Nicola Griffith's Blog, page 114

Kittens!

Because I'll be gone most of the day doing medical things, and because throwing Cute at you is acceptable once a year, and because, hey, there's no Tuesday on earth that can't be improved by kittens, here you go:


(Via @cstross)

Enjoy. I'll be back tomorrow with the usual programme of books, science, history, beer, and gender politics.

Sharks vs. Christmas tree ornaments

This is for those friends of mine who love non-cuddly beasties. (I have a surprising number.) From the London Review of Books:

‘Many scientists don’t like to talk about shark sex,’ Juliet Eilperin writes in her entertaining study of sharks and their world. ‘They worry it will only reinforce the popular perception that these creatures are brutish and unrelenting.’ In as far as we understand the subject – only a few species have been observed mating – the business is ‘very rough’. Larger male sharks have to bite or trap the females to keep them around during courtship; marine biologists can tell when a female has been mating because her skin will be raw or bleeding. The process is so violent that, come the mating season, female nurse sharks will stay in shallow water with their reproductive openings pressed firmly to the sea floor. Otherwise they risk falling prey to roaming bands of males who ‘will take turns inserting their claspers in her’ (the clasper is the shark version of a penis, found in a pair behind the pelvic fins). A litter of fifty pups will have anything from two to seven fathers. But the reproductive story gets rougher still. A number of shark species go in for oophagy, or uterine cannibalism. Sand tiger foetuses ‘eat each other in utero, acting out the harshest form of sibling rivalry imaginable’. Only two babies emerge, one from each of the mother shark’s uteruses: the survivors have eaten everything else. ‘A female sand tiger gives birth to a baby that’s already a metre long and an experienced killer,’ explains Demian Chapman, an expert on the subject.

But do bear in mind:

[S]hark attacks are an exotic rarity. There were 75 verified shark attacks last year, and 12 fatalities. Even in the US, a global hotspot, you are forty times more likely to be hospitalised by a Christmas tree ornament than by a shark.

E.L. James vs. King James

This caught my eye the other day (from the Westmorland Gazette):
E.L. James vs. King James:

A HOTEL boss has swapped Bibles in his bedrooms for copies of the raunchy novel Fifty Shades of Grey – and the local vicar is not happy.
The Rev Michael Woodcock spoke of his dismay after hearing about the book of choice at the Damson Dene Hotel, Crosthwaite.

He said it was 'a great shame' to replace the Gideon Bibles at the rural retreat with an explicit, erotic novel.

Hotel manager Wayne Bartholomew said the move to install the steamy bestseller was in response to popular demand.

I find Bibles in hotel rooms annoying--they take up half the space in the bedside drawer that I need for other things. But they're such a part of the cultural furniture that I don't find them offensive, despite some of the horrors between the covers. There again, I don't get offended easily. I do get pissed off. (For some that's a subtle distinctin. The verb offend makes me think of prissy, purse-mouthed repressives, the kind of people who actively seek out situations that will register on their offend-o-meter. Perhaps I'm over-thinking this.) However, I suspect that if someone unexpectedly foisted Fifty Shades of Grey upon me I don't think I'd be pleased.

I'm not a fan of bad writing, even less of powerful-boy-dominant on not-powerful-girl-submissive SM fiction. It (cough) reinforces the master narrative, the dominant paradigm. In other words, it's a cliché. And you all know I find clichés pernicious. And Fifty Shades hasn't been around long enough for me to become inured to it.

So if you ran a boutique hotel popular with couples, what would you put in the  bedrooms? I think I'd choose a themed library of three or four books, a couple of pieces of art, and one or two films that would match each room. The Bronco Suite, for example, might have My Ántonia, a paperback by Louis L'Amour, and perhaps Molly Gloss's The Dazzle of Day. A painting or bronze by Remington to gaze at. And video streaming selections of Shane, Brokeback Mountain, and something with John Wayne or Gary Cooper. I'm drawing a blank on music. Any thoughts? On the hospitality tray, in addition to usual crappy snacks, there might be beef jerky and a couple of packets of chicory coffee. For a bit extra, guests could rent chaps, hat, and a rope...
...You see what even mentioning that bloody book does to one's thought train? Clichés are infectious. Tuh.

Sly, surreal eccentricity: opening ceremonies

The Danny Boyle-directed Olympics Opening Ceremony was, well, Britain on acid. Or maybe ecstasy. A wild, weird and wonderful party. With great music.

I loved some of it, especially the corny bits. I cleared my throat a lot and wiped my eyes surreptitiously when the children sang the songs from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Those are my songs; I sang them all as a child. I coughed and swallowed when all those fine social justice types carried the Olympic flag around the stadium. I am a sucker for the-best-we-can-be stuff. However, I did find  some of the show rather baffling--the dancing nightmare monsters, the jitterbugging medics--which I'm guessing people without intimate knowledge of British children's literature or the NHS found mystifying. Americans could probably keep up, mostly (Mary Poppins floating in to save the day, er, night is at least a recognisable figure) but viewers from Tanzania or Uzbekistan: maybe not so much. The modern-day love story didn't work for me, either. Though I did enjoy seeing the two women kiss in the montage. Sir Paul and "Hey Jude"... Well, if I had to guess why Boyle chose that song it was so that audience members had something to sing along to that didn't require knowing any lyrics. "...na na na na-na-na naa..." is easy enough for most people to remember. And there's nothing as community-building as a sing-along. The people in the stadium probably felt the glow of universal love. At home? Eh, the song seemed to go on a bit too long.

