Categories
clothing school of dapperosity

OMG Hats

There comes a time in a woman’s life when she realizes she is dapper, but could be more dapper. The kind of dapper that requires a hat. A derby or a bowler, to be precise.

DONE.

IMG_20131102_130822_383But then a dangerous and terrible amazing thing happened. Bev had another hat at her table. It was the first hat I tried on. And I told myself no, you don’t need two hats. No, how are you going to get those home on the airplane. No, no, no. But the hat would not be silenced. This hat and I shared a bond. It fit me like it had been made for my head. It called to me. I couldn’t just walk away.

I regret nothing.

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Categories
the reel britain trip report

The Reel Britain in London

I just realized I should probably record this on my own personal blog as well, since y’all might be interested in this and, I don’t know, not following me on Twitter. (Seriously, why are you not following me on Twitter? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?)

From October 13-25 I was in London. Me being in the UK is not actually that unusual, considering that I have in-laws and friends there, and now I have money since huzzah I am no longer a grad student. However, this time I was over in London to work. But not geology work–no, it was to work on filming for The Reel Britain. We filmed 15 interviews and 4 red carpets in the time we were there, as well as other footage in London, so as you can imagine we were busy.

Want to find out more? I blogged almost daily:

This was honestly one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I’m lucky to have had it, and glad to share it.

Categories
movie shakespeare

Muse of Fire (Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bard)

Thanks to the wonders of magical, lying VPN services, I got to sneak in a watch of Muse of Fire [Warning, video begins to automatically play on the site, SHAME ON YOU DAN AND GILES.] on the BBC iPlayer. I really wanted to watch this slim little documentary because I was in on interviewing Dan Poole for The Reel Britain and it sounded like great fun. And also, I’m a giant Shakespeare nerd, for all that my Shakespeare nerd cred is often called into question because I cannot memorize for shit.

The documentary is excellent. It’s very personal, since it’s all about following Dan and Giles on their journey, and it’s done with a lot of love and humor. Hopefully it’ll be available to American audiences who don’t want to engage in internet cheating relatively soon. And the interviews they got–aaaa! Dame Judi Dench! (I got to shake Dan’s hand, so does that mean I’m now one degree separated from Judi Dench oh my god I’m hyperventilating.) The topic is framed as Dan and Giles getting over their own fear of Shakespeare, so it goes to why people find his work so intimidating and how it can be made more accessible.

Anyway, good documentary, watch it when you can, Dan and Giles are both adorable and adorkable and they put the film together in a very fun way.

One point they bring up is often, how someone first comes to Shakespeare is really what colors their feelings for the rest of their life. (Though when you put it like that, it sounds like when people talk about how they came to Jesus, and it becomes quite evangelical.) I’ve always been bothered by how Shakespeare is presented as so intimidating and impenetrable, because I never really found him to be so… but I also got into Shakespeare entirely because of Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 Henry V movie. He got me when I was young.

Which was for the best, come to think of it. When we hit Shakespeare in school, the first (and sometimes only) play that seems to get done is Romeo and Juliet. I don’t know why. Maybe teenagers are supposed to identify with the characters more, since they’re teens as well, but ugh. I just thought they were very stupid, to be honest. (I can appreciate the play more now, but as a bitter and angry teenager, not so much.) I think if that had been my first exposure to Shakespeare, I wouldn’t like him nearly so much now.

But instead, thanks to Branagh’s Henry, I’m stuck on Shakespeare. I was even excited to take a Shakespeare for Non-Majors class as an undergrad, despite the fact that it was an 8am class (yes, those are things that exist and proof that we live in a godless universe of pain) and the teacher constantly used the word problematize. I read and re-read plays all the time now, though the funny thing is, I still have difficulties with Shakespeare when I’m just reading it to myself.

Which is why I read it out loud to my cats. Shut up, that’s totally normal. I’m teaching the furry little bastards to love Shakespeare too.

