Collection

The Woman in the Iron Coffin - a title worthy of Poe, perhaps. Happy Hallowe'en season ... this should make a good start:

 

It is conservatively estimated that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds ... more than fifty times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year.

Even long before I ever met Erick, I said that diamond engagement rings really don't interest me anymore. For that matter, pointlessly expensive weddings (well, *or* engagements - ugh) seem such a senseless, consumerist waste. I imagine all the things it'd be possible to do or have,with overinflated diamond money, and it starts to bewilder me how many people have been suckered by De Beers.

Kip Thorne, Stargate: Atlantis, the wonder of space, and the Hollywood-scientific feedback loops (figure eights, if you like your figures Hidden). So cool - there is even more to the creative-scholarly dynamic than I knew. (And, I mean: I knew - I'm a Trek nerd.)

Port Arthur will receive only about twice as much funding as cities with less than 1% of its population. Beaumont will receive less than twice the funding of cities that are 0.5% of its size.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. When white life, property, and loss are literally, actually *valued* so much higher than black life, property, and loss that even the phrase "pennies on the dollar" fails the disparity: this is what we call institutionalized racism. For those at the back of the class: next time you want to say "slavery ended 150 years ago," please refer to current facts and stow your get-over-its in the overhead compartment. Some shifting may occur in transit to reality.

Government *by* few people, *for* few people, unanswerable *to* The People. It's exhausting.

In closing, cats.

Collection

There is NO reading like in-depth, contextualized journalism! The more I read of it, the more I want of it, because: fella babies? I am a history nerd. And well-researched, well-rounded journalism is HISTORY, kids. Here we have a stellar piece from The Guardian about sugar, fat, and nutritional fashion/factions. The history here goes through decades of science, reportage, politics, and real-world effects. It is brilliant, and genuinely gripping reading. Please read it, please? Pretty please with ... sugar on it?

Here is a point where we have to engage in critical thinking. Have you heard the stories about those missing 1500 unaccompanied immigrant children? I will disclaim: I have not researched what is said in this thread, but I haven't researched the screamy headlines in-depth either, and I find this counterpoint worth a pause, if not facile endorsement. Is this analysis dangerous? Or is it dangerous when we call these unaccompanied kids "missing", indulge screamy headlines about it, and fail to understand (or try to) what is really happening with them. The dangers of clicktivism, y'all.

(E)ventually something horrible will happen, something dynamic and powerful. It’s going to have to be cataclysmic for people to wake up and say: ‘OK, is anyone gonna do this?’

Now yet another History Blog link, because although I depend upon the HB perhaps too much in these Collection posts, it's because they're so resource-rich. Oh, and the content is pretty spiff. Here is a rare piece on a Hawai'ian artifact repatriated - and I am a sucker for repatriation. I'm also a sucker for Hawai'ian archaeology, but that is another link.


Oh, here is a sigh of a piece, a 2014 interview with Bill Murray, including a quote from Harvey Weinstein which might turn your spine to chalk. Still eminently worth the click. (Also, next time I march I STILL won't wear one of Those Pink Hats, but I might just indulge a Murray Mask ...)

Talking of icons of the 80s, have you read the Molly Ringwald piece in New Yorker? Pretty fascinating reading, for many reasons, and her penchant for research adds to the layers here. She's also an excellent writer; thoughtful, open, interested and interesting.

Hey, and this is a writer's blog (of sorts), so how about a literary link - that is also timely?

We need to reflect on the way the literature we celebrate supports the idea that women who are sexually frustrated create problems for themselves, while men in the same situation create problems for the world.

We have always treated the alienation of men as if it deserved thousands of pages of analysis, perhaps because we feared it had the power to endanger us all.

Yep.

Collection

In today's collection: splendid, exhilarating, strong, and superb writing.


Who else remembers picture-day combs? The Atlantic, on behaving, duck-walking, fixing yourself up, and the ritual glamour of unison inevitability ... or not. Splendid writing.

Now listen, this isn’t some sepia-colored essay about realizing I was different, and embracing a conflicted racial identity through the experience of receiving a single comb.

Six years on a boat. Amy Schaefer's glorious OPPORTUNITY ... She writes with such exhilaration!

John Davis Frain has been doing weekly flashfic mystery posts. I am either the best or the worst mystery consumer - I don't tend to do any guesswork while reading or watching. Reveals are most often reveals for me, because I get absorbed in stories without becoming analytical. Usually. When SHERLOCK, of all things, recently dropped a "clue" that even I was like "wait, doesn't anyone know THIS though?" - I have to say, it was disappointing to witness their poor estimation of their viewers (never mind the betrayal of their characters' supposed intellect). So JDF got me this week. It's a strong story, and I almost don't care what the key is.

I said almost! Will check back soon ...

