Ann Leckie

So, I had a lovely time talking to the folks at Sword and Laser yesterday. It was fun! They’ve got a nice community thing going on at Goodreads. It’s pretty cool, and worth checking out if you like that “pick a book and talk about it for a month” book club kind of thing.

So, during the conversation (which of course as soon as I was done, I was like, “Oh, I oversimplified that way too much and I should have clarified this other thing, and….” but hey, that’s how talking is) the subject of Velveeta came up–it’s not even food! I asserted, though, of course, it is. But it’s not particularly nutritious food, it’s full of salt and saturated fat, and maybe you’ll get some calcium out of it, but it’s really all about that pasteurized processed cheese product taste and texture. You’re not eating it because you think it’s good for you, you’re eating it because it tastes good–and it probably tastes good because you got served velveeta mac and cheese as a kid, or any of those “melt a block of velveeta with a can of tomatoes and maybe some other stuff” dips were a standard part of Thanksgiving or whatever, and really there’s no separating that taste from that “my family loves me and I’m safe and warm and things are as they should be” feeling you had when you ate it back then.

Or maybe, you know, you just like the way it tastes. Because it tastes good. Granted, it’s not gourmet. Not sophisticated. It’s not real cheese. Everyone knows that real cheese is better than process, and everyone knows that someone who prefers wrapped slices of Kraft American or, heaven help us, Velveeta, to the obviously infinitely superior genuine cheeses available is obviously a philistine. Or, charitably, perhaps they just never learned better, isn’t it a pity?

Of course, that real cheese is often three times the price of your average Processed Cheese Product. Or more. I can buy a big block of velveeta, that will make quite a few servings of macaroni and cheese, or a couple of big bowls of dip, for a price that would get me a small triangle of, say, white stilton with apricots (ooh, I gotta go to Trader Joes today). So, there’s just a bit of class stuff going on here. Which I find interesting.

The thing is, there’s room in life for both. Why does it have to be either/or? I mean, I get if someone says, “Yeah, I don’t like the taste of velveeta.” Or whatever. Why does it, so often, turn into, “that crap’s not real cheese, when I make macaroni and cheese I use gruyere and organic locally sourced cheddar, that’s how you make real macaroni and cheese”? I’ve got nothing against gruyere and locally sourced cheddar mac and cheese, by the way. I will be more than happy to dig in if you invite me over to try some. I bet it’s freaking fabulous. In fact, I’ve got less than nothing against insanely expensive and/or locally sourced cheese. I love that stuff. (And after I hit Trader Joes, I need to find a shop where I can get me some Baetje Farms goat cheese, cause all the farmers markets are closed for the season. OMG so delicious.) But you know what? I like the kind of mac and cheese with velveeta, too. They’re different experiences, and they both have their different appeals. Sometimes I just want to savor some Coeur de la Crème and sometimes I want to scarf down some fluorescent orange paste sprayed onto a Ritz cracker. They’re both very different approaches to the cheese thing, and I can enjoy the everliving hell out of both.

Now, this isn’t to say that dishes made with processed cheese product aren’t open to any sort of criticism. In fact, there are better and worse instances of velveeta-based dishes, and one could certainly learn something interesting from what makes one casserole work while another one doesn’t. Of course, if your criticism is confined to the announcement that supper is invalid because it contains velveeta and that shit is disugusting …well, that’s a criticism, certainly. And it might well be based in a firm personal dislike for velveeta and all its works and empty promises. But it doesn’t really say much, does it, beyond “I freaking hate velveeta.” Not terribly interesting, not something you can sink your teeth into, no matter how you dress it up.

And of course, there’s a reverse snobbery. “Fuck that pretentious stinky expensive chees crap, give me my velveeta!” It’s the same thing in the other direction. And like I said above, there’s a strong class element to it. Which, actually, food is complicated–it’s strongly class marked, what kinds of things you eat can be a signifier of what group you belong to, or claim membership in. But the reality, of what people eat, isn’t necessarily as neatly compartmentalized as the common narratives might make it seem. One region’s incredibly cheap, everyday affordable food is another area’s pretentious luxury. The organic, local farmers market produce that signals pretension to so many folks might, for quite a few people, be the most affordable option available to them (particularly for people with various allergies and sensitivities, and of course that’s a whole other subject). And yet, it’s kind of amazing what we assume about people based on what they eat.