Categories
guest post

[Guest Post] Epic-Urban Whiplash

I’m trying out something a little different on the ol’ blog – a guest post! If you’d be interested in being a guest over here, drop me an e-mail and we can chat. Anyway, here’s Gail Z. Martin about her case of genre whiplash:

* * *

Gail Z. Martin:

After seven years of writing epic fantasy, I’ll have both a new epic novel and a new urban fantasy coming out in 2014. It’s been fun to work in both camps simultaneously, but it’s also been challenging, and sometimes I have to remind myself which century I’m in.

My Ascendant Kingdoms Saga is a post-apocalyptic medieval setting where the magic upon which the culture depends has failed as a result of a devastating war. It’s a tough, gritty existence, made more so by the absence of usable magic. My characters have lost a civilization equivalent to the High Middle Ages, and are trying to salvage and rebuild from the ruins. By our standards, their life would have been hard before the war and the loss of magic. By their standards, life afterwards is barely sustainable.

My new Deadly Curiosities novel is set in modern-day Charleston, SC. Cassidy Kincaide is the owner of Trifles & Folly, an antique and curio shop that really exists to get dangerous magical objects off the market. Charleston is a grand city that is very much alive and well, and I love visiting whenever I have a chance. Not only have I not blown up the world in Cassidy’s book, her whole goal is to keep anyone else from doing that.

One of the things that has been fun–and challenging–about writing epic and urban at the same time has been switching between narrative styles. The newest book in the Ascendant Kingdoms series, and all my epic books, is written in third-person narrative. I’m constantly looking up words to make sure they are period-appropriate. And while it’s a fantasy world of my own construct, I still do a lot of historical research to make sure that what I’m writing is plausible, possible or within precedent.

Of course with Deadly Curiosities, I’m writing about modern American culture in a Southern city. It’s a first-person narrative, and the dialog is going to be consistent with how we speak today, with some Southern idiom thrown in for flavor. (I’ve been living in the South now for 15 years, so that part has been thoroughly researched!).Deadly Curiosities has a bit more humor, a little lighter touch, because it isn’t the tough struggle for survival my characters face in Ice Forged. There are life-and-death struggles, but the tenor of the book as a whole is very different.

When I took on the two projects, I wondered how it would work and whether I’d be able to jump in and out of the worlds easily. What I found is that the challenge has been a real creativity boost and a lot of fun. I haven’t had any difficulty getting back into the mood or the characters’ heads when I’ve switched off projects, and I’m having a blast.

Maybe the moral of the story is, if you’ve been putting off tackling a project because it seems too different, jump in. You might just find that the switch-off brings creative benefits!

Come check out all the free excerpts, book giveaways and other goodies that are part of my Days of the Dead blog tour! Trick-or-Treat you way through more than 30 partner sites where you’ll find brand new interviews, freebies and more–details at www.AscendantKingdoms.com.

Ice Forged will be a Kindle Daily Deal with a special one-day price of just $1.99 only on October 31! Get it here: http://amzn.com/B008AS86QY

Reign of Ash, book two in the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga launches in April, 2014 from Orbit Books. My new urban fantasy, Deadly Curiosities, comes out in July, 2014 from Solaris Books. I bring out two series of ebook short stories with a new story every month for just .99 on Kindle, Kobo and Nook—check out the Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures or the Deadly Curiosities Adventures.

About the author: Gail Z. Martin is the author of Ice Forged in The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga and the upcoming Reign of Ash (Orbit Books, 2014), plus The Chronicles of The Necromancer series (The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven & Dark Lady’s Chosen ) from Solaris Books and The Fallen Kings Cycle (The Sworn and The Dread) from Orbit Books. In 2014, Gail launches a new urban fantasy novel, Deadly Curiosities, from Solaris Books. She is also the author of two series of ebook short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures. Find her at www.ChroniclesOfTheNecromancer.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com.

 

Categories
movie

[Movie] Zero Charisma

Zero Charisma is a comedy about That Guy1. You know That Guy, if you’re a gamer nerd. Or if you don’t, you should probably take a good, honest look at your life because you very well might be That Guy.

I honestly did not find Zero Charisma all that funny. That’s because I was too busy cringing in my seat, my hood over my head with the aperture drawn as tightly shut as possible under the laws of physics. This movie is made of pure, distilled awkwardness.

