The weather’s been beautiful this week so I decided to take advantage of it and head off on an adventure. I needed out of Inverness my brain was feeling a bit constrained.
Things I’ve Eaten Recently
I finally finished one of my many books I had on the go. I ended up just making a concentrated effort when I was off work to read a chapter a day and finished it that way. I think I just need to carve out specific reading time at the moment because I don’t seem to otherwise be in the mood to just casually pick up a book (or watch a film for that matter) and read it. Anyway, I finished Wild Air by James MacDonald Lockhart, which is about the author travelling about and learning about specific bird’s songs in their home environments. It’s a really lovely, fascinating book, quite restful to spend an hour so with a chapter immersed in the book’s world. (When I bought it, in the bookshop in Nairn, the bookseller told me that the author had written an excellent book on raptors, so I’ll be tracking that one down next time I’m through. The bookshop in Nairn has a great selection of nature books, I generally treat myself to one whenever I’m in and I haven’t had a dud yet.)
What I’m Munching On At the Moment
I’ve been doing a lot of craft supply sorting over the last couple of weeks so it’s mostly been accompanied by podcasts, I’m up to date on most of my regular listens. However, one of my colleagues was recommending a sport podcast of all things to me, and made it sound compelling enough that I’ve been slowly working my way through it. It’s Tsar of Hearts about the Lithuanian/Russian oligarch Vladimir Romanov who bought the Scottish football team Heart of Midlothian back in the early 2000s. These days Russian/Russian-adjacent oligarchs buying up UK football teams is an idea well-established enough to be a crime drama cliche but back then it wasn’t really a thing. Anyway I love a podcast about the intersection of crime and sport so it was a fairly easy sell.
Book-wise, I decided that I’d been carrying around two different books that I had ongoing and reading none of them for the last fortnight, I was going to pick something different to read. So I’ve got Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov. I just realised that both my current media chew toys are about a similar neck of the woods - according to google maps the drive from Lviv to Vilnius is only like an hour longer than the one from Inverness to London - that wasn’t intentional, though it does feel appropriate. Anyway, it’s an interesting read so far. I’m trying not to compare it negatively to Death and the Penguin because that’s one of those books that like re-wires your brain - I can’t count how many people I’ve recommended that book to, it’s one of my favourite books, I started reading it on the train home from Glasgow and nearly missed my stop an hour later I was so engrossed - and not many books are ever going to compare to that. Anyway, I’m hoping several hours trapped on a train will get a decent chunk of it read.
Future Snacking Plans
Due to my low reading motivation lately I’m thinking maybe I ought to just try tackling my comics tpb TBR pile. I’ve got a pile of Harley Quinn adjacent stuff that I wanted to read, so I’m hoping something in there will pique my interest and get me reading again. Otherwise, I’m thinking I might trying diving into some sci-fi and see if that sorts me out. I’ve got a new-ish Yoon Ha Lee book on the shelf, maybe that.
Podcast-wise, maybe more crime? Disclosure have a series on ‘whiskey bandits’ which I presume is about those weird scams where people are sold barrels of whiskey that are still maturing and then it turns out they either don’t exist or have been double-sold? A very Scottish crime that. Or at the other end of the scale, Radio 4 have a new-ish series called This Natural Life exploring relationships with the natural world, though it’s interview based so I imagine that’ll be a bit hit and miss depending on the interviewee. There also seems to be a decent number of Doctor Who radio dramas on Sounds at the moment so maybe I’ll tackle one of those.
Things I’ve Eaten Recently
I finally finished one of my many books I had on the go. I ended up just making a concentrated effort when I was off work to read a chapter a day and finished it that way. I think I just need to carve out specific reading time at the moment because I don’t seem to otherwise be in the mood to just casually pick up a book (or watch a film for that matter) and read it. Anyway, I finished Wild Air by James MacDonald Lockhart, which is about the author travelling about and learning about specific bird’s songs in their home environments. It’s a really lovely, fascinating book, quite restful to spend an hour so with a chapter immersed in the book’s world. (When I bought it, in the bookshop in Nairn, the bookseller told me that the author had written an excellent book on raptors, so I’ll be tracking that one down next time I’m through. The bookshop in Nairn has a great selection of nature books, I generally treat myself to one whenever I’m in and I haven’t had a dud yet.)
