The Five Best Read-Aloud Books for Grown-Ups

June 23, 2016

I wrote an article on Tor and Neil Gaiman retweeted it.

And yes, I think that's enough for a blog post.

Enjoy.

http://www.tor.com/2016/06/23/the-five-best-read-aloud-books-for-grown-ups/

Countdown to Cure

June 18, 2016 in booook stuff, videos

In order to prep everyone for video game rehab, I have compiled seven of the most interesting video gamey things I stumbled across during my research.

Enjoy.

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 1: How Gamers Will Save the World

Foldit Gamers Solve Riddle of HIV Enzyme Within 3 Weeks

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 2: Not all violent game players are violent (as beautifully demonstrated by this boy singing over Call of Duty):

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 3: Video game music is getting rill rill good.

So I made a playlist with a song for every chapter in CURE.

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 4: There are V-habs in China . . . and they are intense:

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 5: This day was horribly tragic, so I dedicated it to LGBTQIA characters and difficult experiences:

LGBTQIA characters in video games

Video Game Rehab Prep Day 6: Sexism in video games as examined through strategic butt coverings:

And on Video Game Rehab Eve . . .

The finest video I've seen on game addiction:

Welcome to V-hab, everyone.

Cure for the Common Universe is out today. :)

Here's the thing. I only want you to read it if you REALLY want to. I think we should all be reading the books that challenge us, but more importantly, the ones that keep us reading. You can read some professional reviews and a synopsis here. Or you can check out some opinions on Goodreads. You'll know if the book is up your alley.

My goal for CFTCU is to get it to as many kids like the boy pictured as possible CURE meant a lot to this kid. So much he could barely find the words to tell me about it. So long as I know that the kids who could use this book at least know it exists, then this will have been a success.

So how can you help? Yes, you can go review the book on Goodreads and vote for it on the lists you see there. You can rate it on Amazon (apparently CURE won't show up on Amazon's radar until I have fifty reviews). You can ask your local library if they have a copy (or eight). But mostly you can recommend it to someone whom you believe would love it. Send a link to a kid who loves video games. Or someone who's interested in addiction. Or someone who gets lonely. (Okay, the umbrella's getting a little too wide now.) Any way you can help the book find more readers like this kid would be so greatly appreciated.

So long as there are kids like the one above reading CURE, I'll be happy. So long as you are reading the books that inspire you, I'll be happy.

And, of course, I'll always love your collective guts.

Hearts and thanks you's.

Cure for the Common Universe Ultimate Playlist

June 10, 2016

Let’s make book playlists a thing, shall we?

I’ll start.

I combed through my humble music collection and tried to find the perfect match for the theme and mood of each chapter from my book, Cure for the Common Universe. I listened to the final product, and it sounded . . . well, not-so smooth. So I trimmed and preened and swapped and replaced, and I think I’ve curated something quite listenable that will complement the book handsome- and/or beautifully.

There’s some St. Vincent in there. There’s also some Andrew Bird, of Montreal, Elvis Presley, Dan Deacon, mr. Gnome, Father John Misty, and of course, of course, a handful of iconic songs from video games.

I’ve made each song theme-appropriate and provided a relatively spoiler-free, Winnie-the-Poohish synopsis for each chapter as well as notable lyrics from each song, in case you’re wondering why in the hell I selected it.

I hope this playlist treats you well. No, wait, more. I hope these songs place your heart in a tiny ship and then sail it high above the clouds, beyond the lightning and the rainbows and the atmospheric pressure, and I hope it wins every battle fought along the way.

“Nah nah . . .”

-CMH

1. ENTER PLAYER NAME
In which Jaxon meets a girl at a car wash
and seriously considers getting waxed

Song: “Katamari Nah-Nah” from the Katamari Damacy soundtrack
Notable lyric: “Nah-nah”

2. LOADING . . .
In which everything hangs on a video game debate

Song: “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” by Owen Pallett
Notable lyric: “I’m never gonna give it to you.”

3. TUTORIAL
In which Jaxon arrives in the desert
and gains a new name

Song: “Crying in the Chapel” by Elvis Presley
Notable lyric: “I’ve searched and I’ve searched, but I couldn’t find . . . the way to gain a piece of mind.”

