Kingshearte

Weekend WIPs

2012-01-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

No further progress on my own sweater yet, but I have the right front side of my mom's almost done:

Let me tell you: worsted weight and a pile of cables goes way slower than bulky weight stockingette. Shocking, I know. In any case, although relatively slow going, it is progressing fairly steadily, and I think it's looking pretty good. I did notice that I failed to cross one of the rope cables in one spot, which is kind of a piss-off, but it should end up kind of in the armpit area, so I'm choosing to consider it a not-very-noticeable-flaw-that-just-proves-handmade-uniqueness. Or I could try to not cross the corresponding cable on the left side, and pretend it's a deliberate design element. I'm sure I'd end up not crossing too high or too low, though, and then it would just be weird. So I'll aim to just do it right.

And my on-the-go project is this sock:

This is Clarity 2.0. You may recall that I started a pair of socks for my good friend in PEI. I actually finished the first sock, but the heel area was so tight that I could barely get it over my actual heel. I had intended to just rip back to before the heel and try to get some extra stitches in that area, and then re-knit the rest, but that just never happened, and the sock hibernated for I guess about a year and a half. Having determined that I actually do kind of like knitting boring socks, I dug it up again, frogged the whole thing, and started from scratch, this time doing just a plain vanilla sock. It's going well. Maybe they'll successfully become a birthday present this year. (Shouldn't be a problem — I've got until July.)

Finished Stuff That Fell Through the Cracks

2012-01-27T12:05:00.003-05:00

So, during my blogging slack-offishness of the fall, a few things got finished but never blogged. I'm going to try to do proper posts for most of them, but a couple got gifted before they got any decent photos, and I don't think I'm going to go into much detail about them. Today I'll just show you the ones I made for my aunt and uncle. After a chaotic family visit two summers ago now, I wanted to thank them for putting up with everything and everyone.

So my aunt got a Saroyan:

Made with Studioloo Doll Feet in Crocus in the Wind. I really loved this colourway, and to me, it represents one of the best things about yarn as gifts: It's a gorgeous yarn that I would never ever buy for myself. As evidenced by my past projects, left to my own devices, I almost always drift towards blue. So no matter how beautiful I might think it was if I saw it in a yarn store, I can pretty much guarantee that ultimately, I would succumb to the siren song of something more blue. But my brother bought it for me, and I loved it (I still love the bit I have left, too), and my aunt loved it. She loves scarves, and I figured she had the colouring to wear orange, and I'm told she wears it regularly. So definitely a success.

And my uncle, after seeing me working on Don's slippers that summer, jokingly requested some for himself. So I made him a pair:

Same yarn as Don got (Viking of Norway Balder), but in a different colour. This one kind of reminds me of a latte.

My aunt got hers when we visited this past summer, but I hadn't had a chance to do the slippers yet, so he didn't get his until Christmas dinner. But he was thrilled to have cozy slippers to wear while he was over, and I hope they keep his feet toasty at home too.

I wish I'd been able to get modeled shots of both, but such is life sometimes.

Thin ≠ ugly

2012-01-26T13:38:00.001-05:00

I saw this on someone's Twitter feed yesterday, and it kind of resonated with me, because until my early twenties, I was built like a (very thin) boy. At the time, the whole fight-back-against-society's-endorsement-of-thinness thing seemed to be just starting, but it kind of bothered me then, and even now that I'm not the uber-skinny girl anymore, I find some of it rather distressing.

Don't get me wrong. The entertainment industry has pushed a rather unrealistic ideal on us, and bigger women have certainly put up with a lot as a result of this. I can't pretend to know what they have dealt with. But as someone who has basically been told to her face that "I wish I could be as skinny as you. I hate you for being that skinny," I can speak to my experiences from that side of the weight issue.

I absolutely, 100% believe that bigger women should not be made to feel bad about their bodies. But why is making thin women feel bad about theirs the answer? I understand that a constant barrage of thin women being presented as the ideal of beautiful sends a message. But you know what I've never seen? An ad that explicitly says, "this [thin] woman is beautiful; this [bigger] woman is not." And if such an ad were to appear, I can guarantee that the response to it would not be overwhelmingly, "Right on! How could anyone possibly think that [the bigger woman] was attractive?" But I'm seeing more and more of exactly the reverse of this, but the thin women out there are just supposed to take it, because hey, at least they're lucky enough to be thin, right?

I don't know how or why thin became the rage. It certainly wasn't always, and isn't in every place in the world. And although I don't think it's fair to encourage everyone to aim for a shape that is not attainable or necessarily even advisable for everyone, I think we need to remember that even though most women may not be that thin, some women are, and making them feel bad serves no purpose.

The bottom line for me is two things (I'm not even going to go into the very problematic issue addressed by the article linked above: that of determining someone's worth based on their attractiveness as a sex object.):

1. It is no less cruel to slag a thin woman for her weight and to call her ugly because of it than it is to do the same to a bigger woman. The thin woman has feelings just like the bigger woman does, and they are hurt when you say things like that.

2. Who decided that the attractiveness of one person was predicated on the unattractiveness of another? This is an absolutely absurd notion that we need to stop giving credence to. You're beautiful. I'm beautiful. These are not mutually exclusive statements. Stop treating them like they are.

School Stuff

2012-01-16T08:46:00.000-05:00

Some of you may perhaps dimly remember that I went back to school last year. I'm not sure I've really posted much about it since then, but I'm still there. I've just started my final semester, and I'm getting pretty excited. And scared, of course, because after one leaves school, one is supposed to do something productive with oneself — ideally something related to the thousands of dollars one has just spent educating oneself. That didn't work out so well last time, although I did eventually end up working as a proofreader, and could still be there if I'd wanted to be. But I have a pretty good feeling about it this time, given that I actually do want to do the thing I'm studying. I never really wanted to be a journalist, and definitely didn't by the time I was done j-school. But I went into this translation program wanting to be a translator, and I still do. Interestingly enough, I think it will also open some of those editing doors I wanted to sneak through before, so it's kind of a double bonus.

In any case, the last three semesters have gone really well. In addition to quite enjoying translation, it turns out that I'm also pretty good at it, which is obviously handy. I didn't even do too badly on the English-to-French class I took last semester, which was not only into my second language, which is already much harder than the reverse, but the main topic we focused on was marketing and advertising, which meant actually trying to be clever and witty in my second language. That, my friends, if you've never tried to do it, is effing hard. But I came out of that with a B+, which makes me feel like I can do anything!

This semester I have another E-to-F class, but it's a more general one, and the prof is not quite as demanding as the one I had last semester, so that one should be pretty good. Then I have a specialized F-to-E class, which kind of amounts to just more translating practice for a prof I haven't had before, so that's always good. Then I have an English grammar class and a writing techniques class, both of which focus quite a bit on editing, which is pretty awesome, and both the profs for those are ones I've had before and who are really great, which is even more awesome. And my final class is actually a graduate seminar (which apparently I'll have to take again if I decide to pursue grad studies, but maybe I can get out of it...) on old-school translation theory, specifically those theories revolving almost exclusively around the language aspects of translation (Yes, there are other aspects. Don't get me started.), so that's kind of cool.

So it's shaping up to be a pretty good final semester, and then I'll have to get out there and make a living. Crazy.

On a somewhat related note, one non-knitting related goal I have for myself this year is to resurrect/brush up a bit on my German. Not with the intention of speaking it (at least, not yet), but with the intention of trying to translate it into English. Having a third language to work with is pretty much guaranteed to be beneficial for me, so I want to try. I could also try Spanish, and I know there's tons of work from Spanish (most S-to-E translators in this city are swamped), but what can I say? I really like German. And while there's less work there than from Spanish, I suspect there are also fewer people handy who do it. So that's another plan for the year.

FO: Santa Monica

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

So, my mother-in-law is, shall we say, going through something of a rough time right now (if you're among those who know the details, please don't share them here), and, feeling rather helpless about the whole situation, I decided to do the only thing I can do: knit. I've heard nothing but good things about the joys of cozy handknit socks, so I thought that would be a good contribution to the situation on my part. So I went out and found some good cheerful yarn, and I made some socks.

Interestingly enough (although perhaps not shocking to some), despite my reluctance to knit socks, I've actually now knit a few, and I kinda like it. Thus far, at least, I'm not particularly interested in doing fancy patterned socks, but just a basic sock is really quite soothing. And as I know I've mentioned before, sock yarn itself is pretty freaking sweet.

Pattern: TDTU Vanilla Sock
Yarn: Loops & Threads Luxury Sock Super Fine in Canyon
Needles: 2.5mm dpns

Mods: I started on 10 stitches instead of 8, and I think that's it. Not really a mod, per se, but I also deliberately started in a different spot in the colour repeats so the socks wouldn't quite match up. It's my perfectionism-avoidance technique: if I aim to be unperfect on purpose, I won't stress out if my attempts at actual perfection fail. I think beyond that, I just followed the pattern as written.

Lacking access to my MIL's feet and not knowing what size her feet are, I had to sort of guess, and I hope they fit OK. I know she's a good 6 or 7 inches shorter than me, and I assume she has proportionately small feet, so I started the heel stuff about an inch earlier than I would have for me. I was initially a bit worried when I successfully tried them on that they would end up too big for her, but when I tried them on after they were done, I noticed that the heel's pretty stretched on me, so hopefully they'll work out OK for her.

In any case, I wanted to knit something to make her feel not too alone, and I think I picked a good sunshiny yarn, so I will send them on their way next week and hope that they fulfil their intended purpose.

Weekend WIP

2012-01-14T19:52:00.002-05:00

I know we're two weeks into the new year, but here's the closest thing you're going to get this year to a new year's post.

I don't usually make resolutions, but this year I have a few... goals, and most of them are knitting or other crafty stuff related.

1. Post more. I fell a bit off the wagon over the last few months, and I don't feel bad about it exactly, because I was dealing with something of a family crisis, and my mental priorities were legitimately elsewhere, but I did miss it. I like sharing this stuff, so I want to get back into that habit.

2. Make Christmas gifts again. There's a certain stress inherent in that goal, but financially, it's kind of awesome. Not because it costs less, but because the costs can be spread out over a much longer span. Some people buy gifts way ahead of time, but that always leaves you open to the possibility that the recipient will buy the item themself, so to avoid that, you leave it all until that crazy and financially draining time right before Christmas. But if I'm making something, I know they won't have that. So I want to try for that again.

3. Somewhat related to #2, as one of the gifts I want to make involves colourwork, I want to learn some form of colourwork this year. So far I've avoided it because it looks scary and hard, but this will be the year.

There might be others, but those are the main ones, I think. Except I think maybe I should also aim to not forget to make myself stuff occasionally, too, as between those Christmas gifts, a pair of very-belated-birthday sweaters I've promised my parents, and the fact that 2012 is shaping up to be Year of the Baby (I know at least 7 people who are pregnant so far — 8 if you count people I know only in the blogosphere.). I've got a sweater in progress for myself right now, but I might have to remind myself to make myself the occasional pair of socks or mittens or something as well.

All that said, here's the sweater in question:

My house is not the warmest (although our the fireplace that should be installed sometime this month should help!), so I decided I needed a big, cozy, appearance-is-irrelevant sweater. With the bulky yarn, it's been working up super quick, and is now blocking before assembly and hood knitting. I'm really looking forward to wearing this one.

Idoru – William Gibson

2012-01-11T07:59:00.000-05:00

Twenty-first century Tokyo, after the Millennial Quake. Neon Rain. Light everywhere, blowing under any door you might try to close. Where the New Buildings, the largest in the world, erect themselves unaided, their slow rippling movements like the contractions of a sea creature.

Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is not, he is careful to point out, a voyeur. He is an intuitive fisher of patterns of information, the "signature" a particular individual creates simply by going about the business of living. But Laney knows how to sift for the interesting (read: dangerous) bits. Which makes him very useful — to certain people.

Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. She's fourteen. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band Lo/Rez. When the Seattle chapter of the Lo/Rez fan club decided that he might be in trouble, in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out.

Rei Toei is the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. The Idoru. And Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that brought Chia to Tokyo. But the things that bother Rez are not the things that bother most people.

Is something different here, in the very nature of reality? Or is it that something violently New is about to happen? It's possible the Idoru is as real as she wants or needs to be — or as real as Rez desires. When Colin Laney looks into her dark eyes, trying to think of her as no more than a hologram, he sees things he's never seen before. He sees how she might break a man's heart.

And whatever else may be true, the Idoru and the powerful interests surrounding her are enough to put all their lives in danger.

I feel that Japan can't possibly be as weird as it seems to inevitably be portrayed in fiction, despite the fact that this portrayal seems to be universal, coming from both Japanese and Western writers. And yet something about Japan seems to inspire people to write very strange stories set there. Admittedly, this one is future-Japan, and future-anywhere is usually a little strange. But yeah. I don't know.

Aside from the weirdness, I'm not sure quite what to make of this. Theoretically, it's kind of book 2 in a trilogy, but it's a trilogy of stand-alones. That said, I can't help but wonder if some of the techie, virtual space stuff might have been introduced a little more in the first book. I had a general sense of it, and could usually figure out if we were in virtual land or real space, but sometimes the relevance or impact of the virtual on the real (or vice versa?) was less clear to me.

And somehow the ending felt unsatisfying. I'm not sure why, as everything was pretty much resolved, with the various connections made clear and the loose ends all tied up, but it just didn't seem like enough to me. Maybe I'll figure out later whether or not I really liked it.

I Can!

2012-01-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

Some people (Julie in particular) just look so darn adorably stylish in cowl-y, capelet-y things that for a while they've been making me want to try one myself, despite being unsure that I could pull off the look. So I decided to make one with a very high neck, so that even if it didn't work on its own, it could serve as a useful piece of extra warmth during the winter.

And I think it worked. So the answer to the question "Can I wear this sort of thing?" is "I can!" That said, this particular one will likely be worn mostly under a coat, because, as you can see up there, the bottom edge of this one tends to roll, and perpetually adjusting is not super awesome. But I know there are plenty of patterns out there for one that are not mainly stockingette, and which will therefore not roll so much, so I think there will be some more of these in the future.

Pattern: Stripes to Keep Me Warm
Yarn: Mirasol Hacho, colourway 301.
Needles: Um... Don't remember.

Mods: I did make a few, in an effort to reduce the rolling. I made it longer, decreased a bit in the last row or so, to make it snugger and give it less room to roll, and added a row or two of purl before the ribbing. It still rolled, just about as much as before I made those alterations. I might still see if blocking it will encourage it to settle down, but if not, such is life. It's does still keep my face and neck warm. Oh, and I did it all in one yarn. With variegated yarn like this, there's really no need for multi-yarn striping.

My 2011 Reading

2012-01-02T07:30:00.000-05:00

Envy — Sandra Brown
The Thorn Birds — Colleen McCullough
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn — Betty Smith
Nothing — Janne Teller (trans. Martin Aitken)
Exclusive — Sandra Brown
Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Constance Garnett)
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
Love in the Time of Cholera — Gabriel García Márquez (trans. Edith Grossman)
Northanger Abbey — Jane Austen
Of Mice and Men — John Steinbeck
Rebecca — Daphne du Maurier
The Good Earth — Pearl S Buck
Watchmen — Alan Moor & Dave Gibbons
The Secret Life of Bees — Sue Monk Kidd
The Lions of Al-Rassan — Guy Gavriel Kay
The Flanders Panel — Arturo Pérez Reverte (trans. Margaret Jull Costa)
Sweet Valley Confidential: 10 Years Later — Francine Pascal
The Hawk — Monica McCarty
Apollo's Angels — Jennifer Homans
The Bourne Identity — Robert Ludlum
The Outsiders — SE Hinton
White Oleander — Janet Fitch
My Horizontal Life — Chelsea Handler
Blind Descent — James M Tabor
The Hypnotist — Lars Kepler (trans. Marlaine Delargy)
The Night Watch — Sergei Lukyanenko (trans. Andrew Bromfield)
Fallen — Lauren Kate
Torment — Lauren Kate
Passion — Lauren Kate
Incarceron — Catherine Fisher
A Woman of Substance — Barbara Taylor Bradford — DNF
Marriage, A History — Stephanie Coontz
Coffee, Tea, or Me? — Trudy Baker & Rachel Jones with Donald Bain
Red Mars — Kim Stanley Robinson
The Meaning of Everything — Simon Winchester
Some Like it Kilted — Allie Mackay
The Silmarillion — JRR Tolkien
Green Mars — Kim Stanley Robinson
Beethoven's Hair — Russell Martin
Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures — Vincent Lam
City of Bones — Cassandra Clare
Smash Cut — Sandra Brown
Blue Mars — Kim Stanley Robinson
City of Ashes — Cassandra Clare
City of Glass — Cassandra Clare
Keep Sweet — Debbie Palmer & Dave Perrin
Only Revolutions — Mark Z Danielewski
Aftertime — Sophie Littlefield
Sapphique — Catherine Fisher
Mozart in the Jungle — Blair Tindall
Dracula the Un-Dead — Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt
City of Fallen Angels — Cassandra Clare
White Gold — Giles Milton
Saving Fish from Drowning — Amy Tan
The Death Cure — James Dashner
The Autobiography of Henry VIII — Margaret George
The Master of Ballantrae — Robert Louis Stevenson
Mansfield Park — Jane Austen
Aesop's Fables — trans. VS Vernon Jones
The Eternal Prison — Jeff Somers
The Sins of Scripture — John Shelby Spong
A Billion Wicked Thoughts — Ogi Ogas & Sai Gaddam
Sisters of Salome — Toni Bentley
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — Haruki Murakami (trans. Jay Rubin)
One Day — David Nicholls
Beauty — Nancy Butcher
A Woman in Berlin — Anonymous (trans. Philip Boehm)
Practical Jean — Trevor Cole

68. Well, 67, since I didn't finished A Woman of Substance. But I don't feel even a little bad abut that. In any case, it's better than I thought I'd do this year. Of course, a lot of them were teen books, and those go super fast. On the other hand, the KSR Mars books did not go fast at all, and a few others were quite lengthy. In any case, there it is.

So let's see.

Best book I read this year: I think I'd have to say Rebecca. Followed by Lions of Al-Rassan. Which, I'm surprised to note, is the only Kay I read this year. Oh well. There are a finite number of them. Gotta space 'em out.
Worst book: Aside from A Woman of Substance, which was so awful I could barely start it, let alone finish it, Sweet Valley. For sure. What a travesty that was.
Most effed up book: Either Nothing or Only Revolutions. They were both supremely effed up, but in such vastly different ways that I really couldn't say which one of them was more so.
Best of all those teen books: (Aside from A Little Princess) Probably Fallen. I didn't like books 2 & 3 as much, but I really did like Fallen.
Best non-fiction: I think The Meaning of Everything. Winchester's brilliantly entertaining writing paired with the word nerdy goodness of a dictionary as subject matter? Yes please.

Practical Jean - Trevor Cole

2012-01-01T08:50:00.005-05:00

Jean Vale Horemarsh is content, for the most part, with the small-town life she's built: a semi-successful career as a ceramics artist, a close collection of women friends (aside from that terrible falling out with Cheryl years ago), a comfortable marriage with a kind if unextraordinary man. But it is only in watching her mother go through the final devastating stages of cancer that Jean realizes her true calling. No one should have to suffer the indignities of aging and illness like her mother did — and she, Jean Horemarsh, will take it upon herself to give each of her friends one final, perfect moment... and then, one by one, kill them.

Of course, female friendships are quite complicated things, and Jean is soon to discover that her plan isn't as simple as she initially believed it to be.

This was a rather... odd little book. I'm really not sure what to say about it.

Cole's portraits of these complicated female friendships is as good a place to start as any, I guess. That's quite a subject for a male author to tackle. Superficially, though, I think he did a pretty good job. Presumably, he's witnessed some of these friendships from the outside, and from these observations, has drawn some conclusions as to how they operate from the inside, and that steered him pretty well. But not quite well enough. Without there being anything to specifically point to as the reason, none of them felt quite natural.

Aside from that, though, this book was reasonably enjoyable. I felt like it took a bit too long to get things started, but once they did, everything rolled along at a decent pace. And really, I think that's about all I've got. It was a little quirky, a little quaint, and frankly, ultimately forgettable, I think.

A Woman in Berlin - Anonymous (trans. Philip Boehm)

2011-12-31T09:25:00.000-05:00

* Potential triggers below. *

For eight weeks in 1945, as Berlin fell to the Russian army, a young woman kept a daily record of life in her apartment building and among its residents. "With bald honesty and brutal lyricism" (Elle), the anonymous author depicts her fellow Berliners in all their humanity, as well as their cravenness, corrupted first by hunger and then by the Russians. "Spare and unpredictable, minutely observed and utterly free of self-pity" (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland), A Woman in Berlin tells of the complex relationship between civilians and an occupying army and the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject — the mass rape suffered by all, regardless of age or infirmity.

A Woman in Berlin stands as "one of the essential books for understanding war and life" (AS Byatt, author of Possession).

Note: Although the author's identity has evidently been established, she chose to remain anonymous, so I choose to respect that here, for whatever that's worth.

Note also that this got really ranty, and only the last paragraph is really about this book, so feel free to skip the rant if all you're looking for is a book review.

War stories are an amazing thing. Sometimes, as in the stories of the way the Danish people reacted to the Holocaust, they can serve to renew your faith in humanity. And sometimes, as in this one, they can tear that faith down. While there is more going on in this story than the mass rape, that's certainly a hugely significant part of the story, and it's the part that sticks with you and makes it hard to stop thinking about this book. We're not dealing with isolated incidents; we are dealing with something so common that women, when meeting, asked each other not "Have you been raped?" but "How many times?" Numbers are generally estimated at at least 100,000 rapes in Berlin alone, although I should mention that, like all war-related numbers, there is controversy (even half that number is obscene, though). Some claim that although there were undoubtedly isolated incidents, Soviet army-Germany civilian relations were generally cordial or neutral. Some suggest that the whole thing is part of the post-war tendency of certain camps to try and portray the German people as the victims of WWII. And there are certainly people who say the Germans were just as bad if not worse when they were the aggressors in Soviet or other enemy territory.

The last statement, at least, is likely true, but the idea that it justifies what happened in Berlin and elsewhere (And it should be noted that Soviets were not the only rapists; there are significant numbers associated with American and French soldiers as well, and I think it's reasonable to assume that there were plenty more attacks from both Allied and Axis troops. It's the sort of thing that is impossible to get a full, completely accurate picture of.) is not acceptable. These men want revenge; I can understand that. But how does raping some other woman make the fact that your sister was raped any better? I can't imagine that it makes her feel any better. I'm fortunate to have thus far never been in this position, but I truly cannot imagine a situation in which, having been raped by an enemy soldier, I would want my brother to avenge me by going out and raping some other woman. Maybe it would be different in war, but I just cannot wrap my head around wishing that on any other woman in any situation. But it's not really about making the women feel better, is it? It's about men feeling that their property has been violated, and that the appropriate response is to violate the perpetrator's property in return. More on that in a minute.

Even the arguments used by those "apologizing" for what happened are offensive. The notion that because these men had been at war and hadn't so much as seen a woman in so long, let alone had sex, means that you can't blame them for going a little nuts is just... As if men are somehow entitled to sex, and any women they encounter is therefore obligated to provide it. If you're old enough to kill, you're old enough to grow a little self control.

But of course, it's war, and war dehumanizes the enemy, and makes all kids of atrocities "acceptable." One Soviet soldier frankly admits to some awful things, that he himself can't understand now. And I will acknowledge that wartime behaviour is not the same as peacetime behaviour. Whether the war face is the true face and the rest of the time, we all wear civilized masks or the peace face is the true face and war just makes people go crazy, the fact remains that people in wartime do not always behave in ways that even they feel are acceptable as a general rule.

