The SciArt Tweetstorm is back! And it's almost over, by the time this post goes up. But there will be lots of cool stuff over at the #sciart hashtag to wade through.
It's been rough over here at this little bloggo, mostly because your girl can't hold down a full-time job and work on her passion projects and read ALL OF THE BOOKS and brush up on her lost languages (Russian, French, Korean, German...I hardly knew ye) and successfully run an indie biz or brand or whatever the heck this thing counts as. But holy crap I've been posting here for ten years, I can't just retire this bloggo either. And my Etsy is still open and sometimes people buy things from me. (And leave me 5-star reviews, which is amazing and very much appreciated!)
Maybe in the future I'll fold everything into one domain, my professional language self and this weird semi-pro crafty self and people will just have to deal with the mess. All this talk of niche! and branding! and whatever else! forbids it, but honestly? If I have a full-time job (with salary!), I don't need to market myself anymore. I can be myself. And the self I am—the whole, weirdo, complex self—reads a lot, thinks a lot about words in all kinds of languages, loves rocks and minerals, and makes the occasional piece of STEM-inspired jewelry. And will go to her grave with the serial comma clasped tightly to her chest.
I have two custom projects I finished that I should get around to talking about here, because they were really fun to do and because I'm proud of the work I did on them. I have a million beads and jump rings waiting to become finished products but hahaha first I better photograph my backlog first, and also when exactly do I have the time to sit down to make new things?
But wow, let's save that navel gazing for another time! The point of this post is supposed to be HEY SCIART TWEETSTORM IS LIVE.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Monday, March 4, 2019
Tiny Moments of Joy: Hamlet at Stora Scenen
Hamlet is my favorite Shakespeare play for no other reason than I read it in high school and liked it better than Julius Caesar and Romeo & Juliet. It's also the only Shakespeare play to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, so that's something.
When I learned that Dramaten was putting on a production of Hamlet, I conferred with friends, found what were maybe the last four seats (all together) for the season, and booked our nosebleed cheap seat tickets for March 3.
Because I'm pretty familiar with Hamlet, I thought a Swedish version would be a challenging test of my language skills and, in terms of translation, provide some food for thought. I wasn't wrong. In fact, I was smarter than I realized to pick a play I already knew well, because my own background knowledge of the story was sometimes the only thing that helped me follow just what was going on despite the very modern language. (Though, sambo mentioned later that he also had problems following what people were saying, so part of it was certainly related to theatrical, dramatic elocution rather than to my poor Swedish. Part of it.)
The translation is a new one by Ulf Peter Wallberg, in the collection Det blodiga parlementet. I might take a break from everything I'm reading now to dip into this and see if my reading comprehension fares any better than my listening.
When I learned that Dramaten was putting on a production of Hamlet, I conferred with friends, found what were maybe the last four seats (all together) for the season, and booked our nosebleed cheap seat tickets for March 3.
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| Hamlet intermission, view from the cheap seats. |
Because I'm pretty familiar with Hamlet, I thought a Swedish version would be a challenging test of my language skills and, in terms of translation, provide some food for thought. I wasn't wrong. In fact, I was smarter than I realized to pick a play I already knew well, because my own background knowledge of the story was sometimes the only thing that helped me follow just what was going on despite the very modern language. (Though, sambo mentioned later that he also had problems following what people were saying, so part of it was certainly related to theatrical, dramatic elocution rather than to my poor Swedish. Part of it.)
The translation is a new one by Ulf Peter Wallberg, in the collection Det blodiga parlementet. I might take a break from everything I'm reading now to dip into this and see if my reading comprehension fares any better than my listening.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Friday 5: It Means Everything
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| That high school nostalgia. |
If you were outside right now, what would you most likely be doing?
If I had answered this when I usually do (Saturday), I would have said "running." But I woke up this morning to fresh snowfall so now the answer is "not running." Good thing I dragged myself outside for a run on Saturday, at any rate! Monday's not looking like a good possibility.
Right now, what’s a little too close to you?
Downstairs neighbor likes to play REALLY LOUD music every Sunday. But we're leaving in a few hours to see Dramaten's production of Hamlet so whatever.
Right now, who misses you?
Family and friends, I imagine.
Right now, what’s having its way with you?
The wifi all the way out to my "office" in the kitchen is absolute garbage, and the minute my sambo does anything online I'm stuck waiting for what scraps of bandwidth are available.
What do you most wish you were doing right now?
Nothing else in particular. My life at this moment in time is going pretty well.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
What I Read: Steering the Craft
This one came to me by way of a crit group member. I borrowed our group's shared copy and burned through it over the weekend to see what Le Guin had to say about writing.
People often recommend Stephen King's On Writing as a guidebook for writers. I did too, once upon a time, and I still would. I would just pair it with Steering the Craft. I think King still has fantastic insights on the process of writing, but LeGuin has the better grasp of what makes for good style. Not surprising, since I find King's writing fairly pedestrian whereas LeGuin's prose is actually good. To that end, I think Steering the Craft is a good book for editors to have in their library, while they give On Writing a pass (unless they're also writers, of course!).
LeGuin doesn't give any hard and fast rules about anything; she merely points out what most people do these days and what most people used to do in previous eras, recognizing that there is a time and a place for following guidelines and for departing from them. She also provides a good 101 level introduction to the technical terms of English grammar, rightly pointing out that a writer should be able to name their tools specifically rather than just having a vague idea about things.
Some of the literary extracts, being over a hundred years old or using a particular regional dialect (or both!), might be hard for non-native speakers to process, but the instructional aspects of the book, including her exercises, are crystal clear. The exercises are originally intended for a workshop or feedback group, but would work just as well in a traditional classroom setting. Editors would probably want to keep a copy of this on hand, or at least browse through it once or twice, so as to be able to better diagnose or name what would otherwise be a vague "I don't know what it is" problem in a manuscript.
