Ashni's Journal

Welcome

2008-06-28T17:39:51Z

Robert Joseph Emrys Berman

Born June 27, 2008, 5:49 PM

Specs: 7 lbs 4 oz, 20 inches long

Likes: nursing, trying to nurse with non-milking parents, staring at all parents, sticking fingers in mouth, sticking sleeve in mouth, sticking out tongue, being held, people singing "Molly Mallone"

Dislikes: Being hungry, getting changed, getting weighed, the pediatrician (mostly because she weighed and changed him)

Nameseeker is tired and sore but otherwise doing well. I am tired but otherwise doing well, and B&A are just doing well. (Only one person other than the birth mother got to stay in the hospital all night, and that was me. So the others got a full night's sleep.) We are all delighted, excited, and completely taken with this new human being.

The digital camera wasn't cooperating, but pics to follow as soon as we get a chance to develop them.

Obviously

2008-06-21T15:42:01Z

Separated at Birth, Famous Psychologists and Celebrities edition. (Via Mind Hacks)

2008-06-03T04:01:56Z

Nameseeker and I are feeling much better, as demonstrated by the fact that we are arguing about grammar and semantics. Oh Internets, please resolve our dispute.

Today is Monday, June 2nd. If I were to say, "next Saturday," to what date would I refer? If I were to say, "next September," how long would you expect to have to wait until that time came to pass?

Con Crud

2008-05-29T00:14:25Z

The con was excellent--which is good, as we've both had to pay for it with cases of con crud. I started puking Monday night and spent most of yesterday asleep; in between times I managed to double my lifetime total of fainting episodes. Nameseeker started feeling queasy this afternoon just as I started to feel vaguely up to moving around. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she has a lighter case than I did. The OB says it should be okay as long as we can keep her hydrated.

RIP

2008-05-23T02:19:30Z

Our cat Stargazer, from liver failure. He was ten years old. Stargazer has been variously known by our friends as "the floppy cat" and "neurological kitty." He was born with a self-explanatory condition called the wobblies, and generally lacked the grace and dignity normally ascribed to felis domesticus. He was also the most socially intelligent of our cats--capable of dealing with dogs, small children, and new cats in a way that our other two never quite got the hang of.

We are still planning to be at Wiscon this weekend, and still looking forward to seeing our friends who are going to be there.

Stage-Watching

2008-05-17T04:30:16Z

One of the things I enjoy about expertise is that it lets you see more when you look at the world. A medical background lets you look at skin, breathing, and heartbeat, and see lifestyles, health, and disease. Knowing about architecture lets you look at skyscrapers and see history and philosophy. Psychology, among other things, lets me look at a cute kid and see the construction-in-progress of adult cognitive architecture.

Piaget was a weird guy. It should not be possible to sit around watching your kids, asking them occasional questions, and create a testable scientific theory that survives more or less intact for 75 years. He was good at noticing things--mostly, that kids don't think like adult human beings, and that they go through predictable progressions of alien thinking on their way there. The things that he noticed are really easy to see, if you know what you're looking for. Impossible not to see, in fact.

So we're waiting at the midwife's office. Also in the waiting room are a father and his 2-year-old (mom is getting her check-up). The kid alternates between fascinated shaking of a water bottle, and fascinated pushing of one wheeled-cube ottoman up against the second wheeled-cube ottoman. Clearly mass and vectors are the discoveries of the week. He can't figure out yet what these objects will do to each other without manipulating them physically--no surprise; outside-the-head thinking is pretty standard for the first two Piagetian stages. You'd expect to see it up through about age 7 for most kids. What I'm trying to figure out is whether he's in the Sensorimotor or Preoperational stage. He should be right at the boundary, on one side or the other. Finally I kneel down beside him and ask to borrow the water bottle. I hold up a board book and stick the bottle behind it. He's looking at me the whole time.

"Do you know where the bottle went? Can you look for the bottle?"

He starts looking immediately, obviously having fun. What's really entertaining is that he first looks in a basket on the other side of the room. Only after he catches sight of the bottle out of the corner of his eye does he come over to fish it from behind the book. Textbook early pre-op--knows that objects keep existing when they can't be seen, but doesn't yet have a clear idea of the properties of that existence. Can they teleport from one side of the room to the other? Do they change size randomly? Do they stay where you put them? He doesn't know yet. But he's working on it.

I'm going to make a very strange parent.

