Gary Presley

Report from Cripland

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:35:00 +0000

Wikipedia.org image

An essay, "For Jessica" by Jennifer Lawler, has been circulating recently, and it is a powerful piece, full of anger, full of existential rage, full of resolve, full of love.

A writing study group of which I'm a part discussed the piece, in fact. I chose to post the link for a discussion topic, primarily because I believe the utter concentration upon the naked self needed by a writer to maintain the focus required to write such an essay is somewhere beyond difficult.

Especially if a person was raised in a household where stoicism was declared a virtue, which isn't relevant to the theme herein but is a personal comment from the point of view of a writer.

As the author of a memoir in which disability is both protagonist and antagonist, I have reached the point where the more I've written about disability, the more I recognize, truly know there is more to say, because you don't understand this foreign terrain, because the world needs to know, that people need to comprehend, that disability is simply another color in the human rainbow, a color that almost surely will splash on your walls sooner or later.

On the other hand, as a writer, I often find myself too bored to report from Cripland. What's new? Not much. Patronization is rampant. If people with disabilities need assistance, the government thinks it is better to warehouse them than to support assistance within the community. Medical marijuana might make things easier, but we all know marijuana is bad. Take a drink instead. And yes, we should consider assisted suicide if things get too rough.

But that's life, really, and it is mere routine, and all that's necessary to survive is getting up each morning, stealing a little happiness somewhere, and taking a joyride through the day.

I've also come to feel that I cannot write about disability without indulging in what might appear as a plea for sympathy. Take the news items listed above. I am in no danger. Sure, my fanny rides a wheelchair, but truth told, I have it good, at least compared to many of my fellow citizens of Cripland, and surely far better than those who live under terror, famine, and assorted other evils, whether they're physically capable of running for their lives or not. Being a crip in the USA ain't no walk in the park. Being a crip in Somalia or the Sudan is, I'd guess, pretty damn close to fatal.

But that's not what Lawler is talking about. Neither is what I want to focus on here or elsewhere as a crip who is a writer, or as I prefer to think of it, "As a writer who happens to be a crip."

I think I want to know, "Is there a consistent audience, granted not a Stephen-King-John-Grisham audience, but an audience for writing that provokes sympathy, a consistent audience for this sort of illness/injury/death experience genre?"

And that's not to say, I want sympathy. I'll settle for empathy at a level that reminds you that my reports from Cripland are fair and balanced. I don't want your pity. I want you to be interested, to learn something, to understand that your world may be broader, wider than you think.

As for tear-jerkers, I know there's an audience, even though I am not sure that disability writing should be part of it, at least in a fundamental sense. Dickens proved it with Oliver Twist. Frank McCourt proved it with Angela's Ashes. That's what makes one rumination on Lawler's writing, Rebekah Denn's piece in The Christian Science Monitor, so intriguing, especially because it ends with the question "Have you ever loved a book that had no happy ending?"

First, who is to say Lawler's book will have no happy ending? I can't. There may be some sort of spiritual resolution, and I'm not talking about physical miracles here, a Rise up, take you bed and walk moment. But there comes a time when resentment, anger, rage begins to sputter, and things become clearer, and things become less important, and even in Cripland, a citizen begins to realize that other things matter more.

And so, I'll modify Denn's question: Have you ever loved a book that had no happy ending, and yet it didn't seem to matter?

That's the kind of reports I'm trying to send from Cripland.

Disability and Sexual Surrogacy, Part III

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:06:00 +0000

My previous postings on the late Mark O'Brien, a writer who used an iron lung, and his interaction with a sexual surrogate, will be amplified by Breathing Lessons, a short (approximately 30-minute) film on his life. It is available on SnagFilms.

It is mid-way in the film before O'Brien begins to discuss his loneliness, his interaction with the surrogate, and how it affected him. Even those poor at reading the non-verbalized messages underlying conversation can see that surrogacy was a less than perfect experience.

Do I judge him harshly for his choice? No, no. I simply think neither the therapist or the surrogate understood the ramifications of the prescription. O'Brien may have wanted the experience of intimacy, but having been in both situations, I cannot see how five sessions of artificial intimacy (talk, touch, caress) ending with one session of sexual intercourse gave the man anything other than one sexual experience that worked to amplify his loneliness.

O'Brien may have received just what the doctor ordered, but from everything I see in the film, he wanted intimacy within an ongoing relationship, a thing both the physician and the therapist should have recognized -- and recognized surrogacy would not provide.

It is fascinating how important sexual/emotional intimacy is to individual humans even as we both misunderstand the complexity and duality of its nature and rationalize its value and purpose.

That such a thing of value, a thing allowing a human being to be completing human, can be restricted or denied by a disability is one of life's strange, twisted mysteries.

The Art and Craft of Book Reviewing

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:21:00 +0000

read the review

Robert Burns offered a paean "To a Louse" and said ...

O would some Power the gift to give
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us ...

That's one reason I always enjoy, in a strange fashion, comparing what I write as a book review to that of a person who knows how to write and intelligent an comprehensive review. Granted, for both venues where I write reviews, I must conform to a loose formula and stick to a word count.

A few weeks ago, I reviewed An Available Man, the latest from Hilma Wolizter. It was a decent book. Literary. Yet "literary" while drawn from reality, literary constructed from the rumble of imagined grief. The theme might be loosely summed up in this sentence.

Sometimes ironic, sometimes melancholy, Edward’s reluctant “dating after death” begins with toned and hungry Karen hot to finish dinner and head home for a romp in the hay.

The writer Nancy Kline reviewed An Available Man for this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Among her observations were "Wolitzer’s vision of the world, for all its sorrow, is often hilarious and always compassionate." I felt the compassion, but I surely didn't feel the hilarity but rather a wryness and ironic distant generated by the situation, but then I'm not a "20th century New Yorker," which Kline describes as the milieu from which the work of Wolitzer is drawn. And neither am I so familiar with the classics that I could come to the observation "we realize that he is Odysseus, wandering the world on his way home."

On the other hand, there's some stuff that's easy to review. All it takes is gunfights, pyrotechnics, and "a bizarre fencing duel involving cattle prods and chain saws" -- Gideon's Corpse.

