Social networks and charity

Flipping through the pages of a local history book, I noticed that American communities in the early twentieth century relied heavily on service clubs (such as the Lyons Club, Rotary International, and the Shriners), to accomplish charitable works and large-scale community projects. When I was growing up, these kinds of clubs barely caught my notice. I remember parades where funny guys in fez hats rode around on little cars (Shriners), I was vaguely aware that Rotary funded exchange students, and I knew of a few lady's clubs that gave out scholarships. This is in no way to diminish the great work these clubs have accomplished, but simply to note that their membership and prominence in the community has definitely declined since the second half of the twentieth century.

As I was chewing on all this information, I was struck by an idea. Service clubs are about two things: service to the community, and social gathering. People enjoyed hanging out together, and they used their friendly, social time to plan and act for the greater good of the community. Given the symbiosis of social gathering and charity that founded these service clubs, why don't service clubs today use the online social network model to keep their clubs alive and well?

No sooner had I formed this thought, then I began noticing social networks geared toward charitable causes. Change.org is a prime example of charity and social networks interacting- as members can join, affiliate with causes and specific non-profits, or simply read or talk about the causes that interest them. I am certainly not the first person to notice that online social networks and charity have an affinity similar to peanut butter and jelly.

Still, when I visited the home pages for the Shriners, the Lyons Club, and Rotary International, I didn't see any evidence that they were using online social networking. Their pages were oriented toward accepting donations, making their good work known to the public, and helping potential members find local chapters.

I don't think it's such a big leap from walking downtown to the lodge, to logging into a social networking site, where members from all over the world can meet for fun and to make the world a better place. I predict that the service clubs who are willing to incorporate social networking technology into their club culture will still be making the history books, and maybe still be making a difference, many generations from now. I fear those clubs who insist on local, exclusively face-to-face member interaction may be lost to dust and yellowed pages.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Today when I checked the Amazon Kindle bestseller list, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was at tenth place, below the first four books of the Twilight series (all in the top four slots), The Shack in English and Spanish, and three "New Year New You" self-help nonfiction. We know that the Twilight series is vampire fiction. The Shack is religious fiction. So what is The Story of Edgar Sawtelle?

Amazon categorizes Wroblewsi's book as "literary fiction" or "contemporary fiction." Fair enough- there's probably not space in their categorization system for thriller/espionage, coming of age story, historical, magical realism, ghost story, and murder mystery. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle was all this, and literature, too.

When I first downloaded a sample of this book onto my Kindle, I read part way through the sample, then decided to pass on it. At first I was entranced by the prose in this book. The scene Wroblewski described was so vivid- every word a color, a texture, a taste, a smell. The problem was, that the book was clearly a thriller set in South Korea during the Korean war. Of course there's nothing wrong with an historical espionage book- but that's just not the kind of book I wanted to read. And, far worse, I could see that the plot was heading toward cruelty to a dog. I'm a huge softy for animals. I decided not to buy the book.

A few months later I was browsing the Kindle bestsellers and came across The Story of Edgar Sawtelle once again. The synopsis made it sound like the coming of age story of a boy in Wisconsin. What? I went back to the sample on my Kindle, muscled through the horrible scene with the dog, and met Edgar.

Wroblewsi refused to pick a genre and stick with it when he wrote The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle. I was surprised again and again, as the book took turns into fantasy and thriller that seemed so at odds with the lives of the plain-folks dog trainers living on a family farm. But it wasn't only the genre that morphed to suit the needs of the story- Wroblewsi's language also transformed to meet every mood necessary to tell his tale. I could tell when something important was about to happen- the prose became crystal clear, detailed to the point of painfully beautiful. When it was time to get to know Edgar, things slowed down, we approached the world in a more plodding, plain prose. The chapters through the eyes of Edgar's best friend and dog captured the character of a devoted animal with more skill than I would have thought possible.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is selling well- it has Oprah's endorsement, and today rests at #10 on the Kindle bestseller list, and is Amazon's 26th overall best selling book. Yet the genre confusion at the opening nearly lost my sale. Maybe I just need to loosen up my genre expectations...but with the advent of the downloadable sample chapter, should writers be thinking more about how the first few pages set the tone of their book?