Wiscon Schedule

2008-05-06T17:20:51Z

Title: Not Enough Octopusses

"Here is a smart alien on our planet. It communicates through color change. It's more closely related to us than aliens out there, but we don't generally put it in our stories. We can't talk to them. Maybe we're not smart enough. Maybe we're biased against critters without backbones. How would we start to communicate? What roles could they play in stories? Let's talk about the aliens in our own tidal pools. "
Friday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Senate B

M: Mia Molvray
doselle young
Tom La Farge
Ruthanna Emrys

Title: "The Ship Who Knitted, and Other Side-Effects of Transportational Intelligence "

"From the 'crippled-child-in-metal' ships of Anne McCaffery to the kilometers-long GSVs of Iain Banks, the sentience of ships is a long-running SF trope. For many of them, they seem to be perfectly content as hyperintelligent ferries or smart sidekicks, but is this what we think would really happen? What are some alternatives to this view, and what would it mean to have a transport that's as smart as you are? "
Saturday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Senate B

M: Maureen Kincaid Speller
Alexander Lamb
Helen Keeble
Ruthanna Emrys
Chip Hitchcock

So, sapient octopi and sapient ships. Thoughts and comments on either subject, or permutations there-of, are welcome.

Also, Request for Information

2008-04-25T20:10:51Z

My much smarter younger sister, who has a more excitingly stressful life than mine, is starting grad school at Columbia in the fall. Since I know more people in the New York area than she does, I told her I'd put out feelers about housing and tips for finding it. She's looking for something near the Morningside campus, or nearby in Brooklyn. And cheap. Housemates okay, as long as they're sane.

She wishes me to be explicit that she already knows about checking Craigslist. (What she actually said, eyes wide, was, "What is this list of Craig of which you speak?" If you know her, you know the voice I'm talking about.)

In addition to the unlikely possibility that someone has knowledge of an actual affordable studio apartment in Manhattan, she's also looking for things like, "Don't look in X neighborhood; none of them will talk to people with black belts in obscure Indonesian martial arts," or "All the leases in Y neighborhood turn over in July; you can get a better deal if you're willing to move in a month early." Unsolicited advice is officially solicited.

Today's Reading-Related Exasperation: Bowman & Hodge (2007)

2008-03-12T23:46:50Z

P.436:

[Crichton uses the ideas of molecular manufacturing and uncontrolled replication. Both ideas are originally from Drexler], ideas that have subsequently been refuted as implausible by some members of the scientific community itself.

P.438

[Did Feynman have any clue what he was talking about when he gave his seminal speech on the long-term potential of nanotechnology?] Surprisingly, the answer to both questions has apparently been "no" as far as some commentators go.

P.442

Current real developments in nanotechnology offer exciting opportunities to advance the human condition; however, implausible ideas framed by some scientists only serve to influence the creative talents of science fiction writers, like Crichton, who then prey on the public's lack of knowledge of the current boundaries of nanotechnology for entertainment's sake.

Note how when "some" people say that molecular manufacturing and its concomitant dangers are impossible, they are thoroughly authoritative. Indeed, "some" is used suspiciously like "all" here. On the other hand, when "some" people (like Nobel Prize winner Feynman) support these ideas, they are easily dismissed.

SMACK!

We won't even go into the remarkable assumptions buried in that last quote. Or the dubious judgment shown by anyone who consistently describes Prey as "a great read."

Help with my literature search?

2008-03-11T17:18:24Z

As part of the follow-up to a strongly worded suggestion that I need more publications, soon, I'm putting together a theoretical paper on the influence of fiction on people's attitudes toward nanotechnology. Alas, my general default is to read science fiction where the sciences involved are social--my familiarity with current hard SF is woefully behind. Stross and Vinge are obvious, and of course I've already complained about Crichton. I'm familiar with (and adore) Elizabeth Bear's books, many of which involve Sufficiently Advanced Technology. What else should I be reading, or at least citing, as heavily contributing to people's visions/opinions of the nano-influenced future?

Bonus points for books/stories that clearly argue for the positive or negative nature of the technologies, although I also need some relatively ambiguous worlds. Bonus bonus points for popular fiction other than Crichton that includes nano components.

