Though you claim non-pineyness, you sound pretty piney. Perhaps you are secretly piney? Or occasionally piney? Or maybe you aren't really piney but self-identify as piney. In any case your participation in our little club is acceptable. I think we can agree about that… Show of hands? We encourage you to participate. We are all conical and soft-grained here. We bear cones and we hope you can bear with us. Forgive our sappy humor. Welcome.
If you want me to, I'll talk to my Italian friend, Gepetto, and have him wish upon a star for you to become a real boy. It has worked for him in the past at least once. In the meantime, stop lying and put on some pants, peckerwood!
Due to monoecious cone-baring tendancies, there is no peckerwood here. So I ask: what purpose pants? Why pants? Who needs britches when you are finally free?
This explains why the absolute best writing is from middle-aged white men whose only characters are middle-aged white men. Big mystery cleared up! Seriously though, this is your best selfie yet and I literally lol-ed for quite a while. I like to take a peek now and then if I need a laugh. Have you really caught flak for writing about characters unlike yourself? What is wrong with people? Was it the fairies? Did you somehow misrepresent or stereotype them?
Thank you for laughing at my stuff. I think you know I have a complex about people not understanding it when I'm trying to be funny. The fact is I'm mainly giggling when I write, and I guess that's the main reason I still do it. Is it so weird to be very fond of your own jokes? Your questions are good ones and I almost think these could help me get into a longer piece if I'm up to it. The word "appropriation" seems to have scared the hell out of a lot of fiction writers, partly because it's so easy to be accused of misrepresenting another sex/race/gender/community, and it's impossible to defend yourself against subjective criticism. There are so many experts about everything these days as I'm sure you know. My first personal experience with this came from a writing workshop that I attended for years. Ethnic appropriation was a grievous sin there. One of our members was actually a professional Sensitivity Reader, which was a vocation I had not known about before. (This was a few years ago.) She was always pointing out racist faux pas by white writers that were almost certainly never intended. Accidental misogyny was also a common pitfall. This revealed the size of the mine field to me. A misstep step can cause you to lose a leg, or worse, an entire chapter. Then, when I tried to publish the nature preserve I spent many hours looking into literary agents, most of which I'd honestly say, state right up front that they're mostly interested in voices of disenfranchised and marginalized people as well as stories by women about women. Without precisely spelling it out, white males are not on any literary agent's "wish list," and a white male writer without a track record better come up with a damned good novel that treads softly wherever ethnic, cultural, sexual misrepresentation may possibly arise. I think to some degree this is what's pushing so many writers into fantasy as a way to avoid these issues and maybe that sent me into that direction with Nature Preserve as well. Added to that, I recently had a friend (who is published) tell me, I shouldn't include a scene with overweight black policewoman in one of my favorite stories even though it was based on a real experience. That annoyed me and made me feel again that my perceptions are worthless in the brave new world of american literature. About the fairies: Maybe I screwed up calling them fairies. I invented other names for them but I thought calling them fairies was funny especially since they were so unfairylike. I mean, a fairy who's a conceptual body-artist? No fairies are yet to send in complaints. But no agents or publishers have asked to read my manuscript either.
This brings to mind Nadine Gordimer, a white South African woman who wrote a novel called My Son's Story which is about primarily black men. It's a fantastic book. Perhaps you are familiar with it. Would this book be published if she submitted it today as an unknown writer? What great works are we missing because of political correctness?
Having nothing to do with the publishing world I had no idea it was so bad. Now I know. Is this why it's so hard to find good books these days? Is it believed that policing misogyny in fiction will result in less of it in real life? It's certainly not working yet. I would say it's gotten much worse in the last few years.
Well, hang on a sec. You have to account for sour grapes in a lot of what I say and not draw very broad conclusions. A lot of people would say, in reaction to white males having difficulty being published, it serves them right. Of course I reject the idea of retroactive punishment (not to mention that being lucky and talented enough to get published can never be considered the fault the artist). There will always be bias against somebody and I have to accept that. But more to the point, publishing is a business and I've read that women buy vastly many more works of fiction than men. (By the way, when I started telling friends that I was publishing my book online I found, even in my small world, this is true. Not many men read fiction now it seems.) Also books are sold based on topicality (social injustice, etc.) and publishers are motivated to print what the people want. Okay, I get it. Hard to find a good book these days? I hope that's not true. Honestly, my reading is stuck in the past. I've only read one or two works of contemporary fiction in the last couple of years. There are so many fantastic late nineteenth and early twentieth century works of fiction that I missed. Right now I'm reading Gertrude Stein actually. I should read Nadine Gordimer too I guess. Another big plus, older books are cheap!
I'm sure there are lots of great books I haven't read yet. It's just a matter of finding them. Interesting about men not reading much fiction compared to women.
Dear Ruben
Another satirical gem from the curious mind of RB
Is it really beyond the realm of possibility for a non-genus piney to post/subscribe?