4. GUILDS
In which Miles Prower is Guilded

Song: “Katamari on the Rocks” from the Katamari Damacy soundtrack
Notable lyric: “Choo choo choochoo choo choo choochoo choo choo choo choochoo”

5. NPCs
In which Miles meets his hero, his minion, his arch nemesis, his future love interest,
and Zxzord

Song: “Feel the Lightning” – Dan Deacon
Notable lyric: “Can you feel the lightning covering your skin; it’s a nightmare; ’cause you’re on fire.”

6. SAVE POINT
In which Miles learns there’s only one way to escape V-hab

Song: “Good Night” from the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack
Notable lyric: Sleeeeeeeeeeeepy

7. PRESS START
In which the game begins and Miles adopts an egg

Song: “Run for Cover” by mr. Gnome
Notable lyric: “Greed is here. Greed is here.”

8. RAGDOLL PHYSICS
In which . . . sports

Song: “Bit of Tongue” – mr. Gnome
Notable lyric: “Wanna piece? Here’s one; piece, here’s one; Wanna piece? Here’s one; Wanna piece of it”

9. HIT POINTS
In which the Nest grows dark
and Fezzik tells some scary stories

Song: “Heimdalsgate like a Promethean Curse” by of Montreal
Notable lyric: “C’mon, chemicals!”

10. CHEATS
In which Miles takes a shower
and someone very special is smashed to death

Song: “Digital Witness” – St. Vincent
Notable lyric: “People turn the TV on; it looks just like a window; yeah”

11. PUZZLER
In which Miles masters the art of levitation
and Soup tries to remember ALL the swears

Song: “Lights Out” by Angel Olsen
Notable lyric: “Some days all you need is one good thought strong in your mind.”

12. CURAGA
In which Fezzik tries to cure everything
and Aurora tells a story about her toe

Song: “Orpheo Looks Back” – Andrew Bird
Notable lyric: “You must cross the muddy river; where love turns to, love turns to fear.”

13. WORLD MAP

In which Miles learns about astronomy and astrology
and Dr. Mario makes an appearance

Song: “Far Horizons” from the Skyrim soundtrack
Notable lyrics: preeeeeeeetty

14. 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

In which things get fast and ugly
and Miles is visited by the ghost of gaming past

Song: “Rise and Shine” by mr. Gnome
Notable lyric: “We ain’t got much to fear”

15. ACHIEVEMENTS
In which Miles loses his armor
and Soup shows off his handiwork

Song: “Orpheo” – Andrew Bird
Notable lyric: “They say you don’t look; ’cause it’ll probably disappear”

16. LOW HEALTH
In which Miles eats a doughnut in the Fairy Fountain
and Fezzik gets romantic

Song: “Dearly Beloved” by Kingdom Hearts
Notable lyric: Looooooooovelyyyyyyyyyy

17. SIDE QUEST
In which Golden Points become a thing
and Miles gets his love handle pinched

Song: “Petroleum Tinged” – James Blake
Notable lyric: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerie

18. PvP
In which the Grouchy Burds utilize their shapes
and Aurora dies theatrically

Song: “I Want to be Well” by Sufjan Stevens
Notable lyric: “Endless lights prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely”

19. GAME OVER

In which Miles is denied a second high five
and makes a terrible mistake

Song: “An Ideal Husband” by Father John Misty
Notable lyric: “WOULDN’T I MAKE AN IDEAL HUSBAND?!”

20. EVIL ALIGNMENT
In which an epic battle is fought in a circle of chairs

Song: “Come to Your Senses” by Panda Bear
Notable lyric: “Are you mad? Yeah, I’m mad.”

21. CONTINUE?
In which Miles lays in his bunk bed
and feels the universe expand

Song: “No Conclusion” – of Montreal
Notable lyric: “Tonight I feel like I should just destroy myself.”

22. HEART PIECE
In which there is toast and horchata
and Miles comes to an obvious revelation

Song: “Ya Hey” by Vampire Weekend
Notable lyric: “Oh, the motherland don’t love you; the fatherland don’t love you; so why love anything?”

