Oh, okay, well, let’s talk like a pirate. I believe some of the pirates here are saying “Oooooooo.”
And, what a coincidence, so am I!
Edited to add: This is the new Captain Morgan commercial?!
What the fuck? Where is the nakedness? Where are the flirty smoldering looks? Where is the “I welcome your desire of me” dynamic? People, I fear that Captain Morgan, the company, is going to ruin Captain Morgan, the man I want to lick in public.
1. Color me completely unsurprised that Mike Tyson believes a woman might need to be fucked in a way she might not agree with as a means of threatening her. I guess I’m supposed to find that funny because Sarah Palin deserves to be run down, but I do not. I find it gross and, as stated, unsurprising.
3. I agree with Jay here, but I think there are two other things to point out. A. If churches could do more, presumably at least some of them would already be doing more, since people’s lack of healthcare is a huge issue. And yet, here we are. People don’t have insurance and they die because they don’t have insurance. If more people don’t have insurance, churches aren’t going to be able to magically do more than they do now. But also B. When I have participated in this conversation in the past with Christians, I sometimes feel like they are angry that they’re being cheated out of chances to be charitable. Like if the government steps in to make sure everyone has health insurance, some Christian is getting shafted because he or she doesn’t have the opportunity to give charity to someone. But it’s not the government’s responsibility to make sure that Christians have enough to do. And it seems obvious to me that this could get into some church/state issues. Hell, it probably already does. Christians should be nervous about the idea that the government would decide anything was the church’s job and not the government’s, since that, by definition, includes the government deciding what’s the proper role of the church.
4. I really loved this interview, even if it ends on a note of “We’re all going to die.” Hint to people worried about secular and sacred apocalypses: we are all going to die. Just probably not at the same time.
5. I have now been convinced to read the Sookie Stackhouse books, which I believe is the first indication that I’m using my library card for evil as well as good.
I’ve been thinking about this Sue Allen project all wrong. I’ve been thinking of her as a witch, using her mediumship as a way to interact with familiar spirits, like, say, The Thing.
But, no. She and Ben would be ghost hunters. She’s the medium. He’s the do-hickey makers. Sue’s brother-in-law, Edmund Baxter, is the skeptic (which I’m kind of equating with The Guy Who Knows How the World Works) who becomes a true believer after his own encounter. And then Sue’s sister, Edmund’s wife, who is the second of Sue’s sisters he married, which is cool because he is the second Baxter brother she’s married. I’m not sure what her role is, exactly. Possibly just useful pragmatist.
In real life Edmund and Ben died within a month of each other back in the summer of 1910.
I still think I want my fake Overton in there. But here’s the thing that I am waffling back and forth over. It seems obvious that I need a fake Overton for a villain, if I want to have an Overton, because I’m not writing a straight-up fictional biography of anyone and it seems like it would be unfair to a lot of folks in town who are related into the Overtons to say “And this ancestor I picked at random is actually an evil jerk!”
But is it really fair then to say to the Baxters and the Perkinses and the Allens, “And these ancestors of yours I picked are actually their own Scooby gang!”?
And yet, it seems like, if you don’t use their real names, then you’re not doing your part to add to the legend, you know? The second The Bell Witch is The Smith Witch and it takes place in Bates, Tennessee, not Adams, then a lot fewer people remember the Bells or the witch. It becomes a folktale, not a legend.
I didn’t fret this much over A City of Ghosts. I don’t know why. Maybe I should have. But it seems to me that, if it were immediately obvious, with just a wink and a nod, that I was talking about the Boyles, but I meant the Allens, that’d be one thing. But these are folks whose status as great occultists has pretty much faded from our collective memories as a city. Then it seems like part of the fun is to say, “Yeah, I made this up, but these were real people and their lives were interesting and worth learning about.” It’s a way to keep people a vital part of the community, even a hundred years after their deaths.
But is it also rude? And is it being rude a reason not to do it anyway?
I’m not sure.
“I’m not mature enough to live in a world where people are constantly talking about Albert Pujols.”
“Shut up. Albert Pujols is bad-ass.”
“But I need them to pronounce his name ‘Puh-jools’ or something is all I’m saying.”
“Pujols is the greatest. I hope you’re not attacked for your stupid opinion.”
“Nice. I would only want you to be attacked by the greatest Pujols. No lesser Pujoles for my brother.”
“Thanks.”
Tiny Cat Pants 