In 2020, most people experience the media horizontally, as opposed to vertically.
This doesn’t mean that we watch TV lying down vs, standing up. Instead, it means that we watch programs at times that are convenient to us, which is not necessarily at the same times as our neighbors and friends.
It can take weeks to get around to watching a particular episode of, say, “The Tonight Show.” Or it can take months to make it all the way through the 10-episode first season of “You,” while other viewers polish it off in a weekend. Plot all those dates on a graph and it would be horizontal.
Back in the day (said the crotchety old man), most entertainment was vertical. Consumers listened to the same radio stations and watched the same TV programs at the same time as everybody else.
If something was missed, it was really missed. Maybe it would be repeated over the summer, at the whim of some anonymous programmer, or maybe it wouldn’t.
Vertical entertainment drew folks together around water coolers (remember those?) and provided common talking points. With only three networks and a handful of static-filled independent stations, TV pickings were slim, so chances were good that most everybody was tuning in to the same stuff — vertical entertainment for the masses.
This started to change with the advent of recordable media. Betamax and VHS machines allowed viewers to capture vertical entertainment and watch it horizontally — whenever they wanted. Now, with the arrival of Netflix, Hulu and a bevy of other streaming services, viewers watch (or, in the case of podcasts, listen to) almost everything horizontally. Somebody recommends something, and maybe you’ll get around to it — eventually.
Vertical TV — those must-see-them-at-the-same-time-as-everybody-else events — are limited to breaking news of truly monumental proportions and high-stakes sporting events. The Super Bowl is probably the last bastion of vertical TV, where more than half the charm comes from knowing you are watching the same big plays and big-budget commercials at the same moment as the neighbor across the street and people across the country.
Readers, of course, have always experienced books horizontally. Even book-club members reading the same title are doing so at slightly different times — Barb has barely cracked the cover, while James is two-thirds of the way through.
Alliance’s One Book One Community program is a unique mixture of horizontal and vertical experiences. Readers are chugging through this year’s book, “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Kline, at their own speed, which makes the process horizontal.
But they are also invited to participate in several communal events, such as a “Documenting Your Family History” presentation at 7 p.m. on Feb. 10 at First United Presbyterian Church, along with two other events on March 2 and March 9 at Rodman Library. Programming culminates with an appearance by the author March 26 at Union Avenue United Methodist Church.
All of these are vertical events, with people interacting with one another at the same time, extending and amplifying their horizontal reading of the novel.
For the record, I’m not objective where this book and the OBOC are concerned. As part of the committee, I can attest that members worked hard over the last few months to find a book for readers across the greater Alliance area to enjoy, and we believe we’ve found a winner with “Orphan Train.”
The future of entertainment may be horizontal, with more and more people pursuing different options at different times and fragmenting audiences in ways that are exciting and lead to more diversity.
But there is still something to be said for a communal experience, which is why it’s nice to see scores of people turning out for live events like this year’s OBOC programming.
I hope many readers elect to go vertical in 2020 and hop aboard the “Orphan Train” in the next few weeks.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Which word was your favorite last year?
“Words, words, words,” responded Hamlet when asked what he was reading.
The Prince of Denmark may have been feigning madness or may have been certifiably insane when he answered. Nonetheless, his slap-happiness captures the feelings of many wordsmiths when faced with a growing list of “words of the year.”
Each December, linguists comb through headlines and social media posts to determine how language helped to define the zeitgeist of the previous twelve months. This past year was no exception.
The American Dialect Society chose ”(my) pronouns” as 2019′s word of the year to reflect the growing practice of people telling others how they wish to be addressed, as he, she, they or some other option.
In the same vein, Merriam-Webster gave the nod to “they” because of its increased use among nonbinary people and people who do not wish to be identified by biological sex. (The American Dialect Society chose “they” as its word of the decade.)
Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s Geoff Nunberg designated “disinformation” as his choice because of the number of institutions that twist and spin facts to suit a particular narrative. (NPR itself selected “they.”) Nunberg also noted that “quid pro quo” and “OK, boomer” had their moments in 2019.
Dictionary.com went with “existential,” Oxford Dictionaries named “climate emergency,” and Cambridge Dictionary, way out of left field, chose “upcycling.”
Always the contrarian, I choose a word or phrase each year that I wish would go away, retired to some dusty mantel after receiving a gold watch for meritorious service.
Last year around this time — OK, it was February, but bear with me, I’m trying to start a tradition here — I made a pitch to retire “reach out.”
Professional people are always reaching out to colleagues, guest speakers, their children’s orthodontist, the local taxidermist and the company that collects their garbage from the curb each week.
I argued then, and still believe now, that “reaching out” is a way to elevate a humdrum part of existence and infuse it with profundity. It sounds far less exciting to say I will email somebody and ask for directions.
Reaching out, however, conjures images of Michelangelo’s God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, arm outstretched to deliver life through a brush of His index finger.
My plea didn’t make much of an impact. At a meeting a few weeks ago, I heard attendees promise to “reach out” at least three different times, and the phrase still haunts my emails.
