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catwings-writes-things · 8 months

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do you have a favorite character to write?

That’s such a difficult question to answer, because I love them all for different reasons! So, the short answer is “no,” but the long answer (rambling about why I like writing each of them) is below the cut.

Jon is probably the easiest character for me to write, for the simple reason that I already talk like that. His character voice, word choice, and dark humor and sardonic observations come very naturally to me. It’s also fun to write him when his thinking about something is completely off base—canon Jon is the “not lying, just wrong” variant of unreliable narrator to fascinating effect, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with that.

Helen is fun for the opposite reason: her mode of thinking is so completely alien to me that writing her has me constantly questioning my most fundamental assumptions about the world (and occasionally getting frustrated when I recognize that I’m stuck in an assumption or thought pattern that Helen wouldn’t share, but have literally no idea how to move beyond it). Helen reminds me a lot of one of my dearest friends, and one of my goals in writing this fic was to externalize my efforts to understand—or at least accept and make peace with—her point of view. Well, it’s working. (You know who you are. I love you so much.) And, of course, there’s the eternal struggle that is writing a Spiral creature’s movement and mannerisms. I’m doing my best 😂

Mike is great fun to write for a combination of the above reasons—a lot of his thought processes and style of intelligence is deeply familiar to me, but other aspects of his thinking (and especially speaking) are deeply unfamiliar. I share Mike’s logical/patterns-based intelligence, his tendency to respond to fear by researching the hell out of whatever is frightening him, his tenacity to the point of obsession, his messed-up relationship with pain and his body in general, his horror of the Spiral, and his love of the Vast, especially the sky/heights/falling aspect (the paragraph in Mike’s statement about his feelings on fairground rides is one of the most relatable things I have read in my entire life). However, while we’re both very autistic, he’s semiverbal and I’m hyperverbal with only occasional periods of speech loss. Writing Mike’s dialogue is always a challenge, and one I generally approach by writing out what he’s trying to say and then taking out all unnecessary words and sentences (and then some, depending on the situation and how much time he’s had to think about it, if any). I sometimes forget to do this, and I’m sorry about that. But I love writing Mike because noticeably disabled autistic characters (or characters with any sort of mental/emotional/cognitive disability, really) who are actually characters and not just plot devices are so, so rare in media, to a deeply frustrating extent, and I’m happy to contribute even a tiny bit towards fixing that. Also because he’s awesome and I love him.

Harriet is fun because at this point, she’s basically my oc, but does technically exist in canon, so I do have something to go on. Talking too much more about why I love writing her would be spoilers for upcoming chapters 😈, but for now, let’s just say that she’s full of contradictions, and that, of all the members of the Squad, she’s both the kindest and the cruelest. She’s fascinating and I adore her, and I’m so very proud of how she’s turned out.

Oliver is delightful for several reasons, and one of them is that he’s probably the closest thing this group has to a normal person? Which kind of helps normalize avatarhood in general, both for the readers and for Jon (you can see this most clearly at the end of chapter 2). My joke about Oliver’s character concept is “guy who got appointment-in-Samarra-ed so hard he just stopped driving,” and I really do think that’s at the core of it—Jon is still struggling with his situation and with what he is, to some extent, but Oliver tried everything he possibly could to escape his own and it backfired spectacularly. Oliver has had it driven in again and again that he can’t change anything, that what happens will happen and there’s no point in fighting it, and he’s made his peace with that and decided to be content with his life anyway. Very Stoic of him, in the original Greek philosophy sense. I appreciate that.

Which leaves Karolina. She’s fun to write for a multitude of reasons, including but not limited to her blunt approach to comfort (which, for Jon, tends to be remarkably effective). If I want someone to just say what everyone’s thinking already, it’s gonna be Karolina. Her extremely matter-of-fact style of dealing with problems (and the positive and negative consequences thereof) is fun to explore, and—yes—the fact that someone in-universe can recognize the Dracula parallels brings me an unreasonable amount of joy.

Thank you for the ask, friend! Best!

#the jailbreak squad #the jailbreak verse #asks and answers #anonymous

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frivoloussuits · 7 years

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Suits: What Comes Next?

What can Suits do next, in 7b and 8a and beyond? It’s a question I’ve been thinking about for a while, and while I’ve explored it in fic I think it’s about time I do a proper meta post. Strap in for lots of weird predictions about how Suits can go on, and what the potential pitfalls of each route are.

TLDR: Suits is probably but not definitely doomed. Their safest option, in my opinion, is to decisively break up Donna and Harvey in 7b, give Harvey an absolutely awful time through 8a (maybe 7b and 8b too?), and double down on another ship entirely. This is not their only option; Darvey is still on the table.

Word count: ~3K

Question 1: How can they handle Mike and Rachel’s departure?

First things first, now that Mike’s leaving, the powers that be are losing the core relationship of the show. Assuming the reason Mike’s leaving is that he and Rachel got a better job/life opportunity elsewhere (as opposed to, say, the two of them get killed off), there are two options here:

1.) Brush over Mike and Rachel’s departure as a happy, happy event for everyone involved. The remaining characters move on with their lives with minimal angst. Maybe a new sidekick (Alex? Donna? Louis? someone else new?) fills the Mike-sized hole in Harvey’s plot lines.

Pros: Patrick J. Adams described Suits as a fundamentally “aspirational” show. In his opinion the show can approach darkness, it cannot dwell there. This would allow the show to carry on with its typical plot lines without angst.

Cons: This may feel out of sync with the previous seasons. If everyone can pick up and move on without Mike in a heartbeat, then why were they so dedicated to keeping him around and protecting him for all this time? Also, now that two more members of the original core cast are leaving, Suits is at risk of having too few meaningful plots. Glossing over Mike’s departure would mean dropping a major source of potential drama.

2.) Dwell on the implications of Mike and Rachel’s departure. Harvey’s abandonment issues might come back to the forefront.

Pros: Drama. Tension. Sensible, in-character consequences over the loss of the Mike-Harvey relationship.

Cons: If the show dwells on Rachel and Mike’s departure, so will the audience. And if the audience is upset about the departure, they might end up alienated, sick of the reminders of what’s now missing. Also, as mentioned above, this show doesn’t like serious angst; it might be hard to strike the right tone.

Question 2: How to end 7b?

Patrick J. Adams has strongly hinted that the finale of 7b will include the Machel wedding. 7b is also intended to serve as a backdoor pilot for Jessica’s spin-off show. That’s all well and good, but what happens to our core remaining characters, Donna, Louis, and Harvey?

Suits knows the benefits of ending on a cliffhanger (or some sort of tantalizing promise of new conflict), they've done it every season except maybe 6. I think they have to do this again. Because they’ve now lost half their main cast, they’ll probably try to hook people more than ever and give them an incredibly compelling reason to tune back in. What sort of cliffhanger they might use depends on the answer to . . .

