"Everyone cries when they're stabbed"
I was hoping to post this past weekend, but I'm dealing with a perfect storm of work crap and house crap right now on top of an enormous backlog of other RL things that I'd been putting off for way too long, and adding stomach flu into the mix did not improve the situation. I'm hoping that things will settle down by, uh, September. *crosses fingers*
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Babylon 5 Report:
Babylon 5 2.12 - "Acts of Sacrifice
So, the shape of the battle lines becomes clear. The Centauri are ruthlessly pressing their advantage; the Narn aren't able to stop them; the Earth and Minbari governments don't want to get drawn in. Everybody--including Londo--knows that the Centauri are massacring civilians and breaking promises, but they're getting away with it because they're stronger than the other side, because upsetting them is too costly. G'Kar starts out believing that the rightness of his cause will get him the help he needs; by the end, he has to accept that it isn't enough. Basically, all of the diplomatic channels and all of the narratives about truth and justice are failing here; what's left is covert aid, individuals working in the fringes to alleviate little bits and pieces of suffering where they can, and G'Kar's disillusionment, his heartbroken acceptance that this is all he has to work with, that it's better than nothing but far less than what his people deserve.
I almost had to watch part of this episode through my fingers. G'Kar is so desperate; Londo is so grimly committed and clear-eyed about the costs of what he's doing, the hollow life he's making for himself. Everyone knows exactly what's going on, and while they may not be able to stop it, they can judge. Garibaldi will. They both understand that. They're not just having a drink; they're savoring the twilight of a genuine friendship before the sun sets and it's gone. Londo won't let himself care enough to stop what he's doing--he might not even be able to, now that he's put it in motion--but he does care enough to smooth over the Narn killing of one of his fellow Centauri, enough to try to prolong that twilight through his hands.
I definitely had to watch parts of the Ivanova B-plot through my hands. On the one hand, I was vaguely annoyed at the implicit assumption that of course Ivanova should be as accommodating as possible in the pursuit of a diplomatic relationship, because Earth government's official diplomatic toolkit somehow extends to her body, and that it was presented as a realistic dilemma at all. On the other, it was mostly the setup for a pretty neat turning of the tables that played on everyone's expectations, including the audience's. The B plot also served as a neat illustration of the main arc, because the Lumati approve of leaving people to fend for themselves, the exercise of ruthlessness and the culling of the inferior and the weak; in other words, they give voice to the principles behind what everyone is doing when they stand back and watch the Centauri slaughter the Narn.
Babylon 5 2.13 - "Hunter, Prey"
When I first saw Kosh's ship move, I said, "It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive." And it was!
I don't actually have a lot to say about this episode, it was a pretty straightforward chase plot. I am, however, very glad to see that there are still loose ends to Santiago's murder--a doctor who can disprove Clark's cover story is a good one; that kind of plot simply involves too many people to be as tidy as it needs to be--and that Sheridan takes the constraints they're operating under seriously. He has to be very careful; he can't make bold, foolish gestures, he has to play close game, or there's no point to what they're trying to do, they'll just get caught.
I officially do not care for Steven Undercover. (Garibaldi is so much better at undercover, so much more of a chameleon and a natural. Steven's idea of undercover stealth seems to involve lounging around looking bored and eyeing each passerby suspiciously while eating a power bar.) Bull from Night Court was a credible episodic villain, and a nice reminder of the important role that self-interest (rather than outright evil) plays in the success and failure of so many of the bigger plots, from Santiago's assassination to Centauri aggression. And the gun ship that was introduced in act 1 went off in act 3, so Chekhov approves. Kosh has been willing to get involved with station politics only in very specific circumstances, and this was an intra-Earth dispute, so I think it's noteworthy that he helped here, though I don't really know what that means yet.
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Book Report, OMG Huge Backlog From March Edition, first of many parts:
The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip: I liked the first half or so of this trilogy very much. McKillip's use of language is wonderful and richly detailed, and I liked the way Morgon in particular seems so young for the role he's forced to take, uncertain at first in his choices. I also liked the way his relationship with Raederle comes across as a liking of individuals, despite the trappings of prophecy and mythical matchmaking that surround it, and the way she worked as a partner and an actor in her own right in the story. But the central conflict got progressively more abstract, grew to a scale that was so big that it lost its humanity and visceral pull, and after a certain point, I felt like I was watching a balloon as it drifted into space, getting smaller and farther away in my vision.
