elayna (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elayna) wrote2025-12-06 04:50 pm
elayna) wrote2025-12-06 04:50 pmoffer
Would anyone like a gift membership for the Substack Non-Boring History?
https://annettelaing.substack.com/
I have three to give away, Substack has reminded me.
I think I need your name (or a name anyway) and the email address where you want to receive the newsletters. I'll mark comments to be screened in case you want to give me one you don't normally associate with your DW.
https://annettelaing.substack.com/
I have three to give away, Substack has reminded me.
I think I need your name (or a name anyway) and the email address where you want to receive the newsletters. I'll mark comments to be screened in case you want to give me one you don't normally associate with your DW.
elayna (elayna) wrote2025-12-05 03:34 pm
elayna) wrote2025-12-05 03:34 pmEntry tags:
Fannish Fifty #43: Starfleet Academy
Have I done the picture right this time? We shall see! (No, it's all small. Well, click on it and it gets bigger.)
You know... I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna give it a try. But omg, that ad looks like 'Star Trek 90210.' I have such an OMGWTF reaction to it.
The trailer appeals to me more.
You know... I'm gonna watch it. I'm gonna give it a try. But omg, that ad looks like 'Star Trek 90210.' I have such an OMGWTF reaction to it.
The trailer appeals to me more.
elayna (elayna) wrote2025-12-05 11:05 am
elayna) wrote2025-12-05 11:05 amEntry tags:
Fannish Fifty #42: on grief and routines
I was feeding the cats their wet food this morning, and paused for a second, and remembered to split it into three. I've recently lost two older cats, one unexpectedly, the other after a lingering illness. I've gone from having four for many years, to briefly five, and then back to four and now to three.
Loss makes me think of Data's quote: "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even 'missed' when absent."
I remember watching that episode and thinking it was an interesting way to justify an android having emotions, but I have reflected back on it often over the years when dealing with grief, and how much routines can increase loss.
My mom was the worst, because I was very close to her and we often did things together. She was gone and I missed her but also so many... we both watched these shows and discussed them the next day, who do I talk about them with? Do I go clothes shopping by myself or can I find a friend who will be as encouraging as she was?
Maybe that sounds heartlessly practical or self-absorbed? This person is gone and how does it impact my life? But I've lost people like my paternal grandparents where I was very sad but also, they lived three hours away, our getting together was semi-regular but also sporadic. It wasn't tied to any particular activity except Thanksgiving, and then we continued going down to see other relatives in that city. For me, it's a different type of grief when it's not tied to routines. It's just this general sadness rather than coming up to event and knowing you have to do it alone. Or find a replacement.
I guess my situation is sorta the reverse of Data's, he found routines built emotions, while I'm dealing with absence requiring new routines to be built. But still, I find that quote to be poignantly relevant. Data was a wise man.
My nephew has already found a new kitty for me, but he still has a month to be weaned. So we'll see. Maybe I'll go back to fourths on the wet food in January.
Loss makes me think of Data's quote: "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The input is eventually anticipated and even 'missed' when absent."
I remember watching that episode and thinking it was an interesting way to justify an android having emotions, but I have reflected back on it often over the years when dealing with grief, and how much routines can increase loss.
My mom was the worst, because I was very close to her and we often did things together. She was gone and I missed her but also so many... we both watched these shows and discussed them the next day, who do I talk about them with? Do I go clothes shopping by myself or can I find a friend who will be as encouraging as she was?
Maybe that sounds heartlessly practical or self-absorbed? This person is gone and how does it impact my life? But I've lost people like my paternal grandparents where I was very sad but also, they lived three hours away, our getting together was semi-regular but also sporadic. It wasn't tied to any particular activity except Thanksgiving, and then we continued going down to see other relatives in that city. For me, it's a different type of grief when it's not tied to routines. It's just this general sadness rather than coming up to event and knowing you have to do it alone. Or find a replacement.
I guess my situation is sorta the reverse of Data's, he found routines built emotions, while I'm dealing with absence requiring new routines to be built. But still, I find that quote to be poignantly relevant. Data was a wise man.
