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I heart my state SO MUCH right now.

In less happy state news, funding to UC Berkeley has taken a cut, leading the university to cut down on the East Asian Languages and Cultures classes, particularly the language classes, particularly Korean, which is taking a 66% cut. More information, along with petitions to sign and suggestions for action. I'm personally mad about this because I wanted to take those classes, because I still feel attachment to my EAS degree, and because Korean classes are usually overlooked by East Asian Studies departments in the US.

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Sisters May, Palmer, and Brooks Gold are still coping after their father's recent death. Middle sister May is saddled with responsibilities, including learning to drive so she can help her mother out; older sister Brooks is drinking; and younger sister Palmer is quietly freaking out as everyone continues to ignore her. It's a slow, quiet story of how things fall apart and even more slowly begin to heal, and while most of it is from May's POV, we get a lot of Brooks and Palmer as well.

This and Bermudez Triangle are my favorite of Johnson's books, largely because both of them focus less on an external plot and more on the characters' growth, particularly how all the characters affect each other. The Golds feel so real, from the tired mother to the sibling squabbling to the way people ask things of you when you have nothing left to give, the way they're too busy when you're about to fall down, and just when everything's about to come apart, everything begins to come together again.

I particularly loved Palmer and her fear, the way she faded into walls to watch. It was harder to love Brooks, who's mostly lost in a chemical haze, and I see a lot of myself in May, from the desperate attempts to grab control to the way she pushes people away just when she needs them most. Though the romance between May and boy-next-door Pete wasn't the center of the book, I liked it, particularly the last bits.

But most of all, I loved the three sisters and the absence of their dad, an empty space that affects everything. I love the way Johnson weaves baseball in throughout, from their dad, Palmer, and Brooks' love of it to May's inability to play, and how it all fits together in the end. I, um, sort of bawled through the entire last half of the book, where everyone's broken bits come together, but things end up okay. Definitely recommended, especially if you like authors like Sarah Dessen.

Links:
- rilina's review
- gwyneira's review

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ktempest has details up for unofficial Wiscon POC-only meets:

Friday Meet & Greet post-opening-ceremony in the lobby

Sat. 11:45-1:00 lunch

Mon. 8:00-9:45 breakfast

More details here. She's also trying to round up POC for a reading, volunteers to man the lounge, and volunteers for flyer-ing.

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I think it's been forever since I've posted picture spam, especially of my knitting! Giant pictures under all the cuts!

( Mariposa, April 2008 )

( Knitting )

( Ratties! )

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Because I desperately want to babble about shoujo manga to people:

Shoujo Bodies

Most bodies in shoujo manga are thin and wispy, with an emphasis on androgyny. Many of the men tend to lack muscle definition (think Yuu Watase), while the women are much less curvy than their shounen manga counterparts. What does this mean to us? What other body types are there in shoujo manga? We will hopefully talk about gender-bending, cross-dressing, body image, and the fashion industry. Suggested series to discuss: After School Nightmare, Paradise Kiss, Walkin' Butterfly, Angel Sanctuary, Fruits Basket, W Juliet, Rose of Versailles, and Princess Knight.

Time and place should be decided on Thursday at Wiscon; keep an eye out on the spontaneous programming board.

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( Spoilers )

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Hi! I am lazy and depending on the goodwill of the internet to help with research!

So: tell me about Asian SF/F!

It must be:

• Created in Asia by Asians


• NOT from Japan


• Any medium


• Bonus points if I can get my hands on it (I am in the US and read/understand Mandarin Chinese)


• Extra bonus points for SF/F from and/or about Southeast Asia or South Asia

I have a slightly better sense of SF/F created in Asia and popular in the US, though if you have notes for your specific country, that would also be good! Please note: NOT from Japan.

For self: rachelmanija's notes on Indian SF/F

ETA:
Korea:
- Pahanjip (Korean folklore + Tang China ghost hunters, manhwa)
- Bride of the Water God (Korean folklore (?) + alternate world + beast bridegroom, manhwa)

China:
- Swordsman II

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Despite actually accomplishing a good deal this weekend (finishing the knitting on umadoshi's tatami kimono, applying for a visa for Taiwan, taking Ren to the vet, assorted other errands), I feel like I have not done much. The tatami kimono is now blocking, Ren has antibiotics though I am still worried because he is now an elder rat, the visa is out of my hands for the moment, and it makes no sense to pack for Taiwan yet.

