The Mallet of Loving Correction Part 16

4.

2012.

Question from the gallery: How much do you think it will matter that Mitt Romney is a Mormon? And does it matter in your own thinking about him?

Since I think at this point it's all but certain Romney will be the GOP nominee, I'm not sure it's mattered greatly in a negative sense. I'm pretty sure in a couple of cases it will work to his advantage; for example, tonight, in the Nevada caucuses, as Nevada is the state with the 7th largest population of LDS folk (4th biggest per capita), LDS folk tend to skew Republican/conservative, and in the 2008 Nevada caucuses, LDS folks who voted GOP went 90% for Romney and were 25% of the caucus voters. So, yes, in Nevada? Not a problem.

Is it a problem with the GOP elsewhere? Possibly, although I don't have the stats at my fingertips. I will say it's possible it may have been more of a problem if Romney had been in a more compet.i.tive field of candidates, but he got lucky in his GOP opponents this time around. With apologies to Santorum and Paul supporters, at this point it's between Romney and Gingrich. While you can't count Gingrich out unless you stake his heart, chop off his head, fill his mouth with garlic and bury him at a crossroad, I think most GOP voters realize at this point that the vampire treatment is exactly what Obama would do to Gingrich in the general election. There's also the very real possibility that in going down, Gingrich would take all of the modern GOP with him, on the thinking that as he was the one who birthed it, he might as well kill it off, too. Romney, whatever his other flaws or advantages, at least won't immolate his entire party if he loses the election.

At the end of the day, Romney has consistently been the GOP frontrunner in this election cycle. Gingrich spikes up past him now and then, but that's just it: He spikes. Then people remember Gingrich is Gingrich (Romney spending millions in attack ads helps) and then it's back to status quo. I know of grumbles of Romney's LDS affiliation among some evangelical GOP voters, but it seems like it's been just that: grumbles. There's also this: When it comes right down to it, do these evangelical GOP voters dislike the idea of an LDS member in the White House more than they dislike Obama? I'm gonna go with a "no" here.

Regarding the general election, I think Romney's major problem is not his religious belief but everything else about him, starting with the fact he's socially clueless about how obnoxious he is about his wealth, and (conversely) how much the electorate is becoming sensitized to the fact he's a clueless rich dude. I'm not going to suggest his LDS affiliation won't matter to some voters; it will. I just don't think it's going to land in the top five concerns that most voters have about him.

Does Romney being a member of the LDS church concern me personally? No. Readers here will recall that of all the GOP candidates this cycle, the one I liked best (and even sent money to) was Jon Huntsman, who is also a member of the LDS church. So my recent track record on this particular aspect of a candidate's profile is at the very least neutral.

In a larger sense, on a purely personal and anecdotal level, my overall feelings about LDS church members defaults to vaguely positive. This is mostly because I know a fair number of LDS folks, and the ones I know personally tend to be good people whose company I enjoy. I allow that this may have less to do with their church affiliation and more to do with the fact I like good people and don't tally church affiliation of any sort as an automatic negative. Good people you like are hard to find and you should cherish them without the use of a checklist. Be that as it may, that's my initial default, so it doesn't hurt Romney any.

Regarding the LDS Church as an ent.i.ty, there's a lot about its political and social positions I dislike and disagree with, and I think its theological underpinnings are a heaping stack of nonsense. This puts it on a par with a number of churches, including the Catholic church, a whole pile of protestant churches (particularly evangelical churches), and pretty a fair number of non-Christian religions (and/or their various sects) to boot. I certainly could not be an LDS church member now; if I were born into it I'm pretty sure I'd be apostate. But again, that'd be true regardless of church. Luckily for me, aside from a baptism I didn't have a vote on and wasn't followed up on in any event, I've never had a church affiliation. I don't have to be apostate; I can just be not religious.

I don't automatically hold official church positions against church members, regardless of religion. I a.s.sume individual church members have brains and agency and may or may not agree philosophically with every single proclamation that comes out of their particular hierarchy. People who a.s.sume that Romney will take orders from Salt Lake City are on par with the voters of 1960 who a.s.sumed that Kennedy would take orders from Rome. I have no intention of voting for Romney in the general election. But when I don't vote for him, his being a member of the LDS church won't be a part of it.

