lydamorehouse: (crazy eyed Renji)
 I'm currently reading a book called CULTISH: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell.  It's a book that Mason brought home from college and had in his discard (as in to go out to the Little Free Library) pile. I picked it up because a friend of mine just shared a story about a friend of hers from college who was in a cult in the 1990s.  I'm not normally a person who is super into all this sort of thing, but I mean, I did watch all of  the 2015 movie, Going Clear about Scientology.  The book is a little frustrating because it was written in 2021 and the author skirts around taking seriously Trump's language as fantaticism (even while mentioning it) and that doesn't play well post Insurrection and current administration. Like, girl. You could have punched up HARDER. You were, in fact, on to something.

Ironically, I've been spending my free time doing something that feels cult adjactent.

I'm on the programming committee for this year's Gaylaxicon which I have mentioned a dozen times in other contexts. But, my current work has involved trying to recruit local professionals to attend. I feel a little bit like I'm standing on a soap box evangalizing, hoping to get some curious people to sign up! (Seriously, have you thought about attending?? It's a fun con! You don't have to be queer to go!  Membership is currently the low, low price of $80!!) 

 It's also been kind of time (and energy) consuming.  

Very cultish. 

Anyway, I am currently waiting for my brother-in-law to text or call to let me know that he's done with his MRIs. This whole week has been a series of tests for him (and, as it happens, the rest of my family.) So, I've been the Rounds Lyft driver, only without the pay. Ah well. That's what family is for. 
lydamorehouse: (ichigo being adorbs)
 It's Wednesday again, so it's time to check in with what people are reading or have read.

As usual, my reading has been heavily focused on cyberpunk-ish titles. Last week, I mentioned that I had started listening to an audiobook of Body Scout by Lincoln Michel.  This book gets approximately 3.5 stars on Goodreads and that seems fair and accurate to my opinion of it. I'm not really a body horror or a basebal fan and this book has a lot of both. Even so, I found the characters very compelling, probably because I am generally a fan of the noir detective, which our hero Kobo, is not exactly, but he is certainly cast strongly in the mold of. [personal profile] lcohen , you said you might be interested in this because you like baseball? I hesitate to recomend it to you, however, because there is not only the aforementioned body horror, but also a LOT of violence. Our hero gets beaten up a LOT.

I failed around, like one does, after finishing Body Scout, not sure what I was in the mood for next. Eventually settled on another audiobook that is equally dark and is definitely cyberpunk, called When the Sparrow Falls by Fred Sharpson. The audiobook narrator is amazing, first off (he has a very cool British accent), and secondly the story is incredibly compelling in an 'always-having-to-watch-your-back authoritarian future' way. Like, no one likes the old Soviet Bloc vibe, but you can totally understand why a story set in a future world like that would be INTENSE. In basic terms, the premise of this one is that our hero, Inspector South, a low level cop-type bureaucrat in a Luddite/Human Supremicist enclave, gets assigned the job to escort an AI driving a body that looks exactly like his dead wife's around, things get weird and tense fast.

The actual book blurb probably does a better job of describing it, however. I recommend looking that up.

Kai1ban, my podcast co-host for Mona Lisa Overpod, and I have the next two episodes already recorded, so we had a skip week this week in order to continue research a few more titles for our Cyberpunk & Horror episode. I've been asking around various social media sites for good recommendations of cyberpunk short stories with a hint of horror, and I got a good list... which I am only just starting to work my way through. One story that I read that I'm not entirely sure qualifies called "Talk to Your Children About Two-Tongued Jeremy," by Theodore McCombs. It's about the danger of school bullying, if that bullying came from a learning app, and how a certain social economic class is hyper-focuses on getting their kids into The Right School, etc. I really liked it and what happens in it is tragic and awful in places, but I'm never sure what magic quality makes something horror rather than just "kinda dark," you know?

I just looked to see what I had read in terms of manga... and, speaking of horror, I am horrified to discover that I haven't reviewed anything for almost a month!  Yikes! Well, that's another thing I will add to my to-do list today, which is see what I can find in terms of cyberpunk manga with horror vibes (and, yes, I've already read Blame!)

And you? Are you reading anything that you want to share? Anything you want to complain about?
lydamorehouse: Renji is a moron (eyebrow tats)
I just finished reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (audiobook) and have since fallen into the Frankenstein fandom, at least a little bit. My most favorite thing that I've discovered is an AITA post from Elizabeth, Victor Frankenstein's betrothed, which is nearly canonical (in Frankenstein she does write him a letter wondering if he is love with someone else and notes that his affection towards her has always seemed like a brother to a sister.) 

Frankenstein occupied a lot of my mental real estate for several days in a way that few books do. Not, I don't think, because it was Just That Good, but because there is so much we think we know about Victor Frankenstein and his creature. The book "explodes" a lot of that, much of which I posted about earlier when I was still in the throes of listening to the audiobook, but much of which I keep returning to.

Interestingly, Frankenstein gets a shout out in the book I'm listening to now, The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel. The blurb for the book describes it as "a hardboiled baseball scout must solve the murder of his brother in a world transformed by body modifications."  Why did I pick this book, you might ask? So, lately, when I am looking for the next thing, I just ask Libby to call up all the available audiobooks that have been tagged cyberpunk. Out of all the ones it found for me, I started this one yesterday because I noticed two people are waiting for it. I figured I'd better finish listening to it so I can get it off to them.

If you're curious, the other ones on my list are: The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monae, The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford, and The God Game by Danny Toby.  If you've read any of these I'd love to know which I should pick next. I usually take out way more books that I can reasonably get through in the borrowing time because I inevitably can't stand a reader or just can't get into the book and it's nice to have another one to jump right into.

I had wanted to tell you about the game I ran this last weekend, but as it's time to head off to my writers' hour, I will have to save that for tomorrow!
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 It is Wednesday, right?

Having Shawn's surgery cancelled has thrown a wrench into so much, including my sense of time. Also, things that were off are suddenly possible again--including the possibility that I could attend part of ConFABulous this weekend. I do have a membership, so maybe I will stop by, but probably the smartest course of action is just to stay close to home and regroup.

