There's safety in numbers when you learn to divide

[sovay]

I slept about three hours last night. I slept about three hours the night before. I don't think I slept a lot on Tuesday. This post is apparently composed of things that have annoyed me over the past week. Why the hell not.

1. Ian McEwan's The Imitation Game (1981). The title caught my eye in the drama section of the Harvard Book Store on Saturday; I had never heard of it and thought instantly it might be about Alan Turing. It is in fact about a young woman who joins the ATS, is assigned (unknowingly) to the Ultra project at Bletchley Park, and is completely screwed over by her intelligence, her independence, and her refusal to conform to feminine stereotypes even in an ostensibly more open-minded environment than the munitions factory she was expected to sign up for, along with all the other girls in her town, in the first act. I would not have found this story any more cheerful, but I would feel much more positively toward it if it had not also contained a brilliant, socially gauche codebreaker named John Michael Turner who invented the title game and explains it in the exact words used by Turing in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," and is straight, sleeps with the heroine, and betrays her with the same thoughtlessly sexist male privilege as his colleagues. Okay excuse me what? I have enough problems already with Enigma (2001), which substitutes a fictional heterosexual hero for Turing. (Seriously, I don't care if Tom Stoppard wrote the script, it is not okay to have the pivotal cryptographer with two girlfriends casually allude to one of them that he's solving the Entscheidungsproblem.) Is there a point in substituting a fictional heterosexual schmuck?

2. Whoever owns the car I saw parked outside of Not Your Average Joe's in Arlington Center on Wednesday, covered in campaign stickers with the slogan written across its back windshield: "VOTE ROMNEY—IT'S A MITT-ZVAH."

I am not sure how political I am in public. It is probably obvious that I feel strongly about certain rights. My very first reaction:

YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP.

3. The fact that I am not in New York City right now, seeing Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance, because somehow this month became just as complicated as September and I don't have teleportation.

And the middle of this week was just demoralizing. On the other hand, I am meeting Matthew this afternoon and this evening I am going (for a change) to the opening night of the Post-Meridian Radio Players' Tomes of Terror: New Arrivals and I just found out people are still buying copies of A Mayse-Bikhl, so here's the traditional wish for a better weekend.

[edit] And sigerson just sent me Tiny Charles Darwin! The afternoon is definitely looking up.

Comments

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

1. Wince. That's... Jesus. No. I was pretty ambivalent about McEwan before this; I don't think I'll bother with him at all now.

(I really don't know how you'll feel about this, but I've just read a review for a novel that pairs Mordred with Turing - who may be an AI - in modern-day Toronto. I've not read the book.)

2. That's a good curse. I need to find a biography of Goldman, too.

*I am not sure how political I am in public.*

I have one default assumption about most of my friends, that they're left-wing. I try not to make any other assumptions.

I hope the rest of the day is good to you. I see Rob's directing one of the plays; tell him I wish him luck.

[sovay]

Wince. That's... Jesus. No. I was pretty ambivalent about McEwan before this; I don't think I'll bother with him at all now.

It is the first McEwan I've read also, which I'm sorry about. His early novels have always sounded like things I'd like, or at least be interested in trying. I saw Atonement (2007) in theaters, but did not find myself inspired to read the book.

I don't know if Bletchley just attracts problematic fictionalizations, but McEwan's Turing-into-Turner is very close to the reason I've realized the character of Pat Green annoys me more every time I re-read Breaking the Code (1986), as much as I love the play. I understand the dramatic value of a female codebreaker who can remind the audience of other kinds of marginalization, being another outsider who's a critical resource in a time of national crisis and then expected to conform and/or disappear once life has returned to "normal," we're just conditioned to accept the ways in which she does so (marriage, motherhood, domesticity) as less horrific than chemical castration/suicide. The problem is that Whitemore left just enough of his real-life model in the character for it to feel, once you know anything about Joan Clarke, like a betrayal. Clarke was a codebreaker at Bletchley; she was Turing's closest female friend both during and after the war and they were engaged for about half a year at one point (in full knowledge of his sexuality; I assume they thought their liking for one another as people might make an exception to his hardwiring) before breaking it off by mutual agreement; they played chess together all the time. She did not abandon mathematics after the war to become a mother and housewife. She married a retired army officer and stayed with the GCCS, later the GCHQ, until her retirement in the 1970's freed her up to do some very well-regarded work in early modern numismatics. She died in the mid-'90's, having lived to see the codebreaking efforts of Hut 8 declassified and publicly recognized. (She never saw Breaking the Code. It was too painful a reminder.) Probably she just deserves a play of her own, but to simplify her into a character who loves Alan unrequitedly and bows eventually to social convention—settling for fitting in, as he never does—is just another form of elision, erasing complexities. So you straighten out the queer codebreaker when you need a male chauvinist in the story, you make the female one a compliant cautionary tale so the hero's non-conformity stands out all the more. And everybody who knows their history goes home sad.