But that doesn't make it any less infuriating, because it's still the women — and worse, the girls — who suffer for no good reason in so many cases. The comment in the blurb that this is simply reality in a conquered city is maddening because it's true. History is full of this. Whether the conquerors are "civilized" people or "barbarians," it doesn't seem to matter. The women are part of the loot to which the conquerors are entitled. And that's what gets me. Because no matter how far women come in terms of gender equality, no matter how long ago we ceased to be property and became people, no matter what strides we make in the future, men will simply never be susceptible to this in the same way women are and will always be. No matter the usual status of women, in a conquering situation, we will always be reduced to objectified spoils of war. And that makes me so sad and angry that I can't even put it into words.

OK. Deep breath. The book itself.

Much of it was hard to read, because I had the above thoughts racing and jumbling around in my head the whole time. I wanted to cry at what was happening, and not because anything was described in any overwrought or even graphic way. Most attacks are only mentioned in a fairly dry, objective way: it happened at around this time, in this place, with this many people. The author goes into more detail about food, for example. Because for all my ranting, the rapes were just the final aspect of an already sucktastic situation. No power, no water, no food, and the author states a number of times that this last was the worst part. You can shut off a part of yourself and distance yourself from what's being done to your body, and deal with the grief later, if that's what it takes to survive, but there comes a point when you simply can't function anymore without food. And the descriptions of what these people would do for food and what the situation forced them to become was also heartbreaking. If you're looking for a window into the Nazi brain, to find out how they could justify some of the things they did, you won't find it here. The author's feelings on that subject are not delved into too deeply; whatever they were, I think she felt that by the time this story took place, those feelings were more or less irrelevant to the situation at hand. What little does come up, though, does support the idea that most German civilians, even if more or less supportive of Hitler, didn't truly grasp the full extent of what he was doing until it was much too late. Mostly, it's just an addition to the canon of first-hand war experience stories, but a valuable one, I think, because most others that I can think of come from the side for which history has more sympathy. Or from kids, and they're always sympathetic. This one I think provides a little shot of balance, and a reminder that just because they're the enemy doesn't mean they're not still human. Ultimately, I think it's a book well worth reading, but be prepared to have a lot of stuff churned up.

Beauty - Nancy Butcher

2011-12-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

Queen Veda of Ran does not believe in growing old gracefully. In fact she will shun anything that makes her look or feel less than the fairest in the land including her daughter, Ana.

Luckily Ana has both beauty and intelligence. She realizes the way to remain close to her beloved mother is to make herself ugly. Ana does everything she can to maintain her new disheveled appearance: She doesn't bathe for days, doesn't wash or brush her hair, and bites her nails down to the quick. Her plan works. She has finally won her mother's love.

Then Ana realizes all the lovely young girls of Ran are being sent to the prestigious Academy for Girls, including Ana's best friend, Pell. When Ana's told she must go too, she resists. She doesn't want to leave her loving mother. But Ana has no choice. She goes and once there learns how potent a drug beauty can be.

There are enough teen books kicking around these days that do a really good job of exploring some really interesting ideas that I had high hopes for this one. It seemed like a take on Snow White that could have some good strong female messages about outer beauty vs. inner beauty, sacrificing yourself for someone else, and stepping out of others' shadows as you find your own true self. And to be fair, it did have all that. It just presented it in such a superficial way that I was left pretty unfulfilled.

For example, beauty as a potent drug? I figured that would be a metaphor. Maybe Ana would even succumb, and set some sort of catastrophe in motion that would require her to rise above it all and find her inner strength to save the day. But no. The drug was literal. There was an actual drug. Called Beauty. Which Ana herself never took. She just found out about it and then went to get some help to arrest people and get all the girls' stomachs pumped or whatever. Yawn. She didn't really learn anything except that her mom's extremely selfish and that it's OK to be pretty. Like I said, I just wanted more.

One Day - David Nicholls

2011-12-29T22:48:00.005-05:00

It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day — July 15th — of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.

I enjoyed parts of this book, but there were also parts I found rather... tiresome. In particular, Dexter's drunken exploits got old real fast, and it rapidly became incomprehensible why Emma would continue to have anything to do with him. I could see it if they'd already been friends forever when he started exhibiting signs of alcoholism, but I don't know. If I'd just met someone and they were pretty much drunk all the time, I'm just not sure I'd pursue the relationship very far. But who knows. Life does work in mysterious ways sometimes. And when there's chemistry, there's chemistry. Not much you can do about that.

In any case, I feel I'm not really spoiling anything when I say that they do eventually get together, and I guess I was happy those two kids finally got themselves in sync, but then there was the ending. Oh my god.

*** Spoiler follows. ***

I hate it when authors just up and kill off a main character. I mean, sure, it's an effective endpoint for a story, but ugh. I just hate that it comes out of nowhere (even though I realize that yes, sometimes it does in real life, too). "Then one day she was hit by a truck and died." What? It just seems so lazy, like the author couldn't figure out how else to end the story. And as for the "true meaning of this one crucial day," if this one crucial day is supposed to be the day she dies, I kind of wish that they didn't happen to meet on that same day, exactly twenty years earlier. If the end point was supposed to be the big thing about that day, then the first day should have been just some random day sometime after they'd first met. To bookend their whole relationship so perfectly like that made it feel too much like everything was tied up with a neat little bow.

*** Spoiler concluded. You can read the rest. ***

So yeah. Hated the end, and didn't really get into the rest of it either (although the chapter on Emma's reactions to other people's babies was so exactly my own thoughts on the subject that I laughed aloud), but conceptually, this book was a neat idea. And Dexter did have his charming moments, in spite of it all. I've read worse.

Christmas Tree Ornaments

2011-12-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

Christmas, for many of us, is a time for traditions. Traditional foods, traditional activities, and, the subject of this post, traditional gifts.

In my family, one of the traditional gifts has always been a Christmas ornament. Each of us gets one every year, and they often reflect the recipient's personality, interests, etc. I love this tradition for a number of reasons. First, it produces a very eclectic tree that's full of personality, and is very specific to our family. You can learn any number of things about us from looking at our tree. If one has more than one offspring who might be inclined to squabble over ornaments, this also minimizes that, because each of them gets their own box of stuff to put on the tree every year. And, perhaps the best part, when the kids in question grow up and move out, they already have a pretty decent collection of ornaments for their own trees. Some lights, a garland, a few generic Christmas balls, and a topper, and they're good to go. It's brilliant, and I highly endorse the institution of this tradition for everyone.

And to give you just a taste of the things I have on my tree, here are some of the ornaments I've amassed over the years. First, here's the first one:

I know it's the first because:

I was 2 1/2 months old when I got this one.

These ones aren't dated,

so I don't know exactly how old they are, but I don't remember them ever not being around. I'm a little surprised they haven't fallen apart yet. They're not very sturdy. I suspect they may have had eyes at some point, but I wouldn't swear to that.

My family's very crafty (I come by it honestly), so a number of them have been made for me, including these two, from my sister and brother-in-law:

I was an enormous baby, so I was referred to as an elephant when I was very young, and as such, have a number of elephant items. My sister harkened back to that when she made me this awesome beaded guy.

And my brother-in-law turned this one. Gorgeous, isn't it?

I also have a selection of bunnies and unicorns, a few My Little Ponies, some Winnie the Pooh ones, a Bumblelion, and some dance/music ones.

And then there's the topper:

My mom and brother found this for us, and it's perfect. We're not angel or Santa people, so a star was definitely the right choice for us, and it's silver and sparkly. And we both just really like the design of it.

And last, but certainly not least, Pretzel Jesus:

I made this guy in Sunday school long enough ago that I have no memory whatsoever of having done so. But somewhere along the way, I got extremely attached to this little scrap of tissue paper attached to half a silver-painted pretzel. He broke once, and I actually cried until my mom fixed him (Yes, I was an adult at the time.), and now he has his own special box to live in for the rest of the year. After witnessing the trauma caused by his breakage, my mom got him an Altoids box, added some padding and a sparkly label, and now he is safely stored in there until it's time to put him in his place of honour on the tree. He always goes on last, right before the star, in a spot front and centre reserved specifically for him. And he comes with me when we go to my parents' place for Christmas day, and I'm not above moving other things so he gets a front-and-centre spot there too.

I truly cannot explain my attachment to this twenty-five-year-old pretzel, but there it is. He's Pretzel Jesus, and it's not Christmas without Pretzel Jesus.

Happy Christmas! May yours be full of love, your favourite people, and the traditions that make your Christmas special for you.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (trans. Jay Rubin)

2011-12-22T07:35:00.004-05:00

Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.

In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

Some time ago (something like 10 years ago now, actually. Crazy.), I read Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. To this day I cannot tell you just what the hell that book was about, and I don't recall any book ever taking me as long as that one did to slog through. When I told Don about that book, he told me about this one, that his former partner had read and encouraged others to read, despite being the only one who really got it. So I decided to take it upon myself to attempt it as well.

I don't think I really got it. It was not nearly as batshit whacked out as GR was — there is identifiable plot, for one thing, but it was very weird. And I guess one of the big problems I had with it is that not only did I not really understand exactly what was happening or where things were going, but I didn't really get the sense that Murakami did either. For example, there were various disjointed parts of various unrelated stories that intersected with each other in various ways. OK, fine, I can accept the connections between these seemingly unconnected things, but where's the relevance of these connections? Yes, they're connected, but so what? Why are you telling me this? Aside from the main character trying to find his wife, no one else had any identifiable motives for anything they did, so it just felt like a bunch of people trying to be weird for the sake of being weird. Which, by the way, is something that annoys me to no end in real people, and it's no less annoying in fictional characters.

Ultimately, I guess the upshot is that while I wasn't confused as such by this book, I certainly didn't get it. I don't know what he was trying to say or why he was trying to say it, and as such, unfortunately, the book's alleged brilliance somewhat escapes me. But maybe you'll get something out of it.

Sisters of Salome - Toni Bentley

2011-12-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, a short-lived but extraordinary cultural phenomenon spread throughout Europe and the United States — "Salomania." The term was coined when biblical bad girl Salome was resurrected from the Old Testament and reborn onto the modern stage in Oscar Wilde's 1893 play Salome and Richard Strauss's 1905 opera based on it. Salome quickly came to embody the turn-of-the-century concept of the femme fatale. She and the striptease Wilde created for her, "The Dance of the Seven Veils," soon captivated the popular imagination in performances on stages high and low, from the Metropolitan Opera to the Ziegfeld Follies.

This book details for the first time the Salomania craze and four remarkable women who personified Salome and performed her seductive dance: Maud Allan, a Canadian modern dancer; Mata Hari, a Dutch spy; Ida Rubinstein, a wealthy Russian theatrical diva; and French novelist Colette. Toni Bentley masterfully weaves the stories of these women together, showing how each embraced the persona of the femme fatale and transformed the misogynist idea of a dangerously sexual woman into a form of personal liberation. Bentley explores how Salome became a pop icon in Europe and America, how the real women who played her influenced the beginnings of modern dance, and how her striptease became in the twentieth century an act of glamorous empowerment and unlikely feminism. Sisters of Salome is a dramatic account of an ancient myth played out onstage and in real life, at the fascinating edge where sex and art, desire and decency, meet.

So I read a book about the Bible, and then a book about sex, and then a book kind of about biblical sex. Funny how things work out sometimes. Anyway, I actually wanted to read Winter Season, Toni Bentley's autobiography, but the library doesn't have any copies, and there doesn't seem to be an ebook version, so I'll have to actually order a hard copy if I really want to read it, and I wasn't that committed yet. While I was looking, though, I found this, and thought it sounded interesting too, so I read it.

It was indeed kind of interesting, although I'm not sure Bentley really accomplished what she set out to accomplish. It seems from the introduction (which I did quite enjoy, and which did reinforce my desire to read her autobiography) that she herself had an empowering stripping experience, but I feel a little like she maybe projected that experience a bit onto these other women. I didn't feel like this book really presented any actual evidence as to why these women performed the things they did in the ways they did, and Bentley just assumed their motivations based on her own motivations. I guess I just didn't really feel like she turned the misogynistic aspects as on their heads as the blurb implies. I mean, Maud Allan was lambasted in court, Mata Hari was executed for something she didn't do, and Ida Rubinstein died pretty much abandoned and forgotten. Colette managed to end up more or less OK, although she did divorce several times, but in any case, I'm just not sure that the naked dancing was really as empowering for these women as Bentley wants us to think it was.

That said, the story of Salome, from her biblical origins to the way Wilde fleshed out her story and gave her a personality of her own, was quite fascinating, and the four women in this book did live interesting lives, so reading about them was worthwhile. I just... was hoping for more.

First Christmas at Home

2011-12-07T18:15:00.001-05:00

Some of you may recall that we bought our first house last year, closing in early December. And, as we were crazy enough to do our actual move on December 23, we didn't really have any opportunity to decorate last year, which made me very sad, as I very devoutly <3 Christmas. This year, however, well, I won't say that Christmas threw up all over our house (although I kind of hope to get to that point), but it is definitely being observed.

For outside, I got some lights and a fancy photo-sensitive timer thingie:

Maybe not this year, because I think the decorating budget has pretty much been reached, but for next year, I think the railing needs some attention. Garlands, maybe? And the windows need something, too. And maybe I'll eventually go completely insane and get something on stakes to go in the garden. But I promise that at no point will there be reindeer on the roof.

Inside would be more impressive if it were less cluttered and I consequently had more surfaces on which to display Christmas paraphernalia, but we have a few excellent items. Such as this moose:

Don thinks he's ugly (in a cute way), but I love him. I got him when he arrived broken at the flower shop my mom and sister used to run. He originally had a planter attached to him, but now he's planterless and just ridiculously and festively adorable.

I also love this:

A friend when I was growing up had a Christmas tree in this style, and I always thought it was one of those hideously awesome things, so when Don & I moved in together and I learned that he had this house, I was beyond stoked. I just love how colourful and cheerful it is. I would have a whole row of these things if I could.

And then of course, there's the tree:

Knowing how much I wanted to have a Christmas tree, Don surprised me with this artificial one a few years ago when we still lived in an apartment. There are some very good reasons why I married that guy. Anyway, now that we have a house, I hope we'll make the move to real trees before too much longer, but for now, this fake one serves its purpose. It may not have bottom branches by the end of the month, if Max doesn't stop eating them, but the rest of it's fine. And just having it makes me happy.

I was going to talk about the ornaments on the tree, but then it started to get really long, so I think maybe I'll save that for its own post. But suffice it to say that the Christmas season is here, and I'm happy happy happy!

A Billion Wicked Thoughts - Ogi Ogas & Sai Gaddam

2011-12-06T20:08:00.001-05:00

Two bold young neuroscientists have initiated a revolution in the scientific study of sexual attraction. Before Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, the only researcher to systematically investigate sexual desires was Alfred Kinsey, who surveyed 18,000 middle-class Caucasians in the 1950s. But Ogas and Gaddam have studied the secret sexual behavior of more than a hundred million men and women around the world. Their method? They observed what people do within the anonymity of the Internet.

This book was quite interesting. Unfortunately, however, I don't really have a lot to say about it, because the only context I can really frame any discussion in is my own, and I just don't care to share quite that much personal detail here — especially given some of the people who sometimes read this (Hi, Da!). Suffice it to say that they presented some fascinating observations. Some of them did indeed apply to me, and some of them not so much. Shocking, I'm sure.

Anyway, sorry I don't have much to say about this, but if you're interested in the subject matter (and really, what's not to be interested in?), I'd say it's worth a read.

Blogvember Wrap-Up

2011-12-05T12:41:00.001-05:00

Well, Blogvember was an interesting experiment. If nothing else, I think it proved that I am not a daily blogger, as I only managed 17 out of 30 days. That said, aiming for daily is perhaps not a terrible thing, as it got me posting at least a few times a week. And really, given that this isn't my job or anything, I think that's pretty reasonable. Who wants to listen to me babble every day anyway? Except maybe my husband, but that's in his job description.

Anyway, I think I'll continue to aim for every day in the hopes of actually achieving a few times a week, and maybe next November, I'll aim for twice a day, in the hopes of managing once a day. :)

The Sins of Scripture - John Shelby Spong

2011-11-29T12:18:00.001-05:00

The Bible, regarded as a sacred text by millions of believers, also has been quoted by politicians and church leaders to give authority to deep-seated prejudices or to justify questionable practices. As a result, the Bible has emerged in the twenty-first century as a highly political and surprisingly controversial book.

In The Sins of Scripture America's most progressive and outspoken Christian leader, John Shelby Spong, surveys the great conflicts in Western history. He reveals, for instance, how the Bible was used to oppose the Magna Carta and support the divine right of kings, to condemn the insights of Galileo and Charles Darwin, and to support slavery and later apartheid and segregation. Christian leaders used the Bible to justify the Crusades and their unspeakable horrors against Muslim peoples, as well as the murderous behaviour of the Inquisition and the virulent anti-Semitism of the Holocaust. The Bible is still quoted in the church to justify treating women as second-class citizens. Today it is the chief weapon of politicians and preachers seeking to deny justice for gay and lesbian people. In addition, the Christian church, while claiming allegiance to this book, has encouraged the abuse of children and supported environmental degradation. How can a book called "The Word of God" leave a trail of such violence, hostility and death throughout its history?

As a deeply committed Christian, Bishop Spong concludes this book by pointing to a dramatically different way to engage the sacred story of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Superseding the world of tribal deities, he discovers a God of universal holiness who calls us to love even our enemies. Anyone who has ever felt threatened or overrun by a Bible-quoting, religious mentality operating in the political arena will find this book a must read.

This book had some very interesting perspectives on a variety of topics, and I bet it has pissed a lot of people off. I think a lot what Spong has to say is quite valid though.

First and foremost is his assertion that the Bible is not, and never has been, the literal word of god. This is a belief I have held for a long time. God did not set pen to paper (or chisel to stone) and write this book. Men wrote this book. Even if we accept the notions that it was written as a result of divine inspiration or revelation, and that god is indeed infallible and incapable of making mistakes, those men who wrote this book were not. Ever since I've been old enough to give any rational thought to religion and the Bible, I have felt that if a lot of what's in that book is truly exactly what god intended to say, then I have no use whatsoever for that god.

Just one example, the one oh-so-frequently used to oppose homosexuality: in the part dealing with Sodom, the behaviour of the men of that town led god to destroy them and their families, and the whole bloody town. Only one family was spared, that of Lot, because he was a "righteous" man. He's considered righteous because he protected the incognito angel travellers to whom he had offered hospitality. This is fine; I can support this so far. However, as part of his efforts to protect these men, he offers his daughters up to be gang-raped in their place. That's righteous? So a passage that essentially condones the gang-rape of women while condemning the gang-rape of men is supposed to be not only the "word of god," but also an indication than consensual gay sex is bad? Yeah, sorry, can't accept either of these propositions.

The part of this book I found truly fascinating, however, was the part dealing with the Judas story and its severely anti-Semitic roots. Some years ago, there was a spate of new books with new perspectives on the Judas story, and eventually I will get around to reading at least one of them, but I can't help but feel that Spong's chapter on the subject probably pretty much sums it up. The gist is that Judas existed, but the betrayal did not, and that whole story was concocted as part of the battle between the traditional Jews and the reformer Jews (not Christians yet), with most of its elements lifted directly out of the Old Testament. Really interesting stuff.

At the end of this book, Spong leaves us in kind of an awkward place. He's rejected a lot of the more commonly cited parts of the Bible, and advocates for a new way of pursuing religion and truth, but he doesn't entirely suggest what the new path should be, nor does he really offer much insight on how to reconcile one's faith with the notion of reading the Bible a little more critically rather than accepting everything it says as, well, gospel. In fact, it comes across very much as picking and choosing which parts to follow and which to disregard, which seems like cheating. On the other hand, that itself is endorsed in the Bible, by Paul, who wholeheartedly supports disregarding some of the traditions made very explicit in the earlier parts of the Bible. And if Paul says it's OK...

In any case, like I said, this book was very fascinating, and made me think that Bible scholarship really is a fascinating topic in and of itself.

I have to call Spong out on two things, though. The first is his use of "literally" when he really doesn't mean literally. Twice. I know it's a common usage these days, and eventually I'll have to just accept it, but I still hate it. And the second is his use of "equally as." I trust I don't even need to attempt to justify my objection to that one. Slap on the wrist for Spong, and straight to his room with no dinner for his editor, who should certainly know better than that. I mean, seriously.

Quoth the Raven

2011-11-25T08:34:00.000-05:00

I've attempted several hats over the last several winters, and wasn't really happy with any of them. The toques were just too snug on my head, and usually didn't do much for my ears, and, well, my attempt at making a slouchy hat last year did not work out. I was thinking of just saying screw it and going to back to a headband, which is what I used to wear (and I may still make one), but then, after seeing several Sockheads, I thought maybe I can rock that hat. So I made one.

And I love it. It's awesome. It's wool, so it's toasty despite being light. I may have to add ear warmers when it gets really cold, but for now, it's doing a great job on my head and my ears, which is good. And it also covers my forehead, which is also important. It's slouchy enough to have room for my hair, but not so slouchy that it looks ridiculous. Basically, it's just awesome, and as you know, I'm already knitting myself another one. I think that'll be it for now, but I can't swear that I won't feel it necessary to make myself a new one every year...

Pattern: Sockhead, by Kelly McClure

Yarn: KnitPicks Stroll Handpainted in Nevermore

Needles: 3mm dpns for the ribbing, 3.25 mm for the rest

Mods: I may have made it a bit shorter than the pattern says, but that's it.

Notes: This pattern is travel knitting extraordinaire. There is nothing exciting about knitting it whatsoever. So be prepared for that. But if you want something mindless, this is perfect. And if you're going to be stuck in a seven-hour line like I was when I started this, it's even better, because there's so much no change that you don't have to worry about getting to a part that will suddenly require attention or instructions or whatever, because really, that won't happen for a good loooooooong time. But it's quite zen, and the finished hat is pretty freaking sweet.

The Eternal Prison - Jeff Somers

2011-11-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

Avery Cates is a wanted man. After surviving the worst bioengineered disaster in history, Cates finds himself incarcerated — in Chengara Penitentiary. As Chengara has survival rate of exactly zero, the system's most famous gunner must do some serious plotting. And a betrayal or so later, he achieves his goal. At a price.

All he has to do now is defeat some new personal demons, forge some unlikely alliances, and figure out why the people he's killed lately just won't stay dead.

If you'd told me before I started reading this series that I would actually come to love it a little bit, I don't think I would have believed you. Cyberpunk is so not my thing. And yet, what can I say? I kind of love Avery Cates, and I kind of love Jeff Somers.

The gun battles, of course, remain one of Somers' huge strengths, but I also love his insanely convoluted plotlines that somehow all come together in the end. Sort of. His characters are almost all self-serving, snarky assholes that you somehow develop a certain affection for despite their lack of pretty much any redeeming qualities. And I love that when he bounces you back and forth between times and locations from one chapter to the next, he doesn't pander to those not paying attention by adding little bylines to tell you where you are now. He just works something into the first paragraph or so that, provided that you are in fact paying attention, clues you in to where you are. (He is also considerate enough to consistently alternate between only two such settings so that even without the clues, one should be bright enough to pick up on the pattern after a few chapters, but anyway.)

The upshot is that these books are not deep, and I have nothing insightful to say about them, but as long as he continues to write them, I expect that I will continue to read and thoroughly enjoy them.

Aesop's Fables - trans.V.S. Vernon Jones

2011-11-22T20:36:00.001-05:00

Aesop's fables have long been a part of our cultural baggage and heritage, so I thought I'd read a collection of them. It was interesting. Some of them are certainly quite timeless, and remain quite valid. For example: slow and steady wins the race, don't cry wolf, it's not the size that counts, etc. These ones, for the most part, are the ones that remain familiar to us today.

Some of the less commonly known ones, though, I found... not dated exactly, but very blatantly supportive of the status quo. Specifically, the status quo of slavery. Which I find particularly interesting, given that Aesop himself, if he existed at all, is thought to have perhaps been a slave himself. But yeah. Quite a few of the fables in this collection had morals to the effect of: accept your place in society and don't try to expand your limits, no one ever changes for the better, comfortable servitude is better than uncomfortable liberty, and you should appreciate your master who beats the living daylights out of you on a regular basis because there's always one who will treat you even worse. I don't have kids, but if I did, some of these things are not really the sorts of lessons I'd want them to learn.

