movie, when she’s surprised that Melanie Griffith’s character read the entirety of Democracy in America. She tells her that nobody ever reads those books. They just know enough about it to look smart at parties.

Equivocations:

1) There are way too many books to be read to spend one’s life slow reading each book you pick up.

2) How many times have you devoured a book, then gone back for the express purpose of picking up details you know you missed the first time because you were so engaged with the story?²

It’s a remake of a 1950s movie and there is a stage play, so you don’t have to torture yourself with this one. ↩
Movie example: Watching Eyes Wide Shut as a single person is an entirely different experience watching it as a married person. ↩

Paint the corners

August 16, 2016November 7, 2016Moriah

Cm45YzwUMAAYRcf My 10-year-old XY TD can’t wait to see Pitch. He wants to watch it because it’s something that’s never been done before, a woman pitching in MLB.¹ He doesn’t see a girl. He sees himself. In her. The underdog²,³ misunderstood, not wanted or liked, basically alone with too few allies, too different to have as smooth a ride through malehood as his peers.

Or, as Dude pointed out to me last night because we’re both kind of fascinated with XY’s reaction to the series (whereas 13-year-old XX is so not) (she already knows she’s a badass), a 17-year-old girl struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game and a woman hasn’t been in the MLB since. ↩
“A girl will never be able to throw hard enough to compete with boys. It’s biology and we can’t change that.” My dad told me a girl would never be able to throw a curve ball because their elbows are constructed differently from a boy’s. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not interested enough to find out. But I was kind of shocked to hear it from someone else. ↩
I introduced him to Rocky last year. He’s now a devoted disciple of underdog movies. He gets it from his mom. ↩

What is it about this game

October 27, 2015February 21, 2016Moriah

that compels people to reflect and grants epiphanies like a fairy godmother?

Thirty years ago, I was at the KC Royals parade after they won the World Series. You know, George Brett. Bret Saberhagen. Those guys.

I didn’t care about baseball much before or after that, not that I was ever anything but a fan-in-name-only because I didn’t understand the game. A childhood watching Little League and trying to figure out radio announcers’ jargon tends to blunt one’s enthusiasm.

And then there was college and life and the strikes and the juicing and the Congressional hearings and who wants to get into baseball when they threw a big temper tantrum for a game that’s all fake anyway? You want more money for your steroid injections? Fuck you.

Somewhere in the last decade I was vaguely aware it had cleaned itself up. Or, at least, I knew everybody was playing and that the Royals were a losing team. All. The. Time.

Last night, I was talking to Dude, who taught me more about baseball during the ALCS last year than I have ever known or suspected could be. I wasn’t interested in learning anything about it until the Royals won the ALCS last year.

This year … Well.

As the season has gone by and I saw them winning, I could start to see why they were winning. Little things. Doing what they did in 1985. The correlation of strategy is spooky. Being nice guys (the Royals recruit for nice guys, you know; not one bad boy amongst ’em). Good to their women, good to their kids, nice to their fans.

But not pushovers. The Royals started the season being the Bad Boys of Baseball. Why? Because everybody else came into the season with a hateboner for them, and they will clear a bench as fast as George Brett and pine tar.

So everybody settled down and played ball. They don’t depend on home runs. They take every possibly viable opportunity no matter the consequences. They shoot through the target, not at it. “Hacking” at the ball. Stealing bases. Having lots of good pitchers. Hitting the wall, even if it tears your ACL. Baby steps. Or, as I found out last night, “Playing the game 90 feet at a time.” They have fun.

As I watched, listened, and read, the Royals managed to give me something I’ve been needing my whole life.

.366 is the best batting average ever.
Run for the grass line past first base.
It’s okay to hit the wall and tear your ACL.
Hack at the ball.
Steal bases.
It’s okay to play 90 feet at a time.
Hit the fast balls.
Change up the pitcher. And the pitches.
Home runs are rare and special.
Have a deep bullpen.
Have fun.

So I was telling Dude, who is/was a Dodgers fan, by the way, about the parade I went to in 1985 and I started to tear up. I don’t know why.

But I was there 30 years ago and if they win this year, I’m going to be there and take my kids. And I’m going to tear up. And I won’t know why. And my kids will have that memory like I have mine. And maybe they’ll get to take their kids.

The value of knowledge

September 24, 2015February 21, 2016Moriah

And this is where slogging through Number One’s crazymaking was worth this gem: “You paid for your training in sweat, money, tears, and sometimes blood. Why are you giving it away?”

As some folks know, my day job is formatting ebooks and designing print books, and otherwise helping authors get where they want to go in the world of self-publishing. I consult with nonprofits, corporations, and churches to manage their in-house publishing divisions.

Occasionally, someone will come along who wants my help, and they start picking my brain about general things because they don’t know where to start and the plethora of information on the internet is almost as bad as no information at all. No problem. I like helping people, answering their questions. After all, there are people who handed little nuggets of wisdom down to me when I didn’t even know what questions to ask. The companies who hire me pay for all this advice.

However.

There comes a point where the potential client is not picking my brain so much as trying to learn how to do my job. I can always tell when they get to that point because they’re asking specific formatting questions, but they’re not asking the right questions.

This is where I stop responding to their emails.

This summer was difficult for me work-wise. So when a potential client continued to email me to mine my brain after I’d already invested several hours in him, I stopped responding because I simply didn’t have any more time to spare for him.

And then I got a nasty note berating me for not helping him. He did offer to pay for my “exclusive time,” but not until after he’d had his say.

This is where my viewpoint differs from Number One’s. I don’t feel like I’m giving my knowledge away for free, I feel like someone is trying is trying to steal from me. They don’t value my knowledge, my time, or my skill, therefore, it’s fair game.

Coincidentally, today I went googling for a user’s manual for a 40-year-old tool. It was online, free, a scan of the original user’s manual. I don’t know who did that, but I will be forever grateful.

Knowledge comes with a price. In my case, it was time. I don’t mind donating a little of it, but time (like money) is a finite resource. My family has to eat. And sometimes, an hour makes a big difference.