Harper Kingsley blog

Sometimes my brain thinks about things without my permission and goes through whole tangents on subjects I otherwise wouldn’t consider. And so I was thinking about the classic (racist) joke "Me Chinese. Me play joke. Me go pee pee in your Coke." And it’s basically "The Help" with the Chinese man being the protagonist and without the unnecessary addition of the unhelpful white savior woman.

Seriously, she nudged her way into their private spaces, gathered their stories, wrote a book, and made a bunch of money. She profited off the lives and misery of Black women and didn’t even give them any of the money she received in return. She was the worst sort of person.

"But she wrote a great book! Because of her, everyone in town knew that some lady ate a shit pie! How is that not life changing?!?"

And I get it. As a species, humans enjoy the thought of their enemies knowing that they’ve been revenged upon. It’s why a dying old woman was so gleeful as she said "Tell Cersei. I want her to know it was me."

But at the end of the day, what was the result?

Everyone in town knew that one of their members had eaten a fecal pie. And considering the number of people in town, that the pie maker was recently fired by the person before making the "apology" pie; it likely wasn’t too hard to figure out the identity of the pie maker, thus resulting in her having a hard time getting a job in the future. A job she very much needed.

Yeah. That lady was the worst sort of white savior. The kind that didn’t really save anyone. Only profited off the life stories of Black women whose lives were likely adversely affected by the secrets she’d told.

"But those women wanted their stories told! They just couldn’t write it themselves! They were happy to help her succeed in her fabulous life as a young white woman in America! It’s a success story. Like ‘The Blind Side.’"

"The Help" may have been an entertaining story and a great movie due to the cast of fabulous Black women (Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis for example) but at the end of the day it was intended for the white gaze. It’s one of those stories that someone can consume and metaphorically pat themselves on the back afterward. "I’m not as awful as those racists that abuse their maids. Hey, sub-minimum wage serving staff, feel free to use the servant’s toilet. Just make sure you keep it clean. I’m such a good person."

The Chinese man urinating in the rude customer’s Coca-Cola is a better story than "The Help" in that there didn’t need to be a savior figure to step in and make a point that much deserved revenge had happened. The Chinese man had his own autonomy. He made a decision, he carried it out, and he didn’t have to share any of the glory with some mild-mannered observer that made no effort to stop the racism as it happened but only stepped in afterward to make themself feel better.

Him holding his eyes in the inherently racist "squinty eye" gesture while speaking in broken English really got his point across.

White people telling that joke in the 80s thought they were hilarious, because "That Chinese guy was so dumb he peed in the Coke and thought it was okay to serve that to a person. He was so ignorant he didn’t even know better!" When really the joke is "A white guy was racist toward a Chinese person, and the Chinese guy turned it back on him by leaning into the broken English stereotype and playing up the assumption that ‘Asians are foolish’ and got a racist to drink his urine. And he did it in such a way that the guy couldn’t even be mad! Good joke, haha."

~Harper Kingsley

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Hear me out: "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie because "Why was John McClane at Nakatomi Plaza?"

He was there for a Christmas party.

The rest of the building is all shut down due to Christmas and the holiday season. Holly and her coworkers are only there so late because they’re having their Christmas party, otherwise they would have been safely at home and not available for hostage taking.

He wouldn’t have been able to make his "Ho ho ho, now I have a machine gun" joke if it hadn’t been Christmas time.

And outside of the Christmas apparel of the movie, there is a theme of family and togetherness at the base of it all. Like, at any time, John could have noped out of that whole situation, made his way to the parking garage, and escaped. He had free range of the whole building, inside and out. BUT he could not leave Holly there, because the whole focus of the movie is family.

He went there to reconcile with his ex-wife in the hopes of being able to stay together with his family. And yes, I realize there’s an 80’s sense of masculine self-entitlement there–like, she moved to a whole other city to get away from him!–but "Die Hard" is a product of its time and has to be watched like one. (That they don’t actually get back together-together and he remains single in the later movies is something I appreciate. Because it shows the characters stay true to themselves as people versus being caricatures where the hero always gets the girl. He does not.)

The whole movie is Christmassy. It cannot be denied. It’s just that the theme is more like "Season’s beatings" than "Season’s greetings" that’s all.

~Harper Kingsley

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"Burrito at Midnight" is set in a failing society. It is while things are taking a bad turn. It’s the downswing, while "Burrito at Midnight World" is the upswing. It is set when things are coming back up, after all the badness happened.

