Foul Ball

 After seeing a recommendation on one of my Facebook groups, I wound up getting Zak Salih's debut novel Let's Get Back to the Party, which frankly feels like it could have used a better editor and some better suggestions on how to tie this mess together. 

This is not to say its not worth a gander, but more that if there's a point to this, it's not particularly obvious, or hidden so well as to be nonexistent. 

The book is bookended by watershed moments, we open on the day the Supreme Court legalized marriage, and we end a few days after the PULSE massacre. In between, we follow around two childhood friends, who's live interact maybe 3 times in the current era of the narrative, and never particularly satisfactorily. 

The first friend we meet is Sebastian, who's moved to the DC suburbs into his father's new home, as his father is teaching for two years on the Carolinas. Sebastian has recently broken up with his boyfriend, who really doesn't want the life Sebastian does. Sebastian's flame dame Dani drags him to a gay wedding, where he encounters Oscar, who grew up in the same neighborhood as him. Indeed, they have a history we get occasional glimpses of. They exchange numbers, and proceed not to contact each other for several pages. 

Oscar, who works for an ad agency and sees gay marriage as a bad thing, since it flies in the face of what he sees gay culture to be, spends the reception on Cruze, eventually arranging a meetup with someone at an older gay bar in DC. Who ghosts him, because yeah. Anyway, Oscar ends up meeting an older activist who wrote a few books celebrating his hedonism and libertine mores as a young man. They form a friendship.

Sebastian, in his job as an AP English and AP Art History teacher at a fairly well off high school, winds up becoming an advisor for the school's LGBTQ+ group. Which is all well and good until he starts getting close to one of his 17 year old students. Not quite Nabokov close, but getting there. (I mean the closest we get to something approaching really inappropriate is Sebastian putting the boy's hoodie on a pillow and cuddling it all night. Everything else that happens between them is really just awkward mildly obsessive stuff.) 

Oscar finds out the author is writing a book about him, and finds that his libertine idol is no longer quite the firebrand he once was. Indeed, the pages Oscar reads aren't celebrations of Oscar's one night stands, but more pity for Oscar. 

At it's heart, the relationship between Oscar and Sebastian is a miss. The brief interactions we see of them as kids basically reflect some of the unfinished business we all bring forward into adulthood, but the shared intimacy here is more like the scene in the US version of Queer as Folk where Michael explains his obsession with Brian. Not deep, but more like a fantasy interrupted. And the fact that both are left with no answers, no resolution, more just a "somebody that I used to know" kind of vibe towards each other.... I realize this is likely a more realistic thing that indeed does happen in real life, but the build up to that unresolved note just isn't present to make me feel much of anything for either character. 

I mean, if Mr. Salih writes something else, I'll read it, since his writing style is interesting, but this novel is a lot underdone.

Dire Omens and Portents

 So, while most of the shocking revelations from Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's Peril were mostly revealed prior to publication. the book itself paints a much more interesting portrait than the tidbits sizzling to sell the book in the first place.

Chronicling from late 2019 to early 2021, we start with Joe Biden deciding to run for the nomination, proceed through Donald Trump's reelection campaign and COVID, and end up around the end of Biden's first 100 days in office. All with authors' style of presenting a timely backed with facts and the soul of a prosecutor presenting a case. (Hey, I read All the President's Men; other than Woodward and Bernstein describing themselves as scrappy and handsome, which is not discussed here, the writing style hasn't changed much.) 

One can wonder if the figures treated most sympathetically here were ones who talked to him, or if some of the folks regarded as villains are actually not as bad as presumed. (In particular, Bob Barr is portrayed as less an architect of the obstruction of justice as more in trying to explain to his boss exactly what the Constitution says about the electoral college voting. Lindsay Graham also is portrayed as being one of the few trying to get Trump past the post election lies that the former guy has seemingly swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Generally agreed upon as being wretched hives of scum and villainy Ivanka, Jared, and Mitch McConnell even get more favorable press here than Trump.) 

