Tag: SFWA

SF-SJWs devouring themselves

ST Joshi, who is a leftist, an SF writer, and a respected H.P. Lovecraft scholar, has come under intense SJW fire for standing up for Lovecraft’s literary legacy:

1) The World Fantasy Award is a purely literary award. It is awarded purely for literary excellence in the field of weird fiction. It commemorated Lovecraft because (a) it was created for the First World Fantasy Convention in 1975, held in Providence, R.I., which was essentially a Lovecraft convention, and (b) it acknowledges Lovecraft’s literary greatness, both intrinsically and in terms of his influence. That is all that the award “means.” The award says nothing about Lovecraft as a person (just as other awards in this and related fields say nothing about the person or character of the figures they are named for). The changing of the award is an implicit rejection of Lovecraft’s literary status. It suggests that Lovecraft’s racism is so heinous a character flaw that it negates the entirety of his literary achievement. This is one of many reasons why I find it mystifying how any genuine devotee of Lovecraft can be in favour of changing the WFA bust.

2) We have no reason to be confident that the current agitators will stop at the WFA bust. Indeed, the prime mover in the matter—Daniel José Older—has made his general contempt for Lovecraft quite clear, as when he called him a “terrible wordsmith.” (I suspect he would say much the same about Poe, Dunsany, Machen, and any other writers who don’t write the kind of slangy, faux-hipster style he favours.) It is quite evident that some of these agitators really don’t like Lovecraft as a writer and resent his fame and influence, and have seized on the one flaw of his racism to cast him out into the literary darkness. Vigilance needs to be maintained that the tarring of Lovecraft’s reputation doesn’t go any further.

3) The discarding of the WFA bust may in itself be insignificant, but it is troubling for a multitude of reasons. It is, for example, an historical error to pass condign judgment on figures of the past because they are perceived to have departed from the moral, political, and social views to which we adhere. This shows a cultural intolerance and lack of historical understanding that is very discouraging. We have not exactly attained moral and intellectual perfection ourselves, and I daresay we will be judged harshly for all manner of derelictions a hundred years from now. (We now hear of students at Princeton University—where I did graduate work in 1982–84—lobbying to have every vestige of Woodrow Wilson’s name eliminated from the campus merely because he made a few racist comments, as if these comments somehow repudiate all the significant political and diplomatic achievements of his career.)

By the way, this is not the first time I’ve seen Ellen Datlow’s name mentioned with regards to egregious SJW lunacy. She would appear to be nearly as ideologically insane as Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

I have been led to believe that the celebrated editor
Ellen Datlow was a major force in getting the Lovecraft bust discarded
from the World Fantasy Awards. If this is so, it casts a dubious light
on Datlow herself. One has to wonder about the moral compass of a person
who has materially benefited from Lovecraft’s increasing reputation by
opportunistically assembling two volumes of Lovecraft-inspired fiction (Lovecraft Unbound [2009] and Lovecraft’s Monsters [2014]) and who then turns around and kicks Lovecraft figuratively in the posterior.

This part was particularly amusing to me:

My dissociation with Dan Clore was not because he disagreed with me, but because he treated me in an abusive and insulting manner. He in effect stated that I was a right-wing racist bigot, even though he knows that I am a leftist.

You don’t say! What, pray tell, do SJWs do? Ah yes, that’s right. SJWs Always Lie!

Moira Greyland obliterates the rainbow

Given what she’s survived at the hands of the gay community already, I don’t think they’re going to intimidate her one little bit. The daughter of feminist icon Marion Zimmer Bradley and convicted child molester Walter Breen shines sunlight on the dark underbelly of homosexual culture and its obsession with molesting children:

My observation of my father and mother’s actual belief is this: since everyone is naturally gay, it is the straight establishment that makes everyone hung up and therefore limited.  Sex early will make people willing to have sex with everyone, which will bring about the utopia while eliminating homophobia and helping people become “who they really are.” It will also destroy the hated nuclear family with its paternalism, sexism, ageism (yes, for pedophiles, that is a thing) and all other “isms.”  If enough children are sexualized young enough, gayness will suddenly be “normal” and accepted by everyone, and the old fashioned notions about fidelity will vanish.  As sex is integrated as a natural part of every single relationship, the barriers between people will vanish, and the utopia will appear, as “straight culture” goes the way of the dinosaur.  As my mother used to say: “Children are brainwashed into believing they don’t want sex.”