What I’m Munching On At the Moment
I’ve been doing a lot of craft supply sorting over the last couple of weeks so it’s mostly been accompanied by podcasts, I’m up to date on most of my regular listens. However, one of my colleagues was recommending a sport podcast of all things to me, and made it sound compelling enough that I’ve been slowly working my way through it. It’s Tsar of Hearts about the Lithuanian/Russian oligarch Vladimir Romanov who bought the Scottish football team Heart of Midlothian back in the early 2000s. These days Russian/Russian-adjacent oligarchs buying up UK football teams is an idea well-established enough to be a crime drama cliche but back then it wasn’t really a thing. Anyway I love a podcast about the intersection of crime and sport so it was a fairly easy sell.
Book-wise, I decided that I’d been carrying around two different books that I had ongoing and reading none of them for the last fortnight, I was going to pick something different to read. So I’ve got Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov. I just realised that both my current media chew toys are about a similar neck of the woods - according to google maps the drive from Lviv to Vilnius is only like an hour longer than the one from Inverness to London - that wasn’t intentional, though it does feel appropriate. Anyway, it’s an interesting read so far. I’m trying not to compare it negatively to Death and the Penguin because that’s one of those books that like re-wires your brain - I can’t count how many people I’ve recommended that book to, it’s one of my favourite books, I started reading it on the train home from Glasgow and nearly missed my stop an hour later I was so engrossed - and not many books are ever going to compare to that. Anyway, I’m hoping several hours trapped on a train will get a decent chunk of it read.
Future Snacking Plans
Due to my low reading motivation lately I’m thinking maybe I ought to just try tackling my comics tpb TBR pile. I’ve got a pile of Harley Quinn adjacent stuff that I wanted to read, so I’m hoping something in there will pique my interest and get me reading again. Otherwise, I’m thinking I might trying diving into some sci-fi and see if that sorts me out. I’ve got a new-ish Yoon Ha Lee book on the shelf, maybe that.
Podcast-wise, maybe more crime? Disclosure have a series on ‘whiskey bandits’ which I presume is about those weird scams where people are sold barrels of whiskey that are still maturing and then it turns out they either don’t exist or have been double-sold? A very Scottish crime that. Or at the other end of the scale, Radio 4 have a new-ish series called This Natural Life exploring relationships with the natural world, though it’s interview based so I imagine that’ll be a bit hit and miss depending on the interviewee. There also seems to be a decent number of Doctor Who radio dramas on Sounds at the moment so maybe I’ll tackle one of those.
That was the Year that was...
6 Jan 2024 08:01 pmYour main fandom of the year?
*hollow laughing*
Your favourite film you watched this year?
A solid showing this year with 28 films I hadn't seen before, not as good as the last few years, but not bad overall. I did both the Berlin and Inverness film festivals so there were a LOT of film festival fare for good and ill. Most of the films I really loved this year were actually from the last century. I finally saw Rashoman which reminded me why it's still a classic, the best film I saw in Berlin was a restoration of A Women of Paris a pre-code silent movie from 1923, and there was a glorious Powell & Pressburger double feature at the Inverness film festival. I read a book to Takeshi Kitano's work and as a result ended up watching the brilliantly strange Dolls. In terms of current films, probably Poor Things an unabashedly weird adaptation of the Alasdair Gray novel of the same name, or Asteroid City a delightfully off the wall Wes Anderson film. Both were cracking good cinema experiences, though I dunno how much they'd be films I'd watch again and again.
Your favourite book read this year?
Oh, easily, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, definitely the kind of book that reminds you why you love books. I loved it in it's own right, but also for re-opening the part of my brain that loves books. I only read 23 books last year, so it wasn't a packed field. I read a decent amount of non-fiction but that was more interesting and informative than it was things to love.
Your favourite artists to listen to this year?
1. Public Service Broadcasting - I got their new album Bright Magic on vinyl at the tail end of last year, after seeing them live, and it came with a digital mp3 version that I put on my phone when my iPod finally kicked the bucket. I listened to Blue Heaven and Gib mir das Licht pretty much on repeat when I was travelling. (It's a good album, but one that really benefits from a good set of headphones/speakers, so sonically dense.)
2. Yo-Yo Ma - his Bach cello quartets were the soundtrack to so much writing this year, I bought the EP of this early 2022, but for some reason it's just been this year's go-to background listening.
