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1. Oh this is...a mother and two daughters were stabbed to death in an apartment above the pharmacy across the street from where I work. This is why I'm not permitted to work later than 6pm or on Weekends.

2. On a brighter note...It's Martin Luther King's Birthday - a government sanctioned holiday in the US.
King accomplished three world changing things: 1) he empowered African Americans in the US to face their fears and stand up to their abusers and the bullies - in a non-violent manner, even though those bullies continued to beat, kill, and abuse them 2) He woke up many complacent white Americans of various classes and regions to what was happening and why it was horrific...to the point that many took action and fought to change the system. They became aware, and no longer oblivious to the horrors happening in their own neighborhoods. And their behavior began to change. 3) He found a way to resist and change the world with non-violent protests and non-violent social justice, paving the way for a more peaceful world.

All three of those points are important. If he hadn't accomplished all three, the world would not have changed. It's why we celebrate his birthday and why he received the noble peace prize. King's battle was not just against racism but against hate and violence.

3. Saw Sherlock and Dowton Abbey last night. Sherlock was far more entertaining and better written. And despite what I state below, I adored it. Quite loved it in fact. I seem to fall in love with Sherlock despite myself. I also don't see him as a sociopath - sociopath's don't tend to care about others or feel remorse, Sherlock seems to feel both.

It was quite good, even if it suffered from Moffat/Gatniss' convoluted plotting and meta-references. I'm discovering that I'm not a huge fan of meta-narrative or
breaking the fourth wall - it comes across as bit, self-promotional and self-referential or too wink-wink. This seems to be a direct result of the writer spending far too much time on the internet's social media interacting with their fandoms. As a result, we get a lot of geeky winking - which I'm finding increasingly distracting.

( spoilers )

Dowton Abbey was less entertaining. Not liking the Anna arc at all. Everyone else however is more interesting then expected. And I rather like Carson and Thomas's arcs this season, along with Mrs. Hughes, Edith, Cora and Isobel's. It's just Anna's that I find predictable and grating.

Jan Talking Meme - "What inspires you to write meta about a book/movie/show?"

This is part of the January Talking Meme - which I decided to do on a whim back in December. There's still a lot of dates available, if there's something you want to ask and have me write about - or you want to see if you can "stump" me (ie, ask something I can't write about)...now's the time.

January 20: rahirah asks What inspires you to write meta about a book/movie/show?

This is a hard one.

Short answer? I honestly don't know.

Long answer: If I'd have to hazard a guess, which I sort of do, usually it's something that hits a chord inside me or resonates on some weird deep internal and indescribable level. It's more emotional than mental. I have to be passionate about whatever it is.

But this gets back to a much broader question -" why I'm driven to write to begin with"? Which actually lies at the heart of it. What inspires me to write about things that I do not have to write about or am not assigned to write about? ( my somewhat rambling attempt to answer this question and more or less figure out the answer for myself )

Notable Women Writers Meme - and the books that make them notable

I know people vary on this point, or I suspect that they do, but I'm always more interested in the why than the what or the how or the which or the when, mostly because I believe the why governs everything. If you don't ask why questions as a writer - I believe that you are leaving out 90% of the story. Stories that ignore the why are forgettable, and feel rather flat, stories that focus on the why...stay with me long after they are done. Why is also, often, the question we don't know or want to know the answer to, which is why we don't ask it.

There was a list recently online somewhere for the 75 Greatest Living Women Writers, which I did not agree with...and was wondering if anyone would like to throw out names of female writers that while not "greatest" are at least "notable" and "memorable". Writers that you would read a second time - and whose books or novels or writing made you think, moved you, or inspired you?

The meme?

* List 5 to 10 women writers whose novels or writing made you think, inspired or moved you.
* Beside each list the book, novel, or piece of writing that made you list the writer as inspiration or memorable or notable
* Explain why
* I think they should still be alive, if at all possible, makes it harder (in other words, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Dunnett, and Octavia Butler - are disqualified because they are dead.)

Here's 10 of mine, because seriously 75 would take me forever. But I'm not ranking them, so order isn't important:

1. Alice Walker - The Color Purple, told in diary format, read it in high school never forgot it. Haven't read anything else by her though. What hit about the book was it focused on female relationships - that had zip to do with men. It was about a young gal who was different, and managed to have the courage to fight back against those who enslaved her.

