We should have trusted our Eddie Munsons all along

Content warning: brief discussion of suicide and child murder, spoilers for “Stranger Things” season 4. 

Let’s get this out of the way: I love Eddie Munson, the charming metalhead teen introduced in the new season of “Stranger Things.” I was a teenager in the 1980s, too, and he reminds me of dear friends I had at that age. In some ways, I wanted to BE him, but I was too much of a “good girl” to try. 

More than that, I love the story that stirs up around him, and how it turns the 1980s moral panics over Satanism, role-playing games and heavy metal upside down. I wrote about these panics in “The Columbine Effect,” in an effort to show that scapegoated teen pastimes are sources of community, creativity and solace. So it made me incredibly happy to see “Stranger Things” stump for them, too, particularly through Eddie. 

On paper, it doesn’t seem like Eddie Munson should work as a character. His name alone is a collage of too-obvious cultural references: Eddie Van Halen, Eddie Munster, Charles Manson, and Eddie the mascot for Iron Maiden, whose music Eddie defends in the opening of season 4, episode 8. The Duffer brothers based him, in part, on Damien Echols, one of three teens sentenced to prison in 1993 after being wrongly convicted of murdering three young boys. Although prosecutors didn’t have any solid evidence against Echols and his friends, the fact that he studied witchcraft and liked Metallica in the midst of the Satanic Panic put a target on his back. 

In “Stranger Things,” Eddie is a classic metalhead, adored by people who know him but misunderstood by everyone else. He wears his curly hair long, and his daily uniform includes a denim vest plastered with metal-band patches and a t-shirt advertising his Dungeons & Dragons group, The Hellfire Club. So when Chrissy Cunningham dies in his trailer – a victim of a demon attack – Eddie and his D&D- and metal-loving ways are immediately blamed.  

But there’s a twist: we, the audience, know Eddie didn’t do anything wrong. We see the community whipping up frenzy around him – because they don’t know about the Upside Down, about its demon creatures, the Mind Flayer, or Vecna (himself originally a D&D character!), who are the real problems here. 

To understand how people in the 1980s became so terrified of role-playing games, it helps to look at the history. 

In 1979, James Dallas Egbert III, a student at Michigan State University, ran away from school with the intention of ending his life. He left behind a note mentioning the steam tunnels beneath the school, as well as Dungeons & Dragons. Local reporters claimed the game inspired him to run away. He returned, but the 16-year-old college prodigy faced unbearable stress and was allegedly battling a drug addiction. He succeeded in ending his life a year later. Many believed D&D was at least partly responsible.

Then, one June afternoon in 1982, Irving “Bink” Pulling, a 16- year-old resident of Montpelier, Virginia, took his family's loaded handgun and shot himself in the chest. His mother, Patricia Pulling, found him dead in the front yard. While going through her son's belongings, Pulling found a handful of Dungeons & Dragons books and asked around to find out what they were. At a local shop that sold role-playing supplies, she asked a clerk how she could learn more about the game. Eventually, she wound up connecting with a handful of gamers at a local college. They played D&D with her for more than a month, according to her book, “The Devil's Web.”

Bink's friends and teachers said he was suffering from depression, isolation, and instability. Despite this, Pulling became convinced that Dungeons & Dragons had made her son want to kill himself. In 1984 she founded Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons, or B.A.D.D., an organization she hoped would raise awareness about the supposed evils of role-playing games. 

Egbert's story inspired a 1981 novel by Rona Jaffe, “Mazes and Monsters,” as well as a December, 1982, film starring Tom Hanks. In the movie, Hanks plays Robbie, a college student who joins his peers in a game of the fictional Mazes and Monsters RPG. He suffers a psychotic break while playing a live-action version in the caverns near their university. Robbie begins behaving like his M&M character in real life, and will only respond to the character's name. Disoriented, he treks to New York City in search of his estranged brother, and nearly dies by suicide. The movie added fuel to the idea that D&D puts its players in danger. 

And in 1985, Newsweek ran a cover story on role-playing games, called “Kids: The Deadliest Game?” In “Stranger Things,” Eddie reads aloud from a similar Newsweek article and mocks it. 

“If kids can believe in a god they can’t see,” Pulling told Newsweek, “then it’s very easy for them to believe in occult deities they can’t see.” In “Stranger Things,” there is a demon that many of the kids can see but the adults, for the most part, haven’t. After Vecna kills Chrissie and two other local kids, Eddie winds up on the receiving end of a massive manhunt, complete with locals stocking their arsenals at the local gun store and a catchy title for the crime spree: “The Munson Murders.” 

But again, we see Eddie as nothing but kind, loyal and brave, fighting to protect the very same community that demonized him. His D&D crew becomes his real-life fighting party, and his love of heavy metal – displayed most vividly in a blistering performance of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” while surrounded by a tornado of demobats – ultimately makes him a hero. Epic times call for epic music, and Eddie, like most metalheads, understands this implicitly even when society hates him for it. 

In getting to know Eddie, a good-hearted character who’s devoted to D&D and metal, audiences can see how wrong we were in the ‘80s by sidelining guys like him, or worse – sending them to prison for two decades. Maybe, in the future, we can do better. 

Abortion and the short, sharp life of Addie Hand

Abortion instruments. Photo credit: unknown.

On January 20, 1871, 20-year-old Adelaide “Addie” Hand had an abortion. Eighteen days later, she died of a massive pelvic infection, and her doctor went on trial for murder. 

Born in Connecticut in 1851, Addie came to San Francisco and married Joseph Hand, likely in the late 1860s. They lived at 333 Clementina St., now the site of a downtown parking lot, and on July 14, 1869, Addie gave birth to their daughter, May Emily Hand. 

The Hands were poor, and both of them worked, Addie as a housekeeper, Joseph as a grocer. So when Addie got pregnant again at the end of 1870, she knew they wouldn’t be able to support another child. She contacted Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell, a known abortion doctor in the city, and he performed the procedure on January 20. 

