22 Panels Brit's Cabinet Book Club #1: Ojja Wojja & I Am Not Starfire

Brit & Tad discuss Ojja Wojja & I Am Not Starfire

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Transcript

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Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon. Everybody welcome back to the 22 panels Podcast in our 1st edition of Brit's Cabinet.

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Tad Eggleston: which is probably subtitled, the autism, awareness book, club, or or Tad and Prit hang out and talk comics and

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Tad Eggleston: be autistic or talk autistic, which whichever one of us is speaking.

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Tad Eggleston: I'll let everybody else figure out who who we're talking about, with what? But before we get into

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Tad Eggleston: it was Oja woja, and and I am not Starfire. My autistic brain

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Tad Eggleston: tied them together with a piece of autistic writing that I have always adored. Nick Hornby

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Tad Eggleston: has an autistic son, and in his book, originally titled

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Tad Eggleston: 31 Songs in Britain, I think. And now songbook in the United States. He wrote an essay about the song, a minor incident from about a boy.

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Tad Eggleston: which was a badly drawn boy song for the for the soundtrack, and I'm just going to read an excerpt from his essay, and I only kind of found it so if it winds up, being longer than I intended, I apologize in advance.

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Tad Eggleston: I began writing about a boy in 1996, the year my son Danny was finally diagnosed as autistic.

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Tad Eggleston: There are a lot of things to think, or panic, or despair, or lose sleep about, and money was only one of them, but I suddenly went from feeling reasonably wealthy. I was in my 4th year of earning a decent whack from writing, and for the 1st time in my life I had some savings to financially vulnerable.

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Tad Eggleston: I was going to have to find enough to make sure that my son was secure, not just for the duration of my life, but for the duration of his, and that extra 30 or 40 years was hard to contemplate in more or less any direction.

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Tad Eggleston: And then, no sooner had these worries begun to take hold and chafe a little bit than this Hollywood money arrived until the movie was made. This was the only connection I had forged between the book and Danny.

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Tad Eggleston: The character of Marcus was nothing to do with him. Marcus is 12, and brightly valuable. If odd. I would actually argue that Marcus is a little on the spectrum, too, but but

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Tad Eggleston: probably not by the definitions of the era.

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Tad Eggleston: Danny was 3 and 5 years later, is still unable to speak.

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Tad Eggleston: and I don't think that Danny would recognize the parenting that Marcus experiences. It's possible that if I had been childless I would have been attracted to a different kind of story. But that's the only way that about a boy is about Danny.

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Tad Eggleston: A minor incident, a sweetheartfelt, acoustic strummer with a wheezy Dylanesque harmonica solo refers directly to a major incident in the book.

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Tad Eggleston: and the movie. Marcus comes home from a day out to discover his mother, Fiona, lying comatose on the sofa after an attempt to kill herself, her vomit on the floor beside her. The song is her suicide. Note to her son.

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Tad Eggleston: I wrote one for her, too, but it wasn't in the form of a song lyric, and Damon's words capture Fiona's dippy, depressive insouistance

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Tad Eggleston: perfectly.

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Tad Eggleston: But here's the thing. Once I'd listened to a minor incident a couple of times. It started to make me think of Danny in ways that I hadn't done when I was writing the book.

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Tad Eggleston: You walk always were the one

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Tad Eggleston: to make us stand out in a crowd, though every once in a while your head was in a cloud.

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Tad Eggleston: There's nothing you could never do to ever let me down, sings Damon, as Fiona, and the lines brought me up. Short.

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Tad Eggleston: autistic children are by their nature the dreamiest of kids, and Danny's ways of making us stand out in a crowd can include attempts to steal strangers Crisps and to get undressed on the top of the number 19 bus.

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Tad Eggleston: But the peculiar negative in the last line.

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Tad Eggleston: How did badly drawn boy know that it's the things that Danny will never do.

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Tad Eggleston: talk, read, play, football, all sorts of stuff

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Tad Eggleston: that make those who love him, feel the most fiercely proud and protective of him.

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Tad Eggleston: And suddenly, 5 years on, I find a mournful undertow of identification in the lyric to the song.

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Tad Eggleston: because the money from the sale of the film rights has forced me to contemplate my own mortality. Like Fiona. I'm thinking of a time when I won't be around for Danny for different reasons, but the end result is the same.

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Tad Eggleston: So there we go. That's where the excitement lies in the magical coincidences and transferences of creativity. I write a book that isn't about my kid. And then someone writes a beautiful song based on an episode in my book that turns out to mean something much more personal to me than my book ever did.