And what we assume about what we don’t eat. Are people who claim they love high status foods that we’ve tried and don’t like–are those people just faking it so they look high class? I’ve heard versions of this assertion, not just about food, btw, but honestly I have trouble believing it. The thing about food is, it’s so enjoyable. I mean, it tastes good, it’s a pleasure to eat. Stuff that isn’t a pleasure to eat–well, I don’t eat much of it, unless there’s no other option. So I have a hard time believing that people who chow down on oysters or um, I’m actually having trouble coming up with a food I don’t like at all, maybe olives, but anyway, people who express enjoyment of eating something, and continue to eat it, I have real trouble believing that they’re actually gritting their teeth and faking a smile on a regular basis in the hope they’ll be considered acceptably high class.

Are people who chow down on rotelle and velveeta dip, or fluffernutter sandwiches on white bread, or whatever, are they just ignorant boors who are incapable of knowing what really good food is? I suspect not, given that most people I know will, depending on the occasion, or availability, eat and enjoy all sorts of things. It’s just, the question of what’s available and how much money you have to spend does matter–and if certain foods are nearly always relatively cheap, that ends up with their being associated strongly with not having much money.

But darn it, velveeta tastes good. And so does marshmallow and peanut butter. And so you get “guilty pleasures.” But why should anybody feel guilty for liking food that tastes good to them? And why should any sort of food be relegated to the “not actually decent food” category as though it’s horrible and nobody with decent taste eats it if they have a choice, when actually quite a few people really enjoy eating it? Hell, I did it myself, halfway at least, with my “it’s not even food” crack in that interview, and I don’t even really think that. Why is that narrative so strong? Wouldn’t it be better to use a narrative that encouraged us to find really good ways to use those foods, maybe even new ways, rather than a narrative that just consigns them to the “horrible” category and then leaves everyone who enjoys them to do so furtively, or be very obviously ironic about it in the hopes no one thinks they seriously like it? Or insulting whole groups of people based on what they freaking had for supper?

I could turn this into an analogy. I’m half tempted to! Y’all know how I am. And food analogies are, like, a thing with me. But I think instead I’m going to the store. Because suddenly I’m very hungry for rotelle dip and I love that stuff.

Last night’s signing at Subterranean Books was loads of fun. There was even cake!

Just because. Cake doesn’t really need any reason besides its own existence.

It was a great evening. I really enjoyed hanging out with the people who came, and the folks at Subterranean were fabulous.

Subterranean Books is a great store. They’ve got a really nice selection of books, and while they don’t specialize in science fiction, it’s pretty clear from looking at their SF shelves that someone there is a fan. It’s not a huge selection, but it’s a really good one. If you’re looking for something you’ve been hearing about, that sounded interesting, chances are you’ll find it there.

And of course, they’ve got some signed copies of Ancillary Justice. So if you’re in St Louis, and you want a signed copy, Subterranean is the place to get them.

In other news, there have been more reviews, and of course it’s very gratifying to see review titles like “The mind blowing space opera you’ve been needing” but even so, I have to give the first prize trophy for titles to “I Am Beside Myself and Myself and Myself.”

The blog Giveaway, of four copies of Ancillary Justice, closed last night. This morning, the household’s newly-permitted driver obligingly chose four slips of paper at random out of a bowl. And so, the winners are:

Glen Mehn, who likes black
Beth Nutley, who likes blue
Ferrett Steinmetz, who likes black (a lot of people like black!)
George Hollis, who likes purple

I’ll be emailing the winners for snail mail addresses once I’ve had a bit more tea.

There are still giveaways going at Goodreads and Librarything, and I’ve just heard that the Skiffy and Fanty show plans to give a copy away when they interview me. And I might do another giveaway at some point, just because.

Also, I’m given to understand that at least one Waterstones in the UK already has the book up for sale.

So, there are currently giveaways running at Goodreads and LibraryThing. But they won’t ship outside of the US. And not everyone has or wants an account at Goodreads or LibraryThing.

And I just got a big box of finished copies! So. I’m going to give away four of them.

Starting today, running until, oh, let’s say next Tuesday, September 24, if you’d like a copy of Ancillary Justice, leave a comment here (“here” can be on this entry at annleckie.com, at the ann_leckie livejournal, or the ann_leckie Dreamwidth account) or email me at ann@annleckie.com and let me know two things–your name, and your favorite color.

I’ll collect all the entries and randomly choose four.

I’ll ship to pretty much anywhere, too.

