Mowatt ran to Save the Rhino on Christmas
(1) ANOTHER WAY TO HELP. Jim Mowatt’s rhino-saving run is now a book: From Parkrun To London Marathon: Running The London Marathon For Save The Rhino.
Some time ago I thought it would be a jolly good idea to run the London Marathon.I was fantastically excited about it and eager to consume every blog, book and youtube video I could find that contained any tiny morsel of information about the marathon. I consumed everything I could find and wanted more. Ideally I wanted a book that would relate how someone prepared for the marathon and give me a description of what it felt like to actually run the steps it would take to get around the streets of London. I couldn’t find what I wanted so I have now written the book that I wanted to read. It is now available on Amazon for anyone who might want an insight into how it feels to train for and run a marathon. I also describe the shorter runs that I did in the rhino costume.
The book is called, From Parkrun To London Marathon. Every penny I receive after Amazon have taken their cut will be sent to Save The Rhino International.
(2) READY TO WRIMO. Kameron Hurley says she’s finally gotten past an “epic brain freeze” – just in time for “NaNoNoNoNo”.
Finally, I was able to sit at the keyboard, in the dark, with a beer and a skull candle, and just completely inhabit another world. In my mind’s eye I was surfacing back in Nasheen again, running around a contaminated desert, dodging bursts and bombs, and trying not to care about my companions too much because the world had already ended and living was so very glorious. That’s the sort of writing experience I crave, when you feel like you’re not making things up so much as dictating a story as you’re living it in your head.
(3) MINNEAPOLIS WORLDCON BID. Emily Stewart announced there will be a Minneapolis in 2023 Open Discussion about a possible Worldcon bid on November 19.
If somebody could satisfy my curiosity about who in addition to Stewart is starting up the discussion, I’d appreciation knowing.
(4) CURSED CUBS IN SFF. With the Cubs staying alive for a couple more days, an article about the Cubs and Science Fiction… The Verge has an article about sf and fantasy stories that reference the Cubs’ World Series drought, including those by Jim Butcher. Andy Weir and John Scalzi.
(5) BASEBALL SEASON. Meantime, Steven H Silver invites you to gaze in amazement at his very long bibliography of baseball-referencing science fiction.
(6) CLARKE CENTER PODCAST. Launching today, Into the Impossible is a podcast of stories, ideas, and speculations from the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination.
Early episodes will take listeners through exciting, ranging conversations with and between scientists, artists, writers, and thinkers of different stripes, on the nature of imagination and how, through speculative culture, we create our future. The first episode includes Freeman Dyson (physicist and writer), David Kaiser (physicist, MIT), Rae Armantrout (Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, UCSD professor emeritus), and Brian Keating (astrophysicist, UCSD).
(7) JUST $79,000 SHORT. Jason Davis is asking Kickstarter donors for $100,000 to fund The Harlan Ellison Books Preservation Project, “To create definitive versions of all Harlan Ellison’s writings, fiction and non-fiction, to preserve in print for posterity.”
A digital library of Harlan’s entire literary oeuvre created from thousands of papers filed in his home office.
Harlan’s preference for working on manual typewriters from the instrument’s heyday through to his latest work has resulted in an astonishing volume of paper, much of it crammed into overstuffed drawers that often require the industry of two people to extract or—even more difficult—reinsert files.
While oft-reprinted stories like “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” and “Jeffty Is Five” exist as formal, preferred-text documents from which all reprints are set, many of Harlan’s more obscure pieces exist only as faded carbon copies on decaying yellow pages.
Some of the never-before-reprinted stories collected in HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD and its sequel only exist on 60-year-old carbon copies of the original typescripts and, due to fading of the carbon impressions and yellowing of the paper, are almost illegible. Though one can usually reference the published version of a faded tale in Harlan’s copy of the original pulp magazine, itself exceedingly brittle, it’s preferable to work from the original, which might contain passages excised by the original editor upon initial, and often only, publication.
Jason Davis says the fruits of the project also would include —
At least five all-new Ellison collections.
In addition to reissuing the back catalog titles, there are several more HarlanEllisonBooks.com titles in various stages of completion.
Originally, I was hired as a freelance editor for the first four HarlanEllisonBooks.com releases, but the original publisher moved on and I arranged to continue the project. Since the 2012 release of ROUGH BEASTS and NONE OF THE ABOVE, the endeavor has been a deficit-financed operation wherein I, as editor and publishing associate, used all my free time (outside of my editorial day job) to collect, edit, layout, design, typeset, publish, and market new Ellison books (12 so far), with all expenses out of pocket. Only after the books are released do I receive payment via a commission (not unlike an agent’s) paid to me by Harlan, who is paid directly by our distributor two months after each individual book sells.
(8) NEW HECKEL BOOK. The Dark Lord Jack Heckel, an author covered here by Carl Slaughter, is on sale today from Harper Voyager Impulse.