Why I Haven't Posted Lately

2008-02-03T18:22:10Z

'Cause I've been waiting for permission to post the following (although half of you already know it from off-line conversations, anyway):

Nameseeker is pregnant. She's surrogating for another couple, very dear friends of ours in New York. The woman of the couple (B.), for complicated medical reasons, can't safely use her own eggs, so this one is genetically Nameseeker's and the man's (A.). The plan is that after she's given birth, A will contribute genetic material so that we can have one of our own. These are both going to be very open adoptions--we're planning to be aunts/uncles/back-up parents for each others' children, visit a lot and celebrate some holidays together. We've been planning this for a while and all four of us are very excited.

Nameseeker is about four months along now. I had not gotten it through my head before how much time and energy pregnancy takes up. It's hard work--it's not something you do in the background. It is sacred, it is terrifying, and I can't imagine having the chutzpah to force it on anyone who wasn't ready and willing.

Tangentially, are we and Nameseeker's parents the only people who follow the informal practice of fetal names? Nameseeker and her siblings were all Rufus in the womb; this one is Nancy Bob Schroedinger.

Congratulations, unsolicited advice, and suggestions for how to succinctly describe the relationship between the legally original non-genetic parent of an adopted-out child and that child (raised and legally parented by another couple, and whom she has a close but not quite parental relationship with), all welcome. If anyone knows the original word for the relationship between adults who've made a family alliance by virtue of cross-fostering, that would be useful too.

Okay, That's Just Stupid

2007-12-08T04:15:32Z

"Spices" are listed under my LJ interests. Because, y'know, I like spices. Garlic and nutmeg and vanilla, ajowan and fennel pollen and Australian wattle seed. But you will not find out that I'm interested in "spices" by searching for that term under Interests. You will not find out that anyone is interested in "spices". Because, apparently, only racists would be looking for that term.

California from Above

2007-11-16T08:58:14Z

My god. I forgot about LA. It's been years since I've flown in during the day.

I slept for most of the plane ride, probably because I'd only slept for about 3 hours before getting on the plane. I woke up, looked out the window, and wasn't entirely sure I was on the right planet. Desert spread in brown folds to the horizon--not a single spot of green, and only a line of road, like a Martian canal, to suggest that tool-using sapients might once have existed there.

The desert ends with a hint of green and a few squares of cultivated land. Then the mountains, great folds raised high and worn sharp and deep. Pine trees and terraces, the occasional aberrant lake, and then the land drops and between the mountains and sea is a city where no city should be. Los Angeles spreads across the plain and through every crevace. When the oil grows short, or the water does, it will disappear into the desert--and still it's beautiful, in the way of things that can't last and may not have been entirely a good idea, but have the necessity and awe-fullness of good art.

Just as I'm thinking that, of course, we drop a little lower and some of the sea-mist resolves into the brown cloud of smog that borders the city from above. Still awesome, still beautiful, still ugly. I can deal with LA from the ground, but from the air the contradictions are hard to resolve.

On a separate note, my fellow Kage Baker fans will appreciate my self-restraint. Catalina Island is just off the coast of Long Beach, within view of the conference center: Avalon rising through the ocean mist. I am not going out there because the ferry does full-day trips only, and I can't miss a whole day of Psychonomics. Nameseeker points out to me that most of the things I'd be looking for would be bad ideas to find anyway. It's still hard to resist. I'm not going up to Hearst Castle, either, for much the same reason and with much the same regret.

New Story

2007-11-12T15:47:08Z

Ghosts and Simulations is now up on Strange Horizons.

Hopefully I will be able to post soon about the reason I haven't posted since September. All good stuff, but not entirely mine to explain yet.

Localvore Challenge: Belated Wrap-Up

2007-09-25T06:11:56Z

Day 7 was just breakfast and lunch--omelet and leftovers, respectively.

The Challenge was worth it for the things discovered alone--same-day corn, farmers' market potatoes and garlic, etc. It's also left a distinct impression on my eating habits in the week since I supposedly finished. Some of this is good, and much of it is inconvenient. I have a whole new appreciation for flour, salt, olive oil, and cinnamon. I definitely wouldn't want to eat purely local on a long-term basis. On the other hand, most of the things that can be found locally are better that way.

The thing I enjoyed most about the Challenge was non-factory farmed meat. I really don't want to go back. This is slightly awkward, as I can't actually afford all-local-free-range-organic. Both Nameseeker and I need regular meat for mood maintenance, so we're not about to go vegetarian. However, I have been experimenting with less-meat options, and more vegetarian meals--it's possible that we can afford a diet with better-quality meat, but less of it. So far I've managed to go a week without buying conventional meat, but this has involved a certain amount of freezer-raiding, plus a convenient sale at Whole Foods. I've been experimenting with a cooking style that's a bit different than what I'm practiced at, and we'll see how that goes. But replacing the factory-farmed stuff in our diet with local-free-range-organic has definitely become a long-term goal.