So, Worldcon! It was a thing that happened! I really admire people who write up nice, detailed con reports–I’m not one of them. Or, I did it once, for the first convention I ever went to, and it was a lot of work, and generally I find my brain is mush for a while after I get back, so this is the super-abbreviated, I-really-should-be-napping-right-now report of my weekend.

I decided to take the train, because I love taking the train and San Antonio is a straight shot, twenty-four hour ride on the Texas Eagle. I splurged for a sleeper and had a great time. It’s not quite as swanky as the Orient Express in the Thirties, but I did wonder now and then if I should arrange an alibi with the guy across the corridor. Really, the only negative was that it cut into my con time. Well, and that I still, seven hours after getting off the train, have that sort of swaying feeling like I might still be on it. And I’m earwormed something fierce with Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, because it seemed like it would be perfect music for on the train (it was) but now it’s stuck.

So, Saturday morning I did my thing where I go down to the lobby around breakfast and see who’s there. Generally I run into pretty much everyone I want to see, but this time there were a lot of folks I missed. I think this location had, like, three different natural congregating spaces, and they were all fairly distant from each other, and that probably accounts for it. Still, I of course ran into people right off and spent the rest of the day hanging, and meeting new and awesome people. (I am not good at this, generally. I try to find someone who is and follow them around a bit, and that usually works quite well.) Like last year, I attended basically no programming except the SFWA meeting and Rachel Swirsky’s reading. I kept thinking I might go to a panel, but then ended up in the bar or some other hanging-out space instead.

There were lots and lots of great people at the Drinks with Authors party, and Justin did his best to swell my head up by saying extravagantly nice things about Ancillary Justice, and gave away a couple of ARCs. In fact, there were volumes and volumes of books (that weren’t mine) they were giving away as door prizes. It was pretty darn fabulous, and the whole thing was a great idea.

Sunday went pretty much the same way, except instead of Drinks with Authors I ended up at a Brazilian steakhouse, which I’m telling you now, if you eat meat and you ever have the chance to check this out, do. After a huge, delicious dinner, I ended up in the hotel bar hanging out with people and watching Twitter for Hugo results.

It was a wonderful weekend all around, really, and the only thing I really regret is not seeing so many people I was sure I’d run into. I will catch you all some other con!

Scene: The bridge in the Japanese Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The weather is warm and sunny. There are some HUMANS on the bridge throwing food pellets to an assortment of VERY LARGE CARP. Some DUCKS are competing for pellets. A TINY FUZZY DUCKLING swims into view.

VERY LARGE CARP: Gape, gape. Perhaps the humans on the bridge will continue to shower me with food pellets!

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: Is this leaf good to eat? It is not. Is this small twig good to eat? It is not.

VERY LARGE CARP: Gape, gape.

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: Perhaps this very large carp is good to eat!

HUMANS: Tiny fuzzy duckling! Your towering ambition delights and amazes us, but we fear for your safety!

VERY LARGE CARP: I am not good to eat, tiny fuzzy duckling. I may even bite you.

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: Well, that was rude! I was only asking.

VERY LARGE CARP: Gape, gape.

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: (sticks its head ALL THE WAY INTO THE CARP’S GAPING MAW) Perhaps something in here is good to eat!

HUMANS: Tiny Fuzzy Duckling! No!

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: (examines the interior of the VERY LARGE CARP some more)

HUMANS: …

TINY FUZZY DUCKLING: No, nothing good to eat in there. Perhaps I will swim under the bridge.

HUMANS: Oh, Tiny Fuzzy Duckling, why did we not get out our cameras the moment you came on the scene? We’d have been heroes of youtube.

So, I recently read this book, that I saw someone mention either on LJ or on one of the blogs I read. I read the title and the description and I said to myself, “Self, I think it would be beneficial if you would read that book.”

So, you know, I got myself a copy. The book is Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts and it was absorbing reading and I recommend it.

So the “hidden transcripts” this book is talking about are the things groups of people don’t say in public. In the case of the powerful, these are things that, acknowledged openly, would undermine their claims to power and authority. And in the case of the less powerful, they’re things that can be downright dangerous to say in the hearing of the powerful. Sometimes the hidden transcripts of the less powerful become visible, for various reasons, but mostly they don’t make it into histories, they don’t get officially acknowledged. Because that’s kind of the point.