3. Meghan Trainor - no I don't understand it. I actively disliked Mother when it came out, that little Mr Sandman sample did my head in. Yet somehow it grew on me this year. Probably partly due to having been on Spotify's 'Spring Clean' playlist which I listened to A LOT this year which meant there was a lot of recent pop on my spotify wrapped this year. Random tracks by Lizzo, P!nk, Maisie Peters, Holly Humberstone and Self Esteem. But the only artist from it I bought more than one tune by was her - somehow Mother and Made You Look made it into solid positions on my soundtrack of the year.
4. Speaking of random pop that Spotify thinks I'm into, I really liked Taylor Swift's latest offering Midnights - the last album of hers I was that into was 1989 she isn't always my jam, but when she is, she really is - in June I gave up and bought it on CD but apparently I'd thoroughly skewed my stats for the year already
5. A toss up between Duncan Chisholm and Su-a Lee, who both realeased absolutely cracking folk albums at the tale end of last year that I've had on heavy rotation for pretty much the entirity of 2023. Probably Su-A wins out as I've seen her live, and I'm going to see her do the whole album - with all it's collaborators - live later this month.
Favourite TV show of the year?
I really, couldn't pick anything other than The Mandalorian because whatever issues I had with it's third season, I watched three - essentially four - seasons of it, when I was bouncing off pretty much everything else in an episode or less.
Your favourite game of the year?
Does Duolingo count? I didn't play anything else this year to any great extent.
Favourite DW comm of the year?
Toss up between![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
inkingitout and fic_rush which between them kept me writing through what has been hands down my worst year for writing in at least a decade.
Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Oh I was really enjoying listening along to Re: Dracula, just a delightful take on an old classic. (I read the book when I was about 13 or 14 and honestly this might be both my favourite and the most true to the spirit of the original adaptation I've encountered.) I fell behind due to work nonsense and haven't caught up again. I do love the reading classic literature collectively in installments genre, even though I don't generally take part, it's a delightful fandom phenomena.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
My inablity to write fic? (less than 2000 words all year) My inability to watch things that I'm pretty certain I'd love?
Favourite characters of the year?
Oh easy, Dinn and Grogu. Just adorable found family vibes. I was definitely watching that show for their developing parental relationship. That and the space sword fights and battles. (It's not sci-fi, it's epic fantasy in a sci-fi hat.)
Honorable mention to Harley Quinn who I love dearly and consistantly.
The media you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I've got a big blanket that I need to finish the border on. And I've made a pile of both DVDs I haven't got round to watching and audio dramas I haven't got round to listening to, depdending on which mood strikes me. Otherwise, I'm going to try and get hold of the Murderbot books as audio books and try them.
Your biggest fannish anticipations for the coming year?
I'd just like to be excited about any form of media again. I don't care what kind. Horror movies, audio dramas, K-dramas, silent movies, film noirs, sci-fi novellas. Anything. I'd just like to be excited about something. It was so nice to be excited about The Mandalorian and squee about Grogu with my work buddies. I'm so tired of seeing trailers and tumblr squee and not being able to translate that interest into actually watching things.
*hollow laughing*
Your favourite film you watched this year?
A solid showing this year with 28 films I hadn't seen before, not as good as the last few years, but not bad overall. I did both the Berlin and Inverness film festivals so there were a LOT of film festival fare for good and ill. Most of the films I really loved this year were actually from the last century. I finally saw Rashoman which reminded me why it's still a classic, the best film I saw in Berlin was a restoration of A Women of Paris a pre-code silent movie from 1923, and there was a glorious Powell & Pressburger double feature at the Inverness film festival. I read a book to Takeshi Kitano's work and as a result ended up watching the brilliantly strange Dolls. In terms of current films, probably Poor Things an unabashedly weird adaptation of the Alasdair Gray novel of the same name, or Asteroid City a delightfully off the wall Wes Anderson film. Both were cracking good cinema experiences, though I dunno how much they'd be films I'd watch again and again.
Your favourite book read this year?
Oh, easily, The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, definitely the kind of book that reminds you why you love books. I loved it in it's own right, but also for re-opening the part of my brain that loves books. I only read 23 books last year, so it wasn't a packed field. I read a decent amount of non-fiction but that was more interesting and informative than it was things to love.
Your favourite artists to listen to this year?
1. Public Service Broadcasting - I got their new album Bright Magic on vinyl at the tail end of last year, after seeing them live, and it came with a digital mp3 version that I put on my phone when my iPod finally kicked the bucket. I listened to Blue Heaven and Gib mir das Licht pretty much on repeat when I was travelling. (It's a good album, but one that really benefits from a good set of headphones/speakers, so sonically dense.)
