Chaos Theory

Oh, this is gonna be fun.

Monster World.

"When I learned that the President had been turned into one of the lurching undead, I didn’t figure it would change his style of leadership at all. But when I heard that the rest of Congress had either suffered the safe fate or had been turned into vampires, I figured it probably really was the end of the world. And it’s all because of what those fools did in Snowy Rock back in 1998. Or was it 1999? Maybe it was 2000? I appear to have lost track of time. This is most distressing. I was, of course, understandably shocked when I learned that the United States Postal Service is still in operation. I guess those guys really ARE determined."

That is all kinds of crazy.

I married my daughter. Well, sorta.

"A secret sexual relationship with his daughter was not enough.
There had to be a wedding.
And it had to be a grand celebration befitting a Fisher Island, Florida, multimillionaire who controls billions from Wall Street to Bermuda, from London to Dubai.
So on a sunny June day two years ago, father and daughter exchanged rings at Westminster Abbey.
They couldn't follow convention by inviting friends or family, and they couldn't make an announcement that they'd eloped.
There was no white dress and no officiant.
D. Bruce McMahan, then 65, and his daughter Linda Marie Hodge McMahan Schutt, then 35, pronounced themselves husband and wife on June 23, 2004.
It was their secret.
Except for a few traditional photographs, it was a wholly unconventional and unholy union.
Several shots show off their new Cartier Trinity rings — hers diamond, his three shades of gold. In other frames, they look the happy couple — cheek to cheek, faces glowing, and the Abbey's Little Cloister garden a royal backdrop. Afterward, she flew home to her legal spouse in Mississippi and he went home to his compound on Fisher Island, a ferry ride from Miami.
From different states, they traded their wedding photos back and forth over e-mail.

What followed was a breakup on an even grander scale than their wedding and a legal battle every bit as obsessive as each has been about the other. For more than a year, attorneys have been kept busy in Miami, New York, Mississippi, and San Diego with the fallout over the breakup of McMahan and Linda in five lawsuits involving not only father and daughter but also their legal spouses, as well as Linda's current boyfriend and soon-to-be father of her child.

In court papers, McMahan denies that he ever had a sexual affair with his daughter. But he doesn't explain how his and Linda's DNA turned up on a vibrator that Linda's husband uncovered in her luggage. McMahan also hints that Linda may not be his biological daughter, despite a DNA test he paid for showing with 99.7 percent probability that he is her father.

He'd had six children by three women and was married to his fourth wife when, in 1990, he learned for the first time that he was the father of a grown child he didn't know existed."

On caretaking.

"Could I have saved D's foot? Yes. Theoretically I probably could have. At the first sign of trouble, probably in early Spring, I could have just taken over and managed it from start to finish like I did in '02. It could have been just a few week thing and been over with. Then I could take over the next pressure sore and the next and the next and managed all of his equipment problems and all of his future pressure sores. We could have had "Bod check!" drills where I periodically spot checked his entire body. I could have devoted my life to being his valiant companion who martyred herself so he could live to inspire me while I took care of his every need. Yes, I could have given up my whole life, my children, my career, my whole identity and spent my entire existence on earth caring for all of D's little problems.

It is not that far fetched. There are women out there (I say women because they are mostly all women) who marry disabled people or otherwise  have a disabled person in the family who devote their entire lives to taking care of that person's every need. I know of a woman in Denver who has done this. She supports her husband's career by giving up her own. She pushes her husband's wheelchair in marathons. She lives and breathes by talking up her amazing disabled husband. She lies to care for him so he can inspire her with his bravery and perseverence. Ironically, she didn't prevent her husband from having a massive pressure sore, because that is how we met them. They are a nice couple, but who she is is completely drowned out by the fact that she is a wife of a quadriplegic.

It is what is expected of family members. Dana Reeve was touted as giving up everything to nurse her husband after his injury. (I actually don't think she gave up everything, but the media liked to present her that way.) Brooke Ellison had a movie made after her and showed her mother as the heroic woman who gave up everything so her daughter could go to college. I see a story constantly about a father who has given everything for his son and shows it mainly by hauling his disabled son along on triathalons. When D's family says that they wished he would have found a nice nurse or physical therapist for him to marry, this is what they were hoping for. A woman who would devote her life to managing and caring for D. This is what is expected of you if you are the less disabled in a partnership. You are supposed to feel sorry for and compensate for every little thing your partner can't do for himself. It makes you noble and heroic. Human interest stories are written about you and shown on the local news.

