I.
I've finally seen "Wonder Woman" (it did come out later in the Netherlands and then I was travelling and had no time to breath). I left in love - it was a flawed movie (that boat trip was just hilariously wrong), but oh, did it do things right. I did stay out of the overall discussion, for various reasons, but two thoughts that I keep coming back to.
1. Am I happy that they went for the "wrong war". I am so, so, so tired of American stories using WWII as a backdrop. I know that it is part of the history of the character, but well ... Sometimes, if we tell the stories anew, we need to change them.
2. When writing this, I am sitting on a plane, the passengers boarding walking past me on the way to their seats: people flying from Munich to Amsterdam, from Germany to the Netherlands. And it brings it home once again: Gal Gadot would stand out among them - for being somewhat darker, somewhat different, foreign enough to be seen as "not one of us". Is it my own experience talking? Perhaps. I'm pretty sure they have not thought of this, making an American movie. But to me, with my experience of being the other in Western Europe, with the movie taking part in UK, Belgium and France, with Gal Gadot's own Israeli background, this is an Jewish woman, a woman representing an ethnic minority, a woman representing a certain Middle-Eastern look that would draw racism and discrimination, being powerful on screen. This gives me so freaking many feelings.

II.
American Gods. (Thanks, giallarhorn!) I'm two episodes in and I love it. I found the Bilquis sex scene less impressive than the online discussion let me to believe, but it *was* well done. The casting so far has been superb - different from what I thought (in my imagination, Shadow was rather Native American than black), but working in a way that is definitely overwriting my assumptions. The only thing I wish for were proper prononciation for the Zorya's names, especially among the Zoryas and Czernobog. But oh well.

III.
They did change Druckfrisch to a bi-monthly schedule, didn't they? I am so freaking sad about it, it still is perhaps the only German TV show worth watching D:

IV.
Also seen the two first seasons of Voltron. Meh. I will give it another try - in the end, the next season has Lotor. But so far it gives me zero feelings. It does certainly not help that even as a kid, I loved the vehicle Voltron version a lot more than the lion one. I'm kind of sad about this - I really wanted something else to be fannish about (not that I grow tired of Marvel/Loki but I have the distinct feeling that the whole universe goes into a direction I do not like). Oh well.
(Both Wonder Woman and American Gods are too good. Fannish needs a story with enough holes to feel them up with imagination but at the same time not enough to totally throw me off. I'm strange like that, it's hard to get me there, only very few shows ever managed.)

Crossposts: http://pax-athena.dreamwidth.org/777244.html. There are comments over there.

Four book recommendations - they are all very different books and all very much worth reading:

I. There should be a collective noun for gems like these stories are: Susan Palwick "The Fate of Mice"

I've stumbled over Palwick's name several times in Gardner Dozois' the best SF of the year collections - and her stories never failed to touch in that particular way that I want a short story to. And here is a collection of stories that are utterly different - some pure fantasy, other realistic, thirds fairy tale-like, forth soft science fiction - but each touch the reader. I'm sad that her body of work is so small and am considering picking up her novels even though neither of them would have interested me if they were by a different writer. But I want to read more by her.

II. Human nature through the lens of speculative fiction: Naomi Alderman "The Power"

I'm not gonna to tell you what the book is about - because telling you more than the blurb says will be spoiling it. So I will repeat roughly what luna_puella told me: I spent the first half of the book half-cheering. And the second horrified, realizing where this was heading to (but not realizing how far the author would go describing the way there). Over on goodreads, my review started with a long list of the things the book does wrong - and a giant warning for sexual violance but yes, it is more than necessary here (and here I was, thinking this sounded like young adult - ahahahah. Not at all.) And it still got five stars.

III. Life and art after a terror attack: Catherine Meurisse "Die Leichtigkeit / La légèreté"

This one has not been translated into English - I would like to say "yet", but I also do not see this happening, unfortunately. I would not know many French comics that make it into the English market, which is such a loss. But if you know French or German, read it.
Don't let the pastel tones of the cover deceive you: Catherine Meurisse was one of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. So she is direct and sometimes gross and utterly able to sum what needs to be said in one panel and a few words. But what needs to be said if most of your closest friends and colleagues are suddenly dead? If the only reason you escaped the same fate was the fact that you missed a train - because you could not get out of bed? How do you live with the hole they left in your life? How do you find your way back into art when the place where you've done art for the last ten years has been so utterly absolutely destroyed - and is it at all something you should be thinking about given the loss of life?

