From earlier today, presented here for archival purposes, and also, you know, to make the the point that people are often very confidently wrong about things. The subject at hand is whether I pretty much indiscriminately endorse the books that come my way. Longtime readers here know the answer to that, but it’s always worth repeating.
1. Lol, no. I show off piles of books to show people what’s coming out; I also give authors space on my site to promote their latest books. But the number of books I actually *blurb* – give a quote for their cover – is actually pretty small, limited to books I’ve read and liked.
2. Nor do I (or the authors I know) engage in simple logrolling. Do I endorse the books of friends? Sure – if I like them. I don’t endorse books of authors I know if they’re not to my liking. And I endorse books of authors I don’t know when they come to me and are amazing.
3. I decline to endorse the large majority of books that I’m sent to blurb. Mostly because I just don’t have time to read them (I warn the editors up front that might be the case) but sometimes just because it’s not the book for me, even if it will be a fabulous book for others.
4. And for the record I have never been *pressured* by an editor/publisher/etc to blurb a book. Several is the time my own publisher has sent me something for endorsement and I didn’t give it. The response is always, “okay, thanks, maybe next time.”
5. Not on this person specifically, but I really get annoyed with the assumption that author endorsements are this corrupt and chummy thing. That’s bullshit. If you see my name on the cover of someone’s book, it’s because I think that book is good and worth a look. That’s it.
6. This “blurbs are corrupt” nonsense is part of a larger narrative of “publishing is fixed, you have to know someone and/or recite a secret password” bad thinking. It’s untrue. Getting published isn’t easy but it’s not just for a pre-determined club. Reductive nonsense, that is.
7. Oh, and, know what? I have a pretty damn good track record with my blurbs. Many of those books have gone on to award wins and/or bestseller status; some have been made into movies or television. It’s correlation not causation! But indicative of me not being indiscriminate.
8. That said: I happily *promote* writers! I retweet their stuff, post pics of books sent to me, schedule Big Ideas, and otherwise help to get word out. Why? Because I have reach and because promoting books is *hard* even in the best of times, which these are not. Glad to help!
9. I can’t possibly read or actively endorse every book I’m sent or know about or retweet. But I can let other people know they *exist,* and I’m happy to do that. If that counts as *endorsement* to you, then okay, I guess. My own distinction is a little more fine-grained.
10. In sum: author book endorsements generally (and certainly mine specifically) are not glad-handedly corrupt. If I blurb something, I actually, you know, *liked* it. Thank you. And now, here’s a picture of a cat to see you all out of this thread.
I spent the entire month of December — and honestly, most of November, too — dreading the holidays and doing my best to avoid thinking about them. The “will he/won’t he” question of whether my estranged son would demonstrate some basic human compassion and reach out to let me know that he’s alive was a huge part of it. (Spoiler alert: nope.) But I also just couldn’t picture the holiday without family, without church, without any of the rituals of my childhood.
As it happened, it was an incredibly nice Christmas. Ha. I don’t know whether all the dread actually made it better? Maybe I was so poised for it to be horrible that anything would have been better than my worst fears. But nope, it was actually just a really great day.
Suzanne and I dabbled in Christmas preparations ahead of time: we didn’t get a tree, but we put up Christmas lights on our respective houses, and we agreed to exchange stocking stuffers. And then we both bought stockings so that we’d have someplace to put said stocking stuffers! We hung the stockings in her house, along with one for the dogs and one for the cats.
First thing in the morning, well before daylight, I made a pot of coffee and brought it over to her house so we could open presents. (I knew she was awake, because we play an online game, Spelling Bee, and we were both adding words to it by 6AM.) We did such good jobs of present-giving! Also, great minds and all that — both stockings included socks and chocolate caramels. Ha. Hers also included t-shirts and a jigsaw puzzle and a tortilla warmer; and mine included some stickers I’d admired, a set of bamboo camping utensils, and a gift card for the cupcake store. We each also had a few presents from other people, my favorite of which was a magnet from Christina that so made me laugh…
The chickens love me, but I don’t think I can make them sing!
We laughed a lot and drank our coffee and I ate gluten-free Christmas cookies that Suzanne’s awesome next-door neighbor had brought over on Christmas Eve. Then I came back to Serendipity and started calling people: my dad, my brother, Christina and Greg, my sister. With the spirit of Christmas on me, I even called R. He didn’t answer, but I left him a message wishing him a Merry Christmas, and I tried not to let myself get overwhelmed with sadness.
