Books and other things..
Aug. 23rd, 2023 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I got stuff done - well at work in any event. At home is another story. I'm often exhausted by the time I get home - that I've only energy for making dinner (putting together a lunch), calling mother, watching our (mother's and mine) soap opera, and blogging. I think I'm getting old? Time was - I'd go to gyms, work out, take painting/drawing courses, social psychology courses, or pottery. Now, not so much.
2. Here's an idea that I'm playing around with...I'm thinking of using the photos that I took of my watercolors of the people I saw on the subway (I have over twenty-five paintings) and putting them together in a photo book, along with a script or mockup - then maybe sending it along with query letters to publishers. But first - I'm going to reach out to my Aunt L (a professional artist who has done this before) and ask her how to go about it. She was the one who suggested doing a book of the watercolors.
I just have to get up the gumption to ask. I'm bad at asking for help. Also I'm admittedly scared of putting my art out there for publication (or rejection).
Mother suggested asking my brother or sister in law - but I already kind of floated that idea and had the door slammed in my face. (Actually this is probably why I'm not good at asking for advice or help in this arena.)
3. Clock where the Time is a Song Title
They have other ones...Earth Clock.
Literature Clock
The Color Clock - which is just weird and I'm not sure I get it
The song one is by far the best - but that's just because I'm a music junkie.
Speaking of songs?
Four Songs that I Love and Other People Really Don't
* We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel
* Daydream Believer by the Monkeeys
* If you could read my mind by Gordon Lightfoot
* The Lion Sleeps Tonight
4. Hmmm... Notable Works of Non-Fiction by Science Fiction Authors
*Novikov is the author of the time-travel comedy of manners Reprise. Rosen is the author of the bleak near-future Cascade. Together, assisted by artist Marten Norr, the pair created The Sad Bastard Cookbook. Its target market? People so crushed by life that even breathing demands onerous effort. Its mission? Provide the means by which even the most enervated readers can feed themselves and so avoid starvation.
One has to admire the simple clarity of that cover blurb: “Food You Can Make So You Don’t Die.” The cook book delivers, offering a wide variety of meals suitable for even the most unmotivated cook. Even better, one need not even motivate oneself to travel to a bookstore to purchase the book. The Sad Bastard Cookbook is available here for free download.
And..
*Russ was part of the rising tide of women speculative fiction authors of the late 1960s and onwards. How joyously this demographic shift was greeted by the grognards of fantasy and science fiction may be reflected in Russ’s guide to all of the eleven basic methods used to justify ignoring women’s writing. While How to Suppress is just 159 pages long, those are a very comprehensive 159 pages.
How to Suppress is snarky, sarcastic, and bleakly hilarious. Also, the eleven methods are not peculiar to suppressing women’s fiction; they can be applied to any group unwanted in the canon. This is not, however, intended as a how-to book; rather, by drawing attention to the underhanded tricks, Russ hoped to deter their use.
At one time, even mentioning the title of this book on rec.arts.sf.written ensured a flame war. I look forward to discovering if that is still true of fandom.
5. Wednesday Book Meme
* Audible Books: Flowers of the Killer Moon : The Osage County Murders and the Beginning of the FBI by David Grahn. I've made it to the Will Patton narration. This is a non-fiction account of the Osage Indian Tribe Murders in Kansas and Oklahoma, mainly Oklahoma during the 1920s. Over 26 Osage Indians were killed before the Federal Government was thrust into it, under J. Edgar Hoover - who was just elected chief of a newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigations. The Osage Tribe, which had a lot of money due to the oil on their land, paid the Federal Government around $20K to solve the murders. (Equivalent of $300K today.) The government was just as corrupt back then as it was now - seriously Warren G. Harding's administration was corrupt (but he was among the most liked presidents to serve - which should tell you something about nitwit Americans). The FBI was mainly formed to investigate the US government's corruption.
The fact that Hoover also abused his power in later years, and was head of the FBI for about five decades...also says something. Let's face it, what is happening today has happened before. Many, many, many times.
Mother brought up Nixon tonight. I brought up Warren G. Harding. And there were others..sigh.
