![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
You know when you finish a book and you're sad because you know you won't ever write anything nearly as good?
That.
That.
I have seen bad adaptations of good books, but never one as deeply embarrassing as Tim Burton's mutilation of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The scene with the Clash of the Titans CGI skeletons versus knockoffs from Pan's Labyrinth—except invisible and covered in cotton candy—really cemented how much Burton has lost it. One of those movies that's so bad it's almost instructive.
Sabs watches a blue movie
Dec. 18th, 2015 07:50 pmSo guys, guys, I actually watched Fifty Shades of Grey because a co-worker dared me to.
It actually managed to be even worse than I was expecting, which was amazing because I expected it to be the worst thing ever. It's worse than that. It's like genital herpes in film form. It was like Ayn Rand wrote a porn only with less tenderness. I'd do a screenshot review, because I actually had some funny inner commentary while watching it, but I immediately deleted the file off my computer because I was afraid poor Mac the Knife would catch a virus from it. But I'm on vacation now so if you really want me to, I will.
The irony is that after I watched two hours (two hours!) of a Hollywood-frumpy zombie with an eating disorder bang a guy whose face looks like it's made out of semi-baked cookie dough while they both talked like robots, I forgot to tell my co-worker that I watched it. So it was all for nothing. Well, not really, because I can just tell her when we get back from break, but I'll have forgotten by then.
It actually managed to be even worse than I was expecting, which was amazing because I expected it to be the worst thing ever. It's worse than that. It's like genital herpes in film form. It was like Ayn Rand wrote a porn only with less tenderness. I'd do a screenshot review, because I actually had some funny inner commentary while watching it, but I immediately deleted the file off my computer because I was afraid poor Mac the Knife would catch a virus from it. But I'm on vacation now so if you really want me to, I will.
The irony is that after I watched two hours (two hours!) of a Hollywood-frumpy zombie with an eating disorder bang a guy whose face looks like it's made out of semi-baked cookie dough while they both talked like robots, I forgot to tell my co-worker that I watched it. So it was all for nothing. Well, not really, because I can just tell her when we get back from break, but I'll have forgotten by then.
Went to see The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic at Luminato last night. It was spectacular—by which I mean that it was incredibly well done, but also that it was a spectacle. As in it had three Dobermans and a giant boa constrictor as part of the staging. And a giant, sparkly hammer and sickle. Much more accessible than Abramovic's actual work, as well as the last Robert Wilson piece I saw (Einstein on the Beach, at last year's Luminato), but very much compelling, engrossing art.
The piece, which is about three hours long, is a litany of childhood abuses and self-hatred, various anecdotes from Abramovic's life depicted as bleak little fairy tale tableaux. Music by Antony (dressed as Abramovic in a rather stunning black dress) added to the surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.
The staging reminded me a great deal of The Black Rider—also by Wilson and probably my favourite musical for reasons that are obvious—strongly influenced by German Expressionism and clown, highly stylized, and treating its darker elements (and it's all dark) as slapstick comedy that saves the piece from what might otherwise have been self-indulgent autobiography.
Willem Dafoe, as the narrator, was the standout for me; the Guardian described his performance as "an orange mullet and heavy pan-stick makeup that puts you in mind of Batman's the Joker MC-ing a Berlin cabaret." I was thinking Tom Waits meets Joel Grey, but regardless, it's a good look for him, and he's got an even more compelling presence on stage than he does on film. Abramovic, playing herself and her abusive mother, was of course amazing.
Not sure how they're going to top this one next year. More Wilson? I don't know. Hopefully more Wilson; I really love his work.
Incidentally, the Honourable Wife-Beating, Drunk-Driving, Bird-Flipping, Crack-Smoking, Possibly Murderous Mayor voted against funding for Luminato and other cultural events that bring both money and awesomeness to the city. With all of the destruction and dead bodies piling up in the wake of the crack video scandal, it's important to remember that he's also a shitty mayor who wants to take away all of the things that make this city great.
The piece, which is about three hours long, is a litany of childhood abuses and self-hatred, various anecdotes from Abramovic's life depicted as bleak little fairy tale tableaux. Music by Antony (dressed as Abramovic in a rather stunning black dress) added to the surreal, dreamlike atmosphere.
The staging reminded me a great deal of The Black Rider—also by Wilson and probably my favourite musical for reasons that are obvious—strongly influenced by German Expressionism and clown, highly stylized, and treating its darker elements (and it's all dark) as slapstick comedy that saves the piece from what might otherwise have been self-indulgent autobiography.
Willem Dafoe, as the narrator, was the standout for me; the Guardian described his performance as "an orange mullet and heavy pan-stick makeup that puts you in mind of Batman's the Joker MC-ing a Berlin cabaret." I was thinking Tom Waits meets Joel Grey, but regardless, it's a good look for him, and he's got an even more compelling presence on stage than he does on film. Abramovic, playing herself and her abusive mother, was of course amazing.
Not sure how they're going to top this one next year. More Wilson? I don't know. Hopefully more Wilson; I really love his work.
Incidentally, the Honourable Wife-Beating, Drunk-Driving, Bird-Flipping, Crack-Smoking, Possibly Murderous Mayor voted against funding for Luminato and other cultural events that bring both money and awesomeness to the city. With all of the destruction and dead bodies piling up in the wake of the crack video scandal, it's important to remember that he's also a shitty mayor who wants to take away all of the things that make this city great.
Shortest of short reviews
Nov. 25th, 2012 06:47 pmMidnight's Children was amazing. Just go see it if you haven't already.