After spending years as an undercover, evil wizard in the enchanted world of Trelari, Avery hangs up the cloak he wore as the Dark Lord and returns to his studies at Mysterium University. On the day of his homecoming, Avery drunkenly confides in a beautiful stranger, telling her everything about his travels. When Avery awakens, hungover and confused, he discovers that his worst nightmare has come true: the mysterious girl has gone to Trelari to rule as a Dark Queen. Avery must travel back to the bewitched land and liberate the magical creatures . . . but in order to do so, he has to join forces with the very people who fought him as the Dark Lord.
(9) TODAY’S BELATED BIRTHDAY LAB
- Born October 31, 1936 – Future founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratory lit off their first rocket together.
Eighty years ago, when interplanetary travel was still a fiction and that fiction looked like Flash Gordon, seven young men drove out to a dry canyon wash in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and helped jump-start the Space Age.
They were out there on Halloween 1936 to try what few people at the time had tried: lighting a liquid rocket engine. It took them four attempts to get a rocket to fire for a glorious three seconds — though an oxygen hose also broke loose and sent them scampering for safety as it thrashed around.
The result was encouraging enough for this group — made up of five grad students studying at Caltech and two amateur rocket enthusiasts — to keep going, to build more rockets that would lead to an institution where they could do this kind of work every day.
(10) THE CRITIC. James Davis Nicoll reprinted his list of rejected ideas for review series which includes categories like —
- Least Believable Teenaged Girl Protagonist Written by a Man
- Beloved Classics That Make Modern Readers Say “What the Helling Hell, Old Time SF Fans?”
- SF Books She Wrote and He Took the Credit For
- Hard SF Ain’t Nothing But Nonsense Misspelled
(11) FOUND IN TRANSLATION. When Newsweek invites you to “Meet the Man Bringing Chinese Science Fiction to the West”, it’s Ken Liu they’re talking about.
As Xia Jia, an award-winning sci-fi writer and lecturer in Chinese literature, puts it in the essay that closes Invisible Planets, Chinese sci-fi since the 1990s “can be read as a national allegory in the age of globalization.” But Liu argues that the everyday problems encoded by speculative stories in China apply just as much in the West. “People’s lives tend to be dominated by the same considerations…petty bureaucracy, how to make a living, how to give your children a good education…how to adjust to a radically changing society.”
(12) DRAGON AWARDS TAKING NOMINATIONS. Thanks to Camestros Felapton, we know the Dragon Awards site has been updated its to accept nominations for the 2017 awards. Eligible works are those first released between 7/1/2016 and 6/30/2017.
Welcome to the second annual Dragon Awards! A way to recognize excellence in all things Science Fiction and Fantasy. These awards will be by the fans, for the fans, and are your chance to reward those who have made real contributions to SF, books, games, comics, and shows. There is no qualification for submitting nominations or voting – no convention fees or other memberships are needed. The only requirement is that you register, confirm your email address for tracking nominations and voting purposes, and agree to the rules. This ensures that all votes count equally.
Once you have submitted a nomination for a category you cannot change it. If you are not sure about a category, then leave it blank. You can come back at a later date and add nominations for any category you leave blank using this same form. Make sure your name (First and Last), and the email address match your original submission. No need to fill in your original nominations, the form will append the new nominations to your prior list.
Nomination Deadline: July 24, 2017. We encourage you to get your nominations in early.
(13) LATE ADOPTER. Is TV narration for blind people really a thing?
Annoyingly, this TV has narration for blind people on and I don't know how to turn it off
— Ian Sales ???????? ???????? (@ian_sales) October 29, 2016
(14) AIRBRUSHED COSTUME. This is what it looks like when it’s Halloween and your dad is Dan Dos Santos.
I introduced Uno to ‘Akira’ a few weeks ago, and we both immediately thought he’d make a great Tetsuo. He doesn’t care that none of his friends will know who he is.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Tom Galloway, JJ, Steven H Silver, and Michael J. Walsh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bill.]
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Nancy Lebovitz: If anyone remembers where previous discussion of Borderline was, I’d appreciate a pointer. A fast search didn’t turn it up.
Emma on March 21, 2016 at 2:14 pm said:
A young movie director with Borderline Personality Disorder attempts suicide, loses her legs, and ends up recruited to a secret organization that manages relations between humanity and the Fae. Definitely one of the more unique urban fantasy takes I’ve read, particularly in the nature of the narrator. The writing is vivid and oftentimes brutal (in the sense of watching the world through a mentally-ill, self-destructive person’s eyes), but it’s to the author’s credit that even at the worst, I couldn’t stop reading. Definitely worth the read.
Eve on April 2, 2016 at 11:07 am said:
Really good (as far as I can tell) at giving the inside experience of someone with borderline personality disorder – this is usually seen from the outside, with the character portrayed as unsympathetic, even destructive. She *is* still those things, mind you, at least some of the time, but you get to feel it from the inside. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the “fairies in Hollywood” plotline, but so far that’s working for me too.
alexvdl on April 8, 2016 at 5:32 am said:
Borderline by Mishell Baker: Interesting present day fantasy with the lead character being a double amputee. I’ll probably write a review of it, but I enjoyed it, and I continue to be amused that as I get deeper into fandom, I recognize much more of the names in the Author’s notes.