I know, I know.  The stupidity of that particular thesis is boundless, and the actual consequence is forty-year-olds in therapy for sexual abuse, many, many suicides, and ruined lives for just about EVERYONE.  But someone needed to say it.  Will anyone hear it?

What sets gay culture apart from straight culture is the belief that early sex is good and beneficial, and the sure knowledge (don’t think for a second that they DON’T know) that the only way to produce another homosexual is to provide a boy with sexual experiences BEFORE he can be “ruined” by attraction to a girl.

If you’re OK with that, and you might not be, it is worth your consideration.  If you think I am wrong, that is your privilege, but watch out for the VAST number of stories of sexual abuse AND transgenderism that will come about from these gay “marriages.”  Already the statistics for sexual abuse of children of gays are astronomically high compared to that suffered by the children of straights.

Naturally my perspective is very uncomfortable to the liberal people I was raised with: I am “allowed” to be a victim of molestation by both parents, and “allowed” to be a victim of rather hideous violence. I am, incredibly, NOT ALLOWED to blame their homosexuality for their absolute willingness to accept all sex at all times between all people.

But that is not going to slow me down one bit. I am going to keep right on speaking out. I have been silent for entirely too long. Gay “marriage” is nothing but a way to make children over in the image of their “parents” and in ten to thirty years, the survivors will speak out.

I suspect that the eventual backlash against the rainbow fascists in the West is going to make ISIS look merciful. Remember, the historical pendulum ALWAYS swings back sooner or later. Once it becomes clear that acceptance of homosexuality necessarily requires the acceptance of widespread child molestation, there will be no mercy. There is a very good reason homosexuality was historically categorized among the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; it is a mental disorder that typically stems from childhood abuse of one form or another.

That doesn’t mean all homosexuals are evil individuals or are inclined to molest children. What Miss Greyland is saying makes it clear that they are, in fact, innocent victims, regardless of how proud they may claim to be of their past victimization. But the fact remains that there is an intrinsic link between the childhood abuse and the mental disorder, and if you disagree, then you can take it up with Moira Greyland. Just try to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

This also provides an obvious response to those who ask “why don’t you support gay marriage?” Because I oppose child molestation. If banning gay “marriage” will save even ONE child from being sexually abused, then it is a moral imperative.

Prior to the establishment of the federal parody of marriage, children were 10 times more likely to be molested by a parent or adult guardian if their mother was a lesbian and 3 times more often if their father was gay. As Miss Greyland predicts, imagine how that ratio is going to explode if both “parents” are gay; the math indicates it will be somewhere between 9 times and 100 times more often; given the greater access to children necessarily involved, it will probably be closer to the latter figure.

Another SFWA resignation

Holly Lisle resigns from Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America:

Ms. Kate Baker
Operations Manager
SFWA

Dear Ms. Baker,

I’m canceling my SFWA membership.

While it was encouraging to see SFWA edging toward acceptance of the indie publishing model, it’s too little and too late, and offset by an appalling reason behind the change of SFWAs incorporating state.

SFWA moved from Massachusetts to California for the purpose of allowing SFWA to claim tax dollars to offer grants. I’m aware that there were other—good—reasons for the organization’s move, but this particular poison pill in the changes made to SFWA requires me to walk away and never look back.

This is interesting, as her letter indicates how the SJWs in the SFWA intend to survive the opening up of the SF/F market and the inability of the publishing gatekeepers to protect their income: as government-funded parasites.

It helps make their continued move towards unpopular academic-style fiction somewhat more comprehensible, as you may recall Neal Stephenson’s explanation of the difference between popular fiction that is funded by fans and academic fiction that is funded by bureaucrats.

I know it was you, Fredo

I always knew that John Scalzi was primarily responsible for the SFWA “expulsion”*, but I didn’t realize that I had proof of it sitting right in front of me the entire time. Consider this statement from page 23 of “Evidence regarding the complaints made against Theodore Beale, Report to the Board of Directors of SFWA”, dated July 1, 2013.