Historical Materialism 2012, Day 2
May. 12th, 2012 11:37 pmHM continues to rock. Actually, today was better than yesterday because 1) more friends were there and 2) better able to pace myself in terms of caffeination levels.
Panels I attended:
Neoliberalism, Inequality, and Dispossession in the Americas. Unfortunately, the Haiti paper was withdrawn, but the two other presentations, one on oligarchic rule in El Salvador, the other on violence in rural Mexico, were quite good. The two presenters also had an interesting dialogue going on between the situations in their respective countries, which was quite interesting.
Forms of Alienation. Back to theory. The standout for me was Sean Sayers on how the popular understanding of alienation is actually quite different than what Marx was actually talking about.
The Body and Capitalist Culture. This was another one I ended up going to randomly because of one of the presenters (in this case, a friend of a friend) rather than the subject matter, and was probably the most interesting panel thus far. The presenter in question was Susanna Quail on the fat body, with a neat framework about systemic versus individualist narratives about obesity on both the left and the right (and how they're both wrong). Alan Sears was also quite fascinating in a presentation on bodybuilding, masculinity, and neoliberalism.
Communicative Commons. A case of a subject I was really interested in (probably the only panel that's close to my "field," so to speak) but not very engaging speakers. I did get some good starting points for further reading, though.
Apparently the highlight for some other folks was the Comintern panel where the Spartacist League turned up and lulz ensued. No fisticuffs were exchanged but I was told it was quite entertaining nevertheless.
Skipped out on the plenary—again—and went to see Cabin in the Woods with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
culpster, monster_grrrl, and L. Completely rocked. I won't say why, or what the one thing I'd change about it was, in case you haven't seen it yet.
Once again failed to take a picture of the dripping cock sculptures. Tomorrow. Remind me, okay?
Panels I attended:
Neoliberalism, Inequality, and Dispossession in the Americas. Unfortunately, the Haiti paper was withdrawn, but the two other presentations, one on oligarchic rule in El Salvador, the other on violence in rural Mexico, were quite good. The two presenters also had an interesting dialogue going on between the situations in their respective countries, which was quite interesting.
Forms of Alienation. Back to theory. The standout for me was Sean Sayers on how the popular understanding of alienation is actually quite different than what Marx was actually talking about.
The Body and Capitalist Culture. This was another one I ended up going to randomly because of one of the presenters (in this case, a friend of a friend) rather than the subject matter, and was probably the most interesting panel thus far. The presenter in question was Susanna Quail on the fat body, with a neat framework about systemic versus individualist narratives about obesity on both the left and the right (and how they're both wrong). Alan Sears was also quite fascinating in a presentation on bodybuilding, masculinity, and neoliberalism.
Communicative Commons. A case of a subject I was really interested in (probably the only panel that's close to my "field," so to speak) but not very engaging speakers. I did get some good starting points for further reading, though.
Apparently the highlight for some other folks was the Comintern panel where the Spartacist League turned up and lulz ensued. No fisticuffs were exchanged but I was told it was quite entertaining nevertheless.
Skipped out on the plenary—again—and went to see Cabin in the Woods with
culpster, monster_grrrl, and L. Completely rocked. I won't say why, or what the one thing I'd change about it was, in case you haven't seen it yet.Once again failed to take a picture of the dripping cock sculptures. Tomorrow. Remind me, okay?
Quick movie reviews
Apr. 27th, 2012 11:08 pmSaw two movies at HotDocs tonight: The Man That Got Away and She Said Boom: The Story of Fifth Column The latter was the one I went to see, being one of those precocious suburban teenage punks who saw Erica Ehm interview Fifth Column on MuchMusic as part of a general drift into zines and mixtapes, but both films were actually pretty wonderful.
The Man That Got Away is not really a documentary as such other than being about a real person, the filmmaker's great-uncle Jimmy. It's a musical (with impressive original music and choreography). It follows Jimmy's life from his roots in rural Alberta to his brief career as a chorus boy in New York City, to his eventual drug-related death on the streets of Vancouver. In between, there's a stint in a sanatorium where he meets Judy Garland. The entire thing is played out in a downward spiral on the ramp of a parking garage in Edmonton. It's completely bizarre and beautifully made.
If you haven't heard of Fifth Column but are into La Tigre and Bikini Kill and all that feminist punk stuff, there is a gap in your musical history. Fifth Column were the band that started basically queercore (and got written out of the history of Riot Grrrl because they were just a little too anarchist and a lot too gay to be marketable back then), launched Bruce LaBruce's career, and burned rather explosively on Toronto's music scene for about fifteen minutes back in the day. GB Jones, the band's drummer, is also an experimental filmmaker, and the film makes excellent use of Super 8 footage as well as contemporary interviews with the band members. There's some particularly affecting imagery of Toronto from the late 80s to mid 90s that makes someone like me go, "I remember that," which is a cool bonus. But the main reason to see the film is its exploration of queer radical politics and history that is not so much unwritten as it is cut and photocopied and shoved into someone's basement in a milk crate.
At the end during the Q&A, an Irish woman got up and said how emotionally affected she was by the film, given how queer history is still so repressed back home. She said that she was turning 40 this year, and it was the first time she's seen a film with lesbians in it.
Oh, and I got to meet GB Jones, albeit briefly and I'm always a dork in these situations.
Anyway, I'd highly recommend both films if you get a chance to see them.