Question 3: What’s the driving tension of Season 8a?

(8b’s also important, of course, but I think it’ll be the ending of the series. And since I don’t have a great intuition for how this show can end without Mike, I won’t make detailed predictions. All I’ll say is that I think at least 2 out of 3, if not all 3, of the Donna-Louis-Harvey group will be happily and stably in love, and I think all three will achieve some level of personal growth. I predict that they’ll all be happy with their careers and that the firm will be doing well. Either that or the firm crashes, in which case Harvey probably throws up his hands and moves out of New York, lol.)

Okay, so fandom loves fluffy slice-of-life stories that don’t have conflict, but mainstream TV shows? Not so much. There ought to be a driving conflict that makes 8a run. I think Suits can have three major types of tension:

External Tension: A mostly-new set of characters invades and raises hell. Examples include the Danbury plot of 6a, the investment banking plot of 4a, and the failed Darby merger from 3.

Pros of external tension: So many options for drama.

Cons of external tension: Meh. Suits has done this a lot already, and how do you top the stakes of Danbury? What new threat can outside characters present that we haven’t already seen? If it’s just that “the firm’s in jeopardy again,” I think a lot of viewers will yawn, but the obvious ways of raising the stakes (disgruntled ex-client attempts murder, someone ends up in the hospital for multiple episodes, Louis makes good on the Daniel Hardman death threat, etc.) would potentially be too angsty and out of place.

Another potential issue is that the end of 7b would ideally introduce this new bunch of external troublemakers, and if 7b’s finale is already packed with the Machel wedding and Jessica’s pilot plots then that’ll be tough.

Old-Conflict-Resurfaces Tension: Oooh, this one could be fun. A decent way for Suits to go out (assuming Season 8 is the end) is to do a fabulous villain team-up. Maybe Daniel Hardman’s working with Travis Tanner, who’s being paid off by Charles Forstman, and so on. More broadly, if Suits can reach into its established rogues gallery and present some old threats as more menacing than ever and weave a credible yet surprising legal plot, that might be a way to go.

Pros: Lots of options for drama, though less than above. Potentially cleaner and more elegant, since Suits doesn’t need to introduce bunches of new settings and characters. If done well, it could viewers guessing all throughout, rethinking old episodes and searching their memories for clues to unravel every new mystery. All in all this could feel like a very fitting end for the show.

Cons: This may be very hard to pull off. It can tip one way and become boring, or the other and become absurd.

Internal Tension: My personal favorite. Something changes among our central trio, and they then generate a driving plot of their own free will.

Pros: Elegant. Minimal set-up (well, no, but the setup is all the character dynamics we’ve learned so well over the past seven seasons). A great way to propel meaningful character change and wrap up the central arcs. I think audiences will care about this tension more than any other kind, because it’s all about Donna, Harvey and Louis, and those central characters are what the general audience cares about most.

Cons: We’ve already seen a lot of Donna, Harvey and Louis. We’ve seen how they react in stressful situations. Pushing them to new limits is hard, there are few events that can still do it. The powers that be would have to be pretty damn careful to keep everyone in-character without just rehashing dramas we’ve already seen.

Question 4: Who is Samantha Wheeler?

For those who don’t know, Katherine Heigl is joining the main cast of Suits for Season 8. She’s playing Samantha Wheeler, a “talented new partner at Pearson Specter Litt who challenges the status quo and will either become the firm’s greatest ally or most powerful enemy.”

It’s possible that Samantha will come crashing in and become the one-woman generator of an “external tension” that drives Season 8a. I’m hard-pressed to come up with what’s so special about this character that she can cause such big waves, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Pros: New drama. New relationship dynamics. If she’s connected via backstory to one or more of the main characters (and she probably should be, otherwise the audience is at risk of just not caring about her), that could cause drama amidst the Donna-Louis-Harvey group. Also! She might provide new romance opportunities, and god knows Suits likes its love stories. If Darvey and Louis/Sheila are both definitively together by the end of 7, I think Samantha is even more likely to have a love interest.

Cons: Things are already changing a lot from 7 to 8. The audience is at risk of 1.) being confused, 2.) being bored because they’ve already seen too much like this, 3.) feeling alienated because this isn’t what they signed up for, and/or 4.) just not caring. Adding a brand-new main character may exacerbate these issues.

Question 5: WHAT HAPPENS TO DARVEY?!?!?!

The powers that be wrote themselves into an interesting corner with the 7a kiss. The Darvey tension’s been simmering for ages, but it’s finally been pushed so far that Donna and Harvey have to confront it. If the Darvey will-they-won’t-they dance isn’t finished by the end of 7, I think audiences will revolt.

The writers are devoting serious attention to the fallout the kiss; the consequences will propel plenty of 7b drama, and I won’t be surprised if Donna and Harvey spend 5.99 out of 6 episodes feuding. That said, by the time the season is over, the Darvey plot should be decided one way or the other to avoid the aforementioned audience revolt. Working under that assumption, there are two options . . .

1.) Darvey gets together in 7b.

I’m going to quote another Aaron (the namesake of Rick Sorkin?) discussing the long-time workplace romance of another fictional Donna: “They are in a tough spot . . . because she works for him. Besides, sexual and romantic tension is, to me, much more fun than taking the tension away by having the sex and romance.” And while I can’t find the article at the moment, I’ve seen a related quote from Sarah Rafferty, where she said that she hoped Darvey would happen in the very last episodes of the show, if it happened at all.

Why might they say this? Because hardcore Darvey shippers may be thrilled to watch an entire Season 8 of canon Darvey, but I think more casual viewers will lose interest. The unspoken will-they-won’t-they tension has captivated viewers for years, and once that’s gone so is one of Suits’ biggest hooks. If the powers that be still want the Donna-Harvey relationship to draw people in, they’d better cook up something really special to replace the sexual and romantic tension.

Donna and Harvey have prepared for this relationship for so long that a lot of the typical sources in television love stories (one of them is jealous, one of them cheats, they miscommunicate, they aren’t familiar with each others’ priorities) would make little sense; they should be past that by now. If there’s any relationship conflict, that would have to be written quite carefully.

Another option is to let Donna and Harvey be happy together and throw conflict at them from the outside-- maybe someone else comes and tries to break them up, or threaten them professionally, and maybe they close ranks and become a wonderful battle couple.

(Personal note: If Darvey gets together, I’d like to see canon unquestionably establish Donna as Harvey’s equal in 7b and 8. I want to see them contributing equally to their relationship. I want to be convinced that they’ll both be happy in the long term, that this isn’t a relationship where Donna sacrifices for Harvey but has to grovel for his support in return, and I think they’re not there yet. Harvey really isn’t there yet. Getting there could generate plot.)

So these are some options for how canon can keep viewers invested through S8, but . . . I bet they won’t be as compelling for the general audience as the 7-season mating dance.