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Tad Eggleston: and I won't say that this sort of thing is worth more than all the Hollywood money in the world, because I'm a pragmatist, and that Hollywood money has given Danny a trust fund which will hopefully see him through those terrifying 30 or 40 years.

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Tad Eggleston: but it's worth an awful lot, something money can't buy, and it makes me want to keep writing and collaborating in the hope that something I write will strike this kind of dazzling, serendipitous spark off someone again.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: That's really great.

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Tad Eggleston: It is. I'm a big fan of Nick Hornby, but this has always been one of my favorite pieces of writing. Just like about a boy is my favorite book of his, and as I realize it, I think it's because I think

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Tad Eggleston: both Will and Marcus are on the spectrum and just

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Tad Eggleston: slightly different places and slightly different sets of resources, you know. Will is able to use his money to work around being on the spectrum.

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Tad Eggleston: Marcus has the mother that allows him to be himself.

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Tad Eggleston: and therefore is kind of able to

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Tad Eggleston: still feel proud of himself, even as his

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Tad Eggleston: classmates are absolutely horrible to him.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Well, I'm so, since the classmates are horrible to him. I suppose that was the tie between these books that made you think of that passage.

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Tad Eggleston: That was part of it, but I think more of it was

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Tad Eggleston: It was while I was reading. I am not Starfire.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: By Mariko Tamaki with the Art, by Yoshi Yoshitani, a DC. Comics. Young, adult, graphic novel.

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Tad Eggleston: That that and thinking of Starfire and having her child grow up

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Tad Eggleston: as this weird kid that isn't.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean. And and the difference between these books is is the main character in

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Tad Eggleston: Oja Woja, who I'm forgetting. Her name right now.

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Tad Eggleston: is explicitly described as autistic, whereas Mandy is not in.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I am not Starfire.

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Tad Eggleston: However, there's still that negative, that that good.

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Tad Eggleston: Her mom is proud of her and wants to show that she's proud of her, even though every every birthday she's like testing to see if she has

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Tad Eggleston: superpowers and and and like

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Tad Eggleston: Mandy, thinks that her mom's disappointed in her because she doesn't have superpowers, and it's not that in some ways she's almost hoping that she doesn't have them, because

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Tad Eggleston: or at least we discover that she's almost hoping that she doesn't have them because of everything that can come along with having superpowers.

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Tad Eggleston: You know that it's a double-edged sword. It's it's more, you know. She's trying to to make certain that she's the best mom that she can be. And if her child has superpowers she has to mother one way, and if her child doesn't have superpowers. She has to have

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Tad Eggleston: but then also, you know the the

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Tad Eggleston: the experiences, and what's the I'm going to go nuts if I don't know the name of the character, you know.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Val, Val and Laney are the 2 leads.

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Tad Eggleston: Ball and Laney. Okay? So if.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Val is on the spectrum.

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Tad Eggleston: Right. I think Laney is a little bit too just, not as explicitly.

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Tad Eggleston: Val knows it and and expresses I'm autistic.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is a discussion that you and I have had a lot about.

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Tad Eggleston: how many people are and aren't on the spectrum. How, how, how, how important it is to express it and not express it. I think we agree on more more than we don't. We're just coming from different

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Tad Eggleston: directions.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Absolutely. Yeah.

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Tad Eggleston: But Val is knows she's on the spectrum, and therefore works from that perspective.

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Tad Eggleston: I think Mandy is 2. I guarantee that? What's what's her friend?

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Tad Eggleston: The the.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Mandy's friend.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah. The one best.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I'll look at it.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: But but he that friend, he excuse me.

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Tad Eggleston: And, for that matter, both both of them have similar relationships. Because that's how that's how Mandy

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Tad Eggleston: Lainey is a protector of Mandy.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Lincoln. Lincoln is Manny's friend.

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Tad Eggleston: Right. Lincoln is a protector, or Lincoln is a protector of Mandy. Laney is the protector of Val, so both of these stories involve somebody who knows they're vulnerable.

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Tad Eggleston: And the other person like knows they're vulnerable, but also has more of the tough person persona.

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Tad Eggleston: It's like, Yeah, you make fun of.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yes.

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Tad Eggleston: Queue?

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Tad Eggleston: Yes.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Although in in both you see that person who is willing to adopt that role more outwardly. Sometimes the person who is hurt more inwardly.

