Balloon Juice - Medium Cool Archives

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Let’s Talk About Race & Cultural Influences

by WaterGirl| July 1, 20206:00 pm| 174 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 19 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: Race & Cultural Influences – What Woke You Up?

Take it away, BG!

In this week’s Medium Cool, let’s talk about race. We started MC as a break from all the political and social static in the air around us, but as the BLM movement has reminded us, the cultural work of racial and social justice isn’t a matter of convenience.

So, what I want to discuss this evening is what we, for shorthand, refer to as “woke.” In particular, let’s hear about the cultural influences on your wokeness (or your path to becoming ever more awake). Was there a book, or writer, or class you took that woke you up? Was it film or music, a part of the city you grew up in? For those of you who’ve always been awake, what are the cultural markers that reinforced this, or gave you a vocabulary, or a style, or a venue?

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Let’s Talk About Video Games

by WaterGirl| June 24, 20206:00 pm| 149 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 18 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: Let’s Talk About Video Games

****

Take it away, BG!

For this week’s MC, let’s talk about video games.

I’m not a gamer. I spent plenty of time in the arcade as a youngster, and I played a lot of pinball in bowling alleys, but I never owned a game console. I’ve always preferred film and reading. But I constantly feel like I’m missing out on something. Clearly there’s a complex, enormous world out there of people doing all manner of shooting and exploring and driving and shooting.

I’m curious what your relationship is to this world, and how it has impacted your cultural life. So let’s talk video games and gaming.

***

BG will get us started and will pop back in later. We also invited commenter eddie blake to weigh in on the thread and help provide color commentary.

Reminder: Medium Cool has moved to Wednesday evenings at 6pm during the summer. BG warned me when we started that Sunday evenings might not work well during the summer, and his prediction turned out to be correct.

~WaterGirl

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – TaMara’s New Book!

by WaterGirl| June 14, 20205:00 pm| 127 Comments

This post is in: Celebrating Jackals, Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 17 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: TaMara’s new TJ Wilde Mystery: Underway

Take it away, BG!

TaMara’s piece/writeup below is such a great conversation starter that it seems like any further introduction from me would just get in the way. ~BGinCHI

So take it away, TaMara!

First of all, wow, thanks for this BG and Watergirl! How much fun.

Watergirl asked me to write something up. I wasn’t sure what, then I figured I’d just tell you how the TJ Wilde mysteries evolved.

But first, let’s discuss the genre. TJ Wilde Mysteries are in the romance/mystery/beach read style, they are very adult, definitely R rated. TJ is a strong woman whose life implodes and she is a straight up mess in Run Aground and has found her footing in Underway, but things never go smoothly, because what fun would that be? So nothing too serious here.

How did this “let’s write a book” begin? Believe it or not, one morning I woke from a dream, and it was pretty much the entire first chapter and general plot of the first book, Run Aground. I am not kidding. It was bizarre. And it would not go away. I’ve been writing all my life, but a full-length book, much less a mystery, was not on my life plan calendar. I checked. And then I double-checked.

Finally, I wrote out the first chapter. Then I wrote it again. And again. By that time, I thought, well, this is kind of a fun little piece, so I sent it to a few people I knew would get the in-jokes and enjoy it. The response I got back was “more pages, please.” So I wrote more pages until I got to about chapter five, and then life got complicated – I started my own business, and that was a time-consuming undertaking – so I had less time to write. Then Bixby came…and most of you know how that went. LOL

Nevertheless, I was being nagged by both the characters who would not go away, and my friends and family who would also not go away. And five chapters seemed an awful lot to waste. So I got serious and decided, well, why not, let’s write the entire thing. It took a while. What kept me going was I found I loved visiting the world and characters I created. I was always surprised when things went in a direction I hadn’t actually planned but worked because it was organic and authentic to the characters.

No spoilers, but there is a single line in chapter eight of book one, that I wrote as a throwaway line that became a plot point that now runs through all three books. That has been my favorite part about writing, how everything finds a way to fit together. As long as I have a solid beginning and ending, the story kind of unfolds itself for me. It was like doing a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. I love that. I also love reading romance/mystery/beach reads, so writing that genre felt natural.

The second book evolved after my bestest friend in the entire world and I were driving around Boston during my yearly visit. I had described for her the general outline of book two and we were scouting locations, when we stumbled on the SoWa art district and a Cuban art gallery with the most amazing gallerist.

And then suddenly, my vague outline had substance and heart. A few days later, she and I were walking along the beach (that I have walked hundreds of times in my adult life), and we were chatting about the outer islands, and she tells me this story of a now-abandoned hospital, that I didn’t even know existed. Seriously, I’d lived in the Boston area for years and I visit regularly. And suddenly, more of the story had taken shape. By the time I flew back home, the book was all done except for the actual writing. Oh, and a trip to Cuba.

I knew early on it was a trilogy – the mysteries are stand-alone, but TJ’s evolution (and have no doubt, this is all about TJ’s evolution) would need three books. From having her entire life turned upside down to finding her way again to flourishing (that’ll be book three).

