Things You Missed + Derby + "Bring It On" Week + Questions + Asterisks

[snurri]

Yesterday, while you were all at your wild, all-day George Washington parties and I was at work (NOT THAT I AM A RESENTFUL PERSON*), I posted about blogs that cover future urban concepts, one of my personal manias. I also posted the shiny trailer and banner for the upcoming Paper Cities antho, which Jeff VanderMeer (among others) has said very nice things about. (Scroll all the way down for the review.)

The Minnesota Roller Girls are at Roy Wilkins this Sunday. Locals: anybody going? Anybody want to? My planned companion has flaked on me discovered a scheduling conflict. I am in the mood to watch tattooed girls in fishnets shove each other around.** I'll go alone if I have to, but it won't be pretty. (Well, I won't be pretty. But then I rarely am.)

Things that are awesome: Chris Sims kicks off his "Bring It On" week with the 30-second recap. If you have not seen "Bring It On," you might be under the impression that a movie about cheerleaders cannot be awesome. You are sadly mistaken. Of course, Sims does his best to amp up the awesome with his stick-figures*** and Shakespearean dialog.

Finally, it has come to my attention that I am a cipher wrapped in an enigma, smothered with secret sauce. No, I am not Jimmy James. But being as this is a personal blog where I tend to skirt around the personal, when I actually do talk about something that's very personal--like, say, my recent tirades about Valentine's Day--apparently people aren't quite sure what to make of it. So, inspired in part by mrissa, I'm opening the floor. Ask me anything. Yes, anything.**** I will make an effort to be forthcoming, even if it's personal. If, on the other hand, you'd rather just trade smartass quips, I can do that too. It's kind of where I live.

* This is a lie.
** I am almost always in the mood for this.
*** Stick figures + Spirit fingers = Fail
**** Except THAT.

Comments

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Where does your interest in Kenya and elephants come from?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Hard to say, exactly. I can trace my current mania to the Nebula Awards weekend 2005, where there was a weird synchronicity of elephants popping up: elephants on an episode of Crocodile Hunter that happened to be on the TV while I was getting ready to head downtown to the hotel, elephant keychains that Mary Anne Mohanraj gave out at a dinner party at her place that night (she had just come back from a trip to Sri Lanka; I think there were elephants on some of the plates as well), and the statue of Ganesh at the Art Institute that I'd visited earlier in the week. For some reason this all seemed significant at the time, and I decided I wanted to write something about elephants. I suspect that this is an awakened mania from my youth. Anyway, I immediately began researching elephants: I read about half a dozen books in quick succession, enough to convince me that the initial idea I'd had for the elephant story wasn't going to work. I also subscribed to some elephant news alerts. Most of the elephant research that I was reading had happened in Kenya (Amboseli, specifically), and there was a lot of news coming out of Kenya about relocating elephants, the change in status of Amboseli itself, etc. Pretty quickly the point was driven home to me that the problems of elephants, as they relate to humans, are both political and economic; too, the arrogance of casual environmentalists (like I was at first) routinely puts the survival of endangered animals above the interests of the people who have them living in their backyards. So the two became more and more connected in my mind, and I don't think I can separate them now. I still have plans to write my elephant novel, but it'll be different from what I envisioned at first, and I want to visit Kenya before I write it.

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Very cool.

I can remember visiting a farm on the slopes on Kilimanjaro, and surveying the damage that elephants had done to the fields. The family were subsistence farmers. The damage the elephants had done could mean starvation for them. We were often told by Kenyans that elephants are no longer endangered, thanks to the ban on ivory. In fact, many argued that elephant populations were too large. I certainly had mixed feelings after seeing those trampled fields.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing that gives me pause. They're kind of like giant rabbits, or something. Giant, empathic, really smart rabbits, but still pests, at least from the perspective of those farmers.

[johnaegard.livejournal.com]

I worked on Presidents' Day too. The best part of it was this overheard conversation:

Q: Why do we have MLK day off, but not Presidents' Day?

A: Because we're an unpatriotic company, not a racist one.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

That's kinda beautiful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Where do you tend to get your lj icons?

(Yes, going straight for the most intimate, personal questions, that's why I'm famous for my celebrity journalism.)

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Some are stolen (and credited, with one or two mysterious exceptions) from places like the Wes Anderson lj community I'm in (people post TONS of icons there), or from various other places that I stumbled upon. The rest I make myself, either because an image really strikes me, or because I decide I need, say, a "Four Weddings and a Funeral" icon. I'm not that great with graphics, though, and mostly my attempts to add text to anything meet with tragedy. This one is the first one I've managed to do that with, and only through trickery. (Plus I'm not even sure you can tell where the image comes from.)

