Deals With The Devil

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

What would you do if a gentleman with horns and a pointy tail met you in a dark alley — or a bright sunlit office — and offered you fortune, fame and love in exchange for your soul?

Well, obviously, whether you’re a believer or not, you’ve heard this story often enough that you’d say no. If you’re a believer you’ll say so even if the well dressed gentleman — a man of wealth and taste — offers you the kingdoms of the world. Because you’ve read THAT story.

Alas this is rarely how you sell your soul these days, and the whole thing is way more subtle. This came up in conversation today as we were talking about a number of people — after my husband watched several specials about the music world (being a musician himself, though not professionally, he watches a lot of those) — who had everything and the world by the tail, but were miserable and fell into various forms of self-destructive behavior.

This is by now a proverbial story, one that all of us know. It’s the fame and fortune bring death and destruction story. It’s so trite it’s not even worth writing. And yet, it keeps happening again and again and again. And not just in music. Or writing. We see it in people who do very well in politics or business. People who do well in sports. People who win the lottery even.

Of course not all of those people destroy themselves, but enough do that you wonder if it’s a function of being creative, or good at sports, or even successful in other things, or having a lot of money.

I don’t believe it is. I don’t have much more than my personal experience, but for what it is, and for what it does I’ll be glad to relate it. (Alas my experience is NOT with having an immense fortune handed to me.)

At least twice I was offered deals with the devil. The first time I sort of started taking it, but the results scared me so much, I bounced all the way out of the political closet.

This was when I was writing for several publishing houses and kept getting pushed into explicitly writing leftist stuff, endorsing it, casting militant Marxism into my stories. I sort of did a little here and there (to wit there’s a trilogy my assistant is working to clean of those little bits so it can be brought out again.)

But the feeling it gave me was … Well, I realized if I went much further, I’d not be able to look at myself in the mirror. I’d be broken. Some fundamental wellspring of who I am and what I do would be broken.

I had a referent for this because, as an author, I know when you break a character it can be almost impossible to revive it. Put a pin in that and I’ll explain it later.

The second offer of a deal with the devil didn’t even offer me fame and fortune, just the chance to keep working, to keep making what wasn’t terribly impressive money. But it was a chance to keep working, and at the time I was terrified of going indie.

Note that the second — except for the final instance, and that’s complicated — was not maliciously done. It was simply the mechanics of keeping being published at the time, the way things were (and probably still are. Having gone indie, I haven’t looked closely at what is going on in traditional.)

On the second, it was a slow drip of prioritizing what I would guess would be bought, of shading my work so it would be acceptable, of writing the next book and the next and the next.

As happened I got a demand I couldn’t accommodate, because it made absolutely no sense, not even remotely. And that led to my being pitchforked head first into indie publishing.

In retrospect that was the best thing that could have happened to me. Though I didn’t think it at the time, and it took me till this last year to come back, to even thinking of writing the things crying to be written. (Not the ones on this blog. I always do that on this blog. But not in fiction, see. Oh, it’s starting, if I can stabilize the health enough to finish the edits.)

Now, I’m not telling you never to do things you want to do for money. That’s normally known as “having a job” even if that job is word slinging. You write for money, you have to write what people will buy. Absolutely true.

Remember that pin we put on the breaking a character thing?

I’m now going to explain how to break a character, something I found by doing it twice and then figuring out how it was done. (And that killed two books, by the way. Fortunately not already contracted books.)

When you create a character, the character has certain characteristics. To be able to perform its function, the character has to be that way. If you confuse an incidental characteristic with a vital one, and have the character act in a way against one of his vital characteristics, one that breaks something essential to the character, you will break the character. And sometimes even if only you know it, you can’t bring it back.

If you think back to a series you lost interest in, you’ll probably find that the author killed the character in that way.

But Sarah, you’ll say, humans aren’t characters! Well. Maybe. But humans too have things in their own heads that they don’t want to/can’t break.

And sometimes you don’t know it. In my case never writing the stuff that was screaming to be written was the problem. Forcing myself to write what wasn’t screaming to be written (even if interesting) just made that worse.

I got so extremely burned out, I only figured it out once the burnout lifted. But I should have figured it out.

Signs that you are on a bad path and not doing whatever it is that feeds your soul are that you’ll become more and more depressed, have less and less energy. And at some level, you’ll become very angry.

At some level, too, you know you’re harming yourself. I did. I just didn’t see any other path.

I find this is more likely to happen and cause damage if you’re one of those people with a vocation. Something you feel your born to do. Some work, some pursuit that makes your mind and soul (pardon me, but it’s the best word) sing.

If you’re in that position, find a way to pursue your vocation on the side, somehow. Find a way to do things that matter to you. And find a way to change jobs so it doesn’t violate the things in your head that if you break them will make you not-you.

This applies to writers, musicians, artists, probably actors and for sure programmer too. I’m sure it applies to a lot of people and professions I can’t call to mind right now.

Jordan Peterson says if you’re creative and don’t create, you’ll die. It kills you.

I’m telling you sometimes you don’t die physically, and something else takes your place. That thing, mind you, might be rage at everyone, but most of all at yourself. But whatever it is will destroy you.

The price of the gift, the talent, the drive, whatever those are, are to DO IT. To do what you feel you have to do. And if you’re doing it right, it energizes you. If you’re not… it drains you. Till you’re all gone.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but someone out there does. Find a way to exert what gift you have. Even if you have to do it after the paying work. And don’t let your gift get twisted. Don’t let others use it the wrong way. Don’t let it be trampled.
The price of the gift is to use it. Because life is too short to hate yourself.

And deals with the devil, regardless of songs and movies, never end well.

200 thoughts on “Deals With The Devil”

  1. The Great Rings of Tolkien’s LotR were tools that facilitated the destruction of those who used them. Even the elves. Those with the rings stopped creating and just used what they had already done, enhanced by the rings.

    The Nine became utterly lost; and nearly destroyed all the Men of Westernesse.

    The Seven effectively destroyed themselves and their people with greed and lust for riches.

    And the Three stagnated their people into reclusive dreamers who sang and danced while thinking of what had been. Even Gandalf was not unaffected by the ring.

    The malice captured in the One drove all, including Mairon, who became Sauron under Morgoth, to their eventual fates.

    Creativity is not a ring; but it is easy to be tempted to take the easy path.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. I agree. And I think, though not really a “creative”, that my life is richer because I keep looking while not giving up.

