Month: April 2023

Day Seven: A Moment Of Reflection

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The original idea for my first novel was using a very unusual small town in Virginia as the basis for an allegory about the Trump Era. After much, much, much reflection over the course of the last few years I find myself essentially in a position where I’m now writing a prequel to that planned two part story set 25 years ago.

The idea is now that this novel would be the first in a six novel project that would allow us to see the arc of history over the course of a generation starting around 1995. I like this new arrangement because there’s hope built in to the novel. If things work out well with this first novel, I have five more novels gamed out that are set in the same place that lead to a really, really cool situation.

Rather than springing a very odd situation on readers, the audience gets to see exactly how the allegory came to be.

Now, the downside to this very, very ambitious project is it’s obviously rather naive in the sense that even if I stick the landing on the first novel, by the time I write and publish the last novel in the project the problems that I wanted to address in the first place will be dated.

As such, it’s very possible that the context of the last two novels in the project will be totally different and the weird situation depicted will be not so much an allegory anymore as just a unique location.

Anyway, the point of all of that is — today was a day of reflection rather than one of actually getting any writing done. If had money, I would probably have gone somewhere for a personal Writer’s Retreat. But, alas, I’m very, very poor so all I did was just stare out into space.

I still, however, plan on doing a lot of reading before the day — weekend? — is over I don’t like running hot and I’ve found that just giving myself a pause for a day or so does wonders for how fast I write when I can look over the novel with fresh eyes.

It will be interesting to see if what happens if I actually live up to my “potential” and write a breakout pop thriller. Given my social media footprint could easily be discerned as that of a drunk crank, it’s possible no matter how strong the story itself is that I will ultimately not get published because of ME.

I try not to dwell too much on that, however.

When It Comes to Fixing The Looming Problems of A.I., Ezra Klein is Full of Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finished reading Ezra Klein’s great book “Why We’re Polarized” with a lingering sense of being a little bit cheated. He was great at explaining WHY we’re polarized, but when it came to giving a rube like me any sort of solution as to what to do about that polarization there was nothing.

So I find myself listening to him on The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast and he did it AGAIN. He gave a really cogent description of the problems associated with the rise of AI, but when he was asked how AI companies might make money other than in advertising — he punted. He pivoted to the idea that somehow we should get the government to award huge prizes for technology development.

Does he really think that somehow, magically the government is going to subsidise the AI industry to the point that Federal prizes would be able to supplant the vast sums of money that would come from the path of least resistance that would be advertising?

I hate that. I hate the idea that a smug wealthy podcast liberal Klein can make all this money, get all this status by bitching and moaning about the problems associated with AI…and yet he refuses to come up with any actual solutions. The idea of government “prizes” instead of advertising is complete and total bullshit.

I turn to people like Klein for not just complaints, but solutions. Because I think ultimately Klein’s complaints-with-no-solutions will ultimately lead to the exact thing he doesn’t want to happen: a combination of competition and people using the experiences associated with social media will cause AI to be based on the concepts not of government prizes, but pure capitalism.

A Modest Proposal: Doug Jones For POTUS

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As the United States continues to careen towards a dark and potentially catastrophic 2024 election cycle, there is definitely one obvious way to punt our problems down the road for four more years: elect a conservative Democrat like Doug Jones (or Joe Manchin).

I say this because only a conservative Democrat would have the political credibility with both sides to the point that they could provide the leadership, the glue to hold the country together for one more presidential cycle. And, yet, this particular dream is also really impractical.

My dream of a Doug Jones or Joe Manchin becoming the Democratic nominee is a political phantasm because it would be a real struggle to wrangle the AOC wing of the Democratic Party into such a thing. Though, I think a Jones (or Manchin) / AOC ticket in 2024 would be exactly the type of thing that would keep America from collapsing.

But there is a big problem — I know people who literally believe the Democratic Party is Satanic and no amount of reminding them that it IS possible for someone to be conservative and a Democrat would change their mind that, by definition, a Democratic president wants us all to be gay and arrest anyone who gets a Transgender person’s pronouns wrong.

I’m not kidding. I wish I was, but I’m not.

So, in a sense, we’re just too far gone. The die is cast — some sort of major crisis is going to happen around late 2024, early 2025. We just don’t know if it’s of the civil war or MAGA-themed autocracy variety at the moment.

‘1859:’ The Ballad of The #TennesseeThree

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re all so busy assuming that Reds are going to somehow start a civil war that we continue not to really think about the possibility that it will be Blues who ultimately prompt one. I certainly don’t want Blues to be the ones history blames for a 2024 – 2025 secession crisis, but it’s definitely a prospect we need to take seriously.

I have written about this scenario a great deal for no other reason than I’m a native contrarian and also it just doesn’t make any sense for Reds to demand a National Divorce if they’re politically ascendant. They just have no reason to destroy the country with a National Divorce because they’re on the cusp of transitioning us into an autocracy without firing a shot.