Still, there's a lot to do, first and foremost being finding an apartment for school. GAH. Future Roommate is coming down in the middle of the week, and though I can look for places online now, the bulk of it will be done on Friday. My last day at work is next week, and there will be paper work for assorted things. And then Wiscon, and then two months in Taiwan. No wonder I've been feeling incredibly unsettled. I suspect I won't start to feel better until school actually starts and I have a routine again, and even then, it'll be odd being in a different city, with a roommate, with a completely different schedule. Still, at least it will be a schedule, as opposed to the current plan of: fly to Madison, fly to Taiwan, fly to New York, MOVE.

Add extra paranoia for rat health while I am out of the country for two months, get instant freak out!

On the plus side, even though I got to the farmers' market very late, I still got peas! Also! My pea guy is back! Apparently he couldn't bring things over because of a bad shoulder. I sadly didn't get any peas from him this week, since I had already gotten a ton, but there will be next week, now that I know he's back.

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I usually don't like watching anime made from manga, just because a) I like manga art better, b) the voices always startle me because they aren't exactly like the ones in my head, and c) the pacing feels off (it takes about two episodes for one volume, which I can read in half an hour).

I am going to completely eschew plot summary and link you here instead, as the first five volumes cover the first volume and a half of the manga. Mostly, all you need to know is that Yuuki is our innocent heroine, Zero is the broody grumpy vampire hater, and Kaname is the overly protective vampire who saved kid!Yuuki.

The switches between SD comedy and Gothic vampire crack worked a lot better for me in the anime, largely because in the anime, each mood takes more time, as opposed the manga, which often flip-flops between mood every other page or so. Also, the sound effects help. But mostly! We get many shots of vampires with glowing red eyes!

And! And! People! There is organ music for the big emotional moments, or the little emotional moments, or really, any moment that involves over-the-top Gothic settings! And! The ending song is set to an extremely creepy scene in which Yuuki is a doll dressed in black, Loligoth style, and she cries tears of blood while her stuffed rabbit's eyes glow red! It is AWESOME!

I cannot wait until SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER!

Please no spoilers for the manga in comments unless it is under <span style="color:#333;background:#333">spoiler text</span>.

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Wow, that was depressing. I mean, I do not read Butler books for the fun and frothy, but still.

It's the near-distant future, and society has deteriorated so that there are walled cities and gangs running amuck outside. Blake and his two daughters, Rane and Keira, end up being kidnapped, but not by the normal suspects. Instead, they've been kidnapped by a group of people infected with a strange organism from outer space.

It's particularly terrifying reading about the leader of the group, Eli's, flashbacks, from the unbearable compulsion to spread the organism, stay alive, and procreate. Of the Butler books I read, I think this one has the thinnest line between human and Other, and it's harrowing reading about the infected people's attempts to stay human, even as their humanity constantly erodes.

As usual, I like Butler's multiracial world, and it'd be interesting to do a closer examination of pregnancy and procreation in her books, since they're so often focused on extending the human race, or extending it as a hybrid of human-alien.

( And then, the depressing (spoilers) )

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Neil de Grasse Tyson is the current director of the New York American History Museum's Hayden Planetarium. He was also, less notably but much more influentially for me, one of the lecturers in my introduction to astronomy course. I had flipped through this book when I bought it for class, and the voice was so engaging and fun that I read it all before any of it was assigned. Actually, it may have just been optional reading, but I think it should have been assigned.

The book is like Tyson-the-lecturer distilled, although it cannot quite get across just how charismatic, funny, and, above all, clear he is. Sadly, I've clearly forgotten all my basics of physics, but the book has a brief refresher. Though Tyson's field is astronomy and the book has chapters specific to astronomy, other parts are just good background. I almost skipped the chapter on the scientific method but was glad I didn't when I encountered this passage on cultural bias and scientific truth:

( Cut for length )

There's also a chapter on astronomical jargon, grouped under headers like "Some Terms That Have Too Many Syllables" (magnetohydrodynamics), "Some Terms That Look Like Typographical Errors" (syzygy, which I know from X-Files), and "Some Terms That Sound Like Diseases" (bok globules).

