Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 123
February 3, 2019
Sunday Porcelain KatMari
I have been unearthing stuff from boxes that have not been opened in ten years (at least), including a number of beloved childhood toys and porcelain animals that I didn't have anywhere to put. So I decided to get a place to put them, in the form of something I have wanted my entire life and never had, which is a dollhouse. (When I was a kid, and also as an adult, I just kept everything on shelves.)
I bought a 1945 tin dollhouse from a local antique shop, along with most of the original (plastic) furniture. When I inquired about the provenance (i.e., how they knew the date), the owner told me that it had been sold to them by an old lady who had hoped to pass it on to her children/grandchildren, but it wasn't the sort of thing they were interested in. So she sold it in the hope that it would find a home with someone who really wanted it. It did. I set it up, and now it's in my bedroom, delighting me every day.
My real cats are not allowed in my bedroom because they are destructive, rampaging chaos machines. All cats in photos are porcelain only. ( Click for KatMari photos! )
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I bought a 1945 tin dollhouse from a local antique shop, along with most of the original (plastic) furniture. When I inquired about the provenance (i.e., how they knew the date), the owner told me that it had been sold to them by an old lady who had hoped to pass it on to her children/grandchildren, but it wasn't the sort of thing they were interested in. So she sold it in the hope that it would find a home with someone who really wanted it. It did. I set it up, and now it's in my bedroom, delighting me every day.
My real cats are not allowed in my bedroom because they are destructive, rampaging chaos machines. All cats in photos are porcelain only. ( Click for KatMari photos! )
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February 1, 2019
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January 31, 2019
How's the weather up there?
LA is right now enjoying an epic rainstorm - completely unexpectedly, at least for me. I just woke up and it was there. While I was making coffee there was a white flash so brilliant I thought it was a shorted wire, not lightning, and only realized what it was when thunder literally shook the apartment. The cats are edgy but not terrified, thankfully.
Please tell me about the weather right now where you are. I'm especially hoping to hear from everyone in the polar vortex.
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Please tell me about the weather right now where you are. I'm especially hoping to hear from everyone in the polar vortex.
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January 30, 2019
Wednesday KatMari
This has really been a breakthrough for me. I have previously never in my life been able to do any sustained organizing that did not involve some favorite hobby. Marie Kondo's show, at least, is basically about being a therapist for people's relationship with their possessions and their living space; once I realized that and started considering mine in those terms, all of a sudden tidying became my own personal therapy and thus an enjoyable and doable task, rather than something I inevitably got bored or frustrated with, wandered off having accomplished not very much, and then procrastinated on trying again for weeks/months/years.
Also, she has some good practical tips. My big discovery is that putting stuff in transparent boxes makes it a million times easier to find things - I'm very "out of sight, out of mind" for a lot of stuff, so it will essentially not exist for me unless I can literally see it. I have been hitting the Daiso (Japanese dollar store) for boxes. I realize that this is one of those things that's easy and tempting to shame people with: "How did you get this old before learning something any normal person figures out at age five?" But in fact I did not figure it out until age 45, due to watching that show.
I am currently working on the kitchen. Alas, I AGAIN forgot to take proper "before" photos. You can extrapolate what it probably looked like by the fact that yesterday I unearthed a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese that expired in 2011, which is probably also the last time I ate it.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
Please no negativity in comments. If you don't like this topic, please scroll or blacklist the decluttering tag.
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Also, she has some good practical tips. My big discovery is that putting stuff in transparent boxes makes it a million times easier to find things - I'm very "out of sight, out of mind" for a lot of stuff, so it will essentially not exist for me unless I can literally see it. I have been hitting the Daiso (Japanese dollar store) for boxes. I realize that this is one of those things that's easy and tempting to shame people with: "How did you get this old before learning something any normal person figures out at age five?" But in fact I did not figure it out until age 45, due to watching that show.