23. EXTRA LIFE
In which Miles gets lucky
but not that lucky

Song: “Lucky 1” by Avey Tare
Notable lyric: “Die in a bed of shade; today you’re like the lucky one.”

24. FALLING THROUGH THE WORLD
In which the Grouchy Burds set off in search of their lost pet
and Miles Prower becomes Jaxon again

Song: “Nascence” from the Journey soundtrack
Notable lyric: Looooooooonely

25. FLIGHT PATH
In which Jaxon traverses the infinite sandbox

Song: “Get Older” by Dan Deacon
Notable lyric: “This is the day; of the expanding man”

26. HARD MODE

In which Jaxon has an unexpected date
and Soup evolves

Song: “The New Saint Jude” Andrew Bird
Notable lyric: “Ever since I gave up hope I’ve been feeling so much better . . .”

And Now For a Striptease of My Book (with early reviews mixed in)

May 17, 2016 in booook stuff, reviews

Before we commence with the interviews, the CFTCU music playlist, haunted foxes, a pajama party in the labyrinth, comic reviews from bed, and one mass reader intervention . . . I thought I'd tease the final version of my book while critics flatter the insides.

Feel free to play this sexy music while you scroll your way to ecstasy.

"Heidicker’s debut crackles with twitchy energy . . . a fun, absurdist romp through gaming culture, populated by zany characters and a quest narrative worthy of its own game." -Booklist

"I know actual teen readers who need this novel in their lives. CURE FOR THE COMMON UNIVERSE is more than just a great story, a fantastic, relatable protagonist, or laugh-out-loud gamer humor; it’s also a life-affirming look at what makes our lives truly epic, both inside and outside the gaming world." -Courtney Alameda (author of Shutter, librarian extraordinaire)

"It's funny, but waxes philosophical. It alludes to every great video game ever developed, but doesn't shy away from current problems in the gaming community (read: sexism). It dives into the typical YA romance, but happily lets that subplot take an arrow to the knee. It's got everything [from my list] of Things I'd Love Combined Into a Book One Day ™." Brooks Benjamin (author of My Seventh Grade Life In Tights)

"A plugged-in young adult comedy about the pain of unplugging . . . perfect for teen gamers and readers who are fans of Jesse Andrews and John Green." -School Library Journal

". . . by the time the book ends, you'll have a completely different outlook on what you've just read . . . You feel [Jaxon's] pain, but at the same time the book subtly interrogates the whole awkward heroic nerdboy trope, until you finally find yourself asking, hmm, why is he the hero again?" Rahul Kanakia (author of Enter Title Here)

"I loved this book so much, for its irreverence and humor and cultural relevance, but also for the way it manages to have something really worthwhile to say about taking a hard look at yourself and tackling the difficult challenge of growing into a better person without ever being preachy. In fact, if you’re like me, you’ll burn through the whole thing in one or two sittings with a big smirk on your face and only a subconscious awareness of the profundity of the message. I genuinely cared about the flawed main character Jaxon, and I have to say the resolution to his story has an integrity that is matched by very few young adult novels." -Andrew Brumbach (author of The Eye of Midnight)

Check out more details here. Read some community reviews on Goodreads here,
and if you like what you see (or nearly saw), preorder on Amazon here.

Hope I've teased you just enough.

(Collects clothing)

CMH

Authors Who Dwell in Drawers - What to Wear

February 22, 2016 in poetry, videos, foxing bureau

I've been rummaging, dear readers, rummaging through every drawer in the valley. Alas, I failed to find any undiscovered writing talents . . . That is until I peeked in my very own costume closet.

I present to you Mr. C. Chambers. A true craftsman of language. By simply watching this video, you will drink deeply of imagery and rhythms and discover an ever-expanding palette of choices for your very own body.

Enjoy. I know you will.

Video credit: Brian Green.

Sound credit: the lovely acoustics of Breana Reichert's costumes.

P.S. The lights have minds of their own.

P.P.S. No cats were murdered by dogs in this video . . . even if it sounds like it.

Hashtagging Without Irony (and Other Illusions)

February 08, 2016

Full disclosure: I do not get a hashtag tattooed to my face in this speech.