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes: I found parts of this novel quite charming, but I tend to be a sucker for stories that play with the language and conventions of the genres they so knowingly inhabit, so again, I liked the first part--the sly pokes at Victorian detective stories--more than the second part, with its inexplicably fantastical conspiracy plot.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin: I really admire LeGuin's ability to create layered, nuanced societies in such rich detail. The lack of defined gender on Winter is the most noticeable thing that informs its characters' identities: the social customs constructed around kemmer, and family and childrearing arrangements, and the political conflicts, which seem--at least to Genly Ai--more measured and less driven by the kind of passion that has roots in sexual competition. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum, because Winter's climate makes it a place where survival is marginal, and development is slow, and societies are averse to risk. It's not a monolithic place either; there are competing governing philosophies, different ways of recombining the different factors that make the planet what it is. I understand that LeGuin later regretted that she hadn't invented a new pronoun for this book, and I regret it a little too, because reading "he," using that masculine pronoun, created gendered associations in my mind that were impossible to entirely overcome. At the same time, it seemed like Genly did that himself, struggled to overcome the way his brain automatically assigned gender to certain traits, to take that lens off his eyes, and that was an important part of the story.
The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency, The Tears of the Giraffe, and Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith: These novels seem to unwind gently, rather than building to an exciting climax. The mysteries are not the particular questions in Mma Ramotswe's cases, but rather the strange things that lurk in the human heart, and what they make people do. I wasn't necessarily looking for a traditional mystery when I picked up the first of these novels, so I wasn't disappointed that that's not at all what they're about, and I found the first two novels entertaining enough, but I got bored about halfway through Morality for Beautiful Girls and ended up putting it down unfinished. I think there was something just a little bit too childlike about some of the adult characters and it started getting to me.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer: This turned out to be a pretty topical read because of the Warren Jeffs rape conviction. Krakauer is, in my opinion, pretty careful to distinguish mainstream Mormonism from its fundamentalist offshoots, but he does draw a thread through his discussion of the church's history and theology that connects its emphasis on direct communication with god, prophecy, and charismatic leadership with the particular manifestations of those elements in fundamentalist Mormon communities. It is both depressing and unsurprising that many of the men who start on the outside and become attracted to Mormon fundamentalism are feeling dislocated by the pulls of modern like, and that women end up on the bottom rung in those communities. The narrative lynchpin of the book is the story a two brothers who killed another brother's wife and her young daughter, their niece, because, basically, she stood up for herself, and threatened to pull one of the brothers out of their shared fantasy: she threatened them as believers and as men who felt like it was their right and responsibility to control the women in their families. It's hard to doubt the sincere conviction with which many of the fundamentalists Krakauer interviews believe in their own interpretation of divine prophecy, but it's equally hard to ignore the connections he draws between those interpretations and the power structures in those communities, the benefits that accrue to the leaders.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky: Salt, as it turns out, is fundamental to both economics and culture, to the way people make their living and the way they eat, and the institutions they build around both. Kurlansky discusses the economic impact of salt trade, and the technological innovations that rose from its mining and refinement, in a number of locations around the globe, but he really goes into detail when describing the way salt preservation of food drove the economic engine of European enlightenment. Although descriptions of salt mining in China bookend the work--innovation in ancient times in the beginning, the replacement of small family-run wells with big, mass-production-focused corporate enterprises at the end--there isn't a lot of talk about the role salt plays in non-European history in the middle, which I found mildly disappointing.
Cod: A Biography of a Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky: A much more focused narrative than Salt, about Atlantic cod fisheries and the ways that inexpensive, salt-preserved fish changed diets and economies in Europe from the middle ages to the present. The central story of the book, though, is the way what was once regarded as a limitless resource has been fished to the edge of collapse, and the affect that has had on the communities that depend on it, and the difficulty of harnessing competing economic entities to work to restore the populations.
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner: i found this book disappointing for a couple of different reasons. Spices are, unlike salt, not strictly necessary; they're a luxury good. Turner's discussion of the ancient spice trade was the most interesting part of the book for me, because he dug into the intersection of luxury trade and political economy and the way markets in goods like spices established trade routes between east and west over what was, at the time, staggering distances. But by the time he gets to the medieval spice trade, the book started reading like a laundry list of historical factoids. It also started focusing almost solely on Europe, and most discussion of spices in non-European location involved European conquest, European politics, and barely a mention of the impact of that same spice trade on the local populations. I was particularly staggered by the way India, in this book, is reduced to nothing more than a few ports with European presence. Surely the use of spice and the history of the spice trade in India (and, for that matter, a lot of other places) is something with a rich historical record, and worth exploring?
