(no subject)
Mar. 6th, 2020 06:07 pm1. Got the chest x-ray today - lungs are clear, not issues. Cough was most likely due to the blood pressure meds, and to dry air, feeling dehydrated, and allergies.
Now, if I could just get my sugar levels down -- probably help if I stopped buying and eating chocolate bares and chocolate covered marshmellow eggs. What can I say? Stress drives me to eat chocolate.
2. Twitter
Stephen King
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
stephenking
·
55m
The Hachette decision to drop the Woody Allen book makes me very uneasy. It's not him; I don't give a damn about Mr. Allen. It's who gets muzzled next that worries me.
Mixed. Censorship is not a good idea. But are they? I mean, Mr. Allen has enough money that he could always self-publish. I published non-traditionally as did other members of my family. And I know a lot of other people who are. The publishing industry rejects submissions all the time.
So is this really the same as muzzeling or censoring. Ponders.
I tweeted a response that no one will notice or even read. I'm kind of non-exsitent to the masses on Twitter and I want to keep it that way. Why people want to be popular or seen on social media is beyond me. It always makes me nervous.
"Replying to
stephenking
Is it censorship though? Ponders. With the internet - there's so many ways, cheap ones, to publish your own work now. Also, publishers reject writers books all the time for all sorts of reasons. Do we scream at them for censorship for rejecting our work or anyone's?"
[ETA: He deleted the entry? LOL! ETA2: No apparently the account and set up another one? Twitter is weird.]
I don't think it is.
Also responded to Courtney Milan's tweet:
Courtney Milan
T-Rex
![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
courtneymilan
·
23m
I would have more sympathy for arguments that Woody Allen was getting censored because a publisher won’t put out his book if there weren’t large groups of people who are getting excluded entirely from publishing in their entirety.
Replying to
courtneymilan
Is it censorship though? I've independently published, as have most of my family and friends. Why? cough* publishing industry* cough. Should everyone who has had a novel or story or non-fictional work rejected - scream censorship? Because there is a lot of us...
[ETA: Her response? "It isn't censorship. That's why I said what I said." Seriously? How rude. My response: "Thank you for the clarification. Sorry I misunderstood." It's official, I'll stop buying her books and I've stopped following her. Note? If you are making your living writing romance novels, it's probably not a good idea to be snarky and attack people who respond to your posts on Twitter -- they very well may be your readers, the people reading your books and rec'ing them to others. She's not changing the world - I do more daily than she does. What she's doing is alienating people including those who agree with her. This happens a lot on social media. We get cranky and forget there's another person on the other side. We're not just writing messages in a bottle or to pixels, but actual people, who have feelings and fears and concerns and anxieties and bad days. If you are a successful artist (novelist, actor, filmmaker, etc) who depend on other to buy your work or look at it, then it behooves you not to alienate your audience. Then you won't have an audience and will be railing off all by yourself. I get that it's hard. I do it too. But I'm not making a living as a novelist. I was reminded tonight of why it is important to be careful with words.]
They are both going to ignore me. [ETA: unfortunately they didn't.] Why? I'm not important. I'm glad I'm not important. I do not want to be important. I want them to ignore me. Why? Famous people scare me. Fame = narcissism. [ETA: Yep, proof provided.]
What's this story all about? Woody Allen wrote a memoir. Little Brown and Company decided to publish it. Half their work force walked out in protest. They changed their minds. It's hardly the first time this has happened. I wouldn't celebrate it necessarily as an achievement in publishing. They didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, but because they got afraid of how they would appear to the masses and court of public opinion. Also the folks who walked out? They have a supplemental income via spouses, family, etc. I know I've met them. And I've interviewed and worked in publishing - you don't that much. It's called the glamour jobs for a reason.
3. Ah a NASA Photo of the Galaxies far far away...
NASA Photo on Twitter
4. The Age of Envy - How to be Happy When Everyone Else's Life Looks Perfect
( Excerpt )
The last paragraph of the above excerpt struck me as the most interesting, everything else I already knew:
“We have something even more pernicious, I think,” the renowned social psychologist Sherry Turkle tells me. “We look at the lives we have constructed online in which we only show the best of ourselves, and we feel a fear of missing out in relation to our own lives. We don’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living, and we look at the self as though it were an other, and feel envious of it.” This creates an alienating sense of “self-envy” inside us, she says. “We feel inauthentic, curiously envious of our own avatars.”
I wonder about this. There's a movement in psychology that if you only post postive things or only write positive things - this will in turn attract positive things to you and result in only positive thoughts. I don't agree with this perspective. You can't erase negative thinking or judge it -- all it does is make it more ingrained. And repressing it - is not much better.
