This that and the other thingamig

[shadowkat]

1. While on Threads this week - I discovered...that apparently someone went after and attacked David Tennant.

Who would go after David Tennant? He's a sweetheart. Be like attacking a puppy dog? Seems insane.

So...I looked it up. David Tennant vs. well UK Conservative Transphobes

Sigh.

Tennant has a non-binary child. He's an actor who has a right to his opinion. He's not a politician making policy for others. And he's advocating for the rights of his child and others. I applaud him for that.

So did everyone I friended on Threads - who made it clear, if they come for Tennant, we ride at dawn.

Transphobia - I've been struggling to wrap my head around. Near as I can figure, folks who overly identify with being a woman or a man, and being binary, and feel that is who they are? Solely? Probably feel threatened by non-binary or transgender. The idea of someone being a woman inside a male body, or a man inside a woman's body, or neither, somehow undermines their sense of self, perception of the world, and beliefs?

Rowlings throws me with her view that Tennant's support of a child who is transfemale is misogynistic or transmale for that matter, is bewildering. Also I read Harry Potter - they are not feminist novels. I'd say fairly sexist in places, actually. (Don't worship people folks, even Tennant (who is admittedly adorable), because they will disappoint you eventually. People are flawed.)

2. Speaking of flawed humans specifically writers with huge fan followings, and unfortunately toxic behavior patterns, I did an online survey on Whedon's shows today via the Association of Buffy Studies. It kept asking me if I associated certain actors with Whedon shows - but alas was Dollhouse, Firefly and I think Nevers heavy on the actors - because I had no clue who a lot of them were. Who is Clark Gregg? He sounds familiar?
It also asked if Whedon's behavior influenced me in regards to his fictional content?

Yes and no. Or I don't have a simple response to that, any more than I do to Rowling's fictional content - that I read prior to discovering she's a transphobic bully.

I can compartmentalize to a certain extent. Also people are more than one thing, yaddah yadda yadda. But, I draw the line at new content? In short, finding out the author is selfish asshole does impact how I view their fictional stories and narratives. Buffy less so - because it was before I found out. Same with Angel and Firefly for the most part. Dollhouse - I had an inkling. And by the time The Nevers dropped, I knew, and yes, it colored how I viewed it to an extent. It's doubtful I'll watch anything else he does, and I don't feel compelled to re-watch his previous content. But at the same time I remember it fondly, don't regret writing and analyzing it, or becoming a fan of the content.

I think people are complicated. But, there are people whose actions do unfortunately make it hard to look at their art, particularly if those actions continue over a length of time. It's hard not to see Ronald Dahl, Agatha Christie, Virgina Woolfe, TS Eliot, Whedon, and Rowlings prejudices in their work. However, that's true of Shakespeare as well. And I'm not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I enjoy their work, just, with a tempered or critical eye? And I don't worship humans.

3. Hand feels better. Aloe Vera Gel is a miracle worker. Highly recommend. Blisters are pretty much non-existent now, and the redness has gone away. Aloe Vera and cold water - nothing else. (I'm kind of lucky I had nothing else, except for five different brands of Aloe Vera Gel. I got a lot of it to make my own hand sanitizer, also for sunburn.)

Also found a chai tumeric ginger latte tea mix that you just add hot water too. Helps greatly with digestion. Along with Physillium Husk and Miralax for IBS-C.

4. Television

Found two shows to watch:

* Acolyte -Disney + which reminds me a little of Andor. Like Andor - it takes place before Star Wars. This one takes place before Phantom Menace. Only drawback is it does rest on a rather cliche plot device - the evil twin. But I adore the lead actress in the role. And she's doing a good job of playing dual roles.

I'll probably like it better than most. I like the Star Wars world, and actually love the television series and films that have zip to do with the original three films or the Skywalker/Vader Legacy. My favorites are Andor, Rogue One, and Mandalorian...I've not tried Akoshka, or Rebels. And the Clone Wars - I watched the cartoon version, not the Lucas one.

* The Bear - Hulu (or Disney +) - which is a half-hour comedy (feels more like a Dramedy since I don't laugh during it) about a chef trying to create a fancy restaurant out of his family owned restaurant in Chicago.
It's a workplace comedy/drama. I love it. Season 3 just dropped.

***

Tried House of Dragon S2 - my difficulty with it is the subject matter, which is the same difficulty I have with Dune, which I outgrew about sixteen years ago? Just not in the mood for either.

