EPISODE 311: CHEKHOV'S POLL (or, SEVEN STORY MOUNTAIN)

POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW

The EPA has apparently rebranded itself as a travel agency; the most popular movie in America is about getting people to be quiet; Grey's Anatomy continues a stellar year with an episode dedicated to DACA; the screenplay that I'd put aside for so long I'd forgotten about half of it is a lot shorter than I remember (huzzah!), and also in need of a lot more work (noooooooooo).

And the coming of Jim Comey's book has made dinner conversation at my Jesuit community really uncomfortable. (I know I'm younger than a lot of you, but please don't ask me to explain the bedroom fetishes of the U.S. president. Or anyone, really. Please just let me eat.)

April 8-April 15, the fifteen week of what we call the two thousand and eighteenth year but is really way longer, in Seven Stories about Stories, and A Pretty Face. ++ (One) September 15, 2015, the Parliament of Australia: Liberal member Malcolm Turnbull ousts current prime minister Tony Abbott, and becomes the 29th Prime Minister of Australia.

For Americans, this sounds crazy. How do you oust the leader of your government without an election? But in parliamentary systems, it's allowed. But even so, for Australians the idea that a party in government would throw out a prime minister in his first term rather than allow them to face the judgment of the nation was inconceivable.

Then in 2010 the Labor Party did just that. In fact between 2010 and 2015 the country had five different prime ministers: Kevin Rudd got ousted by his deputy Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister; she was then ousted three years later (almost to the day) by him.

Rudd then lost the next election to Abbott, a former seminarian known by many as the "Mad Monk". And two years into his term (again, almost to the day), Abbott was thrown out by Turnbull.

(And if that’s not twisty and incestuous enough for you, Abbott himself had ousted Turnbull to become leader of the Opposition in 2009).

So yeah, lots of happy happy fun times happening in politics all over the hizzoe.

In announcing his desire to challenge Abbott for the leadership, Turnbull – a millionaire lawyer who to me has the look of Burgess Meredith’s take on the Penguin, with the voice of Gilligan’s Island’s Thurston B. Howell – had this to say: “The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr. Abbott’s leadership.”

(He then dared Batman to come get him, wah wah wah.)

Actual photo of Australian federal leadership, circa 2016.

30 Newspolls equals roughly eighteen months of bad news. So Turnbull’s logic seemed sound. In fact, of all the crazy political reversals of the prior five years, the move to make him prime minister sat the best with most people. He was a socially-concerned moderate, known for his pragmatism, replacing a hard right leader whose government showed capacity only in its ability to alienate and offend. (Since leaving leadership Abbott has stayed in Parliament and largely aped the stances and rhetoric of the U.S. President, waiting for his chance to do to Turnbull what Turnbull did to him.)

The problem was, though the Liberals put Turnbull in power, their government was deeply conflicted amongst themselves between moderates and conservatives. And as his leadership went on it became clear that Turnbull had signed on to a Faustian bargain—yes, he would be the Prime Minister, but he would not be allowed to be the pragmatic moderate people wanted and believed him to be. Whether it was on immigrants and refugees, climate change or gay marriage, Turnbull was forced not only to support but express positions mostly only slightly different than his predecessor (and in the case of immigration, every bit as hostile and xenophobic).

One year after he took office (once again, almost to the day), he started to lose Newspolls....

So what. Parties lose polls all the time. It was only a four point difference between Libs and Labor. And he’d only just won reelection in July.

Then it was three, four, five, seven, nine, twelve, thirteen Newspolls.

And at some point, journalists began to think back to his comments and wonder -- hey, what if he gets to 30? What happens then? Abbott sat on the backbench a-wishin’ and a-hopin’, but even most of his former supporters seemed unwilling to back him again. He’d just gotten too crazy.

And there were no other obvious alternative; other than Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, pretty much no one in the Turnbull government was doing all that well in their job.

With each successive bad Newspoll, the question of what happens at 30 came up again. The press became fixated on it; no matter what was going on in the country – the legalization of gay marriage after a national vote on the matter; the announcement of a massive new hydro-electric energy scheme, or mistakes by the Opposition; the realization that a number of members, including the Deputy Prime Minister, had dual citizenship and would need to resign and/or run again; the revelation that the (married) Deputy Prime Minister had been having an affair with a staffer, who was now pregnant, and had used his office to help get her a high paying job in Parliament – no matter what went on, the “30 polls” drum beat rolled on.