If you want to know about the 3.5 hour film directed by Martin Scorsese starring DiCaprio and Deniro go HERE, also apparently Robbie Robertson did the score (before he died). So far the only people in the cast that I recognize from the book are the leads.
Apparently Edgar J Hoover isn't in it? OR Scoresese cast the 29 year Hoover with one of the musicians in the film.
At any rate - Patton is an excellent narrator, and the book is fascinating. Read it - or listen to it, prior to the movie.
* Comic Books or really just Graphic Novels. I have no idea who came up with the term comics for these things. They are adult. Not the least bit humorous (except dryly so), and not strips. If anything they are serials - or novellas, so graphic novels or serials is more fitting.
- Dark X-Men - written as a kind of horror comic series, featuring the darker or more morally ambiguous Mutants with Super Talents (being hunted for the safety of human kind, yeah right). Stars Madelyn Prior (Goblin Queen/Queen of Limbo aka Jean Grey's Clone), Alex Summers (Havok and her lover), Gambit, Albert (a cyborg Wolverine Clone - don't ask), Archangel (Warren with metal wings), and others. In the first issue things go badly, and people get captured and injured. It's kind of a dark comic - strongly focuses on the themes of being hunted by a cruel world. Art, better than expected. Writing ...not bad. These comics combine are with prose and pages of just text - so they
- Children of the Vault - Speculative Sci-Fi. People with burgeoning super-powers are put in a vault and through a series of tests or virtual reality scenarios played out over millions of years. They emerge with that knowledge, but are corrupt and designed to kill off mutants or the other.
And once emerged discover that the X-men to protect human kind and themselves had put them in a dream state making them think they'd emerged and conquered the world. Only to discover upon actual awakening that that was all a fantasy scenario or dream. But the pesky mutants appear to be gone - so they are off pretending to be benevolent superheros, when they are anything but. They apparently infected everyone with a virus that makes people adore and worship them.
It's okay. I like the character bits, and the format. Also Bishop and Cable working together is interesting - Marvel is into odd couple pairings, basically putting people who don't trust each other and despise each other together out of necessity.
- Uncanny Avengers - better than expected. Steve Rogers has joined up with the X-men or merged the two teams. He has various people on the Avengers who are X-men - to help them avenge the X-men's deaths by evil Orchis. (Enemy of my Enemy is my friend.) Which makes for strange bedfellows. We have basically female and male assassins, (Deadpool and Penance) on the Avengers with Captain America. It's fun.
Also the writing is better than expected. Art is okay.
-X-Force - very character centric, espionage sci-fi, with all sorts of spy thriller bits, and manipulations. Favorite character is Sage, an alcoholic, technocrat.
-X-men Red - kind of sci-fi fantasy with lots of mythology? Storm is the lead here, and she's pitted against Apocalypse's wife Gensesis. Although he doesn't go by that name any longer. It's basically the battle of the Gods on Mars, with lots of world-building, science fiction and fantasy elements - reminds me of Game of Thrones, but in comic books.
* E-Books
Dance with a Fae Prince by Elise Kova - okay, but overall disappointed. I think I reviewed in a separate post? It's a reworking of the Cinderella story - and kind of innovative in how it does it. But also boring, I think it would have been less so - if it were tighter and more focused on taking back the Fae Glass Crown and less on the romantic yearning.
A Daring Pursuit (can't remember the author) - it's a romance. A historical. But with a nice hero. So not a boddice ripper. The heroine keeps a menageri with a Bear in Wales, the hero is an architect. They are engaging in an affair of sorts, since she's already been ruined, and he's thinking he should marry a respectable heiress - while she's flirting with marrying a homosexual with an estate - but oh dear, they are in love. (It's clearly a modern historical.)
*Paperback books - Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James - Mythic Fantasy Novel - that reads like prose poetry. Quite lyrical in fact with a kind of Joycean stream of consciousness flow to it.
Took me a bit to get the hang of it - but I'm there. About a woman struggling to find her place of power in a male centric world. Where women are bought, sold, or married off for wealth and prosperity, or enslaved, and men are free to be assholes. It's told mainly from her perspective.
