Okay, so I’ve spent the last couple of days deciphering government websites. And staring at spreadsheets, playing with variables & formulae. Good Lord, do I need a beer — I wish there was a brewery around here!
Ahem.
Okay, so…I’m gonna switch gears for my own sanity. My big (first world) problem is that I have two things I want to write about; two things that, I should add, have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Of course, after spending hours upon hours reading government regulations, thinking about & doing two opposing things at once seems perfectly normal!
Alright, so the first thing…Russia. And Ukraine.
Yup, startin’ off light, ain’t I?
In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria to the German 3rd Reich in the Anschluss. The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.
Six months later he appropriated the (badly misnamed) sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him. There was Peace In Our Time.
In 1939 the first shells started falling at the Battle of Westerplatte as he moved to take Poland. The rest of the world burned.
In 2008 Vladimir Putin took a large chunk of Georgia. The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.
In 2014 Vladimir Putin took the Crimea. The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.
In 2022 the first shells started falling on Ukraine. Do I need to go back to my Yeats from a couple of posts ago and talk about that rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born?*
*If you don’t get the allusion, go read some freaking poetry! Harrumph.
As I write this, the fighting is hottest around Kharkov — for those whose historical perspective is a bit lacking, Kharkov is (previously) best known to history as the sight of the largest tank battle in history.
Now, to counter that dark cloud with something a bit more silver lining-ish…
On February 26, 2022 Christian Eriksen started a game for Brentford in the English Premier League.
Gee, I hear you mutter, that’s nice, but who the hell cares?
On June 12th, 2021 Christian Eriksen died on the field during an international game in Copenhagen.
He died, but the medics started CPR within seconds…
He died, but the doctors got his heart going again…
He died, then he lived. He had a tiny, permanent device implanted to keep his heart going later that year, but no one expected anything more. It was a great story, for a world-class athlete to die and then live again, but who could expect more? How could anyone do anything more than live again? Hug your kids, watch a new sunrise, and just get on with a new life…
Christian Eriksen just played the first game of that new life in the toughest league in the world.
How’s that for a freaking silver lining?
{Musical Note — because Irish music makes everything better!}
I got an email the other day from an old friend. Coming from someone with whom I’ve been close for many years, the contents of this email were more than a bit mocking. Now, most of that mocking —err, “catching up” to kids nowadays — had nothing to do with this blog. One part however does pertain:
“Now that you’re on the whenever-the-hell-you-feel-like-it plan for posting…”
Wait…what? I deny that!*
*Also, I am not overweight! I just have big bones! Harrumph.
“…when the f—k are you gonna write about COVID?”
First off, only I can swear on this blog, goddamit! And secondly…COVID? Really?! Haven’t we heard enough about that shit? What, should I write about the bubonic plague, too?
At this point — with my fiction-writer-hat firmly on — there are really only two interesting subplots to the ongoing COVID drama. The first is the impact this pandemic/crisis/stress-event is having on society itself. Look, disease and outbreak and pandemic are probably the most influential things in human history; they have had effects on us far more significant and far-reaching than any nation-state, war or political event.
What, you don’t believe me? The aforementioned Black Death rewrote life, society and culture throughout the world. The only change that can be considered even close to comparable is the First World War, and that really only “rewrote” Europe…
No, not the fall of the Roman Empire, not the Crusades, not Genghis Khan, not even the Second World War affected the world more than the bubonic plague.
Then you throw in tuberculosis…
And smallpox…
And leprosy…
Welcome to the history of the human race. The governments of man are insignificant in comparison to the power of disease. It is the small things — the tiniest of things, in fact — that have truly driven the evolution of human development, culture and society.
At first, I thought COVID was an ephemera. I thought is was something that would come and go quickly. I thought it was the disease equivalent of the Kardashians, to be honest.
I was wrong.
Oh, the disease itself can’t bear a candle too those true monsters I mentioned above, but the simple truth is that COVID is here to stay; it is endemic now, rather than pandemic.* But the effect of it? The true impact of COVID is far more psychological and social than physical, and that impact is amplified immeasurably by the “right-now” nature of modern communications and media.
*Note for the historically curious — the bubonic plague is actually endemic, too. It is endemic to three places in the world (parts of India, Mongolia and the US) if I remember correctly, with periodic outbreaks elsewhere.
The problem really traces back to the fact that it has been a long time since humanity felt at prey to the natural world. A long time since we were not — perceptually, at least — in control of, well, everything. Oh, we have long known that nuclear weapons are a genie that can and will destroy us as a species if we let them out of the bottle. We know that, but only in the most passing, intellectual way. We do not feel it. It is not visceral. It is not truly real, not to a species and culture whose every history and proclivity is so totally focused on the emotional and the immediate.
COVID is real to us because of the deaths, yes…but also because of the social and political reactions to it. COVID has had the most direct, powerful impact on human society since “we” watched millions die in the days of mid-20th century. The effect — still playing out, mind you — looks to be more far-reaching, too. Will it equal the world-changing impact of the Black Death or the First World War? Very doubtful…but it has already far surpassed the impact of the Spanish Flu. It has even, arguably, outrun the impact of polio (socio-politically, not physically).