2.) Darvey gets smashed to hell in 7b.

I know I’m the only one, but I think this is still a real possibility!

At this point, Suits is running into two issues. One, it feels overall predictable and unsurprising. Two, it feels like it’s pushing its characters out of character in order to manufacture surprises (see: Harvey’s sudden infatuation with Paula, rule-obsessed Sheila’s sudden willingness to cheat on her fiance). If they can thwart viewer expectations on one of the biggest questions-- will Darvey happen?-- while remaining true to their characters, that could be pretty damn cool.

It’s also a reasonable option, in my opinion. It could generate plenty of plot for Donna and Harvey in 8a, since they might completely burn their bridges in 7b and have to rebuild from scratch, and it also leaves room for a different central romance!

So there’s this ship that nobody talks about. It’s a m/f ship, which means it’s more likely to be canon on this sadly heteronormative show than, say, Marvey. The characters have had compelling plots and interactions from Season 1. They’ve laughed together. They’ve survived drama. They respect, care about and understand each other. They have the same interests and hobbies. They have hilariously sexual conversations. They have literally said “I love you.”

I’m talking about Louis and Donna.

Yes, I’m serious, and so was Sarah Rafferty when she claimed Donna needs someone more emotionally open than Harvey to be her “life partner,” and so was Rick Hoffman when he said, “I just don’t understand how Louis could not be attracted to a woman like Donna.”

Pros of Lonna: Surprises! Drama! I can see this being the internal tension that drives 8a, and hell, I can’t imagine a better cliffhanger for season 7′s finale than a Lonna moment. This wouldn’t be radically out of character-- I’ve been checking, and there’s a surprisingly large amount of foundational material for this ship-- yet it’d massively upset audience expectations and also the existing relationship dynamics between Donna, Louis, and Harvey.

No, I’m not forgetting Harvey. Maybe he doesn’t want Donna himself, but seeing Louis end up with her would upturn everything he thought he knew about the world. Given that Mike’s also leaving and that he might still be dealing with Paula-related guilt, this plot twist would send Harvey reeling, especially if he and Donna are still working out the fallout from the kiss. If he lashes out and screws up his professional life too, then that can generate legal plots as well as personal drama.

Long story short, Lonna is potentially a massive plot generator.

Cons: The big downside of Lonna is that (besides Rick Hoffman and Sarah Rafferty who have been discussing it at least since Season 2) practically nobody ships it. Louis is so often treated as fodder for jokes, it’s possible that audiences just wouldn’t take it seriously. Also, a lot of Darvey shippers would be furious and heartbroken.

Question 6: What’s my ideal season 7 finale?

Okay, I know nobody is actually asking this, but I want to tell you!

Mike and Rachel dance peacefully at their wedding reception, safe in a happy bubble, oblivious to the world burning down around them. Jessica’s in the Plaza lobby, threatening some poor sucker over the phone in a desperate bid to save her political career. Harvey’s locked in the bathroom, fighting off a panic attack and failing, wondering whether he’s sick because of Paula, or because of Mike, or because Donna’s not speaking to him anymore . . .

Meanwhile, Louis and Donna share a sweet, intimate conversation on a hotel balcony that leads to a sweet, intimate kiss-- only to have Donna pull back, gasping as though she’s been burned.

SUITS RETURNS IN FALL 2018.

(I don’t know about you guys, but I would so tune in for that Season 8.)

#suits #harvey specter #mike ross #donna paulsen #louis litt #samantha wheeler #my meta

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jeramymobley · 4 years

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How Amazon Thrives On Being Misunderstood

What are Amazon’s greatest innovations? Drones? Cloud computing? Echo and Alexa? These are impressive; some are even revolutionary. However, I believe Amazon’s greatest innovations are the ones that have changed the basics of competing to the point where they now sound mundane.

My top list of greatest Amazon innovations includes Free Everyday Shipping, Prime Loyalty, and Item Authority. Deceptively simple, Item Authority signed up multiple sellers of the same item to increase item selection, availability, and price competition. It was the “killer feature” that led to Amazon overtaking eBay in the mid-2000s as the destination site for third-party sellers.

What are the common traits each of these innovations share, other than that they come from Amazon? For one, they are all customer experience and business model innovations. They are not really that technical. What they also have in common is the fact that incumbents and industry pundits woefully underestimated their impact on the industry and the bottom line. These innovations were implemented when Amazon was young, small, and neither respected nor feared by the industry the way it is now. Here are just a few examples:

“Amazon is pulling everyone into the gutter to play that [free shipping] game.” ~ Bob Schwartz, former president of Magento and founder of Nordstrom.com

“There’s many moments where a voice assistant is really beneficial, but that doesn’t mean you’d never want a screen. So the idea of [Amazon Echo] not having a screen, I don’t think suits many situations.” ~ Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Apple

“While recent stories and reports of a new entity competing with the three major carriers in the United States grab headlines, the reality is it would be a daunting task requiring tens of billions of dollars in capital and years to build sufficient scale and density to replicate existing networks like FedEx.” ~ Mike Glenn, executive vice president of FedEx

“We do not believe our vendors selling product directly on Amazon is an imminent threat. There is no indication that any of our vendors intend to sell premium athletic product, $100-plus sneakers that we offer, directly via that sort of distribution channel.” ~ Richard Johnson, CEO and chairman of Foot Locker

“When you think about the online versus the offline experience, we don’t need AI in our stores. We have ‘I.’ We have living, breathing, 4,500 style advisors in our stores.” ~ Marc Metrick, president of Saks Fifth Avenue

“What the hell is cloud computing? . . . I mean, it’s really just complete gibberish.” ~ Larry Ellison, executive chair and chief technology officer of Oracle

“I don’t really worry so much about [AWS], to be very blunt with you. We need to worry about ourselves. We’re in a great position.” ~ Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle

All of these public statements from entrenched industry leaders remind me of the classic quote by Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, who in 1943 said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

The most impactful and underappreciated aspect of innovation is challenging common and long-held assumptions about how things work. When you create an alternative to these assumptions, expect many doubters.

Being Misunderstood: The Best Sign Of Disruption

Over the years, as Amazon has upset the status quo and disrupted cozy business tradition after cozy business tradition with innovation, the establishment fought back with mockery and dismissals. In Jeff Bezos’s mind, this is being “misunderstood.” If you are going to innovate, you not only have to be willing to be misunderstood but you must also have a thick skin. To many of its competitors, Amazon makes no sense. “It’s the most befuddling, illogically sprawling, and—to a growing sea of competitors—flat-out terrifying company in the world.” If you aren’t upsetting someone, you likely are not disrupting much of anything:

“One thing that I learned within the first couple of years of starting a company is that inventing and pioneering involve a willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time. One of the early examples of this is customer reviews. Someone wrote to me and said, “You don’t understand your business. You make money when you sell things. Why do you allow these negative customer reviews?” And when I read that letter, I thought, we don’t make money when we sell things. We make money when we help customers make purchase decisions.” ~ Jeff Bezos

Consider the feature Look Inside the Book. In 2001, Amazon launched this program based on a simple concept—the idea of emulating the bookstore experience by allowing Amazon surfers to look at the pages inside of a book before buying. Of course, this required Amazon to house book content in online form on the site, which raised some questions about whether this would expose book content to piracy. Publishers were worried and skeptical. The program would also be very costly. Each book would have to be scanned digitally and indexed, a huge logistical challenge.