        I will confess to be working on my second Million. I heard the 2nd was easier, and the first was seemingly impossible, so I just skipped it.

        When Life gives you lemons, demand a decent cup of tea and some grilled fish to go with ‘it’em.

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        1. Well, now, depends on what you are quitting. One must not despair of the ultimate, but despairing of, say, a certain bureaucracy may be your duty.

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  2. Ain’t that the funniest thing. It’s said we all have a gift, but it’s sad when you reach a certain age and still don’t know what it is. Don’t have a “calling” for anything either. I’m more like two miles wide and a half inch deep in my interests. I like things, but I lose interest eventually in everything.

    Maybe I’m just an NPC going through the motions of life. Kinda like writing. I’ve just finished a first draft of a detective story I’m thinking of submitting to Raconteur Press in August, but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere in getting money for my works. Could be lack of ability to be a real good writer. That, and it’s hard for me to find where on earth to submit stuff. I see places, then find out they’re defunct.

    This writing business is hard.

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      1. Yeah. Good thing I don’t need to make a living with writing. It seems like nobody wants what I’m writing. Well, I ain’t starving.

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    2. Sometimes one just does the next thing that comes to hand, and then next thing, and the next thing…. until one finds something that really appeals to one.

      I found that thing, and I got trained in it… and am still not doing it because I’m afraid to switch jobs while I still have debt hanging over my head.

      And in the mean time, my skills atrophy because I’m not practicing them diligently. But there are so many things in the way of practicing my skills that I have to clear those out first.

      Which goes back to doing whatever it is that comes to hand.

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    3. You’re ahead of me. I’ve never finished anything besides short stories. OTOH, I don’t really aspire to be a writer so there is that.

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      1. I think I was kind of one. Between my reading and curiosity about how things work, at my job I was often called to attend meetings because I would know at least something about the subject. Also, my boss would forward client requests for nonroutine testing dropped in my lap to work out a way to do it. Usually succeeded to client satisfaction. An idyllic job.

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        1. Lol! Soul brother!

          At my employers semi- annual disaster recovery /business continuity exercises, folks wager on what obscure bit of background I will “comment significantly on” or outright correct. Then they wager on how badly IT is going to screw the scenario in our favor (cant bust it stuff), and on what out-of-field ass-pull I will contribute to solving the overall problem.

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            1. To many job reviews, “Meets Expectations, give average raise”.

              If the expectation is to walk on water, perform miracles on demand, and in general make it so the user’s don’t notice issues, dang hard to exceed expectations.

              Had a CIO in big meeting say wasn’t giving out big raises that year unless you walked on water, I spoke up and said I do that every time it rains! Walk on the water on the sidewalks and puddles. He didn’t appreciate that. Hey, I’m in IT, my JOB is to find solutions to impossible demands.

              Liked by 1 person

            2. An incidental part of my job was performing minor miracles. One time a collaborating company gave us their simulation data sets of particles (x,y,z location and temperature) in a boiler, but not their proprietary software to display it in a 3D image. In a day, I could display an almost correct 3D images. Fired up GW Basic (I kind of know C and hate it). Image was isometric rather than perspective (hardly noticeable). The problem is figuring out what is behind what. The key is that the screen is unique memory. The procedure was to transform particle coordinates to the view desired, then sort them from furthest away to nearest (very slow with two large data files, and I didn’t bother to find a more efficient algorithm than bubble sort). Then place pixels starting from the farthest away. Since the screen resolution is limited, nearer pixels overwrote what was behind them. Screen grab the image. Good enough. My boss had me explain to one of our tame code monkeys what I was doing and told him “Do thou the same in C”.

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              1. Is it individual bets, or like the traditional office game buzzword bingo, where to win one has to get several in a row?

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                1. Lol. I didn’t ask fetails.

                  I observed one manager snap his fingers, and the other grumpily coughed up two c-notes. I made some discreet inquiries. Looking for them, I now see the exchanges.

                  (Grin)

                  One of our sites has a retired “tier one special ops” guy in a mundane role. (Lol). After he wrecked a scenario, the first thing any red team at that site does is declare him redshirt casualty at the start.

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                  1. WordPress is getting (HONK)ing annoying. It just stops letting me type. “Cutting you off, loudmouth!”

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    5. As to the first paragraph: Get the book “Refuse to Choose” by Barbara Sher, you may find some hope in your life/interests from that.

      To the first paragraph: check out TeamAndMore website – lots of different places listed to publish. you still have to do your due diligence, but it might give you some ideas.

      Hope that helps

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      1. I’m getting retirement checks already, Tiffanie, I don’t need a job. I’ll look at that website. I’ve heard about so many places, then when I check them out I see they haven’t posted anything since 2019….

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Okay, okay! No job for you. lol

          But the Team and More Site is updated every couple of months at the latest, so maybe some hope there.

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          1. Tiffanie, what exactly is the name of that website? I typed in team and more and Gott im Himmel! The first link is in German!

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  3. And the proposed deal with the Devil will come with subtlety. It is the small compromises, the little sins which might lead inexorably to Hell. CS Lewis put it best:

     To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing, will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know better still—just at the moment when you are most anxious not to appear crude, or naïf or a prig—the hint will come. … And you will be drawn in, if you are drawn in, not by desire for gain or ease, but simply because at that moment, when the cup was so near your lips, you cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world. It would be so terrible to see the other man’s face—that genial, confidential, delightfully sophisticated face—turn suddenly cold and contemptuous, to know that you had been tried for the Inner Ring and rejected. And then, if you are drawn in, next week it will be something a little further from the rules, and next year something further still, but all in the jolliest, friendliest spirit. It may end in a crash, a scandal, and penal servitude; it may end in millions, a peerage and giving the prizes at your old school. But you will be a scoundrel.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. When they talk about abusers—primarily emotional and sexual—they talk about the boundary pushing phase, also called “grooming.” Or it can be other names, like “slippery slope” or even “moving the Overton Window.”

      Note that people who employ these tactics object to these terms. They know.

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  4. When you mentioned computer programmers needing to do things that matter to them? I can wholeheartedly endorse that statement, based on my own experience.

    When I was finishing high school, I decided that I wanted to use my computer skills to serve God in some way. I thought that way would be to work in the computer industry, make a lot of money, live simply so I wasn’t spending much on myself, and donate a lot of money to Christian missionaries teaching people about Jesus all over the world.

