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Dec. 5th, 2017 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. It's pouring at the moment and in the 60s. Very weird weather. Should be taking a nose dive towards the end of the week, when the cold front drops down from Canada and locks itself in. Then we'll be in the 40s, 30s, and 20s, and everyone will get sick again.
Meanwhile, found out today that after burning up half of the NAPA Valley, the wild-brush fires have decided to take out half of Los Angeles County. Hoping everyone is okay.
2. Fantasizing about trips to Hawaii. Last year, Costa Rica. This year, Hawaii. I want to take a 7-11 day trip sometime in the late spring (after spring break). I'm getting another week of vacation this year so decided to celebrate by going somewhere exotic.
Also, would like to take a trip to either Macho Picchu, Peru in July/August or Alaska. But for now, just fantasizing about Hawaii. It makes me happy.
But I have to find a trip that is not too expensive, mostly on the Big Island, doesn't require a car, and I can take as a solo/single traveler with a group of fellow travelers -- who are between the ages of 45-65.
3. The current historical romance novel that I'm reading is weird. It takes place in the Middle Ages, and does a rather good job of describing feudal life, or life under the English feudal system -- if a tad on the romantic side of the fence (but hey, romance novel, it's not going to be grim and grungy), but for a romance novel it's fairly accurate. Or appears to be. (I'm not a Medievalist or Medieval Scholar, I despise that period of history. The Renaissance was far more interesting. So don't know a great deal about it -- just bits and pieces gleamed from literary works, courses, and films).
And right now the hero and heroine are living a happy existence with her mom and his knight-errant steward. But I'm only 28% of the way through the book. So...hmmm, according to the description, he disappears, she goes after him accompanied by a junior falconer (the hero is into birds), has to fend off the advances of the King, and eventually finds him with no memory, under the spell of a sorceress (Vivienne's daughter -- as in Vivienne and Merlin) and in attempting to save him -- she falls under the spell of Vivienne's brother, also a sorcerer. And...well they become the couple's love slaves, and according to the description and reviews, things get really wonky, and when they come out the other side -- they don't quite know how to deal with each other.
Beatrice Small, the novelist, is apparently interested in depicting the difference between lust and love and showing you can have great sex but no love. She's also interested in examining HEA and possibly subverting it.
If she's still alive, she's in her 80s. I think. Born in the 1930s and started publishing in the early 1960s. Among the first to publish explicit sex in romance novels. She married a historian/photographer, but graduated from secretarial school -- hello, went to school in the 40s/50s.
Her novel also examines sexism, misogyny, and classicism in detail. Romance novels more than any other genre or so I've discovered, examine gender inequalities/politics and classicism. The examination makes it clear that what is happening now with the metoo# movement was long overdue, but inevitable. I honestly think romance novels should be required reading for women's studies majors, more than the other genres.
Although...co-worker came to me today to tell me that the book he attempted to loan me (an old and fun sci-fantasy adventure yarn published in 1969, with yellowing pages) was upon a re-read -- insanely sexist and he was embarrassed that he tried to foist it on me. (I'd refused, not based on content, but because I can't read moldy books with tiny print any longer. Those days are gone. Thank heaven for Kindles. Just saying.) Touched, I hand-waved his worry. It's a creature of its time. The sci-fi genre was alarmingly sexist pretty much up until roughly the 21st Century. The 20th had issues. What I considered ground-breaking and feminist in the 1970s-1990s, would cringe at today. And that's unfortunately true of most of the genres.
Keep in mind up until Star Wars -- women were scantilly clad in sci-fi movies, and often depicted like Barbarella. Even in Star Wars, Princess Leia was seen as a sex symbol. (Although to be fair, so was Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil.) Heck, check out the original Star Trek Series, women wore short skirts and tight tops emphasizing their busts -- often used as love interests for Kirk. Otherwise they had no role. Even Next Generation was like that -- we had three women cast members, the toughest was killed off in the first season, the doctor was there with her "son" (who got more screen time than she did) and was a love interest for the Captain, while the third was a love interest for Ryker and wore tight clothing to look sexy. It wasn't until Deep Space Nine and Voyager that women were given meaty roles -- and that was in the mid-late 1990s.
You can't expect a 1960s book to be well...not sexist. It's a creature of it's time. Doesn't mean I want to read it though. Been there, done that. Besides Beatrice Small's somewhat feminist take on the Middle Ages is more interesting. Even if she uses one too many adverbs, the dialogue is hilarious in places, and she can't seem to get rid of all of the dialogue identifiers.
Meanwhile, found out today that after burning up half of the NAPA Valley, the wild-brush fires have decided to take out half of Los Angeles County. Hoping everyone is okay.
2. Fantasizing about trips to Hawaii. Last year, Costa Rica. This year, Hawaii. I want to take a 7-11 day trip sometime in the late spring (after spring break). I'm getting another week of vacation this year so decided to celebrate by going somewhere exotic.
Also, would like to take a trip to either Macho Picchu, Peru in July/August or Alaska. But for now, just fantasizing about Hawaii. It makes me happy.
But I have to find a trip that is not too expensive, mostly on the Big Island, doesn't require a car, and I can take as a solo/single traveler with a group of fellow travelers -- who are between the ages of 45-65.
