HSU IT Department

So unless you've been a hermit on a Montana mountaintop, you've probably heard all about Rush Limbaugh's latest horrorshow. This response to it is fabulous, and I'm very pleased to post it here tonight. This woman's voice is like fireworks, and the signs are BRILLIANT :D

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As I said yesterday, I went back and forth on the second volume (Catching Fire) and ended up suspending judgment on it until I read the third one. Now that I've read the third one...wow. It isn't perfect -- the author's reliance on the main character losing consciousness at crucial moments and waking up rescued is a serious flaw -- but overall I found this a tremendously powerful and disturbing book.

Recently I read Ugly War, Pretty Package: How CNN and Fox News Made the Invasion of Iraq High Concept, an examination of how the media packaged and marketed the Iraq War as a media event. There were entirely too many parallels for my comfort here. From being marketed as a tribute in the first book, Kat goes on to be packaged and sold by Coin as The Mockingjay, only to be discarded when her usefulness is over. One reviewer here on GR complained that Kat's having a camera crew and a prep team constantly with her was distracting and stupid. But that's the point: Kat is never allowed to be a genuine heroine because that's too messy, too unattractive. Too real. She has to be "on" and "in character" (not to mention in costume) all the time, no matter what her personal feelings are.

If she'd chosen this part -- if she were by nature a leader, driven by a desire to inspire people, or a born martyr like Joan of Arc -- that would be one thing. But she's not, she's a seventeen-year-old girl whose had to slaughter people she's made friends with, whose entire village has been destroyed, whose family has been threatened, who's been forced by everyone around her to be something she's not. It's no wonder she doesn't deal with it well. The role of Mockingjay isn't what Kat wants, but it's the only path left to her. Her bargaining for the cat, for the captured tributes, for the right to go hunting with Gale all speak to the fact that this isn't a role she takes on willingly but rather one she demands payment for. Not because she's mercenary, but because she can sense the wrongness, the falseness in it, and wants to extract something from it that's meaningful to her.

In the first book, Peeta says that if he's going to die, he wants to die as himself. Kat's never given that option -- no matter what happens to her, someone else is pulling the strings. Someone else "owns" her. Like the Mockingjay, she can only echo the wishes of others. I ached for her, constantly being manipulated by the people who she's supposed to be able to trust.

Which brings me to the one thing that really broke my heart: ( major spoilers )

In the acknowledgements, Collins thanks her father (I think it was) for having taught her about war and peace. Certainly as a statement against the horrors of war, all three books work well and the last one best of all. There are no winners, only survivors.

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Well, it's SSIAW (Short Story In A Week) time again. This is a challenge posed twice a year, March and September, by a writing group I belong to. At the end of April and August respectively we all throw as many great words as we can think of -- enticing adjectives, vigorous verbs, intriguing nouns -- into the pot. Starting on the first of the month, we're given two lists of five words each; you choose one list, and have to write a complete story (beginning, middle and end) in no more than seven days. Then the next two lists are posted, you have another seven days to write another story, and so on until the end of the month and we all expire of brain failure and exhaustion.

It's basically a chance to practice wrestling your muse into submission instead of waiting around until the fickle bitch decides to visit you on her own. Each time I firmly commit myself to doing four stories, one each week (we always have a few overachievers who use BOTH lists and do TWO stories every week; how slacker-y they make the rest of us feel can easily be imagined). So far my best achievement is two completed stories and one half-completed which I finished the next month.

SSIAW always seems to fall during a very busy point in my life, but damn it, this time I'm making it a priority and I will do no less than four stories. I will, I will, I WILL.

This week's lists include such gems as cistern, quincunx, and insouciance. I have no idea where I'm going with those, but I'll keep putting one foot in front of the other until I get there...

I love the way she wins while doing absolutely fuck-all. Tracks pretty much exactly with the books.

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Perhaps now is a good time to say that heroines that DO NOTHING annoy me. They annoy me worse than Mary Sues. OK, Mary Sues are unrealistic in every way and break the fourth wall, or whatever it's called in books, because they're basically the author guest-starring in her own fantasy (I say "her" fantasy because although men write Mary Sues, they get to call them superhero comic books and they sell like hotcakes; not at all the same thing).

But at least Mary Sues usually DO SOMETHING. They may have grown up as salt mine slaves in darkest BFE and yet are master fencers, ride like Diana, and can cook a rabbit that tastes better than your mother's brisket, all while defeating legendary dark sorcerors/generals/plot bunnies. No, it's not credible. But at least they're ACTIVE. You can't be a heroine if all you do is a) get watched while you sleep b) get protected c) get impregnated and d) get turned into a vampire (I hope the English majors in the audience noticed all that passive verbiage).