The Man That Got Away is not really a documentary as such other than being about a real person, the filmmaker's great-uncle Jimmy. It's a musical (with impressive original music and choreography). It follows Jimmy's life from his roots in rural Alberta to his brief career as a chorus boy in New York City, to his eventual drug-related death on the streets of Vancouver. In between, there's a stint in a sanatorium where he meets Judy Garland. The entire thing is played out in a downward spiral on the ramp of a parking garage in Edmonton. It's completely bizarre and beautifully made.
If you haven't heard of Fifth Column but are into La Tigre and Bikini Kill and all that feminist punk stuff, there is a gap in your musical history. Fifth Column were the band that started basically queercore (and got written out of the history of Riot Grrrl because they were just a little too anarchist and a lot too gay to be marketable back then), launched Bruce LaBruce's career, and burned rather explosively on Toronto's music scene for about fifteen minutes back in the day. GB Jones, the band's drummer, is also an experimental filmmaker, and the film makes excellent use of Super 8 footage as well as contemporary interviews with the band members. There's some particularly affecting imagery of Toronto from the late 80s to mid 90s that makes someone like me go, "I remember that," which is a cool bonus. But the main reason to see the film is its exploration of queer radical politics and history that is not so much unwritten as it is cut and photocopied and shoved into someone's basement in a milk crate.
At the end during the Q&A, an Irish woman got up and said how emotionally affected she was by the film, given how queer history is still so repressed back home. She said that she was turning 40 this year, and it was the first time she's seen a film with lesbians in it.
Oh, and I got to meet GB Jones, albeit briefly and I'm always a dork in these situations.
Anyway, I'd highly recommend both films if you get a chance to see them.
Babylon 5 1x06 to 1x10
Jan. 10th, 2012 07:50 pmI have fallen terribly behind on Posting All the Things, so this is going to be less recap, more general observations. I'm now into the Season 1 slump (see also: first season of Fringe) and there's a lot of filler.
( cut for spoilers and for those who don't care )
Hmm, that's about it.
In other news, I watched the two new BBC Sherlock episodes. Can we ban Moffat from writing female characters? Not forever, just like the proposed ban on nudes in the Futurist Manifesto. Ten years should do it. He can spend it writing homoerotic banter between guys and figuring out how to break out of the Madonna/whore dichotomy.
( cut for spoilers and for those who don't care )
Hmm, that's about it.
In other news, I watched the two new BBC Sherlock episodes. Can we ban Moffat from writing female characters? Not forever, just like the proposed ban on nudes in the Futurist Manifesto. Ten years should do it. He can spend it writing homoerotic banter between guys and figuring out how to break out of the Madonna/whore dichotomy.
Movie weekend continues
Dec. 18th, 2011 07:13 pmTinker Tailor Soldier Spy is exactly how you should do a book-to-movie adaptation. I really love the book and I'm mildly obsessed with Le Carré, so I was kind of on tenterhooks about how they'd pull it off. (Before you ask, nope, never seen the miniseries. Heard it was good, though.)
They pulled it off. While some of the plot is condensed, it's in no way dumbed down, and the film is every bit as subtle and understated as the book. The casting is so note-perfect that I could figure out who everyone was before they said their names, and it genuinely felt like it was made in the 70s with the Cold War still raging. There's no attempt to decode the dialogue or make it anything other than a story where espionage largely amounts to tense scenes of people talking. You know, until they die in horrible ways. The atmosphere is one of slow-building paranoia and it totally works.
Also, apparently 1970s British spies had the best Christmas parties ever.
They pulled it off. While some of the plot is condensed, it's in no way dumbed down, and the film is every bit as subtle and understated as the book. The casting is so note-perfect that I could figure out who everyone was before they said their names, and it genuinely felt like it was made in the 70s with the Cold War still raging. There's no attempt to decode the dialogue or make it anything other than a story where espionage largely amounts to tense scenes of people talking. You know, until they die in horrible ways. The atmosphere is one of slow-building paranoia and it totally works.
Also, apparently 1970s British spies had the best Christmas parties ever.
Am I a demographic now?
Dec. 17th, 2011 09:27 amThe latest Sherlock Holmes movie is over two hours of solid fanservice. My one critique is that they [spoilered] [spoiler] at the beginning (if/when you see it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about) but the rest of the movie is just one awesome bit after another.
(It is apparently the weekend of "hey, there are movies in the theater that I actually want to see," go figure.)
(It is apparently the weekend of "hey, there are movies in the theater that I actually want to see," go figure.)
Really short reviews + preemptive rave
Dec. 13th, 2011 08:14 pmSo I should have read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz when it first came out, or at the very least, when it won the Pulitzer Prize, but it has been on my "hey, that sounds good, I should read this" list for far too long. Anyway, finally read it, and ZOMG. It's basically the history of the Dominican Republic and diaspora as seen through the life and death of an overweight nerd who wants to be the Dominican Gary Gygax. The writing is sheer poetry and it's essentially every bit as brilliant as people say it is. Check it out ASAP if, like me, you didn't read it back when you should have. It had me at the Miracleman reference and had me crying a bit at the Watchmen reference. Okay, more than a bit.
Anyway, a review of that book included a reference to a slightly older urban fantasy book about nerds of colour, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, by Minister Faust (no, his parents didn't name him that, though they named him something almost as cool), so I read that too. It is not quite as awesome and could have used me as an editor (lose the poetry, don't write out dialect, seriously consider deleting any passage where you feel that you need to switch to a different font) but makes up for these flaws by making its protagonist a nerdy Sudanese secular Muslim community activist with clinical depression. Also by introducing all eleven first-person POV characters with their RPG stats. Oh, and it's set in Edmonton and makes the place sound actually interesting. Incidentally, in 2004 when the book was written, there was still the potential for urban fantasy to be good. It's unfortunate that instead of lively, inventive, city-as-character stories like this one, we ended up with stories about sparkly vampires.