IV. The cruelty of innocence: Ágota Kristóf "Das große Heft / The Notebook / Le grand cahier"

Here I am, trying to make you want to read the book and failing. Perhaps because it was so utterly different from what I expected it to read - short and icy and easily read but oh so hard to digest. It has also been a while seen I read anything that had such a masterful command of language - not a word too much, not a sentence that would not be there for a purpose, not a single misstep in the well calculated format of the novel.
The twins are utterly innocent - and utterly cruel and both things are two sides of the same coin. They learn - to write only the truth (and only things that are well defined are true) and to be utterly still and to bear pain. Do they love? Perhaps, but love is not a well defined word and thus not true. Neither is hate. But they help - and they kill. They lie and they blackmail - but they live, not only when the war is raging around them, but even when the peace descends, swallowing all. And they write, only the truth, as we read it.

(Look, another entry from an airport! Also, all links go to goodreads. Feel free to add me there if we are not friends there yet! It's my other internet addiction. Especially their recommendations functions.)

• Did you know that Aristotle used "democracy" to denote something negative? Democracy to policy as what tyranny is to kingship. Don't tell me that the meaning of words change, I know. I just found this amusing.

• So, ladies. Rompers and jumpsuits. To be honest, I can totally see how some are even rather pretty. OK, very pretty. And remember the times when we all though that shorts over tights are awful and I sill love the look. But how do you pee when wearing a jumpsuit? I mean, come one ...? Wearing them the whole day?

• I've not been reading transformers comics for ages. On one hand I keep hearing good stuff about the storylines. On the other there are interpretations of characters that I feel rather meh about, at least reading about them. But. But. They have [Spoiler (click to open)]Elita One now. They have Elita One in the IDW universe. Maybe I have to pick the comics up again.

• On the other hand: Midnighter has an ongoing comic. Midnighter! And I am zero interested in reading it because they split Midnighter and Apollo up. I know, don't judge stuff before you read it, etc. But the whole stuff about them (I know, spoilers - but seriously, for a comics from the 90ies?) was that they started out as a couple and their status as a couple was never seriously put in question, not even when Midnighter went onto his epic "I have to leave the team and my family less we destroy the world" nor through the turbulences in "Human on the Inside". I mean sure, trouble. But they never split. Ahem ... Anyway, but if you want a comic recommendation: old Authority comics. Next to an amazing (gay) long-term relationship, ot also features awesome female characters.

• Also Hellblazer. Hellblazer is amazing. (And reminds me of the first volumes of Lucifer - of course it's wrong in sense that it's Lucifer that should remind me of Hellblazer because I'm reading the first volumes, the ones from late eighties that prominently feature Margaret Thatcher's speeches as an instrument of torture and that have been published good 10 years before Lucifer ...)

Well, giving how we started with politics and ended with politics this may be a good moment to wrap it up ...

We haven't had one of these for a while and I clearly need to get rid of at least a few booksmarks:

• This one is old but a young me would have loved the hell out of it: Lois Lane Girl Reporter. Lois Lane was definitely one of those few female characters whom I could stand on her own. Does somebody remember the old Lois and Clark series? Looking back I realize that she (or at least the memory I have of her now) was so important.

• 20hrsinamerica was the one who brought the book to my attention, but this has been on my mind for quite a while. Especially because I have the feeling that the pressure to actually have kids is higher here in the USA than back in Germany, even though in Germany I had more actual friends who were starting to get children. I did look up the numbers at some point and it's not only that there are more children per woman in the USA, it's also that people get kids much earlier ... And there was also the matter of that terribly upsetting New Yorker article this fall that made me want to bang my head again the next surface: Anyway: We need to talk about why we don’t want kids

• This is a neat one not only because I am, given my own experience, very much inclined to believe that language shapes thinking. Especially the switching of thinking pattern depending on what language you are thinking in is something that I do notice a lot (also something that makes writing so much harder right now, because I am so used to switching ...): Speaking a second language may change how you see the world

• This is very close to unbelievable - welcome to the world of international science (and not, this is not only UK's problem; don't even let me start on German or American visa hells): Miwa Hirono: my Home Office hell