I'd argue that not only do you fail is a heroine, you can't legitimately even call yourself a protagonist, much less an antagonist. All that leaves you with is "agonist" which, yeah, given the agony I feel when I read about you is quite suitable.

*snicker*

A random list of stuff that made me go "Oooooh..." today:

The US highway system as a subway map

Goldilocks Reviews the Sunshine Mary Jane Pump on Zappos

The program for the Pop Culture Association conference in Boston, with four panels on Buffy, eight on fairy tales, fourteen on fan culture (including "Girls, Geeks and Politics: Gender, Race and Identity in Fandom"), eighteen on horror, twenty-five on women, and an amazing TWENTY-NINE on sci-fi and fantasy!!

Where I want to stay when I become obscenely rich

J K Rowling's book for grownups has a publisher; title and publication date TBA

Hamlet's cat's soliloquy and Grendel's Dog: Brave Beocat, brood-kit of Ecgthmeow / Hearth-pet of Hrothgar in whose high halls / He mauled without mercy many fat mice...

A recipe for tequila hot chocolate - mmmmmmm....

The Daylight Atheist blog: smart, thought-provoking, honest

And my girl scout cookie order arrived, hurrah!!! They will go well with the tequila hot chocolate. Nom nom nom nom nom...

So I finally read The Hunger Games. I resisted reading it for a long time because it was getting so much hype, and in my experience things that get much hype are often very disappointing (cf Titanic the movie, Twilight, etc.). Plus I hate to feel like a lemming. But a friend at work loaned this to me on Friday, I finished it Friday night, and now I'm sorry I waited so long. It's well-written, fast-paced, tightly plotted and really grabs your attention. The competition between the "tributes" is interesting enough; the addition of the commercial aspect -- the need to "sell" themselves, to get sponsors, the fact that sponsors can make or break one of the competitors -- results in a disturbing sort of reality-show-on-steroids. It's like The Most Dangerous Game meets Lord of the Flies meets The Running Man.

For me, the three most memorable scenes were ( spoilers! )

The book does leave a few unanswered questions, such as the nature of the disaster that resulted in the fragmentation of the US, how the Capitol managed to gain so much power, and how humanity has managed to decay to the point where pre-adolescents offing one other comprises acceptable prime-time entertainment on a par with, say, the World Cup. But with a YA book you can't really expect to get complex politics or social commentary (though given the way Kat has foiled the powers that be, there might be more in the sequels).

I can't say that the individual components of the story are original, but this is a novel combination of them, well put together, and Kat's an interesting and sympathetic protagonist. Looking forward to the other two.

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I'm not sure I've ranted about my love for The Big Bang Theory in this venue, so let me take a moment to say how very cool I think this show is and how much I love it. (In so very many ways, I am Dr. Sheldon Cooper.) That none of the jokes are bathroom humor (the occasional mention of Leonard's lactose intolerance aside) would alone elevate it above 90% of the sitcoms out there. Add to that the fact that the science is accurate, that it makes geeks look fun and cool, that (yes!) there are smart science-y CHICKS on it, and that the discussion topics and jokes (Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Battlestar Galactica, arcade games, etc.) are terrifyingly similar to those that I and my nerd friends have always loved, and you have a recipe for fabulous that has rarely been equaled. And the minute the local pub dumps trivia night for counter-factual night, I am SO there.

But today I found out something that elevates it to the truly amazing. Mayim Bialik, she of Blossom, who plays Dr. Sheldon Cooper's girl-slash-friend Amy Farrah Fowler, actually really truly in real life has a PhD in neuroscience.

Wow.

How freaking cool is that???

Reviews of this book said it was "irresistibly droll," "wickedly dark," and "wildly entertaining." I beg to differ. As someone who's read widely in and on fairy tales (Kissing the Witch, Red as Blood, Snow White, Blood Red, The Uses of Enchantment, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, etc.) I found it sadly lacking. I would even say lame. I don't care whether your retellings are dark, light or total fluff as long as they're well done and respect the spirit of the story. These don't. These are Beavis and Butthead do Grimm, dragging fairy tales down into juvenile sniggering bathroom jokes. The writing is technically adequate (though if you want masterful gritty slang I'd point you to The Best of Damon Runyon, he does it much better) but the head and the haunch and the hoof of these stories is "life kinda sucks, so let's just wallow in the worst of it."

Most frustrating: the opening tale, where Satan designs the world. This is an elegant, clever, biting, funny alternate creation tale, which I loved. Everything that followed fell terribly, terribly flat. I might have dislike the rest less if the preface hadn't set the bar for my expectations so high.

So here's how it came out:



The caramel sauce never quite went the right color ("a dark amber") and the whiskey did not in fact erupt in a giant ball of flame (not that I minded THAT), but the taste?? Yea verily, thou shalt pass out from sheer chocolate ecstasy. Now go watch this and say it with me: "Ah luuuuuuuv de cake!"