The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman: The Potato was by far my favorite of the four food history books I read this spring. For one thing, Zuckerman is quite explicit about his focus on France, England, and Ireland, and lays out his reasoning for that focus persuasively. For another, the book is much less a string of historical tidbits about potatoes, and far more an integrated history of agriculture and the ways in which potato farming made sense in particular peasant economies. Zuckerman discusses Irish agricultural law and the peasant adoption of potatoes to grow food on marginal land in a culture where few farming families had draft animals or tools like plows; the way potatoes were adopted as a major food source during the industrial revolution in English cities, where working families didn't have the money, time, fuel, or cooking instruments to prepare other foods easily at home; and the more mixed adoption of the potato in France, where specific local conditions dictated whether the peasants in an area ate bread or potatoes. Although I'm making the material sound really boring, Zuckerman's discussion of these issues is lively and immediate, and he makes a good case for the way in which the potato--maligned as animal and peasant food--made it possible to feed more people on less land, and was an important component in the changing economic landscape of the time.
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I'm excited about the return of Burn Notice tonight, especially since the one new show I was watching this summer, In Plain Sight, has officially moved from the "Meh, it's kind of entertaining" column to the "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" column. I am also excited about Slings and Arrows, the first season of which I just finished recently, and I can't summon much coherent commentary, but oh Ellen and Geoffrey! What a complicated, adult relationship; I just adored the flashback, after all of the sniping between them, when you learn that they were in love, and hopeful, and that it had somehow all gone to hell, and that they had all of that history to climb over if they even wanted to look at each other again. And Geoffrey in general, with his singular focus on the story, and the way he could make a corporate workshop into something magical with that focus, and its utter incompatibility with the business world. And Kate and Jack, who were ADORABLE. And Richard, who seems doomed not to get it, even though he's standing right next to it. And Anna! When Anna finally tells everyone what she really thinks, which I hope with all my heart she does at some point, it's going to be GLORIOUS. So, yes, very much looking forward to Season 2.
Most exciting of all, though, is the fact that I remembered to set the rice cooker up with the timer this morning, so I will be making Japanese food tonight as planned. I am slightly less excited about the fact that I'm going to need to use the broiler, and the last time I did that, things ended up on fire. Here's hoping!
* * * * *
Babylon 5 Report:
Babylon 5 2.12 - "Acts of Sacrifice
So, the shape of the battle lines becomes clear. The Centauri are ruthlessly pressing their advantage; the Narn aren't able to stop them; the Earth and Minbari governments don't want to get drawn in. Everybody--including Londo--knows that the Centauri are massacring civilians and breaking promises, but they're getting away with it because they're stronger than the other side, because upsetting them is too costly. G'Kar starts out believing that the rightness of his cause will get him the help he needs; by the end, he has to accept that it isn't enough. Basically, all of the diplomatic channels and all of the narratives about truth and justice are failing here; what's left is covert aid, individuals working in the fringes to alleviate little bits and pieces of suffering where they can, and G'Kar's disillusionment, his heartbroken acceptance that this is all he has to work with, that it's better than nothing but far less than what his people deserve.
I almost had to watch part of this episode through my fingers. G'Kar is so desperate; Londo is so grimly committed and clear-eyed about the costs of what he's doing, the hollow life he's making for himself. Everyone knows exactly what's going on, and while they may not be able to stop it, they can judge. Garibaldi will. They both understand that. They're not just having a drink; they're savoring the twilight of a genuine friendship before the sun sets and it's gone. Londo won't let himself care enough to stop what he's doing--he might not even be able to, now that he's put it in motion--but he does care enough to smooth over the Narn killing of one of his fellow Centauri, enough to try to prolong that twilight through his hands.
I definitely had to watch parts of the Ivanova B-plot through my hands. On the one hand, I was vaguely annoyed at the implicit assumption that of course Ivanova should be as accommodating as possible in the pursuit of a diplomatic relationship, because Earth government's official diplomatic toolkit somehow extends to her body, and that it was presented as a realistic dilemma at all. On the other, it was mostly the setup for a pretty neat turning of the tables that played on everyone's expectations, including the audience's. The B plot also served as a neat illustration of the main arc, because the Lumati approve of leaving people to fend for themselves, the exercise of ruthlessness and the culling of the inferior and the weak; in other words, they give voice to the principles behind what everyone is doing when they stand back and watch the Centauri slaughter the Narn.