Doctor Science on May 5, 2016 at 10:05 am said:
Really good! Generally speaking, I (and Mr Dr Science even more so) find characters who do bad things and “act crazy” tiresome. We really liked Borderline’s characters, though, because they’re all literally, medically psychotic. It turns out that when “psychotic” is a sloppy metaphor, it’s annoying; when it’s an exploration of mental illness, it works for us.
I’m not really sure “Borderline” sticks the landing, but that may be because it’s first of a series so it has to set things up.
“Borderline” is set in Hollywood (Baker lives in L.A.), and I couldn’t help noticing how much of the behavior of the literally psychotic characters overlaps with that of many people in The Industry. Things like dualistic thinking, emotional over-reaction, extreme self-centeredness, etc. Does Hollywood attract more than its fair share of people with mental illness? Or are psychotic-seeming behaviors cultivated in H’wood by neurotypical people? Probably both.
Simon Bisson on May 17, 2016 at 9:45 pm said:
just finished it. Wow. And that’s a first novel?
alexvdl on May 18, 2016 at 3:23 am said:
I enjoyed Borderline. Thought that it was pretty awesome how it blended a lot of characters with different form of MI and disabilities without taking away from the urban fantasy storyline.
JJ on May 24, 2016 at 9:37 pm said:
Millie was an up-and-coming filmmaker with a highly-acclaimed independent film to her credit — until a year ago, when a disastrous affair with her professor culminated in her suicide attempt from the 7th floor.
Now her life is a lot harder — she’s a double amputee who struggles to get around with either her prosthetics or a wheelchair. She has also been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and is treading psychological dead-end water in a mental health facility. Then one day she receives a visit from a young woman who offers her a job, working for a group which acts as the liaison between the human world and the dark, gritty world of faerie (of which most humans are not aware).
This is pretty incredible as a novel, let alone as a first novel. It’s told in the first person, and I thought it was a pretty realistic depiction (if perhaps a bit too kind) of BPD thinking. The premise is very interesting, and the fantasy-linked plotline very well done. It’s not a perfect book — but it’s a great novel nevertheless. This is definitely going to be a strong contender on my Hugo longlist.
Kyra on September 22, 2016 at 1:52 am said:
Fantasy; a woman with borderline personality disorder is recruited into an organization that oversees the Los Angeles fey community.
I’ll say, first, that there’s a lot to like about this book. It’s told from a perspective that’s rare in literature (possibly unique, although I couldn’t swear to it), and it manages the difficult task of presenting a main character with serious issues, warts and all. That’s not easy, and the author deserves a lot of credit for it.
That being said, exposition nearly killed this book for me. There is a lot of exposition. If the nature of magic is not being explained to the narrator, then the narrator is explaining the nature of borderline personality disorder to the reader. Over and over. I also think one of the central premises ultimately made little sense, but that’s almost a minor issue compared to the amount of information that was told rather than shown.
So … thumbs up? Thumbs down? I’m going to say neither. It’s right on the borderl — er, edge.
Mark on September 22, 2016 at 2:56 am said:
I was a bit up and down on Borderline. I actually appreciated the exposition about BPD because I wouldn’t have really got it otherwise, but it fell into the now-traditional UF trap of having someone explain everything to the main character about 5 minutes after it would have been helpful. I quite liked the worldbuilding, and there’s a joke about Spielberg that still makes me chuckle, but I’m not convinced it’s going to sustain a series. On the other other hand, I definitely like Baker’s writing and am interested to see what else she does.
Arifel on September 22, 2016 at 6:48 am said:
On Borderline, I enjoyed and appreciated the distinction between “here is what I know about my thought processes and how they are a product of mental illness” and “but this is still how I’m thinking and so whatever I’m acting on it anyway” – i.e. making Millie a reliable narrator without giving her a superhuman ability to rise above her own illness. I can’t argue that the result is very exposition-y though.
Chip Hitchcock on September 22, 2016 at 11:13 am said:
I also had mixed feelings about Borderline; I concluded afterward that the hardnosed ~halfway-house manager was probably realistic, as were the failings of some of the characters to act “sensibly” — but it seemed that too many people were acting implausibly. Possibly this is Baker learning how to show (rather than tell) how strong some characters’ ~irrational drives are; I may try the next to see if she learns more.
Kyra on September 22, 2016 at 1:13 pm said:
Caryl was actually my favorite character in the book. I also didn’t mind that characters who couldn’t be expected to act “sensibly” weren’t acting “sensibly” … but I did mind that the internal reasons given for recruiting people who were like that struck me as completely implausible.