Nonetheless, there are some valuable insights in here, and as these fables do form such an integral part of our cultural cognitive baggage, they're worth a quick read.

Weekend WIPs - Wordless

2011-11-19T16:56:00.001-05:00

My Fuzzy Slippers

2011-11-18T07:21:00.000-05:00

Way back when, after making fuzzy slippers for Don, I decided to make a pair for myself. Despite the fact that these slippers are ridiculously easy, and each one really takes no more than a few hours, it took my pretty much a whole year to get my pair to my satisfaction. I did have a few false starts with mine, as I was altering them to fit my feet better, but on moving into my new, electrically heated and not carpeted house, I finished them up pretty darn quick, out of necessity. But I still wasn't happy with them, because they were too loose, and didn't fit the way I wanted them to.

So I started again, and made a much snugger one, adding some increases at the heel. This was in addition to the pair I was still wearing, so at this point, I ran out of yarn, and didn't get around to cannibalizing one of the original slippers and finishing the new pair until like a month ago, when I realized that winter was coming again, and I was really going to need my slippers. And like I said, when I finally did that, it took something like two hours to knit the damn thing. And now I have cozy slippers that fit more or less the way I want them to, and life is grand.

Pattern: Nola's Knitted Slippers
Yarn: Malabrigo Rasta in Azules
Needles: 5.5mm (I think)

Mods: Um, yes. Let's see. I worked them on fewer stitches, for one thing, which led to a number of further mods as I went. I also shortened the cuff, and I added some extra stitches at the heel, because I found that as written, the cuff part tends to become the back of the heel, and I didn't really like that. I haven't entirely solved that problem, but it's improved, I think.

In any case, I have excellently cozy slippers that keep my feet nice and toasty, which truly is a necessity in this house. Expect to see more of this pattern, as I have knitted another pair already for someone else, and I still intend at some point to knit a few pairs for guests.

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

2011-11-17T08:31:00.000-05:00

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with only her cousin Edmund as an ally. When Fanny's uncle is absent in Antigua, Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them London glamour and a reckless taste for flirtation. As her female cousins vie for Henry's attention, and even Edmund falls for Mary's dazzling charms, only Fanny remains doubtful about the Crawfords' influence and finds herself more isolated than ever. A subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, Mansfield Park is one of Jane Austen's most profound works.

I've mentioned before that Austen people usually fall into one of two camps: the Mansfield Park camp or the Northanger Abbey camp. Having now read them both, I'd have to say that I'm still in the Northanger Abbey camp, but this one would probably be my next favourite. The social satire in them both is just so much closer to the surface than in others, and I just find that that makes it more fun, because the surface story is still quite slow, with that era's intricate dance of courtship.

Part of what made me enjoy this book less than Northanger Abbey is, I think, the ending. Austen's books usually end fairly quickly, once things start to wrap up, but I found this one even more so. We never actually saw (spoiler alert!) Fanny and Edmund finally hook up; Austen just tells us that it happens, as part of almost an epilogue, which just made it feel very rushed, and not entirely satisfying. We don't actually get to see Edmund realize that his ideal woman has been right in front of him the whole time, or see Fanny's elation at his finally realizing that. But they do end up together as they're supposed to, so I can't complain too much.

This book did make me curious, though, about theatre in books. Is it just me that finds it pretty much invariably tedious to read about fictional characters' theatrical adventures? Is it my own involvement in theatre that makes it annoying? Is it simply that theatre doesn't translate well into fiction? I really don't know. I just know that I can't think of a single instance of fictional theatre that I have truly enjoyed reading about. I'll read about dance quite happily, and I do love a good music story, but theatre? Just does not seem to work for me.

Another one bites the dust

2011-11-16T15:38:00.001-05:00

So the panto is over again for another year. It would have been nice if more of my friends had managed to make it out, but let's not dwell on the negative. I had an awesome time, and while I'm still recovering and am glad to have a little more time (for such things as sleep!), I'm already kind of looking forward to next year.

This year's show was actually even more awesome than usual for me, because I got to play with this guy:

(who I knew was taller than me, but I didn't think it was by that much. Huh. Anyway.)

This guy is Blake, who I met, along with all the other awesome people in this organization, four years ago when I did Sinbad. At the time, I lived in more or less the same direction he did, so he started driving me home from rehearsals. As a result, we would talk and whatnot, and now he's become one of my closest friends. So although we've been in the last several shows together, this time we got to play the comedy duo together, and that was just full of win.

We're both not shy about making asses of ourselves, overacting, and generally flinging ourselves about every which way (Literally. You should see some of the bruises I've got going on right now.), so our pairing was brilliant. Plus, he's a construction worker, and thus has no trouble flinging me over his shoulder and hauling me around, or catching me if I jump on him. All of which translates to a supremely awesome comedy duo, and I hope we get to do it again. :)

Moustache Envy

2011-11-13T09:30:00.001-05:00

Haven't had time to post for the last few days, because of the show I've been doing, but today's the last day, so things should be back on track for the rest of the month.

For now, I'll just leave you with my answer to Movember:

The Master of Ballantrae - Robert Louis Stevenson

2011-11-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

Set in Scotland during the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, in the exotic French Indies, and in the North American wilderness, the story has as its hero one of the most compelling yet horrifying studies of evil in nineteenth-century fiction — James Durie, Master of Ballantrae. The Master is about his infective influence — on his younger, less attractive brother Henry; on Henry's wife Alison; and on those narrators whom Stevenson so skilfully employs to present their experiences of this charming, ruthless, and evil man.

This was the first Stevenson work I've read where I didn't more or less know the story and its twists, although if the twists were supposed to be surprising, they still weren't subtle enough to be so. I'm not sure they were supposed to be, though.

My main impression of this book, frankly, is that I found it a bit hard to follow, due to the use of titles rather than names. There's a father, generally referred to as "my old lord" except in dialogue, where it was simply "my lord." Then there's Henry, usually referred to during the father's lifetime as "Mr. Henry," but sometimes simply as "my lord," although that one was mostly reserved for after the father's death, when Henry became "my lord" almost exclusively. And then there's James, the other brother, generally referred to as "the Master." Add in the occasional other character, also rarely named with their actual names, and it does get a touch confusing.

Beyond that, I found that it reminded me a bit of The Count of Monte Cristo: guy goes away and is presumed dead, his fiancée marries someone else, and he comes back eventually, and wreaks vengeful havoc on everyone's lives. Except that Edmond Dantès was sent away unjustly and returned with some awesomely dramatic flair, while James Durie went away of his own volition, and really, was basically a bit of a sociopath. It also reminded me of Peter Pan, in that it's very clear that he's supposed to be so charming that he can get away with the things he does, but it doesn't come across on paper.

I don't know what I would have liked to see in this book, that would have made it more compelling for me, but it just felt like it was missing something. Maybe James wasn't quite evil enough. Maybe I needed more insidious threats against the family than just wheedling back in and alienating Henry. I don't know. I just know that it didn't quite do it for me.

Thoughts on E-Readers

2011-11-07T14:49:00.000-05:00

When reading on devices first started turning up in non-Star Trek real life, I didn't really have any use for them, even as I acknowledged the likelihood of paper books someday going the way of the dodo. Part of that was probably the fact that the earliest examples of e-reading consisted mainly of reading on one's computer, phone, or whatever. I spent enough time looking at a computer screen; I didn't need to do it while reading books as well.

Even with the advent of e-ink and devices specifically for reading, designed to avoid eye strain, I still wasn't interested. I love having shelves full of books in my home, and how would people judge me based on the contents of my bookshelves if I didn't have my books there?

But eventually, I started to come around.

First was the realization that most of the books I read don't end up on my bookshelf anyway. I borrow almost everything I read, buying only reference books and fiction that I really love. So as long as I keep doing that, there's no change, really.

And then, as I was standing at a bus stop, reading a rather large tome, trying to support my sagging wrist, I started to think that having this same book available to me in a much lighter, less unwieldy form would be pretty sweet.

So that was pretty much when I decided that yes, this e-reader thing was a pretty good idea. So I asked for one for my birthday, and I got it, and I'm thrilled to bits with it.

Physical books are very nice and all, but when you get right down to it, they don't fit my lifestyle nearly as well as an e-reader does, because the fact of the matter is that I do 95% of my reading (or more) in transit. So I love my kobo because:

So. Much. Lighter. than many books.
It takes up so little room. My kobo can live in my purse and therefore always be on hand, without my having to haul my backpack around.
The pages don't flap around in the breeze. Not so bad with small books that are OK to hold in one hand, so the other can hold the pages, but with a heavy book? Pain in the ass.
Easier to turn the pages while wearing mittens. With a paper book, I have to sneak a finger out of my convertible mitts and fiddle with the page that way. With my kobo, a little pressure, and I'm good.
No fiddling with bookmarks.
If I do happen to be reading something that I don't want to be judged on (Just because I'm reading it doesn't mean I'm loving it. coughAlchemistcough), there's no cover showing to give me away.
And did I mention that it's so much lighter than a large book?

So yeah. Awesome. I love it. The only thing that I do find less handy than a physical book is the fact that there's no immediately obvious way to see how much you have left to read. It tells me what percentage I've read, but there's a big difference between being 75% through a 1000-page book and being 75% through a 200-page book, as far as how much longer it's going to take me to finish, and therefore how soon before I need to get the next one lined up. It's a small price though, for the delightful benefits I get in exchange.

I won't be giving paper books up entirely just yet, if for no other reason than that not all the books I want to read are available in borrowable digital form. I've been good for years about not buying books I'll never read again, and I see no reason to change that habit. Even though e-books are generally cheaper than paper books, at the rate I go through them, it could start to add up very quickly. I may make exceptions, however, for those large heavy books that are so nice to not have to deal with.

In any case, I love my e-reader, and officially endorse the e-reading trend.

BTW, I just can't deal with the name NaBloPoMo. It's just too ridiculous. Y'all can call yours whatever you want, but I shall henceforth be referring to this experience as Blogvember. I also considered Blovember, but Don said that sounded like a whole different kind of month. ;)

The Autobiography of Henry VIII - Margaret George

2011-11-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

The spellbinding, imaginary memoirs of one of England's greatest kings, Henry VIII, through his childhood, his transformation of the Church, his six wives — two beheaded —, the execution of his friend Thomas More, and his daughter, Elizabeth.

As a certain recent wedding will attest, we commoners are inexplicably fascinated by royalty. I imagine we always have been, and it seems likely that we always will be. Despite the fact that logically, we all know that there's no real difference between us and them, they just have a certain mystique that is hard to resist. And Henry VIII's story? All the more so. His story reminds me of how history buffs and Bible scholars try to get people into their respective subjects by insisting that it's just full of action, drama, sex, political intrigue, and romance for the ages. And while this is true of most of history as well as the Bible, many history books, and certainly the Bible, relate all these things in such a dry fashion that it doesn't feel like you're reading about that salacious stuff. Henry VIII's story does. Now admittedly, this was fiction, and written in a novel form, but I think it applies anyway. Who among us hasn't, at at least some point in their life, found this story absolutely compelling?

What I really liked about this book is how much it humanized Henry. He is, of course, chiefly remembered for two main things: all those wives and the foundation of the Church of England. And it's easy to view those things as insatiable lust/drive for an "heir and a spare" and megalomania, respectively. And maybe they were. From this distance, we really can't do much more than speculate on his motives. But he did do some good things for England during his reign, and what if the afore-mentioned things really did come from a place of good intentions? It was an enjoyable imagining, in any case, and although I started to feel the length of it (it's a big book) by the end of it, I've read much shorter books that felt much longer. I was really never bored.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I read the second half of it on my new kobo, and that was awesome. Huge books like this were a significant part of the reason I wanted an e-reader, and it acquitted itself brilliantly. My wrists loved the digital version of this book.

In any case, I don't think I'm going to run out and read all of George's fictional memoirs, but I might read a few others, because if this is any example, they're meticulously researched and well enough written to be thoroughly engrossing, despite their massive size.

Weekend WIPs

2011-11-05T16:34:00.001-04:00

So, I have no recollection whatsoever what I was working on the last time I showed you anything, but whatever it was, it's probably finished now. Although there's a good chance it still has some ends to weave in.

In any case, at the moment, I have two projects in active rotation.

The first is a second Sockhead.

I believe it was Turtlegirl who last year found herself unable to stop knitting these things, and I can understand why. When I started working on my first, I didn't think I would have any such problem, but it wasn't long before I decided it would be the perfect vehicle for another skein of yarn I had. Oopsie. It's just such a great, easy pattern, brilliant for travel/company knitting, and the end result is a great hat. Just enough slouch, and because it's sock yarn, it's nice and light so the weight of the slouch doesn't weigh the whole hat down. It's fantastic. I have worn my first one several times, and I love it, and I anticipate loving this one just as much.

And the second is something I just cast on this afternoon, after a comment on facebook from a friend lamenting the fact that his Movember stache will be appearing in the first photos of him and his daughter if she arrives as scheduled. I was aware that she was expected, but we're not super close or anything, so I hadn't really thought much about it until this reminder that it was imminent. Anyway, I thought, hey! Excuse to knit baby clothes! Sign me up. So here are the first 12 rows of what will become a sweater:

And that's it for now. Happy weekend!

Nothing to see here...

2011-11-04T21:38:00.002-04:00

This is just a post for posting's sake, as I have not had time today to come up with anything insightful. Sorry for the cop-out.

The Death Cure - James Dashner

2011-11-03T13:35:00.005-04:00

Thomas knows that Wicked can't be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they've collected all they can form the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It's up to the Gladers to create the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.

What Wicked doesn't know is that something's happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can't believe a word of what Wicked says.

The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine. Will anyone survive the Death Cure?

In my review for The Scorch Trials, I said that there could be no middle ground for something like this between a mind-blowingly awesome conclusion and an intensely disappointing one. Turns out I was wrong, and this conclusion does fall somewhere in the middle for me.

When it finally arrived at my store (actually, it had been there a week, buried in an unmarked box in the middle of a skid we hadn't had a chance to receive yet – Arg!), I immediately took it home and chewed through it in about 3 1/2 hours. Initially, I didn't write about it right away because I wanted to let it sink in a bit, but now it's been so long that I've pretty much forgotten anything insightful I might have had to say about it. In all honesty, though, there's a good chance I wouldn't have gone into much detail anyway. It's the sort of book that can't really be sensibly explained succinctly, and certainly not without giving stuff away.

So now that I've spent a whole paragraph saying nothing, I guess I'll just say that although this book did not blow my mind with its awesomeness, it did provide a fairly satisfactory conclusion. The questions that needed to be answered were answered, and the questions that weren't just leave room for imagination (Or maybe a prequel? Normally I wouldn't care much for that idea, but in this case, I think I'd actually be OK with it.). It has the twists and general insanity one expects from this series, and is just as action-packed as the first two books. In general, though, it was a satisfying end to an awesome series. And they're all such quick reads, I might even re-read them all at some point, and see if anything jumps out at me that I missed with year-long breaks between books.

Read it. And if you have any teenaged boys you're trying to get into reading, make them read it too.

Mimosa Day Stuff

2011-11-02T20:16:00.002-04:00

So, my birthday pretty much inevitably falls during or around Thanksgiving weekend. Depending on whether I'm feeling glass-half-empty or glass-half-full, this either means that no one's ever free to celebrate my birthday on my birthday, or it means that my birthday celebrations extend for a week or so. Back in university, it was usually the former, as everyone went home for the weekend, while I, halfway across the country form my home, couldn't really swing that for just a few days. Thus the beginnings of Mimosa Day, on which I pretty much spend the whole day drinking mimosas. Since I started that, I've felt much more consistently glass-half-full about my birthday situation. And this year definitely fell on that side of things.

I started with preparations the day before, which involved ordering Chinese take-out and stocking up on bubbly and OJ. The actual day was a Saturday, so no school, no work, no nothing. Had the whole day to myself. Sweet. I had one coffee first thing upon getting up, and then spent the rest of the day on mimosas and my leftover Chinese. Don had to work most of the day, but I went out for coffee with a friend, and then we spent much of the afternoon hanging out and watching a movie while I happily knitted away (still drinking mimosas). Basically, it was a pretty chill and awesome day, and I even managed to pace the mimosas brilliantly, so I was pleasantly buzzed pretty much all day, and not even a shadow of a hangover the next day. Perfect.

I didn't get a birthday dinner that weekend, but I got turkey instead, which is A-OK by me. Then the following week, I had my family birthday dinner, which involved roast beef, my mom's astoundingly awesome gravy, and my parents' patented chocolate mousse cake. Divine.

As far as gifts go, I got two excellent sweaters from Don, both delightfully cozy as well as attractive. From my sister I got a selection of yummy-looking intriguing chocolate bars, which I haven't eaten yet because first I was sick, and then I got distracted by Halloween candy, but I'm particularly excited about the mousse one.

I've now successfully gotten two of my family members to buy me yarn as a gift, as my parents picked out six skeins of Mirasol Hacho for me:

I haven't quite decided what I'm going to make with it yet, but I have some theories.

And finally, they also got me a Kobo, which I was (and still am) very excited about. When e-readers first turned up, I wasn't really interested. I like books, I like that people can come into my house and judge me based on the contents of my bookshelves, etc. But I started to come around a while ago. I think I'll save the details about why for another post, in case I need some inspiration at some point during this month of blogging.

In any case, it was a very satisfactory Mimosa Day (and following week), even if it did take me almost a month to get around to posting about it.

Halloween

2011-11-01T17:47:00.000-04:00

So, a blog post I read today said that, in addition to it being Movember, NaKniSweMo and NaNoWriMo, it is apparently also NaBloPoMo. Now, seriously, these syllables are getting a little ridiculous. However, I've been pretty radio silent lately, despite having several books read, and plenty of knitting (finished and otherwise) to show you, and I figure such a challenge might get me back in the groove.

For today, I'll just show off our house as it was dressed up for its first Halloween as our home:

I am really more of a Christmas girl, but Don's a big Halloween guy, so he was pretty excited to actually have a house to decorate. He decided to go with a ghosty-pirate sort of theme, so as you can, see our lawn is festooned with tombstones, skulls, jolly rogers, etc.

These fake stumps made an excellent driveway barrier and place to put more pirate flags:

And here's my first ever attempt at pumpkin carving:

The top didn't fit together quite as nicely as I'd hoped, but I still think he's OK for a beginner. And he smelled nice, too, as the tea lights I found happened to be vanilla scented. Yum.

We had 24 kids come by, so we definitely over-bought on the candy (Oh noes! Now we'll have to eat the leftovers!), but it was vastly better than the, like, 3 kids we got the year we even tried in our last place.

Don has big plans for next year, so I'll keep you posted on that...

Saving Fish from Drowning - Amy Tan

2011-10-11T08:35:00.002-04:00

Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China — dubbed the true Shangri-La — and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses.

And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise — and disappear.

I finished this book almost a week ago, but I've been having trouble nailing down and articulating my feelings about it. I think maybe another reviewer hit on at least part of the problem: there are some very serious issues underlying the events in this book, but everything is treated in a fairly light-hearted kind of way, and the contrast really is a bit jarring.

On the other hand, there is some interesting stuff in this book. I did learn a little about the political situation in Burma, most of which seems to be fairly accurate, according to the very superficial research I've done since reading it. The book discusses the fact that most of the world knows nothing about Burma/Myanmar, and I'll admit that I fell in that camp, and realistically, still mostly do. I worked for a while with a Burmese man, and now I kind of wish I'd asked him for his take — assuming he was interested in discussing it.

The characters in this book were quite well-written, although I didn't particularly like most of them. Heidi and Moff kind of grew on me, and a few of the others were OK, but Wendy and Wyatt made me roll my eyes a lot, Harry was an idiotic jackass, and Marlena's putting up with him made me like her less. Nonetheless, they came across as real people, so that's good.

I don't always have anything profound to say about books, as I'm sure you've observed, but some books just feel like you should have something profound to say, and this one comes across that way. But I don't. So there it is.

White Gold - Giles Milton

2011-10-03T08:07:00.002-04:00

In the summer of 1716, Cornish cabin boy Thomas Pellow and his comrades were captured at sea by Barbary corsairs at a time when slave traders were snatching thousands of Europeans for the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salé in Morocco. Poked, prodded and put through their paces, they were sold at auction to the highest bidder.

Pellow and his ship-mates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco, who was constructing a vast imperial pleasure palace, built entirely by Christian slave labour. Being a resourceful, resilient and quick-thinking man, Thomas Pellow was selected to be a personal slave of the sultan, and was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell his tale.

White Gold is an extraordinary and shocking story. Drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves, and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them, it reveals a disturbing and forgotten chapter of history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.

So, as I'm reading the first part of this book, about how the Brits and other Europeans were snatched — sometimes right from their homes — and then transported in unthinkably awful conditions to slave pens almost as bad and then sold at auction as slaves, all I could think was how remarkably familiar it should all sound to anyone who's ever heard of the black slave trade. And I just kept waiting for Milton to draw the parallel, and remind us that it's not skin colour that makes this whole proposition offensive. After I'd just about given up on him, he finally did, and then my faith in humanity was once again shaken as he pointed out that while the British and the rest of the Europeans were all appalled and aghast at this sort of treatment, they all still considered it a perfectly reasonable thing to do to others. Yes, I know, I know, perceptions were different, and blacks were considered subhuman at best by most of the white world at this time, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around that, and as someone who is notorious for playing devil's advocate (why yes, I'm a Libra. Why do you ask?), the idea that you can't watch a basically identical situation and see that it's basically identical is something else I have trouble with, regardless of the prevailing notions at the time.

Anyway, once we moved past the initial capture, we moved onto discussions of the horrific treatment the slaves (mostly, but not all, white christians, for the record) received at the hands of the sultan. And it was horrific. The one thing the black slave trade had going for it — And here I'd just like to take a moment and state that I am in no way condoning slavery in any form. It doesn't matter how well your master treats you, owning other people is simply not acceptable. One of the few blanket statements I'm willing to make wholeheartedly and without reserve. Slavery = bad, no matter what. However. With the black slave trade being as spread out and common as it was, slave owners ran the gamut. So while some of them certainly didn't treat their slaves much better than Moulay Ismail treated his, at least there was some chance that a slave could end up with a master who had some degree of humanity and would take care of his slaves at least as well as his livestock, or other property that he valued. Their value may have been considered strictly in monetary terms, but at least they had some, which meant that in many cases, they were at least fed reasonably well, had access to medical care when necessary. Still slaves, still not acceptable, but I for one would take that over living my entire time in captivity in a fetid cell with no air and full of vermin and flooding and way too many other people, and no way to ever clean anyone or anything, on far too few rations of water and food, for a guy who'd just as soon behead me (one of his least creative torture/execution methods) as look at me. So as slave owners go, this guy was definitely up there with the worst of the worst. Certainly in terms of sheer numbers who died on his watch, he can't have had too much competition.

All that said, I found this book started to get really repetitive. There was just so much re-iteration of the fact that conditions sucked, the work was intensely hard on the body (this is a severe understatement), and the slaves were treated with extreme brutality. I just got bored, which is not the response you want, I think, to a book about this much human suffering.

It actually is surprising, though, how little one ever hears about this particular part of history. It went on for decades — centuries, even , I think — involved people from pretty much all of Europe, and the outrage over this treatment of white people was so high at the time. This plus the fact that the history we see in the Western world tends to be so white European-centric makes it somewhat surprising that you almost never hear about it. It's interesting.

In any case, I learned some interesting stuff, but I wish the book were shorter and less repetitious.

City of Fallen Angels - Cassandra Clare

2011-10-01T07:23:00.001-04:00

The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She's training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.

But nothing comes without a price.

Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary's best friend, Simon, can't help her. His mother just found out that he's a vampire and now he's homeless. Everywhere he turns, someone wants him on their side—along with the power of the curse that's wrecking his life. And they're willing to do anything to get what they want. Not to mention that he's dating two beautiful, dangerous girls—neither of whom knows about the other one.

When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

Damn you, Cassandra Clare! The first thing I have to say is that I should have just left it with the end of the original trilogy. Because while I will not tell you how this one ends, I will tell you that there will clearly be at least one more book, and that this one gives possibly even less closure at the end than any o the first three. Now I know how Inheritance fans felt when they got to the end of Brisingr, expecting that to be the end. Bloody hell. So now I have to wait until May for another one, and who knows if even that will be the end. I signed on for a trilogy, FFS. I wouldn't have even started if I'd known it was just going to keep going. Bah.

All that said, this book had more of the same good stuff that the first three had, and I actually found it slightly less annoying in terms of twists, mainly because it focused less on having big twists, and more on just the story. Well, there was one (and I called it), but it wasn't really a big huge key plot point, so that was better. And really, a story does work so much better, and keeps your readers more surprised when you don't try to subtly foreshadow things, and end up obviously telegraphing them instead. So this book definitely had that going for it.

Anyway, I'm now pretty much committed to seeing this thing through, so I'll let you know next spring how the next one is.

Dracula: The Un-Dead - Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt

2011-09-26T14:10:00.004-04:00

It is 1912, twenty-five years after Dracula "crumbled into dust." Vampire-hunter Van Helsing's protégé, Dr. Jack Seward, is now a disgraced morphine addict who's convinced that Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a murderous, raven-haired beauty born in 1560, still walks the earth. Meanwhile, the intelligent and capable Mina, wife of Jonathan Harker, has her own concerns: her son Quincey has finally learned his parents' terrible secrets, but not soon enough to prevent Jonathan's brutal murder in Piccadilly Circus.

Someone is stalking the band of heroes who defeated Dracula. Could it be that Dracula somehow survived their attack and is seeking revenge? Could it be that love never dies?

Based on Bram Stoker's own handwritten notes for characters and plot threads, this is the bone-chilling sequel to the timeless classic Dracula.

Sequels to classic books — especially revisionist ones — are always questionable. The involvement of family members of the original author sometimes mitigates this, but is no guarantee. So I came to this book trying to keep an open mind, but with a certain degree of skepticism.

The main impression I got was of trying too hard. Trying to work in all kinds of actual history, and trying to be cute. It bugged me. First and foremost, Bram Stoker himself is a character in this book, and I loathed that. The idea is that he was told the story by one of the band of heroes, and made it into a book (but didn't even change their names. Wouldn't you do that, even if you thought the story was just some inane ramblings from a drunk?). In addition to all kinds of weird meta-ness that this added, it also allowed Dacre and Ian Holt to screw around with "facts" of the original story (dates, specifically), and attribute the discrepancies to Stoker not getting his facts quite right in the first place. Seriously, guys?

And why was it so important for them to adjust the dates? Well, the original story was set in 1893, but if they said that it actually happened in 1888, they could tie it to the Jack the Ripper murders in London. And then setting this story in 1912 allows them to tie it to the Titanic. Which, really? Even if they wanted to leave the door open for another sequel (Stoker apparently had some thoughts of a sequel in which Dracula ends up in America), it's not like the Titanic was the only ship to attempt that crossing. Why was it so important for a famous and ill-fated ship to be involved?

And then there's Bathory. Do you like how she's kind of mentioned as this completely unrelated thing in the blurb? That annoyed me, but she was brought into the story and was in fact a crucial part of it, but why was still never made clear. It is made abundantly clear that she hates Dracula, but I'm not sure why, really, aside from the fact that her life pretty much made her an extremely bitter person who seemed to more or less hate everyone.

There was a "twist" at one point that made me wonder if I'm getting better at spotting such things, or if I've just been reading a string of blatantly unsubtle books lately. I won't mention it, just in case you happen to be completely obtuse, but really, even a familiarity with the actual Vlad the Impaler would pretty much make this one obvious, even though they draw it out until 3/4 of the way through the book before they present it like some sort of shocking revelation. I hate that.

I find the Dracula-Mina romance-for-the-ages thing a bit questionable, too. The concept has somewhat permeated popular culture surrounding this story, probably only encouraged by the current vampire fever, but I don't know. I guess I just hoped that the actual "owners," so to speak, of the story might try going a different way, something a little less overdone and a little more original.

All in all, it wasn't as terrible as some long-after-the-fact sequels to classic books can be, but it wasn't all that awesome, either. There are probably better ones out there, if you really want to continue or re-imagine the story, but I kind of wish I'd just stuck with the original.

Mozart in the Jungle - Blair Tindall

2011-09-24T07:43:00.000-04:00

From her debut recital at Carnegie Hall to the Broadway pits of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, oboist Blair Tindall has been playing classical music professionally for twenty-five years. In Mozart in the Jungle, Tindall exposes the scandalous rock-and-roll lifestyles of the musicians and conductors who inhabit the insular world of classical music.

Tindall graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts and into the backbiting New York classical-music scene, a world where musicians trade sexual favours for plum jobs and assignments in musicals and orchestras across the city. Tindall and her fellow journeymen musicians often play drunk, high or hopelessly hungover, live in decrepit apartments, and perform in hazardous conditions — in the cramped confines of a Broadway pit, the decibel level of one instrument is equal to the sound of a chain saw. Mozart in the Jungle offers a stark contrast between the rarified experiences of overpaid classical musician superstars and those of the working-class musicians who trek across the city from low-paying gig to low-paying gig, without health care benefits or retirement plans.

Traveling around the globe, from performances in Vienna's Staatsoper to Rio's Teatro Colón, Mozart in the Jungle is the first true look at what goes on backstage and behind the scenes in some of America's best-known orchestras.

At this point in my life, I've read enough biographies to know that there is definitely some exaggeration (especially in the ones promising scandal and salaciousness). I assume the same of this one, but it was nonetheless very interesting. Having been exposed to classical music from a fairly young age (Not all young people's concerts are terrible, Blair! Some of them actually do accomplish their aim of establishing a lifelong love of classical.), I don't know that I would say that I hold the musicians in some kind of awestruck, they're-somehow-superhuman wonder that this book has now disillusioned me of, and in fact, much of what was in this book didn't actually surprise me much. The fact that sexual liaisons would be good for securing jobs (until they backfired and became the opposite) is not surprising. The fact that the classical purists would look down on those who "sell out" and join Broadway pits in order to eat is not surprising. And the fact that musicians would suffer the kind of burnout described in this book rather than living amazing, glamourous lives is also not surprising.

I don't know if Tindall felt that a straight-up memoir would be too narcissistic (damn, that's a hard word to type), or if her more recent journalistic background compels her to include more hard facts but she's punctuated the book every few chapters with kind of an overview of the American classical music industry and situation as a whole, including public opinions, government opinions, funding issues, economic realities, etc., which I had mixed feelings about. On one hand, excellent research, and as we follow Tindall's efforts to navigate it all, it's good to have a picture of just what it is she's actually dealing with in that respect. One the other hand, those chapters could have been a touch shorter, maybe, so we could get back to the story.

As for the story, in the beginning, it seemed to be aiming for shock value. "Think classical musicians are prissy, ice queen snobs? Well, let me tell you some things." But as it went on, she managed to make a connection with the reader and you start to actually get a feel for what she's feeling and how frustrating this life has become for her, and you really root for her efforts to get herself out of it, and grieve with her for those friends who are still lost in that world. That said, her escape from it seemed somehow too good to be true. A 100% scholarship for a journalism degree at her dream school in a city that has enough music work for her to still work part-time while she's studying? That's a pretty conveniently sweet deal. ~~But whether that's the way it really happened or if it was fudged a little to conclude the story — which was not about her journalism career — it doesn't really matter.~~ Awesome things do happen, though, and as she herself has assured me in the comments below, this was one of them. And I reiterate my apology (also below) for suggesting otherwise, particularly as it now occurs to me that, especially for a journalist, that's a rather unfortunate implication for me to have levelled. So please consider it retracted.

It would be interesting, though, to see what the current situation is with symphony orchestras. This book is now six years old, and a lot can change in six years. I'd also be a little curious as to how the interpersonal dynamics are different in an orchestra that's more like the ones I'm familiar with, in that most or all of the players have day jobs (most of them teach their respective instruments), and come together half a dozen or so times a year to play a symphony. The OSO in particular has a very close partnership with the University of Ottawa, and a significant number of the musicians at any given show are in fact students, which I would imagine also brings a different dynamic into the mix.

All in all, I quite enjoyed this book, and would like to just extend a virtual hug to all classical (and Broadway) musicians. I may never get to tell you this in person, but I appreciate you and your contributions to my symphonic experiences. I may specifically enjoy the way David Currie's hair flops about as he conducts, but I'm well aware that without you, he'd just be a crazy guy waving his arms around. You have all enriched my life, and for that, I thank you.

Sapphique - Catherine Fisher

2011-09-14T08:30:00.000-04:00

Incarceron, the living prison, has lost one of its inmates to the outside world: Finn's escaped, only to find that Outside is not at all what he expected. Used to the technologically advanced, if violently harsh, conditions of the prison, Finn is now forced to obey the rules of Protocol, which require all people to live without technology. To Finn, Outside is just a prison of another kind, especially when Claudia, the daughter of the prison's warden, declares Finn the lost heir to the throne. When another claimant emerges, both Finn's and Claudia's very lives hang on Finn convincing the Court of something that even he doesn't fully believe.

Meanwhile, Finn's oathbrother Keiro and his friend Attia are still trapped inside Incarceron. They are searching for a magical glove, which legend says Sapphique used to escape. To find it, they must battle the prison itself, because Incarceron wants the glove too.

I'm not too sure what to say about this book. Like the first one, you can very easily spend a lot of time and mental energy trying to figure everything out, which would be either lots of fun or maddening, depending on how you feel about such things. I, however, prefer to just let the story carry itself (and me), and not worry too much, figuring that all will become clear at the end. Which it did. Sort of. The ending did feel a bit... anti-climactic. I'm actually kind of glad she ended it the way she did, even though it's still very open, with plenty of possibilities for the future. The alternatives would be to continue the story in a kind of coda (See Return of the King) or to in fact write another book and make this into a trilogy. Either way, though, the story would be a very different one than the first two, and unless or until she comes up with a really solid premise for a plot (something more than simply a rebuilding theme), I'm happy that she's opted to keep this a two-book set instead of a trilogy. I was disappointed with the relationship resolutions, though.

Beyond that, I can't really discuss plot, because it's the sort of plot that all hangs together in such a way that you can't talk about any one aspect without explaining half a dozen or so others first, and then you start getting into spoilers, and so on and so forth.

And I still can't decide if I really really liked it or not.

Aftertime - Sophie Littlefield

2011-09-13T07:59:00.003-04:00

Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie [her daughter] has vanished.

And with her, nearly all of civilization. Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters — people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.

In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider, let alone a woman who became a zombie and somehow turned back, but she finds help from an enigmatic outlaw, Smoke. Smoke is her savior, and her safety.

For the Beaters are out there. And the humans grip at survival with their trigger fingers. Especially when they learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, of weapons in a brave new world....

The above blurb makes it pretty obvious that this a zombie book. So I really do wonder just what it was about it that drew me to it and made me decide I wanted to read it. Because I'm really not sure. Maybe it was the feminine aspect of it. It's true that many apocalyptic books come from a fairly male perspective, and the comment, "Cass Dollar fights like a girl — you've been warned" in one of the endorsements had a certain appeal. Sydney Bristow, Beatrix Kiddo, Katniss Everdeen, River Tam, Éowyn... Who doesn't love a good ass-kicking heroine? Unfortunately, Cass doesn't really deliver, although maybe largely because Littlefield doesn't really give her much opportunity to do so. The climactic scene indicates that she'll certainly do what's necessary, but prior to that point, it was more just running and negotiating than fighting and ass-kicking. But in any case, I was hoping for some "No man can kill me!" — "I am no man!" type awesomeness, and there wasn't any.

And then there are the zombies. I don't understand the appeal of zombies. I really don't. And these ones were particularly unpleasant. Zombies eat people; we all know that. Whether it's just brains they're after, or flesh in general, having watched a few zombie movies, I've seen zombies feeding, and really, it's never pretty. But something about the zombies in this book skeeved me out big-time. Maybe it was the fact that they'll eat their own flesh if that's all that's handy. Or maybe it was the nauseating descriptions of how they'll peel a human strip of flesh by strip of flesh, starting with their backs until they're completely flayed — but still alive. Yuck.

Anyway, as a zombie book, I guess it was OK, but I won't be reading the sequel. I do have to thank Littlefield for at least ending this book at a reasonable endpoint so I don't feel I have to read any further. I have a feeling the next book may focus on or uncover some past information. At the end of this book, we don't have all the details of what happened to Cass, and there's worlds of information we don't know about Smoke. And of course, the world is still in the middle of a shitstorm, so there's plenty of fodder to continue the story for anyone who's interested. It just won't be me.

Only Revolutions - Mark Z Danielewski

2011-09-06T07:36:00.001-04:00

They were with us before Romeo & Juliet. And long after too. Because they're forever around. Or so both claim, carolling gleefully:

We're allways sixteen.

Sam & Hailey, powered by an ever-rotating fleet of cars, from Model T to Lincoln Continental, career from the Civil War to the Cold War, barrelling down through the Appalachians, up the Mississippi River, across the Badlands, finally cutting a nation in half as they to outrace History itself.

By turns beguiling and gripping, finally worldwrecking, Only Revolutions is unlike anything ever published before, a remarkable feat of heart and intellect, moving us with the journey of two kids, perpetually of summer, perpetually sixteen, who give up everything except each other.

The last time I finished a book with my head spinning, wondering just what the flying fuck just happened was Gravity's Rainbow. I truly never believed that I would ever read another book as confusing, and with so much of its meaning completely buried that it left only snippets of surface meaning. To this day, I cannot even begin to attempt to tell you what Gravity's Rainbow was about, and although I could cop out and say that Only Revolutions is about Sam & Hailey, that's really about as much about it as I can confidently tell you.

And I'm so confused that I can't even decide if it's brilliant or absolute madness. It may be as full of layers, metaphor and allegory as GR apparently is. Or it might all be one big practical joke on the reader.

Because here's the thing: the words themselves, only sometimes make sense. There were moments in the story when I more or less knew on a relatively broad scale, what was going on (They're in a hospital where she's being treated for anaphylactic shock — although why they were there in the first place, I'm not sure. They're working at a restaurant where people throw stuff at Sam. They're having sex. They're trying to get married.) But beyond that, I got nothing. It reads, actually, like slam poetry, and as an extended poem, maybe it's not so bad. But I just have no use for poetry as a general rule, and if I'm going to read a whole book of it, it had better be coherent.

However, there's a great deal going on in this book aside form the words of the narrative. The formatting includes:

The main and obvious gimmick of the flipping your book around every 8 pages so you read both stories in it more or less simultaneously. (In case you didn't know, that's the main thing with this book. It's printed both ways, so halfway down each page, the text runs upside down. You'll get to that text later, after you flip the book over and read from the beginning that way.)
The fact that all letter Os are green in Sam's story, and gold in Hailey's.
The animals/plants set off from the main type in Sam/Hailey's story respectively.
The Creep, always printed in pink.
The historical narrative down the side, with dates also printed in pink.
The dots in the corners of some pages, like the cigarette burns on film reels.
The revolving page numbers.
The invented words and weird spellings of others.
The whole lists of words formatted into an interesting pattern that cover both inside covers.
The first letter of each section.
And undoubtedly other stuff I'm not thinking of right now.

So there's all this stuff that you can try to combine meaningfully with the narrative itself in hopes of coming up with something that makes sense, but frankly, I'm not that committed. There's a website, where you can discuss any number of theories with other people who have read the book, and maybe someday the whole thing will get cracked and it will all become clear. But frankly, I just can't help but wonder if the whole thing really is just a big joke, with all these crazy elements tossed in to make you think about them, figuring that there must be a way that they all fit together, when actually they really don't, and Danielewski just wants you to think they do, and if you spend too much time on it, you just go crazy, while he giggles maniacally over the fast one he's pulled on you.

All that said, I really must acknowledge that structurally, there is some very cool stuff in this book. The symmetry in it is very well done in a number of ways, and I can't even begin to imagine how much work it took to make it all fit. And the premise itself, of simultaneously reading two parallel stories, is very intriguing to me. I just wish that the premise and the structure had been applied to something that made sense. I do have some theories about it, but I'm trying not to think about them too much, lest I drive myself crazy. But if you read this thing, and want to talk, I'm up for it.

Keep Sweet - Debbie Palmer & Dave Perrin

2011-09-05T16:09:00.000-04:00

This book tells the story of Debbie Palmer's first 18 years, which she spent inside the polygamist group in what is now Bountiful, BC.

It's hard to really know what to say about this book. Mostly, it just remains mind-boggling to me that people can believe stuff like this, and think it's a good idea, and healthy for their kids, etc.

Don't get me wrong. Polygamy/polyamory as a concept doesn't really bother me. If, as a consenting adult, one chooses to commit to multiple people, I don't have a problem with it. And from a biological standpoint, polygamy as practiced in these religious societies does make sense. For the same reason that you keep a stable full of brood mares and only one stud horse, having one husband for several wives (including those significantly younger than him) does make sense, assuming you subscribe the the theory that the idea is to produce as many offspring as possible. Furthermore, unlike, say Catholic women, who are also generally expected to produce as many children as nature provides, plural wives at least (in theory) get to have these other women to help rear their children (and take care of the household). And hey, if you have a headache one night, someone else can do the honours.

However, for me, the acceptability of all this is predicated on all involved parties being in a position to offer informed consent to this arrangement, and that's not the case in this kind of situation. For one thing, the ages are a problem. While I do think that North American society babies its teens to an excessive degree, that doesn't mean we should all be fully responsible for babies, households and husbands as soon as we're biologically able to produce children. Nor do I think that people who have been raised to absolute submission to the will of the men around them can be said to be in a position to offer proper informed consent.

Yes, there is cultural bias at work here. While I might say that these people have been indoctrinated to believe these things, they might suggest that I've been raised and indoctrinated to believe other things. And they're not wrong. Maybe they're right, and this lifestyle is the key to eternal salvation and the one to which I subscribe will lead to eternal damnation. But as neither of us will know for certain until we die (assuming we know anything at all beyond that point), all I can really go on is that cultural bias with which I've been raised, and it says that self-determination is a healthier way to live than to exist entirely under someone else's control.

So there's that. And I have many other thoughts (Of course you have nothing to talk about with your husband. He's old enough to be your grandfather, and much as I love my grandfather, I've never really had any really in-depth conversations with him. We live in different worlds, and don't have vast amounts of things in common. Or, in addition to the considerable data showing that abstinence education increases pregnancy and STIs, this book seems like anecdotal evidence at least that no sexual education whatsoever provides an excellent environment for your kids to be sexually abused and not even really know it. Or that I can't even imagine trying to function in the dynamics of a group of wives who should theoretically be more or less equal, but who range so hugely in age that there's going to be a clear pecking order — and that's not even counting the kids. How do you exert authority over a "daughter" who's old enough to be your mother?), the one that comes back to me so often when dealing with religious (specifically Christian) groups is that so few of them seem to really have any understanding of what they've espoused. I simply do not understand how anyone can read the Bible, read about Jesus, claim to be any sort of follower of his, and continue to treat other people the way they do. And at the end of the day, that's really what struck me most about this group of people. The absolute male authority and dominance is one thing, but the appalling way the women treat each other is, well, appalling. But don't think of complaining, because if you could just follow the prophets and have enough faith, you wouldn't have these problems. It's awful. Even more awful when it's children who are the targets of the terrible treatment. Admittedly, this is only one side of the story, and Jan might have a different perspective, but it's hard to imagine any actual justification for not only hitting a kid, but punching her in the head repeatedly until she's curled up in a ball on the ground, and then kicking her repeatedly. With the possible exception of an actual demon child, there is no justification for that, ever. And there is even less justification for trying to convince the kid that she's the one who's really responsible for this. I just can't even.

So yeah. I would be interested in reading about how she actually managed to get out with all her kids, but other women have told their versions of that story. Palmer chose to focus on this lifestyle's effects on children, and that is a fascinating perspective. I am truly sorry that she and others have had to go through this, and I would like to believe that not all polygamist groups are like this, but I know that enough of them are that this will certainly continue to be a problem for some time. I'm glad for her and for everyone else who has managed to extricate themselves, and I wish them all the best in the rest of their lives.

Anklewarmers

2011-09-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

I posted some time back about how it had occurred to me that instead of using awesome sock yarn for socks, I could use it to make myself legwarmers, because I'm a dancer and I like to keep my legs warm. Well, mostly my ankles, but I'll probably make myself at least one pair of leggier warmers eventually. In any case, this skein from my brother:

that I have been so in love with from the moment I saw it, became my first pair. And although I have not had occasion to dance in them (stupid schedule/budget), I love them.

Pattern: None. I made it up.
Yarn: Manspun Untastic Sock Yarn, in Sully
Needles: 2.75mm dpns, and 2mm ones for the ribbing

Notes: A few things I will do differently for the next pair:

Fewer (if any) increases. They're looser around the ankle than they need to be, I think. It's fine, because I'd wear them scrunched down anyway, so they don't have to stay up or anything, but I could get away with not increasing from the foot, and then they could be just a little longer.
Find some way of maybe adding a little... height, I guess, to the heel holes. I'm thinking a few rows back and forth instead of in the round might do it.
For the heel holes, I did the first one using the afterthought technique, but I didn't really like it. Picking up those tiny tiny stitches and praying I didn't lose any was annoying. I did the second one by putting the stitches onto some waste yarn, and then recasting on (possibly provisionally — I don't remember). I liked that method better, so that will be what I will do for both next time.

In any case, I love this yarn, I love these anklewarmers, I can't wait to wear them, and you can expect to see more of them eventually.

My Birthday Present to Me

2011-08-26T18:53:00.000-04:00

So, way back when, last October, I bought myself this lovely yarn as a birthday present for myself:

Very soon thereafter, it became the neckwarmer I wore pretty much every day for the duration of winter. The leftovers also attempted to become mittens, a hat, and a shawl. The mittens were reasonably successful, the hat a miserable failure (3 times), and the shawl is waiting patiently for me to weave in its ends and block it.

In any case, the neckwarmer:

I love it, because my jacket doesn't really leave enough room around the neck for a full scarf, but it does let enough air in to make me cold. So this little sucker is perfect. It tucks into my jacket and acts as just enough of a gasket to keep me toasty warm. It also adds no weird chest bulk, as scarves can sometimes do. And the pattern is one of those ridiculously simple but awesome ones. Works up quickly and easily, travels well because it's small and you really don't need to refer to any instructions, is simple enough to show off an interesting yarn, and visually interesting enough on its own that it would also look very nice with a simpler yarn. I highly recommend this pattern. Enough so that I'm making a second one right now.

Pattern: Stacked Eyelet Cowl, by Ami Madison
Yarn: Punta Merino Perfection Hand Paint in HP62
Needles: 4mm circs

Mods: I think I ultimately cast on with fewer stitches for a snugger fit. Beyond that, nothing.

City of Ashes & City of Glass - Cassandra Clare

2011-08-25T17:19:00.000-04:00

Since I didn't get around to blogging the first before I finished the second, I'm just going to cover both in one go.

Overall, my impressions remain pretty much unchanged. They were decent. Compelling characters, and a fast-paced plot that keeps you pretty solidly hooked.

What they do lack, though, is a certain subtlety. The fact that Jace would turn out to not be Clary's brother was, I think, pretty much inevitable. So much so that I don't even think I really need to call this a spoiler. Especially given the fact that Clare would not ease up on the chemistry between those two. If they had turned out to be related in the end, just... ick. As to who he actually was, though, I nailed that one halfway through book 2. And I wasn't very far into book 3 before I figured out who Clary's brother actually was. So yeah. A little more subtlety in that regard would have been nice.