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| Image courtesy Mariner Books |
People often recommend Stephen King's On Writing as a guidebook for writers. I did too, once upon a time, and I still would. I would just pair it with Steering the Craft. I think King still has fantastic insights on the process of writing, but LeGuin has the better grasp of what makes for good style. Not surprising, since I find King's writing fairly pedestrian whereas LeGuin's prose is actually good. To that end, I think Steering the Craft is a good book for editors to have in their library, while they give On Writing a pass (unless they're also writers, of course!).
LeGuin doesn't give any hard and fast rules about anything; she merely points out what most people do these days and what most people used to do in previous eras, recognizing that there is a time and a place for following guidelines and for departing from them. She also provides a good 101 level introduction to the technical terms of English grammar, rightly pointing out that a writer should be able to name their tools specifically rather than just having a vague idea about things.
Some of the literary extracts, being over a hundred years old or using a particular regional dialect (or both!), might be hard for non-native speakers to process, but the instructional aspects of the book, including her exercises, are crystal clear. The exercises are originally intended for a workshop or feedback group, but would work just as well in a traditional classroom setting. Editors would probably want to keep a copy of this on hand, or at least browse through it once or twice, so as to be able to better diagnose or name what would otherwise be a vague "I don't know what it is" problem in a manuscript.
Monday, February 25, 2019
Spring Thaw
Saturday was my first run of the year. Since I started 5K training in 2016, I've become so used to running outside that I don't think I can ever go back to treadmills. During the winter I just don't run at all, and yet the break doesn't seem to take much of a toll on anything. My pace is always within just a couple minutes of what my average for the previous season was; my muscles aren't any more sore afterwards. Still, this year I had big plans about intense yoga at home three days a week until the ice melted; instead I just slept in.
This is a miserable time of year for me. It's nice that the sun's back, of course, but now with the melting ice and snow means gray, sad trees and (in Stockholm) giant mountains of gravel and snow. Mostly gravel. Spring is lauded as a time of warmth and flowers, but in my experience it's mostly just muddy and unpleasant. There's two weeks of spring, maybe, that's nice, and by then it's practically summer.
Still, once you get out in nature, the thaw becomes a lot more attractive. And that's exactly why I've been put off the treadmill forever.
This is a miserable time of year for me. It's nice that the sun's back, of course, but now with the melting ice and snow means gray, sad trees and (in Stockholm) giant mountains of gravel and snow. Mostly gravel. Spring is lauded as a time of warmth and flowers, but in my experience it's mostly just muddy and unpleasant. There's two weeks of spring, maybe, that's nice, and by then it's practically summer.
Still, once you get out in nature, the thaw becomes a lot more attractive. And that's exactly why I've been put off the treadmill forever.
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Friday 5 on Sunday: Mischief Managed
This week's Friday 5 has a Harry Potter theme and it's killing me because I think the Harry Potter books are the trashy TV of the book world and are some of the most overrated books I've encountered. Also, Rowling keeps liking vaguely and not-so-vaguely transphobic posts on Twitter and it's really off-brand.
At least the questions are interesting?
The Mirror of Erised doesn’t show a reflection of you at the moment, but of you and what your heart most desires. If you gazed into it today, what image would you see?
I would see SO MANY finished manuscripts. And I don't know how you could visually convey linguistic fluency: I guess a library full of books in Swedish, Korean, French, Farsi, Russian, German...
Who's really pissed at you right now?
There's a couple people in Stockholm I definitely haven't endeared myself to (and sometimes it feels like such a small city that I genuinely worry about running into them on the street or at an event), but I don't know if they're actually angry at me. Nor do I want to know!
What model vehicle would be great to turn into a flying car?
Obviously a Chitty!
What item in your house could use a dose of magic, and what would extraordinary quality would you like to imbue it with?
Hell yeah I want my oven to just materialize food out of nowhere. It's not that I mind that my dietary intake for the past few weeks has been peanut butter sandwiches, instant noodles, and pizza—I just know that I need a little more variety than that.
Among people you know, who is most likely and secretly born with magical ability?
If it could be anyone it might as well be me, right? I want it to be me.
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| My "mediocre book" face. // Photo by Ryan Franco on Unsplash |
At least the questions are interesting?
The Mirror of Erised doesn’t show a reflection of you at the moment, but of you and what your heart most desires. If you gazed into it today, what image would you see?
I would see SO MANY finished manuscripts. And I don't know how you could visually convey linguistic fluency: I guess a library full of books in Swedish, Korean, French, Farsi, Russian, German...
Who's really pissed at you right now?
There's a couple people in Stockholm I definitely haven't endeared myself to (and sometimes it feels like such a small city that I genuinely worry about running into them on the street or at an event), but I don't know if they're actually angry at me. Nor do I want to know!
What model vehicle would be great to turn into a flying car?
Obviously a Chitty!
What item in your house could use a dose of magic, and what would extraordinary quality would you like to imbue it with?
Hell yeah I want my oven to just materialize food out of nowhere. It's not that I mind that my dietary intake for the past few weeks has been peanut butter sandwiches, instant noodles, and pizza—I just know that I need a little more variety than that.
Among people you know, who is most likely and secretly born with magical ability?
If it could be anyone it might as well be me, right? I want it to be me.
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
What I Read: Burnt Shadows
Is it bad manners to pan a book from your college writing workshop professor? I guess, but I'll go ahead and bite the hand that fed me.
The current political atmosphere in the US, when the national paranoia stoked in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001 is once again on the rise, may have affected how I felt about everything. Maybe my own impatience with reading and wanting to get back on track with my book goals might have also forced me to rush and engage with Burnt Shadows differently than if I were just leisurely reading.
The story itself, about the thin threads of happenstance that connect people half a world apart, is intricate and fascinating and the multigenerational aspect of the story is handled really well, in that all of the parts that Shamsie includes in the story feel absolutely essential.
The sticking point for me was the characters. There are a lot, but it's not their plenitude that I had an issue with. Actually, on a technical level, the multiple perspectives are handled masterfully. Usually switching perspectives within a scene is confusing and unnecessary, but in this case it works for Shamsie and brings essential information and development to the table.