The main character of this movie, Scott, really has been written to have a charisma stat of zero. A man-child with no interpersonal skills and a massive chip on his shoulder, he’s even given an incredibly sympathetic backstory, but quickly throws any audience empathy away by never, at any point, taking the high road or learning from the hideous social mistakes he’s already made. We get that he controls the tabletop game he created because he cannot control anything else in his life–but Scott obviously doesn’t.

I suppose it’s refreshing. If this was a conventional studio movie, by the close of the third act we’d see Scott manage to grow up, regain his friends, say sorry, and maybe get a better haircut, a better car, or even a girlfriend. Isn’t that how men are supposed to be rewarded in these films? Nope. The best we see is the barest glimmer at the end, indicating he may have figured out that people other than him are allowed to make decisions in his game.

Make no mistake, I desperately wanted to empathize with Scott; as a nerd, Scott was designed to be one of my people. I’ve even been in a lot of the horrible situations (whence my literal cringing) as the socially awkward person that the world considers a punchline. Watching this movie was fucking painful at times.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t really see the funny in Zero Charisma other than some very uncomfortable laughter at the beginning. I looked at Scott and thought that could have been me if I’d gone with a slightly less constructive coping strategy. Ultimately, it feels less like a comedy and more like a nerd cautionary tale screaming DON’T BE THAT GUY.

 

 

1 – You know, That Guy who always has to know everything and have all the answers and be bored with all of your ideas because he had them first? The one who thinks he’s the Alpha Geek? That Guy who is always nerdier than thou? That Guy who has appointed himself the arbiter of all disputes whether you want it or not? That Guy whose character is the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral? Yeah, fuck that guy.

Categories
movie

[Movie] Gravity

The first two words I said after the credits rolled: Holy shit.

You can tell I’m a writer. I’m good with words.

I really don’t know how else I can react to this movie, though. I spent most of the film on the verge of tears and at the edge of my seat with my hands pressed against my mouth. It’s one of the most if not the most gorgeous movie I’ve ever seen. There’s a constant interplay between the unbelievable beauty of Earth as seen from space and the silent, terrifying void of space, and Gravity just rips your heart open and pours both in. This is one of the few times in my life I desperately wished that 3D didn’t give me headaches and make me want to barf, because as breathtaking as this movie was in 2D I can’t even imagine how it would have looked with an added third dimension.

I know I’m probably the latest to this party. I’ve been traveling for most of the month and literally have not had the time to see this movie until now. And if you, like me, have not yet seen Gravity, you’d better have a damn good excuse.

If this movie does not win five million awards, I’m going to start flying places and flipping podiums like a little bouncing ginger rage ball, I swear to god.

This is probably the most scientifically accurate movie I’ve ever seen. (Which isn’t to say it didn’t have flaws, but if I can manage to enjoy Star Trek without popping a brain aneurysm, I can somehow manage to survive Sandra Bullock’s hair forgetting that it’s in a zero-G environment.) While the visuals are what really stick with you, the sound design for the movie was absolutely amazing.

And there’s something even more horrifying about watching a space station get ripped to shreds without even a dismayed, metallic sigh.

I’ve seen this movie called a thriller over and over, and I suppose it is in the sense that the tension just never stops. It’s a disaster movie in space that never lets you forget just how fragile human life is as opposed to the implacable, inhospitable void. It’s all about human ingenuity struggling against the certainty to death. But the bigger story is really the internal journey of Ryan Stone and her decision to let go of sorrow and keep living by letting go of the comfortable void of space and returning to Earth. It was such a human journey played over a massive spatial scale.

This was also a much needed reminder for me that Sandra Bullock is a very good actress. The movie rides mostly on her shoulders, with a little support from George Clooney, and she makes you feel every second of fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness that lead up to that terrifying decision to keep fighting. I read a couple of articles about Gravity before seeing it, and one mentioned that there had been pressure to change the character of Ryan into a man. I’m so glad that they didn’t. Honestly, the characters in that movie really could have gone any way with gender, I think; there was nothing intrinsically male or female about any of them. But keeping Ryan as a woman made this one of those rare films where the woman is unquestionably the main character. (And Gravity was #1 worldwide for three weeks straight; maybe something to point out the next time someone trots out that bullshit about people not wanting to see movies with women in the lead.)

