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shadowkatEvery once awhile I want to play wackamo with humanity. Let's face it, people can be annoying.
I'm admittedly irritable due to a lack of sleep. An itchy diabetic sensor attached to my right arm. And the commute was annoyingly long today - they had to replace a door on one of the R trains, so it was delayed going home, resulting in my thirty-five minute commute becoming roughly fifty minutes. On the way too work, the F was delayed, and the R sat in the tunnel for ten minutes (it's technically a two minute ride). As a result of the lack of sleep? I fell asleep during FTA training - not surprising considering they just read their power point presentation and most of it wasn't relevant to what I do for a living. When it became relevant, I jerked awake.
Mother: What does FTA stand for?
Me: Federal Transportation Authority - it's the agency that funds infrastructure projects. (Well, did. It may not now. I have a feeling not a heck of a lot is going to be funded by the Federal Government now. But hey, we have Congestion Pricing - so perhaps that will help?)
There's two of them. The FTA - that's the funding agency. And the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration - which is specific to rail.) See? You can't say you don't ever learn anything from this journal - granted it may not necessarily be memorable or useful information.
They apologized for the boredom. Apparently the FTA requires them to read a powerpoint presentation to us word for word via Teams. Since just sending it to us is...well too easy? I don't know. People aren't only annoying? They are illogical.
***
Then it hits me, again and again, like a fist in the face - There But For The Grace of God, Go I. It's an old saying that a Criminal Procedural Prof used to state at the start of each of his lectures in law school, and during Defender Project (my legal internship one summer - where I counseled inmates at a major Federal Penitentiary, sometimes I wish I could make every human being do that for one summer. Do that, and learn how to build a wall in a Juarez, Mexico Ghetto outside a church.). He was my favorite teacher - he got me an internship at the Public Defender's Office one summer, and the next I worked on Defender Project. That experience - more than anything else - taught me how complicated people are - and how they do not fit into neat little boxes. As much as we might want to define folks by their actions - we really can't. And no, we can never really know another person - and they can surprise us. He used to tell me how charming these prisoners were - and not to let myself get roped in or conned by it, but at the same time be willing to fight for their rights. That was a very long time ago - 1990s. Yet there are moments it feels like yesterday, time is wonky like that?
And...why I really shouldn't envy other people? [More on that later.]
***************
As an aside? The reports keep coming in about LA Fires. Altadena California Devastated by the Blaze (A friendly acquaintance from Church moved there - and is now living in an airbnb in San Diego until he can safely return, praying his home isn't destroyed. It's apparently a beautiful area.)
And, alas, Dochawk (Alan) from the ATPOBTVS Board is packed and ready to evacuate as we speak - the fire just reached the houses across the street from his condo. I'd met him in person, and we've stayed in touch via FB over the years. He's a kind soul. He's the one who gave me the inside scope on what was happening on Angel the Series - down to specific spoilers.
The friend from Church related on FB that he was overcome with stress. And his anxiety was through the roof. Has anyone heard from wendelah1 ? She hasn't posted since November, and I know she lives in LA or the surrounding area?
*****************
At work, Art History Major came back - and informed me that she had to travel to California for her Aunt's funeral - her Aunt had recently died. And she had to clear out her house with her other Aunt. They'd been close. But, she never wants to visit San Diego again. It was beautiful, they were in the Mountains, and the fires hadn't reached it. But..
Me: How did your Aunt die?
ARM: Blood clots. She had several, one in her leg. It was sudden and without warning. Do you know how those start?
Me: I'm not sure - high blood pressure can be a cause - I'm on meds for that. How old was she?
ARM: She was fairly young, that's the thing, Fifty-Seven.
Me: Wait..did you say 57??
ARM: Yes.
Me: I'm 57.
Oh god. Apparently her aunt never went to the doctor. Much like my Aunt, who died in 2000, never went to a doctor and also died from a blood clot. As a result my mother pesters everyone to see one.
