Furry Home Companion
2004-02-15 17:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chipotleWell, It's been a quiet week here in Lake...
...wait, that's not my transcript.
Discussion on the "Dignified Furs" mailing list continues in an interesting but, I suspect, largely non-productive fashion. It's difficult to pry the discussion off the "bad egg" theory, the idea that there are people in the fandom who are responsible for most of the perceived problems and that if only the fandom could collectively ostracize these people somehow it would represent a great step forward. This line of thinking is attractive because it's perfectly logical: if there's a problem, it has a cause, and if you could address the cause, you'd address the problem. The flaw, of course, is that you can't take this premise anywhere without catching flames that you probably deserve. What's the criteria for determining who's a bad egg? Who gets to set those criteria? (The original epigram from my novel In Our Image was a quote from C. S. Lewis: "Aristotle said that some people were fit only to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I see no men fit to be masters.")
The discussion is interesting, as I said, in spite of this, in part because a spiritual therianthrope has shown up who is not conforming to what I suspect the--well, let's not call him burned, but definitely singed--fellow has in mind as a stereotype. If we're honest, it's not a difficult stereotype to subscribe to. But, hey--I'm a Unitarian Universalist, getting back into the church after a few years of solo practice. Our stereotypical response to a well-spoken therianthrope would be, "Would you like to speak about it after the service two Sundays from now?"
And my take on anthropomorphics has often been canted toward the therianthropic, I suspect--the second, still-born incarnation of Mythagoras was subtitled New Myths and Animal Legends, and the title story of "Why Coyotes Howl" is arguably pretty therianthropic. I've had a long fascination with shamanism which frequently dovetails with an interest in magic realism. As a storyteller, the core ideas, this sort of expansion of the Jungian gestalt to all of animal creation--this is the good stuff. This is what the true stories come from.
At any rate, all this is rekindling my furry activist streak. I've learned better than to start a print magazine (for one, I wouldn't want to compete with Sofawolf, and for another, my past record just isn't good!), and I don't expect Coyote Coast Press, when it happens, to be involved with anthropomorphic stories in any shape. But there really isn't any online magazine for anthropomorphics -- the equivalent of a Yerf! archive for writing.
Hmm.
...wait, that's not my transcript.
Discussion on the "Dignified Furs" mailing list continues in an interesting but, I suspect, largely non-productive fashion. It's difficult to pry the discussion off the "bad egg" theory, the idea that there are people in the fandom who are responsible for most of the perceived problems and that if only the fandom could collectively ostracize these people somehow it would represent a great step forward. This line of thinking is attractive because it's perfectly logical: if there's a problem, it has a cause, and if you could address the cause, you'd address the problem. The flaw, of course, is that you can't take this premise anywhere without catching flames that you probably deserve. What's the criteria for determining who's a bad egg? Who gets to set those criteria? (The original epigram from my novel In Our Image was a quote from C. S. Lewis: "Aristotle said that some people were fit only to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I see no men fit to be masters.")
The discussion is interesting, as I said, in spite of this, in part because a spiritual therianthrope has shown up who is not conforming to what I suspect the--well, let's not call him burned, but definitely singed--fellow has in mind as a stereotype. If we're honest, it's not a difficult stereotype to subscribe to. But, hey--I'm a Unitarian Universalist, getting back into the church after a few years of solo practice. Our stereotypical response to a well-spoken therianthrope would be, "Would you like to speak about it after the service two Sundays from now?"
And my take on anthropomorphics has often been canted toward the therianthropic, I suspect--the second, still-born incarnation of Mythagoras was subtitled New Myths and Animal Legends, and the title story of "Why Coyotes Howl" is arguably pretty therianthropic. I've had a long fascination with shamanism which frequently dovetails with an interest in magic realism. As a storyteller, the core ideas, this sort of expansion of the Jungian gestalt to all of animal creation--this is the good stuff. This is what the true stories come from.
At any rate, all this is rekindling my furry activist streak. I've learned better than to start a print magazine (for one, I wouldn't want to compete with Sofawolf, and for another, my past record just isn't good!), and I don't expect Coyote Coast Press, when it happens, to be involved with anthropomorphic stories in any shape. But there really isn't any online magazine for anthropomorphics -- the equivalent of a Yerf! archive for writing.
Hmm.
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Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 08:40 (UTC)Knowing me, something I did would be closer to Strange Horizons rather than Yerf. But it's possible it could be some sort of hybrid that isn't quite either.