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• rachelmanija has finished her excellent series of posts on PTSD: Parts I, II, and III


• She's also started reading Angel Sanctuary! My joy cannot be contained! Also, spoil her and have your brain taken over by Rosiel.


• rilina and yhlee continue to watch Gundam Wing. My joy is still not contained! OMG people watching and getting into my beloved first anime series despite its mecha-ness!


• I'm sure everyone has already seen the post-apocalyptic cities posters for I Am Legend but I wanted to highlight the fact that they have TAIPEI and SEOUL! EEEEEEE! (I love Hong Kong, but I feel HK is featured much more often than Taipei and Seoul! OMG! Taipei! National monument that is only a few blocks away from my apartment!


• I have taken the plunge, put my Netflix account on hold, and started Blockbuster. I blame my sister. On the minus side, Blockbuster only has DVDs 7-10 of GWing. On the plus side.... THEY HAVE DAMO ON DVD!!!!!


• shewhohashope hosts the 5th POC in SF Carnival and focuses on non-Western fantasy, including... WUXIA! (yes, I am a little obsessed right now) I particularly rec meganbmoore's wuxia primer for those of you like me who only know you like swords and flying people and historical costumes and have no idea what to watch outside of two or three things. And it's good for people who have absolutely no idea what wuxia is too! Win-win!

I should actually catch up on book and TV posting but... oh well. Soon.

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• The first PoC in SF/F carnival is up! willow_dot_com has some great links in there, along with really good commentary about POC in SF/F books, games, TV and movies. Also, she starts the post with a nice summation of why the carnival is necessary.



• Nominate books for the Carl Brandon Awards! Deadline is Tuesday, July 31. SF/F works by POC are eligible, as are any SF/F works about race and/or ethnicity. I am now grumpy at myself because I could only think of one thing to nominate, and I don't think I've read anything eligible for the 2006 Parallax. Must try to read more for 2007.

And because I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I've also been hesitating because I didn't want to make people feel excluded... I wanted to put together a list reccing LJs and blogs that I've found useful lately, just because sometimes, I forget that not everyone is reading the same things I read. I generally assume that people who are reading my LJ are doing so because they're interested in anime and manga, books, and race. I blog about other things too, but these three seem to be the big ones lately.

I also generally assume that most people reading me for the above topics are also reading coffeeandink, rilina, rachelmanija, and yhlee, all of whom offer intelligent commentary on all of the above.

So here are some possibly less well-known people and places:

• yeloson's del.icio.us account has a ton of links on race and racism, both in the blogosphere and in the news. I can't even begin to say how useful I've found it for keeping up with things and for educating myself.



• I sort of assume most people here know about deadbrowalking, the comm for fannish POC and allies, right?



• jinian, gwyneira, minnow1212, buymeaclue, and keilexandra all blog about books fairly regularly, and even better, they have organized tags and/or LJ memories! This makes the obsessive-compulsive tagger in me happy. Here are buymeaclue's LJ memories, keilexandra's tags, jinian's tags, gwyneira's tags, and minnow1212's LJ memories. tenemet's LJ is all books, all the time!



• shewhohashope has been blogging both about books and about race and racism in the UK.



• And I've gotten sucked into GoodReads. I'm afraid my own account is probably terribly boring for people already reading my LJ, since all I do is post links to entries here, but I've been having lots of fun mass-importing my book lists and reading people's write ups.

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• shewhohashope posted on beauty standards and skin color in relation to a new school video made on the old Brown vs. Board "pick the doll that is the nicest (etc.)" experiment. There's a link to the video from her post as well. I have to say, I am getting more and more annoyed with romance novels waxing on and on about how fair and pale and luminous the heroine's skin is. Probably accurate by historical standards, but I particularly want to smack the contemporaries and fantasies that do this.



• And now for the less serious! heresluck has been watching Heroes (whoo!) and posts on race and class in the show, among other things. (vague spoilers through 1x18)



• And saving the most squeeful for last... vonnie_k HAS BEEN WATCHING HONEY & CLOVER! She likes it! She really, really likes it! *dies from squee* I now repimp the series and direct you all to the torrents because it is quite possibly my absolute mostest favorite anime series and possibly even TV series ever, I love it that much! Also, maybe I will rewatch some episodes tonight, lalala.