Tyson goes on to explain gravity, planetary motion, the life cycle of stars, the periodic table of elements, and the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. I didn't get everything in the book, though I think that is more my own scientific rustiness than Tyson's fault, because I remember understanding it back in college.

I've always been fascinated by astronomy and the stars—I gave myself nightmares as a kid reading about black holes—and this was a lovely way to regain my sense of wonder about the night (and day) sky, which I haven't been paying attention to for a while. It's so overwhelmingly cool that all the elements in the universe originally came from thermonuclear fusion in the hearts of stars.

Also, I have remembered my giant geek-crush on Tyson and ran to check out more of his books (I remember his first book and this one being a little repetitive when read back-to-back, but I haven't read any of his others since this one).

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( Spoilers are fascinating )

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Jang Geum is known as being the only female royal doctor in Korean history; we know of her from brief mentions in Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (which, btw, from the book on Joseon royal court culture that I read, is a pretty freaking amazing document in terms of breadth and scope and effort). From what I got off Wiki, some people speculate that Jang Geum in the Annals is an amalgamation of various female court physicians.

The drama opens with a plotline that I think could have been cut, though it gives a good sense of the intrigue and politics that we'll see later on. Eventually, when we are introduced to Jang Geum, she's a court lady in the royal kitchens.

I mean, I knew she was going to be a doctor and I vaguely remembered something about the royal kitchens, but no one told me about the massive amounts of food porn! There are scenes of the court ladies serving banquets to crowds of people, each individual getting their own tray. There are close-ups of a court lady creating a midnight snack for the king from scraps of ingredients. There are bits that are straight out of shounen, in which the various young court ladies are tested to determine what ingredients a dish is made out of by a single taste (of course Jang Geum is the bestest).

So far, I am not invested in any of the characters so far, largely because Jang Geum is too perfect to be interesting. All her flaws are ones that demonstrate how precocious and good she is at things, though I have to say, I am glad that while there are female rivals among the court ladies, frequently there's a challenge to the kitchen as a whole, and all the kitchen court ladies must team up and figure things out.

I love the details and the looks into the daily lives of people in the palace, no matter how dramatized they are (big crisis: the princess will not eat!), so will stick with this a little more.

Also, it helps that my library has the DVDs ;).

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Leela is a twelve-year-old in Gujarat, India in 1918. She's obsessed with pretty bangles and saris and excited about her anu, the ceremony to send her off to live with her husband. But then, her husband dies, and Leela will be a widow forever, as brahman women are not allowed to remarry.

I was rather hesitant about beginning this book, as I have very complicated feelings about feminism and how it relates to colonialism, particularly how white feminism frequently enforces colonialism in the name of "freeing" brown and black women. On the other hand, the book's cover copy promised a story about how Leela's own journey would intertwine with Gandhi's argument for satyagraha and Indian independence.

I know—this sounds like a book that is All About Oppression, but rather than finding it depressing, I found it uplifting and hopeful. Leela reminds me a great deal of Rilla in Rilla of Ingleside in that both begin as rather privileged, flighty creatures, and soon must live up to political events outside their control. I started out wanting to shake Leela at times, and I ended up loving her.

What really made the book for me was how India-centric it is. Sheth doesn't do what many authors (usually white) do—bring in an enlightened white person who explains about freedom and feminism and whatnot, or focus on the white person who learns about colonialism and feels oh so bad about it! I love that Leela reads Gandhi and Narmad, famed Indian poet and thinker, that the book remembers people of color worldwide amazingly agitate for their own freedom without white heroes, that Sheth portrays the small town Leela lives in as a dynamic one. This is about Indian women struggling for themselves and Indian people fighting; the Raj is a distant presence, though a heavy and horrible one.

I didn't realize how angry I still was about last year's Romance of the Revolution panel at Wiscon until I read this, because the many revolutions against colonialism and imperialism matter to me. They are personal history.

Also, on a lighter note, Sheth consistently has tidbits about Indian food! The completely-uneducated-me felt that the details on Indian culture in that time period and area were good, but again, grain of salt. In conclusion, I was very happy with this find and will be looking for Sheth's backlist.