Sometimes the poll showed as much as a ten point difference between parties. Mostly it stayed between four and six points. Nothing dramatic; and an election was still years away. But it just kept going.

This week, finally, it reached thirty. (You can see a graph of the journey here.)

It put me in mind of a basic idea of the study of literature: a story teaches you how to read it. When Turnbull opined that 30 bad polls was the end of the road, he thought he was delivering the moral of the story of Tony Abbott. But in fact he was establishing the rules for how to read his own tale.

Writer Anton Chekhov once supposedly said, “If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then in the final act it has to go off.” With his comment at the start of his prime ministership, Turnbull set up the possibility that his story would be a countdown. And the Newspoll was his gun.

There’s probably some way of connecting this to what’s been going on in the United States the last two years. I suspect, though, ours is a story we won’t really understand until we see how it ends. The very best stories, written by the absolute masters of the craft, are like that.

Unfortunately, so are stories written by three year olds.

Methinks someone needs breakfast.

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Postscript: While there are some rumblings of a possible move on Turnbull, there’s still no clear alternative leader, and so far he remains in office.

Maybe the fact that he reached 30 actually ended the ticking clock narrative – the clock went to zero, the bomb didn’t explode, and his tale now becomes something else.

But I don’t know. If I were him, I think I'd be worried. If the gun hasn't gone off, is the story really over?

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(Two) Sandra Oh, from Grey’s Anatomy (Christina!) and movies about wine is back on television as of Sunday in BBC America’s new Killing Eve. She plays an American working in the UK as an assistant to a midlevel MI5 exec; her life is pretty blasé, actually, until her fascination with female assassins leads to her discovering one no one has realized is there. The pilot was great.

Oh did an interview with Vulture about the new gig and life. And she had this great moment on refusing to buy into the typical stories of how your life is supposed to go.

After Grey’s Anatomy, did you feel like you were getting the opportunities you wanted?
I’ve got to tell you, I work really hard to not think that way. And I have so much opportunity because I can say no, and I choose to say no. I took a lot of time to find the right project. So I’m interested in reframing what I know you’re asking me. Because wondering what if or why … being in the well-worn path of a belief system I don’t want to be in, I worked really, really hard to move myself out. Because it’s taken a long time to accept the reality of where we are. I know I’ve had an extraordinary path. But it doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s, you know?

And it can’t.
And it can’t. And it’s also about me believing that. So it’s just like “oh, so at a certain point in your career, you think A, B, C, or D is supposed to happen?” Thinking of it that way just causes me suffering. But being aligned to it to say, How do I stay creative? How do I still connect? How do I practice access? That you can do every day. Whether you’re on a set or not. And that is just preparation for when something actually does come that you’re fully prepared for. Does that make sense?

... the clearer and deeper you get into what you really want, you just become a better artist. If that’s what you really want — becoming a better artist — does that include access? Does that include having 5 billion Instagram followers? I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. But if what you want is to connect, if what you want is to be a great artist, I think you can find your way. Even within this giant paradigm that a lot of times doesn’t include people who look like us.

Conclusion: Sandra Oh is still our person.

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(Three) I also saw in the Guardian this week, a challenging, beautiful piece by Australian writer Tim Winton on boys and toxic masculinity.

...What a mystery a boy is. Even to a grown man. Perhaps especially to a grown man. And how easy it is to forget what beautiful creatures they are. There’s so much about them and in them that’s lovely. Graceful. Dreamy. Vulnerable. Qualities we either don’t notice, or simply blind ourselves to. You see, there’s great native tenderness in children. In boys, as much as in girls. But so often I see boys having the tenderness shamed out of them.

Boys and young men are so routinely expected to betray their better natures, to smother their consciences, to renounce the best of themselves and submit to something low and mean. As if there’s only one way of being a bloke, one valid interpretation of the part, the role, if you like. There’s a constant pressure to enlist, to pull on the uniform of misogyny and join the Shithead Army that enforces and polices sexism.

Lots to think about there.