2. Yo-Yo Ma - his Bach cello quartets were the soundtrack to so much writing this year, I bought the EP of this early 2022, but for some reason it's just been this year's go-to background listening.
3. Meghan Trainor - no I don't understand it. I actively disliked Mother when it came out, that little Mr Sandman sample did my head in. Yet somehow it grew on me this year. Probably partly due to having been on Spotify's 'Spring Clean' playlist which I listened to A LOT this year which meant there was a lot of recent pop on my spotify wrapped this year. Random tracks by Lizzo, P!nk, Maisie Peters, Holly Humberstone and Self Esteem. But the only artist from it I bought more than one tune by was her - somehow Mother and Made You Look made it into solid positions on my soundtrack of the year.
4. Speaking of random pop that Spotify thinks I'm into, I really liked Taylor Swift's latest offering Midnights - the last album of hers I was that into was 1989 she isn't always my jam, but when she is, she really is - in June I gave up and bought it on CD but apparently I'd thoroughly skewed my stats for the year already
5. A toss up between Duncan Chisholm and Su-a Lee, who both realeased absolutely cracking folk albums at the tale end of last year that I've had on heavy rotation for pretty much the entirity of 2023. Probably Su-A wins out as I've seen her live, and I'm going to see her do the whole album - with all it's collaborators - live later this month.
Favourite TV show of the year?
I really, couldn't pick anything other than The Mandalorian because whatever issues I had with it's third season, I watched three - essentially four - seasons of it, when I was bouncing off pretty much everything else in an episode or less.
Your favourite game of the year?
Does Duolingo count? I didn't play anything else this year to any great extent.
Favourite DW comm of the year?
Toss up between
inkingitout and fic_rush which between them kept me writing through what has been hands down my worst year for writing in at least a decade. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Oh I was really enjoying listening along to Re: Dracula, just a delightful take on an old classic. (I read the book when I was about 13 or 14 and honestly this might be both my favourite and the most true to the spirit of the original adaptation I've encountered.) I fell behind due to work nonsense and haven't caught up again. I do love the reading classic literature collectively in installments genre, even though I don't generally take part, it's a delightful fandom phenomena.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
My inablity to write fic? (less than 2000 words all year) My inability to watch things that I'm pretty certain I'd love?
Favourite characters of the year?
Oh easy, Dinn and Grogu. Just adorable found family vibes. I was definitely watching that show for their developing parental relationship. That and the space sword fights and battles. (It's not sci-fi, it's epic fantasy in a sci-fi hat.)
Honorable mention to Harley Quinn who I love dearly and consistantly.
The media you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I've got a big blanket that I need to finish the border on. And I've made a pile of both DVDs I haven't got round to watching and audio dramas I haven't got round to listening to, depdending on which mood strikes me. Otherwise, I'm going to try and get hold of the Murderbot books as audio books and try them.
Your biggest fannish anticipations for the coming year?
I'd just like to be excited about any form of media again. I don't care what kind. Horror movies, audio dramas, K-dramas, silent movies, film noirs, sci-fi novellas. Anything. I'd just like to be excited about something. It was so nice to be excited about The Mandalorian and squee about Grogu with my work buddies. I'm so tired of seeing trailers and tumblr squee and not being able to translate that interest into actually watching things.
Fannish 50: Harley Quinn
31 Dec 2023 11:34 amAfter watching The Suicide Squad the other week, I was reminded just how much I love Harley Quinn - I essentially took a chance on that film purely for her - and decided that she deserved her own fandom 50 post.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Fannish Fifty: LEGO!
25 Jun 2023 04:57 pmWhen I wrote my Memorabilia and Models post, I deliberately left out LEGO from the discussion, because I knew if I started on LEGO it would take over the entire post. Also I think while tie-in LEGO has a certain amount of commonality with other collectibles, it fundamentally has a different relationship with fans than those other formats.
( In which I'm not particularly succinct! )
( In which I'm not particularly succinct! )
I tend not to think of myself as the kind of fan that collects memorabilia from my shows, but now that I actually have bookshelves to display them on, it turns out that I really am that kind of fan.