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Tad Eggleston: Absolutely, absolutely. And and that's how the connections wind up. And that's something I've always

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Tad Eggleston: noticed through through my years. Long before I

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Tad Eggleston: I realized that I was on the spectrum. Is that like

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Tad Eggleston: we are? And I see it now with my students. We're relatively good at

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Tad Eggleston: finding those people who think enough, more like us, or at least enough differently from the rest of the world that like, we're not weird to them. Or we're weird in the good way

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Tad Eggleston: does that make sense.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Absolutely, and those are those are themes that I think you end up exploring both as an autism parent. And probably I don't. It must be more frustrating as an autistic person have to even think of that in part because of what rain man did to the culture and its perceptions of autism that. And then also, you know, people who are autistic bolstering themselves by saying, autism is my superpower, because, you know, I can understand the reasons that all.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean a little, a little.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: But it becomes a burden for Mandy, and I am not Starfire.

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Tad Eggleston: Right?

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Tad Eggleston: Well, but but there, there's there's the the other side of it is that like?

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Tad Eggleston: And it's very hard

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Tad Eggleston: for a lot of people on the spectrum. What autism really is is, we think enough differently from you.

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Tad Eggleston: that explaining what we're feeling and what we're thinking is really hard.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Well, let me dig into that. Then, in the Ojo woja, because that is the explicit theme of it. I'm really glad that you pick this one to reread. I had skimmed it before, sort of just to see if it was appropriate for my daughter to sort of be able.

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Tad Eggleston: Right.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Knowledgeably about it my presentation, and just to get a sense of what it was. And I'm not particularly interested in horror either. So it really, for several reasons, was not targeted for me. That's.

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Tad Eggleston: But it was great.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Since we picked it last week. Oh, yeah, well, I read it. I reread it a little more carefully, and followed it a little more, and then understood

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: really what was going on. So we know a little bit about the author, and they identify specifically as autistic. Then this lead character, who's also the narrator identifies as autistic. And I'm gonna this is going to have some spoilers. So if you haven't read it yet.

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Tad Eggleston: That's fine. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 spoiler, alert, spoiler, alert. If you haven't read it. Pause now go, read it, come back, otherwise deal with it.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: So it's not.

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Tad Eggleston: For a while.

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Tad Eggleston: It's.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Kind of us.

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Tad Eggleston: Wait. You can't have a book club and not spoil shit.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Fair enough, so it's a scooby doo ish setting familiar, and that's what I thought it was, and that's kind of why I skipped it. But the.

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Tad Eggleston: Think more detail.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: What we end up.

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Tad Eggleston: But yeah.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: That's what I'm saying when I skimmed it. That's kind of what I got out of it, and reading through it more carefully, it actually to me is a really sensitive and careful portrayal through the medium of horror. And specifically, kids horror for understanding the metaphor of what it's like to think, as an autistic person. So you spend a lot of time early on in the book, seeing the fantasies of our 2 lead characters in different kind of movie style situations.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: space operas and Detective Noir and pulp and.

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Tad Eggleston: TV.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Anime fantasy. TV news? Yeah. And so there are all these flights of fancy. And then about a 3rd of the way into the book. The lead character explains that part of how she navigates in the world as an autistic person, the way her particular autism presents itself, and presumably the authors as well is that she kind of takes track, takes stock of what other people do, and how they behave, how she responds, and how that response is received. Then she kind of tracks it in this mental

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: graph, this mental chart, which then creates an algorithm for her to, and next time she encounters something similar. She she goes. She riffles through that rolodex to figure out, what response can she have that makes sense?

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: And she finds that really frustrating the place where things work out well, of course, is in these movies, which is why it's easier for her to sometimes go into a movie fantasy to figure out how to handle a real life situation. Sometimes it's quite abrupt that they don't even explain it. And then at the very end they encounter the bad guy. It's not the bad guy. It's this ghost that they think is punishing the town. But it turns out the ghost is just trying to fit in

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: and doing the things that the people around her ask her to do sometimes, which involves killing people. And so that's historic over the last couple 100 years. And but the goat. What the lead character figures out is that the ghost has something in common with Val with our lead character, because she also has a hard time figuring out what other people want, and so when she recognizes that in the ghost.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: then she can pass on the knowledge to the ghost, hey? Why don't you spend time in stories and in the way that we sort of craft stories have beginnings, middle and ends and and satisfying understandable situations? And then maybe you'll be happier there instead of dealing with the uncertainties of dealing with

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: people. And they're difficult to read interactions. And then the ghost, of course, does that, and that gets the ghost to stop haunting the town. Basically, you know, very, very bluntly. And so what ends up happening is that this character who we have now come to understand, and whether we were aware of it or not, understand how her autism presents the ways that she finds relief for herself. The way she helps herself understand the world is the thing. That's the secret sauce that lets her

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: defeat the bad guy. Defeat's not the right word, it's, it's it's understand. And and the bad guy, right? Connect with yeah. But also, you know, connect with and redirect, which is a very common thing.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think one of.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Is to connect and redirect away from.