Google search:
borderline site:file770.com
https://www.google.com/?q=borderline+site:file770.com
@Cora
“Anyway, apparently the very things that make baseball even more boring for me than other sports (and I’m not a big sports person at all), namely that it’s slow ”
Note to self, don’t mention that a cricket test match takes 5 days to Cora.
It Happens Every Spring.
Actually, when it comes to fiction (and specifically graphic fiction), I find myself preferring football of the UK sort, and specifically the adventures of the Fulchester United team and their half-man, half-fish keeper, Billy the Fish, which may yet appear in VIZ again. It’s hard to say: they go out of their way to insult the strip, particularly within the strip itself, but it’s a near-perfect example of the genre of suspenseful sports matches, surrounded by machinations and intrigue, all taking place in a cartoon version of our world.
I managed to catch an episode of an animated sports cartoon (not the animated Billy the Fish, which exists) while we were in England. It was much like “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” with a sports team that solves the case of the international jewel smugglers and then wins the big game (or perhaps solves it while winning the game—one episode isn’t a large sample). The suspense of wondering whether your animated team will beat the other animated team, at any rate, is somewhat synthetic, like betting on the mechanical horses in Altman’s POPEYE.
The comic manages to capture the absurdity of the central situation, while piling on every other possible absurdity of its own, including cyborgs, aliens, and the soap opera lives of the characters. Its dramatic cliffhangers are generally taken care of in the first panel of the next installment (“Why, it’s not millionaire Robert Maxwell telling us we’re all fired after all! It’s just a cardboard cutout with a tape recorder behind it. Play on!” “That’s right, Billy. All that shit about cowboys was just a dream… Very much like the last time.”).
Everyone talks in sports cliches, which I wouldn’t be aware of if not for the strip. When it becomes imperative to perform open-heart surgery on the field so that a match can proceed, anonymous voices in the stands follow the progress: “Great things are expected of this doc in the next 90 minutes.” “He tore into the thoracic cavity like a terrier after a ferret!” “Yes.”
And of course, the cast is the usual sort of mix one finds in sports teams. There’s Brown Fox, raised by a remote tribe of footballers in the Amazon, Prof. Wolfgang Schnell, B. Sc., Ph. D., who plots his amazing shots on a blackboard if the battery’s dead in his calculator, blind striker Rex Findlay (and his guide dog), Mick Hucknall out of Simply Red, and many more. When, at the end of a particularly dramatic win, Billy dies, team boss Tommy Brown auditions for a new keeper, rejecting a cowboy, a King, and a guy in a diving suit before settling on another half-man, half-fish keeper (also named Billy), who seems to be the son of the original Billy. The demise of the original is, typically, never spoken of again.
I could go on at length, but I already have.
@ Kip W –
I could go on at length, but I already have.
Have an internet.
@Kip
Have you read any of the Roy Of The Rovers strips? They were the inspiration for Viz’s Billy The Fish. You even used to be able to get Melchester Rovers replica shirts – not sure replica is the right word as the originals were only in the comics.
There was a huge number of football comic strips. There were even entire comics (although they called themselves papers) dedicated to them – lookup Scorcher on Wikipedia and Score ‘n’ Roar on comicvine.gamespot.com – Scorcher eventually took over Score ‘n’ Roar.
@Kip W: This animated sports cartoon that isn’t Billy the Fish, is it perhaps The Hurricanes?
I seem to recall that the Harlem Globetrotters* teaming up with the Scooby Doo* gang to solve at least one mystery.
*US exhibition basketball team, noted for 1) being almost entirely African-American starting in the 1920s, when black players were still very rare in professional basketball, 2) having a very flashy, over-the-top, comic playing style featuring spinning the ball on fingers, passing behind their backs, and general hijinks, and 3) almost always winning (often against a patsy team, the Washington Generals, but to their credit, also against top-tier college teams
**Cartoon teenaged ghosthunters who always, always, ALWAYS discovered that the “ghosts” were projections, sheets on wires, rubber masks, and other such trickery — yet they ALWAYS thought the ghosts were real until the last five minutes. “I’d’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids…”
@Cassy
Sadly, the more recent Scooby Doo iterations (including a Scooby Doo apocalypse comic) have made the supernatural elements introduced to be, in fact, true.
Paul, really? Wow, that’s a major change from the way it used to be. I always found it ludicrous that the Scooby Gang always assumed that ghosts and monsters were real, when not only did they never find any ghosts or monsters, only human trickery… they never even found any ambiguous circumstances that might lead one to wonder if the supernatural was real. At the very least, I’d’ve expected them to start with the assumption that it was trickery until they ruled that out.
I was going to say that that ship had sailed when they started hanging out with a shmoo, but a little googling proved my memory faulty–the shmoo had teamed up with a clone of the Scooby Gang.
I always loved the shmoo.
