Since no one else has finished their three YA books yet, I get to read adult books until they're done. Yay! I just finished It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis, and I have a lot of feels, and need to talk about it.

You may have heard of it as "that dystopian novel written in 1935 that suddenly ended up on the bestseller list again because it predicted Trump's presidency." It is, basically, that—written to warn Americans, well before WWII, about the dangers of fascism in a populist mask. It's not the only such book, but there's something particularly resonant in it—probably because the weird-looking, jovial, outsider president is just so very Cheeto Benito that it's deeply chilling to read.

I also very much related to the protagonist, despite the fact that he's completely a liberal who complains at great length about how the Marxists are a bit shit. (I have to say, as a commie myself, the book's scathing portrayal of communists is pretty much accurate.) This guy has to be one of my favourite dystopian fiction protagonists, as he really just wants to be left alone to sleep in, get laid, and read proper literature, but people keep being fascist at him so he has to actually go out and fight. That's me in a nutshell, or would be before Netflix was invented.

It does pretty well on gender—again, 1935, just in case you're ever inclined to write off a lack of interesting and complex female characters in a book as a product of its time—there are multiple overtly feminist women, one of whom gets to kick way more ass than any of the male characters. It's worse on sexual orientation, if only because the only prominent queer character is based on Ernst Röhm and meets a similar fate (it's unknown whether the writing of the book was completed before the Night of the Long Knives, but one doesn't have to be all that prescient to guess at what happens to people like Röhm under fascist regimes, or Milo Yiannopoulos, for that matter).

At any rate, I was absolutely engrossed and if you want a likely portrait of what the next four years will bring, give this book written over 80 years ago a read. And never sleep again.

This may seem like a strange thing for an admitted enthusiast of post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction to admit, but I rather wish there were more science fiction stories about institutions that actually worked versus institutions that were one crisis away from shipping off half the populace to concentration camps. Even if the latter sorts of institutions are the ones that we actually have, the result is an individualist narrative where humans in large groups inevitably behave in terrible ways and that the only people capable of saving us are inherently more powerful and special than the downtrodden masses.

( jetlagged fanwank, mostly about Torchwood )

Also, I can't get over how awful the acting is. Was I just spoiled by watching Treme or can absolutely no one on that show act?

Go look at your blog/journal. Find the last Fandom-related thing you posted. The characters in that post are now your team-mates in the Zombie Apocalypse. How fucked are you?

Yep, the last fictional characters I posted about were from Treme. I have nothing to worry about. Even the least badass character on that show would just roll their eyes and keep going in the face of a zombie apocalypse.

This post made me sick to my stomach. It's about a gay kid whose parents had her violently kidnapped in the middle of the night and brought to a brainwashing camp where she was abused in an attempt to turn her into some sort of Stepford wife. WWASP and Cross Creek, the facility at which this child was tortured, are apparently real things, as is the horrifyingly named Teen Escort Service. These are for-profit companies that are, unbelievably, allowed to operate.

If half of the allegations in that post are true, how are these places allowed to operate legally? Can't we round up the owners and operators of these places and put them in our own re-education camps or something?

New and exciting blog the Eschatologist has an interesting and charmingly non-judgmental article on the redesign of the Left Behind novels and what the new covers say about how pop culture imagines apocalypse(s).



Aesthetically, I like the new typography—much more modern, fun, and refreshing. The old covers had an extremely formal design, with the horrible faux-stone 3D effect on the serif type. This made the apocalypse seem like a done deal, to be honest, which robbed the novels of any sort of suspense that their protagonists might, you know, actually lift a finger to attempt to struggle against evil rather than calmly waiting out the Tribulation. Also, the type on the old covers looked too much like a movie poster, which is presumptuous.

Image-wise, I am split. The photos for Left Behind, Soul Harvest, Appolyon, Assassins, The Indwelling, The Mark, and Glorious Appearing are clear improvements. Tribulation Force's new cover is terrible. It looks like a dull book on American policy in the Middle East. No one wants to see photos of faces on the covers of trade fiction books. It is simply Not Done.

The cover of the original edition of Nicolae is terrible—the new one is a much better photo, artistically speaking—but I agree with the Eschatologist that it kind of screws with the meaning. Carpathia is not supposed to look like an old Soviet bureaucrat. For fuck's sake. The original one is a terrible composition but at least it keeps the whole Antichrist-as-charming-visionary aesthetic.

