incipit vita nova

The Very Mad Richard Dadd

I am finishing a story about the Victorian painter Richard Dadd for A Conspiracy of Shadows, the Book View Cafe all-original steampunk anthology.  This is a picture of Richard later in life.  My story takes place in 1842, before Richard went . . . quite mad.

  Richard Dadd was a Victorian-era painter who was once a very up-and-coming member of the Royal Academy, along with his other friends like Augustus Egg and William Powell Frith.  They called themselves "The Clique" and Richard was apparently the leader, or something very like one.

In 1842, Richard got what for a young Victorian man was an excellent invitation:  he was asked to travel around the world with Sir Thomas Phillips, a solicitor from Wales who had become a national hero due to putting down a "Chartist" riot.  Or rebellion.  Or something - using only a copy of the Riot Act between himself and the rabble's bullets.  Shot, but not killed, Sir Thomas set out on a grand world tour.  In the days before photographs, an artist, preferably an excellent draughtsman, was needed.  For his drawing and painting ability as well as his excellent character and demeanor, Richard Dadd was the one Sir Thomas selected.

It was on this world-wide trip that Richard Dadd - became quite mad.  At some point after traveling through the Sinai and taking a cruise on the Nile River, Richard became convinced that he was a disciple of the Egyptian God Osiris.  This discipleship was of a murderous nature.  He attacked Sir Thomas, considered attacking the Pope during their visit in Rome, and was finally returned home to London, with sunstroke the suspected cause of his strange behavior.  After several visits with his friends that didn't seem all that crazy, Richard's father retired with him to the countryside.  It was there that Richard lured his father into a wood, slashed his throat, and finding that this did not kill him, finished his father off with a knife.  Richard then fled across the Channel, but was apprehended after attacking (unsuccessfully) a fellow passenger.  Richard was then committed to Bethlem or "Bedlam" Hospital for the Insane.  

Richard Dadd is best-known today for his intricate fairy paintings, one of which is extremely famous, the subject of a song by Queen, and may be found in the Tate Museum, called "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke."  Another of his paintings was found on Antiques Roadshow and fetched 100,000 pounds.  The Fairy-Feller doesn't mean "gentleman," I don't think.  I believe it refers to a fairy worker splitting a chestnut for the Fairy Queen's carriage.  Basically, the thing was expressly made to one day be made into a song by Queen.

Here - you may listen to Queen, and view the painting.  

I know rather more about Byron, Shelley, and the rest of them than I knew about Richard Dadd.  My impression after reading his letters and William Powell Frith's commentary was - those fairies were real.  And Osiris is not a gentleman I'd care to meet up with in a dark alley at night.  No sir.  No indeed.  I should keep quite away from that fellow, if I had my druthers.

Location, Location, Lo-- NCIS Los Angeles -- Serial TV killer

I could be misjudging due to the recency of the horror, but NCIS Los Angeles might be the worst television pilot ever aired, where they actually went on to air the series.

Acid, Ecstasy, all these other rave drugs - none can explain the . . . televised object that is NCIS Los Angeles. 

First, it's obvious that it was originally NCIS San Diego, where there actually is a naval base and, as shown in a random scene in this totally random (like, even more random than the gummi bear aliens in Space Chimps) show, "Fleet Week."

How do they pay off Entertainment Weekly?  Pretty well, obviously!  NCIS - the original - did great in its season premiere.  The sequel/spinoff, NCIS Los Angeles, also got good ratings, but I wonder how many suicides it caused among unwary continuing viewers.  I thought this LA Times review was going to recount the plot in its favorable review - but no.  It didn't!  That's because WTF???  They used to pay people off in the 60's and 70's for sure, but . . . ???

A quote, "Writer and executive producer Shane Brennan has worked on "NCIS" for years; he knows what he's doing and how to do it well; the casting is solid, the crimes international. What's not to like?"

LOL!  How about - it doesn't make SENSE and it's obvious it was supposed to be in San Diego?  How about, I can't remember a single character's name except the initial "G" for the Chris O'Donnell character?  How about, I can tell L.L. Cool J would be good and is a talented actor trying mightly to overcome a retarded script and dialog that is less sensical than the SyFy Channel version of Flash Gordon? 