That’s it. That’s how I became an accidental mystery/romance writer. I can’t say I love writing, but I do love watching the story unfold.

A full synopsis of Run Aground is here and a full synopsis of Underway is here. Excerpts of both books are here.

*****

I have read everything at the three links just above, and it was definitely worth it!

But first, some housekeeping. When we started Medium Cool, BG warned me that we Sunday evenings might not be great for him during the summer, and it turns out that his prediction was spot on. So until further notice, Medium Cool is changing to Wednesday evenings at 6 pm blog time.

So please mark your calendars: The next Medium Cool will be on Wednesday, June 24, at 6 pm.

And now, back to TaMara’s book. I can’t wait to ask her what it’s like to have your Dad read the sexy scenes in your book. That should be interesting.

~WaterGirl

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – “The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.”

by WaterGirl| June 7, 20205:00 pm| 112 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Open Threads, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 16 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: Talking About History: “The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.”

Take it away, BG!

In this week’s Medium Cool, we’re talking about history. To frame the discussion, we asked our own Tom Levenson to give us a sketch of the subject of his new book, due out in August. His write-up is below the fold, so click through to read about the South Sea Bubble.

For today’s discussion, let’s talk about historical events that fascinate us: What draws us to them? What makes them relevant to contemporary life?

It would also be helpful if you’d mention the books (or films, etc.) that made a historical subject come alive. As a specialist in 16^th-century literature & culture, for example, I read the first of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall series with a trepidation that was quickly dispelled by her amazing evocation of the period and its characters.

show full post on front page

A sketch of the subject of Tom Levenson’s new book, due out in August,
from Tom, himself:

Thanks to BGinChi and to Watergirl for making this happen.

So—yeah: there’s a book coming, by me, about a lot of stuff, centered on what happened on a few hundred yards of a London alley during 1720—an experiment in financial engineering that turned into the first great stock market boom, fraud and bust.

The book is called Money for Nothing. It tells the tale of what is now known as the South Sea Bubble—so called because ground zero of the disaster lay in the dealings of the South Sea Company. This was a joint stock enterprise founded a decade earlier to lend money to the government, funded by a monopoly on trade with the Spain’s American colonies.

The Company’s great chance came because of a fact of life in early 18^th century Britain: its leaders were in the habit of waging wars the nation couldn’t afford. By 1720, paying the interest on Britain’s national debt sucked up more than half the kingdom’s annual revenue.

That was unstainable, of course—if for no other reason that it hamstrung the British ministry in what would turn out to be a long 18^th century of nearly continuous conflict with France. The deal that emerged from clandestine discussions between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the inner circle of Company directors allowed private holders of government paper to swap their assets for stock in the company; the government would cut the interest they paid, but debt-holders turned share-owners could now do something that was brand new: trade in and out of a stock market on which those shares could rise—and perhaps, achieve riches waaaay more exciting than a semiannual payment from the crown.

There was a central flaw in the deal, (to be revealed in the book, of course) and it all ended in tears and more. But my goal in telling this story wasn’t to retell an old morality tale of ignorance, folly, and the inevitable consequences of money mania.

Rather, I wanted to answer two questions: where did the ideas that sparked the Bubble come from? And what really happened in and after 1720—because the old version of the South Sea story as a morality tale on the evils of money mania always struck me as a way to take those events out of history. Something came out of it, that is. What?

I’ll save that second question for another post, maybe a little closer to publication (August 18 in the US, mid September in the UK).

For now, let’s talk about the “where it came from” bit. That would be the scientific revolution. Also coffee shops—but we can save those for the comments. In the broadest strokes, I argue that Britain’s scientific revolutionaries, William Petty and his disciples, Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley and others, inspired, informed, and shaped the nearly simultaneous financial revolution that ran from (roughly) the 1680s to the 1750s. . More broadly—the book traces how the ideas and themes and even perhaps the feel of late 17^th century notions of reason, empiricism and the power of math affected so much more than the study of the night sky or the flight of cannonballs.

There’s lots of fun stories along the way. Newton is a recurring character, both in his young guise, calculating out his sums to 50 places and more, and again much older, now recognized as the most brilliant man of his age, losing his shirt in the Bubble. William Petty, under-recognized as a powerful and pernicious thinker, put Ireland to measure, reduced the island to monetary valuations, invented the idea of quantifying government thinking and decision making, and ran several calculations on the economic return of ethnic cleansing. Edmond Halley invented (not altogether, but a lot) the mathematics of life insurance…and so on.

Did I say that I love the 17^th and18^th centuries? I do. So much of our world was born then, and so many of our problems now can be explored by examining the first occurrences of the same pathologies back then. For just one example (to be discussed more next time), the 2008 crash was recognizably a direct descendent of that first Bubble.

Which is why the book concludes with this: Newton and his contemporaries may be forgiven for the blunt errors they made as the Bubble blew up their fortunes. They were the first to confront that kind of crisis.

We don’t have that excuse.