On a more purely aesthetic level, several sorts of processed food have stopped looking edible to me. This is probably healthy, but definitely awkward. For example, prior to the challenge I generally grabbed a Lender's Bagel on my way out the door in the morning. They didn't taste like much, but they woke up my metabolism and that was all I needed. Now, after a week of omelets, my body wants real food in the morning--except that I don't want to keep getting up early to make eggs. So far I've been baking something breakfasty on the weekends and using that for breakfast--the last of the cornbread first, and coffee cake this week.

For those interested, here are the places we bought food, and my thoughts on them:

Green City Farmers' Market

We got the bulk of our fruit and vegetables here, plus a chicken, goat cheese, butterkase, and not-parmesan. The quality is high, parking is reasonable, and I'm fairly certain that they are accessible by public transit as well. It's very easy to overspend on treats, and I've done so even on non-Challenge weeks. Open Wednesdays and Saturdays in season, plus a biweekly winter market.

Lombard Farmers' Market

Every Tuesday, a block from my house. Good for stocking up on whatever vegetables you've run out of, but not particularly exciting otherwise.

Sunflower Market

Labels "local treasures," but doesn't actually have that many of them. We got locally produced granola and wine here, and could have gotten both somewhere else. They may well be a very good whole foods store; they are out of my way and I probably won't end up going back to check.

Fox and Obel

Not actually all that useful for local foods. I believe we got sour cream and milk here. The sour cream turned out to be low-fat and full of evil, and the milk brand appeared in our nearby Whole Foods the very next week. But as a gourmet foodie store, this place is amazing. A la carte Vosges truffles. Candied violets. Swooning Ashni. We paid hideously for parking, but only because we didn't know that they have free valet service.

Heritage Prairie Market

Forty minutes west of my house, in Plainfield, entirely inaccessible to someone using public transportation. This is where I got the whole wheat flour, a laudable item but not actually what I turned out to need. I didn't actually end up getting anything here that I couldn't have gotten closer, but the things I got were high-quality, and they had several nifty treats that I couldn't touch during the challenge.

I take that back--I got a shopping bag. I've had string bags for years, and have been careful and vigilant about leaving them behind every time I go shopping. Now I have a tent-fabric bag that squishes into a wallet-sized draw-string pouch and fits in my purse. I have probably saved a barrel of petroleum in non-disposable-bag-use in the last two weeks.

Also, they have peacocks. How could I resist?

Farm Stand the Name of Which I Cannot Recall

But I know where to find it, on North Avenue a little west of 53. This is where I got same-day corn, and also local peanuts.

Plapp Family Organics

Had I but known, these folks sell at a farmers' market in the city every other Sunday. Since I didn't, they were way the hell out in Dekalb, more than an hour from my house. But they make all-purpose flour, pastry flour, and cornmeal. At times, they also make vegetable oil.

Jonamac Orchard

Apples. Cider Donuts. Corn maze. Not exactly a grocery store, but what they have is delightful.

And last but not least, Whole Foods

Sure, they're corporate. Their vegetables are nowhere near as good as the Farmers' Market. But they've started labeling their local foods--they started the week of the challenge, and already had more than Sunflower, even though Sunflower is a local chain. They were the most convenient place for milk, cream, and eggs throughout the week. The cream and eggs, in fact, were my usual cream and eggs because the prices on those two items are just that reasonable.

The most notable thing about an all-local diet, unfortunately, isn't the taste or the ethics. It's that it's freaking expensive. My food budget doubled for the week of the challenge. Admittedly, I had to buy a lot of staples that I normally wouldn't have been purchasing all at once. On the other hand, I got most of my meat for barter, so it probably evens out. If I didn't make a professor's salary, I couldn't have afforded to do this even for a week. The fact that I had the time to cook from scratch in the evenings helped, too. I am not the first person to point out that it really sucks when the average person in this country can't afford a diet healthy either for themselves or those producing it. But, you know, it sucks.

Localvore Challenge, Day 6

2007-09-18T04:36:02Z

Breakfast: omelet with left-over mushroom duxelles

Lunch: Cheater's cider donut. I had cramps. It helped.