Instead I dragged Suzanne and the dogs off to the beach. Not that it was hard — even on a gray and rainy day, S & the dogs are always enthusiastic beach goers. But it was solidly rainy, so instead of going to one of our usual walking beaches, we drove down the Samoa peninsula to Humboldt Bay’s bleakly famous North Jetty. Bleakly famous, because it could easily be haunted from the number of tragedies that have happened there. We didn’t go anywhere near the jetty, but we admired the waves from a distance and appreciated the ocean air. And got really wet. I’d brought a cup of tea along, sort of randomly, and I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated tea more than when I got back into the car and realized my coffee mug had kept it so hot that it was still almost undrinkable. Yum, hot mint tea on a rainy day.
On our drive home, we saw a rainbow that was actually more of a splotch of color in the sky than an arch. Beautiful and odd — what does one call a rainbow when it’s a circle, not a bow?
Our Christmas dinner plan was — well, unusual, maybe? Earlier in the month, I’d made a pork roast for dinner one night. The next night, I made pork tacos from leftover pork. But we used corn tortillas from the grocery store and they were terrible. During the course of our dinner conversation that night, I decided that my goal for 2021 was going to be to learn how to make homemade corn tortillas. Good homemade corn tortillas. Suzanne was a little dubious, but onboard for any experiments I wanted to make. She was also, conveniently, the proud owner of a very nice handmade tortilla press that was gathering dust and cobwebs in the cupboard.
Under most circumstances, I wouldn’t pick a major holiday as a day to try something totally new, but given the 2020 situation, why not, right? My plan for dinner was shrimp tacos and if the tortillas were disastrous, shrimp rice bowls.
The tortillas were not disastrous. Tortillas turn out to be ridiculously easy to make if you have the right tools, aka a cast iron skillet, a tortilla press, and a tortilla warmer. Also helpful, a heavy-duty ziplock bag. On two cups of masa (corn flour, available here at every grocery store), pour one and a half cups of very hot, but not boiling water. Let it sit for five minutes, then knead it for several minutes. If it’s too crumbly, add a little more water; if it’s too sticky, add a little more masa. Divide the dough into 16 equal-sized balls. (For me, using the Christmas cookie method of dividing the dough in half, then in half again, then in half again, then in half again, was a good way to get very evenly sized balls.) Heat a cast-iron skillet to fairly hot, but don’t add oil. Cut the heavy-duty freezer bag open and cover the tortilla press with it, and press each ball of masa individually between the plastic sides. Then cook it in the cast-iron pan for about thirty seconds per side or until it puffs up slightly. Put the tortillas in the tortilla warmer to stay nice until you’re ready to eat them.
As a goal for 2021, learning how to make good homemade corn tortillas feels really satisfying, because DONE. They were great. As it happened, we didn’t have the jerk seasoning I thought we had, and the shrimp was disappointingly bland IMO, but the tacos were delicious. Yum. So good that I’m contemplating making them for lunch now, because even though it’s only 9:30AM, I’ve made myself hungry.
After dinner — early, because the tortillas were a lot less time-consuming than I’d envisioned — we took the dogs for a walk. Just our usual walk, down to the end of the street and back again, but the weather had improved and it was a beautiful late afternoon. We talked about traveling and food, trips that we want to take, places we’d like to eat. It was a thoroughly satisfying envisioning of a future with possibilities rich and interesting.
I’m so relieved to have the holidays almost over. Do I think that life is miraculously going to get better, that my grief will magically disappear, that the world will suddenly become a sane place again? Well, not really, actually. But I had a really nice Christmas, and for today, that is sufficient unto the day.
For awhile after listening to Brené Brown talk about how we make true connections by sharing our vulnerabilities, I wore this crown of pride around thinking: THIS IS WHY I HAVE SO MANY GOOD FRIENDS NOW! Because I’m so open about my vulnerabilities on the interwebs and it allows me to make richer connections! I would look at the friendships I’ve made over the last decade, both in the real world and over the internet, and I would proudly carry the weight of success like it somehow was something that belonged just to me.
This was/is often validated by how my people would say, “It’s so amazing how open you are about everything in your life! I wish I could be like that!” I would look around and the rich friendships I have and think, “Yeah! I did that!”
And don’t get me wrong, there is some truth and some connection to my ability to make friends now and living my best true self online and offline, but I’ve realized lately that I’m not the one who deserves to wear the crown. It’s the people who have approached me with similar vulnerabilities. What I’m doing does not take a lot of bravery. Once you’ve done it a few times, it doesn’t take a lot of new bravery to write about personal shit online. Once you’ve jumped over that hurdle once or twice, the rest of them are easy. It’s the person approaching me with a shared story that is brave.