But, it's reading day and I have a few things to report. First of all, I'm listening to the audiobook of Frankenstein for Mona Lisa Overpod's Halloween episode. I'm probably halfway through?  I think I reported last week or whenever I last talked about this book that I was pretty certain that I must have read it for my English degree. Nope. No way. I would have remembered how young Victor Frankenstein was when he created his monster. He's in his second year of university. (This man never completed his doctorate, by the way. Unless he goes back to school before the end of the book, there's no way.) So, what, like nineteen? Anyway, you can tell. Victor is not good at adulting. His solution to creating a monster in the backroom laboratory of his apartment is to freak out, lock the door, and run out into the street and have a panic attack for a couple of days while wandering in the rand, LITERALLY hoping that the problem will solve itself. 

Which it sort of does?

In another scene that had me imagining a hilariously panicked young adult, Victor runs into his pal Henry Cavill (it's actually Clerval, but the reader's pronunciation has imagining Superman) who has finally managed to get his father to agree to send him to university, that same day the monster was created and Victor is all, like, "Uh, my apartment? mmmm, yeah, I GUESS we could go back there..." and is very sus and runs up to check the place out before letting Henry come in. Discovering the monster gone, he's like "WHELP, disaster averted!"

And, I don't know why, but this whole thing reads to me like something I'd read on Tumblr, you know? Or an AITA post. "Created the Philosopher's Stone, but Now I Can't Go Back to My Apartment: AITA?"

This is the other thing I swear to god no one remembers about this book. Victor Frankenstein created the philosopher's stone very explicitly. It's all over the beginning when he nearly quits university in a huff because the ugly Natural History professor tells him that alchemy is an "exploded" science (as in debunked) and only idiots waste their time studying it. Victor's like, "Okay, but you smell," and huffs off to his rented apartment determined to sulk. Except he gets bored and decides to attend a lecture by a much more handsome chemistry professor who, unprompted says that chemistry has the old alchemists to thank for its existence and so Victor is like, "THIS. This is for me." But, it's really only because this new chemistry prof is cool with him continuing to be the reigning expert in alchemy (despite explaining kindly that the science has moved on from trying to change lead to gold) that Victor even stays at university.  Meanwhile, Victor continues to be obsessed with breaking the law, as Edward Elric might say, of equivalent exchange. And... has some successes making the spark of life from nothing! No one also told me that Victor apparently broke the code earlier and decides to move on from reanimated... (what? It's not said, but I am totally imagining a reanimated mouse running around his apartment lab)... "successes" to building a human.

No stitching required! Instead, Victor gathers parts for his creature from the usual places... and the Butcher's. I had hither to NOT imagined Frankenstein's creature being part "rack of lamb." But, apparently so!  Also, it's implied once the philosopher's stone (which is possibly just a formula? He won't tell us, because of course he doesn't want anyone to use this malicious and dreadful art) is applied the creatures body basically knits itself together. 

Very, very different from all the Hollywood and other versions I've seen!  But also something I'd love to actually see dramatized. Like, Victor is just letting the body percolate with the magical science of the philosopher's stone when it opens its glassy eyes and reaches for him.

I am loving this book so far. Who knew it was so weirdly relatable?

But, you all have read this before so it's not news. I feel a bit like Captain America waking up 90 years later saying, "Guys! Have you seen this thing called a TELEVISION! It's so cool!"

Otherwise, I also read a pretty cool manga called Dogma. But, I feel like I should tell you about that next Wednesday.

So, my usual question to you all: read anything NEARLY AS COOL AS FRANKENSTIEN lately?? 
lydamorehouse: (Bazz-B)
 As noted on a previous blog, I just finished Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell. I enjoyed it, despite occasionally feeling miles a head of the protagonist in terms of Clues to Pick Up On. However, I never know if that's actually a problem or just my well-honed writerly sense of foreshadowing and how it's used in narratives, due to spending much of my life workshopping professional-level writing in my two writers' groups. So, it's possible that it would not be an issue for most.

I have a number of things in my TBR pile, but probably I will be listening to Frankenstein next. Not only did Libby finally cough it up for me after being on hold forever, but we are doing a deep-dive into it for my cyberpunk podcast in time for Halloween, which is coming up fast. I think it will be fun to try to make the case that Frankenstein is cyberpunk--it certainly tackles a lot of the same themes as cyberpunk: what does it mean to be human? When is science TOO much science? And, there is no question in my mind that Frankenstein is the first science fiction novel. This will be, I think, my second reading. I'm pretty sure I had to read Frankenstein as part of my English major in college. Though I remember nothing of substance about it.

 As for manga and anime media, I seem to be falling into movies lately. On Crunchyroll, I watched Josee, the Tiger and the Fish.  I recommend it? It's a very sweet coming-of-age romance between two new adults, one of whom has been disabled (wheelchair bound) since birth. I found it really heartwarming. I tend to love me a good slice-of-life where a large percentage of it is just people discovering how cool it is to be alive in the world today.
 
The other one I watched yesterday might not be available anywhere you can get it because it comes via my membership in the Japanese Film Festival (JFF). You might be able to just sign up for it?  https://en.jff.jpf.go.jp/  It is, I believe, free.
 
Several years ago, I stumbled on to JFF because Facebook advertised to me that there was a Satoshi Kon film festival and I SLAMMED the sign me up button so hard that somehow I ended up with a Japan Foundation membership. At any rate, I get push notifications any time they're running another film festival. Thus, I spotted that the JFF was going to be debuting a live-action version of ReLife. Unfortunately, that isn't yet streaming in North America!  Bummer!

BUT, while I was there I found some things I could watch, including this great anime movie called Time of Eve, which is about robot love or rather more accurately the bonds between humans and machines. One of the things I adore about all the Japanese manga and anime I've consumed on the subject of artificial life so far is that the assumption never seems to be "Can machines generate real human emotions," but rather, "When the robots generate real human emotions, will we be emotionally mature enough to accept them as people?"   

Wikipedia tells me that there was an anime TV series of Time of Eve first, which doesn't surprise me.  You can kind of tell from the movie that they are condensing a lot. It was still a good movie.  Someone also did a manga after the fact, apparently, which I have open on another tab because I'd like to be able to review it for MangaKast (and I try to only review things that have corresponding manga--in part because everyone and their dog reviews anime TV and movies, and almost no one reviews solely manga.) 