Undeterred, however, here is my choice of another heinous expression that should be relegated to the dustbin: Asking for a friend.
As with all overused expressions, asking for a friend started strong. It was wry, cynical and funny, sometimes all at once.
It’s not a sign of ignorance when you install a Command Strip upside down, right? Asking for a friend.
What if I’m a megalomaniacal leader who starts wars with foreign countries to distract from my impeachment problems at home? Asking for a friend.
It’s an expression that launched a thousand (million?) memes, and that’s the problem. It’s no longer witty. Now it’s just old and tired and pathetic.
Yet I see from a quick Twitter search that lots of people are still asking for a friend, and at least one regular podcast bears that name. So I see no indication that the expression has worn out its welcome.
As somebody brilliant once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Until two minutes ago, I thought that was another quote from “Hamlet,” which would make a nice way to tie this column’s conclusion to its introduction.
What happens when your column-ending Shakespeare quote was actually written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
You know who I’m asking for.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
P.S. to my grammarian readers: Yes, that last sentence should be “you know for whom I’m asking,” but I hated the sound of it. A thousand lashes to me with an Oxford unabridged dictionary.
The Prince of Denmark may have been feigning madness or may have been certifiably insane when he answered. Nonetheless, his slap-happiness captures the feelings of many wordsmiths when faced with a growing list of “words of the year.”
Each December, linguists comb through headlines and social media posts to determine how language helped to define the zeitgeist of the previous twelve months. This past year was no exception.
The American Dialect Society chose ”(my) pronouns” as 2019′s word of the year to reflect the growing practice of people telling others how they wish to be addressed, as he, she, they or some other option.
In the same vein, Merriam-Webster gave the nod to “they” because of its increased use among nonbinary people and people who do not wish to be identified by biological sex. (The American Dialect Society chose “they” as its word of the decade.)
Meanwhile, National Public Radio’s Geoff Nunberg designated “disinformation” as his choice because of the number of institutions that twist and spin facts to suit a particular narrative. (NPR itself selected “they.”) Nunberg also noted that “quid pro quo” and “OK, boomer” had their moments in 2019.
Dictionary.com went with “existential,” Oxford Dictionaries named “climate emergency,” and Cambridge Dictionary, way out of left field, chose “upcycling.”
Always the contrarian, I choose a word or phrase each year that I wish would go away, retired to some dusty mantel after receiving a gold watch for meritorious service.
Last year around this time — OK, it was February, but bear with me, I’m trying to start a tradition here — I made a pitch to retire “reach out.”
Professional people are always reaching out to colleagues, guest speakers, their children’s orthodontist, the local taxidermist and the company that collects their garbage from the curb each week.
I argued then, and still believe now, that “reaching out” is a way to elevate a humdrum part of existence and infuse it with profundity. It sounds far less exciting to say I will email somebody and ask for directions.
Reaching out, however, conjures images of Michelangelo’s God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, arm outstretched to deliver life through a brush of His index finger.
My plea didn’t make much of an impact. At a meeting a few weeks ago, I heard attendees promise to “reach out” at least three different times, and the phrase still haunts my emails.
Undeterred, however, here is my choice of another heinous expression that should be relegated to the dustbin: Asking for a friend.
As with all overused expressions, asking for a friend started strong. It was wry, cynical and funny, sometimes all at once.
It’s not a sign of ignorance when you install a Command Strip upside down, right? Asking for a friend.
What if I’m a megalomaniacal leader who starts wars with foreign countries to distract from my impeachment problems at home? Asking for a friend.
It’s an expression that launched a thousand (million?) memes, and that’s the problem. It’s no longer witty. Now it’s just old and tired and pathetic.
Yet I see from a quick Twitter search that lots of people are still asking for a friend, and at least one regular podcast bears that name. So I see no indication that the expression has worn out its welcome.
As somebody brilliant once said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Until two minutes ago, I thought that was another quote from “Hamlet,” which would make a nice way to tie this column’s conclusion to its introduction.
What happens when your column-ending Shakespeare quote was actually written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?
You know who I’m asking for.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
P.S. to my grammarian readers: Yes, that last sentence should be “you know for whom I’m asking,” but I hated the sound of it. A thousand lashes to me with an Oxford unabridged dictionary.
Maker of wonder gunk gets into the cleanup business
Just when I thought I couldn’t be any angrier at DuPont, the company announces it will buy a water-purification company.
The 2018 documentary “The Devil We Know” and the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” reveal how DuPont Chemical released gunk related to the manufacturing of Teflon and various waterproofing products into the atmosphere.
For decades, the company dumped toxic chemicals into the nation’s waters. One such substance, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8), is now estimated to be in the blood of 99 percent of Americans, including newborns.
The coverup by the company extends 70 years, as revealed in detailed reporting by Sharon Lerner of The Intercept. Research by DuPont’s own scientists revealed as early as 1961 that C8 was toxic. The company even performed human tests in 1964, asking volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced with C8 and noting that they were sick for hours after.