My nephew has already found a new kitty for me, but he still has a month to be weaned. So we'll see. Maybe I'll go back to fourths on the wet food in January.
elayna (elayna) wrote2025-12-04 09:17 am
elayna) wrote2025-12-04 09:17 amEntry tags:
Fannish Fifty #41: what people accept
And why, oh why, do they not accept musicals? Talking recently to a woman who saw "Wicked" and she was totally fine with that as a musical. Munchkins and wizards and such breaking into a song, sure. But she'd also seen "West Side Story" and ew ew ew, that was so weird, normal people opening their mouths and singing and dancing. Too much to suspend her disbelief, way too much.
I have heard this same complaint many times during my life and I don't understand it. I love musicals, they are a joy to me, I will see pretty much any that I can.
One good guy with a handgun, 12 terrorists with assault rifles, sure, totally believable that the good guy will win. And outrun bullets numerous times along the way while making quippy remarks.
That a Norse god would come to Earth and fight alongside a billionaire in a suit, a revived super soldier, and a rage monster, sure, no problem. Admittedly, I know two people, my dad and a former boss, who roll their eyes at superhero movies, but they've been the only ones. (And my dad even made an exception to watch the Wonder Woman movies, he can apparently suspend his disbelief for Gal Gadot in boots.)
Even sitcoms, that every week a family or a group of friends or co-workers can have some sort of dispute, and thrash through it and make up in a feel-good moment, are you kidding me? Every group I know has some sort of unresolved dispute or bitterness that lingers, even if often suppressed for the sake of civility.
And for the most part, I'm completely happy that people can suspend their disbelief and allow somewhat absurd happenings to be neatly ended, all loose plot parts tied up, in a satisfying conclusion. I like media with good endings. I love the good guys winning, I love superhero movies, I love people working through problems and getting along.
But I love musicals too! *hugs them tightly to protect from bizarre disbelievers* Why is this genre such a sticking point for people?
I have heard this same complaint many times during my life and I don't understand it. I love musicals, they are a joy to me, I will see pretty much any that I can.
One good guy with a handgun, 12 terrorists with assault rifles, sure, totally believable that the good guy will win. And outrun bullets numerous times along the way while making quippy remarks.
That a Norse god would come to Earth and fight alongside a billionaire in a suit, a revived super soldier, and a rage monster, sure, no problem. Admittedly, I know two people, my dad and a former boss, who roll their eyes at superhero movies, but they've been the only ones. (And my dad even made an exception to watch the Wonder Woman movies, he can apparently suspend his disbelief for Gal Gadot in boots.)
Even sitcoms, that every week a family or a group of friends or co-workers can have some sort of dispute, and thrash through it and make up in a feel-good moment, are you kidding me? Every group I know has some sort of unresolved dispute or bitterness that lingers, even if often suppressed for the sake of civility.
And for the most part, I'm completely happy that people can suspend their disbelief and allow somewhat absurd happenings to be neatly ended, all loose plot parts tied up, in a satisfying conclusion. I like media with good endings. I love the good guys winning, I love superhero movies, I love people working through problems and getting along.
But I love musicals too! *hugs them tightly to protect from bizarre disbelievers* Why is this genre such a sticking point for people?
Isis (isis) wrote2025-12-03 06:23 pm
isis) wrote2025-12-03 06:23 pmwednesday reads and things
It is snowing! And I have a Cricket-cat on my desk and a Mantis-cat on the cat tree behind me; ever since we got back from our Thanksgiving vacation trip they have been sweetly clingy, especially to me. (Though I have to give props to the cat-sitter we hired through Rover.com; though I warned her that our neighbor, who had cat-sit for us previously, had never actually seen our cats, she coaxed them out of hiding on day 2 and by the middle of the week they were literally eating treats out of her hand - part of the Rover deal is daily pet photos, so I have proof!)
What I've recently finished reading:
In audio, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), book 1 of the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, which B had downloaded from the library for our long drives to and from Scottsdale because he'd seen reviews that compared it to Murderbot. (Spoiler alert, it was nothing like Murderbot, other than that the main character is a sort of human+computer hybrid, has drones as auxiliaries, and did the equivalent of hacking its governor module - uh, removed the controlling code? - early on.)
