the essential kit

urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit the essential kit kit kit 2013-05-20T09:12:00Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:882887 Recent Reads: TOUCH OF POWER 2013-05-20T09:12:00Z 2013-05-20T09:12:00Z <p><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/touchofpower_mariasnyder.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/touchofpower_mariasnyder.jpg" alt="touchofpower_mariasnyder" width="302" height="475" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9857" /></a> Maria’s one of the other Luna alumni who got picked up at the same time I did. She’s done a kind of splendid shooting star rise, reaching the NYT with first book, and going on to take the YA world by storm since then.</p> <p>This book might work better for that audience. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it (except a language thing Maria’s chosen to do in all her books which I understand but find jarring), but I was underwhelmed, which leaves me feeling like probably I just wasn’t a good audience for it. There were a few things I liked quite a lot–Avry, the heroine, is a healer who assumes other peoples’ injuries and sickness to heal them, and the way that worked is nice. There are murderous plants, which is always a good touch. There’s a romance that–</p> <p>–actually, that’s one of my problems with the book, I think. The romantic interest pretty much comes across as a jerk, and I not only never warmed up to him, but I didn’t really believe Avry doing so either. Particularly since there’s a much nicer alternative. </p> <p>Maria’s got a YA SF thing that I’ll be picking up, but I don’t expect to read any more of this series. Ah well. Can’t like ‘em all, even when people you know write them. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:882509 Kitsnaps: Cork City Hall 2013-05-20T06:29:45Z 2013-05-20T06:29:45Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9841" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/corkcityhall.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/corkcityhall.jpg" alt="Cork City Hall" width="800" height="483" class="size-full wp-image-9841" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Cork City Hall</figcaption></figure> This is probably the first night shot I ever took that was worth anything. It was taken during a photography course offered in Cork, which I enjoyed enormously and should probably do more of. Although not in Cork. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:882258 Well, shit. 2013-05-19T19:22:18Z 2013-05-19T19:22:18Z <p>I, despite several warning signs to the contrary, managed to be *so certain* that the Meat Loaf Farewell Tour concert that I bought tickets for in _December_ was tonight, May 19, that I did not check the tickets until I got to the concert venue tonight and nobody was there.</p> <p>The concert was on Friday, the 17th.</p> <p>Fuck.</p> <p>And we didn’t get the house we were hoping to.</p> <p>I’m going to go watch Sherlock and drown my sorrows now. *sigh*</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:881460 there we are. 2013-05-17T08:49:32Z 2013-05-17T08:49:32Z <p>I couldn’t post to LJ for the past 24 hours or so, so there’s a sudden rash of posts from me as things propagate. Sorry.</p> <p>So far this week I’ve won tickets to FF6 and an upgrade to my Meat Loaf concert ticket. I clearly need to go buy lotto tickets tonight.</p> <p>Young Indiana and I went to the Botanic Gardens the other day. A couple of kids around age 6 saw us and stood there grinning at us so hard I thought their faces would explode. It was a little freaky, actually. Just standing there grinning, they were. Finally I realized it was because I was SPIDER-MAN. I’m so used to wearing that hoodie I forget its effect on small children. :)</p> <p>We finished watching s1 <i>Arrow</i> last night. HOLY CRAP! OMG! HOLY CRAP! HOLY CRAP! Then we had to watch an episode of <i>Castle</i> as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing#Unicorn_chaser">unicorn chaser</a>. Fortunately it was the s5 Christmas episode, so it made an excellent unicorn chaser. *palipitations*</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:881274 Kitsnaps: Cork City Skyline 2013-05-17T08:31:27Z 2013-05-17T08:31:27Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9808" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cork_skyline.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/cork_skyline.jpg" alt="Cork City Skyline" width="800" height="402" class="size-full wp-image-9808" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Cork City Skyline</figcaption></figure> The cathedral featured is St Finbarr’s, and the towers there are known as…I forget what. It’s something to do with being financed by the Irish stout makers, so they’re Guinness and Beamish, or something like that. :) And it’s possible that the <a href="http://mizkit.com/kitsnaps-idolatry/">apse picture</a> was taken inside there. :) </p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:880959 Picoreview: Moulin Rouge 2013-05-17T08:31:12Z 2013-05-17T08:31:12Z <p>Picoreview: <i>Moulin Rouge</i> is still exactly the kind of thing you’d like if you like that kind of thing, and definitely not if you don’t.</p> <p>One of the local cinemas is doing a Baz Luhrmann month running up to his <i>Gatsby</i> this week, so Ted and I went to see <i>Moulin Rouge</i> (still can’t type that without typing Rogue first) last night, for probably the 3rd or 4th time on a big screen for me, at least.