the lonesome lows don't quite go away overnight

TV Seasons (12/10)
- The Wilds, s2. That sure ended, didn't it? It has been cancelled, so forever the wildest deus ex machina cliffhanger, but at least not a terrible ending for anyone I care about. No idea what I'd ever write about for this show again, TBH. 
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars, s3. Some good multi-parters, some more dull. I'm mostly enjoying it, still!

We're trying to finish Rutherford Falls (s1) before diving too far into new shows, but did watch the pilot of She-Hulk and it is so very silly and fun. Also planning to watch A League of Their Own, and maybe Paper Girls. 

Books (4/10 - still)
- I'm making progress in The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed, and love it as much (more?) as I thought I would. It just takes me AGES to read now. I'm... a little shaken up by the climate + abortion conversation playing out here, but don't know what to do with that terror. 

Podcast Recs (8/10)
- Orphan Black: The Next Chapter is now available for free. I'm really enjoying it, despite a little eye-rolling at everyone who is still enmeshed 10 years later. I suppose that's fiction for you. Tatiana Maslany is a really gifted narrator and voice actress - she does ALL the voices. I'm swoony over her Delphine. She has a new show on the same network (Realm.fm) that is supposed to be akin to Fleabag, but with sci-fi aspects, and I'm cautiously interested. It is called Power Trip, if you'd like to track it down. 

Anyone know of a good crowd-sourcing place to find a book? I could drive downtown and hunt through the bookstore where I saw it in the first place, but I don't like to use that much gas for only one errand...

Things I know:
about pica (the disorder where people eat things that... aren't meant for digestion)
I think it is non-fiction
written by a woman (I think)
the title does NOT have "pica" in it
the back matter references ingesting nails, not the traditional dirt

Google/Amazon/GoodReads searches for pica only turn up one or two books about the disorder, and neither are this one. (Craving Earth by Sera Young isn't it.) I also searched WorldCat.org with su:Pica (pathology) and didn't pull it up.

Is this hopeless? Should I just drive down there?

I am back on a comics kick thanks to starting Birds of Prey, following GailSimone on twitter, and reading Alias. Perfect timing since Comic Con (local) is coming up in like two weeks.

Before I start compiling a list of what I'm looking for and budget myself to afford the splurge that I know is going to happen... Flist, please help me decide what is worthwhile.

- I really want some kind of BoP tpb, but according to prozacpark, they aren't well collected
- Books other than Alias that feature Jessica Jones (and are good)
- X-23, but what are some quality writers of her?
- Kathryn Immonen; I liked her run on NYX. Is her run of Runaways good? Has she done anything else I should check out?

Basically, I am in for anything Quality, Written by Women, About Women... and such.

HIT ME.

What's that, universe? You've been longing for an update from my little corner of the world? Well, I'm about to make your dreams come true, baby. Get ready for this.

One word, my loves: Derby. Roller derby, to be specific. If I wasn't utterly consumed before, I sure as hell am now. Pencil me in for three practices a week, watching my diet, attempting to exercise and stretch while sitting at my desk job... you name it. Our first bout is September 11, and I do not want to be flattened out there. We have less than six weeks with fewer than optimal numbers to get into bouting shape. I. Want. It. Last night's practice was brutal: at least three girls threw up, two cried. But we didn't stop. Roller derby is the best thing to happen to me, and despite all the drama and hooey that comes along with running a group of 30 women, the rewards are incredible.

I'm also reading more than I've had time to in ages. That's one of the benefits of being out of school and having an hour-long lunch break. I prefer to review series as a whole, which puts a bit of a hindrance on posting, but lately I've been speeding through the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, the Oresteia (for Classica chat), the Sookie Stackhouse novels (forget what I said before about hating them, I'm so addicted), and I'm about to start the Millennium series by Steig Larsson.

As for writing, and other more intellectual pursuits, not much is happening other than RP. But that doesn't mean I'm not completely happy with the way things are right now. If you've talked to me lately, my main shows are True Blood and Degrassi, both of which I've had the pleasure of watching with friends. Simply watching, however, is not always enough. I've recently hooked up with people in the role playing community who have allowed for a deeper, meta experience. Through RP, we have explored motivations, how far characters will go, and the extent of things written into the text such as genderfail and manpain. Writing Bill has made True Blood watchable for me again, since I analyze the show and break it up instead of swallowing it whole. (RP also makes my work day a blast!)

Oh, and did I mention, I'm living with my best friend and derby wife, Bobbie Soxxx in the cutest house ever, for one. AND today I'm picking up one of my teammate's kids for the evening cause she pulled her back--I've missed babysitting so much!

Almost a year ago I read the first few chapters of a Temperance Brennan book about a plane crash -- the descriptions were delicious and vivid. The characterization was weak but... forgivable in something that was basically a beach read. I had to return it to the library before I got into anything real. But, I never really gave up on wanting to like the books that inspired the show "Bones" -- after all, I like what I've seen of the show, and I liked--mostly--what I'd read of the books.