Sexercise, and Disability

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:12:00 +0000

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In thinking about the ramifications of an article about Cheryl Cohen, a surrogate partner and her interaction with a man using an iron lung (a film was made of the story), I found myself losing focus, drifting off into the idea that sexual intercourse appears to have become a "right" over the last few decades, a thing done for emotional and physical health, a work-out in bed rather than gym.

The odd thing is that the fundamental shift in societal mores disguises a more complex issue related to life with a disability that is revealed by the surrogate-iron lung occupant encounter.

Many states, for example, have personal attendant programs that allow a person with severe mobility issues to fully integrate into society. Many quadriplegics, once transferred from bed, bathed and fed, and plopped in a wheelchair, can function at high levels in the workplace. If that quadriplegic lives in a society that sees those accommodations as fulfilling the ideal of equal opportunity for all, it doesn't take a significant leap of logic to decide that person with a disability should have a full sexual life most people expect as part of adulthood.

Access to education, physical access to public buildings, and "reasonable accommodations" to offer equal opportunities to people with disabilities are critical in an open, democratic society. I want to be able to access the local courthouse. I want to avoid overt discrimination when applying for work. I want mainstream education. And yes, I want sex, but I don't think society should "accommodate" me in that regard by allowing me to sign up for benefits from the Department of Sensuality.

Perhaps some who advocate for sexual surrogacy might believe such rights are fundamental in a humanist society. But sexual surrogacy is classified as therapy for those experiencing what might loosely be termed emotional or psychological barriers to sexual intimacy, I would think providing sexual therapy would be restricted to narrow protocols, and on that list, there will be no reference to physical loneliness.

Cruel it is to judge, but I don't think (this being my experience only) that was the dynamic in the series of dalliances that inspired the film. Did he need to be taught how to be loving? Or did he simply desire the experience? I have no right to guess, but I would, being male myself, assume the man simply wanted the experience, wanted his curiosity satisfied. Again I cannot put myself in his mind, but I believe he simply wanted the sensual satisfaction much like he (or you or I) might want to know the taste of whiskey, experience the euphoria or lassitude of cocaine or marijuana, or to see the Empire State Building.

Human beings have appetites. The question becomes should all appetites be satiated.

The blunt truth is that an iron lung is a very small prison cell, at least when considered in a practical sense and when the metaphysical idea of will (the ability to live fully and gracefully within material limits) is set aside.

But the thing no one -- the writer, therapist, those making comments -- has touched upon is that the greater truth is that the iron lung is a metaphor for the social isolation with which many people with a disability must cope with daily.

However difficult it might be for a man in an iron lung to meet a female who can see beyond the disability and regard him a suitable romantic interest, the difficulty is irrelevant if the man cannot reach the places of social interplay that lead to love and marriage are played out.

In some sense then, if sexual fulfillment is a right, the access to the companionship of available partners is a right as well, which I don't think can be wrung out of The Americans with Disabilities Act. No government bureaucrat can make a friend for you.

I can only feel empathy about the whole affair, having lived through the bad old days when people with disabilities were excluded from almost every routine activity. I believe in the ADA and appreciate all that its implementation and enforcement have accomplished, but we remain far from universal access -- every home being fully accessible and easily reached by public transport.

Until then, I suppose, people with disabilities will continue to be restricted from being fully engaged in society and thus often left to these contortions that allow our needs as human beings to remain subject to the paternalistic gratuities of the medical profession.

Sexercise

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:05:00 +0000

creative commons Lorika 13

Sometime after Kinsey, sometime before Masters and Johnson, came along a few micrograms of chemicals that changed sexual congress forever.

Sexual intercourse is for procreation, say traditionalists. It is the most intimate of bonding rituals between man and woman, affirming the permanent pairing generally required for a stable family. I accept that.

I also accept that males of the human species can regard sex as a contest, a sport, an affirmation of power, or even a matter of seeking fundamental obeisance from the female of the species, a dynamic altered only slightly by the invention of the contraceptive pill.

Although I cannot testify personally, the use of the pill, and secondarily the right-to-choose movement, have in some environments allowed sexual contact evolve into a thing no more important in a day's activities than a good work-out at the gym, a thing to be done for physical and emotional health with the same degree of commitment generated by a date to play tennis.

Or at least the popular media would have us believe. How prevalent the hook up mentality is I don't know.

Into that mindset (my own) came an article about Cheryl Cohen, a surrogate partner. The link sent to me by another writer who knew I had served some time in an iron lung.

One of her clients, the poet and journalist Mark O'Brien, was stricken with polio at 6 and spent most of his life in an iron lung. In 1986, when O'Brien was 36 and a virgin, he hired Cohen Greene as his surrogate partner. They met six times and remained friends until O'Brien's death in 1999.

Their story is now an independent film, "The Surrogate," which premieres Jan. 23 at the Sundance Film Festival. Starring John Hawkes ("Winter's Bone") as O'Brien and Helen Hunt ("As Good as It Gets") as Cohen Greene, it's adapted from a 1990 article, "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate," that O'Brien wrote for the Sun magazine of North Carolina.

I read the article and the hundreds of comments, a good majority of which jumped to the conclusion that surrogacy is prostitution.

First, setting aside the framework of morality, the difference between surrogacy and prostitution lies in intent. The woman's announced intention is therapy. To recognize that, though, a person must understand she functions within the parameters of belief where the right to sexual contact is a right akin to food or shelter.

Even before bringing disability into the equation, I regard the issue so quantum-level complex that I have nothing rational to say, really. I simply believe sexual interaction is more than an exercise to maintain physical and emotional health. But if a person is barred from achieving the (not a) sexual bond by a physical or emotional problem, what is that person to do? I can only answer for myself.

While all males lust, even those in iron lungs, there is an emotional parallel to physical lust: intimacy.

An emotionally mature male values intimacy -- a touch, a kiss, a caress -- a significant connection with his partner. I am sure the paralyzed man had his physical curiosity satisfied, but he had no relationship, no chance to know the surrogate intimately. What did the contact generate but satisfaction of the man's curiosity?

I have no doubt the surrogate crossed the paralyzed man's emotional barriers, albeit temporarily, but in an iron lung -- or even with a physical disability that isolates a person from social interaction -- those emotional walls are very necessary to exist successfully in relative isolation.