I'm sure one of the biggest critiques people will point out in relation to this (and really ALL books with either author) is their politics; frankly, one gets the impression politics doesn't matter as much as effective administration to either of them. That seems to be the big conclusion on the end of the era, while they think Trump did good with getting the vaccine out and approved (it's mildly amusing, since that same fight to get treatment or some kind of prevention into the hands of people played a big part in the narrative of the last book I reviewed on here), the complete lack of any sort of plan to do anything with it AFTER getting it out doomed the response. Well, that and going out of the way to downplay the risks of the virus, prophylactic measures that could have helped, and indeed, playing up to his base, what could have actually been a much more effective thing almost died in the womb. 

This would be one of the big lessons in here. Projects that affect an entire planet need competent administration on several levels to work. 

The events of January 6th, 2021, get a lot of discussion. As is the perilous line that certain members of the Legislative branch have to walk to "keep the base happy" vs the actual mortal danger they were in. Since we end before the current crop of (pardon my language) batshit conspiracy that overtook some of that branch in trying to justify what so many of us watched live on TV, this wasn't explored as deeply as it really really needs to be by people who can at least present as being an objective observer. (Yeah, we all, myself included, can get caught up in a narrative that may or may not be the full story.)

Of note, they avoid, for the most part, discussing the nuttery that is "QAnon", although Guilianni comes off as a complete and total idiot in the eyes of almost everyone. 

When we get into Biden's first 100 days (almost a welcome relief at this point), we get deep into the structural faults that exist in the Senate that didn't particularly exist during Biden's tenure in both the Senate and his days as Veep. (This is a discussion that also deserves a deeper dive somewhere, as the Senate generally had a reputation for having less hot heads than the House, which has changed over time as ideologues have won races for state seats there. This is not to say that ideologues haven't served in the senate, I can name several from the past few years, but more that there does seem to be a heck of a lot more unwilling to do anything now than there were, and the narrative does point this out in a few places, pointing at the strained relations between Missouri's Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley. I look at my own state, where Rob Portman (who I disagree with on a lot of things) is retiring, and we're already getting TV ads from folks more in the vein of Hawley running for the seat. 

My conclusions after reading this could be stated as follows; While some things are black and white, much of the stuff leading to those events were much more gray than anyone was portraying. While the villains remain villains, some of them were less Bond Villain, and more MCU villain. Unless there is accountability, we run the risk of repeating everything again.

Meh (An X-ers reaction)

 I for the life of my don't remember requesting Never Silent: ACT UP And My Life in Activism by Peter Staley, but it showed up, so I read it. And I spent a lot of my time reading it trying to figure out how the heck to review it. Bear with me here.

For those who don't know, Staley got involved with the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) in NYC fairly early on, after having worked as an investment banker who happened to be gay and have HIV. (To qualify this, his diagnosis was originally AIDS Related Complex [ARC], a diagnosis that no longer exists, and even if he did at a few points hit what has since become the t4 levels that qualifies for a diagnosis of AIDS, the diagnostic criteria was not there during the periods his cells were under the threshold.) He got involved, and got semi famous. 

Here, he chronicles his highs and lows in ACT UP, TAG, AIDSmeds.com, and more recent forays into COVID. 

This includes more than a little name dropping, dissections of long ago fights, Crystal Meth addiction, surviving while others were dying and the guilt that comes with it...

Rather than rehash this, let me just try to break down the good and the bad with the narrative as presented.

THE GOOD:

30ish years since the start of where the narrative picks up, he's got a lot of perspective, so the immediacy of things that came out during the era is not as present. (This could also be listed as bad.)

His descriptions of actions taken is vivid and compelling, as we hear about the ACT UP event where they interrupted the New York Stock Exchange to protest price gouging on AZT ($10,000 a year at the outset), sit ins at companies to get better trials for people who might benefit from the trial medications, inflating a condom on Jesse Helms's house...

His memories of people in the movement, and the tribute he pays to them, even if he disagreed with them. No man is an island, and he was a visible part with a lot of support.

