mordicai: crown me king!

Batman: Year Four.

2012-05-26T12:05:26Z

So, yesterday was a jam packed day; I was all over the place, all the time, had a summer hours half day, saw someone I haven't seen in six years & then it was my wedding anniversary! Well, it was my anniversary all day, but the part where we celebrate it, that was at the end.

First I made coffee for us, using the "china" that I'd gotten for our two year anniversary. I like to use the sort of "traditional or modern?" list of presents because it makes it easier for me, weird as that sounds. Like, it gives me a starting place, for one thing-- Jenny is hard to shop for. Then also, it gives structure, like a haiku!

After work I got lunch with Cortney & her fellow, Max. We went to Rye House & I got the steak tartare & a glass of the Ardbeg 10 then we split a flight of whiskey. "A Taste of America." Noah's Mill Bourbon was super sweet, vanilla & nuts. High West Double Rye was even sweeter, if I recall; Cortney & I both like peaty whiskeys, Max is like Jenny & likes bourbons. Wait-- one of the whiskeys was substituted, & I can't remember which! Memory, you tricksome thing. I think it was the rye, now that I think of it? Balcone's Brimstone Whisky was the most interesting of the bunch; peppery! Or maybe it was the Prichards Straight Tennessee Whiskey that was swapped; I don't remember anything notable about it, either way. & seeing Cortney was...really great? We have pretty great chemistry & I like her; that makes sense, but the back & forth picked up like it hadn't ever stopped. It would be awesome if we could be in better communication. We'll see. & I liked her guy; I don't have much to say because we just met, but he has a mix of urban & outdoorsy that I can see appealing to C.

After lunch I came home; I had time to kill! I killed it, & then I went back into Manhattan to meet up with Jenny at her work. I hung out with a few of her co-workers-- more whiskey, Macallan Single Malt 12-- then Jenny & I walked out into Chinatown, arm in arm. I found some cool graffiti-- I'm a sucker for that Basquiat crown-- & Jenny showed me the outside window of Mmuseumm.

Then dinner! Kira & Nino had given us a gift certificate to L'Artusi for Xmas. We had tried to use it on my birthday but I ended up sick as heck, so we broke it out for our anniversary! We started with a glass of sparkling white lambrusco & decided to just go whole hog & get the bottle...though I forgot to take a picture of it so I don't know anything besides that. First course was hamachi tartare with lemon, chives & ginger & then dayboat scallops with sea salt, olive oil, lemon & espelette.

The second course was chicories with parmesan, lemon & anchovies & a roasted beet salad with watercress, yogurt & pistachios. Yeah, I was feeling it now! The chichory was a bit bitter-- the way it was supposed to be!-- so cutting it with the dairy of the beet salad was a good pairing. During this course, I was talking to Jenny about the politics of DnD Next & Wizards of the Coast & she kept asking smart questions & then demanding a high five, saying "I'm owning this conversation!"

Lights fell without me even noticing until it was time to take another snapshot. The main course was sweetbreads a la plancha, with lemon, capers, olives & currants & then potato gnocchi with a lamb ragu & pecorino & they were both really great. Sweetbreads are my scene, & these were really good-- the sauce was crazy! The gnocchi was great too; that slow roasted meat & the noodle were like, right on. Around here, Jenny started getting less interested in the wine. She wanted something else, her own thing! We battered around a couple ideas with the waiter & settled on a glass of Averna Amaro rather than some grappe. & then, last course! Dessert. I'm not a fan of sweets...uh, & dessert was awesome? Olive oil cake with a crème fraîche mousse? That was incredible. We also had dulce de leche panna cotta with caramelized bananas & the tartest banana sorbet you could imagine. That olive oil cake though-- hey, make more savory desserts, they taste good. Then Jenny demanded we go into Urban Outfitters to shop for pants...not knowing that I bought her pants from Urban Outfitters for our anniversary!

Fastball Special.

2012-05-24T20:49:59Z

So, my new post on Tor.com about The Legend of Korra is up, so here is my obligatory shill for it. Actually, no; this is me playing newsie for Korra. Wuxtry, wuxtry, have you seriously not started watching The Legend of Korra yet? What is wrong with you! If you have, you should read my posts & maybe comment, & then we can all have a nice discussion about how the show creators subvert our expectations in a great way that doesn't undermine the narrative or the characters. & speaking of show runners, it is nice to remember that Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko exist; I've been heartbroken since Dan Harmon was removed from Community & it is a balm knowing that some artistic talent is being nurtured & allowed to blossom. Sorry, I know I am being maudlin & my prose is getting purple; I'll stop. Seriously though, I ain't gonna pretend like yesterday wasn't me, Jenny, ranai, fatbutts & James watching The Legend of Korra. I mean, Kira brought Olivia over so she could play with James & Lilly's dog Archie & then Lilly & me played MarioKart, this is true, & we watched an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race, but the crown jewel of the night is obviously Korra. I've had a pretty full week of socializing so far, actually-- Tuesday was drinks with Jocelyn & her friend Eugene, joined by Matt & Eugene's friend Matt & then eventually Jenny! We were at Library & first there was vintage porn but then there was The Dark Crystal & yes I'm precisely the guy who takes photos of the movie screen. After drinks I was ready to go home but Jenny wanted to get dinner, & boy was she correct. We got the Noah's Ark from Luke's Lobster Shack; each of us had half a lobster roll, half a shrimp roll & half a crab roll. The lobster roll & shrimp roll were both amazing. Then home & watching Aziz Ansari's Dangerously Delicious with Danielle!

Kythe. (52)

2012-05-24T18:48:31Z

Imago by Octavia Butler.

Strewn across the rocks,
dead world, Oankali-seeded
& then forgotten.

I don't get it, am I the only one who identifies with the alien Oankali in the Lilith's Brood series? Seriously; I realize that lots of humans would freak out in ways that Butler does a great job of handling-- Lilith's frustrated aggression & angry acceptance, which eventually mellows, & the Resisters wanting to run & live separate, kidnapping human-seeming children, the seduction of the most virulent haters by an ooloi's pheromones-- but there have to be survivors who would be like me. Eager for contact with the Oankali, to be part of cross-species gender, to be eager to have their ooloi partner tweak their genome. I'm surprised that no one fitting that description showed up. I am not surprised that this book was about a hybrid ooloi-- the third gender-- because I predicted it back when I finished Adulthood Rites. The arc, then, starts with the Human Lilith meeting the Oankali in Dawn, then deals with one of her construct children, then finally deals with the first construct ooloi. Seriously though, I'm all for the crooked path of mated Oankali siblings & a mated human pair in orbit around an ooloi; I'm a deft hand at troll relationships, so this Oankali/Human admixture is a breeze. I will say this; the cover of this book, especially viewed through the lens of the "Lilith's Brood" title, made several people ask me if this was romance or erotica. Nope! I think the original title for the collection, "Xenogenesis," strikes the science-fiction vibe better, but really it just needs a less "Romance" jacket. As my final comment on the series, I will say this: I have stated for the record previously that the only kind of aliens I actually give a crap about are shapeshifters & hive minds. The Oankali are clearly in the model of shapeshifters, & thus in my cool book forever.

Valar Morghulis!