I loved the relationship between Simon and Clary. It had me banging my head on the wall a little during the second book, with Simon being so obtuse I could barely even feel bad for him, but his realization at the end was remarkably mature, and their relationship just improved through book 3. So that was awesome.

Less awesome is Magnus and Alec. Now I understand the fact that when your life spans centuries (like, 8 of them so far), age, well, let's just say that dating someone close to your own age really limits your options. I get that. And even in normal human lifespans, there comes a point when age differences start to become less and less important. However, 18 is not that point. So even though Magnus may not look any older than 20, the fact is that he's 800 or so years old, and his boyfriend is 18. And although an 18-year-old Shadowhunter may be legally an adult, he's only barely one, and, well, it's just a little much. Maybe in, like, 10 years, but now? Weirds me out a little.

Aside from that, though, this trilogy was a pretty solid offering. I am, however, very disappointed in Clare for, I assume, bowing to pressure from fans and/or publishers and writing a book 4. What is that all about? This book finished off the trilogy quite nicely, wrapped up everything that needed wrapping up, and just left it in a nice place. Another installment is just not necessary, and I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll actually read it. Realistically, I probably will. But I still wish she hadn't written it. She's started another series now; just going with that would have been a better idea. Sigh.

Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

2011-08-18T20:59:00.001-04:00

The red planet is no more. Now green and verdant, covered by seas and settlements, Mars has been dramatically terraformed from a desert world into one where humans can flourish. All that remains is to finish creating a breathable atmosphere and an ecosystem full of wondrous genetically engineered Martian creatures.

But as Mars reaches its final transformation, Earth is in peril. The Great Flood threatens an already overpopulated and polluted planet, and Mars faces a population explosion or an interplanetary war. Now the First Hundred settlers of Mars, having attained near immortality through longevity drugs, are pulled into a fierce new struggle.

Etc.

Quite frankly, it's been a while since I've been this glad to finally finish a book. The first two books in this trilogy had, as I've mentioned, reasonably compelling plotlines that were bogged down in extraneous detail. This one had the same level of detail, but less plot. It suffered from something I find tends to happen in stories of vast and epic scope: lack of cohesive direction, which becomes particularly noticeable as you get toward the end and you can't identify a clear endpoint toward which the story is driving. This is usually where you really figure out that there isn't one. The story, at some point, is just going to stop. And as I've also mentioned, this is not a technique I have much use for. As a result, I found this book even harder to battle through, and skimmed more of it than I can remember skimming any other book. I resorted to skipping huge passages, scanning for character names or dialogue, in hopes of narrowing in on something actually happening.

And that's kind of unfortunate, because some of his turns of phrase are really quite beautiful and poetic. On the other hand, some of them read like this:

This expansion of the judiciary satisfied what desire they had for a strong global government, without giving an executive body much power; it was also a response to the heroic role played by Earth's World Court in the previous century, when almost every other Terran institution had been bought or otherwise collapsed under metanational pressures; only the World Court had held firm, issuing ruling after ruling on behalf of the disenfranchised and the land, in a mostly ignored rearguard and indeed symbolic action against the metanats' depredations; a moral force, which if it had had more teeth, might have done more good. (127)

Notice the fact that there is a grand total of one period in the above. Ouch.

I also found it strange what he didn't give details about. Specifically: animals. Pages and pages of description of everything: every geographical feature, every economic and ecological process, every bit of technology, every political machination (And oh, the political machinations. They made me want to stick chopsticks in my eyes.), but suddenly there are polar bears and other animals, with little more than a throwaway mention of the fact that some scientists have been working on animals. Did we forget to research genetic modification of animals, Mr. Robinson? Because that's kind of how it came across.

And another question: Why such a hate-on for women? Nadia's great, but she's the only one of the major female characters that I would ever be willing to spend any time with. Phyllis is the worst stereotype of a female executive, so power-hungry she'll step over or on anyone to get more of it. Maya is a narcissistic drama queen manipulator who loves to play one man off another, and then bemoan the terrible position their rift puts her in. Hiroko's a weird enigmatic mother earth figure who, despite what she'd probably tell you, pretty much doesn't play nice with others because she simply doesn't give a shit about what anyone else thinks about anything. Jackie is an utterly repellent combination of all the worst features of Phyllis and Maya. And Ann. Ugh. As hard and unyielding as the rocks she loves so much, she's only saved and turned into a vaguely reasonable human being at the end by the love of a man. Gag me.

Anyway, there is some interesting stuff in these books, and as we move closer to the time when the trilogy started, it's intriguing to see how real life compares to what Robinson wrote. But I think some of those ideas could have been better served by not drowning them in So. Much. Tedium.

City of Bones - Cassandra Clare

2011-08-16T12:56:00.000-04:00

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered in strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's har to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also he first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...

*** This post contains spoilers. And although I think some of them are blindingly obvious, skip this one if you don't want to know. ***

While this book is certainly not the best teen book I've ever read, and does have some serious flaws, I found it fairly enjoyable. I like the characters, and I'm interested enough to want to know what happens to them next.

But let's talk about some of its issues.

First, the Silent Brotherhood. Dear Ms. Clare: Don't introduce a character or group as the most powerful member(s) of your society, the one(s) you turn to when nothing else works, and then have them be unable to do anything to solve whatever problem you present them with. Certainly don't do it in the first half of your book, and for the love of whatever, don't do it three times. I mean, honestly. As a result of their incapability of fixing any of the problems brought to them, the Brotherhood really just came across as filler. I assume (hope) they'll play some kind of role later in the series, but their introduction was very poorly handled.

Next, Renwick's Assylum? Really? That's all I have to say about that.

And then there are the twists. If you don't want to read about them, this is your last chance to stop reading. I think it was pretty much right from the first time Valentine is explained that I figured out the first part of the big twist: that Clary's mother was his wife and that he was therefore Clary's father. And if I hadn't figured it out then, when it's stated that she was his wife, I truly can't imagine anyone not figuring out the rest of it. So it's always kind of irritating when something is telegraphed that obviously, but not revealed until a good three quarters of the way through. I'm not sure how it might have been made less obvious; maybe there wasn't a way. But there's more to that twist, that is at least marginally less obvious, so maybe this one could have been handled by simply fully revealing it earlier, and leaving the rest of it to be the surprise.

As for that part, which is that Jace is also Valentine and Jocelyn's offspring, I did start to suspect that while I waited for the "Clary, I am your father" revelation to be confirmed, and I'll admit that it threw me off for a bit, because I started to wonder if I was wrong about Clary's parentage, because, and here's the really crazy part, that would mean that Jace and Clary are brother and sister. And as you might have guessed from reading the blurb if you've ever read another book, ew. So I started to suspect that if my new theory was right, then my first theory couldn't be.

Then theory #1 was confirmed. Valentine is Clary's father. So I figured that he couldn't be Jace's father, and that certain things were just coincidences. But then, nope. That part's true too. So now the pair who have enjoyed some pretty high-chemistry steamy make-out sessions are actually siblings. Say it again with me folks: ew.

So the upshot is that while she did have me momentarily doubting my conclusions, generally, her whole major shocking twist was ridiculously obvious. I know it's a teen book, and those do tend to be a bit more transparent than most adult books (at least those worth reading), but there has to have been some way of making some of this less glaringly obvious. Because of course, the other problem with things being so blatant is that it makes your characters seem just plain stupid, which is also unfortunate.

Ah well. As I said, I'm curious to know what happens next, so I'll keep reading, and really, I'm still pretty sure that some or all of all that twisty stuff will still get turned on its head. Because honestly, if the plan is for Jace and Clary to really and truly be siblings, why on earth would you make such a point of how amazing their kisses were? If that was going to stand, I'd be inclined to tone down some of the more obvious clues, and make one of the subtler ones be some kind of lack of chemistry. So even if they did kiss, they'd bump teeth or something, and it would just be more awkward and disappointing than they might have expected. But with the heat flowing between those two, I really don't think they're going to stay related. I'll keep you posted.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures - Vincent Lam

2011-08-10T21:16:00.000-04:00

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is an astonishing literary debut, a collection of mature and intricate stories connected through the relationships that develop among a group of young doctors as they move from the challenges of med school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evac missions, and terrifying new viruses.

Vincent Lam holds in delicate and skilful tension black humour, investigations of both common and extraordinary moral dilemmas, and a sometimes shockingly realistic and matter-of-fact portrait of today's medical profession.

Short stories are not really my favourite type of reading, but this was here, and I'd heard good things about it, so I read it. It was actually really good, despite having won a Canadian literary award. I found almost all the stories very interesting and quite compelling.

However. It still had the various issues that make me not really care for the short story as a form. Although you do get some insight, in the context of whatever the current situation being painted is, you don't really get to know the characters. And the lack of closure just irritates me. On one hand, that's kind of a neat device in a medical kind of context, because doctors send patients on their way, either home or to another doctor, all the time. More often than not, they don't really get to have any closure on those patients. So in that respect, I didn't mind it. But a little closure on the doctors themselves, and their life situations, would have been good. For example, in one story, a couple of the doctors become SARS patients, and get pretty sick. We know one of them survives, because he appears in a later story. But the other one? The last we hear is that he's in critical condition. Does he make it? We don't know. And that bothers me.

So the upshot here is that if, like me, you don't really care for short stories, you'll probably think these are pretty darn good anyway. And if you do like short stories, this should definitely be on your list.

Beethoven's Hair - Russell Martin

2011-08-09T14:28:00.000-04:00

As Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer. In those days, it was customary to snip a lock of hair as a keepsake, and this Hiller did a day after Beethoven's death. By the time he was buried, Beethoven's head had been nearly shorn by the many people who similarly had wanted a lasting memento of the great man. Such was his powerful effect on all those who had heard his music.

For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller family relic, and perhaps was destined to end up sequestered in a bank vault, until it somehow found its way to Gilleleje, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, during the darkest days of the Second World War. There, it was given to a local doctor, Kay Fremming, who was deeply involved in the effort to help save hundreds of hunted and frightened Jews. Who gave him the hair, and why? And what was the fate of those refugees, holed up in the attic of Gilleleje's church?

After Fremming's death, his daughter assumed ownership of the lock, and eventually consigned it for sale at Sotheby's, where two American Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevara, purchased it in 1994. Subsequently, they and others instituted a series of complex forensic tests in the hope of finding the probable causes of the composer's chronically bad health, his deafness, and the final demis that Ferdinand Hiller had witnessed all those years ago. The results, revealed for the first time here, are startling, and are the most compelling explanation yet offered for why one of the foremost musicians the world has ever known was forced to spend much of his life in silence.

Although this book had an interesting story to tell, I had some issues with the way Martin chose to tell it.

For starters, the structure of the book was a little off-putting. He alternated chapters concerning the journey and fate of the hair with chapters about Beethoven's life, and I found that kind of jarring, somehow. I also found that he repeated himself a lot, and went into greater detail about seemingly minor incidents than felt necessary. Frankly, a lot of it felt like filler. This book could easily have been half the length, or perhaps just a feature article in a decent magazine.

One such example is the whole Gilleleje story. Denmark and its people were truly heroic during WWII, I will acknowledge. The story of how, as a country, they accepted Nazi rule up to a point, but when the line was crossed, pretty much unanimously stood up and said "No way. Not cool," and proceeded to help get hundreds of Jews out of the country to safety in Sweden is remarkable and really inspiring. It's the kind of story that helps restore your faith in humanity after so much else in the world shatters it, and I'm glad to have been made more aware of it. However, I think it was given more importance in this story than it really needed. I was particularly vexed by the oft-repeated notion that the lock played some kind of key role in the Gilleleje escape. Yes, it somehow made its way there, and once there, was given to the doctor, but to say that it played a significant role almost implies that Dr. Fremming wouldn't have helped otherwise, or maybe even would have deliberately hindered, and I just don't think that's true. He was there, he was helping, and someone happened to give him this thing. I understand that it's a step in the hair's journey, and that understanding that step would be very interesting to those directly involved with the hair, but I feel like it was given more importance than it really merited, simply because it's a mystery.

And finally, I found his writing style odd. For one thing, he seemed to feel it was necessary in the "history of the hair" chapters to use the pluperfect tense. I don't know why he felt this way, but I think it was a bod choice. For starters, it adds unnecessary complication to all your sentences, and usually renders them less clear, so that's a mark against it. It also leaves you with nowhere to go when you want to refer to something father back than your baseline. And it's one of those tenses that is hard to use consistently when it's your main tense. Some verbs and sentence constructions just sound very weird with that tense, and Martin got around that by simply using the simple past in those cases. Which is inconsistent, and frankly, just plain sloppy writing.

His use of adverbs is also unusual. I understand that there are those who are fanatical supporters of the ideal of no split infinitives, and that's fine. But there's no cause I'm aware of not to split the auxiliary verb from the main one. In fact, the Oxford Online specifically states that the adverb should fall between the auxiliary verb and the main verb. I don't have a US style manual handy (Chicago online requires a subscription), so I don't know what the deal is there, but in any case, my point is simply that Martin's insistence on putting his adverbs before his auxiliary verbs is weird and awkward to read, making me stumble pretty much every time I came to one.

The upshot is that while this book and its subject matter were interesting, I wish they'd been tackled by a better writer.

Little Hanten

2011-08-05T07:05:00.000-04:00

Due to my chiropractor being of the persuasion who didn't want to find out ahead of time what kind of baby she was having, I had intended to give her a nice, gender-neutral green sweater. But then I didn't end up seeing her for long enough that she went and had the baby, who turned out to be a girl. So I thought I might as well save the green sweater for the next gender-unknown baby I have to knit for, and go ahead and give the chiro-baby the pink one I had going on.

My chiropractor liked it a lot.

Pattern: Little Hanten, by Cheryl Oberle
Yarn: Studioloo Foot Fetish in Little Girls
Needles: 3.75mm, plus a crochet hook for the ties. Probably the same diameter, but I can't be positive. Could also be one size smaller.

Mods: I didn't take its picture, of course, but I changed the back. As written, the back was just straight garter stitch. I decided to do a centre panel of straight garter, and two side panels of the zig-zagged garter. It doesn't create quite as smooth a line because of the seams on the back, but I like it anyway.

Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

2011-08-02T11:21:00.001-04:00

Nearly a generation has passed since the first pioneers landed, but the transformation of Mars to an Earthlike planet has just begun. The plan is opposed by those determined to preserve the planet's hostile, barren beauty. Led by rebels like Peter Clayborne, these young people are the first generation of children born on Mars. They will be joined by original settlers Maya Toitovna, Simon Fraser, and Sax Russell. Against this cosmic backdrop, passions, rivalries, and friendships explode in a story as spectacular as the planet itself.

OK, seriously, blurb writer? Although the terraforming debate did kind of form a bigger part of this story than it did in Red Mars, it's still really not the main issue. And Peter Clayborne? Sure, he's around, but this story is so not even close to being about him, and he's certainly no leader of any anti-terraforming rebel group. It just really pisses me off when a blurb bears so little resemblance to the book it's allegedly describing that it might as well be about another book entirely.

Aside from that, Robinson is starting to frustrate me. He actually has quite a compelling story going on, with some very interesting socio-political commentary, but he buries it so deep in technical details and geographic minutiae that it's really hard to get into. On one hand, the technical stuff is kind of interesting. No miraculous Heisenberg compensators here. Every solution to the technical problems is, as far as I can tell, plausible, provided one has the unimaginably vast resources required. And that is pretty cool. But he goes overboard, and really, that remains the biggest complaint I have about this trilogy. I'm interested in the story and the people, and I certainly will read the final volume, but the details are killing me.

I also have to point out possibly the most hilarious simile ever: "... the new elevator cable rising out of it like an elevator cable ..." (99). The only thing I can figure is that, stumped for a good simile, he initially wrote that with the intention of coming up with something good later, and then forgot about it, which is understandable. I'm afraid I can't really forgive his editor for missing it, though.

In any case, I will read Blue Mars and I will hope that it will go in a different direction then the first two, which is some ways, read like two slightly different imaginings of basically the same thing (new society forming, leading to revolution, ending with the survivors escaping doom and heading off to somewhere safer). I will not bother to hope for fewer technical details.

Weekend WiPs

2011-07-30T13:12:00.000-04:00

First off, here is what's left of the first sweater I knitted last year and my dad's hat, post-frogging:

The hat will be re-made sometime before winter hits again (this time with a pom-pom!), and the sweater? I like the pattern, but I think it needs a sturdier yarn. This yarn has fantastic drape, so I think it would be better used for something a bit drapier. Still to be frogged: Don's Christmas sweater, for one. It has a few minor but fatal flaws (most notably, the neckline) that mean he pretty much doesn't wear it, so I'll be frogging that one and knitting him a new one with the yarn. I might keep the cable pattern, but I expect I'll apply it to a different sweater. I'm not looking forward to frogging that sucker, though. Finding all the pitch black ends? Oh, it's going to suck. And I have a gorgeous lacy shrug that I didn't quite get the proportions right on, so I have lots of arm length, but not enough breadth for my unusually broad back. I tried some pretty aggressive blocking, but it's just not going to work. A little more circumference for my hands to fit through will also be helpful, I think.

I have two things actively in progress, though. First is a top for me:

I was about this far along, and then decided I wanted the lace a little looser, so I ripped back and went up a few needle sizes. I think this is better. I did kind of enjoy the subtle spirals I was getting with the tonal variation at my old gauge, so it's too bad those went away as a result of the new needles, but the yarn's gorgeous either way, so I'm not too heart-broken over it.

And this bodum cozy for Don:

Because I drink my coffee heavily laced with hot chocolate, I usually just use instant coffee, because it just works better. That leaves just Don to drink straight up coffee. There's no sense in brewing a pot most of the time, as most of it will get tossed. This bodum is a good solution, as it holds about two cups' worth, a not unreasonable quantity for most days when he's at home. The problem is that the second cup gets cold before he gets to it, so he usually just makes himself one cup of instant at a time. Yuck. Enter the cozy. It won't provide the same level of insulation as a nice stainless steel thermos, but we're hoping it will do for long enough to drink one cup and move on to the next. Because no one should have to drink straight up instant coffee.

And one final thing to show you:

This is just a sneak peek at what will be a hostess gift for my aunt whom we'll be visiting next weekend. Hopefully she'll let me take some modelled shots, but failing that, their house is beautiful with beautiful surroundings, so whether she models it or I model it or a tree models it, I'll definitely get some proper FO shots next weekend. In fact, I might bring a bunch of my as-yet un-photographed FOs along just for the pretty backdrops that will be available. Hm...

Maximus

2011-07-29T18:05:00.000-04:00

OK, so he's not an FO, but allow me to introduce the newest member of our family:

This is Maximus. He's hard to photograph, but believe me when I say that he's absolutely adorable in person.

We've been catless since Mr. Tickles died last fall, and after a string of let's-get-a-cat-oh-no-wait-we-can't-until-x, we finally got ourselves out to the humane society. We visited with a few cats, but this big beautiful boy was very compelling. He was gorgeous, not too spastic, and super friendly. This last was especially important to us, as we'd both gotten very used Tickles' neediness, and the concept of getting a standoffish cat was not very appealing to us.

But as you can see, Maximus is not standoffish. Since we brought him home, he's been either on us, next to us, or close to us the whole time, and had quite a lot to say to me when I came home today after leaving him alone for the five hours between when Don left and I got home. He's still getting used to this new situation, but I'm hoping he might eventually be convinced to spoon at night and/or for daytime naps. Not that he's not already pretty darn comfortable with us, as evidenced by his very frequent exposed belly:

In any case, we wanted a sucky cat, and my goodness, did we ever get one. If you're willing to scratch his head forever, I'm pretty sure he would sit in your lap forever.

I had kind of hoped that whatever cat we brought home would suit the name Zeugma (something of a word-nerdy inside joke/obsession among my translation classmates), and was all set to convince Don that it was a good name, but he came with the name Maximus, and, well, he's a great big beast (honestly, between Tickles and most of the cats my parents have had, I just don't even know what we would do with a small cat), and Maximus just suited him. Maybe if we eventually get a second one, he can be Zeugma.

He has all his claws, and so far has given no indication that that's going to be a problem. I've been watching for signs of scratching, largely so I can determine what sort of scratching device he'll want, because it is good to have something for him, but there's been nothing so far. He does knead like a mofo (although he appears to be sleeping, he's kneading in the photo above), but he does so quite gently. He's yet to break skin, and although it'll probably eventually require reupholstering the couch, it'll take some time before that's an issue, I think, especially if we keep him properly trimmed.

In any case, this is Maximus. We're very happy to have him, and I think he's pretty happy to have us. Here's hoping for as long and as cuddly a life as his predecessor enjoyed.

The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

2011-07-25T21:40:00.000-04:00

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien's World. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils.

The Silmarillion is the history of the rebellion of Fëanor and his kindred against the gods, their exile from Valinor and return to Middle-earth and their war, hopeless despite their heroism, against the great Enemy. Included in the book are several shorter works. The Ainulindalë is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, which are narrated in The Lord of the Rings.

Although this book was not quite as dense as I'd been led to believe, it was a bit of a slog. There are a lot of names of people and places to keep at least some track of, and there definitely are parts where I lost track of who was pissed off with whom and about what at any given time.

But between the Tolkiens Jr. and Sr. and Guy Gavriel Kay, they really did do a great job of writing a credible creation legend. There's a very distinct feeling when reading a people's myths or legends that is very different from reading a standard novel. It's closely linked to the oral tradition, of course, so those legends tend to have a certain rhythm and cadence to them that most prose does not. I've commented before about how lyrical Kay's writing is (some especially so, like Fionavar), and after reading this, I kind of wondered if that voice and style arose out of having worked on this book, or had Christopher Tolkien seen some of his writing prior to that, and picked him to help because of his ability to write like that. Questions that will certainly remain unanswered, but in any case, between the three of them, they really did manage to capture the feeling of a story that has been passed through generations, rather than one that was just written down from the mind of one guy.

That very nature contributed to making the book difficult to get through, though. Stuff like that, while it may be written down for posterity in our age of the written word, is really meant to be spoken (or even even sung), and doesn't necessarily translate into riveting writing, even when you're interested in what's going on.

But it was interesting. The history of the LOTR world, and some of the people in it, is neat to learn more about. I'll admit that I was more interested in the characters I'd actually heard of, and kind of would have liked more about the rings. The treatment the rings got was more or less as cursory an overview as what's related in LOTR, and I thought more details would have been good. But all in all, for a story that spans hundreds and hundreds of years, it was reasonably compelling, and did provide me with a few little facts and trivia that I didn't know prior to reading this.

I also find it interesting that while the Blogger spellcheck flags such things as "Silmarillion," "Galadriel" and "Elrond," the Chrome spell check accepts them.

Phone Sock

2011-07-23T07:52:00.000-04:00

I know. It's not Friday. I've failed at this already. Oh well.

So, I recently got a new phone, and it has a touch screen, so I thought I should make something to protect it while it spends much of its life stuffed in my purse with such friendly items as keys.

And I decided that this would be the perfect use for the rather minute quantity of yarn I had left over from making my ankle warmers. So the phone sock was born:

I initially was going to start with a Turkish cast on, but then I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to learn to graft. So I pretty much knit a tube until I ran out of yarn, which more or less matched the size of my phone.

Actually, when I started, I wasn't sure I would have enough yarn, so I experimented with various widths of stripes, alternating with some random cheap-ass mystery yarn I had that happened to match the blue of this yarn almost exactly (and be close to the right weight). But then I kept having too much of the good stuff left over, and since the point of this exercise was to use up as much of the yarny goodness as possible, I ripped it out and started over at least three times. Fortunately, it's tiny and simple, so this did not represent a significant investment of time or effort. I did use the mystery yarn to make a ribbed "cuff" on it, which has worked out pretty much perfectly.