Vampires for Change (Monsters with Human Faces)

Most spec fiction writers I know have posed this question, in one way or another:

Vampires: Why are they so popular? Didn't we, quite recently, already do vampires? So why is everybody into vampires *again*? And when will it stop?

One version of this authorial vampire angst was left as a comment right here on my blog.

The answer I usually give to this question is: sexuality. The vampire myth, with its exchange of bodily fluids, is a great metaphor for sex. As each new generation goes through its sexual awakening, vampires stories are a great way to explore sexuality. But this answer rings a little hollow. After all- adults hop happily onto the undead band wagon when vampire stories surge in popular culture.

A better answer to "why vampires, *again*!?" came to me yesterday, when my husband sent me a link to the plot synopsis of True Blood (True Blood is a vampire series currently on HBO- my husband wants to talk me into subscribing to HBO so he can watch Flight of the Concords).

Vampires are super popular now, and were super popular several years ago, not because of the sexual connotations of their mythos, but because vampires are monsters with the faces of men.

Probably one of the best books I've ever read by Stephen King wasn't a work of fiction, but his Danse Macabre, in which he explains the psychology that makes his craft work. He talks about the sci fi and horror movies of the 1940's-1960's, and explains that fears of the American mainstream were expressed and digested in the form of genre fiction films.

King says there is a reason that aliens in sci fi flicks of that era have Asian features- because aliens from outer space were standing in for American fears about aliens from across the sea. He talks about fear the adult middle class felt toward the rising independence of the teenager in the 50's (read teenage werewolf film), about fear of air raids and bombs dropping (meteors and alien space craft crashing down from the sky). King posits that successful horror and sci fi film makers took fears of the American middle class, and turned those fears into monsters- into tangible bogeymen who could spook us, attack us, horrify us, but eventually be overcome.

So if vampires are the bogeymen of modern-day, mainstream American fears...what are those fears? I'd like to posit that vampires are the bogeymen of changing cultural mores.

The last vampire craze which many thought was "over" had a purpose. The purpose was to find the humanity in people who are "not like us-" in other words, finding the human face of the monster.

As the scope of mainstream American vision expanded, it feared the bogeymen of foreigners, people of different religions, homosexuals. The challenge for mainstream America at that moment was to look at the face of the other- the "monster"- and see not foreigners, heretics, or degenerates- but to see people.

During this first wave of modern vampire popularity, all we were asked to do was to look, to see, to generate compassion and appreciate that the "monster" could have human feelings. Reading Interview with a Vampire (a 1976 book that was still popular and churning out sequels in the 90's and beyond) we came to feel for Louis's suffering. Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer we were captivated by the idea of Angel, a vampire with a soul, a conscience, and we felt compassion for him. This theme repeated with Spike's character- as he, too, became someone the audience could feel for, care about, even love. The theme of the humanized vampire was so strong it supported a successful spin-off series, Angel.

In this first wave of the modern-day, warm-fuzzy vamp, all the audience was asked to do was generate compassion, to find the human face of the monster, and recognize that it existed. Mainstream America had only been asked to admit that homosexuality existed, to admit that there were people from other lands, with other traditions and spiritual beliefs. They had not yet been asked how they were going to integrate these "monsters"- these agents of change- into their everyday lives.

But of course recognizing the humanity of the "other" is only one step in the process. Next we learn to live together.

Nowadays when Joe Middle America needs technical support, he's likely to talk to someone with a strong accent from overseas- and that person may have recently immigrated to the U.S.- or may actually be overseas at the time of the call. Joe Middle America's kids may play games or hang out at social network sites in which they chat with people from the Ukraine, or Argentina- or practically anywhere in the world. It is not so unusual for folks to have a Hindu or Muslim colleague. Gay marriage is slowly legalizing from state to state.