2012-05-21T20:03:58Z

So that was a pretty busy weekend, actually. Jocelyn & Brian & I were talking about doing something after work & to my pleasant surprise they said they wanted to come into my little corner of Brooklyn. Hey! That is more than alright by me! They came over to the apartment & hung out for a bit, & then we went to Bar Reis to allow other people to come meet up with us for hangouts. Alas, no one took us up on that...except Jenny! Jenny met us at the bar & we had a couple of drinks & then decided to go feast on burritos from Rachel's. The margaritas may have been a bit potent-- the people who work there like me & I think they gave us some bare knuckle tequila heavy cocktails. Then it was back to the apartment for chuckles & ha-has. It was nice; I like hanging out with groups of people when Jenny is around, she's a nice like, safe foundation. I don't get social anxiety, but I do have like a penchant of being either too geeky, too weird or too mean sometimes, & Jenny being around means that I'm probably within acceptable margins. Saturday was Eleven-Books Club, so that is all accounted for. Then Sunday!

Sunday was supposed to be lazy, I thought, but ended up not being lazy at all; I mean, we watched Saturday Night Live while lying around eating crêpes but then I had to do laundry! To be fair, washing clothes at Kira & Nino's apartment is a dang sight better than doing it at a laundromat, but still, it ain't the most fun. I finished up (I had to wash the darks twice since I'd forgotten detergent) & then went to the gym. Despite being there for an hour & forty minutes I felt like I'd done way more on Saturday; I assume on account of how I did lots of cardio, which always feels like "cheating." We were babysitting Olivia for a little bit I found out when I got home, & then we went over to Kira & Nino's apartment to eat a dinner of mixed meats & watch Game of Thrones. I hadn't watched last week's episode-- I don't know, something came up & then Jenny & I forgot all about it-- so we had two to get through this week. "A Man Without Honor" & "The Prince of Winterfell." We watched the backdated episode while Nino washed dishes, & so while it is poor form to complain about somebody making dinner for you & then cleaning up the mess for you, I will note strictly for accuracy's sake that the white noise from the running water made hearing the dialogue tricky at points, especially because there was a ton of whispering. Basically, in no particular order: the Lord of Bones is hilarious looking, Ser Jorah is the best, Ygritte nails her catch phrase, Cersei & Tyrion are like a box of scorpions, Jaqen H'ghar is a stone cold fox, Jaime Lannister is my favorite Song of Ice & Fire character, Theon is the worst & the whole Qarth plot is both stupid & awesome, in equal parts.

I mean, Alexander McQueen-face & bald Piter De Vries are fun & Nonso Anozie's Xaro Xhoan Daxos is fantastic...but the pacing is just plain old stupid. Seriously, last episode they spent twenty minutes showing us how Daenerys is out of options & desperate, presumably desperate enough to go to the creepy & clearly up to no good warlocks...& then has her dragons get stolen as a deus ex machina. Yo, if you set up character development you don't need a hamfisted approach, & vice verse too, if you use a hammer to motivate your characters, you don't need to spend reeltime showing us them getting to the end of their rope. Um, but then there were two more episodes & like, those didn't advance the plot either? I mean, I like seeing Dany & Jorah have screentime & I like creepy witches giving tattoos, but then there was like, magical assassins (again) & even more shenanigans trying to give her narrative reason to go to the warlocks...but why? I mean, the books even have her just going there! She's like "what is up with these warlocks, anyhow?" & like, the Talisa thing, what? Why. Why not just have her named Jeyne Westerling? Some of the choices, like condensing all the Harrenhal stuff into Tywin, or emphasizing Osha the Wildling, make sense. Other choices...mystifying. I was happy to see like, emotional fallout regarding the attempted rape on Sansa. I mean, I still think it was sloppy & meaningless, but at least they aren't sweeping it under the rug, & they're using it as an excuse to have Sansa reach out to Sandor, rather than just having it around to cast him in an anti-heroic light.

Echthroi. (51)

2012-05-20T15:24:14Z

Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler.

Mitochondria
floating in cytoplasm
& the Oankali.

So I guess I really like the aliens in the Lilith's Brood series, the Oankali. Not necessarily even these Oankali, these tall humanoid tentacle creatures, but rather the actual core concept behind the Oankali. See, the Oankali call themselves "Traders," as in, gene traders; they encounter new forms of life & "trade" with them-- meaning that the Oankali are creating a next generation of Oankali children with Human traits, but that they are also creating a next generation of Human children with Oankali traits...& that those two pools are the new Oankali. That is simplifying the relationships behind the intermingling, however, & those relationships are at the core of Adulthood Rites. Dawn dealt more with the mechanics of the aliens, of their three genders-- male, female & ooloi, the latter of which are the ones who do the act of genetic remixing, rather than having meiosis jumble the chromosomes up randomly-- & their biotechnology, as seen through Lilith's point of view. This one is mostly about her construct son, Akin, & his relationships with the Oankali, his extended family, the Humans who are resisting the Oankali's plan, & the Oankali who are remaining apart. See, when the Oankali "trade," one group settles on the planet-- the Dinso, on Earth-- one group stays with the mothership-- the Toaht-- & one group who departs without taking part of the trade-- the Akjai. That way they have a buffer against any self-destructive genetic or cultural traits. The driving force of the latter half of the book is Akin lobbying to have a Human Akjai, to let some Humans remain unaltered by the "trade," despite what the Oankali call the "Human Contradiction," which is that Humans are driven by both intelligence & a need for vertical hierarchies, which the Oankali believe dooms the species to suicidal self-extinction, such as the apocalyptic war that began the series. One thing: I really, really like how Octavia Butler capitalizes "Human," which is a convention I've always been for in fantasy & science-fiction; I think terms like "Neanderthal" & "Vulcan" have set a clear precedent for capitalized species names. My prediction for this book was that Akin would become ooloi, not male, especially after he was abandoned to the Phoenix & the Oankali were talking about how their gender neutral children tend to express as ooloi under harsh circumstances...but I was wrong! Maybe that means that the third book, Imago, will be about an ooloi descendant of Lilith?

"After the Apocalypse" by Maureen Dowd.

2012-05-20T13:44:04Z

Last night was the Eleven-Books Club meeting for the book Amber picked, After the Apocalypse, but sadly she couldn't make it. The rest of us still burned this mother down, though! Earlier in the day Jenny & I had looked after Olivia & I'd hit the gym like a ton of bricks, so we were only barely ready in time for guests-- heck, Jenny hadn't even finished the last story!-- but it still came off a lovely evening. The two of us & ranai were here first, obviously; Danielle made her massaged kale salad, & then fordmadoxfraud pulled in with a grocery bag of fruits & cheeses. Carmen & Terra soon afterward, & then Sherene came in with a big open-- cute mouse wine & a fun temporary tattoo; more on that in a bit. Beatrice came in, somewhat unexpectedly, after negotiating a cab, & then last but not least was littlewashu! So we got it cooking. Over all, it seems like everyone disliked it more than me, despite my lukewarm reception of it. I maintain that "Special Economics" was the best story & I think the consensus was with me, even though David wisely used the term "race tourism" in criticism of it; I also said that the eponymous "After the Apocalypse" was the worst & I don't think that was a controversial opinion either. I think "Special Economics" & "Useless Things" were the best received, & there was contention on whether or not the first story, "The Naturalist," was good or not. Still, another big of a fizzle, rather than a bang; looks like Kraken is still the winner of the unofficial "best book club book" award. Next up is The Yiddish Policeman's Union, picked by Kerry, & then after that is Beatrice's selection, Lost Memory of Skin. Eventually some people drifted away-- Terra had to catch a train & Carmen had other plan-- & things turned away from the book & into idle chit-chat. Talking about how David gave kromelizard a Doctor Manhattan hydrogen atom tattoo drifted into plans for next book club & prison-style inking. We'll see if cooler heads prevail or if next meeting will be the most exciting one yet!