</p> <p>I’ve no doubt become more accustomed to Nichole Kidman’s voice through repeated listening to the soundtrack, so she seemed vocally much stronger to me than she did when I originally saw the film. Ted mentioned that too, so that was kind of a nice unexpected bonus. And it also kind of struck me this time, as (weirdly) it hadn’t before, that the fragile breathiness of her voice had a pretty good in-story reason for it. Indeed, every time she really belts it out she coughs or passes out, so yeah.</p> <p>I always think of Kidman as a particularly reserved, ice-princessy sort of actor, which makes her flinging herself around squealing (Luhrmann must have just had everybody check their dignity at the door for that film. “Like A Virgin”, OMG. Still. Even knowing it’s coming, OMG. :)) in the first elephant scene just all the more agonizing. And funny. Ewan McGregor’s expression of bewildered horrorified embarrassment is just wonderful in that scene.</p> <p>As is, of course, his sudden burst into song. The first time I saw it, the film already had me quite thoroughly by the time a bunch of old guys began singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (a song which I now feel basically exists to be snarled out by old men at brothels), but it was “This Is Your Song” that pretty much made me fall in love with the story. And with Christian, just as Satine does. :)</p> <p>I also especially and particularly like “Roxanne” and the tango scene. It’s better in the DVD extras, mind you, because they have the whole uncut tango from all four camera angles, and although I think the cutting was very good and necessary for the structure of the storyline, I come from the Fred Astaire school of thought, which is I want to see the goddamned dance, stop screwing around with multiple camera angles and cuts. But the raw power of that scene just thrills me.</p> <p>Kidman’s costume for “The Show Must Go On” is still one of the most gorgeous pieces of clothing I’ve ever seen. I found myself actually holding my breath in anticipation of seeing it. It may also be my favorite song in the film, although I didn’t even know it before seeing <i>Moulin Rouge</i> (Rogue) the first time.</p> <p>Some of the super-fast-forward things bothered my eyes more than they did when I saw it in the theatre before. I don’t know if that’s because I was very tired, or because the theatre was smaller than the others I’ve seen it in so I was closer to the screen, or what, but a couple of times I was quite o.O over those bits. Overall, though, delighted to have gone and seen it again.</p> <p>They’re doing a John Hughes retrospective next. Who wants to go see <i>The Breakfast Club</i> with me? I’ve never seen it on the big screen!</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:880824 Kitsnaps: At Rest 2013-05-17T05:01:08Z 2013-05-17T08:30:58Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9807" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ban_appai_dock.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ban_appai_dock.jpg" alt="At Rest" width="800" height="532" class="size-full wp-image-9807" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">At Rest</figcaption></figure> All is at rest.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:880575 Picoreview: Fast & Furious 6 2013-05-15T09:48:24Z 2013-05-15T09:48:27Z <p>Picoreview: <i>Fast & Furious 6</i> does what it says on the tin.</p> <p>I won tickets to see a preview and Ted, who is a most excellent husband, told me to go ahead and go, despite the impracticalities thereof. So I wrangled up a friend and we went.</p> <p>It is a completely ridiculous movie. There are moments of inhuman feats so outrageous one wonders when Vin & Crew got the Superhero upgrade. There are two <i>epic</i> lady fights. There are fast cars. There are explosions. </p> <p>There are basically two white dudes in the movie, and one of them is the bad guy.</p> <p>This, really, is the true reason I love the F&F franchise. I mean, the fact that Vin Diesel’s voice registers at the same frequency my hormones do doesn’t hurt, but I love these movies mostly because they’ve got the most diverse and interesting casts of anything I’ve ever seen out of Hollywood. In the last movie there were perhaps technically three white guys, but one of them had a beard to his eye sockets, making his ethnicity appear to be Caveman. The rest of the leads in this one are Vin and The Rock, whose ethnic backgrounds strike me as flat-out melting-pot American, two black guys, an Israeli woman, three Hispanic women, Gina Carano whose ancestry qualifies her strongly for Wonder Woman but I have no idea what it actually is (some smattering of Italian, she says, but beyond that, look, if she wants to say Amazon, <i>I</i> ain’t gonna argue with her) and a Korean dude. They look (aside from being unusually beautiful, but let’s not get hung up on that) like a bunch of people you’d see inside of half a city block in New York or San Francisco. It’s like a miracle of God, and in 2013, I feel like I shouldn’t have to be so delighted that this wee little miracle has occurred. The F&F movies are the only films out there that appear to be aimed at the mainstream white audience and yet dare to have a wide range of ethnic diversity in them, and I do not understand why more studios aren’t going ‘Oh look, this works.’ But I’ll keep going to F&F movies until Vin and I are both a hundred and five, as long as they keep giving me characters and faces that challenge the mainstream.</p> <p>And then on *top* of that, they rate stupendously well in Female Leads Who Kick Ass, which they took that to a whole new level in this one. There are five women of note in this (against 7 men of note, which I think is pretty flipping awesome all by itself), and every one of them does something important. Some of those important things aren’t as over the top or dramatic as, well, okay, pretty much all the shit the guys go through, but even so, not one of them is relegated wholesale to Helpless Female Lead. And not once in the entire series have any of the women been so relegated, not even with Letty’s ashes-bitter death. </p> <p>So in a nutshell: fucking awesome. Moments that made me laugh. Moments that made me gasp. A storyline that kinda didn’t go where I wanted it to, but wasn’t badly handled. Overall, for the win.</p> <p>Stay through the first credits run, because there’s a teaser clip after a minute or two.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:880145 Kitsnaps: Early Bird 2013-05-15T05:08:55Z 2013-05-15T05:08:56Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9809" class="wp-caption alignleft width540px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/early_bird.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/early_bird.jpg" alt="Early Bird" width="530" height="800" class="size-full wp-image-9809" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Early Bird</figcaption></figure> He got it. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:879776 More on genderflipping 2013-05-14T08:04:50Z 2013-05-14T14:06:23Z <p>After last week’s post on <a href="http://mizkit.com/genderflipping-covers/">genderflipped covers</a>, my friend Flit dug up an article she remembered reading about a <a href="http://www.giarts.org/article/discrimination-and-female-playwright">a bias study regarding female playwrights</a>.</p> <p>The article is well worth reading, but for the TL;DR folk among us (sorry, I only just learned that TL;DR meant “too long; didn’t read”, so now I have to use it at least once), the take-away is “in an as-controlled study as is possible, it turns out women discriminate against female playwrights more strongly than men do, even though plays written by women make more money.”</p> <p>That doesn’t really do the article justice, but it’s as close as I can get in a sentence-long summary. Go read it, really, if you’re at all interested in the topic at hand.</p> <p>The reasons behind the above two take-aways are complex. It appears that women discriminate against women more strongly because they percieve that if they don’t, when they bring too many womens’ work to the table, the men around them will dismiss it/them. So they’re culling early. And it appears the reason womens’ works make more money is that people will take a chance on a promising young male playwright and produce his play, but will tell a promising young female playwright “Now all you need to do is write a hit!” and only after a truly remarkable script has been written will it be produced. </p> <p>The latter in particular seems to me to fall in line with what I’ve read any number of times regarding women submitting material to anthologies/editors/conference papers/etc: that women are accepted in higher proportion relative to the percentage of submissions, because the work is of higher quality. This is due, evidently, to women being taught that they have to be perfect before they can risk trying, because anything less will fail.</p> <p>This is not saying men will throw any old shit to see if it sticks, but evidently that they’re trained to believe that they should try, whereas women are less so trained.</p> <p>So that may in effect be the answer to the Great Social Experiment I’d like to try, the one of writing two series of the exact same type, one under a male name and one under a female name. (Although to properly balance it I couldn’t even write one under CE Murphy, because that’s a name with a known quantity and reader base, which would skew the results. They’d have to be two equally unknown (or known) names, which makes it an even more impossible project.) Or perhaps that actually has no reflection at all on what the results of a Great Social Experiment might be. But it does feel like it all ties together, although of course the way it ties together most basically is “Society: it am broked.” @.@ :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:879570 Kitsnaps: Idolatry 2013-05-14T05:00:17Z 2013-05-14T05:00:17Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9810" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/magnificent_ceiling.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/magnificent_ceiling.jpg" alt="Idolatry" width="800" height="532" class="size-full wp-image-9810" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Idolatry</figcaption></figure> I don’t remember which church or cathedral this is (Kate might know–it could be the Kinsale church), but we stood around gapint at the ceiling for quite a long time. This is the…there’s a special word for it, but I donno what it is. The dome above the altar and all. I was looking straight upward to take the picture.