Mainstream America has recently had to make a big jump- from recognizing that the "other" is a person, too- to living elbow to elbow with the "other," to integrating his presence into our sense of community. As with any change, there are feelings of uneasiness, and repressed fear. So fiction lends its helping hand, brings the vampire puppets out of the toy chest, and puts on some more shadow plays to help people cope, adjust, digest the new.

The amazingly popular Twilight series, from what I have read so far, asks the question: if a human girl and a vampire boy are going to have a relationship- how will it work? How will they be together? How can they be a couple? Now as I read more books in this series, I'll be looking to see how Meyer answers this question. BtVS asked this question too, but the answer was a resounding- they can have feelings for each other, but a life together is impractical. As the realities of what folks need to cope with changes, so does fiction's take on the vampire.

The real clincher for me, as I think through the relationship between mainstream America and vampire fiction, is the plot of True Blood. In the True Blood universe some scientist has eliminated the needs of the predator, so that vampires and humans can live and work together. Vampires are being integrated into regular society. I'm quoting from the website, here:

"Vampires have progressed from legendary monsters to fellow citizens overnight...[however, many humans] remain apprehensive about these creatures 'coming out of the coffin'."

"Coming out of the coffin" reads "coming out of the closet" to me. But I think the current crop of vampire tales hits a fear spot that is trying to cope with more than just homosexuality, but a whole bunch of changes about who is a friend, who is a neighbor, what is community in a globalizing world?

Change is unavoidable. Change is wonderful. Change is exhilarating...and also a little bit scary. American pop culture has worked through fear of change in some pretty unexpected ways- drowning the fictional world in vampire stories is only one of them. Still, no matter how sick and tired of vampires many spec fiction writers may be, I'm willing to let folks wallow in the vampire mythos as long as they need to work through their fears, digest the change, and come out stronger and more tolerant on the other side.

Intimacy Calling

It's my first winter living outside a city in a long time, and I'm cold. I'm used to apartments with few windows, in which someone else controls the heat and cranks it so hot that I pad around in shorts and a t-shirt. But here in the snowy Northeast, living in a house that has windows on all sides, I feel like a tiny plastic Christmas caroler anchored in a snow globe. And just the sound of the wind rattling the double-paned glass windows makes me cold.

From years of musical training, I know that sound comes in different temperatures. Different instruments have different timbres, and I have always been attracted to instruments and instrumentalists that have a "warm sound." I guess it's no surprise that during these chilly days I've been listening over and over again to one of the warmest sounding albums I know, Intimacy Calling - Standard Time Vol 2 by Wynton Marsalis.

The first track, "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," sets the mood for the album. Vol 2 is full of what I like about Marsalis- expressive articulation, a sense of humor, amazing control of the instrument. But the really great thing about "When It's Sleepy Time Down South" is that it's like a crackling fire. "Indelible and Nocturnal" is a friend's warm hand. "Yesterdays" is a cup of hot chocolate.

Calling Intimacy Calling a "warm" album isn't just my subjective impression. One look at the album cover, snow falling outside the window, shows that Marsalis intended Intimacy Calling as music to warm you up when it's cold outside. So what exactly is this timbre stuff, and how does it get to be different temperatures?

The timbre of an instrument depends on both the instrument's construction and how it is played. What musicians call a "warm" sound actually describes the amount of overtones present when a pitch is played. Overtones are tones above and below the actual pitch, that lend richness and character to a sound. Overtones are the reason we hear a difference when a C is played on the piano, strummed on a guitar, or sung by Pavarotti.

So how does Marsalis intentionally make his sound warm? His technique- and playing any instrument- is very much like the field of behavioral medicine, using the mind to create measurable effects on the body.

Medical researchers are learning that the mind has the power to effect the body. A patient with hypertension can practice techniques such as visualizing a relaxing scene, and eventually lower his own blood pressure. After years of meditation, Tibetan monks can consciously raise or lower their body temperatures. The idea is that the body has its own wisdom, knows how to do a lot of amazing things- and that the conscious mind can access that wisdom through symbolic visualization.