Dinner:

Venison shoulder roast with roasted veggies, for certain definitions of veggies

Venison (last of the barter meat)
butter (back to the made-from-cream version)
red wine (Sunflower Market, at the beginning of the week)
Honey (Wisconsin farmers' market)
sage (Green City Market)
tiny sweet onions (GCM)
garlic (GCM)
shallots (Lombard farmers' market)
tiny potatoes (Heritage Prairie Market)

Cornbread!

corn meal (Plapp Family Organic Farm)
all-purpose flour, which I have a whole new appreciation for (Plapp Family Organic Farm)
sugar (exception)
eggs (Phil's, from Whole Foods)
milk (Whole Foods)
baking powder (exception)
salt (exception)
And honey and butter to spread on it.

Things learned today: Life is better with flour.

Localvore Challenge, Day 4-5

2007-09-17T04:55:19Z

Saturday

Breakfast and lunch: the usual, more or less.

Dinner: Chestnut pancakes (These were supposed to be crepes, filled with delightful things. But I fail at crepes.)
chestnut flour (Crepes/pancakes are one of the few things you can make with chestnut flour alone.)
butter
eggs
salt (exception)
maple syrup (Michigan)

Sunday

Breakfast: omelets again, but filled with the mushrooms-shallot-garlic-and-goat-cheese mixture originally planned for the crepes. A little salt in the butter.

Late last night, I found a reference to Plapp Family Organics, a farm in Dekalb that ostensibly made all-purpose flour. Unable to reach them on the phone, we drove out anyway. They did indeed make flour, which we now have. Huzzah! (Our cell phone was out of charge, but we swung by bifemmefatale's place to see if she was around and wanted company. She wasn't, although the dog said hello very loudly--sorry we missed you.) Lunch consisted of things we could find in the area--tomatoes and not-swiss cheese (both local), and cider donuts (local apples, probably not local other ingredients--but they were cider donuts! Almost as good as Atkins', for curious fellow Pioneer Valley alumni.) The donuts were from an orchard with a 9-acre corn maze, which we didn't have time/money to see but hope to get back to.

Dinner: Venison chops with more of the mushroom mixture.

Things learned today:

-Local flour and cornmeal can be found in Dekalb. This is our third attempt at flour, and actually seems to be successful. It's also the cheapest of the options, so will save us a great deal of trouble next time.
-Local oil is sometimes available, from the same place that makes the flour. Unfortunately, it was not available today. Another thing that will be useful for next time. (Relevant to a learned-thing mentioned in the comments earlier--you need to add oil to your peanuts in order to make peanut butter. Who knew? Don't answer that.)
-Sugar is awfully good when you haven't had it for a week.

Localvore Challenge, Day 3

2007-09-15T17:14:47Z

Breakfast: omelet

Lunch: Plums

Dinner

Venison steak (leftover)

Corn on the cob (farmstand 10 miles down North Avenue)

Buttermilk biscuits
Local ingredients: buttermilk, wheat flour, butter, honey

Non-local ingredients: baking soda, baking powder, salt (We decided, since we hadn't used any yet, to swap out chocolate for salt on our exceptions list)

Things learned today:

-Whole, fresh-ground wheat flour is not the same thing as all-purpose flour. They cannot be properly substituted for each other. Also, sifting whole wheat flour... good luck.
-The Heritage Prairie Market rocks.
-It is possible to get same-day corn in Dupage County. Even though if you ask the vendors at the farmers' market, and then refuse to buy corn picked the previous day, they look at you like you have two heads.

Localvore Challenge, Day 2

2007-09-14T06:40:10Z

Breakfast: omelet--much like yesterday, but with dill, and chicken fat added to the butter. Much tastier!

Lunch: leftover meatloaf, and the last of the chicken. And a plum. Nameseeker was on the road, and as she has to eat whatevers available when she has the time, her lunch was an exception.

Dinner

venison steaks (delicious!)
venison (more from the Craigslist barter)
butter
wine
garlic
potato hash (unsuccessful--fails entirely without salt)
potatoes
onion (farmers' market)
garlic
butter
chicken stock
wine
sour cream (Oberweiss Dairy. Possibly turns out to be a partial exception--I took a look at the ingredients, and bleah! I can't imagine "guar gum" comes from the midwest. That's what I get for buying from a Republican.)