5.) I'm flirting with horror. But I'm wise enough not to watch it at night before bed. I have enough difficulty sleeping as is, I do not need help. I have a love/hate relationship with horror films. Considering trying MidSommer, Hereditary, Talk to Me, and Babanook. Also, maybe, The Witch, which my brother loves and tried to show me once.

Oh, there are a few intriguing horror movies coming out...Longlegs...looks intriguing. It's kind of Silence of the Lambs meets the occult meets well puppetry?

6. The tower fan is actually keeping my apartment cool. Amazing that. I may not require a portable A/C in the living room, and just replacing the one in the bedroom will suffice. Also, I can just get another window A/C since this was PC Richards faulty A/C not the apartment or my fault.

7. Books

Saw a meme about memorable books off the top of your head. And I realized all mine were made into movies or television shows. Which means my memory is very visual? I'm sure I can think of a few memorable ones that haven't? Or have, and I've not seen the movie?

So, below is a list of books that weren't made into films or I've not seen the films, but were memorable. In other words - if it was made into a film or television show - I didn't see it, or it wasn't made into one.

* Under the Skin by Michael Faber (not seen the film version - don't want to)
* Ulysess by James Joyce
* Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters
* Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
* Metamphorsis by Kafka
* Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
* Witches of Worm by Zelphia Keatly Snyder (read it over 40 years ago)
* Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
* Dragon Rider by Anne McCaffrey
* Swordpoint by Ellen Kushner
* The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
* Splinter in the Minds Eye by Alan Dean Foster (read it over 40 years ago and I still remember it. It focused on Luke and Leia and I adored it.)
* Kindred by Octavia Butler (no, I refused to watch the series)
* Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Thurston
* Curtain by Agatha Christie
* The Alienist by Caleb Carr (never watched the series)
* The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

At the grocery store today - a young woman had a library book. She was in front of me at the checkout line. And there was this lovely library book sitting there on the conveyor book at Met Fresh, while she put down her food from the cart.

Me: I'm trying figure out what book you've got there? I'm curious?
Young Woman (she had a blond braid, blue eyes, fresh faced with freckles, no makeup, mid-late twenties, about average weight and height): It's about two people who develop a video game.
Me: Oh cool. Is it non-fiction.
YW: No, fictional. It's really good. I'm not that far - but so far I'm really enjoying it. And I really like having a real book in my hands.

Gives me hope for the future. E-books are slowly getting on my nerves, in that I have no idea how far I truly am in them and can't scan ahead to see if it gets better or flip back to figure something out. Or look at the cover. On the other hand? It's nice to read a book privately without someone seeing what you are reading - particularly on subways. Although, I've had some interesting conversations about books I was reading on the subway. I miss the days in which everyone was reading books, magazines and the paper as opposed to cell phones. I rarely even see an e-book. Just people on phones. It's sad.

Anyhow, found the book she had. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - it was the 2022 winner of the Good Reads Choice Awards apparently.

"In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before."

Kind of reminds me of Halt Catch Fire in a way.

I love books. I like books more than people. I think it's because they are easier to connect to? No rejection from a book. You can escape into their worlds. Be in another person's head. Rage. Feel. Whatever.

Everyone needs a safe space, I suppose. Mine has always been books.

Comments

[mefisto]

Clark Gregg played Agent Colson in a number of the Marvel movies and in Agents of Shield.

I read somewhere that there's a plan to make a movie or TV series based on The Dragonriders of Pern. Who knows if it will ever actually get made.

[shadowkat]

Dragon Riders of Pern is problematic in places? So probably not. Ron Moore was contemplating it - which, hmmm, I'd rather someone else did it? Ron Moore seems to like to focus on the sexual violence and medieval torture theme a bit too much?

Someone else might focus on the other aspects and downplay that, which it is for the most downplayed in the books. It's there if you squint or focus on it. But open to interpretation.

Ah, thanks, that's who Clark Gregg is. Yeah, I don't know him by name - but I also only watched two maybe three seasons of Agents of Shield on ABC.

[conuly]

Near as I can figure, folks who overly identify with being a woman or a man, and being binary, and feel that is who they are? Solely? Probably feel threatened by non-binary or transgender. The idea of someone being a woman inside a male body, or a man inside a woman's body, or neither, somehow undermines their sense of self, perception of the world, and beliefs?

I genuinely have no idea why on earth these people are so invested in other people's business, and I'm not sure I want to understand either.

[shadowkat]

I try to understand so I can find a way to persuade them to view it another way or alter their perception? Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. People are ridiculously emotionally invested and stubborn about things (beliefs) they were taught.

And binary thinking was/is taught.