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Despite Yoshinaga being widely praised, I tend to avoid her manga because her kinks are... most decidedly not mine, let us say.

Hanazono Harutaro's leukemia is in remission, and so he's enrolling in school late. He soon quickly makes friends with the somewhat short and chubby Shota, which is how he ends up in the school's manga club, run by super-otaku Majima. Not much happens in the three volumes, and quite a few chapters aren't even on Harutaro. What's great about this manga is how normal and ordinary it is, from Majima's all-too-real rants about manga to a young manga writer's love of art supplies (I forgot her name.. Shin something?).

It's a very difficult work to describe, because so much is in the details. Yoshinaga is excellent at observing people, and I especially love the Christmas arc in the third volume, which by all rights should be schmaltzy and cliched, but is instead wonderful and makes me smile. I love how Yoshinaga's geeky love of manga shines through even as she makes fun of it at times, and I particularly love how fond she is of her characters, even prickly Majima. My favorites, though, are manga writer girl and Shota (people talking about weight in a manga!), and I am so glad manga writer girl doesn't get a makeover.

There is one plot point that I very much dislike, but I love the others so much that I will keep reading. I'm not sure how well this will work for non-manga fans, because it is filled with such love and bemused affection for manga, but if you love manga and know anything about it, this is wonderful.

Yoshinaga fans, tell me -- should I read her other series? I loved the first half of Antique Bakery, but not the second about Tachibana's angst and Ono's assorted relationships, and I am very, very bad with non-consensual anything and/or huge power differentials. But I love her characters in this so much.

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Eeeeee! Programming is out for Wiscon! I copy Mely and post my schedule and a poll.

( Schedule )

Poll #1183668 Wiscon poll
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

I am going to Wiscon!

I ...

I will attend a guerrilla panel on bodies in shoujo manga, preferably talking about thin wispiness, male androgyny, lack of numerous body types, cross-dressing, and gender-bending.

I will attend a guerrilla panel on Octavian Nothing, race, science, and the scientific method.

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Sadly, I do not have an Avatar icon, so have one of another kickass woman!

New Avatar, WHOO! Sadly, I forgot to blog eps. 12-13, so I am shoehorning them in here.

( Spoilers kick your ass! )

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I need to clear out shelf space, so... manga and anime sale! Linking is very ok and highly encouraged!

Everything is in like-new condition. Each volume priced at $5, DVDs are at $10. Inter-US shipping included (media mail); add $10 for international. I take PayPal (no credit card) and/or Amazon gift certificates. Everything is the US edition unless otherwise specified.

I'll let you know if you grabbed it first and then we can email re: payment and mail and whatnot.

( Manga )

( Anime )

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This is more of a textbook than a dry scholarly tome (I say this with great love for dry scholarly tomes), which has its pluses and minuses.

On the plus side, it reads at about middle or high school level to me, though I am not exactly sure what high school would have a class specifically on Joseon royal court culture, unless high schools in Korea have much more specific classes than ones in Taiwan! That said, it would have been awesome if I had a high school class on Tang dynasty royal court culture. The lower level is very good for me, particularly since my brain has been very bad at processing much information for a long time now.

Also, the added bonus of textbook means pictures! And sidebars! And little inserts explaining random bits of Joseon royal court trivia or things like how one prince was put to death by being stuffed in a rice bin! I am all for sidebars and inserts.

On the minus side, the book is a little sloppy with dates. I don't mean precise dates, which I am sure are accurate, but things like how court culture changed over the span of the Joseon Dynasty. I am fairly certain that things must have changed, as Joseon spanned almost five centuries, and I would have loved to know what was more strict in the early dynasty and relaxed later, or when the height of Neo-Confucianism was, or how the dynasty fell.

And yet, I cannot complain too much, because I got to read about Joseon royal court culture, from how the king's dinner was usually laid out (20+ small dishes!) to how fires were put out. I love this kind of detail, and I would have loved even more, especially now that I have started Dae Jang Geum, which is set in Joseon Korean (roughly late 1400s). There's stuff on how people in the royal family were treated and how the king was buried and the incredibly complex decision-making that went into a king's dynastic name (names ending in "-jo" like "Taejo" imply that the king brought order from chaos, whereas names ending in "-jong" like "Sejong" imply the king kept order). There's a lot on the politics behind a dynastic name, as the son/successor named the predecessor, and some bits touched on the kings in Dae Jang Geum!