I knew I was as a child. I used to make regular pilgrimages to Forbidden Planet to gets bits and pieces of carefully chosen Dr Who models. (I had a range of pull-back Daleks, two in sensible colours that I bought myself and more in increasingly ridiculous colours - one was purple and sparkly - that friends bought me as presents over the years.) In fact of all the shows I’ve loved and/or been fannish about over the years, Dr Who is the single one that I have (or have had) the most memorabilia from. Apparently being a Dr Who fan has just become so integral to who I am as a person over the years that people that I’ve never spoken to about the show still know I like it and when stuck for a gift for me will present me with something related to the show! (A former girlfriend, on our third date, dragged me over to the window of Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh to show me the cuddly Daleks they had, she was absolutely correct that I would love them as much as she did, but while we’d certainly talked about comics, we’d never at that point talked about Dr Who.) So I’d kind of just thought it was that one particular show I was that kind of fan about. I’m not a completionist about models, I know a lot of fans who like to have all the variants of the action figures, but that doesn’t appeal to me personally. Maybe because I pretty much never find the likenesses satisfying? The Dr Who ones I had as a child were all monsters and K9, I didn’t have any companions or Doctors and I don’t think I really wanted them.
For reasons that I don’t quite understand, I adore the little pop funko figurines. Particularly the little Marvel bobbleheads. There’s just something about their big-eyed cartoonish cuteness that makes my face go: :D at them. Despite not really liking nodding dog type novelties in other contexts, I’m genuinely a little sad that only the Marvel ones are bobble heads. I love to have one or other of them sitting on my desk while I’m writing and gently bobble them up and down when I’m thinking through a sticky plot point or figuring out just how to write a tricky line of dialogue. (I’m writing this with a little Valkyrie bobble-head at my side. I particularly love her braid and her sai, and the little blue cape she’s wearing. She’s a particular favourite, with lots of satisfying little details to her costume.) With the exception of Valkyrie and Captain Marvel - who I bought after seeing her movie - the rest of my Marvel pops correspond to comics runs that I loved, so I have Black Widow and Hawkeye and Ms Marvel and they all live happily on my comics shelf. (On the other side of the comics divide I have Harley Quinn in both her classic cartoon guise and a roller derby Harley from the Birds of Prey movie. She’s the only character I have in more than one version, I have her as a tiny keyring too.)
The rest of my pops are cult movie based, I’m pretty fussy about which ones I get, I need to love both the character and the rendering of said character, so I very rarely have the full set. (I have Dr Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park, but only him, because he looks recognisably like Jeff Goldblum while the others look nothing like their namesakes.) I think I only have two full sets, the Ghostbusters girls - which I ordered especially from a local comic book store to thumb my nose at the backlash - and the central trio from the Matrix, I had just Neo for a while and then I found Trinity and Morpheus on special somewhere and had to complete the set.
I suspect, also, that one of their appeals is that they are just a me thing. No one else buys me them, they’re a little geekish gift that I give to myself to celebrate things that I love ridiculously. They’re just expensive enough to feel like a proper present to myself, but cheap enough not to feel like a waste of money. They’re a ubiquitous enough part of pop culture that you can get them in supermarkets and toy shops, just as much as specialist geek emporia. On days when I was working from home over lockdown, I could keep my wonder woman pop on my desk, careful positioned to be ‘accidentally’ in view during video calls, a charming piece of geekery. But equally I can have models from 80s cult movies that would only be recognisable to other serious geeks of a certain age.
I don’t keep them in their boxes. I do keep the little stands them some with, as I learned the hard way that otherwise they fall over. Weirdly I really enjoy the distress that that causes some more self-conscious geeks of my acquaintance, because I’ve reduced their re-sale value. They aren’t investment pieces or fleeting pleasures to be traded in for the next big thing - not to me. They spark joy for me, I wouldn’t give them house room if they didn’t. I want to be able to take them down and appreciate them, to bobble their heads, or carefully wipe the dust from them, admiring their details and remembering how much I love the characters they represent. Maybe one day I won’t love them as I do now, but if and when they go, they’ll go together, much loved, and slightly battered from falling off shelves over the years. Perhaps that’s to be expected from a transformative works type fan like myself, I don’t feel the need to keep the canons I love mint in box either.
