Monday, October 26, 2015

Bullets

  • My mom told me mind blowing news about my grandparents that, in retrospect, is probably quite tame but given that I knew them as fairly traditional people, still shocking. Let's just say their marriage was more... experimental... than I could have imagined.
  • Comedy Central showed, as part of its intensive rerunning, of South Park the "Mrs. Garrison" where Kyle "transitions" to African-American. Given today's political climate, it was a little uncomfortable to watch, but basically predicted the whole Rachel Dolezal controversy. Ten years earlier.
  • HBO On-Demand is re-aring last year's Susan Sontag* documentary this month. I highly recommend it. Even if you're not a fan of her writing, it's a good look at a "public intellectual," something that doesn't really exist these days. (Most writers labeled "intellectuals" are actually ideologues, something that should be mutually exclusive.) She wrote Illness as a Metaphor without even mentioning her own illness. Another thing that would be unheard of in today's culture or public openness.
  • NaNo is one week away. I'm ready. I'm ready by not being so ready, which is kind of thrilling in a perverse way. I have something of a plan, so I'm not exactly pantsing it, but I didn't make an outline this time, just a list of possible chapter titles with a brief synopsis. Okay, yeah, that is kind of an outline, but less of one than I've worked with in a long time, and even when I do write a formal outline, I tend to discard it within the first week.

*Yes, I referenced both South Park and Susan Sontag in the same post.