But the reason that these perspective shifts work on a micro level might be why I was lukewarm about the book on a macro level. Maybe it's easier to smooth the transition between "head hops" when all of the characters have the same inner narrative style: vaguely lyrical, poetic, refined. It's not up there with the dialogue in John Green's Kids With Cancer Falling in Love Makes For Rave Reviews Because Who Would Shit on a Story About Kids With Cancer*—each character's language and thought process, in isolation, is completely believable; there's nothing bombastic or ridiculous about any of it—but it does strain credulity a bit that everyone in Burnt Shadows looks at the world through similar metaphors and has essentially the same inner narrative voice. I was reminded a lot of A Death in the Family and why I rage quit that one years ago: characters were only surface-level different; they still all thought with the same voice and noticed and commented on the same sorts of things. That one was an atheist and another was religious had no real bearing on anything. They were all interchangeable.
There is also an element of melodrama in the writing that feels out of place for me. This is a story about really terrible things, like the atom bomb and Guantanamo Bay and Islamophobia and kids in military training camps—the extra layer of interpersonal melodrama feels unnecessary, and undercuts the gravity of the story.
*I mean, I would. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The current political atmosphere in the US, when the national paranoia stoked in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001 is once again on the rise, may have affected how I felt about everything. Maybe my own impatience with reading and wanting to get back on track with my book goals might have also forced me to rush and engage with Burnt Shadows differently than if I were just leisurely reading.
The story itself, about the thin threads of happenstance that connect people half a world apart, is intricate and fascinating and the multigenerational aspect of the story is handled really well, in that all of the parts that Shamsie includes in the story feel absolutely essential.
The sticking point for me was the characters. There are a lot, but it's not their plenitude that I had an issue with. Actually, on a technical level, the multiple perspectives are handled masterfully. Usually switching perspectives within a scene is confusing and unnecessary, but in this case it works for Shamsie and brings essential information and development to the table.
But the reason that these perspective shifts work on a micro level might be why I was lukewarm about the book on a macro level. Maybe it's easier to smooth the transition between "head hops" when all of the characters have the same inner narrative style: vaguely lyrical, poetic, refined. It's not up there with the dialogue in John Green's Kids With Cancer Falling in Love Makes For Rave Reviews Because Who Would Shit on a Story About Kids With Cancer*—each character's language and thought process, in isolation, is completely believable; there's nothing bombastic or ridiculous about any of it—but it does strain credulity a bit that everyone in Burnt Shadows looks at the world through similar metaphors and has essentially the same inner narrative voice. I was reminded a lot of A Death in the Family and why I rage quit that one years ago: characters were only surface-level different; they still all thought with the same voice and noticed and commented on the same sorts of things. That one was an atheist and another was religious had no real bearing on anything. They were all interchangeable.
There is also an element of melodrama in the writing that feels out of place for me. This is a story about really terrible things, like the atom bomb and Guantanamo Bay and Islamophobia and kids in military training camps—the extra layer of interpersonal melodrama feels unnecessary, and undercuts the gravity of the story.
*I mean, I would. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Friday 5: QotD
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| Image courtesy Adam Jaime on Unsplash |
What kind of drunk are you?
Oh, so many different kinds! Chatty, aggressive, melodramatic. It tends to be, I think, whatever aspect of myself hasn't gotten a lot of air time recently. In vino (momentary) veritas.
What’s one of your language-related pet peeves?
This came up a while back, and I'll just say what I said then:
Editors are supposed to have an endless list of these, right? So the stereotype goes. We are the gatekeepers of language and so on and so forth. And I guess we all do, probably. But if you look at the layperson’s language pet peeves (“they’re/there/their”! “your/you’re”!) and the editor’s pet peeves, the overlap would probably be quite small.
My personal ones these days are The New Yorker's bizarre house style guide (coöperation? no thanks) and The New York Times' practice of referring to heads of state with honorific titles instead of, simply, their names.
What would be a good question to ask people you’ve just met, if what you really want to know is what they’re passionate about? You know, an alternative to “What do you do?” or “How do you know so-and-so?”
I like to ask people to name a movie they think is overrated and a movie they think is underrated. The reasoning in their answers is often revealing, and sometimes you get a good recommendation out of the question to boot!
When you get home super tired and super hungry, do you usually eat first or sleep first?
Food always comes first. Food above all else. All hail food.
You’re taking an exam. You aren’t sure about the answer to question 5, but you know it’s either “lions” or “tigers.” You get to question 11 and realize whatever the answer to 5 is, 11 is the other answer. Do you write “lions” as your answer to 5 and 11, thereby ensuring you’ll get one of them right? Or do you write “lions” for 5 and “tigers” for 11, risking two wrong answers but giving you a chance at two right ones?
Oh, this game theory realness! Before I did anything else I would reflect on the question, maybe work on other parts of the exam for a little bit, take a moment to let my wander off the topic entirely. But if I did all of that and I still didn't know, and didn't have even an inclination either way, I think I'd go for "lions" for both.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Movie Monday Instead of Music Monday: Aniara
One of the books I read in my Modernist Swedish Literature course a million years ago was Aniara. Since we were still babies in the Swedish language, everything we read was an English translation. To this day I don't know how The Swedish Program at Stockholm University managed to find enough copies—actual proper hardback copies, not dodgy spiral-bound printouts—of the English translation for all of us. These days the only English version available anywhere seems to be an ugly paperback edition that fetches a whopping $225 on Amazon.
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't quite appreciate reading Aniara at the time. I love sci fi but I'm extremely unconvinced by poetry, so the whole thing left me tepid. Now that I'm older, I appreciate not only the weirdness of the project (an epic poem about a pioneer ship lost in space!) but the metaphorical aspect of the whole piece in the face of the threat of nuclear winter and environmental annihilation.
I only learned that there was an Aniara movie after I saw a poster for it at ABF after my writing Meetup. My timing was excellent: Bio Rio only has two showings and both of them are in February. There's one more screening on 15 February, for those of you in Stockholm who are free at 3 in the afternoon on a weekday. I'm not, so I had to grab last-minute tickets to the evening showing this past Saturday. I also, at the very last minute, tracked down a copy of the Swedish original from the library so I could go into the movie with a refreshed memory.