2. Toni Morrison - Beloved - a haunting ghost story told in stream-of-conscious poetic prose, and partially in the perspective of the ghost. It's a book about the resilency of the human spirit. About how women handled slavery and how the ghosts of slavery continue to haunt you. It's also about rising above and fighting back, without violence, and without silence.

3. Sherri Tepper - Grass - a science fiction novel about gender, religion, tradition, and relating to something completely foreign. It's a mystery and a horror tale - about a family who journey's to a distant planet to determine the cause of a plague that is rapidly killing everyone on their home world. And what is happening to the settlers on this planet, who appear to be sort of mindless. But it is more of a why tale than a what - because it asks questions regarding human relationships, and why we feel the need to enforce our own culture on others. The aliens are particularly fascinating in this novel - for the young fear metamphorizing into the next stage...and see the next stage of their development as foreign and twisted.

4. Maria Doria Russell - The Sparrow and its sequel, The Children of God, this is story about a group of people, including a priest, sanctioned by the Catholic Church, to journey to a distant world - and do a cultural exchange. It explores the arrogance of this endeavor, the nature of faith, how we view god and why, and all the cultural misunderstandings that can occur and why knowing the language of another culture isn't enough, you have to understand the meaning as well. She's also written a novel on Doc Holiday.

5. Donna Tartt - The Secret History - it's a murder mystery, but we know the killer at the beginning of the novel and we know the victim, what we don't know is why. Or more to the point, why the narrator agreed to cover it up and continue his relationship with the murderers. It's about a religious ritual gone wrong, and the arrogance of scholarship.

6. Minette Walters - The Ice House - about a murder and why it happened. The murderers are common place, ordinary women, and the victim...well complicated. They actually made this one into a film. Also The Sculptress - a story about a woman convicted of a heinous crime, the question is why she did it - and it slowly breaks it down.

7. Anne Rice - Interview with a Vampire - which weirdly enough turned the vampire trope on-to its head and may well have created the urban fantasy genre. In Rice's novel, the vampires are the protagonists. It's in some respects an allegorical and lyrical tale about death - and the desire to avoid it at all costs. To preserve one's loved ones - even if by doing so, you destroy them. Lestate creates Louis, falling for him and needing him to aid him with his mortal father. Louis and Lestate create a child vampire - hoping for a family...which becomes twisted. Rice delves deeper into the mythos with The Vampire Lestate and Queen of the Damned - exploring Egyptian myths and ancient goddess mythology and how the twisting of the "goddess mythos" by "the god" followers created vampires.

8. Ellen Kushner - Privilege of the Sword and Swordspoint - comments on the historical romance and swashbuckler tale, creating a fantasy world where swordsman are like guns for hire, fighting duels for the rich. In Privilege, an eccentric uncle agrees to give his sister her inheritance in exchange for teaching her daughter to become a swordsman, and in Swordspoint, a swordsman falls for a young male scholar...who acts like a damsel, but eventually saves him with witty political maneuvers.

9. Margaret Atwood - the short story "Rape Fantasies", The Robber Bride, and the Blind Assassin - in Rape Fantasies, the protagonist discusses the various rape fantasies women have and how women view rape - at the end we realize who she is telling the story to, a man in a bar who she fears may want to rape her. In the Robber Bride - told through a series of flashbacks, three women friends reflect on how their long dead classmate, Zenia, robbed them of a series of beaux. It's based on the fairy tale the Robber Bride. The Blind Assassin which I'm reading now is about two sisters, one who dies at the beginning of the book and whose novel, the Blind Assassin we read throughout. It's a story within a story within a story. Like a series of chinese dolls nested within each other.

10. JK Rowling - Harry Potter - creator of a rather innovative and often darkly witty series of stories of a Boy Wizard who fights and ultimately defeats the evil Wizard who destroyed his family. But that's not what it is really about - or the main focus, the main focus is a coming of age tale, about school politics, leadership, friendship, and why and how the decisions we make influence everyone and everything around us. Within the book, Rowling takes a rather biting look at British classism and imperialism, not to mention xenophobia. But she does it with a light and witty tone. Her later book, A Casual Vacancy, I've heard is much darker.