Not only does it not take any real effort anymore, but writing a Facebook status about needing a therapist is not really “being vulnerable” like I used to think it was. Because I’m not exposing that underbelly to anyone in particular and waiting to see if they react. I’m just rolling over with a blindfold on and some people come over and sit with me and others abandon me and some don’t even see me but truthfully…I don’t ever see who does which.
But then someone comes up to me at a big social function and says, “That thing you wrote about being Pro-Choice the other day? I really appreciate that. I can’t be really open about my thoughts on Facebook because of my job but I just want to you know I feel the same way.”
THAT is the person who deserves to wear the crown. THAT is the person who looked me in the eye and shared their vulnerability not really knowing how I’d accept it. There’s not a lot of risk to writing online about anxiety and depression and issues around low self-image or insecurities about parenting. I mean…it’s a little brave. But really the bravery comes with the people that send me emails or leave me blog comments or tweet me responses that say, “Me too. Here is my story.”
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, not to reduce the pride I feel in being so open about my “issues” so to speak, but to be more honest how it has helped me build relationships because shouting into the void doesn’t do it alone…it’s the next step…the people who respond in kind and more importantly…ONE ON ONE…that creates the relationships. Me just being open about leaving the church is not enough to build a strong relationship with someone. It takes that other person text me, or sending me an email, or meeting me for coffee and saying, “I left the church too…”
THAT is what the key is to the relationship building that can happen around shared vulnerabilities. And those are the connections that help me feel less alone in this world.
I’m not great about replying to people in general. I live in this scattered brain that is constantly bouncing around and struggling to stay focused and so when I get some sort of digital communication, especially if I notice it on my phone and not my laptop, I read it and then never remember to respond. And it’s not like I don’t think of it often. There are some comments I’ve gotten on this blog and some tweets and instagram messages that I carry in my heart for years but I couldn’t really tell you if I ever got around to thanking that person. People have shown me great kindnesses in person, the kind that warm my heart when they pop into my memories on really sad days, but I don’t know if they know how important of a part they play in my box of sunlight that I open on the dark days.
I’m trying to be better. Well, I’ve been trying to be better for a long time but I definitely feel like I’m trying more lately. When my aunt went into hospice care several months ago I started thinking a lot about how she might die without knowing the place she held in my heart, and so I took the time to write her a letter to tell her. And ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out some method of checklists or something to help me make sure people know how grateful they are for everything from short messages of support to long decades of friendship.
A year or two ago I tried to start a master list and that backfired and was so intimidating I just never did ANY sort of recognition. Now, what I’m really trying to do is – when someone pops into my mind or some sort of surge of gratitude fills my heart for someone – I try to sit down to do something about it. Send a text, write a letter, something IN THAT MOMENT while I’m thinking about them.
But jeezus…again…I AM SO SCATTERED that I’ll literally sit down and do that and end up paying bills instead. Or seeing my book on my table and thinking, “Let me just read for a few minutes.” Hell…as I was writing that last paragraph I remembered: OH! I need to ask that friend for their address! So I clicked over to FB message them and then got distracted by my notifications and then came BACK to this entry after looking at my notifications and NEVER EVEN GOT THE GIRL’S ADDRESS.
Anyway…my point of all of this is I find myself reflecting more and more on the light in my life that is thanks to the way other people have responded to me and wishing I could do more to show my gratitude to each and every soul that has made me feel a little less insecure. I still walk through the world assuming I have nothing of worth to give many days, but I’m trying to speak to myself with love and a lot of that involves incorporating gratitude into my natural patterns of thought.
On that note…thank you for being here. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for emailing. That you for just reading. Every time I have to deal with the technical side of this blog (like the move) I wonder if there’s any point in any of it. Am I just writing to the void? But then I remember all of the useful links and book recommendations and shared stories and words of support and I remember…OH YEAH. This place has helped me feel less alone and even if I can’t write about everything that is going on in my life right now (it’s a lot, y’all) I write about a lot of it and I’m so grateful so many of you reach out to pat me on the back or hold my hand when I need it.
This Monday, the final "trilogue" (a meeting between the European Parliament, the European Presidency, and the EU member-states) was supposed to convene to wrap up the negotiations on the first update to the Copyright Directive since 2001, including the controversial Article 13 (mandatory copyright filters for online services) and Article 11 (letting news sites decide who can link to them and charging for the privilege).