Aniara the movie is a graceful companion to Aniara the epic poem, if not least to provide visuals that help anchor the story (as much as there is one). Specifically, the movie illustrates the sheer vastness of everything far better than words maybe ever could. Martinson gives some details—a ship with 8,000 people on board, 15,580 feet long and 2,923 feet wide—but it's hard to really appreciate, on the emotional and intuitive level, what those numbers really mean. The establishing shots of huge milling crowds in a huge, outsized version of a Viking Line cruise ship, however, suddenly makes it crystal clear. The poem also does very little to specify the actual specifics of the ship, aside from the fact that it has crystal-clear windows and walls over must of it. Thanks to a steady childhood diet of mid-century science fiction movies, I always imagined the interior of Aniara as a very minimalist, brushed chrome sort of space ship; the option to represent the ship as an opulent, futuristic echo of today's booze cruises was an inspired one and provided a nice visual irony in the later years of the ship's voyage.
References and quotations from the poem fit into the movie quite elegantly, whether in events and plot points or pieces of dialogue. The screenwriters opted to ground things in the particular story arc of the Mimarob—the employee who operates the Mima, which in the movie is the equivalent of the holodeck from Star Trek but in the poem is more like a fancy movie theater. The change works well; the vague nameless "we" in many of the poems is enough to track when you read, but in a movie it helps to have at least one central character we can follow throughout. The choice of the Mimarob for such a protagonist also makes sense; on the rare occasion a singular "I" turns up in the poem, it's usually the Mimarob.
I didn't finish re-reading Aniara entirely beforehand, so I can't say whether some of the grimmer plot points were also alluded to in the poem or if they were added for dramatic purposes. But it doesn't seem worth harping on grimness when we're talking about an adaption of an epic poem where everyone ends up lost in space forever.
Like 2001 and Arrival, the film version of Aniara succeeds in complementing the original text it's based on, so that instead of competing to tell the singular best version of an idea, both versions become one cohesive whole. Watch the movie and, if you can, read the book.
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| I wish this would go back into print so my anglophone sci-fi fan friends could afford to read it. |
I'll be the first to admit that I didn't quite appreciate reading Aniara at the time. I love sci fi but I'm extremely unconvinced by poetry, so the whole thing left me tepid. Now that I'm older, I appreciate not only the weirdness of the project (an epic poem about a pioneer ship lost in space!) but the metaphorical aspect of the whole piece in the face of the threat of nuclear winter and environmental annihilation.
I only learned that there was an Aniara movie after I saw a poster for it at ABF after my writing Meetup. My timing was excellent: Bio Rio only has two showings and both of them are in February. There's one more screening on 15 February, for those of you in Stockholm who are free at 3 in the afternoon on a weekday. I'm not, so I had to grab last-minute tickets to the evening showing this past Saturday. I also, at the very last minute, tracked down a copy of the Swedish original from the library so I could go into the movie with a refreshed memory.
Aniara the movie is a graceful companion to Aniara the epic poem, if not least to provide visuals that help anchor the story (as much as there is one). Specifically, the movie illustrates the sheer vastness of everything far better than words maybe ever could. Martinson gives some details—a ship with 8,000 people on board, 15,580 feet long and 2,923 feet wide—but it's hard to really appreciate, on the emotional and intuitive level, what those numbers really mean. The establishing shots of huge milling crowds in a huge, outsized version of a Viking Line cruise ship, however, suddenly makes it crystal clear. The poem also does very little to specify the actual specifics of the ship, aside from the fact that it has crystal-clear windows and walls over must of it. Thanks to a steady childhood diet of mid-century science fiction movies, I always imagined the interior of Aniara as a very minimalist, brushed chrome sort of space ship; the option to represent the ship as an opulent, futuristic echo of today's booze cruises was an inspired one and provided a nice visual irony in the later years of the ship's voyage.
References and quotations from the poem fit into the movie quite elegantly, whether in events and plot points or pieces of dialogue. The screenwriters opted to ground things in the particular story arc of the Mimarob—the employee who operates the Mima, which in the movie is the equivalent of the holodeck from Star Trek but in the poem is more like a fancy movie theater. The change works well; the vague nameless "we" in many of the poems is enough to track when you read, but in a movie it helps to have at least one central character we can follow throughout. The choice of the Mimarob for such a protagonist also makes sense; on the rare occasion a singular "I" turns up in the poem, it's usually the Mimarob.
I didn't finish re-reading Aniara entirely beforehand, so I can't say whether some of the grimmer plot points were also alluded to in the poem or if they were added for dramatic purposes. But it doesn't seem worth harping on grimness when we're talking about an adaption of an epic poem where everyone ends up lost in space forever.
Like 2001 and Arrival, the film version of Aniara succeeds in complementing the original text it's based on, so that instead of competing to tell the singular best version of an idea, both versions become one cohesive whole. Watch the movie and, if you can, read the book.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Friday 5: Salt Fat Acid Heat
What are some very salty foods you enjoy?
Oh man, I try not to think about how much salt is in my favorite Korean ramen because it's...probably not great. But I get points for getting two or three meals out of the broth instead of just one, right?
What areas of your life could stand a little fat-trimming?
It's that time of the year again! Right around the new year, I go through the people I follow on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, and decide who's not working out for me.
How acid-tongued are you?
When I interact with people? Not at all. When you get me drunk and talking about Jane Austen or Harry Potter? Whew boy.
What’s an interesting way you’ve burned yourself?
If I've ever burned myself, it's been in the usual, pedestrian ways.
What are your favorite everyday cooking implements?
My kettle is absolutely essential! (See above, re: ramen.) The microwave is also very, very important. When someone in this apartment actually cooks, the mandoline slicer and the garlic press get a lot of use.