I have learned today:

-why my ancestors were obsessed with schmaltz. Unfortunately, I have also used it up.
-that not all my cats can be trusted with venison scraps.
-that salt is more useful than one might think, at least if one is me.

I miss olive oil, mayonnaise, salt, and dried spices. On the other hand, I'm not looking forward to going back to normal meat, butter, and garlic.

Localvore Challenge

2007-09-13T05:33:50Z

The Green City Market has challenged people to try and eat only locally grown and produced food for a week. "Local," in this case, is Illinois and the bordering states including Michigan. Since the average item on the average American plate comes from 1500 miles away, this is quite an improvement. I had about four acceptable items in my pantry before Saturday's Farmers' Market.

The challenge officially started on Monday. We started a day late, due to a cream shortage and the need to use up leftovers from weekend guests. We'll go an extra day to make up for it. We started Tuesday evening, because obviously evening is when you start strange week-long diets.

Tuesday:
Dinner

Chicken with Honey-Mint Glaze

Chicken (Green City Market--don't recall the exact farm, unfortunately)
Honey (Madison Farmers' Market, purchased at Wiscon)
Butter (made from Country Dairy Cream, Wisconsin, purchased at Whole Foods)
Mint (Garden. Expect to see a lot of this stuff; it took over the world this year.)
Garlic (Green City Market. Supposed to be an Italian variety, very rich.)

Potatoes with Not-Parmesan

Heirloom purple fingerling potatoes (Green City Market. Very sweet, almost "dessert potatoes.")
Butter (see above)
Cheese (Green City Market. A local variety that is like Parmesan in texture, but more woodsy in taste. This is good.)
Garlic (see above)

Wednesday:
Breakfast

I had an omelet--farmers' market eggs, butter, cream, chives from the garden and dried savory from last year's, a bit of not-parmesan. Nameseeker had granola (one of two decent things we found at Sunflower Market) and milk (Fox & Obel).

Lunch

Left-overs from Tuesday dinner, farmers' market plums

Dinner

Meatloaf
Ground venison (Bartered for with non-local brownies. Yay Craigslist.)
chicken drippings and organs
chestnut flour (previously purchased at Maple Sugar Festival, North Park Village Nature Center)
Assorted herbs (Basil and sage from farmers' market, Illinois-grown rosemary from Whole Foods)
Onion (Green City Market)
Red wine (the other Sunflower find)
Honey
Honeycrisp apples dipped in honey for dessert, because it's Rosh Hashonah. A very sweet new year.

Impressions so far? I feel really good--high energy, well-fed, and grounded. We have set exceptions (as per challenge rules): chocolate, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, yeast. So far we haven't used any of them, and probably won't until Friday when we can get flour. Except for a couple of twinges, I don't miss them--I went very quickly from chocolate cravings to fruit cravings. Nameseeker misses salt, and I miss the convenience of cooking with olive oil.

Most of all, though... I like how these meals feel good. Everything is free-range, organic, well-cared-for. Real people are getting real benefit from my eating the food that they produced. I can picture the map of my dinner while I'm falling asleep at night, and feel a little more connection to the land around me. And it's all real food, not "stuff."

Ideally, I would eat this way every week, with the addition of fair trade chocolate, olive oil, Penzey's salt/spices, and other good foods that are simply not grown in the midwest. Unfortunately, that's not possible with either my current money budget or my current time budget. Our food bill has doubled this week, and we spent an inordinate amount of time tracking down staples. The latter would change with practice, but the former remains a barrier until I get tenure or otherwise increase my income significantly. Definitely a goal to work toward, though.

Movie Review: Stardust

2007-08-17T06:23:52Z

I wanted to like this movie. In fact, I did like this movie while I was watching it, and for several hours afterward. Then I made the mistake of thinking about it...

I spent most of the movie caught up in the visuals and the general coolness factor. I mean, it had a lightning-catching airship. It would be hard for me not to enjoy a movie with a lightning-catching airship. And a fairy market with tiny elephants. And wicked princes plotting against each other. And, ooh, I want that outfit!

Unlike most adaptations, the Stardust movie actually makes sense on its own. There's no place where you only know what's going on because you've read the book, and I was willing to judge it on its own merits. The general agreement, as we came out of the theater, was that it wasn't as good as the graphic novel, but that not-as-good-as-Neil-Gaiman still left quite a bit of room for goodness, and that it was a well-done story. With a lightning-catching airship.