I don't think that sacrificing everything so you can care for a disabled person is heroic. I think it is stupid. Sure, we might do it short term for a loved one, but after a period...you've got to give up the martyr heroic rescuer thing and find another way. You aren't doing the disabled person any favors either. By taking over and managing everything and basically being that person's whipping boy, you are taking away his potential and chance to forge his own identity as well. The responsibility that D's father had put on him (has much improved lately) in wanting to be there every second and devote his life to him was one of the heaviest emotional burdens I've ever seen someone grapple with. Imagine that you are responsible for someone's happiness and fulfillment because you need help. It is not a healthy thing.

Anyway, there are solutions. The number one rule about being disabled and getting your disability-related needs met is to spread the love around. Divide it up amongst as many people as manageable so that each can have a life of their own and you aren't their end all and be all. There is no need to get into a co-dependent diad where you simply just cancel each other out. I don't mean to say that this is anywhere near easy to do, but you need to get your skills up and your life set up so that you are as independant as possible. Then you need to spread out your help. Get family and paid people and volunteers. Each is important. Get a cadre of people and back-ups for those people so no one feels put out. And for those people who do help you, reciprocate, reciprocate, reciprocate in any way you can. Even if it is just a small thing. Pay them, trade favors, listen to them, give them a gift, thank them, let caring for you be just one facet of who they are, and let them go on with their life.

One reason it is so hard for people with disabilities to find help is because people are afraid of being pulled into some sort of needy web of caregiving that they will never escape from. It is next to impossible for many blind people to get rides, depending on their situation. You see your co-workers giving rides to each other when the car is in the shop, but when you have your hands full with some boxes or something, don't try to find a ride home. People think if they give you a ride once, they will have to start doing it every day. Even if you happily take public transport 99% of the time. They don't think anyone would ever want to do that, so they don't want to start giving you rides even occasionally."

Based on the real life stories...

How "A Chorus Line" came to be, and how it didn't help out the people who were the source of it much. (NYT)

"The dancers who told their stories that night sold them to Mr. Bennett for $1 each. And though Mr. Bennett later arranged for them to receive royalties from the show — at times up to $10,000 a year — they have always questioned whether they have been fairly compensated and acknowledged.

The question of authorship on any collaboration can be tricky. There is no doubt that the dancers provided most of the stories, and in some cases large chunks of their words show up verbatim in the show. There is also no doubt that it was primarily Mr. Bennett who took 20 hours of interviews and had the vision to shape them into a groundbreaking musical.

“There never would have been ‘A Chorus Line’ without Michael,” said Kelly Bishop, who told her story in the character of Sheila, “but there never would have been ‘A Chorus Line’ without us, either.”

Later that spring, Mr. Bennett called the dancers for auditions, at which some first discovered that they had to compete against others to play themselves. Not all of them made it.

At a rehearsal break during the first workshop, the performers were handed release contracts, under which they would give Mr. Bennett rights to use all the interviews in exchange for $1. The document stated that real names could not be used in connection with the stories without consent.

After the production moved to Broadway in 1975, Mr. Bennett asked his lawyers to draw up a new arrangement that divided the 37 dancers and actors involved with “A Chorus Line” into three groups. Group A artists had given their stories at the original tape sessions and/or were part of both workshops; Group B had participated only in the tape sessions; Group C included those in the show who had not been with it from the early stages.

This new agreement split among them a half-percent of the production’s weekly box office gross revenues, as well as a similar portion of the income from subsidiary rights; it gave the 19 dancers in the A Group double the shares of everyone else. In all, Mr. Bennett gave the 37 dancers roughly a tenth of his own royalties from the original production and around a third of the rights income he was entitled to as the show’s conceiver, director and choreographer. He also received a share of profits and rights income as a producer."

 

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

Turkey Hat.

There's just something right about this.

The E(wok)-Team.

FBOFW monthly retcon report!

This month, it's just strange. (Most quotes from this link, except for anything I cite directly from the letters in the bulleted bits.)