JJ, thanks for the Borderline discussion quotes. I listened to the interview, ( https://skiffyandfanty.com/2016/05/12/296-mishell-baker-a-k-a-the-queen-of-quills-borderline-an-interview/) so I know that the author has BPD, though of a much less dramatically destructive sort. On the other hand, the details about managing amputation are the result of research.
I find it rather chilling that the narrator had to be crippled as the result of a suicide attempt so the attempt would be seen as a serious attempt to die rather than a “cry for help”.
One more point about book– rot13 since this might be a vague spoiler– Vg zvtug pbhag nf n jvfu-shysvyyzrag snagnfl. Gur znva punenpgre frrzf gb urefrys gung fur’f oneryl gernqvat jngre naq qbrfa’g rkcrpg nalguvat tbbq sebz crbcyr. Va snpg, fur’f qbvat orggre guna fur guvaxf, naq gurer ghea bhg gb or crbcyr jub nccerpvngr ure.
@Cassy
Sadly, true.
See for yourself…and this is far from the only “Ghosts are real” variation on Scooby out there these days:
http://www.dccomics.com/comics/scooby-apocalypse-2016/scooby-apocalypse-1
@ Nancy Lebovitz:
Gahhh I don’t know about in the states, but it’s tricky. After a visit to psychiatric emerg with superficial self-inflicted wounds where I talked about how tired I was and how hopeless I felt and was sent home to just keep trying, I was sorely tempted to OD and walk back in so they would take me seriously. And that *was* a cry for help.
The only time inpatient was ever mentioned to me was when I disclosed a suicide plan to my psychiatrist. And that was because I’d changed my mind. I almost laughed in his face and said I wouldn’t have told him a thing if I was still intending to carry it out.
And women tend to attempt suicide in “cleaner” ways that have a lower success rate. The protagonist of Borderline appears to chosen a method more associated with men. That may be why it was not seen as a “cry for help”.
I should give Borderline a read but I’m afraid it may be full of landmines for me. But I’m also curious.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that managed it for baseball.
I’ve seen plenty. There are more great books about baseball than any other sport. My belief may be due to baseball’s cultural status in the U.S. the past century, but I also think it simply reads better than a lot of sports. My favorite baseball books are Ball Four by Jim Bouton, Moneyball by Michael Lewis and Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof. The only other sport I’ve read a great book about is soccer: The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss.
I also think a lot of people in the US underestimate how ridiculous the rest of the world finds it that the US refers to what is the North American baseball league (i.e. US teams and a handful of Canadian ones) as the World Series, because it’s not.
Such complaints have no doubt chastened the dead 19th century sports executives who chose the name. There is a genuine global competition now: the World Baseball Classic. It happens again next spring.
Because baseball is inevitably used as a metaphor for the meaning of life, the nature of the US, etc… Whereas it’s really just people hitting a ball with a stick.
And Rosebud was just a sled. You could say the same thing about any metaphor for the meaning of life, couldn’t you? I think baseball writing is often guilty of excessive mythologizing, but to suggest it is “just” something literal and not capable of metaphorical use is too dismissive.
P.S. I read a dismissive connotation in the use of the phrase “cry for help” a lot of the time. If someone is in such distress that they are harming themselves in order to seek help, holy shit somebody help them. 🙁
Rob Thornton
Hey, thanks!
(ahem)
HEY! ALL YOU KIDS GET OFF MY INTERNET!
andyl
I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a British comic that was solely devoted to sport, though it figures in some of the ones I have. (There are ones online as well, which are considerably less grimy than some of the ones in my pile.) I should try to remember “Roy of the Rovers,” in case I ever run into any.
Oneiros
I couldn’t say for sure, but it seems extremely likely. I do recall there was an American on the team. I was thinking he was a Texan, but it’s been a while, and since British TV is perfectly capable of having a character from Brooklyn say things like, “Wal, I’ll be hornswoggled!”, we’ll call it a draw. If that isn’t the one, it could pass for it. If I watched it today, I wouldn’t be able to be sure if it was or not, but I’m guessing it was.
re: Scooby-Doo
There’s a Mystery Machine that parks in various lots at Nazareth College. I chanced on a family taking pictures in front of it, and quickly volunteered to get all of them into the shot. “Now, say ‘Meddling Kids!'” I instructed. “You meddling kids!” “I would have gotten away with it, if not for You Meddling Kids!” They complied enthusiastically. I smiled and told them my usual charges applied.
rcade
Eight Men Out was a good read. Like I say, I’m not into the sport so much, but that team, in that season, has always been a subject of interest for me. Years ago, I read a Coronet piece about the scandal, which ended with someone asking Shoeless Joe if a kid really came up to him and said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” (after which Joe was supposed to have hung his head in silent shame and turned away). Jackson said the story was an invention, and that if some kid had really said that, his reply would have been, “Of course it ain’t so!”
Ha! Not even that. Most of the time they miss.
@Cora, Mike Glyer: Missing half the time and surviving anyway? Sounds like the meaning of life to me.
This is by a friend, so take my recommendation with a grain of salt, but I really enjoyed The Dixie Association, by Donald Hays.