My favourite bits? James Bond and the Queen, of course. Closely followed by the Bohemian Rhapsody clips. I enjoyed watching Rowan Atkinson subvert the schmaltzy Chariots of Fire sequence. The nod to Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the internet, could have been better, but I'm glad it was there. The doves on bikes were very cool, as was the athlete shown in tiny LED panels running around the stadium seating. Also high on the list of Good Things: the depiction of Britain as  multi-cultural nation, and the very, very cool copper buds/petals that made up the Olympic cauldron. But for me what epitomised the show was the forging of the Olympic rings: a unique mix of technology, imaginative staging, and potent symbolism: the joining of light, movement, northern industrialism, and the Olympic spirit. Very British: mighty, but not too expensive.

I don't think anyone but a director born and bred in the north of England could have conceived this show. The music, the patriotism, the belief in world systems along with a hint of outsider-ism, and, over all, the sly acknowledgement that it's all a bit of lark, really, and needs to have the mickey taken out of itself. Boyle himself summed it up neatly: "sly, surreal eccentricity."

Tonight I'll drink a toast to The North: the place and the people who started the Industrial Revolution (and not a few political revolutions) that make us who we are today.

I loved it.

DOMA is going down: but when, and what then?

Yesterday I read this article from The Advocate

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn filed a brief Wednesday joining their constituent, Edith Windsor, in asking the Supreme Court to hear her challenge against the Defense of Marriage Act.

Windsor, 83, is suing the federal government over $363,000 in estate taxes she was forced to pay after her spouse, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. The couple was together for more than 40 years and had married in Canada in 2007, but because of section 3 of DOMA, the federal government did not recognize their marriage.

Now that Chief Justice Kennedy has shown that it really does matter to him how the court's decisions play to the citizenry, I don't see how the court can let DOMA stand. Opponents of the law are finding better cases to hold up as examples of its inherent un-Americaness. There are at least three cases heading to the court that stand a good chance of triggering a decision to quash DOMA.

Depending on which case gets there first, they could rule against DOMA 6-3. As far as I'm concerned, the only questions worth asking are: When? and What then?

I'd love to hear some thoughtful guesses on both questions. Here are mine:

When: 2013
What then: it depends on Congress (that is, which party has the majority in House and Senate); it depends on the political leanings of individual States. I believe that in terms of federal-worker benefits, immigration, and tax and inheritance laws, by 2014 we'll have parity--at least those of us who are legally married in our home states. And that's the rub: it will take a long time for states to accept other states' marriages. (Perhaps I should take bets on which will be the last holdouts: Alabama? Mississippi?) There will be a series of protracted battles. But at some point--faster than anyone believes possible right now, because marriage equality is the fastest equal-rights social change this country has ever experienced, and it's still gathering momentum--there will be a sea change. And every lesbian and gay man in this country will be able to marry their sweetie. (Providing, of course, that they're of legal age, not already married, etc.)

It's at this point that there will be an end to discrimination against queers--employers will no longer be able to get rid of you for kissing your girlfriend; landlords will no longer be able to throw you on the street for holding your boyfriend. And at this point, too, there will be an end to discrimination against trans people.

It will be soon, but I wish it were sooner. What diminishes some diminishes us all. I want equality, human rights, human dignity, for all QUILTBAG people.

A scientific breakthrough that will revolutionise archaeological epidemiology

My friend, Dr Angelique Corthals, has a new paper out. (Perhaps you recall her last one, which caused a stir by asserting that MS is a metabolic disorder.) This is another cracker: she and her team are the first to have detected an immune response in a mummy using proteomics. (Proteomics decodes proteins rather than DNA--which is an investigative method prone to contamination, especially when a sample is old and much-exposed to the vagaries of time.)

Here's the abstract of the paper, "Detecting the Immune System Response of a 500 Year-Old Inca Mummy," just published in in PLoS ONE :

Disease detection in historical samples currently relies on DNA extraction and amplification, or immunoassays. These techniques only establish pathogen presence rather than active disease. We report the first use of shotgun proteomics to detect the protein expression profile of buccal swabs and cloth samples from two 500-year-old Andean mummies. The profile of one of the mummies is consistent with immune system response to severe pulmonary bacterial infection at the time of death. Presence of a probably pathogenic Mycobacterium sp. in one buccal swab was confirmed by DNA amplification, sequencing, and phylogenetic analyses. Our study provides positive evidence of active pathogenic infection in an ancient sample for the first time. The protocol introduced here is less susceptible to contamination than DNA-based or immunoassay-based studies. In scarce forensic samples, shotgun proteomics narrows the range of pathogens to detect using DNA assays, reducing cost. This analytical technique can be broadly applied for detecting infection in ancient samples to answer questions on the historical ecology of specific pathogens, as well as in medico-legal cases when active pathogenic infection is suspected.