Jeff gave the go-ahead for a large-scale launch, recognizing that this was the only way to see whether it would go over with Amazon’s then 43 million active customer accounts. The feature debuted with an astonishing 120,000-plus books. The database took up 20 terabytes, which was about 20 times larger than the biggest database that existed anywhere when Amazon was founded.

David Risher was Amazon’s first vice president of product and store development, responsible for growing the company’s revenue from $16 million to over $4 billion. He described the strategy behind the launch of Look Inside the Book this way: “If we had tried it in a tentative way on a small number of books, say 1,000 or 2,000, it wouldn’t have gotten the PR and the customers’ perception. There’s an X factor: What will it look like in scale? It’s a big investment, and a big opportunity cost. There’s a leap of faith. Jeff is willing to take those gambles.” Ultimately, the publishers embraced the Look Inside the Book program as an asset to sales.

The Value Of Critics

Anytime you do something big, that’s disruptive—Kindle, AWS—there will be critics. And there will be at least two kinds of critics. There will be well-meaning critics who genuinely misunderstand what you are doing or genuinely have a different opinion. And there will be the self-interested critics that have a vested interest in not liking what you are doing, and they will have reason to misunderstand. And you have to be willing to ignore both types of critics. You listen to them, because you want to see, always testing, is it possible they are right? But if you hold back and you say, “No, we believe in this vision,” then you just stay heads down, stay focused, and you build out your vision.

A current example of Amazon being willing to be “misunderstood” is its overall healthcare strategy. By partnering with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase to start the yet unnamed healthcare company headed by Atul Gawande, how will Amazon strive to change healthcare and insurance for their employees? Is their strategy to sell supplies to hospitals? Is it to integrate the PillPack acquisition into a Prime benefit and give customers cheaper prescription deliveries (along with a new book)? Or is it to transform the overall customer experience of healthcare and healthcare insurance and change the cost structure, which is a huge drain on both businesses and employees? Or is it something else? I doubt that Amazon will clarify this in the short-term, and I actually expect that they will add more healthcare investments to their portfolio.

There are two sides to “being misunderstood” to consider. The first is that if your goal is big innovation, in which the customer experience and business model are dramatically changed, then if established stakeholders are not being naysayers, you should be worried. The second side is in planning and preparing your stakeholders, such as investors and partners, for the negative reactions. Amazon, often through the annual shareholder letter, consistently reminds investors that Amazon will look for long-term business results, not sacrifice long-term value for short-term results, and it will be misunderstood, often. Are you willing to be misunderstood?

Questions To Consider

1. When was the last time you did something that benefited customers but upset the traditions of business?

2. What aspects of your customer experience would be different if you started over?

3. What business model innovations could be applied to your industry?

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: John Rossman. Excerpted from his book, Think Like Amazon, 50 1/2 Ideas To Become A Digital Leader (McGraw-Hill)

At The Blake Project we are helping clients from around the world, in all stages of development, redefine and articulate what makes them competitive at critical moments of change through online strategy workshops. Please email us for more.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

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anotheruserwithnoname · 7 years

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New thoughts on The Orville and Star Trek Discovery

This post contains spoilers on both series up to “Cupid’s Dagger” for The Orville and “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” for Discovery. As I’ll probably get wordy, I’ll throw in a page break.

Before the break, though, the tl;dr is The Orville continues to be great (though this week’s episode is a bit controversial to some); meanwhile, approximately three episodes ago, Discovery finally became, for me anyway, proper Star Trek. And the renewal of both series is a cause for celebration.

I’ll start with Star Trek Discovery. Up to and including “Choose Your Pain”, the episode that reintroduced Harry Mudd, I was starting to lose hope in Discovery. It was too dark, too unlikeable, the characters were not gelling either as a team or as TV heroes, the Klingon subplot was - save for some unexpected in-show shipping of two Klingons - dull as an economics textbook. It was fading. And I speak as someone who gave both Voyager and Enterprise more than a year each to find their voice. The “icing on the cake” was having two characters unnecessarily utter the F-word for no other apparent reason than to justify the episode TV-MA rating. I was already saying to people that I gave it two more weeks and then I was probably done.

And then came “Lethe” and something great happened. It felt almost like having Stamets and Tilly drop F-bombs caused the show and its writers to snap to attention and snap out of whatever TV-MA/streaming cliches rut they’d fallen into. Maybe hearing two people in Starfleet uniforms make like Malcolm Tucker made them realize they’d taken things too far. Because all of a sudden we began a run of episodes that truly felt like Star Trek, the characters snapped into place as a team and as TV heroes, the plots were interesting, Michael dropped the woe is me routine (for the most part) and even the Klingon stuff became less boring. OK, the tech is still too advanced, the Klingons look awful, and there are a few other problems, some of which (like the fact it’s a prequel) cannot be fixed ... but the show felt like Trek, finally.

“Lethe” gave us some valuable insight into Sarek and Michael’s backstory. And while I still wonder how they’ll reconcile not having any past reference to Spock having an adopted sister (maybe Sybok will show up and whisk her away somewhere), and the new abilities related to the mind meld are coming close to deus ex machina territory, it still seemed to work. Having Canadian actress Mia Kirschner as Amanda - who resembles both a young Jane Wyatt as well as Abramsverse Amanda Winona Ryder - was a bonus and I hope we see her again.

Then came my favourite episode so far, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”. Hopefully this episode will silence those Discovery fans who keep harping about The Orville borrowing/stealing/revisiting storylines and concepts from Trek considering this episode was basically a remake of the classic TNG tale “Cause and Effect” with a touch of Battlestar Galactica 2004′s “33″ tossed in for good measure - and even hints of Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent”. And it works. Stamets finally became a character I enjoyed watching, and Tyler also became more interesting. Some are complaining about him and Michael becoming an item but, again, this is Star Trek and while TOS never went there, all the other shows had on-board romances. The time loop was intelligently played and out and Rainn Wilson was terrific as Mudd though I hope his cold-blooded killings early in the episode were done with his assumption that time would reset and everyone would be fine - I’m OK with Wilson playing Mudd as a darker character (so far he’s been the best part about Discovery), but making Mudd a cold-blooded murderer crosses the line. It’s also a shame they couldn’t put Mudd in the title of this or the Choose Your Pain episode, as that’s always been a bit of a tradition in the franchise, but they obviously didn’t want to give the surprise of his appearance away.

“Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” was not as much fun as the last two, but it gave us some valuable character development for Saru, making him less of an Odo clone. And the subplot where the female Klingon operative teams up with and then appears to betray Admiral Cornwell was interesting. I think there’s more there than we think. By the way, I’ve been a fan of Jayne Brook since she was in WIOU back in 1990 so I’m glad to see her on this show. I hope they don’t kill her character off.

So, yeah, Discovery suddenly got good three weeks ago (and to be fair, “Choose Your Pain” was a good episode too; they just didn’t need to have the juvenile swearing; I was reminded how in one of Torchwood’s first episodes they had Jack announce he was taking a pee mainly because that was something they couldn’t do in Doctor Who. It just served to cement some folk’s negative first impressions). If it keeps on going this way, it’s going to become appointment viewing for me.

The Orville, meanwhile, continues to go from strength to strength. After the surprisingly grim “Krill”, we had “Majority Rule”, which tweaked today’s knee-jerk “like-dislike” culture. (Don’t let that stop you from clicking that little heart at the bottom of this article, though! 😂) I’ve heard people compare it to Black Mirror. Having never seen Black Mirror, my comparison is actually more towards The Outer Limits. It raised some interesting questions and right after watching the episode a friend sent me a video of Katy Perry doing an “apology tour” type TV appearance for some indiscretion of hers, much like LaMarr has to do in the episode. I enjoyed seeing the crew in (sort of) modern day outfits, too.

Then we had “Into the Fold”, a great spotlight episode for Penny Johnson Jerald (formerly Kassidy Yates on DS9) with the surprising reveal that she’s a single mom raising her two boys on board the Orville. The fact we’ve already been introduced to the concept of families on board a starship both with Bortus and his husband - and in TNG before that - makes it less of an ass-pull than such a sudden introduction might usually appear. And it works really well as a character builder for Isaac as he becomes the boys’ surrogate father when Dr. Finn goes missing. I have some issues with Dr. Finn’s rather violent escape (I don’t think shooting the guy was justified) but the episode holds together well otherwise.

Last night’s episode, “Cupid’s Dagger,” was the first overtly comic episode of the series, and it rubbed a few people the wrong way. The same way comedic episodes of TNG and DS9 often did. (Two decades of brain bleach have yet to wipe away the memory of Quark’s head superimposed atop a woman’s lingerie-clad body. 😱) There are also those who questioned the wisdom of an episode about a Deltan-like race that causes anyone who comes in contact with them to become sexually infatuated airing during a time when so many people are accusing or being accused of sexual misconduct and assault. I won’t go into those arguments. I’ll just say the episode was a very strong character building episode once again which gave some closure to the scene in the pilot where Kelly cheats on Ed, while raising more questions. We also saw some resolution to the Finn and Yaphit relationship (uh ... yeah ... I’ll just leave that with a “no comment”), some great Alara moments, and an interesting resolution to the episode’s B-plot involving preventing a war. We also get to enjoy the first appearance by one of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy co-stars, as Mike Henry appears in a very funny running gag about an alien who wants to start piping elevator muzak into the Orville’s turbolifts.

Next week’s Orville is looking to be another dramatic one, and if the promo images that have been released are anything to go by, it might be an Alara-centric story, and more Halston Sage is never a bad thing.

---

So basically where I sit now is that The Orville is still amazing, a lot of fun, and still gives off classic Trek vibes with a little modern edginess, though “Cupid’s Dagger” probably pushes the show as far as I’d like it to go in terms of the comedy. Discovery, meanwhile, appears to have undergone some sort of slight internal reboot/reset after its initial set of episodes. Which is good because I want to be able to enjoy both shows, both for the remainder of their first seasons, and into next fall, too.

As a side note, it’s been announced that a book on the making of The Orville is going to be published in January 2018: The World of the Orville by Jeff Bond.

A North American DVD release for Season 1 of The Orville has also been indicated on Amazon, though no date has been announced yet. I’m assuming sometime early 2018, though with Season 1 ending in early December there’s always a chance they might try to sneak in a release for Christmas.

As for Discovery, a novel based on the show is already out in Canada and the US and IDW is gearing up to start publishing a spin-off comic or two. No word on a DVD/Blu-ray release. Being a streaming series doesn’t disqualify it from physical release (Netflix issues most of its shows on DVD eventually, with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black usually coming out within months of their release - though I wouldn’t be marking any calendar dates re: House of Cards at the moment) but I wouldn’t expect to see anything until at least fall 2018 assuming they release the complete Season 1 at once.

#the orville #star trek discovery

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mst3kproject · 7 years

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Cat-Man of Paris

The first thing that strikes you about Cat-Man of Paris is the damned title. It sounds like somebody was trying to cash-in on Werewolf of London as transparently as The Wild Wild World of Batwoman was trying to cash in on Batman, but that's actually not the case – Cat-Man of Paris was made ten years later, and the story's not all that similar. Then you see that the cast includes Carl Esmond from Agent for HARM and start to think of the movie in MST3K terms. Finally, you actually watch the thing, and discover that the film itself is fucking bizarre.

It's 1895 or thereabouts, and a series of terrible murders are happening in Paris. Oddly enough, they're all of people whose existence was somehow inconvenient to rising literary star Charles Regnier. The first victim was a lawyer working to prove that Regnier's latest book contains government secrets that he must have learned illegally. He's found dead under a tree not far from where his cab driver left him. The second is Regnier's ex-fiancee Marguerite, who took the breakup rather hard. Inspector Severin suspects that Regnier himself is the murderer and sets out to prove it, but the Prefect of the police, backed up by an ancient astrological text, has a theory of his own. He believes the murders are the work of the legendary Cat-Man!

After the first murder, the police are looking at a dollhouse model of the crime scene and discussing the circumstances of the case, and the Prefect simply decides that if it looks like a cat clawed the victim, then it must have been a Cat-Man! There's no giant pawprints, no shed fur at the scene, no suspicious hairballs by the body... the injuries themselves are all he has to go on and his first theory is an ailouranthrope! The other men at the meeting think this is ridiculous, and I can imagine Mike and the bots having all kinds of fun with it. They would probably make a running joke out of the Prefect's evident conviction that all crimes are committed by Cat-Men. Unexplained murders? Cat-Man. Thefts? Obviously a Cat-Man, why do you think they're called cat burglars? Vandalism? Gotta be a Cat-Man, cats are always peeing on things and scratching the furniture. Naming a pig Napoleon? When was the last time you saw a cat respect anybody's rules?

Regnier's best friend, Henri Bouchard, also comes to believe that Regnier is a murderous werecat. Rather than wanting him apprehended, however, Bouchard decides to smuggle Regnier into Spain. There he can hide, and the world will not be deprived of his literary genius! What do a few innocent victims here and there really matter if the killer also writes really gripping legal drama? I am all for disconnecting the work from the author, but talent does not excuse straight up doing terrible things. Rosemary's Baby is a pretty good movie, but Polanski still belongs in jail.