Second full disclosure: there's no video.

I know, I know. It's both a shame and a relief.

It's a shame because the Q&A actually ran longer than the speech itself, and people asked some amazing questions, including how I use technology as a writer and whether a man who likes every picture on a woman's profile is trying to "mark his territory." Alas, those moments are lost to history.

It's a relief (to me) because my 5th grade Latin teacher just happened to introduce me. She tapped my best friend from high school for some material and he spilled every embarrassing story he could remember, including ones that involved nudity and a certain bronze bull in winter. Thus evaporated any chance I had of looking intelligent in front of language and literature grad students and professors. Sigh.

Anyway, the speech turned out pretty all right, so I thought I'd share it.

Molly Barnewitz, comic book afficienada, invited me to speak at her conference titled Confutati (or #Culture), which aimed to trace the impact of our ever changing media and its effect on contemporary discourse and self-representation.

(Fear not. I don't use words that big in the actual talk.)

Here's the speech. I know, lotsa text without much space. Yuck. Fortunately, I love you, so I broke it up with some totally unrelated, increasingly interesting, copyright-free pictures!

Yer welcome.

HASHTAGGING WITHOUT IRONY

(and Other Illusions)

Before I was asked to speak at this conference, I didn’t give a damn about hashtags. Now I think I may care about them a little. I’ll tell you why.

I started researching this speech in the most boring, writerly way possible. I Googled hashtags. I’ll spare you the history of the pound sign that preceded it, although if you’re into pure, unabashed geekery, I highly recommend you watch Hank Green’s video on the Octothorpe.

The history of the hashtag itself is pretty straightforward.

On August 23rd, 2007, a man named Chris Messina, who hilariously trademarked his name for some reason, tweeted a suggestion that the pound sign be used before groups as a way to narrow search results. This, he argued, would be far more efficient than firing a single tweet into the vast internet conversational war zone, hoping the message would reach its intended audience. One of Twitter’s founders, Evan Williams, responded to this tweet, saying it was too technical to catch on. (I guess he didn’t have faith in users being able to press the shift key and the number 3 at the same time.)

But then, of course, the hashtag’s use spread like wildfire . . . after it was used to report on the San Diego wildfire, naturally.

As with all new inventions, feelings about the hashtag were mixed. On one end of the spectrum, the hashtag became a hip new way of socializing (i.e. “I just got some froyo #yum #froyo #bestdayofmylife”). On the other end of the spectrum the hashtag was perceived as yet another juvenile trend from the internet age that dulled the sharpness of our ability to communicate (#froyo).

Of course, like so many trends after they’re first introduced (comic books, movies, novels), what appeared like the degradation of culture had inherent value. The hashtag was nothing more than an efficient filing system for an increasingly messy communications arena. Hip trendsetters were merely insistent cataloguers, organizing a sliver of the supernova of new information, allowing users to access exactly what they desired. A person could search #hoverboard and save their child a cracked skull on Christmas morning.

The hashtag isn’t cultural erosion. It’s a librarian’s wet dream.

But that isn’t how it’s perceived most of the time, is it?

When finding a title for this speech, Molly and I had to be careful not to elicit too many eye rolls from the department. When I told a friend I was researching hashtags, without missing a beat, he said, “They’re for idiots.”

And he didn’t just mean kids.

It was only a matter of time before the older end of the internet spectrum adopted and started abusing the hashtag. One hip mom in her forties who wanted nothing more than to be like her teenage daughter (I’m sure you’re all friends with this woman on Facebook) started to spread the hashtag around her age group, and it quickly became passé amongst the young, because now old people sounded just as stupid using hashtags as they, the young, once had.

I recently watched a puff piece where an interviewer asked Jon Stewart if he was “hashtag happy.” She wasn’t asking if he overused hashtags. She wasn’t asking if the work on his wife’s animal farm was something he wanted to file away in the Department of Records for all time. She was trying to connect with her audience in their forties and fifties, who were just catching on (wrongly) with how hashtags are used.