• Elly's letter jumps a few weeks ahead of the strip. Grandpa shall be going the "slow recovery" route. It is kind of creepy that she thinks her life journey is almost over. WTF? She ain't THAT old.
• John only wants to talk about trains. No, seriously, it takes him until the fourth paragraph to even mention Grandpa. And the first paragraph is "Yay, fall weather!" Even Liz, also a fan of fall weather (see below), acknowledges that all is not right in the FOOBiverse when she mentions it. John? Not so much. I mean, dude, I know not everyone is all "yay, in-laws," but still, sick person in the family is pretty high up on the priority list. One lone prop to give to John, though: he has noticed that he's got two teenagers living at home again these days, and threatens a "talk" with LIz.
  

"Jeez, he starts right out pontificating about fall weather? And the second para is about The Little House With The Big Yard. Which is now owned by a retired railroader? Okay, I'm getting the feeling that John has never talked to the guy. I was going to say that the house does not exist, but he's shown it to Elly. Still, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that all he's been doing is staring at it, while creating a world in his head, where he's surrounded by trains and guys dressed in engineer uniforms, and his little people come alive and talk to him, and meanwhile, the owner looks out and sighs, "Doc Patterson's out there again...but the cops told me they can't do anything unless he becomes violent." Third para: more trains. Fourth para: aging. And we FINALLY get a mention of Jim! Which makes me wonder: Is Elly as delusional about John being helpful as John is delusional about the LHWTBY? And Mike about being a caring parent? Or is it simply a matter of, as someone said last month, the people who write these letters not checking in with each other? And we finally get some concrete info about Jim's condition. Can't hardly talk. Shoot, so he can't even tell his family to get bent.
And yes, you should have a talk with Liz. What a freakin' brat. And the house again. And a plug for Anthony. Gee, you don't think that someday soon, Anthony will be calling John "Mr. Dad"?"

• Liz: TEH ANGST! "What I need to do is pull my head out of my rear end and stop feeling sorry for myself. Yes, I'm living at home again. Yes, my mother is menopausal and my sister is pubescent and the hormonal effects are a little startling. Yes, I've been subpoenaed to testify in a sexual assault trial as a complainant. Yes, it seems that my former boyfriend from high school may possibly be carrying a torch. Yes, my current love is several hours away and I don't get to spend nearly enough time with him. Yes, my cat is currently irritable and avoiding me because of all the noise and chaos in the house. All this seems relatively manageable if it weren't for the fact that my grandfather is in the hospital."

I'm amused at the "Oh noes! Teh hormonez!" bit. And gee, did you only just notice the "may possibly, sortakindamaybeso has a torch" thing? I'm surprised he didn't clunk you over the head and drag you off to the cave with that torch.

"Okay, I do not believe that her students are literally putting apples on her desk. If they are, they're probably tainted in some way, with the kids hiding around the corner, snickering and waiting for Miss Fatterson to take a bite and end up with blue ink all over herself. Either that, or Liz is another delusional Patterson."

I actually don't buy the apples thing either. I don't ever remember that happening to a teacher in school. Usually it's more like coffee mugs. With apples drawn ON them, yes, but still...coffee mugs. I seem to vaguely recall at least one teacher requesting that people stop giving her coffee mugs.

"So let's go down the list. You're living at home again because you CHOSE to. If your mother is STILL menopausal, she should have seen a doctor years ago. Frankly, I think she's just old; menopause is no longer an excuse. April is NOT pubescent. She's 15, not 12, and a well-adjusted teenager. You just can't deal with the fact that she's in your spot. And you dropped that subpoena reference in there to shut us up as usual. And you are soooooo perceptive to realize that Granthony might possibly maybe perhaps have a tiny bit of feelings for you sort of. Your "current love", which makes him sound like Reddy Kilowatt, is several hours away because again, you CHOSE to move away from him. And your cat...should not be your cat. You're not stable enough to have a pet. You don't give her the attention she needs; you think she exists for you. And how, may I ask, does the hospitalization of a guy you never see, affect YOU?
And then you list all the positives. Only, they seem to be mostly the negatives, reworded! And "don't have to cook for yourself"? Check your dad's letter. And I repeat, WHAT STRESS? And a bubble bath? You want a bubble bath? Who are you, Mary Richards? And you are on drugs if you think you learned anything in Mtig. Go take your bath; I hope April throws a toaster in."

And speaking of...what's with the time jump? Elly and John seem to be a few weeks ahead of this week's events, compared to everyone else.