***
A co-worker and friend that I'd not talked to forever - stopped by for a long chat and gave me the inside scoop on Bright Young Thing. Bright Young Thing is not a happy camper. Everyone who works under her - hates her - and is trying to get reassigned. My friend is planning on leaving soon. She only has nine people - because people keep leaving. And my friend couldn't figure out how she made it through Christmas. No one likes her. She doesn't talk to anyone on the floor. And doesn't appear to have any friends.
It strikes me as so odd. Since about ten years back - I was envious of her. She was beautiful, everyone seemed to love her, she had lots of friends, people went out for drinks with her after work, and she got promoted, while I was held back. And she was a good ten years younger than me. I felt ostracized, and that she was only mean to me - and I couldn't tell anyone about it. Now? I see how wrong I was about all of it. I find the whole thing deeply ironic?
This has happened more than once, actually. Bright Young Thing. Joss Whedon. Amanda Palmer. Neil Gaiman. I was once upon a time very envious of their lives. Thinking they had it all. Now? I think, but for the grace of god, go I. I feel this insane amount of sorrow for them, not pity exactly - so much as a sense of sadness? I can't find the word. Perhaps it is pity?
I told this to mother, stating there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Mother: It's called Tall Poppy Syndrom - get too high and mighty, smack.
I don't think that's the lesson - so much as we don't really know what's going on in someone else's life. And what we perceive is often just a glamour. We're envious of the glamour - the veneer, the illusion - but it's not real. It's just a marketing campaign.
***
The Neil Gaiman thing has gone viral now, and everyone and their dog is yammering about it somewhere - specifically in the writing community. It's discombobulating to a lot of them - mainly because they knew him, they were close friends, associates, maybe even fans - and had met him in person. Some had even loved him. Many had introduced him to others.
I mean it's one thing for me to be discombobulated by it and horrified (I didn't know him, never met him, and wasn't really a fan - I just read his books and watched his shows) - but quite another for someone who was actually close to him and knew him. Yet we all kind share that...cognitive dissonance. That's what they call it in psychology - cognitive dissonance, where we're confronted with two contradictory things at the same time, and being principally binary thinkers - can't wrap our heads around it. (Living things, including humans are not binary, even though we've been taught to think that way.)
Popular Science Fiction Novelist John Scalzi who was a friend of Neil Gaiman's writes about it in his blog, Whatever, finally
Why bring it up now? One, because I know other people who are being run through the same wringer with this, dealing with the person they knew and this other person they didn’t, but they’re actually the same person and now they have to integrate all of it into their understanding. I want them to know, from the bottom of my heart: fucking same. Some of these folks are friends of his. Some are fans. Some are both! All of us are sitting with it, and while, again, we are all on the periphery of harm here, it’s still something we have to work on. Some will do it publicly, some will do it privately, some will take more time than others to get where they’re going with this. They should be able to do it how they want. Maybe others should offer them some grace about it.
Two, because I’ve done my thinking about it, made my decisions, and have had time to live those decisions and am at a point where talking about it doesn’t make me feel sick or pressured to say something more than I’m prepared to say. Neil’s been a friend, and an important person to me, and someone I’ve been happy to know. But the friendship has been drawn down and done, and at this point, given everything I’ve written above, I don’t think he’ll complain much about that. He’s got a lot of work to do, and I hope he gets to it soon.
(Three, because I see some deeply shitty people hoping I’m “next,” which among other things means they are explicitly hoping that I’ve done things close to what Neil is credibly accused of, to actual other people, just so they can have the satisfaction of seeing me “owned.” And, well. Those people can go fuck themselves.)
Amanda Palmer states rather simply - "Replying to NME’s request for comment, a representative for Palmer said: “While Ms. Palmer is profoundly disturbed by the allegations that Mr. Gaiman has abused several women, at this time her primary concern is, and must remain, the well-being of her son and therefore, to guard his privacy, she has no comment on these allegations.”