Bob is a nerdy engineer in the early 21st C (i.e., now). After selling his tech company to a bigger one for a ton of money, he signs up to have his head cryonically frozen to be revived in the future - and straightaway gets hit by a car, killed, and frozen...and revived in the mid-22nd C into a world where the US is now a theocracy competing with the Brazilian Empire and China for world dominance. Eventually Bob's brain-copy is put into a space probe and launched amid an incipient terrestrial nuclear war, at which point the story branches out into exploration of a variety of SF staples: sentient space ships, exploration of strange new worlds, terraforming, first contact with primitive alien life, space war among competing powers, space colonization, and so on.
It's very obviously written by an engineer who is a science fiction fan, with copious homage to various classics in the genre. Lots of handwaving around the science, including one bit I have a hard time accepting, that copies of Bob (and Bob eventually makes lots of copies of his brain, which are then further copied by his copies) all differ slightly from the get-go. It seems to me an exact copy would only begin to diverge once it started having different experiences. The viewpoint characters, all iterations of Bob, don't have particularly interesting or extensive arcs; it's more that each one picks a different mission and goes after it, and we get their narrative. There is no romance or sex.
I think I probably would have abandoned it somewhere in the middle had I not been listening to the audio version, but it was sufficiently entertaining to carry us through two long drives. It's the first of a series but has a reasonable ending, even though there are many threads left hanging for future books.
In text, I started but did not get all that far into Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cool premise, smooth writing - but I disliked Alice, the viewpoint character, and there was just something off-putting about the whole thing. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of "dark academia" - it feels vaguely unfair to me, please keep dangerous activities for fully-grown-up adults! Anyway, I put it down, and picked up...
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, which was a recommendation from P. Djèlí Clark as part of the NYT "What to Read" series, in a set of "Great Fanatsy Novels With Unlikely Heroes." Which turned out to be a nice reminder that I should not read things that I don't enjoy and should read things I do, because I totally fell into this book and loved it a lot! Medieval-ish crapsack fantasy world in which the thief Kinch Na Shannack must go on a quest for the Taker's Guild in order to clear the debt he's incurred through his education in thievery.
What hooked me into the story was the first-person narrative voice, which is rambling, profane, and funny as hell. The other characters are entertaining as well, and there are a lot of truly excellent female characters. I also really liked the worldbuilding, from the weird magic, to the linguistic and geographic details, to the slowly-unfolding history of the goblin wars. There are a lot of tiny guns hung on the wall early that go off to great effect late, which I always appreciate. There is also a cat.
Alas this is the first book of a series in which the second is expected to be published next year, but it does end in a reasonable place. Also there is a prequel which I have already checked out.
What I've recently finished playing:
I completed Monument Valley 2, which was just as delightful as the first game!However, I'm having difficulty getting Horizon Forbidden West to run now, for some reason, so I may have to abandon my NG+ and find something else to play. ETA Whew, it finally worked! Though, we'll see how long I manage to replay before wanting to do something new.
What I've recently finished reading:
In audio, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), book 1 of the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, which B had downloaded from the library for our long drives to and from Scottsdale because he'd seen reviews that compared it to Murderbot. (Spoiler alert, it was nothing like Murderbot, other than that the main character is a sort of human+computer hybrid, has drones as auxiliaries, and did the equivalent of hacking its governor module - uh, removed the controlling code? - early on.)
Bob is a nerdy engineer in the early 21st C (i.e., now). After selling his tech company to a bigger one for a ton of money, he signs up to have his head cryonically frozen to be revived in the future - and straightaway gets hit by a car, killed, and frozen...and revived in the mid-22nd C into a world where the US is now a theocracy competing with the Brazilian Empire and China for world dominance. Eventually Bob's brain-copy is put into a space probe and launched amid an incipient terrestrial nuclear war, at which point the story branches out into exploration of a variety of SF staples: sentient space ships, exploration of strange new worlds, terraforming, first contact with primitive alien life, space war among competing powers, space colonization, and so on.
