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Jun. 18th, 2008 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionCrowded House: Something So Strong - Chris Bourke. Snicker all you want; I actually like reading celebrity biographies, when they're actually about celebrities I care about (the last one I read was probably 7 years ago or more, & it was Rudy Galindo's Icebreaker; do out gay Mexican American working class figure skaters count as celebrities? In my mind, yes). Anyway, this was pretty much what I signed up for: all the gossip (300+ pages!) about Crowded House. The writing wasn't very good, but I didn't expect it to be. All the crap about how calculating & crass the music industry is was depressing, of course. But I liked hearing about how crass & goofy, alternately, the band could be: dropping pants (or stripping completely) at shows, smoking tons of weed, etc. etc. Also Neil Finn ran the band a bit autocratically, which he admitted, & Paul Hester clearly had mental illness (he mentions seeing a counselor in the book, but I also wonder how much help he really got, especially in the run-up to his suicide, a period not covered here). And Nick Seymour is totally adorable, just like when I saw them live recently. And Mark Hart got jerked around a lot before being asked to join the band. And and and.
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop - Kate Wilhelm. I picked this up out of guilt that I'd never read anything by Wilhelm. Since I'm not a writer, I rather wished there'd been more about the history of Clarion & less explicit writing lessons, but even those mostly managed to be interesting, if sometimes oddly choppy. Also, even if I was a writer, I think having all the writing-lesson bits & exercises reprinted at the back of the book in their own little section would irk me. Not that I could judge, but most of her advice seemed sound--although her exhortation to limit, or if possible eliminate, contractions, especially in dialogue, irked me. A few months ago I read a book w/a character who didn't use any, & it struck me as really stilted & annoying. She also lists dream stories in the category of bad story types that come up frequently in the workshop. That reminded me of Nalo Hopkinson's introduction to Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root, in which she talks about getting submissions for the anthology that were dreams, "a no-no in the science fiction world," but a convention that serves very well within the Caribbean worldview. Anyway, this was a fast & pleasant enough read.
Of Love and Other Monsters - Vandana Singh. Arun is 17 & newly rescued from a fire; his recollection about his life prior is nil. He discovers fairly quickly that he's able to reach out to other minds & influence them; he mostly does this w/good intentions, & it doesn't occur to him that his power could be used cruelly until he learns more about Rahul Moghe, perhaps the only other person on earth that has his powers, & one who uses them to dominate & destroy humans. I liked how Singh described Arun's joyful & curious awareness of other minds. The plot thickens, of course, as Arun tries to figure out what happened to him pre-fire & just what Rahul Moghe's deal is. Um, I'm blanking on other suitably pleased things to say, but I did enjoy this novella quite a bit.
Filipino Women in Detroit: 1945-1955: Oral Histories from the Filipino American Oral History Project of Michigan - Joseph A. Galura & Emily P. Lawsin. This slender book features the oral histories of 3 Filipinas who immigrated to the Detroit area from the Philippines during the 1940s & 1950s. I picked it up because I was lucky enough to see Emily Lawsin doing an oral history workshop last year at the Allied Media Conference (which, sadly, I won't be attending this year). I admit that I, too, was one of the people who never would've thought about Detroit as an area having a Filipino community, so this book was very enlightening, even if the women's stories contain a lot of themes common to immigrant narratives (that's not a criticism!). I appreciated very much that the interviewers (Galura, Lawsin, & a student of theirs), like any good oral historians, took pains to maintain the language that their interviewees used. Two poems that Lawsin wrote based on the interviews are included in the back; she performed one of them at her workshop & I was glad to encounter it again, even if it's not nearly as awesome without Lawsin performing it. I wish that they didn't organize the book topically, though (thus dividing up each interview into separate chapters).
Filter House - Nisi Shawl. Great collection of science fiction short stories, most dealing with topics like racism, colonization, & gender. If you've read some of the other well-known POC science fiction anthologies (ie. either volume of Dark Matter or So Long Been Dreaming), you'll have encountered some of these stories before, as I had, but I enjoyed reading them again, particularly "Deep End," in which prisoners whose minds have been uploaded & transported for years to a new colonizable planet are now being downloaded into new physical bodies. Stories new to me that became favorites were "Wallamelon," (young girl uses magic seeds from Yemaya to protect her neighborhood from racial violence) and "The Pragmatical Princess" (a twist on the twist-now-becoming-almost-a-cliche of a princess saving her own ass from a stereotypically helpless princess-y fate).