I think Abed & HILDA might be my "OTP" now.

2012-05-18T18:08:21Z

Well, first, the obligatory cross-post shilling; I wrote a post over at Tor.com about Kobold Quarterly #21 & "Party of One," the latter of which is a series of Lone Wolf-esque Choose-Your-Own Adventures that I think are really fun. The complexity is low enough that you can play it on the train but high enough that the outcomes stemming from your choices are organic & unique is time you play. Also, there is a picture that looks like cheese handcuffs. I'm trying to encourage people to go comment on it, since while there is a good community of people reading my Legend of Korra posts, the gaming posts haven't quite ignited as I'd hope they would. I figure I need to keep plugging away till there is a paradigm shift & people think of Tor.com as a place they can go to talk about pen & paper games. So that is life, huh? Scrabbling for people to talk to you on the internet. & forgetting to blog abot Television Night? fordmadoxfraud & elladorian came over first; well, not counting ranai who was here already. You can even see her hiding in this picture of David. & she's in this picture of Maggie too! Then fatbutts, James & their dog Archie, then Jenny! We watched The Legend of Korra & played Cards Against Humanity.

I had a nice lunch with Marie yesterday; a nice olive & anchovy pizza from Eataly. Then last night Jenny worked late-- I've been Jenny-less, & she works late again tonight!-- so I occupied myself. I went to the gym, & even though it was only an hour & twenty minutes I had a really good workout; I did curls with a fifty pound bar in-between benching with a hundred thirty-five, & I felt super tough. Nice! I had bailed on the possibility of a social scene, so at least I got something out of it. I came home then & put on the first half of Toys. That movie is really great whenever Robin Williams isn't on screen. I actually like Williams as a straight guy; he's great as a bitter jaded "Mister Rogers"-type, & I think he can play the creepy serial killer too. His play to be Rorschach in the Watchmen movie wasn't that far fetched, because Kovacs is weird little troll. Anyhow, his "humor" in Toys is basically borderline racist voices, so...no. On the flipside, Joan Cusack is basically perfect as Alsacia, with her plastic hair & her paperdoll outfits...& LL Cool J is even better. From the moment you tore your way out of the couch cushions wearing couch-print camouflage, I knew you were awesome, LL Cool J. The rants about food touching, the getting out of the car in the middle of a conversation to sprint back home...those were just icing. To this day I frequently repeat: "Always in training, hundred percent" as the answer to questions about my weird behavior.

Eventually Jenny did come home & then it was great! Because she's great, I like her. Better than I like you. We watched the 8-bit episode of Community, "Digital Estate Planning." I am still blown away by the basic fact that that was on television. I mean, there was a major, primetime show...that was mostly in the form of a video game from the eighties. So great; that sort of thing is exactly why I like Community. A mash-up of Skyrim, Super Mario Brothers Two, Megaman, Minecraft, Final Fantasy & Scribblenauts? So awesome. It was actually a blend of far more sources than that; I can't even begin to track them all, but I wonder if fans on Tumblr have done so? I can't check until I watch the other two episodes that aired last night. I actually feel kind of embarrassed to admit that the only sprite I instinctively recognized was Jeff Winger's signature Mega Man jump; what were the others modeled on? Anyhow, that was dang incredible; after that we watched a little bit of Punk'd but it was past our bedtimes anyhow, so I eventually peeled myself off the couch & tumbled into bed. & to continue the video game insanity, today I got my grubby little claws on the new Protomen album The Protomen Present: A Night of Queen. Heck. Yeah.

White Falls Wolfbats.

2012-05-16T20:15:18Z

Another Legend of Korra review is up over at Tor.com, & they largely boil down to me pumping my fist & throwing metal horns up for the Wolfbats & Lin Beifong. I really like the community over there-- I don't mean the staff, though I like hanging out with them too-- but the commenters. Some internet communities are tight night, some are cliquish & some are downright toxic, but the people on Tor.com are typically bright & laid back. I know I sound like I'm shilling & I guess I am-- click my links, aren't I a popular butterfly?-- but I mean it. Don't roll your eyes at me! We'll probably watch "& the Winner Is..." again this evening at Television Night, which is also a-okay with me. So, as to some other stuff in my life? Not much news there. Yesterday I went to the gym after work & had a brief but good workout. An hour & fifteen minutes is starting to seem short-- I want to start endcapping it with another set of cardiovascular exercise but to pull that off I'd have to start leaving earlier, which is unlikely. Jenny is working late later this week, maybe I'll try it out then. After my workout Jenny & I watched a twofer Cougar Town-- which was great & is the rumor true that ABC sold them to TBS?-- & a pair of How I Met Your Mother episodes which were mediocre, as expected. Today? Well I had a late lunch with Terra where I had a couple of barbecue sliders & she had ice cream, & then we cut it short & I came back here & wrote this. & now it is time to get back to the saltmines.

~ATH. (50)

2012-05-16T15:06:25Z

Homestuck Book Two by Andrew Hussie.

The Crude Ogres laughed.
"I warned you about stairs, bro."
Then, SORDed to death.

Good heavens, I am obsessed with Homestuck but frankly I understand that not everyone can be. It is one of those things that is so geeky that I'm not sure it if for everyone, while at the same time being so weird that...I'm not sure it is for everyone. It isn't just any rabbit hole, or even the White Rabbit's rabbit hole to Wonderland. It is something stranger & more eldritch than that...while simultaneously being one of the most important pieces of literature being published. I'm serious-- all the weird "hypertext" post-modern theory that people went nuts for when the internet first entered the academic sphere? Homestuck is the fulfillment of that, without any of the fumbling "seriousness" of earlier attempts. It isn't trying to be a deconstructed narrative using the multitextual platforms that the internet provides-- text, pictures, user input, animation, games-- it just is. It isn't deconstructed, it is deconstructive; it breaks itself & the reader down. So yeah, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm going to get all the Homestuck books. If anything, I was a little sad that there wasn't a Problem Sleuth book for me to grab in a two-pack. Anyhow, fordmadoxfraud has been reading through Homestuck & has come around to my way of thinking, & the moment where it all really clicked for him was Rose confronting MOM, which happens in this book. Now we're cooking with gas! The slow build is neccisary to train the reader, to tune them in to the particular frequency of Homestuck, but in this volume we have John, Rose & Dave, which means three out of four of the first batch of kids. Plenty more where that came from. Oh & let's not forget that the browser "Complete Bullshit" is the best possible spoof of my obsession with Google Reader ever. The book ends with the Act Two animation, which is what I think is when Homestuck really starts to live up to not just expectations, but its potential. The annotations also got me thinking...one of the GameFAQs is written by "ChaosDemon," & that makes me wonder...is that Jake English? Or even Lord English? Or are the two one & the same? Questions. & no, Andrew Hussie, I didn't realize that the items in the Wayward Vagabond's bunker corresponded to the four worlds of the kids; thanks for spelling that out, actually.

