Engrossed

I almost missed my stop this morning on the way to work because I was busy reading "The Effluent Engine" by N.K. Jemisin in the e-anthology Steampowered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories.  I had just gotten to the scary part.

I would be getting back to this book tonight but a NYT article about the upcoming movie "Pariah" caught my eye while sitting down on the couch.  This is on my shortlist of things to watch out for in 2012.  Though the amount of hype it's getting is starting to make me skeptical.  But only so much.  It sounds quite well made, with good acting.  Almost too good to be true...

Another thing to look out for was Steampowered 2, until I found out the e-book was already out from Torquere books.  Their website search engine was kind of wonky.  Both Tables of Contents are chock full of interesting sounding stories, which should make me almost late for work for weeks to come...

I spent some time this weekend in Wisconsin, and besides enjoying tasty latkes at Monty's Blue Plate Diner during a rest stop, I used the GF's grandma's wifi to catch up on the best analysis of the politics of steampunk on the web, particularly Beyond Victoriana.  I have to do some rereading and thinking before trying to say something more, not being as familiar with steampunk due to my tendency to like harder SF better, but there was much food for thought out there.  Some discussions were linked to those had at Wiscon in prior years, which have also been deep and wide conversations with some very incisive analysis.

The Steampowered books seem like a good stab at taking the genre in the direction that more critical analyses have outlined.  Will have to see...

Finally, here is A very good best of 2011 book list. 

Christmas reading

I decided to start Thomas Disch's Supernatural Minnesota series with The Sub.  It sounded funny from the back cover blurb, and so far it has not disappointed.  In the context of Xmas among people who actually celebrate the birth as a literal fact, it fits...

Ran this a.m. in the 30 warmth and had to peel off layers despite a strong headwind.  Not very seasonal, and that tiny bit of snow from mid-week did not last to make the holiday white.  I had some really good zucchini potato latkes yesterday, before a ton of Xmas cookies.  Mmm.

I have not been able to stick to one book, so Halberstam is taking a back seat to Disch, a study of Susan Sontag's writing that I have been reading on the train commute because it is small and more wieldy, a 90s queer theory mashup, and finishing Redemption in Indigo and a Jungian fairy tale analysis book to turn them in.  More cogent analysis will come when the flighty, and crazy busy, moment passes...

Happy holidays.

Fairy Tales

The fairy tales issue of Lavendar Review, an online lesbian lit journal is up, with stories and poetry by a wide variety of authors, including my fave, Sarah Schulman: Check it out. 

U Conn and Baylor tonight

Might be forced to go drink some fancy beer at the neighborhood bar, which has many ESPN feeds...  Ran 7.5 miles this a.m. with a very pully dog, and the idea of watching someone else work out hard while I sit on my butt is appealing.

Another Way

"This country is my homeland, whether they like it or not." -Eva, "Another Way"

Eva: "Do you have the right to treat me this way?"

Policeman: "This isn't America.  Move along."

I wanted to dislike this movie, so overdramatic in the old school lesbians are so tragic vein, but there's a lot going on that makes it more intersting.  Set in Hungary post 1956, the political storyline and awareness of gender makes the drama more palatable.  And I liked how there are always other women available to the 'real' lesbian character, Eva, making it clear her personal issues mire her in this insanity.

There are also some cool scenes showing small-village Hungary and party politics that are unique in terms of the usual lesbian flick.  If we have to always die, at least make it different...

We Were Here and Tomboy TC

The documentary "We Were Here" is playing at the Trylon Microcinema on Hiawatha Ave.

TRYLON PREMIERE TUESDAYS WE WERE HERE The Trylon Tue Dec 27 7:00 9:00 Tue Jan 03 7:00 9:00 (2011, HD, 90m) dir David Weissman and Bill Weber w/Ed Wolf, Paul Boneberg, Daniel Goldstein. "A deep and reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of this unimaginable crisis. We Were Here speaks to the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion, and determination." And stuff like that.  It is still good...

