eveninghawk’s links

Reading Dear Sour Aaron today brought a lot of thoughts I’ve had lately to a bit of an edge. I am pleased to see that some of the people that I appreciate and read can manage to have a rational viewpoint despite personal hardships, and definite kudos to Sour Bob on that one. I think he’s trying to do something really honorable. I just hope the Aaron in question manages to get it at some point too.

Women, and girls on their way to becoming women seem to have all kinds of issues. I don’t think coming-of-age is easier on men, but being a woman I am a little more sensitive to the kinds of things that young girls run into. Some other folks I like lots try to provide a source of support for girls/women through www.sheroescentral.com.

In Shanghai I get frustrated by women who seem out to capture a man, and then run his life. Granted, Shanghai is a bit of a twist on the typical China paradigm of the man as the center of the household. The man is still the head of the household, but that includes all the chores while handing over his paycheck to his wife at the end of the month. Still, raising these women to become the seeming she-devils they can be, who are very picky and showy (at least in terms of showing off their income), is no easy task.

I have a fourth grader whose mother has put her on a diet. Parenting isn’t really my cup of tea since I don’t have any children, but I do teach them, and I know that they grow lots. This girl is far from overweight, and her mother is already putting her on a diet. If she doesn’t lose 2kg over the next couple of months, then she loses her book allowance.

This brought to mind a question. I brought an illustration of a sad girl to school and asked my different students what they would do if this fictional girl (a classmate) wouldn’t eat. The first day, most high school students wouldn’t do anything. Fifth grade girls would talk to her, and the boys would find a girl to talk to her. Fourth graders would try to tell her jokes. After more prodding, I found that many of the high school young women would not eat alongside her in some sort of solidarity, since it must be a diet. Only the fifth graders would ask her what was wrong. I wish I worked with junior high school so I could see where the response turns from showing concern into silence.

Am I the only one thinking that sounds messed up?

There was a girl at the end of last year, also a fourth grader (11 years old), who couldn’t take her life and jumped into a nearby river, successfully committing suicide. Teachers here humiliate students who are bad, and it’s usually the boys (commonly referred to as monkeys or kindergarteners). When it turns on the girls, who seem a lot more fragile comparatively, their self-confidence is stripped away. Usually they avoid talking for the greater part of the day.

I know body issues happen all over the place. Most of my high school class back in 1995 fasted a few months before the prom, meanwhile I tried to get out of going. My dancing school classmates fought bouts of fainting. Self-image issues run rampant.

Of late, I have been watching a tv show in these parts called Farewell Vancouver, which actually deals with domestic violence. It surprised me in a tv show here in China, especially since it outlines a woman’s inability to get a divorce from an abusive husband. It’s most certainly a spin on most tv shows where life in China is idyllic. Almost the entire show takes place in Vancouver, and the characters are all trying to be permanent residents. I haven’t seen the end, so I don’t know if the woman stuck in the marriage manages to get a divorce or not (there are 2 more episodes for me to watch).

It was interesting to see the show draw parallels of a man who finally figures out what he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t see how a woman could remain in an abusive relationship, and he ends up as an assistant to the defending lawyer in a domestic abuse case. Through the wife’s testimony, he starts to see what he couldn’t understand. I thought this was a phenomenal thing to see on tv here. I’ll have to ask around to see what some of the folks here actually think of it.

Fish farming, as with any farming, requires very unhealthy habits to make it a commercially viable playing field. At least this is the case in the United States. Why? Because we like fatty meat eating fish. We like salmon. We like cod. We would never buy a fish that, like us, doesn’t eat good meat.

Well, what happens when you farm these critters? They need to eat meat. Where does that meat come from? Usually wild fish stocks.

Wait a minute, I thought we were fish farming in order to save the wild fish stocks? Nope, not if you’re out to make money. It’s a confused agenda, and that’s really the problem. If you’re setting out to provide a holistic solution to the species depletion of wild stocks, then you can’t raise meat eaters. Not right now. I am amused that research money goes into trying to convince salmon to be vegetarians.

So I get really frustrated when I see reports that the NOAA wants to increase aquaculture’s market presence from $1 billion to $5 billion per year. That money isn’t going to come from vegetarian fish anytime soon.

She is a fantastic writer, and her website is well worth checking out. Especially if you like her books or want to be a writer. (www.ursulakleguin.com)

There is a great interview with her posted at The Guardian. I think it is much worth reading. I especially liked this bit on talking about the meanings behind books:

This the kind of question I cannot answer. Or will not, I don’t know which. What the book says, the book says best in its own words. For me to interpret it, translate it into generalities and abstractions, seems perverse and foolish. I am not a teacher, not a philosopher, not a scholar, I am a novelist. I think in story. I follow where the story takes me. I try to understand where I am going. I try to tell that. But what the story “means”, in any language but its own, is for the reader to decide - no?

I have the utmost respect for Cory Doctorow and his web presence. He is one of the folks involved in boing boing. He has two novels out and a collection of short stories, all of which you can find at craphound.com. His style is very easy to read, and the content reminded me how much I like spec fic, which I haven’t read since my college days really. Neil Gaiman’s writing is much more fantastical, and aside from Gaiman’s writing and that of Patricia McKillip, I haven’t read much sci-fi/fantasy anything since 2001.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is only enhanced by its references. Disneyworld does, in fact, hold some of my most vivid childhood memories. It is what the park is designed to do. This future-view of the park and the world is great, and serves for a great read. I read the online edition of the book, since it’s accessible for me here in China. I am curious if any of the sci-fi organizations here have gotten their hands on translating the book. I think many of the aspects of Disneyworld would provide a challenge, since the park and its pieces not a societal known here. It would take a bit of explaining to get across the idea of Tomorrowland etc. In fact, I think this is part of the reason folks in China couldn’t quite decide what to make of Pirates of the Caribbean. My experience with the movie was greatly influenced by my memory and love of the ride.