Movie MAGIC. How to get that wildly expensive model you never thought you could have, or make up a fantasy car - or re-skin your ride. The piece doesn't say whether this makes crashing extremely expensive vehicles possible as well; my violent mind goes right to that place, of course.

When "child molester" is the NICE part of what someone has to say. Erick Erickson won't allow his kids to watch the President on TV ... but gives him a B-. He says of Milo Yiannopoulos' travails this week, "Trying to cash in on someone’s alt-right fame to drive attendance cheapens the conservative movement.". And he says the representative democracy may isn't sustainable. I will leave you to grade EE's own good works.

The problem then is not in accepting legends, but being so rigid in our acceptance, that we fail to allow it when someone re-imagines it a little differently from the accepted script.

As an author of historical fiction, I'm always intrigued with questions of historicity - especially "was this person real?" - but this literary/historical question comes tied up with many other questions, too. One of them: why is paleness equated with beauty, even in an Indian tale? Why are physical beauty and lust passed for love in literature across the world? How do we feel about "history is not our concern" and "even role models need proper branding" ... ?  And, of course, without legal disclaimers - where lies the line between history and story? (Included at the link is the story of Rani Padmini - queen, martyr, or fantasy ...) The final analysis of her appeal is an intriguing deconstruction of the way we wield myth in religious politics.

The one percent at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and how mad some of 'em are. Because now #OscarsSoWhite is - some feel - becoming #OscarsSoAgeist. The New Yorker has an in-depth look at changes in the Academy now, and over generations. It's in-depth enough you won't get my one percent reference until about 1/3 the way down the scrollbar. (Also, The Third Purge makes a REALLY good name for a story.) This piece itself is engaging storytelling - and also good entertainment journalism/history. Superbly written! And ROFL on this quote:

It’s like the process of trying to win an election. It’s no longer about the material or the merit.

Finally - "Fashion is costuming." Which has long been a theme on this blog, so congrats for catching up, WaPo.

Collection

I haven't linked American Duchess's blog in a long time, but this week there is a DELICIOUS, detailed post about researching historical costume with a view both from the costume point of view and someone with an artistic education. Many pictures to study, and some interesting aspects of design and portraiture to consider.

"What happened during my transition from one language to another did not become memory."
"It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is impossible in my native language." Yiyun Li at The New Yorker takes a keen and poignant, eloquent look at the way language works in our brains … and in our hearts … Absolutely beautiful writing and thinking, and an incredibly generous expression of personal experience that is meaningful to all of us. Please read this!

The marginalia of Marlene – Dietrich’s books and notes, again at The New Yorker. Being an inveterate marginaliist myself, this appeals to me *so* much ... and some of her commentary brings her right into the room with you as you read. Evocative!

Collection

In tech news, a really interesting aftereffect of virtual reality - the dispiriting re-emergence from god-hood into the real world. Courtesy of The Atlantic.

Oooohhh. Neato technology again - and more queasy questions about it. "What outstanding performances from young actors will we miss in the future" ... ? Vanity Fair takes a look at the looks of ageing actors - and de-ageing actors. Complete with poignant irony.

Ars Technica looks at cooking ten thousand years ago. And no, it wasn't all spitted meat directly over a fire! On the first kitchens in the world, human migratory habits, and a kind of stone soup. Yum!

NPR's All Tech Considered has a look (well, listen) into the world of a child. It is far, FAR creepier than it sounds. On the absolutely horrifying doll listening in on your kid. There is a similar post here, on the gimcracks supposedly wiser grownups voluntarily bring into their homes to harvest their lives for marketers.

Cover-age ... The Caustic Cover Critic has been doing a year-in-review of covers (not of 2016 novels, but of his 2016 reading), and post #3 of 3 provides some truly intriguing TBR offerings. The other review posts are worth a click, but this series for me provided the most thought-provoking descriptions along with their covers. Proof that judging a book by its cover can be a mixed bag; keep an eye out for older books the CCC missed out on thanks to indifferent cover art!

LL Cool R

One of the reasons I love old movies is the truly bizarre things you can find in them.

Ricardo Montalban, in Latin Lovers, is a bit of a surprise to those of us who grew up knowing him from Fantasy Island; perhaps less so for those whose formative experience of his work was as the original, inimitable Khan Noonien Singh.

As he romances Lana Turner in this movie, he is one of the wittiest and most attractive men I've ever seen on screen. For anyone who likes that sort of thing, I'd give this a high recommendation!

Collection

I failed to specify in my last writing post, that Elise Goldsmith (E. M. Goldsmith at Janet Reid's blog) was responsible for my WIP awakening. Janet liked my thanks to her (see the end of this post for a shark's warm heart). And so, again: my public thanks to EMG, as we sometimes call her, for inspiration.