Tomboy, about just that and getting good reviews plays at the Edina starting this Thurs 12/15.

 Tomboy official site 

Quote of the day: No Pressure...

"...some postmodern revisions may question and remake the classic fairy tale's production of gender only to reinscribe it within some unquestioned model of subjectivity or narrativity.  ..."  Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies, Cristine Bacchilega, U Penn Press, 1997

Halberstam

As a theory geek, Judith Halberstam's body of work generally gets me excited.

However, the last book, about queerness and time, and the latest, The Queer Art of Failure, which questions seriousness and 'success' from a queer theory POV, really stand out amidst a crowd of books that are, well, so-o-o serious and ambitious in various ways.  Barbara Christian's earlier critique of the thrust towards 'high' theory comes to mind, one of those must-reads for feminist and social theory.

I have only browsed this so far, but I read a few reviews of The Queer Art of Failure that made me get off my butt to find this and stop taking out library books so I can actually get to it without feeling I have to read books that are due first.  Though Graham Joyce's latest novel is in at my local branch.  It's hard to resist...  But I will, and should be blabbing about Halberstam's book soon. 

I got some more writing done this weekend, finally starting the novel rewrite I've been dancing around getting to and doing needed but nevertheless delay-tactic research for.

Lots of dangling participles there, eh.  That's what my writing life has felt like in 2011.  With the queer habit of not producing enough as a community by and for 'us' (and finishing, and getting it out there, and yes, there are many exceptions, yet, so little when one looks for something new to read, watch, etc.) in mind, I am trying to push through all the laziness, after-work brain deadness, and fear of, well, failure, as well as hesitation about the difficult subject matter (AIDS in the 80s and 90s, queer and left activism, drugs, sex, and the pros and cons of old school queer community).  One step at a time, as they say...

Russian Burger King commercials

It's Sunday...  Ya nye znayoo how they make those burgers either...

 Rappin' Russian Burger King 

And the top photo, a Seattle billboard redirection, made me laugh: More on Foodista.

And here's an indirect link, because the commenter is right.  The King is creepy:

 BK in the bathhouse.

 One more, with a nice background at least. 

Time to go make some green tea and cleanse my mental palate...

Adult Toys

A neighbor who loves to play with his Bobcat is a great asset!

Reading

A history of D.C. graffiti writers and Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord Small Beer Press).  I've been reading the latter on the train, but nights have been crazy and packed lately, so it's slow going.  But it's very funny and metafictional yet true to fantasy as a genre, i.e. not mocking, just aware of modern psychology and stuff that makes it hard to suspend disbelief 100% in reading classic-style folk tales.  And though it's based on a Senegalese folk tale, quantum physics helps drive the plot, a factor that's always welcome in my book...  Time to finish it, since it's due...

The graffiti book is kind of sad because most of the original Go-Go scene writers died when crack hit the city and everybody was shooting each other, getting locked up, and AIDS killed many others.  (Go-Go is DC's own music thang, constant heavy beats all night long with scratching, rapping freestyle, chanting, and lots of getting down.  It is the sound of school dances, to me.)  So basically the white suburban and private school kids and college kids are doctors and artists and teachers now and most of the original black crews are gone.  That's DC for ya.  As noted in the book, our own mayor was supporting the crack economy instead of doing anything about it...

I have to say that as intrigued as I always have been about graffiti art, I have serious reservations about its impact on cities, neighborhoods,and don't you dare paint garages, small local businesses, mausoleums, and the inside of public transit with your gang signs and scrawled initials that have no "art" or "self-expression" to them but ego and intimidation.  It's like throwing trash on the street in your NH- who do you think picks up after you, since it clearly ain't yo mama?  The justifications many of.me fellow lefties and Gen Xers have of some antisocial behaviors that cross that line...  make me feel ok about being labeled conservative - communities and neighborhoods are worth conserving, or building back up if that's what's neede... 