Do we know the full story? I think even those who have read the article in The Sun that the man in the iron lung wrote will ever comprehend all that occurred within the heart and mind and spirit of that man.

I do not think even the most introspective of us, the most self-aware and analytical, are capable of fully exploring all that we are capable of feeling. I know I have never revealed or explored the depths of my emotional fragility, how close I feel to the loss of control, the depths of my anger, the expanse of my loss, because of the constraints of my disability. I have learned that exploration is a desert without water.

Finally, there is the philosophical element: the triumph of will, the choice to focus on the absolute, the power of prayer, the comprehension of what cannot be changed.

Stephen Hawking spoke about disability in this way. "One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well."

"Who, who, who, who? Who are you?"

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:48:00 +0000

image link from thewho.com

"Do you identify yourself as a person with a disability?" such was a question I was asked as part of a doctoral dissertation. Not mine, sadly.

I find the question interesting, but it was days later before I thought about how the question, in some measure, reflected the focus of a feminist complaint: the idea of being, "Oh, you're the doctor's wife" or "you're Jeffrey's mother, the youngster who just graduated summa cum laude."

Do you identify yourself as a person with a disability?

Yes. And no. In my usual verbose and yet ambiguous fashion, I replied, "I don't, and I do," going on to expand on that over two or three sentences.

As a person grows older, a common human experience, the person will always identify that "self" according to circumstances within the moment. At a fifty-year high school reunion, the person will focus on all that was, or should have been, in his life as a high-school student.

We are emotional chameleons, taking on according to circumstances the varieties of identities formed by environment or the experiences of our life process. At a high school reunion, it will be a rare personality that doesn't find itself navigating through incidences that bring back the feelings of awkwardness typical to teenagers.

We are many things. I think of disability not as an Identity but rather as Exigency. Perhaps that is because I was disabled at age seventeen. Within the circumstance of "self," I am disabled (which in my mind means "restricted physically from living out my desires), but I am not a person with a disability. I am a person, but disability does not influence my person-hood.

But I do comprehend that, for example, if I'm plopped down in the middle of New York City, I will be seen first as a person with a disability and be labeled (negatively and positively) with all that implies until I interact with a person or with people to the point my own person-hood allows my wheelchair to fade into the background.

Disability may not be destiny, but disability loads a person down with perceptive baggage.

Ask me again, am I a person with a disability? This time I'll say "Yes." Why not, if it suits my purposes? I didn't refuse Social Security Disability Income as I approached age sixty and my post-polio syndrome made it impossible for me to work full-time. If it is raining or nasty, I'll use an accessible parking space if one is available. I love automated doors and curb cuts. I complain about restaurant tables too low or too high to accommodate a wheelchair user.

"Am I a person with a disability?" I refuse to be, or not to be. And so I ask you not to tell me I am such, perceive me as such, or identify me as that, and that alone. I don't like it when people point out my disability and attempt to treat me in a "special" fashion based upon their own concept of how a person with a disability should live in the world.

I am a person with a disability who only wants disability to influence the way I make my way in the world on my own terms.

"Good luck with that," right?

Thanatophilia Is a Poor Excuse for a Sadism

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:20:00 +0000

read the story here

I wasn't very much interested in the issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia until about ten years ago when I first had regular access to the Internet. Shortly thereafter I met the good folks at Not Dead Yet and learned how deeply prejudiced the euthanasia movement can be against those of us with disabilities.

Naively, I'd always thought that those who kill themselves generally are in deep emotional or physical pain and find death an acceptable solution. No one can know how much pain he or she might tolerate. I cannot judge others. I am too weak to judge others.

But killing oneself and being assisted in killing oneself are two different enterprises. What I do know is that government-sanctioned assisted suicide will eventually lead to "a wink-and-a-nod" euthanasia. There is, after all, the example of Holland and The Remmelink Report.

What troubles me is that so much of the outright advocacy for assisted suicide, or euthanasia, has an aura of thanatophilia -- an undue fascination with death.

I was reminded of this today when reading a story in the online edition of Britain's Daily Mail, an interview about and excerpts from a memoir titled So Far Away, by Christine Hartmann.

When I was in my early 20s, my mother told me she wanted to kill herself when she reached the age of 70.

She was completely calm as she explained her decision. By contrast I sat on the floor of my flat, shaking.

Ignoring my distress, my mother continued to discuss her plan to commit suicide in 20 years’ time, before she reached ‘old age’. She explained she would eat wisely, exercise daily, and take her blood-pressure medication. She would do her best to maintain good health and good spirits until the final moment. Then she would take her life.

Ugly, was my first thought. Self-righteous, pretentious, supercilious were other words that came to mind, especially as I read further into the story.

‘Killing yourself is selfish.’

‘Yes. I’m doing this for myself. But I’m also doing it for both of you. You’re too young to understand, but someday you’ll be glad I did it this way.’

‘I love you. Please don’t do it.’

‘I love you too, Tina. But I’m going to do it anyway.’

Over the next 20 years we would have this conversation again and again. She insisted her action would be the best for everyone. It gave her peace. But it tore me apart.

Perhaps cruel is the best word.

The odd thing is that the daughter identifies herself later in the story with "I believe strongly in the 'death with dignity' movement ..."

"Dignity" seems a concept at odds with what euthanasia brought to her life.

Never Use Blackface If You Use a Wheelchair

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:29:00 +0000

Read the article

One of the premier magazines focusing on disability issues -- New Mobility -- made its choice of "Person of the Year" and set off an interesting debate.

The magazine chose a wheelchair user. But the person is fictional, a character on the television program Glee.

New Mobility announces it with ...

This year’s Person of the Year is an extraordinary young man named Artie Abrams. Despite his disability, or perhaps motivated by it, 16-year-old Artie Abrams excels in so many areas. At McKinley High School in Ohio, he is an active member of the school glee club, a mainstay on the Academic Decathlon Team, and even suits up and plays for the state-champion football team, the McKinley Titans. He’s easy to spot on campus: He wears thick glasses and dresses like a retro nerd. He’s a pretty skillful guitarist, writes hip-hop poetry, falls in and out of love regularly, and is not afraid to speak up when he or anyone else is wronged. He has the confidence of the faculty and staff of McKinley and was recently asked to direct the glee club’s adaption of West Side Story. He aspires to be a theatrical director and is clearly on his way.