I think that's most of what's been going into my brain lately. 

How about you? Whatcha reading?
lydamorehouse: (nic & coffee)
 Just two minutes ago, I finished reading a powerful webcomic recommended by [personal profile] bcholmes called O Human Star. I cried all the tears, the ugly ones and the happy ones. I can not recommend it enough. 

In a sort of similar vein (at least in terms of a world where androids and humans co-exist), I finished listening to the audiobook of  Klara and the Sun by Kazou Ishiguro. I can't say that I enjoyed Klara and the Sun because it's ultimately--in my opinion, anyway--a tragedy, I did find it very compelling all the way through. I'd read Ishiguro's previous novel, The Buried Giant, when it was up for the Mythopoeic Award (2016). Looking back at my review of that book, I can see that I had similar feelings about it. Ishiguro's narrative style is very dream-like in both of these books, though I was impressed in Klara and the Sun how he was able to tell the readers more than Klara herself always fully understood or grasped. That can be extremely tricky to pull off, and he does it masterfully here. As I told a friend, I liked this book right up to the very last line--and the last line didn't make me HATE the book, just feel deeply, DEEPLY sad.  

Otherwise, I crammed in a couple of food-related manga ahead of tomorrow's OH-F*CK-O'CLOCK WorldCON panel "Let Them Eat! Food in Anime."  Of them, I really loved all 70+ chapters of Wakako-Zake by Shinkyu Chie. (The link is to my review, but from there, if you like, you can find a copy of the manga.) It is impossible not to spoil this one because the entire manga is about a 28-year old woman who goes out to eat and enjoys her food (and whatever alcohol she pairs it with.) That's it. That's the entire manga. And, I would read 70 more chapter of it, if it were available. As part of all this prep, I also skimmed through the manga Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi / Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill by Eguchi Ren / Akagishi K, reminding myself as to why I loved the anime so much.  I also ended up watching a few episodes of Food Wars! so I could reasonably understand what people were talking about, should it come up. I should probably re-read my review of Dungeon Meshi before tomorrow AM, too. 

Unrelated, I also read the Japanese re-imagining of Batman manga called Batman: Justice Buster by by Shimizu Eiichi and Shimoguchi Tomohiro, (Again, all the links to the manga will take you to my review, but from there you can usually get to an online version of the manga.) I really loved what they did with the Joker in this series, honestly. If you are a Batman fan... well, it might drive you crazy? Or you might love it. 

Over the weekend, I read a couple of cyberpunk short stories that were collected in The Big Book of Cyberpunk that I'm borrowing from a friend. I re-read James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," and Pat Cadigan's "Pretty Boy Crossover." 

Oh, and I listened to the first couple of episodes of the Call of Cthulhu Mystery Theater podcast and The-Channel-Show, since both of the producers of those shows will be part of the panel that I'll be moderating on Saturday.  The first is a slightly scripted TTRPG podcast of a cast of characters playing Call of Cthulhu, the only TTRPG that I ever rage quit. It is one of those that is designed to end in a total party kill/deep insanity and I had spent way too much time building my character... and so I was deeply upset to be agoraphobic (and thus basically useless) after the first session. Unlike me, these actors are aware of what they're getting into, so it's more fun to listen to. The-Channel-Show is... deeply weird. The first few episodes, at any rate, are basically two people (AIs?) "channeling" the future of... some world? Possibly ours? Possibly not? But, it's very surreal and... yeah, not for me. But, weirdly, when I was on the how-to workshop for Glasgow WorldCON online stuff, the writer/producer person Dana Little was on the same call. She didn't put her camera on, but seeing her name come up was just sort of "Oh. There you are. I was just listening to you be VERY STRANGE. Hello," you know? 

I think that's everything!  

I should probably go organize myself for tomorrow, but what about you? Have you been reading anything good lately? Anything not so good?
lydamorehouse: (phew)
I have been reading and consuming a literal f*ck ton thanks to my new podcast. Once again, I will break things down by category.

BOOKS
I started and finished listening to Annalee Newitz's novel Autonomous, which I sort of hated? I had real issues with the character of Paladin for reasons which I will only get into privately, so if you want to know reach out. But, it is definitely cyberpunk and queer, so it's on the list to talk about next week. 

The only other cyberpunk book that my library had available as an audiobook was Charlie Stross's Rule 34, which... is pretty fascinating so far, if only because it is told in the second person. 

SHORT STORIES
"Papa's Going to Buy You a Mockingbird," by Lillian Boyd (Fireside, June 2021).  Another story of hyper-capitalism, where our heroes come together to try to fix a problem caused by renting out your own head for ad space. It feels weirdly plausible in a depressing way.
 
"Across the River, My Heart, My Memory," by Ann LeBlanc (Fireside, July 2021). A story told from the point of view of someone's black market mod pancreas. Yes, the pancreas is telling the story, you heard that right. You kind of have to read it to believe it, but it works. The protag is a pancreas that has the stored memories of a lesbian who is part of a kind of institutional memory coop, which feels very 1990s dyke culture to me... and so read very authentically queer, if you know what I mean.

"Cruise Control,"
by Benjamin C. Kinney (Fireside, July 2021), which is about a guy who talks his grandpa into becoming a car. it's not gay in any way that I could see, but it is very, very cyberpunk.
 
"Clown Watches the Clown" by Sara S. Messenger, which is... clown beating fetish + unions??? It is rare that I leave a story and think, "What did I just read?" but this was definitely one of them.  Also, not sure how cyberpunk-y it is, outside of the world being very dystopian and the characters been very much part of the underclass. Kind of worth a read, though?


MANGA:
I am only just in the B's of the alphabetical list of cyberpunk manga generated for me by Baka-Updates. But, I got through several over the last week:

AD. Police by Suzuki Toshimichi / Tony Takezaki, which is apparently part of a fairly popular franchise that I had never heard of, but which is kind of a Blade Runner rip-off, in that basically these are cops who hunt down robot crimes (a theme that will continue as we go down the list.) 