These Naval Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) agents work out of what I think is the San Antonio Winery or something very similar.  They park right at the doorstep of a "secret" entrance that is basically someone's Larchmont or WeHo home.  Then they walk in, and it's suddenly the "winery"-cum-NCIS HQ.  This individual depicted above is Oscar-winning actress Linda Hunt, who has portrayed many roles brilliantly.  Considering Linda is playing Edith Head, the assistant "Q" to L.L. Cool J and Chris McDonnell (who seriously, there is no real way to tell or remember their names - the good black actor who's trying to survive, and the hapless white guy who has to explain he has only a letter for a name and it isn't like "M", "Q", 007 - or Gibbs) - she does an awesome job.

This is the kind of show where the NCIS quartermaster (that's what "Q" stands for in the Bond stories) rolls out the wardrobe rack right off the wardrobe truck and dresses the "main" character we are supposed to "feel for."

OK, look, in the opening scene, the bullet hole in this guy's back looked like a giant zit to me.  And the show did not go uphill from there.

These writers should be taken outdoors and given the "Weird Al" Amish Paradise treatment.  Something - anything.  All I can suggest is that they might want to try the CSI-Miami alternate universe.  This was so bad I want to die.  Worst TV episode I have ever seen.  Poor L.L. Cool J.  He is a good actor - he would be a great addition to the original NCIS - fantastic, sometimes outlandish, but at least you can tell what is going on!!!  Ducky, I think this one's DOA.

Elizabethan Math Problems and Other Delights

"If a train leaves St. Louis traveling at 60 mph, and another train leaves New York traveling at 45 mph, how far will each train travel before they collide in Cleveland?"  Uh . . .

Thanks to fellow SCBWI member Michelle Markel, I've learned that math problems have a long, honorable, and maybe even interesting history.  Michelle's adorable new book is called Tyrannosaurus Math. Michelle obviously does all these marvelous things that I do not do.  Like: book signings, school visits, and  . . .

I'm going to do one today, which is to provide delight.

Susan Boyle was a delightful child!

Out of something negative (people searching for Susan Boyle having Down Syndrome, which she does not have), something delightful: 

MTV Shows

MTV "How's Your News" with differently-abled reporters . . .

And the Elizabethan math word problem is:  "A drunkard drinketh a barrel of beer in the space of 14 days, and when his wife drinks with him then they drink it out within ten days. In what space will his wife drink that barrel alone . . ."

Why, the kitchen, of course!

Skaz is NOT Surprise - it's Gotcha

All these years and I've thought the Russian literary term "skaz" meant "surprise."  The idea that I thought that the term represented was certainly helpful to me, in understanding the delights of twists and turns of plot and character.

According to the "Literary Encyclopedia," this is not what "skaz" refers to.  Instead, "skaz" is a term referring to narration. In the Russian "Formalist" school of criticism, the term was apparently invented to refer to a use of language in narration that had a "storytelling" quality - i.e. a first-person narrator that was telling the story with a distinctive method and voice.  The Literary Encyclopedia refers to Gogol and Leskov, and several 20th Century Russian writers.

I understand these examples as being comparable in English-language literature to Faulkner's narrator ("A Rose for Emily") and similar voice-driven writing.

But my understanding of what I'll now call "gotcha" is more useful.  I watched the 1996 movie Ransom last night.  Not everyone liked that movie - they disapproved of the violence and threats against children that are part of the plot.  Those who did like the movie found its ever-evolving plot addictive.  

The first big "gotcha" that occurs in the film isn't really the kidnapping of hot-tempered airline executive Tom Mullen's son.  There are an escalating series of "gotchas" when, after the kidnapping has become public and Tom has agreed to take the $2 million ransom to an arranged location, he leaves his house and a series of events occur that become the turning point of the movie.  Up until that point, it seems to be a pretty standard child-in-danger story, and since Mel Gibson is starring, one assumes he'll take some type of horrible revenge on the kidnappers while rescuing his son against impossible odds.  That's a story we've seen hundreds of times before.

