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By the way the best book on Howard, besides Dark Valley Destiny, is One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis (born Novalyne Price) (March 9, 1908 – March 30, 1999) was a Texas-born schoolteacher and writer who became close friends with and occasionally dated famed pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard. The only woman and perhaps the closet person he ever knew. The movie the Whole Wide World censors some interesting details about race and racism at that time from this remarkable protrait of a young woman. There is a profound moment in the book on the terror of racial fear and violence in it that would've made the film a masterpiece if it could've been shot. Yet the filmmakers avoided the topic like a hot potatoe. Even though it is a serious art film and a good one, it censors difficult or troubling matter when the original source doesn't. I'm sure they must've read her work. "One Who Walked Alone" needs another film adaptation, a remake. Of course Howard's escapist fans hate any psychological assessment of Howard's mental health or character and how it related to his work and Conan. Howard's life also reveals how the creators of escapism are often people who have suffered some form of trauma. Tolkien, too, might've created Middle Earth as well because of his childhood experiences and his war experiences. Jack Kirby is another such figure, given his World War II combat experience as a scout and being a child of the violent ethnic slums of New York. The Journal of anti-escapism would've been my attempt to explore escapism from the creators point of view as well. Why do people write escapism and need to. Why do we need to escape? Is it really normal? Has it become a right, a privelege to escape from reality etc.etc? Not a very popular subject, as you can see. People don't want you to ask questions about something that everyone takes for granted. I was also going to show how there could be anti-escapist superhero movies, Iron Man etc. Anti-escapist versions of these Marvel characters would attack and challenge the viewers need or desire for such figures. They would frame them as anti-human rather than make them acceptable fantasies--you'd want to get the viewer to think critically about such men, such powers. Now some of these movies touch on delicate matters and skirt them quickly for the happy ending and the identification with the heroes. Iron Man is the good rich man, inventor anti-militaralist but it's all ahistorical just like how the Whole Wide World censored race from Howard's life. Was it the filmmaker's blindness? Briefly dragging race in would've been costly at the box office? Nobody was interested? Typical like many films that avoid realities, It flatters the audience's wish or need to feel good about the hero or themselves and avoids current unpleasant realites. The whole push for A.I. and robots is another anti-human development that is little explored realistically in films. How it will hurt working people most of all. Again, it amounts to good robots versus bad robots saving the day and so on. Yes, the debate is in some of them, but it is lost in the fun stuff. The Iron Man films are very clever works of art, no doubt about it. But should art also have moral purposes or values besides the status quo, bottomline ones? Another topic to explore in the Journal. How can you make anti-esapist work entertaining? It's a Catch 22. Entertainment by default seems to require avoidence of reality. But figuring it was a losing battle like the futility you described, and since I'd rather create stories than write essays, I gave up on it. I forgot to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs, his trauma or failure also led to the creation and the success of the unrealistic Tarzan. All of this is decribed well in "Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and the Challenge of Modernity in America" by John F. Kasson, the chapter on Tarzan. Burrough's is another example of how the whole escapist industry evolved from "weak" men who created fictional strong men for themselves and others to bask in. I'm waiting for the Tarzan remake movie in which Tarzan is raised by African Tribesmen who teach him to survive in the wilderness and he joins them in defending their homeland against the white, arab, and black slavers! I think the use of apes in Burroughs was the obvious avoiding of who would actually in reality have raised a white infant lost in the jungle. The apes are a substitutes for blacks and yet reflect the stereotype of the savage black.

BEFORE THE BARBECUING/BLACK PEOPLE SHOULD REMEMBER BLACK SOLDIERS SACRIFICING FROM ALL THE WARS.TRYING TO UPLIFT THEIR PEOPLE AND PROTECT THIS COUNTRY..AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS SACRIFICERS WHO WERE BEATEN,JAILED AND KILLED..AS KKK CHRISTIAN POLITICS PEOPLE WANT TO RE CREATE THE CIVIL WAR....BLACK PEOPLE ARE ENSLAVED AND SELF ENSLAVED ,BY WHITE MEN IN HIGH PLACES AND BY BLACK THEMSELVES...BLACK PREACHERS,POLITICIANS,NAACP,BLACK OVERSEER'S.STREET GANGS,DRUG SELLERS, BLACK SKIN NEO NAZI //////

My screen name "Cynique" is inspired by the word cynicism. I fancy my self an inconoclastic polemicist. I have always had a problem with maudlin sentimentality and a polly-anna approach to life. People accuse me of being negative but I call myself realistic. I don't promote the worst case scenario, but it is not ignored. Looking at the world through rose colored glasses is a perspective that invites disapppointment. I consider escapism a distraction. It is a refuge from the trials and tribulations of those who are not LUCKY enough to lead lives that are fulfilling. You have provided some engaging examples of thinking outside the box. Actually, thinking outside the box is a form of escapism for people like me. It calls for free thought. In my soul searching, I am not deluded but I am conflicted. The very metaphysical concepts I think have merit are the same ones that contradict my philosophy. Can thoughts be energized into things? Can thinking positive improve a dire situation? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Can visualization materialize through mind power? Maybe. Maybe not. When it's not degenerating into a charade, Life pretty much just happens. Humor does seem to be the saving grace. Laughter is good therapy. I am who I am through randomness. I do find it curious that when I ask myself if I wish I had been born white rather than black, I have no answer. What I wish for myself has nothing to do with race. Being white does not represent an ideal status in my outlook. Being black, when done right, is "cool." To me, religion in general, and Christianity in particular is the ultimate form of escapism. It comforts the faithful with the security blanket of a savior who knows best and promises a reward in the hereafter. I actually think it's a necesssasry "evil". People have to be kept within the boundaries of herds that are maintained through fear. Humanity can't be trusted to be humane.