Would I ever vote for a member of the LDS church for public office? Sure, if their political positions were aligned with mine for the office they were seeking. Romney's don't, which is why he won't get my vote in November.

The Santorum Solution Feb

8.

2012.

Wow, I gotta tell ya, I really suck at prognosticating this GOP primary season. Just this weekend I mentioned how it was a two-man race between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, and here it is Wednesday and Rick Santorum has just won the caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado as well as the Missouri primary, with Mitt a distant second in Missouri and Colorado and third in Minnesota (with Ron Paul second!), and poor angry Newt third in CO, fourth in MN, and not even on the ballot in MO at all. If predicting GOP results were my job, I would totally fire me. But then again, after last night I would not be the only person who would have to be fired. There would be a lot of unemployed people today. Which would drive down employment numbers! And that's good for the GOP's chances this year. Sorry, I'm rambling.

I also have to tell you that I like this GOP primary season. It's exciting. By this time Romney was supposed to be blandly cruising his way to the nomination, held aloft by large stacks of money and the air of inevitability cash manufactures, but here on February 8, Santorum has won more states than Romney has, and while Romney has twice the delegates as Santorum (thanks to Florida's "winner take all" primary), his lead is not una.s.sailable. Now Romney will have to spend even more money! To fight off Rick Santorum. Who in a rational universe would have been packed away long before now.

Meanwhile: Newt Gingrich, who at this point is not in the race to win it but to hurt Mitt Romney as much as possible between now and the day, hopefully in the late spring, when Romney drags his battered carca.s.s over the 1,144 delegate line he needs to take the nomination. Newt will be sniping Mitt all the way, and Mitt will be distracted by having to deal with Santorum while he does so. This is my new scenario. Because why not.

And yes, I still think Romney's going to take it, eventually (and yes, probably sooner than later). But, hey, who knows, right? It could be Santorum! I find him a querulous bigot, but apparently "querulous bigot" in Scalzi World equates to "genuine conservative" in GOP Land, and the genuine conservatives out there apparently aren't happy with Romney and his actual governing track record in Ma.s.sachusetts. Could Santorum capitalize on his victories last night? Sure. Could GOP voters become increasingly disenchanted with Romney? Absolutely. Will Gingrich stay on mission to stab Romney through the eyeb.a.l.l.s at every possible opportunity? You know he will. Santorum could drag it out! And pick up delegates! And win the nomination!

And then get slaughtered in the general election, since outside of GOP circles, querulous bigots are probably bad presidential candidates here in 2012. But if the GOP wants to try the Santorum Solution, then I wouldn't be the one to try to stop them. Please, GOPers, run Rick Santorum for president. Indeed: Santorum/Bachmann 2012. It would be the best ticket ever. For values of "best" that don't mean what "best" usually does, mind you; even so.

Anyway, as I said: exciting. Good for the GOP or the nation? Probably not so much. But this is where we are at the moment. I couldn't tell you where we go from here. The suspense is killing me! I hope it will last!

Scalzi Shakes His Cane At The Kids' Music Today Apr

5.

2012.

The song in question: "a.s.s Back Home" by Gym Cla.s.s Heroes. It's a song in the genre of "Musician pines for his woman back home while he's out on the road, totally not partaking in groupies," the most famous of which for my generation is Journey's lighter-launcher "Faithfully." The song itself is actually not bad, although it's another example of Gym Cla.s.s Heroes relying on a guest vocalist to lay down a tasty chorus to prop up GCH's bland rap verses (previous example: "Stereo Hearts"). But what does bother me are the lyrics of the chorus, in which the unfortunately-named Neon Hitch sings: I don't know where you're going/Or when you're coming home/I left the keys under the mat to our front door The song and the video both establish that the two vocalists of the song are in some sort of long-term, co-habitating relationship; good for them. It also establishes that he's on the road for a tour while she's back at home. Fine.

But if all that's the case, really? She's doesn't know where he's going, or when he's coming home? Did he not provide her with a tour schedule? Because, you know, when I go out on tour, I make sure my longtime companion, the lovely and effervescent Mrs. Scalzi, has the itinerary in her possession. But even if I or the Gym Cla.s.s Heroes dude didn't drop that knowledge on the respective loves of our lives, the fact is most entertainers who tour make that information public. If she didn't know where he was going or when he was coming home, she could just go to the band web site and click into the tour area. Where's he going? Athens, Georgia, on April 10! When's he coming home? Probably May 4th or 5th, by the looks of things. Then he goes out again! Look, it's all there.