There was a brief window in there (and I’m not convinced it’s over) where just using a hashtag could make you appear at once incompetent to anyone over the age of twenty-six and desperate for attention to anyone under the age of twenty-five. And so our incredibly awesome new filing system was wedged into the comfortable space of irony, ensuring that the most mundane actions and acts of painful self-awareness would be filed away in the Department of Records in burgeoning terabytes of meaninglessness.

(As of January 29th, #ihatehashtags has 87,400 results on Google.)

But this isn’t a speech on the cultural history or significance of the hashtag. This is a speech about the tools we have available to us as writers and communicators and just how slippery they can become. In just five years, an excellent filing system can shift from super efficient to super trendy to super lame to super ironic. It’s how most things work these days, for better or worse, and unfortunately, how we’re perceived when using a tool dictates how we end up using them.

WHY WE NEED THEM

So how do we use them? Wait, no, that’s a stupid question. We all know how most people use hashtags, and that is poorly. The real question, I suppose, is how should we use them? To create groups as a means to narrow our audience? Sure. But certainly they can serve a nobler purpose. We should (and occasionally do) use hashtags to inform people with lots of money and a public platform exactly how we feel about stuff.

Forget Nielsen. Forget polling. We’ve got hashtags.

And we need them. When it comes to people in power, there’s a whole lot of guesswork involved in how people spend their days, and it’s only briefly illuminated by voluntary box checkers or how many additional cans of Coke sell after a Superbowl ad airs. You’d think the measurements would be more exact in 2016, but they aren’t.

In case you’re unaware, the Nielsen Ratings are a measuring system that was created to determine how many people tune in to a specific television program at a given time so that networks can know how much to charge for commercials during that time slot and whether or not to keep the show on the air.

If you’re anything like I was before looking into this, you might be wondering if in this internet age, companies like NBC or Netflix can’t just look at their fancy network computers and see who’s watching what. The answer is, they can’t. That would involve collecting our personal data, and they can’t legally do that.

In steps Nielsen.

These measurements are far from perfect. When they first started out, Nielsen traveled from home to home asking average Joes and Joanns and Jo-x’s what they watched and then used a rough metric to approximate the audience size. Today, they select 5,000 households that they feel fully represents the 99 million people in America who actually own TVs and then install meters on their televisions to track what they’re watching. In other words, because I haven’t given Netflix express permission to track my data, I don’t have to worry about some executive giggling about the fact that while I was supposed to be working on this speech, I watched seventeen straight episodes of Gilmore Girls.

That’s a joke.

Maybe.

The point is there’s no way for you to find out.

This measuring system is how popular shows like Arrested Development and Firefly get canceled while American Idol ran into its fifteenth season. The Nielsen folks ask the wrong people what they were watching.

Enter the hashtag.

The Nielsen Ratings just announced, five days ago, that they were going to start using hashtags in their calculations of what people are watching. Obviously, they’re a little behind, like a great-aunt who makes a last-ditch effort to connect with you before she dies and buys you a first generation iPod.

For years, we’ve all known what they’re just catching onto. In the Neverland of the internet, everything is a little Tinkerbell that needs clicks instead of claps to stay alive. The hashtag is like a disposable wand that directs a message to the eight corners of the internet, trying to make us all believe in one thing.

Enough people use #froyo in a single day and it’s almost guaranteed that Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz will be paying a visit to a froyo shop for a photo op. (Mike Huckabee will be there too, but not because he’s running anymore or knows anything about the internet; he just loves food analogies. Make up your own Bernie Sanders/free samples joke here.)

It’s interesting to think that we are in the rather unique modern position of having politicians listen to us directly for once, because they no longer have to guess at what everyone’s talking about.

I hate to say it, but presidential polls are even more inaccurate than the Nielsen Ratings when it comes to taking the country’s political temperature. Until recently, I was also ignorant as to how all this works, so I’m going to assume you’re all in the dark as well and quickly break polling down for you. Yes!

Pollsters obviously can’t ask people’s televisions how they’re voting, although I’m sure they could gather a few clues depending on what news organizations a household tunes into. No, instead pollsters must hand dial a list of citizens who have volunteered their phone numbers and then ask them how they’re planning to vote. Here’s the crazy thing: because of privacy laws, they’re only allowed to call landlines—phones that have to be plugged into a wall to function.