Armored Gull: The Exoskeleton Frame
by Las, a Korean manhua which only had a few chapters published, so I was left wondering when the cyberpunk part would hit. Currently, it seems to be a mecha manga, which is very pretty? There may be a plot coming (as it seems to have been somewhat telegraphed) that our young scientist hero is maybe NOT who he says he is. 

Armitage the Third by Konaka Chiaki / Ikegami Tatsuya--another manga from a surprisingly large franchise of movies and anime. I had so much trouble reading more than a couple of chapters of this that I should probably put this one in the next category, which is things watched. I hunted down the first episode of a four part OVA of this just so I could get a better sense of it. It's basically about Martian cops who hunt down illegal robots and prosecute robot crimes. The twist here is that our heroine, Armitage, is herself a third generation robot virtually indistinguishable from humans. 

I also started and didn't yet finish Blame! by Nihei Tsutomu.

THINGS WATCHED:
In amongst all of this cyberpunk stuff, it is also the Japanese Film Festival Online (until June 18) and, while I'm not trying to catch everything (which would be darn near impossible, given that there are hundreds of films available,) I did pick up at least one other film this last week. 

BL Metamorphosis, directed by Kariyama Shunsuki, which is based on a manga of the same name by Tsurutani Kaori. This film was INSANELY CHARMING. It's about a friendship that forms between a 78-year old woman and a 15 year old girl over their mutual appreciation of a particular yaoi series. I've been describing this to a lot of people because I love it so much, but one of the things that makes the movie awesome is that it's paced just like a yaoi, there's even a kind of "break-up due to easily solved miscommunication" that happens about 2/3rd in and they get a very satisfying friendship version of an HEA. There's even an element of forbidden love, because at one point the 15 year old gets asked who that woman is to her and she shouts, "She's not my grandma!" and runs away, ashamed, just like what happens in a lot of yaoi stories when someone first suggests to the hero that he might be gay.

Then, I watched the Netflix original anime movie based on Blame! (2017) directed by Seshita Hiroyuki and I'm not ashamed to say I liked it. Apparently, it gets a lot of hate because it's not a faithful adaptation of the manga, but I've been having  a hard time getting into the manga, so I'm not sure I care. 

So, that's been a lot. How about you? What 'cha reading these days?
lydamorehouse: (Renji 3/4ths profile)
 And, I have some reading to report!

For the next while, a lot of what I suspect I'll be reading will be what is essentially show prep for the cyberpunk podcast, but a lot of that is pretty interesting (at least to me!) 

I will break this down by category.

BOOKS:
I'm about one hour from finishing Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller. This one is interesting because as I told a friend of mine, if I started to describe it, you would absolutely be like, "Oh, hell yes, that is cyberpunk," because it involves a sexually (at least in part) transmitted nano-disease that causes mass, shared hallucinations and the city is run by immortal, unreachable artificial intelligences. Yet, somehow, despite this and the very present poverty and economically stratified dystopia, I'm not feeling it. I think it's the animal companions. I honestly think that the reason my brain keeps nope-ing out at the idea that this is cyberpunk is because there are, essentially, telepathically bonded animals (even though it's clearly stated this is not MAGICAL, but also nanobot driven.) It is, however, very queer/GLBTQIA+. And, I should be clear, I like it. 

SHORT STORIES:
“We are the clouds” ALSO by Sam J. Miller, Lightspeed (September 2014) (audio version available) 
A fascinating take on “human batteries.” Sauro, our main character, is a Latino gay boy, who, like a lot of poor folks in this future New York has an implanted ‘cloud port,’ which is basically an extra signal boost to a municipal-wide internet infrastructure. He falls in love with a danger twink named (of course!) Case, who runs him through an emotional ringer, but which allows Sauro to realize the power of collective action. Content Warning for exploitive sex work and sex workers.
 
“Unauthorized Acess” by An Owomoyela, Lightspeed (September 2014) (audio version available)
This one has a very old-school cyberpunk feel to it. There is a central non-binary character in the story called LogicalOR. Main character is a probably-on-the spectrum/maybe lesbian Black woman who has just been released from jail for being a hacker/whistleblower. Highly recommended. 
 
 
MANGA
Angel Oil by Tanaka Tatsuyuki
Another odd one that I'm not fully sure can be categorized as cyberpunk. It's difficult to know for sure, if only because it was never licensed in English and the pirate scanlators gave up after five chapters. But, it is visually Very Cool and follows a kind of Alice in Wonderland character, Hinako Maeda, the only [presumed] human character, who seems to live among robots or, as it is implied in a later chapter, humans whose brains/consciousnesses have been transferred into robotic bodies. She goes out on a quest to get oil because the rations for their settlement have been mysteriously cut off. Without oil, her grandma will die.
 

Adou or A-DO by Amano Jaku
I initially felt like this one was just straight-up an Akira rip-off, wherein the author just said to themselves, "What if Aikra, only with a female protagonist and without all the testosterone-fueled rape-y crap and more focus on the experimented on kids?" And, while I think Adou eventually rose above that, (it is licensed in English and there are at least 15 chapters online), I would probably have read it, anyway, because, yes, please. 

So, that's what I've been consuming lately. What about you? Have you read anything interesting lately?
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 I finally moved a lamp in our bedroom so that I have decent light to read by at night, and so I started a non-fiction book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. The book appeared in our little free library, and I pulled it out because I am actually very interested in this subject. As I think I have reported here before, one of the reasons I returned to DW was because of a renewed interest in "long-form" communication. I'd been feeling especially scattered and burned out by the fast-pace, rock-skipping-over-the-water's-surface-ness of Facebook and Twitter.

So far, this book is pretty interesting. It's a bit old, having come out almost 10 years ago, but I'm still finding it interesting because it's explicitly not about content. The author is not trying to say "internet bad," which is often where these kinds of books start. Instead, the author is very clear that there are TONS of benefits to being online, and, that's kind of the point. We are here because we both want and need to be, now what? 

Anyway, that's what I've been reading. 