Here are the series of ever-escalating "gotchas":

• Tom leaves his FBI-filled luxury flat overlooking Central Park with the money, refusing to allow anyone to go with him to the dropoff point (as requested by the kidnappers).
• A car leaves from the front entrance and is beseiged by media vans and paparazzi.  When it stops, the driver looks out - it's not Tom Mullen.
• Cut to Tom, leaving by another exit in a similar car.  Only a small amount of media are there, and one red van doggedly pursues him.
• At the inevitably quick traffic snarl, Tom gets out of his car, opens the trunk (where we've seen the money put earlier) and grabs a tire iron.
• Without a word, he smashes the driver's side window of the van and grabs the keys, throwing them far down the street, then returns to his car and travels on.
• At the next traffic snarl, Tom sees his son's face in a series of televisions in a store window (an overused technique, but . . . what the hey).
• Something . . . happens . . . Tom gets on the phone and says he has a change of plans and orders an employee to get him on the Channel 5 news.
• Cut to disarray back at FBI luxury flat HQ - then to the newsroom.
• Sitting at a newsdesk surrounded by the money, Tom makes his shocking announcement:  he is turning the $2 million ransom into a $2 million bounty on the kidnapper's head.  Anyone who can bring the kidnapper in, dead or alive, will receive the money.  The only way for the kidnapper to avoid this is, Tom says, to return his son alive and unharmed.

Game-changer.  The reason this is such a great, powerful "gotcha" is that it isn't just a mechanical thriller series of plot twists.  Each surprising twist is rooted in the character of Tom Mullen - and in the other characters as well.  The FBI doesn't want Mullen to "go rogue," but it can't control him.  His wife wants him to obey the kidnapper's instructions at any cost, to save her son's life.  Mullen has his own ideas, which lead to the incredible revelation that the kidnapper is no longer calling the shots, and has gone in an instant from a savvy criminal expecting a big payoff for a bold crime, to a man with an enormous bounty on his head.

In SF/F, this type of twist is a little more difficult, because there is the extra layer of story that must be explained or presented related to the fantastic elements.  As an SF/F writer whose work is a little closer to contemporary fiction than some others, I might be able to include this type of "gotcha" more easily.  "Perfect Stranger" has a little of this element, in that I don't think the reader knows exactly what way Gary, the father, is going to go in the end - until the very end.  That's rooted exactly in the story, because Gary himself did not know exactly what he would do until he did it.

In some ways, that's a flaw of some SF/F.  The characters "act" in certain ways because the author is trying to tell a "certain type" of story or make a certain type of point.  Ransom isn't just a taut, exciting thriller, it's also morally ambiguous at a certain level. One is never certain that Tom Mullen came up with the ransom-to-bounty idea because he firmly believed that the kidnappers would kill his son as soon as they got the ransom, or because he did NOT want to pay the ransom and was in a mano-a-mano with the chilling bad cop Jimmy Shaker, brilliantly portrayed by Gary Sinise.  When his wife begs him to take back the bounty, it's really difficult to tell how much of his bravado is based in his belief that his actions are the only way to save his son's life, and how much is stubborn determination to emerge victorious over the kidnapper - a battle of wills with the boy's life as the pawn.  It's things like that which carry a good story over the top to being great.

It's So Hard to Cry With Botox

Listening to the radio on the way home tonight, Kennedy and Suits were making powerful fun of Nancy Pelosi talking about all the bad language back in the 70's in San Francisco that led to violence -- even assassinations.  If you watch the video, it looks even worse than it sounds, and I hadn't thought that to be possible, but . . . it's the botox.  Her voice is sad, choked up, and her face and especially forehead and eyes are barely moving!