• So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, "That's her book.". I've been more lucky during my science career so far because I mainly work with amazing people, but the number of times my fellow physics students back at university wanted to explain me things because I could not know it, being a being with breasts (which preclude any scientific knowledge, you know, by draining all the blood from the brain) and in skirts (even worse!) is rather impressive. Rebecca Solnit says it all much more poignantly: The Archipelago of Arrogance

• I've spent a lot of time lately reading and thinking on science and the way science is presented in media. This one is an interesting essay that I am not quite sure I agree with in every individual point, but definitely in broad terms. A Disease of Scienceyness How misguided science fandom hurts actual scientists
  That's also an alike problem to the one I have with most non-fiction books out there; I've seen too often what happens in my own field to believe that it is much better in others.

• I found this one interesting, being someone who is prone to tears myself - although tears do not necessarily mean emotional outbursts for me. There is crying in science. That’s okay. (I also can't remember whether it was here on LJ that someone linked to it. If it were you, I am sorry for not crediting you!)

[eda:] I somehow manage to post this one halfway when unedited and unfinished. If you tried to comment on the post that disappeared, so sorry!

So I love SAGA so much that I did buy the Deluxe edition (collecting issues 1-18) in spite of having bought the collected editions previously. This leaves me with Vol. 1 of the collected graphic novel (collecting issues 1-6) that I don't need and would like to pass on into good hands - Vol. 2 and 3. are already claimed by a dear friend. Who wants it? It has to be either someone in the EU or in the USA for reasons for reasonable postage. I don't ask for anything in return, except that if you decide to not keep the book, to not just throw it away, but to either give it to a friend or to leave it somewhere someone can pick it up, whether a free wee library, an open bookshelf, or whatever else.

Comment to this entry with a "I want it" or something along the lines and you'll have the book. (Please keep the request comments separate from other comments including - I will unscreen the general comments, not so the book requests).
-- ... and gone. No comments screened from now on.

****

Also, I have a new comics addiction and a definitive addition to my list of comic recommendations. I should have known I would love Unwritten, given the topic and the fact that it's written by Mike Carey, whose Lucifer is pure genius. What I did not realize is that he again works with Peter Gross here, the same artist who drew Lucifer. And there is the fact that the 'Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication' data (which you can find just after the ISBN) lists 'Fame--psychological aspects' and 'Identity (Philosophical concept)' as keywords. Anyway, here are two more citations that I need to share:


(Which reminds me of that line of Mike Moorcock's 'the past is a script we are constantly rewriting' that has been part of this blog for years now and that I very much believe to be true.)

Sandman (I am hope)
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Lucifer (The Yahwe Dance)
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EDEN - It's an endless world (This is the first time I've ever felt this way)
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The Authority (We are forcing change on the country. You can't expect it to be easy.)
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DC: Trinity (And what do you usually do when I act like this? // I am the void.)
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Michael Moorcock's Multiverse (Sorry Sam, did I scratch you?)
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The Incal
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Watchmen
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Batman: Hush (You know, for a loner, you certainly got yourself a lot of strings // ... there is one thing I wouldn't have a slightest clue how to mend)
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Saga
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I.
So, Snowpiercer. If you want a one summary, it would be unsettling.

The strange mixture of extremely realistic violence, the narrative structure of a comic book and pulp tropes hits like a ... train. Yes, this is a good image. Somewhere along the fight scenes I felt like leaving the theatre and I am not that squeamish. Afterwards, I've been searching among the - admittedly rather low - number of movies I've seen for something comparable. Kill Bill comes to mind, but the violence in Kill Bill follows the same narratives, is somehow cleaner. But this ...

The overall effect is eerie. Intense. Not a movie I want to see soon a second time just for the fun of it, though I may revisit it with friends at some later point. With friends who have also seen it once and want to discuss details. But it's not a movie I want to think about too much right now, alone, to be honest. And yes, very much a recommendation. Even though I expect some people not to like it (I don't even know whether I liked it; but I like that I have watched it). But it's worth trying.

(I wonder what it feels like for someone who is less familiar with comics; whether they feel the dissonance or whether parts of the story - Curtis confession monologue, for example - seem just over the top.)