So, very little of what the author presents is particularly new to me–I’ve had varying amounts of power, relative to various other folks in my life, and I’ve seen the hidden transcript thing in operation. None of the examples surprised me at all. Mostly what I liked about this book was the way it connected things together–like, I already knew this and this and this–did it occur to you that these were connected in this way? And gosh, it should have because that makes so much sense.

For instance, the author points out a thing that of course I’d noticed–that (relatively) more powerful groups often consider less powerful groups to be unreliable, shifty liars. It almost doesn’t matter what less powerful groups you pick, right? The author here suggests that it’s due to the fact that the more powerful can see that the “public transcript” isn’t all there is–usually when a hidden transcript pops into view, it’s veiled or deniable, but sometimes it’s obvious there’s more to what someone is saying or doing, no matter how veiled, no matter how plausibly or strenuously denied. But they don’t actually have any access to the subordinate group’s hidden transcript. And for various reasons there’s no percentage in admitting the existence of that hidden transcript (see above, undermining legitimacy). How to resolve this problem? Easy! That class of people are just naturally dishonest.

“I should totally have thought of that myself,” says I. Because I should have. But I didn’t.

So, another thing the author points out–or at least that I came away with–is that when you ignore the hidden transcript of a subordinate group, those moments when that transcript becomes suddenly, plainly visible–someone finally snaps and tells off someone more powerful, or a whole group of the less powerful up and revolt–those times when that happens quite literally make no sense if you don’t know about or acknowledge the existence of the hidden transcript. Now, because of who writes history, those hidden transcripts just don’t show up. So you get stuff like theories about how crowds can be whipped into a hysteria or whatever. Without acknowledging the existence of that entire back-channel, there’s no way to acknowledge the agency of the people in that crowd. So you get theories of how these things happen that do not attribute agency to the people who are acting. It’s mass hysteria, it’s the madness of crowds, it’s people being whipped up. *

And I thought to myself, “Self, that’s like Wossname you used to know, who had married three or four times and every single time, after however many months or years of wedded bliss, his wife would just all of a sudden inexplicably lose her mind. Completely out of the blue!”

And then I said to myself, “Self, this is making me think of all the “witch hunt” and “lynch mob” comments I’ve seen lately.”

It used to be all this stuff was back-channel. If you were a cis, white, straight guy, you could go your whole life and never see that hidden transcript out in the open. You never had to, and like as not the non-cis, non-white, non-straight, non-guys around you never really let on, because it wasn’t safe. I mean, like, physically safe. But things are changing a bit, and some of those groups who would never say anything aloud before? Are now saying things aloud. And since you (cis, white, straight guy that you are) don’t know of or admit the existence of those hidden transcripts, what could it possibly be except agitators, mass hysteria, the madness of crowds whipped into a killing frenzy by…uh…somebody?

There’s more to dig into, there–like, actual witch hunts and lynch mobs weren’t actually something the less powerful ever did to the more powerful, and like, there’s something about a member of a relatively powerful group framing the deliberate actions of one relatively powerful group against a less powerful group as being without agency (hit publish instead of preview by mistake. Edited to add–framing it as without agency so you can compare it to the powerless defending themselves from the more powerful) that’s just messed up. But that’s beyond what I’m up for right now.

No, what I’m intrigued by is the idea of the invisibility of the hidden transcript. The fact that this anger has been there for ages, I’ve been seeing it plainly all this time, and seeing hints of it from groups I’m not a member of, but it’s only ever been behind scenes–whispers to avoid this or that guy, complaints and commiseration in more or less safely private places, just seething in furious silence because you just can’t safely speak. We’ve been soaking in it all our lives, some of us, women and PoC and folks who are LGBTQ, or some or all of the above. So it’s genuinely baffling when someone’s response to actually seeing that anger is “Wait, this must be mass hysteria! This is a mob and you know how mobs work!” Because we know it’s really just the obvious outcome of the anger we’ve been living with all our lives–but they’ve never seen it and apparently don’t really believe it exists. *

This is something I’ve felt for a while, whenever I run up against that “but this is just a lynch mob!” thing. I just couldn’t articulate it, why it was so baffling and wrong, why the people saying it couldn’t even begin to imagine that all these people are angry because they’ve got a good reason to be and it’s been there all this time and just got too much for people to contain, or people have found themselves in a place where maybe they won’t be hurt too catastrophically if they express it. The people crying “witch hunt!” can’t even imagine any other way to process it except to dismiss it. Because to acknowledge the hidden transcripts is to begin to undermine exactly what keeps them in the position they’re in.