An admirable enough (imaginary) person, I suppose. And that fantastical persona is one of the two reasons so many anti-Artie comments flit about in the virtual ether. Artie's not real. There are plenty of real people with disabilities doing good work for the cause.

The second reason is that the actor playing the part isn't actually a wheelchair user. The actor is not disabled.

Allen Rucker's excellent article in New Mobility gives logical reasons for that, delving into how many people who ride wheelchairs are actors who would fit the role. Rucker even attempts to approach the fundamental objection: blackface.

Think about that issue this way: No one will tolerate George Clooney being cast as Martin Luther King, Jr. in a film biography. Yes, I know. A few pale skin actors have passed that test in their portrayals of Othello, and then there was Tony Curtis playing Ira Hayes, but it is no great stretch to jump to the possible erroneous conclusion that it is far easier for the great Denzil Washington earn a film or theater part seen as "white" than it is for an actor of equal grace and talent to play a part seen as "black."

But back to wheelchairs and the people in them: it is interesting that the question (real crip versus ersatz crip) doesn't come up in when the role of FDR is cast within a film or play. Considering the issue as a whole, however, I'm not quite willing to say that actor is actor whether the character uses hearing aids, prescription glasses, a cane, or a wheelchair. And there is a solid reason.

As there are psychological bricks making up the house of color, there are psychological elements making up a permanent wheelchair rider. Acknowledging that really makes my own point about not necessarily needing a crip to play FDR seem silly. Knowing how a wheelchair alters self-perception and public perception, it might be a greater disservice to use a non-wheelchair-riding actor to play FDR than it is to play a secondary character on a television show.

I don't watch Glee, and being the type of person to see every facet in an argument's diamond, I can see the point that New Mobility wants to make. Artie is a fictional person with a disability who is living more or less successfully in a universe where his disability is both incidental and accepted by his peers.

Would I have chosen the character as my Person of the Year? No, but my reasoning would be no more solid or logical than New Mobility's reasoning for its choice -- unless, of course, NM simply made the choice to create a bit of controversy, which is nothing more than a snide speculation about people who appear to have good motives.

Doesn't Anyone Remember Prohibition Didn't Work?

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:21:00 +0000

wikipedia img

The New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof posts on Facebook regularly. He reports quite often about slavery, famine, forced prostitution, and other human rights issues. Last week he asked readers for suggestions about subjects to be covered in the coming year. Here is his response after several hundred proposals.

Two topics came up that particularly appeal to me: first, the environment and the food system, and, second, Native American issues here in the US. Both are good suggestions. Climate change could overwhelm everything, and Native Americans represent a domestic challenge that rarely gets adequate attention (and that I don't know anything about, but should). And of course lots of other great reader suggestions that I'm onto. For example, some mentioned domestic violence ...

Never one to roll around without an opinion, my own suggestion was to write in support of the campaign to end the war on drugs.

I am a poorly educated person. As the great Will Rogers supposedly said, "All I know is what I read in the papers," not that I compare myself to Rogers. And what I have read over the years is that the US has transferred immeasurable wealth from the pockets of its citizens to people and governments of drug-producing countries. Secondly, we have created a vast law enforcement apparatus to fight the so-called war when those resources could be employed to fight real crime rather than police personal choices; additionally, we are paying to incarcerate and support a significant prison population whose only crimes involved ingesting the wrong substance; and we are increasing true criminal activity by forcing addicts and users to rob or steal or prostitute themselves to secure drugs. Thirdly, we have destabilized our borders.

Why?

I know people whose lives have been damaged by drugs, either directly or indirectly, but I think those people understand that what has happened to them or their family member is neither a sin nor a crime. Addiction is a medical issue and should be treated as such.

And speaking of medical issues, the draconian restrictions against the medical use of marijuana fly in the face of simple logic, especially when derivatives of heroin are prescribed every day.

Addiction to marijuana or cocaine or heroin or any other illegal substance is no different from addiction to alcohol, and yet those addicted to alcohol are live their lives unfettered unless they violate the law, whether or not they are under the influence at the time.

I grieve for the addicted to drugs--or alcohol, food, or any other substance. I believe that addiction, in general, is not a sin but a deviation from normal brain chemistry. Neither should it be a violation of the law, unless of course like alcohol a person commits a crime while under the influence.

Alcohol prohibition lasted in the US from 1920 to 1933. It was social insanity.

Prohibition of other assorted other mood altering substances has lasted for decades longer. It is also social insanity, but it is one that too many people seem to accept as rational.

Overthinking Story, Symbolism, and the Feminist Ideal

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Amongst us lives a 2½ year old girl. We think she's smarter than the average toddler. She's reading a few words. Can

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count. Has a superb sense of the nature of her environment. And in the face of something off-kilter or that she doesn't particularly want to do, she replies "You crack me up."

She also has become obsessed with, and in varying order of preference, Lady and the Tramp, Lion King, and Peter Pan. All are the Disney productions. All but Lion King are the original version. Over the past few days, it has been Lady and the Tramp upon which she has focused, so much so that we have bought a toddler-level book of the same story for her to read at night.

"Story." Every human being loves story, for story both explains and expands a person's life. And so I understand that the child is focused on the story within the animated feature, but not being a child psychologist, I don't understand if the story has some sort of universal emotional appeal or if other factors are at work--something deliberately organized to have a subliminal appeal below the subconscious level that entrances a developing mind.

Of course, Disney did not come to be a multi-billion dollar enterprise without some instinctive (or scientifically determined) understanding of what appeals to youngsters. If Walt Disney wanted only to entertain, I think the corporate officers now seek to be so entertaining (I would use the word "entrancing") that the dynamic reaches the level of addiction in a young mind.

The obsession here is significant enough that we limit the child to one viewing a day, and it is significant enough that we are somewhat thankful that the films have a value system, albeit one more humanist and sometimes more ambiguous than appears on the surface. This isn't an original thought, obviously. Put moral lesson + disney films into any search engine.

Secondly, over the last several decades I have become, for want of a better word, a feminist. I have been witness to my wife's struggles as a female in the workplace. I have memories of the native wit and subtle intelligence of my mother and maternal grandmother, both of whom had little or no opportunity to expand their lives with education and career. And so I wonder at the feminist message within these three Disney films.