Doctorow knows his stuff about the park, which is refreshing to me. O’Reilly has a neat interview with the writer posted, which may be a good read before or after reading the book. The part about this book that attracted me was the idea of whuffie, a social esteem tabulation that serves as currency. In a world where there is no shortage of anything except space, and death has a cure, money doesn’t work the same either. Essentially, think of social standing and financial power dictated by google rank, and you have the right idea.

The book makes use of a Creative Commons licence, and that is another neat factor for me. I am interested that Doctorow was able to convince his publication folks that this was a good idea. There has been an addition to this discussion in a speech called Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books released to the Public Domain. It’s all worth the read, and I am certainly looking forward to reading the next novel Eastern Standard Tribe.

I have been sitting in an internet bar looking for a form of interesting auditory substance to support both my reading and writing and happened across a little nugget that I should have noticed much earlier.

6 music from the BBC is truly quite neat. I like the station a lot. All of the channels are quite worth surfing, in my opinion, since you could always afford to learn something.

I am listening to one of their programs called the

I really liked this tune called “Plastic Lions” from Eberg on a show called Freak Zone. The show I’m listening to is being guest-hosted by Paul Morley, and it’s very interesting. The fact that this is an Icelandic musician’s piece seriously has me thinking that there is something going on there that has a pull to me. I really like this, and I wonder if maybe there is something there that has a tie to a creative part of me.

My curiosity was piqued by an interview with a band called Scissor Sisters. I feel truly out of the loop when I listen to stuff like this, but their interview and musical tastes made me feel welcome all over again. It was a nice feeling, compared to the horrors of taking a look at the MTV website.

I really appreciate musicians who work hard and make a presence online. There’s something about it that I just find really appealing.

Aside from which I like good musicians who make it possible to listen to at least some of what they do while I am here overseas.

Today I followed a link to Terra Naomi’s work. It’s really neat, in my little opinion, and definitely worth checking out.

The other female performer online who amazes me is
Vienna Teng. Also most definitely worth checking out.

I find myself never quite encouraged by “encouragement for writers.”

There’s not too much to say. Making a living as a writer sucks. There’s a lot of putting your work (or babies) out to slaughter. That’s a hard way to get by, and if it’s not what folks want, then you can’t really pay the rent. Gee, hand over the glamour on a silver platter. Regardless, I like writing and would like to make a go of getting some pieces published.

Neil Gaiman actaully managed to post an answer to a question about being a writer, and I was inspired. I was floored, because I don’t normally go for anything that sounds “inspirational,” but this really did just that. Inspired me. Here’s an excerpt:

The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write. ~Neil Gaiman

It’s most certainly a whole response worth reading, if you ask me. Meanwhile, I’m off to work on some more writing.

For anyone who knows who he is, the image work of Yoshitaka Amano is breathtaking. I wish more fantasy art out there worked liked this. I admire his work so much, and it really does nearly make me want to cry because it’s so beautiful. Go take a look for yourself.

I purchased and read an ebook. I worried that reading on screen for a long time would bug me, but the opposite is true. I realized that I already read a lot on screen just checking the news and writing I like.

Ombria in Shadow is a great book. Patricia McKillip’s true conquest is one of language. It took me two chapters to really find a groove with the reading, but once I did, the book wasn’t long enough. I kept wanting the chapters to be longer, I kept wanting to spend more time with the characters. For me, that’s a mark of great writing.

For anyone who reads fantasy, here’s a chance for something different. For anyone who pointedly doesn’t read fantasy, here’s a chance for something different. I would definitely say that this is a reader’s book.

Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality test? It’s a little more insightful than anything that most blog quizzes have to offer, which is appropriate considering it’s development in psychology. Regardless, bloginality has offered up a much shorter and less painful version of the test online. It’s actually a pretty accurate boiling down of all the questions.

My friend Josh Shaine once had me take this test in a class for HSSP over at MIT, and at the time I came out borderline. INTP/INFP. What’s a little scary is that it still reads that way today for me.

INTP:Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

What’s interesting is that this is a lot of the things about me that everone finds frustrating (if you follow the link there’s a much more lengthy and eloquent description). Basically it means I have a tendency to over-correct people beyond their own limits because I think it worth making a point, and try to refrain from major confrontation and making a scene. The other really big one going on there is fear of failure. There are some areas where I’ve gotten better. I am constantly waiting for someone to tell me where I am going wrong with my art or writing, and these things used to be unshared and “untouchable” to me. Now I will give away artwork without secretly wanting to spite the person I gave it to. This probably shows a lot of why I like languages and occasionally shock myself at being good at math.

INFP:Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving

Pretty much this is my internal sappy side that is always being stuffed back in the box, but is most certainly the more fantastical side of my writing and most certainly a creative home. Maybe this is why when I read and get started on an editorial, there is no way that I can go back to my fiction work. The gears just don’t switch that easily. The one that caught me in the profile was that some INFPs can take tech info and put it into everyday language. That’s most definitely one of my stronger points. Actually, I can’t write the highbrow other stuff just because it feels fake on some level. It’s not the way I think, and I hate writing any other way.

Overall, between the two desciptions you’ve got me pretty much 100% of the time. I’ve “acted” more extroverted as situations have required, but it’s always a lot of work and requires a good shower afterwards. It’s an interesting overall way to think about things for sure. Worth thinking over.