(Not to mention, as the video shows them on the phone to each other, she could just ask, hey, what's the next stop after this one? Admittedly, the lyrics note that sometimes he doesn't know where he is, or what day it is, but most modern phones have GPS and a calendar app, so that's easily solved. There are a lot of options here for access to accurate information.) Likewise: She leaves a key under the mat to their front door? Why? Doesn't he have a key of his own? Does he not live there when he's not on tour? The possessive plural nature of the p.r.o.noun in this sentence rather strongly suggests so. Can he not be trusted with his own key? Is he always losing them in hotel rooms? Do the key gnomes have a vendetta of long standing against this poor man? These seem doubtful. He's driving home a motorcycle at the end of the video; clearly he didn't lose the keys to that. I'm guessing the house key's on the same ring.

Yes, I know. I've drastically overthought this. But come on. These are not lyrics filled with metaphor or allusion; they're pretty straightforward declarative statements that individually pa.r.s.e perfectly well but which in context don't make a d.a.m.n bit of sense. Drives me nuts. I'm glad these two people in the song are in love, but clearly they need to a) work on their communication skills, b) learn to use the Internet to find things, c) go down to the end of the street and have a couple of spare keys made. None of this is hard.

I'm just saying.

(shakes cane) Done.

A Self-Made Man Looks At How He Made It Jul

23.

2012.

To begin, my mother and father are responsible for me existing at all, so I suppose the first round of "How I made it to where I am" begins there.

I was born at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, CA, and as I understand it I was not the easiest of births, taking on the order of three days to be evicted from the womb. That couldn't have been comfortable or safe either for my mother or for me, so thanks go to the medical team of doctors and nurses who helped with my birth. Likewise, the fact I was born at an Air Force base means that I owe a thanks to America's military for offering medical care to my mother (based on her relationship to my father, who was in the military at the time), and indirectly to America's taxpayers, whose dollars went to supporting the military, and thereby those doctors, nurses, my father's paycheck and my mother's medical care.

My parents' marriage did not last particularly long and in the early seventies-and off and on for the next several years-my mother found herself in the position of having to rely on the social net of welfare and food stamps to make sure that when she couldn't find work (or alternately, could find it but it didn't pay enough), she was able to feed her children and herself. Once again, I owe thanks to America's taxpayers for making sure I had enough to eat at various times when I was a child.

Not having to wonder how I was going to eat meant my attention could be given to other things, like reading wonderful books. As a child, many of the books I read and loved came from the local libraries where I lived. I can still remember going into a library for the first time and being amazed-utterly amazed-that I could read any book I wanted and that I could even take some of them home, as long as I promised to give each of them back in time. I learned my love of science and story in libraries. I know now that each of those libraries were paid for by the people who lived in the cities the libraries were in, and sometimes by the states they were in as well. I owe the taxpayers of each for the love of books and words.

From kindergarten through the eighth grade, I had a public school education, which at the time in California was very good, because the cuts that would come to education through the good graces of Proposition 13 had not yet trickled down to affect me. My schools in the cities of Covina, Azusa and Glendora all had "gifted and talented" programs that allowed me and my other cla.s.smates extra opportunities to expand our minds, aided by excellent teachers, most of whose names I can still rattle off after 30 years: Mrs. Chambers, Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Swirsky, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Kaufman, Ms. Morgan. Through much of this time I was fed through school lunch programs which allowed me a meal for free or reduced rates. In the sixth grade, when again my mother and I found ourselves poor and briefly homeless, and I began feeling depressed, the school's counselor was there to do his best to keep me on an even keel. These schools and programs were funded locally, through the state and through the federal level. The taxpayers helped me learn, kept me fed, and prevented despair from clouding up my mind.