But that meeting has been cancelled and now the whole thing is on life-support. If the Trilogue can be reconvened in a matter of days, then it's just possible that it could finish it work and send a final draft to the Parliament to be voted on, but that's getting less likely by the second, and a delay of more than a day or two will mean that this is off the table until after the next EU Parliamentary elections in the spring -- which is also after Brexit -- and which will likely result in a very different landscape for this kind of legislative gift to corporate lobbyists (between the rise of insurgent parties in the EU, and Brexit eliminating the UK MEPs most likely to carry water for companies like EMI and Sky).
Here's a very short version of how the Trilogue got cancelled and the Directive got put on life-support: back in the spring, Axel Voss, a German MEP, took over the drafting of the Directive, and revived the no-compromise versions of Articles 11 and 13, throwing out years of negotiations in order to give the record industry and aristocratic German newspaper families a huge legislative favour.
After just barely surviving an unprecedented vote in the Parliament, Voss and his backers scrambled to rescue Articles 11 and 13. The corporations behind the law poured an ocean of dark money into it, while Voss draped a series of tiny, largely ornamental changes over the Directive in order to obfuscate its true objectives.
But the backers of Articles 11 and 13 were hardline, no-compromise copyright ultras who rejected any compromise language. The movie studio and TV divisions of the corporations that had backed Article 13 (through their music-label divisions) denounced Article 13 and called for it to be deleted from the Directive. They had won a ridiculous court victory in Germany and hoped to leverage that into effectively forcing all the internet companies out of business, so they could be turned into subsidiary arms of the entertainment conglomerates, much in the same way that Napster was just absorbed into BMG. Creating a rule that Big Tech could follow, even one as onerous as Article 13, scuttled that plan.
Then, the music industry also denounced the "compromise version" of Article 13, because it had been amended so that it was just barely possible for Google and the other Big Tech companies to actually comply with -- the record industry had been hoping to stick Big Tech with an impossible-to-follow rule, and then to use that rule as negotiating leverage to get them to pay more for music licenses ("Now you have to license from us, on our terms, because it is impossible for you to comply with Article 13, and only we can relieve you of the obligation to abide by it"). There are lots of problems with this, but the biggest one is that even after securing permission from the record labels, Big Tech would still be liable to enforcement from millions of other rightsholders.
Big Content's intransigence was the anvil, but the hammer was ordinary Europeans, leaning on their national governments. A campaign to get citizens of key nations to contact their governments was hugely successful, and the targeted countries let the EU Presidency know that they, too, would not stand for the Directive with Articles 11 and 13 intact.
Faced with both popular anger and corporate backers who had massively overplayed their hands, the EU Presidency threw in the towel, announced that there was no basis for negotiations, and canceled Monday's trilogue.
This stands a very high likelihood of killing off Articles 11 and 13 for good. As noted above, without a miraculous last-minute reprieve, the trilogue will almost certainly not reconvene until after the elections, and after Brexit, and that's going to be a very different world.
But the bad news is that as a result of Voss taking the Copyright Directive hostage to serve the parochial interests of German newspaper families and the vice-presidents of the entertainment companies' music divisions, the EU might not get all the other, noncontroversial, overdue technical updates to its copyright rules, long negotiated and badly needed. This should be remembered come the elections this spring: Voss's kack-handed attempt to sacrifice free speech, competition, the EU tech sector, and privacy to eke out some marginal gains for special interest groups has been a catastrophe, and it's all on him.
MEP Julia Reda now has the full breakdown of the votes, noting that 11 countries voted against the "compromise" text: Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Croatia, Luxembourg and Portugal. That's... a pretty big list. Reda points out that most of those countries were concerned about the impact on users' rights (Portugal and Croatia appear to be outliers). That's pretty big -- as it means that any new text (if there is one) should move in a better direction, not worse.
As Reda notes, this does not mean that the Copyright Directive or Article 13 are dead. They could certainly be revived with new negotiations (and that could happen soon). But, it certainly makes the path forward a lot more difficult. Throughout all of this, as we've seen in the past, the legacy copyright players plowed forward, accepting no compromise and basically going for broke as fast as they could, in the hopes that no one would stop them. They've hit something of a stumbling block here. It won't stop them from still trying, but for now this is good news. The next step is making sure Article 13 is truly dead and cannot come back. The EU has done a big thing badly in even letting things get this far. Now let's hope they fix this mess by dumping Articles 11 and 13.
