trolls, devils, sex, and the fantastic mind: April 2023 Essay Recommendations
Rated-R for reality. One helluva discovery, all hail Kyrsten Sinema!, thinking fantastically about sex, the Brandon Sanderson drama + more you really shouldn't miss.
Buckle in. Because why would you want to be in one piece when you could be in several?
how to be a better saint (and a better troll)
A few days ago, Josh Nadeau hit my inbox with a question: Can You Be a Saint and a Troll? The answer is: yes, lol, obviously. But I still clicked to see where this was going.
Josh points out that “reductionistic trolling,” pointless sarcasm, and natty clap backs (especially on social media) are as common as oxygen these days. But none of that gets us anywhere in our social or political debates or in our relationships with our fellow earth-dwellers. And all that snark puts a stink on true “wit, satire, and all-around social charm” because we can’t be sure whether anyone sincerely means anything.
What’s the solution? Josh proposes that, to be good trolls (i.e. wild and holy saints), we must look to the great wit-makers of the past—folks who were as wise and compassionate as they were biting—so we can cease uttering “mindless words” and be the charming, clever critics our society desperately needs.
a delightful, devilish discovery
Deep in one of those discord servers I never really pay attention to, someone posted something Screwtape something Marvel. I tapped on the notification and it led to a post by my fellow (but far more knowledgeable) C.S. Lewis nerd, Brenton Dickieson, who runs A Pilgrim in Narnia. That post, Double Irony, Visual Delight, and a Missed Opportunity: The Screwtape Letters Marvel Comic Book, concerns, well, a MARVEL COMICS EDITION OF THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS from 1994. Which is a thing I feel I should have known existed long before now.
What’s more? There’s an edition of that Marvel comic that has a foreword by none other than Neil Gaiman, who writes:
The world Screwtape gives us is one of battle between the flesh and the spirit, in which Hell is purely spiritual and Heaven has the loathsome (to Screwtape) advantage of having once been incarnate.
As a writer, with a regrettable tendency to stumble into theological terrain, I find Screwtape, via Lewis, a source of delight—as much for the questions he leaves unanswered as for what he tells us: I find myself wondering if Screwtape—and Wormwood and Glubose, Toadpipe, Slubgob and the rest of the Lowerarchy—have voices that whisper to them, too. I wonder whether angels write each other letters, and, for that matter, what angels feed on…
I love this. Read Gaiman’s foreword in full at Dr. Dickieson’s follow-up piece: Neil Gaiman’s Introduction to The Screwtape Letters, Marvel Comics Edition. And if you want more Gaiman-related content, pay attention to this substack next weekend. 😏
Kyrsten Sinema kinda rocks
I’m no fan of politicians. They’re mostly a lousy lot whose motivations are suspect at best and baleful at worst.1 A few names dominate the news typically because of sideshows that turn out to be inconsequential. But something about McKay Coppins’ headline in The Atlantic made me read his piece immediately, and I’m glad I did.
In The Kyrsten Sinema Theory of American Politics, the Arizona senator explains the method to her madness. And her madness is accounted for thusly:
In the past two years, Sinema has been at the center of virtually every major piece of bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate, negotiating deals on infrastructure, guns, and a bill that codifies the right to same-sex marriage. She has also become a villain to the left, proudly standing in the way of Democrats’ more ambitious agenda by refusing to eliminate the filibuster. The tension culminated with her announcement in December that she was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent.
But that’s not what’s got me starry-eyed over Sen. Sinema.2 It’s her pragmatism, her commitment to playing by her own rules—rules that make sense and get things done, and her casual certainty about the waves she makes in Washington. As I read, I kept going oh I get it, I do. Based on this profile—and Coppins does a great job capturing Sinema’s attitude toward things—I think we’re kinda alike.
Here’s her response to those who criticize her for not talking to the press:3
“There are some folks who really enjoy talking to the press so they can tell them what they think or whatever. I’m not that interested in telling people what I think.”