The character Lady is less than ideal. The character lives a pampered life; she's marginalized; she is rejected; she must be rescued by a male.

I am not one for gender-neutral parenting. In some sense, biology is destiny. While I suspect I have not overcome generational prejudices about men in traditional female occupations, I do believe that females--little girls--should grow up with the idea that any occupation is possible.

But that same generational fissure that left me to embrace feminism only in mid-adulthood leaves me bemused at the results of "female role models" revealed today by a Google quest. Ripley, the Sigourney Weaver character from the Alien movie series? No. Better Hillary Clinton or Condileeza Rice or Madame Curie or Eleanor Roosevelt.

Not Quite a Ménage à trois

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:03:00 +0000

Where once there lived in this house three animals there are now four. No, not in this picture, but we do have four: three dogs and one cat. More accurately, the little Jack Russell facing away from the camera belongs to one of my stepsons, but I apparently have been placed in charge of her care while he lives here and looks for a house.

Today it is drizzling, and the ground is soaked from a heavy rain earlier in the week. The Boxer and the Jack Russell normally prefer the couch or a bed, but I have blocked off all but the kitchen and the little alcove where I have my computer. Thus, I've preserved sheets, blankets, and furniture from muddy paws.

The beasts and I normally gather in here every morning in any event. The Boxer has been placed on a special diet to assist urinary function, but to keep her coat shiny, I give her a bit of fat in the morning: "fat," meaning Vienna sausage, canned fish, or something similar, which probably isn't a good choice since such stuff is loaded with sodium. A better solution would be to pour olive oil on their dog food, but they prefer to nibble all day long, and when I wet it down with oil, they refuse it. At $67 a bag, I prefer no waste, but I also prefer no DVM bills approaching $200 for treatment of urinary crystals. And the cat likes the dog food too, which means we don't buy Fancy Feast.

I put six cups of the food in two dishes and tell them to divide it so that the Boxer has three or four cups, the Boston and the Jack Russell have one each, and Shorts the cat has the remainder. There have been no vocal disputes so far. Such is our style of animal husbandry: practicable and cooperative.

Since it is cold and dreary today, the dogs decided a post-sausage nap might be in order. It's interesting that a $.97 can of Vienna sausage satisfies while the high-dollar dog food languishes. Like every thoughtful companion to an animal, I have provided each of them with a bed. Well, except for Shorts, the cat. Shorts spends her nights outside patrolling, but she normally slips in for her taste of sausage or fish before finding a warm place.

The Boston bulldog went to one of the beds tucked partially beneath a chair in the room corner, but the other three decided to pile into one bed. And that's interesting because the Jack Russell doesn't like the cat and the Boxer only tolerates her. The cat, of course, doesn't care. The cat has claws, and she's willing to use them.

The three-abed was a moment worth preserving, I suppose, one of those things that none of the three would do on command, not that you can command a cat to do anything, although this is, this Shorts, a very peaceable and useful cat as evidenced by our living in the middle of three acres in the country without mice in the house.

Shorts deserves her rest. About the other two, I am not sure.

Asperger's and Unintended Consequences of Unplugging the DISH

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:54:00 +0000

image from CBS

We tired of the ever-increasing charges levied by DISH network, which for a mid-level, non-premium package was approaching $100 a month, and so we dropped the service.

I've missed ESPN, I'll admit that. And the Sirius music channels. About ESPN I can do nothing. For music, I'm expanding my iTunes library -- Janis Joplin's "Cry Baby," Patti Loveless' "Don't Toss Us Away," and Dwight Yoakum's "Suspicious Minds" are recent downloads.

But that's not television. We're down to CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, one independent, and one local-low-power (religious) channel. The local Fox affiliate was taken over by an out-of-town company, and the current signal does not reach us 30-miles away.

There are educational shows on PBS -- how can you not like "Antiques Roadshow?" -- but since police dramas and situation comedies are the staple of broadcast television, I'm mostly watching comedies and the news. And that's what I want to talk about -- the character Sheldon Cooper on CBS' "The Big Bang Theory."

I know the show has been on air long enough to have the early efforts sold into syndication, but I've only been watching it recently. If you're sophisticated enough about the world, you might (like me) jump to the conclusion Sheldon has an Asperger Syndrome personality. I don't remember any controversy about Cooper's personality when it first aired, but Cooper's character (his personality, his remarks) provides most of the laughs.

To be blunt, it appears a person with Asperger Syndrome is being played as a comic catalyst. I wondered if there'd been any talk about it in disability circles. I found one supportive take online in Psychology Today in a column by Lynne Soraya: "Sheldony or Aspergy?"

The writer, a person with Asperger Syndome, thinks Sheldon might be a member of the tribe. There are others who agree, like "A Little Sheldony" -- a Live Science discussion of those with Asperger's having "an allegiance to the truth," which is part of the character's comic schtick.

Disability can be a comic catalyst, I suppose. Many crips like Timmy on "South Park." I cannot comment about that since I don't watch animated shows meant for adults. There was a contretemps when Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller's comedy, over the use of the words "full retard" in the dialog when one actor was describing the possible profit (an award) for playing certain characters. Think I Am Sam or Rain Man.

I can only speak from a personal point of view. I can make jokes about my wheelchair. You can try, but you might not be funny. That makes me think that somewhere in the writer's stable creating the character Sheldon Cooper there may be a person with some degree of Asperger's Syndrome.

Or maybe not.

All I know is this: the Cooper character can defend himself, which may make his use as a comic foil acceptable; people who hear the ugly term "full retard" cast their way might not be able to defend themselves, which makes the term dangerous if not impossible to use; actors like Sean Penn (I Am Sam) and Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man) get a pass in the name of art, the reasons for which ironically (Tropic Thunder) can probably and carefully only be discussed in private; and Timmy from South Park is a cartoon, which is a cheap method of presenting an idea that might possibly be offensive.

Kirkus Review: The Rook

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:48:00 +0000

Read the Review

I'm not one much for fantasy (okay I've read and like Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach), for science fiction (okay, I've read Heinlein), or fantasy combined with science fiction, but this fellow Daniel O'Malley came up with a good hook and wrote The Rook, which I reviewed recently for Kirkus.