Well, safe to say I won't be reading any more of them. I just finished "Grave Secrets" -- a Tempe Brennan mystery that falls relatively early in the series (2003) and covers the topics of an old Guatemalan political massacre (the desaparacedos), unruly teen girls, Brennan's wayward heart -- she's drawn to her usual partner Ryan AND a dashing Guatemalan detective named Galiano, stem cell research, and a lot of disgust for bad men who do bad things.

The overall plot isn't bad, even if the case connections (between the massacre and the current missing girls) do seem far-fetched and illogical and aren't even fully explained at the end. What bothers me, still, is the way Reichs, and her editors cater to a socially and educationally illiterate audience.

The book spans between Guatemala and French-speaking Canada, so naturally Brennan encounters people--including herself--who speak both Spanish and French. One might expect to use context clues to decipher some of these words and phrases, or have them translated once, and referred to later without translation. No. Reichs babies her audience, spelling out these phrases each and every time they are uttered. This also happens when Brennan is dealing with any sort of scientific process. This is at least explained away in the text by surrounding her with inepts like policemen and family members of victims, but not a single conversation about stem cells, body decay, history, and on and on goes by without feeling like Reichs--who is an expert herself--has opened a text book and sat her poor, uneducated audience down in front of a video to catch us up while she goes on ahead with the story.

Sure, a little information once in awhile is always helpful. Yeah, I'd like to know that they are in fact performing an autopsy. But to be honest, I don't need to know all of the details. The fact is, I'm not reading a text book. I'm not going to go out and try to duplicate the work, do my own slicing and dicing after reading this joke of a novel. The Brennan books are beach reads, not Science courses.

Brennan works as a character on "Bones" because they have used this trait of "textbooking" and worked it into the character, but as an author, Reichs is completely at odds with Brennan. Brennan seems carefree and flirty most of the time, and at other halves of the book she is quoting long histories of Guatemalan wars.

Another thing that drove me batty, especially towards the end was Brennan's (who was narrating) habit of redundantly asking questions of the reader to remind them of every single plot point in every single chapter. "Would I be the next victim? Of whom? What was xx doing with the body? Where would we find it?" Paragraph after paragraph. Some of the prose in the middle was fine, sometimes even enjoyable. But that pattern? Infuriating.

If I want to know more about stem cells after reading the book, I'm going to do my own research. I don't need a fictional character to do it for me. So thanks, Ms. Reichs, I'm sure you'll make some paperbackswap users very happy when I put your books up for trade.

I am SO excited for Yuletide this year. Well, to be fair, I'm excited for Yuletide every year, but I just wanted to say that I'm excited for this year, because dear Yulegoat, this year YOU are writing for me, whoever you are. The important thing is that you signed up for one of four INCREDIBLE, AWESOME fandoms and are willing to write a story for them, whether or not you pay a whit of attention to my ~very optional~ details.

I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I AM EXCITED.

Here, in random order, is what I asked for, and under the cut are additional details that I may or may not have included in the signup. I was so excited that I didn't copy/paste as usual!

1. Antichrist, She/He
2. Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden, Julie/Jack/Tom
3. Juno, Juno/Vanessa/Leah
4. The Middleman (tv), The Middleman/Wendy Watson/Lacey Thornton

( Read more... )

I'm offering low prices/discounted shipping on some stuff from my library that I decided to clear out.

New Items: (average used price + shipping)
+ Heroes Season 1 - going out in the mail on Monday
+ The Tailor of Panama
+ August Rush
+ The Majestic
+ Infamous
+ Chaim Potok, The Chosen
+ Jon Katz, Geeks
+ Norma Fox Mazer, Missing Pieces
+ Jack Finney, From Time to Time

Used Items: (free! + shipping)
+ Green Green (complete)
+ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - claimed!
+ Robot Chicken, season one - sending out on Monday
+ CutThroat Island
+ Kathryn Wesley, The 10th Kingdom (novelization)
+ Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus - claimed!
+ Sylvia Brownrigg, Ten Women who Shook the World
+ Francesca Lia Block and Carmen Staton, Ruby
+ The X-Files: The Haunting (TPB)
+ The X-Files: Night Lights (TPB)
+ Buffy: Out of the Madhouse
+ Buffy: Ghost Roads
+ Buffy: Sons of Entropy
+ Buffy: Unseen, Door to Alternity
+ Buffy: The Book of Fours
+ Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections - claimed!
+ Star Wars Episode 1: The Visual Dictionary - claimed!
+ Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
+ Celia Rees, Witch Child
+ More Ghost Stories (YA)
+ The X-Files (PS1 game + guide)
+ Lee So-Young, Model (Books 2 and 3)
+ Ruby Vise, Peculiar Passions or the Treasure of Mermaid Island
+ Eleanor Estes, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode

I also like trades, which can be negotiated. *grins*