    Then I started working in the industry, paying off my college loads. And I found out that my heart wasn’t in it. I was coming home at the end of the day saying, “What did my work accomplish today? I’m helping build an electronic coupon system. Whoop-dee-doo.” (That last should be read in the most bored, unenthusiastic voice you can manage.) There was absolutely nothing wrong with the work I was doing, nothing that contradicted my values. I had no problems at all with the idea of making commerce more efficient by letting coupons be sent by email instead of printed in newspapers. But it wasn’t where my heart was.

    So, once my student loans were paid off, I resigned from that job and joined a Christian non-profit organization. Now my work is going towards building tools to be used by people translating the Bible into every language of the world, something my heart is absolutely 100% in favor of. (And also to be used by other people if it’s useful to them — we publish our tools under open-source licenses, with no restrictions on how they can be used — but the needs of Bible translators are what we focus on). And I’m much happier in this career: even though I could probably be making 2-3× as much money working in the industry, when I get emails from recruiters I delete them unread.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Heh. College “loads” should have been college loans in that third paragraph. Sometimes typos are unintentionally revealing: it was a burden I needed to get rid of before I could start to do the work I really wanted to do.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. as for computer programmers needing to do something that matters, there’s reports that the DOGE people are mostly 20 something programmers. It’s 4chan goes to Washington.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. There’s plenty of independent projects for the analytical minds that want to make a difference. Elections, budgets, tracing relationships,researching publications, etc…

        Various autists have been putting the pieces together since before 2020 and we are getting a much clearer picture of the men behind the curtain.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I just took my own advice and read the EO that established DOGE rather than secondary sources. Interesting that he put DOGE into the Obama created United States Digital Service that was created to clean up the mess that was the Obama care website rollout. There’s a certain feline malice in using a structure set up by Obama to undo Obama. All the various talking heads who are wondering what the regulatory structure for DOGE is will be shocked when they find out that it was Obama what done it. Evil will oft doth evil mar.

          Money should start running out soon and we’ll see the “Prairie Dogging” . Note the names.

          Liked by 2 people

            1. I will second that!

              Trump is that Geek in a role playing game that studies the rules in detail, and finds exploits. Eventually, the GM has to Nerf it for balance, but by then the Geek found two or three more combos.

              Trump is working from careful planning. Sure, some of it is spaghetti-stick testing. It’s also called “recon by fire”. When the Arty boys get secondary explosions, you know where to follow up.

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              1. He also is a great multi-tasker, doing tarrif shenanigans, border crises, and USAID all at the same time, keeping the media focus off of the approval hearings. He is the master of “blow something up while I sneak in the back door a block away.”

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          2. It was also brilliant! All of the lawsuits that were filed before DOGE had even gotten started turned out to be without basis, because the opponents all assumed it would be a new agency. Using the existing vehicle sidestepped all the lawfare!

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            1. And from what I’ve read today about some of what’s showing up, especially at USAID, I believe we can look forward to quite a few criminal trials of really “important” slimeballs.

              Oh, and the release of the Epstein List (haven’t read it yet) was just the cherry on top. :twisted:

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              1. The list is out? Patel was the one who said he would release it, and afaik he hasn’t had his confirmation vote yet.

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                1. I’m confused about that. I heard the same thing you did, but I went to The Source of All Knowledge and got hits on “release epstein list”, one of which was from The Sun (us-sun.com), which included this:

                  “1 week ago – In January 2024 [!!!], hundreds of pages containing names of over 170 of Epstein’s associates were released to the public. The documents contained the names of former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew…”, which is where my comment came from; I misread 2024 as 2025 (duh).

                  The hit link was “GOP reps call on Trump to release all Jeffrey Epstein case files …“

                  But when I actually went to the page, there was no such comment on it as the one above starting “1 week ago”.

                  Damfino what’s going on, beyond by misreading of the date.

                  Brain hurt…

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                  1. I know what this is.

                    There were some names that were mentioned by witnesses in front of a grand jury. Eventually the redaction on those names was removed, and they were revealed. That’s the list that you’re reading about.

                    It’s partial, and IIRC also a bit vague on details about those names in most cases. And he names aren’t necessarily clients. They’re people mentioned in the grand jury testimony by witnesses.

                    Also, I seem to recall that in at least one instance, it was proven that the man identified by a witness could not have been present when the witness stated that he was.

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                    1. Ok; thanks. I have to admit I haven’t been trying to keep current on the Epstein fiasco, but that makes sense.

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                    2. Yeah. This particular list was advertised in the news as an Epstein client list (it wasn’t really) back when it was released, and I had thought it was “the” list. I had to do a little bit of research before I finally realized what it was.

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                2. I don’t think we get Epstein’s list any more than we get the Kennedy files.

                  Folks disagree? Show me. Ain’t kicking that football, Lucy.

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              3. The Reader thinks a through airing of what happened at USAID is going to be MUCH more interesting (and more central to restoring constitutional government) than the Epstein List.

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                1. Concur. Tthe Epstein List is just a list of slimeballs, which we always have with us. The USAID issue (and other similar ones) are an indication of systemic rot.

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            3. On Trump’s DOGE. (From the Romulan Captain in Star Trek’s Balance of Terror) “He is a sorcerer that one! He reads the thoughts in my brain!

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        2. Trump had the sads about that. He’s a hospitality guy, so it’s killing him that anybody is sleeping on a sofa bed instead of in a White House or hotel bed.

          I keep seeing different things about whether he got Elon to sleep in a real White House bedroom or not. The Executive Office Building is like a block away, so I wouldn’t bet against the White House staff being ordered to send over hot food or cold drinks.

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          1. Honestly sofa beds is better than I’d have thought. On some assignments I had, you were lucky to have a roof over your head and sleep on the floor. Sleeping in the truck was an option sometimes. Extra bonus if you had a pillow and blanket.

            When you’re tight on a big job and the hours are “all the ones the day has, plus ten,” you work until you drop. Then you get up, get back into it, and down some coffee and a donut if you’ve a spare hand while you work.

            DOGE looks to me like one of those big jobs. May the ones laboring on my behalf there have all the skill, insight, talent, and drive that Himself may grant. May they be is doggedly determined, diligent, and unceasingly perspicacious in their inspections into the rot what has infested our great ship of state.