With O'Malley using first-Myfanwy's letters to provide history and backstory, second-Myfanwy grows into her hero-role and other characters are revealed as suitably creepy in the right and wrong ways. O'Malley's narrative is peppered with sly humor, referential social commentary and the ironic, double-layered self-awareness that will have genre fans believing Buffy the Vampire Slayer has joined Ghostbusters.

Read the complete review here.

Never Take Your Husband Grocery Shopping

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:27:00 +0000

Amazon.com

I rarely go grocery shopping with my wife. She's the sort who doesn't like to shop and might grow a bit grumpy prowling the aisles of Wally World. But I did go this past Friday because we had to run other errands.

Grocery shopping done, I watched as she pushed the cart onto our van's wheelchair lift. She ran the cart up into the van and unloaded the groceries. While I was waiting, I thought, Hey, why don't we just drive home? We can use the cart to unload the groceries and not be forced to make five or six trips into the house.

It was 29-degrees, a tiny bit breezy, and cloudy. Wanting to get into the van and turn on the heater might have spurred that thought, but when I voiced the idea as she brought the cart down the lift, she said, "Oh, yeah. And what about the security cameras?"

"Too bad a person can't buy one," I said.

"My grandmother used to have a little square one," my wife said. "She used all the time when she lived in Chicago."

I wondered if such a thing were still available. "Google knows everything," she said.

"Yeah," I replied, "but even if I found one, you'd probably be too self-conscious to use it."

"Not me, pal. I have out-grown that stage. I'm for anything that cuts down on the workload."

And so today I ordered a shopping cart. Granted, I will probably still have to fulfill my own "carry all duties" when we're in the mall, but now at least I won't have to make six trips from the kitchen to the van after every grocery shopping trip.

Now, don't you wish you had a van with a wheelchair lift?

McDeathmobile: "Would You Like Fries with Morphine Overdose?"

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:36:00 +0000

image from Wikipedia.org

Viktor Frankl, a concentration camper survivor, once wrote, "Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

That's not a particularly original thought, but it is expressed in a sophisticated way, and it's a valid method of making one's way through the world without being trapped in a constant fog of bitterness.

I often think of it when I think of the assisted suicide movement. In today's Daily Mail, a newspaper in Great Britain, there is a story about the expansion of assisted suicide in the Netherlands.

The Dutch government is considering plans to use mobile medical teams which would administer euthanasia to people in their homes.

The units, dubbed 'grim reapers on wheels' by critics, will be called in to kill patients when their own GPs refuse to administer lethal drugs.

The mobile teams of doctors and nurses would be sent out from a clinic following a referral from the patient’s doctor.

The story was balanced enough, even noting that physicians were euthanizing (killing, depending on your point of view) "dementia sufferers, including Alzheimer’s victims," hardly a population capable of making an informed consent.

If Frankl is correct, a rational person must agree that suicide is the ultimate means of "choosing one's own way." I have known several people who committed suicide, but I have never known their heart, nor even if they sought help, or even if the method they chose caused them pain. Still I cannot bring myself to support an organized effort by government or by private party (meaning groups like the Hemlock Society) to put in place a formal process wherein other human beings participate in the death.

The Netherlands, and Oregon (the state in the USA where the option has been legalized), require two professionals to acknowledge the person is making a correct decision. But human beings, including medical doctors, are fallible, and more often than not make choices -- even for others -- based upon their own emotional and intellectual outlook. While not so elegantly phrased as Frankl, the aphorism of "If you have a hammer, every problem becomes a nail" applies. Or to focus on one purveyor: if you approach the Hemlock Society for help in committing suicide, you cannot expect their representatives to counsel you about other options to be considered first.

I began thinking about this today again not only because of the proposed changes in the Dutch law but also because of an opinion piece in The Providence, a Canadian newspaper. It has been circulating among disability activists, and it is from a physician who had a patient in common with another physician. The writer was asked to concur in a prescription for an assisted suicide for the patient who had undergone cancer treatment and become depressed because he could no longer hike as he had before treatment.

The writer notes, "I told her that I did not concur and that addressing his depression would be better than simply giving him a lethal prescription. Unfortunately, two weeks later my patient was dead from an overdose prescribed by this doctor."

That's a doctor doing what's called "doctor shopping," which would land me in jail if I undertook such an enterprise to increase the amount of prescription pain relievers I am allowed. Perhaps it isn't criminal, but certainly an example of the I own a hammer, so you've gotta be a nail ideal and why a person might be influenced at a time when most vulnerable.

Steampunk Wheelchair

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:22:00 +0000

from Ebert's Journal

From Jeff Shannon by way of Roger Ebert's Journal, there comes an appreciation of a wheelchair designed from the Steampunk ethos, about which there is the comment, "It doesn't matter that Valdez himself is not disabled. Instead, he encourages authentic wheelchair users to think about how they'd modify his design, or to imagine Steampunk chairs of their own."

The first sentence is correct, of course. The design is art. But the "is not disabled" reference reminds me that it appears as if so many wheelchairs are designed with less than a sense of workability than might be had were there input from long-term wheelchair users. What I wouldn't give for a design that didn't have so many corners and utensils that either damage door frames and cabinets or lend themselves to being damaged in the same collisions.

That begs, I suppose, an answer to the second question: "how they'd modify his design, or to imagine Steampunk chairs of their own."

My answer: I wouldn't.

To me, the perfect wheelchair would follow the Bauhaus ethos: "there should be no distinction between form and function." Count me as a minimalist. I want wheels. I want motors. I want a comfortable, adjustable seating. I want a minimal amount of storage space. I want all of this within the smallest physical framework possible.

There is a perfect aesthetic purity in the utilitarian essential, and that can apply even where art is not found. An instrument of war is an example -- a military jet aircraft. There is no attempt at art. There is only present what serves its purpose, but the design of a Chance-Vought Corsair or the McDonnell Phantom or the Lockheed Blackbird live within the realm of beauty. Less dramatic is an example of a knife. An artist might etch the blade or inlay jewels in the handle, but the knife is perfect art before that superficiality is applied.

Is the Steampunk wheelchair art or an affectation? Both, no doubt.

The Liar in the Mirror

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:35:00 +0000

"reality" - from about.com

I am not much fond of David Brooks' political and social theories, but I do sometimes find his columns in the New York Times interesting. Recently he wrote "Life Reports II," wisdom gathered from older readers.