Nonetheless, DuPont forged ahead with its manufacturing, burying drums of C8 on the banks of the Ohio River near its manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and out at sea.
Later, the company dumped its miracle toxin straight into the Ohio River and submerged it in unlined landfills. Women were moved off the line that specifically handled C8 over concerns about birth defects. Employees were diagnosed with leukemia and kidney cancers at higher-than-average rates. A farmer whose land is adjacent to one of DuPont’s landfills lost his entire herd.
Eventually, after a class-action suit and plenty of bad publicity (although not nearly enough, to my way of thinking), DuPont settled for what a layman might think of as an astronomical figure but which really represents only a small part of one year’s profit, admitted no guilt (still doesn’t), and switched out C8 with another type of wonder ick possessing similarly-concerning side effects.
Ultimately, the DuPont debacle illustrates the danger of something our current administration touts as a benefit — rolling back environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Act in the name of increased profits.
In the case of DuPont, such safeguards likely wouldn’t have mattered. The company avoided fallout by staying several steps ahead of the EPA (which issued an advisory for PFOA and similar compounds only in July 2016), engaging in corporate capture (basically infiltrating government agencies with people sympathetic to a company’s views) and writing checks big enough to make the problem go away.
Now, in the ultimate act of corporate hubris, DuPont will buy Desalitech Ltd., which makes reverse osmosis products to remove the same types of toxins that DuPont dumped into our water.
Yes, you read that correctly: The company that made billions by creating this mess will now be paid to clean it up. That’s good work if you can get it. Just ask the manufacturers of naloxone, which stops opioid overdoses and is manufactured by some of the same pharmaceutical giants who gave us opioid addicts in the first place.
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, Desalitech makes about $6.5 million a year. This isn’t chump change, but it is minuscule compared to the $84 billion that DuPont made from the beginning of 2018 through July of last year.
So either DuPont executives see environmental clean-up as a huge growth area or views Desalitech as a way to position itself for any future problems with chemical disposal. Or both.
It’s always possible, I suppose, that DuPont wants to do the right thing and use Desalitech to clean up all the water it has helped to pollute for free.
If you believe that, I have some chemically contaminated land I’d like to sell you, cheap.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The 2018 documentary “The Devil We Know” and the 2019 movie “Dark Waters” reveal how DuPont Chemical released gunk related to the manufacturing of Teflon and various waterproofing products into the atmosphere.
For decades, the company dumped toxic chemicals into the nation’s waters. One such substance, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C8), is now estimated to be in the blood of 99 percent of Americans, including newborns.
The coverup by the company extends 70 years, as revealed in detailed reporting by Sharon Lerner of The Intercept. Research by DuPont’s own scientists revealed as early as 1961 that C8 was toxic. The company even performed human tests in 1964, asking volunteers to smoke cigarettes laced with C8 and noting that they were sick for hours after.
Nonetheless, DuPont forged ahead with its manufacturing, burying drums of C8 on the banks of the Ohio River near its manufacturing plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and out at sea.
Later, the company dumped its miracle toxin straight into the Ohio River and submerged it in unlined landfills. Women were moved off the line that specifically handled C8 over concerns about birth defects. Employees were diagnosed with leukemia and kidney cancers at higher-than-average rates. A farmer whose land is adjacent to one of DuPont’s landfills lost his entire herd.
Eventually, after a class-action suit and plenty of bad publicity (although not nearly enough, to my way of thinking), DuPont settled for what a layman might think of as an astronomical figure but which really represents only a small part of one year’s profit, admitted no guilt (still doesn’t), and switched out C8 with another type of wonder ick possessing similarly-concerning side effects.
Ultimately, the DuPont debacle illustrates the danger of something our current administration touts as a benefit — rolling back environmental safeguards like the Clean Water Act in the name of increased profits.
In the case of DuPont, such safeguards likely wouldn’t have mattered. The company avoided fallout by staying several steps ahead of the EPA (which issued an advisory for PFOA and similar compounds only in July 2016), engaging in corporate capture (basically infiltrating government agencies with people sympathetic to a company’s views) and writing checks big enough to make the problem go away.
Now, in the ultimate act of corporate hubris, DuPont will buy Desalitech Ltd., which makes reverse osmosis products to remove the same types of toxins that DuPont dumped into our water.
Yes, you read that correctly: The company that made billions by creating this mess will now be paid to clean it up. That’s good work if you can get it. Just ask the manufacturers of naloxone, which stops opioid overdoses and is manufactured by some of the same pharmaceutical giants who gave us opioid addicts in the first place.
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, Desalitech makes about $6.5 million a year. This isn’t chump change, but it is minuscule compared to the $84 billion that DuPont made from the beginning of 2018 through July of last year.
So either DuPont executives see environmental clean-up as a huge growth area or views Desalitech as a way to position itself for any future problems with chemical disposal. Or both.
It’s always possible, I suppose, that DuPont wants to do the right thing and use Desalitech to clean up all the water it has helped to pollute for free.