That, to me, is the first great subplot from COVID. That is the background to a story yet to be written.
The second…
Oh, the second…
It could be argued that the second is but an unintended consequence of the first, but my own personal beliefs and outlook give it more weight. What is that second? I hear you ask…
Acquiescence.
Humanity is notoriously fractious — rebellious, even — and given to protecting our personal needs and welfare pretty damned aggressively. Now, different societies have different levels of this, I admit. My own society — I was raised in the western US, and have lived the vast majority of my life there — strongly reflects the “ideal” of the strong, tough, independent sort. Other places & societies differ. And, yes, geography and topography have a dominant influence in this. The outward bounds of culture — literature, music, art — merely reflect the spirit of geography and topology, they do not define it.
And, yes, there are in fact very real, very physical reasons, why the Japanese culture — as an example — developed so differently from the culture of, say, Montana…
But…what about…
Let’s get down to brass tacks — and to why I why I think acquiescence and surrender are the second great subplot to the COVID pandemic — Australia.
Australia, when you get right down to it, is geographically a hell of a lot more similar to the sparsely populated reaches of Montana than it is to the necessarily dense population centers of Japan or Singapore. And yet Australia has willingly surrendered, due to COVID, more freedom than any other place in the world. The Australian people have willingly surrendered their personal liberty and independence. Period. And there is no going back for them. They have chosen a dubious safety over freedom in ways that no other country or populace has come close to mirroring.
Look, I think anti-vaxxers are nuts. Hell, I think the anti-mask zealots are also nuts; as nuts the pro-mask zealots. I think masks in general — at this point — are nothing more than kabuki theater to make folks feel good, but when someone asks me to wear a mask, plain-and-simple courtesy means I wear a damned mask.
I wear a mask, but surrendering all human interaction? Even a misanthrope like me wants to go out for pizza and a beer and be with other people once in a while. You expect, to be honest, folks like Americans and French to protest because…well, we protest everything. But when the far more complacent and compliant Germans and Danes start protesting restrictions, too? Yeah, that right there a sign. But the Aussies?
*Sigh*
The Aussies have given up. Plain and simple, they have given up. Their post-COVID society will be unrecognizably different from what it was before. For everyone else it is a matter of evolution, but for them? For them it is revolution. And not the good kind of revolution.
That is the acquiescence I find so fascinating: the willingness to give up all vestiges of freedom and independence for an ephemeral notion of safety. And, yes, it is an acquiescence that has been used in plots and settings many times before. In many, many books, plays, movies — even video games! — it has been used before…and will be again. It will be used again because it is powerful…and because it carries with it such an element of truth to give with the shiver of dread.
Think of my second great COVID subplot as a question: Just how much are you willing to surrender to be ‘safe’?
I have my answer. The Australians have a very different one.
{Musical Note — I had one song in mind when I started to write this post, but this one works so damned well I just couldn’t say no…}
I’ve been busy over the past week or so. Oh, not too busy to think and write, but still busy nonetheless. The fact that it is a business of my own creation and choice makes it a thing very different from those days when “busy” meant running to meetings I didn’t want to attend, with people I didn’t want to talk to, in places I didn’t want to be…
In that life, busy meant miserable. Busy also meant trying to pass the day ever more quickly so I could get to those few hours of “non-busy” in the brewery taproom, spending time with those with whom I did want to talk. Compared to those days, nothing will ever be “busy” again…
Thank God.
This busy-ness — the busy-ness of the last few days — has been a thing important to me on both a personal and a professional level. And, no, before you ask, I have not shared it here on the blog. It isn’t yet time. When that time does come, however, you can rest assured that I will talk — probably non-stop! — about it here.
Even in the midst of all that busy-ness, however, I have been making time for myself to do more reading. Now, as is usual for me, I have been focusing that reading on history. I know, I know…you are very surprised by that. I mean, who would ever have thought that I read history? My God, before you know it I’ll be talking about crazy shit like astronomy and cosmology!
Ahem. Never mind. Let’s just /sarcasm and move on…
My reading of late has gone back to what is perhaps the greatest well in all of European history for stories of power politics and intrigues and ruthlessness: the English Wars of the Roses. Look, there is a reason why Shakespeare’s most impactful characters and plays comes from his cycle about this period. Hell, it was for the very same reason that modern writers take the Wars of the Roses as the basis for something like, oh, a million stories. Shit, every single bit of Game of Thrones came from this freaking period! Even the dragons!
Err…well…maybe not the dragons…unless, of course, you want to postulate early canons and artillery as “dragons”!
Err, sorry about that. Give me a moment to /nerd too…
There, that’s better.
So, I’ve been reading about the Wars of the Roses and, well…shit. What writer can not think about characters and plots with that particular bit of history in front of them?! Even better — or worse, depending on your point of view — I’ve been diving back into the stories and details about the death of Edward IV; the machinations of his queen, Elizabeth Wydville; the ambitions of his brother, Richard of Gloucester (yeah, I pretty much refuse to give him the royal styling of Richard III — sue me, I’m convinced of his guilt); and all of the ruthlessness and maneuvering around the fates of the Princes in the Tower.