Taking to Instagram soon after, Palmer added: “As there are ongoing custody and divorce proceedings, I am not able to offer public comment. Please understand that I am first and foremost a parent. I ask for privacy at this time.”
Palmer is being vilified on social media at the moment. But I'm reluctant to do so. I know too much about domestic violence, sexual abuse, and childhood traumas, and have met too many people who have suffered from them - to jump to judgement. Also Palmer's songs suggest a complexity to me that not a lot of people appear to see. Also, I find the vilification and cancellation of folks on social media reprehensible and highly hypocritical. There but for the grace of god, go I. Unlike Gaiman - Palmer hasn't admitted to anything, except perhaps not being able to extract herself from him fast enough. Also, I've been following Palmer's Patreon page (not as a paid subscriber - I don't pay for social media), and she seems genuine enough. I've also listened to most of her songs. And they can be interpreted more than one way.
I also can kind of envision what happened? That's my super-power - an ability to imagine and see multiple sides to a situation. And other's points of view. It's also a curse - since all super-power's come with a curse, after all.
A young impressionable singer - reaching out to a popular novelist to help her write and promote a story she was telling and a book. Thinking they were kindred spirits on a certain level. She's not really attracted to him physically and he's not really attracted to her - but she's curious and he's charming and intriguing and powerful with a lot of money and prestige. And Gaiman is very charming. (I certainly found him charming in his blog writing. Heck, I read him partly due to his charming writing style and speaking voice- I can only imagine what he was like in person.) And charismatic.
Also, how would you react to someone coming to you and telling you that a person you loved, eat with, lived with, slept with, had a child by, and was your partner - was abusive, and had raped them? We're not talking about a stranger on the street. We're talking about the person who holds your hand when the plane takes off. The person who helped edit your book. The person who had your back. The person who donated a million dollars to an LGBTA cause or to Uncief? Not someone like Trump. Someone progressive, who seems to genuinely care about others.
Would you believe them? Would you want to? Could you believe them? Even if you knew that that person had a dark side and liked BDSM sex, and you'd kind of seen it? But hey, everyone has dark fantasies, and reads them - doesn't mean they act on them right? And what if it was more than one person? And what if the person you loved was famous, a public persona, in the spotlight? And had women constantly throw themselves at them? (I don't know if you've ever seen women throw themselves at men and hang all over them? I have. My younger brother is a girl magnet. Women literally drape themselves on him. Drives his wife nuts. Women - trust me on this - can be nasty. I have a brother and I've seen it - as far back as when he was five.)
And I'm not entirely sure if the women's perceptions of Palmer are accurate or not? People can twist things in their heads. And there's a lot of hearsay in the New York Magazine article. I don't know, my critical brain keeps picking at it all like a scab.
It's hard to understand I think that people have more than one side to them, and we all see a different side? At work, Babs used to comment that BYT was two-faced - literally two people. I'd say the same thing about a former boss - who was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And there's been psychological studies on this - how people can literally show different personas to different people. The whole controversy over the authentic self - if there is an authentic self, and how we all perform to our respective audiences. Former BOSS used to say - be mindful of your audience. I've been pondering this a lot of over the years. It fascinates me actually - because I've been a victim of it as well. I think everyone has. Where I trust or lend my trust to someone only to discover they aren't who I thought they were - and yet, somehow they are? How can they be a lovely person one day, and a nightmare the next? It's a question more than one domestic violence sufferer has asked.
It's discombobulating to say the least. I mean I know people, kind, thoughtful people - who voted for Trump? And I remember going into Defender Project and sitting next - men incarcerated for rape, they looked normal, and seemed nice. Or the hit man for a drug cartel with lines up and down his arms and jaundiced eyes, who was nice. Or the psychopath in solitary due to knifing other inmates, and killing people - who wrote beautiful poetry and drew beautiful art.
Did you know Pablo Picasso was a misogynistic asshole? Yet an amazing artist.
F. Scott Fitzgerald institutionalized his wife and abused her.
Virigina Woolfe was a raging racist and anti-semitic.