It's very obviously written by an engineer who is a science fiction fan, with copious homage to various classics in the genre. Lots of handwaving around the science, including one bit I have a hard time accepting, that copies of Bob (and Bob eventually makes lots of copies of his brain, which are then further copied by his copies) all differ slightly from the get-go. It seems to me an exact copy would only begin to diverge once it started having different experiences. The viewpoint characters, all iterations of Bob, don't have particularly interesting or extensive arcs; it's more that each one picks a different mission and goes after it, and we get their narrative. There is no romance or sex.
I think I probably would have abandoned it somewhere in the middle had I not been listening to the audio version, but it was sufficiently entertaining to carry us through two long drives. It's the first of a series but has a reasonable ending, even though there are many threads left hanging for future books.
In text, I started but did not get all that far into Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cool premise, smooth writing - but I disliked Alice, the viewpoint character, and there was just something off-putting about the whole thing. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of "dark academia" - it feels vaguely unfair to me, please keep dangerous activities for fully-grown-up adults! Anyway, I put it down, and picked up...
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman, which was a recommendation from P. Djèlí Clark as part of the NYT "What to Read" series, in a set of "Great Fanatsy Novels With Unlikely Heroes." Which turned out to be a nice reminder that I should not read things that I don't enjoy and should read things I do, because I totally fell into this book and loved it a lot! Medieval-ish crapsack fantasy world in which the thief Kinch Na Shannack must go on a quest for the Taker's Guild in order to clear the debt he's incurred through his education in thievery.
What hooked me into the story was the first-person narrative voice, which is rambling, profane, and funny as hell. The other characters are entertaining as well, and there are a lot of truly excellent female characters. I also really liked the worldbuilding, from the weird magic, to the linguistic and geographic details, to the slowly-unfolding history of the goblin wars. There are a lot of tiny guns hung on the wall early that go off to great effect late, which I always appreciate. There is also a cat.
Alas this is the first book of a series in which the second is expected to be published next year, but it does end in a reasonable place. Also there is a prequel which I have already checked out.
What I've recently finished playing:
I completed Monument Valley 2, which was just as delightful as the first game!
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!
Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means ![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.
The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.
( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )
Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.
On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.
elayna (elayna) wrote2025-11-26 09:41 pm
elayna) wrote2025-11-26 09:41 pmEntry tags:
Fannish Fifty #40: The Thanksgiving grumble
Here on the eve of the national holiday celebrating thankfulness, I shall grumble, possibly a repeat, but one that always comes to mind when I cook a turkey.
There's an episode of Hawaii 5-0 where Mary, Steve's irresponsible sister, is trying to thaw a turkey with a blow dryer. Steve catches her and chides her for not being better organized and she apologizes/whines it's not her fault, whatever. (I should rewatch this episode, I don't recall how all the dialogue goes.)
But I'm just watching and thinking... that's not how you thaw a turkey. It's frozen from the inside. Blowing heat on the outside is pointless. You read the instructions that come with every turkey and follow the direction to run water into the middle. (Possibly it's a drip and I believe the water should be room temperature but don't quote me. I rarely need to do this.)
Totally, I could see as a reflection of Mary's character, that she doesn't move the turkey from the freezer to the refrigerator on the correct day for it to thaw naturally. I could even see that she doesn't read the flipping instructions and so tries the forced thawing wrong.
Though I had to wonder if the writer actually knows anything about thawing turkeys? Because *Steve* is the one who bothers me. A turkey that size should have been in Steve's refrigerator at least three days before the holiday. *Steve* is always presented as a good host and decent cook. Sure, he's more often seen at the barbecue, but he's also regularly carrying various bowls of side dishes, he knows his way around a kitchen. *Steve* should have noticed that the turkey wasn't thawing and asked. *Steve* should have told his sister to put down the hair dryer and get that bird under the tap. And Steve doesn't. I'd say maybe Steve is always supposed to have done fresh turkeys, except I've never even seen a fresh turkey in our grocery stores, they're always frozen. This scene is several seasons into the show and Steve is totally the guy who has been hosting holiday meals for his ohana.
STEVE IS A BETTER COOK THAN THIS SCENE SHOWS. And I assume that the writer isn't trying to imply that at all, because the writer either doesn't know how turkeys should be thawed or assumes that the audience won't think about it. Ha ha ha, look, Mary is screwing up again and Steve is being the annoyed big brother again, that's their sibling dynamic. Except I cook one turkey a year, every year for the last 20 or so years, and wow, it weirdly grated on me that *Steve* didn't know how to thaw a turkey.