Then a whole whack of books came in from library holds and a PM Press order, so I now have a stack that I'm reading in order of whether they need to be returned. I'm currently halfway through Them by Jon Ronson, which, asfengi suggested in my review of Among the Truthers, actually is the conspiracy theory book I was looking for. It's hilarious and did you know that David Icke and Alex Jones had a feud? Because I didn't. They both think each other is a plant of the Bilderberg Group. That is the best thing that I have ever read. I keep drawing looks on the bus because Ronson has Jones talk in CAPSLOCK (which, from what I've seen, is an entirely accurate depiction of how he speaks) and likes mentioning 12-foot-tall bloodsucking lizard aliens as often as he feels that he can get away with it. I have never longed so much for a cinematic adaptation of a nonfiction book. According to his website, said movie is in the works, but I can't tell if he's kidding or not.
What are you reading?
Anyway, a review of that book included a reference to a slightly older urban fantasy book about nerds of colour, The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad, by Minister Faust (no, his parents didn't name him that, though they named him something almost as cool), so I read that too. It is not quite as awesome and could have used me as an editor (lose the poetry, don't write out dialect, seriously consider deleting any passage where you feel that you need to switch to a different font) but makes up for these flaws by making its protagonist a nerdy Sudanese secular Muslim community activist with clinical depression. Also by introducing all eleven first-person POV characters with their RPG stats. Oh, and it's set in Edmonton and makes the place sound actually interesting. Incidentally, in 2004 when the book was written, there was still the potential for urban fantasy to be good. It's unfortunate that instead of lively, inventive, city-as-character stories like this one, we ended up with stories about sparkly vampires.
Then a whole whack of books came in from library holds and a PM Press order, so I now have a stack that I'm reading in order of whether they need to be returned. I'm currently halfway through Them by Jon Ronson, which, as
fengi suggested in my review of Among the Truthers, actually is the conspiracy theory book I was looking for. It's hilarious and did you know that David Icke and Alex Jones had a feud? Because I didn't. They both think each other is a plant of the Bilderberg Group. That is the best thing that I have ever read. I keep drawing looks on the bus because Ronson has Jones talk in CAPSLOCK (which, from what I've seen, is an entirely accurate depiction of how he speaks) and likes mentioning 12-foot-tall bloodsucking lizard aliens as often as he feels that he can get away with it. I have never longed so much for a cinematic adaptation of a nonfiction book. According to his website, said movie is in the works, but I can't tell if he's kidding or not.What are you reading?
misslynx and I went to see Ra.One. Verdict: Pretty awesome, many things blow up, and the special effects rock. Musically, it was too Westernized for my taste; it could have done with more completely random Bollywood dance numbers and, well, less restraint.It is entirely worth seeing, though. Rajinikanth's cameo is particularly fabulous.
I watched some films
Oct. 9th, 2011 07:46 pmUnusual for me, as I watch a great deal of TV but very few movies.
bcholmes and I went to see 1911 at the Bell Lightbox. I've never been there before, so going was in itself an exciting experience. It's like a movie theatre built for people to actually watch movies in (as opposed to a movie theatre to eat popcorn in). Anyway, it's a cool space.
The film itself featured aesthetically stunning costumes and battle scenes. Alas, the plot was mainly conveyed through title cards, shots of people looking soulfully into the distance, and stirring speeches about the importance of revolution. If you know little about Chinese history—and I know shamefully little about Chinese history before the 1940s—you will be a bit lost. I enjoyed watching Jackie Chan play very much against type, but I enjoyed even more the one scene where he does what he's famous for (slide down a pipe and punch bad guys). The Chinese actors were by and large quite good; I don't know where they got their Western actors from, but they were godawful. Incidentally, if you have a fetish for Edwardian/Qing Dynasty-era clothing (*raises hand sheepishly*) you will be pleased by the level of pretty.
Then I went home, cooked some chipotle pasta, and watched the original German production of The Black Rider. Go on, click that link. You have a big hole in your life that you didn't even know was there, and you need to fill it with nightmare fuel German Expressionists performing a musical that's a collaboration between Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs. You can thank me for it in 136 minutes. There aren't subtitles, but the singing bits are in English and the plot is rather simple (spoiler: deals with the Devil always go badly), so you won't miss very much by not speaking German.
TV-wise, for those of you who are interested: I really enjoyed the series finale of Doctor Who. After a weak season, the last few episodes picked up, and the finale, while it had a few flaws, mostly rocked. Hopefully the Moff will get his act together now; I've been largely disappointed in his run, considering he was the best writer when Rusty was running the show.
As of now, my telly addictions are Fringe (still amazing), Community (hit and miss despite a strong opening; the comedy's gotten broad and loud again, which irritates me), and, inexplicably, Lost Girl. My Lost Girl addiction probably requires its own post.
