L.J. Writes

Bird by Bird was the first book recommended in a thread I started about writing advice books over at thewrite_away community. I've made it something of a project to read the recommendations in my free time. I started with Bird and finished it over a weekend traveling to another city and back.

( Here's what I thought )

So, bumps and all, Bird by Bird is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in a perspective on the ups and downs of a writer's life, especially one that is funny and compassionate at the same time. I liked it a lot.

Phyllis Ann Karr's Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne were published in 1980 and 1982 respectively. The sorceress Frostflower and warrior Thorn hail from the Tanglelands, the kind of gritty, dangerous pseudo-Medieval European fantasy setting that is very much at home in the eighties and which is seeing a resurgence in the aughts and teens of this century. (If the descriptors "gritty," "dangerous," and "pseudo-Medieval" remind you of anything, Frostflower and Thorn begins with a note that it was first written during George R. R. Martin's Clarke College workshop in 1977.)

( Worldbuilding, pacing, feministing )

Frozen is, in my memory, the first movie I have been agitating to see for an entire month. This began when I saw the Let It Go clip on YouTube via Love, Joy, Feminism. Like Libby Anne I was deeply moved by the way Elsa felt free to break away and express everything about herself she had been forced to repress all her life. Watching it, I tasted again the lonely exhilaration of that moment when you forget about being good and dutiful and give yourself permission to be your own self, a necessary if not final step to healing.

This began my hankering to see the movie, which to my disappointment would not open in Korea for another month. I all but marked the day on my calendar and pestered the husband about it every few days, until the long-suffering man took me to see it yesterday on opening night.

( Here be many spoilers )

For all its flaws and limitations Frozen has come further than just about any Disney movie since Lilo and Stitch, and shows that feminist storytelling is good storytelling, period. That's only natural, since stories are about human concerns and feminist themes are issues that affect people in their relation to gender and sex. Feminism, in other words, is about huge swathes of life. Leave those out and you can't tell the full truth of human experience. Frozen goes in the right direction. My only complaint is that it doesn't go far enough.

One-line summary: A suspicious tailor joins Dr. Bashir for lunch. It's all downhill from there.

( Synopsis )

( Can I nickname this episode Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? )

That trust, a calculated, mature trust with eyes wide open to the ramifications and consequences, is both the force that makes friends for the Federation and sometimes makes it vulnerable to its enemies. It's the balance the Federation's peoples have struck in a perilous universe and it paid off in this episode, and in the form of Deep Space Nine, a place where friends and enemies from across the worlds are brought together for stories in infinite and enjoyable combinations.

(06/14/13: Updated with synopsis. Spoilers and some bad language.)

I've started watching Deep Space Nine on fairladyz2005's recommendation, and it is certainly worthy of high praise. I've finished the first season and like it so much I've decided to write a series of posts talking briefly about my impressions.

One-line summary: Sisko falls into a hole and must dig his way out.

( Comments )

Overall "The Emissary" does what a pilot episode should do, setting up a premise for the whole series that will be a source of new conflicts and stories. The episode gave me high hopes for the show, the first season of which was a mixed bag with some real highlights. More on that later; for now, Luna out.