Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats

Member Team Humanity. Crazy Cat Lady. Utility Quilter. Avid Reader. Video Gamer Gyrl.

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Last stop on the tour for the Vegas First-Timers: Fremont Street. Still an all-out assault on the senses. 😅 #shortgetaway

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

#shortgetaway

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Arrived in Vegas yesterday afternoon - first time back in around 14 years (we've been married 14 years!?!) & it seems like there aren't as many interesting restaurants as there used to be. Let's see what today brings. #shortgetaway

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Book 18 of this year & I came to the present time & thought, "Kind of clever, definitely well-written,but 'meh'." Just didn't strike a chord with me, so I've gone back to the '70s for the next one. #readbetterbooks

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Staying in the '70s with Book 17 of this year. I like Charlotte MacLeod's Peter Shandy mysteries & decided to try this one - I won't say no to continuing to see where Kelling & Bittersohn are headed. I especially like the embroidered braille. #readbetterbooks

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

@CriFiLover

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

@FuriousDShow 🏆

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Happy Caturday from Colin Feral & his magnificent ruff. #caturday

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

@CoffeewClassics As a lover of HWAET I found this really interesting & I agree with him.

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

I know the book of which he speaks - and I couldn't finish it, like so many other ' 5 star rated' books from 'a best selling author' of the last 10+ years. On the surface I have Banter Fatigue, Preaching Fatigue, etc - but this really cuts to the heart. I don't want a story that's all the same character, just different skinsuits. This is what makes my recent sojourn into books of the 50s - 80s so scrumptious. Real characters! #readbetterbooks

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

Woke message fiction may be slowly dying, but stories won't magically get better when it's dead.

Because there's a deeper problem.

I found it in a book I'll call "MillenialQuest". That wasn't its real name, of course. I'm not trying to dunk on some poor soul just for writing a bad book. If I did that, I'd never be stopping.

It was some medieval fantasy thing with a rather likely premise involving a fallen paladin and an army of steampunk centaurs.

But when I opened it up, I quickly realized that every single character, despite living in a world where "horse" was the peak of transportation technology, was a Joss Whedon character wearing a Tolkien skinsuit.

Complete with sarcasm, cutesy little quips, and no emotional self-control whatsoever. Didn't matter if the character was a professional assassin or a cloistered scholar, he talked, acted, and thought as if he were auditioning for a episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

My first impulse was to be annoyed with the author for disappointing me. But I quickly realized that the problem ran deeper, and the author, annoying as her habits were, was both symptom and victim of a deeper malaise.

The primary skill of an author is empathy.

Now, I don't mean the "empathy" that socialist twats are constantly talking up, in lectures about how we must all immediately dismantle Western civilization to create infinity third world biomass.

I mean the actual skill of figuring out what other people are thinking and feeling.

To excel at his craft, an author must empathize in two directions at once. Not alternately, but simultaneously. He must empathize with the audience to understand how they will experience what he writes, and he must empathize with characters, to understand how they see the world, and what they would do and say.

Empathy must be learned. And it can be learned in two ways, either by having lots of conversations with people who are as different from you as possible, or by reading books with characters who are also totally unlike you.

Well, we've now raised several entire generations who cannot withstand the stress of a real conversation with someone from their own nation who happened to vote for the other idiot on a two-option menu.

And what have those people been watching, listening to, and reading?

Well, Whedonized stories wherein every character is a reskinned version of a white, middle class, left-leaning liberal arts student in a small East Coast private college.

The author of MillenialQuest didn't set out to write The Message™. Nobody was a purple-haired mixed-race fat wheelchair lesbian, and there weren't any thinly veiled rants about capitalism or diversity.

Sure, the word "misogynist" was used a bunch, without any apparent awareness of the confused look of incomprehension that your standard medieval knight would respond with.

But so was the word "allergies". And "expense account". And "psychology". And "self-medication".

No, the core pathology here wasn't the irrepressible urge to preach the author's values at all.

It was a complete lack of ability to put her head into someone else's world view.

To the new breed of author, the 21st century liberal zeitgeist isn't just the only moral viewpoint, it's the only imaginable viewpoint.

This is why they think you are evil and crazy if you voted for the other guy. Because they literally have no idea what might have motivated you to do that.

The author of MillenialQuest couldn't imagine a world where differing responsibilities for men and women are a necessity for survival, rather than a cause for complaint.

She couldn't imagine how the concept of an expense account would be expressed in a world where peak financial technology is pounding your shiny metal into discs with faces on them.

Emily Wilson can't understand a woman who would be ashamed of cheating on her husband, or men who would start a war over an insult.

Yes, often it's deliberate. Often it's preaching, or venting their own desire to debate with someone whose response they cannot hear.

But the point is, even if and when they are forced, by threat of major film studio bankruptcy, to stop deliberately trying to preach and propagandize, they won't magically gain the ability to write characters different from themselves.

Empathy is a skill. It has to be learned and then practiced. And most people in the writing game today simply haven't had the opportunity.

We may be exiting the age of DEI slop, but we are entering the age of just plain slop.

[Panamerica @PanamericaBooks]

“The absurdity of a life that may well end before one understands it does not relieve one of the duty (to that self which is inseparable from others) to live it through as bravely and as generously as possible.”

--From "The Snow Leopard," by Peter Matthiessen, born today in 1927.

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Finished binding the test quilt of my first pencil-to-paper quilt pattern. All the Quilt Math is correct! Now to make another with the 'good' fabric pile, although I love this Japanese fabric of pastries. Sad it was damaged in a freak Sewing Room Incident. #cozyquilts

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

@FuriousDShow Anarchy. Those are the worst mornings!

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Book 16 jumping to the early '70s from the late '60s with The Knight of the Swords by Michael Moorcock. I'd only read a couple Elric short stories before this & wasn't sure if I should stick with Elric or go here. I really don't know what to say on this one, partly b/c I have a bad cold & partly b/c I'm still noodling it. The story happens fast regardless of the book's world timeline & doesn't suffer fools, which is fine with me. #readbetterbooks

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Book 15: Too Many Magicians by Randall Garrett. I wish there were more Lord Darcy stories in this alternative universe where the Plantangenet line remains a world power in the 1960s present. I love Sean the tubby Irish 'forensic sorcerer' & this book is well-wriiten, as are the short stories. #readbetterbooks

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Book 14 completion: The Incorruptibles. A little too violent in parts for my taste, but one of the most unique worlds I've found myself in - Western/Roman Empire/Steampunk/Dwarves+Elves... #readbetterbooks

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

So far behind posting. Quickly. Book 13 completion is A Coffin for Dmitrios. 1939. And here's what started nearly 90 years of similar plot approaches. #readbetterbooks

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

This is coming from a place of warmth and acceptance…

-It’s ‘sleight of hand’
-It’s ‘bated breath’
-It’s ‘lo and behold’
-It’s ‘one fell swoop’
-It’s ‘brass tacks’
-It’s ‘free rein’

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

@FuriousDShow This reminded me that I met his dad. He approached me during breakfast at a hotel to practice the Father of the Bride speech he was going to give later day/weekend. It was a great speech - hope it was a success when he gave it. We sat and chatted awhile over coffee. Nice guy.

[Mrs. Burkhalter Has All The Cats @CastleKeeperCat]

Dum Diddy Dum... Moving Quilted Pear back over here for the time being since I'm not looking at any other accounts. Here are 4 UFOs ready for binding and 1 UFO ready for quilting. The more I can get to the less fabric I have to pack up to move. #cozyquilts