23 new things video – Rom dance

This video is of Hareem Shar’eem performing “Marionette”, a Rom (gypsy) style of belly dance done to one of the insane Turkish/middle eastern time signatures. Original music by Raquy and the Cavemen, a very talented group.

Qaina Lunatics – 23 new things video

Here’s the Wicked Harem doing “Lunatics” at Qaina – my attempt at video for 23 new things.

23 New Things….Shelfari and Goodreads

I gave both Shelfari and Goodreads a whirl – neither are new to me – I had a shelfari account in February when a friend asked me to join and share book lists with her and then I joined goodreads a few months later. I think I prefer goodreads for its ease of searching book titles, and because all the cool kids are there. If you haven’t read one of Marya’s reviews of the YA books she reads, you’re missing a real treat. She’s not *quite* at Steven Colbert’s level, but she’s pretty darn close. Most of the time I agree with her, but not always.

Reading other people’s reviews of books is as enlightening as  reading the books themselves. I got caught up in a vitriolic discussion of Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series. People were frothing at the keyboard – how DARE an author invent a world where the church was evil!! How DARE an author write a fiction book where a deity was less than all knowing? What gives him the right to make stuff up that’s offensive to other people, and then actually publish it? My take on it was that an author of fiction is paid to make stuff up – it’s what he (or she) does for a living. And he didn’t need to  make stuff up about an evil church. Can you say Inquisition?

It was somewhat reminiscent of the brouhaha over Harry Potter. All you have to do to get the paranoia rolling is toss in a broomstick or two, a black cat and a pointy hat, and POOF! instant book banning in those enlightened places where the answer key for the science tests reads “God did it. God did it. God did it. God did it.”

Which doesn’t mean that the other side was any less reasonable or more polite. There was an equal amount of frothing on both sides. The poor guy who had posted the original scathing review  was a librarian in a Pennsylvania library system. To say he really disliked the book would be a monstrous understatement. The library director from Pennsylvania responded calmly and politely to all posts and comments about his review and in the process revealed that he found the book highly inappropriate for young readers, that he tore parts of his books out  that he found inappropriate (boy did I do a double take there…..a librarian tearing parts of books out?!?) and that a few years earlier a young man had read a book with some graphic crime depicted in it, then went out and did the same acts described in the book, thus the book was responsible for the crimes committed.

Despite the glaring logic errors in his arguments (if punk rock is what causes  someone to go commit murder and mayhem, that would mean EVERYONE who listens to punk rock would immediately run out and commit murder and mayhem. And since Charles Manson slaughtered a slew of people after listening to something as innocuous as the Beatles, does that mean we have to ban the Beatles? Or how about Son of Sam, who claimed a dog told him to murder people. Since we’re not holding the person responsible for his actions, that would mean we ought to go shoot every dog. Right?) the library director was courteous. Unfailingly courteous, even.

He reported on the site that about a week later, he had been contacted by the ALA and was under review. Apparently someone reported him for his comment about tearing parts of books out….without realizing that it was his own personal collection he was tearing parts out of. I don’t know what happened after that, but it was a little surprising to hear that he was getting called on the carpet for posts on goodreads.com.

Guess I digressed a little bit there, didn’t I?

What Was Wrong with “Breaking Dawn”

Okay,  let’s first get out of the way that I thoroughly enjoyed the way Joss Whedon managed to meld humor, witty repartee and some truly dark things together in a well written series. Television has not been worth watching since Buffy and Angel went bye bye.

Let’s also get out of the way that I’m one of those people who tore through the Anita Blake books and loved them UNTIL Ms. Hamilton jettisoned any pretense at plot, replacing it with some very blah pseudo alternative sex scenes. In one book, 480 pages of alternative sex scenes before the plot finally peeked out from behind various body parts.

That said, I got a kick out of the Twilight series – the first three books, that is. Sure, it was a little too warm and fuzzy for my tastes.  Let’s face it, the Cullens are basically the Cleavers with fangs. Everyone’s supportive and loving and compassionate and golly gee, Mom, are you baking cookies for the talent show we’re planning on putting on in the back yard?

They’re also vegetarian vampires – no human blood for them, thank you very much.

There’s some decent tragedy *hinted* at in the dark pasts of the Cullens, most of whom started off as carnivores rather than vegetarians, and a couple apparently cut a pretty large swathe through the human population at one point. But after seeing Angel’s past and the burden he carried with the whole gypsy-curse-to-get-a-soul-until-you-experience-one-moment-of-true-happiness deal, well, the Cullens’ angst seemed fairly *tame*. In fact, tame is the perfect word for this whole series. Sure, sure, I get that this is a teen book, so I get why the sex scenes were edited completely out, and sure, if things got too graphic or gruesome, maybe mom wouldn’t have let little Jenny read the series, but this edged a little too close to Disney does Vampires for my taste. The first three had some flaws but were still engaging enough that I whipped through them reading one a day and eager to see what was going to happen in the next one. But then along came the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn.

SPOILER ALERT!!! Read no further if you haven’t read the book yet! SPOILER ALERT!!!

 

There was just too much asked of me in this book. Okay, sure, fantasy and occult books ask for suspension of disbelief. But because fantasy authors get to create a whole world in which to play, they need to be very careful not to fall prey to the Wesley syndrome. Anyone remember Wesley Crusher from Star Trek the Next Generation? He was a Mary Sue – a writer’s glorified, perfected vision of themself put smack into the middle of a story. Fans couldn’t stand Wesley. Why? Because he wasn’t standable. He was a prodigy/genius who nonchalantly would correct mistakes that other characters made and save the day with his supergenius. Yawn.

