Building a Bomb - R.A. Young - June 4, 2024
Building a Bomb
Film marks are likely already deeply familiar with Hitchcock’s “Bomb Under the Table” analogy. For others, the idea is that even a boring scene like four people sitting around a table talking about baseball can be instilled with suspense if you first show a bomb on a five-minute timer hidden nearby. In other words, a boring conversation and a short bomb explosion can instead become fascinating to the audience by properly informing them.
The bomb doesn’t have to be a bomb, of course. And it doesn’t have to be a short scene either. Any given book or film can be broken down into layers of bombs, big and small. In The Lord of the Rings films, viewers are given information about the nature of the One Ring early, and the suspense it creates lasts throughout the trilogy. In that same scene, the threat of the Nazgul is also introduced, creating a more short-term bomb as Frodo flees Hobbiton. In The Lord of the Rings books, Frodo spends months in Hobbiton preparing for his departure. The threat of the Nazgul is heavy throughout those pages, but the time is used to ingratiate Frodo with the reader.
I want a big bomb for my novel, so I’m building one. I want something that can create both an immediate sense of suspense and long-lasting investment in the reader, while also being provocative and challenging. A bomb is never just a bomb. The One Ring wasn’t just a magical ring. It was a threat, both of incredible violence against Frodo alone and of annihilation for the world of men entirely. As much as Tolkien disliked the idea, the One Ring symbolized not just power but more so the pursuit of power to act out one’s will. It was a very big bomb!
I’m building a bomb and I’m going to use it violently (through prose, FBI).
Political Crush
It’s been around a month since my last newsletter and a lot has happened in politics. Biden’s continued involvement in the Palestine violence, convicted felon Trump’s hush money guilty verdict, Biden’s fascist immigration policy shift, and dozens of other “smaller” stories from the right regarding bigoted laws, threats of electoral violence, and so much more. I could write about all of the above, but that’s not what I want this space to be about. Rather, I want to talk about how fucking exhausting this all is.
It’s important to be politically informed, isn’t it? We are all citizens of humanity. We all want more from our various layers of society. We hope for things to be better. And it’s necessary to be educated on subjects that required your involvement to improve, right? Then why does following politics feel like strapping yourself in and turning the wheel of Princess Bride’s The Machine? “Trump says he’ll kill the immigrants Biden is caging? How interesting!” I whisper as I vacuum another year off of my own life.
It shouldn’t have to be like this. Shouldn’t it be two people acknowledging the realities of a problem and disagreeing on the best way for it to be fixed? I could acknowledge the value of each idea and then respectfully support whichever seemed more rationally presented and productive. Instead, we watch politicians revel in bigoted, deadly policy, courting a minority voting group hungry for depravity. There’s no realistic way to process the scale of harm without crushing something inside of you. I’m exhausted. It stresses me out even through my anti-anxiety meds. But I just can’t justify looking away at this moment. It isn’t like this is the first time I’ve felt this way either, but it never gets easier. How do y’all handle it?
Anyway, vote Biden. Four more years, I guess.
Stop Playing AFK Journey
Dear Rory. This is you from right now, soon to be just a bit ago. I’m echoing something that Rory from a month ago has already told you. Stop playing AFK Journey.
It’s not even that it’s a gacha game that makes AFK Journey so unworthy of your time, Rory. Gambling makes it a trash game but trash can be enjoyable at times. It’s that you’ve already completed all of the interesting content. There’s nothing else for you there. There’s no socialization, competition will limit you unless you spend significantly more money, the story has concluded for now, and — to put it bluntly — you aren’t enjoying yourself, dude!
Say goodbye to your guild, uninstall AFK Journey, and go spend your time on something that’s worth your time. No, not Destiny 2.
Lightning Round
Here are some bulleted points covering various things I’ve read, watched, or done over the past however many weeks —
Nature’s Rough — Over the past month or so, my family and I’ve been watching over a quail mom and her eggs in a flower pot in our backyard. Only 3 of 10 eggs fully hatched and led to cute, bouncy little quail babies bopping around. The seven others, well, nature’s rough.
Final Fantasy 14 — Over the past month or so I’ve leveled my mining up to max level and have a Scholar up to 81. The new expansion is still a month away, but in the meantime, FF14 is nice and comfy. I’m still getting used to the game again, getting ready for challenging content. It’s such a great game, y’all. Classic Final Fantasy feel with social systems.
Shards of Earth — I’ve been slowly reading this Adrian Tchaikovsky book for some time now. It’s good, but hasn’t hooked me like I’d hoped it would. It feels very much written for film adaptation, with tight character point-of-view narration and frequent bits of action. I was hoping for more of an in-depth, thoughtful bit of sci-fi. Still good, at least.
Jogging — I’m back on the exercise and diet wagon! It’s been slow going, I’ll tell you what. It’s like I turned 40 and all of a sudden my body is much less willing to recover and develop muscle. Still, I’m doing 4-5 hour-long jogs a week and I’m already losing the weight I put on after injuring my back this past December. Let’s get back under 200!
ADHD — No lengthy rant about mental health this time around. I’m on Adderall now and while I’m not sure if it has helped me be more productive, improved my memory, or anything of the sort, I do feel better in general. I feel stable. And I feel capable, even if that hasn’t borne fruit. Hopefully, that’s enough.
That’s all for this week’s newsletter. As always, thanks for being patient and thanks for caring. Love y’all. -Rory