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            1. when I was young and foolish, I often slept under my desk The couch in my boss’s office would have been pure luxury, and, thus, well above my pay grade, The 90 hour weeks you read about for Wall Street and Big Law are not hyperbole.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. As a small-town tax preparer my beloved worked a minimum of 50 hours a week, generally more like 60 and often more. Now he’s “only,” working 20 online plus mornings on whatever problems his former employee/partner sends him.

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              2. Yep. Different trade, but I’ve been there. Don’t really miss it, much. But the sense of purpose, the pride of a job well done. That was a fine thing. A fine thing indeed.

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              3. In my stint in the industry, I never slept under my desk. Too much effort involved, I just bent my head down onto it.

                Good thing that I was in charge of commissions – God only knows what our clients would have bought or sold if I had been in trades and my head rested on the keyboard.

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              4. A yoga mat rolled out under the footwell in the part of the cubical least visible to passers-by was the tell for nappers when I worked in cubical-land.

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            2. One of the first thing I add to any new vehicle, is the means to overnight in it, anywhere, in decent comfort.

              This has saved any number of vacations and odd jobs over the years.

              Liked by 1 person

            3. Folks, there is a novel flu circulating. It doesn’t show on current “flu” or covid tests, but is does present as classic flu. It is sneaky and ramps up. My GP has seen a dozen plus cases this month. If you get flu-ish, please isolate to the best of your ability and prepare for a rough ride. I went from “uses gym at work” to “barely able to walk” in a day.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. And for anyone who has contact with skilled nursing or hospitals, there’s another seasonal COVID rolling around since January that also presents as flu, with very brief or no fever, body aches, cough and head congestion, etc.

                And as a reminder, the only thing statistically significantly correlated with reductions in COVID for the entire Prior Unpleasantness was hand washing.

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              2. I know. Folks I’ve worked with have got it already. One new parent. His wife hasn’t got it, though she is pregnant. So far, I haven’t got it. Might be immune. Have had a nasty flu a few years back, but nothing since. Just seasonal allergies and a minor cold-like thing once.

                Wash hands religiously. Don’t touch face. Yadda yadda, same old prevent disease mechanics any practitioner from back in the day (unlike the new yobbos with doctorates that don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground) would tell you. May you all stay healthy. And if’n you get sick, may it pass swiftly and you be immune thereafter.

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      4. And one of them is a genius who figured out how to use AI to read a scroll that’s been sealed for 2000 years.

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      5. They look to be a very talented crew. One of them is the guy who at 18 (19?) figured out how to virtually unroll the charred Herculaneum scrolls from Xrays of them. Because of that we’re recovering LOTS of early Greek and Latin texts that were thought lost as well as seeing 1st Century copies of texts for which we only had Nth generation copies from the early Dark Ages.

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  5. “Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!”

    Just wanted to put that out there before somebody else does!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. But yeah, the sad thing is that most people will sell their souls for a lot less than all the kingdoms of the world.

      Stephen King, for all his many, many personal failings, was an astute observer of this in his fiction. His version of the satanic forces in his books and stories actually made a sadistic game of it, to see how little they could offer to get someone to sell out. Not only damning people, but doing it under budget!

      Maybe that’s why King is such a wretch these days: on some level, he knows he’s fallen into the same pit as the characters he wrote.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Maybe he was so good at writing those characters because he already was one. Can’t really tell you why, but Stephen King has always set my teeth on edge. I don’t like his writing, but that’s a different thing; there are plenty of writers whose stories I don’t like, but he’s one of a very few public figures that, to me, just feel…wrong…somehow.

        I read an article a few years ago about William Golding (?), author of Lord of the Flies, that indicated he was very much in that vein; he wrote children as natural psychopaths not because he had any evidence that it was natural human behavior sans social structure, but because it was what he knew…the story was a window through which the twisted thing that passed for his soul could leer at the world, and he was aware of it. (Could’ve been a hit piece for all I know, but it was very persuasive.)

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Dude, you’re talking to the Odds here.

          In high school and thereafter, I have been known to say that Golding was an optimist. Having experienced a pack of children my age doing their best to either remove me or get me to self-remove, I think his view was entirely accurate.

          It’s cool you got to attend a school where vicious attacks were NOT a daily occurrence. But do admit that others exist.

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          2. I’m not saying kids can’t be cruel (they’re human, after all). For whatever it’s worth, I’ve been the target of bullies before and know what it’s like not to fit in; I’m also aware that many people have had it much, much worse than I did. What I AM saying is that bellum omnium contra omnes isn’t the normal state of things; life is not as bleak and humans not as evil as they’re so often painted.

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            1. Apparently the IRL examples of child survival scenarios were much more benign than Lord of the Flies, because the kids went into survival mode right away. They knew darned well that they needed everybody to work together, and they mostly did.

              Of course, if you had an IRL example of kids not going into survival mode right away, they probably didn’t survive, and we wouldn’t have heard about it. Narcissists, psychos, mean girls, etc. are not really useful in a survival situation, probably.

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              1. That fits with my response to a criticism of MZW’s A Long Time from Now, that it was a little convenient that they just happened to have all the right skills among the various characters aboard that vehicles when they were transported back in time: namely, if they didn’t have the Right Stuff for that situation, they wouldn’t have survived, and it would be a short downer story, not a novel of survival in difficult times.

                And in the sequel, we get introduced to a similar group who didn’t have the Right Stuff to deal with being thrown back in time, and lost unit cohesion and just sort of stumbled through in a daze. Probably a least unpleasant bad outcome for the situation, but it made for a better read than “we need you to go back and retrieve the bodies and equipment so it doesn’t disrupt the timeline.”

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              2. So internet discourse is Lord of the Flies because no one needs to go into survival mode. That makes a surprising amount of sense.

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          3. Less pure savagery than Pink Monkey effect, I think. Odds tend to hit the Uncanny Valley pretty hard, and kids aren’t sophisticated enough to deal with it.

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        2. I could admire King’s technical skill, and note he could, at one time, be very funny (Danse Macabre, his history of early horror films, is hysterical in spots). But I can’t read his novels; the only one I ever finished was The Stand.

          The Stand starts out as an, “end of the world as we know it,” plague story and holds up….then it suddenly segues into, “avatars of Good and Evil appear and a small group of heroes must fight to save the Soul of the World.” With no setup, no foreshadowing at all. And at the end, the Power of Evil (being immortal, don’t y’know, despite being nuked), just picks himself up, laughs and moves on. While the Good enclave is being inevitably Corrupted by Legalism and the hero and his lady are trying to go the, “Just live in peace with all,” route. Apparently the hero believes the people in the Good enclave are all that’s left and of course they will never have to deal with bandits, barbarians, or others.