2016. Landlines.

As you might imagine, the only people around with landlines are older. This demographic is narrowed further still when the sweetest old people hang up on the pollsters the second they realize they aren’t speaking to their grandchild. This is why people who were sweating the polls and fearing a Trump presidency could breathe a little easier this week. Polls are unreliable, unless you’re trying to get people to rally around a candidate they otherwise wouldn’t believe could win.

Unlike polls or Nielsen ratings, the hashtag is like a ninja star straight to the heart of politics. All politicians watch the news. And the news, fortunately for us, acts a lot like that “hip” forty-year-old mom who wants to be like her teenage daughter. News people pay attention to hashtags because they are trendy. This means hashtagging about your favorite show or your favorite candidate can actually make a difference so long as others hashtag about it too.

So the good news is we’ve got a wonderfully effective tool on our hands.

The bad news is we aren’t wielding it very well.

MAGICK

So why have I, a 33-year-old man, who’s straddling the fence of youth and the elderly, become so interested in the hashtag all of a sudden? In order to answer that question, I have to abandon technology completely, and talk about its polar opposite—magick. And no I don’t mean the staged illusions of David Blane or Chris Angel. I mean Magick, spelled with a ‘k,’ moonlight and madness, babe of the abyss, give Mother a heart attack, Alan Moore’s got your soul in his beard, Magick.

I’ve actually been on a bit of a quest for the past couple years to find a universal definition of Magick and fortunately I have so far been unsuccessful. Once I find this definition, I will wither up and die. (I just decided that. Maybe it will come true.)

Among the many definitions for magick, I have found the following:

Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ (Meh. I think we all got over that with the sixth iteration of the iPhone)
Magic is the work of the subconscious. (too Freudian)
Magic is art or an extended fiction. (too obvious)
Magic is a disease of language. (we’ll come back to that)
And finally, from the dictionary: ‘Magic is the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.’

Let’s work with this last one. I’m just going to assume you all already know that magick is inherent in everything we do, especially as writers. The verb to spell (as in C-A-T) was derived from casting a spell. Spelling something correctly will make your spell more effective. Also, studying your grammar—derived from the word grimoire, a book of magic—can make a lot more people pay attention to you on Facebook.

We are all casting spells on each other—constantly. I’m casting a spell on you right now by using my larynx to vibrate the air with commonly understood letter combinations in order to make things come to life inside of your head. (#librarianswetdream) This type of magick isn’t restricted to the auditory realm, of course. A few pixels on your phone can make your stomach flutter or plummet. The right hashtag at the right time can make you donate your last ten dollars to a cause. There is no physical contact in these situations. No one’s stabbing or embracing you. We are all transformed by lights and vibrating air.

This process has become less mysterious in our modern age as we come to learn about how the human brain functions, but it’s still fairly amazing that our proverbial tongues are connected to each other’s proverbial heartstrings. Unfortunately, it’s all become so commonplace in our daily lives that we don’t think of it as special anymore.

A big part of that must derive from a feeling of helplessness. We’re all aware that we’re able to cast large spells by combining our collective desires or outrages into a digital tidal wave of feeling so big that people with money and power transform how they behave.

The problem is that our signal is almost always lost in the noise.

DARK MAGICK

There are dark and light sides to all magick, even hashtag magick, and I do not say that ironically.

There are organizations today that can cast much bigger spells than everyone on this campus combined. They’re called advertisers. They are the most powerful magicians of our time, and that, I’d like to go on record as saying, is bullshit. (Thanks, Cindy.) With a wave of their bank accounts, they can make everyone in the country think the exact same thing at the exact same time and make it stick.

If you need a test of just how effective this magic is, try this. Sit down and write a list of every important historical woman you can think of. Next to it write a list of every commercial jingle you can remember. Which list is longer? (I’m not saying Rosalind Franklin is more important than Tasting the Rainbow—oh wait, yes I am saying that.)

Naturally, advertisers adore hashtags, not only for their trendy values but for their ability to measure potential customers. Our lovely library filing system is mostly being used to sell cars and toilet paper and fried chicken and emasculating energy drinks. The dark side of hashtag magic is making us jigglier and less satisfied and greedier and all the bad things you read about in fairy tales.