Among those ideas for living a successful life, he found this tidbit of advice.

Beware rumination. There were many long, detailed essays by people who are experts at self-examination. They could finely calibrate each passing emotion. But these people often did not lead the happiest or most fulfilling lives. It’s not only that they were driven to introspection by bad events. Through self-obsession, they seemed to reinforce the very emotions, thoughts and habits they were trying to escape.

Many of the most impressive people, on the other hand, were strategic self-deceivers. When something bad was done to them, they forgot it, forgave it or were grateful for it. When it comes to self-narratives, honesty may not be the best policy.

I suppose that boils down to "Don't over-think things," but to me, it is 180-degrees opposite of the approach any writer should take. It also reminded me of some of the feedback I received after publishing my memoir -- the gist of which was "You're too hard on yourself."

There's a danger of negativity, of course, in rumination and in self-criticism, but I also think the worst thing one can do is to lie to oneself.

Reality is. And no one will ever have a chance to grow, to be a better person without recognizing personal faults.

And reality also requires a rational and sophisticated person understand that every human being is flawed. To rely on an aphorism from the novelist Peter DeVries, "Human nature is pretty shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection."

Many who are reading the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs are remarking on Jobs' desire to have his life revealed, fully recognizing his flaws. Jobs was a genius, and he often wasn't a pleasant person, but in light of the biography, he was apparently honest. What part that honesty, that understanding of his own flaws, played in his material success, I don't know.

That's not really relevant, though, to all that I took away from Brooks' essay. Granted there are many out there who do not ruminate, who live for self, for pleasure, and live in the moment -- and consider themselves to be living a happy, fulfilling life.

But to me, those who choose to beware rumination must be willing to skim the surface of life. For any person of intelligence, such a choice would doubtless be a conscious one, one recognizing that to do so may isolate the person from the deeper, more mystical parts of life.

Ship Toilets and the Cult of Personality

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:36:00 +0000

www.navytimes.com

I am an omnivore in reading, my eye attracted by a I gotta read that! headline or the interesting title of a book. The other day I happened to read a story about one of the US Navy's most modern ships, the aircraft carrier USS George H W Bush. The big ship, the $6.2 billion ship, is having trouble with its toilet system, a new design.

That's news, but the name of the ship in contrast to the name of the ship in a nonfiction book I'm currently reading (the USS Franklin, a WW II era aircraft carrier), provoked me to wonder why the US Navy and Congress turned their back on an historic and truly American tradition.

The aircraft carriers are the pride of the Navy. During World War II, when aircraft carriers became the capital ships of the Navy, the large class carriers were named ...

Essex
Lexington
Yorktown
Bunker Hill
Wasp
Hornet
Franklin
Hancock
Ticonderoga
Bennington
Shangri-La
Randolph
Bon Homme Richard
Antietam
Boxer
Lake Champlain
Princeton
Tarawa
Kearsarge
Leyte
Philippine Sea
Valley Forge
Oriskany

Most of the names commemorate battles. A few commemorate patriots of great note. Wasp and Hornet are traditional ship names. Bon Homme Richard was the name of John Paul Jones' ship.

Contrast that with the names of the current active US Navy aircraft carriers.

Enterprise
Nimitz
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Carl Vinson
Theodore Roosevelt
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
John C. Stennis
Harry S. Truman
Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush

There are two more under construction, Gerald R. Ford and John F. Kennedy (the second of that name).

Only the Enterprise bears a traditional, historic ship name. Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Washington, Truman, Nimitz -- all names of good men who served the United States heroically.

But Carl Vinson and John Stennis were long-serving Dixiecrat senators from the south who happened to hold the purse strings on the Armed Services Committee for no reason other than they lived to be elected, and reelected time after time. Both came from the segregated south when a Republican couldn't be elected dog-catcher. Both opposed civil rights. Name a post office for those reactionaries, or a bridge, but not an aircraft carrier. Cult of personality, indeed.

I wish the Navy would return to the old names like Yorktown and Lexington, Wasp and Hornet.

Kirkus Best Fiction 2011: Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:23:00 +0000


Read the review

Read the review


Read the review

Read the review

"We're Having a Sale on Apostrophes Today"

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:07:00 +0000

Ramtop at Flickr Commons

It requires a certain measure of indifference to move artfully through this world. There are things that matter. Things worth fighting for. And there are things a sane person will let pass, knowing in the great scheme of the infinite only a few people, places, and actions carry the weight of a line drawn in the sand.

I had a chance to address my theory last weekend when I encountered a situation where my pledge to indifference required an affirmation. And so I came to a point where I made the Instant Internal Assessment necessary to function without immediate resort to mood altering chemicals: expense of energy versus probability/value of altering opinion.

As usual, I usually found the former to outweighed the latter.

My wife and I had some family photographs taken, and in the process we ordered photographic Christmas cards.

We were going through the "greetings" with the fellow who was assisting us. He suggested "Seasons Greetings." I was being my usual contrary self. "Too bland," I said. "It's a religious holiday, at least for us."

We settled on "Peace on Earth. Goodwill toward Men."

"How do you want to sign it?" he asked.

"From the Presleys," responded my wife.

He wrote "From the Presley's" into the computer ordering system.

I said, "There's no apostrophe."

"Sure, there is," he replied. "The card is from you, the Presley's. The family."

"An apostrophe s is possessive," I said, and without raising my voice. "It's the Presley's card, but the card is from the Presleys, which are the three of us here, which makes more than one Presley, which is why it should be plural."

"No, no. That's wrong."

"Better listen to him," my wife said to the man. "He's a published writer."

"Well," the guy replied, "I'm right. I've always written it that way."

I gave up. "How about changing it to Happy Holidays from the Presley family?

That seem to satisfy him, but I watched carefully over his shoulder to to make certain he wasn't writing it as Happy Holiday's.

Infinite Hidden Reasons

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:44:00 +0000

I sometimes think that those of us who are certain of the reasons we do things are simply fooling ourselves. Thus, a tattoo.

I have wanted a tattoo. I have thought a tattoo silly, juvenile. My wife, far more conservative in outlook, has two, but they are hidden. One is a dragonfly. The other is a daisy.