I also went on a really interesting, though not very visually stunning tour of Ueno's Ameyoko market. Ueno is one of those neighborhoods in Tokyo that I mostly know because Pimsleur decided I needed to know how to ask for the train station there. There is also a very famous, old zoo there, which Duolingo has used to teach me to talk about animals. So, it's kind of weird to suddenly be walking around in a place I think of as part of my language lessons and not much else. 

In fact, I took a picture of the Zoo, because I was so used to seeing it in my lessons, that I COULD ACTUALLY READ THE KANJI.

The entrance to Ueno Zoo
Image: the rather dull entrance to Ueno Zoo, only notable for Lyda's reading skills (yes, the name is also there in English.).

The tour was promoted as "Peculiar Tokyo," and the highlight was Ameyoko a street known for its history as a black market. What I found particularly fascinating about this was the tour guide's explanation of the history of the name of the street. As in the link referenced above, Kei told us that the street's name is a shortened form of "Ameya Yokocho" which means candy store alley, and the connection to the black market is that in Japan, as in most places during WWII, there were sugar rations. So, if you were a candy maker, you were probably also in it with the black market. Candy sellers still make their homes on this street, as well.

Another take is that "Ame" was a short form of American, since after the war, during the occupation, there was a brisk trade of American goods in this black market alley as well.

Ameyoko entrance
Ameyoko market entryway. 

This tour should not have been as exciting as it was for me, but it made a strange Bleach connection for me, because there is a very shady shopkeeper who happens to be the mentor to the hero, who owns, of all weird things, a candy store. It does, in fact, operate as a black market for people from the other side (the Soul Society,) but I have NO IDEA if the author intended this connection or not. I tend to think of Kubo-sensei as a kind of savant, so who knows. As a friend of mine wondered, is this a common enough connection to drop into a shounen manga?? Or did Kubo just have one of his strangely brilliant moments??  

As one writer to another, I say: both. Both is entirely possible. Gods know, I sometimes write stuff in that later I'm like, "OH, that's real thing? Right! Well, then I meant it that way!!" 

At any rate, Kei, our tour guide, was perky and interesting. He had apparently been hired by the tour company he was currently working for, specifically for the Olympics. In the end, of course, he said that he only managed to give a few tours to some athletes. His English was excellent, and he explained that he'd studied for several years in Canada. He kept begging us all to start travelling again soon, which was kind of sadlarious.

He worked really hard to engage with us across the miles, and, at one point, asked people to drop into the chat their favorite Japanese foods. I volunteered takoyaki, which are fried octopus balls (not testicles, which I'm not even sure octopuses have, but you know, like how hushpuppies are "balls"). At any rate, Kei was deeply surprised that anyone outside of Japan had had takoyaki and so when we were in the actual market street, he stopped to buy some to show everyone what they were like. I enjoyed that part a LOT because I got to see which condiments he chose to put on his--typically, here in the US, they're served with Japanese mayo, bonito flakes, and another kind of dark sauce, probably this takoyaki sauce that Wikipeida references. He had the dark sauce, no mayo, bonito flakes, and something I rarely get, which was a kind of seaweed sprinkle. 

It made me very much crave a trip to Zen Box. 

What was also surprising was the number of Americans who were like, "Wait, what? You can get takoyaki in St. Paul, MN??" and I was in the chat saying, "Yes, in more than one place." Google can find four places for me, two of which I've had the takoyaki at, Ishita Ramen and Zen Box. But, they are also common at the local Obon celebration at Como Park in the summer. I feel like I also picked them up at one of the night markets, in the days before the pandemic.

My point is, and I do have one, that I'm still learning things about Japan through these trips.

I noticed the silence, too, that fell when Kei asked us if anyone had been to Japan. No one. Some people had friends or family that lived somewhere in Japan, but none of us had travelled there. It makes me curious if part of the appeal of HeyGo for other people is the same as it is for me--a chance to go somewhere I will probably never be able to afford to go to in Real Life (tm).

The market stalls in Ueno's Ameyoko Street
Image: The market stalls in Ueno's Ameyoko Street

I did a few other tours last week, but I found most of them vaguely disappointing. For instance, I went to Shinjuku's Central Park with a French foreign national living in Japan, whom I suspect is one of the few guides who is not a professional tour guide. I say this because she said that she could not find much information on the park in English, which... I mean, she's not wrong. However, I feel like what the others have done in those cases is supplement with information about the neighborhood? I am probably being too judgmental. However, I have been considering trying to see if HeyGo would hire me, so I am always thinking about this sort of problem and trying to solve it for myself. Like, okay, if I took people to Como Park here in Saint Paul, maybe there isn't a huge amount of information about it, but that's when you supplement with information about architects of park buildings and other local historical or interesting facts.

Shinjuku itself is fascinating.

Moreover, I had previously never heard of the skyscraper district, Nishi-Shinjuku, which this park is located near.

Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, Shinjuku skyscraper district
Image: in the distance is a very fascinating cocoon shaped building, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, the building was commissioned by Mode Gakuen (an educational firm) as a kind of contest, with the stipulation to its architects that the skyscraper could be anything other than a rectangle!  I only just learned that, however, our tour guide only mentioned all the various schools inside, which is interesting? Since it is also the second tallest educational building in the world.

I believe we are also looking at the cocoon building over the wall of the man-made water falls, which are known as "Shinjuku's Niagara Falls," which, "The Tokyo Weekender has described the water feature as 'generously named.'" Which cracks me up.

I will admit I bailed on this tour pretty early, and I probably missed the best part, which is the shrine at the far end of the park. Our guide had a very shaky cam, and sometimes I can roll with that and sometimes it makes me very queasy. This was a queasy time, unfortunately. I did sign-up to do another tour with this particular guide because she is headed to Shinjuku Park National Garden, which I BELIEVE is where one of my favorite anime is set, Midnight Occult Civil Servants had several episodes take place. (There are a lot of parks in Shinjuku, it turns out. I am hoping to see some locations I might recognize. I actually thought I recognized a place at the Central Park, but I'm not sure.)  At any rate, I am willing to give this particular guide a second chance.