The grafting was something I needed to learn for another project (which I will show you once I get the thing blocked properly), so I figured I might as well learn on something that it really wouldn't matter if I somehow screwed it up. I needn't have worried. Turns out it's tedious, but really very simple. So that proceeded with no problems.

Here we see the little ears that result from the fact that the sock is basically square, while the phone has rounded corners. I suppose I could have done a few decreases to get a more rounded top, but what can I say? I like of like the little ears.

Pattern: None. It's a tube.
Yarn: Manspun Untastic! Merino/Cashmere/Nylon Sock Yarn (one of the Christmas gifts from my brother. I adore this yarn. It's very very soft, and I love the colours. I loved all three of the skeins my brother bought me, but this one is for sure my favourite. I hope he buys me more yarn next year!)
Needles: Can't remember. Small dpns.

The Meaning of Everything - Simon Winchester

2011-07-22T12:54:00.001-04:00

From the best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map that Changed the World, and Krakatoa comes a truly wonderful celebration of the English language and of its unrivalled treasure house, the Oxford English Dictionary.

Writing with marvellous brio, Winchester first serves up a lightning history of the English language - "so vast, so sprawling, so wonderfully unwieldy" - and pays homage to the great dictionary makers, from "the irredeemably famous" Samuel Johnson to the "short, pale, mug, and boastful" schoolmaster from New Hartford, Noah Webster. He then turns his unmatched talent for storytelling to the making of this most venerable of dictionaries. In this fast-paced narrative, the reader will discover lively portraits of such key figures as the brilliant but tubercular first editor Herbert Coleridge (grandson of the poet), the colorful, boisterous Frederick Furnivall (who left the project in shambles), and James Augustus Henry Murray, who spent a half-century bringing the project to fruition. Winchester lovingly describes the nuts-and-bolts of dictionary making - how unexpectedly tricky the dictionary entry for marzipan was, or how fraternity turned out so much longer and monkey so much more ancient that [sic] anticipated - and how bondmaid was left out completely, its slips found lurking under a pile of books long after the B-volume had gone to press.

We visit the ugly corrugated iron structure that Murray grandly dubbed the Scriptorium - the Scrippy or the Shed, as locals called it - and meet some of the legion of volunteers, from Fitzedward Hall, a bitter hermit obsessively devoted to the OED, to WC Minor, whose story is one of dangerous madness, ineluctable sadness, and ultimate redemption.

The Meaning of Everything is a scintillating account of the creation of the greatest monument ever erected to a living language. Simon Winchester's supple, vigorous prose illuminates this dauntingly ambitious project - a seventy-year odyssey to create the grandfather of all word-books, the world's unrivalled uber-dictionary.

Excessive superfluousness and use of adverbs aside, I can't really argue with the blurb writer's apparent adoration of Winchester's writing. I enjoyed it in Krakatoa, and I loved it even more here, probably because his love of the English language is so apparent all the way through. A purist historian would probably prefer that that adoration for the subject matter be a little less obvious, but I think the passion is great, especially for the kind of subject matter that most people simply take for granted. Meeting a kindred spirit, if only through reading his book, just gives me delightful warm fuzzies.

I also enjoy all the little asides he includes in his books. Little bits of information not strictly necessary, but that give you added perspective, or just a quirky bit of amusement. Even aside from those, his writing is far from dry, but these bits help to make things extra real and vivid, by providing details you might otherwise only know if you knew the involved people personally.

I think I had one or two less positive things to point out, but I actually finished this book a week ago, so the minor complaints have floated away, and I'm mostly just left with the sense that I really enjoyed this book. I have The Professor and the Madman on The List already, but I think I might add Winchester's other books as well, whether I'm interested in the subject matter or not. I think they'll be good reads, and I know I'll learn things.

In some ways, this may be the most word-nerdy reading experience I've ever had, because not only did I read a book about making a dictionary, but the whole way through, I found myself desperately wishing that I could have been alive to be a part of the process, and almost a touch disappointed that the OED is so much what it was meant to be that there's never likely to be a need to start from scratch and make a whole new one. Certainly not during my lifetime. Ah well.

In any case, if you have any interest in the subject matter, you should definitely read this book. And even if you don't, you'd probably enjoy it anyway. Well, maybe. At the end of the day, it is still all about a dictionary. But I hearted it.

Never Too Young for Argyle

2011-07-15T18:48:00.001-04:00

I have a fairly significant backlog of finished projects to show you, so I thought that starting a Friday FO tradition (at least for a while) might be a good idea. So here's one.

Pattern: It's based on Baby Boy Vest and Bow Tie, by Patti Ghezzi
Yarn: Punta Yarns Merisock Hand Painted in colour 73
Needles: 3mm dpns

Mods: For one thing, mine is a much finer gauge than the pattern called for. I didn't realize until after I'd bought the yarn that their sock yarn was more of a worsted sock yarn, but decided to go for it anyway.

I also, as you undoubtedly noticed if you checked out the original pattern, changed the cable. I didn't really like the one in the pattern, and thought it would be cool to make a full-on argyle sweater vest. Strictly speaking, it's not quite argyle, as that would probably need at least one secondary set of cross-hatched lines. I thought about it, and considered adding them in the form of knit stitches through the purl background of the cables, but decided it would be too much of a headache. Maybe some other time. In any case, I found the cable pattern... somewhere, and worked it into the front of the sweater vest.

I also changed the bow tie a bit. The pattern called for the middle to be cinched in with just a wrap, but I opted to knit a little strip instead. Also, the bow tie is meant to be affixed with a pin, but what can I say? I'm hesitant to put a pin on a baby, although I'm sure it would be fine. Velcro wasn't going to work unless there was a specific shirt to always be worn with this set. For a fraction of a second before I realized the complete and utter NO of this idea, I considered magnets, but then my saner head kicked in. After consultation with my mother, I opted to make a small buttonhole on the back of the centre strip, that could be slipped onto the top button of whatever shirt the child might be wearing with his sweater vest. I haven't the foggiest if that has turned out to work, but perhaps I'll check with the mother and see if she's tried it. I'll update if I get an answer.

Notes: If I did it again, I'd probably want to remember that cables cinch fabric in a bit, and therefore work the front over a few more stitches than the back so they'd theoretically end up even, but I'm not too concerned. I might also be crazy enough to try to extra bits in the argyle pattern next time. But we'll see. Generally, though, I like how this turned out, and the mother seemed quite pleased. As well as asking about the bow tie, I'll have to see if she has pictures.

Oh, and a note on the colour: it appears to be absolutely impossible to photograph this colourway accurately. If you check out all the photos together on my rav page, you'll see that none of them look the same, and none of them are quite right. Ah well.

On Sweet Teeth

2011-07-12T14:12:00.000-04:00

In addition to the usual ways in which one gets to know a new work environment and new co-workers, one thing that always eventually seems to come up for me is the issue of sweets.

Inevitably, someone (sometimes me -- I like baking) brings in something sweet. Donuts, candy, baked goods of one sort or another, etc. And more often than not, I do not partake. This, almost as inevitably, leads to astonishment on the part of my co-workers, and amazement over my incredible willpower.

But here's the thing: willpower has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'm simply not interested. I eat desserts from time to time, but usually only if it's something consisting almost entirely of chocolate. Sometimes I might find myself in the mood to eat something sweet even if it doesn't conform to the above, but most of the time, the fact that it's sweet and it's there is not reason enough for me to want to eat it. But most people never seem to be able to really wrap their heads around this, and instead credit me with far more virtue than I'll ever have for resisting the temptation.

Honestly, though, it's unwarranted. Expressing amazement that I can resist a cheesecake is a little like expressing amazement that someone can resist, say, six-month-old fish. It's not hard to resist six-month-old fish because it's simply not appealing, and you really would have no desire to eat it. Especially when you're not even hungry, and the only possible reason for eating it is because it's there. That's perhaps a touch stronger than how I feel about cheesecake, but it's the same idea. Refraining from eating something I don't want takes no willpower at all, and just as other people find what they insist on calling my "willpower" baffling, I find it just as baffling that they can't seem to accept this.

Because what often follows is inexplicabale attempts to find some sweet thing that will make me lose my "willpower," frequently accompanied by noticeable disappointment when they fail. "But it's a chocolate cheesecake!" they wail. Or it's caramel cookies with chocolate chips. Or chocolate-dipped sugar cubes. Or whatever. But they're all missing the point, on two fronts. First, they're not taking me at my word when I say that it has to consist almost entirely of chocolate (with limited sugar) if I'm going to be interested. And secondly, they're still labouring under the delusion that missing out on these desserts that I'm not interested in eating is somehow upsetting to me.

I appreciate that this comes from a wanting-to-please place, and it's very, well, sweet of them, but honestly, I'm perfectly pleased at going about my life not eating sweet things. So when you have a craving, by all means, make whatever you're in the mood for, and don't worry about me. Or if you really don't want me to not have anything to snack on while you enjoy your cake, bring me some chips.

Because a salt tooth? That, I have.

Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

2011-07-11T19:11:00.000-04:00

John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is to give Mars and Earthlike atmosphere. They will place giant satellite mirrors in Martian orbit to reflect light to the planet's surface. Black dust sprinkled on the polar caps will capture warmth and melt the ice. And massive tunnels, kilometers in depth, will be drilled into the Martian mantle to create stupendous vents of hot gases. Against this backdrop of epic upheaval, rivalries, loves, and friendships will form and fall to pieces — for there are those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from ever being changed.

Gotta love blurbs that seem to be written by people who haven't read the book. This blurb implies that the ultimate "upheaval" that occurs is the result of the clash between the Martian purists and the terraformers, and really, that conflict has nothing whatsoever to do with it. But anyway.

There was a lot of sci in this sci-fi, and all the technical details did get a bit dry at times. Not to Arthur C Clarke levels or anything, but enough to be a bit tedious occasionally. There was also what seemed to me an inordinate amount of detail about the Martian geography. It didn't really add anything for me to know exactly where on the planet any particular event was occurring, or exactly how far it was from another location, etc.

Under all that, though, this book definitely had some interesting things going on. In addition to the straight-up adventure of colonizing a new planet, this book also goes into the environmental impact of terraforming, the social aspects of isolated colonization, and the political sides of claiming a new planet and sending people to live there. Unfortunately, much of the book felt like it was just hashing over all that stuff to the detriment of much real plot development until the last maybe third.

That said, by the time I got to the end, I definitely wanted to know what will happen next. And with any luck, having gotten most of the set up taken care of in this book, the next book will get moving a little quicker. Although most of my favourite characters are dead, so I hope he's got some new good ones of his sleeve.

In any case, it's a classic, it gives you a lot to think about should you feel so inclined, and eventually, there's a decent story going on.

Coffee, Tea or Me? - Trudy Baker & Rachel Jones with Donald Bain

2011-07-10T19:07:00.001-04:00

The '60s were the golden age of high-style flying. In this outrageous memoir, you'll find the true story of what flying the friendly skies was really like, written by two audaciously outspoken young ladies who lived, and loved, the stewardess life. From the captain who's as subtle as a 747 when he's on the make to a passenger who mistakes the overhead luggage rack for an upper berth, from the names of celebrities who are a pleasure to serve (and some surprising notables on the "bad guy" list) to the origins of some naughty stereotypes — Spaniards are the best lovers, actors the most foul-mouthed — this hilarious jet-age journal offers a gold mine of anecdotes from the aerial and amorous lives of those busty, lusty, adventuresome young "stews" of the swinging '60s.

I'm not sure what I think of this book. It's extremely dated, of course, and doesn't pretend otherwise, and therefore does have to be taken in that spirit, but at the same time... it's just so dated, and parts of it are, frankly, hard for a 21st-century girl to swallow.

For starters, there's the rampant sexism. It's insane. Basically reality at the time I guess, but insane nonetheless, and I'm just not sure how to take it. The book is an embellished version of truth, and I have no doubt that any number of parts in it are pure fabrication (Canoe dates with Montreal Mounties? I'll get to that in a bit.), but any knowledge of history will indicate that much of the attitudes, at least, and probably much of the behaviour, toward the stewardesses was probably pretty bang on. And that's a little crazy. I'm reasonably confident, for example, that no pilot could get away with "initiating" a newbie by having them repeatedly come into the cockpit and push a button located in such a spot as to force her boobs against his head these days. And that if one tried to grab an attendant's ass during a flight, that it would not end well for one. So the notion of being expected to put up with such behaviour? Ick.

What was also icky was the fairly blatant racism and homophobia in certain parts. There's one chapter on men of various nationalities, and it's pretty much just a list of offensive stereotypes. Maybe they were still considered at least vaguely original at the time, but now it just felt awkward, like being at a party with someone who just won't stop telling offensive jokes, but no one wants to be the one to step up and tell them to stop, so everyone's just chuckling nervously.

And then the homophobia. OK, I know that attitudes at the time were very different from those (at least, the enlightened ones) of today, but the chapter about gay and lesbian flyers seriously skeeved me out. Particularly the discussion of a particular gay passenger who was pretty roundly ridiculed when it was revealed that he was reading gay porn. Side note: gay porn, like straight porn, is not really appropriate reading material for air travel, as far as I'm concerned, so the gentleman in question doesn't entirely get a pass. On the other hand, one gets the impression, reading this book, that if some dude were enjoying some nice, vanilla straight porn on a flight, no one would object. And if that's the case, then there's really nothing any worse about checking out gay porn in that setting. (Side side note: I'm now wondering how many people's work filters won't allow them to read this post. Heh.) But when the narrator describes the material in question as some of the "sickest" pictures she's ever seen, it made me uncomfortable. As did the statement that as sucky as it is when a woman has to sit next to a rather forward individual and put up with his passes, it must be even more horrifically dreadful for a man to have his manliness affronted by the same from another man. Frankly, I don't even know which part of that statement is worse. Like I said, product of the times, and I get that, but still. I did not enjoy reading that chapter.

On a lighter note, the mounties in Montreal. I'm not upset by the stereotype that Canada is overrun with Mounties and we all have canoes (nothing else to do on a date up here before you retire to his igloo to hook up, right?). As I've suggested, there are much worse stereotypes in this book. I'm more annoyed by the complete lack of originality of it, and the sheer nonsense of it. If only they'd picked a city in a different part of Canada, I'd just roll my eyes. But as it is, I'm afraid I have to go here: Mounties? In Montreal? Really? Given that Montreal has its own police department, I think you'd be very hard pressed to find a Mountie there — unless you count the RCMP officers who go to their desk jobs in business suits. And as for canoeing... I don't think I've ever even seen a canoe in Montreal. I'm sure there are Montrealers who have canoes, just as there are Ottawans who do. But the odds of finding a Mountie in Montreal who has a canoe and thinks paddling the St. Laurent is a good date activity? I think they're pretty slim. And I'm sure the dates they supposedly went on in Boston, Maine, Seattle, etc. sound just as ridiculous to the residents of those areas.

The upshot is that while this book had its amusing moments, much of it was just too... too. But I can certainly see how it would appeal to the incredibly chauvinistic Grade 12 English teacher who originally brought it to my attention.

Nine

2011-07-07T14:54:00.000-04:00

OK, to start, I don't really understand why this movie is called Nine. Initially, I'd assumed it was because of his nine women. But there are only seven. So maybe it's that the movie the character is trying to make is his ninth? Or that the child version of himself who appears throughout is apparently nine years old? Or maybe it's his seven women, plus his adult self plus his child self? I don't know.

The movie's real problem, though, is that it doesn't feel coherent. It's the sort of movie that adds up to less than the sum of its parts. It has a great cast, and features some fantastic performances from all of them, but the whole thing still somehow manages to feel disjointed, and thus falls flat. I watched a featurette on the DVD (part of my quest to figure out the title), in which someone mentioned that they didn't actually write the thing until it was cast, because they really wanted to create the characters around the actors who would be playing them. And I think that's a big part of the problem. Don't write a story around your cast (maybe around one, or even two, but not around seven people); write a great story, and if your cast is as worthy as you must figure they are if you're willing to write around them, they'll sell it.

So yeah. The cinematography (as far as I'm able to judge, which is not far) was great, the choreography was thoroughly enjoyable, and the performances (up to and including the singing and dancing) were universally excellent. But the movie still pretty much sucked.

Adventures in yarn: still happening, despite appearances

2011-07-04T07:39:00.000-04:00

So, perhaps you've noticed that I haven't blogged any knitting in, oh, a while. The reason for this is that I started to feel a little... disheartened. I felt like every time I'd go to talk about something I'd finished, there was always a list of things that were wrong with it, things that didn't work, things I wish I'd done differently, etc. I don't know if that's a result of my still being relatively new to this, and so not being super able yet to recognize when something wasn't going to be what I wanted it to and fix it, or if maybe I'm just being excessively perfectionist about things, but in any case, it led to my not blogging about knitted things for a while, or even keeping Ravelry up to date with them.

None of which means I haven't been knitting anything. This right here:

is a pile of stuff I've been working on, some of it in progress, some of it finished but still unblogged. There are also two things blocking downstairs, and one that has been finished and gifted already.

So hopefully I can get my mojo back and share stuff again, even when it's not perfect. And hopefully an item or two will actually turn out perfect. Oh, and expect 3 things, I think, to get frogged and started again. Because at the end of the day, if we're going to the trouble of making ourselves these things, they should be right. And the nature of our craft allows us to make them right even if we screw them up the first time. So I shall be taking advantage of this fact on my dad's hat, my husband's sweater, and a sweater I made myself a year ago and never blogged the finished item.

Marriage, a History - Stephanie Coontz

2011-07-02T10:14:00.001-04:00

Marriage today is held up as a blissful haven of love and friendship, sex and stability. We long for the gold standard, the traditional marriage, but marriage turns out to have a checkered past. This real look at what people think of as "traditional" finally explains why so many people are so anxious about marriage.

In this groundbreaking book, award-winning historian Stephanie Coontz takes us on a journey from the marital intrigues of ancient Babylon to the sexual torments of Victorian lovers to the current debates over the meaning and future of marriage. She provides the definitive story of marriage's evolution from the arranged unions common since the dawn of civilization into the intimate, sexually fulfilling but volatile relationships of today.

...

Marriage, a History is the one book you need to understand not only the nuances of modern marriage but also the debates over gay marriage, "living together," and divorce. Stephanie Coontz shatters dozens of myths about the past and future of married life and shows us why marriage, though more fragile today, can be more rewarding than ever before.

This was a really interesting book. One of the biggest things I learned from it was that the "traditional marriage" propaganda machine has to be one of the most successful ever, because although I certainly didn't buy into the notion that things had to stay that way just because they'd always been that way, I nonetheless did pretty much accept that it had more or less always been that way. But it really hasn't. The people who have been freaking out over how drastically marriage has changed from the "traditional" days of the 50s really need to become aware that that model really only existed for a few decades, and that marriage before that was just as vastly different and ever changing.

It provided a lot of food for thought, too. When I got married four years ago, I had concerns. Not because I wasn't sure I was right or anything, but because when you look around at all the other couples who presumably also thought they'd made the right choice, but end up divorced anyway, it's hard to find the confidence that you're right while they were all wrong. And sometimes I still think about that, and although things are good, it's only been four years, and there's still a lot of future ahead of us, and who knows what that will bring. In a way, this book simultaneously made me feel like divorce is more likely but also less horrifying. I'm not sure if that's good or not, but it does bring up a point made in this book: we expect so much of our marriages now, that it's kind of no wonder so many of them fail to live up to that. It's like marriage's evolution has consisted almost solely of adding expectations to it without taking any away. Initially, it was supposed to provide children and cooperation for various survival purposes. Then it was supposed to provide those things and last forever. Then it was supposed to be all that, plus your only sexual outlet (at least if you were a woman). Then you were supposed to love your partner on top of all that. These days, in addition to all that stuff, your partner is supposed to provide for pretty much all your emotional needs. It just doesn't seem that surprising that there's starting to be some trade-off. In some cases, people choose to pursue sexual avenues outside the prime relationship (either with permission or without). In other cases, it's that forever thing that goes by the wayside. And maybe that's not such a terrible thing. I can't quite go so far as to say it's desirable or anything, but I don't think it spells doom or anything. And if we're moving toward a more casual model of partnerships, well, it's been that way before. Why not again?

As for gay marriage, well, if you know me, you probably know that my stance on that is quite adamantly pro. And given the current state of marriage, I truly find it unfathomable that people disagree. I really do. These days, the only thing you really need opposite genders for is having babies, and if childlessness as a choice is becoming more and more accepted (and I can vouch that it is, at least among the people I encounter), then the ability to produce a child without outside assistance should not be a relevant factor in who can marry. I could go on, but suffice it to say that I have yet to hear a compelling argument against it that does anything to convince me.

Anyway, at the end of the day, this book could be a touch repetitive in some descriptions of marriage and its purposes, but was ultimately quite fascinating. I'd recommend it if you're interested in the subject matter.

One comment from other reviews, that is worth noting: this is a history of Western, especially white, marriage. It does not delve into other cultures' current marriage practices, so don't expect it to.

A Woman of Substance - Barbara Taylor Bradford

2011-06-24T07:01:00.000-04:00

On the brooding moors above a humble Yorkshire village stood Fairley Hall. There, Emma Harte, its oppressed but resourceful servant girl, acquired a shrewd determination. There, she honed her skills, discovered the meaning of treachery, learned to survive, to become a woman, and vowed to make her mark on the world.

In the wake of tragedy she rose from poverty to magnificent wealth as the iron-willed force behind a thriving international enterprise. As one of the richest women in the world, Emma Harte has almost everything she fought to hard to achieve — save for the dream of love, and for the passion of the one man she could never have.

Through two marriages, two devastating wars, and generations of secrets, Emma's unparalleled succes has come with a price. As greed, envy, and revenge consume those closest to her, the brilliant matriarch now finds herself poised to outwit her enemies, and to face the betrayals of the past with the same ingenious resolve that forged her empire.

36 pages of insufferably bad writing was enough to convince me that I would not make it through 910 pages of it. Everything described in such minute detail, with adverbs piled on adjectives piled on multiple subordinate clauses in every sentence. Everything told; nothing shown. It's maddening. A few reviews seem to suggest that it gets at least marginally better after the first section, but I just can't do it. I also gather that the story itself is half decent, so maybe if someone makes a mini-series or something, I'll watch it. But I cannot slog through this atrociously overwrought mess.

Incarceron - Catherine Fisher

2011-06-23T06:59:00.001-04:00

Incerceron is a prison unlike any other. Its inmates live not only in cells, but also in metal forests, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. The prison has been sealed for centuries, and only one man, legend says, has ever escaped.

Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, can't remember his childhood and believes he came from Outside Incarceron. He's going to escape, even though most inmates don't believe that Outside even exists. And then Finn finds a crystal key and through it, a girl named Claudia.

Claudia claims to live Outside — her father is the Warden of Incarceron and she's doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn escape, she will need his help in return.

But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know.

Because Incarceron is alive.

This was certainly an intriguing premise, about a pretty severely effed up society. Basically, while the prisoners exist in this highly technological (although we are talking centuries-old technology) prison, the Outside people live under a strict Protocol that demands adherence to a former time period, in dress, manner, architecture, everything. In other words, no new technology past whatever had been developed up to the specified era (which I can't quite name, I don't think. It's not really made clear at any point, which is fine.).

I enjoyed this book, but didn't dedicate a lot of thought to trying to figure it out. I just went with the flow, and figured that it would all become clear in due course, and I figure that's probably best, because there's a lot going on in it, and it doesn't all make sense initially. At the end of it, there are definitely still some questions, but there's more to the series, so that's OK. I will continue to read the series, but I have to admit that I didn't launch immediately into the second one as soon as I finished this one. I'm curious to know what happens next, but not desperate. Also, the longer I wait, the sooner the third book will be available, in case the second one leaves me more anxious.

There are a bunch of twists in this book, some more predictable than others. I have a feeling about one of the big ones, though, that seems to be supported by the blurb for book 2, that it may get twisted again.

I feel like I'm really not saying anything terribly insightful here. Frankly, I'm not sure it's that insightful a book. Maybe the second one will grab me harder.

