Entry tags:
He'll make a tree from me
I came home tonight to two hungry and affectionate cats, a pile of bills, a sink whose formerly precarious dishes my husband had done entirely before leaving for work, and my contributor's copy of GlitterShip Year One, ed. Keffy R.M. Kehrli. It is a wide-ranging compilation of queer speculative fiction in all kinds of genres, moods, and perspectives, with a gorgeous wraparound cover by Likhain; it includes my short story "The True Alchemist," originally published in 2014 in Not One of Us #51 and dedicated in all appearances to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ashlyme. You can of course read all of these stories for free online, but since GlitterShip is a paying market with a single editor, I strongly recommend throwing money at them. I want to be able to look forward to many more of these annual collections in future. Their latest publication is Craig Laurance Gidney's "Circus Boy Without a Safety Net." They're worth your time.
In further reminders that the past was not some kind of know-nothing conservative monolith, James Agee's review of MGM's Dragon Seed (1944) is dated August 5, 1944 and opens with a short overview of the picture's good qualities, which are mostly its intentions: "Such matters aside, however, Dragon Seed is an almost unimaginably bad movie. Mrs. Buck persists in a questionable habit of making her Chinese peasants talk like a Bible revised by Butcher-Leaf-Lang-and-Myers . . . The California countryside they chose for location shots, Mrs. Buck is reported to have said, was a dead-ringer for parts of China before they got busy terracing it, reterracing it, and finally painting the terraces to make sure they would show . . . Against these unearthly, sepia-tinted landscapes, speaking their inhuman language, move such distinguished Chinese as Katharine Hepburn and Walter Huston and Aline MacMahon and Akim Tamiroff and Henry Travers and Agnes Moorehead and Turhan Bey; indeed, I've never seen another picture so full of wrong slants. Since there are plenty of genuine and good Chinese actors around Hollywood, some of whom appear as the Japanese in this film, it was entirely unnecessary for these principals to undertake their hopeless assignments, and I shan't even try to say how awful and silly they looked—Miss Hepburn especially, in her shrewdly tailored, Peck-&-Peck-ish pajamas—with the occasional exception of Miss MacMahon and the rather frequent exception of Mr. Huston. Both of them obviously realized it was much more important to convey the emotions of human beings than the charade mannerisms of Little Theater Chinese . . . To mention only two more of the main things wrong with this picture, 'quaint' pseudo-Chinese background-music was never more insultingly out of place." That millennial special snowflake, James Agee.
In less delightful developments, I cannot tell if the upstairs neighbors are smoking some kind of cigar or just a particularly unpalatable strain of weed, but it has filled the stairwell and driven me out of my office. The division of these apartments is not what you would call airtight. They never did understand the courtesy of putting a towel against the doorsill. I can take this oversight when the downward drift is just spicy or skunky, but tonight's strain smells like a tragically literal garbage fire: it is making my stomach churn. I recognize this is nowhere near as apocalyptic as the national and global news these days, but I could still do without it.
P.S. And for a stroke of financial brilliance, I have just learned that Patreon is overhauling their payment structure in such a fashion as to offload their third-party service charges onto patrons instead of creators. "Starting on December 18th, a new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge." This includes pledges of one (1) dollar. This is silly. I understand the current system attracts a high volume of complaints, and I admit it is aggravating to take home a visibly smaller chunk of money than my patrons have pledged me each month, but I do not see this particular revision doing much to raise my net income so much as risk losing me patrons and goodwill. I pay bills with this Patreon. Most of my patrons are not high rollers. I'd rather eat the service charges—as I have been doing since I set up this account—than drive off patrons who will discover, unless my film reviews are so lucky as to be the sole recipient of their largesse, that footing a variable percentage of processing and transaction fees for multiple creators adds up. It will not benefit me more than it benefits Patreon. And I am not the only creator worrying about the change: Natalie Luhrs has data tables and Kate Wagner has a petition. I have signed it myself and also written a letter of complaint. I can't afford to lose any income right now. And I certainly don't want to lose it for a reason this chiseling. God damn it, capitalism.