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I am having entirely too much fun spamming kate_nepveu in her post on European colonialism. Ok, there is a ton of discussion on Christian theology going on in the comments as well, which is very interesting, but it does not make me quite as "happy happy bouncy eeeeeee I miss my college major" as the talk about colonialism, seminal changes in modern history that widened the impact of colonialism (modern being in the past few centuries), race theory, Guns, Germs and Steel, the development of the modern idea of the nation, and all that fun stuff.

I really need to reread Imagined Communities. And finally get around to reading Said's Orientalism.

Also, while I don't watch Supernatural at all, I had lots of fun with loligo's post on SPN 2x03 and the multiple ways the show isn't really challenging classism, racism or sexism. coffeeandink also has weekly episode writeups that include a census of female characters and characters of color.

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Eeeeeeee!!!!!!! ranith has a post on mahjong and Saiyuki!!!!!!!

I am so excited! Also, this means I don't have to fumble through my manga and try and figure out how Japanese mahjong differs from how I play!

And... mahjong! I love mahjong ^_^.

Also, ha, I'm so glad Sanzo is west and Goku is east. It makes me feel vindicated -- I like the idea of a reincarnation in which not-Sanzo, not-Gojyo and not-Hakkai meet every week to play mahjong but they can never find a permanent person to be the fourth guy (because Goku is under a mountain)! I had Goku being the West seat, so the West seat was always empty for the guys until they finally stopped playing togther.

I also sort of wish that the mahjong game in the series had Sanzo to Goku's left, because that would have meant Goku was winning directly off Sanzo's discards all the time (very symbolic!), but oh well.

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chi_zu has interesting thoughts about global pop culture and genre in non-English-speaking countries; while I have some very shallow answers with regard to Taiwan and Japan, anyone who knows more should definitely join in! I am curious as well!

telophase is a wonderful person for linking to these leather lace front pants for guys. Guuuuuuuuuh. I felt like everyone should know that such things exist in the world, and that it is of the good.

truepenny has nifty thoughts on worldbuilding and genre. I never thought of worldbuilding/alien worlds being the requirement for sci-fi/fantasy, but I think what she says about the importance of the world makes sense. It finally makes sense to me why historical fiction hits the same buttons that sci-fi/fantasy does (for me)! Views into alien worlds, yay!

yhlee has an awesome Angel and Connor vid. ( Some commentary with some Angel S3-5 spoilage )

the_red_shoes links to commentary on the top 20 geek novels meme/list and creates her own list. ( My list and other commentary )

Interview questions from seajules for that meme:

( Here! )

And since I am bad at answering comments these days, I will extend the interview meme suchly. ( Questions for everyone )

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Wah. Woke up today and rushed to work for my 9:00 meeting, only to discover that... I had no 9:00 meeting.

*headdesk*

Need to check my calendar better.

Things that I've sort of been thinking about/reading online:

chi_zu complains about the Memoirs of a Geisha trailer.

Most of my complaints are in the comments. I liked the book when I read it, but that was a while back. I suspect I would be sporky reading it now. Also, I feel somewhat guilty in complaining because I don't feel like I know enough about the subject or the time period. But there is the instinctive sporky reaction.

Will probably end up seeing the movie anyway and have to bite my tongue through the whole thing!

greythistle's post on Crusie's Bet Me has some interesting comments on race in romances.

I also saw a book called Desperate Tigress in a bookstore during the last trip. It's by a Jade Lee, so I assume the author is Asian?

And here is where I feel guilty feeling better about the author being Asian, or at least assuming an Asian name. I mean... it by no means indicates "cultural authenticity" or anything, and I have issues with the entire notion of cultural authenticity and one-upsmanship in the name of authenticity. (and because I am self-promoting and also entirely too lazy to hijack this entire post, I will simply link to an older post which has more in-depth thoughts)

On one hand, yay non-European romance! Yay Chinese romance! On the other hand, the back cover copy made me cringe. White barbarians and Tao sexual enlightenment indeed. I flipped through the first two or three pages, and the very language made me cringe as well. It's hard to put my finger on why, just that... it feels like it's trying too hard to be "exotic" or "Chinese" or something. On the third hand (or tentacle?), people had good reviews on Amazon. On the fourth tentacle, the reviews set off my spork-o-meter (to coopt yhlee).