If you believe that, I have some chemically contaminated land I’d like to sell you, cheap.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
‘Auld Lang Syne’ prompts looks backward and forward
Revelers around the world will soon bid farewell to 2019 and welcome to 2020 with raised glasses and “Auld Lang Syne.”
The words to the song are attributed to Scottish poet Robert Burns, but he claimed to have transcribed them from an elderly man in 1788. Some scholars believe the song’s title, at least, dates to the 16th century.
“Auld Lang Syne” means “old long since.” In modern English, “days gone by.” In uber-modern parlance, “back in the day.”
However it’s translated, the sentiment is appropriate for New Year’s celebrations, as society takes a cue from the Roman god Janus, he of the two heads, one looking to the past and one to the future.
The older people are, the more rose-colored their glasses for “auld acquaintance” and a mythical past when things were allegedly simpler. This pining can be sweet and benign, yet it is also the belief that lies at the rotting heart of the modern white nationalism movement, or whatever vile euphemism it lurks under these days.
Similarly, older people are less optimistic for tomorrow because rapid change threatens to erase outmoded ways of thinking and living, no matter how ingrained into tradition they may be.
But pessimism infects our youth, too, and often for the same reasons. Some wonder — at New Year’s and other times — what kind of world they will inherit and how they will make ends meet as technology obliterates entire careers, sometimes through nothing more than a few lines of code and the push of a button.
Such fears and anxieties are natural byproducts of the age we live in, when the “cup of kindness” from “Auld Lang Syne” may be in short supply.
The speculation over past and future appears more forcefully elsewhere in Robert Burns’ verse, in “To a Mouse,” subtitled “On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.”
The poem’s speaker addresses the rodent of the title, apologizing for the accidental destruction of its home. The mouse had hoped to ride out winter, “cozie here, beneath the blast,” until fate — and the farmer — intervened. The accident prompts a sincere apology from the speaker:
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal.
Later in the poem, the speaker laments that “the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men” often go astray, thus inspiring the title of John Steinbeck’s classic novel a few centuries later and reminding those of us thinking New Year’s thoughts how fragile the future can be.
Burns’ speaker actually envies the mouse, despite the loss of shelter, because “the present only” affects her, while he is cursed to “backward cast” his eye “On prospects drear” and look ahead to a future about which he can only “guess an’ fear.”
Despite this comforting absence of introspection and worry on the mouse’s part, I doubt many readers would want to trade places, to live only in the here and now with no recollection of the past, good and bad, and no thought toward the future. I’m reminded too of Dickens’ Scrooge, also timely at this time of year, who learns through an encounter with a plow of his own — in his case, the spirits of Christmas — to “live in the past, the present, and the future” (and to celebrate the holiday in a way that capitalists the world over would approve).
The truth is that in life, sometimes we are the mouse, out of doors, scrambling, lost, and sometimes we are the farmer, pushing the plow and inadvertently hurting others with our deeds and words.
When we are the former, let us hope that our trials and tribulations are brief. When we are the latter, let us strive to be kind-hearted and understanding, willing to fix what we have done wrong and recognizing our shared bond with those who struggle while we have so much. And let’s keep the memory of both states of being.
It’s a sentiment worth toasting in the New Year, with or without the maudlin refrain of “Auld Lang Syne.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cshillig on Twitter
The words to the song are attributed to Scottish poet Robert Burns, but he claimed to have transcribed them from an elderly man in 1788. Some scholars believe the song’s title, at least, dates to the 16th century.
“Auld Lang Syne” means “old long since.” In modern English, “days gone by.” In uber-modern parlance, “back in the day.”
However it’s translated, the sentiment is appropriate for New Year’s celebrations, as society takes a cue from the Roman god Janus, he of the two heads, one looking to the past and one to the future.
The older people are, the more rose-colored their glasses for “auld acquaintance” and a mythical past when things were allegedly simpler. This pining can be sweet and benign, yet it is also the belief that lies at the rotting heart of the modern white nationalism movement, or whatever vile euphemism it lurks under these days.
Similarly, older people are less optimistic for tomorrow because rapid change threatens to erase outmoded ways of thinking and living, no matter how ingrained into tradition they may be.
But pessimism infects our youth, too, and often for the same reasons. Some wonder — at New Year’s and other times — what kind of world they will inherit and how they will make ends meet as technology obliterates entire careers, sometimes through nothing more than a few lines of code and the push of a button.
Such fears and anxieties are natural byproducts of the age we live in, when the “cup of kindness” from “Auld Lang Syne” may be in short supply.
The speculation over past and future appears more forcefully elsewhere in Robert Burns’ verse, in “To a Mouse,” subtitled “On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.”
The poem’s speaker addresses the rodent of the title, apologizing for the accidental destruction of its home. The mouse had hoped to ride out winter, “cozie here, beneath the blast,” until fate — and the farmer — intervened. The accident prompts a sincere apology from the speaker:
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal.