And then I talked to a male friend about it, who'd also liked it. He specifically mentioned that he liked the scene where Una and Dunstan have their little one-night stand, because he liked to imagine that if he were in a fairy market, he might "get that lucky." And I realized that in the movie, that's the only thing happening in that scene. Una sees a pretty guy and decides to give him an enjoyable evening.

(From this point onward, I'm going to be doing some comparison with the book. My problem with the movie is not that it differs from the book. However, several things the book does right happen to illustrate, by contrast, the things the movie does wrong. I could as easily point out that, say, Harry Potter gets these things right, but it wouldn't be as good an example because it's not otherwise the same story.)

So like I was saying, in the movie Una sleeps with Dunstan because, well, that's what pretty girls do with protagonists. In the book, Una seduces Dunstan as part of an elaborate plot to fulfill the terms of the spell binding her to Ditchwater Sal. At one point, she asks him, "What do you want?" He says, "I want you," and she says, "I want my freedom." And, indeed, eventually she gets it.

The movie consistently denies any agency to the non-evil female characters. Una is just there so fanboys can imagine f***ing her. She doesn't have any reasons of her own. She doesn't have any particular ambitions after she's freed, either, except to be a mother-figure and hide while other people fight. Yvaine takes no hand in her own fate, and Victoria is selling herself to the highest bidder. In the book, Yvaine rescues Tristran as many times as he rescues her, and Victoria...

Oh, poor Victoria. She gets it worst of all. In the book, she's in love with another man, though Tristran doesn't know it. She does tell Tristran to go fetch the star, to mock him, but she doesn't really think he'll do it. And when he does, she holds off her wedding to her true love, because she gave her word to Tristran. When Tristran returns, she tells him the whole thing, and says tearfully that she'll keep her promise and marry him if that's what he wants. And Tristran, seeing that she doesn't actually want him, and having learned quite a bit from the star, tells her that he wants her to marry the guy she actually loves. She's a good person, doing her best to be honorable, and making the best choices she can in order to stay that way.

Which comes to another problem. Tristran. He suffers greatly from the women around him turning to mindless wimps. Rather than having to make up to Yvaine for his original idiocy, and gradually redeeming himself from his initial capture of her, movie-Tristran "gets the girl" entirely through Stockholm Syndrome. Rather than learning that women are real people, and that you can be a lot closer to the person you have adventures with rather than the idealized figure you have adventures for, movie-Tristran plays plot coupon collection with symbols of alpha male dominance. It's kind of ridiculous, in fact. He gets:

-both girls, including the one who he doesn't want. He leads her on, in fact, so she'll show she likes him in front of her fiance.
-to beat up the fiance of the girl he doesn't want any more. And to have it be deserved, because the guy is a cad.
-to rule the magical kingdom. (Another thing being taken from a girl, as in the book Una serves as regent while he and Yvaine go off to have adventures.)
-immortality.

All right. We get it. You're very manly, and prime game for viewer self-insertion. Now shut up.

Ultimately, all this keeps Tristran from becoming kind. It means that Yvaine's anger-really-means-she-loves-him, rather than that he earns her love. The best illustration is, yes, another contrast with the book. There's a point, in the book, at which Tristran releases Yvaine's chain. He goes off to find food, and asks her, on her honor as a star, to stay put. She promises that she won't walk anywhere, and then as soon as he leaves she rides off on the unicorn. Tristran comes back, and gets an earful from the moon about how she's riding into a trap. For various reasons, he then gets help from a talking tree (less silly than it sounds--the moon asks Pan, who asks the forest). He tells the tree what happened, and she says that she'll help him because he released Yvaine on his own. She further says that if he'd kept her tied up, no god or power could convince her to help.

In the movie, guess what Tristran does at the beginning of the equivalent scene? That's right, he ties Yvaine to a tree. And leaves her there, surrounded by unknown dangers while he goes off scouting. Sounds like boyfriend material to me.

I don't think I'll be watching this movie again, somehow. Unlike the Princess Bride, it really doesn't bear repeated viewing.

Think of It as Evolution in Action

2007-08-01T17:33:46Z

Warning: unusual levels of kvetch ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

I really shouldn't be complaining. I'm at the Cognitive Science Society conference, which is cool in and of itself since I usually don't get to go. There's an actual philosophy panel in a couple days, if I can survive that long, and many nifty-looking papers in between.