2016 ... BCE. Here is a really interesting piece about historical fiction - on a Bollywood film taking liberties with the (hi)story of  Mohenjo Daro, one of the first cities in the world. "(T)hrow(ing) the authentic setting to the winds in favour of a better story" ... where does suspension of disbelief end and the Flood Myth begin?

On Rodrigo Duterte, who has so famously called our president an SOB. As bad as our candidates are, even Trump has never said anything (publicly) as vile as this.

(H)e recalled how a 36-year-old Australian missionary was taken hostage, raped and murdered, and how he reacted when he saw her body.
“She looks like a beautiful American actress,” he said. “What a waste. They lined up and raped her. I was angry because she was raped. That’s one thing. But she was so beautiful. The mayor should have been first.”
The crowd erupted with laughter.

Any questions on the existence of rape culture, worldwide, even at the highest levels? Whatever your feelings on President Obama, if you cheer about this sadistic, misogynistic Hat of Assness calling him names - now you know a little bit more about the source.

Another note for my kale-obsessed fellow Reiders: "It's a good idea to eat kale." Knowing that there are diabetes and retinitis pigmentosa in my family tree, and once having had perfect eyesight, the degeneration in my eyesight with age has been especially frustrating. Just today, I forgot to pack glasses in my Daily Bag O' Stuff, and though I *could* still read and function, it was much more difficult. So, marigolds, kale - get your lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin.

And, finally - The Meadow Party is back. Beloved Bloom County, spiritual context, new hope, and pre-prequels. By the way, am I the only one who's noticed how much Donald Trump's hair resembles that of Quiche Lorraine? In fact, this article contains Berke Breathed's thoughts on current politics; and his look at the push/pull of absurdity is one of the best analyses of coverage I've read.

It’s comforting when the smart ass is confused, too.

Not-Trek

A funny thing happened on my way to Star Trek: Beyond. Every other movie for the past few years.

There's long been a hallowed tradition in American filmmaking, where (especially with Ye Summer Blockbuster) shit-blowin'-up-real-good is perhaps the core of the attraction. We like watching buildings explode, continents going kablooey - we even had fun with CGI destruction of major cities for a while there. Gosh darn it, good clean American fun, where nobody gets hurt (they're all just digital ants, right) and loud noises suffice for entertainment.

Rebooting has also been a big money maker, so we've rebooted the CRUD out of, say, Spider-Man (we're on #3 in under ten years, folks), every television show known to the Baby Boomers and now even some Gen-X'ers, and ... oh yeah, Star Trek.

Three years ago, DC Comics debuted their 'verse challenge to the box office, television, and beyond domination of Marvel's stunningly successful multiverse, giving the world the grey, grimy, gloomy, and petulantly self-indulgant Man of Steel. Antithetical to almost any possible character trait of Superman as he's existed for GENERATIONS now, this movie failed to score in one very major way: its sickening collateral destruction. The hue and cry against Supes' heedless and violent smackdown of his enemies, and the resultant, ya know, complete razing of some significant areas of human habitation, were loud and lamenting.

For those who are not fans: Superman is essentially a Christ figure. He never quite dies for our sins, but the only son sent from, well space, who gives up a normal life to serve mankind: yeah, it's a bit of a parallel.

So to make him an emo jerk with zero personality and a whinging little ax to grind, and to indulge an entire grubby looking feature film to the insane amounts of damage he and Zod leave around them without the slightest nod to those people and properties they destroy? Unpopular. And the movie sucked.

The result has been Batman Versus Superman. Not greatly more loved, as far as I have heard: but wow did it backpedal on the whole collateral damage thing.

Add to this Marvel's own multiverse spending now literally *years* addressing exactly the same issues - in the Netflix series Jessica Jones, on an existential level; in ABC's Agents of Shield, almost for the run of the series; in Captain America: Civil War, one of the biggest movies of this year. And it's no accident Civil War bears Cap's name, not The Avengers. He is all but alone, of his compatriots, in all the sacrifice and service we once saw and loved in Supes. And he's not a gun-toting ass, he is a human, the most human perhaps of all the Avengers, striving for principles and fiercely moral. Cap has become one of the most fascinating characters cinema has had to offer in a long time; his portrayal at Chris Evans' hands has been pretty remarkable on multiple levels.


So. Violence, and the fact that even in America its emptiness has begun to cause backlash.



I've been on record most of my adult life as being an open-minded fan - I will take what I'm given and generally try to enjoy it. Expansions of the Trekverse have rarely struck me as a bad idea.


Now we are "Beyond" the universe.

The latest Trek is a good movie. It's got some humor, it's got characters I quite like. I was surprised when I saw Simon Pegg was a writer (I might have expected *more* humor, if I'd known; but I was fairly successful in going in - even as late as I did - with little knowledge beforehand).