Then there's the implication that these events are going to have dire consequences for all of France, maybe all the world... but the movie never tells us what those are. The Prefect hires an astrologer, who tells them that the Cat-Man is an omen of doom. He stalked the streets of Rome during the persecutions of the Christians and attended upon the coronations of tyrants like Ivan the Terrible. The revelation of the Cat-Man's psychic powers (by the time this comes up, the movie is so deep in bullshit that trust me, you'll just accept it) suggests that he is in fact an intentional troublemaker, not only portending chaos but actively causing it. The final reveal only makes sense of we assume that the Cat-Man was deliberately sent, by God or Satan or The Universe or something, to bring those secrets out into the open, and his history tells us there will be earth-shattering consequences.

But at the end the Cat-Man dies, the hero kisses the girl, and the credits roll... and that's it. What doom was he portending? People talk about 'the secret trial of Louis Chambret' as if it's very important, maybe something along the lines of the Dreyfus Affair, but we never learn any details. Since history tells us that there was no tyrant or religious persecution in France in the late 19th century, I can only assume that the government successfully banned Regnier's book and threw him in prison. Kinda puts a kibosh on that whole 'happy ending' thing. Either that, or the writers just straight-up forgot what their movie was about by the time they got to the end.

Even if that were indeed the Cat-Man's goal, his way of going about accomplishing it doesn't make a lick of sense. The Cat-Man says he wants to protect Regnier – that's why he killed the lawyer and the ex-fiancee, either of whom could have ruined Regnier's reputation. Fine... but why does he later attack Marie, the girl Regnier left Marguerite for? If Marguerite was a threat to Regnier's happiness, wouldn't killing Marie put a much more lasting damper on it? And why the hell did the Cat-Man go to such trouble to frame Regnier? Why dress like him? Why make sure nobody knows where Regnier is while the crimes are happening? Even if Regnier's blackouts are somehow essential to what the Cat-Man is doing, why not make sure he has them in public places with lots of people around, so that he'll at least have an alibi? And why, in Bast's feline name, did he leave Regnier's gloves at one of the crime scenes?

But that's just the big stuff. Cat-Man of Paris is a sort of weirdness fractal, in that as you look closer, it just kind of keeps getting stranger and stranger in tinier and tinier ways. Take, for example, the moment when it attempts to convince us that there is a twelve-foot housecat actually wandering the streets of Paris, only to pull back and show us a miniature street being used by the police to talk about the crime scene. This is obviously the same miniature that was used as a backdrop in several previous scenes and it appears somebody really wanted that 'giant cat' shot in the movie because it would be far more plausible for the police to use a map in this scene. Why was there a cat in the police station anyway?

Then there's the two points at which the movie tries have an action scene, both of which are ruined by the setting. There's a chair-breaking, man-throwing barfight that would not be at all out of place in a Western but is very out of place in a high society Parisian restaurant! Then there's a car chase of sorts, but in elegant horse-drawn carriages along tree-lined roads in the genteel countryside! I'm sure there must be a way to do these things right even in the Belle Époque setting, but the way Cat-Man of Paris did it is just laughable.

There's the fact that the Cat-Man commits his murders in a top hat and opera cloak. This almost makes sense if you assume, as one does for most of the movie, that the Cat-Man either is Regnier or is trying to frame Regnier. The murders happen on nights when Regnier was out on the town, dressed in formal wear. If the Cat-Man doesn't want Regnier blamed, it makes no sense at all. Related is the scene in which Marguerite, seeing a man in formal dress, invites him into her carriage on the assumption that it's Regnier and then delivers a soliloquy about the state of their relationship while never once looking him in the face and realizing she's picked up a murderous Cat-Man instead!

There's the series of hallucinations that precede Regnier's blackouts. These are of lightning strikes and stormy seas, and end in the image of a black cat on a black background, which in black-and-white film looks like a cat face just floating in the dark. It's meant to be creepy but the cat is clearly a young kitten and even in this presentation it's adorable. Besides the kitten, what do any of these images mean? The other explanation offered for Regnier's disturbed mental state is a relapse into some kind of fever he caught while travelling in the tropics, but there's nothing particularly tropical about any of the things he sees. There isn't even anything particularly feline, besides the simple fact that cats don't like lightning or water. I don’t get it. I don't get any of it!

Beneath all this weirdness, the movie is plenty bad in more traditional ways, too. The dialogue reminds me of The She-Creature, in that almost all of it is clunky exposition that nevertheless somehow fails to ever explain what the hell is going on. Sets and costumes are nice but not particularly memorable, and anachronistic in the way old period movies often are, such that it's somehow more obvious the movie was made in the 1940s than that it was set in the 1890s. No two actors are able to agree on what a French accent sounds like. Special effects are for the most part wisely avoided, but the movie must eventually show us what the Cat-Man looks like. The makeup is onscreen for only seconds but is predictably terrible.

The fine folks at Ain't It Cool News thought Cat-Man of Paris was slow and tedious and needed more monster. They're kind of right, but I also think they weren't paying enough attention. I mean, there's a book with nothing written in it. There's that ridiculous fucking giant cat scene and the bit that will have you yelling at the screen, look to the right, you bedazzled nitwit! There's a plot point that turns upon a creepy artist who likes to draw women without their permission. I mean yeah, the movie's slow, and although it's only an hour long you do find yourself wondering if it's over yet, but there's plenty of DIY-MST3K material here if you only take the trouble to look for it.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #catman of paris #40s #just fuckin weird

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shesouttasight · 5 years

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i’m talking openly abt the danny thing again but you can scroll past/not click read more obviously, it is your choice and i most likely will drop it after this, but i had it on my mind because i still see posts/comments about it ✌️

i’ll try not to bring it up again but i know i lost followers and maybe mutuals or people i wanted to be friends with ver the Danny Discourse,

so i’m just reminding you that just because i’ve accepted his apology and truly believe he has changed over the last three years to not be that person anymore, i will not be upset with you if you don’t want to interact with my danny art or even me at all. you are obviously allowed your own feelings and opinions, and this issue is not something cut and dry. islamaphobia/etc are serious issues. i understand.

full and maybe obvious disclosure if you follow my insta, i’m white. so i was raised, whether intentionally or not (my dad was not super/outwardly islamaphobic or racist, he listened to a lot of blues so i wasn’t raised at home with any negative feelings towards people of color thankfully, but he did have certain biases or prejudices ingrained in him that reflected that society as we knew it had trained into him. and in a lot of places, like Small Towns, like maybe a place starting with an M, it still does) with a faulty and tbh mean and uncaring belief system, even if i also did not express it the majority of the time. (this does not excuse me btw!) you may be lying to yourself to say that you have never had any thoughts that were not entirely nice and loving and accepting of people who were not your ethnicity or religion, especially if you are white and were raised in america. (i only say america because i have never been outside of my country, so i cannot speak for other places. also i was in first grade when 9/11 happened so you can imagine what sorts of things adults were telling me at the time.)

but people are capable of change. we can unlearn these things, like i was able to Really begin that process myself in the later years of high school (around the same grade/age group as Danny was if i’m remembering correctly) because people were being open with me and discussing these things and i saw people being called on their mean and really untrue or prejudiced comments and thoughts and actions, all around me.

