Readers!
I, like many people who have written a book, am being flooded by spam emails produced by the lying plagiarism machine. Scammers are reaching out to us promising all sorts of things: to help us promote our books, write more books, do book club events, etc. etc. It’s annoying. I usually mark them as phishing emails and move on, but I got knocked down pretty hard with a head cold last week, and there’s a blizzard still going on outside. So instead of an actual, useful newsletter, here’s what these knobs called me this week, and my comments on it.
Jen. OK, got my name right, but got the name of my book wrong.
Betsy. Who?
My friend. You’re a bot, you’re not real and don’t have friends.
Author. Oh come on.
[Name here]. LOL OK.
Jen A. Yes, I have a middle name. No, don’t put that in your address to me.
Jenna. That’s just lazy.
Jennifer. I used to say that the only people who call me Jennifer are the government and the mother when she’s angry. But I wound up using Jennifer in Italy because Italians don’t do one syllable names, nor the letter J, so I split the difference. That does not apply to scammers though.
Jenny. Get the fuck out of here and never come back.
As someone who also writes about cybersecurity, I don’t see it getting better anytime soon. The only thing we can do is not use these plague tools to starve them as much as possible, especially when the people who own them think of HUMAN BEINGS like this.
Recent Bylines
“What CIOs need to know about AIBOMs,” CIO Dive
What I’m Reading
- Absolution by Alice McDermott. Most of the book is told as a letter from Patricia, whose husband was a lawyer lent to the Navy during the Vietnam War, written to a child she met in the American complex where they lived in Saigon. I thought it was well written on a technical level — descriptions, peoples, dialogue, etc. But I didn’t see a through line. White savior complexes? Catholicism? Women stuck in pre-feminimism wife/mother roles? It just didn’t land for me.
What I’m Watching
- Great Photo, Lovely Life. This is an extraordinary documentary by photojournalist Amanda Mustard, who confronts her grandfather about sexually assaulting her older sister, mother, his clients, and who knows how many other children. While he went to jail for assaulting some of his patients, he didn’t do a lot of time, and he never stopped — he was kicked out of an elderly care home for inappropriately touching someone’s children not long before he died. It’s an unflinching look, so we can see how these predators are never truly sorry, and how they use religion to say that Jesus has forgiven them, and to try to get victims to move on, even when they keep offending. His primary focus, it seems, is to stay out of jail even though — again — he is still offending. Also, I never want to hear the phrase “evangelical chiropractor” again. Fake followers of Christ, fake doctor, all wrapped up in one disgusting package.
- Bookish. Ah Mycroft is back! Not really Mycroft, but that’s what I call Mark Gatiss since his extremely memorable as his turn as the brother of Sherlock Holmes in the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock (where Gatiss was also a writer and co-creator). So that’s what I call him, even though he’s done loads since then. In this six-episode series, which he also created, Gatiss plays Gabriel Book, owner of Book’s Bookshop (so yes the punctuation is right because his last name is book) in 1946 London. Of course he solves crimes, but it’s not a typical murder of the week. Instead, it’s one murder every two weeks, but the overarching story is bigger than these mini mysteries. Gabriel is in a lavender marriage with Trottie (Polly Walker), a friend he met when they were both recovering from Scarlet Fever as children. Since this show is set immediately after the end of WW II, it’s about a London that is still very much falling apart, and also what happened when queer people found each other when the sexes were largely segregated during the war, then forced back apart, and criminalized. Just look at what they did to Alan Turing. The best set of episodes were the last two, set in a hotel that was a gathering spot during the war, and features two exiled Albanian princesses. The building, like the rest of the city, is trying to claw back some of its glamor, and isn’t always very successful in doing so. The show is very well done, and I hope we get a season 2. Also, if things work out as I hoped, I will also be seeing Gatiss on stage this spring. Very exciting!
- Wonder Man. Can you make a buddy comedy, wrap it in a 1970s style flick style, but have it sent in present day, and make it about superheros? Wonder Man says you can, though in limited series form. In it, Simon (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is hiding his enhanced abilities because otherwise he’d had to give up his career (you’ll see why in an episode with, of all people, Josh Gad playing Josh Gad). But the U.S. Department of Damage Control onto him, so they release Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), an actor who made up the Mandarin terrorist character in Iron Man 3 to cross paths with him on the audition circuit, and gather evidence on him so Agent Cleary (Arian Moayed) can bring him in. Abdul-Mateen and Kingsley are perfect together, and this is the best TV show Marvel has done since WandaVision, and I say that as someone who really liked Loki (well, the first season anyway).
- Wayne’s World. This is one of the movies I watched so much as a kid that, even after having not seeing it for years, I knew every word, beat and line. I’m relieved to say that even though it came out in 1992, it mostly holds up! The skewering of product placements is as sharp as ever. One thing I forgot, though, is that it’s PG-13, which, uh, I was 12 years old when it came out, which is fine, bit it also means I was watching it on VHS with my younger brother, who is five years younger than me, around, Whoops! And a tangent: For years, Garth was my go-to costume since I had all the clothes, and the long blond hair (with bangs then!) But as I watched this, I realized that I could re-create that costume right now out of my closet because I now dress, once again, like I did in high school. What a relief, because from my freshman year of college to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I turned 40, I had been trying to shove myself into shoes and clothes and makeup that never felt right. But I did so because I was expected to dress towards the preferences of a patriarchal society that, as people have been pointing out recently, pressures women into looking as childlike as possible, which is gross. I don’t do that anymore. Whenever I go out, I dress truly as myself — not sloppy, and not in a band t-shirt and flannel, but in something that I thought was cute and comfortable, for me. What a relief.
- Fight or Flight. This movie opens with a fight on an airplane, and not just with fists. When a flight attendant throws Josh Harnett a chain saw, you know what the tone of the movie will be. It’s bloody and violent and ridiculous but goodness if I didn’t laugh (even if I had it on while doing busy work so I didn’t see the worst of the gore). I am in fact here for the Hartnett-ssence, which looks like it will continue as IMDB says he is booked and busy.
- Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence. I’ve watched enough of these cult documentaries to guess how this was going to go: a man (Larry Ray) slowly reels in people who for whatever reason are feeling othered (colleges students) and through manipulation and lies turns them into his devoted followers who would do anything, often revolving around sex. This one was hard to watch because you could actually see the abuse: he filmed everything, including him hitting his followers and getting them to beat themselves. One difference is the final of three episodes focus on two women who kept defending him, and then seeing them peel away, to varying degrees of success. This one was pretty disturbing.
- Song Sung Blue. This is the Hugh Jackman/Kate Hudson Neil Diamond cover band movie, but it’s not a fun movie about a cover band. That’s not a knock against it, but I like many people were surprised when it gets pretty dark pretty fast. I does it make sense that Kate Hudson was pushed for an Oscar now that I’ve seen it. I don’t think she’ll win (she’s OK and the movie isn’t that great) but congrats on the nomination I guess!
Nail Polish of the Week
Midnight in Moscow by OPI. I picked this ultra deep maroon because I was supposed to go see Lucy Darling Friday night but I had to cancel because of this stupid cold BOO! And in case you’re wondering, with my mini rant above: I do my nails because *I* like them done. Not for anyone else.
Until next time!
Jen A. Miller (she/her)
Notes from a Hired Pen ebook series
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