By the eighth grade it became clear public education in California was beginning to get stretched by shrinking budgets, and my mother went looking for a private high school for me to attend. She called up the Webb School of California, and found out it cost more to attend than she made in a year. But she was convinced it was the right place. I went and took the entrance test and had my interview with a teacher there, named Steve Patterson. I don't remember what it was I said during the interview; I have almost no memory of that interview at all. But I was told years later by another teacher that Steve Patterson said that day to the Webb admissions people that if there were only one child who was admitted to Webb that year, it should be me. His argument must have been convincing, because Webb admitted me and gave me a scholarship, minus a small parental contribution and a token amount which I would be responsible for after I left college, because the idea was that I had to be in some way responsible for my own education. I don't know if I would have made it into Webb without Steve Patterson. I owe that to him.

I received a fantastic education at Webb, although there were many times while I was there that I did not appreciate it in the moment. Regardless, the teachers there taught me well, whether I appreciated it or not. As with earlier teachers, the names of these teachers remain in my mind: John Heyes, Art House, Dave Fawcett, Laurence MacMillin, Chris Trussell, Joan Rohrback, Roy Bergeson among many others. I learned of the world beyond my own immediate life from them, and that my life would be better thinking about things beyond its own limited scope.

When it came time to choose college, I had my heart set on the University of Chicago but I was a borderline case: The tests and essays were there, but the grades? Meh (I was one of those people who did well in the things he liked, less so in the things he did not). University of Chicago Admissions dean Ted O'Neill called Marilyn Blum, Webb's college counselor, and asked her for her opinion on whether I would be a good fit for Chicago. She told O'Neill that I was exactly the sort of student who would benefit from Chicago, and that he would never regret admitting me. O'Neill told me this years later, after I had been Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Maroon and the Ombudsman for the University, by way of letting me know in his opinion Blum had been correct. I owe Blum for being my advocate, and O'Neill for believing her.

The University of Chicago is one of the best universities in the world, and it is not cheap. I was able to attend through a combination of scholarships, government Pell Grants and work study jobs and bank loans. I owe the alumni of the University of Chicago who funded the scholarships, the taxpayers who paid for the grants and subsidized the work study jobs, and, yes, the banks who loaned me money. When one of my expected payment sources for school disappeared, my grandfather told me he would replace it-if I sent him a letter a month. I did. He did. This lasted until my senior year, when I was making enough from freelancing for local newspapers that I could pay for much of my college education myself.

Speaking of which, I owe Chicago Sun-Times editor Laura Emerick for reading the articles I wrote for the Chicago Maroon and during my internship at the San Diego Tribune and deciding I was good enough to write for an actual professional newspaper, and for giving me enough work (at a decent enough payment scale) that I could pay rent on an apartment and school fees. The San Diego Tribune internship I got not only through my clips from the Maroon but also because I mentioned to a friend that I was looking around for an internship and he said, well, my dad is a friend with the editor of the Trib, why don't I ask him to make a call? This was my first but not last experience with the value of connections. I owe that friend, his father, and the editor.

My experience as a freelancer for the Sun-Times and the fact that I had a philosophy degree from Chicago were impressive to the Features Editor of the Fres...o...b..e, who gave me a plum job right out of college, for which I had almost no practical experience: Film critic. I owe Diane Webster, that editor, for having the faith that a kid right out of college would live up to the clips he sent. I owe Tom Becker, the Entertainment Editor, as well as a raft of copyeditors and fellow staff writers at the Bee, for helping me not make an a.s.s of myself on a day-to-day basis, and to guide me through the process of becoming a pro journalist and newspaper writer.

Because of the Bee I did a story on a local DJ, Julie Logan, who did an event at a bar in Visalia. While I was there the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my life came up to me and asked me to dance. Reader, I married her (although not at that moment). This woman, as it turns out, had an incredibly good head on her shoulders for money management and had a work ethic that would shame John Calvin. Since Kristine Blauser Scalzi came into my life we have as a couple been financially secure, because she made it her business to make it so. This level of security has afforded me the ability to take advantage of opportunities I otherwise would not have been able.

Eventually I left the Bee to join America Online in the mid-90s, just as it was expanding and becoming the first Google (or Facebook, take your pick). My job there was to edit a humor area, and the practical experience of helping other writers with their writing made me such a better writer that it's hard for me to overstate its importance in my development. I owe Katherine Borsecnik and Bill Youstra for hiring me and handing me that very odd job.

I lasted two years at AOL, at which point I was laid off and immediately rehired as a contractor, for more money for less work. By this time AOL was shedding talent to other startups, many of whom hired me as an editorial contractor because a) They had seen my work and knew I was good, b) I was the only writer they knew. I am indebted to America Online for hiring so many bright, smart people the same time I was there, and then shedding them to go elsewhere, and for all those bright, smart people for remembering me when it came time to look for writing work.