O’Donnell told her “if that did not have the desired effect to come again in a few days,” Addie’s sister-in-law, Victoria, testified in February. Addie felt as though it hadn’t worked. Victoria asked if she would go back to O’Donnell, and “she said she certainly would.” When Victoria asked why Addie didn’t want to become a mother again, Addie said, “her husband could not afford it.” And when Victoria asked if Joseph knew, “she said no, and that she would not tell him until it was all over.”

Addie returned to O’Donnell, who attempted another abortion. After the abortions, O’Donnell told Addie “to take care of herself not to take cold, and not to pat her hands in cold water.” But still she became sick. In the following days, Addie began throwing up and experiencing “a good deal” of abdominal pain, according to testimony from her friend, Jennie West. When West asked if there was anything they could do, O’Donnell suggested laudanum and the application of “hot fermentations” to her abdomen. But only after some prodding. At first, when Addie told him she felt “very bad and weak,” he told her “she needed nothing, as she was getting along nicely.”

Five days later, on February 7, she was dead; initially, her cause of death was given as “congestive chills.”

In the 19th century, abortion procedures could be dangerous. Herb-induced abortions were practiced for centuries, and generally safely, but those performed with contemporary surgical instruments often led to infection, and frequently infertility or death. After all, germ theory wasn’t widely known, and antibiotics weren’t yet available. Abortion was illegal in California during Addie Hand’s lifetime, although early abortion laws were largely in place to protect women from medical malpractice. After the 1850s, though, the laws became about prosecuting and punishing women. 

If she’d had her abortion today, in a state where the procedure is illegal, her ability to get proper medical care for post-abortion complications would depend largely on her income, ability to travel, and access to good doctors.

O’Donnell was arrested February 10, and a coroner’s inquest began February 12. Addie’s body was exhumed from its resting place in Odd Fellows Cemetery and examined by Coroner Jonathan Letterman and Dr. Edwin Beatty. Letterman testified that Addie had been six to eight weeks pregnant, although there was no sign of the fetus, just a portion of the placenta. 

“In the cavity of the abdomen were found from four to six ounces of pus and serum, the lining of the membrane peritoneum showing that there had been a high degree of inflammation, also in the intestines; the ovaries were both filed with pus; there was a large sack of pus in the pelvis,” according to Letterman’s testimony. “The death of the woman was, in my opinion, caused by the intense inflammation of the womb and other viscera of the abdomen.”

There wasn’t much further coverage of the case, but according to a later article about O’Donnell, he was acquitted of all abortion-related charges he faced in his lifetime. Unfortunately, O’Donnell was also deeply involved in stirring up anti-Chinese racism in San Francisco, and his qualifications as a doctor were also questioned. He claimed he learned his surgery skills during the Civil War, where he amputated soldier’s limbs under the authority of General Robert E. Lee. 

By 1891, O’Donnell was wealthy enough to build a “luxurious” summer home, called Cozy Castle, in Glen Ellen, in California’s wine country. He also built an extensive mineral springs resort along Sonoma Creek nearby. He died in May, 1912, at the age of 77. 

Sources: 

1870 United States Federal Census

U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current

“Murder.” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7630, 11 February 1871

“Abortion— Murder.” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7631, 12 February 1871

“Abortion,” Daily Alta California, Volume 23, Number 7640, 21 February 1871

“Dr. Charles C. O’Donnell,” Glen Ellen Historical Society website, accessed June 24, 2022

To read the full articles listed above, click here. 

A NEW AND UNIQUE DEPARTURE IN JUVENILE CRIME.

The "Noodle Girls" San Francisco's Most Startling Development of Criminal Misses. 

HOME-MADE SPAGHETTI AND LARCENY. 

Like the Girl Whose Golden Hair Hung Down Her Back They Don't Take the Stove Unless There's One to Take.

San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 30, 1894

San Francisco is not prolific in the girl whose "golden hair is hanging down her back." That is, the criminal records of the city show few young misses who are given to theft. The "Noodle Girls " who have caused such a stir in police circles within the past week seem unique in their methods and their persistency. 

"I recall few girls who were at all notable as crooks," said Captain Lees, who carries a large part of the city's criminal history in his picturesque hand. "That is a line of crime in which we have not been prolific. Probably it is because San Francisco knows comparatively nothing of the extreme depths of poverty and degradation. 

"The other night two of the officers arrested a young Oakland girl who had been soliciting subscriptions under the pretense that she was collecting for the Flower Mission. She was only fifteen years old, and was crying as if her heart would break. She had actually obtained no money, so I let her go with a lecture and a warning. Her story seemed straightforward, and she was emphatic in saying that it was her first offense. 

"Occasionally we run across such cases, but persistent depravity in our young girls is rare. When we do find a case the methods are generally so crude that we have little trouble in apprehending the offenders before they have gone far on the rough road of crime. There are also occasional reports of girls who answer advertisements, obtain situations and then decamp with the property of their employers. But even those cases are not alarmingly prevalent. 

"Those 'noodle girls,' however, are unique. They are far above the ordinary criminal in intelligence, and though we are morally certain they have stolen much valuable jewelry in addition to their work of obtaining money under false pretenses, we have been unable to trace that jewelry to places where they disposed of it. 

"Their names are Victoria and Olga Bock, and their ages respectively sixteen and fifteen. Their mother seems an honest woman who prepares noodles and sends the girls out to certain customers to dispose of them. The girls in some cases merely make the delivery of packages the pretext for collecting money not due them; but in others they seem to use the merchanting of the noodles as a means for gaining access to houses in which thefts are discovered soon after their departure. 

"Their simpler method is illustrated by the experience of Sergeant Colby of this office. Next door to his home resides a family named Arnold, with whom his people are very friendly. The two girls ascertained that no one was at home in the Arnold house. Then they want to Colby's and told Mrs. Colby that Mrs. Arnold had ordered a box of noodles; that she was not home and that they were in immediate need of the 50 cents which Mrs. Arnold was to pay them. Of course, Mrs. Colby paid the money, sympathized with the pitiful tale they told, and then ascertained when Mrs. Arnold returned that no noodles had been ordered and that Mrs. Arnold knew nothing of the girls. 