I disagree with the Eschatologist on the cover of Assassins. I don't disagree that it's racist as fuck. It is definitely racist as fuck. It's prettier, though. The original looks like a Clancy cover.

I can't make up my mind on Desecration. Personally, I'm just not sure a book with dead fish on the cover will sell. Who is their target market, exactly? Does this target market like dead fish floating in blood and, more importantly, are they likely to either buy it to put on their bookshelves or give it as a gift? "Just what I wanted for Christmas, Aunt Maude! A book about dead fish floating in blood." Whereas on the old cover, it's clear that the Antichrist is rising and means business, and they manage to get this impression across without dead fish floating in blood. I'm just sayin'.

Both of the covers for The Remnant suck. Come on, book designer! This is a series about the end of the world—you really couldn't find a better photo to use?

The old cover for Armageddon is the clear winner. As a book designer, if I'm given the choice to show the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or a helicopter flying over an explosion, I'm going to choose the former every time, if only because the movie Live Free Or Die Hard is pretty much the end of the story in terms of illustrating helicopters and explosions. Also, horses are cool.


What Would Sabotabby Do?

Both covers for Glorious Appearing are a bit shit, mostly because they missed the boat. That's the book where Jesus comes back and shoots laser beams out of his eyes and burns all of the sinners in a pit of lava (sorry, I guess that was a spoiler). That is the sole reason why anyone would pick up the book, to read about Jesus with laser beams shooting out of his eyes, and you're telling me that the designer couldn't be arsed to put that scene on the cover? What. A. Waste.


There, I fixed it.

I really like the new clock graphic, too. Subtle, Tyndale. Very subtle.

Still, this would be a very difficult book design project, both because a designer would have to actually read the books and also if you don't do a good job, Jesus will kill you with his laser eye-beams, so I doff my hat to the person tasked with this endeavour.

Here's a reason to be vegetarian.

Macrophotography of processed meat.

Warning: Nightmare fuel. No, seriously. It is like the opposite of the mille crêpe in terms of things you would want to stick in your mouth.

(Confidential to snarkitysnarks: If you want a homework break, you can check out the macrophotography of insects, if you haven't already.)

They still haven't put many of the garbage cans back.

For me, the lack of garbage cans are a more poignant symbol than the fence, or the hippies being teargassed for singing Kumbaya. Without garbage cans on the sidewalks, private space remains untouched, but public space becomes filthy and unlivable. Garbage cans are the mark of the public service, of civility, of, dare I say it, the social contract itself.

It occurs to me that there are a lot of people who would be happy to live in a police state. Right up until the knock on the door in the middle of the night, they would assume protection because they'd done nothing wrong. They might even delight in the persecution of the Other.

But no one wants to live without garbage cans on the sidewalks. No one.

Conflicting reports about a police raid on the Toronto Community Mobilization Network's convergence space, which turned out to be false, though there is still a police presence. At one point, demonstrators were blocked in and detained by police, but then let go. Rumours of rubber bullets being used near UofT. (For non-Hogtowners, neither the convergence space nor UofT is nowhere near where the summit was happening.) About 150 people have apparently been arrested doing strike support for the workers at Novotel.

The UofT Graduate Student Union was raided. The house of a young couple was raided at 4 am by armed police—the victims had nothing whatsoever to do with the protests. Two people were arrested at a solidarity rally at the detention centre on Eastern Ave.


Peaceful protesters boxed in by police at Queen and Spadina today.

nihilistic_kid gives us a poetic explanation.

Now, everything's quiet again. I went with bcholmes and S. to see Cherry Orchard at the Shaw Festival—it was awesome and I so needed to get out of the city. As we came back along the highway, we saw the motorcade taking the G2O delegates to the airport. Someone made or rented a gigantic billboard that read: "G-20: Go jump in the lake."

I am completely exhausted. It's over at last. Well, it isn't, because there are still people in jail or who have been charged who need our support, and there's still all sorts of disinformation in the media that needs to be countered, but for now I am a sleepy sabotabby who needs to sleep.

This Is Why I'll Never Be an Adult.

Except I'm not blond. But otherwise, this is my life, internets!

It's not paranoia if they really are watching you.

Hey, not that it comes as a surprise or anything. At this point I wouldn't be surprised at anything these bastards did.