This whole camera issue is currently the main thing stopping me from seeing if HeyGo would take me as a tour guide. I don't have a selfie stick, which a lot of the best guides seem to have (and it really seems to contribute to better sense of steadiness), and I really doubt my Tracfone service is going to be able to handle the bandwidth/streaming data required. However, it's a constant source of amusement for me to imagine what I would show off in St. Paul if I were a guide here.
lydamorehouse: (lyda cartoon)
 I can't remember the last time I actually remembered to record my reading on "What Are You Reading Wednesday?"  But, here I am!  

I had a little accident at a local bookstore, Next Chapter. I was only intending to play taxi for Mason who had a gift certificate to spend, but I walked out with three manga in hand.  Over the past week, I've read (and reviewed):
I also read the first volume of Chainsaw Man by Fujimoto Tatsuki that I got out of my library, which I liked... OK? This is one of those manga that EVERYONE seems to be into and, maybe because it was so hyped, I found it underwhelming. In my review on MangaKast, I pointed out that there isn't anything WRONG with Chainsaw Man, per se, I just sort of bounced off of it. I suspect that when the anime comes out, I'll watch the whole thing. It's serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump, so it is of a type that I tend to enjoy.

When I returned some books to the library yesterday, I picked up a big handful of manga. Last night I read the first volume of Weathering With You, which is based on a 2019 anime movie of the same name. I had wanted to watch the movie before I reviewed it, but Amazon noticed my interest and put it behind a paywall. I wanted to watch the movie because, like the manga for Your Name, I felt like the manga was kind of sketchy, like I was missing some connective tissue or something? It might all be in the second volume, but I had hoped to just cut to the original. 

Alas.

Otherwise, I am still working my way through the second season of Critical Role while I quilt in the evenings. 

So what about you? What have you been reading or consuming lately?
lydamorehouse: (writer??)
Today, I am feeling a lot of ennui... or possibly just general malaise.

Whatever I'm feeling, it's definitely French.

It's "What Are You Reading Wednesday" so I'll start with that, I suppose. I have been very slowly reading a book called THE MIDNIGHT BARGAIN by C L Polk. It's a funny book because the premise really shouldn't interest me--it's a Jane Austin-esque marry or die, comedy of manners 'oh noz, the social engagement that I am ever so unsuited for, but will totally excel at!'--but then, I'll decide to pick it up and suddenly I've read fifty pages without meaning to, you know?  I think I am enjoying it because it continues to subvert the genre in subtle ways, while also giving fans of it all the things. Courting handsome men! Ball gowns!  Demon summoning!

I haven't finished it yet, however, because I kept setting it down and forgetting about it.  

Is this a recommendation?  Weirdly, I do intend it to be. I need to work on my delivery, I think. I suspect that a lot of my friends out there in SF/Fdom would enjoy it.

Otherwise, like I said, today has been kind of 'meh.' I've been dodging a headache all day. I blame the sunshine. My sinuses react to rapid changes in barometric pressure and the temperature is spiking outside. It's gone from 5 to 18 F (-15 C to -8 C).  I guess that doesn't seem like a huge amount, but I'm pretty sure something has shifted. One side of my face feels filled with cement.

And, I don't know. Do any of the rest of you ever have days when you feel like you're just doing everything wrong and no one likes you?  That's the kind of day I'm having today.

This too shall pass, I know. I at least got a package mailed today along with some postcards. I should probably turn my mind towards some Christmas baking. Chocolate mint cookies are restorative.  They can heal any wound, I believe.
lydamorehouse: (nic & coffee)
Once again, I don't think I consumed a single actual novel, but a lot of manga have been read and enjoyed. This week, I read:

Sign Language by Ker, a manhwa (the Korean version of a manga, usually full-color and in web comic format) about the lust-affair between a part-time cafe employee and his deaf boss.

What Did You Eat Yesterday?/ Kinou Nani Tabeta? (Vol. 12) by Fumi Yoshinaga, a manga about cooking and eating and two gay guys for whom food is clearly their "love language."

I Hear the Sunspot / Hidamari ga Kikoeru by Yuki Fumino, a manga about a college note-taker who works for a deaf student, and their compelling slowburn love affair.

Breath (Vol. 1) by Chifumi Ochi, a manga about a jerk and the guy he blackmails. (Can you tell I didn't really like this one?)
 

I also read the preview copy of Nnedi Okorafor's Black Panther for my review job at Twin Cities Geek.  In fact, today, after I do the dishes and start the bread to go with tonight's jambalaya, I need to sit down and write a review for that.  I also still never turned in my review of As the Crow Flies, so I need to do that, as well.

My other book related news is that I've LOST a library book somewhere in my house.  I took out all 9 volumes of My Neighbor Seki, and I can't find volume one ANYWHERE.  I thinking that I might just read the first volume on-line and then return the others, so that I can focus on finding that book?  I hope that I don't have to confess to my colleagues at work that I managed to lose a book.  That would be so embarrassing!  I'm hoping it will turn up over the holidays. I have a bad feeling that it's somewhere in the bedroom, which could mean that I might have to clean... (drum roll, please).... UNDER THE BED.

The horror!

I'd love to hear what you've read this week or what you will be reading over the holiday break.  

lydamorehouse: (Bazz-B)
What am I reading these days, anyway? A lot of manga still. This week, I read My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia volume 10, “All For One” / “Ōru Fō Wan,” Blood-C 1 by Kotone Ranmaru, and four and a half volumes of Nana by Ai Yazawa.  I was sort of 'meh' on the first two series, but I'm really enjoying Nana so far, which is good since I think the library has all 21 volumes.  In fact, I was thinking about taking off a little early to go get Mason by way of Roseville Library, so I may just return what I've read and pick up as many as they have in a row.

Nana is about two twenty-something women, both of whom are named Nana. Both are originally from small towns and they meet each other on the train to Tokyo, one wintery night.  Nana Komatsu is frivolous and the sort of giggly girl who pretty much falls for every man she meets.  Nana Osaki is a hardcore punk rocker, hoping to make it big. It's slice-of-life with a heavy dose of romance/sexy times. I have this huge weakness--particularly lately--for slice-of-life stories where there's just not a WHOLE lot at stake, beyond people just trying to live good lives.  So, I'm not entirely surprised that Nana is the one working for me out of the three series I read this week.