The WisCon Chronicles, Volume Two: Provocative Essays on Feminism, Race, Revolution, and the Future - Edited by L. Timmel Duchamp & Eileen Gunn. I sort of bounced off a lot of Volume One, but I mostly really enjoyed this volume, possibly partly because there seemed to be less academic-type stuff in it. Having multiple viewpoints on the controversial Romance of the Revolution panel was excellent, although I am baffled by Chris Nakashima-Brown's contribution (he of the "I like Pol Pot's style of revolution, wiping out everyone & starting over w/the young" comment; that's a paraphrase, but apparently not by much): if it was meant to be a defense of his image of revolution, it failed & didn't make me think any better of him. I loved reading the transcript of Laurie Marks' & Kelly Link's co-performed guest of honor speech; I wonder if I would've felt as warm & fuzzy had I not had the memories of sitting there w/my friends listening to it. I appreciated that the book had so much about race, yes! And the whole section about dealing w/racist & sexist stuff in workshop.
Something I found deeply disturbing came from Lawrence Schimel's piece:
Now, help me out here. Is there some way to read this that isn't offensive? Some way to read this that isn't "Look, you uppity people of color (etc.), shut up & let's get back to the important business of White Women Feminism!"? How privileged some people are to be able to separate out race, class, etc. from feminism, & how timely Schimel's piece is in light of Amanda Marcotte, Seal Press, etc. making asses of themselves trying to do so.
In the bits I ellipsis-ed out, Schimel noted that some attendees come not because they're feminists but because WisCon is known for attracting "cool" writers/people--I've noted myself that some people seem to come to schmooze with writers, not because they're feminists... but I don't think it's because they're OMG SO INTO BEING A PERSON OF COLOR that they ignore feminism or something. I think Schimel is pinning this problem on the wrong group of people here.
Further, as far as a "lack of basic grounding or shared vocabulary," what vocabulary is he assuming is common? There was already the whole thing recently about how people misunderstood Audre Lorde's "master's tools" piece--or are we just talking about people knowing the Big White Feminists here?
Also ellipsis-ed out by me was Schimel saying the danger of "so much self-segregation--of so much programming based specifically around these awards or subgroups--is to not address these issues within the broader context of the convention." Wow. Because when race (for just one example) isn't specifically brought up, how many times is it discussed in a panel? Schimel might do well to read the rest of the anthology, for example where K. Joyce Tsai talks about how the Romance of the Revolution panel focuses on white Western revolutions at the expense of, oh, the rest of the world. Or where Naamen Gobert Tilahun talks about how the Colonialism... in... Space! panel never brought up race. Maybe he should think about that, instead of starting to head down the "Let's blame Those People because they always segregate themselves & it only causes more division & after all we're only human!!!!1" path. Ugh.
Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop - Kate Wilhelm. I picked this up out of guilt that I'd never read anything by Wilhelm. Since I'm not a writer, I rather wished there'd been more about the history of Clarion & less explicit writing lessons, but even those mostly managed to be interesting, if sometimes oddly choppy. Also, even if I was a writer, I think having all the writing-lesson bits & exercises reprinted at the back of the book in their own little section would irk me. Not that I could judge, but most of her advice seemed sound--although her exhortation to limit, or if possible eliminate, contractions, especially in dialogue, irked me. A few months ago I read a book w/a character who didn't use any, & it struck me as really stilted & annoying. She also lists dream stories in the category of bad story types that come up frequently in the workshop. That reminded me of Nalo Hopkinson's introduction to Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root, in which she talks about getting submissions for the anthology that were dreams, "a no-no in the science fiction world," but a convention that serves very well within the Caribbean worldview. Anyway, this was a fast & pleasant enough read.
Of Love and Other Monsters - Vandana Singh. Arun is 17 & newly rescued from a fire; his recollection about his life prior is nil. He discovers fairly quickly that he's able to reach out to other minds & influence them; he mostly does this w/good intentions, & it doesn't occur to him that his power could be used cruelly until he learns more about Rahul Moghe, perhaps the only other person on earth that has his powers, & one who uses them to dominate & destroy humans. I liked how Singh described Arun's joyful & curious awareness of other minds. The plot thickens, of course, as Arun tries to figure out what happened to him pre-fire & just what Rahul Moghe's deal is. Um, I'm blanking on other suitably pleased things to say, but I did enjoy this novella quite a bit.