I am currently working on the kitchen. Alas, I AGAIN forgot to take proper "before" photos. You can extrapolate what it probably looked like by the fact that yesterday I unearthed a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese that expired in 2011, which is probably also the last time I ate it.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
Please no negativity in comments. If you don't like this topic, please scroll or blacklist the decluttering tag.
comments
January 29, 2019
The Passage (TV series, ongoing); The Passage, by Justin Cronin
I started idly watching the new TV series The Passage (airing on Fox, but I'm watching on Hulu) based on having owned the book for probably ten years without reading it, and on the still image Hulu was showing, of a young black girl's face, which had an immediately compelling haunting, yearning quality. This was a very good life choice, as I'm enjoying the show a lot and the actress in question, Sanniya Sidney (age twelve) is excellent.
The next plot explanation is true of both book and movie:
The premise is that a secret government project, Project Noah, discovered an immortal vampire and decided to try to use him to create immortality and immunity from disease minus the vampirism. They tested the vampire virus via unethical experiments on Death Row inmates, all of whom just became vampires who are now silently and ominously lurking in clear plastic cages in the basement of a government facility. They appear to be essentially brain-dead, but are actually communicating with people via creepy dreams.
What kicks off the story is that a deadly avian flu virus is spreading through the world and heading to the US. A scientist in charge of Project Noah thinks the only chance of saving humanity is to infect a child with the vampire virus because younger people last longer before becoming vampires and neuroplasticity ~handwave handwave~ so they need a child who won't be missed and who will save the world!!! (This is equally stupid-sounding in both book and TV series; you have to roll with it.)
So they send two federal agents, one dude who's not important and a guy named Brad Wolgast who is divorced and whose only child, a girl, previously died tragically, to kidnap a young girl named Amy who is an orphan and who will definitely not be missed, to inject with the vampire virus and then presumably use her blood to synthesize a non-vampiric serum which will make everyone immortal and resistant to all disease including the avian flu. (Like I said. Roll with it.) Brad and Other Agent kidnap Amy, but Brad and Amy bond, Brad grows a conscience, and they go on the run together.
I liked the TV series enough that I couldn't resist picking up the book. Well...
In the book, Amy is weird and has special powers before she gets injected with the vampire virus. She's basically a Mysterious Creepy Child and is more of a plot device than a heroine, at least as far as I read because I ended up DNF-ing the book. The first fifth or so of the book is very effective as horror, which as a genre can work on pure atmosphere even if you don't like any of the characters. (I did not like most of the characters.)
The TV series is also effective as horror, but it's not primarily horror but more a character-based sf-with-horror-elements a la The Stand, and I like or am at least interested in almost all the characters. Amy is not a Creepy Child, but a smart girl from a rough background, who blends learned wariness with a heartbreaking openheartedness. It's a phenomenal performance and I love her. The TV series keeps the thing from the book where people keep saying how special she is, but since she does not seem to have any inborn special powers, it takes on a different meaning: she is special because she's her own wonderful self, just as a human being. Having a little girl repeatedly told that - especially a little girl of color - is really nice to hear right now.
The other major thing the TV series changed is the race and gender of a number of the characters. At least in the part of the book I read (I DNF'd about a quarter in), all the main characters are either white or race not stated except for an African nun, Lacey. Amy is white. The scientists and the Death Row vampires and vampire candidates are all male. In the TV series, Amy (main character) and the main Death Row vampire candidate (major character) are black. One of the two most important vampire characters (so far) is now a white woman, and one of the two main scientist characters is now a black woman. I have to say that I love these changes and I'm really enjoying the series. Amy and Brad are fucking adorable together (but not in a saccharine way), and the actors playing the vampires and vampire candidates are really compelling.
Three episodes so far. Hopefully it won't get canceled midstream.
Major book spoilers ahead! I'm not sure how spoilery the book really is for the TV series, since it's already diverged significantly, but they're definitely spoilery for the book. ( Read more... )
The Passage: A Novel (Book One of The Passage Trilogy)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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The next plot explanation is true of both book and movie:
The premise is that a secret government project, Project Noah, discovered an immortal vampire and decided to try to use him to create immortality and immunity from disease minus the vampirism. They tested the vampire virus via unethical experiments on Death Row inmates, all of whom just became vampires who are now silently and ominously lurking in clear plastic cages in the basement of a government facility. They appear to be essentially brain-dead, but are actually communicating with people via creepy dreams.