We don't have to consciously control the physical and chemical interactions of our body to slow our heart rate- it can be accomplished by imagining a grassy meadow. And it's not just Tibetan monks who figured out how to access this power before the field of behavioral medicine had been invented- instrumentalists have been using this mind-body connection for millennia. A trained instrumentalist can be given any variety of seemingly abstract ideas- such as tender, grandiose, tremulous, fiery- and translate these imagined states of emotion into amazingly complex manipulations of the overtone series. Each of these manipulations is effected by subtle physical alterations of the body and its interaction with the instrument.

So, how does a musician learn to use visualization and imagination to manipulate his sound? Practice. Practice. Practice. Years and years and years of practice. He dreams, he plays, he listens. Then he does it again. And again. And again... until his thoughts come out the instrument as sound.

That's why Wynton Marsalis can warm you up like fuzzy slippers and a cup of tea. He put in the time and effort to be able to tell you any story he wants, to create any mood he can imagine. So if you're feeling kind of chilly this winter, I highly recommend Intimacy Calling.

Word Warp

Over the holiday break my husband and I became total addicts of a simple anagram game for the iPhone called Word Warp. Believe me, we had plenty of high tech gaming options, but we spent long, happy hours huddled around the iPhone, dreading the moment when we would fail to find the six-letter word that separated us from moving on to the next level, or Game Over. Although the game had options to extend our time limit, we kept to a strict two-minute timer. Our best game ever spanned two days (even addicts have to pause to eat and sleep), and we scored a whopping 51,680 points!

Word Warp is generally pretty good about making sure the all-important, six-letter word is vocabulary the average person would know. But we did discover a set of little three-letter words that we had never heard of before- and they came up over and over again.. We memorized these three-letter oddities, and it wasn't long before we had to know what they meant. Often these rare words were the names of birds or fish- not super interesting. But here were some of our favorite obscurities, a few of which have begun to come up in our everyday conversations:

ted- to spread out to dry (as in damp straw to dry for animal bedding)
ret- to soak to loosen the fibers of fibrous materials
ort- a morsel or scrap of leftover food
lea- meadow, pasture

A lot of these older, out-of-use words are related to farm life. But who among us never has some orts to scrape off the plate before loading it in the dishwasher? It's fun to get some use out of these old, three-letter gems.

Angel goes out with the old

Although the final episode of the TV series, Angel, aired in May 2004, I just got to the final episode last night.

As I've said before, I'm a huge Joss Whedon fan, so why did it take me four and a half years to catch up with his series? For one thing, I was out of the country for the last several seasons of the show, so I had to wait for the DVDs to come out season by season, then import them. But the DVD of the final season had been collecting dust on my shelf for quite some time, and I'd been watching it in fits and starts, never finishing it.

Although I enjoyed Angel, I never had the same affection for it I felt for Buffy. With Buffy, every episode that aired was like unwrapping a chocolate I'd never before tasted- only it lasted for one whole hour. But Angel had its great moments, one of my favorites being "Smile Time" right off Disc 4 of the final season. Those DVDs weren't gathering dust because I was reluctant to watch Angel. I couldn't face giving up the last few episodes of virgin, never-before-seen Buffyverse TV.

But last night, on New Year's Eve, it was time to watch the final episode.

The penultimate episode had left me squirming. The writers had just set up a juicy plotline which, in my opinion, could have easily carried them through a sixth season. I loved the intrigue, the deepening conflicts surrounding the idea that good is not innocence, and doing good requires us to make tough decisions, and get our hands dirty. I think those ideas are apt for facing our challenges today. And I especially loved the name and the symbol of the secret society spinning the wheels of intrigue, the Black Thorn.

When I put the final disc into the DVD player last night, I had no idea how the show could wrap up such a huge plot thread in one single episode. I remembered thinking that Whedon had not been ready to let the show go, and I was worried about his ability to take aborted dreams and bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. Yet "Not Fade Away" was a beautiful final episode, not just for the Angel series, but for the Buffyverse as seen on TV.

And, to soften the blow, my husband was waiting for me with Volume 1 of Angel: After the Fall. In this graphic novel, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the Buffyverse continues in comic book form.