SCOOBY-DOO APOCALYPSE isn’t a ghosts-are-real narrative, at least not in the first 4 issues or so. All of the monsters in it are the result of some sort of thematically-convenient nano-tech explosion, or some such pseudoscientific handwaving.
So the supernatural is once again being imitated — just in a much shmancier way.
I’m pretty sure just about all team sports are metaphors. Usually for battle. A lot of the solo sports too, but maybe not golf.
In baseball, the strategy is unpacked and spread out enough that there’s a whole lot of slowly unfolding if/then to it, and there’s something going on even in where the fielders position themselves from play to play.
I find I like sports movies even though I’m not interested in most sports, because sports movies are all metaphor, and there’s a theoretically-satisfying narrative structure laid over the proceedings. Baseball I like, because the combination of team goals and individual effort is granular enough to think about it piece by piece. Also probably because I grew up listening to ballgames on the radio, and learned more about what to think about and pay attention to than other sports. I grew up listening to hockey, too, but never really got hooked into the strategies there.
Attaway Cubs.
John Feinstein writes good books about sports other that baseball. I’ve read The Punch (about basketball) and Open (about golf). Not great books, but certainly good books.
I wouldn’t say Borderline is trigger warning for everything– that’s Underground Airlines— but it’s got a lot of raw stuff in it.
Possibly of interest: Ten Points— a memoir about family dysfunction (trigger warning, do not read while eating) and bicycle racing. Has the rather un-American idea that some problems may take more than one generation to solve.
The Sports Gene. At last, a book which isn’t about emotional horror– t this is about what is known about the physical basis for athletic achievement. For example, top batters have average reflexes but extraordinary visual acuity. How much good people get from the same amount of training varies quite a bit.
Offhand, I can only think of two examples of cricket in sf– somewhere in the Hitchhikers Guide books, and a cricket game in A Fish Dinner in Memison.
I’m another fan of Moneyball, but my favorite baseball novel is The Natural by Malamud. I also grew up playing neighborhood baseball (in the street, small kids in the outfield, only the oldest kids as catcher and pitcher, two mitts and a bat were enough equipment). I can’t be arsed to watch baseball on television because the cameras generally focus on the wrong thing, but on the radio or live? Yeah, either one works for me, particularly if it isn’t major league teams.
I like the sonorousness of baseball. A no-hitter is a thing of nearly transcendent beauty if you like the sport, and I’m a little bitter about the DH rule and every other change meant to bring excitement to the game. Where other sports do seem like a metaphor or substitute for war, baseball feels more like a tactical and philosophical treatise on same.
Until high school, the World Series (which was day games only then) was an occasion for putting away our books, wheeling in the television and gathering together in the near dark. Even when I went to Catholic school (Mother Superior was a big fan).
But I totally get why others aren’t interested.
Cora, the problem is not that you don’t love baseball, but that most of what you’ve said seems to express that you begrudge us our love of it, and think American writers should not dare to express their love of it in books you might otherwise wish to read.
.
Sure it is. And it’s a decision made over a century ago, by people long dead. Why worry about it? Who gives a shit?
That’s nice. And I smile benignly on all the soccer played in America, at the school level, at the university level, etc., and even US Major League Soccer, which I think is largely a joke and will never really be a major sports league in the US. But if they are enjoying themselves, and in the case of the pros make enough money doing it that they think it’s worthwhile to continue, and even if they or their spectators choose to write books with soccer as a metaphor for life or rhapsodizing about the beauty of the game, why would I bitch and moan about it? Why would I even care? If I pick up one of those books, I can either read it, or put it down and move on to something else.
I certainly don’t expect the entire world, or any particular country (not even my own!) to cater exclusively for my personal tastes.
Yup. And you know what? That’s life. People like different things for different reasons, sometimes the very reasons others dislike them, and different cultures have different cultural traits and preferences.
And the USA is not a failed copy of Europe, or even a failed copy of the UK, but a different culture, sharing some things but having a very great deal Not In Common with even England, our largest single influence.
We love baseball. Very few people in Europe care about it at all, except to occasionally engage in irrelevant bitching about a naming error not made by anyone left alive to hear the bitching.
And either way, who cares? Either way, who is hurt by it?
1. Yes, the “all walks of life” things is definitely true of baseball, too. And I suspect of whatever sport in any country is the beloved national sport.
2. Yes, the “played to a clock” thing is part of why I just can’t see soccer working as a metaphor for life. Life isn’t like that. You make your plans, and then things happen. And even the best players will miss that ball more often than they hit it.
Uh, yeah. It’s people hitting a ball with a stick. Or not hitting it, more often than not. You miss, you maybe strike out, and you still try again at your next at-bat. I bet a cricket player or fan could explain it to you, but you probably hate that too..
My favorite of his books; maybe that won’t surprise you.
Why should you care?
Why should anyone care that you care?