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
What I Read: The Boggart
I originally read The Boggart in elementary school, and then re-read it back in December, so no matter how you slice it I'm cheating a bit (or have fallen quite far behind) to bring it up for a book post in February. To which I say: come at me, bro.
My occasion for re-reading this one was actually for work. One of my younger (former) students is very much into ghost stories and the like, and while I was trying to figure out the next thing I wanted to read, my eyes lighted on my battered Scholastic book fair edition of The Boggart. Mischievous ghosts and drafty Scottish castles? On brand!
I was right -- it was a bigger hit than the other books I'd brought in -- but my point here isn't how I'm awesome at picking out books for students but about how much I haven't grown out of this book.
I didn't remember that much about it, except that it had a ghost and that ten-year-old me loved it. (How else would it survive countless book purges and a trip across the ocean?) The perfect time to re-read a book!
The first or second lesson I read along with my student, we got to a section about the titular boggart mourning the death of their very first human friend, and it choked me up. If your middle grade fantasy novel brings grown-ups to tears, then you're a competent and accomplished writer. Also, points for using semicolons (happy semikolonets dag!) and having the characters' mother apologize to another adult for being "bitchy." We don't have to banish semantic complexity or linguistic realism from children's literature!
While charming, The Boggart still isn't as effortless as The Dark is Rising; Cooper has to do a lot of heavy lifting to get her modern Canadian family to clue in to the ancient Scottish spirit turning their lives upside down, and it gets clumsy in places. A couple of moments are clearly meant to be whimsical or wonderful but feel a bit much, and a third act bad guy appears out of nowhere, to no end except to be a vague menace. What is considered the latest technology is also a key plot point, but this was the latest technology back in 1993, so there are also portions that are incredibly dated when you're reading in 2019.
My occasion for re-reading this one was actually for work. One of my younger (former) students is very much into ghost stories and the like, and while I was trying to figure out the next thing I wanted to read, my eyes lighted on my battered Scholastic book fair edition of The Boggart. Mischievous ghosts and drafty Scottish castles? On brand!
I was right -- it was a bigger hit than the other books I'd brought in -- but my point here isn't how I'm awesome at picking out books for students but about how much I haven't grown out of this book.
I didn't remember that much about it, except that it had a ghost and that ten-year-old me loved it. (How else would it survive countless book purges and a trip across the ocean?) The perfect time to re-read a book!
The first or second lesson I read along with my student, we got to a section about the titular boggart mourning the death of their very first human friend, and it choked me up. If your middle grade fantasy novel brings grown-ups to tears, then you're a competent and accomplished writer. Also, points for using semicolons (happy semikolonets dag!) and having the characters' mother apologize to another adult for being "bitchy." We don't have to banish semantic complexity or linguistic realism from children's literature!
While charming, The Boggart still isn't as effortless as The Dark is Rising; Cooper has to do a lot of heavy lifting to get her modern Canadian family to clue in to the ancient Scottish spirit turning their lives upside down, and it gets clumsy in places. A couple of moments are clearly meant to be whimsical or wonderful but feel a bit much, and a third act bad guy appears out of nowhere, to no end except to be a vague menace. What is considered the latest technology is also a key plot point, but this was the latest technology back in 1993, so there are also portions that are incredibly dated when you're reading in 2019.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Friday 5 on Sunday: Then You Begin to Make it Better Better Better Better Better Better Yeah
What’s something you hated as a teen but love today?
I've made peace with getting up (relatively) early in the mornings, running, and even the pop music of my youth.
What’s something you recently dreaded that turned out not too bad?
I actually haven't been dreading anything recently, so hard to say.
How do you feel about February as it compares to January?
There's more snow and more sunlight, so I'd say it's an improvement.
Who among people you know is really making the world a better place?
One of the founding members of the Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club works with allocating funding to victims of violent crime and I'm super proud of him.
In what way is today better than yesterday?
Every day these days is a little lighter and a little closer to spring, so I'll take it.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
What I Read: Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach
The Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club kicked off the year with Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. I had trucked through the weirdness that was Amatka and was hoping to start the new year off with something a little more straightforward, or at least more comprehensible.
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach did not disappoint in that respect. It's a distant, post-apocalyptic future and the powers that be have just figured out time travel. Minh is an expert in rivers restoration and travels to ancient Mesopotamia to collect data that will help restore the Tigris and Euphrates river regions. Things go wrong. (Of course, reading it in English instead of Swedish, like I did with Amatka, might have also made it clearer.)
Overall, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach is a pretty quick read. My only complaint is that it's too quick: the beginning of the story sets up a lot of intrigue and possible plot points that are never really pursued or resolved. Given how abrupt the ending is, and how much is left unfinished, it feels like Robson left the door open for a sequel, but who knows if that will materialize. What's there is fun, good writing -- I just want there to be more of it!
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach did not disappoint in that respect. It's a distant, post-apocalyptic future and the powers that be have just figured out time travel. Minh is an expert in rivers restoration and travels to ancient Mesopotamia to collect data that will help restore the Tigris and Euphrates river regions. Things go wrong. (Of course, reading it in English instead of Swedish, like I did with Amatka, might have also made it clearer.)
Overall, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach is a pretty quick read. My only complaint is that it's too quick: the beginning of the story sets up a lot of intrigue and possible plot points that are never really pursued or resolved. Given how abrupt the ending is, and how much is left unfinished, it feels like Robson left the door open for a sequel, but who knows if that will materialize. What's there is fun, good writing -- I just want there to be more of it!
Monday, January 28, 2019
Music Monday is a Thing Now I Guess: Ennio Morricone
Stockholm was a destination on Ennio Morricone's farewell tour. Or 60 years of music tour. Hard to say what the proper title really is. Either way, if you have a chance to see a living legend, you take it. Nothing like a live performance of "The Ecstasy of Gold" conducted by the composer.
And probably the only time in my life where the audience whooped, cheered, and whistled for an orchestral performance, which is almost too bad. People should always be that excited for concerts, no matter what the genre.