Pegg's Montgomery Scott has been a wonderfully winsome, moral presence himself, through the reboots. In Darkness, he was the voice of reason asking "hey, do we really want to go hauling possibly illegal weaponry into territory we're not allowed to be wandering around in in the first place?" and lost his job for it. For a while. He had to kill at one point, which was horrible to see and made me sad, but at LEAST it was theoretically justified by the script.

Beyond ... well, goes beyond. And over the top. And so forth.

The level of CRUELTY in Beyond is something worse than merely distasteful, it is both disrespectful of the entire Trekverse (and fandom) and a betrayal of the ideals on which every franchise used to be built. It is also incredibly tone-deaf.

In a world where DC Comics has to answer for wanton destructiveness, TREK of all things has produced a story in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths just mean nothing. We've all joked about red-shirts, I can't pretend not to have myself. But the level of viciousness, the level of truly morally bankrupt violence in Beyond is heartbreaking.

TOS killed off the occasional redshirt, but generally to make a point about the awfulness of death - or, at the very least, the awfulness of whatever enemy/obstacle the crew were up against. TNG didn't do much killing, but they honored the redshirt tradition here and there, and stuffed up their crew's shirts with a fair amount of moral superiority along the way (I will say: not always justifiably).

DS9, long my favorite of the series, took death and allowed war itself into the Trekverse. But even the war was not a wanton reaction; it was an attrition, a defense, and tapped very much into the ideals of Roddenberry's universe. It explored with more depth, at times, the twisted moralities and allegiances born out of humanoid conflict. It was, for the most part, honest - and earnest.

There is no earnestness in Beyond. Much urgency, but little morality.

Our villain, in Beyond, is a confusing morass of magical properties. We're not supposed to recognize what he is, so he is capable of changing appearance for no particular reason. He's supposed to be scary and evil, so occasionally he's some sort of energy-draining vampire. How this works, why it is so, is not much explained; he's just BAD GUY (and a cruel short-changing of the talents of Idris Elba - and also, was nobody at all a bit squirmy about making a large black man the villain, after the racial issues attached to whitewashing Khan?). His entire motivation is, um. That he is semi-immortal and went nuts because of it? That he was abandoned (shades of Bond Reboot #2)? That he is personally offended (shades of Trek Reboot #1 or CA;Civil War)?

Trek villains are usually greedy or (sigh) culturally inferior (see also, my many issues with TNG's unrelenting smugness), not torturing madmen giving mental illness a bad name.

The villain - as we've seen so often in recent years - is merely the mechanism by which we get the story, such as it is, and the 'splosions, such as they are, into motion. I don't even mind that; many's the Bond film predicated on such red herrings.

But you have to tell a good story once you get the mechanism ticking.

Beyond ... is not a bad story. But it could have been so much better.

One friend of mine commented on the old "tech that's been lying around for centuries magically working just like that" but I stand by that as a Trek trope of long standing. Fine. And, if it bugs you, well consider that Jaylah has been caretaker of "her house" (and all its tech) for some years, apparently. So she kept things in trim.

More than anything else, I wish I could have seen even ACKNOWLEDGEMENT by the crew that people were dying left, right, and down the middle, and that was A Bad Thing. Nope. They're driven, yes, and death is bad, but there's no feeling towards the masses of people destroyed along the way.

And the Enterprise herself is killed off early in the film.

It all feels like a character is missing. And the killing-off here is done along the way to action scenes we've seen before.

The character sliding down the hull of a dying ship. Check: Khan did this in Reboot #2. The characters flying through space/midair without any craft. Check: Reboots #1 and #2 both. Exciting once, amusing twice, retreading now, and taking up time and space that could have had some sort of story going on. Spaceship rising out of the water. Check: Avengers did this a few years ago, and Enterprise did it in Reboot #2, opening sequence no less.

Trek depends upon tropes; I've made this clear right here - redshirts, and gee-whiz tech, and setpieces, oh my. But retreads are just a drag. And laziness is a killer.

I came in wanting to love Star Trek: Beyond, and knowing as little about it as I could. Reviews were sounding good, but I'd seen some doubt.

And I liked it. I liked it in parts. I liked Jaylah, a good character for a woman, something all to hard to come by. Cis-checked and Hollywood pretty of course, but still a strong opportunity in an industry not plagued with good women's roles.

I enjoyed what humor there was, and appreciated the memorial to Leonard Nimoy. Some of the nostalgia felt earned, even as strategic - and manipulative - as necessarily it was. It was respectful, and I loved the shot of Nichelle Nichols and the TOS cast.

The delving into Bones' and Spock's relationship was not merely Pure Comedy Gold My Friends, but lots of genuine fun. THAT was a great movie, braided into a couple other movies with hit-and-miss quality.