***

If after all that you want a further taste of Tom’s book, and I bet you do, here’s an excerpt from the introduction.

You can pre-order the book here:

Independent bookstores link

Amazon link

Okay, now that you’ve been inspired by Tom’s sketch of his upcoming book, and perhaps the introduction, as well, let’s get back to… Talking About History: “The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.”

~WaterGirl

Update at 6pm: Reminder that next week on 6/14 we will be talking about TaMara’s newly-released book, Underway: A TJ Wilde Mystery. Check out last Sunday’s Medium Cool for links to the book. (Which you can easily find by clicking on the category at the top of the post.)

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Looking Ahead

by WaterGirl| May 31, 20205:00 pm| 90 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Popular Culture, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 15 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: Looking Ahead

In this, our 15th installment of the series, we’d like to talk with you about what’s coming up for the next few Sundays and to ask for your feedback on Medium Cool.

We have a few things lined up for June. We’ll be talking about the second book in TaMara’s TJ Wilde series, which just came out. We’ll discuss a theme related to the subject of Tom Levenson’s upcoming book, which will be out in August. And we’ll ask for your elevator pitches – in just one or two sentences – for any of three different scenarios. (You’ll have to tune in to that one to find out more!)

We hope you’ll tell us how you feel about what we’ve done so far, what we have coming up, and what you would like to see us focus on going forward.

What are you watching or reading that we should know about? That you’d like to talk about?

Do you have ideas for future MC editions? We’d like to hear them!

~BGinCHI and WaterGirl

*****

TaMara’s book: published on May 14, 2020

Underway: A TJ Wilde Mystery

Amazon link

Tom’s book: release date is August 18, available for pre-order

Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich

Independent bookstores link

Amazon link

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Looking Ahead 2

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Looking AheadPost + Comments (90)

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – You Are… Brad Parscale?

by WaterGirl| May 24, 20205:00 pm| 126 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 14 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: You Are… Brad Parscale?

Take it away, BG!

In this week’s Medium Cool, we need you to write a political ad. That’s right, you’re Brad Parscale, but less of a criminal (OK, except for Baud), James Carville, but actually smart & human.

If you could construct an ad for Joe Biden for the 2020 election, what would it be?

Write the dialogue and describe the images. For the latter, we need visual writing, like in a script. No more than 5 narrated lines, no more than 5 images or video clips. You can deviate slightly from this, but it needs to be short (15 seconds, roughly).

If you don’t have a whole ad in mind, but a key image or idea, just offer them. Maybe someone else will pick them up.

***

BG will check in, early and late, but won’t be riding herd the whole time. So no pressure! Just do your best work. :-) You have one week to complete your assignment. (Should you choose to accept it. ~WG

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – You Are… Brad Parscale?Post + Comments (126)

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – A Point of View You’d Never Really Considered Before

by WaterGirl| May 17, 20205:00 pm| 120 Comments

This post is in: Guest Posts, Medium Cool, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 13 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: A Point of View You’d Never Really Considered Before

Take it away, BG!

We just finished watching one of the two best TV series I’ve seen in the last year, an HBO series called “Our Boys.” The other is a Netflix series called “Unbelievable.” Both shows succeed for a number of reasons.

“Unbelievable” puts women at the center of an investigation into a serial rapist. Not just a focus on the victims, which it does spectacularly, but into the two female detectives that take on, and break, the case. It makes it clear that men approach these crimes differently, and often do a very poor job at it (they blame the victim, don’t believe her story, ignore her trauma, etc.). This switch in point of view is crucial for telling a familiar procedural story differently.

“Our Boys” is a tremendous achievement, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It dramatizes the true story of the events of 2014 that led to a war in Gaza. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by Hamas militants, Israel is in a state of shock. Then, a Palestinian teen is kidnapped and burned to death. The series follows the investigation, as well as the family of the Palestinian teen’s search for justice in a system stacked against them.

“Our Boys” is about much more than that short description. It’s about the clash of religions, the Occupation, religious belief and fanaticism, gender, and most of all, family. Its achievement is to take a massively complex set of events and weave a drama out of them, all the while getting us to care about the characters and their choices. The key, as in “Unbelievable,” is point of view. The narrative shuttles back and forth between the two sides of the story and we get a deeply humanized portrait of these opposed and separate communities that have (aside from political power) many things in common.

I realize most of you haven’t seen these two shows. But what I want to offer for discussion today is the question of how Point of View can lead us to a perspective we’d never before considered.

What works (books, films, TV shows, music) opened up a point of view that you’d never really considered, and that changed the way you see something important?

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – A Point of View You’d Never Really Considered BeforePost + Comments (120)

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

The revolution will be supervised.

White supremacy is terrorism.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

No Justins, No Peace

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Let there be snark.

A consequence of cucumbers

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Let’s Talk About Race & Cultural Influences

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Let’s Talk About Video Games

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – TaMara’s New Book!

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – “The Past Is Never Dead. It’s Not Even Past.”

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Looking Ahead

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – You Are… Brad Parscale?

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – A Point of View You’d Never Really Considered Before