"Complaints have been coming in for a long time of this petty crime. The girls must have worked the city thoroughly by leaving packages of noodles said to have been sent by members of the family with a request that money be collected on them. In several Instances that we know of they secured as much as $3 from people who knew nothing of noodles and didn't want them. To their mother they would return the usual small price of the box of noodles and keep the balance. 

"More serious than all this, however, are the thoughts we feel sure the girls committed, but which cannot as yet be proved against them. From all over the town and from adjoining towns and cities complaints have come in regarding jewelry and valuables that vanished after their visits. In one case two solitaire diamond earrings, a diamond ring and a gold watch were taken. Now, that is a decided case of grand larceny, but we have not been able to perfect the proofs against the girls. 

"They do not look like criminals, nor do they have the appearance of belonging to that class colloquially termed 'chippies.' They seem fresh and innocent, and so elicit a great deal of sympathy from the men and women who are engaged in reform work about the prisons. In fact, I think that if it were not for this mistaken sympathy the girls would have confessed and told us where we could recover a great deal of valuable property. 

"But as I said, the case of those girls is unique, because there is so little criminality among the younger women of San Francisco. Detective Anthony here may be able to tell of other cases which might have slipped my memory, as he is specially detailed on that branch of our work." 

Detective Anthony produced his record book and began to furbish up his recollection.

"Since 1881 I have arrested 287 girls who were under age," he said. "Still, very few of them were what you would call criminals. Nearly all were girls who had run away from home and were taken into custody because they tended toward a life of immorality. Of these many have reformed, married and become proper members of the community. 

“Among the comparatively few girls arrested for theft or swindling the 'noodle girls' stand out alone. Apart from their offenses there have been a few–a very few–recognized kleptomaniacs, and the others have nearly all been girls who obtained situations and stole from their employers. 

“As for the girl kleptomaniacs I find that they generally outgrow the mania. One girl I remember who on no less than sixteen occasions stole everything she could lay her hands on in her mother's house and went out to sell her plunder. Once she took off her shoe and broke a shop-window on Polk street near Sacramento, in order to steal the contents of the window. Who has now entirely recovered from her mania and seems to be an industrious, modest young woman. 

“Here was the case of Adelaide Griggs, sixteen years old, who was a light-fingered miss. She once stole $175 from the pockets of an intoxicated man with whom she had picked up a street acquaintance. She was morally depraved and not bright enough to be specially dangerous.  

"Here is a girl who began to steal when she was hardly more than an infant. Time and again she broke open her father's trunks and took everything she could lay her hands on. Now she is married and seems to have no further desire to steal or be anything but a good wife and mother. 

"Among the young girls who secure situations and then rob their employers are Maria Fitzgerald, whom I arrested in 1889, when she was only fifteen, and who has been in custody for similar offenses on several occasions since. Katie Young, a sixteen-year-old miss, is another who 'works the family racket,' as the loungers call it. Lena Cramer, now at the Magdalen Asylum, obtained employment as a domestic with Mr. and Mrs. Stein at 940 Powell street. One day her employers went out for a walk, leaving $50 in a purse. When they came back Lena was gone and the purse contained but $20. That night the girl appeared at the Grove-street Theatre with a new gold watch in full view on her breast. Sadie Crelly Is another little lass who steals from everyone who gives her employment. 

"Apart from the ‘noodle girls,' however, Flora Holt, a little Oakland girl, is the most daring of the thieving misses. We arrested her only last week after a series of thefts. 

"On November 28th she went to work for H. A. Arnold of 432 1/2 Haight street, answering his advertisement. A few days afterward he took his wife out for a ride, leaving the girl to attend the baby. When be returned the house was open, the baby crying and unattended and Miss Holt had walked off with a great bundle of Mrs. Arnold's clothes, a gold ring and other valuables. 

"Two days after this, on December 3d, the girl secured employment with Mrs. Beerman, at 1419 1/2 Webster street. There she remained until the 14th, when she broke into the baby's safe, took $15 from it, bundled up a lot of clothing, piled the bundle in the baby carriage, grabbed a gold ring and a meerschaum pipe and went away, trundling the baby carriage ahead of her. 

"In order to run the girl down I began answering all the advertisements for nurse girls myself. In this way I found Miss Holt at Mrs. Hart's, 421 Ellis street. The Harts were glad I found her in time, for the three girls they had had before her had all been caught stealing. One of these three was the notorious Mollie Joseph, a Vallejo girl not yet over eighteen, and who began her evil career before she was fourteen. She has been arrested time and again. Once I found her in a room on Bush street. She jumped out of the second-story window and broke her leg. 

"The worst of the others, however, have given us little trouble compared with these 'noodle girls.' I've been on their track for a year. The number of complaints about them would be ludicrous if the matter hadn't such a serious turn. Here are a few records of their doings: 

"They took a bundle of noodles to the home of Dr. William D. Bass, at 2012 1/2  Union street, and made the usual collection on the plea that the bundle had been sent home C.O.D. 

"At Mrs. Pray’s, 1849 Jackson street, they were found in the house and said they had come in to sell noodles. Not long afterward Mrs. Pray found them rummaging around upstairs. As soon as they were gone a search was instituted and two rings and other jewelry were missing. But Judge Slack let the girls go on habeas corpus after they had been held for grand larceny. 

"Mrs. Smith of 425 Geary street paid $2.25 for a box of noodles, which they told her had been sent home with a charge to collect. At the home of E. L. Miller, 355 Eleventh street, they said a man named Jeffreys at Baden had sent them with a bundle on which $2.50 was to be collected. Mrs. Miller didn't have that much money. The girls boldly asked if she couldn't get it from the neighbors. Finally they accepted $1.75 as 'part payment,' that being all the money in the house. The bundle contained noodles, worth little or nothing, and Jeffreys hadn't sent them at all. Of course the girls didn't come back for the balance. 

"They have played this bundle game in dozens of places, but people will not prosecute them for it. 