I'm about five pages in - so it could change.
2. Here's an idea that I'm playing around with...I'm thinking of using the photos that I took of my watercolors of the people I saw on the subway (I have over twenty-five paintings) and putting them together in a photo book, along with a script or mockup - then maybe sending it along with query letters to publishers. But first - I'm going to reach out to my Aunt L (a professional artist who has done this before) and ask her how to go about it. She was the one who suggested doing a book of the watercolors.
I just have to get up the gumption to ask. I'm bad at asking for help. Also I'm admittedly scared of putting my art out there for publication (or rejection).
Mother suggested asking my brother or sister in law - but I already kind of floated that idea and had the door slammed in my face. (Actually this is probably why I'm not good at asking for advice or help in this arena.)
3. Clock where the Time is a Song Title
They have other ones...Earth Clock.
Literature Clock
The Color Clock - which is just weird and I'm not sure I get it
The song one is by far the best - but that's just because I'm a music junkie.
Speaking of songs?
Four Songs that I Love and Other People Really Don't
* We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel
* Daydream Believer by the Monkeeys
* If you could read my mind by Gordon Lightfoot
* The Lion Sleeps Tonight
4. Hmmm... Notable Works of Non-Fiction by Science Fiction Authors
*Novikov is the author of the time-travel comedy of manners Reprise. Rosen is the author of the bleak near-future Cascade. Together, assisted by artist Marten Norr, the pair created The Sad Bastard Cookbook. Its target market? People so crushed by life that even breathing demands onerous effort. Its mission? Provide the means by which even the most enervated readers can feed themselves and so avoid starvation.
One has to admire the simple clarity of that cover blurb: “Food You Can Make So You Don’t Die.” The cook book delivers, offering a wide variety of meals suitable for even the most unmotivated cook. Even better, one need not even motivate oneself to travel to a bookstore to purchase the book. The Sad Bastard Cookbook is available here for free download.
And..
*Russ was part of the rising tide of women speculative fiction authors of the late 1960s and onwards. How joyously this demographic shift was greeted by the grognards of fantasy and science fiction may be reflected in Russ’s guide to all of the eleven basic methods used to justify ignoring women’s writing. While How to Suppress is just 159 pages long, those are a very comprehensive 159 pages.
How to Suppress is snarky, sarcastic, and bleakly hilarious. Also, the eleven methods are not peculiar to suppressing women’s fiction; they can be applied to any group unwanted in the canon. This is not, however, intended as a how-to book; rather, by drawing attention to the underhanded tricks, Russ hoped to deter their use.
At one time, even mentioning the title of this book on rec.arts.sf.written ensured a flame war. I look forward to discovering if that is still true of fandom.
5. Wednesday Book Meme
* Audible Books: Flowers of the Killer Moon : The Osage County Murders and the Beginning of the FBI by David Grahn. I've made it to the Will Patton narration. This is a non-fiction account of the Osage Indian Tribe Murders in Kansas and Oklahoma, mainly Oklahoma during the 1920s. Over 26 Osage Indians were killed before the Federal Government was thrust into it, under J. Edgar Hoover - who was just elected chief of a newly formed Federal Bureau of Investigations. The Osage Tribe, which had a lot of money due to the oil on their land, paid the Federal Government around $20K to solve the murders. (Equivalent of $300K today.) The government was just as corrupt back then as it was now - seriously Warren G. Harding's administration was corrupt (but he was among the most liked presidents to serve - which should tell you something about nitwit Americans). The FBI was mainly formed to investigate the US government's corruption.
The fact that Hoover also abused his power in later years, and was head of the FBI for about five decades...also says something. Let's face it, what is happening today has happened before. Many, many, many times.
Mother brought up Nixon tonight. I brought up Warren G. Harding. And there were others..sigh.
If you want to know about the 3.5 hour film directed by Martin Scorsese starring DiCaprio and Deniro go HERE, also apparently Robbie Robertson did the score (before he died). So far the only people in the cast that I recognize from the book are the leads.