I thought Kirk was great, here. His reactions, his actions. I believed him wholly. Same with Zoe Saldana's Uhura, which has been among my favorite aspects of the reboots. This magnificent woman, played first by the marvelous Nichelle Nichols and now by the sensitive, powerful Saldana, has been wonderfully developed through the new films. Her beauty is impossible to miss, but the fact that that is only the smallest part of her has been too. Uhura has been a glorious part, character, image, story, since Abrams took the helm. She is not short-shrifted here.

And yet. And yet.

I liked it in parts. I will get it on disc, when it comes, for those parts. I'll listen for the places this film harmonizes not only with its fellow reboots, but with the Trekverse itself. The music of the spheres, Trek-style.



But oh dear me. The ways it failed are truly bleak.

Collection, With A Lot of Villainy

It’s the wrong Donald, Gromit.

Apparently (in certain others' minds, anyway) I am a ... PANK. Hm. Sounds distasteful. I'm not persuaded this is a label worth accepting - indeed, I'm not entirely persuaded by this article. Still, it's interesting to note that, invisible as I am being an old biddy aunt, I'm an impressively fast-growing demographic.

NPR did a piece today on why villains are always the interesting characters. I'd argue against the old "good guys are always boring" routine; a good writer doesn't leave the protagonist drab. As good writing goes, "good guys are boring" is lazy right there. It is right after they say villains are always the interesting ones, using Shakespeare's Iago (I am NOT linking that for you, if you don't know the reference, look it up) as a juicy example, that I immediately think of Claudius. Not Graves' Claudius (nor Derek Jacobi's), but Hamlet's. He does not steal the show. James Bond villains often don't either - Bond villains are MacGuffins, simply there to set everything in motion. Captain America: Civil War was the same - a villain we spend no time with, care about not one whit, and who in the end has nothing to do with anything at all. Surprisingly good movie, out of that.

But still. The montage of famous villains' voices at the top is worth the ride. Could use more of the Star Wars evil march music, though.

The MOST fascinating part of this story is its point regarding villains' never thinking they ARE bad guys or women. No matter your place on the political spectrum - right now, this year, there is no way around seeing that as a reference not to movies, but to this election.

Mondo Bond-o and Beyond(o)

Daniel Craig's Bond has been an interesting progression. Casino Royale felt, at its debut, very new and different. By Skyfall, Bondstalgia was in play, and that was kind of a lovely ride. For full pun effect:

Image: Wikipedia

Whether the nostalgia played SO well they decided to indulge in it to excess, or it's just been enough decades since Roger Moore that we can finally go for his era's over the toppery and sumptuousity ... Spectre brought me, at least, full circle in Bond-age.

I grew up on 70s Bond, Moore Bond, Sunday Night Movies on ABC edited and family Bond - the Bond who wore Sears Bend Over pants, the Bond whose bow tie, when he wore it, took up a fairly impressive segment of his height as a whole.

So Spectre's snowy, modernistic sets, its romping from Mexico to Rome to Austria to Tunisia and all the pauses in London in between ... I ate it all up, with a large spoon, and a smile on my face.

Craig's grittier, more realistic Bond is still good in my book. I was all aboard for Casino, and I'm one of the like three people, apparently, who liked Quantum of Solace and didn't even make fun of the title.

But Bond Guignol, the madness of some of the great entries in the franchise, the sharks-with-laser-beams-on-their-heads daft-ery that was the only way I could watch these movies as a little girl (what did I care about spies? but the eye candy was great fun!), has returned in full effect. Bond's brain is drilled, and he prevails. The bad guy dies, but we know how that can be. Craig recalls, for me, his amusing turn as Jemmie in The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders. His clear enjoyment in providing the spectacle is quite a bit of fun.

In short: I'm this fan. (Hit this link, seriously, it's very funny writing!)

Part of the pleasures of loving Bond is how the franchise provides a pocket history of half a century of the blockbuster-movie as an art form and as an ongoing concern. You watch the ’70s become the ’80s ... You watch film styles come, go, return.
--Darren Franich

Why the late, late movie review? Well, for one, it runs in my family. And also, I had a Spectre re-watch last night, first time since the theater, and I just had fun so it was on my mind. And also, with other new movies coming out and glimpses forward in the franchise - Craig will do a couple more, and it looks like we might have Cristoph Waltz back as Blofeld to join him.

And then there's Star Trek. Star Trek: Beyond is the focus of a certain trepidation amongst fans.

I'm one of those fans who prefers to know as little as humanly possible before I see a new film. I don't even much like knowing there may be division or doubt; I'm a great taker-as-they-come sort of fan, particularly when it comes to Trek. I'm passive in the extreme till my butt's in the theater seat and the endless previews are over. Unless grossly offended (and I have been, by Trek - I still think we need a t-shirt or bumper sticker that says CAN WE PLEASE STOP RAPING DEANNA?), I'm not just going to watch what you make, I'm almost certain to rewatch till whatever is produced is also pretty much committed to my memory.