[mtbc]

I found Midsommar a bit weird and almost funny, I liked the Babadook more and thought it more disconcerting, I did think both worth watching though.

[shadowkat]

I'm debating on MidSommer. Although I read about it - and I don't know. The guy from Sweden, beer good foamy, who used to be on DW but has long since left - ripped it asunder. He said it wasn't accurate at all. LOL!

Babadook might give me nightmares?

[mtbc]

Haha, yes, I can imagine it's not accurate to anything! It inhabits its own strange little societal microcosm.

And, yes, I'd say that The Babadook is one of the scarier ones in a couple of places, at least for me. (I don't know if horror's as personally variable as comedy.)

[shadowkat]

I'd say horror is as variable as comedy? Different things scare different people? Alien invasions and government conspiracies don't scare me at all. Nor do vampires or witches.

Body horror can - depending on how it is done? Metamorphsis didn't. But I can't watch the Fly or Altered States.

Can't do spiders - which is actually my main issue with Alien - the parasite that attaches to the humans looks like a spider. The Alien doesn't bother me - the spidery creatures hatching from the eggs do.

Also can't do a lot of things with dolls, puppets, or stuffed animals. Or the idea of something under the bed or in closets.

Ghosts? Depends.

Demons? Exorcisms? No. I don't believe in them "literally" just as metaphors. So demons don't tend to bother me.

I can't watch Torture Porn (Saw & Hostel films and Human Centipede), nor can I watch Slasher films, where people are killed in a variety of graphically explicit ways. (Scream was about as far as I could really go there, and the original Halloween films).

My fav, or what I like most is psychological vague horror - where your mind fills in the gaps on its own.

[mtbc]

That's interesting. I find various body horror and torture and suchlike unpleasant rather than scary, and I'm not easily scared by things that are basically just crazy people or whatever, now I've seen so much of that kind of thing. Rather more supernatural movies like, say, The Black Phone or It Follows or Pyewacket, I enjoy, but I find them more interesting than I do scary because I'm more relaxed if what's happening seems to follow clear and useful rules, like with vampires where, while it'd be unpleasant to have various strong fast things wanting to exsanguinate me, it seems little more scary to me than having some special forces soldiers assigned to assassinate me. Similarly, I can imagine that an alien movie could be more scary for me if, like in Village of the Damned, there's a psychic element or somesuch, rather than the more pedestrian kind of invader.

I did find The Babadook more on the scary side because, perhaps a bit like The Haunting of Hill House Netflix series, it shows something truly mysterious that is also hard to avoid, counter, or even manage. As opposed to, say, some other kinds of horror movie where the solution seemed to me to be more a matter of arming oneself with a sharp stick and a good dose of anger then heading somewhere safer. For me, it's scarier when I don't know what it can do, let alone how, or if can do things that are hard to defend against (like, with alien abduction, if they can undo your locks then put you in a trance).

So, we've probably some partial overlap there, interesting simply to think about the different categories of horror.

[kerk_hiraeth]

Gabrielle Zevin's book is on my to get list; The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was recommended to me by one of the owners of the independent bookshop here in Blairgowrie and I fell in love with it. Wore out, well sorta, my first copy and got myself another; then another was it was reprinted with a new cover, which I discovered because I was considering; still am, getting copies as gifts.

Managed to find the movie online, when I discovered there was one, and was delighted at how well it was adapted; especially my favourite scenes from the book, the exchange between Maya and her Dad after the story-writing competition and the Police Chief's Book Choice 'Violin' conversation.

kerk

[shadowkat]

The Stories Life of A. J. Fikry is a television show? ( I saw it listed on one of the streaming, I think Max?) Or is it also a book?

Oh, I re-read your post - it's both. They adapted it. It's a movie and a book. Might check it out. Thanks for the rec.

[svgurl]

I still prefer having a physical book too. While I can and have read a lot of fanfic on my phone/computer, when I want to read a book, I can't do it any other way. I've read Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and it was, for the most part, enjoyable. I'd like to hear your thoughts if you get around to it. :)

[shadowkat]

I tend to use E-books due to my commute - I read on subways and trains, and they work better for that. Less weighty and cumbersome. My physical therapist told me to lighten my load ages ago. So a light e-book vs. a weighty paperback/hardback.

Also when commuting, it's nice to have privacy. I don't always want people to see the book that I'm reading.

I'm waiting to get Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - until I finish reading the ten books that I recently bought. (Or so I'm telling myself. I have a tendency to compulsively buy books to make myself feel better. Some people shop for shoes or clothes, or jewelry, I shop for books.)