Apparently Edgar J Hoover isn't in it? OR Scoresese cast the 29 year Hoover with one of the musicians in the film.
At any rate - Patton is an excellent narrator, and the book is fascinating. Read it - or listen to it, prior to the movie.
* Comic Books or really just Graphic Novels. I have no idea who came up with the term comics for these things. They are adult. Not the least bit humorous (except dryly so), and not strips. If anything they are serials - or novellas, so graphic novels or serials is more fitting.
- Dark X-Men - written as a kind of horror comic series, featuring the darker or more morally ambiguous Mutants with Super Talents (being hunted for the safety of human kind, yeah right). Stars Madelyn Prior (Goblin Queen/Queen of Limbo aka Jean Grey's Clone), Alex Summers (Havok and her lover), Gambit, Albert (a cyborg Wolverine Clone - don't ask), Archangel (Warren with metal wings), and others. In the first issue things go badly, and people get captured and injured. It's kind of a dark comic - strongly focuses on the themes of being hunted by a cruel world. Art, better than expected. Writing ...not bad. These comics combine are with prose and pages of just text - so they
- Children of the Vault - Speculative Sci-Fi. People with burgeoning super-powers are put in a vault and through a series of tests or virtual reality scenarios played out over millions of years. They emerge with that knowledge, but are corrupt and designed to kill off mutants or the other.
And once emerged discover that the X-men to protect human kind and themselves had put them in a dream state making them think they'd emerged and conquered the world. Only to discover upon actual awakening that that was all a fantasy scenario or dream. But the pesky mutants appear to be gone - so they are off pretending to be benevolent superheros, when they are anything but. They apparently infected everyone with a virus that makes people adore and worship them.
It's okay. I like the character bits, and the format. Also Bishop and Cable working together is interesting - Marvel is into odd couple pairings, basically putting people who don't trust each other and despise each other together out of necessity.
- Uncanny Avengers - better than expected. Steve Rogers has joined up with the X-men or merged the two teams. He has various people on the Avengers who are X-men - to help them avenge the X-men's deaths by evil Orchis. (Enemy of my Enemy is my friend.) Which makes for strange bedfellows. We have basically female and male assassins, (Deadpool and Penance) on the Avengers with Captain America. It's fun.
Also the writing is better than expected. Art is okay.
-X-Force - very character centric, espionage sci-fi, with all sorts of spy thriller bits, and manipulations. Favorite character is Sage, an alcoholic, technocrat.
-X-men Red - kind of sci-fi fantasy with lots of mythology? Storm is the lead here, and she's pitted against Apocalypse's wife Gensesis. Although he doesn't go by that name any longer. It's basically the battle of the Gods on Mars, with lots of world-building, science fiction and fantasy elements - reminds me of Game of Thrones, but in comic books.
* E-Books
Dance with a Fae Prince by Elise Kova - okay, but overall disappointed. I think I reviewed in a separate post? It's a reworking of the Cinderella story - and kind of innovative in how it does it. But also boring, I think it would have been less so - if it were tighter and more focused on taking back the Fae Glass Crown and less on the romantic yearning.
A Daring Pursuit (can't remember the author) - it's a romance. A historical. But with a nice hero. So not a boddice ripper. The heroine keeps a menageri with a Bear in Wales, the hero is an architect. They are engaging in an affair of sorts, since she's already been ruined, and he's thinking he should marry a respectable heiress - while she's flirting with marrying a homosexual with an estate - but oh dear, they are in love. (It's clearly a modern historical.)
*Paperback books - Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James - Mythic Fantasy Novel - that reads like prose poetry. Quite lyrical in fact with a kind of Joycean stream of consciousness flow to it.
Took me a bit to get the hang of it - but I'm there. About a woman struggling to find her place of power in a male centric world. Where women are bought, sold, or married off for wealth and prosperity, or enslaved, and men are free to be assholes. It's told mainly from her perspective.
I'm about five pages in - so it could change.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-24 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-25 12:40 am (UTC)One of the better ones is Shades of Grey - which is rarely played.