Be My Brother Or I Will Kill You!

2012-05-15T14:32:37Z

Yesterday was a lot of fun; an over-all success! It started with Terra & I grabbing an early lunch at the Madison Square food fair; a burger & a bresaola crepe from Bar Suzette. We ate that in the park while arguing over whether supersonic speed or the ability to hover is more important for someone who can fly. We also got dinner together while I killed time waiting to meet up with Jenny; we went to Beecher's Cellar & split macaroni & cheese & some Brussels sprouts. The macaroni & cheese had with curried cauliflower & sweet onion in it & was really dang good; the Brussel's sprouts were fried in duck fat & had some breadcrumbs, but I eat good sprouts all the time when Jenny cooks them, so those were just "fine." I also had a martini, which left me feeling properly civilized. We walked uptown & then split, & then I met up with Jenny to see Newsies, hence my Newsboy Legion image up top. Well, first we split a beer & Jenny filled a ziplock bag with Korean fried chicken, & then we went to Newsies. I've definitely been to the Nederlander Theatre before, but I can't remember what for, though Jenny said it was for Jeckyll & Hyde (Update: onatopofthings says this is where we three saw Guys & Dolls). The performance was fine, but I don't really have any connection with the Newsies movie, which I gather is essential? Jenny really liked it, though, & seeing her giggling with childlike glee was pretty awesome. At one point I told her, "this is what Star Wars is like for me, but all the time." My favorite kid was Davey, the ideologue! He's the brains of the Revolution! After the show we stopped by Matt's apartment, since we were in the neighborhood, & said hi to Kat, Brian, Jocelyn & Sarah, who is in town visiting. Afterward we had the...most hobo-y train ride home, just flush with homeless people sprawling & being loud. Then to bed!

Dream of the Bloody Angel. (49)

2012-05-14T15:14:49Z

Wake of the Bloody Angel by Alex Bledsoe.

Wolf-In-Sheep's-Clothing,
that strange DnD monster,
but amphibious.

I told you I'd read another of these Eddie LaCrosse mysteries before too long, & it turns out that means "right a-friggin'-way." I mean, sure I read a book club book first, & I wasn't going to let Bitterblue just sit on the shelf, but a two-book gap is pretty tiny, if you ask me. I thought this volume was a really great addition to the series; this is the pirate story, if you can't tell from the title. The previous novel in the series, Dark Jenny, also had a heavier theme to it; while Sword-Edged Blonde was about castles & religion & Burn Me Deadly was about crooks & dragons, those are more just the plot of the stories. Dark Jenny's twist on Arthurian myth & Wake of the Bloody Angel's nautical theme are much more knit into the fabric of the story, both narratively & in tone. There is just a feel to those sorts of stories. At the same time, Wake... is a totally different animal from ...Jenny; while the latter fully embraces the vibe of Camelot, Wake uses the fact that it is anchored in a literary tradition as an excuse to lay on the anachronisms. Calling the ship a "twenty-gunner" is the first of them, & a point I always wonder about. You know, the anachronisms built into language, & into nouns-- things named after people are always interesting, for example. Referring to "guns" in the context of a ship makes sense, but we're talking about arbalasts here; crossbows, not combustion. "Gun" probably comes from the Norse name "Gunnildr"-- yeah, I looked it up-- & I kept expecting a little aside from our protagonist about some famous quasi-Viking shipwright or what have you. Jokes about a "man named Sue" are a subtle nod, but then Bledsoe just puts the pedal to the medal & makes a flat-out "Interrupting Cow" joke. Just went right ahead & put that in. In my current Oubliette campaign I've got a philosophy of gleefully saying "eff it!" when I have doubts if a thing is to over-the-top; it seems that Alex Bledsoe might share that ideology.

The writing is, again, that careful balance that mysteries can sometimes blend-- both being smarter than you & allowing you to be smarter than everyone else. Too much in one direction can render the story opaque; too much in the other can make you despise the characters for being morons. As usual, Bledsoe's biggest weapon against both is internal consistency. The Wake of the Bloody Angel makes sense. Eddie LaCrosse has his office above a tavern, & this is the story of the proprietor, his friend Angelina. Her backstory has been hinted at in previous books...& everything we learn helps put all those hints in place. The sequence of events isn't pulled from thin air; it hangs together because it is all of one piece. Which, as a sidenote, is another of the facets of Alex Bledsoe's writing style that I admire. He introduces side characters & if they live, they continue to matter. Even if they aren't on screen, they're doing something; creating people like Liz, Jane, Barbara & Suhonen means that the universe feels like it exists outside the scope of the narrative focus. It lends an air of a living story. Speaking of Jane, I think the existence of a female deuteragonist is a nice trick for getting over the predominant male viewpoint; Jane was a bit pin-up girl in points, a little chainmail bikini, but I think it would make for a good reoccurring feature. Within the frame, even, Bledsoe is good at providing little side-mysteries for the reader...& then answering them without drawing them out, whether or not you've figured it out. The missing lemons from the ship's galley? Of course. The mystery of the ghost ships? Well...that brings us back to one of the tentpole features of these books, & a trope that I am amazed the books are able to reuse-- suspicion at claims of the supernatural. Each of the books has left you asking "well, but is this fantasy element really magical?" & I think Bledsoe pulls it off by having Occam's razor mostly be right. Most of the time it is a con, or an optical illusion, or something reasonable...which leaves the reader wonder if the mystery is going to be a ghost? A kraken? A giant deep sea angler? Or just pirates? Poison? This time, when the axe fell, it took me by surprise, which is pretty impressive.

Batrachomyomachia!

2012-05-14T11:28:40Z

Instead of doing anything useful with my Sunday, I spent it watching movies. Well, I did get up & make breakfast, & I did finish reading the most recent Eddie LaCrosse book, but any positive impact I might have had doing that was balanced out by shattering the liquid bandage container, & not noticing. It fell, the bottom was smashed, & I but it back on the shelf, to ooze its sticky sealant all over. With a ton of nail polish removed I got most of the mess up, but there is still a blob on the clear plastic shelf. Anyhow, I decided to skip the gym largely on account of malaise & timing issues; Jenny wanted to watch a movie & then for me to go, but I realized that by the time the movie had downloaded from iTunes & we watched it, it would be too narrow a margin to try to slip into. Besides, I went yesterday; I'll just have to be proactive about going during the week. Anyhow, the first movie we watched was Immortals, because Tarsem Singh directed it & The Fall is ah-mazing & one of our favorites. Besides, Henry Cavill was the star, & I could start forming my opinion about the actor playing Superman. Also, the Titanomachy is my favorite, we all know that, right? Kill your gods, everybody. In a nutshell? Immortals is a better movie than 300. Talk about damning with faint praise, right? That is the nearest comparison, though. I guess that means that it wasn't Tarsem Singh being a genius auteur when he made The Fall, but that he's a director who likes hypersaturated colours & elaborate costumes, but who could make The Cell just as easily as The Fall, you know? After that we watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which was...confusing. There was a lot of sleight of hand to the storytelling; I knew why they were in Mumbai but not why they were in Mumbai, you know? I knew the reason they were breaking into the Kremlin, but I knew that reason because I'd been told it, which isn't super fulfilling. Still, there were some crazy stunts, some of which were a litte too crazy for the suspension of disbelief. After that, we watched Modern Family go to Disneyland & then The Mythbusters try to ride an explosion's shockwave.