          Philip Pullman is another one. I tried to read his His Dark Materials trilogy and there’s something in all three books that gives me the ick.

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          1. And now that I’ve deflected….

            I’m one of those people with a vicious Inner Critic, one that usually pushes the, “That’s no good and you know it,” button. Doesn’t matter what, “it,” is. I manage to work around it some.

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            1. OTOH, back when I sat in my cubicle,often waiting for something to do, I promised myself that when I had the chance I would sit in the warm sunlight for as long as I wanted and read.

              Guess what I’m doing now?

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Sunshine, that sounds really nice. We’re dealing with 14-16″ of Gorebull warming that came down starting Sunday morning. I tempted Murphy and took the tire chains off the tractor. Oops.

                And now I have several branches (ranging from tiny to “I have to move this SOB so I can drive to the barn”) that need disposition.

                I’m tired.

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                  1. I told folks at Day Job, “Enjoy this week. What’s settling in to Alaska right now will be here next Monday.” I was met with groans and moans and sighs of “Yeah, it has to balance, doesn’t it?”

                    Liked by 1 person

                    1. 09:30 and I’m sitting in my office with shorts on. Couple of hours from now, I’m probably going to have to switch the A/C unit from fan to cool.

                      This is one of the weird winters here in S AZ.

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                2. Weather has been threatening snow in the Willamette valley. Tip top of the Coburg hills got a dusting last night. Suspect will get some more tonight. But doubt valley will see much more than sleet, maybe.

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                  1. We’ve been dealing with the never-ending winter storm and related warning. It started Sunday morning, and hasn’t let up much at all. They keep extending the warning period; now it’s due to expire at 1AM Wednesday (was 7PM Tuesday as of yesterday, originally warned as “winter weather advisory” last Saturday.

                    I have to give the tire company a call. I was going to town Wednesday to replace my snow tires, but the Tuesday shopping trip for groceries is getting delayed until ???. Depends on what the roads look like Wednesday morning. The county has been plowing and half the trip is ODOT highway, but…

                    I don’t know where this system will go once it finally stops “Occupy State of Jefferson”, but somebody else is going to get clobbered.

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                    1. And, power just came back after a 7 hour outage. Since Murphy decided to make life interesting, our backup propane heater failed, and the diagnosis (beware the retired electrical engineer with a multimeter) says the control valve died. “It worked the last time I tried!” (A few months ago. Sigh.)

                      There’s a major power line that runs from Lakeview to the west. It’s fragile, though this one happened upstream of Lakeview. Whee.

                      The house dropped to 63 degrees after I set it to 70 when I got up. I have an indoor rated propane heater reserved for me at Bi-Mart. Amazingly, they still have some stock, though the manager says she had to stay in town because getting home (somewhere in NorCal) wasn’t an option.

                      NOAA says this is going to drift to Los Angeles, then who knows? Whee.

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                    3. Yeah, looking at the pattern (if it’s just the TX line, Lakeview is unafflicted, but nope. And there have been some large wildfires in the relevant area this last season.

                      I don’t know about upstream of Lakeview, but the multi-town main feed is something like 112kV, with supports by long twinned pine poles. It’s proven to be fragile.

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            2. That is not “critic”. It’s “despair” in a skin suit.

              Kick it right square in the noogies.

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          2. Oh, Philip Pullman! I’ve done quite a few workshops in schools for aspiring young authors. Whenever I give a talk, I always mention Pullman as a cautionary tale.

            “Long ago, a young writer went to a Pullman book signing, and found him so loathsomely narcissistic, so bloated with self regard, so contemptuous of everyone but himself, that she left the signing in disgust. She decided to write a character in her book series that was just like him, and she named him Gilderoy Lockhardt.”

            Don’t get full of yourselves, I tell the young authors. No matter how successful you might become, always try to be humble. Treat every young writer you meet like she might go on to write the best selling book series of all time.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. There were parts of the Dark Materials trilogy that kind of put me off, but overall I enjoyed it greatly. The Ruby in the Smoke stories were decent, but seriously marred by the communist hagiography. (This was before I really started thinking about political philosophy; if I came across them now, they’d be hitting the trash can at high velocity.) Then, some years later, I came across some interviews of Philip Pullman, and…wow. If Gilderoy Lockhart was a tuckerization of him, Rowling was far too gentle and kind.

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            2. I’m a hack. At best, I know I’m a hack writer. Some folks like my stuff, sure. But I’m no David Gemmel. Nor even a smidgen of a great writer. There are young writers by the hundreds better at their wordcraft than I. And sometimes, they come to me for advice.

              Mostly? I keep telling them to keep doing what they are doing. Create worlds. Characters. Tales that tickle their fancy. Write stories like the ones they’d like to have read, back when all they did was read, too.

              Be nice to those young authors out there. Tell them not to give up. The words will come easier. With time. You’ll make mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up over them. Those are the stepping stones you must climb. That’s how you grow. By facing those mistakes and growing stronger, more skilled, better for it.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. At least hack writers get paid. I’m not even that good.

                  I know you’ve been under the weather and busy, but have you had any chance to skim The AI Incident?

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                  2. “at least hack writers get paid.”

                    A little bit. A teensy, tiny little bit. If’n you build up your backlog of titles, it gets better. Keep plugging away at it, decipher the mysteries of that esoteric art called “marketing.”

                    If you need feedback and critique, writers’ groups can be good and they can be sacks of awful. You can put your work out there for free on the free sites, get readers and reaction feedback. You can pester your friends and loved ones for feedback. You can flog your stories at gas stations and truck stops, but only weird people do that. Spoiler alert: don’t do that.

                    Don’t take all feedback as gospel. Sometimes a great editor or writer or feedback person has a bad day. Or a bad reaction to some thing. Or they sneezed and that messed up their train of thought. It happens.

                    If two people you trust point something out, take a look at it and see if it makes sense to you. If all of them decry something, then take it a bit more seriously. If you aren’t paying them for the review, take it for somewhere between a grain of salt and maybe worthwhile.

                    Read it out loud. That can help with flow. Let it rest for a while before you do heavier editing. That can keep you from butchering your baby story too badly. Plot out your pacing after you have the bones of the main plot laid down. Things can buttonhook on you as you seat-of-the-pants write, if that’s your thing.