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:879272 Picoreview: Emma (Kate Beckinsale version) 2013-05-13T19:24:24Z 2013-05-13T19:25:07Z <p>Picoreview: <i>Emma</i> (Kate Beckinsale tv movie version, 1997): flawed, but not quite in the right ways.</p> <p>I just re-read EMMA last year, so the narrative is fairly fresh in my mind. The real problem with Kate Beckinsale’s <i>Emma</i> is that with one painful exception, Emma doesn’t come across as nearly as awful as she is in the book. Too much of her meddling and the emotional turmoil thereof is left off the screen for brevity’s sake, so I was left feeling she was more…misguided, rather than downright dreadful, which she honestly is in the book.</p> <p>Really, the only reason the book is bearable is that Emma is *so* awful but *so* well realized that it’s impossible to not recognize what a tremendously talented writer Jane Austen was. Everybody knows somebody like Emma (not necessarily in the matchmaking aspect, but the rest of her awfulness), and there can be no doubt that yes, people really do behave like that. Just not usually the heroines of books.</p> <p>The somewhat skeevy-to-a-modern-reader relationship between Knightley and Emma is mitigated enormously by two things in this film: one, Knightley is played by Mark Strong. This in and of itself is sufficient to mitigate nearly any skeevy factor, because Mark Strong. However, he’s also only ten years older than Kate Beckinsale, which means when his Knightley held her as a 3 week old, he was also a child himself. This is a significant difference to the impression in the book that he’s twenty or twenty-five years her senior. If they’d met as adults and he was that much older, eh, okay, but watching her grow up from his own position of adulthood and still falling in love with her always struck me as igh. So that bit was good.</p> <p>The supporting cast was very good, particularly Mr Wodehouse, who played his fussiness with a sweet charm that made him loveable, if exasperating. Really, it’s a perfectly fine film, but more than the P&P versions I’ve seen recently, it just felt like *so much* had to get left out that I found it a little disappointing.</p> <p>Now I’ve got to re-watch Emma Thompson’s <i>Emma</i>, and I am informed by Reliable Sources that I’d better watch the Ciaran Hinds <i>Persuasion</i>. Which I’m not sure I’ve even read, so I should do that too. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:878589 Best music video ever. 2013-05-13T11:00:34Z 2013-05-13T11:00:34Z <p>To quote <a href="https://twitter.com/cartoonmoney">someone on Twitter</a>, “There’s a man in space posting David Bowie covers to his YouTube account and some people still need hover boards for it to be the future.”</p> <p><lj-embed id="7" /></p> <p>Bowie’s response? “CHRIS HADFIELD SINGS SPACE ODDITY IN SPACE! “Hallo Spaceboy…””</p> <p>Commander Chris Hadfield is the best thing to happen to space exploration in decades, possibly ever. I hope he and his crew come home safely today.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:878283 Kitsnaps: Quiet Waters 2013-05-13T06:42:40Z 2013-05-13T06:42:40Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9804" class="wp-caption alignleft width542px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/quiet_waters.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/quiet_waters.jpg" alt="Kitsnaps: Quiet Waters" width="532" height="800" class="size-full wp-image-9804" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Kitsnaps: Quiet Waters</figcaption></figure> This is another one taken while Emily was visiting, in a small town that I can’t remember the name of. Lovely waters, though. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:876773 Genderflipping covers 2013-05-08T09:33:04Z 2013-05-08T11:21:34Z <p>So Maureen Johnson, YA author, threw down a gauntlet a couple of days ago regarding the way books are marketed and asked her jillions of Twitter readers to gender-flip some of their favorite book covers. To make a cover that might have been offered up if the book was by a person of the other gender, or was gender neutral (initials instead of full names. She’s written a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maureen-johnson/gender-coverup_b_3231484.html">terrific article about the whole problem of gendered covers here</a>, and it is truly worth a read. Really truly honest to God.</p> <p>But if you never click through on another link I offer, go check out the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/coverflip-maureen-johnson_n_3231935.html">slideshow of covers people did</a>, because they’re flipping awesome. Er, so to speak. Let me show you my single-most favorite of all of them, or at least my favorite of the fantasy novels. This is a recent GRRM cover for A GAME OF THRONES:</p> <p><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_current.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_current-196x300.jpg" alt="grrm_current" width="196" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9789" /></a></p> <p>This is Georgette R. Martin’s A GAME OF THRONES (image by <a href="http://electricsheepcomix.com/sketch/?p=301">Electric Sheep Comix</a>):</p> <p><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_flipped.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_flipped-186x300.jpg" alt="grrm_flipped" width="186" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9790" /></a></p> <p>“Her publisher decided she didn’t need the second “R” in her initials,” said the artist.