• Iris is still in the hospital with Jim like it just happened.
• Deanna the psuedo-doctor is also on that timeline.
• So is April's letter. What's with that? And why does April have a list of stuff she is supposed to talk about? Is Elly dictating letter content here? In other news, Becky is a user and April kinda wants to be used, and now that everyone in the band has hooked up, someday they can go from "4-Evah and Eva" to "The Exes." Yes, April, it's bad to date your bandmates, because odds are higher you'll go fifty more rounds than you and Beckers ever did.

"See, that's how people normally react. Preoccupied, not hysterical, but with their outlook changed because someone they care about is in distress. And not using that person's predicament as an excuse to whine about their own lives, either. And what is it with the Pattersons and homemade soup from leftovers? Like the ironing, this is an outdated device.
Again, it's incredible that the person everyone else thinks is too young an' dumb to understand, is the only one who's looking at this realistically."

• Michael's novel is ... squicky. Talks about birthing afterbirth on the floor. I don't even want to know why he knows about this and thinks it's good to write about. I especially didn't want to know that he'd rather think about afterbirth in the kitchen than real life. As usual, he claims to want to be there for his family, then goes on about how he just wishes they'd all go away so he can live in NovelLand. Dude, if you wanted that, shoulda stayed single. And how on earth did he get a book contract as a noob novelist with no finished book? NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL DOES THAT HAPPEN. (Well, maybe if you blog about sex or something, but that isn't happening here.) Any writer who sees this is seething. Michael gets around to actually mentioning Grandpa in the NINTH paragraph (wow, that tops John), but claims everyone else told you already. Then he pre-writes an obit and also has a time jump, somewhere between April and Elly/John. Oh, and women are so strong and speshul and I sure as hell can't act like a caretaker woman, except in my imagination. And finally, "Don't dream while you're driving!"

I hate Michael.

"Does she HAVE to give birth ALONE? Is this more evidence of how her husband is an unfeeling bastard, and there are no neighbors within a thousand miles? And is she from the kind of background where she would know how to do this? And did we really have to hear that about the cord and the placenta? I'm...stunned.
More talk about his work. And the apartment. Hey, Mike, I heard about a relative of yours having some medical trouble. Jighm or somebody. And I wonder where you got that about the husband who didn't want or wish for his child.
And sure enough, we get Jim's bio. Which does not compute. When Mike was a kid, he only wanted to hear the gory war stories, and in recent years, I hardly think he sat with Jim by the hour to absorb all this. Well, maybe he got it from Elly. But since when does he listen to her either?
And you and John retrofitted the apartment? Yeah, right. First of all, I would think you'd hire a pro to put in railings and so forth. Second of all, how does he have time to do all this when he's in a shack on the prairie? And I love this para: Women are definitely stronger than we are. Men may have physical strength and men may show courage, but the strength that women reveal in their ability to endure, to support others and to give of themselves makes me feel weak and insignificant. It's like he racked his brain, trying to come up with something positive to say about women, and concluded that the best thing is how well they take care of their men."

An actual published author kicks Michaelagh some more. 

"First off, hat tip to war bride Sheilagh Shaugnessey for keeping her maiden name. I'm sorry she had to give birth alone and squatting and all, but why all this detail about just when the placenta appeared?

Take everything I say here with a Mrs. Lot-sized grain of salt, because I so despise delicate genius Mike who struggles so hard to get his first novel publishing contract on a partial. But this is just bullshit! Mike's editor grabbed his few chapters, maybe thinking it was a submission from James Patterson, and read them in a day. Demanded an immediate pitch session, got Mike his verbal offer, and had legal waiting to turn it into an instant contract, just add water? On my last contract I got a verbal in May then I signed in August, and this is for a publisher that's already seen me fulfill two multi-book contracts and there's really very little to negotiate once dollar amounts get settled. I know dozens of writers, and not one sold a first novel on a partial. But then none of us have Mike's genius."

And he continues...

"Excuse me, I have to remove myself from my computer for as long as it takes to clean up my buttocks, for I just shit myself from laughing. Michael's blasted right past pretentious at Warp Factor Nine, gone where no navel-gazing wanker has gone before.