JK Rowling is a transphobe and TERF.
Orson Scott Card who wrote Enders game is a Homophobe.
The New Yorker recently published an article/podcast about Alice Munroe..
"In an essay published earlier this month, Andrea Skinner, the daughter of the lauded writer Alice Munro, detailed the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Munro’s second husband, Gerald Fremlin. The piece goes on to describe how, even after Skinner told her of the abuse, years later, Munro chose to stay with him until his death, in 2013. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the revelations, which have raised familiar questions about what to do when beloved artists are found to have done unforgivable things. They’re joined by fellow staff writer Jiayang Fan, an avid reader of Munro’s work who’s been grappling with the news in real time. Together they revisit the 1993 story “Vandals,” which contains unsettling parallels to the scenario that played out in the Munro home. Have the years since the #MeToo movement given us more nuanced ways of addressing these flareups than full-out cancellation? “It’s not a moral loosening that I’m sensing,” Schwartz says. “It’s more of a sense of, Maybe I don’t want to throw out the work altogether—but I do need to wrestle.”"
I guess what I'm trying to say here...is, don't hate yourself for loving the work of an incredibly flawed artist, who has done horrific things and may well be unself-aware enough to stop. Loving their art is not the same thing as condemning what they've done. Trying to understand isn't either. We tend as a society to condemn the person and not the act, and I think sometimes, it's the act we need to condemn, and provide the person with the resources and compassion to change and stop. Not enable. But provide mental health resources to stop.
Our prisons are a punitive system - where we throw people in with even worse offenders, and they are tortured. I know I did Defender Project - we spent a lot of time trying to prevent the torture. I remember one inmate informing me that prison was to punish not rehabilitate. We are a vengeful society, and that has never spoken well of us, not a merciful one. And I think we need to practice mercy more and vengeance less.
So what to do instead? Rehabilitation. Mental health. Group therapy. Reconditioning. Try to save the person, instead of condemning them to hell.
(Well except for the Doofus and serial killers, you can kill them at any time.)
Enuf rambling pondering. Off to bed.
I'm admittedly irritable due to a lack of sleep. An itchy diabetic sensor attached to my right arm. And the commute was annoyingly long today - they had to replace a door on one of the R trains, so it was delayed going home, resulting in my thirty-five minute commute becoming roughly fifty minutes. On the way too work, the F was delayed, and the R sat in the tunnel for ten minutes (it's technically a two minute ride). As a result of the lack of sleep? I fell asleep during FTA training - not surprising considering they just read their power point presentation and most of it wasn't relevant to what I do for a living. When it became relevant, I jerked awake.
Mother: What does FTA stand for?
Me: Federal Transportation Authority - it's the agency that funds infrastructure projects. (Well, did. It may not now. I have a feeling not a heck of a lot is going to be funded by the Federal Government now. But hey, we have Congestion Pricing - so perhaps that will help?)
There's two of them. The FTA - that's the funding agency. And the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration - which is specific to rail.) See? You can't say you don't ever learn anything from this journal - granted it may not necessarily be memorable or useful information.
They apologized for the boredom. Apparently the FTA requires them to read a powerpoint presentation to us word for word via Teams. Since just sending it to us is...well too easy? I don't know. People aren't only annoying? They are illogical.
***
Then it hits me, again and again, like a fist in the face - There But For The Grace of God, Go I. It's an old saying that a Criminal Procedural Prof used to state at the start of each of his lectures in law school, and during Defender Project (my legal internship one summer - where I counseled inmates at a major Federal Penitentiary, sometimes I wish I could make every human being do that for one summer. Do that, and learn how to build a wall in a Juarez, Mexico Ghetto outside a church.). He was my favorite teacher - he got me an internship at the Public Defender's Office one summer, and the next I worked on Defender Project. That experience - more than anything else - taught me how complicated people are - and how they do not fit into neat little boxes. As much as we might want to define folks by their actions - we really can't. And no, we can never really know another person - and they can surprise us. He used to tell me how charming these prisoners were - and not to let myself get roped in or conned by it, but at the same time be willing to fight for their rights. That was a very long time ago - 1990s. Yet there are moments it feels like yesterday, time is wonky like that?