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Tad Eggleston: I think one of the reasons I'm a good teacher is because of

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Tad Eggleston: both the way my brain works be

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Tad Eggleston: just normally, and because of the ways that I've had to figure out how to

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Tad Eggleston: adapt the way, I think

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Tad Eggleston: and act naturally to acting in the world. I mean one of the things we we talk about in autism

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Tad Eggleston: a lot is is like not wanting to make people mask. And and I think that's an admirable goal.

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Tad Eggleston: But I think that there's also

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Tad Eggleston: there's a difference between masks that we're forced to wear and masks that we choose to wear.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean, I realized today. Actually.

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Tad Eggleston: it was one of the reasons we went up late is is like I was figuring it out and then needed to refresh my brain.

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Tad Eggleston: That like I,

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Tad Eggleston: if I'm just talking about my emotions, I'm I'm in pretty much a perpetual state of of frustration at like how hard it is for me to fit in in the world

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Tad Eggleston: and do the things that I want to do.

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Tad Eggleston: particularly because I made the decision to to do things that involved other people and helped other people, and and weren't as financially

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Tad Eggleston: rewarding. And therefore

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Tad Eggleston: I had to to deal with that on top of it all. So if I'm talking just my emotions. I'm always frustrated and and like.

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Tad Eggleston: I don't have a lot of control over my nonverbals.

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Tad Eggleston: Unless I'm specifically thinking about it. Right. So most of the time I have this mask on

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Tad Eggleston: because my thoughts aren't frustrated. I understand the decisions I've made. I'm happy with the decisions I've made. I've so so I do. A lot of like Vonnegut, I think, said at a certain point, you are what you pretend to be. So I spent a lot of time pretending to be a lot more hopeful, a lot happier, a lot less

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Tad Eggleston: like

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Tad Eggleston: frustrated and scared than I feel, because intellectually, that's who I am. My body just doesn't always agree with that.

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Tad Eggleston: But then, sometimes, when I'm like

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Tad Eggleston: thinking really hard about other things, I'm not able to also maintain that mask on my outward nonverbal affect.

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Tad Eggleston: And then people think I'm pissed off at them, or I'm frustrated or whatnot. And the answer is, yes, I'm frustrated, and yes, I'm pissed off. It didn't start right now. It started decades ago.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, well, yeah.

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Tad Eggleston: Just slipping right now, because I can't maintain the mask and do all of this stuff. And

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Tad Eggleston: and I sensed that you wanted me to do all of this stuff, and or I wanted to do all of this stuff.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, that that theme of masking is explored pretty thoroughly in a different comic book called Speak Up, which at some point, maybe we'll we'll put on our list.

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Tad Eggleston: That's on the list.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: For this one we have the 2 lead characters, one does mask and the other does not. Lainey does not choose to mask. She chooses to be confrontational, she chooses to, you know, stick her neck in the face in the fan, whereas Lainey is taking more of an effort to be quiet. And so as a pairing, yeah, absolutely. But as a pairing, you sort of see these 2 alternate paths. I thought it was a really.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: you know, you talk about masking, too? Masking really depends on the rest of the world. And if we want to be able to reduce autistic people's need to mask everything, everything as opposed to just the things they choose to mask. Then we do need to change the attitudes of neurotypical people to understand that like, oh, that's just autism, or I don't even care what that is. It doesn't bother me. It's.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Right.

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Tad Eggleston: Right there. That's that's part of the the argument that you and I had a little bit at c 2 e. 2. Is that like

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Tad Eggleston: it shouldn't matter that it's autism it should just be. Is there actually anything wrong with that? Or am I just saying there's something wrong with that? Because it's different.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Well, you know, that's the theme of this book, right? So the ghost has been appropriated by these, you know, 200 years ago, type colonial type people to essentially expel anybody who's different. The purity, the purity of the town will be the strength of the town, and we're going to use this ghost to expel Sodomites, Israelites, Catholics. I can't remember the rest of them, you know all kinds of stuff which is probably was on the list, and.