Another observation: as much as I loved the American audience (although I am not sure it has something to do with the culture in this case) on other occasions, I disliked it this time. They tried to laugh. The hard thing about this movie is: there are no funny scenes. Yes, he slips on the fish, but it is one of the most intense scenes, not even a hint of humor there. Trying to laugh is a panicky reaction to things happening on the screen that make you feel sick. Another movie - and yes, a good popcorn comic book movie and I do love those - would make you laugh to make it bearable. Snowpiercer does not. And as much as I am the one to ask for humor otherwise (there is a scene in "Schindler's List", rather at the beginning, that made me laugh out loud and than choke crying) in Snowpiercer the lack of it is strength. An audience's laughter never felt so forced to me as this time.

II.
I had my 6-month-review. It went very well. But I need to publish. Preferably yesterday. Cue new approach to work, slightly inspired by seidenstrasse: first thing after reading through the preprints are X hours of work on my paper(s). Everything else, especially work for collaborators, comes after. This will mean a lot of bad conscience because I will be letting people down (I am scientifically socialized as an extreme team player, which is now working against me). But there is no way around it. I am really looking forward to the science. But: bad conscience! Ugh!

III.
I have a name!

Now I am the first one to admit that I haven't written anything for years. It's rusted and if I try, the sentences come all crooked, missing the rights words, languages bleeding into each other.
Still, it does not mean that the stories aren't there. And sometimes the right things come together - a movie I have seen, stories I have read, a tone of voice, a gender-flipped fanart, the small insights into the Boston/Cambridge start-up scene I got when searching for a new room at the beginning of the spring. And there it is, a story in my head.

The world is an incoherent mess that I will not bother you with. But the characters and the emotional highs and lows, the temporal structure of the story (and here I am missing the right English word: "Zeitebenen" it would be in German; but then again, if I try to think this whole story in German it sounds off; I stumble over missing words left and right) - there are five or six, same characters at different age, with the dynamics changing as there is so much more difference between 16, 20 and 22 vs. 24, 28 and 30 - and the sins of the parents that get the catastrophe that will end this particular world rolling, they all are here.
There is Ana, with her "fuck off"-attitude, too much money and too much ideas, an extrovert engineering-genius, contemptuous of her classmates when younger and of competitors when older, olive-skinned and short, chubby people may have said when she was younger but they would not dare to say it to her face even then, not because she is half-human half super soldier (or whatever else, the world is an incoherent mess, but that's OK), the last one, but because she is Ana. There is Luke, who is anger and violence, violence and anger, who will rub every scratch until it turns into a pestering wound, who thinks himself very complex but it actually surprisingly simple. I like this two because they are so much out of my comfort zone when writing; people I would hate to meet in life. And there is a third one to complement the trio: a presence, broad-shouldered, unwavering. Where his half-brother is barbed wire, he is shatterproof glass; where his best friend vomits ideas into the world, he carefully places his and nurtures them into life. Matthew is much closer to who I am comfortable writing - yet it took me three months to come up with a name that would be right, that would fit the feeling I have of him. (And yes, biblical names in a story that is pure science fiction.)

So yes, I have a name; one that stuck me on the way to work, let me walk another block just to wear down the excitement of having a name.

(I am torn: I wish I still had the writing voice, I wish to feel like writing. Yet ... it's not like I would have time to anyway, so perhaps it's better that I never feel like writing the stories down, like shaping the dreamscapes into worlds that could survive on paper. But they still bring me endless joy, even when they are as bleak as this particular one.)

These two months felt like a much better reading period. Partly I guess, because I bought quite a few shorter German books that ♥ brought with him to the USA when he was visiting, so I feel actually more inspired to read in German and am really looking forward to getting around to these books (I have quite a lot of other books waiting here, it's just that I need to be in mood for a particular book, and somehow hardly any of the ones I had here felt right lately).

