Relational Tech Project. Just found out about this initiative and (without having had more than a skim so far) was reminded of my recently created UpTrust account, so this will be my first post. Hi to all who may see this!

https://relationaltechproject.org/

"We can build what we need

Many of us wish our neighborhoods were more connected. We want to live in neighborhoods where we learn from the creativity, care, and skills of our neighbors — and share our gifts too.

We've been told a perfect app or platform would help us, but that hasn't panned out. The hard truth is that no one is coming to save us.

The good news: we can build what we need!"

How to really tick me off as a fiction writer, and part 2 of my review of Carr's multiply named novel.

There's this move that writers of fiction sometimes make. I've seen it in novels, movies, tv shows. It's most often a little thing. A throwaway line. And I hate it so much.

It's when a character says something like "It's not like it is in the movies"

or "This isn't one of your fairy stories"

or "Things might work like that in a mystery novel, but this is real life"

You've heard some version of this a hundred times in different works of fiction. I can't stand it. 

I think they (the writers) think they're being clever? Giving a sly wink to the reader. But it's not clever. It's a weird tick, and all it achieves is to remind you that the events of the story ARE a fiction, and to pull you out of it and back into the world.

This is directly counter to the first job of fiction, which is indeed to make you forget that you're a reader, consuming fiction.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading Carr's Hollow Man / Three Coffins, and he did a little version of this. That's actually what prompted me to start writing this earlier post, but I never got to round to kvetching about this thing there. Christie is also sometimes guilty of this, a rare lapse from the queen.

I've now finished Carr's book.

And something happened towards the end that was frankly shocking. Mild, non-plot spoilers for the book incoming!
In the last quarter, Carr indulges in the mother of all immersion breakers.

So, the reason I started reading the book is because of the famous "locked room lecture" that's what the book is known for. This is mentioned in the third Knives Out Movie. In the lecture, the detective Gideon Fell gives a run down of every possible kind of solution to a "locked room murder."

This kind of murder was Carr's stock in trade, and it is of course quite an interesting idea: someone is found murdered in a locked room, with no obvious way that anybody else could have gotten in or out. (Fun fact, the earliest well known locked room mystery is "The Mystery of the Yellow Room" by Gaston Leroux, who also wrote the novel "The Phantom of the Opera". I read both a long time ago. Phantom is quite fun, I don't remember anything about Yellow Room).

So I was looking forward to hearing a lecture from a master of this genre, about all the possibilities. And when it arrives, here's how he sets it up:

“I will now lecture,” said Dr. Fell, inexorably, “on the general mechanics and development of the situation which is known in detective fiction as the ‘hermetically sealed chamber.’ Harrumph. All those opposing can skip this chapter. Harrumph. To begin with, gentlemen! Having been improving my mind with sensational fiction for the last forty years, I can say—”
“But, if you’re going to analyze impossible situations,” interrupted Pettis, “why discuss detective fiction?”
“Because,” said the doctor, frankly, “we’re in a detective story, and we don’t fool the reader by pretending we’re not. Let’s not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let’s candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to characters in a book."

Carr, John Dickson. The Three Coffins (The Hollow Man) (pp. 210-211)

!!!

So, the first line, he commits the sin I started this post discussing; he refers to the existence of detective fiction within a piece of detective fiction. I rolled my eyes.

But then, he commits the much more egregious, and frankly insane, move of having his characters just start talking about the fact they're characters in a novel. For no reason. It's a completely unforced error. He could have delivered the lecture through the mouthpiece of Fell, completely in fiction, and it would have worked fine.

And, to add insult to injury, the lecture is not that great. He rattles off a bunch of different ideas, but it's just a laundry list, he doesn't really extract general principles or broader conclusions.

After this, the characters go back into character, never acknowledging again that they're in fiction. The resolution of the mystery IS very clever, but the book as a whole is chaotic, long winded, self-indulgent, psychologically unconvincing, and transparently artificial. So, idk if I recommend it.

Now, The Hollow Man was published in 1935, 6 years before Borges' "Garden of Forking Paths", which I think is the earliest stirrings of postmodern, deconstructivist, fiction writing. (Honestly it's pretty upsetting to mention Carr in the same sentence as Borges).

So you could say that Carr was ahead of his time with this move, a move that anticipates the postmodern, fourth wall breaking antics of Wes Craven's Scream, the Deadpool franchise, or (most interesting) the work of comic writer Grant Morrison.