</p> <p>It’s nearly perfect. I think the font is actually *too* ornate, but I totally get a Jody Lynn Nye vibe off this, and wouldn’t be surprised at *all* to see it on one of <a href="http://michellesagara.net/">Michelle West</a>‘s books.</p> <p>Now: for a degree of fairness, GRRM’s covers have undergone enormous changes in the past 15 years. This is the first one I actually remember seeing:</p> <p><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_original.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/grrm_original-185x300.jpg" alt="grrm_original" width="185" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9791" /></a></p> <p>It’s still aimed at a totally different audience than Georgette’s cover is. And honestly, of the three, Georgette’s is the least likely one I’d pick up, although for me, the fact that it has a woman’s name on epic fantasy would make me take a look, anyway. </p> <p>There’s a <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/coverflip">Tumblr tag of genderflipped covers</a> that is one of the most worthy things on the internet. Some of them are merely in the A for Effort category, which is admirable on its own, but honestly, many of them are *brilliant*. Check out this TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY by Johanna Le Carre (image by <a href="http://xotus.tumblr.com/">xotus</a>):</p> <p><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tinkertailor_by_xotus.png"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tinkertailor_by_xotus-220x300.png" alt="tinkertailor_by_xotus" width="220" height="300" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9792" /></a> </p> <p>This, this, *this*, this is what makes me want to run the Great Social Writing Experiment. To write two series of the same type under one obviously female name and one under an obviously male name, and not let anybody, including my editors, know the gender (clearly a theoretical agent would be in on this, but beyond that) of the person writing the books. Just to see what happened with covers, reviews, promotion, sales, all of it. </p> <p>This is not, mind you, a practical experiment. I mean, it’d be a lot of time and effort and investment and while I was getting it off the ground, what, I’m going to survive financially by saying, “Hey, here’s my Kickstarter! Fund me, and in ten years you’ll find out what the project was! Hardcover LEs all around!” or something? Yeahno. :) But oh how I would love to try it.</p> <p>(Someone asked on Twitter, so I’ll answer it here too: No, I haven’t seen any “EC Murphy” covers (and don’t expect to, because my name isn’t that big), but I have to admit I’d kind of love to see THE QUEEN’S BASTARD or PRETENDER’S CROWN with the assumption of a male writer. :))</p> <p>Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t necessarily want all covers to be gender neutral, but what prompted Maureen to do this genderflip thing was saying “If I had a dime for every boy/man who’s said “Can’t you get less girly covers so I can read this?”…” She went on to say,</p> <blockquote><p> The assumption, as I understand it, is that females are flexible and accepting creatures who can read absolutely anything. We’re like acrobats. We can tie our legs over our heads. Bring it on. There is nothing we cannot handle.</p> <p>Boys, on the other hand, are much more delicately balanced. To ask them to read “girl” stories (whatever those might be) will cause the whole venture to fall apart. They are finely tuned, like Formula One cars, which require preheated fluids and warmed tires in order to operate — as opposed to girls, who are like pickup trucks or big, family-style SUVs. We can go anywhere, through anything…</p></blockquote> <p>There’s obviously a larger societal problem going on here, but it’d be pretty damned nice to see Michelle West (or Kate Elliott or Judith Tarr or or or or or) getting covers that weren’t oriented At Girls.</p> <p>It would be even nicer, of course, if a cover like Georgette Martin’s or Johanna Le Carre’s wasn’t off-putting to boys. Making covers more neutral can’t be just about making them more appealing to the male of the species; that’s still assigning them a gender preference, the one we regard as default. But! As an awareness issue, this kind of project certainly does the trick, and I loooooove it!</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:876450 Kitsnaps: Grumpy Gull 2013-05-08T05:01:18Z 2013-05-08T06:28:50Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9770" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_grumpygull.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_grumpygull.jpg" alt="Grumpy Gull" width="800" height="530" class="size-full wp-image-9770" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Grumpy Gull</figcaption></figure> Grumpy gull <strike>challenges you to give him a reason to be happy on Wednesday</strike> needs to go back to bed (as Silkie pointed out :)).</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:876086 crowdfunding across the universe! 