Tomorrow I have an entire day off to Do All the Things. And no, I don't celebrate Thanksgiving. But enjoy yours if you're into that kind of thing.
bcholmes and I went to see 1911 at the Bell Lightbox. I've never been there before, so going was in itself an exciting experience. It's like a movie theatre built for people to actually watch movies in (as opposed to a movie theatre to eat popcorn in). Anyway, it's a cool space.The film itself featured aesthetically stunning costumes and battle scenes. Alas, the plot was mainly conveyed through title cards, shots of people looking soulfully into the distance, and stirring speeches about the importance of revolution. If you know little about Chinese history—and I know shamefully little about Chinese history before the 1940s—you will be a bit lost. I enjoyed watching Jackie Chan play very much against type, but I enjoyed even more the one scene where he does what he's famous for (slide down a pipe and punch bad guys). The Chinese actors were by and large quite good; I don't know where they got their Western actors from, but they were godawful. Incidentally, if you have a fetish for Edwardian/Qing Dynasty-era clothing (*raises hand sheepishly*) you will be pleased by the level of pretty.
Then I went home, cooked some chipotle pasta, and watched the original German production of The Black Rider. Go on, click that link. You have a big hole in your life that you didn't even know was there, and you need to fill it with nightmare fuel German Expressionists performing a musical that's a collaboration between Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs. You can thank me for it in 136 minutes. There aren't subtitles, but the singing bits are in English and the plot is rather simple (spoiler: deals with the Devil always go badly), so you won't miss very much by not speaking German.
TV-wise, for those of you who are interested: I really enjoyed the series finale of Doctor Who. After a weak season, the last few episodes picked up, and the finale, while it had a few flaws, mostly rocked. Hopefully the Moff will get his act together now; I've been largely disappointed in his run, considering he was the best writer when Rusty was running the show.
As of now, my telly addictions are Fringe (still amazing), Community (hit and miss despite a strong opening; the comedy's gotten broad and loud again, which irritates me), and, inexplicably, Lost Girl. My Lost Girl addiction probably requires its own post.
Tomorrow I have an entire day off to Do All the Things. And no, I don't celebrate Thanksgiving. But enjoy yours if you're into that kind of thing.
Things that maintain my sanity during the school year: trashy books, trashy TV. Or, well, I'll take good books and good TV, but sometimes you want mindless.
Well-written mindless, though.
So, the season premiere of Castle. Not very good. Not the abominable clusterfuck that the finale was, but seriously lacking in the sort of genre savvy and, well, comedy that got me into the show.
( spoilers—anyone else still watching this? )
I've been reading a novel every two days or so. The last book I finished was Hell and Earth by Elizabeth Bear, which is the sequel to Ink and Steel. It was quite enjoyable, mostly because Bear, for all of her flaws as a writer and as a human being, writes some genuinely gorgeous prose and completely plays to my narrative kinks.
This said, she probably shouldn't do sequels. Practically every time she writes a sequel, I get annoyed with it. I think it's that she doesn't write particularly great endings, and knows it, and then the sequel contains the proper ending and then some other stuff.
( and more spoilers, possibly with triggers for some )
What I'm reading now is the opposite of trash and fluff, and is probably more well-written than I can stand. I'm only about halfway through and will likely finish it tomorrow, and then I can let you know if it is, as I suspect, the most chilling and horrifying book I have ever read.
I always read on the subway and bus. I'm so used to it that lying in bed and reading a book feels weird to me now. I'm so used to being on transit with my headphones in and my face in a book.
Here's a song I listen to a lot.
ETA: Conversely, Community can do no wrong, apparently. Inspector Timespace! And John Goodman! It's like I'm the target demographic for this show.
Well-written mindless, though.
So, the season premiere of Castle. Not very good. Not the abominable clusterfuck that the finale was, but seriously lacking in the sort of genre savvy and, well, comedy that got me into the show.
( spoilers—anyone else still watching this? )
I've been reading a novel every two days or so. The last book I finished was Hell and Earth by Elizabeth Bear, which is the sequel to Ink and Steel. It was quite enjoyable, mostly because Bear, for all of her flaws as a writer and as a human being, writes some genuinely gorgeous prose and completely plays to my narrative kinks.
This said, she probably shouldn't do sequels. Practically every time she writes a sequel, I get annoyed with it. I think it's that she doesn't write particularly great endings, and knows it, and then the sequel contains the proper ending and then some other stuff.
( and more spoilers, possibly with triggers for some )
What I'm reading now is the opposite of trash and fluff, and is probably more well-written than I can stand. I'm only about halfway through and will likely finish it tomorrow, and then I can let you know if it is, as I suspect, the most chilling and horrifying book I have ever read.
I always read on the subway and bus. I'm so used to it that lying in bed and reading a book feels weird to me now. I'm so used to being on transit with my headphones in and my face in a book.
Here's a song I listen to a lot.
ETA: Conversely, Community can do no wrong, apparently. Inspector Timespace! And John Goodman! It's like I'm the target demographic for this show.
Also, telly.
Jul. 10th, 2011 01:08 amI tentatively am enjoying Torchwood: Miracle Day so far. Conceptually, at least. It's a cool story and there were plenty of big explosions, which you guys know I love.
Though...
( spoilers, I suppose )
Though...
( spoilers, I suppose )
Microreviews and a sci-fi playlist
Jun. 11th, 2011 10:09 amSo here are some things that have crossed my radar lately. There's a bit of a genre theme here, if you haven't guessed.
Embassytown, China Miéville
Congratulations! You have made first contact a new alien civilization! The aliens look like something out of Lovecraft's nightmares, but they're scientifically advanced, relatively peaceful, and willing to let you set up a city on their otherwise inhospitable planet.
The catch? Communication is, shall we say, a bit of an issue. The aliens, which have two mouths and no distinction between thought and language, are unable to understand any language other than their own—or even recognize the noises that other sentient beings make as language.
Miéville's latest novel is clever as anything, philosophically and psychologically complex, and a return to dense, linguistically inventive prose. Highly recommended.