But Morrison, and Craven, and even the writers of Deadpool, are breaking the fourth wall deliberately, purposefully, to create a new kind of experience, a new kind of fiction.

Carr's book is squarely in a modern, generic mode, chugging along, promising to deliver one thing, and then just randomly breaking the fourth wall for a chapter, before going back to it's completely conventional format.

Anyway, it made me mad. I'm back to reading Christie, and having a lovely time. Read Borges, Christie, and Morrison. Skip Carr.

ps - Every jacket illustration of Fell makes it look like the character was modeled on GK Chesterton (another comparison that does no favors to Carr)

Cozy Mysteries.  

For comfort reading at the moment I'm going through the Agatha Christie Poirot novels in order. They're a blast, I highly recommend. I also recently watched the third Knives Out movie, "Wake Up Dead Man". The Knives Out movies are cozy mysteries, heavily influenced by Christie in general, and the character of Poirot specifically, but with a layer of intentional cultural commentary that's mostly missing from Christie. I loved the first movie, hated the second one, and loved the third one. If you dropped off after the second one, give it a chance, it's a surprising, delightful return to form.

In that movie, they mention the book "The Hollow Man" aka "Three Coffins", a celebrated novel by the master of the "locked room" mystery, John Dickson Carr. I've read one other Carr novel that I remember being clever, but not much else.

It's interesting to feel the difference in style and tone between Christie and Carr, who were writing in the same genre at the same time and surely read each other. Carr is much more dramatic, theatrical, exciting, much more interested in suspense, peaks and valleys, spectacle, things like that. But as a result, it's sometimes hard to understand what's happening. Like, you will be told that a character spoke, but you won't be told what they said, and instead it will explore the reactions and implications, and then maybe go somewhere else completely, before returning in a later chapter to reveal what was actually said. But that whole time, you're wondering, wait, did I miss something? Was I supposed to understand this?

Christie, on the other hand, has this absolutely transparent prose. It's a marvel. There's nothing extra, nothing confusing, you never lose track of her for a second. It's perfectly clear. You understand everything that's happening in the story exactly when she wants you to, and you're never worried that you didn't understand anything.

Which makes the reveals at the end so satisfying. Like a magician wearing a short sleeved shirt, doing everything very slowly, right in front of your eyes.

It's also SO cozy. If you don't read murder mysteries, the idea of the "Cozy Murder Mystery" might sound like an oxymoron, and obviously like, actual murder is not cozy or fun or anything like it. But Christie's world is so calm and pleasant, and so nostalgic for me. 

This is aided by the fact her murders are also unnaturally bloodless. I just read one where someone took the knife out of the victims neck and was touching the point to see how sharp it is, with no mention of the fact that, were someone actually stabbed in the neck, the knife would be covered in blood. It's a weirdly dissociated version of violence, where the actual violent act is completely abstracted, completely symbolified.

Juries still out on the Carr book. I'll finish it, but my guess is I'll be going right back to Christie afterwards.

I came here to say something else, only tangentially related to all this, but that's enough for today. I'll have to say it another day.

P.S. In the vein of the cozy mystery, but also in the vein of short daily puzzle: I recommend Clues By Sam. It's a very high quality daily logic puzzle that seems to be actually improving my working memory.

https://cluesbysam.com/

Let me know if you try it, or if you're already playing it.

P.P.S. The difficulty ramps through the week, peaking on the weekend and resetting on Monday, so if it's too hard for you today, try again on Monday.

Who's read Too Like the Lightning / Seven Surrenders? I just finished both and would love to talk about the ideas. eg:

• the vision of partial utopia
• the kinkiness of metaphysics
• all the stuff about gender
• forgiveness
• views on war and its inevitability
• some of the specific religious/metaphysic ideas

I found it extremely good, compelling, unique, visionary, and very weird. Sometimes hard to read, or frustrating, but that was clearly on purpose and I respect these choices and their uniqueness is I think incredibly well executed. I felt a lot of things reading it at different times, especially when (no spoiler) we learn a little more about the narrator's history. I'm confident the ideas will stick with me and inform and inspire and warn me for years to come, and I'm excited to read the rest of the series.

Severance is great, but it gets one thing weirdly wrong. (Very mild) Spoilers for season 1 of Severance ahead.

First, if you haven't seen Severance, I recommend it! Bookmark this, go watch season 1, form your own opinions, and come back to chat.

Ok, people who have context for what I'm about to say, read on!