"In one instance they were absolutely cruel. A minister had given $2.50 to a poor family as a matter of charity. They went to that family, said the minister had sent them with a bundle on which they were to collect $2 which he would refund, and so actually robbed the paupers. The families of newspaper men and car conductors and even police officers are worked by these daring girls on the plea that the absent husbands have sent the packages home.

 "These are merely hints at the extent of their operations. Undoubtedly the 'noodle girls are the most successful young girl crooks we have yet had in San Francisco."

Why Hozier’s fan comments are the best

Andrew Hozier Byrne, best known by his stage name, Hozier, inspires a kind of fan devotion that is intense, even for fan devotion. Aside from his megahit “Take Me To Church,” I was late in discovering his music (although I firmly believe that music, no matter how old, comes alive for us right when we need it), and fell in love not just with his songs but also the commentary on his YouTube videos. I once said on Twitter that fan comments on Hozier videos were my new favorite form of literature, and that remains true.

I love how these comments convey a passion so fervent that the rules of grammar and syntax break down. I love the mythology that has sprung up around him; that he is some sort of mythological forest creature, or an honorary lesbian. In several spots, there are lengthy comment threads about his hands.

As I promised back in December, in this post I’ve compiled some of my favorite comments on Hozier’s YouTube videos. I’ve also provided links to the videos. In some cases the comments will make more sense if you’ve watched the videos, but I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to spend an hour watching them all. Then again, they’re all very, very good. I promise!

“In a Week”

• “cute date idea: run away and get married in the woods, and then lay down and decompose together”

• “This is song is like caressing my hair and cuddling me to sleep, without the promise of tomorrow”

• “i love the way the irish can sing about decay and corpses and graves and the like with such incredible lusciousness.  brings to mind sinead o'connor's, "i am stretched on your grave." buzzards, insects, foxes, ravens. so nice.

“Work Song”

• “hosier said ‘fuck it i'll just invent love’ and then wrote this”

• “‘Lay me gently in the cold dark earth; No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her’ GOOD LORD THIS LINE MAKES ME FEEL THINGS I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I COULD FEEL”

• “This song has so much of the energy as one of my favorite lines of poetry, ‘They asked “Do you love her to death?” I said “Speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life.”’”

• “hozier, a straight man, has somehow perfectly nailed the feeling of gay yearning”

• “The reason lesbians/bi women like hozier so much is bc he sings about women in a longing beautiful way”

“To Be Alone”

• “i dont know what im feeling but ive never felt it more intensely”

• “Love how gritty and dark this version is, feels like he's dragging you through mud and rocks back to his bog-shack while you're half-conscious”

• If Hozier ever kidnaps me and takes me to a distant unknown bog surrounded by an endless forest, mind your own business and do not call the police

• Raise your hand if you've fallen in love with Hozier and now you can't go back
  

“NFWMB”

• “Whenever I meet a man I come here to remind myself that I deserve better”

• “I'm a lesbian but I would die for this man”

• “A rare video of Jesus playing guitar”

• “I will never get over Hozier saying ‘honey.’”

• “if love doesn’t feel like this then what’s the point”

“As it Was” (Uploaded to YouTube after a long absence from the public eye)

• “the forest nymph is emerging back to life with little bread crumbs of music”

• “Tell the Satyrs they don't need to look for Pan anymore, we found him”

• “Andrew its 3AM and I'm sobbing”

• “it’s 7am and im already crying”

• “Please sir stop making me yearn this early in the morning”

“From Eden”

• “Hoziers music: a gentle beat with some nice jazzy guitar. Hozier lyrics: innocence died screaming”

• “Director: How slow-mo do you want this music video to be? Hozier: Yes”

• “why does hozier’s songs make me nostalgic over memories that never happened”

“Whole Lotta Love” (Led Zeppelin Cover)

• “so basically i just sat here with my mouth open the whole time...speechless.”

• “When both  your hands are trembling before  you touch that guitar to play.  O man, it's going down”

• “Andrew is fire.”

• “I'm pretty upset that I didn't get to hear Hozier sing ‘I'm gonna give you every inch of my love’“

• “only hozier could make this song sound wholesome”

”Talk”

• ”Hozier using Greek Mythology references, the absolute AUDACITY of this man.”

• “‘Imagine being loved by me’ THIS MAN KNOWS THE POWER HE HOLDS”

• “‘Imagine being loved by me’ spaghetti is falling out of my pockets and I'm sweating buckets god that's so hot”

• ”’must talk pretty so lovely lady won’t know I have carnal desires ever at all’ our lesbian king returns in full force wow”

• ”This is what a level 20 bard sounds like ladies and gentlemen”

Battle, Zoom, Compassion, Chronic, Fatigue

“The Morphine’s Girl”, Santiago Rusinol, 1894.

I’ve spent the past month or so coping with deep, relentless fatigue. I wasn’t necessarily sleepy or sleep-deprived. My bones felt heavy, my body as if it were moving through thick mud, my head too light and wobbly. I tried resting. I tried napping. It would get a tiny bit better, and then it would get worse again. Nothing really helped. 

A couple of weeks into it, I was diagnosed with a minor infection, and thought maybe that was the explanation. But clearing the infection didn’t resolve the fatigue. I already deal with a baseline amount of daily fatigue and have to ration my spoons carefully to get done the things I want and need to get done. But this took most of my remaining spoons away. A lot of things piled up. I tried not to feel guilty. I failed. 

During this period, the disability rights activist Jessica Kellgren-Fozard released a video on pacing when you have conditions that limit your energy levels. Maybe I’m just not pacing myself enough, I thought. I need to rest more, build back that store of energy like she says. I tried. My tank remained nearly empty. 

In late March, I went to a retreat that I’d been looking forward to for ages. Although there were opportunities to make art, write, and engage in gentle movement, I wasn’t up for any of it. I spent mealtimes trying to catch up with friends and fond acquaintances. Otherwise, I mostly laid in the narrow bed in my room and looked out the window at the back garden and trees. 

At home, it was much the same. I spent the bulk of many days in bed, either writing, chatting with friends online, or watching TV shows and movies, watching the birds and butterflies and squirrels and bumblebees outside in the garden, wishing I had the energy to go for a walk or tend to the plants outside. 