Passion - Lauren Kate

2011-06-22T06:32:00.001-04:00

Luce would die for Daniel. And she has. Over and over again. Throughout time, Luce and Daniel have found each other, only to be painfully torn apart: Luce dead, Daniel left broken and alone. But perhaps it doesn't need to be that way...

Luce is certain that something — or someone — in a past life can help her in her present one. So she begins the most important journey in this lifetime... going back eternities to witness firsthand her romances with Daniel... and finally unlock the key to making their love last.

Cam and the legions of angels and Outcasts are desperate to catch Luce, but none are as frantic as Daniel. He chases Luce through their shared pasts, terrified of what might happen if she rewrites history.

Because their romance for the ages could go up in flames... forever.

This one was interesting, with all the glimpses into the past life, but it still felt a bit like more filler. As I said for the previous one, I really think these two books could have been combined into one. The last one was all introspection and questioning the relationship with Daniel, and this is really just a continuation of that theme, brought to its conclusion. A few of the lives could have been skipped, glossed over or shortened, and nothing crucial would have been lost. Instead we'll have a book 4, which is just not right.

Oh well.

Torment - Lauren Kate

2011-06-20T14:36:00.001-04:00

Hell on earth.

That's what it's like for Luce to be apart from her fallen angel boyfriend, Daniel.

It took them an eternity to find one another, but now he has told her he must go away. Just long enough to hunt down the Outcasts - immortals who want to kill Luce. Daniel hides Luce at Shoreline, a school on the rocky California coast with unusually gifted students: Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans.

At Shoreline, Luce learns what the Shadows are, and how she can use them as windows to her previous lives. Yet the more Luce learns, the more she suspects that Daniel hasn't told her everything. He's hiding something - something dangerous.

What if Daniel's version of the past isn't actually true? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

This book annoyed me more than the first one did, for a few reasons.

1. Oh my god, stop whining. I get that you're still in the honeymoon phase of the relationship. I even get that your love is so solumate-y and eternal that you'll be in the honeymoon stage forever. But seriously? Eighteen days. That's how long you have to be apart. Given that I spent most of the first two years of my relationship with my now-husband apart, I really can't muster up even a smidgen of sympathy for your eighteen-day separation. Especially since he visits practically every other day anyway. So seriously? STFU.

2. Communication. I realize that most writers can't seem to write a decent story about a relationship if they don't have poor communication as a basis for the central conflict. But sometimes it just gets old. I used to read plenty of trashy romances, and I still do sometimes, but as I've gotten older and have embarked on my own relationships, I've become more irritated by the protagonists' complete inability to just talk to each other. It's not actually that difficult, and it makes the relationship much, much better. So people in real life should do it, and people in books should do it too (it may be the easiest way to produce a conflict for your plot, but it's not the only way). Now, I realize that in this particular case, there are some things he can't tell her, and that's fine. So be it. But some things? For example, Daniel tells Luce repeatedly not to leave the school grounds. And much as I agree with the character who says that she shouldn't have to have it spelled out for her that there's a good (and obvious) reason for this, really, what the hell is wrong with Daniel that after she's made it abundantly clear that she does need it spelled out, he can't manage something simple like, "On campus, you're protected; off campus, you're not. So please stay on campus." Instead, we have her all pissy because he's being controlling, and him all frustrated because she won't stay on campus. A little communication would pretty much make this a non-issue.

3. All the angst. Do I want to be with the one who makes my soul burn with just a glance, or the one who makes me feel comfortable and normal? Over and over again. It grew tiresome.

That said, although the repetitiveness of it was annoying, I actually liked the fact that she questioned the relationship. I'm willing to accept the whole soulmate thing, especially from a book that is pretty much entirely predicated on this premise, but I also liked that she wasn't willing to just accept it, no questions asked. I liked that she was willing to consider the possibility of another, more "normal" (after all, the dude in question is still part angel) relationship, and not simply as a fall-back in case her relationship with Daniel becomes impossible. She's actually considering what would be best for her, which is not necessarily the fiery passion, and that's hard to do when you're in the middle of the fiery passion. And especially in light of their communication issues, I think it's a very valid thing to question, so I like that she did.

All in all, however, this book really felt like filler, which particularly annoys me given that it turns out that there will be a fourth book. Kate should have skipped or condensed much of this book (a lot of the above introspection could have been worked into the following book), and stuck to a trilogy. A set of four just doesn't balance as nicely. And it makes me wait until next year for the conclusion. Boo.

Fallen - Lauren Kate

2011-06-15T07:30:00.001-04:00

There's something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori.

Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce Price's attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at Sword & Cross boarding school in Savannah. He's the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are screwups, and security cameras watch every move.

Except Daniel wants nothing to do with Luce — he goes out of his way to make that very clear. But she can't let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Luce has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret ... even if it kills her.

This book was actually quite a pleasant surprise. Despite my having been drawn to the cover art for quite some time, every time I picked it up and looked at it, I would almost instantly dismiss it as another angsty teen love story. But someone told me it was actually pretty good, so I thought what the hell, might as well give it a shot.

It's definitely a teen love story at its heart, and as such, it's a little angsty, but not painfully so. What it is is actually a pretty solid melding of a Gothic novel with a slightly more modern setting. Dark, foreboding setting? Check. Forbidden love? Check. Love interest hiding a huge, shattering secret? Check.

What it also has, unlike some books that might also fit the above description, is a heroine who's decently likable. She's a little fucked in the head (who wouldn't be, in her situation), but she's basically solid, brains-wise, and although she spends a good deal of time pining, she doesn't seem to lose her entire personality into the black hole of her soulmate. And she's not annoyingly deluded about her own attractiveness. She may not think she's the hottest thing to walk the planet (especially after having her head shaved), but she also doesn't try to suggest that she's a troll.

As for the hero, well, one of the biggest things going for him is that there's a marked difference between his behaviour when he's trying to basically scare her off and when he accepts her into his life. We'll see how he does in the next two books, but so far he's neither a creepy stalker nor a controlling asshole. Both of which go a long way to making him an acceptable love interest.

And the fact that there's more going on in this first story than just the love story is also good. Turns out Luce is basically the lynchpin in something major, which gives the story another interesting dimension. Because I've dismissed these books so many times, and had no real intention of reading them, I've read the blurbs for all of them, which means I did have a general idea of where the story was going, and what the major twist would be. But Kate still managed to throw in enough extra surprise details that I wasn't bored, and certainly didn't predict everything.

Frankly, I'm glad I didn't read this right away, because then I'd have to wait for the next installments. This way I finished yesterday, and only have to wait until I get to work today to start the next one. And I'll admit that I'm really happy about that.

The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko (trans. Andrew Bromfield)

2011-06-14T18:15:00.003-04:00

Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are the Others. Each owes allegiance to either the Dark or the Light, two powerful forces that long ago forged an uneasy truce in order to avert chaos and disaster. They watch each other closely, carefully maintaining the world's precarious balance between good and evil.

Anton, a young Other of the Light, is a Night Watch agent who patrols the streets and subways of the city, protecting ordinary people from the agents — including vampires — of the Dark. On his rounds, Anton comes across a young woman, Svetlana, who is under a powerful curse that threatens to destroy the city, and a boy, Egor, an Other still unaware of his powers, whom Anton narrowly saves from the vampires of the Dark.

Anton and his partner, Olga, a powerful female Other who has been turned into an owl as punishment, work frantically with their Night Watch colleagues — each gifted with their own particular powers — to deflect Svetlana's curse and to protect Egor from the creatures that pursue him.

The Night Watch is a page-turning fantasy thriller that represents the most original writing in its genre since Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire.

The first thing to be aware of is that the above blurb only describes the first of three stories in this book. The stories feature the same cast of characters, and are closely related, but it's more like a fairly succinct trilogy in one book than one story. I wasn't expecting that, and it kind of threw me off and made it feel a bit draggy.

I also found the editing in this book appalling. I said in my last review that most of the ARCs I've read have been in better shape than a few allegedly fully-edited books? This was one of those. Ugh.

As for the story (stories) itself, well, it didn't quite captivate me, but it wasn't a terrible chore to have to read either. But I just never really felt much connection with the characters. They're Other, so maybe I'm not supposed to, but they weren't that other.

One thing I really did like, though, about reading a foreign book, is that it didn't spell out every little thing for the reader. That Svetlana curse, for example. It gives you the back story, and certainly enough clues to figure it out with no trouble at all, but it never comes right out and says "This curse was placed on her by X because of Y." I'll admit that this tendency left me not 100% sure about all the whys and wherefores of the final story in the book, but that's OK. I think I got the gist.

I'll read the rest of the series. And maybe now that I know to expect multiple shorter stories in each book, that won't feel as draggy to me.

The Hypnotist - Lars Kepler (trans. Marlaine Delargy)

2011-06-11T09:10:00.000-04:00

Tumba, Sweden. A triple homicide, all of the victims from the same family, captivates Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the grisly murders — against the wishes of the national police.

The killer is at large, and it appears that the elder sister of the family escaped the carnage; it seems only a matter of time until she, too, is murdered. But where can Linna begin?

The only surviving witness is an intended victim — the boy whose mother, father, and little sister were killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes intended for the boy to die: he has suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. He's in no condition to be questioned.

Desperate for information, Linna sees one mode of recourse: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes. It's the sort of work — ethically dubious and psychically scarring — that Bark had sworn he would never do again. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.

First, a somewhat offhand note about ARCs, which this was. People are always talking about how the big problem with reading ARCs is that they're not fully edited, and thus can be a bit painful to get through for those of us who notice such things. But of those I've read (admittedly only a handful), most haven't been that bad. In one of them, I noticed no errors at all (It was written by one of my journalism profs, though, so this doesn't hugely surprise me), and even the worst one was no worse — better, actually — than some allegedly fully edited books I've read — including the one I'm reading now. So anyway, not really important, but I thought I'd mention it.

As for the book's contents, well, one endorsement says that it "out-Stiegs Stieg," but as I have not yet read any Stieg (now that I've decided that I want an e-reader, I think those giant books will wait until I can read them in that format), I can't really speak to that. It was pretty twisty, though, and moved along at an excellent clip. If that makes it Stieg-y, then I guess it is.

I feel like it lost sight a bit of the details, though, in its quest to tell the overarching story. Erik & Simone, for one. Those two clearly have issues and should probably see a counsellor, but we don't get anything on that. The main plot issue comes to a close, and it brings them together, but there are still so many issues. In addition to the 10-year-old one-night stand that forms the basis for much of their tension, there's still her current suspicions which he does nothing to allay, despite their being completely unfounded. And then there's her behaviour in response to all this, and to make it short, they have issues. Which appear to have more or less evaporated by the end, and that kind of bothered me.

I also found Linna... well, not obnoxious, really, at least not most of the time. But his explicit statements of "what did I tell you?" started to grate really quickly. The first few times were cute, but after that, I get it. Linna is a brilliant detective who's never wrong and is cocky enough to insist that everyone acknowledge this fact and bow down before him when it's proven over and over. Annoying, but I do think that was the point, at least to some extent. He has this annoying tendency, but he's generally more or less lovable despite it. The problem was that for me, it just didn't really fit with the rest of him. This may be a cultural issue. Maybe it's a Swedish thing. Maybe a Swedish reader would be just as irritated by a Canadian character who apologized every time someone bumped into him. But in any case, it just didn't really work for me, and kind of screwed him up as a character for me.

Aside from that, the story moved along quickly, there were plenty of red herrings and wild goose chases until the moment of revelation, at which point things really started zipping along in what I would expect to find described as a pulse-pounding race against time. Decent summer read, basically, and if another book by this author (these authors? — how exactly does one refer to a single name that is the pseudonym for a couple?) crosses my path, I may give it a go as well.

Blind Descent - James M. Tabor

2011-06-05T08:29:00.000-04:00

In 2004, two great scientist-explorers attempted to find the bottom of the world. American Bill Stone took on the vast, deadly Cheve Cave in southern Mexico. Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk targeted Krubera, a freezing nightmare of a supercave in the war-torn former Soviet republic of Georgia. Both men spent months almost two vertical miles deep, contending with thousand-foot drops, raging whitewater rivers, monstrous waterfalls, mile-long belly crawls, and the psychological horrors produced by weeks in absolute darkness, beyond all hope of rescue. Based on his unprecedented access to logs and journals as well as hours of personal interviews, James Tabor has crafted a thrilling exploration of man's timeless urge to discover — and of two extraordinary men whose pursuit of greatness led them to the heights of triumph and the depths of tragedy. Blind Descent is an unforgettable addition to the classic literature of true-life adventure, and a testament to human survival and endurance.

I learned a number of things while reading this book. The first and foremost thing that stuck in my head, however, is that supercavers are completely, 100%, absolutely bat-shit crazy. Caves are cool. I've enjoyed some very guided visits to some of them, and to a certain extent, I can see the appeal of doing a little exploring on your own, to see where this passage goes. But to deliberately and repeatedly put yourself through the torture of the kind of intense cave exploration going on in this book? I just can't wrap my head around it.

I really enjoyed this book, though, and I did find it quite gripping. It had the advantage of being neither fiction nor very well-known non-fiction, in that respect. When you're reading a novel, while there are certainly twists, and some authors are better at surprising you than others, but there's a certain narrative structure that you expect, and certain conventions that you expect. Usually, you can guess which characters are at risk of dying, and which are crucial enough to the story that you're confident in their survival (except in those rare instances when you're wrong, and it's almost like a physical blow). Because this was not fiction, I didn't have that sense. Any of these people could die at any moment, and a number of them did, which definitely contributed to the thriller feel this book had. Furthermore, because supercaving is not a field that I'm even remotely familiar with, it wasn't a non-fiction book where you know the outcome and are just reading for the details. I didn't even know going into this which of the two caves would turn out to be the deepest, so that also kept it very engaging.

I won't spoil it, even though you can probably easily find the answer, because I quite enjoyed reading this book without knowing, and I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone else.

I will say, though, that I find the human arrogance in this book a little weird, though. Specifically, the fact that it repeatedly talks about how finding the deepest cave will be the last great discovery on earth. And I just kinda go, really? How can anyone be confident in that assertion? Does anyone honestly think that we've learned everything there is to learn about this planet? Because seriously, I don't think so. There's plenty of ocean left to discover, we're still constantly finding new stuff in rain forests, and even these incredibly deep caves barely scratch the surface of the earth. We haven't come close to touching any of the stuff that's actually at the centre. So to say that there's nothing left to discover is simply preposterous.

Hell, even the absolute assertion that it's the deepest cave seems a little silly to me. It's often compared in this book to Everest, and for good reason, except that there is a difference between mountains and caves. I think it's safe to say that we have in fact explored enough of the earth's surface to know that we have found all the mountains, and Everest is the tallest. There are no more hiding around a corner, so until there are some major geological shifts, I'm confident in the assertion that Everest is the tallest mountain on this planet. One way that caves are different is that they're much less obvious from surface level. On the surface, a massively huge supercave can appear to be little more than a small hole in the ground. One of the caves discussed in this book is in fact just that. So I'm not sure we can necessarily declare that there aren't a few others kicking around that we simply haven't twisted our ankles in yet. I realize that certain conditions are generally required for a cave, and a supercave in particular, so that does theoretically narrow down the possible locations, but I just don't know that I'd be so confident in saying that the deepest one we know of at this time is absolutely and forever the deepest. Even the cave that didn't "win," so to speak, in this book, still has the possibility of being deeper. There's a proven water flow; the people simply haven't figured out how to follow it all the way. Maybe they never will, but maybe they will. Or maybe someone will find another one that goes even deeper.

In any case, like I said, the notion that we've now discovered the last big thing to discover on this planet is just so ridiculously arrogant to me, but it didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the book.

My Horizontal Life - Chelsea Handler

2011-05-31T07:30:00.000-04:00

A collection of one-night stands.

I think that there are two kinds of comedians (good ones, anyway. There are an infinite number of ways to be terrible at something). There are those who seem to be funny no matter what. Everything that pours out of their brains, whether via their mouths or written words, seems to be hilarious, so it doesn't matter how it's delivered or conveyed; it's just plain funny. Then there are those who are more dependent on their own performances. In and of themselves, their words are amusing, even occasionally chuckle-worthy, but to make you really piss yourself, they need to be performing. Their true hilarity depends on impeccable timing, knowing exactly what tone to use, and where to punctuate with an eyebrow pop.

All this to say that I think, for me, anyway, Chelsea Handler may fall into the latter category. I've never actually seen her perform, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed this book for what it was, but I just didn't find it as side-splittingly funny as the reviews led me to believe. I certainly didn't feel the need to share bits of it with whoever was handy, as one reviewer apparently did.

At the end of the day, it was a quick, easy read about one woman's sexcapades, and that's really all there is to it, and all there needs to be. If that interests you enough to give it a go, perhaps you will find it more riotously funny than I did. Humour is funny that way.

White Oleander

2011-05-30T07:19:00.001-04:00

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes — each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned — becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Another book that makes me very thankful for the family I have. While no one is perfect, my mother is certainly no homicidal sociopath, and that apparently goes a long way.

I liked this book more than I thought I would. I expected it to be a bit more touchy-feely saccharine crap, but it was actually quite interesting, and beautifully written in parts. It's fascinating to watch the evolution of the relationship between Astrid and Ingrid, and to see Astrid change and grow up a little more with each foster home situation.

And it made me think about just how sad it is that some kids have to go through that. I have to assume that Astrid's situation was a touch extreme (five foster homes and a foster institution, for lack of a better word, in 3 or 4 years? That seems intense.), but I also know that some situations are even worse than the ones she experienced. And it's sad because it's so easy to say that these families should be vetted better before being allowed to foster kids, but I know there simply aren't the resources to do that, and that it's such a demanding role to fill that it's hard to turn someone down if they offer. I still have to wonder, though. Is a woman who's had her own kids in foster care due to substance abuse problems really a good candidate for fostering? Is someone whose house is so insanely stuffed to the gills there's no possible way to ever keep it truly clean? And who parties all the time, with booze, smokes and drugs? I guess you could clean up your act for an expected home visit, but it just seems like one re-visit could be enough to weed out that situation. And then there's the starvation issue. That one is a clear resource problem. With enough resources, I would think you could notice and track the fact that every girl who goes into a home goes in relatively normal sized and comes out emaciated, and maybe if this happens consistently, you start to question what's going on in that home. And maybe in real life, they do. I don't know. I hope so, but like I said, I understand the lack of resources. It's just sad that kids who are already suffering are the ones who continue to suffer.

It's one of those books that's kind of hard to get into specifics, but as I said, I liked it more than I thought I would, which probably accounts for why I don't have much to say. It's always easier to write scathing reviews.

The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

2011-05-25T21:27:00.001-04:00

In Ponyboy's world there were two types of people. You could be a soc, one of the rich society kids, and get away with anything. Or if you weren't lucky you could be a greaser, like he was. Living on the outside, Ponyboy knew where his loyalties lay: with his brothers Darry and Soda, and with Johnny and their gang.

Hanging out at Darry's house, where they made their own rules, or rumbling with the socs, it was the best of times. Until Johnny went too far. Defending Ponyboy's life, Johnny pulled a knife ... and a soc was dead. Johnny and Ponyboy were on the run, but they couldn't escape the violence they left behind.

When it was first published in 1967, The Outsiders struck an immediate chord with a generation of readers. Defying convention, the groundbreaking novel became a touchstone of honesty and excellence in its genre. Thirty years later, with over eight million copies sold, the story speaks to young adults today as powerfully as it ever did.

There are certain classic young adult books that seem to indeed resonate with many teens well beyond when they were actually written. Catcher in the Rye, of course, comes to mind, and this one as well. However, I absolutely loathed Catcher, and as for this one, well... I didn't loathe it, but I didn't relate to it either. I even suspect that if I were to read Catcher now, maybe I wouldn't hate it quite so much either, because I think I've grown up enough to recognize why these books don't really resonate with me. Oh, who am I kidding? I'd probably still think Holden Caulfield is a whiny little bitch who should just STFU.

However, for this book, frankly, I've been too privileged. My family has always had enough money, and if I didn't get everything I ever wanted, it had more to do with my parents' understanding that familiarity with the word "no" is good for kids than with an inability to afford whatever it was. And I certainly never lacked for anything really important. My parents were both alive and around, and loving and supportive of me, never abusive or neglectful. I had no significant troubles at school, either academic or social, despite being on the nerdier end of the spectrum. All in all, I've had it pretty darn good.

So when I read this book, it's hard to get into these kids' heads, and really understand anything about what it must be like for them. I've never felt almost any of the things they feel. For that reason, it's hard to accurately judge this book. So in the absence of strong feelings of my own, I'll just have to bow to the generations of readers who have related to it and seen themselves in it in some degree.

I will say, however, that I do have strong feelings about the names. How am I supposed to take characters named Ponyboy and Sodapop even remotely seriously? If they were nicknames, then great. But they're not. These guys' parents had one kid more or less sanely named Darrell, and then went absolutely off the deep end and named their kids a generic beverage (You couldn't even pick a specific one? Sevenup has a nice ring, don't you think?) and something that sounds like they're just hoping he'll grow up to be part of a very specific kink scene. Seriously. WTF?

2012

2011-05-22T10:19:00.001-04:00

So, in honour of the impending Rapture, we decided to watch 2012 last night, as the most apocalyptic of the options we had on hand. It was... a touch over the top.

It did have some pretty impressive visuals (waves crashing over Everest is not something one ever really expects to see), but it was all just so extreme that it was kind of more laughable than anything else. I laughed rather more often than I expect Roland Emmerich intended. Also, if you're looking for character development, this is not the movie for you. The people are definitely secondary to the crazy visual sequences of destruction, explosions and awesomely improbable escapes from same.

What I absolutely cannot wrap my head around, however, is why the makers of disaster movies always seem to feel the need to include the ever-obnoxious sub-plot of the divorced couple whose kids now live with mom and her wealthy boyfriend and who have a strained relationship with and are disinterested in spending time with their shiftless father, who inevitably mans up by the end, earning himself a second chance with both his kids and his ex. The very first strains of this were enough to send my eyes rolling hard enough to give me a headache. The daughter was surprisingly tolerable, though. Normally I absolutely loathe the panicked child part of this scenario even more than the rest of it (I'm all, "shut up, kid," even when screaming one's head off is a perfectly reasonable way for a five-year-old to react to a situation), but I really didn't hate this kid. So kudos to Morgan Lily.

Some characters' extreme naive idealism got a little tiresome. Yes, let's open the gates again when we have, like, 2 minutes to escape inevitable doom, because there are people still out there, and we're bad people otherwise. Panicked hordes are totally capable of boarding in a calm and efficient manner, and surely nothing will go wrong. Eye roll.

The highlights of this movie for me, I would have to say, were Woody Harrelson and Johann Urb. Woody because, well, when do I ever not love him in a movie? This time he was a crazy radio announcer, played with that special brand of Woody crazy, which I expect is probably the sort that one either loves or hates. And then there's Urb. I loved his character before I knew who he was, but when I realized that he'd been played by a Swedish model I totally had a crush on in high school, it just cemented it. He plays the Russian pilot, I guess, of a Russian billionaire, and he's also crazy, in that way that crazy Russians are always portrayed in movies. Caricature? Yes. Offensive to actual Russians? Perhaps. I don't actually know any. But somehow, they often end up being some of my favourite characters (I also loved Lev in Armageddon, for example. "Russian components, American components? They're all made in Taiwan!"). Anyway, I loved him. And he's pretty.

Ultimately, the movie is what it is, and if you don't expect it to be anything more than that, it's pretty enjoyable. I also think it would make a good drinking game. Maybe every time a major landmark gets wrecked (or at least tsunami-ed — I don't think Everest fell down or anything). There were a lot of those shots in this movie. More than in most disaster movies, I think. So watch for them and drink up!