If you don’t know, by the way, that final phrase refers to the 12 year old King Edward V, and his nine year old brother Richard, Duke of York. Now, no work of history can get into the reality of those two boys because, quite simply, all we can definitively say about them is that their uncle imprisoned and murdered them in order to seize the throne. And in that simple sentence I just typed there lie literally millions of words of stories and characters and conflict as inspiration for a fiction writer!
The Princes in the Tower
There is a record, from a contemporary writer unaffiliated with either political faction of the day, about how people used to gather across the Thames from the Tower to watch the imprisoned princes come outside to play everyday. Then…one day…the boys just never reappeared. It was only after that disappearance that everyday, average Londoners turned against Richard Gloucester. It was only after that disappearance that people began to question whether a man so popular and respected could be so ruthless and evil.
I’m sorry, but just how can you not take something like that and run with it?
One of the things I find most compelling about the whole story is the fact that not a single one of the players involved gave a damn about anything other than their own power. Elizabeth Wydville was a grasping, ruthless woman committed to cementing her own (unofficial) power and influence over the government of England at all costs. Richard of Gloucester had more official and legitimate claims to power — as regent, not king — but that most certainly wasn’t enough for him. Hastings and Buckingham (if you remember them from your Shakespeare!) wanted desperately to cement their own power…
And not one of those people, trusted with the care of two young boys unable to defend themselves as much as they were trusted with the care of England itself, cared one whit for any of their charges. Nor did they, to get more to the point in terms of today’s world and politics, ever bother to pause and think about what was best for the nation or the people.
And in all of that you have…everything. You have characters who are sympathetic, and characters who are detestable. You have conflict and tension on multiple levels, from the personal to the international. You have scheming and murder; evil deeds and cowardice; manipulations and mistakes; hell, you have a dude executed by being drowned in a barrel of wine (!). You have, when you get right down to it, an illustration over just a few short months of everything that makes humanity so fucked up and miserable…and so very human.
Richard III
Oh…also…if you extend the window out a bit, you do get a touch of justice, too. Hastings and Buckingham were executed by their former master, Richard of Gloucester. Not much later, Dicky 3 himself died at the hands of a man whose claim to the throne was laughably thin; a man who barely spoke any English; a man whose grandfather was nothing more than a Welsh groom with the good luck to marry a (former) queen…
That man, who became Henry VII, had his faults and problems, but let’s be honest here — he not only killed Richard of Gloucester, he married the dead princes’ sister and gave eventual rise to a magnificent grandchild in the form of Elizabeth I. So well done, Hank.
Err…on a pointless history-is-complicated note: Hank7 didn’t actually turn out to be a terribly nice guy. He wasn’t a hugely bad one, mind you, but he was certainly no shining, chivalric hero. His mother, on the other hand, was one of the strongest and most remarkable women you’ll ever come across. Which leads inevitably to a whole separate character-inspiration rant.
*sigh*
Anyone who says history is simple, and writing easy, is either crazy, or lying their ass off.
Given yesterday’s anniversary, there’s only thing I can write about. Only one thing worth the words, or the sentiment: Yuri Gagarin.
Now, the first iteration of this post moved past Gagarin and became a piece about the divides of nations that have prevented that brave, brave man from achieving the level of recognition he deserves. It became about the rivalry and adversarial relationship between the US and Russia.
It became, in the end about the futile waste and foolishness that saw a brave, brave man ignored by two-thirds of the world. Oh sure, that man was named a Hero of the Soviet Union…but who in the US or Western Europe, or that vast majority of Asia that lies outside of old USSR borders, remembers jack shit about him?
“Yuri who?” is all you’re likely to get if you bring up his name to the next person at the bar…
For those who have forgotten — or who never knew — let me remind you: a full month before Alan Shepherd flew Freedom 7 on a fifteen-minute-ish suborbital flight, Yuri Gagarin became not just the first human into space, but also the first to orbit the Earth. A US astronaut would not follow into a similar orbit for damned near a year, when John Glenn flew Friendship 7 through three full orbits.
Today, we make far too much of “firsts.” The first left-handed tailor to use right-handed scissors. The first idiot to piss on an electric fence. We celebrate the most trivial of firsts like they were the first summit of Everest…
…or the first human into space.
Just put your mind back into that morning: Thousands of tons of highly explosive fuel were set to propel a basically untested craft into an environment completely and totally inimical to life. The courage of that first man to strap himself into that thing…
The courage to put aside thoughts of his wife and kids…
The courage to nod and give a thumb’s up, knowing death rode just a few feet behind him…
Look, let’s be honest: the Soviet Union is not a country folks look back to for inspiration or reassurance, or competence, even. But the Russian men and women of courage? Those who — in the terms of one of my favorite books — had the Right Stuff?
Raise a glass, then, to Yuri Gagarin. Raise a glass to one of those few men so brave — or so crazy — that they extended the boundaries of our entire species.
Oh and, by the way, if the first human-crewed ship we send to Mars is NOT named the Gagarin, there’s something freaking wrong with us!
Finding My Way Out 