All the women in this entry are awesome
You know, it probably wasn't entirely appropriate of me to celebrate International Women's Day by going to see Æon Flux, but if it's any consolation, it wasn't a conscious connection.
I honestly can't see why this movie is getting such pitiful reviews. The plot was unusually sharp for the genre, the sets and costumes were amazing, and I am always up for fiddly nanotech stuff, no matter how tenuous the thread upon which I have to suspend my disbelief in order to enjoy it. I remember very little of the series, but it seems to me that they were pretty faithful to the feel of it, not just with the visual aesthetic, but the pacing, and the tone of the dialogue, and the camera angles... I liked it a lot, and I'll probably buy it on DVD when it comes out. So there, haters.
There was some kind of large accretion of feminism in town today to celebrate the aforementioned Women's Day, but I couldn't get too close, because they gave somebody a microphone and an amplifier and let her do a terrible rendition of Tracy Chapman's Baby Can I Hold You Tonight? at something like half the speed of the original, which drags enough as it is. I swear, she made the song last like eight minutes. I was sad, because obviously the idea of having International Women's Day is to further awareness of the fact that women are awesome (about which, more presently). I suppose I am Letting The Man Get Me Down, but a) it wasn't a very good performance, b) it's not a very good song to begin with, and c) even worse, it's not a particularly empowering expression of womanhood. I mean, Boyzone covered it.
Please understand that I'm being incredibly flippant here, and I in no way seek to denigrate or belittle women, whom I generally consider to be far more awesome than men, despite the fact that they are complicated and tricksy. In fact, it is a woman who is the subject of tonight's Spotlight On Awesome.
This person heard that I was unwell, and decided that I might appreciate a care package. She sent me:
- A lovely note, on equally lovely notepaper ("A brother of a frog: It is always an orchid orchid orchid happily"; words to live by, I think)
- A Where the Wild Things Are t-shirt
- Various accoutrements for doll!matt, including new clothes and a microphone and a guitar
- A mix CD
- A polar bear, tagged with "OMG WTF?"
- A S.P.E.W. badge and an Aleta badge
- A replacement kidney, in case mine actually failed me
I am attempting to go some way towards reciprocating her generosity, but there is no way I could be as thoughtful and wonderful and generally awesome as revena, the very first winner of my Spotlight On Awesome Award.
(The Awescars?)
So, with 22 minutes to go: Women, you are all excellent. I am sorry about The Man. I can't even say I'm doing what I can, because I'm not really. But I'm trying a little bit.