shadowkat

Well, after spending Sunday walking around the Park with cjl (a particularly overcast, cool Sunday), I'm indoors on lovely, cloudless sky Labour Day. Why? Methinks I've caught a cold/flu bug.

Let's see: itchy throat, watery eyes, stuffy head, achy body, fatigue - ugh! No! No! Can't afford a cold now. Ugh. Can you beat this luck? Just as I am finishing temp jop and am about to start new job, plus dealing with Mother coming on this Sunday, I catch a cold! So, question, can I get past the cold/flu bugabu before mother arrives and I start new job? Am certainly going to try. Hence the staying home today, resting, drinking lots of fluids, doing the chicken noodle soup, and feeling very happy that I decided to take Thursday and Friday off. (Considering the next vacation day I get is Thanksgiving, this was a good idea.)

Sort of ironic really - joining a healthcare company with a cold. Hee. Except...mother cannot afford to get my cold since she is coming to see baby Cedar. Ugh. Go away. Cold. Go Away.

In other news - have read and watched numerous different accounts of the RNC, and have come to the conclusion that John Kerry has a 50/50 chance of defeating President Bush. Which means this is going to be a nail-biting election for some of us.

Finished The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and promptly loaned my copy to cjl. Figured he'd enjoy it. It's one of the few Dick he hasn't read. Fascinating book. Now reading the latest Harry Dresden novel, Blood Rites, before I consider tackling my book club's selection of Like Water for Chocolat. In between read an interesting book review of Susannah Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, by Gregory Macguire (yes the same guy who wrote Wicked.)

I've been reading a lot about Clark's book, which appears to be a very intricate commentary on fantasy, magic and fantasy writers. Complete with satrical footnotes. It's very long - 800 pages. And apparently Neil Gaiman's latest discovery. Having read a few outtakes in MacGuire's review (which you can find in this weeks New York Times Book Review),
it looks wryly witty. Not sure I won't to spend the money and time on it though. Also, the blending of real historical events with the fantastical gets on my nerves in novels. (She blends in the Napoleanic Wars and meetings with Bryon and the Shelley's). On the other hand - it's wonderful to see yet another female writer enter what has steadily become an overwhelmingly male dominated field. Yes, there are other female writers in it, they just don't seem to get as much acclaim and attention as the CS Lewises, Philip Pullmen's, JR Tolkien's, Neil Gaiman's, and Terry Brooks. But that may just be my impression. I admit I've never delved deeply into the fantasy genre or the sci-fi genre, too eclectic, I tend to sample from all writing genre's never focusing too much on just one - generalist in everything. Has it's drawbacks I know.
At any rate, if anyone on line has actually bought or read this new tome - would love to hear your take on it.

Also saw the film Hero recently. Beautiful movie. Also oddly released to the US three years after it was first released in China and Hong Kong. Quite popular there and according to The Village Voice and The Onion, achieved acclaim that Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon did not.
Not much going on Hero. There was actually a lot more story in Crouching Tiger and Crouching Tiger is the better film. Hero is fairly simplistic in places and overtly patriotic. That said, it has beautiful visuals, that moved me to tears more than once. I'm a sucker for a good visual. Also possibly one of the most beautiful films I've seen cinematography wise. The director/cinematographer uses different color palettes to paint/ metaphorically depict each scene, reminding me a bit of looking at Chinese calligraphy or paintings of fantasy ballets. Recommend for the visuals and the ballet style fight scenes, particularly one that takes place amongst dancing leaves. But if you are hunting something deeper or more substantive plotwise? You'll probably be disappointed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Everyone I knew back in Taiwan thought Crouching Tiger was awful and was aimed mainly at Western audiences. But then, there was also a giant to-do in Taiwan about Hero because of the not-so-veiled political message and the very, very touchy subject on reunification with China.

This fascinates me. Cjl and many American critics aren't overly found of Hero, and interestingly enough, Hero was released three years ago in China/Taiwan/Hong Kong, before it was brought here. Meanwhile - the Asian audience preferred Hero and saw it as much better film than Crouching Tiger. But not nearly as good, my brother tells me, as the Jet Li triology Once Upon A Time in China (think that's the title)which is a predecessor to both. My brother keeps recommending them to me, but I have yet to find them.

It's funny how even though sci-fi/fantasy has the history of being a very male-dominated genre, most of the authors I read are female!

Oh there are quite a few female fantasy authors, but outside of Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Quinn, few are respected within the canon. Even those two rarely get mentioned.
Such writers as Ann McCaffry, Andre Norton, CJ Cherryth (sp?), Elizabeth Hand, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Bear, and Laurell K. Hamilton - are either under-the-wire (in other words you have to order them in order to find them) or frowned upon as overly romantic or in blending romance genre in sci/fantasy.

It's rare for a female sci-fi writer to get much acclaim. Poppy Z. Brite was one of the few female horror writers to get much attention. Why? (Shrugs).