Later in the poem, the speaker laments that “the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men” often go astray, thus inspiring the title of John Steinbeck’s classic novel a few centuries later and reminding those of us thinking New Year’s thoughts how fragile the future can be.
Burns’ speaker actually envies the mouse, despite the loss of shelter, because “the present only” affects her, while he is cursed to “backward cast” his eye “On prospects drear” and look ahead to a future about which he can only “guess an’ fear.”
Despite this comforting absence of introspection and worry on the mouse’s part, I doubt many readers would want to trade places, to live only in the here and now with no recollection of the past, good and bad, and no thought toward the future. I’m reminded too of Dickens’ Scrooge, also timely at this time of year, who learns through an encounter with a plow of his own — in his case, the spirits of Christmas — to “live in the past, the present, and the future” (and to celebrate the holiday in a way that capitalists the world over would approve).
The truth is that in life, sometimes we are the mouse, out of doors, scrambling, lost, and sometimes we are the farmer, pushing the plow and inadvertently hurting others with our deeds and words.
When we are the former, let us hope that our trials and tribulations are brief. When we are the latter, let us strive to be kind-hearted and understanding, willing to fix what we have done wrong and recognizing our shared bond with those who struggle while we have so much. And let’s keep the memory of both states of being.
It’s a sentiment worth toasting in the New Year, with or without the maudlin refrain of “Auld Lang Syne.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cshillig on Twitter
It's time for a Lifetime Christmas superhero
Christmas movies on Lifetime have borrowed a trick from Marvel.
In many films on the network this season, characters are delayed by Winter Storm Megan (or Meghan), leading to speculation that they all take place in a Lifetime Cinematic Universe, similar to how all Marvel movies take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So with a connection, however tenuous, between Lifetime and Marvel, how long before an enterprising producer pitches a Lifetime Christmas superhero movie?
It’s not such a stretch, really. Christmas has always had a connection with the supernatural, going all the way back to the original Bible story. After all, what is the Nativity if not an origin story for Jesus, a man who later walks on water and spontaneously resurrects?
In “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens gives readers ghosts and time travel among all the Victorian trappings of the holiday.
And Santa Claus, the jolly old elf himself, must have abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals to manufacture all those toys and then transport and deliver them in one night. To say nothing of the laws of physics he violates with a sleigh propelled by flying reindeer.
So a Christmas superhero is a natural.
I’m thinking Yule Man, dressed all in green with a red cape, the Mastercard logo emblazoned across his chest. His powers include zooming from store to store, clearing snow-filled parking lots and helping elderly customers carry bags to their cars.
Rocketed to Earth as an infant from the doomed planet Tinsel, he was raised by kindly Dollar General managers to use his great powers to support American capitalism and shoddily-made foreign imports.
His x-ray vision can tell shoppers when a doorbuster is truly sold out or when there are more ferreted away in the stockroom. And his super hearing can detect the true identity of every Secret Santa.
Or maybe XMas-Men, a team of mutants born with enhanced shopping genes, who can conspicuously consume from 12:01 a.m. on Black Friday right through Boxing Day on Dec. 26. Shunned by most of humanity, they nonetheless are responsible for almost single handedly driving up the GNP and moving retailers out of the red and into the black.
Of course, what are superheroes without villains?
The Porch Pirates don’t even have to be invented, and they already have an alliterative name and a hissable modus operandi.
A battle between Yule Man and the Porch Pirates could be pretty epic, raging above residential neighborhoods before moving into more urban areas, where the two sides could punch each other into buildings and buses, all while shouting lines like, “You’ll never get this box of shrink-wrapped fruitcakes, Yule Man!” Eventually, Yule Man must say, “Delivery complete!” as he knocks out the last pirate.
One problem is that Lifetime Christmas movies have notoriously low budgets, so typical superhero shenanigans aren’t feasible. Plus, any storyline in the movies, from magic shoes to saving a cultural landmark, must take a backseat to a budding romance between the two leads.
So our hypothetical superhero movie must involve an enterprising female reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the town’s new hero, who is performing random acts of kindness. She is competing for this scoop against a rival male reporter who looks like the stud on the cover of every GQ.
The stud is eventually revealed as Yule Man, who along the way falls in love with the heroine and yadda yadda yadda, Winter Storm Megan, yadda yadda yadda, true love always.
I already have a title: “Christmas Cape-ers.” Get it?
It seems like a winner. In the true spirit of Christmas, does anybody have a couple of million they’d like to invest?
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
In many films on the network this season, characters are delayed by Winter Storm Megan (or Meghan), leading to speculation that they all take place in a Lifetime Cinematic Universe, similar to how all Marvel movies take place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So with a connection, however tenuous, between Lifetime and Marvel, how long before an enterprising producer pitches a Lifetime Christmas superhero movie?
It’s not such a stretch, really. Christmas has always had a connection with the supernatural, going all the way back to the original Bible story. After all, what is the Nativity if not an origin story for Jesus, a man who later walks on water and spontaneously resurrects?
In “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens gives readers ghosts and time travel among all the Victorian trappings of the holiday.