And the conference is in an honest-to-gods arcology. If you haven't read much Niven lately, it's basically a giant building with everything in it--living quarters, restaurants, shops, fitness center, and even semi-reliable simulations of the outdoors. If you don't spend a lot of time at professional conferences, you probably assume that this is one of those food-pill-esque ideas that were a little too sterile to make it to the actual future. In fact, they exist, they just happen to be built around conference hotels rather than apartment buildings. The last one I stayed in was in Kansas City. The hotel was of a fairly standard size, but was connected to another hotel by a long walkway full of shops etc. There was a waterfall in the lobby of the other hotel. The Gaylord Opryland is of an entirely different caliber.

The hotel is built around three giant atria, each full of tropical gardens and larger than most normal hotels. There's a small riverboat that takes tours through the Delta Atrium. The expensive rooms look out over the gardens, and the stores and restaurants scattered among them; an impish-feeling guest could have dropped a water balloon on my head while I ate dinner last night. My room, of course, looks out over the parking lot. This is fine by me, because I'm already sick of the gardens, having wended my way through each of them at least twice since last night trying to find affordable food. I have stayed in overflow hotels that were closer to the action than my room is to the actual convention halls. I am also tired of the stores, which are every last one full of tacky kitsch and/or souvenirs for the Grand Ole Opry. And the restaurants all look wonderful, but the cheaper ones are closed for renovations. The thought of explaining to my boss why I had gourmet food on her dime five nights running is somewhat unnerving.

Also, I miss the actual sky. Some time today, this will probably drive me outside, where it is in the 90s and the air is fit for swimming.

I know I ought to be more adventurous, and I'm sure I'll feel better once the conference starts. But all the same, I'm looking forward to going home.

Things I Have Learned This Weekend

2007-07-18T06:57:03Z

Chaucer has a worse Rorschach Effect than Rorschach. Except that I can write and speak like Rorschach (even if it's not a good idea), but I can't spontaneously produce rhyming couplets in Middle English.

Also, reading in a language that you don't know, but know anyway, is very strange. If I hadn't already believed in the implicit acquisition of linguistic rules, I would now.

Marinated Bambi Shoulder

2007-07-11T21:33:09Z

It's been way too long since I've posted, so you get a recipe for venision.

Background: One of Nameseeker's co-workers enjoys hunting deer. His wife, however, does not enjoy eating deer all that often. We, on the other hand, like venison a lot, but don't hunt. So the co-worker gives Nameseeker spare meat from his freezer in exchange for brownies. About the third time this happened, I realized that venison was no longer a once-a-year-must-get-this-perfect treat and I could afford to experiment. The following is the result. It's a non-recipe recipe, which is to say that I didn't write down how much of anything I used.

Take one venison shoulder (this one was about 3 pounds). Cut away the fat and cut the meat from the bone. You should end up with a bunch of tenders ranging from itty to the size of half a boneless chicken breast--in our case, just enough to feed two. Cover with a marinade of:

olive oil (a lot)
red wine (a lot)
balsamic vinegar (not nearly as much, but enough to taste)
honey (a little more than the vinegar)

The honey should be as dark and as good-quality as you can get. I used wildflower honey from the Madison farmer's market: the color of molasses and almost more savory than sweet. Trying to find more things to do with this honey was the major impetus behind this recipe.

To the marinade, add:

garlic
ginger
clove
cinnamon

I used dried and powdered of all these, to spread the taste around as much as possible. But you could use fresh easily, and doubtless to good effect.

Marinate for an hour and then saute the meat, using a little of the marinade for sauce. Be careful not to overcook the small pieces.

I liked this better than any of the venison recipes I've tried from any of the game cookbooks we own. The sweet and gamy tastes combined nicely, mellowing each other. And I was able to control the doneness of the meat better cut into tenders than when I've tried to roast a whole shoulder in the past.

Chicagoland Meet'n'Sniff

2007-06-04T18:58:52Z

The Chicagoland Meet'n'Sniff will meet at my house on Sunday, June 10th at 12 PM. Bring your goodies to sniff, share, and trade. The not-yet-enabled are also welcome. Please bring a
snack to share.

We're in Lombard, about 2 blocks from the Metra station; parking is also available. E-mail gordonr at iit dot edu to RSVP and get directions.

Cross-posted to Sin and Salvation, and cross-posted by bifemmefatale to the forums and BPALanonymous.