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Tad Eggleston: Witches, and then and then it was like, Oh, and while we're at it, let's.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Then it exposed the metaphor of the book. Yeah. And then, so when, when in modern times the this monster gets released and takes over the popular girl who's the mean popular girl and uses her.

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Tad Eggleston: Oh! As it turns out.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Over the town.

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Tad Eggleston: In part because of her own physical.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Not only that, but you see that the ghost recruits all of the people who are theoretically the insiders, and does not recruit our crew of 5 little outsiders, but subtly and sometimes not so subtly, through the book we get to see that all of these characters who seem like they are insiders are, in fact, outsiders, and that's kind of a thesis that like, I feel like in any group, if you're like, Oh, yeah, I had this group of friends in high school, or a group of friends in college, or whatever a lot of people will tend to. And I argue, most people tend to think, Oh, yeah, there was the group, and then plus me.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: And but if you asked anybody in the group they would also say the same thing

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: that everybody thinks they're not in the core of the group. They think they're on the fringe of the group. And in this high school, you know, there was a. There was one character who was, you know, kind of considered, one of the normal characters, and she had a little noticeable birthmark on her cheek, or something like that, and the lead character she needed to wear a back brace and refused to wear back brace because she it was important to her to fit in, and the art style sort of pointed out that kind of in this town. Nobody fit in. There was no, there was no proper normal standard.

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Tad Eggleston: This. This, actually, this is another one of the places where it really dovetailed nicely with.

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Tad Eggleston: I am not Starfire, because I am not Starfire. You've got

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Tad Eggleston: Mandy and Lincoln, and and they're the Happy. Well, happy is not quite the right, but they've they've built their own outsider click with a few other people and whatnot, and then you've got. Why can't I remember the popular girl's name right now? Because I'm terrible with names

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Tad Eggleston: unless it's like the lineup of the 1989 cubs, Claire Claire.

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Tad Eggleston: So you know, Claire, as it turns out, really does like Mandy. But she's this popular girl, and her friends are jerks.

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Tad Eggleston: She even kind of knows that her friends are jerks, but they're her friends.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, yeah, they both of them had fairly textured relationships among all the characters. But I thought, in particular, I'm not. Starfire had a really nice textured relationship. The friendships weren't, you know, 100%. The rivalries weren't 100%. Even the the girl who's the lead character, not the lead character. But the lead character's crush basically isn't an angel. She isn't perfect. She makes a mistake.

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Tad Eggleston: No.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: You know, and she has to learn how or demonstrate that it's okay to apologize for a mistake and still be okay with your friends.

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Tad Eggleston: Well, and for that matter, she she had she through her. She demonstrates that sometimes you have to learn that it's a mistake, because initially. She's like, yes. Why, the fuck! Is she mad about that?

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Tad Eggleston: The thing she was mad about that I did that. What what Starfire.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Starfire's in the Teen Titans or the Titans. At this point they're adults, and Mandy is Starfire's daughter. And one time Mandy invites this girl Claire over to her house thinking that Claire likes her, believing that Claire likes Mandy for Mandy, and not.

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Tad Eggleston: Which she does.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Well, we find out later. I mean we we that ends up becoming important scene later. But at this moment we just sort of presume that. And then, when Claire comes in and does something, she always does or is revealed, to have done something she always does, which is, take selfies, and in this case she takes a Selfie with the Titans who happen to be overseas.

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Tad Eggleston: Because they happened, either, because that's what she does and then posts it. Mandy

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Tad Eggleston: is a fan of the Titans. It's just to her separate from being a fan.

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Tad Eggleston: He has heard Andy.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Mandy is hurt by that, because through her life she has been felt put upon by having Starfire as a mom. So then, that confrontation between them. Where the one says, How could you do this? I thought you liked me, and Mandy had to be able to hear from her friend that. 1st of all, she's apologizing didn't mean to hurt her feelings, but also it is not an indicator that she doesn't like Mandy. It makes you sort of.

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Tad Eggleston: Claire had to be able to hear from. In this case.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Mandy.

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Tad Eggleston: In that that.

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Tad Eggleston: you know. Put yourself in Mandy's shoes. Yeah, you're thinking, oh, I'm a fan of the Titans, but I'm also I also like her. What's the big deal.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, that's great.