Is it just me, or does Mike's admiration of women pretty much depend on them nailing themselves to a big cross with "Family Sacrifice" written on it? The higher the flames of the suttee, the higher Mike's admiration rises. There's a whiff of Victorianism in all this, although I'm almost feeling like I'm damning Victorianism by comparing Mike's deranged musings to it rather than the reverse. Sheilaugh can't be courageous and fight for her lil' ol' self, but once she's got her afterbirth-smeared son, well, now it's time to grow a spine."

howtheduck gets in some licks:

"With a pad on her rocker to absorb the blood, she takes her baby, still unwashed to her breast where he nuzzles and feeds and for the first time in her life with Harvey Rood she's found something to love. Something to fight for, and a reason to live.

And then she goes to help with the rice crop.  No wait.  That’s The Good Earth by Pearl Buck.

My publisher has seen my outline (which is changing) and has read the twelve chapters now edited and put aside. I have a contract, the deadline of which has been extended. Thankfully! They know I will finish this book - because I'm living in it.

What?  Your publisher expected you to finish in a month?  After just 12 chapters?  Bastard.

She's waiting for him to see his baby; a son he neither wants nor wished for. A son who won't be useful til he's grown.

No, Mike.  Meredith was the oops baby.  Remember, Robin was planned.

If I had the luxury of moving to some isolated place I could just let this story take over my mind. I could wrestle with the characters, be the characters, think like they do and say what each one would say - and not feel guilty for losing Michael Patterson for as long as it takes to remove this saga from my soul.

I understand the Overlook Hotel in Colorado, is looking for a winter caretaker."

Obit talk

Q&A with the NYT obit editor guy and a obit writer. That's kinda random.

1. How do you go about approaching famous people while they're still alive to request an interview for their future obituaries?
2. Do you seek interviews only with those in good health, or also those known (or rumored) to be sick or in decline?
3. Do your reporters in such interviews delve into touchy subjects or disputed events and facts of a subject's life?
4. Do famous people tend to try to whitewash or aggrandize their pasts?
5. Does anyone ever spill the beans about their role in unsavory events, or candidly confess to unflattering actions on their part?
6. Does The Times ever promise to embargo juicy, newsworthy details until the subject has died?
7. Has any famous person ever succeeded in pulling the wool over your (The Times's) eyes?
8. Does The Times ever gloss over, or omit entirely, the sordid details of a famous person's death?
9. Obituaries usually get the last word about a person.  Does that place any special burden on you?

1. Directly but also delicately.
2. All of the above.
3. They had better.
4. I think you know the answer to that one
5. Not to my knowledge, but it's what we live, hope and pray for.
6. Yes, always. That's the deal, and sometimes the carrot.
7. I'm guessing: Yes.
8. We may not be needlessly graphic, but we don't ignore them.
9. I think so. And many people think of a Times obit as the last last word. So it's a double weight.

Then there's also the question of: what do you do when someone finally dies and the pre-written obit's writer...already died? (Run it anyway. Hell, nothing's changed since 96!) But what if something did change?

"But we also have to be mindful of not writing the obit prematurely. Mark Twain said something memorable about that, but that's not what I mean. I mean we don't necessarily want to write the advance obit while the subject is still in full flower, is still out there adding to his or her legacy, doing things, building things, making things. We'd rather write about them when their essential work — that which they'll be remembered for — is done. Otherwise the obit is likely to grow old and stale and require a rewrite 10 years down the road. Why bother now?
The risk, of course, is lightning, the proverbial bus, a chance encounter with a shark or sudden illness. By holding off on the advance obit, you roll the dice and hope something sudden doesn't happen that will make you regret your decision to wait.
But this leads to probably one of the biggest factors we weigh: what is humanly possible. We do more advance obits, by far, than most news organizations, but even then our resources are limited. We try to write as many as we can, but there are inevitably many we can't get to — or can't get to yet. So we have to approach the task as battlefield triage — tending to the most aged and the supremely important first, and then hoping the others can hang on a little longer until we can get to them."

"Who is the youngest current celebrity who has an obit already prepared?" Guesses.

"That could be a game. Guess the youngest person with a prepared obit by five year increments.
Also, another game would be, guess the person with the longest held prepared obit.
I'm guessing Gerald Ford's obit has been written for about 20 years now.
Liz Taylor also, she's been on death's door half a dozen times in the past 30 years."

More winners for that particular game. 

But why would you want to...

make elephant shit paper?

Another knitted wig.

No tutorial for this one, but it's interesting to look at.