I wish there had been more on poison-drinking as punishment in the Joseon court, as that is in DJG a lot, but oh well.

I was also very surprised by how much Chinese history came into the book. There are numerous references to Tang Dynasty culture and history, as China regarded Tang as the height of civilization and I suspect that was carried over to Korea as well. There's a ton of references to the prehistoric first three dynasties of China (Xia, Shang, Zhou), a few to early Han Dynasty, many many many to Confucius and the Spring Autumn period, and others scattered around.

I embarrassingly had no idea that Korea considered itself a vassal state to China, which is why kings in Korea were kings, not emperors. There wasn't the posturing that went on between China and Japan, in which the Japanese emperor would send a "tribute" to China while calling it a "state visit" amongst themselves. It also clarified the bit about twelve strings on a hat being a sign of an emperor, whereas nine was for a king -- the emperor is referring to the Chinese emperor.

It's also the extent to which Korea consulted China -- new kings were recognized by whatever Chinese emperor was in power, dynastic names for dead kings were signed off by the emperor, and etc. I don't think Korea was in any way a subject, as most of the details seemed to be fairly ceremonial, but I was mostly surprised by the acknowledgement. I suspect there was less of that later on and rhetoric on being more successfully Chinese than the Chinese, but that is a guess on my part based on the Manchu rule over China starting in 1644 and the strictness of how Korea kept to Neo-Confucianism and just because I've seen that trend happening in history. I started when I looked at an old court document and could read it (which I had expected, given the wide use of Chinese characters across East Asia) and noticed that it was dated: "Qianlong XX Year" (Qianlong is a Qing emperor; Chinese dynasties dated things according to imperial rule, usually according to the dynastic name of what emperor was in power, though some emperors would change dynastic names mid-rule and start the year count over again for luck or something).

A good first look at Joseon court culture, and it only makes me want to read even more. Thanks muchly to yhlee for the loan!

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I was in a horrible mood this morning and afternoon, despite going to my farmers' market and getting not only the fresh peas and strawberries that I got last week, but also seeing the first of this year's cherries.

Then I got a pedicure with my mom and went to Left Bank with the mom and a friend of hers; had delicious cheese with blueberry compote, scallops with risotto and mushrooms, frisee salad with bacon and mustard vinaigrette, calamari, this salmon-esque fish on top of asparagus, an apricot galette with almond cream, and a petite profiterole topped with chocolate sauce; and finally sat in another auntie's house flipping through the French Laundry cookbook. I feel much better now!

Tomorrow, I will shell the peas (so wonderfully and oddly relaxing) have salad with homemade vinaigrette, eat strawberries and/or cherries, eat leftover risotto, and plan what to do with the fresh pasta from the market.

The French Laundry cookbook makes me love food so much, even though I would never make anything in it. I am too lazy -- the cookbook notes that in the restaurant, everything moved from one pan to another is strained and strained until clear, among other preparatory measures -- and the ingredients are too rarified. But oh, it is good to read about it, and Thomas Keller's love of food, particularly for things like offal shines through every page. I love that he thinks the epitome of cooking is to take a cheap cut or parts you would normally throw away and to make it an amazing dish.

One sad thing in my market -- I think my pea guy, absent since last fall, has permanently gone. I hope he's gone to another, more profitable market, rather than been squeezed out, because he had peas (English and sweet) and fava beans and haricots vert and romanos and cranberry beans, and someone else should at least get the benefit of his produce. There are a few other empty spots as well, which also makes me sad.

I hope the increase of ready-made food in the market hasn't driven people out, even though I love the French pastry place and the fresh pasta place that I think is at the Ferry Building on Saturdays. And though I do not usually cook meat, I am glad to see more meat in the market for non-vegetarian people who try to cook locally.

Oh food! How wonderful you are! Oh market! How I will miss you when I am in Taiwan, though I will take many pictures and eat tons of the tropical fruit there to make up for it.