Odinforce.

2012-05-13T19:36:55Z

("Tor Dot Avengers" by Irene G.)

I feel a bit rattled & out of sorts today, but I'll try to gather my thoughts into some kind of orderly fashion. Wednesday-- was that our last point of contact?-- we had Television Night, starting with of course ranai & then fordmadoxfraud, then fatbutts brought over her dog Archie. Jenny came home & grabbed Kira & Olivia & we spent a big chunk of the evening focusing on a toddler playing with a dog. Then we watched The Legend of Korra & an episode of Cougar Town. "The Spirit of Competition" & some whiskey made for a nice evening. Thursday was the gym; a solid couple of hits there, & then home for the big line-up; Community & Parks & Recreation. Community did another fake-clip show, Shutter Islanding the cast, & Parks & Recreation had the results of the Knope 2012 election. Which was...unduly moving. Friday I hung out with Brian, Jocelyn, Kat & even eventually Matt. We argued about time travel & suchlike, & then I came home. Generally, also, during the week, Terra & I have been getting lunch; the Madison Square food fair is back, so we've been taking advantage of that, & will continue to do so. No on Friday, though; Friday for lunch I went with the Tor.com people & we restaged the final post-credits stinger from The Avengers. Saturday...lots more Olivia, plus a stint at the gym, & then more Olivia as we went with Kira & Nino over to Robert & Judy's for some huge barbecue. Jenny & I ended up staying awake longer than we meant to, eventually calling Danielle in to watch Money From Strangers, which is a show about putting a price on human shame. It turns out that an American human being's pride is worth under a thousand dollars. If there weren't weird undertones of racism & sexism in the show, it might be worth tuning in for, but also-- well, half the pranks are hilarious, but the other half are like, appalling. As in, yes, congratulations, you are all terrible people, you got two hundred dollars & you ruined like, a dozen people's afternoons, you jerk.

TCRI.

2012-05-11T00:52:42Z

Sorry Draw Something but I've been sort of cheating on you with Drawception...

Bitterblack. (48)

2012-05-10T17:45:41Z

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore.

Golden crown tangled
under the Monster Bridge, a
reef of bones & ice.

I guess they say this is part of the Graceling Realm, but more specifically, this is a direct sequel to Graceling itself. That sentence should probably read "...this is the much anticipated sequel," since it has been in the works for a long time, relatively speaking. The titular Bitterblue is the young queen of a kingdom-- the Seven Kingdoms, you'll remember, had refreshingly honest names like Wester, Middluns & Estill. Bitterblue is Queen of Monsea, the daughter of the monstrous tyrant King Leck. The eponymous Gracelings are like the X-men, though the prism of YA fantasy; they have extraordinary supernatural talents. Leck's was domination; he could simply make you believe whatever he wanted you to believe...& what he wanted you to believe was that everything was fine, even as he was cutting into your flesh. Everyone in the kingdom fell under his spell at some point, & those closest to him were kept enthralled at almost all times, leaving them ruined, broken. Bitterblue escaped, & when Leck finally died, was put on the throne. Now she's attempting to unravel the skein of mysteries, lies, false memories, ciphers & conspiracies that are Leck's legacy. The castle itself is a map of something, something strange, something that Bitterblue can't quite figure out-- the strange statues of creatures caught in metamorphosis, the wall hangings with improbably coloured beasts, the meticulously maintained topiary in strange shapes, the labyrinths, the locked rooms, the censored library. Even the city itself is a riddle incarnate, with strange bridges to nowhere & mysterious gangs fighting for enigmatic causes. The story is in Leck's shadow, because the entire nation is haunted by his memory...or the Leck-shaped holes in their memory.

I frankly didn't need to see Katsa & Po in this story at all. This is set-- what, a decade later than their story? The story doesn't over rely on Katsa, thank goodness, but Po is a big presence, & I think he might sort of cast too long of a shadow? It does make sense, as he is Bitterblue's uncle, & he has interesting abilities, so I'm not too critical of it. Plus, the author acknowledges that she screwed up by making Po blind & then giving him a magical "cure," which is an all too common trope that is pretty offensive to people with disabilities. That counts for something & she takes care to portray the downfalls of being blind while having Daredevil's super-senses, like not being able to read or distinguish colour. It helps. My biggest complaint is that...well, it isn't as complicated or pretentious as I would have liked. It focuses on codes & deception so much that I wanted to see intertextual shenanigans; I wanted there to be dense sections of code that needed to be deciphered, or at least like, a bunch of encoded footnotes & puzzles. Still, that is more than made up for by Ian Schoenherr's illustrations bookending the chapters & in the appendix at the back. In particular Bellamew's statue of a young Bitterblue turning into a castle; that was great, as are the maps & Leck's crazy bridges. My theory about Leck was partially right, partially wrong, as it turns out. Eventually, toward the end of the story, Fire shows up as an old woman, prefigured by some tapestries, & shakes up the power dynamics of the Seven Kingdoms. I won't say too much more about the actual plot of the book, but I enjoyed it.

"Saga."

2012-05-09T20:39:45Z

Another of my Legend of Korra reviews for Tor.com is up, this one about the most recent episode "The Spirit of Competition." I talk about the romance & love triangles of the show, & a bit about the fandom. Specifically, people who're taking their 'shipping grids a little too seriously. It is worth pointing out that for every heartbroken 'shipper there are three people toiling away to make amazing gifs, though, so don't think I'm condemning the fan community, by any means! Just giving advice to the lovelorn. Otherwise, I've actually had a...really busy week, so far. Last night I went to go see The Avengers & then stayed up to watch the season finale of The New Girl with Jenny, Monday night I went to the HBO store & then hung out with Matt, Brian, Jocelyn & Kat in Hell's Kitchen, then night before that I went to the gym & then watched Game of Thrones with Jenny, Kira, Nino, & Kira's sister Alyssa & talked about gingers. Yikes, & then...wow, I've lost track of my days. Saturday I think something happened? Heck, I can't remember; I watched Korra & then went to the gym & then...shadows & darkness! Friday Terra came over & we watched the brilliant surrealist masterpiece, Southland Tales. So yeah, a bit scattered & all over the place. I've been on top of going to the gym, three days a week, an average of over four hours total, but I haven't felt really...up to snuff, physically. I started climbing the stairs again at work, that extra oomph should help. I don't know, I feel very...of the moment, or something? It is this stupid new smartphone I got, it has ruined me, all I want to do is use Twitter & Instagram, even though I know that curated content is better than trite social media-- not that I'm knocking trite social media!

Loki Laufeyson & The Avengers.