And...why I really shouldn't envy other people? [More on that later.]
***************
As an aside? The reports keep coming in about LA Fires. Altadena California Devastated by the Blaze (A friendly acquaintance from Church moved there - and is now living in an airbnb in San Diego until he can safely return, praying his home isn't destroyed. It's apparently a beautiful area.)
And, alas, Dochawk (Alan) from the ATPOBTVS Board is packed and ready to evacuate as we speak - the fire just reached the houses across the street from his condo. I'd met him in person, and we've stayed in touch via FB over the years. He's a kind soul. He's the one who gave me the inside scope on what was happening on Angel the Series - down to specific spoilers.
The friend from Church related on FB that he was overcome with stress. And his anxiety was through the roof. Has anyone heard from wendelah1 ? She hasn't posted since November, and I know she lives in LA or the surrounding area?
*****************
At work, Art History Major came back - and informed me that she had to travel to California for her Aunt's funeral - her Aunt had recently died. And she had to clear out her house with her other Aunt. They'd been close. But, she never wants to visit San Diego again. It was beautiful, they were in the Mountains, and the fires hadn't reached it. But..
Me: How did your Aunt die?
ARM: Blood clots. She had several, one in her leg. It was sudden and without warning. Do you know how those start?
Me: I'm not sure - high blood pressure can be a cause - I'm on meds for that. How old was she?
ARM: She was fairly young, that's the thing, Fifty-Seven.
Me: Wait..did you say 57??
ARM: Yes.
Me: I'm 57.
Oh god. Apparently her aunt never went to the doctor. Much like my Aunt, who died in 2000, never went to a doctor and also died from a blood clot. As a result my mother pesters everyone to see one.
***
A co-worker and friend that I'd not talked to forever - stopped by for a long chat and gave me the inside scoop on Bright Young Thing. Bright Young Thing is not a happy camper. Everyone who works under her - hates her - and is trying to get reassigned. My friend is planning on leaving soon. She only has nine people - because people keep leaving. And my friend couldn't figure out how she made it through Christmas. No one likes her. She doesn't talk to anyone on the floor. And doesn't appear to have any friends.
It strikes me as so odd. Since about ten years back - I was envious of her. She was beautiful, everyone seemed to love her, she had lots of friends, people went out for drinks with her after work, and she got promoted, while I was held back. And she was a good ten years younger than me. I felt ostracized, and that she was only mean to me - and I couldn't tell anyone about it. Now? I see how wrong I was about all of it. I find the whole thing deeply ironic?
This has happened more than once, actually. Bright Young Thing. Joss Whedon. Amanda Palmer. Neil Gaiman. I was once upon a time very envious of their lives. Thinking they had it all. Now? I think, but for the grace of god, go I. I feel this insane amount of sorrow for them, not pity exactly - so much as a sense of sadness? I can't find the word. Perhaps it is pity?
I told this to mother, stating there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Mother: It's called Tall Poppy Syndrom - get too high and mighty, smack.
I don't think that's the lesson - so much as we don't really know what's going on in someone else's life. And what we perceive is often just a glamour. We're envious of the glamour - the veneer, the illusion - but it's not real. It's just a marketing campaign.
***
The Neil Gaiman thing has gone viral now, and everyone and their dog is yammering about it somewhere - specifically in the writing community. It's discombobulating to a lot of them - mainly because they knew him, they were close friends, associates, maybe even fans - and had met him in person. Some had even loved him. Many had introduced him to others.
I mean it's one thing for me to be discombobulated by it and horrified (I didn't know him, never met him, and wasn't really a fan - I just read his books and watched his shows) - but quite another for someone who was actually close to him and knew him. Yet we all kind share that...cognitive dissonance. That's what they call it in psychology - cognitive dissonance, where we're confronted with two contradictory things at the same time, and being principally binary thinkers - can't wrap our heads around it. (Living things, including humans are not binary, even though we've been taught to think that way.)