Otherwise, I continue holiday baking. Today, I made spritz:

a colorful array of spritz cookies

Here's a close up of ones I was surprised to discover have six-pointed star.  Perhaps for Hanukkah?
Hanukkah spritz?  Was surprised to discover a six-pointed star in the center of these.

The funniest part of all this baking is that we're really not expecting anyone for the holidays.  Shawn just really, really likes having a lot of cookies around.

Who doesn't?

How about you? Reading anything good this week?

lydamorehouse: (aizen's return)
...not only that, but Tom Hiddleston's MCU Loki. It was really awesome. I think I turned into a crow at one point. But, we definitely made an alliance with the giant ant people.

I blame this on the fact that Shawn and I watched Kong: Skull Island together. Was that movie panned? We LOVED it.

But, today is Wednesday, so I'm supposed to be talking about reading. I read a ton of manga chapters this last week and not much else. So, I read:

Koi to Kedama to Otonari-san by Suzaka Shina
Ekrano by Kitoh Mohiro
Weekend Lovers / Yokubari na Shuumatsu by Fuwa Kiriko
Blue Drop / Buruu Doroppu by Yoshitomi Akihito
Wombs by Shirai Yumiko
Legend of the President’s Glasses / Kaichou no Megane Densetsu by Irie Aki

Of those, the stand-out was Wombs. It's a very odd, but compelling science fiction manga about women soldiers who, when impregnated with an alien lifeform, are able to travel through an alternate dimension that moves them through real space.  The story takes place on an alien planet that humans (presumably from Earth) have colonized and terraformed.  We're at war not with the native species, but with a second group of colonizers (presumably ALIEN) who think this planet belongs to them. Since we were there first, it's a fight.  The women are used as troop (and supply) transport, but also as scouts because the various spots that they can hop between are a network left behind (or possibly still used by) the planet's natives.  There's a lot of intrigue about various military groups agendas, what the natives are, what would happen if we let one come to term inside a human host, etc., etc.  There's unfortunately, only one volume that's been officially licensed. If you want to read it, you have to look for it on scanlation sites, like Mangago, etc.  The scanlators seem to have done four out of the five available volumes.

If you ever want to read what I think of the manga I'm reading, you can check out: mangakast.wordpress.com.  I review every manga I read.  Which reminds me that I should write something up about Kill a Kill, which I didn't finish because it turned out to be ecchi. 

In the department of things I'm watching, I just got caught up with Elegant Yokai Apartment Life (though Crunchyroll will likely release another one or two before the year is up, I suspect. I'm NOT a premium member, so I have to watch an extra week for the latest to free up.)  I started watching Mushi-shi, which I'm really enjoying.  I don't post much about the anime I watch because I'm SO SLOW. I'm kind of the exact opposite of a binge watcher. I watch one, half-hour episode a day, while hand-washing the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher.)  I have a couple of friends who can blow through an entire series in a matter of days.  I always feel like a slug in comparison.

How about you? Read anything interesting this week?




lydamorehouse: (Default)
What am I reading? What have I read?

I've been very slowly making my way through Scarlett still, which I think I mentioned last week. Part of my problem with things that I can't finish in one sitting these days is that, if I set the book down at all, some fresh horror will hit the news cycle and I lose days before I get back to it properly. I did manage to read two volumes of Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma as well as various yaoi titles (Warehouse, a Korean manhwa, and Ai ga Matteru by Abe Akane) though, which is a marked improvement over the last several weeks.

I've got a ton of stuff in my TBR pile, actually, so I might want to hop to--including a graphic novel that I backed the kickstarter for called As the Crow Files. The actual print copies showed up on the door, so that's a huge yay.  

Otherwise, yeah, it's November, folks. In 17 days, I will turn 50.
lydamorehouse: (Default)
 I'm beginning to realize why I previously never participated in these. Okay, the honest truth is that I didn't entirely realize they existed, but, the other part is that, because I hang out with science fiction/fantasy fans who tend to be voracious in their reading habits, I always feel woefully under read.  

Once again, which is, as I have noted in the past, very typical of me, I did read a graphic novel.  I read volume 5 of Ten Count

I have on my TBR pile a couple of manga that I have actually been dreading reading.  My beloved manga Gangsta. had a spin-off called Gangsta.: Cursed.  I read the first few chapters when they appeared online, but I gave up on them because the format they were being pirated in was hard to read and, more importantly, they were so, so violent and bloody.  The mangaka wrote them, but she did not illustrate them.  Since they don't follow a character I much cared for, I let them go. But the library had the complete two volume run, so I thought: "Okay, I should be a completist and finally read these."  

And yet there they sit.

I will probably bite the bullet and read them next however.

Mason also really wants me to read Scarlet, which is the sequel to Cinder, which I listened to the audio book of years ago and liked. He's a big fan of the series, so I agreed to try to pick it up.  That's probably the big book I'll be reading next.  Since I work at the library today, I will probably troll Locus Magazine for more recommendations.

How about you?
lydamorehouse: (swoon)
I think the ONLY thing I managed to read this week was SKIM by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. It was a good, if a bit depressing. I mean things turn around by the end, but getting there was kind of rough.  Read more... )

But, yeah, I don't know what happened to me, otherwise. I started THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE by Claire North, despite the fact that I bounced out of her THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST. I'm not feeling it so far, but I'm also not very far in. I will give it my traditional 50 pages to make or break.  

I know a lot of people who will slog through a book that they've started because they're just that sort: they're completists or stubborn or deeply optimistic (hoping it will turn around at some point!).  With my dyslexia, mild though it may be, I can't do that. If I'm struggling with getting into a book, that slows me down to a crawl and, because I'm also a serial reader, that means I'm not reading anything else.  

So, I've developed a litmus test.  If I'm still enjoying at 50 pages, I'll keep going. If I'm struggling, I'll still give it 50 to change my mind.  I do realize this means there are books I miss because they really pick up after page 150 or whatever, but see above. I just don't have that kind of time. I have give up books later than 50 pages, but 50 seems like a good amount of time for me to get used to a writer's voice or style, in case that's the only thing I'm cold to, you know?