Most prominently, an outgoing Board Member indicated that he intended to let his membership lapse until Beale was no longer a member: “My membership is due and I can’t in good conscience renew it until SFWA finds the means or moral backbone or whatever’s ultimately required to expel someone as hateful and wilfully destructive as Beale—notjust from the organisation but from the culture present within it.”

And from Twitter less than two hours after I announced the Board’s action against “an unidentified member”:

John Scalzi @scalzi
I just renewed my @sfwa membership!
2:18 PM – 14 Aug 2013

P Nielsen Hayden ‏@pnh Aug 14
@scalzi So did I! What a coincidence! @sfwa

Now, you might rightly say that these remarks by the outgoing president of the organization and the most influential member of the organization (Patrick Nielsen Hayden is a Senior Editor at the largest SF publishing house and gives his address in the SFWA membership directory as the Tor Books address on Fifth Avenue in New York City), are merely circumstantial evidence. And that would seem be true, since there were five outgoing SFWA Board Members in 2013. However, only two of those outgoing members were male. Compare the two successive lists of Board Members from the 2013 SFW Directory.

Board Members beginning July 1st, 2013
Steven Gould, President
Cat Rambo, Vice-President
Susan Forest, Secretary
Bud Sparhawk, Treasurer
Sarah Pinsker, Eastern Regional Director
Lee Martindale, South-Central Director
Jim Fiscus, Western Regional Director
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Overseas Director
Matthew Johnson, Canadian Director

Board Members through June 30th, 2013
John Scalzi, President
Rachel Swirsky, Vice-President
Ann Leckie, Secretary
Bud Sparhawk, Treasurer
Catherynne Valente, Eastern Regional Director
Lee Martindale, South-Central Director
Jim Fiscus, Western Regional Director
Sean Williams, Overseas Director
Matthew Johnson, Canadian Director

So, we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that either Sean Williams or John Scalzi was responsible for threatening to quit the organization if I was not purged from it, and that John Scalzi did let his membership lapse precisely as the “outgoing Board Member” threatened to do. We observe that the outgoing Board Member is not a particularly coherent writer. And we also know that John Scalzi has evinced considerably more interest in my career over the last 10 years than Sean Williams, who lives in Australia and has hitherto exhibited no signs of even knowing that I exist.

But although that is sufficient evidence to surmount the standard of reasonable doubt, it is not absolute proof of Mr. Scalzi’s guilt, since it is remotely possible that both outgoing Board Members happened to let their memberships lapse at the same time for different reasons. Therefore, in the interest of historical accuracy, I have contacted Mr. Williams and asked him to either confirm or deny responsibility for the statement quoted.

While we’re on the subject, it is interesting to compare the list of 2012-2013 Board Members to the recent list of Hugo and Nebula winners. Note that last year’s Novelette winner, Mary Robinette Kowal, was previously SFWA’s Secretary and Vice-President. Perhaps award-watchers should keep an eye out for Mr. Gould, Ms Rambo, and Ms Forest inexplicably outperforming in 2015 and 2016.

* Assuming that it was, in fact, a genuine purge. More than one lawyer has looked at the case and informed me that I am still a member in good standing of SFWA despite the public pretensions of the SFWA Board. There was never a vote of the entire membership, which under Massachusetts law, is clearly required to expel a member. This is why I have not filed a lawsuit; I have no damages of which to complain. The “expulsion” was a legal charade concocted to placate certain elements of the membership, as the bylaws under which I was “expelled” did not come into force until 15 May, 2014, ten months after SFWA’s announcement of an SFWA Board vote on 14 August, 2013.

Notice that SFWA has never officially announced my expulsion. That’s because it never took place. They informed me privately of the Board vote for my expulsion, which was true, but they could not announce my expulsion publicly because “the Board’s decision” was not, in August 2013, sufficient to actually expel a member. Note in particular the reference to “ the existing Massachusetts By-Laws” in the 2013 announcement.

Title XXII, Chapter 180, Section 18: No member of such corporation shall be expelled by vote of
less than a majority of all the members thereof, nor by vote of less
than three quarters of the members present and voting upon such
expulsion.

