In August, I wrote about lateral reading. I devised a challenge. Could readers discover how the three claims I wrote were factual or farcical using lateral reading? It was loosely based on the game ‘two truths and a lie,’ but flipped. Two lies and a real satire. Reader, the readership for this challenge included this writer.
What I discovered surprised even me.
Claim 1: * Sugar ants, which may be descendants of mitochondria, can impact epigenetic changes on DNA through bites to this body part.
I haven't the slightest idea if sugar ants are descendants of mitochondria, the powerhouse of cells. Inspiring this sentence was a brief conversation with a brilliant friend, a cellular and molecular scientist, about mitochondria. If I understood correctly, mitochondria have their own ancestry, apart from humans or other animal species, and evolved symbiotically to live within us as hosts. I found this fascinating. What if mitochondria evolved further and took over their hosts? But while epigenetics is a real phenomenon, however painful ant bites may be on any body part, there's no evidence that ants can cause changes to human DNA. This claim was made up by me on a whim and any legitimacy it has will—I hope—rise and die in this newsletter. But pathways to legitimacy can elude us, as I discovered.
Claim 2: * Nikola Tesla secretly told his lover that this prime number could prove the feasibility of time travel.
My seven-year-old is obsessed with car brands, including Teslas. Unlike me. I only remember car brands when I have to find the car registration to fill in a form, like a parking voucher. Since now I'm being notified about every Tesla we pass, I took this interest as an opportunity to learn about the namesake, Nikola Tesla. The biography of the engineer and futurist inspired me to write this fictional factoid.
To my surprise, however, when I did a brief lateral review, Factiverse, an AI-powered online fact checker, suggested a portion of my words were verifiable. While there's no evidence Tesla had a lover, or married, nor evidence of Tesla making claims about prime numbers and time travel, apparently a few obscure websites and books claim Tesla was obsessed with the feasibility of time travel. I won't post them here because linking can boost visibility and verifiability. But their persistence raises the question, how long does it take for the existence of unreliable claims to become verifiable stories?
In the case of the next farce, only six years.
Claim 3: * Dog owners are nervous about vaccines for their pets because some diseases aren’t as concerning as vaccine science.
This claim was based on the 2017 McSweeney's satire Don't Shame Me for Not Vaccinating My Labradoodle by John Long. Unlike propaganda or media manipulation, satire assumes a knowledgeable reader. In 2017, readers should be familiar with the deep love of North American pet owners for their pups and the deep resistance of some North Americans to vaccinating their children due to the damaging—and debunked—1998 Wakefield study published in the Lancet about correlations between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Satire is funny because, while the backstories are factual, the combination is absurd. We laugh at the ludicrousness of reality.
Here's the dig. I came across this article because the author posted a link on his Twitter (now named X) account. I saw it, because someone reposted his post, thinking he was re-promoting old work. He was not, I later learned. But I wanted a quick example, and this seemed perfect. I didn't follow my own instructions. I didn't do a lateral reading of the post to understand time and context, I only did a deep reading of the site—McSweeney's is a legitimate satire site. And that's cool until in 2023, North American pet owners ARE concerned about the adverse effects of vaccines. My hubris, crowning convenience as king.
I suddenly recollect someone telling me once, when events went awry by my own decision-making, “well, you made your bed […]” The ellipse motioning to the consequence. “Now you must lie in it.” The proverb has the eye-rolling quality of words delivered by a chastising elder. You feel foolish. You are! Of course, when you walk a path, you arrive at a destination. Obviously! So then one must ask, do you know what path you are walking? Or, do you know what bed you are making?
My hubris may be all of ours, at least in terms of convenience and visibility. From the persistence of unsourced conjecture about Tesla to my folly, I'm reminded of Stephen Harrison's Slate article on citogenesis, where he elevates the ongoing problem of circular referencing. Where unverified ideas eventually become verified, through circular citations. Verification can materialize in different ways, and surely there has been more references and conversations about manifestation. I'm reminded me of the simple words on a journal I bought a few years ago: “Remember, ideas become things.” Consider the adage a promise, or a warning: if you made your bed, you may lie in it. Or, you may reap what you sow. (Interestingly, Microsoft Editor reminds me that this is an overused expression. Perhaps for good reason, it’s always being learned).