With Bond and with Trek, my love is deep, and less concerned with market forces or even production values than the experience of a story. Give me a good one, I'm on board for the run.

I want this Beyond to be as good as Far Beyond the Stars. I want to be as excited as the day X and I finally saw the reboot together, and (yeah, I'm tellin' on him) he got a little misty at the birth of Kirk.

So far - not there. I'm not in that seat yet.

But we shall see.

Collection

My mom recently learned the phrase "food porn", and she has had the slightest bit of fun and a certain moral consternation at the use of a dirty word (porn itself is a dirty word) to describe an apparently wholesome, if pointless, exercise. This one's for you, mom: The Arrant Pedant on how to tell a hot dog isn't porn ... or a sandwich.

... and, if you're the type who'd like that musical moment wiped out of  your brain, how about a run through the Prelinger film archive, digitized home of an eye-popping variety of clips, from advertising, to what my mom could legitimately call porn (vintage) to instructional films of the quaintest kind. Watch out, some of the 1961 prom kids are dancing AWFULLY close! (Semi-obscure cultural aside, some of the young ladies in 1961 gripped their long skirts in exactly the same incorrect way the generally-perceived-to-be-tacky women on reality shows do today with their would-be formal wear.)

Dena Pawling brings us more legal hilarity - on Citigroup's suit against AT&T for the use of "thank you." More proof that lawsuits are EVEN stupider than people sometimes. And we know how stupid people are.

I'd swear I wasn't sharing this link because it touches on Snorri Sturluson, which is one of my favorite names in the history of ever - but yeah, Snorri is right up there with the surname Snoddy and Hoyt Axton for OSUM names. Okay, okay - and the story here, which is about Vikings and a famed ivory chess set carved by a woman now called Margret the Adroit, intrigues me. Her name is bad-motor-scooter too, and I am officially fascinated with her as a character. Bonus name: Gudrid the Far-Traveler. (For those who ever find themselves in mind to buy me books, feel free to click through for a couple of ideas.)

Collection

Le Cinema Dreams has a guest contributor with a look at, of all things, Rocky. I understand the need for intimacy she describes.

Gawker has a hilariously straight-faced in depth report on the provenance of Donald Trump's ... let us call it "hair" ... I'm especially taken with the conspiracy-theory tinged feel of the investigation into the possible Man Behind the "Hair", right down to the detail about his name being Anglicized from Mohammed, which adds a particular whispered-schadenfreude fun to proceedings relating to the short-fingered vulgarian's racist spewings.

Who needs a little more history nerding for their TBR pile? Well, here you go - Paris, 1200. Do I need this? Why yes. Yes, I do. Worth another click: the link to a bit more about Ingeborg of Denmark. Ohhh, pre-modern European kings. When will you ever learn about this whole repudiating your wife thing?

And in local news? Redneck shit-hats take a page out of ISIS's book and loot the crap out of a national battlefield park just in time for Memorial Day. Because what could be klASSier than that?

Glottal Start

A curious consequence of some recent binge watching - starting with BSG, and just finishing up Netflix's offering of Agents of Shield - has been noticing a single peculiarity of bad acting. It probably has a name in linguistics, but I am calling it a glotttal start.

If you've ever known a Manhattanite, you know one iconic American example of the glottal *stop*: when the name of the island is pronounced, the two Ts are a stop. "Manha'en."

The glottal is when the throat closes, and when this occurs at the opening of a word beginning with a vowel, it emphasizes the sound. Instead of riding a speaker's breath, it is pushed out. A harder sound.

For *every* (notice the emphasis here - you can read it as a glottal start) vowel-opening word to be *emphasized* *is* *unnatural* sounding. And, of course, now I'm hearing it everywhere. Indeed, an actor allowing a vowel opening to be - well, *open* - is almost exceptional.

Yet, even in fairly dramatic moments in reality, we don't use the glottal start that comprehensively. And so, in performance, a soft reading can be stronger than physical emphasis.

I'm beginning to class the glottal start with the inexperienced actor's bend-at-the-waist/wring-the-hands school of conveying drama.

Collection

This will be a long and cluttered post; some things I've had in my pocket and not blogged for a good while. So, my apologies in advance for a lack of organization (and, as usual, timeliness).



Let's start off by revisiting another story that hasn't been front and center lately. Following up on headlines that fall away after their seven-minute news cycles are over - who remembers Rachel Dolezal? Here's what happened - first - and next ... "I would never make a mockery of the things I take most seriously."