Has anyone read these?

( Cut for rambling on race and assorted other matters )

That was actually going to be some giant essay on race in romance and in genre, on race in fandom (I remember being one of three Asians at Norwescon, or so I felt. And one of the other Asians was my roommate). Or a ranty thing on being young, female and Asian in terms of my group, which is largely young, female and Asian and comfortable; in terms of my department, which is mostly young, female and of more than one race and of more than one nationality; in terms of my company, which is mostly male and of more than one race and of more than one nationality; in terms of my company's upper management, which is almost invariably older, white, male, and American. But I am too lazy to actually write it.

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Wow, I'm glad my pants weren't on fire when the fire alarm went off on Wed.

(I read this fifteen minutes ago, and I'm still giggling. I think my coworkers think I'm insane. Of course, they probably think I'm insane on a normal day too.)

I finally have a computer again, and now I get to jump through all the hoops and reinstall everything. This is very irritating. And I think the video card really sucks, because all the vids I try to watch get very pixellated when there are fades or fast movements.

This really, really irritates me.

I just want to watch my vids, damnit!

*much gnashing and grinding of teeth*

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!!! Thanks so much to the person who gave me more LJ time!

And since I'm collecting them already:

selenak writes on Powers and Principalities, a book on what a realistic world with superheroes may look like.

Probably linked elsewhere, but since I'm collecting them now: Christian Science Monitor on Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, and The Incredibles.

And scrollgirl thinks about Spiderman (the movie) and egalitarianism here.

I'm still sort of grumpy because both Targets I went to were sold out of the on-sale Buffy S7 DVDs. Grrrrrr.

But I found my own copy of Ursula Synge's Swan's Wing, as last seen recced by rachelmanija, during my weekly bookstore trawl. They have a second copy there as well for $2, if anyone still wants it. And I saw two copies of Justine Larbaelstier's The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction at the bookstore, but I wasn't sure if I should get it or not. Anyone have an opinion on it?

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londonkds has much the same problems as I did with The Incredibles but expresses it ten times better ;). Here's the original post, with heavy spoilers, along with an interesting discussion in a later post that led me to the conclusion that many comics seem rather tech-phobic in nature, particularly if the human is willingly using technology to modify himself (see also the sand guy in Hellboy). Maybe it ties into a rather SFnal theme of the fear of the unclear lines that divide human from cyborg from robot? And another here with references to "Chosen" in Buffy. And even more on superheroes from scrollgirl. May have missed a few links here and there... feel free to drop a note in comments.

ETA: Not on The Incredibles, but fannishly also writes in the same vein re: human and technological merging here. (now here with added discussion)

ETA2: And now it's an article in the NY Times (use BugMeNot).

ETA3: selenak on Powers and Principalities, a take on superheroes in a realistic world.

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Read Emma Frost #2, 7-12. Emma is strangely nice and not like unto Emma at all. Watch me dabble in the world of X-Men again... the majority of what I actually know from canon has been gathered from various internet sites, given that I am generally too cheap to cough up for graphic novels (with the exception of Sandman, for which I have spent tons and tons of money on, sigh). I am still waiting for her bitchy self to emerge. I like her for the same reasons I like Scarlett O'Hara.

I went to the little Shanghai place again and had loads of food ^_^. Next time I need to somehow drag more people with me so I can order more stuff, but sadly, the lack of any social circle whatsoever seems to put a damper on this idea already.

Interesting thoughts on feminism and romance novels and femininity floating around, thanks to heresluck writing on romance novels and coffeeandink's comments on reading Mars. I'm not quite sure how I "discovered" feminism for myself. ( Cut for length )

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Yay!!! I got the Buffy musical soundtrack hermionesviolin sent me ^_^. Just listening to it makes me much, much happier about the entire moving situation.