I knew I was as a child. I used to make regular pilgrimages to Forbidden Planet to gets bits and pieces of carefully chosen Dr Who models. (I had a range of pull-back Daleks, two in sensible colours that I bought myself and more in increasingly ridiculous colours - one was purple and sparkly - that friends bought me as presents over the years.) In fact of all the shows I’ve loved and/or been fannish about over the years, Dr Who is the single one that I have (or have had) the most memorabilia from. Apparently being a Dr Who fan has just become so integral to who I am as a person over the years that people that I’ve never spoken to about the show still know I like it and when stuck for a gift for me will present me with something related to the show! (A former girlfriend, on our third date, dragged me over to the window of Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh to show me the cuddly Daleks they had, she was absolutely correct that I would love them as much as she did, but while we’d certainly talked about comics, we’d never at that point talked about Dr Who.) So I’d kind of just thought it was that one particular show I was that kind of fan about. I’m not a completionist about models, I know a lot of fans who like to have all the variants of the action figures, but that doesn’t appeal to me personally. Maybe because I pretty much never find the likenesses satisfying? The Dr Who ones I had as a child were all monsters and K9, I didn’t have any companions or Doctors and I don’t think I really wanted them.
For reasons that I don’t quite understand, I adore the little pop funko figurines. Particularly the little Marvel bobbleheads. There’s just something about their big-eyed cartoonish cuteness that makes my face go: :D at them. Despite not really liking nodding dog type novelties in other contexts, I’m genuinely a little sad that only the Marvel ones are bobble heads. I love to have one or other of them sitting on my desk while I’m writing and gently bobble them up and down when I’m thinking through a sticky plot point or figuring out just how to write a tricky line of dialogue. (I’m writing this with a little Valkyrie bobble-head at my side. I particularly love her braid and her sai, and the little blue cape she’s wearing. She’s a particular favourite, with lots of satisfying little details to her costume.) With the exception of Valkyrie and Captain Marvel - who I bought after seeing her movie - the rest of my Marvel pops correspond to comics runs that I loved, so I have Black Widow and Hawkeye and Ms Marvel and they all live happily on my comics shelf. (On the other side of the comics divide I have Harley Quinn in both her classic cartoon guise and a roller derby Harley from the Birds of Prey movie. She’s the only character I have in more than one version, I have her as a tiny keyring too.)
The rest of my pops are cult movie based, I’m pretty fussy about which ones I get, I need to love both the character and the rendering of said character, so I very rarely have the full set. (I have Dr Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park, but only him, because he looks recognisably like Jeff Goldblum while the others look nothing like their namesakes.) I think I only have two full sets, the Ghostbusters girls - which I ordered especially from a local comic book store to thumb my nose at the backlash - and the central trio from the Matrix, I had just Neo for a while and then I found Trinity and Morpheus on special somewhere and had to complete the set.
I suspect, also, that one of their appeals is that they are just a me thing. No one else buys me them, they’re a little geekish gift that I give to myself to celebrate things that I love ridiculously. They’re just expensive enough to feel like a proper present to myself, but cheap enough not to feel like a waste of money. They’re a ubiquitous enough part of pop culture that you can get them in supermarkets and toy shops, just as much as specialist geek emporia. On days when I was working from home over lockdown, I could keep my wonder woman pop on my desk, careful positioned to be ‘accidentally’ in view during video calls, a charming piece of geekery. But equally I can have models from 80s cult movies that would only be recognisable to other serious geeks of a certain age.
I don’t keep them in their boxes. I do keep the little stands them some with, as I learned the hard way that otherwise they fall over. Weirdly I really enjoy the distress that that causes some more self-conscious geeks of my acquaintance, because I’ve reduced their re-sale value. They aren’t investment pieces or fleeting pleasures to be traded in for the next big thing - not to me. They spark joy for me, I wouldn’t give them house room if they didn’t. I want to be able to take them down and appreciate them, to bobble their heads, or carefully wipe the dust from them, admiring their details and remembering how much I love the characters they represent. Maybe one day I won’t love them as I do now, but if and when they go, they’ll go together, much loved, and slightly battered from falling off shelves over the years. Perhaps that’s to be expected from a transformative works type fan like myself, I don’t feel the need to keep the canons I love mint in box either.
Fannish Fifty: Fancrafts
21 Jan 2023 03:02 pmI keep sitting down with intent to write one of these posts and just feeling uninspired and not writing anything. I’ve just not been feeling very fannish lately. However, I was sitting knitting this afternoon when it occurred to me that knitting was for many years, a fannish activity for me. I’ve made fannish items for myself, as gifts for others, and I’ve knitted non-fannish items for people I wouldn’t have known except through fandom.
