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[Dec. 28th, 2009|09:41 pm] |
Sci-fi and feminism. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fjm wrote a post urging readers not to put up with there being no women on sci-fi convention panels, anthologies or in sci-fi top 10 lists. It was a good point, because when women are 35-50% of the authors, not inviting a single one is pretty lame.
Sci-fi author mevennen thinks it was a reasonable post, but is sick of having to talk about 'Our Stuggle' because the situation isn't anywhere near as one-sided as it's made out to be.
"A stack of novel-length editors in pro SF are women. Sheila Williams edits Asimov's, last time I looked, and Shawna edits fiction at ROF. A lot of agents are women. A lot of writers in SF and Fantasy are obviously female and I would contend that fantasy is now getting close to female dominated. I have sat on the InterZone editorial board - a magazine that gets a lot of flack for sexism.
...
The blokes have done a pretty good job in terms of personal support. Increasingly over a decade of pro writing, the lack of support and in one case, the overt hostility, that I've felt in my own career has been from female reviewers, critics and con members.
...
I've had a lot of reviews from men, far less from women. ... With assholes like these - Jesus, give me dear old Brian Aldiss and his generational imperviousness to the girlies any day."
The days of sci-fi not including any women are long gone (and especially fantasy, since even further back. That said, clueless nutcase Bidisha managed to write an entire piece for the Guardian on feminist SF listing loads of authors and not mention Ursula Le Guin once, when UKL has been at it since the 60's...)
What's more worrying is that (much like Joss Whedon's eternal question from the press 'Why do you write these Strong Female Characters?' the answer being 'Why doesn't everyone, all the time? How is that even a question?') the "women in SF!" convention panels just won't die. It's not helping. It immediately sets any women as a struggling minority in a male-dominated arena and neither of those are true anymore. Women don't face prejudice in reviews, or book sales. It's not always 50/50, but keeping it looking as though there's a massive oppressive inequality doesn't solve anything. Let the "but you're women! In SF!" convention panels die.
*I do not include the frighteningly huge "vampire romance" and other 'paranormal romance' genres which have exploded in the last 5 years. They're almost solely written by women for women, which is great, but not what most people think of when imagining beardy old men writing hard-science SF. |
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[Dec. 28th, 2009|03:29 pm] |
kleine__hexe went above and beyond this christmas, and got me this print from Laura Taylor.
Which is impressive, because Laura isn't officially selling prints at the moment, so kleine__hexe wrote to her and asked if she'd put one in the post specially. Which Laura did. And signed it on the back
"To Stephen, who loves pretty girls. ♥ Laura Taylor" - it's spooky, isn't it? How did she know? :)
Anyway, I figured it was a good excuse to do a flickr summary. This is Laura Taylor:
The girl in the print is Carré:
And this is Morgan. Between Laura Taylor and Lou O'Bedlam, the two girls get photographed quite a lot. This is a very good thing:
Laura has some amazingly atmospheric shots too (not just soft-focus gorgeous ladies)
 
Here's Laura's Flickr for further browsing. |
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[Dec. 24th, 2009|11:13 am] |
Right, I'm off to see the parents in Brighton until the 27th or so.
May not have any internet, in which case MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, see you when I get back :)
Paper Trees
Originally uploaded by Steve B, UK
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| Utter, utter Amazon fail |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|01:14 pm] |
Aha. Okaaaaay.
Got *three* emails from Amazon in the past 24 hours explaining how they can't, for whatever reason, send the stuff I kinda wanted them to by .co.uk OR .com.
Which means several of you won't be getting presents from me until the New Year! :) Or possibly the 26th or so.
Play 'em off, keyboard cat... |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|03:39 pm] |
I just sat and watched the whole of Games Britannia: The joystick generation, the 3rd episode of BBC's Games Britannia series. It focuses on British contributions from the 1970's to today, and the rise of roleplaying games and computer games. If any of the following make sense to you, you will love it:
Lord of the Rings, painfully geeky D&D, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, Manic Miner, Peter Molyneux, Elite, Populous, Black&White, Lara Croft, Wipeout, Carmageddon, Grand Theft Auto, Little Big Planet, Warcraft, MUD (the original!), mmorpgs in general...