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Tad Eggleston: The life she's led. She's been in her mother's shadow all of her life, and here she is, being vulnerable to you for the 1st time letting you come to her house, and

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Tad Eggleston: you not only take a picture with the Titans, but you post it out to social media. So so now it feels like to her that you didn't come

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Tad Eggleston: because you wanted to spend time with her. You can, because you get to go. Hey, look at me. I'm hanging out with the Titans.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah. And so they work that out. They, you know, they end up working it out. And it's an exercise. The book has a, you know. Familiar spine of, you know, be yourself, and but it it also has this strong undercurrent of empathy and of trying to. You see, Starfire, who you may not.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I identified more Starfire than the kid? Just because I'm in that situation. I have a daughter who's roughly that age, and and she has not gotten to this challenging part of her life yet, you know. And so, but it's looming, and I'm terrified of it.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: And so I naturally identify more at Starfire. But you see Starfire at practicing empathy, and you kind of see her friends practicing empathy. And you see Mandy and Mandy's friends practicing empathy and stumbling and trying to get it right, and recognizing that, you know, people's relationships with each other aren't always straightforward. They aren't always on or off.

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Tad Eggleston: And and I'm gonna I'm going to admit. And and this is like a weird thing for an educator

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Tad Eggleston: who deals with autistic people to admit.

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Tad Eggleston: all the more so for somebody that's on the spectrum themselves. I sometimes avoid the actual definitions

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Tad Eggleston: of the spectrum and parts of the spectrum, because

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Tad Eggleston: a. It feels like they're all written by people off the spectrum.

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Tad Eggleston: And and B

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Tad Eggleston: there are parts that just feel way off. And so I don't know if it's still currently part of the definition. But but for a long time

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Tad Eggleston: one of the defining characteristics of of people

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Tad Eggleston: who were autistic was a lack of empathy. And it's 1 of the reasons that people have argued that I'm not autistic is like, Oh, but you empathize. And it's like, yeah. But I mean 2 things. First, st I empathize because I spend a lot of time

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Tad Eggleston: actively thinking about.

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Tad Eggleston: What would it be like to be in this person's shoes?

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Tad Eggleston: just like I also have to spend a lot of time thinking about. What messages am I sending? So I wonder if it's less that autistic people have any

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Tad Eggleston: any more lack of empathy

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Tad Eggleston: than anybody else, because, God knows, I also know tons of people who I don't think are autistic at all, that empathy is not something that they're good at.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, I mean, so so my experience with autism has has basically developed in the last 10 years. So anything that would

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: right really wasn't part of my introduction to autism, right and definition. 9 years, really. And I have not

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: noticed an emphasis on this lack of empathy thing. I think that may have been, how autistic folk were perceived in a previous generation or 2.

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Tad Eggleston: 20 years ago? Yeah.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Kind of yeah, because I don't know. I got to say like the the understanding that being hypersensitivity is my son.

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Tad Eggleston: Right.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Hypositive physically, but hypersensitivity is a pretty common trait among autistic

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: and the different ways that that can express itself. But hypersensitivity also means that if someone else is upset you might get more upset, which is hyper empathy, you know. So

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: right.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Don't know. I think you may have an interesting take on it, which is that it's no more or less than anybody else. It's just that the.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I don't. I don't think.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Use of the.

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Tad Eggleston: Is actually.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, I don't think.

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Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think I think I think

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Tad Eggleston: I mean as it affects everything it does. But but I don't think it's like something that's uniquely in the autistic vein. I think that we wind up having different.

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Tad Eggleston: And I so I am careful to say we, because I mean the the

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Tad Eggleston: what different? What different. The reason? I'm actually okay with the idea that anybody is neurotypical.

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Tad Eggleston: Is that what neuroatypical really means to me, anyway, is that like.

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Tad Eggleston: I not only don't think in a way that you would consider typical, I don't necessarily match many of the other atypical people either.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.

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Tad Eggleston: you know, it's it's hard to define neurotypical, because because that's still a pretty wide spectrum. But it's

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Tad Eggleston: way more narrow than the atypical spectrum.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I think that's fair.

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Tad Eggleston: That makes sense.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: There's a absolutely yeah. And there's a statistic that goes around. This is kind of off the off the track, and we only have 9 min left. But.

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Tad Eggleston: We don't have a track. It's a book club.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Email.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: You will learn this one day.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: You know what? Here I do want to.

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Tad Eggleston: This is a book club.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, I do let me pull this back to the books, though, because I do think it's interesting. We're both reading books that had teenage girls, young teenage girls as lead characters, and you and I are both middle aged white men, and I think it's great to see books by and about people who are unlike me.