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Huh. Just realizing, everything in this episode is turning out to be about the power of the stories we allow into our lives. Believe it or not, that is completely unintentional.

Let's put in this brief interview with David Tennant to mix things up.

​Important question: If Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch and Idris Elba are the Internet's boyfriends, is David Tennant the Internet's husband?

He will always listen to what you have to say.
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(Four) This American Life this week followed retiring Arizona Senator Jeff Flake as he tries to get a DACA bill through Congress. It has lots of glimpses into the broken politics of Washington – for which the words “the broken politics of Washington” seem wholly inadequate; we should invent new words that can only be written in a combination of lower and upper case letters and Björk shrieking to represent this.

But the podcast focuses on how Flake is this guy who refuses to lose faith in people. Given what a mess things are, that's kind of interesting.

And a lot of that faith turns on... yep, you guessed it, a story.

Interviewer Zoe Chace: A few months ago, I asked him about The Book of Mormon. I saw it on his desk. I saw him reading from it on his phone and listening to the audio book through wireless headphones.

He's devout. He doesn't drink coffee. He goes to church every Sunday. Doesn't drink or swear. And he told me one of his favorite parts of The Book of Mormon is in the last several passages of Alma, which tells the story of people who, Mormons believe, lived in the Americas long before Columbus arrived. There's a character called Moroni, a military captain.

Jeff Flake: And he grew pretty angry at the government at that time led by a guy named Pahoran, who was a good guy. But Moroni who was also a really guy, assumed that the government was holding out, not giving them their war supplies and whatever else.

ZC: He writes a threatening letter to Pahoran, saying, why are you ignoring me? Long story short, it's a misunderstanding. Pahoran was under siege by the enemy and just couldn't help Moroni. But Moroni had no way of knowing that.

Finally, Pahoran got a chance to tell him. And he didn't get mad at Moroni or anything.

JF: He said, no, you're a good man. And you just don't have all the information. They were both fine after that. They reconciled. Something like that tells you to bridle your passions, not assume the worst. Assume the best. Look for the good. Things usually work out.

ZC: Assume the best. Look for the good. It's his motto. He talks about it a lot. It was written out on an index card on his parent's fridge growing up. He says, you'll find it in every one of his 10 brothers and sisters houses, too. It's his attitude towards everyone, even Trump, who Flake can't stand.

A great episode. Worth a listen.

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(Five) Late Night host Seth Meyers and his wife had their second child this week. He was born in the lobby of their building. (Their first child was almost born in an Uber. Their lives are crazier than yours.)

On Monday Meyers told the story of the birth. It is hilarious and beautiful and you should watch it.

It also captures a lot of what I love about New Yorkers, and what most stories about them tend to miss.

Really and truly, while walking down the street and/or getting into/out of the subway in New York can definitely turn you bad, real bad, when you need help or you need a friend, you can't do better. It's the one element of the Marvel movies that is actually realistic.

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(Six) Finally, I'm looking into submitting short stories to some sci-fi magazines. Here's Clarkesworld Magazine's list of Submission Don'ts:

So much for my Sexy Asian Republican Vampire and his Disemboweled Talking Zombie Cat pitch. I even had a great title: FANG SHUI.


(Seven) Kyle Kinane has this great bit on his Netflix special where he talks about how he always rents, never owns. All his friends are struggling with mortgage payments and college loans and kids. "Does happiness ever feel like A CRUSHING WEIGHT THAT NEVER LEAVES YOUR SHOULDERS?" he says doubled up on stage, imitating them. "OH GOD, I'M BEING SMOTHERED BY JOY."

But the fact he only rents drives them crazy. "You gotta own," they tell him. "It's the American Dream."

"Is it your dream?" he asks. "No, but it's the American one," they reply, still wincing. "And if you don't own, what does it all mean? You gotta own, Kyle, you gotta own."

"And," he says, "I'm like, Hey, Nobody owns anything, because death is real."

(After that sinks in, he goes on: "But that's not the kind of philosophical argument they want to have at their kids' birthday parties, so....")

I don't know which I love more, the stories of stories that enable us to see a broader view or the stories of stories being turned upside down and outside in by the same.

Death is real. But so are Sandra Oh, David Tennant and Burgess Meredith. And a new week's coming.

Here we go.