ashlyme. You can of course read all of these stories for free online, but since GlitterShip is a paying market with a single editor, I strongly recommend throwing money at them. I want to be able to look forward to many more of these annual collections in future. Their latest publication is Craig Laurance Gidney's "Circus Boy Without a Safety Net." They're worth your time.In further reminders that the past was not some kind of know-nothing conservative monolith, James Agee's review of MGM's Dragon Seed (1944) is dated August 5, 1944 and opens with a short overview of the picture's good qualities, which are mostly its intentions: "Such matters aside, however, Dragon Seed is an almost unimaginably bad movie. Mrs. Buck persists in a questionable habit of making her Chinese peasants talk like a Bible revised by Butcher-Leaf-Lang-and-Myers . . . The California countryside they chose for location shots, Mrs. Buck is reported to have said, was a dead-ringer for parts of China before they got busy terracing it, reterracing it, and finally painting the terraces to make sure they would show . . . Against these unearthly, sepia-tinted landscapes, speaking their inhuman language, move such distinguished Chinese as Katharine Hepburn and Walter Huston and Aline MacMahon and Akim Tamiroff and Henry Travers and Agnes Moorehead and Turhan Bey; indeed, I've never seen another picture so full of wrong slants. Since there are plenty of genuine and good Chinese actors around Hollywood, some of whom appear as the Japanese in this film, it was entirely unnecessary for these principals to undertake their hopeless assignments, and I shan't even try to say how awful and silly they looked—Miss Hepburn especially, in her shrewdly tailored, Peck-&-Peck-ish pajamas—with the occasional exception of Miss MacMahon and the rather frequent exception of Mr. Huston. Both of them obviously realized it was much more important to convey the emotions of human beings than the charade mannerisms of Little Theater Chinese . . . To mention only two more of the main things wrong with this picture, 'quaint' pseudo-Chinese background-music was never more insultingly out of place." That millennial special snowflake, James Agee.
In less delightful developments, I cannot tell if the upstairs neighbors are smoking some kind of cigar or just a particularly unpalatable strain of weed, but it has filled the stairwell and driven me out of my office. The division of these apartments is not what you would call airtight. They never did understand the courtesy of putting a towel against the doorsill. I can take this oversight when the downward drift is just spicy or skunky, but tonight's strain smells like a tragically literal garbage fire: it is making my stomach churn. I recognize this is nowhere near as apocalyptic as the national and global news these days, but I could still do without it.
P.S. And for a stroke of financial brilliance, I have just learned that Patreon is overhauling their payment structure in such a fashion as to offload their third-party service charges onto patrons instead of creators. "Starting on December 18th, a new service fee of 2.9% + $0.35 will be paid by patrons for each individual pledge." This includes pledges of one (1) dollar. This is silly. I understand the current system attracts a high volume of complaints, and I admit it is aggravating to take home a visibly smaller chunk of money than my patrons have pledged me each month, but I do not see this particular revision doing much to raise my net income so much as risk losing me patrons and goodwill. I pay bills with this Patreon. Most of my patrons are not high rollers. I'd rather eat the service charges—as I have been doing since I set up this account—than drive off patrons who will discover, unless my film reviews are so lucky as to be the sole recipient of their largesse, that footing a variable percentage of processing and transaction fees for multiple creators adds up. It will not benefit me more than it benefits Patreon. And I am not the only creator worrying about the change: Natalie Luhrs has data tables and Kate Wagner has a petition. I have signed it myself and also written a letter of complaint. I can't afford to lose any income right now. And I certainly don't want to lose it for a reason this chiseling. God damn it, capitalism.
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OUCH.
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I truly appreciate that James Agee suffered through this film so I don't have to.
Patreon
Re: Patreon
I'm seeing people leaving Patreon already, creators and patrons both. I am not in any way pleased.