Not a world-shattering insight, I guess. But that’s kind of what I got out of this book–nothing in it was exactly mind-blowing, but when I was done reading, some things just made a lot more sense.

____

*Note to self–this same set of assumptions is perhaps inseparable from the ever popular “What these people need is a honky” plot.

**This works, of course, wherever you’ve got groups with relative power differences, so even though women have their own hidden transcripts with regard to men, when white women catch sight of WoC’s hidden transcripts, the reaction is often much like when men catch sight of women’s. Or, you know, any other set of groups with an obvious power imbalance between them. “So,” I say to myself, “Self, don’t go feeling smug because you know all about it cause you’re a woman but when they do it, they’re just a mob.”

So, back in the day, I took my then-ten-year-old to see Despicable Me. We both had a good time–my only reservations were the couple of fat jokes, and wait, why does Gru have that accent again? But the fat jokes were minor, and Gru was really quite a charming character. The girls, of course, were wonderful, and who doesn’t love the Minions? I am still somewhat shocked that toy stores were not filled with plush Minions, I’d have gotten half a dozen. The next week we rounded up Mr Leckie and the then-thirteen-year-old and took them to the theater to see it. We bought the disc pretty much as soon as it came out on DVD.

Among the things I really liked about Despicable Me was the way the happy ending (oh, spoiler!) didn’t force the characters into a standard family structure. It’s Gru and the girls and the Minions and Grandma is proud and they love each other and it’s all good.

So when Despicable Me 2 came out, going to see it was kind of a no-brainer. The couple of reviews I’d seen said it wasn’t as good as the first movie, but then how many movies are?

Those reviews did not prepare me for what I saw. Honestly. People could watch that and say “Well, it’s not quite as good as the first one, but it’ll do”? Seriously?

Avoiding spoilers makes it hard to be specific about some things–but sweet, merciful Unconquered Sun, the ethnic stereotypes. The return of the fat jokes.

And the misogyny. No, seriously. In a movie with three built-in awesome girls, and with a female lead that was intended to be awesome and cool, pretty much every single other woman was hated on. Sickeningly so, in the case of the woman Gru goes on a date with because his nosy, annoying (female, natch!) neighbor insists on setting him up. I’m not going to describe how that date concluded, but I’ll tell you I sat there in the theater wishing I’d spent my rare movie ticket money elsewhere.

Then of course there’s the whole “but of course Agnes wants a mommy!” thing. For serious, that’s just lazy. I mean, you could take that direction and do something interesting with it*–but no, that wasn’t on the menu. We’re just going to assume that children without Mommies wish they had them and families must have Mommies to be complete. Because…um…look, we gotta turn this thing in before we can go to the bar. People love mommies! It’s just a kids movie, who the hell cares?

The whole thing was just freaking lazy. And a great way to totally ignore the elements that made the first one successful! I wondered briefly if they’d had different writers for 2, but no. Same writers. Kind of baffling. Something (or someone) must have held them to a higher standard for that first movie. Not to mention forced them to edit out the racism and the misogyny.

Anyway. My advice–don’t waste your money on Despicable Me 2. I wish I hadn’t.
___

*Yes, even in “just” a kids movie. Please don’t make me write that rant, too.

Well, look what came in the mail today!

So, I’m going to be giving some away. I’m not sure just how yet–maybe just something as simple as a random drawing. I haven’t decided yet.

But look at it! It’s a real, physical book that really exists!!!

I’ve gotten behind on announcing when stories go up at GNS. Sorry about that! Life, you know?

This month, A House, Drifting Sideways, by Rahul Kanakia.

On the morning of my fund day, our pilot landed the house with a particularly gentle touch. I was probably the only family-member who felt the house kiss our Philadelphia docking station. I abandoned my desk and went to the window. A crowd of grubby locals from the adjacent Suareztown had already gathered around the marble pediment of the docking station. It might be hours before we began recruiting, but they had no better use for their time than jostling for a place near the house’s entrance. Although Father refused to indulge their pretensions to serfdom by directly sharing our family’s arrival times with the Suareztowners, some groundskeeper had probably told them, days ago, that we were coming.

The leading edge of the crowd was just fifty feet below me. The mass of dirty limbs and garishly clothed torsos swayed, and arms were raised up. I waved, and the carpet of humanity rippled in time to my movements. I presumed they were cheering.