2012-05-09T14:55:12Z

So Jenny & I went to go see The Avengers last night. So, that is...a movie about The Avengers. Which is basically the highest praise I can give a movie like that. Compare to The Dark Knight, which is a movie about a Batman that isn't very smart & doesn't do any detective work, a muted reflection of the "real" Batman-- The Avengers is a movie about The Avengers. Captain America makes motivational speeches, is timelost in a wonderful way, leads the group, & is a bad-ass who shields people in the face. Thor is a demigod who controls the weather, an alien from a weird otherworld, & grappling with family issues while rocking stuff with a magic hammer. Iron Man is a prick, a total genius, has sweet suits of armor, a complicated relationship with Pepper Potts & flies around blasting people with micro-missiles. Black Widow is a sweet spy who can ninja you to pieces, who can manipulate people like nobody's business, who has a complicated & tragic backstory, & who also wears a catsuit with an hourglass belt buckle like a boss. Hawkeye; well Hawkeye is in this movie, & they actually manage to make him pretty cool, which is like a miracle or something. The Hulk is like, the show stealer; you get puny Banner being smart as heck, you get the big green ogre punching spacewhales in the face, you get...well, you get a really good Hulk, way better than any of the movies starring him, so far.

Joss Whedon was a good pick for this film-- between this & Cabin in the Woods, this is really the Year of Whedon, isn't it? Kind of a heck of a vindication of his oeuvre, huh? His "quippishness" really works for an ensemble cast-- Captain America's "I get it!" being like, the purest, truest moment of Whedonism in a long time, & utterly adorable & humanizing. Plus, Whedon understands dissected tropes & can pare things down to their roots; I don't need a lot of exposition on the Chitauri. Alien invaders, got it...& Whedon gets it too. You've seen movies before, we don't need to belabour this stuff. I maintained a spoiler-free headspace for this movie-- there was a visual gag that tumblr ruined for me & another scene that the trailer wrecked for me-- & even though it isn't a "twisty!" narrative, that gave me a wide-eyed suspension of disbelief. I mean-- I couldn't see anybody but Whedon pulling off the helicarrier. It is just so crazy & big & stupid & wonderful-- & he just makes it crazy & big & stupid & wonderful, with sincerity & the sly underlining of the ten-dollar bet, just, yes. & you know who really stood out to me? Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill. I like Hill a lot as a character-- as the one who gets Fury's mess dumped on her, as the one who climbs to the top of the pile as heir apparent, as sort of the paragon of everything that makes SHIELD cool, without Nick Fury's Cold War cowboy spy angle. I think Smulders nailed it. But like I said, I think the Hulk was the show stealer. & Jenny has a crush on Loki; that's my girl, she loves the villains.

Ash Ketchum plus Ashley J. Williams equals EVIL DEAD POKÉMON!

2012-05-08T14:32:55Z

So, I didn't really like this Sunday's episode of Game of Thrones. Or rather, I liked the episode alright but I'm suspicious of it, now. Here is the thing; I don't mind the script deviating from The Song of Ice & Fire books for the purposes of economy of storytelling. Removing the Reeds & bulking up the role of Osha is a fine & reasonable decision. For that matter, I like it when the show takes things that are implicit in the text-- like Loras, Renly & Margery's relationship-- & making it explicit in the show. The problem is with the tweaks & the minor creations. When you start yanking out threads, you threaten the whole tapestry. One or two is fine, but when you start getting a little drunk with the thrill of zigging instead of zagging, you endanger a lot of things further down the road. Like, you make Asha Greyjoy have to be renamed, for instance. Talisa Maegyr may just be a pseudonym for Jeyne Westerling, but if it isn't that is...a silly reworking? An unnecessary one. Even if it is a fake identity, why? Just call her Jeyne Westerling! & why kidnap Daenerys' dragons? To motivate her to go the House of the Undying? Then why spend twenty minutes showing her getting her plans shot down? That is already motivation, there! Ugh. I know HBO had a lot of success in True Blood ignoring the canon of the books, but those Southern Vampire Mysteries are a different kettle of fish; episodic paranormal romance, compared to a serial fantasy epic. I just felt like it was sloppy, & that it started embodying some of the complaints about it that I'd previously thought were more complicated than they'd been stated, things about the nudity & the violence, the misogyny & empowerment. I mean-- I've said before that The Legend of Korra is far more "mature" show than Game of Thrones, despite the "mature" label; gratuitous dismemberment & liberally sprinkled boobies just seems like the Saturday Night Live sketch about the thirteen year old boy as a consultant is true. There have been good nude scenes-- Margery's nudity was used for storytelling, for instance-- & there have been sex scenes, & there have been beefcake-- Theon & Gendry-- & cheesecake scenes...sure. Now we're starting to get into really murky waters, though. The attempted rape on Sansa was a bad idea, because it was a scene primarily created to show that Sandor Clegane is a complicated antihero. Yeah, Game of Thrones, listen. The world of Westeros is brutal & terrible & violence against women is a facet of that, a facet implicitly & explicitly condemned by having female characters with agency. When you use sexual violence as a cudgel to bludgeon a male character into a heroic light? Yeah, that is rape culture. That is terrible, don't do that.

Televisionbending.

2012-05-03T20:24:23Z

So, now that I've written about the third Legend of Korra episode, “The Revelation” & the most recent one, “The Voice in the Night” over at Tor.com, I'm all caught up. Having an excuse to write a thousand words about The Legend of Korra every week is...pretty great. Since I want to write at least a thousand words every week about The Legend of Korra. & in fact I've pretty much gleefully kidnapped Television Night & turned it into a Korra rewatch. last week we chucked America's Next Top Model under the bus. fatbutts is bummed about it, but I'm over it. I think America's Next Top Model fell to the curse of its own hype. It started out as a reality show about fashion, but over time the commercial success led to it becoming...commercial. Other shows copied what made it good & ANTM copies the things that made other shows successful until it became...just another reality show. Without a strong hook like Creepy-chan, it ain't got nothin'. Last night was fun; ranai was home when I got there-- did I mention that she's living with us again for a bit?-- & then fordmadoxfraud & elladorian followed behind. We opened some miniatures & then I ordered Chinese food. Yeah, I said it, Chinese, not Schezuan! No spicy food; I wanted mapo tofu, but Jenny wouldn't have eaten the leftovers so I'd just be burning my mouth on it for the rest of the week. No thanks! Lilly came over with Archie & she ended up ordering from there, too. Drinks were Basil Hayden bourbon & Carton B.D.G. Brown Country Ale. At one point I took everybody (except Maggie who is too young for nostalgia) into the bedroom alone to play the Perfect Strangers game. We watched a bunch of internet videos to cap things off & everyone went nuts when I said "There is a violent and terrible verisimilitude to" the song "Let Me Smell Yo Dick." Well, there is though!

All Reactionaries Are Paper Tigers! (47)

2012-05-02T14:50:08Z

After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh.

Mushrooms in the sky.
Bright red hoods & wooden shoes.
Balm in Gilead.