Even so, I managed to get a few things done. I finished a couple of sewing projects and filmed them, to make videos about the process. I picked away at a new draft of the book I’m writing, about San Francisco’s forgotten cemeteries. I researched potential publishers and started a book proposal. I wrote an article that I’ve been researching, off and on, for a few months, and I started research on a few other ideas. Maybe I should have rested more. But I also wanted to do things that make me happy, and these are things that make me happy.

I'm sure plenty of other people have said this before, but that whole "only use your bed for sleep and sex" suggestion is ableist. I'm going through some intense fatigue lately and working/reading/etc. from bed is pretty much necessary. #sleep #sleeproutine #chronicillness

— Beth Winegarner (@bethwinegarner) April 1, 2022

Finally, I saw my doctor. I’d put it off because it’s so hard to pin down what causes fatigue, and I wasn’t sure it would be a good use of my limited resources to talk it over with him. We spoke on a video call. He wondered if maybe my sleep quality was worse, but conceded that I probably didn’t suddenly develop sleep apnea. He also wondered aloud whether it might be some kind of post-viral syndrome. I didn’t remember having any particular viruses before the onset of the fatigue, but I’m so well immunized against Covid that I might not notice if I was exposed to it again. Finally, he asked me to come in for a bunch of labwork, including tests for anemia and B-12 and Vitamin D deficiency. 

Although those tests all came back normal, I learned in the interim that another medication I’m taking can cause poor absorption of B-12, and that lack of folate supplementation can also make things worse. As an experiment, I started taking extra B-12, folate and Vitamin D, as well as electrolytes daily. I’m beginning to feel better. Whether it’s because of the supplementation, because whatever was causing the fatigue has run its course, or something else, it’s impossible to say. 

And it’s hard to trust that it will last. When this latest round of fatigue came on, I was just getting my energy back from the Covid-19 booster I got in early December. I’ve written about this before, but each vaccination has caused me some kind of flare that feels like my fibromyalgia kicking up for weeks at a time. This time, it lasted more than two months. Another doctor I’ve seen this year, one who works closely with fibromyalgia patients, confirmed that she’s seen this reaction pretty often. After all, she said, this virus is still new to our systems, and the vaccines kick up a pretty hefty immune response, especially in those of us who have aggressive immune systems to begin with.

One bright spot in all this: One of my favorite writers, Johanna Hedva, released a revised and updated version of their incredible essay, “Sick Woman Theory,” earlier this month. The earlier version created tidal waves of awareness when it came out in 2016, and gave me a lot of language I didn’t have before for my experiences of being in my body. It also seeks to answer the question: “How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank [in other words, engage in meaningful protest] if you can’t get out of bed?”

The revision is accompanied by a new essay, “Why It’s Taking So Long,” about Hedva’s experiences being asked to give talks and teach about Sick Woman Theory since the piece came out, and their struggles to create accessible spaces for those events. Hedva eventually hopes to publish a Sick Woman Theory book, but all of these shenanigans have gotten in the way. Seriously, why would a venue refuse to provide a sign-language translator or audio captions? Or not give a disabled writer enough lead time to deliver on a project? Or not compensate them adequately for their work and/or expenses? This is someone who must already ration their time and energy carefully. It’s a frustrating, and illuminating, read. I hope event organizers are paying attention.

So, here I am, hopefully feeling better. Maybe now is the time for pacing, now that I’ve got some energy to pace, to build back. But there are so many things I want to do.

Please don’t send me notes of pity or regret. This is part of life, and it’s something a lot of people go through. I know such messages mean well, but they have a way of reminding me that many don’t understand what it’s like, outside of the flu or recovering from surgery before bouncing back to full health. It’s a reminder that too many people see disabled life as inferior. It isn’t. It’s just different. 

Our flag means stop pirating my books

Promotional photo from “Our Flag Means Death,” on HBO.

One of the most challenging things about being a self-published author is that I don’t have a legal department to defend me. Another is that PDFs of some of my books are circulated widely on bootleg/piracy sites and it’s like playing whack-a-mole to try to get them taken down. Once you figure out how to send your copyright infringement form to the right person at the right website, and they agree to pull your work from the site, it pops up somewhere else the next day. And, unfortunately, there are people out there who have taken my PDFs and republished them as their own work, selling them on sites like Amazon and Booksamillion. When that happens, it’s my job to contact the booksellers and ask them to remove the products, because I don’t have a legal team to do it for me. It’s a tedious and annoying process.

I went through a round of this a year or so ago, when my friend Justin texted me to tell me he’d seen some books in the Amazon Kindle store with the same content and similar titles as my book, “The Columbine Effect.” There were three different ebooks, each with a different title and subtitle. You can see them in the images below. 

Most of the subtitles were pulled from the book description on my website, and the cover images are either stock photos or a (presumably unauthorized) copy of a photo taken at Columbine High School the day after the shootings. One of the ebooks is called “Afterword,” which is just baffling. Amazon has a form that authors can fill out to report the sale of books that infringe/pirate their content, but it’s often a slow process to get these reports reviewed and the books removed. Eventually, they got taken down and I thought that was the end of it.

Around New Year’s, my friend Edward reached out, this time to tell me a friend of his had bought a book that included an article I’d written about his book, “Heavy Metal Africa,” a few years ago. My article, along with many others, are included in my book “Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa,” which came out in 2018. But the book his friend bought wasn’t “Tenacity.” It was called “Loyal to The Music: Middle East and Northern Africa War on Heavy Metals.”  Another book with the same content also popped up, this one called “War of Heavy Metals: Crisis Unfolding Around the World.” According to Amazon, “Loyal” was written by “Lawerence Orrantia,” while “War”’s author is listed as “Rick Moyd.” A quick Google search reveals that neither of these people exist. 

Unfortunately, these two books were already being distributed widely on a number of bookseller sites, as well as places like Goodreads and Google Books. I painstakingly reached out to each one of these places and figured out what forms to fill out and/or who to email, and most of them have since been taken down. In the process, I also discovered the three “Columbine Effect” clones were back in the Kindle store, so I asked Amazon to take them down again. 