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

2011-05-21T18:30:00.001-04:00

His memory is a blank. He only knows he was fished from the Mediterranean Sea. His face has been altered by plastic surgery. A frame of microfilm has been surgically implanted in his hip. Even his name is a mystery. Marked for death, he is racing for survival through a bizarre world of murderous conspirators — led by Carlos, the world's most dangerous assassin. Who is Jason Bourne? The answer may kill him.

As thrillers go, this wasn't too bad, once it got going properly. I found that although it started well, the first almost half of it kind of felt like it just went in circles, covering the same territory and not really revealing any new information. About halfway through, it started moving forward again, and then it was fine. Definitely twisty, although not always unpredictably. And pretty action-packed, although Ludlum is no Jeff Somers when it comes to describing those sequences. No one I've read is, though.

Also, Jason Bourne is quite the bad-ass. You know the state that John McClane ends up in at the end of every Die Hard movie? Filthy, exhausted, bloody as hell, and injured to the point that no human could possibly still remain standing? Well, our hero in this book ends up that way and recovers from it twice in the first few hundred pages. Good heavens.

And speaking of over the top, the love story was a bit ham-fisted. One day of being threatened with death by this man, followed by being rescued by him, and all of a sudden you're completely soulmate in love with him? And he with you? When he barely knows you and you sure as hell don't know him, as he doesn't even know him. I don't object to them hooking up or anything; I just thought it was a bit over the top. Too much too soon.

Also, if he weren't dead, I would kind of want to find Mr. Ludlum and smack him for one single word choice. A woman who has just been raped is absolutely not going to, the very next day, describe some economic situation concerning her country as a rape of said country. She's just not. It was one single word, but it bothered the hell out of me. Not cool, Ludlum.

In any case, it was what it was, but I can't say that I feel any particular need to read any of the further adventures of Mr. Bourne.

Apollo's Angels - Jennifer Homans

2011-05-16T21:49:00.001-04:00

Jennifer Homans is a historian and critic who was also a professional dancer: She brings to Apollo's Angels a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. She traces the evolution of technique, choreography and performance in clean, clear prose drawing readers into the intricacies of the art with vivid descriptions of dances and the artists who made them. Her admiration and love for the ballet shines through on every page. Apollo's Angels is an authoritative work, written with a grace and elegance befitting its subject.

I do like that this book was written by a dancer. It's a specialized enough field that one is unlikely to go to the trouble of writing such a thorough history if one isn't already heavily involved, but one never knows. So I appreciated the fact that Homans is a dancer herself. Beyond that, this book seemed very well researched, if the extensive bibliography is any indication, and it read quite well. It was never boring or dry, and was organized in a logical way. I quite enjoyed reading it.

One particularly glaring omission, however, was a discussion of pointe shoes. She talked a bit about early shoes, and discussed the boundary-pushing technique some dancers started to develop that had them almost onto full pointe, and then all of a sudden, we just have pointe shoes. There was no real explanation of who started building shoes and varnishing them in that very specific way that gets you a solid pointe shoe. Maybe she figured that subject had been covered extensively enough elsewhere (I haven't actually looked, but I imagine it's been covered somewhere.), but it just seems like kind of a major development to just ignore, so that was weird.

And my only other complaint was in the organization of the pictures. There were a few images right in the text, but most were photos in three sets of photo pages. I would have preferred to see them organized a bit more chronologically, maybe, to mirror the contents of the book, and to make it easier to flip to a picture of a particular dance or dancer, should one feel so inclined. I also would have liked to see at least one picture of Isadora Duncan, since she was mentioned a number of times, and Baryshnikov too, but mainly just because he was hot when he was young. And now that I think of it, I think there was at least one picture of a ballet that as far as I recall, was never discussed. I may have just missed it, but I don't remember Stimmung, for example ever even being mentioned.

But those are fairly minor quibbles in what was, overall, quite a good work. I enjoyed myself and learned some things, like how insanely dramatic Nureyev's defection was, and that Balanchine died of Creuzfeldt-Jakob, of all things.

More than anything else, though, this book reminded me of how much I love dance, and how much I miss it. I mean, I am taking classes, but we don't really perform, or even do much work with choreography, and I desperately miss that. I also found myself really wishing I were in a position where I could actually afford to see live dance a lot more often than I do (of course, that in turn would just make me miss performing even more, I expect). Someday.

Beautiful day in my backyard

2011-05-09T16:57:00.001-04:00

Today has been a delightful combination of beautiful weather and a day off. So I've been spending quite a bit of it outside in my backyard, which I still haven't gotten over having. It's still very exciting to me. Yesterday I had my mom over for lunch and we ate outside, which was lovely. And today, in addition to line-drying a load of laundry, I've been sitting in the sun with my book and some homemade iced tea. Awesome.

It's been fun seeing what things are growing in our yard, as we had little to do with most of them. While she was here, my mom did some plant identification for me, and it turns out that we have a lilac tree, a boxwood bush, some tulips and lilies, a hydrangea, and a peony bush, among other assorted things.

We also have this:

You can't tell in this picture because the leaves are so large and luxurious, but this isn't a delineated bed or anything. It was just a random patch of dirt in our lawn, that looked like some sort of animal had been digging there. But then we noticed that something was growing there, and this is was erupted. A pretty robust-looking rhubarb patch. It's in a totally weird place, but mom says it doesn't much care for being transplanted, so we're just leaving it in its weird place. Eventually, we plan to expand the garden anyway (we'd much rather grow lots of useful stuff than expend effort and water on useless grass), so then it won't look so out of place. But for now, there it sits, happily growing away in the sun, waiting to be turned into my mom's famous strawberry-rhubarb pies.

And on the subject of useful things, some of the stuff we planted has made an appearance!

The onions seem to be doing quite well:

The whole row of them is looking excellent.

And a few of the garlic bulbs are starting to pop their little heads up:

We're not positive that's a garlic, but we're pretty sure. One other one appears to be trying to sprout as well.

Still no sign yet of the green onions or spinach, and we haven't had a chance to plant the peas, beans and tomatoes yet. But I'm very excited about this whole vegetable-growing thing, and I hope it works out well.

Sweet Valley Confidential: 10 Years Later - Francine Pascal

2011-05-02T11:33:00.001-04:00

Now with this striking new adult novel from author and creator Francine Pascal, millions of devoted fans can finally return to the idyllic Sweet Valley, home of the phenomenally successful book series and franchise. Iconic and beloved identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are back and all grown up, dealing with the complicated adult world of love, careers, betrayal, and sisterhood.

I devoured the Sweet Valley books as a kid. Read every one I could get my hands on. Even then I knew they weren't exactly high literature, but they were somehow compelling, and I did get a little attached to the characters. When I saw this book, frankly, my expectations were low. I didn't expect this book to be good, and it wasn't. But what bothered me most about it was not how poorly edited it was. It wasn't the way over-the-top melodrama (seemed more so than the original books, but maybe memory has toned those down over the years). It wasn't the endless repetition of all the main themes, or the incredibly tiresome beating over the head about how gorgeous these two are and how every man who sees them practically faints dead away at their feet over how stunning they are. It wasn't the clunky name-dropping of all our favourite characters from the old series, or the random (and equally clunky) "current" references to things like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

No, what really bothered me about this book was that the whole premise of the book is Just. Plain. Wrong. I'm about to get quite worked up over something incredibly stupid, but it did form a significant part of my younger years, and as I said earlier, I did get a little attached to these people, so what she does to them in this book really does bother me, probably much more than it should. Forgive me. Anyway, in case you don't know the books, the main relationship, the be-all and end-all of this series, is the one between Jessica and Elizabeth. Second only to that one is the Elizabeth-Todd relationship. So when the blurb hints at a betrayal that tears Jessica and Elizabeth apart, it can only be one thing. And frankly, I can see how the author's thinking probably went. Something along the lines of the following: For the conflict to work, there has to be a Jessica-Todd liaison. But if they cheat on Elizabeth, the readers will hate them. Not only will it be unforgivable for Elizabeth, but it'll be unforgivable for the readers too. What makes cheating forgivable? Love.

And there's the problem. I was expecting a one-night stand, or maybe even a brief fling. But for them to actually be in love? No. No, no, no. And worse than that, it wasn't just that they fell into bed in the heat of a moment and then fell in love. No, it was pretty strongly suggested that Todd has actually been in love with Jessica right from the beginning. And that's just... No. Todd and Elizabeth are like Buffy and Angel, Syd and Vaughan, Catherine and Heathcliffe, for fuck's sake. No matter what else happened, even if they had times apart when they were with other people, in the end it always came back to those two. I don't really believe in soulmates in real life, but in fiction? Hell yes, and these two were it. That was principle #2 on which the entire series was pretty much based. So to not only have them not end up together (which would be sad, but land squarely in the realm of straight-up tragedy, which would be acceptable), and have him end up with Jessica (which would suck, but there are ways you could make it tolerable — if Elizabeth died, for example), but to have his entire relationship with Elizabeth essentially be a lie? Just no. It's not acceptable. I rarely get melodramatic enough to call something an insult to the fans, but really? This? It's an insult to the fans.

I hate what she did with this book. I absolutely Hate. It.

The Flanders Panel - Arturo Pérez-Reverte (trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

2011-04-29T14:09:00.001-04:00

Julia is a young art expert in Madrid. Her specialty is the restoration of paintings about to go up for auction. But her latest project could also be her last. A fifteenth-century masterpiece, the painting depicts a chess game between the Duke of Ostenburg and his knight, as a lady in black velvet sits in the background. What makes this project different is the hidden inscription Julia discovers in the corner: Quis necavit equitem. Translation: Who killed the knight? And the answer could kill Julia.

Breaking the silence of five centuries, Julia's hunt for the Renaissance murderer leads her into a modern-day game of sin, betrayal, and death — every move calculated with devilish precision. But as the stakes begin to rise and piece after piece is removed from the board, Julia finds herself exposed... and vulnerable to attack from everywhere. Unsure whether she too is a player or just a pawn, all she knows for certain is that her passion for art has made her an object of deadly obsession. In a mystery of eloquence, wit, seduction, and suspense, the solution is a tour de force of intrigue.

I put this on The List largely because the description sounded somewhat reminiscent of The Eight. Current mystery linked to ancient mystery, all revolving around chess? Sounded good to me. Unfortunately, it was kind of disappointing. For one thing, I found the writing style quite plodding and pedantic at times. Which is kind of an unfair criticism, really, given that the pedantic nature of it definitely helped me understand some of the chess strategy that otherwise probably would have gone over my head. Nonetheless, his insistence on explaining everything to death grew quite tiresome. Especially the denouement, with the bad guy explaining everything ad nauseam. Tedious.

The plot itself, for me, was lacking that past-present link, although to be fair, no such thing was actually promised. I think I was just projecting what I wanted it to be. I do kind of wish that the fifteenth-century murder had a little more bearing on the actual plot though. It was there, but was solved early on, and then pretty much dropped. The fact that we revisit that story at the end suggests to me that maybe there's some kind of subtle parallelism or link, but if there was, I missed it. Something lost in translation, perhaps?

The actual resolution seemed... kind of ridiculous, actually. Far-fetched is one thing. Villains in mystery-thrillers often have very convoluted and far-fetched motives and schemes, but this one just seemed somehow absurd to me when it was all explained. I'm also not sure the clues were well planted throughout. I've mentioned before that I'm not that great at spotting them as I read, but usually I can pick up a few (even if I don't know quite what to do with them), and after all is revealed, I can look back and see them, but not here. And despite the lengthy explanation, I still don't really understand the murderer's motives. He kind of comes off as just plain unhinged, and frankly, that's not especially interesting. Also, the very final twist basically implies that the reasoning that the detective character employed to figure the whole thing out was invalid, meaning that he actually just got lucky, and that definitely feels like a let-down.

I also wanted to find the translator and smack her silly for her use of "whilst." According to my dictionary, it's mainly used in British English, and as this book is European, the translator's English is most likely mostly influenced by Britain, so maybe it's OK, but what can I say? That word bothers me. It just inevitably comes across as high-flown and out of place. But I'm sure I have my own language quirks that bother other people.

But the thing that bothered me most of all was Julia's smoking. I will admit that I know absolutely nothing about art restoration, dealing, or anything else relating to the art world. Maybe all restorers keep ashtrays in their working space. I don't know. But it just seems absolutely inconceivable to me that chain smoking all over priceless works of art is standard practice. Every time she lit up, I just imagined her re-varnishing the painting, sealing in all that nice, smoky oil, and just kept wondering what that was doing to the painting. Also, as was even pointed out in the book, with all the solvents and chemicals and whatnot in her space, it would take next to nothing to set off a pretty raging inferno, so the smoking just seems like an insane risk to be taking. Somehow I suspect that whatever insurance she has would not cover losses as a result of that. Like I said, I really don't know, and I don't know anyone involved enough with the art world that I could ask, but this whole thing just seemed so incredibly off to me that it threw off the whole book for me. I even checked the publishing date, because if it was written in the 70s or something, then maybe. But no. 1990. By then, I think we knew how damaging smoke can be, so I just don't know. Any artsy people out there want to set me straight? Tell me I'm overreacting, and that art professionals regularly light fires next to and blow smoke all over masterpieces?

At the end of the day, it wasn't painful to get through or anything; I just wish it were better.

The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay

2011-04-21T13:15:00.000-04:00

Home to three very different cultures, Al-Rassan is a land of seductive beauty and violent history. Peace among the Jaddites, Asharites and Kindath is a precarious, elusive thing; as is the ever-present shadow that divides the peoples but draws extraordinary individuals together. Ammat ibn Khairan — poet, diplomat, soldier; Rodrigo Belmonte — accomplished military leader; and Jehane bet Ishak — brilliant physician; these three find their lives interwoven by a series of remarkable events that take Al-Rassan to the brink of war.

Guy Gavriel Kay is a bastard.

Should you happen to have read this book, I expect you'll understand why I say that. If you haven't, well... how can I explain without spoilers? How about one that just confirms what you can probably guess almost from the beginning of this book: ultimately, it comes down to the two men. I will say nothing about which way it goes when that happens, but it happens, I'm very upset with the way it went, and I wouldn't have been any happier if it had gone the other way. For that reason, Guy Gavriel Kay is a bastard.

But he's a glorious bastard, and this book was just as magnificent as his others that I've read. He creates beautiful worlds, compelling characters, and has a such a masterful way with his words that I just sink right into it. And I'm not one to sink into words in that way, usually. I read fast enough that it could almost be considered skimming, I absorb the "facts" or whathaveyou, and move on. Style, for me, is something that, unless it's atrociously bad, I don't really pay much attention to when reading; I'm more about the content. But I love the way Kay writes. I don't even think I can quantify it in any kind of objective way, or defend it effectively if anyone disagrees. I just love it. Frankly, I don't know why I even try to write reviews of his work, because I have nothing intelligent to say about it. I simply love it, and that's that.

Stabat Mater

2011-04-17T21:36:00.000-04:00

That concert that I was so excited about? It just finished, and it was amazing. I'm so wired from it I could do it again right now. The music was amazing, our accompanists were amazing, we — if I do say so myself — sound amazing together, and the whole thing was just... Yeah. I hope it's not too much in the vein of laughing at one's own jokes, but I almost cried at the end of the Prayer of St. Francis. Imant Raminsh, you are crazy, your music is a bitch to learn, but oh my god. It's absolutely beautiful, and incredibly moving. Thank you, sir, for that gift. It was a privilege to sing it.

That's all I got. I'm just so... Yeah, words won't so much cut it right now. I can't wait for the recording.

Weekend Fiber Update

2011-04-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

The non-gender-specific baby sweater for my chiropractor's baby is mostly done:

As you can see, it looks pretty much the same as the last time you saw it, except that now it has two sleeves. I need buttons before I can proceed much further, because I want to make the button hold suitable for the buttons I end up with, rather than trying to find buttons that go with buttonholes. I suppose I could weave in the ends in the meantime...

And I started what was supposed to be university roommate's Christmas present, but I guess it'll be her birthday present, or maybe just a random whenever-they're-done present. Anyway, after pondering whether to go with socks or a shawl, I went with socks:

I'm liking the pattern so far. It definitely requires me to pay attention, but it's not too mentally demanding, so I can still watch TV while I work on them. I'm using magic loop for them, and I'm having mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's less complicated than dpns, which is especially good for all the counting of the instep patterning. On the other hand, as someone else pointed out recently, it's so much yarn shifting. It's kind of hard to really get into a rhythm when you keep having to stop to move your yarn around on the cables and needles. I think maybe the simplicity makes up for it, ultimately, at least for patterned socks. I think for plain small-diameter knitting, I'll stick with dpns, and even cables I don't mind so much doing on those, but I am happy to be dealing with only two needles for this.

Don's Christmas Sweater

2011-04-15T13:35:00.000-04:00

Finally got around to taking pictures of Don's sweater. It's only April. That's practically still Christmas, right? (Based on the stock that still periodically arrives at work, I think I'm right.) Anyway, here it is:

As you can see, it fits him pretty well, and he's impressed, and likes to show it off, but to be honest, there are a few things I'm not really happy about.

For starters, the directions for the arms were not quite accurate. Where one was supposed to be in the cable pattern at the end of the increases was not right, and that required some improvisation, and although I was prepared for this, having read various people's comments on Ravelry, it's still not great, and I don't really like how they ended up, with the cable pattern stopping before the top of the arm. I think if I ever did this (or something like it – I'd be more inclined to use a different pattern and add cables to the arms) again, I'd continue the cables right up past the shoulder, only finishing them right before the neckline. Which would also avoid another problem that people seemed to have with this pattern: poofy shoulder. I managed to avoid too much of that, but given that you stop cabling and go back to straight ribbing just past the bicep, I can see how that could end up pretty poofy, especially if you were still increasing because you weren't at the part of the chart the pattern said you should be. In any case, I didn't have any terrible problems with the arms, but I wish the cables continued higher. I don't like how it looks with them just stopping where they do.

I do like the cable pattern itself, though. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even more pleased that I learned early in the process how to do it without a cable needle. Made it a much more tolerable process.

The neck is also too wide. I did modify it a bit to make it a v-neck instead of a crew, mainly so it would work nicely with collared shirts, which he tends to wear under his nice sweaters. But it's so wide that it doesn't work with collared shirts at all, so I'm not really happy with that either.

As I said, he seems to like it, though, although I think the neckline bothers him too. It just doesn't work with a lot of the things he'd normally be inclined to wear this sweater with, so he can't wear it as often as he otherwise might. Maybe next time.

Pattern: Durrow, by Jodi Green
Yarn: KnitPicks Swish DK in Coal
Needles: 4.5 mm

Mods: Adjusted the neckline and interpreted the sleeve directions. Also made some adjustments for fit, as he's a fairly tall and quite slim guy. Had to make the side-to-side dimensions smaller while lengthening the torso and the sleeves. Even they could stand to be an inch longer.

2 reasons I'm glad to have a house

2011-04-12T17:15:00.001-04:00

The last several places I've lived have had little to no yard or outdoor facilities of any kind. In some ways, this didn't really bother me, as I've never been much of an outdoorsy type. But for a while now, there have been some things I've really wanted to do, but haven't been able to because I had nowhere to do them. And things like that were among the reasons why buying this house was so exciting.

We moved in in the middle of winter, of course, and spent most of the last few months safely ensconced inside, but spring is definitely here now, and we've been venturing into the backyard much more. And today, we did this:

Such a simple thing, this putting clothes onto a clothesline and air/sun-drying them. But I was thrilled to be able to do it, and I'm excited to keep it up all summer. The former owners were even kind enough to leave a stash of clothespins. I may still get better ones eventually, but these seemed to do the job reasonably well, and they're here, so yay!

I didn't get a picture, but we also sat in the yard and had a beer this afternoon, which was also delightful, and I look forward to more of that kind of relaxing this summer as well.

And then we went off and acquired supplies for another aspect of having a yard that I'm unspeakably excited about:

Vegetables! This year, the plan is to start small, with just a little patch, but if it goes well, I expect we'll expand next year. For the time being, though, we bought some garlic and onions, parsley, basil, spinach, beans, and – most exciting – sugar snap peas. I can't wait to eat them right off the vine. We're also planning to get some tomatoes, and probably some other herbs as well. I hope to have lots of exciting progress to show you on these once they get going!

Weekend Fiber Update

2011-04-11T20:00:00.000-04:00

The sweater vest is done and blocked, and is super cute:

I'm working on the matching bowtie now, trying to figure out the best way of attaching it. The pattern calls for a pin, but putting a pin at a baby's through just doesn't seem like the best idea ever. My mom's suggestion is to make it in such a way as to have a buttonhole that could be affixed onto a button of the shirt the baby would be wearing this set with. That seems to make some sense, so I'll have to figure out how to make that work. I don't know how practical the bowtie is going to end up being, but hey. At least the kid will have an awesome argyle sweater vest.

For the other upcoming baby, I've been working on a sweater:

I started it... Wednesday, I think, and it's very close to done. Nice, quick knit. Just needs its second sleeve, button band and buttons. I'm not too sure where I'll find buttons, but I'm thinking two each of some simple, bright red, yellow and blue buttons, to complement the pulled out bits in this yarn.

Looks like it's just about time to start something new...

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

2011-04-09T07:56:00.000-04:00

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina — a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

I must admit to not having had high hopes for this book when I started it. On the surface, it's a very predictable overcoming adversity and finding oneself coming-of-age sort of story. And ultimately, that's exactly what it is, but it does have a few aspects that keep it from being too trite all the time.

For one thing, it's an interesting perspective. We've all read books that dealt with racism, but they're usually told either from a black character's point of view, or sometimes by someone who's white but actively and deliberately caught up in the racial struggle. Lily is neither of these things. She's a white girl who, having been raised in a very prejudicial society at a time when racial tensions were extremely high, has a certain level of prejudice herself. What she's managed to avoid, perhaps partly as a result of being raised by a black woman, is the fear and hatred that accompanies many people's racism. And that gives her just enough openness that she's able to learn to move past it. Quite quickly, after encountering the Boatwright sisters, she not only recognizes, but acknowledges her own long-held prejudices, and it's kind of interesting to watch her get past those, only to realize that she still has to deal with the rest of the world's. Finding herself the lone white girl in the middle of a tight-knit black community also gave her the opportunity to see things from the other side a bit, and it was eye-opening for her to realize that a person can be disliked for being white just as much as they can for being black. Some interesting stuff in there. Nothing really earth-shattering, but like I said, it's just enough to keep it from being completely trite and to offer a few moments of reflection.

Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

2011-04-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

So I've said recently that I've never read any graphic novels. That's not strictly true. I read my share of Archies as a kid, and plenty of Asterix. So it's perhaps more accurate to say that until this week, I'd never read any adult graphic novels. But I have a number of friends who are fans of the form, and it's a growing segment of literature, so I thought perhaps it was time I dove in (despite the fact that the graphic novel section at work gives me convulsions). So I read Watchmen.

I didn't really like it that much. It wasn't the format; that was kind of interesting (although I must wonder why so many artists in that medium insist on drawing people with massively broad shoulders and teeny heads). I think the superhero genre in general is not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the X-Men movies well enough (OK, let's be honest here: I really enjoyed Hugh Jackman. And Patrick Stewart.), but putting in the time investment to actually read that sort of story? Not my thing.

Which is not to say that everything else in Watchmen went over my head. It didn't. There's a lot in there about society, ethics, politics, etc. I even think it could be valid reading for a politics class or something of that ilk. I almost wish I'd read it sooner, because one assignment last semester involved proposing a book for inclusion to a course reading list, and I think this one could have made a very interesting paper on that subject (Probably a better one than the "I <3 Guy Gavriel Kay" one that I ended up producing.).

I must admit to being a bit at a loss as to what to say about this book. There's so much going on, and it's all intertwined, so a superficial analysis isn't going to be very effective. Help me out here, Cole? Propose some questions for discussion?

In any case, it hasn't scared me off graphic novels for life or anything. Maus is definitely one I'll have to try, and Mouse Guard is just too cute not to, and I'm sure there are others (possibly something not rodent-based?). I still loathe that section at work, though.