When I doorknocked for comm organizations in poor neighborhoods in the South and West, it was the little, QOL, irritating costly, time-wasting things like vandalism and petty crime that really wore down folks as much as that big ole system -getting from above and both sides makes it hard to focus on the core issues...  Of course, jobs programs were the answer they usually provided, but our fearless leaders seem determined never to fund...  We had a great one in DC back in the time that book covers, where teens could get paid to do art and play in Go-Go, funk, pop, jazz, rock, and punk bands all summer and then do shows in some public places like the Post Office Pavilion downtown.  Of course, it was an early budget cut.

I got some writing done this week, and finally figured out how to use page styles in the Ubuntu word processing program.  I thought I had it before but no.  Oooo, a winter weather advisory and three inches of snow on the way.  I better get my errands done.  The old truck is slidey in new snow.  I should get more writing in on snowbound nights and weekends.  Fall is always the crazy time to get everything done.

The neighbor kid

Is sneaking around in full commando gear, including a gas mask.  He really wants to be a Ranger.  At 15 and like 6 feet tall, he's kind of old for costumed play, but the up side of home school is, you dont have to worry so much about being cool on anyone else's terms..

The ducks were all out in force on the slowly freezing creek.  Mallards and browns holding on until it's really freaking froze...   Then only the little dark grey ducks shiver out in the holes in the ice.

At 19

Found in "Out in the Castro" ed. Winston Leyland 2002.  Yeah. 

And sitting is Terry Beswick, treatment activist extraordinaire, and great guy.  Sorely missed.

World AIDS Day should be nostalgia, not an ongoing battle for funding, education, and action.

We Were Here: the Documentary

MN AIDS Project brought this film to the Riverview just as it has been nominated for an Academy Award.  I wanted to see it but was prepared to be disappointed.  Skepticism about anything the Academy  and the mainstream media lauds has been the name of the game since "Philadelphia" and "And The Band Plays On," and long before.  Vito Russo's "The Celluloid Closet" is a go to history... speaking of those who are sorely missed.

But it was moving.  I felt like I was watching one of those "This Is Your Life" shows.  Those photos and obits I keep in a box, with clippings, shirts, buttons, and posters from Act Up! SF and elsewhere, they were evoked by the footage and photos, all those faces I remember from demos and meetings. So many guys who liked like my friend Colin, who flew to get arrested at the Bush I White House just before he died.  Just before the cocktail, sickened by AZT.  Like so many in the film.

A guy leaving was angry because it was static, talking heads and nothing new.  I get where he was coming from, but too many people on theater gasped in surprise at basic facts: the sight of The Names Project quilt on the mall in 1987, when we marched on Washington for the second gay time, the calls for quarantine, KS and PCP (not the drug).  They missed it, one way or another, and it's a good time for a reminder, ballot hate initiatives and all.  One small reminder is timely as heck: We beat Larouche's amendments.  It can be done.

And people's memory of the Reagan years, seriously.  Said to be from a transcript of a 1982 press briefing Q&A session between Reagan administration spokesman Larry Speakes and journalist Lester Kinsolving. It's the first known time that AIDS was brought up at the White House.

Lester Kinsolving: Larry, does the president have any reaction to the announcement —the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?

SPEAKES: What's AIDS?

LK: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the president is aware of it?

SPEAKES: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)

LK No, I don't ...

SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.)

LK: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

The answer, as the briefing spiraled into hysterics, was yes... Fearless leader Reagan didn't publicly refer to AIDS until 1987. 

That was the 80s in a nutshell for me.  Too late, too little, deadly legacy continues to play out.  So many so-called leaders were not there.  Or were actively opposing efforts to deal with the pandemic.  We can't explicitly say that on TV, tho, but the doco lets ACT UP! posters speak eloquently, briefly. 

My only quibbles were the lack of dots connected more clearly between street activism and movement on treatment and funding fronts at key moments.  It was mentioned by the one female, a nurse, who was involved in those battles, but not very clear what happened beyond doctors doing studies.  Also, the role of ACT UP! as a place for PWAs to express outrage and push was told in a sentence by her and some photos which I know were of the PWA caucus (purple shirts) only because I was there.  Those weren't just randomly angry young gay guys.  They were dying for lack of treatments.  And facing official ignorance, neglect, denials, and criminal incompetence, at best. 