This is a frustrating and exhausting process. Still, I wanted to see if I could find out more about the people or bot farms or whatever are taking pirated copies of my books, turning them into new books, and selling them online. I bought a copy of “Loyal to the Music” from Amazon – I hope it was the only sale – but when it arrived, it had no identifying information on it. The back page mentions Las Vegas, but nothing else, and all the barcodes take you back to the sales page on Amazon. 

I’m pretty sure “Loyal” was published by Amazon’s own print-on-demand service, and that the pirated Kindle books are also published through Amazon’s Kindle publishing platform. In many ways, this means Amazon is complicit in selling pirated books. Sure, they have each user/author/seller tick a box promising that they are the rightful content owner of the work, which lets Amazon off the hook. Amazon COULD match uploaded texts against the texts of existing books for sale on the platform, and dig deeper when a new upload matches something that’s already been on sale for years. Doing this – and blocking the publication of any new work that plagiarizes legitimate work – would cut down on the amount of time that publishers and authors have to spend filing complaints. But Amazon probably won’t, since doing so would make the company less money, and it doesn’t technically help customers in any way. In a word, it’s shitty.

Going forward, I expect I’ll have to keep looking for bootlegged copies of my books and asking sellers to take them down. I’ve had people say “hey, be flattered that they want to copy your work!” But my books aren’t that popular, and my sales are small. It isn’t flattering to have someone attempt to divert revenue away from me for the years of work, research and writing I’ve done. I don’t mind if people want to quote from my books if it’s relevant to their own writing; fair use is a thing, and I’m happy for my work to inform others’. But wholesale reproduction, in an effort to make easy money off my writing and skills, isn’t flattering at all. It’s keeping me from the work I really ought to be doing: more writing. 

I woke up with these songs in my head

Thanks, YouTube Music, for making this image so I didn’t have to.

Ever since I started listening to popular music, around age 10, I’ve been aware that, most mornings when I wake up, there’s a song playing in my head. I’ve often wondered what it would look like if I started tracking those songs: Are there any over-arching themes? Are they relaying subliminal messages? Are they entirely random, or are they mostly songs I’ve heard recently?

It took me until late 2021 to start tracking them, in the hope of perhaps answering some of those questions. I created a playlist on YouTube Music, my subscription service of choice, and set a reminder on my phone to notice what song is playing in my head when I wake up and add it to the playlist. If it’s a song I’ve already added, then I skip the process for that day.

So far, the answers to the above questions are: No, no, no, and no. Mostly they are catchy songs I’ve heard recently, but not always. Once in a while, it’s a song I haven’t heard in years, or a song I barely know. (One morning I had to sing what I could remember to my kiddo, since it was a tune she knew but I didn’t.) I’ve been listening to a ton of Hozier over the past year, so he shows up a lot and, in general, these songs (regardless of genre) skew toward the catchy end of the spectrum. I suppose that’s to be expected, given the nature of earworms. I mean, if you look closely, my brain even Rickrolled me one morning. Jeez.

Now that the playlist is nearing 100 songs, I thought I’d share — and perhaps inspire others to do this as well. I know I’ve inspired one person already (Hi, Rosa!), and it would be fun to get more people paying attention to this stuff. Not for science or anything, but just to make ourselves more mindful of the songs our brains play for us when we first greet the day.

You can see and hear my playlist here:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpEjxKHxZD0mOzAqyMxIYSmamuf1nl4yz

On disability and longing

“The compact between writing and walking is almost as old as literature – a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.” — Robert MacFarlane, “The Old Ways”

I recently read Robert MacFarlane’s lush, poetic book “The Old Ways,” about walking miles and miles of footpaths in England, Spain, Palestine, India and Scotland (where he also takes a couple of journeys by boat as well). Even before I opened the book I had the sense that it was the land-bound version of Roger Deakin’s book, “Water Log,” about swimming in England’s wild waterways. Indeed, MacFarlane and Deakin were good friends before Deakin’s death, and indeed there are a lot of similarities. 

“The Old Ways” also references (and is probably named after) an old favorite of mine, Alfred Watkins’ “The Old Straight Track,” his 1925 book about discovering alignments of sacred sites in the British landscape. Watkins was hugely influential when I was learning about these ideas in the mid- to late 1990s, and researching what would become “Sacred Sonoma.”

Both books enticed me because of my love for British landscapes. I’ve visited a few spots around Britain, and long to visit many more, but I’m unlikely to ever get to see all I want to, a list that includes the Scottish Highlands and islands (the Orkneys and Shetlands in particular), the Lake District, the Peak District, the Yorkshire moors and Pennines, so many more. I love the British landscape for a few reasons: It’s beautiful, and when I’m there I feel like I am home. Either that’s because so much of it reminds me of the Sonoma County landscapes, where I grew up, or because many of my ancestors lived in these landscapes, and something of the familiar has trickled down to me. 

But I am also disabled; my body tires easily and hurts all the time. It’s worse with more than a little exertion. I can’t walk more than a mile or so without pain. Travel and jet lag alone make my pain and fatigue worse, at least until I settle into a new location and time zone. If I had months or years to spend abroad (thar lear (pronounced “har lar”) in Irish; literally, “over seas”), maybe I could accomplish it, but I don’t foresee having that luxury. 

And so I read books like MacFarlane’s and Deakin’s, rich with language and description, quiet moments and insights, the poetics of nature and the exhaustion of a long journey. It’s a way to experience these places vicariously, but there’s a catch. Their perspectives and insights are almost certainly different from what mine would be. They are young, relatively able-bodied white men, able to walk long distances through these landscapes without much fear for their safety. I am not. Reading these books makes me want to take these journeys (some of them, anyway) for myself. It’s frustrating.