And probably the only time in my life where the audience whooped, cheered, and whistled for an orchestral performance, which is almost too bad. People should always be that excited for concerts, no matter what the genre.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Friday 5: Teal This Album
I didn't realize that "Africa" had become a thing again in the year of our Lord 2019. Along with Weezer and Weird Al? Time is meaningless anymore.
Where in Africa would you like to visit?
There are lots of places, really. Soudha is in Singapore for university right now, if memory serves, but her travel logs series on Of Stacks and Cups really made me want to visit Mauritius. One of my teacher friends and former coworkers studied in Ghana for a semester when she was in university and made it sound like a lovely place to visit. Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt are also on my "someday" travel list.
If you ruled the world, what would you forbid people to talk about in the company of strangers?
Nothing, actually. Even the most banal smalltalk has its purpose.
In what way do you tolerate (or enjoy) being used?
I'll file this one under "that's a little personal, don't you think?" and move along to the next question.
When did you recently have an a-ha moment?
About something or other at work, I'm sure. I feel like I have at least one every day.
What’s something you know about turtles?
Nothing that the average person doesn't already know. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about these little guys.
Where in Africa would you like to visit?
There are lots of places, really. Soudha is in Singapore for university right now, if memory serves, but her travel logs series on Of Stacks and Cups really made me want to visit Mauritius. One of my teacher friends and former coworkers studied in Ghana for a semester when she was in university and made it sound like a lovely place to visit. Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt are also on my "someday" travel list.
If you ruled the world, what would you forbid people to talk about in the company of strangers?
Nothing, actually. Even the most banal smalltalk has its purpose.
In what way do you tolerate (or enjoy) being used?
I'll file this one under "that's a little personal, don't you think?" and move along to the next question.
When did you recently have an a-ha moment?
About something or other at work, I'm sure. I feel like I have at least one every day.
What’s something you know about turtles?
Nothing that the average person doesn't already know. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about these little guys.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
What I Read: LÉtranger
I read L'Étranger because I want to keep my French from slipping. I figured it would be a good choice because I've already read it twice and the language is quite sparse and accessible for non-native speakers.
It's L'Étranger. You've either read it or you haven't and there's not much need for me to weigh in on my opinion on the book, except that I'll be balancing my (re)reading of this with a novel by an Algerian author. If you spend too long thinking about how the non-white characters in the book exist as plot devices to put Meursault on trial and then in prison (sorry for spoilers for a book that was published in 1942 I guess?????), it leaves an uncomfortable taste in your mouth, and the best remedy for that is to broaden your own horizons.
Otherwise I'm already falling behind on my Goodreads Challenge for the year. The falling behind doesn't bother me as much as the not reading bothers me. Whenever I'm in a bad way, my reading drops off—or maybe a drop off in reading leads to grumpiness and depression. Impossible to tell; I've never paid close enough attention to notice which starts first. The two definitely feed into each other, regardless. But now I'm off the blocks and hopefully my momentum (and mood) will pick up a little bit going into February.
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| Image courtesy Gallimard |
It's L'Étranger. You've either read it or you haven't and there's not much need for me to weigh in on my opinion on the book, except that I'll be balancing my (re)reading of this with a novel by an Algerian author. If you spend too long thinking about how the non-white characters in the book exist as plot devices to put Meursault on trial and then in prison (sorry for spoilers for a book that was published in 1942 I guess?????), it leaves an uncomfortable taste in your mouth, and the best remedy for that is to broaden your own horizons.
Otherwise I'm already falling behind on my Goodreads Challenge for the year. The falling behind doesn't bother me as much as the not reading bothers me. Whenever I'm in a bad way, my reading drops off—or maybe a drop off in reading leads to grumpiness and depression. Impossible to tell; I've never paid close enough attention to notice which starts first. The two definitely feed into each other, regardless. But now I'm off the blocks and hopefully my momentum (and mood) will pick up a little bit going into February.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
TMJ: Treacherous Little Bastard
I had the worst TMJ flare-up of my life on Thursday and it has yet to abate entirely. Everything on the left side of my head and neck either hurts, has only stopped hurting for the moment, or is getting ready to hurt some more. I hate everything. Human bodies are feckless assholes.
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Friday 5 on Saturday: Move
What’s a song that recently moved you?
I still cry at "Rhapsody in Blue." Every damn time.
What’s a song that recently moved you — right out the door?
Not a song as such, but a request.
When I lived in Korea, I used to go on long, late-night walks with another teacher friend of mine. By this time the pedestrian mall and downtown ("downtown") Uijeongbu had been fully refurbished, with bits of greenery and benches and sculptures. It soon attracted any number of buskers, and in the warmer months our walks included stopping to take in a few songs.
One time we passed such a performance in front of an audience including a few drunk white men who were already on their way to behaving badly. We lingered, unsure if we could enjoy the music over the poor behavior.
"If one of them requests 'Freebird,' I'm going to lose my shit," I mentioned to my walking companion, quietly and out of earshot of said potential troublemakers.
"What? Why?"
And as if on cue, one of them slurred "FREEBIRD!" and I had to feign a coughing fit to cover a scream of frustration. I nodded to my friend, who was still confused, and we kept walking while I explained the pointless tradition of requesting "Freebird" at concerts, regardless of artist or genre.
What kinds of dance performances interest you?
Not many, I'll admit. I don't have much interest in watching anything except tap or swing. I've watched to many Hollywood movie musicals, I guess.
What’s a good song with the word move (or some form of it) in the title?
I will never not post a Janis Joplin song if I have the opportunity to do so.
How do you feel about prunes?
I've never had them. But since I like raisins, I'd probably like prunes.
I still cry at "Rhapsody in Blue." Every damn time.
What’s a song that recently moved you — right out the door?
Not a song as such, but a request.
When I lived in Korea, I used to go on long, late-night walks with another teacher friend of mine. By this time the pedestrian mall and downtown ("downtown") Uijeongbu had been fully refurbished, with bits of greenery and benches and sculptures. It soon attracted any number of buskers, and in the warmer months our walks included stopping to take in a few songs.