Posted without comment

Study: Men Who Post Selfies Show Psychopathic Tendencies

Men who regularly posted photos of themselves online scored higher on a measure for narcissism and psychopathy…. The study also found that men who edited their pictures before posting
also scored higher on the scales of narcissism and self-objectification.

For no particular reason, you understand. And in other SFWA-related news, it appears that the services of the Toad of Tor may no longer be required by Tor Books:

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, aka the repugnant and infamous cyberbully “Hapisofi” on Absolute Write, has been officially fired from the Tor staff. We received the following note from someone connected to the publisher (who must remain anonymous to prevent retaliation by Nielsen’s husband Patrick who is still a big shot at Tor Books and who has supported his wife regardless of her vitriolic and unprovoked assaults on writers, presses, and organizations using her anonymous ID on Absolute Write):

Teresa Nielsen Hayden is now officially off the Tor staff page. She has been removed permanently. A source close to the staff reports that the sheer amount of negative information about her on the web was the reason.

There is, however, some reason to doubt the accuracy of this report, given that the link is to the Tor.com staff page, not the Tor Books staff page. The two are related, but distinct corporate entities. I will update this once news of the Toad’s firing is either publicly confirmed or confirmed to be false.

Dr. Pournelle health report

From Jerry’s blog:

    “Jerry had a small stroke. He is recovering well at a local hospital. Prognosis is good, though they’re running more tests and he’s expected to stay at least another day or two.

    “He felt well enough to call Mom [Mrs. Pournelle] from the hospital.

    “Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. More updates when we have them.”

They are permitting well-wishers to post comments, in case you would like to do so.

I can’t say I know Dr. Pournelle well, but after working with him over the last two weeks to get “His Truth Goes Marching On” and “Simulating the Art of War” into RIDING THE RED HORSE, I found myself marveling at how sharp he is despite being 81 years old. Of course, it probably helps when you’re starting with a mind that is around +4SD.

We did talk a little about the SFWA purge in passing; he was curious about my perspective on it. He was mildly appalled to hear what really happened, as you might expect, and thought the Board’s action was both ridiculous and short-sighted. But he also saw the humor in the incident, and laughed out loud when I explained the actual nature of the technical violation.

It’s such a pleasure to discover that a giant of one’s youth is also a genuinely good man. Here is to his speedy recovery.

Overrated and underbrained

I always thought LeGuin was considerably overrated, but I didn’t think she was actually stupid until now:

“We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa,” LeGuin said. “And I see a lot of us, the producers, accepting this — letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant!”

She was referring to the recent dispute between Amazon and the publisher Hachette over e-book pricing. The power of capitalism can seem inescapable, LeGuin said, but resistance and change begin in art. And writers should demand their fair share of the proceeds from their work. “The name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.”

Really? I always thought profit was the central point. I stand corrected. Let there be freedom! And I have to say, the cognitive dissonance inherent in simultaneously a) defending a mainstream publisher and b) demanding a fair share of the proceeds is impressive.

Although if Amazon were to actually adopt a policy of putting out fatwas on SFWA members, I suspect that’s something a lot of people could get behind.

Is Lena Dunham eligible for the SFWA?

It appears she’ll fit right in with the SJWs, pedophiles, and child molesters there:

If there is such a thing as actually abusing a child through
excessive generosity and overindulgence, then Lena Dunham’s parents are
child abusers. Her father, Carroll Dunham, is a painter noted for his
primitive brand of highbrow pornography, his canvases anchored by puffy
neon-pink labia; her photographer mother filled the family home with
nude pictures of herself, “legs spread defiantly.” Self-styled radicals from old money, they were not the sort of people inclined to enforce even the most lax of boundaries. And they were, in their daughter’s telling, enablers of some very disturbing behavior that would be considered child abuse in many jurisdictions — Lena Dunham’s sexual abuse, specifically, of her younger sister, Grace, the sort of thing that gets children taken away from non-millionaire families without Andover pedigrees and Manhattanite social connections. Dunham writes of casually masturbating while in bed next to her younger sister, of bribing her with “three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds . . . anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.” At one point, when her sister is a toddler, Lena Dunham pries open her vagina — “my curiosity got the best of me,” she offers, as though that were an explanation. “This was within the spectrum of things I did.”