And, ultimately, on paper at least, it just doesn’t seem in collective character of Blues to leave the Union — all the smug liberals who would otherwise lead such a center-Left National Divorce will just flee the country en masse and that will be that. Lulz?

So, I suppose all my “hysterical doom shit” pontificated on over the last few years on this blog will ultimately look rather foolish. Even a radical revenge-driven Trump second term won’t be enough to cause California, then New York then various other Blue states to leave the Union. I really, really don’t want such a thing to happen, but things continue to grow so alarming that I just can’t help myself.

A prime example of my fears about Blue leaving the Union rather than Reds is what’s going on with the expulsion of two Blues from the Tennessee legislature. People in my center-Left echo chamber are freaking the fuck out. To the point that I’m growing alarmed that we may look back upon this as something of a tipping point.

Or, put another way, Blues are ripe to do the very thing we’re so busy thinking Reds will want to do — prompt a civil war by causing a secession crisis.

Maybe not. This could just a moment in time that passes. And yet it could also be that Blues are getting woke to how politically ascendant the forces of autocracy are in American political life on now the state level and ultimately the national level.

If nothing else, the center-Left freak out about the Tennessee Three is definitely an unsettling ping from a potentially dark and violent figure. The very things I keep writing about and worrying about could very well come true as part of the 2024 election cycle.

Stay tuned.

America Continues To Careen Towards Catastrophe In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. So, there is every reason to believe that I’m wrong and somehow we’ll punt the severe, existential problems that the nation faces down the road one more election cycle. And, yet, as I have been ranting about for some time now, it definitely SEEMS as though at some point in late 2024, early 2025 we will face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.

Either we just shrug and slide peacefully into a MAGA-themed autocracy that will cause 1 million smug, wealthy liberals to flee the country or the most powerful nation in the world collapses into some sort of civil war. If it’s civil war, it could go either way, with either Reds leaving the Union because Trump loses or Blues leaving because he wins.

I believe this because on a systemic basis, the Republican Party has radicalized to the point that it could be that the passions of the 2024 election will simply be too much for the country and we collapse into a French Revolution-style event that would cause unprecedented instability across the globe.

All the signs are there, but as I have said before, it could be that we peacefully transition from our current anocracy into a full blown autocracy. Many, many smug wealthy liberals who could otherwise fight the autocrat will simply flee the country for the four corners of the globe.

But I still just don’t know what is going to happen. And, it could turn out that somehow, miraculously, we manage to not only avoid electing a fascist Republican in 2024 but fascist Republicans choke and don’t decide to leave the Union in a pique of secessionist fury.

I suppose it’s possible.

Day Six: Restructuring

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my big concerns of late about this novel has been that it’s just going to be too fucking long. I’m an unknown, untested first time novelist and, in general, any novel that I might try to pitch really needs to be in the general 100,000 word sweetspot.

Anymore than that and it just physically costs more to print the novel and, as such, the likelihood that an agent will be interested in the first place decreases significantly.

As it so often the case with such the bigger decisions I’ve made with this project, something occurred to me out of the blue that caused me to change a pretty fundimental element of the story. What happened was, when I added a longish second chapter that dealt with my heroine going on a self-destructive bender I had pushed the discovery of a body that gets the story going so late in the first act that the act itself had ballooned to ~50 scenes.

But something occurred to me. With just a little bit of structural change, I could turn this problem on its head. Instead of counting the body’s discovery as the novel’s inciting incident, I now count it as the thing that pushes my heroine into the “special world” of the second act.

This is different than Gone Girl, where the “abduction” happens in the second chapter and more like The Girl Who Played With Fire, where the murder takes place a whopping 70 scenes in!

Anyway, the only issue with this new set up is the first part of the second act, which is the “juicy” part of the story typically used in the blurb to sell the novel now isn’t as spicy as I’d like. But it’s still interesting. And I’m not writing it yet, so there’s a possibility that once I’m in the thick of writing that part of the novel that either I’ll grow comfortable with what I have or I’ll figure out a way to make that portion of the novel more obviously the “fun and games” that people expect.

But I’m feeling really hopefully, at least at the moment.

I Feel Your Pain, Catturd

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the earnest, well-meaning nature of MAGA “thought leader” Catturd enrages me, I saw a description of him that gave me pause for thought. I’m really self-conscious about my current loser lot in life and the way some smug Twitter liberals were describing Catturd could very well be pretty much applied to me.

And, I hate to admit it, in some ways at this specific moment Catturd is actually on a personal basis a lot better off than me. And, in fact, I suspect there’s at least one smug liberal out there who uses her encounter with me in Seoul many moons ago as something of a cocktail party joke.

I’m talking, of course, of Jennifer 8. Lee.