Why should American writers care that baseball as a metaphor for life is not what you, personally, want to read? How am I harmed if you like soccer better than baseball?
That “very regional appeal” is the entire western hemisphere, plus a good chunk of the Pacific. Fewer people than soccer, but a very substantial part of the world. And we really have exactly zero idea what current sports might or might not survive into a space-traveling future. If I had to bet, I’d expect the dominant future sports would be things adapted for zero-G or low-G. But that’s a guess, and the weirdest things can hang on, so who knows?
Basketball requires that you be able to secure that basket at a significant height, securely enough that it will not be knocked down by the ball hitting it at speed.
Baseball requires a ball and a stick. Yes, technically it requires a catcher’s mitt, but I played many games as a kid when none of us had a mitt. Or a facemask. We enjoyed it, and we lived.
I suspect that American football, though, is doomed, with perhaps only another generation or two to go, because it’s increasingly clear that it’s just nuts to let your kids play it, or to play it as an adult unless, or perhaps even if, you’re getting a seriously NFL-level salary. And that means, not what the average player gets in the first 1-3 years. I love my New England Patriots, but I think our grandchildren or at most great-grandchildren will wonder why we allowed it.
On this, we completely agree.
Sure, it’s unrealistic wish-fulfillment–and intended as such. No one thinks it’s likely to happen.
AHA! Book recommendations, the thing (or one of the things) we all come here for! Thank you! I’ll take a look.
re: sports books
If you’re into horse racing (or even if not) Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit is a great read. She goes into the history of the owner, trainer and jockey, and gets into the nitty-gritty details of the races, and it’s just fantastic. You’d swear you’re really sitting on Seabiscuit’s back.
The funny thing, to me, about comparisons between Americans and Europeans (typically as made by Europeans) is that, to a large extent, Americans are nothing more or less than Europeans who moved. We are what Europeans became when they came away from the set of rules they had at home and worked out new ones.
Obviously, we’re also Asians and Latinxs, and whatever I’ve missed in the 2.3 seconds I thought about it, but most of the rules and guidelines were set down by the Europeans whose descendants now view us and offer up opinions.
THE GOD PIXEL
Duh. Blernsball.
Sports movies. There are some good out there. Deathrace 2000, The Salute of the Jugger, Rollerball. Not been very fond of those with contemporary sports. Exception: Dodgeball.
@ Dawn: I agree. The idea that someone who tries and fails to commit suicide is just an attention-seeking drama queen is obscene. And even if occasionally it’s true, SO WHAT? This is a situation where the relative-risk analysis is very clear. If they’re just seeking attention and you treat it seriously, no lasting harm is done. If they’re genuinely asking for help and you brush them off… they may die. I’d much rather regret helping someone who didn’t really need it than failing to help someone who did.*
@ Bonnie: How old is that book? I think I remember reading it when I was a horse-crazy kid!
* One caveat: Some abusers routinely use threats of suicide as a way to keep their victims in line. You can’t apply the rules of normal interaction to an abusive relationship, and most people are capable of figuring out which is which.
Lee: One caveat: Some abusers routinely use threats of suicide as a way to keep their victims in line. You can’t apply the rules of normal interaction to an abusive relationship, and most people are capable of figuring out which is which.
This is a common problem with people with BPD, who are often master manipulators who care only about themselves. The normal caring response to a suicide attempt by a BPD will generally provide them positive reinforcement to continue their behavior, because of the attention they get.
Hi JJ,
I remember in my last psychiatric outpatient stint reading the posters about how to treat yourself and others as a person with a diagnosis, not the diagnosis itself. Therefore introducing yourself as a person with bipolar, rather than just saying “I’m bipolar”. I don’t wanna be a GAD BPD PTSD. I’d rather be me.
There’s something in the page you linked that I’d like to quote:
And now for some friendly advice regarding suicide threats from someone who’s heard several:
RED FLAGS
“If you leave me, I’ll kill myself.”
“If you don’t do what I want, I’ll kill myself.”
“Well I might as well just go kill myself then.”
“You’re trying to make me kill myself.”
Trying to manipulate someone by threatening suicide is not on. And hey howdy it makes disclosing suicidal ideation look like manipulation and just being a drama-queen. (Wow just realized the inherent sexism in that phrase. Awesome. Make it drama llama?) Which is sucky for everyone.
um, thanks for listening.
@Lee
I think you’re thinking of Come On Seabiscuit, by Ralph Moody, originally published in 1963. I read that too. Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit: An American Legend was published in 2001 (and also made into a pretty good movie with Tobey Maguire).
Because I can’t leave well enough alone…
https://youtu.be/IhN1ExFCXNA
And another baseball book the impressively titled The Great American Novel by Philip Roth and @Bill, John Feinstein wrote my favorite basketball book, Forever’s Team
Dawn Incognito:
I’ve spent many years (in separate stints) living with two different people with BPD. I have to say that your self-awareness makes me wonder how accurately you were diagnosed. The people in my life were both utterly self-absorbed, un-self-aware master manipulators with little-to-no-conscience, whose major concern with regard to their treatment of other people was not that they actually treated other people well, but that they were perceived as — had the public image of — treating other people well (if that makes any sense).