The #WhenIwas hashtag makes difficult reading, but it is important, especially for those who want to believe that these things are ‘one off’ incidents. While many men have tweeted their shock at the stories being shared, many women remarked that they could identify with almost every single one.

(H)e refused to jail her, saying: “It would be a disgrace to send a survivor … to prison."

"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" Parts of women in movie marketing ... For the record, it’s not just movies. Looked at a book cover lately?

The ways and means of contemporary - well, let's *call* it journalism: “On some level, I thought that if what Charter was telling me was that big a deal, it would already have been reported” ... "The problem is that despite the struggle and innovation that has been taking place in the news media since the internet disrupted its business model, no one has come up with a profitable way to provide information about government to average Americans in ways they care about." ... "That vacuum provides an opening for outlets that peddle in the kind of bias, treachery, and quackery that we have always been afraid of … misleading or conspiratorial ideas about government activities can spread more easily when the public lacks credible information to counter it."

If there’s anything I love in this world, it’s the intellectually considerate takedown of rudeness (see also: Miss Manners, who could do this like nobody else). Here we have a stellar example in the “Don’t be THAT -ist” manner, but with a much deeper and wider message. “(D)enunciations of other people’s 'stupidity' are a particular temptation of our age”

Slow hope … the punishment for a pedophile …

This detailed piece on mental health and society blew me away. On being a psychopath and knowing the right thing to do…

(E)ven the most hardcore, cold intellectual wants the romantic notion. It kind of makes life worth living. But with these kinds of things, you really start thinking about what a machine it means we are—what it means that some of us don't need those feelings, while some of us need them so much. It destroys the romantic fabric of society in a way.

A few pieces on the curious phenomenon of victim worship - and exploitation for entertainment - in today's pop culture and society.

Little Darlin'

At some point in the past month or two, I DVR'd "Little Darlings", a movie that horrified me when it came out. I was five years younger than the girls in this movie, but even by their own age, I was far too much the Good Girl to be able to stand the thought of a whole movie about a bet over losing virginity.

And so, I've never actually seen "Little Darlings."

Watching it today, as a bright and gusty warm winter Sunday wears into evening, the sight of Kristy MacNicol in her opening scene, walking through her neighborhood in jeans and a jean jacket, smoking took me SLAM back to the Marlboro Country where I grew up. (My high school had a smoking area. For students.) I dressed like that, I had the little scowl like that, I had the fluffy hair that looked different every day.

This is one of those movies I enjoy because it looks real, not production designed. Matt Dillon looks so much like the real live boys I crushed on and hung out with, his youth is almost heartbreakingly gorgeous. The girls in camp look like we did - thick-haired, thin-haired, fat, babyfaced, dorky. Beautiful.

One of the great highlights of the story is Sunshine, the hippie child who defends virginity in the end - and is, hilariously, played by Cynthia Nixon (later famous for her long run in, of all things, Sex and the City). She's rather more likable here.

The emotions, as they come in "Little Darlings", are raw and tender and bear all the importance of youth and first-ness. It's both perfectly nostalgic for those of us Of A Certain Age and acutely immediate; the performances really are good.

I recently re-watched "Valley Girl" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", which also feature kids who look pretty much like we really did back then, and have a very particular feel that is specific not only to the time but to the movies of that period, which went in for a grimy sort of sexiness that has been lost, polished over and production designed and plastic surgerized out of all humanity.

Next up from the DVR: "Smile" - an earlier still peek into teenaged beauty pageants, where you can find Melanie Griffith, Anette O'Toole, and other stars in early roles. And Barbara Feldon, whom I wanted to be when I grew up when she showed up on my TV as Agent 99 in Get Smart.

Some of the details of films from the seventies and early eighties are shocking - the extreme ease of a guy who's been accused of sex with a student; the careless way sexually obsessed young boys stalk pageant girls; sex, and abortion, and the expectations we have now versus those in play decades ago. Some of the honesty is astonishing (the judges in "Smile" are both creepy and dead-on portrayals; the way kids who've been used badly  deal with and consider sex; the gender roles).

I think I need to actually collect these movies, instead of parking copies/taking up space in the DVR. Will have to look on Amazon streaming or get them on blu-ray.

Collection

From The Atlantic, on the persistent trend in Hollywood to deny diversity in casting ... "(C)olorblind casting isn’t a form of acceptance or progress: It can just as easily be erasure wrapped up as benevolence."

A guy named Robert Wayne, scholars getting into fusses, “just another Preppy American”, dates of domestication, and the DNA of dogs. Giving dogfighting a new name – a great article nonetheless about a whole lot more than any particular study.

“I keep hoping these guys, who are supposedly Christian, would do the Christian thing and return these objects that they are holding illegally” ... at the intersection of finance, religion, and culture - or, why repatriation becomes complicated ...