As the Stony Brook University Medical School press release notes, "Pathogen detection in human remains, including ancient ones, can help uncover mysteries of past diseases and epidemics and in determining cause of death. Techniques have been largely based on amplification of DNA from microbes. This process is effective for confirming the presence of a pathogen but not for determining if a person was ill with an infectious disease." Angelique explains why this is such an important breakthrough. "This approach opens a new door to ways in which scientists can more accurately solve some of history’s pressing medical mysteries, such as why the Influenza Epidemic of 1918 was so devastating, or what really caused such high mortality in Plague epidemics."

So now I just need some enterprising archaeologist to stumble over the body of Hild. We could learn so many things from her remains (yes, even 1,400 year-old remains): strontium levels in tooth enamel would tell us where she grew up. We could figure out what she ate. We could look at her skeleton and tell what kind of life she'd led: heavy labour, textile production, healthy leisure. And now we might also have a shot at identifying what she died of (my guess: malaria).

I love having smart friends. I love science.

Man Booker Prize 2012 longlist: zero novels by women about women

The 2012 Man Booker Prize longlist has been announced:
Nicola Barker, The Yips (Fourth Estate)Ned Beauman, The Teleportation Accident (Sceptre)André Brink, Philida (Harvill Secker)Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)Michael Frayn, Skios (Faber & Faber)Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Doubleday)Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories)Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt)Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury)Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)Sam Thompson, Communion Town (Fourth Estate)The website points out that the list includes "four debut novels, three small independent publishers and one previous winner. Of the 12 writers, seven are men and five women; nine are British, one Indian, one South African and one Malaysian. The eldest on the list is Michael Frayn at 78 and the youngest is Ned Beauman at 27." Plus, of course, someone called Nicola--which always pleases me. Though the fact that she's writing about the masculine psyche makes me sigh.

It also made me curious. I counted up who wrote about which sex (taken from publisher descriptions and sample chapters where available) and found:
4 novels by men primarily about men4 novels by women primarily about men3 novels by men primarily about women2 books of stories--presumably including some women--by a man and a womanThe total comes to more than twelve because one book--Will Self's Umbrella--is about a man and a woman. So: two-thirds of these books are about men.

But to me the most interesting datum is this: zero novels by women about women. Zero. Draw your own conclusions.

Sally Ride and Tam O'Shaughnessy

Sally Ride, the first woman from the west to go into space, died yesterday. And she came out in the obituary on her own website:

Sally Ride died peacefully on July 23rd, 2012 after a courageous 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Sally lived her life to the fullest, with boundless energy, curiosity, intelligence, passion, joy, and love. Her integrity was absolute; her spirit was immeasurable; her approach to life was fearless.
[...]
In addition to Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, Sally is survived by her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin, and nephew, Whitney; her staff of 40 at Sally Ride Science; and many friends and colleagues around the country.

So when I read this morning's Wall Street Journal I expected to at least see mention of Ms O'Shaughnessy--but the WSJ didn't play. Why?

The New York Times did, just. Other major outlets--such as CNN--also mentioned O'Shaughnessy.

But I would like to have seen a major newspaper tell us about how Sally Ride first met her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy, when they were twelve [note, this website plays commercials with sound--use your mute button]. I would like to have read about why she felt she had to marry a man for a few years. Did she love him? Was it a marriage of convenience? Would she have been accepted as an astronaut if she hadn't married him and looked 'normal' for the media? Would she have married O'Shaughnessy if she could? I don't know the answer to any of those questions. I would like to.

I hope someone writes a book. I hope Ms O'Shaunessy is willing to talk to a biographer and tell some home truths. We need these stories--if only to understand just how much the world (or at least this part of it) has changed in the last decade.

You can have it all if you love to read

The lyrics say it all, really:

There's a story waiting to be told
Waiting for all of us, whether we're young or old
The story is in there if you take a look
Go 'head and and open up, the pages of a book...



Books can take you all over the world. They can take you to happiness and despair. They can lead you to learning. Go read one. Go love a book lover. Happy Monday.

This book lovers' theme song by Sara Ada, to publicise the fact that the New York State Reading Association is now accepting registration forms for their 2012 Conference in Syracuse NY. (Via Darlene Vendegna--thanks, Darlene.)

Ella Fitzgerald captures Sunday perfectly

The first song is "Something to Live For," written by Billy Strayhorn (who arranged the music, too, I think) and performed by Duke Ellington, his big band, and Ella Fizgerald. Not a song I know but I liked it, and I think we all know that yearning. The second is "Jazz Samba." I don't know who wrote it, but this performance is brilliant. Fantastic arrangement (again by Billy Strayhorn) and absolutely superlative vocals by Ella Fitzgerald--made all the more admirable by the occasional strain in her voice. We know it's human, not effortless.

This is how Sundays should feel: slightly melancholy and then marvelling at the heat and rhythm, the joy and reach life.

Enjoy yours.