3. The current historical romance novel that I'm reading is weird. It takes place in the Middle Ages, and does a rather good job of describing feudal life, or life under the English feudal system -- if a tad on the romantic side of the fence (but hey, romance novel, it's not going to be grim and grungy), but for a romance novel it's fairly accurate. Or appears to be. (I'm not a Medievalist or Medieval Scholar, I despise that period of history. The Renaissance was far more interesting. So don't know a great deal about it -- just bits and pieces gleamed from literary works, courses, and films).
And right now the hero and heroine are living a happy existence with her mom and his knight-errant steward. But I'm only 28% of the way through the book. So...hmmm, according to the description, he disappears, she goes after him accompanied by a junior falconer (the hero is into birds), has to fend off the advances of the King, and eventually finds him with no memory, under the spell of a sorceress (Vivienne's daughter -- as in Vivienne and Merlin) and in attempting to save him -- she falls under the spell of Vivienne's brother, also a sorcerer. And...well they become the couple's love slaves, and according to the description and reviews, things get really wonky, and when they come out the other side -- they don't quite know how to deal with each other.
Beatrice Small, the novelist, is apparently interested in depicting the difference between lust and love and showing you can have great sex but no love. She's also interested in examining HEA and possibly subverting it.
If she's still alive, she's in her 80s. I think. Born in the 1930s and started publishing in the early 1960s. Among the first to publish explicit sex in romance novels. She married a historian/photographer, but graduated from secretarial school -- hello, went to school in the 40s/50s.
Her novel also examines sexism, misogyny, and classicism in detail. Romance novels more than any other genre or so I've discovered, examine gender inequalities/politics and classicism. The examination makes it clear that what is happening now with the metoo# movement was long overdue, but inevitable. I honestly think romance novels should be required reading for women's studies majors, more than the other genres.
Although...co-worker came to me today to tell me that the book he attempted to loan me (an old and fun sci-fantasy adventure yarn published in 1969, with yellowing pages) was upon a re-read -- insanely sexist and he was embarrassed that he tried to foist it on me. (I'd refused, not based on content, but because I can't read moldy books with tiny print any longer. Those days are gone. Thank heaven for Kindles. Just saying.) Touched, I hand-waved his worry. It's a creature of its time. The sci-fi genre was alarmingly sexist pretty much up until roughly the 21st Century. The 20th had issues. What I considered ground-breaking and feminist in the 1970s-1990s, would cringe at today. And that's unfortunately true of most of the genres.
Keep in mind up until Star Wars -- women were scantilly clad in sci-fi movies, and often depicted like Barbarella. Even in Star Wars, Princess Leia was seen as a sex symbol. (Although to be fair, so was Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil.) Heck, check out the original Star Trek Series, women wore short skirts and tight tops emphasizing their busts -- often used as love interests for Kirk. Otherwise they had no role. Even Next Generation was like that -- we had three women cast members, the toughest was killed off in the first season, the doctor was there with her "son" (who got more screen time than she did) and was a love interest for the Captain, while the third was a love interest for Ryker and wore tight clothing to look sexy. It wasn't until Deep Space Nine and Voyager that women were given meaty roles -- and that was in the mid-late 1990s.
You can't expect a 1960s book to be well...not sexist. It's a creature of it's time. Doesn't mean I want to read it though. Been there, done that. Besides Beatrice Small's somewhat feminist take on the Middle Ages is more interesting. Even if she uses one too many adverbs, the dialogue is hilarious in places, and she can't seem to get rid of all of the dialogue identifiers.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 08:13 am (UTC)Have you ever seen the pilot that Roddenberry made to originally pitch the networks? His second in command wasn't Spock, it was a woman, and she (and other women on the crew) wore pants, not skirts. NBC picked it up for production, as you know, but the brass hated the women's clothing in the pilot, and insisted on the change to the miniskirts.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 11:48 am (UTC)I always wonder how the show would have developed if Spock and Number One had been left as they were. No Uhura or Sulu though...
I'm trying to get into writing a Trek fanfic verse set around Number One (at the moment fifteen years after The Cage; that may change) with a disgruntled Kirk coming aboard as her second-in-command.
How Spock gets there I have figured out, but not Uhura, Sulu etc
kerk
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 10:51 pm (UTC)And, people saw the science fiction and fantasy fandom as being male, mainly or fanboys. I know that's how they view comics. I always got odd looks when I entered comic book or sci-fi sections in book stores in the 80s-2010. It's changed now. But distribution has also changed.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 02:57 pm (UTC)Denise Crosby was just awful as Tasha Yar. It's too bad as she is overall a good actress. Have to say I was pleased at the time, when they killed off Tasha. (I think Crosby hated the role.) She was so much better when she came back for a few episodes with an entirely different personality to play. They say that when originally hired Crosby was supposed to be the ship's counselor and Sirtis the head of security and that it was Roddenberry who switched the two. I think Sirtis with her real-life, forward personality would have been better in the security role and we might have had an empowering Buffy-like character a half generation earlier!
no subject
Date: 2017-12-06 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-07 01:25 am (UTC)