This brings me to the next item on the list I started on how to cultivate imagination (read 1. 2, 3, 4, 5):
6. Give credit. The convention does a number of things. I believe it's how we remember each other; it's how we avoid erasures.
Speaking of giving credit in advance, earlier this week, I cross-posted an image and text on Instagram + Facebook about mothering, a relatable topic that touches most of us in different ways. My post was a preview of Amanda Montei's book Touched Out, which takes on the embodied experience of motherhood through the lens of #metoo. I pre-ordered the book. Here’s the post and my words:
“‘A mother's body is slowly made over time,’ writes Amanda Montei, in an excerpt of her new book, Touched Out, for The Guardian. My body has not forgotten it's been remade, insofar as I feel I am a different person now. ‘It's just so much bodywork,’ I remember telling people, usually mothers, about the experience. ‘It’s so much bodywork. You can read the books but until you're doing it, you have no idea. They grow in you, they eat you, they climb on you, they overwhelm your senses and your sense of autonomy and your experience of time. They threaten to devour you whole.’ Who wouldn’t be changed by this? Perhaps because my children are in school now and the work is different, I’ve considered how to put such changes into words, especially the conditions from which I arrived at mothering. This is new. A few years ago, I hadn’t the stamina. Had you asked me, when this photo was taken—by my lovely mother—which happened to be around the time that Christine Blasey Ford was testifying: ‘would you like to say something about the specter of sexual violence you grew up with, the economy around you, and your lived experience of motherhood?’ I would have said, ’yes, what a good idea,’ but then fallen asleep. Montei, however, did not fall asleep. Based on my reading of The Guardian excerpt, Touched Out promises to draw electrifying throughlines between the visibility and anger that #metoo provoked to the devouring of motherhood, opening space for, as she writes in her recent Mad Woman newsletter, people to ‘write your own story in response.’”
For more like this, I'd recommend
Look How Happy I'm Making You by Polly Rosenwaike
A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk
Black Milk by Elif Shafak
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
In other news, it's back to school time. The children have already started and I'm planning my classes. This autumn I'm lecturing at the University of Washington, in media studies, and I'm preparing to teach writing again at Hugo House. After over a year away from the classroom, I'm genuinely excited to be designing courses and creating spaces, and processes, in which people can learn. It's circular and I'm returning to familiar themes with new examples. I'll share more updates about public classes I'm teaching in coming weeks.
Book recommendation
Outlander
by Diana Gabaldon
September is also for romance. I heard snippets of an NPR episode on real bromance book clubs, with author Lyssa Kay Adams. Apparently, men read romance in order to better understand their partners and to feel turned on—ooo. While Leigh Stein's latest newsletter, Mood Boost, covers the fun of a romance writers’ conference. Romance writers are changing lives! In this vein, her writing advice is so sage: “shift […] from imagining how publishing a book will change your life to imagining how publishing this book will change your reader's life.”
I'm interested in having my life changed by romance. And I'm interested in changing your life, so let me tell you about Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I overheard a dashing sailor raving about the book to her handsome partner at a bookstore in Friday Harbor a few weeks ago. I wanted in on the fun.
I, too, found myself besotted with the dramatic Scottish setting, gutsy protagonist, time travel, and the slow burn romance! (Only later did I realize it’s a popular Netflix series, I can see why!) Do you want this in your life? I appreciate that Gabaldon was an academic before turning to fiction writing, but that's mostly about me. I do find curious, in the context of a newsletter titled ‘You made your bed,’ her remarks on her own prescience, on her website FAQ (italics mine):
“Q: Are all the locations used in the book real?
“A: […] If you mean the stone circle….I don’t know. Bear in mind that I had never been to Scotland when I wrote Outlander. When I finally did go, I found a stone circle very like the one I described, at a place called Castlerigg […]
“So far as I know, there isn’t a physical basis for Lallybroch (editor's note: this is a castle), but then again, I do repeatedly find things that really exist after I’ve written them, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
Until next time,
Monika
The Gift
This was such a pleasure to read on a Saturday! Your experiment was fascinating--and scary. Thanks for linking to my citogenesis piece and also for giving me my new mantra: “shift […] from imagining how publishing a book will change your life to imagining how publishing this book will change your reader's life.”