It's better to own the negativity, let go of it, and watch it float by like leaves on a stream. Denying you have any -- means you are bottling it up -- and at some point you will explode.
But I know a lot of shrinks and new age therapists who swear by it. I don't know if it helps them or not. It's never worked for me.
I do however agree that social media - in particular facebook, twitter, and instagram tend to trigger envy or foster it. Dreamwidth less so -- because most people on it don't tend to talk that much about their accomplishments, or how great they are constantly. Instead it's mainly fanfic, television reviews, meta, movie reviews, book reviews or personal journaling. There's less..."Bragging" and "Self-Promotion" -- possibly because we're all under aliases? (Shrugs). It's just the least narcissistic of the social media platforms I've interacted on.
5. How the Beatles Wrote the song A Day in the Life
( excerpt )
Yep, the Beatles continue to be among my all-time favorite bands. Very few are as sly with lyrics and as versatile as the Beatles were. The Stones may be sexier, but their songbook tends to sound the same. There's not much risk there. Same with The Who, Pink Floyd, the Ramones, Oasis, Cold Play...I will binge a musicians or bands albums and get bored after a bit - because by the tenth album, I realize they sound the same. The really good ones, don't. David Bowie, Prince, Lady Gaga, The Beatles all come to mind. At times you'll listen to two of their songs back to back and wonder if you are listening to someone else entirely. That's why I think Lady Gaga is a better singer than say Madonna -- her songs change. Her range is broader. It's also why Aretha Franklin is more interesting than say Whitney Houston or Diana Ross.
Or Emmy Lou Harris fascinates me more than Dolly Parton as a performer -- Dolly's song-writing is another story. Or why Johnny Cash lives on in the imagination over say a Mel Tillis.
Versatility is hard to do well. And the Beatles excelled at it. Don't believe me, listen to Revolver, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Yellow Submarine, and the White Album back to back some time.
The other thing they excelled at? Merging musical styles - from blues to rock to folk to country and back again. Even ministral and a capella. They also liked to experiment with sound - and could find what worked within that.
Few bands have accomplished this. I'm trying to think of other's that have? Possibly Queen? No, I've listened to Queen's albums back to back, the instrumentation is generally the same. By the way - I think John Williams stole from Queen to do Superman theme to the film Superman. Every time the Queen song with it comes on -- I think I'm listening to it.
Now, if I could just get my sugar levels down -- probably help if I stopped buying and eating chocolate bares and chocolate covered marshmellow eggs. What can I say? Stress drives me to eat chocolate.
2. Twitter
Stephen King
stephenking·
55m
The Hachette decision to drop the Woody Allen book makes me very uneasy. It's not him; I don't give a damn about Mr. Allen. It's who gets muzzled next that worries me.
Mixed. Censorship is not a good idea. But are they? I mean, Mr. Allen has enough money that he could always self-publish. I published non-traditionally as did other members of my family. And I know a lot of other people who are. The publishing industry rejects submissions all the time.
So is this really the same as muzzeling or censoring. Ponders.
I tweeted a response that no one will notice or even read. I'm kind of non-exsitent to the masses on Twitter and I want to keep it that way. Why people want to be popular or seen on social media is beyond me. It always makes me nervous.
"Replying to
stephenkingIs it censorship though? Ponders. With the internet - there's so many ways, cheap ones, to publish your own work now. Also, publishers reject writers books all the time for all sorts of reasons. Do we scream at them for censorship for rejecting our work or anyone's?"
[ETA: He deleted the entry? LOL! ETA2: No apparently the account and set up another one? Twitter is weird.]
I don't think it is.
Also responded to Courtney Milan's tweet:
Courtney Milan
T-Rex
courtneymilan·
23m
I would have more sympathy for arguments that Woody Allen was getting censored because a publisher won’t put out his book if there weren’t large groups of people who are getting excluded entirely from publishing in their entirety.
Replying to
courtneymilanIs it censorship though? I've independently published, as have most of my family and friends. Why? cough* publishing industry* cough. Should everyone who has had a novel or story or non-fictional work rejected - scream censorship? Because there is a lot of us...
