Happy Things and Reading Meme...
Dec. 11th, 2019 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWhen the going gets tough...the tough find things to make them laugh and be cheery, where ever they may find them.
1. This is just...awesome. The Deep Sea Interactive Scroll -- make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom.
It cheered me up after a bad work day. The sort of day in which you wish there were more trees and less people.
Also, I did not know that sea lions and elephant seals swam down that deep in the ocean or monk fish for that matter. Also didn't know the ocean went that deep. It was truly awesome --- really made me grateful for my home -- earth --- and blown away with awe for the natural world.
Also got to see the moon on the way home from work -- big, white, with all it's craters visible hanging low in the sky. Natural wonder is why I believe in God, even if humanity often makes me question my beliefs at times. It also is what makes me get up each morning, some days, while my fellow humans often make me want to stay in bed, hidden under the covers.
2. Hee Hee... Guidelines for Female Protagonists in Hallmark Christmas Movies -- outside of having to be former daytime soap opera starlets or going with a guy, played by an actor who was a former failed daytime soap opera star. (This is where all the actors who couldn't make it in daytime soap operas go...Hallmark Christmas Movies.)
3. I am a music historian and here's the best-selling single of every decade way back to 4000BC.
ππΏπ°π΅πΆπ² ππ²π»π±π²πΏππΌπ»
jazzemu_
I am a music historian, and withadrianrmg
I have researched the best-selling single of every decade all the way back to 14,000BC. Here's a thread:
Hee Hee. It made me giggle.
4. Little Boy Invites Entire Kindgergarten Class to watch him be adopted
____________________________________________________________________________
What I read Meme
1. Dawn of X Comics
Been steadily making my way through them. They are actually rather well written and the art is a mixed bag. A sort of combination of prose, charts, sci-fi diagrams, and art. Also text message board. Emails. Phone transcripts. Wanted Posters. And fake ads for lawyers in space. (These are not your typical comic books, and sort of play with the genre in new and somewhat subversive ways. Often slyly making fun of our society in the process.)
I'd say it is more speculative sci-fantasy than superhero action soap opera drama.
But it's also a mixed bag of tricks. Although the third and second issues were quite good of most of them.
However, if you want to read them? You really need to pick up House of X/Powers of X first which has just been released as a graphic novel, collecting all 12 issues in a volume that is $21.99 on comixcology.
2. Hawkeye - My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction et al
This is good. The art reminds me of early Frank Miller, except in color, and the writing has a similar feel to it. Dark and noirish. Similar to Batman Year One, although maybe not quite as dark. Hawkeye is slightly more likable than Batman.
In that he's not homicidal. Also this was written recently and not in the 1980s, so we don't have well...the 1980s sensibility.
I read the first issue in Volume 1 (which I'm reading for free via comixcology. I have unlimited, so get to borrow up to 15 books. Also get a 10-15% discount on most books. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford my habit.
It's also not outlandish. There's a view (by non-comic book readers who have only seen the movies) that comics defy logic and reality. Not true. Some maybe, most not. Also there's a wide range in the medium. It would be sort of like generalizing about ...all space science fiction dramas, or all video games. [Be careful about making broad generalizations about things you don't know anything about -- you look like an idiot. It should be noted that I've stopped bothering to respond people making idiotic remarks about things I happen to love -- I have to do that at work, and on a commute, I can only take so much.
This is what I like to call gritty, realistic, comic. Fits solidly in the noir genre. Hawkeye isn't super-powered. He gets hurt. Badly. The story fits in the same genre as the television series (based on the comics of the same name) Stumptown.
If you don't like superhero comics, but like noir -- and want to know more about Clint Barton from the MCU, try out this baby.
3. Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase - eh...I'm still plodding through it. It's different. Chase is part Albanian, so her first two books feature Albanian characters. And she makes a point of pointed out the differences between Albanians and the British -- Chase prefers the Albanians, the British don't come out quite as well, nor do the French for that matter. I think she's Albanian and British.
In this one, the villain from The Lion's Daughter, becomes the hero ten years later, redeeming himself. He's working as an agent/investigator for the British, and falls for a tempermental artist who is the wife of one of his targets, a villianous despot who has ruined lives. One too many. That nasty guy gets murdered. And our hero, Esmond (aka Ismael) is tasked with finding the killer with the help of the man's widow.