Babylon 5 2.13 - "Hunter, Prey"
When I first saw Kosh's ship move, I said, "It's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive." And it was!
I don't actually have a lot to say about this episode, it was a pretty straightforward chase plot. I am, however, very glad to see that there are still loose ends to Santiago's murder--a doctor who can disprove Clark's cover story is a good one; that kind of plot simply involves too many people to be as tidy as it needs to be--and that Sheridan takes the constraints they're operating under seriously. He has to be very careful; he can't make bold, foolish gestures, he has to play close game, or there's no point to what they're trying to do, they'll just get caught.
I officially do not care for Steven Undercover. (Garibaldi is so much better at undercover, so much more of a chameleon and a natural. Steven's idea of undercover stealth seems to involve lounging around looking bored and eyeing each passerby suspiciously while eating a power bar.) Bull from Night Court was a credible episodic villain, and a nice reminder of the important role that self-interest (rather than outright evil) plays in the success and failure of so many of the bigger plots, from Santiago's assassination to Centauri aggression. And the gun ship that was introduced in act 1 went off in act 3, so Chekhov approves. Kosh has been willing to get involved with station politics only in very specific circumstances, and this was an intra-Earth dispute, so I think it's noteworthy that he helped here, though I don't really know what that means yet.
* * * * *
Book Report, OMG Huge Backlog From March Edition, first of many parts:
The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip: I liked the first half or so of this trilogy very much. McKillip's use of language is wonderful and richly detailed, and I liked the way Morgon in particular seems so young for the role he's forced to take, uncertain at first in his choices. I also liked the way his relationship with Raederle comes across as a liking of individuals, despite the trappings of prophecy and mythical matchmaking that surround it, and the way she worked as a partner and an actor in her own right in the story. But the central conflict got progressively more abstract, grew to a scale that was so big that it lost its humanity and visceral pull, and after a certain point, I felt like I was watching a balloon as it drifted into space, getting smaller and farther away in my vision.
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes: I found parts of this novel quite charming, but I tend to be a sucker for stories that play with the language and conventions of the genres they so knowingly inhabit, so again, I liked the first part--the sly pokes at Victorian detective stories--more than the second part, with its inexplicably fantastical conspiracy plot.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin: I really admire LeGuin's ability to create layered, nuanced societies in such rich detail. The lack of defined gender on Winter is the most noticeable thing that informs its characters' identities: the social customs constructed around kemmer, and family and childrearing arrangements, and the political conflicts, which seem--at least to Genly Ai--more measured and less driven by the kind of passion that has roots in sexual competition. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum, because Winter's climate makes it a place where survival is marginal, and development is slow, and societies are averse to risk. It's not a monolithic place either; there are competing governing philosophies, different ways of recombining the different factors that make the planet what it is. I understand that LeGuin later regretted that she hadn't invented a new pronoun for this book, and I regret it a little too, because reading "he," using that masculine pronoun, created gendered associations in my mind that were impossible to entirely overcome. At the same time, it seemed like Genly did that himself, struggled to overcome the way his brain automatically assigned gender to certain traits, to take that lens off his eyes, and that was an important part of the story.
The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency, The Tears of the Giraffe, and Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith: These novels seem to unwind gently, rather than building to an exciting climax. The mysteries are not the particular questions in Mma Ramotswe's cases, but rather the strange things that lurk in the human heart, and what they make people do. I wasn't necessarily looking for a traditional mystery when I picked up the first of these novels, so I wasn't disappointed that that's not at all what they're about, and I found the first two novels entertaining enough, but I got bored about halfway through Morality for Beautiful Girls and ended up putting it down unfinished. I think there was something just a little bit too childlike about some of the adult characters and it started getting to me.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer: This turned out to be a pretty topical read because of the Warren Jeffs rape conviction. Krakauer is, in my opinion, pretty careful to distinguish mainstream Mormonism from its fundamentalist offshoots, but he does draw a thread through his discussion of the church's history and theology that connects its emphasis on direct communication with god, prophecy, and charismatic leadership with the particular manifestations of those elements in fundamentalist Mormon communities. It is both depressing and unsurprising that many of the men who start on the outside and become attracted to Mormon fundamentalism are feeling dislocated by the pulls of modern like, and that women end up on the bottom rung in those communities. The narrative lynchpin of the book is the story a two brothers who killed another brother's wife and her young daughter, their niece, because, basically, she stood up for herself, and threatened to pull one of the brothers out of their shared fantasy: she threatened them as believers and as men who felt like it was their right and responsibility to control the women in their families. It's hard to doubt the sincere conviction with which many of the fundamentalists Krakauer interviews believe in their own interpretation of divine prophecy, but it's equally hard to ignore the connections he draws between those interpretations and the power structures in those communities, the benefits that accrue to the leaders.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky: Salt, as it turns out, is fundamental to both economics and culture, to the way people make their living and the way they eat, and the institutions they build around both. Kurlansky discusses the economic impact of salt trade, and the technological innovations that rose from its mining and refinement, in a number of locations around the globe, but he really goes into detail when describing the way salt preservation of food drove the economic engine of European enlightenment. Although descriptions of salt mining in China bookend the work--innovation in ancient times in the beginning, the replacement of small family-run wells with big, mass-production-focused corporate enterprises at the end--there isn't a lot of talk about the role salt plays in non-European history in the middle, which I found mildly disappointing.