LIGHT MAGIC

So what is the light side?

We all know the hashtag can achieve much loftier goals than advertising. With #activism it can be used as a little awareness machine. It can make #Kony2012 the greatest super villain on Earth or #bringbackourgirls play on the lips of dozens of celebrities or #icebucketchallenge the absolute apex of advertising and noble causes and irony. And this a good thing. By merely being on the internet, we’re all granted the same healing magic as the dark magic of the advertisers. Collectively, we can fill the internet with important things. We can make more hearts beat for Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian three-year-old. We can do the news’s job and point out how many black people are murdered by police officers every month. We can—ahem—generate awareness and have money funneled toward these issues and try to combat injustice.

So. Light and dark. It’s pretty obvious what to do, right? Just use hashtags for light magic. Dump a bucket of ice water on your head and attach that little eight-pointed wand, and it will tug on the many heartstrings of the internet and this will cure ALS.

Simple, right?

NO WONDER WE’RE IRONIC

Well, of course not. Nothing can be that simple.

Not only do we run the risk of sounding like idiots when we use hashtags, but even when we find a solid reason to use them, #bringbackourgirls for example, we eventually have to sober up to a pretty devastating realization: our well-meaning hashtags don’t do much.

Hashtags in the end are nothing more than illusory magic, just like a David Blane special. It’s a big fireworks show, and those fireworks have only one message: WE CARE. We care that your daughters and sisters were abducted. We care that your children are drowning. We care that there’s a man who seems solely responsible for the enslavement and rape of young people in the Congo.

I hate to bum you out, but those girls were never returned, the Syrian refugees have yet to be accepted into our country, and KONY, if he is the villain that video made him out to be, is still at large. What’s even worse is when we start to learn the nuances of a situation that couldn’t be captured in 120 characters.

There’s a reason we never saw:

#KONY2012WATCHOUTTHISCREATORISAPUBLICMASTURBATOR

#icebucketchallengeyourfriendstodumpwaterontheirheadswithoutellingthemwhytheyredoingitorthatmostoftheproceedswillgotoourceo

#bringbackourgirlsunlessittakesmorethanacoupleofweeksinwhichcaseAmericanswillprobablyforgetallaboutitandyoucanjustkeepem

The only tangible effect was that for a short time we got to feel real, real good about ourselves. This type of magick is dangerously effective. In the fairy tales, it’s called a glamour. An illusion. And it works very well. I have plenty of relatives who believe every time they buy a Starbucks latte, they’re somehow helping African children. Brave souls.

It’s no wonder we resort to irony. We have to protect ourselves from sounding stupid or being humiliatingly mistaken in a very public venue. You can’t be mocked if you’re already mocking yourself.

We say, “I care!” Then we glance at the audience of the internet and say, “Unless you don’t care. Or this is something stupid to care about. Or if you have evidence that proves I shouldn’t care about it. Y’know what? Never mind.”

But irony is our own worst enemy. It’s too safe. It’s like dispelling our own magick before it pulls on its first heartstring. Advertisers and politicians are immune to this feeling of vulnerability. They have entire departments to fire if it doesn’t work out. So they continue to blaze on and gobble up all of the attention.

It’s no wonder we’ve become such ineffective magicians.

A DISEASE OF LANGUAGE

So let’s say hashtags are dead. Let’s say the U’s department heads and my friend are right and that hashtags are for idiots and worthy of nothing more than an eye roll.

How often do you click on hashtags to see who else is hashtagging about that topic? Do you ever hashtag your own posts so people will be able to find it more easily, thinking oh what a good librarian am I?

Maybe the death of the hashtag wouldn’t be a huge loss.

But there’s definitely something to be learned from the rise and fall of the little eight-pointed wand. People with lots of money profited off of a communications tool while we became embarrassed with it, ensuring that all of our favorite shows would be canceled and our least favorite politicians would poll well and show up everywhere we turned.

Why?

I can’t answer this question, because I’m only one person, but let’s ask ourselves . . . why? Why did we become so embarrassed with something so efficient?