I am so thankful that I was able to be open to change, but it can take some people longer. sometimes they have to get away from their small town or prejudiced family/whatever else first. this doesnt mean you can’t call them out/correct them though. that is really important. that is helpful for society as a whole.

but i dont know about going back multiple years in someone’s timeline just to find some dirt? but again! i dont know! this maybe wasnt meant as that! they may have not set out for that! i am not super versed in the whole situation, i’m not super steeped in the actual fan discussions/interactions. i dont even know if the person immediately went in to “oh my god drop him!!” mode or what, or if fandom just jumped on it right away. i have zero clue. i do not want to make assumptions.

would i have liked danny to have gotten to saying somehing quicker, obviously, but he did eventually. he could have worded it better i think too. probably had to talk it over with whoever their PR person is/manager? but i’m not sure. he may have just been freaked out and didn’t know how to phrase it. i do not know.

anyway. just try and remember that people can change their viewpoints. ESPECIALLY between being a kid/teen into being an adult. but also, do not let them slide if they say something currently that is shitty and hasn’t been apologized about. just try on your initial calling-out, to think critically about how you want to go about it. i totally get that passions can run high though. especially if you ARE the specific type of person who is being talked negatively about. (try and remember also that you shouldnt talk over the people the comments or actions are actually in reference to, if you are not a part of the group. like i went to a march for Mike Brown and various people of color were passing around a microphone before the march began, and someone who was not a part of the affected group took it to make an announcement that had nothing to do with what the march was about. do not do that. please. this being said if you are a part of the affected groups and you need to tell me something/correct me about anything i’ve said in this post, i would like to hear it.)

obviously this doesnt apply to like, rapists and pedophiles and shit like that. and depending on their age/level of aggression about their beliefs, maybe not even apply to being islamaphobic or racist etc. each situation is more than capable of being different. how they react to you calling them out can be a factor too. like people trying to blame their prejudices on like... medications etc/try to make people forgive them without any apology and commitment to change, because it “wasn’t really their fault, blank MADE them do it/they were just RAISED that way, so they cannot change and shouldnt be expected to!”

god this post is a mess but it’s like 2 am sorry.

basically, if you’re uncomfortable with my stance on the situation, obviously go ahead and unfollow/don’t interact with any of my danny-related posts, if you would not like to.

i respect your feelings. passion about seeing people changing for the good of all the world, is a good thing.

i hope you have a good day!! ✌️🌻💛

#sorry that im not tagging this if you have his name filtered out #i just dont want to push my stuff into the tags #this is meant for current//past/prospective followers

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joejstrickl · 4 years

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How Amazon Thrives On Being Misunderstood

“Amazon is pulling everyone into the gutter to play that [free shipping] game.” ~ Bob Schwartz, former president of Magento and founder of Nordstrom.com

“What the hell is cloud computing? . . . I mean, it’s really just complete gibberish.” ~ Larry Ellison, executive chair and chief technology officer of Oracle

“I don’t really worry so much about [AWS], to be very blunt with you. We need to worry about ourselves. We’re in a great position.” ~ Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle

Being Misunderstood: The Best Sign Of Disruption

The Value Of Critics

Questions To Consider

1. When was the last time you did something that benefited customers but upset the traditions of business?

2. What aspects of your customer experience would be different if you started over?

3. What business model innovations could be applied to your industry?

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: John Rossman. Excerpted from his book, Think Like Amazon, 50 1/2 Ideas To Become A Digital Leader (McGraw-Hill)

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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glenmenlow · 4 years

Text

How Amazon Thrives On Being Misunderstood

“Amazon is pulling everyone into the gutter to play that [free shipping] game.” ~ Bob Schwartz, former president of Magento and founder of Nordstrom.com

“What the hell is cloud computing? . . . I mean, it’s really just complete gibberish.” ~ Larry Ellison, executive chair and chief technology officer of Oracle

“I don’t really worry so much about [AWS], to be very blunt with you. We need to worry about ourselves. We’re in a great position.” ~ Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle

Being Misunderstood: The Best Sign Of Disruption

The Value Of Critics

Questions To Consider

1. When was the last time you did something that benefited customers but upset the traditions of business?

2. What aspects of your customer experience would be different if you started over?

3. What business model innovations could be applied to your industry?

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: John Rossman. Excerpted from his book, Think Like Amazon, 50 1/2 Ideas To Become A Digital Leader (McGraw-Hill)

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/how-amazon-thrives-on-being-misunderstood/ via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

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athertonjc · 6 years

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Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden by Allen Bush

Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.

A few weeks ago, Benjamin had a sign posted on his property in Lincoln, Nebraska that warned him about the public nuisance he had created. He won the fight to keep his front and back yard prairie, but this got me thinking.

It seemed like a good time to share our exchange. Portions have been edited and expanded.

Onward Benjamin.

I wrote my book to make folks as uncomfortable as I felt. I wrote it to question horticulture, landscape design, and all environmental movements. I wrote it to invigorate the discussion and get us to grapple with humanity in ways we avoid in order to protect ourselves from the reality of our lost love. I wrote it in order to unearth aspects of environmentalism I thought weren’t explored enough. I wrote my book out of depression, fear, and anger in order to discover a strength we all possess — the ability to go against the force of history and culture and risk some aspect of ourselves we assumed was better for us. Gardens are places of activism in a time of mass extinction and we need to start using them as such. And if gardens are art, if that’s the primary viewpoint about them that we’re stuck with, then remember the long tradition of art based in activism and making folks uncomfortable for a purpose.

March 2018

Hi Benjamin,

I apologize for being slow to read your book, but I’m glad I brought it to the top of my book pile.

I thoroughly enjoyed A New Garden Ethic.

I worried at the outset that it might be full of redundancies, but when there were similar claims, “We proclaim ourselves right in a wrong world…” (p.56), each new argument augmented your case. Rarely did I feel like you were talking down to me. On occasion, there were annoying passages, such as, “Native plants are a threat to an entire Western culture…(p 59).

But here’s what I got out of your book.

A garden isn’t nature

Our values screw us up

A new garden ethic is needed

Surprisingly, I enjoyed your bits about “pretty” and “beauty.” It reminded me of an undergraduate course in Philosophy of the Mind. Your subject is complex but well written. However, I still like “pretty” and don’t agree that “pretty,” as a premise, need be “arrogant.” I don’t think I’ve ever gardened for “human supremacy.” I was heartened, when you briefly backed off and said, “Of course a garden must be pretty.”