I also saw the new Harry Potter movie. It was much prettier than the first two, I still really love Emma Watson's version of Hermione, and Scabbers is such an animatronic rat. What did they do with his ears anyway? Rats don't have funny floppy ears with hair tufts! Ok, maybe I imagined the hair tufts. My rats are cuter anyway /brag. Haha, I liked it, but have no intelligent thoughts (as one can probably tell).

Other things to cheer about: rheanna27 has been doing the DVD commentary thing on her fic "Vivere," which is quite possibly my favorite piece of fanfiction ever (here, here, and here so far).

coffeeandink has been posting on feminist lit theory here with more reading suggestions in the comments, and now I want even more books! You know, reading all those posts on the feminism in sf/f during Wiscon makes me realize just how much stuff I've missed. Not just that, but several recent conversations with people who read lots of sci-fi also made me realize how I am not a sci-fi reader. I feel bad because I haven't read so many of the classics/canon. I feel I'm a little better off in fantasy, but I'm probably not...

I've read Le Guin's Earthsea books (well, except the most recent), but none of her sci-fi, except Four Ways to Forgiveness. I've read a scattered of Arthur C. Clarke (mostly the 2001 books), a fair amount of standard Asimov (Robots and Foundation) and Dune. The scary thing is that I don't even really know what the canon is -- I figure Stanislaw Lem and Heinlein and Bradbury and HG Wells are in there, right? And this is just normal sci-fi, not even feminist sci-fi. Anyone have suggestions? Sci-fi, fantasy, all good.

The boy has suggested that I make some sort of computer database categorizing all my books and what shelves they are in. Hahaha... little does he know he has unleashed a demon! If it were up to me, I would have a giant database full of all the books I've read and the ones I own, down to ISBN and edition and condition (for the ones I own) and hopefully linked to LJ reviews and dates read, etc. Luckily, right now the book collection is still at a size in which I can remember everything. Actually, I don't particularly remember a time when the book collection has ever been too big to remember. Either that, or a very frightening percentage of my brain is dedicated to this.

And for purely gratuitous reasons:

( Books I plan on reading )

And then there are all those books I feel like I should read, because everyone's read them, or because everyone talks about them, or just for personal edification...( Books I should read )

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Now I kind of feel bad about being so snarky about the Judith Tarr book. It wasn't bad by any means, it was just the bad parts were so distracting from the good parts that it was very frustrating.

yhlee's got some interesting thoughts on nationality/ethnicity (I can't think of the right descriptive) and writing.

As a reader, I like having sci-fi/fantasy that has different cultural influences. But I also get rather irked when it goes wrong, when it feels like the author has only sort of paid lip service to research or something and ends up perpetuating stereotypics instead of offering an interesting look at the culture. It's a fine line to walk; plus, I'm probably a more touchy reader than most. And I have to remember that something that doesn't feel "Asian" or "Chinese" to me might just be me, because it's not as though I've grown up being entirely Asian or Chinese or whatnot.

Then there's the fun flip side -- I remember reading a Time Magazine article in twelfth grade, in which the author suggested that maybe the multi-colored hair and big eyes of anime characters indicates some sublimated Japanese desire to be Caucasian. I don't really buy into that, but it's interesting, and it made me think. I guess for anime it's hard to tell sometimes -- the guy who basically invented anime and manga in their modern form was highly influenced by Disney. Plus, there are all the pseudo-European fantasy landscapes in so much anime and manga, particularly shoujo.

I think this is why I get a bit huffy sometimes at America-the-conceptual-entity (which I think is different from America-the-political-state or America-which-contains-lots-of-different-people). Obviously, no one in America is forcing other countries to adopt bits of American culture, and of course, globalization, etc. and America itself definitely has lots of other cultures influencing it as well. It's just that sometimes it seems so prevalent that one comment on the superiority of America (which would annoy me anyway) just sets me off. I used to argue with my friends a lot about this in college -- I think I've cooled down about it, but it's still a niggly little annoying thing.

Hrm, now wondering if I have said too much -- I am a total wuss about confrontation and argumentation.