The answer will be important because whether or not the hashtag is dead, something else is coming. Another communication tool. And it will involve words, which irrevocably involves magic.

This is where the disease of language comes back in.

I don’t want to tell you to use more hashtags. I just want to encourage everyone, especially myself, to learn how to see through things. To see through hashtag advertisements, through well-meaning hashtag activism that doesn’t actually do anything. To see what’s behind the language. What is the intent? What is the value? What is a hashtag campaign really trying to accomplish? What are you really trying to accomplish?

It’s our responsibility to become so searingly good with language, to have such clear intent and focus, that the irony melts away.

No matter what happens from this point forward, no matter how much noise is out there, no matter how helpless things seem, we still have to work. We have to be better with language and communication tools than corporations with millions of dollars to throw at it.

And if you ever feel really overwhelmed by the noise and that you can’t conjure the spells that will effect change, to tug on the right heartstrings in the right direction, I encourage you to take a drive down to Provo and read the terrible billboards along I-15. I’m sure you’ll gain some confidence.

Thank you.

Fourteen Names I Should Have Tattooed to My Body

February 01, 2016 in speech

About a week ago, I gave a talk about writing in a community for the Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers kickoff party. It was a delight. During the Q&A session, I had the names of fourteen people who were instrumental in my being published tattooed to my body. That was also a delight . . . for everyone but me, at least.

Some of you were wondering what that looked like.

So here's the video (tattooing/Q&A begins at 24:15):

A quick thanks to Brooke Kelly for "artfully injuring" me so well. And apologies to Korey Hunt. In the video, I joke about not having his name tattooed to my arm because it wasn't on the stencil for some reason. HOWEVER, I talk about him in the speech and added his name, as you can see in the final product below.

Finally, a huge, gushing thank you to Breana Reichert, who shot the video and gave a beautiful introduction that set my nervous heart to rest. If there's one true thing in my book, it's on the jacket cover. She is the love of my life.

Aaaaaaaand here's a picture of the final!

Barrowings (or What We Found in the Graveyard Part II)

December 19, 2015

Here we are again.

You can't keep us away.

For those of you who feel uncomfortable venturing into the garden of those who have passed, please read my intro to part one. We mean no harm. And where we're headed, little harm can be done, after all.

This is what we found in the graveyard.

killing field of the dolls (on the walk there)

Lots of room for post-humous accomplishments

an agreement set in stone, and yet . . .

searched for door handle. did not find door handle.

Till next time, dearies . . .

You know where we’ll be,

C &

Authors Who Dwell In Drawers - Jason Dickerson

December 01, 2015 in poetry, videos

I have friends, dear readers. I have crazy talented friends. (Note the lack of comma.) But instead of spreading their work around the internet, these friends keep their talent to themselves for the most part, hidden away, tucked in drawers . . .

A part of me is grateful. If they were to send out their pieces, my work would wither in comparison.

So it is beyond my better judgement to introduce you to one of my talented friends today. His name is Jason Dickerson. He's a poet.

Sing his praise in the comments if you'd like.

Barrowing (or What We Found in the Graveyard) Part I

November 09, 2015

Hello, dearies, and welcome to the first installment in an eternal series where I post the little oddities my friend and I discover while tromping through graveyards. Today’s findings come from the beautiful and rustling, haunted and lumpy, Salt Lake City Cemetery.

“But wait!” you might say. “Isn’t it disrespectful to the dead, photographing their gravestones and injecting your own bit of humor and myth?”

Well . . . no. We don’t think so. We aren’t making fun of the dead but exploring the myriad ways the living choose to remember them. We have no ill will toward the dead themselves. If they do take umbrage with what we do, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to have their revenge, as we visit the cemetery often.

Also, and this is true, my friend and I make a point of cleaning the graves as we go. All headstones get bogged down with soggy leaves and curious weeds and the backsplash of moles. This is what makes the stone crack and crumble, the engraved name fade to a ghostly image so as you no longer know the name of the soul resting six feet below.

All cemeteries are in dire need of a good dusting off, and my friend and I are eager volunteers. You should pay a visit to your local cemetery and see if you can’t free some of the headstones there. You’ll find some interesting things, we promise.

Here are a few we found.