Syllabus #220

The high point of my week was a literal high point.  If you're not popping 1/4 of a perfectly legal 10mg Delta 9 gummy at 7:30 and in your jammies brushing your teeth with your electric toothbrush at 8:30, is it even Friday night?  

The low point of my week?  How could I ever begin to choose?  The inventory reads like a list of candidates in the Republican primary race - interminable and repugnant all the way down.

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Speaking of politics (let's not and say we did?).

Analog Reading:

I've been reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes and I have some notes.  Steve, hi, it's me.  Just a little constructive criticism, but the 1950s called and they want all their n-words back.  Every last one.  We don't need 'em anymore.  I feel like there's a way to show that Brady is a big ol' racist without having him think the n-word in his internal monologue every other paragraph.  

I feel like I shouldn't even be reading it at this point, but like, it's a library book, so it's not like I endorsed this language with my dollars.  Like, ok, Steve, we get that you're a white Boomer who lives in Maine and probably don't know more than a handful of Black people.  Maybe that was a valid excuse at the beginning of your career, when one could argue that it was the times and you possibly didn't know any better.  But now you are one of wealthiest, most famous authors in the world and your books have been made into dozens of films and tv productions.  Surely, someone, at some point, has suggested that maybe you, in your infinite creativity, can find some other way to convey to your reader that someone is racist without making them constantly say racial slurs.  Your audience is smart!  We will recognize racist dog whistles that aren't explicit racial epithets!  Show, don't tell!  Or maybe you can just come up with characters that are bad for reasons besides being racist!  There are other ways to be an awful human, racism is but one of them!  I don't know, just a thought.