Cod: A Biography of a Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky: A much more focused narrative than Salt, about Atlantic cod fisheries and the ways that inexpensive, salt-preserved fish changed diets and economies in Europe from the middle ages to the present. The central story of the book, though, is the way what was once regarded as a limitless resource has been fished to the edge of collapse, and the affect that has had on the communities that depend on it, and the difficulty of harnessing competing economic entities to work to restore the populations.
Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner: i found this book disappointing for a couple of different reasons. Spices are, unlike salt, not strictly necessary; they're a luxury good. Turner's discussion of the ancient spice trade was the most interesting part of the book for me, because he dug into the intersection of luxury trade and political economy and the way markets in goods like spices established trade routes between east and west over what was, at the time, staggering distances. But by the time he gets to the medieval spice trade, the book started reading like a laundry list of historical factoids. It also started focusing almost solely on Europe, and most discussion of spices in non-European location involved European conquest, European politics, and barely a mention of the impact of that same spice trade on the local populations. I was particularly staggered by the way India, in this book, is reduced to nothing more than a few ports with European presence. Surely the use of spice and the history of the spice trade in India (and, for that matter, a lot of other places) is something with a rich historical record, and worth exploring?
The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman: The Potato was by far my favorite of the four food history books I read this spring. For one thing, Zuckerman is quite explicit about his focus on France, England, and Ireland, and lays out his reasoning for that focus persuasively. For another, the book is much less a string of historical tidbits about potatoes, and far more an integrated history of agriculture and the ways in which potato farming made sense in particular peasant economies. Zuckerman discusses Irish agricultural law and the peasant adoption of potatoes to grow food on marginal land in a culture where few farming families had draft animals or tools like plows; the way potatoes were adopted as a major food source during the industrial revolution in English cities, where working families didn't have the money, time, fuel, or cooking instruments to prepare other foods easily at home; and the more mixed adoption of the potato in France, where specific local conditions dictated whether the peasants in an area ate bread or potatoes. Although I'm making the material sound really boring, Zuckerman's discussion of these issues is lively and immediate, and he makes a good case for the way in which the potato--maligned as animal and peasant food--made it possible to feed more people on less land, and was an important component in the changing economic landscape of the time.
* * * * *
I'm excited about the return of Burn Notice tonight, especially since the one new show I was watching this summer, In Plain Sight, has officially moved from the "Meh, it's kind of entertaining" column to the "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" column. I am also excited about Slings and Arrows, the first season of which I just finished recently, and I can't summon much coherent commentary, but oh Ellen and Geoffrey! What a complicated, adult relationship; I just adored the flashback, after all of the sniping between them, when you learn that they were in love, and hopeful, and that it had somehow all gone to hell, and that they had all of that history to climb over if they even wanted to look at each other again. And Geoffrey in general, with his singular focus on the story, and the way he could make a corporate workshop into something magical with that focus, and its utter incompatibility with the business world. And Kate and Jack, who were ADORABLE. And Richard, who seems doomed not to get it, even though he's standing right next to it. And Anna! When Anna finally tells everyone what she really thinks, which I hope with all my heart she does at some point, it's going to be GLORIOUS. So, yes, very much looking forward to Season 2.
Most exciting of all, though, is the fact that I remembered to set the rice cooker up with the timer this morning, so I will be making Japanese food tonight as planned. I am slightly less excited about the fact that I'm going to need to use the broiler, and the last time I did that, things ended up on fire. Here's hoping!