YERGGHH! I’ve always thought Dunham looked like a Daughter of Innsmouth straight out of Lovecraft. It turns out that she’s even uglier and more freakish on the inside than her appalling exterior would suggest. She’s not the voice of her generation, she’s not a voice of a generation, by her own account she is an incestuous child molester.

Holding the line

One of the Honey Badgers, Hannah Wallen, explains why the SJW hate is so ferocious for the gamers in Gamergate:

The only people who are equipped to fight off that rushing tide of manipulation and control are those for whom potential social rejection doesn’t constitute a threat.

That, gamers, is why gamergate is not about any one of the damseling drama queens receiving the coverage in gaming media that is now spilling over into other news sources. It not about the media themselves, either, or the companies supporting the industry.

It’s about us.

We’re not under attack because we owe anyone anything we have refused to give, or because we’ve done anything we shouldn’t have done. We’re under attack because we’re one of the last shields that human individuality in western society has.

It’s absolutely vital that gamers continue to reject the shaming and demands being launched at us by elitist social engineers in journalism. We’re the line they can’t be allowed to cross, the last bastion of intellectual freedom. Out of everyone, we have the one factor that can stop them from owning the social landscape of the western world. Out of everyone, we have the power of immunity to their weapon of choice. We have the ability to turn that very same weapon around and use it against them by not only refusing to adopt their narrative, but making our rejection of it hurt them financially.

This is how we’re going to hold the line and begin pushing back. It’s going to be ridiculously ugly. The beast that is social justice elitism is not going to go peacefully, nor is it going to change its tactics. We’re going to see that  monstrous, flailing attempt to shame us into compliance continue. We’re going to see the accusations and whining, damseling and demonization all accelerate as the elites try to smash the resistance without understanding why it exists. And then hopefully we’ll see like-minded individuals joining the ranks of resistance as they realize they don’t have to be adopt the victim narrative to be part of a community. If we can achieve just that one thing by standing our ground and defending our territory, we can push that bullying force out, take our community back, and get back to gaming in peace.

It’s not a bad piece. Only the geeks of Gamerdom are not as alone as they think they are. Those who have followed the SFWA saga of the last two years will recognize the pattern that is at work there, that is at work in places as diverse as NBA team ownership and the executive offices of the tech industry. The SJW jihadists are attempting to drive out every heretic who dares to violate their equalitarian dogma anywhere one can be found.

But it is not only low-status rejects and outcasts who are impervious to their social pressure. And those of us who are neither rejects nor outcasts, but lone wolves by preference and temperament have the ability to build rival structures, rival institutions, and rival organizations that have the distinct advantage of operating in accordance with science, history, and objective reality rather than dogmatic fantasy.

Every time we refuse to back down, every time we refuse to accept their dogma as truth, we win. We reduce the amount of social pressure they are able to bring to bear. They know that. And it makes them furious. One need only read the foam-flecked rantings of their more outspoken members about me or about other members of the open resistance to see that. What makes them so angry about our very public resistance to their dogma is that their social pressure becomes less effective when it is seen to be resistible. That is why it is so important to  resist openly rather than to do so in a private and covert manner.

Because regardless of what you think in the privacy of your own mind, the public acquiescence of your silence causes others to believe that you are in accordance with the dogma and thereby adds to the social pressure placed upon others.

Sarah Hoyt talks about despair and how it is not only debilitating, but a sin. And perhaps some feel an amount of despair when they finally see how the cards are stacked against them simply for committing the crime of believing what their own eyes can see. But I see despair as being primarily a combination of ignorance with a failure of imagination. Things will not always be this way because the world is not, and has never been, a static place.

Maybe they will get worse. Maybe they will get better. But they won’t get any better while one sits and laments one’s losses and disappointments. One can ALWAYS accomplish SOMETHING positive, even if it is no more than refusing to be moved by lies, blandishments, and social pressure. Learn to take pride and pleasure in the small victories and you will find yourself considerably less inclined to worry overmuch about the disappointments and defeats.