Good episode, but what was really intriguing was the flashes of ye olde boardgames which are presumably in the previous shows - time to hit iplayer, I think! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|08:13 pm] |
1846 recipe for "A Yorkshire Christmas Pie", courtesy of Brass Goggles:
"First, bone a turkey, a goose, a brace of young pheasants, four partridges, four woodcocks, a dozen snipes, four grouse, and four widgeons; then boil and trim a small York ham and two tongues..." |
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| Solstice! |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|06:40 pm] |
Newgrange. Originally uploaded by laser927
This is the Sun coming in through the long tunnel of the barrow at Newgrange at dawn on the Winter Solstice.
Researching a chapter I wrote for a book discussing the Sun in mythology, I came across a quote saying that the sunlight enters Newgrange quickly and devastatingly, "like a sword" rather than the typically softer creep of Dawn.
For everyone celebrating the solstice and whole Yule season I hope you have a lovely celebration - and that the New Year brings good things! |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 19th, 2009|02:13 pm] |
Gorgeous, gorgeous track used in the latest ep of Dollhouse, by Swedish grammy-winner Anna Ternheim.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 19th, 2009|02:50 am] |
Best Christmas song ever.
White Wine In The Sun - by Tim Minchin.
I really like Christmas
It's sentimental, I know, but I just really like it
I am hardly religious:
I'd rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tu-tu ...to... be honest.
And yes, I have all of the usual objections to consumerism
To the commercialisation of an ancient religion,
To the westernisation of a dead Palestinian
Press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer.
...But I still really like it.
I'm looking forward to Christmas,
Though I'm not expecting a visit from Jesus.
I'll be seeing my dad,
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum,
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I'll be seeing my dad,
My sisters and brother, my gran and my mum,
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I don't go in for ancient wisdom.
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means that they're worthy.
I get freaked out by churches.
Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords,
but the lyrics are dodgy.
And yes, I have all of the usual objections
To the mis-education of children
Who in tax-exempt institutions
Are taught to externalise blame
And to feel ashamed
And to judge things as plain right or wrong.
...But I quite like the songs.
I'm not expecting big presents.
The old combination of socks, jocks and chocolates is just fine by me.
Cos I'll be seeing my dad,
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum.
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
I'll be seeing my dad,
My brother and sisters, my gran and my mum.
They'll be drinking white wine in the sun.
And you, my baby girl
My jetlagged infant daughter
You'll be handed 'round the room
Like a puppy at a primary school
And you won't understand
But you will learn someday
That wherever you are and whatever you face
These are the people who'll make you feel safe in this world
My sweet blue-eyed girl.
And if, my baby girl,
When you're twenty-one or thirty-one
And Christmas comes around,
And you find yourself nine thousand miles from home,
You'll know what...ever... comes
Your brothers and sisters and me and your Mum
Will be waiting for you in the sun.
Whenever you come -
Your brothers and sisters, your aunts and your uncles
Your grandparents, cousins and me and your mum,
They'll all be waiting for you in the sun.
Drinking white wine in the sun,
Darlin' when Christmas comes
We'll be waiting for you in the sun.
Drinking white wine in the sun
Waiting for you in the sun
Waiting for you
Waiting...
I, I really like Christmas.
It's sentimental, I know.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 18th, 2009|12:22 am] |
Simon Pegg thinks you should watch this review of the Phantom Menace, and he's right.
It carefully explains exactly why the film has no excitement, no actual characters, lots of people who say "we must do this thing!" and then either fail to act or end up doing the opposite, why the logic isn't even internally consistent, and why the lightsaber fights don't work. He doesn't even mention midi-chlorians, which I think is frankly generous.
Entire case proven by asking people to describe C-3PO's personality. They immediately come out with several adjectives each:
'Prissy'
'anal-retentive'
'bumbling'
'scaredy-cat'
'timid'
'comic relief'
'high-strung'
'effeminate'
and then describe Queen Amidala:
'...'
'...'
'...That is going to be f***ing impossible, because she doesn't have a personality.'
'...Monotone?'
He's right on every point, but I'd missed loads of the THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE bits in Phantom Menace. I knew it had no drama or sympathetic characters, but the amount of bonkers is amazing when it's pointed out clearly. And there are moments in this review when he drops the comedy and just states something in detail and you realise that he's absolutely nailed it, and also that the Phantom Menace is a giant steaming piece of ...but then we knew that already.