Of course, if a person wants a tattoo, a decision must be made about the design. I'm not much for dragons. Or Harley-Davidson emblems. Or Japanese or Chinese symbols, although I do think there is a measure of mystical truth expressed by the yin-yang symbol and by the concept of karma.

I chose the mathematical sign for infinity. I am intrigued by the concept of infinity, especially as it relates to astrophysics and the universe. How can the universe be infinite if it is entire and if there was infinite nothing before the Big Bang and now it is expanding into ...

What?

Actually, it doesn't matter. It is simply a thing I puzzle over in the middle of the night.

That doesn't really explain the tattoo, of course. The tattoo also marks a concept that has changed our family's life in infinite ways, and it is serendipity when two concepts can be entertained by a single symbol.

Dead Letters: A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:05:00 +0000

Buy the Book

Nonfiction

"What a long strange journey it's been ..."

DEAD LETTERS
The Very Best of Grateful Dead Fan Mail
By Paul Grushkin
Quayside Publishing/Voyageur Press, 496 color images

Reviewed by Gary Presley

Quayside Publishing once again expands its offering of large-format illustrated books--coffee table books--by reaching into the realm of rock-and-roll history.

In the United States rock-and-roll, at least as music played by and for an audience of white people, began to grow into the public consciousness with Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and the Comets, and Elvis Presley, at least until the British invasion by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and others. Then came Vietnam, and nothing was ever the same again.

The Grateful Dead came together in that flower-power era, and in San Francisco, the heart of the counter-culture. The Grateful Dead became more than music; its name became shorthand for a worldview. Dead followers began to interact with the group in a way that reflected that alternative ethos, up to and including "Deadheads," camp followers who simply trekked to multiple Grateful Dead concerts over months or even years.

It's no surprise then that communications with the group's headquarters began to arrive in fancifully decorated envelopes. And so we have Dead Letters, nearly five hundred images, nearly all of them drawn by fans on envelopes containing ticket requests and sent to the band's headquarters.

Image from Dead Letters

There are fourteen chapters bracketed by a foreword and preface, and an epilogue and acknowledgments. Many of the chapters classify the drawings by theme:

Chapter 3: Song Interpretations: It Speaks of a Life That Passes Like Dew
Chapter 5: The Lightning Bolt: Arrows of Neon
Chapter 7: Dead Head Characters: Come and Join the Party Every Day.

Gruskin is a co-author of a Grateful Dead history published in 1983, and he has written other books about the place of art in rock-and-roll, including Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion.

Deadheads will want this book. As the basketball legend Bill Walton says in his forward to the book, "Dead Letters is essentially a love story--letters and all."

Being a Victim, and Other Thoughts on Book Reviewing

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:36:00 +0000

I mostly receive literary fiction or action-adventure books to review, which means angst in various forms or an author's search for a new James Bond.

All well and good. Then in the middle of reviewing what might be called a "literary suspense" novel yesterday, the proverbial light bulb clicked, and I began to think that fiction requires Someone to be a victim. This applies whether you're a woman running from an assumed murderer or a Bondian hero oppressed by a conspiring bureaucracy. A novel needs a victim.

The study of victimology in the personal sense might unearth two sources. Self-pity. Anger. There may be a commonality in those to emotions. I once read a wise man who said "Anger is the most extreme form of self-pity."

No one wants to be a victim. To refuse to be one requires will and action, and of course, the attitude that will and action will resolve the situation that supposedly victimizes the person. Some situations are not resolvable, disability as an example. That means attitude must be the fundamental controlling factor, which I suppose is what Norman Vincent Peale and my father were trying to tell me decades ago.

The idea that so many story narratives require a victim jumped off the page when I was reading about a protagonist who believes a man had kidnapped and killed her daughter. She moves to a nearby town. The alleged killer follows. The woman obsesses, grieves, grows angry, neglects her surviving daughter, and ultimately pursues the alleged killer. She is a victim, languishes in her victimhood, and finally lashes out.

The story requires her victimhood.

And that says something about writing fiction, and life in the real world.

Kirkus Review: The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:53:00 +0000

review here

Even a rube like me is familiar enough with pop culture to recognize the entertainment types, from studio or network honcho to the scrabbling screenwriter with a laptop mooching free wireless off of Mickey D's, are always searching for "high concept," which in real-world language is something new and different.

Author Thomas Caplan reached hard to get that High-C ...

THE SPY WHO JUMPED OFF THE SCREEN
By Thomas Caplan

Ty Hunter is an accidental actor who made it big in Tinseltown. He was a special-ops–tested military intelligence officer recovering from injuries when he met a film producer. But Caplan doesn't rush Hunter into play.

Read the complete review at Kirkus.

That Vulgar Close Captioning, or Maybe Not

noreply@blogger.com (Gary Presley) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:04:00 +0000

image linked from msnbc.com

We have two televisions in our house, and we set both to close caption. My wife has a hearing impairment, one which makes it difficult for her to hear some voices, and so the FCC mandate about captioning is a boon for her. It doesn't bother me to have the captions scrolling. In fact, when I see a television without captioned dialog, I feel as if something is missing.

Live close captioning isn't perfect. Sometimes there are significant gaps. Captions on films and other recorded programs are generally complete. However, over the years, and especially as television networks have become more liberal in their broadcasting standards, I've noticed there is an oddity in captioning curse words and vulgar words.

For example, on network television programs, I have seen vulgar words bleeped or re-recorded -- Monkey-lover! -- while the caption renders the original uncensored.

But until a few days ago, I have never seen the opposite. On Starz or perhaps Encore, I watched a film with uncensored oral dialog with the captioning either deleting the vulgarity or rewriting it.

I am not conversant enough with technology to know whether "live close captioning" is voice-to-text, something like the computer programs available, and so I do not see any real motive for the deleted elements in live captioning. I do know, however, that the choice to sanitize language in close captioning a film is deliberate human intervention.

Vulgarity, cursing, is beginning to lose its effect in this world, become something close to cliche, something a lazy person (or writer!) relies on, something akin to a verbal/oral parallel to smoking. With that, the oddity of captioned cursing, or captioned cleansing, is of no import. All I know is that there's a comedy routine in this funny little tiptoeing around a hearing impaired person's sense of decorum, but I'd need a roomful of Letterman's writers to get it on paper.