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Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: You know, and and it it can be

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: it it might be for somebody who's coming essentially from the majority culture for my entire life. It can be a little harder to put myself in these books, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to exercise that muscle, because I think it's extremely important. You know, it's extremely important as we make the decisions about our lives and

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: at some level, other people's lives, you know, especially, you're a teacher like you are, in fact, making decisions about other people's lives, what books to expose them to, how, when, to discipline them, when to nurture them? That if you can have as.

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Tad Eggleston: Paraprofessional. I don't have to make a lot of the big decisions that are beyond just what

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Tad Eggleston: I will do to personally influence them. But yes, but.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Still those those micro decisions add up.

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Tad Eggleston: Oh, they do! They're incredibly.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Thank you. And so I'm glad that.

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Tad Eggleston: They're often more important. But but.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Hmm.

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Tad Eggleston: There are.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: These books broke through to us, I guess, is what I'm saying, and that we got put into the perspective of, especially in Ojuoja. They're both, from the narrative point of view of, you know, a teenage girl outsider who is unhappy, and I identified with this a little bit less in Ojuoja than in Starfire, but like I want them to be happier. You know. I want them to be better. The character in Ojuoja that would have been more like me would have been the teacher. There was a teacher who was trying to figure out how to get these

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: quirky kids to redirect their scattered interest.

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Tad Eggleston: Energy.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Into a productive direction, which that's what he saw as his job and starfish.

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Tad Eggleston: And similarly, and this is where I'll also say what he considered a productive.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, it's subjective. It's that he's gonna land.

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Tad Eggleston: Else.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Best decisions. He knows how to make.

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Tad Eggleston: The biggest issues of being neuroatypical or even just somebody.

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Tad Eggleston: And I think this happens more often

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Tad Eggleston: with with spectrum people and whatnot, who who rejects the typical version of success.

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Tad Eggleston: It is way more important to me.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: That's coming from Starfire to Starfire or Mandy, deciding that she didn't want to go to college.

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Tad Eggleston: Right it is. It is way more important to me to feel like I am making a better world and way more important to me to be able

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Tad Eggleston: to manage my own internal, self-destructive tendencies than

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Tad Eggleston: any amount of pay or recognition, or any of those things that everybody else seems to want and think are really really valuable. And and I,

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Tad Eggleston: because so many people want them and feel like they're valuable. I don't want to say God, you're idiots. I just don't connect to that

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Tad Eggleston: at all.

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Tad Eggleston: You know the the choice between doing something that I think makes a better world, and something that I think would make more money isn't a choice to me. The choice between doing something that I think is expected of me and doing something that allows me to

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Tad Eggleston: not want to hurt myself isn't a choice to me, you know. Yeah.

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Tad Eggleston: but it seems to be a choice to other people, and some days I envy them that, and some days I just go. I don't get it.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah. How can you say, I know that this isn't good for other people, but it's good for me and my family. I

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Tad Eggleston: I mean, I get that on one intellectual level.

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Tad Eggleston: But I can't actually like I just I couldn't do it.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah. Well, so in this book, too, we get to see the struggles, particularly with Starfire in terms of her relationship with her daughter. What's the line between? Let the kid be themselves and help the kid be their best selves, and I think that's a challenge of parents.

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Tad Eggleston: Which is a hard line.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Starfire. It.

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Tad Eggleston: I had so much trouble with that with my son, and and I think I've finally gotten

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Tad Eggleston: pretty good at it, but mostly because he's finally doing well enough that I can go. Oh, you know you seem pretty happy.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah. And then look, that wasn't the point of I am not Starfire, but it is something I felt in it. It's something I recognized in it, and it was one of many things, particularly in that book. I think that I'm not. Starfire had a lot of subtleties to it. There was. One thing I want to make sure I mentioned was that in the art style there are a lot of things that look like mascara running that are used expressively. The style they don't use inking. It's almost like it's cut out of

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: construction paper, or something like that. But there are times when a character is looking shocked, or something like that. And the way the artist will express that is, these lines that might pour out of their eyes or make them look like you're between channels on an old television set that were really an interesting visual expression of the confusion that some of the characters felt or the emotions that some of the characters felt. You know, just one of the things that you'll see in comics that you?

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Oh, yeah, medium. Also the layout was really beautiful. I think the.

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Tad Eggleston: I always it's something that we see more of in the digital era. I love the the no outline.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah, panels. And as I, as I realize as I look at this, this is

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Tad Eggleston: this is something that you don't see a lot except

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Tad Eggleston: in people who work in colored pencil.