I returned to knitting after a break of several years towards the end of uni. (Nearly twenty years ago, good grief.) It was around the same time that I’d returned to reading comics and was working on figuring out who I was rather than all the people I’d been trying to be. Likely because I got an LJ about the same time as I got back into crafting, the two things have long intertwined with each other in my head and my heart. Being a knitter and being a sci-fi fan have become stitched into my sense of identity, reinforcing each other over and again, until I couldn’t unpick them from each other or myself even if I wanted to.
In fact, the first item of full-sized clothing I ever made was a Gryfinndor scarf for a fannish friend one Xmas - *shakes fist at JKR for tarnishing those lovely memories* - and the second was another for my best mate’s 21st birthday. I made a panda modelled after an anime that a boyfriend was obsessed with (Ranma 1/2), who in turn tracked me down a pattern to make my own Marvin from Hitchhikers (featured in my icon) even though I never did make it myself, I knitted a Myfanwy from Torchwood for an LJ friend and doubtless a dozen other things over the years that have slipped my mind. Oh yeah, there was that time I knit another uni friend a pair of fingerless gloves with the Nottingham Forest logo on the back for secret Santa…just because it isn’t my fandom doesn’t mean it isn’t A fandom! And the team identifiers I knit for our Jam Refs when I used to officiate roller derby were definitely a fannish activity.
These days I mostly knit jumpers, hats or cowls, practical things for everyday use, or nice gifts for family members, but it was fannish knitting that pushed me to acquire many of the skills that I use all the time now. And even now, when most of my fannish crossover with crafting is talking about Leverage or some cool new indie sci-fi film with my knitting group, there’s a Wonder Woman jumper pattern in my revelry queue, and a cool solar system cross-stitch pattern book marked for once I’m done with my current WIPs - space was one of my earliest fandoms. In fact if we’re being technical about it, just before the pandemic kicked off, I spent too long carefully repainting an old picture frame so that it would perfectly set off a webcomic print I’d treated myself to not long before. I still look at knitted items of costume on shows and think about how I could recreate them, even if I don’t actually try to do anything about that - I’m no good at designing my own knitting patterns. Cross-stitch yes, knitting no.
I guess what I’m saying is that, while it might not loom as large as it used to, fancrafts are still a fundamental part of my fannish identity and engagement.
I returned to knitting after a break of several years towards the end of uni. (Nearly twenty years ago, good grief.) It was around the same time that I’d returned to reading comics and was working on figuring out who I was rather than all the people I’d been trying to be. Likely because I got an LJ about the same time as I got back into crafting, the two things have long intertwined with each other in my head and my heart. Being a knitter and being a sci-fi fan have become stitched into my sense of identity, reinforcing each other over and again, until I couldn’t unpick them from each other or myself even if I wanted to.
In fact, the first item of full-sized clothing I ever made was a Gryfinndor scarf for a fannish friend one Xmas - *shakes fist at JKR for tarnishing those lovely memories* - and the second was another for my best mate’s 21st birthday. I made a panda modelled after an anime that a boyfriend was obsessed with (Ranma 1/2), who in turn tracked me down a pattern to make my own Marvin from Hitchhikers (featured in my icon) even though I never did make it myself, I knitted a Myfanwy from Torchwood for an LJ friend and doubtless a dozen other things over the years that have slipped my mind. Oh yeah, there was that time I knit another uni friend a pair of fingerless gloves with the Nottingham Forest logo on the back for secret Santa…just because it isn’t my fandom doesn’t mean it isn’t A fandom! And the team identifiers I knit for our Jam Refs when I used to officiate roller derby were definitely a fannish activity.
These days I mostly knit jumpers, hats or cowls, practical things for everyday use, or nice gifts for family members, but it was fannish knitting that pushed me to acquire many of the skills that I use all the time now. And even now, when most of my fannish crossover with crafting is talking about Leverage or some cool new indie sci-fi film with my knitting group, there’s a Wonder Woman jumper pattern in my revelry queue, and a cool solar system cross-stitch pattern book marked for once I’m done with my current WIPs - space was one of my earliest fandoms. In fact if we’re being technical about it, just before the pandemic kicked off, I spent too long carefully repainting an old picture frame so that it would perfectly set off a webcomic print I’d treated myself to not long before. I still look at knitted items of costume on shows and think about how I could recreate them, even if I don’t actually try to do anything about that - I’m no good at designing my own knitting patterns. Cross-stitch yes, knitting no.