                    Lastly, know your audience and read your genre obsessively. That way you know what your readers expect out of the story.

                    That’s the best off the hook advice I can give ya blind, one dumb hack writer to you. Well, that and keep writing. You really do have to write all the bad words out before the good ones come along sometimes. Do it even when you don’t want to, even when you have to force the words out through a tiny tube from your brain to the keyboard. Good luck to you.

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                    1. Remember that when people point out a problem, there is very likely to be a problem, less likely that they have correctly identified what it is, and still less likely that they prescribed the right cure.

                      Liked by 2 people

            3. Interesting. I remember hearing that Rowling had based Lockhart on a real person, and that the person would never, ever guess that he was the inspiration for Lockhart, because he had such a huge ego that he couldn’t imagine anyone ever seeing him in that light. But I’d never heard it was Pullman.

              I was never particularly a fan of Pullman. I liked the first Dark Materials book and the steampunk world, at least the first time I read it, but I bounced hard off the second and never felt any desire to read the third or reread the first. I also read Ruby in the Smoke, which I would classify as “not terrible, but not nearly as interesting as the blurb on the back lead me to believe it would be.” Again, I never felt the urge to seek out the rest of the series.

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            5. I’ve only read The Golden Compass, but I somehow read or heard that Pullman was trying to write an anti Narnia series, because he loved the Narnia series as a child, and then as an adult became angry when he discovered that there was Christianity in them. Pullman was bringing up issues about predeterminism and Lewis was Anglican, and Anglicans are a free-will denomination… so obviously he had not done his homework.

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          3. Interesting. I read The Stand at the first release, and it ended on a more-or-less positive note. Wiki says the reincarnation of evil was in the 1990 V2.0 version, which I skipped reading after skimming Chapter 1 at the bookstore. (More detail that I thought wasn’t necessary.) At that point, I thought the V1.0 version book was still OK.

            Subsequent King books seemed (to me) to get darker and darker, and Pet Semetary was the last straw. All of my King books got culled and donated to the local library several years ago. I think this was before SK proved himself to be a political a$$hole. (In retrospect, the landfill as destination might have been better, though a few shadow mages and Familiars might Have Opinions. :) )

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            1. Nah, written much too late for that. Graveyard Sky arrived late in the zombie craze (which is still ongoing, though to a much lesser degree), which appears to have been the inspiration for it (though I can’t remember whether he’s come out and openly said as much).

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              1. IIRC he’s said he was talking with some med research folks who got onto which actual diseases could do this and that to a body, and how easy it would be with modern gene editing for a only-slightly-dangerously-educated individual to assemble such a bug, and the rest of the first book precipitated out of that supersaturated data solution in his head.

                Liked by 1 person

          5. I got through Pullman’s first, picked up the second, realized I did not care, and closed it before finishing the first chapter.

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      2. The best explanation I have seen for why The Acolyte was the way it was is that same “write what you have in your head” effect by Headland, who wrote creepy manipulative youth-predator Jedi because working as Personal Assistant to Harvey Weinstein, she was neck deep in creepy manipulative youth-predator Hollywood.

        The real question has always been not why did she write it that way, but why did the rest of the DisneyLucasfilm reporting structure read her script and still sign the checks.

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        1. Not a direct answer, but apparently part of what happened to Concord, the $400 million gaming flop from a few months ago, was a culture of “toxic positivity” within the project. Any constructive criticism that might have saved it was shouted down as negativity, so there was no way to prevent the catastrophe.

          I don’t remember any specific explanations for The Acolyte, but I wouldn’t count on Disney/Lucasfilm being able to course-correct right now. They’ve set up a nice little bubble for themselves.

          Liked by 1 person

  6. It’s not the vocation that’s been the problem with me, more relationships. You know, the intimate kind. The first devil deal put me through the wringer and I sent myself on a trail of tears that tried practicality, which failed, and then rescuing, which failed even more spectacularly, before I listened to my heart. Fourth time’s the charm. Loving and loving well is indeed a gift not to be squandered.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Yep. You have to work at them. They don’t just fall into absolute perfection, for most of us (maybe someone out there, they do- at least two of ’em).

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    1. My stockbroker *loves* his job. At my age (large) and his (small) it’s like talking to a happy puppy. He gets all enthusiastic, practically bouncing. We look at the results and tell him to go get ’em! Good Boy!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I have few regrets. It can be an entirely honorable profession and I like to think I acted, mostly, with honor. On the other side, I spent a great deal of my life working with psychopaths and that leaves a mark and I’m not proud of some of what I did to survive … and thrive. the sad fact is I’m good at it and, when I was young, unthinking.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. There’s not always a straight forward deal with the devil, but sometimes his minions offer the artist a “ticket”. And there’s always a price to be paid, casting couch, control, hurting children, etc. Consider Hollywood or the Epstein files.

    Corruption has snuck in everywhere in the culture and downsteam turning it into ordure. The most recent revelations of matters like USAID shouldn’t surprise any in this crowd.

    As far as using your talents beyond the job, my spouse and I find projects, hobbies and assisting others to keep our souls intact.

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    1. The enemy has placed ditches on either side of the road to salvation. The Enemy cares not which ditch traps you, just that you are again off the road.

      Sometimes the “ditch” looks like a nice grassy picnic area.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I went to Germany in 2000. I was walking a forest path and saw a wide, beautiful grassy meadow off to one side. I took only two steps off the path. The first was fine. The second my foot sank into wet soil and the grassy meadow rippled. It wasn’t a meadow at all, but a bog or pond covered with moss.

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        1. One of our families favorite places to go is Maine near Acadia National Park. Back down the road a bit just north of Bangor (in Orono officially I think (https://umaine.edu/oronobogwalk/) is a boardwalk across a mile or so of untouched New England bog. All sorts of interesting plants including large groups of carnivorous pitcher plants. There are large admonitions not to leave the boardwalk lest one end up shoulder deep in ooze and leave a skeleton for later generations. where trees and stuff fall it is VERY clear the soil is wet but otherwise, you’d just think it was a pretty meadow until you got into it.