What kicks off the story is that a deadly avian flu virus is spreading through the world and heading to the US. A scientist in charge of Project Noah thinks the only chance of saving humanity is to infect a child with the vampire virus because younger people last longer before becoming vampires and neuroplasticity ~handwave handwave~ so they need a child who won't be missed and who will save the world!!! (This is equally stupid-sounding in both book and TV series; you have to roll with it.)
So they send two federal agents, one dude who's not important and a guy named Brad Wolgast who is divorced and whose only child, a girl, previously died tragically, to kidnap a young girl named Amy who is an orphan and who will definitely not be missed, to inject with the vampire virus and then presumably use her blood to synthesize a non-vampiric serum which will make everyone immortal and resistant to all disease including the avian flu. (Like I said. Roll with it.) Brad and Other Agent kidnap Amy, but Brad and Amy bond, Brad grows a conscience, and they go on the run together.
I liked the TV series enough that I couldn't resist picking up the book. Well...
In the book, Amy is weird and has special powers before she gets injected with the vampire virus. She's basically a Mysterious Creepy Child and is more of a plot device than a heroine, at least as far as I read because I ended up DNF-ing the book. The first fifth or so of the book is very effective as horror, which as a genre can work on pure atmosphere even if you don't like any of the characters. (I did not like most of the characters.)
The TV series is also effective as horror, but it's not primarily horror but more a character-based sf-with-horror-elements a la The Stand, and I like or am at least interested in almost all the characters. Amy is not a Creepy Child, but a smart girl from a rough background, who blends learned wariness with a heartbreaking openheartedness. It's a phenomenal performance and I love her. The TV series keeps the thing from the book where people keep saying how special she is, but since she does not seem to have any inborn special powers, it takes on a different meaning: she is special because she's her own wonderful self, just as a human being. Having a little girl repeatedly told that - especially a little girl of color - is really nice to hear right now.
The other major thing the TV series changed is the race and gender of a number of the characters. At least in the part of the book I read (I DNF'd about a quarter in), all the main characters are either white or race not stated except for an African nun, Lacey. Amy is white. The scientists and the Death Row vampires and vampire candidates are all male. In the TV series, Amy (main character) and the main Death Row vampire candidate (major character) are black. One of the two most important vampire characters (so far) is now a white woman, and one of the two main scientist characters is now a black woman. I have to say that I love these changes and I'm really enjoying the series. Amy and Brad are fucking adorable together (but not in a saccharine way), and the actors playing the vampires and vampire candidates are really compelling.
Three episodes so far. Hopefully it won't get canceled midstream.
Major book spoilers ahead! I'm not sure how spoilery the book really is for the TV series, since it's already diverged significantly, but they're definitely spoilery for the book. ( Read more... )
The Passage: A Novel (Book One of The Passage Trilogy)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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January 27, 2019
Beauty, by Brian D’Amato; Beauty, in general; Beauty and the Beast
In Beauty by Brian D'Amato, a creepy, pretentious, narcissistic artist/unlicensed plastic surgeon tries to create the perfectly beautiful woman. I don't think it's spoilery to say that he gets what's coming to him. A satire of American beauty culture, the 80s art scene in New York, misogyny, and the lifestyles of the idle rich, recounted by a seriously unreliable narrator.
What would Marilyn or Madonna or Cindy Crawford be without their moles? Nothing, I thought. Or a lot less. It’s interesting that moles are called “beauty marks.” What was it about them that made them so alluring? Are they like a sign that you can approach the goddess?
I spent a long time composing its position, but I finally decided the black spot would go nearly a centimeter above the left corner of her lip. A hair off to the left. The abstract element would round out her effect. It would make her unique and human and sexy and somehow pathetic. Because a mole is an intimation of death.
I am not big on social satire and much of it is now dated, but the prose style is to die for. The author is a professional artist and the technical detail is fascinating in the way of Dick Francis, though both narrator and tone are basically anti-Francis.
I do like this book but it is not my favorite book called Beauty, nor my favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast." My favorite book actually called Beauty is Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast[image error], by Robin McKinley, and yes, I like it better than her Rose Daughter[image error], which also retells "Beauty and the Beast." (One might argue that many and possibly all of McKinley's books are versions of "Beauty and the Beast."