Miracleman, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, et. al.
I'd recommend that you read this one too, except unless you have a friend likebcholmes, who was kind and gracious enough to trust me with her now out-of-print collection, you can't.
Miracleman is a reboot/revisioning of the 1954-1963 Marvelman, which was apparently a bog-standard comic about people who turned into superheroes with a magic word. Miracleman picks up in the same campy place and then, true to Moore's form, turns into a deconstruction. Miracleman, a.k.a. reporter Mike Moran, is now middle-aged, married, suffering from migraines and dreams of flying, and unable to remember being a superhero or the magic word that transformed him. He finally does—accidentally, and in a rather unpleasant way—and the results are dark, to say the least.
It's an interesting counterpoint to Watchmen, which Moore was working on at the same time, dealing with many of the same themes—a superpowered human drifting farther from reality, comic characters with recognizably human neuroses, the disintegration and reconstruction of the social fabric as secret identities are revealed. Unlike Watchmen, however, it doesn't end with the overturning of the old world (or, you know, a giant squid)—it keeps going, and the result is fascinating.
You can also tell that, despite the rather dark turns the comic takes, especially towards the end, everyone involved is having a blast, with occasional segues and mini-issues done in the style of the Silver Age originals.
It's interesting to see what happens when Alan Moore ends his run and Neil Gaiman picks it up—I prefer Moore's writing, but Gaiman is left with the literary puzzle of having to write a comic set in what is, in most ways, a utopia. He shifts the focus from Miracleman and his family to the poor bastards who have to live in the new world, and it's quite successful.
Okay, on to the stuff that my friends made. I am biased here but I do have talented friends, so I'm going to pimp their work.
Heroine Addiction, Jennifer Matarese
(a.k.a., the one with the plus-sized, bisexual rockabilly superheroine)
Vera Noble, the daughter in a famous family of superheroes, gives up the family business to run a coffee and pie shop in a small town. She has a tense relationship with her powerful mother, and a somewhat warmer relationship with her father, who has secretly moved in with his former arch-enemy. Said arch-enemy shows up in Vera's café with a request for help—Vera's father has disappeared, and, to say the least, hasn't been himself. Hilarity ensues. Also bodyswapping, zombies, secret lairs, and practically every superhero trope in the book.
This book has a lot of what I wish others in the genre would manage: richly drawn characters, actual emotional investment, and intelligent writing. You can buy it on Lulu, and you should.
Starve Better, Nick Mamatas
Hands-down my favourite book on how to survive as a writer, and trust me, I've read a lot of these, especially back when I had delusions of making it in the publishing industry. Its focus is on short stories and short non-fiction, but Nick's advice—blunt, useful, and funny as all hell (my favourite is the essay on writing term papers)—is good advice for anyone looking to make a career out of words and have enough money to buy raman noodles.
And on to the telly:
The Borgias
chickenfeet2003 is right as usual—this got much better after the first episode (which I thought was pretty but not great). I mainlined the first season after school this week. It's a great deal of fun. Still needs more Machiavelli, though Giulia Farnese is nearly as awesome.
So, would you like some more music? In honour of all the genre fiction I've been inhaling lately, I've made a sci-fi-themed playlist. A caveat: I tried to exclude the obvious because it's no fun to make a playlist that's all Bowie or filks. Enjoy!
( track listing under the cut )
Embassytown, China Miéville
Congratulations! You have made first contact a new alien civilization! The aliens look like something out of Lovecraft's nightmares, but they're scientifically advanced, relatively peaceful, and willing to let you set up a city on their otherwise inhospitable planet.
The catch? Communication is, shall we say, a bit of an issue. The aliens, which have two mouths and no distinction between thought and language, are unable to understand any language other than their own—or even recognize the noises that other sentient beings make as language.
Miéville's latest novel is clever as anything, philosophically and psychologically complex, and a return to dense, linguistically inventive prose. Highly recommended.
Miracleman, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, et. al.
I'd recommend that you read this one too, except unless you have a friend like
bcholmes, who was kind and gracious enough to trust me with her now out-of-print collection, you can't.Miracleman is a reboot/revisioning of the 1954-1963 Marvelman, which was apparently a bog-standard comic about people who turned into superheroes with a magic word. Miracleman picks up in the same campy place and then, true to Moore's form, turns into a deconstruction. Miracleman, a.k.a. reporter Mike Moran, is now middle-aged, married, suffering from migraines and dreams of flying, and unable to remember being a superhero or the magic word that transformed him. He finally does—accidentally, and in a rather unpleasant way—and the results are dark, to say the least.
It's an interesting counterpoint to Watchmen, which Moore was working on at the same time, dealing with many of the same themes—a superpowered human drifting farther from reality, comic characters with recognizably human neuroses, the disintegration and reconstruction of the social fabric as secret identities are revealed. Unlike Watchmen, however, it doesn't end with the overturning of the old world (or, you know, a giant squid)—it keeps going, and the result is fascinating.
You can also tell that, despite the rather dark turns the comic takes, especially towards the end, everyone involved is having a blast, with occasional segues and mini-issues done in the style of the Silver Age originals.
It's interesting to see what happens when Alan Moore ends his run and Neil Gaiman picks it up—I prefer Moore's writing, but Gaiman is left with the literary puzzle of having to write a comic set in what is, in most ways, a utopia. He shifts the focus from Miracleman and his family to the poor bastards who have to live in the new world, and it's quite successful.
Okay, on to the stuff that my friends made. I am biased here but I do have talented friends, so I'm going to pimp their work.