The official history that gets remembered is that Hollywood stepped in, government acted, and doctors and scientists saved the gays.  It makes my blood boil, and only reading Sara Schulman and David Feinberg and Greg Bordowitz's 1990s film has truly captured that disconnect for me.  But those are quibbles.  Mostly... 

Source of the quotes 

Ann McCaffrey passed

 Tor obit .  I sure loved those cheesy Pern books something fierce as a youngun.

Three-legged dog tracks

Trains

Reading about the California battle over high speed rail made me search the internets and get angry again at the shortsightedness of Wisconsin's leadership in declining their funding.  A high speed line between Duluth, the Twin Cities, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and points beyond is so badly needed, especially in winter.  Megabus is great, but slow and in bus vs. train, trains win hands down.  Pictures of Europe make me even more wistful.

Mars Mission Is a Go

 NASA sent its rover Curiosity out to look for organic compounds on Mars.  'Bout time...

Freakonomics Friday

Going to work this morning the light rail was filled with sleepy teenagers with full shopping bags coming home from the Mall of America, and going home it was newly awakened teenagers heading there.  And a few middle-aged people who also had the apparently requisite Abercrombie bare-chested man and Ho_er(?) bareass kissing couple bags.  I felt like I was back in the late 80s Castro, except so not.

Turkey day

I managed to knock 6 minutes off my 10k time over the last year, with six months off running.  Not bad.  Tired now.

Settling in for winter

Somehow I managed to get my yardwork, gutters, tree trimming, and last minute leaf cleanup from that one damn lazy tree done before the first snow.  I am now recovering from a dehydration headache after the first snow run of the season.  Should have drunk more water yesterday, but it was so cold...  6.5 miles in falling snow with the GF and running dog, who was very happy in her little green coat. 

Hopefully we are ready for the turkey day 10k.  I did a very steep Nob Hill run in SF last weekend that should have made my legs into steel rods, since they did not fall off...

Now I am contemplating new goals, the original plan being my first 10 mile race.in April.  But this book makes a half seem so doable in just 16 weeks (I can make you a man...  Or not.)  But then there is the lure of cross country skiing.  And I still haven't figured out just what my brain wants to work on writing, though it has been forcing me to obsess about punk, insane asylums, and AIDS activist history with some promise of usefulness in this endeavor at some point.  The plan is to get back into writing before work now that there is no daylight before or after work to entice me to take up that time, on non-running days.  Week One...

I have been plowing through research books and am ready for a good read.  Everyone has been recommending Karen Lord's fantasy novel and it was in at the library - on deck.

That Other SF

Mmmm...  The food is still good.  The Mission is really, um, changed.  Yet not.  The Sutro Baths are more covered in water and grass, and the Park Service has blocked off all the fun dangerous stairs and caves and cliff edges.  It makes me glad I lived there when I did.

Oh my

Harry, Harry Potter

OK, so I wasn't much for the books, but the movies have been surprisingly entertaining.  The final installment was properly grim and did not dwell in cheesy emotional moments like the last couple films.  At the $2 theater, too, so hey, it was a dashing success.  Go Harry.

Uplifting reading of the day

I bet he swore a lot, though.

Relaxing after my long run, which went ok, if very slow, after a week of for foot and ankle pain, some overdue shoe shopping, a slow short run and a memorial semi-kamikaze run with a pack of crazy runner types.  That one started out too fast and ended up too slow, as I accompanied the friend who was not up to the mileage or the original big dogs' pace...

As usual, I am reading at least four things at once, including a vegan cookbook which actually has a few things I had not considered  in terms of food combinations, and some books about foot care from the 70s with great drawings of dudes with bouncy hair and long 'staches in tiny shorts and singlets and tube socks. 