2013-05-07T20:27:49Z 2013-05-07T20:27:49Z <p>Two things: first, the most awesome car commercial ever made:</p> <p><lj-embed id="6" /></p> <p>Second, and completely unrelated, a friend of mine is running a crowdfund project for a performance piece this summer that my sister and other persons of my acquaintance will be performing in. It’s in dire need of support, with seven days and 75% of the way to go yet. <a href="http://www.fundit.ie/project/generation">Perhaps you will go support it</a> because I have just shown you the most awesome car commercial ever made (*hopeful*! O.O), or maybe just because you’re awesome, or maybe you can boost the signal even if you can’t support it. <3!</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:875823 Kitsnaps: Morning Snooze 2013-05-07T05:03:38Z 2013-05-07T05:03:38Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9768" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_snoozing02.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_snoozing02.jpg" alt="Morning Snooze" width="800" height="530" class="size-full wp-image-9768" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Morning Snooze</figcaption></figure> Morning snooze wolf isn’t planning on a busy Tuesday, either.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:875331 Kitsnaps: Monorail Panda 2013-05-06T05:06:35Z 2013-05-06T05:06:36Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9771" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_snoozing.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/kitsnaps_snoozing.jpg" alt="Monorail Panda" width="800" height="529" class="size-full wp-image-9771" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Monorail Panda</figcaption></figure> Monorail Panda isn’t going anywhere on Monday.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:875185 Recent Reads: Astonishing X-Men (Warren Ellis run) 2013-05-03T07:30:50Z 2013-05-03T07:35:49Z <p>ASTONISHING X-MEN: GHOST BOX, EXOGENETIC, XENOGENESIS: Sometime back Warren Ellis said he was never going to write for Marvel again. After reading this trilogy of story arcs, I really wish he’d stuck with that. I gather the X-universe storylines have taken a turn for the bleak recently, but I liked GHOST BOX less than anything else of Ellis’s I’ve ever read, and less than any X-story I’ve ever read, including what I considered to be the god-awful Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely run that culminated with Cassandra Nova.</p> <p>The art in GHOST BOX was pretty painted stuff by Simone Bianchi, but I didn’t think the pages were well laid out or easy to follow, and this comes from somebody who really follows comic stories through the text, not images. The Ghost Boxes opened doors to multiuniverses, and the last issue of the GHOST BOX storyline was a glimpse at three or four multiverses. They were very well done, all of them, in both story and art, except *Jesus*, depressing. </p> <p>EXOGENETIC was an up-tick in both story and art; Phil Jimenez remembers that Cyclops’s nickname is <i>Slim</i>, which no one has remembered for most of the past twenty-five years, and draws him accordingly. I liked the art very much. I’ve read reviews that didn’t care for the story at all, and I see their point, but I still preferred it considerably to GHOST BOX.</p> <p>All that can be said about XENOGENESIS was I didn’t dislike it as *much* as I disliked GHOST BOX in terms of story, but I thought Kaare Andrews’ art was appalling. I mean, actually embarrassing to look at. While there are individual panels where I absolutely freaking love the style he’s coming in with, in the vast majority I find the women horrific (<a href="http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/02/kaare-andrews-x-men-xenogenesis/">See the third panel here for an example that isn’t even as egregious as many of them are</a>). I’d rather look at Frank Quitely’s art, and I don’t like Quietly’s art at all.</p> <p>So yeah. Basically, that was awful. I’m going to read AvX next (well, for some value of next, WRT whenever I get around to reading another GN) and then step on board with Marjorie Liu’s ASTONISHING, which I have considerable hope for.</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:874927 Kitsnaps: Blarney 2013-05-03T06:54:43Z 2013-05-03T06:54:43Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9734" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/blarney.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/blarney.jpg" alt="Blarney" width="800" height="532" class="size-full wp-image-9734" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Blarney</figcaption></figure> Blarney Town is lovely. I’d like to go back there sometime, actually, and take more pictures (I have millions of the castle/grounds. :)).</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:874669 Cineworld survey fail. 2013-05-02T11:42:09Z 2013-05-02T11:53:21Z <p>So I belong to a thing with one of the local cinemas (well, it’s a chain, not local-local, but, y’know, in the area), Cineworld. They’ve got an Unlimited card, where for €21 a month you can go to however many movies you want. There’s a monthly newsletter and sometimes they send surveys.</p> <p>I just got a survey, which is so asinine I felt obliged to call Cineworld out on it on Twitter and just can’t stop myself from replicating it (in text form) here. I’ll only highlight the really irritating questions.