His honesty in discussing addiction, STDs, and survivor guilt. All of these are things that don't often get brought into the light, and it's refreshing to see someone examine it from the eyes of experience. 

 His chapter concerning consulting on Dallas Buyers Club was eye opening. 

THE BAD:

Unlike Cleve Jones's memoir, we don't get a couple chapters of romance with a hairy Greek man; we do get a chapter on Staley's coming of age with 8 men in 7 days in London. I understand why it's here; despite his other faults, he's fairly libertine with his attitudes towards sex... it just felt a bit like braggadocio. 

I couldn't help but feel that his recaps of the internecine fighting that lead to him leaving ACT UP was one sided. I realize this is autobiography, and therefore a chance to justify his actions, but I keep wondering what the logic the opposition using in those fights. I mean, frankly, I likely would have been on his side in the situation, as his Inside-Outside strategy is more in line with the activism I joined in 1994, but I can't help but feel that we're missing half the discussion. And what little is presented of the other side, I can see why people would be resentful of his actions. 

While he does sort of acknowledge his own privilege as a white man from the Upper Class, there's a hell of a lot of Classist rhetoric thrown in unconsciously.) Seriously, at one point, after going on about going on disability after leaving the banking world, and having no real employment, he talks about withdrawing a larger amount than I make in a month from his bank to cover an impromptu recon trip. When he discusses how more well off white men got better treatment faster, there's a bit of acknowledgement, but not much. 

Based on his age, he's basically at the tail end of the Boomer Generation, and it shows quite a bit. 

I was kind of sad he really didn't get into actions that actually made the news in my small hometown, like the Die-In at St. Patrick's Cathedral. 

His complete erasure of Gen X when discussing the "Second Great Silence" (the first being Reagan, the second being the dying down of publicity after the 3 drug cocktail became the norm, making most viral loads undetectable and mostly affordable) and the advent of PrEP (Truvada, or PreExposure Prophylaxis.) He spends some time praising millennial activists, while completely ignoring any and all things Generation X did and still does. To be fair, this is Boomer ideology at its ugliest, and thus, MEH.

While I appreciate his addiction and recovery didn't dominate the entire narrative, 10 years of addiction and recovery takes up 2 pages and doesn't tie in to the narrative beyond that. 

 FINAL TAKE:

Whether or not he's taking all the credit for what ACT UP accomplished and whether those accomplishments could be credited to ACT UP to begin with are always going to be up for debate. However, he does a good job on shedding some light on events that quite a few of us did not really get exposed to in the time period discussed.

Young Cordelia

 I should have written this up a few days ago, but work has been nuts.

At a long ago library sale, I picked up Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar, which is another chapter in her Vorkosigan Saga, focused on Miles's mother, Cordelia. (As I mention when I review books in the saga, I have yet to read a Miles book. However, Cordelia, Ethan, and her World of Five Gods series are some of the best books I've read. So, eventually....)

Cordelia Naismith-Vorkosigan has newly married Aral Vorkosigan, following some events that evidently happen in a prior book. As the current Emperor of Barrayar is dying, he appoints Aral to be Regent for his son, who is 5ish as the story opens. Cordelia is gravid with child, and Aral is trying hard to find a balance between the Vor class (Aristocrats, usually with the title of Count) and much more socialist plebes. 

Aral's attempts at progress (at this point, a new continent is being terraformed, and a new colony being built on Sergyar) are being resisted by hardline counts, who have some control over the military. This leads to a few assassination attempts, including a gas attack on him and Cordelia, which threatens her foetus. Cordelia, coming from Beta Colony, has no issues putting her son in a Uterine Replicator with an experimental treatment to try to prevent the side effects the poison and the antidote from killing Miles. 

Of course, one Count in particular tries to stage a coup; however, the young Emperor escapes to the Vorkosigan estate and Aral makes arrangements to get him somewhere safe. Cordelia also escapes, and winds up leading a small raid on the capital to save her baby. 

As I keep saying, McMaster Bujold is a fantastic author, and her Sci-fi, while not hard core tech, is some of the best I've ever read. Well worth the read.