Popular Science Fiction Novelist John Scalzi who was a friend of Neil Gaiman's writes about it in his blog, Whatever, finally
Why bring it up now? One, because I know other people who are being run through the same wringer with this, dealing with the person they knew and this other person they didn’t, but they’re actually the same person and now they have to integrate all of it into their understanding. I want them to know, from the bottom of my heart: fucking same. Some of these folks are friends of his. Some are fans. Some are both! All of us are sitting with it, and while, again, we are all on the periphery of harm here, it’s still something we have to work on. Some will do it publicly, some will do it privately, some will take more time than others to get where they’re going with this. They should be able to do it how they want. Maybe others should offer them some grace about it.
Two, because I’ve done my thinking about it, made my decisions, and have had time to live those decisions and am at a point where talking about it doesn’t make me feel sick or pressured to say something more than I’m prepared to say. Neil’s been a friend, and an important person to me, and someone I’ve been happy to know. But the friendship has been drawn down and done, and at this point, given everything I’ve written above, I don’t think he’ll complain much about that. He’s got a lot of work to do, and I hope he gets to it soon.
(Three, because I see some deeply shitty people hoping I’m “next,” which among other things means they are explicitly hoping that I’ve done things close to what Neil is credibly accused of, to actual other people, just so they can have the satisfaction of seeing me “owned.” And, well. Those people can go fuck themselves.)
Amanda Palmer states rather simply - "Replying to NME’s request for comment, a representative for Palmer said: “While Ms. Palmer is profoundly disturbed by the allegations that Mr. Gaiman has abused several women, at this time her primary concern is, and must remain, the well-being of her son and therefore, to guard his privacy, she has no comment on these allegations.”
Taking to Instagram soon after, Palmer added: “As there are ongoing custody and divorce proceedings, I am not able to offer public comment. Please understand that I am first and foremost a parent. I ask for privacy at this time.”
Palmer is being vilified on social media at the moment. But I'm reluctant to do so. I know too much about domestic violence, sexual abuse, and childhood traumas, and have met too many people who have suffered from them - to jump to judgement. Also Palmer's songs suggest a complexity to me that not a lot of people appear to see. Also, I find the vilification and cancellation of folks on social media reprehensible and highly hypocritical. There but for the grace of god, go I. Unlike Gaiman - Palmer hasn't admitted to anything, except perhaps not being able to extract herself from him fast enough. Also, I've been following Palmer's Patreon page (not as a paid subscriber - I don't pay for social media), and she seems genuine enough. I've also listened to most of her songs. And they can be interpreted more than one way.
I also can kind of envision what happened? That's my super-power - an ability to imagine and see multiple sides to a situation. And other's points of view. It's also a curse - since all super-power's come with a curse, after all.
A young impressionable singer - reaching out to a popular novelist to help her write and promote a story she was telling and a book. Thinking they were kindred spirits on a certain level. She's not really attracted to him physically and he's not really attracted to her - but she's curious and he's charming and intriguing and powerful with a lot of money and prestige. And Gaiman is very charming. (I certainly found him charming in his blog writing. Heck, I read him partly due to his charming writing style and speaking voice- I can only imagine what he was like in person.) And charismatic.
Also, how would you react to someone coming to you and telling you that a person you loved, eat with, lived with, slept with, had a child by, and was your partner - was abusive, and had raped them? We're not talking about a stranger on the street. We're talking about the person who holds your hand when the plane takes off. The person who helped edit your book. The person who had your back. The person who donated a million dollars to an LGBTA cause or to Uncief? Not someone like Trump. Someone progressive, who seems to genuinely care about others.