Classical wuxia movies cannot be beaten ;). Even though I don't really watch them...

I don't know the box office numbers for Hero in Taiwan, but most people I talked to about it didn't like it either. Heh.

I don't know as much about the SF genre, given that I tend to stick to the fantasy side of things, but Butler and Le Guin are pretty well respected in the genre. As is Nancy Kress and Connie Willis. But the overall "feel" of the genre is pretty male, if one can make such a broad statement. Ditto with fantasy, thanks to all the quest fantasies! Although I sort of stumbled into a vein of more... fairy tale influenced fantasy that seems to be more equal in terms of female and male authors.

I dragged you all around the Park when your body needed rest.

To soothe my conscience, I could deliver some matzoh ball soup on Thursday or Friday night while you're prepping for the new job...

"Recommend for the visuals and the ballet style fight scenes, particularly one that takes place amongst dancing leaves. But if you are hunting something deeper or more substantive plotwise? You'll probably be disappointed."

HERO appeals to me less and less the more I think about it. To me, there's a serious disconnect between the style of the movie and the message. The director (or whoever was pulling his strings at the Chinese Ministry of Propaganda) wants us to think about the sacrifice and bloodshed necessary to bring together a nation--but the movie is composed of fight sequences so refined, so aestheticized, that blood is never spilled. The film strikes me as intrinsically dishonest.

Doesn't help that:

1) I'm not a big fan of wire work in recent martial arts epics.

2) Jet Li's nameless warrior is the center of the movie, and he's the least interesting character.

Still, I love Maggie Cheung's expression of pure disdain
when Zhang Ziyi attacks her in the "yellow leaves" sequence. It's pure "don't waste my time, little girl, I've got more important things to worry about." Even if I'm not wild about the movie overall, there's no questioning the raw star power of ZZ, Cheung and Tony Leung (as Broken Sword). They've got IT.

I dragged you all around the Park when your body needed rest.

Don't worry, sure it didn't have much effect one way or the other. I think I caught whatever this is from the finance company. About four other people who work near me have the same thing. So it could either be a cold, or a reaction to something in the area/air conditioning. Since tomorrow is my last day...it won't matter.

In regards to HERO, we'll have to agree to disagree somewhat. I enjoyed it for what it was - a very pretty movie with lovely visuals.
But then I'm a fan of that type of martial arts. The blood and guts style, which overwhelmed Kill Bill, bores and squicks me.

But it could be worse. You should be past the contagious stage by the time your mom arrives, so she won't pass your cold on to your niece, even if you still have symptoms. I hope you're mostly over it by the time you start the new job.

I have all too much reason to empathize: I caught a cold the 2nd day after I got back from Worldcon. My fault for not making up the sleep I lost over the weekend, not to mention losing it in the 1st place.

On the subject of women SF/fantasy authors, 1st, I could name several others (if I were more awake), & 2nd, I wouldn't agree that "few are respected within the canon." But maybe that's a result of my view from within the fannish community & your statement is more true outside it.

Turns out it wasn't a cold after all, but a flare up of allegeries. I think something in the office I was working in combined with the weather, pollen, and mold spores in the air probably caused it. Walking around the park on a damp day didn't help either. Seem to be fine now. Slight dry cough but that's it.

On the subject of women SF/fantasy authors, 1st, I could name several others (if I were more awake), & 2nd, I wouldn't agree that "few are respected within the canon." But maybe that's a result of my view from within the fannish community & your statement is more true outside it.

Yes, it is. Outside fandom, or the sci-fantasy obsessed, these authors are relatively unknown. Don't believe me? Go into local book store and try to find them. Not a fantasy store or comic store.
(Although they can be hard to find there as well. Tend to find more male-specific authors in comic stores.)

Also ask an academic - there was a list recently generated by an academic in live journal and I think only one woman sci-fi author made it: Urusla Le Quinn. (He didn't mention Doris Lessing who wrote Canopus in Argos: Archives nor Octvaia Butler, or for that matter Connie Willis.) Now things may have changed since I was in college, but back in 1989,
no female fantasy or sci-fi writers were on the lists of the course that taught sci-fi/fantasy curriculums. And when you mentioned female writers?
People laughed at you. This is outside the fanbase.

Again check your local bookstore - not Barnes & Noble or the huge ones, a smaller one and see how many fantasy novels they carry and which ones. Although even Barnes and Noble is limited. You have to hunt for Lois MacMaster Bujold and Tamora Pierce and the writer of Perdition Station. But Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, Tolkien and Terry Brooks have almost three shelves dedicated to them. The only female writers with as many shelves are Ann McCaffrey and possibly
Laurel K. Hamilton.

Ugh

no subject

no subject

no subject

It's All My Fault.

Re: It's All My Fault.

sorry you're not feeling well

Re: sorry you're not feeling well