I don't know how people who work in law enforcement watch cop shows, health people watch medical shows, etc. Those things must be full of procedures, etc., not being done correctly.
Ah, now I want to rewatch some Hawaii 5-0. McDanno rocks. And in summation, if you're ever going to cook a turkey, read the instructions! /weird grumble
There's an episode of Hawaii 5-0 where Mary, Steve's irresponsible sister, is trying to thaw a turkey with a blow dryer. Steve catches her and chides her for not being better organized and she apologizes/whines it's not her fault, whatever. (I should rewatch this episode, I don't recall how all the dialogue goes.)
But I'm just watching and thinking... that's not how you thaw a turkey. It's frozen from the inside. Blowing heat on the outside is pointless. You read the instructions that come with every turkey and follow the direction to run water into the middle. (Possibly it's a drip and I believe the water should be room temperature but don't quote me. I rarely need to do this.)
Totally, I could see as a reflection of Mary's character, that she doesn't move the turkey from the freezer to the refrigerator on the correct day for it to thaw naturally. I could even see that she doesn't read the flipping instructions and so tries the forced thawing wrong.
Though I had to wonder if the writer actually knows anything about thawing turkeys? Because *Steve* is the one who bothers me. A turkey that size should have been in Steve's refrigerator at least three days before the holiday. *Steve* is always presented as a good host and decent cook. Sure, he's more often seen at the barbecue, but he's also regularly carrying various bowls of side dishes, he knows his way around a kitchen. *Steve* should have noticed that the turkey wasn't thawing and asked. *Steve* should have told his sister to put down the hair dryer and get that bird under the tap. And Steve doesn't. I'd say maybe Steve is always supposed to have done fresh turkeys, except I've never even seen a fresh turkey in our grocery stores, they're always frozen. This scene is several seasons into the show and Steve is totally the guy who has been hosting holiday meals for his ohana.
STEVE IS A BETTER COOK THAN THIS SCENE SHOWS. And I assume that the writer isn't trying to imply that at all, because the writer either doesn't know how turkeys should be thawed or assumes that the audience won't think about it. Ha ha ha, look, Mary is screwing up again and Steve is being the annoyed big brother again, that's their sibling dynamic. Except I cook one turkey a year, every year for the last 20 or so years, and wow, it weirdly grated on me that *Steve* didn't know how to thaw a turkey.
I don't know how people who work in law enforcement watch cop shows, health people watch medical shows, etc. Those things must be full of procedures, etc., not being done correctly.
Ah, now I want to rewatch some Hawaii 5-0. McDanno rocks. And in summation, if you're ever going to cook a turkey, read the instructions! /weird grumble
rivkat (rivkat) wrote2025-11-26 01:21 pm
rivkat) wrote2025-11-26 01:21 pmNonfiction
Michael Grunwald, We Are Eating the Earth: The thing about land is that they aren’t making any more of it, and although you can make more farmland (for now) from forests, it’s not a good idea. This means that agriculture is hugely important to climate change, but most of the time proposals for, e.g., biofuels or organic farming don’t take into account the costs in farmland. The book explores various things that backfired because of that failed accounting and what might work in the future. Bonus: the audiobook is narrated by Kevin R. Free, the voice of Murderbot, who turns out to be substantially more expressive when condemning habitat destruction.
Tony Magistrale & Michael J. Blouin, King Noir: The Crime Fiction of Stephen King (feat. Stephen King and Charles Ardai): Treads the scholarly/popular line, as the inclusion of a chapter by King and a “dialogue” with Ardai suggest. The book explores King’s noir-ish work like Joyland, but also considers his horror protagonists as hardboiled detectives, trying to find out why bad things happen (and, in King’s own words, often finding the noirish answer “Because they can.”). I especially liked the reading of Wendy Torrance as a more successful detective than her husband Jack. Richard Bachman shows up as the dark side of King’s optimism (I would have given more attention to the short stories—they’re also mostly from the Bachman era and those often are quite bleak). And the conclusion interestingly explores the near-absence of the (living) big city and the femme fatale—two noir staples—from King’s work, part of a general refusal of fluidity.