Categories
movie

[Movie] Only Lovers Left Alive (Alt: of Love and Vampires)

I was waiting to write my thoughts about this movie in the hopes I’d get to weasel my way into another showing of it sometime this week, but that didn’t happen. So I’m sad it’s not longer fresh on my mind, but the film made such a vivid impression that I still have so many thoughts and feelings about it.

The two things you hear most often about Only Lovers Left Alive is that it’s much funnier than expected, and that it’s a story about something (love and art being the most commonly cited) that just so happens to have vampires as characters. Both of these things are very true. The movie is actually very funny, if in the subtle, often very dry way that is my absolute favorite. Just the scenes with Adam (in his Dr. Faust nametag) and Dr. Watson at the hospital are lovely.

The love seen in this movie isn’t the sort normally glorified on film. It’s not first love or love in crisis, where the very story is driven by the question of if this love will survive the plot. Rather, the crisis of the movie is the survival of Adam and Eve themselves, and the love they share is part of what will sustain them and keep them alive. Their love for each other doesn’t require constant contact, has passion without being obsessive, is between equals, and supports rather than conflicts. It’s love that feeds the people who feel it, rather than love that needs to be fed.

So that was intensely refreshing, as a reminder that love is supposed to be something that strengthens and supports us rather than a source of endless (if entertaining) drama.

The other part of the love seen in the movie is the passion for art. Feeding of the soul rather than the body, I suppose. The character of Eve is a lover of literature, sustained by her endless joy in the creations of others. On the other hand, Adam is driven to ceaselessly create music and invent, while expressing disdain for the idea of receiving recognition for his art. Which I suppose you could frame as the purest form of artistic creation, art for its own sake. I find it interesting, though, that the one in the movie who is miserable is Adam, constantly depressed by the state of humanity and the treatment of those who do create.

(I do love that the vampires here revered scientists with as much fervor as artists, by the way. I think it’s to do with the passion of creation or discovery more than anything else. But I could go on and on about that.)

So that’s where you get this being a movie about love as a powerful vital force, where the entire idea of blood for the vampires is incredibly secondary. You really do get the impression that if they lost their motivating love, they’d give up on the blood drinking too and call it a day.

This is kind of a record year for me, since this is the second vampire movie I’ve actually liked, Byzantium being the other. And one common thread between both of these movies is the fact that there was nothing really intrinsically sexual about the vampires. Clara in Byzantium was quite sexual, but that was more a flow through from her mortal life than the defining characteristic of a vampire. In fact, Eleanor (also from Byzantium) really has more in common with Adam and Eve, thanks to her passion for writing.

But anyway, Adam and Eve definitely weren’t running around and seducing mortals with their undead sexiness. (Thank goodness, I’m so very done with that.) In fact, after thinking about it, I now have a real appreciation for the utterly manky wigs all of the vampires wore in Only Lovers Left Alive because it simultaneously marked them as a bit inhuman, and also as people that really couldn’t be bothered with conditioner. Not anyone you’d expect to stand in the sunlight and sparkle while women fall at their feet.

So really, the vampirism was there to allow for a grander timescale of life, because the real question of the film was what sustains people and keeps them living rather than merely surviving. It’s a point that Eve makes to Adam several times in the movie, trying to get him to look outside himself and feel that passion again.

And then there is dancing in the living room, which is an example we all should consider following.

(tl;dr version, 750 words later: This movie is gorgeous and you should see it as soon as you are able. Also, Tilda Swinton is a magical unicorn of dance. Just be prepared for a little anti-Stratfordianism in with all the love.)

Categories
books

A few thoughts on Piers Anthony

Jason Heller wrote this excellent piece on revisiting the Xanth series as an adult, and I really recommend it: Revisiting the sad, misogynistic fantasy of Xanth

Which has subsequently made me think about my own relationship with those books. Because like most people in our general age group (I think Jason’s maybe a little bit older than me? I’m terrible at guessing ages though, so now I feel all awkward about it) I read those books in my teenaged years. Mostly because there wasn’t at that time a decent YA section in the local library, and not much of an SF/F section either. I think I ended up reading Piers Anthony because he had the advantage of being at the front of the alphabet, and had so many books out that he took up a shelf and a half all his own.