Many moons ago, back in Seoul, Lee came to Seoul to work on a book about fortune cookies. And while she was polite to my face, I think she and her friend Tomoko thought I was completely fucking bonkers — a total fucking loser. And, occasionally, I will see in my Webstats random poking around about my various write ups over the years of that event from my point of view.

I can just imagine how much glee she gets in talking about the crazy, loser expat she met in Seoul. Her friend Tomoko, who was working for the Asian Wall Street Journal at the time, I think, really, really did not think much of me. So much so, that to this day it kind of rattles my personal self-perception.

And, going forward, if I should manage to write the Great American Pop Thriller, I think I’m going to have to prepare myself things not to be as great and wonderful as I want them to be. Any inspection of my personal life over the last 20-odd years will leave Normal Smug Wealthy Liberal Elites aghast at what a fucking loser I’ve been.

But I can’t change how old I am and I can’t change the past. All I can do is just try to write a good a novel as I possibly can.

The Looming Crisis: Everything Is So Conflated in Modern American Political Debate

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue when it comes to modern American political debate is it’s almost like we’ve given up. All the conditions are there for autocracy or civil war and it literally could break either way at this point. I say this because the two sides of Red and Blue are receding from each other at an astonishing rate.

Either we turn into a MAGA themed autocracy or we have a secession crisis in late 2024, early 2025 because one side or the other gives up and decides they can no longer being in the same nation with a political worldview that they hate.

Take, for instance, the Great Gay Scare that we are currently living through. Everything so fucking conflated. First, let me be clear — I generally support Trans rights and generally don’t care what someone does with their body as long as everyone involved is of age and it’s consensual.

And, yet, as I keep saying the Trans is doing itself no favors by being so overwrought and touchy. There are some very well-meaning, God-fearing people who believe just being gay is a “sin” and they are aghast at there are people who have to pause for 10 minutes before they can answer, “What is a woman?” These very sincere people can’t be blamed if they have begun to think that Trans people are some sort of “protected class” and the “woke” narrative about Trans people can never been questioned. Throw in the wedge issue of Trans kids and….Jesus Christ.

The issue is — if we were a functioning democracy, there would be some give and take between Red and Blue to the point that gradually there would be some consensus as to what to do with the Trans movement and then we would move on to the next pressing issue.

But because of the “Gay Scare” on the Right and the total fucking freak out about when it comes the established Trans orthodoxy on the “woke” Left the whole thing is totally fucked up. The controversy over the Trans issue is yet another corrosive element in our politics which is drive the two sides away from each other and making the United States increasingly unstable on a political basis.

I’m always wrong, and, yet just doing a back-of-the-envelope projection out to late 2024, early 2025 and definitely seem as though we’re either going to collapse into civil war or we’re going to become a MAGA-themed autocracy.

Again, Why Hasn’t Emily Ratajkowski Dated Cara Delevingne Yet?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When it comes to this particular era in Emrata’s life, it’s curious for what HASN’T happened — she hasn’t publicly dated a woman yet. Given Emrata’s reputation as a “pick me” girl, it would make a huge amount of sense for her to go through her “bi-sexual queen” phase.

You go, girl.

And as I’ve suggested before about Emrata, if she decides to date women she has to get through the Final Boss of Cara Delevingne. It would be so, so, so hot if those two started dating. Probably a million young men (and a few women) would start puberty at the thought of Emrata being Cara’s girlfriend, even if it’s just for a few publicity filled weeks.

I suppose it’s just a matter of time, all things considered. It would be one of those fun-interesting things that got everyone talking. Inevitably, of course, the What Does It All Mean culture police would swoop in and make us all miserable my ranting about to smoking hot women dating each other means….something?

Ugh.

What Is Going On With Jennifer Lawrence’s Career?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Hollywood is there’s what REALLY goes on and then what we Poor rubes project onto the dynamics of the industry. Way too many woke people are aghast that there is any nudity or sex in a movie when for some Hollywood starlets a little T&A is thought of as a great way to further their career.

LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 01: Jennifer Lawrence attends a photocall for “Passengers” at Claridge’s Hotel on December 1, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Anthony Harvey/Getty Images)

Not all, but some.

It gets a lot more complicated when you factor in how gross and creepy way too many major players in Hollywood are.

Anyway, this bring us to Jennifer Lawrence. I really like her a lot and I am looking forward to her new movie No Hard Feelings. And, yet, there are some people — especially on Tik-Tok — who think the movie is “cringe.” But it does make you wonder why she’s veered from making high profile “prestige” movies to raunchy 80s style comedies.

It’s very curious.

I say more power to her, but the proof is in the pudding. If she only did the movie because her career is in the dumps, that’s a lot different than if she did it of her own volition. She is — relative to Hollywood standards — getting “older” and she’s a new mom so, I dunno.