My least favorite book called Beauty is Beauty: A Novel[image error] by Sheri S. Tepper, a horror novel which makes an apparently sincere case that horror fiction is evil. Tepper's books argue a lot of strange positions but that one takes the cake for the strangest.
What is your favorite/least favorite work called Beauty? What is your favorite/least favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast?"
Beauty[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
What would Marilyn or Madonna or Cindy Crawford be without their moles? Nothing, I thought. Or a lot less. It’s interesting that moles are called “beauty marks.” What was it about them that made them so alluring? Are they like a sign that you can approach the goddess?
I spent a long time composing its position, but I finally decided the black spot would go nearly a centimeter above the left corner of her lip. A hair off to the left. The abstract element would round out her effect. It would make her unique and human and sexy and somehow pathetic. Because a mole is an intimation of death.
I am not big on social satire and much of it is now dated, but the prose style is to die for. The author is a professional artist and the technical detail is fascinating in the way of Dick Francis, though both narrator and tone are basically anti-Francis.
I do like this book but it is not my favorite book called Beauty, nor my favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast." My favorite book actually called Beauty is Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast[image error], by Robin McKinley, and yes, I like it better than her Rose Daughter[image error], which also retells "Beauty and the Beast." (One might argue that many and possibly all of McKinley's books are versions of "Beauty and the Beast."
My least favorite book called Beauty is Beauty: A Novel[image error] by Sheri S. Tepper, a horror novel which makes an apparently sincere case that horror fiction is evil. Tepper's books argue a lot of strange positions but that one takes the cake for the strangest.
What is your favorite/least favorite work called Beauty? What is your favorite/least favorite take on "Beauty and the Beast?"
Beauty[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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January 26, 2019
FF Friday: In the Vanishers’ Palace, by Aliette de Bodard
(Well, I read it on Friday.)
A gorgeous, unusual, post-apocalyptic F/F science fantasy riff on “Beauty and the Beast.”
Yen is a young scholar living with her mother, the town healer, in a world that was ruined and then abandoned by the mysterious Vanishers. When her mother makes a desperate attempt to save a dying patient, the dragon Vu Con, answers her call… and takes Yen back with to her beautiful and deadly home, full of magic and science and alien geometries.
This short novel is amazingly inventive at every turn, with magic made of visible words, alien viruses, and medicine understood in both ancient and futuristic terms. The central romantic relationship is F/F, but romance is only one aspect of the web of relationships: familial, friendship, surrogate family, teacher-student, wary co-existence. The base culture is Vietnamese, with both Eastern and Western folklore and fairytale elements. It’s set in a very dark world, but is ultimately about people (and spirits) grappling with the damage of the past and trying to change things for the better in the future. I liked it a lot.
In the Vanishers’ Palace[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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A gorgeous, unusual, post-apocalyptic F/F science fantasy riff on “Beauty and the Beast.”
Yen is a young scholar living with her mother, the town healer, in a world that was ruined and then abandoned by the mysterious Vanishers. When her mother makes a desperate attempt to save a dying patient, the dragon Vu Con, answers her call… and takes Yen back with to her beautiful and deadly home, full of magic and science and alien geometries.
This short novel is amazingly inventive at every turn, with magic made of visible words, alien viruses, and medicine understood in both ancient and futuristic terms. The central romantic relationship is F/F, but romance is only one aspect of the web of relationships: familial, friendship, surrogate family, teacher-student, wary co-existence. The base culture is Vietnamese, with both Eastern and Western folklore and fairytale elements. It’s set in a very dark world, but is ultimately about people (and spirits) grappling with the damage of the past and trying to change things for the better in the future. I liked it a lot.
In the Vanishers’ Palace[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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January 25, 2019
Friday KatMari
Photos below cut of decluttering in progress, with "helpful" feline assistance from Erin.
I tackled one small bookcase today, and amused myself by arranging the general category (memoirs) into more granular categories, consisting of "I Had a Pretty Cool Life and Mostly Remember it Fondly," "My Traumatizing Childhood/Adulthood," "My Job Is Cooler Than Yours," "My Life is Mostly Ordinary But I Write About It Well," "I Had an Exciting Experience," "I Loved Someone Who Died," and "Meet My Furry Friends."