One of those contracts I had included writing a financial newsletter. In 1999, my non-fiction agent Robert Shepard was on the phone with the editor of Rough Guides, who mentioned to him that they were looking for someone to write a book on online finance. My agent said, hey, I have a guy who writes a financial newsletter for AOL. The Rough Guides people said, great, ask him if he wants to write this book. I did. It was my first published book, and it led to two more books by me for Rough Guides. I owe Robert for being proactive on my behalf when he could have let that opportunity swing past him, and I would have been none the wiser.

In 2001 I wrote a novel I intended to sell but then didn't. I decided to put it online on Whatever in December of 2002. Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the senior editor of science fiction at Tor Books, read it and decided to make me an offer on it, which I accepted. If Patrick hadn't read it (or alternately, had read it and did nothing about it because I hadn't formally submitted it), then it's deeply unlikely I would have the career I have now in science fiction.

When that book, Old Man's War, came out in 2005, it was championed by Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit to his readers, and by Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing to his. Because of their enthusiasm, the first printing disappeared off the shelf so quickly that it became clear to Tor that this was a book to watch and promote. Glenn and Cory made a huge difference in the early fortunes of that book. In 2006, Neil Gaiman was informed that his book Anansi Boys had been nominated for a Hugo in the category of Best Novel and asked if he would like to accept the nomination. Neil, who won a Hugo a year for the previous three years, politely declined, believing (he told me later) that someone else might benefit from that nomination more than he. The nomination he declined went to the next book in the nomination tally: Old Man's War. And he was correct: I benefited immensely from the nomination.

The publicity Old Man's War gained from the Hugo nomination, among other things, took the book far and wide and brought it to the attention of Scott Stuber and Wolfgang Petersen, who optioned the book to be made into a film, and to Joe Mallozzi, a producer on Stargate Atlantis, and who (with Brad Wright) eventually hired me to be the Creative Consultant to the Stargate: Universe series. The latter experience was huge in helping me learn the day-to-day practicalities of making television, and having the chance to intensively study scriptwriting; the former has helped me get my foot in the door in terms of having my work seen in film circles. Its success has also made it easier for my fiction agents Ethan Ellenberg and Evan Gregory to sell my work overseas; they've sold my work in nineteen languages now, none of which I would have been able to do on my own.

And so on. I am eliding here; there are numerous people to whom I owe a debt for the work that they have done on my behalf or who have done something that has benefited me, who I am not calling out by name. Some of them know who they are; many of them probably don't, because most of them haven't met me.

There is a flip side to this as well. I have helped others too. I am financially successful now; I pay a lot of taxes. I don't mind because I know how taxes helped me to get to the fortunate position I am in today. I hope the taxes I pay will help some military wife give birth, a mother who needs help feed her child, help another child learn and fall in love with the written word, and help still another get through college. Likewise, I am in a socially advantageous position now, where I can help promote the work of others here and in other places. I do it because I can, because I think I should and because I remember those who helped me. It honors them and it sets the example for those I help to help those who follow them.

I know what I have been given and what I have taken. I know to whom I owe. I know that what work I have done and what I have achieved doesn't exist in a vacuum or outside of a larger context, or without the work and investment of other people, both within the immediate scope of my life and outside of it. I like the idea that I pay it forward, both with the people I can help personally and with those who will never know that some small portion of their own hopefully good fortune is made possible by me.

So much of how their lives will be depends on them, of course, just as so much of how my life is has depended on my own actions. We all have to be the primary actors in our own lives. But so much of their lives will depend on others, too, people near and far. We all have to ask ourselves what role we play in the lives of others-in the lives of loved ones, in the lives of our community, in the life of our nation and in the life of our world. I know my own answer for this. It echoes the answer of those before me, who helped to get me where I am.

A Small Meditation on Art, Commerce and Impermanence Jan

30.

2012.

I'm going to touch on something that I've discussed briefly before but which I think is worth reheating into its own post. Here are the best selling books in the US from 1912, which is (for those of you for whom math is not a strong suit) 100 years ago.

