Ampersand Gazette #1 — Susan Corso

I am starting something new this year, a blog post a week, in a new format. I am struck so often by what I read during a week. Everything informs my writing, so I’m going to be creating a different kind of post.

The word gazette kept coming to mind, so I finally went to the OED. It has, historically, meant a news-sheet. From the early 17th century via French from the Italian gazzetta, originally Venetian gazeta de la novità ‘a halfpennyworth of news’ (because the news-sheet sold for a gazeta, a Venetian coin of small value).

And although we aren’t in Venice, nor is there any longer a halfpenny, I will be writing a gazette—short observations on what I fall over every week with the intention to provoke, invoke, convoke, revoke, or all of the above.

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“Distinctions between believable and unbelievable, true and false, are not relevant for people who have found that taking up outrageous and disprovable ideas is instead an admission ticket to a community or an identity. Without the yoke of truthfulness around their necks, they can choose beliefs that flatter their worldview or justify their aggression. I sometimes think of this straying into fiction as a kind of libertarianism run amok—we used to say, “you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” Too many Americans now feel entitled to their own facts. In this too-free marketplace of ideas, they can select or reject ideas, facts, or histories to match their goals, because meaning has become transactional.”

Rebecca Solnit, from a Guest Essay in The New York Times 1.5.22

Rebecca Solnit is always thought-provoking. Her essay reminded me of one of my favorite Viktor Frankl quotes. “Humans can live without a lot of things, but we cannot live without meaning.”

I have devoted my life to meaning. To discerning meaning, for myself, and for others. That’s what forty years of counseling will do. It’s all about finding meaning, but if Mx. Solnit is correct, and meaning has become transactional, what does that mean for humanity?

It means that I’ll agree with you (whether I do or not) if you’ll agree with me (whether you do or not) which is a rather apt description of our national legislature at the moment, no?

Meaning, Beloved, isn’t transactional. Not really. What meaning is … is assignable. You assign the meaning to everything in your own life as do I. You can assign scary meanings just as easily as freeing meanings. It’s up to you. And me.

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We don’t marry one person as much as we marry one version of a person, a snapshot of who we (and our partner) are individually and to one another at the moment when we say, “I do.” Who we are five, 10 or 40 years later is anybody’s guess.

Allison Hope, The New York Times, 1.6.22

I liked what Allison Hope realized about her own marriage—we marry one version of a person. And we spend the rest of our relationship with that person, no matter how long or short, learning all about the other versions.

People change. As a result, relationships change, too. As they should.

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Does it ever strike you that much of what grabs your attention has to do with where, on a page, a sentence is placed? Here’s one from the very last line of the last column of the first page of an article called “The Key to Me” in The New Yorker, 1.3&10.22 issue:

“In a world infatuated with victimhood, …” What got me was the word infatuated. I’ve definitely noticed how a generation or more has begun to use their victimhood as currency, and it bothers me greatly. But infatuated? And yet … and yet, it does feel like that, doesn’t it? There’s a relish to its recitation that’s, well, icky.

The next page of the article was a full-page image with this caption: “Trauma has become synonymous with backstory, the present must give way to the past, where all mysteries can be solved.” Trauma? Synonymous with backstory? Well, in a lot of cases, yes. But is it?

No, I don’t think so. That gives trauma, powerful in itself, formative in itself, yes, but it gives trauma way too much power. It also gives cause more weight than effect.

What’s important about trauma, Beloved, is not what happened. The reason for this is because it is no longer happening. What’s important, nay, vital about trauma is what we do now, now that it’s stopped.

The reason the trauma plot is wearing thin is because it is thin. This moment is how we overcome the effect(s) of trauma, and make good out of what was undeniably bad. This is how we put trauma in its proper place.

1/3 of the subtitle: “But the trauma plot is wearing thin”
Parul Sehgal
The New Yorker, January 3 & 10, 2022

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Amy Schneider is the first woman to win $1 million on “Jeopardy!” Isn’t that grand? Here’s what she says about it. “To be good at ‘Jeopardy!’,” she said, “you just have to live a life where you’re learning stuff all the time.”

I think that’s the point of life. To be learning stuff all the time. Amy, you go girl!

Also, consider this: The word jeopardy means danger, and isn’t it so that when we are in danger, we often have to learn stuff to get out of danger? Just sayin’.

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To the Editor:

As we look back on Jan. 6, a date that will live in infamy, here is one view of former President Donald Trump and his mob of supporters—with a nod to the German pastor Martin Niemöller and his harrowing poem “First They Came”:

First, they chanted “lock her up!”—and he did nothing,

Because he, too, wanted her to be locked up.

Then they stormed the Capitol, with riot gear, brutalizing police officers while brandishing an American flag,

And he did nothing.

Then they roamed the halls, with nooses in their pockets, trying to hunt down his political foes and a long-devoted henchman,

And he did nothing.

And while reports streamed in of the injured and the possibly dead,

And trusted advisers and family members implored him to put a stop to it,

Still, he did nothing.

And late in the day, when he finally mustered up the courage to speak out,

He did something worse than nothing.

He told the perpetrators who committed those despicable acts that he loved them.

Andrew Sherman
New York
from a Letter to the Editor of The New York Times 1.8.22

The original poem is haunting. Mr. Sherman’s version of it is terrorizing.

We must attain and keep a common vision for the common good, Beloved. We must.

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Here’s my personal publishing news …

I got a lovely, lovely fan letter this week about my Mex Mysteries from a gentleman who claimed he was probably not my usual demographic. He’d been an editor and proofreader in his professional life. He wrote to compliment me on both the editing (and so my husband who is my editor) and the error-free books. I was so tickled.

He asked for more, and it inspired me to write (again) for the lyric reprint rights to Rent for Rent Rx, the ninth of the series. I’m working on it!

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I’ve had lots of ebooks out for a long time, but this week, I got all three Boots & Boas Romances in paperback! I never would have thought the physical books would make a difference to how I feel about them, but they do.

It was amazing to hold all three in my hands.

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I finished the first of my historical fiction tetralogy of The Subversive Lovelies called Jezebel Rising on the Winter Solstice. At this point, I’m re-reading it for a second time and still making myself laugh out loud as well as fact-checking, naming chapters, and mini-editing. It’ll go into my editor’s queue as soon as I’m finished.

& that’s what’s on for this week. Be &.