[ETA: Her response? "It isn't censorship. That's why I said what I said." Seriously? How rude. My response: "Thank you for the clarification. Sorry I misunderstood." It's official, I'll stop buying her books and I've stopped following her. Note? If you are making your living writing romance novels, it's probably not a good idea to be snarky and attack people who respond to your posts on Twitter -- they very well may be your readers, the people reading your books and rec'ing them to others. She's not changing the world - I do more daily than she does. What she's doing is alienating people including those who agree with her. This happens a lot on social media. We get cranky and forget there's another person on the other side. We're not just writing messages in a bottle or to pixels, but actual people, who have feelings and fears and concerns and anxieties and bad days. If you are a successful artist (novelist, actor, filmmaker, etc) who depend on other to buy your work or look at it, then it behooves you not to alienate your audience. Then you won't have an audience and will be railing off all by yourself. I get that it's hard. I do it too. But I'm not making a living as a novelist. I was reminded tonight of why it is important to be careful with words.]
They are both going to ignore me. [ETA: unfortunately they didn't.] Why? I'm not important. I'm glad I'm not important. I do not want to be important. I want them to ignore me. Why? Famous people scare me. Fame = narcissism. [ETA: Yep, proof provided.]
What's this story all about? Woody Allen wrote a memoir. Little Brown and Company decided to publish it. Half their work force walked out in protest. They changed their minds. It's hardly the first time this has happened. I wouldn't celebrate it necessarily as an achievement in publishing. They didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, but because they got afraid of how they would appear to the masses and court of public opinion. Also the folks who walked out? They have a supplemental income via spouses, family, etc. I know I've met them. And I've interviewed and worked in publishing - you don't that much. It's called the glamour jobs for a reason.
3. Ah a NASA Photo of the Galaxies far far away...
NASA Photo on Twitter
4. The Age of Envy - How to be Happy When Everyone Else's Life Looks Perfect
( Excerpt )
The last paragraph of the above excerpt struck me as the most interesting, everything else I already knew:
“We have something even more pernicious, I think,” the renowned social psychologist Sherry Turkle tells me. “We look at the lives we have constructed online in which we only show the best of ourselves, and we feel a fear of missing out in relation to our own lives. We don’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living, and we look at the self as though it were an other, and feel envious of it.” This creates an alienating sense of “self-envy” inside us, she says. “We feel inauthentic, curiously envious of our own avatars.”
I wonder about this. There's a movement in psychology that if you only post postive things or only write positive things - this will in turn attract positive things to you and result in only positive thoughts. I don't agree with this perspective. You can't erase negative thinking or judge it -- all it does is make it more ingrained. And repressing it - is not much better.
It's better to own the negativity, let go of it, and watch it float by like leaves on a stream. Denying you have any -- means you are bottling it up -- and at some point you will explode.
But I know a lot of shrinks and new age therapists who swear by it. I don't know if it helps them or not. It's never worked for me.
I do however agree that social media - in particular facebook, twitter, and instagram tend to trigger envy or foster it. Dreamwidth less so -- because most people on it don't tend to talk that much about their accomplishments, or how great they are constantly. Instead it's mainly fanfic, television reviews, meta, movie reviews, book reviews or personal journaling. There's less..."Bragging" and "Self-Promotion" -- possibly because we're all under aliases? (Shrugs). It's just the least narcissistic of the social media platforms I've interacted on.
5. How the Beatles Wrote the song A Day in the Life
( excerpt )
Yep, the Beatles continue to be among my all-time favorite bands. Very few are as sly with lyrics and as versatile as the Beatles were. The Stones may be sexier, but their songbook tends to sound the same. There's not much risk there. Same with The Who, Pink Floyd, the Ramones, Oasis, Cold Play...I will binge a musicians or bands albums and get bored after a bit - because by the tenth album, I realize they sound the same. The really good ones, don't. David Bowie, Prince, Lady Gaga, The Beatles all come to mind. At times you'll listen to two of their songs back to back and wonder if you are listening to someone else entirely. That's why I think Lady Gaga is a better singer than say Madonna -- her songs change. Her range is broader. It's also why Aretha Franklin is more interesting than say Whitney Houston or Diana Ross.
Or Emmy Lou Harris fascinates me more than Dolly Parton as a performer -- Dolly's song-writing is another story. Or why Johnny Cash lives on in the imagination over say a Mel Tillis.
Versatility is hard to do well. And the Beatles excelled at it. Don't believe me, listen to Revolver, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Yellow Submarine, and the White Album back to back some time.
The other thing they excelled at? Merging musical styles - from blues to rock to folk to country and back again. Even ministral and a capella. They also liked to experiment with sound - and could find what worked within that.
Few bands have accomplished this. I'm trying to think of other's that have? Possibly Queen? No, I've listened to Queen's albums back to back, the instrumentation is generally the same. By the way - I think John Williams stole from Queen to do Superman theme to the film Superman. Every time the Queen song with it comes on -- I think I'm listening to it.