Heroine Addiction, Jennifer Matarese
(a.k.a., the one with the plus-sized, bisexual rockabilly superheroine)
Vera Noble, the daughter in a famous family of superheroes, gives up the family business to run a coffee and pie shop in a small town. She has a tense relationship with her powerful mother, and a somewhat warmer relationship with her father, who has secretly moved in with his former arch-enemy. Said arch-enemy shows up in Vera's café with a request for help—Vera's father has disappeared, and, to say the least, hasn't been himself. Hilarity ensues. Also bodyswapping, zombies, secret lairs, and practically every superhero trope in the book.
This book has a lot of what I wish others in the genre would manage: richly drawn characters, actual emotional investment, and intelligent writing. You can buy it on Lulu, and you should.
Starve Better, Nick Mamatas
Hands-down my favourite book on how to survive as a writer, and trust me, I've read a lot of these, especially back when I had delusions of making it in the publishing industry. Its focus is on short stories and short non-fiction, but Nick's advice—blunt, useful, and funny as all hell (my favourite is the essay on writing term papers)—is good advice for anyone looking to make a career out of words and have enough money to buy raman noodles.
And on to the telly:
The Borgias
chickenfeet2003 is right as usual—this got much better after the first episode (which I thought was pretty but not great). I mainlined the first season after school this week. It's a great deal of fun. Still needs more Machiavelli, though Giulia Farnese is nearly as awesome.So, would you like some more music? In honour of all the genre fiction I've been inhaling lately, I've made a sci-fi-themed playlist. A caveat: I tried to exclude the obvious because it's no fun to make a playlist that's all Bowie or filks. Enjoy!
( track listing under the cut )
How did it take me until now to read If on a winter's night a traveler? Bad socialist, no cookie.
Anyway, this passage really spoke to me:
Yes, that is exactly it. Exactly. Calvino also gets many points from me for writing in the second person and then gender-swapping the viewpoint character mid-sentence. No one writes like that anymore, and it's a pity.
Anyway, this passage really spoke to me:
The first sensation this book should convey is what I feel when I hear the telephone ring; I say "should" because I doubt that written words can give even a partial idea of it: it is not enough to declare that my reaction is one of refusal, of flight from this aggressive and threatening summons, as it is also a feeling of urgency, intolerableness, coercion that impels me to obey the injunction of that sound, rushing to answer even though I am certain that nothing will come of it save suffering and discomfort.
Yes, that is exactly it. Exactly. Calvino also gets many points from me for writing in the second person and then gender-swapping the viewpoint character mid-sentence. No one writes like that anymore, and it's a pity.
Disclaimer: Haven't read it. Don't really have any desire to read it.
This said, Chester Brown's latest offering sounds like exactly what I was complaining about, minus the "sensitive" in "sensitive indie white boy," with bonus misogyny and libertarianism.
This said, Chester Brown's latest offering sounds like exactly what I was complaining about, minus the "sensitive" in "sensitive indie white boy," with bonus misogyny and libertarianism.
A rambling post about comics
Mar. 1st, 2011 05:59 pmSuperman: Red Son is really depressing. The basic gist is simple: Instead of landing in the Kent's farm in Kansas, baby Kal-El lands in a collective farm in the Ukraine. He grows up to be a good communist and, eventually, Stalin's heir.
Then it gets worse.
( spoilers for an old comic, but cut because I'm polite )
Then it gets worse.
( spoilers for an old comic, but cut because I'm polite )
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of A Man Who Rescued A Million Yiddish Books, Aaron Lansky
"M'tor nisht myaesh zayn (You must never despair). It says in Perek,: 'Loy alekho hamelokhe ligmor... It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.'"
We all know that I am a softie at heart who cries at sad movies. It's rare that I cry while reading trade non-fiction, though. Outwitting History is a short read, but took me around a week to finish because I had to keep putting it down to reach for the Kleenex. I'm not even exaggerating.
Lansky studied Yiddish as a grad student, and came to discover that thousands—indeed, over a million—Yiddish books were at risk of being destroyed as their original owners died. He embarked on an odd sort of quest to rescue the books—and along with them, the remnants of Yiddish language and culture—from oblivion.
The writing is engaging, luminous in passages, full of wit and sorrow and the burden of history. Lansky and the people he encounters—idealistic students and aging immigrants alike—are compelling, memorable characters. But above all, this is the story of the death of a culture, and since it's my culture, I took it very personally. Lansky doesn't idealize it—in one heartbreaking section, he talks about the remaining Yiddish organizations, almost all of which were socialist or Communist, and how they refused to cooperate even to save their own resources and spaces. Nevertheless, he brings to life a lost era of refugees, Bundists, activists, writers, and poets, and makes you feel their loss with razor-sharp precision.
The good news is that the Yiddish Book Center does exist, and continues to digitize and translate its large collection. This somewhat mitigates the pain of reading about people who could be my grandparents or great-grandparents sobbing as they surrendered their precious book collections, the "portable homeland" that was frequently the only thing of value they had ever owned.
Related, I also saw:
Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, currently showing at the Gladstone.
This exhibition consists of four rooms, showcasing comics on themes of sex, family, culture, politics, and the body. Primarily black-and-white, underground-style, and brutally honest, these are frequently hilarious reads. (My favourite, by Sharon Rudahl, was called "How I Got Purged From My Women's Group," and is a must-read for strident feminist types.)