And Santa Claus, the jolly old elf himself, must have abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals to manufacture all those toys and then transport and deliver them in one night. To say nothing of the laws of physics he violates with a sleigh propelled by flying reindeer.
So a Christmas superhero is a natural.
I’m thinking Yule Man, dressed all in green with a red cape, the Mastercard logo emblazoned across his chest. His powers include zooming from store to store, clearing snow-filled parking lots and helping elderly customers carry bags to their cars.
Rocketed to Earth as an infant from the doomed planet Tinsel, he was raised by kindly Dollar General managers to use his great powers to support American capitalism and shoddily-made foreign imports.
His x-ray vision can tell shoppers when a doorbuster is truly sold out or when there are more ferreted away in the stockroom. And his super hearing can detect the true identity of every Secret Santa.
Or maybe XMas-Men, a team of mutants born with enhanced shopping genes, who can conspicuously consume from 12:01 a.m. on Black Friday right through Boxing Day on Dec. 26. Shunned by most of humanity, they nonetheless are responsible for almost single handedly driving up the GNP and moving retailers out of the red and into the black.
Of course, what are superheroes without villains?
The Porch Pirates don’t even have to be invented, and they already have an alliterative name and a hissable modus operandi.
A battle between Yule Man and the Porch Pirates could be pretty epic, raging above residential neighborhoods before moving into more urban areas, where the two sides could punch each other into buildings and buses, all while shouting lines like, “You’ll never get this box of shrink-wrapped fruitcakes, Yule Man!” Eventually, Yule Man must say, “Delivery complete!” as he knocks out the last pirate.
One problem is that Lifetime Christmas movies have notoriously low budgets, so typical superhero shenanigans aren’t feasible. Plus, any storyline in the movies, from magic shoes to saving a cultural landmark, must take a backseat to a budding romance between the two leads.
So our hypothetical superhero movie must involve an enterprising female reporter seeking to solve the mystery of the town’s new hero, who is performing random acts of kindness. She is competing for this scoop against a rival male reporter who looks like the stud on the cover of every GQ.
The stud is eventually revealed as Yule Man, who along the way falls in love with the heroine and yadda yadda yadda, Winter Storm Megan, yadda yadda yadda, true love always.
I already have a title: “Christmas Cape-ers.” Get it?
It seems like a winner. In the true spirit of Christmas, does anybody have a couple of million they’d like to invest?
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
If it seems too improbable to be true, don’t believe it
It was an eyebrow-raising headline even for Facebook, which has no shortage of them.
“NAACP Officially Endorses Trump for 2020 Election,” it read. The person who shared it had copied and pasted part of the story into the body of the post, a rambling quote attributed to an NAACP spokesperson. It talked about members being fooled into believing that “Trump will put you in chains,′ but eventually realizing the president “is a true friend of the black community.”
Having read just days before an official press release from the NAACP that applauded Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to proceed with articles of impeachment against Trump, I smelled something fishy.
It didn’t take long to find out what. All I had to do was click on the link.
The story is the product of a website that offers “satire for Flat Earthers, Trumpsters and Y’all Qaeda” and is stored in a folder labeled “Conservative Fan Fiction.” The NAACP mentioned in the story is the Norman Association for the Advancement of Coloring People, and the president is identified as one Donald Juniper Trump.
A few observations:
For one, I mourn the state of satire, a noble literary genre that has fallen on hard times from the heights of practitioners like Jonathan Swift and his “Modest Proposal,” or even Mad magazine, for heaven’s sake.
I’m not even certain what was being satirized here. The supposed naivete of some minorities who believe Trump actually cares about them? The NAACP for speaking out against Trump? The GOP for standing by their man in a way that puts Loretta Lynn to shame? Democrats for seeking impeachment so close to an election year?
I don’t know, and I’m not sure the author does either. The piece commits a cardinal sin of satire because it does not enlighten readers in any way, does not hold any one person or group up to ridicule, and isn’t funny.
I suspect “satire” is a cover the website uses in an attempt to legitimize what is nothing more than a propaganda machine. Readers aren’t meant to go beyond the headline, but rather just forward it, like some maniacal chain letter on steroids.
So a bigger concern is how a piece like this can quickly be weaponized by people who don’t read carefully or who support a cause at the expense of objective truth.
This is a problem across all social media, but nowhere more than on Facebook, where the policy regarding political ads is to have no policy, to let content flow freely to 2 billion worldwide users (although the site may begin flagging political content as not fact-checked, which is at least a start).
At no time in history has it been more important for readers to be discerning consumers of information than in an era when every basement-dwelling, chain-smoking conspiracy theorist has access to worldwide publishing at the touch of a button — and when more than a few of these people have started companies with no goal other than to obfuscate the truth and stump on behalf of a particular person or cause, no matter how spurious or injurious to the nation.
Despite all President Trump’s grousing about supposedly left-leaning news organizations, the truth is that any bias demonstrated by these media giants is minuscule compared to the slant offered by far-right-leaning — and, to be fair, fair-left-leaning — organizations that spin more stories than a washing machine spins clothes.