Signed,
Disappointed non-piney
Though you claim non-pineyness, you sound pretty piney. Perhaps you are secretly piney? Or occasionally piney? Or maybe you aren't really piney but self-identify as piney. In any case your participation in our little club is acceptable. I think we can agree about that… Show of hands? We encourage you to participate. We are all conical and soft-grained here. We bear cones and we hope you can bear with us. Forgive our sappy humor. Welcome.
If you want me to, I'll talk to my Italian friend, Gepetto, and have him wish upon a star for you to become a real boy. It has worked for him in the past at least once. In the meantime, stop lying and put on some pants, peckerwood!
Due to monoecious cone-baring tendancies, there is no peckerwood here. So I ask: what purpose pants? Why pants? Who needs britches when you are finally free?
I'm thinking about your passengers, but I guess everything's different now. Please try not to leave splinters behind when you sit on public seating!
This explains why the absolute best writing is from middle-aged white men whose only characters are middle-aged white men. Big mystery cleared up! Seriously though, this is your best selfie yet and I literally lol-ed for quite a while. I like to take a peek now and then if I need a laugh. Have you really caught flak for writing about characters unlike yourself? What is wrong with people? Was it the fairies? Did you somehow misrepresent or stereotype them?
Thank you for laughing at my stuff. I think you know I have a complex about people not understanding it when I'm trying to be funny. The fact is I'm mainly giggling when I write, and I guess that's the main reason I still do it. Is it so weird to be very fond of your own jokes? Your questions are good ones and I almost think these could help me get into a longer piece if I'm up to it. The word "appropriation" seems to have scared the hell out of a lot of fiction writers, partly because it's so easy to be accused of misrepresenting another sex/race/gender/community, and it's impossible to defend yourself against subjective criticism. There are so many experts about everything these days as I'm sure you know. My first personal experience with this came from a writing workshop that I attended for years. Ethnic appropriation was a grievous sin there. One of our members was actually a professional Sensitivity Reader, which was a vocation I had not known about before. (This was a few years ago.) She was always pointing out racist faux pas by white writers that were almost certainly never intended. Accidental misogyny was also a common pitfall. This revealed the size of the mine field to me. A misstep step can cause you to lose a leg, or worse, an entire chapter. Then, when I tried to publish the nature preserve I spent many hours looking into literary agents, most of which I'd honestly say, state right up front that they're mostly interested in voices of disenfranchised and marginalized people as well as stories by women about women. Without precisely spelling it out, white males are not on any literary agent's "wish list," and a white male writer without a track record better come up with a damned good novel that treads softly wherever ethnic, cultural, sexual misrepresentation may possibly arise. I think to some degree this is what's pushing so many writers into fantasy as a way to avoid these issues and maybe that sent me into that direction with Nature Preserve as well. Added to that, I recently had a friend (who is published) tell me, I shouldn't include a scene with overweight black policewoman in one of my favorite stories even though it was based on a real experience. That annoyed me and made me feel again that my perceptions are worthless in the brave new world of american literature. About the fairies: Maybe I screwed up calling them fairies. I invented other names for them but I thought calling them fairies was funny especially since they were so unfairylike. I mean, a fairy who's a conceptual body-artist? No fairies are yet to send in complaints. But no agents or publishers have asked to read my manuscript either.
This brings to mind Nadine Gordimer, a white South African woman who wrote a novel called My Son's Story which is about primarily black men. It's a fantastic book. Perhaps you are familiar with it. Would this book be published if she submitted it today as an unknown writer? What great works are we missing because of political correctness?
Having nothing to do with the publishing world I had no idea it was so bad. Now I know. Is this why it's so hard to find good books these days? Is it believed that policing misogyny in fiction will result in less of it in real life? It's certainly not working yet. I would say it's gotten much worse in the last few years.
Well, hang on a sec. You have to account for sour grapes in a lot of what I say and not draw very broad conclusions. A lot of people would say, in reaction to white males having difficulty being published, it serves them right. Of course I reject the idea of retroactive punishment (not to mention that being lucky and talented enough to get published can never be considered the fault the artist). There will always be bias against somebody and I have to accept that. But more to the point, publishing is a business and I've read that women buy vastly many more works of fiction than men. (By the way, when I started telling friends that I was publishing my book online I found, even in my small world, this is true. Not many men read fiction now it seems.) Also books are sold based on topicality (social injustice, etc.) and publishers are motivated to print what the people want. Okay, I get it. Hard to find a good book these days? I hope that's not true. Honestly, my reading is stuck in the past. I've only read one or two works of contemporary fiction in the last couple of years. There are so many fantastic late nineteenth and early twentieth century works of fiction that I missed. Right now I'm reading Gertrude Stein actually. I should read Nadine Gordimer too I guess. Another big plus, older books are cheap!
I'm sure there are lots of great books I haven't read yet. It's just a matter of finding them. Interesting about men not reading much fiction compared to women.
Before this "Selfie" expose' expires, I would like to share this story from the NYT about rodent selfies. Who knew rats could be so cute...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/science/photography-rats-selfies.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240123&instance_id=113218&nl=the-morning®i_id=17562779&segment_id=156054&te=1&user_id=510d7b9ebf68ade768ba6e635021df04
I never saw this comment until today! That's just so crazy. And the photos so cute.