WARNING: LOTS OF SWEARING FROM THE START.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 17th, 2009|10:21 pm] |
I've heard some fun things about North Carolina over the years. Okay, that's not quite true... all the events which have happened to people I directly know are along the lines of wife-beating, being totally outcast from society for daring to get a divorce from said wife-beating husband, fundie christians pulling the usual ostracism and less usual violence against non-christians, allegedly average people doing exactly the same thing to anyone who looks funny, and a number of people I only met briefly who had really, really stupid beliefs on religion and politics. In short, it comes off worse than South Carolina, and that was hardly a bastion of liberal tolerance or informed thought. (Yes, I've been to both - and Georgia, but not Tennessee. I realise my view is skewed and that small-town life is more conservative everywhere, but that's what I honestly have direct experience of).
Still, even I hadn't realised that the Constitution of North Carolina specifically says that only Christians can hold office.
"Article 6, section 8 of the state constitution says: “The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”
Cecil Bothwell won the election, but oh no - he's an atheist! Can't have that. His opponents are complaining (yes, in 2009) that he should be disqualified for being a godless heathen.
Unfortunately for them "article VI of the U.S. Constitution says: “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” So they'll have to put up with the properly elected but christ-denying sinner for now.
Anyone got *nice* stories of NC? |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 17th, 2009|05:57 pm] |
We have snow!
Richmond Park today (photo from the Telegraph.co.uk):
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 17th, 2009|12:01 am] |
So the UK version of X-factor usually gets the Christmas no.1 with some bland manufactured rubbish. And this year, there's a move by the public to get Rage against the Machine's "Killing in the name of" to no.1 instead, mostly because it contains the words "F*** you I won't do what you tell me!" and that's the message the public wish to send to cynical corporate slush-merchants who assume they own the charts (and to Simon Cowell).
Now, lots of people have pointed out that Sony also own Rage against the Machine's catalogue, and the protest is therefore merely giving more money to them. Moreover, if the Corporation know X-factor will generate a protest vote every year and additional sales, they'll just put MORE money into X-factor next time.
But I disagree! The protest isn't about making Sony hurt, or getting them to change their ways. They won't notice, and neither will Simon Cowell - everyone's richer than God, this won't even register. What the protest does is literally say 'F*** you' to the inevitability of Corporations choosing the xmas number one.
And it's not just playing into Sony's hands (even if they did plant the choice of RatM, which they could well have done). Next year, they might not benefit from the protest vote, but more to the point I WANT Sony to get the money. If they make money from bands like Rage Against The Machine, they'll sign more of those bands more readily. And I like that. They deserve money for putting that out there. (And Cowell doesn't get anything from RatM.)
This protest doesn't only succeed if Sony feel pain and change their ways, or X-factor goes off-air. It succeeds when the public say "no" with sweary anarchist feeling to the pre-ordained choice of the song in the top slot. Yeah, X-factor will be number 2 anyway, and no, Sony won't change a thing. But the public will have said "no", and that will go down in the list of "Christmas Number 1's" and get airtime. Good enough for me.
(The link above is to a fan-made version where the X-factor stars are shown singing the song. Contains loud swearing and general f-you sentiments, which I like.)
UPDATE:
So RatM went to UK breakfast radio to sing the song. And the show had to cut back to the presenters when the inevitable swearing started.
"Sorry, we needed to get rid of that because that suddenly turned into something we weren't expecting," she told listeners. "Well, we were expecting it and we asked them not to do it and they did it anyway."
Campbell had earlier introduced the song by saying: "Let's get Christmassy!"
"This was always gonna happen!" said (a fan). Another added: "She actually sounds surprised they didn't do what she told them to do." |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 16th, 2009|07:31 pm] |
Ah, BBC fail. In response to the Ugandan Government's upcoming debate on whether to execute gays, the BBC website asked:
"Should homosexuals face execution?"
and proposed that its viewers have their own debate about it.
(They've since changed the title to "Should Uganda debate gay execution?" and closed comments on the page. Nice.) I can see that they've tried to talk around the issue and elaborate on why they're asking, but the fact is the precise question they tabled isn't acceptable. I sent a complaint:
"Should homosexuals face execution?"
Replace the word with "Black people". Or "Jews", or "women, (for their inherent sinfulness?)" and you'll see how nonsensical and offensive it is to even propose this debate in the form of a question.
"Has Uganda gone too far?"
That's suggesting there's a possibility they haven't. Worse, it says the BBC debate is on how FAR to persecute homosexuals, and that lesser levels of action might be considered justified.