So, Kennedy and especially Bryan Suits seemed convinced that Nancy was crying crocodile tears over Harvey Milk's tragic death in 1978 at the hands of jealous, unbalanced former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White - the man who also made the "Twinkie" defense famous. People forget - and I was just a kid at the time - that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone was also gunned down in the attack. The "rhetoric" at the time was from ANITA BRYANT.  Anita received a pie in her face for her anti-gay efforts, and if I'm not mistaken, she was let go as the spokesperson for Florida orange juice for being so outspoken against gay people.  Even worse, Sen. Dianne Feinstein was the person who was familiar with Harvey Milk during those early days.

But no matter what the facts are - it's really hard to cry crocodile tears with botox.  Yet another reason to remember my "no cosmetic surgery" pledge.  I really want to be able to smile, and cry - like a human being and not a "surrogate." Check out this cattery from 2007.  Awesome!

Protect Yourself From Credit Scams

The scary number of credit-related scams out there can be overwhelming.  One of the most serious is credit repair companies that take large sums of money from people who can little afford such expenses.  They promise all types of credit repair, and the truth is - most credit repair that is possible can be done by the customer themselves at low- or no-cost.  By low-cost, I mean the cost of time for keeping accurate records, writing creditors, and pursuing repair. 

I had a chargeoff account on my credit for a period of time that was not mine.  I tried many times to remove it.  What it turned out to be was some sort of bank artifact related to my former husband Mike's and my long, long ago checking account.  It wasn't an unpaid bill, but when it was discovered, bills somehow were sent to an address where neither I nor Mike had ever lived.  The terrible total was around $80.  For this, I was slagged 50 or more points on my credit for a long time.  Finally, after spending quite a few hours on this, I first talked to a horrifying woman in the Bank of America "delinquent accounts" department.  You don't want to have to talk to those people.  Ever.  This bothered me so much that I put my corporate cap on.  I wrote a letter to the President of the Bank of America.  Two days later I received a call from his assistant.  The next day, the horrid thing was off my credit report.  And it did not return, not even to the MacArthur of Credit Bureaus (Equifax).  I call Equifax the "MacArthur" because if there's ever an old account that you EVER had, it will return.  Two, three, four times - maybe more.  I don't necessarily mean any credit mistakes.  In just one example, Equifax "discovered" the information that I had a Target Card back in the dark ages.  They readded it to my credit report, even though I cancelled the card in 2002 or 3 and it wasn't much of an active account to begin with.  What will they add next - the auto loan for my Ford Escort, paid off between 1989 and 1993?

Other really bad scams are payday advance loans which charge exorbitant interest, and people who advertise they can improve your credit through file segregation, which is illegal and can produce terrible consequences for the people who try it.  This is a good article about scams to watch for in brief.  Here is the straight info about file segregation direct from the FTC.

As to scam-busting, I might have vague ideas I might bust some kind of scam someday.  Younger, better, stronger, faster than me has already jumped out ahead of the pack.  These guys are smart, fast, and any complaints they receive merely indicate what an amazing job they did.  Even Meredith and her friends have heard about the ACORN scams, and seen some of the pimp and ho videos.  Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, I salute you.  In the real world, I've never known of anybody to successfully work with ACORN, and never known of a single beneficial project they've carried off.  The only thing I've ever known of that they did with any vigor was the voter registration.  I also worked with voter registration organizations previously, and I wasn't favorably impressed with what I saw and heard regarding ACORN in this regard.  Signing up a person to vote who hasn't done it before is a good thing.  Dragging corpses out of their graves or repeatedly pressing the fingers of convalescent patients in the voting booth?  Not so much.  Prior to busting ACORN, James' previous expose consisted of writing donation checks to Planned Parenthood and filming them agreeing to put the money toward aborting African-American babies.  Niiiice.

This is the way I feel about this stuff now - Can we as a society afford it?  People have lived beyond their means for so very long.  But the first things cut are things that just aren't productive or important.  I watched the "San Bernardino" ACORN video - about half.  It was so horrendously dumb and awful that was all I could take.  ACORN is actually alleging that the big hair woman who was going along with each appalling request and statement of Hannah and James was "playing along."  Riiiite.  I bet if he would have given her a check to abort black babies, she would have agreed to that, too.