Neither of them had the slightest compunction about lying and twisting the truth to suit their own purposes, nor about taking advantage of others’ consciences and caring to get what they wanted, nor about being deliberately cruel if they didn’t get their way (or hell, just for the sheer enjoyment of the power they had to be deliberately cruel).
After many years around each of these people, being subjected to their horrible manipulative tricks time after time after time and trying to understand their behavior because it made no sense to me, it eventually became clear to me that each of them thinks of other humans not as real people with their own lives and agency, but only in terms of how those other people benefit or affect themselves. Which is a pretty scary realization. (One of those people is now thankfully gone from my life; with the other, I have an absolute minimum of contact and interaction as possible.)
Based on all the comments I’ve seen from you here over the last year and a half, if you’ve genuinely been correctly diagnosed with BPD then it’s a flavor completely unlike the one I’ve experienced. I know that it’s probably no help to you, but I wanted to tell you that anyway. 😐
Lee:
The first time I had to deal with a person who was attention-seeking with threats to kill themselves I was thirteen, slightly drunk and having to repeatedly drag them away from the riverside. They did it for show, I did it mostly because the last few feet were the rocky sort of incline where a drunk teenager will fall, hit their head and drown stupidly. I was thanked with a bit of rumor-spreading the following week, which could have have been discouraging.
That didn’t cause me to discount any further statements about suicidal intentions, since the worst-case scenario of believing would be, as you say, no harm(the rumors were because of interaction, not intervention). And throughout the years I have been there, talking, holding hands, listening, gently prying sharp objects out of people hands, and so on. And I will keep on doing it, because I have been hurt by suicides, and I’d rather no more people experience it..
@JJ: I suspect BPD covers more ground than you know. Someone I was close to was diagnosed with BPD and was completely unlike your description.
@Dawn Incognito
Yes to everything you have said about suicide and “calls for help”.
It’s hard when your not in the position to get the person the help and attention they need. Not nearly as hard as the person calling for help though. Which is why I have been there for many friends and acquaintances.
Bull Durham best expressed how baseball is a metaphor for life: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
JJ: Your description sounds more like Antisocial Personality Disorder, though of course there can be people with traits of both.
I know nothing about BPD but this has been a very interesting set of comments (not that one should seek information about complex psychological issues from comment sections – but if you do, this is the right comment section to find such things)
Bonnie McDaniel: Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit: An American Legend was published in 2001
That’s a magnificent book — one in that family of histories of pop culture phenomena that use the story to explore a much broader era or social milieu. The Boys in the Boat about the 1936 US Olympic rowing team is another fantastic Depression-era read.
@JJ:
If I had a nickel for every time a counselor-type person told me I had “excellent insight”, I’d…probably have about 40 cents. If you add “highly intelligent” we might hit a dollar. If I had the right disposition, I’d probably be quite skilled at manipulating people.
As for the diagnosis, I’ve had various in my life. New doctor, new diagnosis. *shrug* I actually argued with the doctor a little bit, but I was pretty open to a new approach and therapy.
When I told my dad about the diagnosis, he said he wonders if that’s what my mother has. She certainly fits the profile that I’ve read in the books more than I do. So I learned young to keep my head down and my mouth shut and stay out of the way when mom was on the rampage. I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book. I had a “vivid imagination”. I learned to take responsibility for everything, and turned my anger on myself. And I didn’t talk about my suicidal thoughts because threatening suicide was what mom did to detonate a drama bomb in the middle of the family.
I’ve been in therapy for many years now and I’m actually learning to identify some of my emotions. I’m a little better able to recognize some of the tricks my thoughts play on me. I’m breaking down some of my harmful coping mechanisms. I’m trying to be (ugh) wise rather than just thoughtful. It’s a lot of work.
On antisocial personality disorder (psychopathic personality), it’s been a long time but I found Hervey Cleckley’s The Mask of Sanity to be a very interesting read.
JJ:
I do know a few people with BPD and of those, only one fits partly into the description you have given. At least one is the total opposite, constantly worrying about not treating others well while always doing it.
What you are describing sounds to me like they were way across the borderline and firmly in sociopath territory. (Interestingly, when I googled “sociopath” to find a copy of the list, one of the auto-complete items was “vs. BPD, which among others gave this link.)
Of course, this can’t be File770 without book recommendations, so I’ll drop in this one (yes, I’ve read it, it isn’t just something that popped up in my Google results.)
@Kip W
+1….”like”….and other such euphamisms.
There was more, but it didn’t add much to the conversation.
B/R,
Dann
JJ, it seems to me that people with BPD can get substantially better with a lot of work.
I recommend Thing of Things, a blog by someone with BPD.
https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/tag/bpd/