Speaking of awesome feminists,monster_grrrl, her roommate L., and I caught:
Rasputina (with Ariel) at Lee's Palace
I first saw Rasputina years ago, opening for—someone. It's a testament to how good they are that I honestly can't remember who it was I'd actually gone to see.
They're still that good. Better, even. There's been some turnover in the band, and increasing levels of sophistication in their lyrics and composition, and they told us some wonderful stories about early American history, Emily Dickinson, feral children, and the time Melora was in a threesome with a party that shall be named and an albino abominable snowman.
[Rasputina cover Heart's "Barracuda"]
The opening band were godawful, butmonster_grrrl did an excellent imitation that was almost worth suffering through them.
And a last bit of music:
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune
I have such good friends. I hadn't even heard that there was a new movie about Phil Ochs, butbcholmes and C. contacted me almost simultaneously to make sure I knew about it.
It's very good. It's of the talking-heads-and-old-footage school of documentary filmmaking, but you don't really mind because the talking heads are interesting and the old footage included a great deal I hadn't seen. (Did you know that there was a music video for "No More Songs"? I didn't even know that they made music videos back then.) The interviews ranged from those you'd expect (Billy Bragg, Michael and Sonny Ochs) to rather surprising (pre-sellout Christopher Hitchens what? Taking the same stance on the Dylan-Ochs rivalry that I do? Say it ain't so!).
There's a certain amount of hard-to-take historical inevitability. Oh, Phil Ochs went to Chile, you say? And became friends with Victor Jara? This ends about as well as you'd expect.
The thing about Phil Ochs is that a movie about him isn't just a nostalgic look at a time when musicians were actually involved with the protest movement. It's kind of depressing how current his songs are, when I read about what's going on in Wisconsin or Bahrain or Libya.
[Also, he seriously had a sense of style, which is rare in a folksinger.]
"M'tor nisht myaesh zayn (You must never despair). It says in Perek,: 'Loy alekho hamelokhe ligmor... It is not up to you to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.'"
We all know that I am a softie at heart who cries at sad movies. It's rare that I cry while reading trade non-fiction, though. Outwitting History is a short read, but took me around a week to finish because I had to keep putting it down to reach for the Kleenex. I'm not even exaggerating.
Lansky studied Yiddish as a grad student, and came to discover that thousands—indeed, over a million—Yiddish books were at risk of being destroyed as their original owners died. He embarked on an odd sort of quest to rescue the books—and along with them, the remnants of Yiddish language and culture—from oblivion.
The writing is engaging, luminous in passages, full of wit and sorrow and the burden of history. Lansky and the people he encounters—idealistic students and aging immigrants alike—are compelling, memorable characters. But above all, this is the story of the death of a culture, and since it's my culture, I took it very personally. Lansky doesn't idealize it—in one heartbreaking section, he talks about the remaining Yiddish organizations, almost all of which were socialist or Communist, and how they refused to cooperate even to save their own resources and spaces. Nevertheless, he brings to life a lost era of refugees, Bundists, activists, writers, and poets, and makes you feel their loss with razor-sharp precision.
The good news is that the Yiddish Book Center does exist, and continues to digitize and translate its large collection. This somewhat mitigates the pain of reading about people who could be my grandparents or great-grandparents sobbing as they surrendered their precious book collections, the "portable homeland" that was frequently the only thing of value they had ever owned.
Related, I also saw:
Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, currently showing at the Gladstone.
This exhibition consists of four rooms, showcasing comics on themes of sex, family, culture, politics, and the body. Primarily black-and-white, underground-style, and brutally honest, these are frequently hilarious reads. (My favourite, by Sharon Rudahl, was called "How I Got Purged From My Women's Group," and is a must-read for strident feminist types.)
Speaking of awesome feminists,
monster_grrrl, her roommate L., and I caught:Rasputina (with Ariel) at Lee's Palace
I first saw Rasputina years ago, opening for—someone. It's a testament to how good they are that I honestly can't remember who it was I'd actually gone to see.
They're still that good. Better, even. There's been some turnover in the band, and increasing levels of sophistication in their lyrics and composition, and they told us some wonderful stories about early American history, Emily Dickinson, feral children, and the time Melora was in a threesome with a party that shall be named and an albino abominable snowman.
[Rasputina cover Heart's "Barracuda"]
The opening band were godawful, but
monster_grrrl did an excellent imitation that was almost worth suffering through them.And a last bit of music:
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune
I have such good friends. I hadn't even heard that there was a new movie about Phil Ochs, but
bcholmes and C. contacted me almost simultaneously to make sure I knew about it.PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE: Movie Trailer. Watch more top selected videos about: Peter Yarrow, Kenneth Bowser
It's very good. It's of the talking-heads-and-old-footage school of documentary filmmaking, but you don't really mind because the talking heads are interesting and the old footage included a great deal I hadn't seen. (Did you know that there was a music video for "No More Songs"? I didn't even know that they made music videos back then.) The interviews ranged from those you'd expect (Billy Bragg, Michael and Sonny Ochs) to rather surprising (pre-sellout Christopher Hitchens what? Taking the same stance on the Dylan-Ochs rivalry that I do? Say it ain't so!).
There's a certain amount of hard-to-take historical inevitability. Oh, Phil Ochs went to Chile, you say? And became friends with Victor Jara? This ends about as well as you'd expect.
The thing about Phil Ochs is that a movie about him isn't just a nostalgic look at a time when musicians were actually involved with the protest movement. It's kind of depressing how current his songs are, when I read about what's going on in Wisconsin or Bahrain or Libya.
[Also, he seriously had a sense of style, which is rare in a folksinger.]