I just finished Embassytown by China Mieville, and it actually finished strong and made sense, but not too much sense.  A very thought-filled and -provoking book.  People who read a lot of linguistics or Joseph Campbell type stuff about the stages or development of consciousness should find it interesting.

Anyway, back to the real learning.

Cool

From http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/CylonOLantern

After Halloween

Early this cold a.m. the leaves were falling so fast, in the quiet dark it sounded like lots of little people running around.  Yet the street was empty.  A little extra chill...

Embassytown got really weird, but then it started to make more sense and got really intersting.  Thirty pages from the end, that bodes well for a strong finish.

Last of the harvest

And the farmers market ends too.  :(.

Embassytown, so far

Mieville's really good at starting a novel.  Worldbuilding is fast and furious in this one, and focused on exoanthropology and linguistics.  Tasty.  The characters being sort of wishy washy and unlikeable never really matters.  Too much brain candy to care until the plot sags in overkill actiony wordy bits.  That hasn't happened yet in ET.   Back to it then...

I might be a big geek

Judging by my excitement over a $15 shirt...

Embassytown

The queue for China Mieville's Embassytown was shorter than I thought it would be, so that book is up next.  I think I am ready for SFF again after reading too much about running, psychiatry, and LA hardcore punk.

I was reminded why I have cats when I came home yesterday to find boycat playing with a fat little mouse, saved the mouse from him (i.e. didn't let him eat it, because it was pretty far gone), put it out the house, then came back in to find he had a second one stashed away that he had already pretty much killed.  Two for one night...

I did not get much done this weekend other than run, make ice cream for a fundraiser at work, and help prepare for a Halloween party.  I did score a very cheap Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bashir costume though.  Should be fun.

Embassytown

The queue for China Mieville's Embassytown was shorter than I thought it would be, so that book is up next.  I think I am ready for SFF again after reading too much about running, psychiatry, and LA hardcore punk.

I was reminded why I have cats when I came home yesterday to find boycat playing with a fat little mouse, saved the mouse from him (i.e. didn't let him eat it, because it was pretty far gone), put it out the house, then came back in to find he had a second one stashedaway that he had already pretty much killed.  Two for one night...

I did not get much done this weekend other than run, make ice cream for a fundraiser at work, and help prepare for a Halloween party.  I did score a very cheap Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bashir costume though.  Should be fun.

Glee

Is taking forever to buffer, so I have time to post... 

Yesterday, we ran in the Big Gay Race, along with many other peoples.  It was a very good turnout, with some good outfits.  I ran kinda slow and had to stop near the end to catch my breath, having done a race pace 9x400 run Wednesday that made me feet hurt.  But it was fun.

Then we went to the Mill City farmers market and to Spoon River for an early birthday brunch for the vegetarian.  It was pretty tasty, but like with Greens, I'm not sure the extra price was justified.  The old Brenda's had more zing.

Then on to the Book Fair, where I got to stand five feet away from Kevin Sorbo.  And a couple friends were hawking their wares:

 A Day at the Inn, a Night at the Palace... and   Enter Oblivion .  Both good reads...

And then the last warmth of the day disappeared and it got very cold.  It's supposed to get down to 31°F on Tuesday.  Brrr. 

Otherwise, I have been reading about psych ERs, the history of psychiatric treatment, and looking at photos of abandoned insane asylums and other old fancy buildings, working on a story that has not fully taken shape yet.  Something about haunted old asylum ruins.  Maybe.  It's one of those net obsessions I can not shake and might as well put it to work.  

Anyway, time to walk the dog, since Glee is not happening right now.  It was giving me the urge to go to the new Footloose, with an angry dance homage.  Since the GF looks a hell of a lot like Kevin Bacon, I kinda feel I ought to see the original first though.  I've only seen parts of it.  I know, bad 80s karma.  I haven't seen Dirty Dancing in it's entirety either.  I can sing "Maniac, Maniac" in its entirety though.  I'd just rather watch women dance for their lives, I guess...