Please no comments about how you're uninterested in decluttering, you don't want to declutter, or that decluttering, Marie Kondo, or people interested in decluttering are bad and wrong. If this is a topic you dislike or find uninteresting, please scroll past this post or blacklist the decluttering tag.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
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I tackled one small bookcase today, and amused myself by arranging the general category (memoirs) into more granular categories, consisting of "I Had a Pretty Cool Life and Mostly Remember it Fondly," "My Traumatizing Childhood/Adulthood," "My Job Is Cooler Than Yours," "My Life is Mostly Ordinary But I Write About It Well," "I Had an Exciting Experience," "I Loved Someone Who Died," and "Meet My Furry Friends."
Please no comments about how you're uninterested in decluttering, you don't want to declutter, or that decluttering, Marie Kondo, or people interested in decluttering are bad and wrong. If this is a topic you dislike or find uninteresting, please scroll past this post or blacklist the decluttering tag.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
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January 24, 2019
Thursday KatMari
Photos below cut of decluttering in progress, with "helpful" feline assistance.
Please no comments about how you're uninterested in decluttering, you don't want to declutter, or that decluttering, Marie Kondo, or people interested in decluttering are bad and wrong. If this is a topic you dislike or find uninteresting, please scroll past this post or blacklist the decluttering tag.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
comments
Please no comments about how you're uninterested in decluttering, you don't want to declutter, or that decluttering, Marie Kondo, or people interested in decluttering are bad and wrong. If this is a topic you dislike or find uninteresting, please scroll past this post or blacklist the decluttering tag.
( Click for KatMari photos! )
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January 22, 2019
The Oracle Betrayed, by Catherine Fisher (The Oracle Prophesies, Book One)
This YA fantasy set in an ancient Egypt-ish land has an absolutely crackerjack opening. The heroine Mirany, a very junior attendant to the Oracle, must ceremonially carry a shallow bowl of live deadly scorpions to the current ruler. If any escape and sting her, she dies. Her walk with the scorpions is incredibly vivid and tense, as is the scene in which we find that the ruler has his own test: stick his hand in the bowl and see if they sting him, which he has to do because he’s supposed to bring rain and there hasn’t been any for ages.
Before he takes his test, he unexpectedly slips Mirany a note telling her that the Oracle is untrustworthy. And so she gets enmeshed in a web of politics, treachery, magic, and actual Gods. Mirany and a male character her age, Seth the scribe, are fairly standard YA protagonists, and the villains are your basic villains. Some of the supporting cast, however, are really interesting: a boy who is part ordinary child and part ancient God and part reincarnation of the former ruler, the alcoholic musician who was devoted to the man he was pre-reincarnation, the albino (not evil, for once) who lives underground in a self-made papier-mache palace.
I liked this way more than Fisher’s much more well-known book, Incarceron. The characters were more interesting, and everything involving the Gods and their rituals was inventive, eerie, and magical-feeling. I also appreciated the near-total lack of romance in this book though I can see it brewing between Seth and Mirany in future books. I may read them anyway, for the world and the supporting characters and the Gods.
The Oracle Betrayed: Book One of The Oracle Prophecies[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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Before he takes his test, he unexpectedly slips Mirany a note telling her that the Oracle is untrustworthy. And so she gets enmeshed in a web of politics, treachery, magic, and actual Gods. Mirany and a male character her age, Seth the scribe, are fairly standard YA protagonists, and the villains are your basic villains. Some of the supporting cast, however, are really interesting: a boy who is part ordinary child and part ancient God and part reincarnation of the former ruler, the alcoholic musician who was devoted to the man he was pre-reincarnation, the albino (not evil, for once) who lives underground in a self-made papier-mache palace.
I liked this way more than Fisher’s much more well-known book, Incarceron. The characters were more interesting, and everything involving the Gods and their rituals was inventive, eerie, and magical-feeling. I also appreciated the near-total lack of romance in this book though I can see it brewing between Seth and Mirany in future books. I may read them anyway, for the world and the supporting characters and the Gods.
The Oracle Betrayed: Book One of The Oracle Prophecies[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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