[shaolingrrl.livejournal.com]

I had class yesterday. We also got MLK Day off and we'll get Cesar Chavez's birthday (in late March, I believe). This is San Francisco, after all. We get the socialist holidays.

What's your favorite Chow Yun Fat movie?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I've liked Chow in everything I've ever seen him in, even if the rest of the film was crappy. But for the movies themselves, it's a toss-up between Hard Boiled and God of Gamblers, I guess. The first has some of the wildest action stuff I've ever seen, and doesn't get quite as melodramatic as The Killer--which I love too, but is not as exhilarating, for me. It's kind of the quintessence of Chow cool. God of Gamblers I've only managed to see once, and I loved it for totally different reasons; there's action, yeah, but it's mostly really damn funny and absurd.

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

How is it that you maintain your hope for the world, and your compassion for people who are largely complete strangers? This is a more or less a serious question.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a big question. I don't know, really. I don't, always. It's just that when I'm feeling really hopeless I don't talk about it much.

I do have a basic, possibly inborn belief that people are basically good. Even people who do stupid and awful things, I think most of them either a) have been twisted by religion or culture into believing that they are doing the right thing, or b) have simply lost hope and, consequently, reason. And while people in groups tend to drive me nuts with their susceptibility to least-common-denominator, mob-type thinking, individuals tend to surprise me--once you break through the surface--with their genuine thoughtfulness and decency. I've had some amazing interactions with people whom I vehemently disagree with which make it difficult for me to dismiss their viewpoints as simply irrational or outmoded. By extension, there have to be many, many people like that in the world. So I have hope that when people actually talk to each other, their common desire to improve things will win out. Even if it often doesn't seem to work that way.

As to compassion, I think that, despite the foundation for it that was laid when I was a kid, that's something I had to learn. I can't even watch some of the action movies I used to when I was in high school, because screen violence bothers me in a way it never used to. Somewhere in my twenties human suffering became less abstract to me, I suppose because of my own experience. Not that I've suffered through a great deal myself, or even witnessed a great amount of suffering, but I think that small portion was enough to extrapolate from. I can get pretty emotional about things I see on the news. 9/11 was devastating to me. The deaths were one thing, but I hurt more for the survivors, because they could have been anyone. They could have been me.

This is probably a really bad/frustrating answer to your question, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment.

[o-kiki.livejournal.com]

What is the meaning/significance of your username?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Snurri (or Snorri, depending on who's talking) Sturluson was an Icelandic historian, poet, and politician; he wrote sagas, and also wrote the Prose (or Younger) Edda, from which we get a big chunk of our knowledge of Norse myth and poetry. He was assassinated under the orders of the Norwegian king on my birthday (or the day after) in 1241.

Kind of a heady thing for me to take that name, now that I think of it. (I also had a D&D character named for him at one point :-)) I started using it as an email address a while back, and it's just stuck.

[wheatland-press.livejournal.com]

Do you realize that some of your audience reads "shiny trailer" and doesn't immediately think "video clip"?


Oh, wait, a real question: Do you believe that being a fiction writer carries any particular social or moral responsibility?

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the in-depth answer to an admittedly difficult question. I am often struck by the thought while reading your LJ that you are a man "Who gives a damn" -- and that always makes me wonder whether or not I should give more of a damn.

I don't know how your answer fits into things, but it does sort of wind its way in. Thanks.

Silly bonus question: if you had to describe your current living space as a Lighthouse, a Windmill, or a Tugboat, which would best describe the place?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Watch for the Paper Cities Airstream, coming soon to your neighborhood!!

As to your real question . . . hm. This should be interesting, because I'm not sure what I believe. My gut instinct is to say no, or at least that it's a personal decision. If you're asking whether I think fiction should be polemical in some way--even if it's just to the point of providing positive examples--then it's definitely a No. I don't believe that such things should be mandatory. I think it's too easy to run into trouble with, say, allegory, or even heavy symbolism, because you start to write not about people, but types; and even if those are ideal types, you can do damage with them. I'm also not of the social realism school (which now that I am looking at it may be the most obvious thing I have ever typed in my life) in that I don't think fiction should exhort the reader to improve the world in some way. I admire writers who are unafraid to show people at their worst, making terrible mistakes and unkind choices, because that is a very real thing. That said, I'm not very good at doing that myself. If I'm not working in more or less surrealistic territory, I'm usually trying to show people struggling to do the right thing, even if they end up doing the wrong one. I don't know that I do that out of a responsibility to anyone but myself, although I do spend a fair amount of energy (possibly too much) thinking about my audience.

So possibly my answer is: only if the fiction writer in question feels that responsibility him- or herself.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Well, at the very least, I am happy to have that be part of your impression of me.