Gerardo Con Diaz, Everyone Breaks These Laws: How Copyrights Made the Online World: This book is literally not for me because I live and breathe copyright law and it is a tour through the law of copyright & the internet that is aimed at an intelligent nonlawyer. Although I didn’t learn much, I appreciated lines like “Back then, all my porn was illegally obtained, and it definitely constituted copyright infringement.” The focus is on court cases and the arguments behind them, so the contributions of “user generated content” and, notably, fanworks to the ecosystem don’t get a mention.
Stephanie Burt, Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift: ( longer )
Kyla Sommers, When the Smoke Cleared: The 1968 Rebellions and the Unfinished Battle for Civil Rights in the Nation’s Capital: Extensive account of the lead-up to, experience of, and consequences of the 1968 riots after MLK Jr.’s assassination. There was some interesting stuff about Stokely Carmichael, who (reportedly) told people to go home during the riots because they didn’t have enough guns to win. (Later: “According to the FBI, Carmichael held up a gun and declared ‘tonight bring your gun, don’t loot, shoot.’ The Washington Post, however, reported Carmichael held up a gun and said, ‘Stay off the streets if you don’t have a gun because there’s going to be shooting.’”) Congress did not allow DC to control its own political fate, and that shaped how things happened, including the limited success of citizens’ attempts to direct development and get more control over the police, but ultimately DC was caught up in the larger right-wing backlash that was willing to invest in prisons but not in sustained economic opportunity. Reading it now, I was struct by the fact that—even without riots, fires, or other large-scale destruction—white people who don’t live in the area are still calling for military occupation because they don’t feel safe. So maybe the riots weren’t as causal as they are considered.
Tony Magistrale & Michael J. Blouin, King Noir: The Crime Fiction of Stephen King (feat. Stephen King and Charles Ardai): Treads the scholarly/popular line, as the inclusion of a chapter by King and a “dialogue” with Ardai suggest. The book explores King’s noir-ish work like Joyland, but also considers his horror protagonists as hardboiled detectives, trying to find out why bad things happen (and, in King’s own words, often finding the noirish answer “Because they can.”). I especially liked the reading of Wendy Torrance as a more successful detective than her husband Jack. Richard Bachman shows up as the dark side of King’s optimism (I would have given more attention to the short stories—they’re also mostly from the Bachman era and those often are quite bleak). And the conclusion interestingly explores the near-absence of the (living) big city and the femme fatale—two noir staples—from King’s work, part of a general refusal of fluidity.
Gerardo Con Diaz, Everyone Breaks These Laws: How Copyrights Made the Online World: This book is literally not for me because I live and breathe copyright law and it is a tour through the law of copyright & the internet that is aimed at an intelligent nonlawyer. Although I didn’t learn much, I appreciated lines like “Back then, all my porn was illegally obtained, and it definitely constituted copyright infringement.” The focus is on court cases and the arguments behind them, so the contributions of “user generated content” and, notably, fanworks to the ecosystem don’t get a mention.
Stephanie Burt, Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift: ( longer )
Kyla Sommers, When the Smoke Cleared: The 1968 Rebellions and the Unfinished Battle for Civil Rights in the Nation’s Capital: Extensive account of the lead-up to, experience of, and consequences of the 1968 riots after MLK Jr.’s assassination. There was some interesting stuff about Stokely Carmichael, who (reportedly) told people to go home during the riots because they didn’t have enough guns to win. (Later: “According to the FBI, Carmichael held up a gun and declared ‘tonight bring your gun, don’t loot, shoot.’ The Washington Post, however, reported Carmichael held up a gun and said, ‘Stay off the streets if you don’t have a gun because there’s going to be shooting.’”) Congress did not allow DC to control its own political fate, and that shaped how things happened, including the limited success of citizens’ attempts to direct development and get more control over the police, but ultimately DC was caught up in the larger right-wing backlash that was willing to invest in prisons but not in sustained economic opportunity. Reading it now, I was struct by the fact that—even without riots, fires, or other large-scale destruction—white people who don’t live in the area are still calling for military occupation because they don’t feel safe. So maybe the riots weren’t as causal as they are considered.