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Tad Eggleston: Which this is. This is digital. So it's another way that you could do it. You notice that that

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Tad Eggleston: it's not inked.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: No, there are no outlines.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: No, they're no ally.

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Tad Eggleston: There are no character on the.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Characters. There are no outlines on the speech balloons, or anything like that. It reads digitally. Very. I read it digitally, and it reads digitally very well, and it also scrolls. Very well. Both books scroll very well.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: which is also, you know, that's a that's a form of comics reading that I'm decidedly less familiar with.

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Tad Eggleston: Starting to learn more about scrolling.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I have to get into it, because I know that that's where a lot of the interest.

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Tad Eggleston: Because there's some great scroll scroll, I mean, I'm like,

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Tad Eggleston: think, a hundred some odd chapters into Lower Olympus, and it's brilliant.

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Tad Eggleston: But I got to get used to the scrolling, and and there's a great.

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Tad Eggleston: The Batman family. The Bat family scrolling title is really really hilarious

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Tad Eggleston: a couple others. I know you listen

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Tad Eggleston: hard out. So so no, no, let me make my my proposal for what I would like

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Tad Eggleston: to do, going forward because I liked how well

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Tad Eggleston: this paired. But I want I want to create an experience where

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Tad Eggleston: we both possibly get to read something new, or at least we're both bringing something to. So what I think we should do going forward is one book from Britt's Cabinet.

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Tad Eggleston: but as I read it.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, you'll suggest.

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Tad Eggleston: The the first, st the 1st book that I have

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Tad Eggleston: pop into my head that I'm like. Oh, I think this would be a good companion book.

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Tad Eggleston: I'll send you a text and say, Hey, read this, too.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, there will also be serendipitous parents. I mean, this was serendipitous.

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Tad Eggleston: Right.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: And you know, and I'm sure there will be others. So. But yeah, I love that idea. I think that sounds great.

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Tad Eggleston: But but I think that that's the plan for for what to do going forward. And if you're okay.

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Tad Eggleston: just because I want to make myself finally read it all the way through.

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Tad Eggleston: And because I think it'd make an interesting one to try to pair with.

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Tad Eggleston: Can we do the the ride, the ride together, the the carousic.

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Tad Eggleston: Let's do that one as the next one.

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Tad Eggleston: And we'll figure out scheduling and whatnot.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, do you want to do one book, or do you want to pair it with another book?

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Tad Eggleston: I'll pair like, I said. I'll pair it once. I like have read enough that once.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I don't have a specific recommendation, but I think because it is specifically set in America in the 19 fifties and sixties. It might be fun to read something, either from that era or also about that era. Darwin Cook.

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Tad Eggleston: I wouldn't be surprised if that winds up being the the way my mind works.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Perfect.

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Tad Eggleston: But but yeah.

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Tad Eggleston: let me we'll figure it out. We have each other's phone numbers. We'll figure out a date. And you know this will be. This will be the one the one book club, just because I know your schedule is a little weirder, too. The other ones I try to to lock down on a like

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Tad Eggleston: every 1st Monday or every 3 months whatnot. I would rather that this one be this one gets to be the the neuroatypical

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Tad Eggleston: non, I mean, because because that's the thing is is like

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Tad Eggleston: intentional masking or scripting or whatnot is is really just.

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Tad Eggleston: at least for me, and I don't like speaking for the entire community, because the community, but it's also easier sometimes to say we.

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Tad Eggleston: But but at least for me, it's like

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Tad Eggleston: the way I make it a little bit more manageable to move through the world.

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Tad Eggleston: because what's really really hard for me is like.

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Tad Eggleston: I am really good at problem solving. I'm not as good at showing you

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Tad Eggleston: my work in a way that makes sense to you.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Yeah, yep, I can understand that.

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Tad Eggleston: I have one too.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: Who can show her work, and one kid who cannot, I mean.

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Tad Eggleston: I'm good at showing my work, but not necessarily in like, particularly verbally.

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Tad Eggleston: Yeah, like, if I can write it down and I can organize it. I'm great at writing directions.

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Tad Eggleston: but if we're doing it verbally, you start asking questions. I'm like, why the fuck are you asking that question? I'm going to answer that

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Tad Eggleston: 3 steps from now.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I'm over here.

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Brit’s iPad Pro 15: I have to fly.

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Tad Eggleston: So for 22 panels. This has been Britt

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Tad Eggleston: Britt's cabinet, and we will see you after the next page.