</p> <p>But before I go there, let me just also mention that they’ve just released a new Unlimited card ad in the cinemas, which features a dude having all the adventures and getting the girl at the end. I seriously sat through it the first time waiting for each segment to flip to being a woman protagonist and then back to the man throughout, but no, they didn’t do that. And at least some of their Unlimited ads say “Mr B Wayne” as the name on the card, so I said (again on Twitter), “So you’ll be releasing an Unlimited ad with a female protagonist and a “Ms S Kyle” on the card soon, right?” The person who does the Twitter feed liked the idea, but raise your hand if you think that’s gonna happen.</p> <p>That might give you an idea of what’s behind the cut.</p> <p><a name="cutid1"></a></p> <p><em><strong>2. What Region do you live in?</strong><br /> Scotland<br /> North East<br /> North West<br /> East Midlands<br /> West Midlands<br /> Wales<br /> East Anglia<br /> South East<br /> South West<br /> Northern Ireland</em></p> <p>…so in fact I can’t even submit this if I *want* to, because this is a required response and there isn’t a choice for the Republic of Ireland…</p> <p><em><strong>6. Who do you think is the sexiest actress of all time?</strong><br /> Angeline Jolie<br /> Scarlett Johansson<br /> Natalie Portman<br /> Marilyn Monroe<br /> Grace Kelly<br /> Cameron Diaz<br /> Emma Stone<br /> Brigitte Bardot<br /> Halle Berry<br /> Julia Roberts</em></p> <p>Marilyn Monroe, if these are my choices. So the next question will be “Who’s the sexiest actor, right?</p> <p><em><strong>7. Who to you think it the sexiest actress from the upcoming films this summer?</strong><br /> Cary Mulligan – The Great Gatsby<br /> Amy Adams – Man of Steel<br /> Tao Okamoto – The Wolverine<br /> Kristen Bell – Stuck In Love<br /> Vera Farmiga – The Conjuring</em></p> <p>I don’t know the last three but if Wolvie likes her, it’s gotta be Tao Okamoto. Also, okay, so we’re doing the women questions first, we’ll get to the sexiest actor stuff in a minute, right? Also, that should be “Who *do* you think,” not “who to”.</p> <p><em><strong>8. Which of these superhero characters would you most like to date in real life?</strong><br /> Tobey Maguire – Spiderman<br /> Christian Bale – Batman<br /> Robert Downey Jnr – Iron Man<br /> Henry Cavil – Superman<br /> Chris Evans – Captain America<br /> Nicholas Cage – Big Daddy (Kick Ass)<br /> Chris Hemsworth – Thor<br /> Mark Ruffalo – The Hulk<br /> Hugh Jackman – Wolverine</em></p> <p>Okaaaaaay, this is a weird general question, I bet plenty of dudes are gonna be uncomfortable with it, but later on there’ll be questions I think are just as weird for the ladies, right? And Captain America, realistically, because the truth is I have a terrible softness for goody-two-shoes.</p> <p><em><strong>9. If you could play the part of a superheroes’ love interest which character would you choose?</strong><br /> Lois Lane – Superman<br /> Pepper Pots – Iron Man<br /> Jane Foster – Thor<br /> Rachel Dawes – Batman<br /> Mary Jane – Spiderman<br /> Betty Ross – the Hulk<br /> Penny Carter – Captain America</em></p> <p>Okay, the dudes are *really* gonna have a problem with this one, but Lois Lane, because Greatest Reporter, right? Right.</p> <p><em><strong>11. If you could play the part of one superhero which would it be? </strong><br /> Tobey Maguire- Spiderman<br /> Christian Bale- Batman<br /> Robert Downey Jnr- Iron Man<br /> Henry Cavill- Superman<br /> Chris Evans- Captain America<br /> Nicholas Cage- Big Daddy<br /> Chris Hemsworth- Thor<br /> Mark Ruffalo- The Hulk<br /> Hugh Jackman- Wolverine</em></p> <p>Ah. See, here’s one for the dudes, I guess. Except it’s, like, totally not starting with the same sexy questions the ladies got, but okay, and, uh, I donno. I mean, if we’re going with these versions of the characters? Probably Wolvie. Who wouldn’t want to be Hugh Jackman?</p> <p><em><strong>12. Which of the Superhero’s leading ladies would you most like to rescue?</strong><br /> Lois Lane- Man of Steel-Amy Adams<br /> Pepper Potts- Iron Man- Gyneth Paltrow<br /> Rachel Dawes- Batman- Katie Holmes<br /> Jane Foster- Thor-Natalie Portman<br /> Black Widow – Avengers- Scarlet Johannson<br /> Catwoman-Dark Knight Rises-Anne Hathaway</em></p> <p>Okay, also for the dudes, but excuse me, WTF, you put THE BLACK WIDOW in a list of people who NEED RESCUING? EXCUSE ME? DO YOU KNOW WHO THE BLACK WIDOW IS!? Seriously, on that list, you gotta choose Jane or Pepper, because Rachel at least carries pepper spray. But I’m sorry, I’m still back there at WTF. *Catwoman*? Needs *rescuing*? Also, typo.</p> <p>[ really bad questions about sequels snipped ]</p> <p><em><strong>21. Of the following ‘80s actors, who do you think is the sexiest?</strong><br /> Richard Gere<br /> Tom Cruise<br /> Rob Lowe<br /> Johnny Depp<br /> Kevin Bacon<br /> Matthew Broderick<br /> Matt Dillon<br /> Harrison Ford<br /> Mel Gibson<br /> Keanu Reeves</em></p> <p>Uh. Okay. Is this supposed to be the equivalent of “sexiest actress of all time”? Because it’s not. Not even a little. And I don’t know, Johnny Depp, I guess. Patrick Dempsey if I actually get to pick.</p> <p><em><strong>22. Of the following actors, who do you think will last the test of time and still be on the big screen in 30 years’ time?</strong><br /> Robert Pattinson<br /> Ryan Gosling<br /> Ryan Reynolds<br /> Elijah Wood<br /> Daniel Radcliffe<br /> Zac Efron<br /> Channing Tatum<br /> Hayden Christensen<br /> Taylor Lautner<br /> Taylor Kitsch</em></p> <p>…or maybe this is supposed to be the sexiest of all time question? Except it’s not even vaguely that kind of question, and Elijah Wood or Dan Radcliffe, because I think they might both be able to act.