(Of course, if there is an actual hell, then a special circle is reserved for Fox News, where an uber-pernicious slant coupled with a huge budget and a sheen of respectability has done more to divide this country than any other single entity, Trump included.)
To the credit of my Facebook friend, he removed the faux-NAACP post shortly after I alerted him to its questionable nature. But that was only after it had been shared by several other Facebook users.
An old saying in the news industry is that the correction never catches up to the mistake. It’s never been more true, especially in situations where the mistake is intentional and malicious.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
“NAACP Officially Endorses Trump for 2020 Election,” it read. The person who shared it had copied and pasted part of the story into the body of the post, a rambling quote attributed to an NAACP spokesperson. It talked about members being fooled into believing that “Trump will put you in chains,′ but eventually realizing the president “is a true friend of the black community.”
Having read just days before an official press release from the NAACP that applauded Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to proceed with articles of impeachment against Trump, I smelled something fishy.
It didn’t take long to find out what. All I had to do was click on the link.
The story is the product of a website that offers “satire for Flat Earthers, Trumpsters and Y’all Qaeda” and is stored in a folder labeled “Conservative Fan Fiction.” The NAACP mentioned in the story is the Norman Association for the Advancement of Coloring People, and the president is identified as one Donald Juniper Trump.
A few observations:
For one, I mourn the state of satire, a noble literary genre that has fallen on hard times from the heights of practitioners like Jonathan Swift and his “Modest Proposal,” or even Mad magazine, for heaven’s sake.
I’m not even certain what was being satirized here. The supposed naivete of some minorities who believe Trump actually cares about them? The NAACP for speaking out against Trump? The GOP for standing by their man in a way that puts Loretta Lynn to shame? Democrats for seeking impeachment so close to an election year?
I don’t know, and I’m not sure the author does either. The piece commits a cardinal sin of satire because it does not enlighten readers in any way, does not hold any one person or group up to ridicule, and isn’t funny.
I suspect “satire” is a cover the website uses in an attempt to legitimize what is nothing more than a propaganda machine. Readers aren’t meant to go beyond the headline, but rather just forward it, like some maniacal chain letter on steroids.
So a bigger concern is how a piece like this can quickly be weaponized by people who don’t read carefully or who support a cause at the expense of objective truth.
This is a problem across all social media, but nowhere more than on Facebook, where the policy regarding political ads is to have no policy, to let content flow freely to 2 billion worldwide users (although the site may begin flagging political content as not fact-checked, which is at least a start).
At no time in history has it been more important for readers to be discerning consumers of information than in an era when every basement-dwelling, chain-smoking conspiracy theorist has access to worldwide publishing at the touch of a button — and when more than a few of these people have started companies with no goal other than to obfuscate the truth and stump on behalf of a particular person or cause, no matter how spurious or injurious to the nation.
Despite all President Trump’s grousing about supposedly left-leaning news organizations, the truth is that any bias demonstrated by these media giants is minuscule compared to the slant offered by far-right-leaning — and, to be fair, fair-left-leaning — organizations that spin more stories than a washing machine spins clothes.
(Of course, if there is an actual hell, then a special circle is reserved for Fox News, where an uber-pernicious slant coupled with a huge budget and a sheen of respectability has done more to divide this country than any other single entity, Trump included.)
To the credit of my Facebook friend, he removed the faux-NAACP post shortly after I alerted him to its questionable nature. But that was only after it had been shared by several other Facebook users.
An old saying in the news industry is that the correction never catches up to the mistake. It’s never been more true, especially in situations where the mistake is intentional and malicious.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Friday, December 6, 2019
Excessive exclamations of enthusiasm ... whatever
Squint really hard and you will see a white flag fluttering over this column.
After a long and valiant battle, I am surrendering in my war against exclamation points. Longtime readers may recall that I’ve fought against their overuse for years, at least since 2012, when I wrote about how I allotted only two per semester, per student, in all written communication.
“Use them wisely,” I intoned, “because once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
I was fighting a losing battle even then against the forces of excessive enthusiasm. “I have to go home and shovel snow!” is not worthy of an exclamation point, even when people love winter.
Ditto “I hate broccoli!,” which looks silly with an exclamation point after the lowercase “i,” like a gremlin in the keyboard flipped the letter upside down and typed it again, although the enthusiasm would also be misplaced if the exclamation point followed “carrot” or “cabbage.” Some preferences don’t merit excitement, no matter how heartfelt.
Since I wrote that column, I have received countless emails — okay, six — where the writer starts by saying, “Please excuse me, but ...” or some variation, followed by information that ends with an exclamation point. Some of that news has been genuinely exciting, such as a child accepted to a prestigious school, and merited exclamation points. Other news, not so much. But who am I to judge?
My allocation of exclamation points has always been persnickety, anyway. Some semesters, in a rush of generosity, I dole out four or five. The point was to make them special so that they didn’t end up littering the compositional highway like so many McDonald’s wrappers.