One time we passed such a performance in front of an audience including a few drunk white men who were already on their way to behaving badly. We lingered, unsure if we could enjoy the music over the poor behavior.
"If one of them requests 'Freebird,' I'm going to lose my shit," I mentioned to my walking companion, quietly and out of earshot of said potential troublemakers.
"What? Why?"
And as if on cue, one of them slurred "FREEBIRD!" and I had to feign a coughing fit to cover a scream of frustration. I nodded to my friend, who was still confused, and we kept walking while I explained the pointless tradition of requesting "Freebird" at concerts, regardless of artist or genre.
What kinds of dance performances interest you?
Not many, I'll admit. I don't have much interest in watching anything except tap or swing. I've watched to many Hollywood movie musicals, I guess.
What’s a good song with the word move (or some form of it) in the title?
I will never not post a Janis Joplin song if I have the opportunity to do so.
How do you feel about prunes?
I've never had them. But since I like raisins, I'd probably like prunes.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
What I Read Backlog: Ancillary Justice
My reading this year is shaping up to be NOT AWESOME but while I rectify that, here's a blast from the past: a bunch of book reviews I never posted here!
The entire book-o-sphere that I bother following (mostly book blogs, sometimes Twitter, sometimes YouTube) had just the right amount of awesome things to say about Ancillary Justice that when Austin Feminist Sci Fi Book Club chose it I was cautiously optimistic. Then I read it and it BLEW MY MIND and I could barely contain myself and I ended up buying a copy for a friend for his birthday.
THE HYPE. THE HYPE WAS REAL. Ancillary Justice is how space opera science fiction should be and it was a welcome palate cleanser from whatever else I was reading at the time and probably a subpar book club selection before that. (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet? Gena/Finn? I can't be bothered to look it up.) Space opera at its absolute best, where the opera is an excuse to posit a culture familiar to our own and then to examine its accomplishments and pitfalls and reflect on how we're doing.
Ancillary Justice in particular is also a great technical achievement in perspective and characterization. The great technological marvel of the science fiction empire in question is ancillaries: human bodies used as a extensions of a starship's AI, something like a miniature Borg collective. Leckie very skillfully navigates this single-but-multiple perspective and, more than being a cool gimmick, this splintering of awareness is also an important story element. Leckie's writing is also polished and economical, with enough details to keep the reader anchored but not so many you become overwhelmed; in a way, it's exactly how you can imagine a very sophisticated AI would describe and process the world: picking out one or two concrete and salient details out of an input of thousands or even millions, but at the same time failing to make distinctions that humans can sort in an instant. In this case, the AI has difficulty with all of the different gender markers in the assorted cultures they encounter.
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| Image courtesy Orbit |
The entire book-o-sphere that I bother following (mostly book blogs, sometimes Twitter, sometimes YouTube) had just the right amount of awesome things to say about Ancillary Justice that when Austin Feminist Sci Fi Book Club chose it I was cautiously optimistic. Then I read it and it BLEW MY MIND and I could barely contain myself and I ended up buying a copy for a friend for his birthday.
THE HYPE. THE HYPE WAS REAL. Ancillary Justice is how space opera science fiction should be and it was a welcome palate cleanser from whatever else I was reading at the time and probably a subpar book club selection before that. (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet? Gena/Finn? I can't be bothered to look it up.) Space opera at its absolute best, where the opera is an excuse to posit a culture familiar to our own and then to examine its accomplishments and pitfalls and reflect on how we're doing.
Ancillary Justice in particular is also a great technical achievement in perspective and characterization. The great technological marvel of the science fiction empire in question is ancillaries: human bodies used as a extensions of a starship's AI, something like a miniature Borg collective. Leckie very skillfully navigates this single-but-multiple perspective and, more than being a cool gimmick, this splintering of awareness is also an important story element. Leckie's writing is also polished and economical, with enough details to keep the reader anchored but not so many you become overwhelmed; in a way, it's exactly how you can imagine a very sophisticated AI would describe and process the world: picking out one or two concrete and salient details out of an input of thousands or even millions, but at the same time failing to make distinctions that humans can sort in an instant. In this case, the AI has difficulty with all of the different gender markers in the assorted cultures they encounter.
Monday, January 14, 2019
GoodReads Challenges
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| So it begins. |
I recognize that I should probably hate GoodReads. I'll be the first to admit that its overbusy, hyperactive layout and tools are Not For Me. I don't care what my friends are reading (sorry, y'all!) and I don't need to see a constantly updated list of their ratings and reviews. I also don't care about what the GoodReads/Amazon algorithms think I should read next, or what crappy and undeserving book has been voted the GoodReads Readers' Choice. I care about keeping track of books I want to read (so easy to just send someone a link to my "to read" shelf!), keeping track of the books I have read, and motivating myself to actually get reading done—trying to keep pace with my GoodReads goal and the little thermometer on the homepage is the best way I've found to light a fire under my ass to actually finish books. I've been successful in all of them since I started officially keeping track, and I recall even using GoodReads to keep track of my annual book count as far back as 2009.
Which is why I'm posting about how it's January 14 and I'm officially one book behind because I haven't finished a single book out of the four I'm reading all at once. To be fair, one of them is Ulysses, another is L'étranger in the original French, and the third is a Swedish textbook. The fourth is Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows, a book that's been in my library since it was initially published but I seem really resistant to actually reading. Maybe I should grind that one out first, just to get something done.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Friday 5 on Sunday: My Dreams, They Aren't as Empty / As My Conscience Seems to Be
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| Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash |
What’s got you behind the 8-ball?
Nothing in particular, but I'm posting this at around 11 PM and I'm struggling to think of anything I actually accomplished today. I don't like days where I don't get anything done—or more specifically, where I look back and I can't really account for all of my time. It makes me feel like I've wasted my day.
Who would you like to see a VH-1-Behind-the-Music-style documentary about?
No one, actually. At this point we live in an age where if I want to know all the dirt on someone, there's probably a tell-all biography or two I can pick up.
What are you likely to find behind your sofa?
Dust bunnies and the occasional sock.