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  9. Well, if the Devil showed up. First I’d have to admit being wrong, then I’d laugh in his face. NO thanks. Though money is great, I’ll allow it to pass as payment to not have Fame. Love has not worked well for me, either. so meh. But I’d give him a Vir Wave.
    My job is fine (though now slightly changed) but my employer leaves a LOT to be desired. Could be worse, At least my Supervisor and Manager are familiar with the job (The Supe having actually been in the position, and the Manager a former Lead when they had to occasionally fill in) and more often than not (the manager more than Supe) are on my side of things. I think I’ve been near burnout for a while, with the hit of Dad passing in ’21, and just the day to day dealing with “Model Line” B.S. (where what I’m working with is more a Model of How Not To Do It) getting things done is often a slog. I was going to go continue organizing the garage for possible parking of the new to me car, but Snow has come, so clearing that will be today’s job with laundry and lunch for the week prep. (beef and pork with gravy over rice)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’d have to the same if the Devil showed up for real. :)

      As for the rest, well, when I look back on the sidewalk of my life, I see cracks aplenty, unevenness, and a even few places where the ground is shifted up, down, or to the side. What I don’t see are very many lines and those that are there are widely spread. I like to think that means I didn’t make a habit of crossing them.

      OTOH, maybe the Devil didn’t think I was worth the effort.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. I detest fame. For me. Personally. Fine if it’s for another guy. Let him have it. Enjoy it. I don’t want no fame.

      Money, that I’d be fine with. Up to a point. I don’t need millions. Not even one. Just a house, bit of land, a truck that goes when you push the gas and stops when you touch the brake.

      And books. Books to read. Books to write. Over and above what little I have to keep the wolf from the door? If I had it, I’d probably give it away. Somebody else probably needs it more than me.

      Women? Liquor? Bah. I quit drinking years ago. Quit dating decades ago. Never was a drink as interesting as a good book. Now a fine lady on the other hand. Someone as enticing as a good book? Rare breed, that one. Those get snatched up right and proper like.

      But fame? What kind of fool wants that? The adulation of strangers is a fickle, tawdry thing. Best let it lie. Meaning is to be found in what drives you. Friends. Family. Obligation. What purpose, life? To chase after meaning. To train up the next generation. To reduce the suffering of mankind. To feed the cats (though that might be more situational. Doofus is eyeballing me in that “me wants chicken!” kind of look about now.).

      Liked by 1 person

  10. “Everybody uses magic.”

    “I don’t.”

    “What have you got to show for it? Fly-specked office, a broken-down car and a ugly necktie, that’s what all this integrity buys you. Damn it, everybody’s got to compromise.”

    “That’s what I keep hearing.”

    “And what makes you so special?”

    “What makes me special is that I’m my own man. When I started out, I said there were things I would do and things I wouldn’t do. Lot of guys start like that and a lot of them sell out along the way, but the more who fall, the easier it gets. See, look… everybody compromises, everybody cheats, everybody uses magic. So they empty ideals out of their pockets and get on with the job of sticking it to their neighbor before they stick it to them. That’s the way it’s done. To which I say ‘nuts.’ My collar may be a little frayed, maybe I need a shoeshine, but nobody’s got a mortgage on my soul. I own it, free and clear.”

    “I’m not gonna apologize for my life.”

    “Didn’t ask you to.”

    “I’m happy the way things are.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    “You’ve got to look ahead. You can’t drag around the past. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

    “Sounds like you have a real good grip on things.”

    — Cast a Deadly Spell, script by Joseph Dougherty

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Everybody is confronted by deals with the devil. My wife was a starving/striving grad student in Chemistry, getting ready to start the research on her dissertation when her advisor who ran the lab asked her to lie and say she had been working on a project he had a grant for rather than on the one he had ordered her to work on. (His grant deadline was nearing.) She went to the university administration and was told, “But he’s up for tenure next year, and we don’t want to make trouble for him.” With no real recourse, she quit without her PhD. It changed her direction from a working chemist to a Community College teacher. (Yes, she was one of the infamous adjunct professors–read exploited piece worker.) She made very little money but was remembered by many as the best teacher they ever had.

    As for me, I’ve told the story here before about what stopped my writing career way back in 79 (similar, but not as blatant as Sarah’s story). Most of my temptations were more minor, and I avoided them by being honest. It’s amazing how many pitfalls you can avoid by that “one simple trick”. A thief would much rather deal with a scoundrel than an honest man.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. You just put into words what got me about Lois Bujold’s “Gentleman Jole” book. Aral’s actions utterly broke his character by going against its absolute, fundamental building block of honour and faithfulness.

    The only one of her books I put down with no intent to ever read again.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I never read that one (and have no desire to). Considering that I really liked her Lord Ivan book, and also am enjoying her Penric books, that is a disappointment.

      One thing I remember is an answer to the criticisms (I don’t remember who said it) saying we all knew Aral was bisexual from the beginning. Apparently thinking that if he had only been bonking a female secretary, everyone complaining would have simply said, “Oh, that’s okay then.”

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      1. Part is that people are delusional about bisexuality. That’s its not a matter of not caring whether your beloved is a man or a woman and therefore perfectly capable of monogamy, but imagining it’s two separate desires.

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      2. I think the book was written in response to Sad Puppies. In any case, it’s the only Bujold book that I just went meh. It could have been good, but it struck me as … self indulgent,

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      3. “He was bisexual. Now he’s monogamous,” had previously been one of the best lines in the series.

        Saying, nope, he was banging men on the side, and Cordelia was fine with that, destroyed that line along with both of their characters. Not to mention the implication that Aral had always chosen his aids based on how attractive he found them. The Aral Vorkosigan I loved would never have done any of that, and the Cordelia I loved would never have stood for it if he did.

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    3. I hate to say this, but I kept getting the feeling whenever I read a Bujold book (I could never finish one, except Memory and that was out of sheer desperation to find something to read) that she always had a boot hanging over the cast’s head, ready to destroy things in the worst possible way.

      …and turns out I was right…

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      1. Sadly, I’m suspecting that she didn’t want to write another book in that series but people were “screaming” at her about “write another book”.

        So she wrote this one so that those people would “shut up”. [Frown]

        Liked by 1 person

            1. And not knowing what is going on in Bujold’s life, I don’t know if this was sincere or “I hate this but I need the money” or “I just want these people to shut up” or anything else.

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        1. Well – that was one of the bits of advice that I realized could work, up to a point. Create interesting, relatable, lovable characters, and have bad/challenging things happen to them … but the Jole book was so destructive of what had been so firmly established in the previous series. I do wonder …what happened, that she would so shred the characters.