One day America will fall. If you ask me, it will be as simple as the continuation of current trends. The hunger for oil, climate change, & corporate neofeudalism. I don't mean that in some sort of political action way either-- though yeah, it does inform my political opinions-- but just from a position of cultural & economic trends. Fossil fuels are limited. They are going to crap out. I'm not even talking about a "peak oil" crisis, but just increasing rarity. The American civilization is built in a fashion that takes oil for granted. We keep fighting wars to maintain the price of gas, but it isn't sustainable. Either America will adapt-- manufacturing shifts, changes in consumer patterns, an end to suburban sprawl & car culture, new energy sources-- or it will crumble. I'm not saying it is a doom, but it is a stress. Climate change is another one. Listen, if the ice caps melt & the weather goes berserk, the "planet" will be fine. "Nature" will figure it out, no matter how much carbon we dump into the atmosphere or chemical waste we dump into the water. Something will keep on ticking. The problem is, that "something" won't be Western Civilization. You know how America has all those coastal hubs, like, I dunno, New York? Disney World? California? Wash the shoreline away with rising ocean levels & hurricanes & you won't be too happy. & yeah, notice how deregulation & corporate in the last hundred years has brought the economy low in a series of crashes, while using the booms to drive inequality? Spooky, & more stress. At some point-- & I'm not even saying soon, though I know people who think that-- it'll just decline & vanish. It happened to the pharaohs, it happened to the Romans, it just happens. Look on my works, ye mighty, & despair.

& then we'll get the New Dark Age. I was a little disappointing not to get a Dark Age story in this collection, which was Amber's pick for Eleven-Books Club, since that is the thing the most interests me. If all the doomsaying of the paragraph above comes to be, that still leaves a vast middle swath of America, ripe for serfdom. Agriculturalism will win the day-- hey, thanks global warming!-- & the plutocrats will make happy landlords. Or maybe there will be a revolution first, heads in the sand, & there will be new aristocrats, maybe the military power of the South will hold together into a junta-- though that didn't work out for them in the Civil War-- but things will go along hunky dory for the species. Just not for civilization. Oh there will be refugees & die-offs, but Homo sapiens are hardy apes. For my money, it makes The Handmaid's Tale the most plausible science fiction novel about the post-apocalypse. I'm a good old fashioned utopian-- hey, it is better to live in America today than to be one of the aforementioned pharaohs-- but I have to admit the scary & entirely probably fact that some dang thing is going to tip the American Experiment into the garbage can. It is going to happen at some point. Heck, there is an asteroid out there with "Cenozoic Extinction Event" written all over it. The Industrial Period is living on borrowed time. Literally, borrowed from the dead bodies of previous epochs, the black oil of strange aeons. Maybe the Information Revolution will hatch into some new period, but in case of emergency, smash & pull the Agricultural handle.

Despite being called After the Apocalypse, a lot of these stories are really more about the event itself, or the cusp-- either just before or just after. "The Naturalist" is a really good Wasteland story-- if you grew up in Northeast Ohio this one is for you. It is the zombie story-- I think it was a mistake to put the undead first thing, since there is a bit of market fatigue, but so it goes-- & it all takes place in The Flats. Good of Cleveland, the Home of the End of the World. The world has mostly coped with the zombie uprising, but the last few "preserves" have been converted to penal colonies. Our protagonist makes his life there. "Special Economics" is one of my favorites in the collection; a scavenger China on the uptake in the near future, focusing on debt-based neofeudalism. A vibrant, plausible future. Heck, a plausible now, but then, isn't that the point of all these post-apocalyptic stories? "Useless Things" is the closest to what I wanted out of this book; a woman living her life in a collapsed American southwest. Water shortages, immigrants, & life as usual. Or life as unusual; McHugh paints a pretty believable picture of what it will be like when the center does not hold. Rationed water, break-ins, & the internet. The world doesn't go bonkers, it just falls apart. "The Lost Boy" is really more of a psychological story, sort of a stretch to include it here-- sure, there is a "dirty bomb," but a terror attack on Baltimore is hardly the end of the world, though it is the end of William's, & the beginnings of Simon's. ""The Kingdom of the Blind" is another small stretch; it is an AI story, & actually, it has a really interesting meta-narrative. That is; the ambiguity of the ending is rendered transparent by its inclusion in an After the Apocalypse anthology. I liked it a lot, but I think I liked the ending unresolved better than assuming things went all Skynet. "Going to France" is the oddest & most unique of the stories. It is about the end of the world, but not necessarily in a bad way.

"Honeymoon," "The Effect of Centrifugal Forces" & the eponymous "After the Apocalypse" all sort of epitomize the problems I had with After the Apocalypse. I feel like frequently Maureen McHugh falls back on race & class to make things "gritty" in a way that feels false & immature. Yes, terrible people exist. Yes, the end of the world would be an excuse to let your awfulness hang out. I just find it artificial when it is cranked up to eleven & included in too many points of view. In "The Naturalist" all the talk about "regular black guys" & "Nation of Islam" seemed a little off, until the prison angle was made clear, & then it worked, but after a certain point the relentless focus on those things feels hollow. Yeah, there would be messy flare-ups of tribalism, & yeah I think you can write a short story about it, but when you pepper it too heavily in all the dishes, you sort of taint the meal. It works in "Special Economics" because the ethnic boundaries between Chinese groups is opaque to most of the Western world; Fujianese, Cantonese speakers versus Mandarin speakers, north versus south, communist versus corporate-- making sense of the lines of division is part of the story. I just think at some points it becomes overwhelming. The gender divide is a little clumsy in "The Kingdom of the Blind," but you can see the logic behind it-- when it shows instead of tells, it works, but there is too much "telling." The pitfalls of a self-aware protagonist I guess. "Honeymoon" & "After the Apocalypse" are those problems magnified. Yeah, one of the perks of civilization is increasing equality, & yes it is really imperfect & fragile...but I don't think it works in the story when it is hamfisted. I think my problem is despicable characters. I don't want to read about racists & junkies & hoarders & the sort of people who abandon their children. I just think the balance was off, for my taste. I didn't feel like it was "challenging," I felt like it was easy. Easy to write the worst kinds of people, & boring. Making you sympathize with bad people, that is challenging; making you roll your eyes in exasperation isn't.

Blame It On the Black Sun.

2012-05-01T17:49:59Z

It Is By Will Alone I Set My Mind in Motion.

2012-04-30T23:31:15Z

Game of Thrones! The Warlocks of Qarth! So, "The Ghost of Harrenhal" was slated to be a good episode where shit got real no matter which way you cut it. First things first: I was unhappy with the way the shadow killing of Renly played out. I had been talking about this with Matt & I think a lo-fi solution would have been better. You know, like having Renly shadow be out of step? A creepy opening of the tent flap, an eerie shadow on the wall--sans CGI-- & then Renly's throat just opening & blood everywhere I just felt like the high magic of the last episode would have been better off tempered by a little subterfuge in this episode. Still, that is one king down! Theon continues to be...well, a worthless piece of garbage. I said before that he's the Gollum of A Song of Ice & Fire but it is probably more accurate to say he's the Sméagol, eh? Jaqen H'ghar is great-- but then, the Jaqen H'ghar of the text is great, so there was plenty there to work with. Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen shines in a more urbane setting; I found her a little bit lacking as the khaleesi of a band of raiders, but I find her more compelling as a claimant to the throne. She cleans up well & suits the political shenanigans-- maybe it is just a relief to see them all out of the dustbowl. Or maybe blue is just her colour? Tyrion is in the basement playing with napalm-- I like the book's implications that the return of dragons has empowered the alchemist's fire to burn hotter, & I hope they put it into a later episode-- & John Snow is slogging across Siberia. Both of those story arcs are ace; I have little to add because I think they are handled really well on screen. Dinklage is amazing & the on-location shooting of The Fist of the First Men? Oh man, I guess that was Iceland? So bad ass. Arya & Tywin Lannister provide a great showcase for both actors, too, especially the line of Arya's that they nabbed for the season trailer-- "anyone can be killed." & that was my Sunday in a nutshell. Well, I went to the gym-- hurt my legs pushing it on some machines-- & played with Olivia a whole bunch, too, but other than that. Also a quality nap with Jenny, & Schezuan food with Kira & Nino before the show. But other than that...