I'm all for drawing attention to issues of the day and debating them, but the question over Uganda's law is "this is clearly a human-rights crime, so what can we do about it?" not *whether* their stance could ever be correct.
I'm male and straight, and I found your page offensive. I have no doubt you'll get a tiny minority of British people answering "no, they haven't gone too far, we need to kill the gays". The worth of learning which percentage of your readers are hateful morons doesn't outweigh the BBC's duty of care to the public. Your services reach too many people for you to be sending the message that there are any valid points to consider in this issue."
I know this was probably just a web-debate office junior trying to stir people up in a tabloid/daytime tv fashion, but you can't afford that kind of sloppiness on life and death issues. And that's precisely what this is - death penalty in Uganda, but plenty of danger everywhere else too. The UK is one of the more tolerant countries, and given our hate-crime stats that's a sad, sad statement. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 15th, 2009|10:34 pm] |
There are no words for how messed up this is.
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 14th, 2009|06:57 pm] |
Bloody hell Camden, cynically jumping on the latest subculture fashion fad is what you do, have you seriously not managed Steampunk by now?
Utterly fruitless shopping trip today, have got busy on ebay instead. Victorian era kit really shouldn't be this hard to find, but all they had was 1700s or 1920's-40s.
Girl in welded-statue shop slightly bemused when I asked if she had any spare bags of cogs. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|03:10 pm] |
Don't, whatever you do, start playing Peggle on PC, Mac or ipod/iphone. I'm just saying. Because it'll eat your life. Peggle: it's like crack, only cheaper. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 13th, 2009|01:17 pm] |
Quick shout for help from London-based computery folks:
The lovely pixylatedpyxie recently moved in with two friends and has wireless broadband coming into the new house, but can't get reception on her PC upstairs. It may need setting up from scratch, or aerials/etc which aren't in place yet. The PC downstairs which is connected directly to the modem gets broadband fine. Does anyone have a spare afternoon next week to give the setup a sanity check? Even some basics over the phone would help at this point. She will pay well in expenses and chocolate!
(This post on behalf of Ella who is going slowly insane due to being entirely without internets). |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|03:19 pm] |
Oooh look, it's a Snap Day. Haven't had one of those in a while.
Lack of sunlight is hitting me hard at the moment. Am also feeling incredibly lonely, even when I'm socialising - this is a surprise, and not normal for me. It could be a side-effect of a few things.
In the last week I've been amusingly crazy. Quite lucid and all, but getting lots of heavy-duty dreams and generally being 'away with the fairies' as the quaint expression puts it. In the end I had to deliberately shut it down and smack myself in the face with grounding and real-world, mundane stuff. Nice to know I can still lose it with the best of them, but the timing is inconvenient and I need some real sleep. Anyway, last time this happened I felt pretty detached from reality, so that could be contributing. There was a reason I quit Shamanism.
The other possibility is that the loneliness is a hangover from poly. The intensity of my relationships has been very high this year, and lots of intimacy becomes quite normal. When that's not there (ie: with my friends instead of lovers) I think my average feeling for 'what a meaningful connection is' has been moved to such an extent that everything else feels less. It'd be interesting to see if this is a known phenomenon in poly.
It doesn't help that at the same time my relationships have all become long-distance, and I'm effectively home alone most of the week. I got into poly from a realisation that I needed high emotional intensity on an almost daily basis, and ironically it's become the opposite. (What other people call "unwanted levels of drama" I call "makes life worth living"). So I'm probably hitting the equivalent of endorphin drop or something. I don't feel any less towards my friends than I did, maybe it's not about that... more a case of only being able to focus on the problem, and everything else being paler by comparison. I'm really happy to see everyone, it's just not making the difference regarding loneliness somehow.
All in all, today could be better.
Was in Borders yesterday, watching people's expressions as they realised what they were hearing over the tannoy ("Yeah, you could totally be a Part. Time. Model...") Now have it stuck in my head. Those guys rule. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 11th, 2009|02:29 am] |
Can anyone recommend places to buy steampunk or victorian gents costumes around London or Brighton? The only good website which sells directly is US-based and the cost to the UK becomes double the (already too high) price.
Frock coats, pocket-watch and chain, etc? (Yes, I have tried ebay, etsy, various historical reenactment sites. Some nice ideas, but no uk sellers.) |
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