I love that. And if there was any doubt over whether we might be kindred spirits, there’s this (lightly edited for simplicity):
If taking every policy question on a case-by-case basis bewilders some in Washington, Sinema says it’s just her nature. Even in her private life, she’s prone to slow, painstaking deliberation.
“It took me eight years to decide what to get for my first tattoo,” she says.
So what did you decide on? I ask.
“I don’t actually want to share that.”
clutch your Perels!
On a recent episode of Real Time, Bill Maher interviewed Esther Perel, a psychotherapist specializing in human relationships and “erotic intelligence.” Within a wider-ranging conversation, partly about why phones are ruining dating, she used a lot of my safewords, like fantasy and imagination and curiosity, and it got me thinking about how a fantastic worldview can inform the way one approaches every aspect of life—including relationships and sex.4
She said (in part, lightly edited for clarity):
What kills relationships is the loss of curiosity for the other person as a human being…
If you understand that sex is not politically correct, mainly because it invites play, pretend, make-believe, then you understand that all fantasy of that sort is not meant to be true…
Fantasy is not just about plots in your head. Fantasy is not just about taking your mind elsewhere. Fantasy is anything that brings poetry and imagination to the erotic. It’s about how you approach it—it’s what you say, it’s the smells, it’s the decor. It’s everything that actually enriches the experience.
Make of that what you will, but I’m taking notes.
In the “Overtime” segment of the show, a viewer asked: Is there such a thing as a soulmate? Esther had a fascinating reply:
The interesting thing about the soulmate is that for all of history it meant God—the one and only.
To turn our partner into a soulmate, to demand from our partner the very things that we used to expect from religion—transcendence, meaning, ecstasy, wholeness—that is a whole new order that has never been part of what committed relationships or marriage ever were about.
Wow. I’ve never heard the topic of “soulmates” taken down that path. Look for the April 21st episode of Real Time on HBO Max to watch the full interview. Be aware: Bill Maher’s show is not for pearl-clutchy types.
(And just so I can keep the streak of mentioning AI in every round-up going, check out Esther’s SXSW presentation, The Other Ai: Artificial Intimacy. I haven’t watched it. Don’t @ me.)
infinite space inside
Speaking of fantasy! If you keep up with the fantasy literature news beat, you’ve likely heard Brandon Sanderson’s name come up quite a lot lately. There was a bizarre profile in Wired titled Brandon Sanderson Is Your God,5 which everyone agrees was, at best, tonally out-of-pocket and, at worst, a malicious misfire.6 (It reeks of that sneering snarkiness that Josh Nadeau condemns in his piece recommended at the top of this post.)
The dust was still up-to-here when another profile, Welcome to Brandon Sanderson’s Fantasy Empire, dropped on Esquire a few days later. It was a vastly better piece and did justice to one of today’s most popular fantasy writers and his vision for the book publishing industry. Go read it!
What I mainly want to highlight, however, is a post from Sanderson himself. It’s titled Outside, and in it he talks about his neurodivergence and how it has shaped him, his work, and how he relates to people. Yes, it is a reaction to that Wired piece. Parts of it made me think of C.S. Lewis’ lecture on Inner Rings.
Lately, I’ve seen a resurgence of something that genuinely disquiets me: an attempt by some members of our community to hold others outside. Science fiction and fantasy is forever gatekeeping what constitutes good or worthy stories…
To use a thematic metaphor, it’s like we’re dragons on our hoard of gold, jealously keeping watch, worrying that if anyone new enters, their presence will somehow dilute our enjoyment. The irony is that there is infinite space inside, and if we open the way, we’ll find many of these newcomers are the very treasure we’re seeking.
Fantasy, out of all genres, should embrace the different, even if it doesn’t match our specific taste. This is the genre where anything can happen—and should, therefore, be the most open genre…
This is why I write. To understand. To make people feel seen…
The entire post is worth your time.
It’s been a long week, and this is a long round-up. I bid you adieu.
Except for the good ones of course!
It’s likely temporary.
I like people who do things more than they talk about doing things.
Remember what I said about the words sounding scandalous as I write them?
I’m loathe to link to it, but if you want to read it go ahead.
I’ve heard no one defend its existence.