From the Boston Globe, on the feminization of book cover design: "(H)ow does a publisher signal to a manly reader that a woman-authored book he has in his hands won’t offend him with talk of motherhood, makeup, and menstruation?"

The earliest prison memoir in the United States, from Austin Reed. Here is an excerpt from early in the book. Here is the History Blog's post on the publication.

Collection

A study in treatment - Archaeology News' take on the Viking Sword of Langeid ("Magic"!) and The History Blog's. Both are good articles, actually. Just interesting to note the popular-press somewhat pandering headline on AN's piece.

How owl vomit helps us study an ecosystem. Also from AN. "Studies such as these provide a window into natural baselines prior to the onset of human impacts in the last century. The effects of human land use on ecosystems can then be separated from the forces of climate change today." Fascinatingly, this study is apparently the first of its kind.

As an author who's joked for years that I only aspire to midlist glory (i.e., I don't want to be Rowling, nor even hope to be Mantel), Jessica's post at BookEnds on the subject is sobering.

Gotta love a good gruesome story (as if bone-inclusive owl barf wasn't gross enough ...), and the HB does come through. Nosferatu's H. W. Murnau's head has been stolen. And here I am, imagining the black market in horror director's heads ... Errrrm. and now I want to watch Nosferatu (but NOT Shadow of the Vampire - even Eddie Izzard's being in that does not create such a temptation).

Jessica Faust again at BE, on non-renewal of a contract, and opportunity. This should illustrate pretty clearly why I follow agent blogs for agents I'll never have. (For one, nothing's at stake. For two: LEARNINGNESS. It's good stuff.)

The insanely absorbing community, resource, and religious implications of ancient Celtic animal sacrifice - in which the animals were then rebuilt into cow-horses in unexpected hybrid corpses. Were the cobbling together the image of a god? Were these to be spiritual servants to the human remains also present in some cases (and also sacrificed - don't let anybody tell you the Celts' hands were clean of human sacrifice)? Were they avatars of living humans' experience in some way? Again via Archaeology News.

Textiles dating back two millennia are, predictably, pretty hard to come by. Textiles relating to the most famous Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy Auletes the Flute Player, are ... well, right here. Thanks again to the HB.

And, in closing: still more proof that The Stupid, Stupid Past - wasn't. The orthopedic screw dating back at least 3,000 years. Because, you know - antique medical practice wasn't all leeches and arcane religious ritual.  BOO-yah, Whig history.

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Nyki Blatchley has a great post about adaptations which differ from their sources; the point he makes about "Female character? Love interest, obviously" is pure gold. (His thoughts make a very good counterpoint to the recent piece I linked on the possible utility of anachronism and its place in historicals)

The BookEnds blog has a good look at the new-author issue of "what if they steal my story!!??" by way of a possible plot bunny. (So, my writing readers, you have been warned before you click!)

The History Blog also provides *serious* plot bunny fodder with this post: how did the foetus come to rest beneath the bishop's robes? Impossibly tempting material!

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Louisa Young at The History Girls has a short, lovely post about The Called One. Worth a click if only to discover the heartbreaking irony. "I will not leave you comfortless."

The History Blog looks at the Rijksmuseum's 400 year retrospective fashion plate exhibition and the birth of modern fashion magazines. "Historical fashion porn of the highest quality" ... well, what a recommendation! Ahem.

"Hi, lady ... Lady! Lady!" ... The occasional fear of being a woman.Welcome to it, Caitlyn.

On whether anachronism can be constructive in historical fiction/drama. I'm not necessarily persuaded - but thre are some interesting points here.

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It's all History Blog all the time for today, but quite a variety of linky interesting-ness to share ...

Let's kick off with Robert Cornelius, perpetrator of the first daguerreotype self-portrait. And then left dabbling in photography to look into alternative fuels for his family's lamp business. Strangely, pig lard did not take off, at least not long enough for pigs-flying jokes. (I had a crush on a guy named Bob Cornelius freshman year of college - so extra oddness points here for me, because this Cornelius is cute in a very modern way.)

Conveniently dovetailing with my recent reading of H. G. Wells, here we have the sale of the illustrations for the 1897 edition of War of the Worlds almost, but not quite, drawn by a guy called Henry the Dead. All images at the link are worth a click and closer peering. I'd pinch one here, but honestly I'm never clear on the HB what the public domain status of the images is, so just GO! Neato-spedito!

Inevitably, I'm a TCM lover as it is, but a summer full of noir ... is a summer I can get into. Yaaay!

And finally - as if the world needed ANY more examples of the fully OSUM splendiferosity that is George Takei brings to his masses the Japanese American History: NOT For Sale campaign. Historical education *and* preservation from the guy who literally piloted us into the future half a century ago. He's done rather a lot more than that, and almost all of it is fanfooogootastic. More neato spedito, y'all.