</p> <p>[ questions about childrens' films snipped ]</p> <p>…wait, that’s it? That’s the end of the survey? I’m sorry, where are the sexiest actors of all times questions? Where are the “If you’re a superlady who do you want to date/be/rescue” questions? WHY DO I NOT GET TO RESCUE HAWKEYE?</p> <p>Seriously. Oh my God. I cannot actually believe these questions.</p> <a name='cutid1-end'></a><p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:874175 Kitsnaps: Irish Serengeti 2013-05-02T05:01:07Z 2013-05-02T05:01:07Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9735" class="wp-caption alignleft width542px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/irish_serengeti.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/irish_serengeti.jpg" alt="Irish Serengeti" width="532" height="800" class="size-full wp-image-9735" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Irish Serengeti</figcaption></figure> Taken at Fota Wildlife Park in Cork, which is really utterly fabulous and you should go. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:873871 a Doctor Who observation 2013-05-01T12:57:56Z 2013-05-01T12:57:56Z <p>Okay, so I came to Doctor Who through New Who and haven’t watched any of the Old Who. I came to it with the following knowledge: The Doctor is a Time Lord who regenerates (thus allowing more than one actor to play the part) and who travels through time and space with (usually) human companions who have been caught up in his wake.</p> <p>This being the sum total of what I knew about the show, there’s something that’s happen(ed)(ing) with New Who that I get the impression is…not as it was in the past. But because the entire thought could be construed as spoileriffic for the entire New Who series, I’m going to put it behind the cut.</p> <p><a name="cutid1"></a></p> <p>So something I’m noticing increasingly in the companions is that they are Special in a way that’s telegraphed from their introduction: Clara is clearly Special (Enigma); Amy was Special (Timehead), Donna was Special (DoctorDonna).</p> <p>Martha…was not Special. Martha was smart and sweet and thrust into unforgiveable circumstances through which she arose to Specialness (Earth’s Defender), but frankly, Martha got screwed, and not in a good way. Rose also became Special (Bad Wolf), perhaps, and it *was* telegraphed once we knew how to look for it (or was all of that the Tardis, using Rose as a vehicle, as I just saw hypothesized recently), but I don’t think she so much started that way. </p> <p>Specialness is not my impression of what the companions are supposed to be. That they’re introduced to wonderful or awful things and perhaps become special because of that, okay. That seems to be what happened with Rose and Martha, anyway. But my sense of Old Who is that the companions are meant to be ordinary people. Wonderful, in their ordinariness, but ordinary. That they are, in effect, meant to be you and me. My impression is that we’re meant to be able to hope that the Doctor might drop by with the Tardis at any moment and collect us. </p> <p>And all this Specialness doesn’t seem to allow for that. This feeling of a fate associated with the companions, the destined for greatness, etc, seems…I mean, I guess we could all be waiting to discover our Doctor’s Destiny as well as waiting for the Tardis. </p> <p>It’s worst, mind you, with Amy and Clara; Donna was very clearly an ordinary person with an extraordinary fate (which she then got screwed out of, grr), but Amy and Clara, well. I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t like Moffatt’s companions. (Well, there’s no maybe about that, really. I thought Amy was mean and Clara…rings false, possibly because of this Unexplained Destiny hanging over her.) Maybe he doesn’t know how to write someone ordinary into extraordinary circumstances. I dunno, but I’m not delighted with it.</p> <a name='cutid1-end'></a><p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font> urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:mizkit:873557 Kitsnaps: Ivy Gravestone 2013-05-01T05:03:10Z 2013-05-01T05:03:11Z <p><figure aria-labelledby="figcaption_attachment_9729" class="wp-caption alignleft width810px"><a href="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ivy_gravestone.jpg"><img src="http://mizkit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/ivy_gravestone.jpg" alt="Ivy Gravestone" width="800" height="532" class="size-full wp-image-9729" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Ivy Gravestone</figcaption></figure> This is the first photograph I took with a digital SLR, in January 2006.</p> <p>I’d bought the camera (the Nikon D50 that recently died) on eBay and had to have it shipped to a friend in the US, because reasons. He thought I was batshit. insane. for having bought a thousand dollar camera kit. Absolutely could not understand why somebody would do that. But he forwarded the camera on to me anyway, if bemusedly.</p> <p>Ten days later or so I posted this picture and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. “That,” he said, “looks like it’s the cover of an album.” And from there on out he no longer thought I was bonkers for getting that camera. :)</p> <p><font size="-2">(x-posted from <a href="http://mizkit.com/">The Essential Kit</a>)</font>