"Burrito at Midnight" is a society vignette. A focused view. Set in a situation where the mc is without a lot of resources and is quietly living through "the end of the world."

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Dr. Zee realizes that when Kanon-Darkstar stepped through the portal, the supervillain was instantly vaporized.

Like water droplets spread everywhere after a glass of water is flung into a moving fan.

Some droplets are bigger than others. Some are microscopic. They disperse everywhere.

All the Kanon-Darkstars carry an imprint of who they are. A seed of what they can be if given enough time.

And Kanon-Dr. Zee is left without a Darkstar to worship.

So he uses his machines and his superscience to track down every single one of those droplets. No matter how small and seemingly insignificant.

Because he knows that every piece of Darkstar has it in them to become another, fully formed Darkstar.

People mistake him for being a good person. Always so helpful. Every iteration of him that had their own Darkstar left a mark of seeming benevolence.

He could no longer remember the first instance when he’d been effected by Darkstar’s Charm. That tsunami of psionic force that had hit him so unaware.

There were no records–that coward hadn’t dared to leave one–but he was fairly sure that he had been the one to edit his own memories. A fruitless attempt to excise every bit of Darkstar out of him.

But Darkstar was a pervading force. He could not and would not be denied. (Ray would make it so. The path before Darkstar would be lined by the golden bricks that Ray would lay for him.) The memory of that first experience (no doubt something he now regretted not remembering) had been taken from him in a poor attempt to —-inoculate—- him against Darkstar’s Charm.

He wondered how hard that other Ray had struggled. How futile everything had been as his mind had folded in on itself.

He knew his mind had been affected. But he didn’t remember it happening. He had spared himself from it (and he resented that. Not remembering falling in love for the first and only time in his life).

He’d gone to bed the same bitter and small person he’d always been. And he’d awoken one day to the full glory of his obsession with Darkstar.

He didn’t know what kind of person he’d have been without Darkstar. But he thought he might have been a bad one.

He’d been on his way to being a bad one.

Little things that would become big things, and the kind of actions that got a person labeled as a supervillain with a short trip to Butcher Bay awaiting them in the future.

He’d been on his way to being a very different person. Only he’d crossed paths with Darkstar.

Or Starburst as he’d called himself then. A serious mess if there ever was one.

Mocked and abused by the media. A ludicrous figure in the stories shared about him. A serious failure as a supervillain.

Ray had done the math. He’d run simulations and built datasets. It was clear that Darkstar had done more societal good as a supervillain than he’d done as a superhero.

But overall he had done societal good.

His presence had created a positive result.

~Harper Kingsley

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Glad you liked the "Burrito at Midnight World" segment. 😊

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For the last few minutes of CyberMonday, I ordered a DASH mini-donut maker. It’s coming in like 2 weeks because I ordered it with no-rush shipping. I figure that will give me enough time to find some recipes and useful hacks.

Honestly, I wanted a mini-pie and quiche maker that I saw because I do like pie. But it was more money than I wanted to spend. So I got the donut maker because my dad keeps buying bags of mini-powdered donuts.

Though, now, I’m feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse because I really like fruit pies and pot pies and I saw that one of the reviewers used their pie maker to make muffins. And now all I can think about is I want to be able to make pot pies. And instead I’m going to be making donuts.

So there better be some awesome not-donut donut recipes out there. Healthy but tasty donuts. Some kind of bagel-ish donut I can make. All kinds of batter I can throw in my little machine and have it pop out as food.

Donut shaped food.

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I have a collection of DASH appliances. A while back I bought the mini maker collection of a pancake maker, a waffle maker, and a griddle. And I’ve bought the egg maker, which works well EXCEPT I don’t think it actually auto shuts off like it says it’s supposed to… instead it LOUDLY plays a musical tune that it just keeps playing and playing until you hit the power button to shut it off.

I like the egg maker because it makes eggs. It hard boiled those eggs like a champ. The omelets I made involved a bit of a learning curve I haven’t quite caught, as my first omelet was perfect and my following two were kind of watery from the steam function.

I bought the ingredients and I’m going to make some chicken potstickers and try to steam them in the DASH egg maker. That’s one of the things it’s supposed to be able to do, steaming all kinds of foods. Like, there’s instructions on how to steam salmon fillets in it.

That’s the whole reason I bought the egg maker: to steam potstickers.

So as a secondary function, I honestly hope that it steams better than it makes eggs. Because that would be amazing.

It makes great eggs. Making greater potstickers would make it a brilliant purchase on my part. Rather than just another appliance I bought and put on a shelf somewhere.

~Harper Kingsley

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