The problem with the book is it is trying to be a murder mystery, when it is actually more interested in the romance. So the mystery is sort...in the background?
That doesn't work for a mystery novel. The mystery should be in the foreground with the romance in the background. Or mystery A plotline, romance B plotline. When you flip the two...the characters often loses track of the mystery as does the reader. I mean there shouldn't be more sex scenes than well ...sleuthing.
The romance/mystery hybrid can work and often well, but usually when the focus is on the mystery -- with the romance adding to it. I have yet to see it work the other way around.
The other problem about the book is how the writer is handling homosexuality. Which I'm of two minds regarding. On the one hand it is realistic. The British in the 1800s did not think much of homosexuality and saw it as debased. (Actually, I think they felt this way up until roughly now. English aren't known for dealing with sex well, awfully repressed nationality.) So it stands to reason that the heroine who is English would feel the same. (That's what the Albanian hero states -- that she is British/English and doesn't know any better and being such would be sickened by bisexuality or homosexuality. In this book the heroine's dead husband was bisexual.)
The hero who is Albanian doesn't really understand why the British are upset by it. As he puts it -- what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms and homes with other consenting adults...is their business. People should be allowed to find pleasure with and love whom they choose. So in a way the book is less of a condemnation of bisexuality or homosexuality (in regards to men at least -- women aren't addressed) then it is a condemnation of the British repression, prudery, and inability to handle it.
In fact I think the writer is attempting thinly disguised social commentary. Go writer, considering up until quite recently the romance genre didn't quite allow anything but the standard heterosexual stuff. Rape and forced seduction was fine, along with heterosexual anal sex...but homosexuality was strictly taboo and denounced or shown in a negative light. (Yes, I noticed when the flip began...because now it is the exact opposite. Rape and forced seduction aka bodice ripper are frowned upon, while loving homosexual and bisexual relationships are embraced. Finally the publishing world has caught up with me, took it long enough.)
I'm just not sure how effective it is -- because I can see some readers misinterpreting it or taking it the wrong way. But hey, that's pretty much true of everything. People will misinterpret things if it suits them. There's very little anyone can do about it.
The pacing however could be better. I need to finish this and find a better paced book before I leave for the holidays. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of reading over the holidays.
1. This is just...awesome. The Deep Sea Interactive Scroll -- make sure you scroll all the way to the bottom.
It cheered me up after a bad work day. The sort of day in which you wish there were more trees and less people.
Also, I did not know that sea lions and elephant seals swam down that deep in the ocean or monk fish for that matter. Also didn't know the ocean went that deep. It was truly awesome --- really made me grateful for my home -- earth --- and blown away with awe for the natural world.
Also got to see the moon on the way home from work -- big, white, with all it's craters visible hanging low in the sky. Natural wonder is why I believe in God, even if humanity often makes me question my beliefs at times. It also is what makes me get up each morning, some days, while my fellow humans often make me want to stay in bed, hidden under the covers.
2. Hee Hee... Guidelines for Female Protagonists in Hallmark Christmas Movies -- outside of having to be former daytime soap opera starlets or going with a guy, played by an actor who was a former failed daytime soap opera star. (This is where all the actors who couldn't make it in daytime soap operas go...Hallmark Christmas Movies.)
3. I am a music historian and here's the best-selling single of every decade way back to 4000BC.
ππΏπ°π΅πΆπ² ππ²π»π±π²πΏππΌπ»
jazzemu_I am a music historian, and with
adrianrmgI have researched the best-selling single of every decade all the way back to 14,000BC. Here's a thread:
Hee Hee. It made me giggle.
4. Little Boy Invites Entire Kindgergarten Class to watch him be adopted
____________________________________________________________________________
What I read Meme
1. Dawn of X Comics
Been steadily making my way through them. They are actually rather well written and the art is a mixed bag. A sort of combination of prose, charts, sci-fi diagrams, and art. Also text message board. Emails. Phone transcripts. Wanted Posters. And fake ads for lawyers in space. (These are not your typical comic books, and sort of play with the genre in new and somewhat subversive ways. Often slyly making fun of our society in the process.)
I'd say it is more speculative sci-fantasy than superhero action soap opera drama.
But it's also a mixed bag of tricks. Although the third and second issues were quite good of most of them.