Would you believe them? Would you want to? Could you believe them? Even if you knew that that person had a dark side and liked BDSM sex, and you'd kind of seen it? But hey, everyone has dark fantasies, and reads them - doesn't mean they act on them right? And what if it was more than one person? And what if the person you loved was famous, a public persona, in the spotlight? And had women constantly throw themselves at them? (I don't know if you've ever seen women throw themselves at men and hang all over them? I have. My younger brother is a girl magnet. Women literally drape themselves on him. Drives his wife nuts. Women - trust me on this - can be nasty. I have a brother and I've seen it - as far back as when he was five.)
And I'm not entirely sure if the women's perceptions of Palmer are accurate or not? People can twist things in their heads. And there's a lot of hearsay in the New York Magazine article. I don't know, my critical brain keeps picking at it all like a scab.
It's hard to understand I think that people have more than one side to them, and we all see a different side? At work, Babs used to comment that BYT was two-faced - literally two people. I'd say the same thing about a former boss - who was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And there's been psychological studies on this - how people can literally show different personas to different people. The whole controversy over the authentic self - if there is an authentic self, and how we all perform to our respective audiences. Former BOSS used to say - be mindful of your audience. I've been pondering this a lot of over the years. It fascinates me actually - because I've been a victim of it as well. I think everyone has. Where I trust or lend my trust to someone only to discover they aren't who I thought they were - and yet, somehow they are? How can they be a lovely person one day, and a nightmare the next? It's a question more than one domestic violence sufferer has asked.
It's discombobulating to say the least. I mean I know people, kind, thoughtful people - who voted for Trump? And I remember going into Defender Project and sitting next - men incarcerated for rape, they looked normal, and seemed nice. Or the hit man for a drug cartel with lines up and down his arms and jaundiced eyes, who was nice. Or the psychopath in solitary due to knifing other inmates, and killing people - who wrote beautiful poetry and drew beautiful art.
Did you know Pablo Picasso was a misogynistic asshole? Yet an amazing artist.
F. Scott Fitzgerald institutionalized his wife and abused her.
Virigina Woolfe was a raging racist and anti-semitic.
JK Rowling is a transphobe and TERF.
Orson Scott Card who wrote Enders game is a Homophobe.
The New Yorker recently published an article/podcast about Alice Munroe..
"In an essay published earlier this month, Andrea Skinner, the daughter of the lauded writer Alice Munro, detailed the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Munro’s second husband, Gerald Fremlin. The piece goes on to describe how, even after Skinner told her of the abuse, years later, Munro chose to stay with him until his death, in 2013. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the revelations, which have raised familiar questions about what to do when beloved artists are found to have done unforgivable things. They’re joined by fellow staff writer Jiayang Fan, an avid reader of Munro’s work who’s been grappling with the news in real time. Together they revisit the 1993 story “Vandals,” which contains unsettling parallels to the scenario that played out in the Munro home. Have the years since the #MeToo movement given us more nuanced ways of addressing these flareups than full-out cancellation? “It’s not a moral loosening that I’m sensing,” Schwartz says. “It’s more of a sense of, Maybe I don’t want to throw out the work altogether—but I do need to wrestle.”"
I guess what I'm trying to say here...is, don't hate yourself for loving the work of an incredibly flawed artist, who has done horrific things and may well be unself-aware enough to stop. Loving their art is not the same thing as condemning what they've done. Trying to understand isn't either. We tend as a society to condemn the person and not the act, and I think sometimes, it's the act we need to condemn, and provide the person with the resources and compassion to change and stop. Not enable. But provide mental health resources to stop.
Our prisons are a punitive system - where we throw people in with even worse offenders, and they are tortured. I know I did Defender Project - we spent a lot of time trying to prevent the torture. I remember one inmate informing me that prison was to punish not rehabilitate. We are a vengeful society, and that has never spoken well of us, not a merciful one. And I think we need to practice mercy more and vengeance less.
So what to do instead? Rehabilitation. Mental health. Group therapy. Reconditioning. Try to save the person, instead of condemning them to hell.
(Well except for the Doofus and serial killers, you can kill them at any time.)
Enuf rambling pondering. Off to bed.