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This is precisely what I am concerned about. If you can spare the time, please write them with your disapproval—I sent mine through the Zendesk option for "Share feedback." I do not know anymore if it is possible to change a bad idea with protest, because the current government seems hellbent on proving that adverse effects on people's lives are all the more reason to do a thing, and I can only assume that attitude trickles down, but I feel it is still worth a shot.
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I really love that review.
I've seen a ton of outcry about Patreon's move today. Maybe they'll rethink it?
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I'm enjoying Agee so much.
I've seen a ton of outcry about Patreon's move today. Maybe they'll rethink it?
I really hope so. I cannot see it ending well for creators any other way, which concerns me on both the philosophical and personal, how-do-I-cover-the-gas-bill levels.
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Here's hoping the neighbours spare you the garbage fire today at least. 0_o
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Years ago, when Netflix split out their DVD subscription service from their streaming, there was an outcry from people who were suddenly paying double for access to the same movies. Some people quit. But Netflix would’ve had to lose a full half their subscribers to see a dent in their profits, because they were taking home more money from most subscribers who stayed, and the old amount from the rest.
These days, everyone and their puppy dog has a streaming service. Undoubtedly Netflix lost market share in the long term, and I imagine an outflux of disgruntled customers was involved in boosting the other services that now compete with them, but... they made more money quarter over quarter.
I don’t know how much more money Patreon is taking home per person who stays. I do know that they’re obfuscating the hell out of what’s happening in their official announcements, because I have a Patreon and the official shit makes it sound like Patreon is taking less, out of the goodness of their hearts or because they got a better deal on payment processing or something; there’s nothing there about charging patrons extra, and their graphs (showing them taking less) are frankly lies.
In the long run, I mean, yes, other services will open, there’s a demand, they’ll lose market share. But right now, quarter over quarter — they’re counting on the extra money they make from people who stay to cover their losses from the people who leave, and then some. Will it work? God only knows. Like Sovay says, it’s chiseling, purely focused on quarter-over-quarter profit.
(I mean, you probably know all this, but I find myself in a mood to write essays, here at the end of all things. ;P)
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I am always happy to read essays, especially when event horizons seem to be coming up fast.
Natalie Luhrs' follow-up post is also acute, if depressing, in its—plausible—efforts to read through the obfuscation.
I don't know what I'm going to do if I can't use Patreon.
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I do remember it, but I suspect I would mean that "truly epic" a little differently now than did the Nobel committee.
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I am also very annoyed on behalf of the people whom I support. I don't want to cut back on that; they too are using the money for vital things.
P.
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Agreed, and likewise. Thank you for writing and signing.
I am also very annoyed on behalf of the people whom I support. I don't want to cut back on that; they too are using the money for vital things.
That's the thing—I don't know anyone who uses Patreon casually, for spare coffee change as opposed to bills and rent, and I know quite a few people for whom it provides the mainstay of their professional work. The company was providing a valuable and as far as I can tell unique service in facilitating this form of sponsorship and support and it had created a community where artists supported one another as well as derived support from their audience. And they have just shot it in the knees. I don't want that kind of dismissal to be rewarded.
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https://mobile.twitter.com/juliedillon/status/939210129261473792
May I just hand you a check at Arisia or something?
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Oh, what the hell. This is not cool.
I understand that it didn't look like much to Patreon, but $200 a month—at its height, $280—was life-changing to me. It mattered to have a readership; it mattered to have the financial support; it mattered to have the structure. Did I do the things that might have farmed me a megafollowing? Of course not. I'm not sure I could have, physically or emotionally. But Patreon was a place I could exist that helped. And apparently it was all a mistake. I was not the kind of artist they wanted to support after all. I am not pleased.
May I just hand you a check at Arisia or something?
I would be honored, deeply appreciative, and really sorry that's what it's come to.
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I was surprised, impressed, and delighted by it. It is characteristic of James Agee as a critic, too: he is generally attuned to aspects of filmmaking that would now be categorized under social justice, or the flaming lack thereof. I just don't get if that was nineteen forty-four why we are still having arguments about ethnically appropriate casting in two thousand and seventeen. The retrograde pendulum again.