1.The Harvester by Gene Stratton-Porter 2.The Street Called Straight by Basil King 3.Their Yesterdays by Harold Bell Wright 4.The Melting of Molly by Maria Thompson Davies 5.A Hoosier Chronicle by Meredith Nicholson 6.The Winning of Barbara Worth by Harold Bell Wright 7.The Just and the Unjust by Vaughan Kester 8.The Net by Rex Beach 9.Tante by Anne Douglas Sedgwick 10.Fran by J. Breckenridge Ellis Questions: How many of these have you read? How many of the author names do you recognize? How influential have these books been to modern literature, or at the very least, the literature you choose to read? Do you think these authors believed that their works would, in some way, survive them? I think it's fair to say that outside of a small group of academic specialists or enthusiasts, these books and their authors don't have much currency.

This isn't a slight on the authors or their works, mind you. If you look up some of these authors, they're pretty interesting. Gene Stratton-Porter was an early conservationist and owned her own movie studio. Meredith Nicholson was a US diplomat to several countries in South America and central America. Howard Bell Wright was reportedly the first author to make more than a million dollars writing fiction, and this was back in 1912, when a million was worth more than $22 million today. I don't doubt at least some of these books were well-regarded as art. And I would imagine, author egos being what they are, that at least a couple of them imagined that we would be talking about their works today, a hundred years later, as influences if nothing else.

We're not. Now, I imagine there's at least a couple people out there shaking their fists at me, wondering how I could not see Stratton-Porter (or whomever) as a towering figure in American literature. As noted above, I cede there is possibly academic or specialized interest. I'm talking about everyone else. I feel pretty confident of my basic knowledge of early 20th century literature, if nothing else than through my interest in HL Mencken, who was one of the preeminient literature critics of the day. If I'm coming up blank on these names and books, I feel reasonably confident in suggesting most readers these days-even the well-read ones-will do similarly.

If you're a writer, this might depress you. If the best-selling books of 1912 are largely forgotten, what chance do your books have in 2012, especially if they don't scale the heights of sales these books have? Surprise! Probably little. I mean, it's certainly possible they will survive: Neither Theodore Dreiser nor Sherwood Anderson got near the year-end bestseller lists between 1910 and 1919, but they are still taught and discussed, and in their way influence literature today. But, yeah. Don't count on it.

And that's fine. Relieve yourself of the illusion that you're writing for the ages. The ages will decide who is doing that on their own; you don't get a vote. I understand the temptation is to try to write something that will speak to the generations, but, look, in 1912 they hadn't even yet invented pre-sliced bread. If you aim for being relevant to the future, you're probably going to fail because you literally cannot imagine it, even if you write science fiction.

Forget even sliced bread; you can't imagine the values or interests or views on the world that people might have a century from now. Human nature as defined by biology doesn't change much over decades or centuries but the culture sure does, and it's a moving target in any event; there's no end point in att.i.tudes and opinions. If I tried to explain a woman's place in 1912 United States to my daughter, she would explode with outrage. If a writer in 1912 tried to write specifically to my daughter (or anyone's daughter) 100 years hence, the disconnect would be impressive. If I tried to write for a thirteen-year-old girl in 2112, the same thing would happen.

If you must aim for relevance, try for being relevant now; it's a context you understand. We can still read (and do read) Shakespeare and Cervantes and d.i.c.kinson, and I think it's worth noting Shakespeare was busy trying to pack in the groundlings today, Cervantes was writing in no small part to criticize a then-currently popular form of fiction, and d.i.c.kinson was barely even publishing at all, i.e., not really caring about future readers. In other words, they were focused on their now. It's not a bad focus for anyone.

Will your work survive? Probably not, but so what? You won't survive, either. 100 years from now you're very likely to be dead. Even if your work survives, it won't do you much good. In the meantime that still leaves lots of people today to potentially read your stuff, argue about it, be inspired by it (or react against it) and generally make a lot of noise about it. You might even make a living at it, which is a bonus. Focus on those people today, and on today's times. Enjoy it all now. Enjoy it while it lasts. Then when it's over, you can say you had fun at the time.

A Small Rant About The Things I Might or Might Not Know Which I Might or Might Not Tell You About Jun

5.

2009.