What I failed to reckon with is the continual adaptation of language to new ways of communicating. Take, for instance, text messages.
Audiences understand punctuation differently in these situations than in more formal types of writing. A period at the end of a text can come across as cold and rude. (One study a few years back found that texts ending in a period were deemed “insincere.”)
Texts ending without a period apparently leave the door open for additional communication. Even a one-word text like “No” can be perceived differently with or without a period. Students tell me they are less likely to continue a texting conversation with somebody whose responses end in periods because that signals the person no longer wants to engage.
Exclamation points are a way of showing excitement is situations where the writer’s intent is hard to determine. They are, in effect, the precursors of emojis, which do the same. Exclamation points began as the Latin “io,” which means “exclamation of joy.” In a space-saving move, the “o” became a period and slid beneath the “i.” (The same consolidation occurred when “questio,” or “question,” was shortened to “qo” and then to today’s question mark.)
So if I’m so worried readers will miss my irony, cynicism, eye-rolling or whatever when I write “Way to go, Insert Imbecilic Politician Here” on Twitter that I add the appropriate emoji, then why am I so uptight about the exclamation point?
I guess I shouldn’t be. So I’m not anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. Exclamation points still don’t belong in formal writing, look ridiculous in newspapers, magazines and presidential tweets, and have no business in novels or short stories unless they are part of dialogue, and even then only sparingly.
Make the words do the emotional heavy-lifting, not the punctuation.
But in less formal communication, let the exclamation points take flight as often as writers like, provided they take into account the effect so much unbridled joy will have on more sober-minded audiences.
In the saccharin-sweet world of writing, I’m still a diabetic. But for those who aren’t, you have my blessing to rain down exclamation points with abandon. Not that you needed my approval — and not that you asked for it.
Here’s the place where, if I were pandering, I would say something clever and end with an exclamation point. But I’m not, so I won’t.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
After a long and valiant battle, I am surrendering in my war against exclamation points. Longtime readers may recall that I’ve fought against their overuse for years, at least since 2012, when I wrote about how I allotted only two per semester, per student, in all written communication.
“Use them wisely,” I intoned, “because once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
I was fighting a losing battle even then against the forces of excessive enthusiasm. “I have to go home and shovel snow!” is not worthy of an exclamation point, even when people love winter.
Ditto “I hate broccoli!,” which looks silly with an exclamation point after the lowercase “i,” like a gremlin in the keyboard flipped the letter upside down and typed it again, although the enthusiasm would also be misplaced if the exclamation point followed “carrot” or “cabbage.” Some preferences don’t merit excitement, no matter how heartfelt.
Since I wrote that column, I have received countless emails — okay, six — where the writer starts by saying, “Please excuse me, but ...” or some variation, followed by information that ends with an exclamation point. Some of that news has been genuinely exciting, such as a child accepted to a prestigious school, and merited exclamation points. Other news, not so much. But who am I to judge?
My allocation of exclamation points has always been persnickety, anyway. Some semesters, in a rush of generosity, I dole out four or five. The point was to make them special so that they didn’t end up littering the compositional highway like so many McDonald’s wrappers.
What I failed to reckon with is the continual adaptation of language to new ways of communicating. Take, for instance, text messages.
Audiences understand punctuation differently in these situations than in more formal types of writing. A period at the end of a text can come across as cold and rude. (One study a few years back found that texts ending in a period were deemed “insincere.”)
Texts ending without a period apparently leave the door open for additional communication. Even a one-word text like “No” can be perceived differently with or without a period. Students tell me they are less likely to continue a texting conversation with somebody whose responses end in periods because that signals the person no longer wants to engage.
Exclamation points are a way of showing excitement is situations where the writer’s intent is hard to determine. They are, in effect, the precursors of emojis, which do the same. Exclamation points began as the Latin “io,” which means “exclamation of joy.” In a space-saving move, the “o” became a period and slid beneath the “i.” (The same consolidation occurred when “questio,” or “question,” was shortened to “qo” and then to today’s question mark.)
So if I’m so worried readers will miss my irony, cynicism, eye-rolling or whatever when I write “Way to go, Insert Imbecilic Politician Here” on Twitter that I add the appropriate emoji, then why am I so uptight about the exclamation point?
I guess I shouldn’t be. So I’m not anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. Exclamation points still don’t belong in formal writing, look ridiculous in newspapers, magazines and presidential tweets, and have no business in novels or short stories unless they are part of dialogue, and even then only sparingly.
Make the words do the emotional heavy-lifting, not the punctuation.
But in less formal communication, let the exclamation points take flight as often as writers like, provided they take into account the effect so much unbridled joy will have on more sober-minded audiences.
In the saccharin-sweet world of writing, I’m still a diabetic. But for those who aren’t, you have my blessing to rain down exclamation points with abandon. Not that you needed my approval — and not that you asked for it.
Here’s the place where, if I were pandering, I would say something clever and end with an exclamation point. But I’m not, so I won’t.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
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