What about you? Are you a stick to it no matter what person? Or do you have some arbitrary number of pages? Or do you just give up whenever? I know that Shawn, for instance, won't even give 50 pages if she decides the book is not for her for any reason. She reads really fast, though, unlike me, and, also unlike me, has several books going at once.  So, giving up on one does NOT necessitate hunting around for the next one (like it does for me.)

lydamorehouse: (cap and flag)
i can't actually say it's been a slow reading week, since I plowed through the remaining 21 volumes of Pandora Hearts. I also read an on-line, one volume, one-shot yaoi called One Yen Man / 1-en Otoko as well as got through volume 2 of another manga called Bunny Drop last night, which I mentioned here previously (and I have volumes 3-6 on my TBR pile).

It's funny how, despite the number of pages that the above represents, I always feel like I've read NOTHING when I've only read manga.  That's kind of sad, because, obviously, graphic novels and manga are just as "real" reading as any traditional novel.  I don't really know why I buy into the idea that somehow they're 'lesser.' 

Speaking of my my TBR pile, on it is a graphic novel called Skim by Marika Tamaki / Jillian Tamaki, a traditional novel called The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North, the second collected volume of Bitch Planet, Bitch Planet: President Bitch by Kelly Sue Decconnick / Valantine DeLandro, and a graphic novel The Stoneman Mysteries: Book One by Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple / Orion Zangara.

We'll see how much of this I get through in a week.  I need to at least get though The Stoneman Mysteries since I told Twin Cities Geek that I'd review that one for them.  Adam is, of course, a local author and Twin Cities Geeks likes to highlight the local interest stuff whenever possible.  

Meanwhile, I still have a pretty intense case of the blahs.  I blame the weather and the Nazis.

Reading

Aug. 9th, 2017 08:43 am
lydamorehouse: (swoon)
 It's Wednesday already again. It was a good week for reading, probably because of our extended stay up at our friends' cabin.  So, stuff I read:

Spells of Blood and Kin by Claire Humphrey. A book I didn't expect to like, but ended up falling into easily.  It's about a Russian-Canadian witch and berserker/werewolf/vampires (?) I'm not quite sure how to explain the Kin, and that's the part I figured that I'd find stupid, but I really didn't.  It's one of those pseudo-literary novels where it's kind of also about families, both blood and made.  I ended up enjoying it.  

Then, I read half of Emmi Itäranta's The Weaver, because I was hoping for a sequel to The Memory of Water, which I really loved. Alas, this is not what I was looking for and so am giving up on it.  It's just a little bit TOO poetic for me.

I also read a graphic novel called Just So Happens by Fumio Obata. It's about a Japanese woman who has moved to London to pursue a career in some kind of design work. She's struggling with settling in, and then gets the call that her father died in a hiking accident.  She returns to Japan to try to figure out if she still belongs there.  It's kind of a non-story, in that nothing is resolved.  Our heroine never entirely feels at home anywhere.  The art is pretty, though.  It's a fast read. 

I got through half of the Pandora Hearts manga volumes that I took out of the library. (I took out six, read three so far). Pandora Hearts by Jun Mochizuki is about... huh, how do I describe this thing? There's a rich/tragic little lordling named Oz, who gets caught up in a supernatural adventure, probably because he's the key to some mystery involving "the Abyss," and ends up in a contract with a devil.  I'm still not sure how I feel about this series. I watched the first 7 episodes of the anime on Hulu and am finding it compelling... enough. I think my problem is with the main character.  His daddy issues really just don't interest me, and my sympathy for royal dukes only goes so far.  I'm kind of the opposite of your average romance reader (at least the ones who seem to get a lot of books targeted at them, at any rate,) in that you really have to work overtime to get me to give ANY f*cks about rich aristocrats and their "tragedies."  Just slapping a title on a character does nothing for me--well, other than infuriate me. Luckily, our poor little rich boy has a companion that I like better. Sadly, it's turning out that he's a lost prince with a tragic backstory, too, so possibly there's no one in this story that will appeal to me. The only thing that's keeping me hanging on ATM is that there's a scene with the character I like (Raven) wherein his overlord accuses him of feeling "abnormally" towards Oz, which is Japanese code for gay, so here's hoping that Raven is queer AF.

Hoping a manga/anime character will turn out to be canonically gay never ends well, so probably this is an exercise in frustration all around.  Ah, well, I have nothing else to watch while doing the dishes currently, so I will keep with this.

You?
lydamorehouse: (nic & coffee)
It's late for me, but I'm just back from work at the Maplewood Library. Plus, I am trying out my new computer, a Lenovo. I'm trying to get used to the keyboard. There is a funny positioning of the shift key. But, I'm sure I'll adjust. PLUS, it turns out that my Mac was fixable. My friend Patrick played around with it today and got it up and running. Hooray!

So, let's see, what have I been reading? I actually managed a real book the other day. I read Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) by Sylvain Neuvel. It read really quickly, but the entire thing was mostly written as a series of interviews (and a smattering of journal entries and news clippings) instead of an actual narrative voice. I never quite decided how I felt about that. On top of that, there was also a very weird intrusion of the "male gaze." The lead scientist is a woman who has become convinced that the giant alien statue they're assembling (not a spoiler, this is revealed on the very first page,) is female. She gets really excited when they find the torso, because it has breasts. I object to none of this. What I found... unnatural was her long description of the statue's breast, using words like "perky" and saying things like, "she was likely the envy of all the other girl statues!" I won't go so far to say that no woman I know talks like this about boobs, because there are always exceptions, but this very much had the feel of those things I'm sure you've read where a male author describes a female character putting on her sweater and thinking to herself about the sexy contours of her body in long, loving detail. (See current Twitter storm over John Updike.)

I'm half way through the first volume of a josei manga called Bunny Drop by Yumi Unita, which I am enjoying so far. It's about a young salaryman who ends up adopting his grandfather's love child. I'm weirdly a sucker for these kinds of stories, where adults who normally don't deal with kids, suddenly have to. It's kind of trope in yaoi, actually.

I also started Spells of Blood and Kin by Claire Humphrey. I'm not very far into it, but I think I'll enjoy it. Like Bunny Drop, it starts with a funeral, only instead of grandpa dying, it's grandma.  

That's me this week. You?

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