IF I HAD TO DESCRIBE MY CURRENT LIVING SPACE (by Dave Schwartz, age 37) I would say it was a Windmill. Not because it operates on windpower, or sits in a field of tulips, but because it is a half-floor below ground level, and thus a Lighthouse is Right Out. Also it is on a hill high, high, high above the river and is thus not a Tugboat. (Nor is it Mike Watt.) Hence by process of elimination it must be a Windmill. Also, Windmills remind me of that bit in Army of Darkness, and that was funny.

[ted chiang (from livejournal.com)]

Only since 2005? What year was that Wiscon when you were telling me about that elephant that had been lynched?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Must have been 2006?

[wheatland-press.livejournal.com]

Good answer. By which, of course, I mean "answer that I agree with."

;)

[blueeverglades.livejournal.com]

What would you like to be asked?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

"How does it feel to be a best-selling author?"

[blueeverglades.livejournal.com]

I hope we get to ask you that. ;)

So what do you wish you could ask someone else?

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

Roller Girls! I was actually thinking about going, but the only other person I know who would be interested is going to Grand Forks for the weekend and I am far too lazy to go alone. Also, St. Paul is far away.

Do you know what your parents would have named you if you'd been a girl?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

That's tough, 'cause it depends on the person. Frex:

Diablo Cody: "Does it feel like the backlash against you is coming almost entirely from the She-Was-a-Sex-Worker-So-She-Can't-Possibly-Be-a-Good-Writer place? If, say, Tina Fey had written Juno, do you think there'd be this much grumbling?"

Brandi Chastain: "So how much can you press? I can do, like, thirty-five. Maybe."

Hillary Clinton: "Do you have any regrets about your politics of expediency voting strategy in the Senate? Do you think it's hurting your campaign right now?"

Christiane Amanpour: "'Sup?"

Kate Winslet: "Did my face just fall off? It feels like my face just fell off."

[snurri.livejournal.com]

St. Paul is not so very far away! We're right over here!

You know, I asked my folks that once, and I can't remember what they said. I want to say it was Laura, but it might have been Elizabeth. Have you noticed that Elizabeth is a name with many, many, many nicknames? Beth, Betsy, Bette, Bitsy, Eliza, Liz, Liza, Lizbeth, Zab, Zabeth, Izab, OK I'm making them up now. If, however, I was a girl, I think I'd just as soon be named Diana, so that any man who saw me naked would be TORN APART BY HIS OWN HOUNDS.

[betsywhitt.livejournal.com]

You forgot Libby and Elise :)

Funny, a lot of people don't know about all those nicknames... certainly tons of people are astonished to find that Betsy isn't my legal name. Not that you find all that many Betsys under the age of 60 these days anyway...

What was your favorite popsicle flavor as a kid?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I knew there were more!

My aunt's name is Liz, so I maybe notice the nicknames more than I would otherwise . . .

My favorite popsicle flavor was probably fudge, AKA the Fudgsicle. If I recall correctly, my mom used to make them herself. We often had Freezies instead of popsicles, though; those plastic tubes of frozen sugar slush? They were awesome.

[betsywhitt.livejournal.com]

Mmm yes. I always was a fan of frozen sugar slush. :)

[megmccarron.livejournal.com]

What's something I don't know about you?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Man, that's tough. I think you know me pretty well. I'll try to dig up three, and hope you don't know at least one.

1. Did you know I played bass guitar in my High School Jazz Ensemble? The thing I had the most fun with, even though I probably never got it exactly right, was the walking bass line intro to "Sweet Georgia Brown." At one time I had some vague idea that I would become a musician; it's probably a good thing I didn't seriously pursue that :-)

2. I cry ridiculously easily. I get choked up by Obama speeches, Olympic profiles, even fucking commercials, sometimes. There are more episodes of Buffy that make me bawl than I can count on both hands, and I won't even bring up Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. That dog food commercial where David Duchovny talks about the pound puppies that don't get adopted gets my lower lip quivering. I am a puddle.

3. I had oatmeal for breakfast, and an English muffin with garlic hummus on it. I forgot to eat my banana, though.

THANKS FOR THE SOFTBALL MEGHAN.

HeyTrey

[(Anonymous)]

Dave, have you ever fallen in a hole that you couldn't get out of by yourself?

Re: HeyTrey

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Just that portable hole, that one time. A wizard friend of mine had to do a rope trick to get me out.

Good to "see" you, Trey!

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

That's what the RNC said!

If it isn't super-cold this weekend, I might venture over to your side of the river for some mayhem-viewing.

Do you like bananas?

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I do like bananas. I like to strip them naked before I eat them. I have been told this is odd.

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

I only undress mine halfway before I start eating them.