What’s something you’d like to put behind you this year?
A couple of health issues and some less-than-beneficial relationships.
What’s something you don’t want to eat if there’s no ketchup?
Nothing, because ketchup is a foul, unholy creation that belongs nowhere near food.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
What I Read: The Short, Sad List of the Best Books I Read in 2018
Other years I've had to split my 5-star books into two posts, but this year I think they can comfortably be combined into one. Here were my reading highlights of 2018!
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
My criterion for rating a nonfiction book 5 stars on GoodReads is that it has the potential for widespread appeal, or that it masterfully addresses a major social or everyday question. Reza Aslan has done an excellent job of outlining the historical context of early Christianity and Jesus Christ.
Rien où poser sa tête
I stumbled across this thanks to the review of the English translation in Asymptote. Its chance rescue from obscurity mirrors, almost too well, Frenkel's own brushes with death in Vichy France. Out of all my reading in 2018, this one was probably the most relevant to today's events and politics.
Proust and the Squid
I waffled on whether to give Proust and the Squid 5 stars rather than 4, but decided in the end to be generous. While the story of the brain learns how to read isn't the same urgent issue as Nazis or Christianity, it's something almost all of us do and whose complexity we should all appreciate.
Sacred Economics
While Eisenstein might be more optimistic and naive than warranted, his explanation of economics, credit and inflation is the most cogent I've read and he dramatically shifted my attitude towards money and how I save and spend it. That's what earned this book 5 stars from me, despite Eisenstein's occasional lapse into conspiracy-adjacent tangents.
Ancillary Justice
This one was a selection for Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, and it's books like this that make me glad I'm allowed to lurk as a satellite member in Stockholm. Leckie's world building and vision of technology is polished and nuanced. This is how space opera should be.
I mentioned before that 2018 was a weird year for my reading, and that's reflected pretty clearly in the fact that I only gave one novel a 5-star rating. Historically, I've done much better than that. Thanks to studying for DipTrans and Kammarkollegiet, my way forward in nonfiction is pretty clear and structured at this point (though ironically none of those 5-star titles are related to translation!); my way forward in fiction is still grasping at random and hoping to find something good. All while trying to finish Ulysses, at that!
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
My criterion for rating a nonfiction book 5 stars on GoodReads is that it has the potential for widespread appeal, or that it masterfully addresses a major social or everyday question. Reza Aslan has done an excellent job of outlining the historical context of early Christianity and Jesus Christ.
Rien où poser sa tête
I stumbled across this thanks to the review of the English translation in Asymptote. Its chance rescue from obscurity mirrors, almost too well, Frenkel's own brushes with death in Vichy France. Out of all my reading in 2018, this one was probably the most relevant to today's events and politics.
Proust and the Squid
I waffled on whether to give Proust and the Squid 5 stars rather than 4, but decided in the end to be generous. While the story of the brain learns how to read isn't the same urgent issue as Nazis or Christianity, it's something almost all of us do and whose complexity we should all appreciate.
Sacred Economics
While Eisenstein might be more optimistic and naive than warranted, his explanation of economics, credit and inflation is the most cogent I've read and he dramatically shifted my attitude towards money and how I save and spend it. That's what earned this book 5 stars from me, despite Eisenstein's occasional lapse into conspiracy-adjacent tangents.
Ancillary Justice
This one was a selection for Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club, and it's books like this that make me glad I'm allowed to lurk as a satellite member in Stockholm. Leckie's world building and vision of technology is polished and nuanced. This is how space opera should be.
I mentioned before that 2018 was a weird year for my reading, and that's reflected pretty clearly in the fact that I only gave one novel a 5-star rating. Historically, I've done much better than that. Thanks to studying for DipTrans and Kammarkollegiet, my way forward in nonfiction is pretty clear and structured at this point (though ironically none of those 5-star titles are related to translation!); my way forward in fiction is still grasping at random and hoping to find something good. All while trying to finish Ulysses, at that!
Monday, January 7, 2019
Happy New Year, I'm Not Dead, Here's Some Statistics on the Books I Read in 2018
WOW FAM WHAT'S UP, I'M NOT DEAD
This was a weird year for the blog and I feel bad about that. Part of the reason this was a weird year was that I accidentally-on-purpose scaled back my Etsy investments in terms of time and energy. I simply don't have the desire or the savvy to gain traction for my ~~brand and with that realization came a steep fall-off in motivation to blog here, when I already have a personal blog elsewhere AND my freelance dayjob blog to maintain.
But I like having a casual public face (as opposed to a professional public face and a casual private face) so I still want to do something with this space. Or maybe I'll loosen up with the professional public face a bit and just fold this blog into that one. I don't know. Whatever! I have a couple of custom items I made last year that I should share here, at least.
This year was also a weird year in books for me. It was the first year in almost a decade where I didn't have a checklist of books I wanted to finish, so I was more adrift in my reading habits than usual. However, book clubs and the DipTrans recommended reading list provided some much needed structure, and they contributed a lot to my reading this year, in particular the Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club.
I also want to document my favorite books of 2018, but this little widget is provides some interesting extraneous data not covered by a simple list of 5-star books. Not pictured in the screenshot above is my average rating for the year: 3.3. As it should be, statistically speaking.
But I like having a casual public face (as opposed to a professional public face and a casual private face) so I still want to do something with this space. Or maybe I'll loosen up with the professional public face a bit and just fold this blog into that one. I don't know. Whatever! I have a couple of custom items I made last year that I should share here, at least.
This year was also a weird year in books for me. It was the first year in almost a decade where I didn't have a checklist of books I wanted to finish, so I was more adrift in my reading habits than usual. However, book clubs and the DipTrans recommended reading list provided some much needed structure, and they contributed a lot to my reading this year, in particular the Austin Feminist Sci-Fi Book Club.
I also want to document my favorite books of 2018, but this little widget is provides some interesting extraneous data not covered by a simple list of 5-star books. Not pictured in the screenshot above is my average rating for the year: 3.3. As it should be, statistically speaking.
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