I couldn't finish the show the first time I tried. I got about half way through, but the fundamental horror of the protagonists' situation was simply too disturbing for me. Friends would say "Oh it's so great, it's so funny and weird. What a thought provoking idea!" 

And I'd be sat there barely able to breathe at the idea that someone's life could be an unbroken experience of being at work, in a windowless building. 

Based on these conversations, I genuinely think many people aren't actually fully imagining what's happening to the characters. It might also be because I was working as a full time employee, in front of a computer all day, during that first attempt.

Second attempt, I managed to dial down my vicarious horror enough to get through the season, and it is a great show.

Now the part I think the writers get wrong. 

I think, in one important way, they also failed to fully empathize with the situation. 

Mark, the main character of season 1, is presented as having chosen to become severed and work at Lumen as a way of dealing with and escape from the grief of the loss of his wife.

Superficially, this makes sense. It's a common trope, and makes psychological sense to me, that people often deal with grief by pouring themselves into work. So that, for at least those hours of the day, you have a distraction from the pain.

But getting severed would actually have the opposite effect. It would remove that tool from your life. It would mean you had one less way to escape the grief. Rather than waking up filled with grief, then going to work, and getting a few hours of relief, before going home and picking up the grief, you would wake up with the grief, head to work, and then immediately be coming home where your grief filled existence could continue, uninterrupted.

You might argue that it was Mark who missed this, when he made the choice, and now he's dealing with the consequences. But that's not in the text. What's in the text is just the implication that getting severed was Marks strategy for dealing with the grief, with no exploration of the fact that actually that's a horrible strategy. 

Thoughts? Counterpoints? What did you think of the show?

(ps, I'd just like to say how delighted I am that the generated images are now optional 🙏)

So.. who’s winning in y’all’s opinion?

Premature Ejaculator? Try edging! I’ve gotten into some conversations lately with heterosexuals and How do I not prematurely ejaculate? has come up a lot.

I never really thought about this how because from a young age I used the when you get close to cumming and it’s too early, use the grandma visualization. Grandma meaning: someone/something I don’t want to have sex with. Pick a different word if you want to boink your nana.

This kinda got me over the hump and I never had problems but recently I filmed a scene with a tantra teacher who gave me a crash course in edging. Edging is a masturbation practice where a scale of 1-10 is used. 10 means I’m going to blow no matter what. 9 is I’m going to blow if the status quo remains. 8 is I can sense myself getting close. 1 is I’m not really horny.

This tantra teacher ejaculated multiple times in the span of 90 minutes (5 or so?). He also had a few orgasms where he didn’t ejaculate. He said it was the result of edging training. Those further heights stimulated my interest.

Key points:
1. Jerk off as much as you want.
2. Decide whether you’re going to shoot before you start.
3. Imagine the possibility that all the energy generated somehow stores in your sexiness when you don’t cum (the teacher edges to get ready for things like social events or even sex.)
4. Get as close to 9.5 as you can get without shooting.
5. The practice of building it up is equally important to the practice of not hitting 10.

I spent about a week on it and it was really clicking and enjoyable, porn or no porn.

Then I had the idea of trying it during sex instead of masturbation.

Key point:

I told my boyfriend.

I told him because he REALLY likes when I cum inside of him and our healthy codependency on that was it was a sign of connection for me to nut in him.

I said, I’m practicing this thing. I hope you like it. You can support me in it by staying completely still when I say, hold still.

If he wiggles or flexes his anal muscles it can take my 9 to 10.

The first time we did it, as I got to 9, my cock was kinda dry heaving but not shooting, maybe just a drop or two came out AND he actually thought the sensation of my cock pulsating inside him was hotter. Now I probably hit 9.5 a few times each session. We still always finish with a 10 but because of all the cardio that last build up is crazy vigorous so he gets a really intense ride out of it.

I think straight guys who tell their ladies they’re trying this are in for a treat. Sex has co-vulnerabilities. For the receiver, at least when I’m receiving, I want to be simultaneously objectified and subjectified. I want to be a hot person who’s loved. For the penetrator, at least for me, if I’m not high enough on the scale, say 5 or 6, I’ll lose my erection. If I go too high too fast I’ll blow my load too soon.

It seems REALLY hard to hold these vulnerabilities in consciousness. I think edging while fucking addresses all these issues in a very collaborative and fun way.

The first time I described it to a couple and asked the woman if she was ok if he tried it, she responded with a sly joy and said, Sounds fun to me. <3

Happy fucking!