Reading Mary Sues are like watching a 6 year old play make believe. “And then I use my super strength to pick up the whole building and I throw it at the bad guy and smash him to bits. And then I use  my freeze ray breath to….and then I use my super speed to……and then I use my super hearing to….”

Once Bella becomes a vampire, she’s suddenly a Mary Sue. Gone is the uncoordinated teenager, replaced by the breathtakingly unutterably soul crushingly beautiful vampire who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locamotive…..and, oh, yeah, Kryptonite? No problem. The only weakness a vampire has in this series (forget the whole cross sunlight wooden stake thing) is that when they are first created, they’re mindless monsters for a couple years while they try to rein in their unbearable thirst for human blood. They have no control over their need to kill and feed on blood and they have nasty tempers on top of it.

Except for Bella. She has a bit of a parched throat and is a little more sharp tongued than she was as a human. Mary Sue. Yawn.

Most vampires have some kind of extra power, too (because the whole super speed, super strength, super hearing, super beautiful thing, that’s just not enough) and Bella’s is something that she uses to save the Cleavers, er…Cullens when the final show down takes place. The enemy vampires whom every other vampire has feared for centuries are no match for Mary Sue…..er…Bella, I mean.

Meyer asks too much of the reader when she asks for Mary Sue to be embraced. Sorry – didn’t work with Wesley Crusher and it doesn’t work here, either.

The female occult romance thing has taken off like a shot – everyone who’s read Anita Blake has then decided to do their own twist on it so we now have things like Kim Harrison’s series, Patricia Briggs series, Ilona Andrews, Karen Chance, Kelley Armstrong, Jeaniene Frost, Carrie Vaughn, Sunny NLN (no last name…related to Madonna, perhaps?)….the list goes on and on because paranormal and occult romance is the hottest thing since Harry Potter.  But none of them can hold a candle to the writing that Hamilton gave us with the first 8 Anita Blakes.

Charlaine Harris and MaryJanice Davidson stand out as good solid seriesin an overly long list of Laurell K. Hamilton wannabes that are no more than pale imitations of a vibrant original.

And as one comment reminded me, there was someone before Blake….Vicki Nelson in Tanya Huff’s Blood series – a series that’s also a cut above the wave of female-I-can-kick-some-serious-ass-while-dating-vampires (or hunting them down) books.

All in all, Breaking Dawn is disappointing end to a fluffy series. Fluffy vampires?

Curly Girls, Unite!

Being a curly girl from way back, I found new hope after reading “CUrly Girl”. Some of it was common sense, but a lot of it was news to me and it helped me figure out how to quit fighting what my hair wanted to do and let it be. As soon as I stopped blow drying my hair straight and then living in dread of humidity or the first hint of drizzle, my life got a whole lot easier. I found a couple places that have some good information as well as good products for curly girls:

ouidad.com has some fantastic products to keep curls from frizzing without weighing them down into lifelessness, but they’re pricey.

jessicurl.com has not only products to help, but vital accessories for a curly girl like microfiber towels and diffusers for blow dryers AND a whole slew of videos showing how to use the products and how to treat your hair so that you end up with ringlets instead of a frizz halo.

I also like naturallycurly.com for information and some of the discussion boards.

Too Much Time on Your Hands?

For those of us looking for something to do (other than alphabetize your filing cabinet backwards) try this:

Caveat: the site is in Japanese, so for those of us who don’t read kanji very well, take a peek at the instructions below. The ending score isn’t in kanji, so even us gaijin can read it. My brain is apparently 33 years old. I have less than no idea what that actually means, but it was a fun way to kill 3 and a half miutes.

 

This is interesting !!! See if your brain is as old as your body ~ or ~ (perish the thought) ~ OLDER !!

Procedure of  Flash Fabrica Game:

1. Touch ’start’

2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.

3. Memorize the number’s position on the screen, then click the circle from the smallest number to the biggest number.

4. At the end of game, computer will tell you how old your brain.

Good luck !!

http://flashfabrica.com/f_learning/brain/brain.html

 

if you want to see just how illogical your current religious dogma is, try this one out:

 

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

 And if you want to help computers get smarter (they’re not all that bright right now)

You can visit

www.gwap.com

(gwap stands for “games with a purpose”) and try out several different games there. Information on at least one of them (the picture matching one) is used to help computers learn how we think and make decisions.

Happy playing!

 

Brand Spankin New Post for a Brand Spankin’ New Blog

how good can it get, I ask you? I have to say WordPress beats livejournal hands down – much easier to get where you’re going, and how about that 36 point font to put in the sign up information? Don’t see that just anywhere, do you? Enough typing, time to go play with some settings…

Designs

Dancing chix in the blog designs? Customizable headers? I can put Luis Royo art in my blog header? Does it get any cooler than this? I mean, really, what’s not to like about dancing chix and Luis Royo?  Your tastes may not be the same as mine, but since so many of the themes here allow you to pick your own image, it can accomodate even the most esoteric or quesionable of tastes, right?…..seriously, the themes from WordPress are much nicer than the themes that livejournal, msn spaces or blogspot offer.