Total Count: 22/64
German: 11/28 English: 9/28 Russian: 2/8

Charlotte Roche: Feuchtgebiete [Wetlands] 4/5
Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie: Young Avengers, Vol. 2: Alternative Culture (comic) 4/5
Mikhail Bulgakov: Short stories / feuilletons from various newspapers 3/5
Kieron Gillen: Journey into Mystery by Kieron Gillen: The Complete Collection, Vol.1 (comic) 3/5
Shani Boianjiu: Das Volk der Ewigkeit kennt keine Angst [The People of Forever are not Afraid] 4/5
Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples: Saga, Volume 3 (comic) 5/5
Kelly Williams Brows: Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps 5/5
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Romulus der Große [Romulus the Great] 4/5
Richard P. Feynman: The Meaning of it All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist 2/5
Banana Yoshimoto: N.P. 4/5
Nizami (Ganjavi): Die Sieben Geschichten der sieben Prinzessinnen [Haft Paykar - The Story of the Seven Princesses ] 4/5

I also spent a lot of time reading and enjoying Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection, but I only finished it in May. Anyway, my thoughts on the individual books:

( tl;tr -- pick up Nizami's book, it's amazing. Also pick up Wetlands if you are not squeamish, but *only* if you are not squeamishCollapse )

For once I'm really excited about a shirt on qwertee (this one) and it's one that will definitely not make it to printing - Sandman is too obscure a reference for the cool kids today, I guess. The downsides of democracy and all that. But the design oh so cleverly and subtly done. I don't need more shirts (especially since I got a very cool owl-one from D. and a Loki one is due to arrive today), but I'll wear the hell out of this one.

In other news: Dewey's 24 hour read-a-thon is on Saturday April the 26th (pointed out to me a while ago by reisezeit). I've never managed to participate before, but I really want to. No, I don't have time, especially given how this will be the first weekend in my new place and I'll need to make my room actually live-able, buy food, etc. You know, all the little things that I don't manage during the working week. On the other hand: what better way to inaugurate a new living place than by spending a Saturday reading? Hm ... Anybody else taking part / thinking about it?

Positive things from this week:

• Have a room in a flatshare! Walking distance to work, two other full time working roommates, and I can buy everything from a bed with a mattress to clothes hangers and cutlery for 200$ from my predecessor in the room (a postdoc at the other university) who is moving home to Canada and wants to get rid of her stuff. Moving will be hopefully April 20, i.e., when ♥ is around, so I'll not have to do it by schlepping suitcases around or by begging my co-workers to drive me. Still need to sign the lease, but it looks good.

• Submitted an ATel, corrected the proofs for the big timing paper, organized the possibility to give a seminar talk during my visit in Germany in May.

• Had a really nice public outreach-y talk at an undergrad college. If I think about it - this was the first public outreach-y thing I did in English! Yay! And talked to our departing EPO (Education and Public Outreach) person, who promised to keep me in the loop about other outreach possibilities and to invite me over to talk to future teachers about (astro)physics and being a woman in a STEM field. Let's see what comes out of this, but I'm excited!

• Ate yummy stuff at Clover (one of those places that don't take tips - the first time I run into it here). Twice. The second time I was sitting there with my ginger soda (I love cold ginger drinks) and my Mezze platter it all felt totally unreal to me: sitting there with the very hippie food they serve in a location that runs on smartphones looking out onto all the bright students and their future-selves, the bio-tech company workers and start-up founders, rushing by. Are we in the future already? Are we in a cyberpunk novel?

• Went with a friend to an amazing concert - traditional Tajik music. So, so, so wonderful. The things a man can do with a single instruments with just two strings! (Oh, I so need to re-read the "1001 Nights" - or rather read anew, since there is no way I am going to find that old Russian translation we had and that I was not supposed to read.)

• Bought and finished SAGA 3. Ah! Why so wonderful! Why so wonderful! Also, it's now official: the Will is going to rip my heart out. I know it's not going to end well when I fall for a character. Also: Alana! Klara (oh, Klara)! Lying Cat! This list has to contain all the characters, all of them. Also: this tiny bit about the "kill your darlings" advice for young writers? Oh, what a bitter-sweet meta. And so wonderfully fitting. Also: the opposite of war (which is not peace).

• Spent yesterday night playing "Set" and skyping with N. over in California. Stupid 3 hours time difference - but anyway, we need to do this more often! It may be not as fun as walking around in the wee hours of the morning talking or playing "Set" sitting next to each other, but it's better than nothing.

• Had various conversations with my mentor that made me laugh so hard I cried. Yes!

• I fell out of touch with the current IDW run on Transformers, but I've seen some pages floating online that look like they managed to squeeze femmes into this universe ...? With someone who looks suspiciously like Elita One? I need to research this more!