However, if you want to read them? You really need to pick up House of X/Powers of X first which has just been released as a graphic novel, collecting all 12 issues in a volume that is $21.99 on comixcology.
2. Hawkeye - My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction et al
This is good. The art reminds me of early Frank Miller, except in color, and the writing has a similar feel to it. Dark and noirish. Similar to Batman Year One, although maybe not quite as dark. Hawkeye is slightly more likable than Batman.
In that he's not homicidal. Also this was written recently and not in the 1980s, so we don't have well...the 1980s sensibility.
I read the first issue in Volume 1 (which I'm reading for free via comixcology. I have unlimited, so get to borrow up to 15 books. Also get a 10-15% discount on most books. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford my habit.
It's also not outlandish. There's a view (by non-comic book readers who have only seen the movies) that comics defy logic and reality. Not true. Some maybe, most not. Also there's a wide range in the medium. It would be sort of like generalizing about ...all space science fiction dramas, or all video games. [Be careful about making broad generalizations about things you don't know anything about -- you look like an idiot. It should be noted that I've stopped bothering to respond people making idiotic remarks about things I happen to love -- I have to do that at work, and on a commute, I can only take so much.
This is what I like to call gritty, realistic, comic. Fits solidly in the noir genre. Hawkeye isn't super-powered. He gets hurt. Badly. The story fits in the same genre as the television series (based on the comics of the same name) Stumptown.
If you don't like superhero comics, but like noir -- and want to know more about Clint Barton from the MCU, try out this baby.
3. Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase - eh...I'm still plodding through it. It's different. Chase is part Albanian, so her first two books feature Albanian characters. And she makes a point of pointed out the differences between Albanians and the British -- Chase prefers the Albanians, the British don't come out quite as well, nor do the French for that matter. I think she's Albanian and British.
In this one, the villain from The Lion's Daughter, becomes the hero ten years later, redeeming himself. He's working as an agent/investigator for the British, and falls for a tempermental artist who is the wife of one of his targets, a villianous despot who has ruined lives. One too many. That nasty guy gets murdered. And our hero, Esmond (aka Ismael) is tasked with finding the killer with the help of the man's widow.
The problem with the book is it is trying to be a murder mystery, when it is actually more interested in the romance. So the mystery is sort...in the background?
That doesn't work for a mystery novel. The mystery should be in the foreground with the romance in the background. Or mystery A plotline, romance B plotline. When you flip the two...the characters often loses track of the mystery as does the reader. I mean there shouldn't be more sex scenes than well ...sleuthing.
The romance/mystery hybrid can work and often well, but usually when the focus is on the mystery -- with the romance adding to it. I have yet to see it work the other way around.
The other problem about the book is how the writer is handling homosexuality. Which I'm of two minds regarding. On the one hand it is realistic. The British in the 1800s did not think much of homosexuality and saw it as debased. (Actually, I think they felt this way up until roughly now. English aren't known for dealing with sex well, awfully repressed nationality.) So it stands to reason that the heroine who is English would feel the same. (That's what the Albanian hero states -- that she is British/English and doesn't know any better and being such would be sickened by bisexuality or homosexuality. In this book the heroine's dead husband was bisexual.)
The hero who is Albanian doesn't really understand why the British are upset by it. As he puts it -- what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms and homes with other consenting adults...is their business. People should be allowed to find pleasure with and love whom they choose. So in a way the book is less of a condemnation of bisexuality or homosexuality (in regards to men at least -- women aren't addressed) then it is a condemnation of the British repression, prudery, and inability to handle it.
In fact I think the writer is attempting thinly disguised social commentary. Go writer, considering up until quite recently the romance genre didn't quite allow anything but the standard heterosexual stuff. Rape and forced seduction was fine, along with heterosexual anal sex...but homosexuality was strictly taboo and denounced or shown in a negative light. (Yes, I noticed when the flip began...because now it is the exact opposite. Rape and forced seduction aka bodice ripper are frowned upon, while loving homosexual and bisexual relationships are embraced. Finally the publishing world has caught up with me, took it long enough.)
I'm just not sure how effective it is -- because I can see some readers misinterpreting it or taking it the wrong way. But hey, that's pretty much true of everything. People will misinterpret things if it suits them. There's very little anyone can do about it.
The pacing however could be better. I need to finish this and find a better paced book before I leave for the holidays. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of reading over the holidays.