Evil Dead III.

2012-04-29T13:24:35Z

Friday was an alright day; I got a ton of work done, I went on the roof & saw a spaceship, Terra & I went to a pizza party with the Tor.com people, & then I grabbed a beer with Matt, Jocelyn & Brian. I was headed to meet Jenny at work for a lecture series, so we went to the Bleeker Street Bar & I knocked back a Delirium Tremens, since it was on the way. Lee Maschmeyer gave the lecture, & fordmadoxfraud came too. It largely concerned the Dadaist & communalist ideological roots of the internet, & while I think it was a bit heavy with platitudes on how the internet is changing sharing culture while ignoring the sad reality that the overwhelming majority of people will happily go into not just a walled garden but a locked garden like Facebooks & iOS, it was also engaging. The commune stuff really reminded me of J.C. Hallman's In Utopia, in that I both admire the commune as an idea & am annoyed by them in practice. I'm less interested in Stewart Brand than I am in Buckminster Fuller, I'd rather the futurist than the artist. You can tell that Lore is striving for a sort of salon-style atmosphere. I left with David & without Jenny & she ended up having to stay really late to work. I waited up for her & when she came home we watched Parks & Recreation & the live episode of 30 Rock. In summary, the former was delightful because Amy Poehler is perfect, & the latter made me convinced that 30 Rock should be live from now on; I think the show is treading water, even when they act like it is going to go in a new direction, & they need something big to make it relevant again.

Yesterday I watched The Legend of Korra & then I went to the gym for a nice big fat hour & forty five minutes. My workouts earlier in the week had been pretty light-- having the influenza last week really took a lot out of me-- but I think I made up for some of it yesterday. I came in shy of my "four hours" weekly goal, but by only ten minutes, which is better than I predicted. Back on the horse! Then Jenny & I went out on a date to my favorite place, Beer Table. We started with Professor Fritz Briem Grut-- our favorite beer, basically-- & Beer Table Table Beer/Strumke, which was a nice drinkable saison. First food course was fennel salad with greens, mango & chilis & pork terrine with onions, egg & watercress & the second course was a duck sandwich with jalapeños & porchetta with figs & potatoes. The next round of beer was JW Lees Harvest Ale '10 Lagavulin-- which smelled like figs & peat, just lovely-- & Yeastie Boys Pot Kettle Black. We finished up by splitting an Einbecker Mai Ur-Bock-- it tasted like grass, & was ridiculously cheap-- & then we went to go see Cabin in the Woods.

You should go see Cabin in the Woods; it is sort of adorable & really probably should become a cultural touchstone. It is Joss Whedon at his Whedonist; the movie is dripping with quips & is fundamentally a self-critique & a structural dissection of slasher films. When I wrote about Community subverting genre I mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer as its nearest comparison & Cabin in the Woods is definitely an heir to that legacy. Cabin is a Buffy story...without a Slayer. I knew a little bit about it going in, but just what I'd gleaned from the trailers-- I consider that fair game, I don't consider trailers to be spoilers-- & the movie got a lot of that out of the way up front. It isn't a "twist" flick, so the spoilers being danced around are all narrative ones, which is to its credit. In a nutshell, the movie is Friday the Thirteenth with an added metaplot of Angel's Wolfram & Hart on top of it, set at the exact same cabin as Ash was trapped in during the Evil Dead movies. It is an examination of tropes & archetypes both within the story & outside of the narrative-- which, can I rant for a second?

This may be a mild spoiler, but it is bugging me. Maybe it is just because the Tarot is something I'm drawing from thematically in my current campaign, but I don't think Marty counted as The Fool after a certain point. I mean, The Fool becomes The Magician becomes The Hanged Man, right? & by the time your Fool has seen through your surveillance, beaten up your Zombie Redneck Torture Family & hacked into the guts of your high tech magical ritual, I think he's moved on to The Magician. The whole thing was debunked from there. I think my favorite parts of the movie are handled in the background-- all the thing in The Cellar map out onto what we see later, for instance-- but my favorite scene? Probably the mash-up of Battle Royale & The Ring going on at the Japanese office, & the "What a Friend We Have in Shinto" quip. I want to know what was going on in all the other failed rituals; I would really like to see those as deleted scenes or something; more micro-post-modern story fragments! & I assume the demolition was sabotaged by a True Believer-- that is the one plot hole in the film, & I wonder about it quite a bit.

These Are the Voyages.

2012-04-27T21:04:33Z

(Rooftop photos from the Enterprise flyby by Irene G.)

NCC-1701

2012-04-27T17:26:09Z

So I'll be doing The Legend of Korra recaps for Tor.com which is kind of exciting, since all I want to do anyhow is just talk about The Legend of Korra. Perks of blogging for Tor.com is that I get to talk to a whole bunch of people about it, all at once. Wednesday was Television Night, & even that got hijacked by ...Korra! fordmadoxfraud was first, & he brought me a birthday present of Pathfinder minis & some Aecht Schlenkerla Fastenbier smoke beer. elladorian rolled in next with some xocolatl mole bitters for me! I haven't opened them yet but I am looking forward to it. fatbutts was next & she brought me a t-shirt emblazoned with BOB's face! Loot, man, crazy loot. Kira came over with Olivia next, followed by James with his & Lilly's dog Archie. Olivia meeting Archie was pretty adorable & took up the next few hours. She cracked up like a lunatic about his wagging tail. "Wiggle! Wiiiigle!" When Kira took Olivia home we put in the first two episodes of Korra because...because hell yeah, & because America's Next Top Model sent home the only good model on that show & the next cycle isn't even going to have Miss J, Mister Jay, or Nigel. Over it. Oh hey, & while I'm talking about Tor.com! I went up onto the roof of the Flatiron to watch the space shuttle flyby! Photo by Audrey S.

Then last night was a date night! Well, first it was a long day of struggling with the three-headed dog that stands outside of the special hell that is AT&T with Terra, but then I escaped to Brooklyn & to a nice evening with Jenny. We went to Fort Reno Provisions for dinner, & had a whole heaping mess of dead pig. Pulled pork & then pork loin, don't mind if I do; the accompaniment was a slew of sides-- macaroni & cheese, sweet potatoes & collard greens. It was a nice time, & we sucked down a couple of custom cocktails too; a Fort Warwick is Warwick gin, lemon, Warwick Bartlett Pear & tarragon & then a Cooler which was...um, it had a cucumber. After that, we went to the "new" Beauty Bar-- it has been there for a month, but it is new to me-- & had a couple of drinks as well, though no manicures. I had a Fellini, made of egg white, rhubarb aperol, lemon, simple syrup, bourbon, absinthe rinse & bitters. The mood was sort of shattered by Jenny having to deal with some work stuff, but we still managed-- gasp, somehow!-- to drink a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace & then head home to see the Community Law & Order spoof. "Basic Lupine Urology," on account of how it is a joke about Dick Wolf.