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Dunno if I ever linked, but chase820 has two very interesting posts up on Alpha Bastards and Rogues. (and I'm now pimping my own bit on Fools in the process)

I'm definitely a Rogue person. Although sometimes I like ABs too -- Batman ^_^. I think I read too many romance novels with too many traumatized ABs though, and it may have burned me out of the type. Mostly I'm a Fool person -- something about the randomness factor is very appealing to me. Plus, I especially like the Fools who realize they are Fools and have accepted it (remembering now Diarmuid's "I will never move to the measured gait"), who have a thread of seriousness in them that they conceal well under their Foolness.

Huh, not even sure if that last paragraph made sense!

Course, in real life, I fell for a Beta male because romance archetypes? Really hard to live with.

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...upon finally catching up with the friends list.

On the Narnia post here, found via coffeeandink: I never felt this sense of betrayal... I think I was never invested enough in the books. Also, I think when I was young I read with a strange literalism. I even remember my English teacher from fourth grade (a devout Christian) reading it aloud to us in class and telling us how Aslan was obviously a symbol of Jesus! And my reaction was: Ha! No way, that's so silly! And, wow a book I like is being read to me! However, I did have a minor thing for Susan that would probably have grown into something akin to my like of Scully or Eowyn etc. if Lewis just painted her a little differently. I tried so hard to like her, because Lucy was too perfect. Plus, bow and arrow. Reading through the various responses though, what got me the most was the expression of faith-envy, of this fascination with Christian symbolism and mythology, that I completely understand... I was kind of raised Christian and never quite took up with it, but my mom and my sister are pretty devout (sister is really quite so, mom not so much, but still pressure to go to church). I don't really believe in anything else, although I would kind of like to. So I very understand the envy of the people who have this faith in something bigger than themselves, with this giant mythology and symbology and this whole world of texts to support it.

On reading, sparked by coffeeandink's post here: I read because (cliche of cliches) it puts me places I cannot otherwise be, be it other people's heads, or an entirely different world. The ones I love best are the ones that put me in both. And once I have thoroughly lived in a character's mind, sometimes that character can be so real to me that the "real world" out here can be hazy and unclear, because nothing is articulated in such clear prose. I think, connecting this to the post above, that this is why if I let myself think about it too much, I would feel completely betrayed and hurt by many of OSC's comments and by the entire Ender's Shadow series. Because like many people with Narnia, he takes this view I had of Ender and of Ender's dilemma and mindset, raises it, and says, this is wrong. This is what I was writing to preach against. And now because everyone loves Ender's Game and pays no attention to the rest of my books, I will write this stuff from Bean's point of view and completely undercut Ender to the point in which he is incompetent and did not even make the crucial decision that would shape the rest of his life. But I luckily found this out when I was old enough to forcibly separate the author's intent from my books, and because I couldn't bear losing Ender's Game. This is why it hurts me almost physically when people say Ender is stupid and Bean is so much cooler. It's not rational... it's a reaction that comes straight from my gut. Because I love Ender. Because I was Ender. Because I felt like I knew Ender better than my best friend.

I don't do this so much now, mostly because I'm not reading books as an eleven year old, and I've got years of English class and lit crit and means of disassociating myself from the text. But sometimes, a book or a character will grab me viscerally and drag me into someone's head or someone's world, and when I'm done with the book or the series, there is such a palatable sense of loss that I can't quite function for the rest of the day, because it's gone, that world, and I cannot live there. That is the most painful thing about reading for me. And that's why it can be so important for me that plotlines go the way I want them, or why I desperately want the Eowyn/Faramir Houses of Healing scenes in RotK. It's not logical. It's this gut feeling stemming from identification and the idea that for a while, I was those characters. I spent years playing make-believe with my sister and cousin as a way of alleviating this feeling, so I could playact being Eowyn or Scully etc., but it was never quite the same, and it never will be.

sophia_helix on sex and literature here. Unfortunately, this hasn't sparked any intelligent thoughts (not that the above were all that intelligent), especially since I don't read enough general fiction to talk about it. But ooooo, issues I am greatly interested in ^_^.