I read nearly everything the library had of his, and spent some of my pocket money on buying my own books. One different experience I had, though, was I found there was a very limited number of the Xanth books that I liked even at the time, though I couldn’t have explained to you why that was. For example, I really disliked A Spell for Chameleon. I think perhaps because I didn’t like any of the characters. The only Xanth novels I remember liking enough to read them more than once were Night Mare and Isle of View. (Though I also recall playing the Xanth videogame when it came out on PC, which was a frustrating experience.)

I do remember being really discomfited by the obsession with panties endemic to the series. (There is, quite literally, a book titled The Color of Her Panties.) Panties, which were pretty obvious shorthand for female sexuality, were used in the series as a way for women to exercise control over men; as an adult, it becomes very obvious why I found the entire thing so troubling. In fact, The Color of Her Panties was actually the book where I started losing interest in Xanth, and the last one I even attempted to read was Roc and a Hard Place when I was 15.

They just didn’t feel fun any more, and I had never felt connected to any of the characters–with the sole exception of Mare Imbirum. Who was, as you might guess, a horse.

I liked his Incarnations of Immortality series far better than Xanth, probably because I’ve never really been a fan of puns (clutch your pearls now) and the Incarnations felt like there was some meat to the stories at least. But there was some stuff I found a bit creepy in those as well, even at the time. What springs instantly to mind is the final (at the time) book, And Eternity. Which had a cool plot in it I really liked, about god being dethroned and replaced with a woman, but then on the other hand a rather major plot point in the book is a sexual relationship between a teenager named Vita and a much older male judge, which I found intensely creepy.

I haven’t read any of the books in years. I don’t have any desire to revisit Xanth, to be honest, but I kind of want to go back and look over the Incarnations of Immortality series and give it another read with a critical eye now.

On thing this does make me think about is the importance of libraries, then and possibly now. I read the Xanth books because they were there, and there were a lot of them available. I wonder who else I might have read if the collection at my local library had been a bit more diverse. I also discovered Tamora Pierce’s books because of my local library, and those had a profound effect on me.

It’s something I bring up every time someone questions the value of diversity in both authorship and characters. Considering Piers Anthony and the Xanth panty fetish, I can’t help but think it was a reflection and normalization of some incredibly sexist tropes. I’m glad even as a teenager, I felt that there was something not quite right.

Categories
movie WHY

[Movie] Filth (for real this time)

Now that I’ve had a twenty-four hour recovery period, I’m going to try to have a coherent reaction to this film. I really am. So here goes.

Filth emotionally violated me.

I think that just about covers it.

Okay, maybe a few more details.

It’s a dark, horrible, filthy movie. The title has it right. And it’s hilarious in a dark, horrible, filthy way. I laughed, a lot, and then felt like a terrible person for laughing, so I laughed some more. And then it becomes utterly heartbreaking, but you don’t want to let it break your heart because the main character is such a hideous excuse for a human being, so the you feel bad, yet somehow awful for feeling at all bad. It’s a masterwork of utter, fucked up discomfort.

James McAvoy gets so much credit here as the greasy-haired, nearly psychopathic main character, Bruce. Bruce is an awful, awful person. There is no excuse at all for his existence, or for what he does. I think even the most hard core of villain defenders (daddy didn’t love him enough! he had a terrible childhood!) would be hard-pressed to justify Bruce. Yet there is such a deep, raw core of pain to him that you can’t help but empathize with him when he breaks down just because McAvoy is so damn good. (And of course later, you can ask yourself just how many of Bruce’s actions were really under his rational control, though I think the end number would still be utterly inexcusable.)

Add to that the visual effects, flashes of Bruce’s insanity and just the way the movie is cut makes it surreal, disturbing, and vertiginous. Which is to say it’s a stunningly well-filmed and well-done movie but WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK, JON S BAIRD.

Categories
movie WHY

[Movie] Filth

WHY.