“Pretty” concerns me because that’s how we primarily judge the worth of a garden or landscape — I just want us to redefine gardens, especially in the context of mass extinction. What is pretty to the silent majority on this planet, to wildlife? I don’t think many of us garden for human supremacy in a conscious way, but when we go outside and say “I want this maple tree right here” we are practicing a form of supremacy since we are placing our desires over or onto the landscape, whether we’ve researched the tree and ecosystem or not. Now, I’m not explicitly saying such actions are good or bad, per se. I’m saying we must think more critically about our actions, and that if we don’t we are propagating an arrogance that has led us to the assumption we are at the top of the pecking order and can do no harm. This is what’s created a 6thmass extinction — privileging ourselves over other species and landscapes. We do it every day in small, subtle ways and in massively overt ways.

I was glad to read the chapter: More than Native Plants. Your sentence on p. 52 is magnificent: “Every place we touch is a garden, no matter its size, and the economic, aesthetic, and emotional lessons we learn in one landscape are practiced in others.”

Good stuff on feelings: denial, grief and loss.

And, more good stuff: wisdom is evolutionary (p.66); “ethical amnesia” (p. 78) and “compassion fade” and “psychological numbing” (p.81)

This was my favorite chapter to write and research, chapter three; it’s the heart of the book, and I think out environmental crisis (and other crises, like race, gender, guns, etc). There’s a lot of psychology at play in how we view ourselves, one another, and the world around us. There’s a lot of guilt and shame. There’s a lot of self-defense that’s totally genetic and human and natural that we have to understand, identify, and process more thoughtfully. For example, when someone proposes native plants instead of hosta, it’s easy to feel defensive because we’re being exposed to new concepts that both feel constrictive and carry greater ramifications for the environment, and those ramifications influence how we perceive ourselves as acting or thinking ethically. Change is hard — learning new ideas is hard (especially when they go against the cultural / social default). Emotionally and psychologically evolving as fast or faster than the changes we are forcing on the plant is really hard, if not nearly impossible.

I wish you’d go easy on red cedars (p.79). I love red cedars!

But your red cedars aren’t aggressive thugs, right? I like them, too, but boy do they destroy our prairies. It’s all about regional context, and in the U.S. there’s lots of nuance. We burn trees in Nebraska, we don’t hug them.

And there are the useless plants… I don’t agree with your statement: “Gardens composed of both native and exotic plants constitute a precarious balance.” (p. 83) I am NOT grief stricken, although you might argue I’m in denial.

Yes, I would argue that. Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and processing grief is both an exercise in preserving the self and accepting the new self that is forming. It’s a conundrum we carry into our landscapes — our emotions dictate a lot of what we do behind our fences.

I love daffodils and peonies, among many other non-beneficial plants. I get your point and respect your radical approach. I know you don’t think there’s a perfect world as long as humankind is here on earth.

Oh I wouldn’t go that far. I firmly believe humans can be part of a thriving, balanced, biodiverse global ecosystem. But as is — given our extraction-based cultures that privilege humans — it’s not working. And the argument that nature will find a way is sort of bogus — I don’t want to live, and I don’t want my kids to live — in a world where nature is in the process of finding its way. Drought, famine, disease, dirty water, no fish, plastic in every bite we take… We could still be in a relative Goldilocks era if we woke to the world right now.

I’m glad you threw a bone to the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)for promoting a planting spectrum that includes a large % of native plants.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to plant challenging exotics and natives that I am curious to grow. I will endeavor to try and be more attentive to what’s under foot and around me.

You’ve inspired me.

I’ve got tons of natives, even a faux prairie, but I’m a one-trick pony. I’m a plantsman, far from a naturalist. You’ve encouraged me to dig deeper. Microbes are in my future.

Go go go Allen! We’re all taking steps even if I wish (and other species wish) they were much larger and were at more of a brisk jog’s space, if not a hard sprint.

My favorite chapter was Urban Wildness and Social Justice. You made me think of Thoreau leaving Walden Pond to take his laundry to his mom.

“(If we expect to be selfless”… p.120). Louisville needs to work harder (p. 125). My friend, Louisville tree activist, Mike Hayman is planting trees as fast as he can. Mike is the role model I suggested for you. Talk about selfless!

I hope you’ll keep pushing harder, even when you hit headwinds.

It is very hard because it seems that all I hit are headwinds; such is the role I’ve apparently chosen for myself.

I know you’re working your way toward your dream of your own prairie compound.

Paradise?

But don’t turn your back on the people, and the soulless suburban gardens, you might leave behind.

On the other hand, an ascetic life has some appeal.

I still design urban and suburban meadow gardens for clients, some of whom are removing their front lawns. I am desperate to live on a prairie away from mowers, to create an oasis among the corn and soybeans. I don’t think I’d live ascetically, only as a way to restore and revive my soul so I could have the energy and focus to ramp up to get back into the fray. I am a massive, massive, massive introvert, and it’s still going take me a lifetime to discover how that’s a strength and not a liability.

While I was reading your book, I was also reading a book of essays by Wes Jackson, whom I admire tremendously. Your earnestness reminds me of Jackson.

As I have argued, I think your most convenient prey (prairie novitiates?) might be your neighbors. They can’t be more intransigent than the rest of built America. You could do prairie grass roots door-to-door?

Have you seen my yard? https://www.houzz.com/projects/1968383/front-yard-makeover

I know you’re working your way, eventually, toward your own prairie farm. If you do, I worry you will be turning your back on the people and the wretched suburban gardens you leave behind. However, I understand. Life as an ascetic has always had some appeal for me.

Can you become both a missionary—hunker down and save souls in the suburbs—and escape, as Thomas Merton did, to a cloistered outpost and write down, as it was said about Merton, every thought you have. (You’re a very good writer!)

Merton could be as petulant as he was gifted. He remained a constant pain in the ass to his abbot at the Abbey of Gethsemani.

Maybe you will become the artist, activist, pain in the ass and save souls.

I hope so! We all need to be bigger pains in the ass. Especially if those asses are the right ones (you know who I’m talking about).

You’ve got options and a bright future.

You’ve written an absorbing and provocative book that reminded me of the cultural unraveling that Wendell Berry described in Unsettling of America.

That’s high praise indeed! You know I’m a Berry Fan. Thank you, Allen, for an insightful and warm conversation. Let’s have more of these in the garden world.

Photos courtesy of Benjamin Vogt and Monarch Gardens. A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Futuremay be purchased at Monarch Gardens.

Time to “Rethink Pretty” in the Garden originally appeared on Garden Rant on June 13, 2018.

from Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2018/06/time-to-rethink-pretty-in-the-garden.html

#Garden Rant

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