Denying SF, dissing Baen

He also claims that “science fiction is not a genre”. Which goes to show how much confidence you should place in the opinions of a man who hasn’t published a single novel and has more than a few prose deficiencies himself:

Today space opera is a battlefield for competing fantasies of the future. As America plunged in to renewed militarism after 9/11, sci-fi books again began to mirror real-world wars. Baen books specialises in works of “military SF” that, behind their appalling prose styles and laughable retro cover designs, speak to a right-wing readership who can recognise the enemies of America even when they are disguised as cannibal lizard aliens. Baen’s chief editor Toni Weisskopf went so far as to issue a diatribe against any and all sci-fi that did not pander to this conservative agenda.

Hugo-nominated Baen Books author Larry Correia is unimpressed: “Damien Walter of the Guardian is a liar. Provide a cite where Toni Weisskopf ever said that or apologize and retract.”  Equally unimpressed is the Hugo-nominated Baen Books author Brad Torgersen:

I won’t feed this particularly empty ego any more than is necessary, suffice to say that the individual who wrote this obviously does not read very many (if any?) actual Baen books by actual Baen authors, nor do I think this person has actually read any such “diatribe” by my editor at Baen. In fact, I can state with certainty that the words “Toni Weisskopf” and “diatribe” do not belong in the same ZIP code. You will seldom find a less offensive, even-tempered, non-confrontational, fair-minded editor and publisher in the field today. And it’s not just an insult to her when shit like this (above) gets written, it’s an insult to all the many talented and varied authors who ply their trade beneath the Baen label. Myself included.

Unfortunately, ignorant snobbery of this sort is nothing new in the genre. You find out very quickly (once you begin publishing) which writers, editors, publishers, and artists enjoy the favor of the “society” people, and which writers, editors, publishers, and artists do not. My from-the-hip observation is that the “society” people want to see SF/F turned into a lightly speculative and fantastical carbon copy of the “prestigious literary” world. Replete with ambiguous covers that don’t really tell you anything about the story, but follow the general pattern of all things deemed “prestigious” and “literary.” If this year’s talked-about lit work features a somewhat fuzzy, off-focus photo of a pair of muddy Converse sneakers sitting on somebody’s front stoop, then by golly SF/F needs to follow suit with similar photos of similarly mundane, slightly off-focus objects which may or may not have anything to do with actual science fiction; as practiced traditionally by the greats.

And so the battle between anti-canon Pink SF and pro-classic Blue SF continues to heat up. There is, however, one point with which I find myself in agreement with Our Friend Damien is that this battle will be good for real science fiction and those who love to read it, because it is exposing the pretenders and the frauds who have been selling not-science fiction under a false label of science fiction for two decades now.

While he is not a Baen Books author, the inimitable Tor Books and Castalia House author John C. Wright has also weighed in on the matter as only he can. I daresay his criticism of Walter is considerably more entertaining, and more artfully crafted, than the sum total of Walter’s ouevre:

Allow me to translate from the airy emptiness of Newspeak to the Vulgate: he is saying a novel whose only gimmick is the lack of the use of male and female pronouns in order to aid the attempt of social engineers not to entertain science fiction readers as patrons of our craft but to indoctrination and Pavlovitize them toward a false-to-facts neurosis about human sexuality is healthy on the grounds that science fiction should be used not to tell entertaining stories about the future, but as a propaganda adjust to the political program of socialist progressivism, which means pervert-loving, man-hating, white-hating, Christian-hating, liberty-hating, life-hating nihilism.

I note to any Martians reading these words that humans come only in two sexes, male and female, and that the Brahmins of political correctness have decreed that fairness to sexual perverts requires that sexual reality to be changed. Naturally, reality cannot be changed, but what people say in public can.

Therefore the gentleman writing this article rejoices in the idea that science fiction be made into a department of the Ministry of Truth, so that anyone speaking frank and plain truth about human sexuality, if he is weak minded, will come to fear that his opinion is in the minority and unpleasing to the society at large. Once the truth is unpalatable, unspeakable, outlawed as a hate crime, everyone is a liar. When everyone is a liar, everyone is a cynic, and cynics never embrace the ideals necessary to join a rebellion.

In short, the gentleman penning this piece is glorying in the prospect of perverting science fiction from its intended purpose and making it into an instrument to spread and glorify sexual perversion.

It’s also rather amusing to see a British individual who regularly claims that he hates British class issues to take what is the literary equivalent of a middle-class posture dismissing those dreadful working class Baen writers and their awful unwashed prose.