2025-W12 EOW Report

Anti-Goal Cycling

• prj: MERCI has pushed me deep into Robert Hendrickson’s American Regionalisms (2000) which is either a good thing or bad thing. In the good column, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t want fighter pilots, mechsuits, or my military fiction to be bland with boring straight-up Omaha TV-Broadcast accents. I think giving characters, well, character with accents and phrases and sayings is fascinating. In the bad column, of course, is me learning mountain dialect as a really long, tangential sidebar. Am I enjoying myself and having fun though? Yes.
• I’m now going through The Cheese and the Worms (1967) more thoroughly and taking notes as I had mentioned last week. I am also looking up a Catholic terminology to understand what the arguments are and why they’re important. Of note is listening to Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation (2003) on audio book, which, isn’t necessarily the best way to absorb and consume such a complicated subject matter, but by osmosis, I am absorbing something and what I’m finally realizing is that this whole Church thing is basically Wizards of the Coast making up a shit ton of complicated rules a la Dungeons and Dragons, but to control the people. I mean, I guess a better and more proper example is just the law. But spiritual law is so much more existential and undemocratic and basically an autocratic entity that says X is X and Y is Y and you’re fucked and not going to heaven, and/or staying in Purgatory for X number of years unless you give us a ton of money for chantries, relics, indulgences, or whatever. It is a rigged system. Point is – there is so much gristle, muscle, and sinew here for stories. FINALLY, omg, The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) by Natalie Zemon Davis is such an easy and fast read. I believe I’m more than half way through. So much grist here for hijinks and histrionics. I mean… yes, obviously, somewhere in the back of my head I knew how precarious identity is… and how much the LACK of computers, photographs, identification papers, social media, mirrors, etc. is. But to really dive deep into this world and realize… oh shit, if I look enough like someone else, I could probably pass myself off as that someone… is kinda funny. And you realize how important community, context, and basic f2f communication is.
• Cat Rambo’s ASSW continues to be a joy. I really like this group.

Four Thousand Weeks

• I’m on a roll. Third week of hitting all my Habitica routines. Becoming a History Nerd with 20m a day. Check. Doing something with fiction at least half-an-hour each day. Check. Reducing comics, and making room for prose fiction, not a stated goal, but a passive ongoing one. Check.
• Work-wise, I think have a potential sense of how I can transition away now.

Story Introspection

• Burned through the first arc of Resurrection Man (1997). I would’ve really loved this as a 16-year-old I think. Nevertheless, at this age, I still enjoyed this story a lot. Also finished Infinite Crisis (2005). OMG it is one convoluted epic. So many characters. So many plot lines.
• A lot of short stories this week. Didn’t care much for the two from the Appendix N anthology edited by Peter Bebergal. Enjoyed the flashes recommended by the ASSW group. Been thinking a lot about how flashes are really 3-5m bits. Like sketches with a punchline. Except it’s not funny so much as a shocking, sudden, or surprising twist.
• Enjoyed the Catholic political thriller Conclave (2024), but the highlight was rewatching This is 40 (2012). Great technique to steal: having arguments about the dumbest, trivial things as a mask, distraction, or avoidant behavior to cover up the real emotional stakes or problems the two characters are dealing with.

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