What’s more frustrating is that MacFarlane makes the argument – as many philosophers have in the past – that humans are meant to walk, that we are at our most intelligent, that we are able to do our freest and most creative thinking, when we journey on foot. “‘I can only meditate when I’m walking,’ wrote Jean-Jaques Rousseau in the ninth book of Confessions, ‘when I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs,” Søren Kierkegaard speculated that the mind might function optimally at the pedestrian pace of three miles per hour, and in a journal describes going out for a wander and finding himself ‘so overwhelmed with ideas’ that he ‘could scarcely walk,’” MacFarlane quotes. (I quote Kirkegaard on walking in “Sacred Sonoma,” too; he’s so good.) “In all of these accounts, walking is not the action by which one arrives at knowledge; it is itself the means of knowing,” he writes. 

In some sense, I think these thinkers are probably right, that the repetitive motion of one’s legs, combined with a relaxed openness to the environment, can stimulate the mind and imagination. But to insist it’s the only way for humans to reach their intellectual peak is ableist, suggesting that those who can’t walk, or walk much, are suffering mentally. As many of us know, many other repetitive and habitual tasks, such as folding laundry, knitting, hand-sewing, washing dishes or rocking in a rocking chair, can stimulate this same kind of mental state. The Nagoski sisters, in “Burnout,” call it “default mode,” a kind of resting state where our minds can relax, woolgather, daydream and make connections we can’t make when we are more focused. 

Thankfully, MacFarlane continues, “It is now a familiar suggestion, and one which we are wise to be skeptical about when it is asserted as a rule. … As you will know if you’ve ever walked long distances for day after day, fatigue on the path can annihilate all but the most basic brain functions.” Walking isn’t the only way. And too much walking is exhausting for anyone, whatever their limits may be. 

Still, I remain frustrated, caught between the desire to explore all of the places in MacFarlane’s book (and many more) on foot, and recognizing that my body has its limitations. Reading books like “The Old Ways” stimulates my hunger to go there, to see these landscapes in person, to feel the earth and its different “personalities” all around me. And, in small ways, it also satisfies them. 

What the trees want

Detail from a painting by Tomasz Alan Kopera.

“But what if the knowledge being forbidden to Eve was … a kind of deeper communion with and understanding of the tree and the fruit itself, an awareness of her kinship with them?”

–Maud Newton, “What Did the Forbidden Tree Want?”

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this quote since I first read it, more than a month ago. My regular readers know that I think about that moment in the Garden of Eden with the Tree of Knowledge often, and I’ve written about it several times. There are so many theories on just who (Lucifer, Lilith, the Simurgh) that serpent in the tree was, so many theories on what kind of knowledge was forbidden to Adam and Eve. Genesis never explains it; it only says that if they eat the fruit, they will “surely die.” Why would our supposed creator threaten us with death just to keep us from knowing things? Why would they want to keep us naive and ignorant? What would they not want us to know?

Newton’s quote connects my ruminations on the Tree of Knowledge to another of my interests: the Green Man. This figure (like the serpent in the tree) is connected to many different deities and characters: Jack-in-the-Green, Robin Hood, Gawain’s Green Knight, Pan and Dionysus/Bacchus, the woodwose, Cernunnos, Herne the Hunter, and others. He’s also connected to the foliate head carvings so often seen on churches, particularly medieval churches, across Europe and into the Middle East. 

Why were the builders of Christian churches so eager to depict a figure that was clearly pagan in origin? Yes, there is plenty of evidence that Christian leaders adopted (or wholesale appropriated) earlier pagan traditions, in part to make it easier to convince people to join them. The way Christmas supplanted celebrations of the winter solstice and Yule, which we’ve just finished celebrating in the northern hemisphere, is a prime example. But to me, it feels like there’s something else at work. 

A foliate head in Llangwm, Wales.

Many foliate heads appear miserable, terrifying or both. Leaves sprout from their noses, mouths and ears. Their mouths are often open in surprise, or perhaps a scream; their eyes are wide, bewildered (literally) and frightened. In earlier, pagan times, these figures were comfortable with (and celebrated for) the close connections between humans and the rest of nature. But under Christianity, this connection becomes sinister. The woods and wilds become dark, dangerous, terrifying places. This becomes a pretense for domination; we seek to control the things we fear. 

But humans and the more-than-human world, as Queer Nature calls it, have long relied upon each other. While it’s true that, if humans disappeared from the planet, nature would be just fine, it’s also true that a wide range of plants and animals depend on us, just as we depend on them. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about this extensively in “Braiding Sweetgrass,” including a story about how sweetgrass grows back stronger and healthier when a certain amount of it is regularly harvested. Regular pruning and proscribed burns strengthen plants and ecosystems. Wild animals depend on humans, not just for the ways in which we function as part of larger ecosystems and food webs, but also for our wildlife rehabilitation efforts. The Green Man’s woods and wilds were once our home; we were once much more consciously a part of nature and the environment than we pretend to be now. The Green Man, in his hybrid form, represents that history. 

Dominance over nature has allowed humans to flourish in many ways as a species — and Christianity has abetted that process — but we have also lost a great deal. We have lost the ways in which our nervous systems settle when we’re tracking, foraging, working the land or resting among the trees. We have lost the friendship and medicine of plants, the awe and wonder of seeing wildlife going about its business, the humbling sense of vulnerability and interconnectedness that is our natural place in the world. We (especially white people) chase romantic notions of Native Americans and their “connections to nature,” appropriating imagined spiritual practices because we have long since lost our own sense of indigeneity; either we became colonists, or our ancestors were victims of colonization. 

Racism and other forms of bigotry play a role here, too. Once white people saw wild nature as something to fear and dominate, we began treating Black, Brown and indigenous people as subhuman, as savages. Likewise, queer and neurodivergent people are marginalized for being too uninhibited, too transgressive to belong in human society. In “Black Skin, Green Masks: Medieval Foliate Heads, Racial Trauma, and Queer World-Making,” Carolyn Dinshaw connects these ideas back to the foliate heads and representations of the Green Man. “These aesthetically intricate, affectively intense images represent bodies that are strange mixtures, weird amalgams: they picture intimate trans-species relations.” She connects them to festivals like burning man, queer subcultures like the Radical Faeries, and “traumatic postcolonial contexts out of which new queer worlds are imagined.”