Filipino Women in Detroit: 1945-1955: Oral Histories from the Filipino American Oral History Project of Michigan - Joseph A. Galura & Emily P. Lawsin. This slender book features the oral histories of 3 Filipinas who immigrated to the Detroit area from the Philippines during the 1940s & 1950s. I picked it up because I was lucky enough to see Emily Lawsin doing an oral history workshop last year at the Allied Media Conference (which, sadly, I won't be attending this year). I admit that I, too, was one of the people who never would've thought about Detroit as an area having a Filipino community, so this book was very enlightening, even if the women's stories contain a lot of themes common to immigrant narratives (that's not a criticism!). I appreciated very much that the interviewers (Galura, Lawsin, & a student of theirs), like any good oral historians, took pains to maintain the language that their interviewees used. Two poems that Lawsin wrote based on the interviews are included in the back; she performed one of them at her workshop & I was glad to encounter it again, even if it's not nearly as awesome without Lawsin performing it. I wish that they didn't organize the book topically, though (thus dividing up each interview into separate chapters).
Filter House - Nisi Shawl. Great collection of science fiction short stories, most dealing with topics like racism, colonization, & gender. If you've read some of the other well-known POC science fiction anthologies (ie. either volume of Dark Matter or So Long Been Dreaming), you'll have encountered some of these stories before, as I had, but I enjoyed reading them again, particularly "Deep End," in which prisoners whose minds have been uploaded & transported for years to a new colonizable planet are now being downloaded into new physical bodies. Stories new to me that became favorites were "Wallamelon," (young girl uses magic seeds from Yemaya to protect her neighborhood from racial violence) and "The Pragmatical Princess" (a twist on the twist-now-becoming-almost-a-cliche of a princess saving her own ass from a stereotypically helpless princess-y fate).
The WisCon Chronicles, Volume Two: Provocative Essays on Feminism, Race, Revolution, and the Future - Edited by L. Timmel Duchamp & Eileen Gunn. I sort of bounced off a lot of Volume One, but I mostly really enjoyed this volume, possibly partly because there seemed to be less academic-type stuff in it. Having multiple viewpoints on the controversial Romance of the Revolution panel was excellent, although I am baffled by Chris Nakashima-Brown's contribution (he of the "I like Pol Pot's style of revolution, wiping out everyone & starting over w/the young" comment; that's a paraphrase, but apparently not by much): if it was meant to be a defense of his image of revolution, it failed & didn't make me think any better of him. I loved reading the transcript of Laurie Marks' & Kelly Link's co-performed guest of honor speech; I wonder if I would've felt as warm & fuzzy had I not had the memories of sitting there w/my friends listening to it. I appreciated that the book had so much about race, yes! And the whole section about dealing w/racist & sexist stuff in workshop.
Something I found deeply disturbing came from Lawrence Schimel's piece:
WisCon has become home to many subsectors of fandom, especially focused around awards: the Tiptree Award [for gender in SF], the Carl Brandon Society Awards [for race], the stillborn Plunkett Award [for class]. While I do not deny that the issues these awards are trying to focus attention on can often be related to feminism, the result has been an overall dilution of a focus on feminism at the convention, combined with a lack of basic grounding or shared vocabulary in feminism and feminist science fiction and fantasy among both the program participants and attendees.... [W]ill WisCon return to its feminist roots (and the political conscience this implies) or continue to be diluted as in recent years?
Now, help me out here. Is there some way to read this that isn't offensive? Some way to read this that isn't "Look, you uppity people of color (etc.), shut up & let's get back to the important business of White Women Feminism!"? How privileged some people are to be able to separate out race, class, etc. from feminism, & how timely Schimel's piece is in light of Amanda Marcotte, Seal Press, etc. making asses of themselves trying to do so.
In the bits I ellipsis-ed out, Schimel noted that some attendees come not because they're feminists but because WisCon is known for attracting "cool" writers/people--I've noted myself that some people seem to come to schmooze with writers, not because they're feminists... but I don't think it's because they're OMG SO INTO BEING A PERSON OF COLOR that they ignore feminism or something. I think Schimel is pinning this problem on the wrong group of people here.
Further, as far as a "lack of basic grounding or shared vocabulary," what vocabulary is he assuming is common? There was already the whole thing recently about how people misunderstood Audre Lorde's "master's tools" piece--or are we just talking about people knowing the Big White Feminists here?
Also ellipsis-ed out by me was Schimel saying the danger of "so much self-segregation--of so much programming based specifically around these awards or subgroups--is to not address these issues within the broader context of the convention." Wow. Because when race (for just one example) isn't specifically brought up, how many times is it discussed in a panel? Schimel might do well to read the rest of the anthology, for example where K. Joyce Tsai talks about how the Romance of the Revolution panel focuses on white Western revolutions at the expense of, oh, the rest of the world. Or where Naamen Gobert Tilahun talks about how the Colonialism... in... Space! panel never brought up race. Maybe he should think about that, instead of starting to head down the "Let's blame Those People because they always segregate themselves & it only causes more division & after all we're only human!!!!1" path. Ugh.