If I tell you that I don't like villains, I'm not lying. Though I may not mean it the way it is usually understood. I don't hate villains, either. They bore be. Joker. Marvel comics' Loki prior to his kid Loki reincarnation and all that follows (but kid Loki is incredibly fun!) - and actually also Loki in MCU's first Avengers movie (that I watched three times without getting interested in this particular character until I've seen Thor I). "He is just a very bad man. Mephisto's just working his way up and down the list of deadly sins, like a tasting menu" Kieron Gallen wrote about Mephisto and I had to stifle a yawn thinking about him.

But don't conclude from this that I like heroes. Pure heroes are just as boring, only that authors' have long realized that it's good if their main protagonists (read: usually the hero) have flaws, so heroes are usually better written. Well, for a certain amount of better.

What I like are deeply flawed characters. Teetering on the edge. A slight pull. A slight push. And they are gone. Metastable states. Decisions. Good and bad, hero and villain as relative definitions based on the point of view and stories aware of this. As soon as I like a character, you can be guaranteed that they are deep in the grey zone. And motivation. Always the motivation. Always wanting to do the right thing, as far as circumstances permit.

So yeah. I don't like villains. I don't like heroes. Both sentences are true. And not even contradictory.

(Lotor icon very much on purpose, though mainly for the fact that he and Hazar from vehicle Voltron were the same person back when I've seen the series in 1994-95 in Russian ...)

Still in slight reading slump. Marvel comics don't seem to have that particular spark that I need to ignite it again (although Young Avengers are fun!). So mainly plodding along before falling asleep and while riding the T to/from work.

Total Count: 11/64
German: 6/28 English: 4/28 Russian: 1/8

Jean-Yves Ferri: Asterix bei den Pikten [Asterix and The Picts] (comic) 2/5
Kieron Gillen: Young Avengers Vol. 1: Style > Substance (comic) 4/5 (Goodreads)
Kathryn Immonen: Journey Into Mystery Featuring Sif, Vol. 1: Stronger Than Monsters (comic) 1/5 (Goodreads)
Matthes Sturges: Thor – Year One (comic) 1/5
Aristophanes: Die Frösche [The Frogs] 5/5 (Goodreads)
Mikhail Bulgakov: Дьяволиада [The Diaboliad] 2/5
Gerhart Hauptmann: Der arme Heinrich [The poor Heinrich] 3/5
Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Der Auftrag, oder, Vom Beobachten des Beobachters der Beobachter [The Assignment: or, On the Observing of the Observer of the Observers] 5/5 (Goodreads)
Bertolt Brecht: Liebesgedichte [Love Poems] 4/5 (Goodreads)
Theodor Fontane: L'Adultera 3/5
Philip Pullman: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundel Christ 3/5

( more on the individual books, including two wholehearted reading recsCollapse )

-- Taking a lie and making it the truth. Telling a story to the Universe so utterly, cosmically perfect that for a single shining moment the world believes a man can fly.

- Al Ewing, Loki: Agent of Asgard #1 -
In (slightly) fannish news:

I.
I have seen Coriolanus! Which I highly enjoyed, especially given how much the play itself was very political or rather about someone who does not know how to handle politics. This never fails to get me. I can also very much recommend the Arden Shakespeare version of the play - the commentary is both great and hilarious (disclaimer: I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'm on the way there). I may have even went to see it a second time today, if I did not have a talk on Wednesday, which I did nothing for because I spent the last week and especially the weekend in a corner being miserable for no reason. And if I did not forget my wallet at home today - I have both my ticket and the keycard for the institute extra in my jacket, so yeah, I can actually leave my flat without my wallet and get into work. And not be able to buy a last minute cinema ticket.

II.
I have finally seen the last episode of Sherlock! Mary! Mary! I've been slightly spoiled for the last episode, so I did not want to tell you how much I fell in love with her during the first episode already, but now I've seen all three and I can tell you: I love Mary. Also: the mind palace sequence when Sherlock [Spoiler (click to open)]gets shot is one of the most amazing sequences I've seen on screen in ages. Like: whoah. WHOAH! I have all kinds of feeling. And I've been thinking a lot whether this would have worked in a book (no) or in a comic (no, I don't think so) - perfect use of the medium to show just the perfect scene.