Spin magazine had up a piece on Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman performing a benefit gig the other night, in which it revealed that the two of them revealed to the audience that they were dating. Good for them. But the news of their dating prompted someone to send me an e-mail, asking me why I had never mentioned that Palmer and Gaiman were dating and suggesting that it was somehow my duty to keep people informed about such things.

E-mail being the emotionally flat medium that it is, I was not entirely sure that this person was joking, but the more I re-read it the more I became convinced that this person was at least mildly piqued that they thought I was holding such a choice tidbit of quasi-celebrity news from them, and did believe I was obliged to spill about people of fame they a.s.sumed that I knew personally.

a.s.suming that I am in fact not being hypersensitive, two points here: 1. How was I supposed to know this? I'm an admirer of both Miss Palmer's music and her crazy eyebrows, but I don't know her and have never met her. Seems unlikely I would be her bosom confidant. Likewise, while it may seem to some outside observers that I should know Neil Gaiman, we've only ever exchanged a few brief e-mails, mostly about the recent Hugo Voters Packet. I've spoken to him once, but that was in 1992, when I called him up to interview him for a newspaper article I was doing on graphic novels. At no time in our conversation did Gaiman ever say "Hey, anonymous newspaper reporter whom I shall probably never speak with again, seventeen years from now I plan to date a very cute and talented musician. Please keep this news in the strictest of confidence, unless at such time you happen to own a blog, which right now sounds like a disease involving phlegm, but which in the future will mean something else entirely, in which case you may write about it there." At which point I suspect I would have thought to myself, hmmm, this guy's been drinking too much cartoonist's ink.

Well, you say, you know lots of people who know Gaiman (and now, presumably, Miss Palmer). That's almost like knowing them! Well, no, not really. Look: One of the people who is close enough to me that I consider them family is close enough to Brad Pitt that they went to each other's weddings. I do not know Brad Pitt. Someone I was a friend of in college was for years a close confidant of Hillary Clinton. I do not know Hillary Clinton. As recently noted, people I know can get on the phone and talk to Harlan Ellison any time they want. I do not know Harlan Ellison. I could amaze and delight you with the list of all the notable people I almost but in fact don't know personally.

Now, perhaps one day I shall meet Mr. Gaiman and Miss Palmer; seems a reasonable bet I'll see at least one of them this August. And perhaps on that day we'll experience the sort of immediate and ma.s.sive friendcrush that leads each of us to reveal all sorts of secrets to one another in long intimate conversations that will instantly cement our new status as ZOMG totally BFFs. Hey, I'm somewhat personable; it could happen. And then in fact I will know everything there is possibly to know about Mr. Gaiman and/or Miss Palmer. Which leads to the next point: 2. Even if I did know personal information about Gaiman or Palmer, why would any of you be under the impression I would tell you? I already have enough problems with people who don't know me a.s.suming that every single thing that I ever do or learn about in my personal life is going to get plastered up on Whatever in an orgy of attention-seeking indiscretion. The last thing I need to do is to actually prove them right.

This may be hard for some folks to believe, but my default a.s.sumption when someone mentions something about themselves to me is to tell no one else. Before anything else, this is simply the polite thing to do, and what I would hope others would do for me if the situations were reversed. But more than that, there's the fact that somewhere along the way I realized it's better to have the sort of friends who know they can trust you, than the sort of friends who value the entertainment value of your inability to keep a confidence. I want friends, not an audience.

If I meet Neil Gaiman/Amanda Palmer/Whomever and we decide we're gonna be pals and share each other's unmentionable, career-damaging secrets in the creative person's drunken equivalent of becoming blood brothers, here's probably what I'd mention about it here: "Hey, so I met Neil Gaiman/Amanda Palmer/Whomever, and they were very cool once I got all my squeee over and done with." Because-no offense-that's about all you need to know about that. Everyone's personal life is personal until and unless they choose to make it otherwise. Even the people you like and admire and may in some way, and against all reason, feel you own.

Snark and Insult Mar

19.

2012.

Let's go ahead and get Reader Request Week started, shall we? To begin, this question from SMQ: You have a well-earned reputation for snark and the art of the thought-out-but-blistering retort, but unlike many you usually seem to avoid crossing the line too far into personal attacks (and are even quick to mallet those who do so in comment threads). Where do you see the line between snark and ad hominem? Is it a sharp line or a fuzzy one? Other than raw talent, how do you personally maintain that balance?