And plus - if you're "liberal"?  Don't condone this crap.  This is no more condonable than Fairy Larry's wide stance, after years of persecuting gay people.  It's wrong either way and any way.  None of this is about politics, really.  It's about decency and honesty.  

U.S. Banking System: Kaput?

Having just finished Bank Failures, I am able to share the wisdom that one of the reasons the Canadian banking system is stable and reliable, while the U.S. banking, savings & loan, credit union and other financial services corporation system is, how do they say in Yiddish - verkakte - is that the Canadians originally based their banking system on Scottish banking, while the U.S. chose as its model that which was used by those who so recently had put their leather boot upon their necks, the employers of the infernal Hessians . . . yes, the banking system known and loved by "Mad King George."  Otherwise known as the British system.

The Brits, though they like not to mention it, have suffered nearly as mightily as we have here in the U.S. due to the recent "recession."  I can say from careful study that this is not, as some people say, a depression.  It's also not yet the early 80's, with 21% mortgage rates, a 21.5% prime rate, 14% inflation, and a decreasing GNP, otherwise known as "Thank You Jimmy Carter" or "stagflation."

It's equally hard to feel good about a system that gave us "ninja" mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, and whatever the hell they were doing with Fannie Mae.  Not "helping people buy homes," that's for sure.  More like ripping them off, putting them in debt for life, foreclosing on them and making them homeless, and then sticking the rest of us with the bill.  That's Fannie Mae in a nutshell, and the humiliating reality of FHA mortgages - many of which ended up being written with zero money down, and "signing bonuses" of various amounts that were just tacked onto the horribly inflated mortgage price, which was quickly abandoned and devalued down to nothing - and who cares who was left sitting in the musical chair or holding the bag?  Angelo Mozilo, my hero!  I can't believe I thought the guy was a "success" - six months before the mortgage crisis burst on the scene.

Here is an article with some sound advice from Pepperdine's Graziado School of Business Professor Joetta Forsyth.  And another article with solid information about the differences between the U.S. and Canadian banking systems and the global credit crisis by Peggy Crawford and Terry Young.

What does Professor Forsyth suggest?  Well, biting the bullet on the bad mortgages and not bailing out people who are already far behind on their mortgages.  She suggests it would be best for those people to downsize a little, rent for a while, have a little extra money to enjoy life some for a while, and also save money for the future, and perhaps a home purchase that will be successful.  In other words: common sense.  What I know from writing Bank Failures is that the magnitude of the toxic mortgage loans out there is almost incomprehensible.  The degree to which these were products of the horrifying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac system, which basically enabled throwing any person off the street into a home with low introductory rates soon to skyrocket - and even added "incentives" that the poor sap didn't realize were just getting added onto their mortgage in the end . . . all those people should march to Washington all right.  They should march to Washington and demand that Barney Frank tell them why it was such a good idea to "help" poor people by saddling them with mountains of debt - and not even a house to live in at the end of the line after all that!  Truly, truly shameful and a crying shame.

Mountain of Debt Makes Summiting the 14 Peaks Look Easy

I'm finishing a book about bank failures for Rosen Publishing Group.  This has been interesting and challenging to write.  It's impossible to examine bank failures in depth and not notice other economic facts.

So, for all those politically-invested out there, I have a simple question.  Will President Obama pay your American Express bill?  How about your grocery bill?  Your car repair bill?  Would President Bush have done any of those things?

It really doesn't matter who is President or not.  The Federal debt is mind-boggling.  The national debt, which is comprised of a number of liabilities that outweigh federal assets, grows by $3.9 billion a day according to the U.S. National Debt Clock.  The overall total is approaching $12 trillion.  The US government receives between $3 and $4 trillion each year from all taxes combined.  I earn about $100,000 a year.  So, the national debt is equivalent to my having between $300,000 and $400,000 in debt.  Personally.  I don't know if that would include a mortgage or not, but I do know that the Federal Debt is so large, and has skyrocketed so much in recent years, that much of the debt - is comprised of more debt!