          While on the topic of popular authors suddenly going destructive … I wonder what happened to another author that I liked and followed: Barbara Hambly. She wrote so beautifully and knowledgably about places in Southern California that I knew well in the Darwath Trilogy, and in the Windrose series. I bought and read all of her books, even the ancient Rome mystery, Search the Seven Hills. She was hysterically funny without being denigrating about the ancient Christians – I passed that book onto a friend, who was the wife of an Air Force chaplain – and she was amused as well. So anyway – I read Dragonsbane and liked it, but the follow on in that series grossed me out so hard that I bailed on the rest of the series. Yes, have horrible things happen to your characters, but there is a limit and she went well beyond it with that series.

          Any comment?

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          1. I’ve never been in that position, but there have been creators that have been so tired of dealing with certain characters that they never want to write them anymore and never want to deal with them anymore. But people still want stories from them about these characters (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Holmes stories is one of the earliest I can think of). And they’re stuck between people not wanting anything but the stories from the characters the author hates, and the author having to either create stories they hate to pay the bills.

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        2. To be fair, that philosophy got us Miles’ hijinks, all the way from Warrior’s Apprentice through Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.

          Not gonna complain. I mean, the dinner party in Civil Affair when Miles’ parents walk in….

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    4. I read the sample, picked my dropped jaw off the floor, and promptly hit delete. That was completely contrary to every portrayal of the characters beforehand and Cordelia’s own statements.

      I quote: “Was bisexual. Now he’s monogamous.”

      Rrrrrrgh.

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        1. Han shot, period.

          After giving Greedo every chance to walk away, he realized there was no way out of the situation where they both ended up alive, so he acted.

          Liked by 1 person

  16. I don’t recall if it was you or someone else I follow who was recently talking about how illegal immigration was another form of deal with the devil.

    The particular example was the meat packing plants. As currently designed, they eat people, generating constant repetitive stress injuries to the point they can only keep workers about 3 or so years before they need to be replaced.

    Illegals are brought in with promises of streets paved with free gold, kept solvent through rampant fraud, then casually disposed of once they are too worn out to work. And a new population is brought in.

    And all held afloat by defacto government subsidies and license to do whatever. Until the train finally stops and they need to figure out how to pack meat without making their workers disposable.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Tyson closed their plant in Perry, Iowa, putting 1,300 Americans out of work. They’ll be replaced with illegal aliens in other states, because Iowa makes it hard to use illegal aliens.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. One site that should be on everyone’s list is DataRepublican on x. You might have seen her work exposing Bill Kristal’s indirect funding through USAID. She’s broadly hinting about a tool that will allow one to enter a name and find out the most likely funding path from person to foundation to US Government. That will be epic and I’m kicking myself that I never thought of it. Math being math and graph theory being what I did in uni, I’m pretty sure I know what she’s doing and as I said, it will be epic.

    she’s talking of releasing tonight.

    Then we should match to Epstein’s list and Venn Diagram it.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. I’ve chatted a tiny bit with her on X about some of the technical aspects. She is very skilled and driven, and I applaud her efforts. In addition to the social value she’s done some rather innovative technical work with this.

      Liked by 1 person

  19. Of course the Democrats are squealing about Trump twisting the money spigots shut. They won’t get their kickbacks.

    Biden has been signed up with a big Hollywood talent agency. Who knew there was a ‘need’ for a fossilized washed-up politician whose only talents are sleeping through meetings, sniffing little girls’ hair, ranting incoherently, and that creepy Central Scrutinizer whispering schtick?

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      1. Not a chance. A physical dummy would be more convincing and be less likely to sniff the ingenue actresses hair and paw them absentmindedly. He’s going to get a ludicrous book deal with a large advance that will flood the remainder shelves with some ghost written auto hagiography. Not sure how they’ll fund it with USAID tap being turned off :-) .

        Liked by 1 person

    2. They signed for a common rep for the humoungous-advance book deal and the speaking engagements. The same agency reps the Obamas.

      Even Hollywood knows there’s no TV or movie deals there…

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    3. Forget kickbacks, it looks like USAID funds their *entire* NGO infrastructure, to include bringing in illegals and a lot of the anti-vote integrity campaigns. Personal enrichment is one thing, but this is their key infrastructure.

      If it goes down, the Dems are completely screwed.

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  23. Sometimes the deal is to compromise your values through your entertainment. Anybody notice some of the antihero series to come out in recent years? There’s been an awful lot of them, including some where we’re supposed to be cheering for the villain.

    I mean, I’ve gone through some periods where I’ve done things like read up on serial killers, But nobody in those recountings said I was supposed to root for them (*cough* Dexter *cough*.) There’s a reason I choose to avoid certain types of entertainment, primarily visual. Visual just gets in your head more thoroughly.

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    1. Yep. I avoided, “Breaking Bad,” for the same reason.

      It was….interesting…to go back to Albuquerque after the show came out and discover almost all the tourist shops in Old Town were loaded with BB merchandise.

      Liked by 1 person

  24. The saddest day of your life isn’t when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy.
    — Jack Barron, in Norman Spinrad’s tale “Bug Jack Barron”

    I liked the quote so much, I put in my quotes file, which at one time was a Fortune Cookie file on a… DEC PDP-11/70. I’ve been adding to the file and carrying it forward ever since.

    And I figure it’s relevant enough when one is selling one’s soul.

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  25. Venom, Kraven the Hunter, Morbius, even the latest Dr Strang movie veers more toward an anti-hero. And those are just the Marvel ones. John Wick is a gorefest celebration of a one-man gang war, not a hero. So many heroic types, but so consistently failing and falling. Too consistently. Yes, we all have feet of clay, but damn it, even statistically you should have some human heroes not fall to evil.

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    1. We’re overdue for some back-to-basics, unironic heroism. As much as I like the movies you listed (some more than others), there’s a gap in the market for superhero movies with soul. The closest we’ve got on the superhero side is The Batman, which skews dark but still has a clear hero, and the Spider-Verse movies, which are fun, heroic stories but very meta.

      I liked the latest Venom well enough, but the whole time, I kept wondering what it would be like to have an adaptation of the character that played it straight, toned down the comedy, and had him actually fighting for something.

      Liked by 1 person

  26. I still remember the scene in “A Man For All Seasons”(1968) where Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield) asks the man (and former student of his) whose perjury has just condemned him to death what badge of office he is now wearing. Upon his reply, Sir Thomas reminds him “… that it profit a man not to sell his soul for all the world… but for Wales?”👹

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