Saturday was spent mostly in bed with the heating pad vibrating my back. It may have done some good - I had a horrendous spasm - in that my right side no longer feels like it is paralyzed.
I made no calls, but I did talk to Paul S on Friday and to CC if memory serves. K was supposed to come over on Sunday, so I decided against church. Of course, she did not show - she has not been well. Too late to change my plans.
Back to Saturday, I went to the Downtown Food Stand for vegetables. I missed the Farmer's Market. Then more time spent in bed with the heating pad. Then I spent the evening and into the night working on submissions. My notes on that and other miscellaneous items follow.
Insanity! I submitted "Love Stinks" to Acre Books. And I screwed up the submission!
The Handmaiden review – outrageous thriller drenched with eroticism. Heard about this when it came out; I still have not seen a Korean movie. Yes, that includes Oldboy.
‘You have to eliminate a stereotype’: director Wei Shujun on Chinese noir Only the River Flows. Agreed, but damned hard to do and get any attention, if my experience indicates anything. (Other than my own incompetence!)
‘My dream was to have a six-pack and a gun’: Shah Rukh Khan on being ‘king’ of Bollywood
I ask him about the future of Bollywood and put to him my theory that it is potent because it carries on with something Hollywood abandoned: the musical. He says: “Indian cinema like a cabaret: music, comedy, drama, a mishmash, it might be dancing, people falling down. I do believe it’s a more difficult art form. It doesn’t isolate film into comedy, romance, horror, musicals. It tells the whole story.” The current anxiety about people deserting movie-going for streaming TV, is, he says, just a “settling” period, like the invention of VCR. But Bollywood will be at the forefront of the new wave of cinema-going.
I think he is right about Bollywood doing great musicals. Laugh, but they are spectacular and they are fun. Give me a recent American example of which you can say the same thing? (Barbie?)
Gena Rowlands: the fiercest, most incandescent star of US indie cinema
The Onion Is Back In Print - I must admit I have not been reading it of late, a habit I may have lost even before prison, but it seems to ahve nto lost its edge.
"Problem Solving" was sent off to Litro Print Magazine, EDGE CITY, Copper Nickel, and Ignatian Literary Magazine.
Road Tripping went to New Letters and Night Picnic Press
I combined two stories from "The Dead and Dying" to create "Perspectives On Sibling Rivalry" for Sequestrum's family-themed issue.
The Forge Literary Magazine rejected "Problem Solving":
Thank you so much for sending us 'Problem Solving'. This time, however, we're saying no, but we wish you the best of luck with your piece.
Sincerely,
Editorial staff
Michael Hicks writes in his Political polarization and diverging economies are related:
Over the past 40 years, that changed. Today, 19 of the 20 richest states are solidly Democratic, while 19 of the 20 poorest states are solidly Republican. It is clear that the GOP has become the party of poor states, while the Democrats have become the party of prosperous states. But, exactly why this is the case isn’t clear, and it certainly isn’t solely due to policy differences.
One big culprit is that political parties changed, erasing regional differences. Up until the late 90’s, there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. That is no longer the case, so as states began to align with national politics platforms.
This trend more extreme today. Even races for local government tends to be highly nationalized. State and local issues are often ignored in primary or general elections. This homogeneity of national politics naturally tends to cause parties to have success in places that are more similar – polarizing states between parties.
A second trend is the sorting by politics increasingly effects household location choice. Though much sorting happens at the local level, the nationalization of politics means that state borders now effect household location choice.
Okay... I was ready to change my thoughts on how the Republicans have run Indiana into the ground because I was reading the following as excusing party politics. Then, I came onto this a few paragraphs below:
The cause of the economic divergence is because human capital — education, innovation and invention — replaced manufacturing and movement of goods as the primary source of prosperity. This means that places that grow will necessarily need to develop and attract more human capital. But the educational policies pursued by both parties are vastly different, with very different outcomes.
The GOP has largely tried to adopt broad school choice, and cut funding to both K-12 and higher education. The Democrats have largely eschewed school choice, but amply funded both K-12 and higher education. Seventeen of the 20 best funded states are Democratically controlled and 17 out of the 20 lowest funded states are GOP strongholds. Educational outcomes between these states are stark.
Educational attainment differences alone explain about three quarters of the difference in per capita income between states. So, if poor states spend less on education, even if they have robust school choice, they will become poorer than rich states who spending more on education.
Now that is the result of political party policy - underfund schools so that people want to go to private schools, limiting access to them makes them even more attractive, and leave the quality of education to private entities - ones that might be outright anti-democratic.
Economists have been saying this for three decades, without any effect in poor states. The prognosis is simply that poor states — like Indiana — are going to get poorer for decades to come. While rich states will grow richer.
So, I will keep on saying this: Hoosiers, voting Republican only makes paupers of you, your children, and your grandchildren.
Joy Willaims has a new collection of short stories that I will probably not have time to read since I spend too much time on this computer: Concerning the Future of Souls: 99 Stories of Azrael by Joy Williams review – brilliantly deadpan. If you read them, let me know - that is why you can write comments on a blog.
Off to the laundromat.
Back I cooked up two chicken quarters. CC was to have one, but she did not show up. I brought this post up to date.
"No Ordinary Word" was sent to Spank the Carp.
I have seen headlines about Moon Unit Zappa's memoir, so I read The Guardian's review of Earth to Moon by Moon Unit Zappa review – rock and a hard place. Frank was a very strange father.
Doutrope's report on my success as a writer:
23 submissions sent.
Acceptance percentage:0.0%
Rejection percentage:100.0%
Non-response percentage (withdrawals/lost/no response):0.0%
Acceptance-to-rejection ratio (excludes non-responses):0.0%
No work was done on anything new.
Nor did I go to the BMW website.
Now, I am calling it a night. Maybe a flying saucer will land and take me away with it.
sch
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