The Green Man in my mind isn’t shocked or terrified by his hybrid nature. He’s calm and present, glad to bear the horns and greenery that grow from his head. He knows what we have largely forgotten; that we are nature, and nature is us. He doesn’t mind if we eat from the Tree of Knowledge, if we remember our connection to the natural world. In fact, he’s waiting for us.

The music, books, movies and TV shows I enjoyed most in 2021

Music and stories have always been a significant coping mechanism for me, and 2021 was no different. As the year comes to a close, I wanted to share a few of the things that brought me joy and/or distraction.

Music:

Hozier: Before this year, I pretty much only knew this Irish musician as the “Take Me to Church” guy. But then, one day, YouTube Music randomly played me “In the Woods Somewhere” and I stopped breathing, it was so beautiful. I fell deeply in love with his catalogue, especially songs like “To Be Alone,” which made me feel seen in ways I rarely do. I suspect he’ll have new music out in 2022, and I can’t wait. Someday I’m going to write a whole post about his fandom calling him Faery King and Forest Daddy. Just you wait. 

“The Harder They Fall” Soundtrack: I love this movie for its representation, its style, its casting (I’ve had a crush on Jonathan Majors since “Last Black Man in San Francisco”), and its music. Particular favorites include the addictive title track by Koffee and “Better Than Gold” by Barrington Levy. It even made me like a CeeLo Green song. And I love the tidbits of dialogue from the movie, especially the part where Regina King’s character shoots a man before he can finish saying a word that begins with n.

Emma Ruth Rundle, “Engine of Hell:” I’ve long found a home in Emma Ruth Rundle’s bleak, beautiful songs, and her 2021 release is her most bleak and beautiful yet. The bare-bones arrangement, just Rundle’s voice and guitar or piano, gives you nowhere to hide from her vulnerable voice and stark lyrics. Favorite song: “Body.” 

Books:

“32 Words for Field,” Manchán Magan: I began learning Irish through Duolingo this year, partly in the hope of getting closer to some of my ancestors by speaking the language they commonly spoke before it was outlawed by colonial England. I eventually discovered Magan, who’s devoted to reviving the language. “32 Words” focuses on nearly extinct Irish words, such as “sopachán” for nesting material (but also an unkempt person), or “sí gaoithe,” for a gust of wind, particularly if it’s caused by fairies. But he also writes about connections between native Irish people and the Middle East and India, and about communing with the Cailleach in an abandoned kiln. It’s a great read. 

“White Magic,” Elissa Washuta: Washuta writes essays the way I wish I could. She goes deep and wide, bringing seemingly disparate subjects together, tethering macro to micro, nature to the heart, pop culture to spirit. This book shook me to my core. 

“The Only Good Indians,” Stephen Graham Jones: A perfect mix of humor, horror, mythology and indigenous reality. I can’t wait to read more from him. 

Movies:

“Bright Star:” Ben Whishaw is perfect as John Keats and Abbie Cornish is astonishing as his fashion-forward lover, Fanny Brawne, in this Regency-period sketch by Jane Campion. 

“Hunt for the Wilderpeople:” Perhaps the most unlikely buddy comedy of all time, featuring a rebellious teen (Julian Dennison) and a cantankerous man (Sam Neill) who reluctantly becomes a father figure. Written and directed by one of my faves, Taika Waititi.

“Magic Mike XXL:” I had no idea what to expect going into this movie, which I watched with online groups twice this year. I didn’t expect it to be sex-positive, pleasure-affirming spin on masculinity, sexuality and brotherhood, but it is. So good. 

“Ondine:” I joke that this movie stars “Colin Farrell’s eyebrows,” but in reality I found a lot of solace in this movie about a strange woman who gets caught in an Irish fisherman’s net, and who may or may not be a selkie. 

“The Green Sea:” Randal Plunkett, the current Lord Dunsany, gained a lot of attention this year for his plans to restore and re-wild his family’s ancestral home. He also released a quietly brilliant film, “The Green Sea,” about a novelist and former heavy metal musician who meets her own characters while living in a remote manor house. 

“Nomadland:” I saw a lot of myself in Frances McDormand’s character, Fern, as she makes her way across the American landscape in her van. She reads to me as neurodiverse, probably autistic, but that isn’t the point of the story. Representation matters.

TV: 

“The Witcher:” I tried to watch this series when the first season came out in 2019, but found the triple timelines confusing and bailed after about four episodes. But with the new season coming out this year, I gave it another try – and fell in love. This is a series that rewards repeated viewings, and not just because you get to spend more time with Geralt of Rivia, TV’s yummiest monster-hunter. Season 2 is excellent as well, but much easier to follow. The whole thing makes me want to pick up my sword again.

“Reservation Dogs:” There is so much to love in this series: the teen actors who anchor it. The pull between home and escape. The hilarious unknown warrior. The “Willow” in-jokes. Mose and Mekko. The humor and heart. More shows like this, please. 

“Midnight Mass:” I really enjoyed Mike Flanagan’s previous series, “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” but appreciated that he went in a new direction for “Midnight Mass.” This series takes a bunch of traditional horror tropes in new directions, to brilliant effect. 

“Shetland:” I am abolitionist in my real-life views, but I still love stories in which grizzled detectives solve crimes set in remote, close-knit communities. This makes for an uneasy headspace, but then again, half the reason I love this series is for its far-flung Scottish landscapes, and probably another 30 percent is for the accents. It also handled a sexual-assault plot in a way that felt honest and respectful, not gratuitous. That’s still vanishingly rare.

“Normal People:” Two Irish teens find unexpected comfort and pleasure together, but life finds ways of keeping them apart. One of the most realistic love stories I’ve ever watched, and the stars, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, have unbelievable chemistry together. 

“Lovecraft Country:” As someone who’s very uncomfortable with H.P. Lovecraft’s deeply racist and xenophobic legacy, I appreciated the effort to tell a story of ancient evil through a Black and historical lens. “Lovecraft Country” isn’t perfect, but it aims high, and tells some unforgettable stories.