I really don't know why these people would put this type of information, but it's pretty obvious that the sudden increase in "savings" and reduction in credit use isn't due to virtuous behavior, it's due to people flat-out being unable to pay bills or anything else, and the debts being written off as - hold a moment - BAD DEBT.  The more "liberally" inclined the website, the more they downplay the amount of personal, individual debt of consumers in the U.S.  One website grossly misreports the amount of personal debt, then links to the Federal Reserve Board's debt monitoring page. USA Today reports a staggering increase in personal debt, with the average household responsible for $668,621 per person in debt.  Sure, this includes mortgages.  And taxes.  And credit cards.  And everything else.  Of course, this is wrong.  It is wrong right up to the point that the honest bill-paying customer will have such a heavy debt burden, that the mason jar in the back yard is looking better and better.  Or the barter system.

An Unusual Collection of Canine Superheroes and Villains

Like everybody else, I saw the "Why Dogs Hate Halloween" internet meme . . . several times!  My best friend Cathy was really impressed by the spider dog (I use the term "impressed" loosely).  As an animal lover (Cathy is too), it's hard to say whether or not the tradition of dressing one's dog in a Halloween costume is extreme cruelty, or just a ridiculous idea.

I actually found the original photographer - it's true, I have seen this picture myself dozens of times and seen it used as an avatar or to tell a joke.  CA from Colorado took the picture in 2005.  Look for thousands of other great pictures she has taken on Flickr.

However, I can't find the original "owners" of the following amazing canine superheroes - or are they villains?

Count Dogula, and his "bride".  Groom.  Er.  They're both chihuahuas.

Scareee!

Rambo the Terrier.

Dog Vader.  (Another pug!  Boy do they get the bulk of the costume action!).

Long Dog Silver . . . 

Look at their little faces! 

And doggone it - he's gone bananas (pumpkin - Halloween, get it)?

From what I can see, pugs are the most likely dog to be dressed up for Halloween, with chihuahuas running a close second.

Is this practice just silly, or is it cruel?

This animal trainer indicates it's only cruel if the intention is to harm, bully or coerce the animal - but she admits - she has no idea what the animals are thinking (she has a few costumes and outfits for her chihuahua).  Most of these PetCo pet owners don't seem to think it's cruel.  These guys?  Most think it's okay too, with a few vehement opponents.

This mom seems to have spread the fun - or pain? - around quite a bit.

But then . . . 

Sometimes . . . Words just fail.

Yay, Wikipedia!

Thanks to commenter David Carson, I was directed to the Wikipedia Project on Countering Systemic Bias. This official Wikipedia project not only acknowledges the biases that I noted a couple of years ago, and ongoing, it greatly expanded the view of biases, from many different perspectives, using current global population and internet usage statistics .  The Project has already begun to work on improving a broad range of different areas of Wikipedia.  The Wiki Project shows a full awareness of biases and systemic factors, some of which Wikipedia can actively work to counteract, and some of which are impossible for it, or any other volunteer-based organization, to purposely work to counteract.

The Project is sophisticated, responsive - and it represents a giant leap forward for Wikipedia, in my estimation.  Its existence alone means that Wikipedia is aware of its limitations, and has set up a framework for expanding and moving beyond them toward greater inclusiveness.

I guess the question is - is what is important about Wikipedia the compendium of often-useless, sometimes useful, and more-often just-plain-stuff it contains, or is it the people who work on it as volunteers, who they are, and how they work as volunteers, both alone and together? Sometimes internet commentators call this "a community" or "an online community."  Certainly Wikipedia represents diverse, dispersed global community.  It's not perfect; nothing is.

All real Wikipedans should be praised for working on this excellent project on countering systemic bias. As Aesop, I believe, said, "You are known by the company you keep." The group that is working on this project has truly brought Wikipedia some excellent company.  Today for the first time, I saw a female as the subject of the featured article on the front page, in random and sporadic visits over the past several years. Granted, this female could be thought of as illustrative of child marriage, substance abuse, and limited mortality in the 19th century.  But Virginia Clemm Poe was also one of literature's most enduring and beautifully-memorialized women, and her tragic and short life, was the stuff of undying poetry. She was Edgar Allan Poe's wife, who died so very young.