III.
This is a tor.com article on Sherlock vs. Elementary, which is not a topic I'm having an opinion on since I have not yet seen Elementary (I want to, but you know how it works with me - see how long I needed to watch the three Sherlock episodes) and which [the article, not the series] I don't think to be particularly good. But it touches a point that I wanted to write about anyway: it's not about worshipping a character. It's about relating and identifying (about what I did call "wearing a trickster god's skin" just a while ago). Now we may end up having a longish discussion why I end up identifying with the emotionally unstable / unavailable / damaged male characters on one hand and with strong women on the other and it has a ton of both personal layers and media/depiction of gender roles layers to it, but yeah ... I may want to sit down and disentangle this at some point - or not, because it would also mean going all the way into my own stories and who wants to read about characters that only exist in my head (but who are so, so, SO important). But anyway, I stumbled over the article and I wanted to point this direction out.

IV.
And since I'm using and AoA citation as title (and icon) and am linking to tor anyway, here is another candy.
Sad thing though: even AoA does not make me feel the way DC comics make (made?) me feel; the was Hush (I, II) made me feel; the way Trinity (I, II) made me feel. Oh well, perhaps I'm expecting too much from just one single volume as opposed to a 12 (or even 52) volume storyline. Not that AoA isn't amazing in a way, it is as the link clearly shows, I'm just yet lacking the overwhelming emotional response I want to have!

Ah yes, I should have expected this. I'm not the one for short, to-the-point answers in comments. So here is the first batch of answers to the top 5 _____ of 2013 meme from the previous post (which is still open in case you have more things to add):

( memoriesCollapse )


( flavors/smellsCollapse )

( discoveriesCollapse )

( meals I preparedCollapse )

( accomplishmentsCollapse )

( booksCollapse )

And as a reflection on the whole: Somehow ... I feel like my answers are absolutely unglamorous. This was a good year (in spite of the bad memories to come in the next one), an extremely good one. Just: so I got my PhD, but it was very anticlimactic. I moved countries, but it's not like this is the first time in my life. Perhaps my brain is just weird like this. Or perhaps it is in overload.

Just 8 books, two of them graphics novels. What's up with me? Oh, well ... I spend too much time refreshings craigslist, that's it (sorry, I know this is repetitive, but that's my life at the moment, I'm annoyed myself). But I'm just one book short of my goal for this year.

Total Count: 63/64
German: 28/28 English: 28/28 Russian: 7/8

Christa Wolf: Mit anderem Blick [With a Different Glance] 5/5 (my LJ, Goodreads )
Mark Gatiss: The Vesivius Club 1/5 (Goodreads)
Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go 5/5
Jakob Arjouni: Happy Birthday, Türke [Happy Birthday, Turk!] 2/5 (Goodreads)
Theodor Fontane: Grete Minde 4/5 (Goodreads)
Matt Fraction: Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon (comic) 4/5 (Goodreads)
Matt Fraction: Hawkeye, Vol. 2: Little Hits (comic) 3/5 (Goodreads)
Gardner R. Dozois (ed.): The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction 5/5 (Goodreads)

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I am very close to panicking now. So I guess that's the right time to do something distracting, right? Bullet points post, that is.

• Life can be mean sometimes. I bought 600g shortbread and I can't open it. Because there is no way I'll eat it up before I leave for the conference on Sunday (uhm, I also have to make a talk for the conference, but I ignore that for the moment, because - thesis) and it's all one package. I mean I *could* eat it, but I definitely should not. But ... Shortbread! I want shortbread!

• This SMBC comic made me bawl like whoah. Really, really beautiful. But you may not want to click it if you feel sad already.

• 23 Signs You're Secretly An Introvert -- or not so secretly in my case. But I loved the list anyway. I could identify with the most, but 2 (You go to parties -– but not to meet people.), 7 (Downtime doesn’t feel unproductive to you.) and 8 (Giving a talk in front of 500 people is less stressful than having to mingle with those people afterwards.), 14 (You screen all your calls -- even from friends.), and 16 (You have a constantly running inner monologue.) are so spot on and so me it almost hurts to read it spelled out. Especially given how I'm one of those introverts, and I am very much one, really, whom people usually don't perceive as introverted.