I AM NOT WRITING A PLAY ABOUT JOAN CLARKE OKAY UNIVERSE THANK YOU JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR.

(I really don't know how you'll feel about this, but I've just read a review for a novel that pairs Mordred with Turing - who may be an AI - in modern-day Toronto. I've not read the book.)

. . . I have no idea how I feel about that. How did you hear about it?

I need to find a biography of Goldman, too.

Good call! I don't know one off the top of my head.

I hope the rest of the day is good to you. I see Rob's directing one of the plays; tell him I wish him luck.

Thank you! It has not been bad so far. I will convey your leg-breaking wishes to derspatchel.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

*How did you hear about it?*

It's reviewed in the latest issue of Icarus - the novel's The Prince and the Program, by Aldous Mercer.

[sovay]

It's reviewed in the latest issue of Icarus - the novel's The Prince and the Program, by Aldous Mercer.

I have to say it sounds like crackfic of the purest strain. I do like the last line of the blurb, though.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

MOOHOOHOO

HEE HEE

PLAY ABOUT JOAN CLARKE

Mwahahaha.

The rest of this was also acceptable.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

To a better weekend!

You were the one who sent me the link to
yiddishcursesforrepublicanjews.com
right?

"May you be reunited in the world to come with your ancestors, who were all socialist garment workers!"

[sovay]

To a better weekend!

Thank you. Amen?

You were the one who sent me the link to
yiddishcursesforrepublicanjews.com
right?

That was indeed me.

"May you find yourself lost and stranded in a village of Palestinian Muslims, and may you be treated only with dignity, kindness and respect."

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's probably the more relevant one.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your lack of sleep, the noxious McEwan novel (at least it's 1981 and not 2011, but still...), and the ghastly car and slogan.

Very sorry for the demoralising mid-week and the fact that you're not there to see God of Vengeance.

I'm glad Tiny Charles Darwin has improved your afternoon, and I hope the evening and especially the opening night have been enjoyable.

I didn't sleep well last night, either--I'd wonder if it's something spread across the internets, but I think in my case it was more likely a dose of "OMG I'm 37 since this morning and it's twenty years since my seventeenth birthday and maybe my girlfriend from then was really my only chance ever and [blah] [blah] [blah]."

I hope you'll sleep more tonight, or at least soon.

[sovay]

I'm glad Tiny Charles Darwin has improved your afternoon, and I hope the evening and especially the opening night have been enjoyable.

I had a very good time. I hope your birthday recovered from its initial nosedive.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I had a very good time.

I'm glad of that.

I hope your birthday recovered from its initial nosedive.

Thank you.

And, well, the initial part of the birthday was pretty good, really--there were moules frites, and I got home just in time to go out and play tunes. Somehow it kicked in once I went to bed.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Okay...so that is a horrible bumper sticker. (Among other things, I don't understand Jews (or any minority) who vote Republican. You know they hate you, right?) and your response is amazing. I think "YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP" would make an excellent t-shirt.

also *hugs*

[sovay]

I think "YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP" would make an excellent t-shirt.

Thank you!

(With art by Kate Beaton, in an ideal world.)

I do not understand supporting a party whose platform explicitly discriminates against you, no. I don't understand voting Republican and being poor, either. derspatchel thinks it's a form of mental exceptionalism: I'm not like those freeloaders, those activists, I'm doing all the right things, I don't deserve to get hurt. I must know someone I could ask.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Hahaha art by Kete Beaton would be perfect for this t-shirt!

I mean...I think many rich people think voting Republican makes sense so maybe if you are a rich minority you might vote "for your wallet". But poor people voting Republican-- ???

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's not that unusual for people to act like the dominant group in the hopes of winning their acceptance, or at least not getting attacked by them as much. Sort of sub-bullying.

[sovay]

in the hopes of winning their acceptance, or at least not getting attacked by them as much. Sort of sub-bullying.

No, I believe that, too. I just don't think it's a very good strategy.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

YOU FAIL TIKKUN OLAM FOREVER I HOPE THE GHOST OF EMMA GOLDMAN NEVER LETS YOU SLEEP.

And that is definitely the correct reaction to have!