• Scary thing on Charles Stross's Blog The next moves in the Spooks v. News cold war (UK-centric) and on Sean Carroll's blog National Science Foundation Cancels Call for New Political Science Grant Proposals (US-centric - that made a round in the astro community, so I was not unprepared, but still). (I should also get something Germany-centric, for the symmetry of it, alas I seem to read few German blogs.)

• Got my absentee ballot paperwork (for the Bavarian elections, not the federal one, in case you start worrying why you haven't gotten yours yet). I'll not be in B. for both elections anyway.

• Some very pretty fantasy and Art Noveau inspired Art by one Thomas Canty can be found here. (I stumbled over him in the comments to an entry on Ray Bradbury covers on tor.com - he has made a really pretty one for "Dandelion Wine".)

• And another article from tor.com: Collateral Damage: Blockbusters and the Changing Narrative of War. Now the text itself is not the most wow thing on the topic you'll read, but what it made me realize (next to the fact that I really did not like the second instalment of NuTrek, although I loved the first and that I'm still firmly on the side of "love DC comics, hate their movies") is that what established The Authority as different from other superheroes and what marked Midnighter as a relentless killer, was how he drove the Carrier into the city Gamorra. That ... that wouldn't be something special anymore, right? And as much as I love The Authority (hey, I even have a tag for them!), it makes me very sad.

• And to finish the entry on a happier note: Oh, and how comes that I did not remember that "American Gods" is dedicated to Roger Zelazny?

So I started today with doing a lot of sensible things: I went to the city hall to officially register the fact that I do not have a place in M. anymore, since ♥ got a job and a place in a different city. Then I got my hair cut, as usually nothing fancy, but I feel much better. I got my glasses professionally cleaned. And I bought myself some shortbread to eat for breakfast. Now this may not sound sensible to some of you, and I admit, it's shortbread! But on the other hand: it's something I actually eat for breakfast, not just coffee. So it's sensible.

I then had to hide from the rain - it passed within 15 minutes but those I spend in a store selling clothes and I kept thinking sensible, grown up thoughts like "Do you really want to schlep this over the Atlantic?" and "Do you really want to wear this, given how science is a pretty casual environment but yet you are kind of going to have a position of slightly more responsibility and visibility?" and "Do you really need another green t-shirt even if you find the color so pretty?" and "Will adding to your almost endless supply of socks really make you happy?" and "I know you like shawls, but how comes you never actually wear them?". I went out having not bought anything and only tried on one dress, which I both count as a success.

And then I went home, cleaned a bit, vacuumed and decided, on a whim, to re-read the Kenji chapter in volumes 9 & 10 of Hiroki Endo's "EDEN - An endless world" (I am contemplating taking all 18 volumes with me instead of keeping them in storage somewhere here; I may need them). And am sitting now here, flailing at the sheer beauty of the story and the way it is told. How the grand political picture culminates in single people and their tragedies that nobody knows or remembers (Marihan, poor Marihan). How things come circles (crying, always crying). How there are sometimes pages without a single word and yes so much story.

I don't even know where to start. At the very end, when things come together? Slightly rushed, but wonderfully logical. It had to be Sophia, in the end - she, who cannot cry, she, who abandoned all her children (and picked a sad killer as an ersatz for them), she, the wise. And Kenji, who breaks his vicious cycles. (And Elijah, who does, too - but I've always been more interested in Kenji and Sophia). Or in the middle, when you realize what the chip was that Kenji gave Marihan? Where it came, what it meant, what he knew from the very beginning of this rescue operation? Or how Marihan breaks free - to die? Or at the very beginning, at this very first conversation of Sophia and Kenji's, that little insight into both of them, that keeps unfolding, so that finally things and they themselves change in a way that Elijah - and the reader with him - would have never imagined? Or with the art that changes of the course of the volumes, becoming more angled, more clear - even though it was incredible (in all the horrible things that are shown) already at the very beginning?

Ah, I tell you, I flail and feel that light, bubbly feeling that only a great story can make me feel without any regret. So I'll leave you with two of my favorite pages (which are unrelated - 60 pages happen in between, the citation from the title and from the lj-cut are from those pages):

( Digital wiring is out of my league. Even a pro couldn't do it in four minutes.Collapse )

www.thisisindexed.com
So does the constant fear of being affected by the Dunning-Kruger effect qualify as a symptom of the Imposter Syndrome?