I guess what I’m saying is that, while it might not loom as large as it used to, fancrafts are still a fundamental part of my fannish identity and engagement.
Books? Boooooooks.
19 Jan 2022 05:25 pmWhat I’ve Finished Reading/Listening to Recently
I've actually read quite a few things since I last posted so let's get on this. First up, when I was in Glasgow I kind of went a bit daft on new books on special offer, but in my defence I have in fact been reading them. First up was Udon Noodle Soup: Little Tales for Little Things by Yani Hu which is a lovely little graphic novel about different kinds of love, which lived up to it's promise to be as comforting as eating a bowl of udon noodle soup. (Now I really want that for dinner, I was planning to make curry but...mmmm...noooooodles.) It ended up being my last book of last year and it was a really nice way to end it. My first book of the new year - read on New Year's Day itself - was a novelette by Iona Datt Sharma, To Embody a Wildfire Starting about dragons and socialist governments and fundamentalism, it's great and made me cry in a good way. And then I read another of my new books Walking in the Woods by Professor Yoshifumi Miyazaki which is about Forest Bathing and how and why it works. It was really interesting but I could have done with more of the subjective stuff on how to get the best out of it and a bit less objective 'this is how we did the research to prove that it works'.
What I’m Currently Listening to/Reading
I'm currently reading another of my new books, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke which I picked up after so many of you enthused about it, having bounced off Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell about a decade ago I wouldn't have bothered otherwise, but I'm glad I did because I'm loving it so far. I would have made better progress on it, but I got side-swiped by toothache this weekend so I only comfort re-read fic over the last few days, as this book definitely needs my full concentration and I really did not have that to give. It's only really this afternoon that I'm starting to feel fully better, three days into the antibiotics.
I'm also reading City of Brass by S.A.Chakraborty which is in fact really good, I absolutely enjoy it when I'm actually reading it but hard-back format really doesn't work for me, it just makes everything harder going. Really interesting world-building, it's just taking me ages and I'm pretty certain that's the fault of the format not the prose.
Speaking of format issues, I'm reading R.F.Kuang's The Poppy War in ebook format and while I love ebooks for novellas, and non-fiction is fine that way too, I can't say I'm loving reading an epic fantasy work this way. I probably prefer it to hardbacks though, so that might be a compromise for library books that I want to read but can only otherwise get hold of in hardback.
What I’m Planning to Read/Listen to Next
I came across a book of Ted Chiang's short stories the other day while tidying up - it was in a cloth bag with some odds and ends I bought from Lakeland, a delightful surprise - so probably that. Elsewise I'm planning to continue to work through the wee pile of new books I bought in Glasgow, I've got the next couple of Rivers of London books along with Mexican Gothic - as recommended by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
st_aurafina and a book about walking and nature, The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane, which I feel I was recommended by someone, actually I think at an artist talk I went to about 10 years ago (I wrote about it here I think it came up in the talk but it may well have been somewhere else) because I saw the book and went 'oooh, I've been meaning to read that. I reckon that'll be my next non-fiction book anyway.
I've actually read quite a few things since I last posted so let's get on this. First up, when I was in Glasgow I kind of went a bit daft on new books on special offer, but in my defence I have in fact been reading them. First up was Udon Noodle Soup: Little Tales for Little Things by Yani Hu which is a lovely little graphic novel about different kinds of love, which lived up to it's promise to be as comforting as eating a bowl of udon noodle soup. (Now I really want that for dinner, I was planning to make curry but...mmmm...noooooodles.) It ended up being my last book of last year and it was a really nice way to end it. My first book of the new year - read on New Year's Day itself - was a novelette by Iona Datt Sharma, To Embody a Wildfire Starting about dragons and socialist governments and fundamentalism, it's great and made me cry in a good way. And then I read another of my new books Walking in the Woods by Professor Yoshifumi Miyazaki which is about Forest Bathing and how and why it works. It was really interesting but I could have done with more of the subjective stuff on how to get the best out of it and a bit less objective 'this is how we did the research to prove that it works'.
What I’m Currently Listening to/Reading
I'm currently reading another of my new books, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke which I picked up after so many of you enthused about it, having bounced off Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell about a decade ago I wouldn't have bothered otherwise, but I'm glad I did because I'm loving it so far. I would have made better progress on it, but I got side-swiped by toothache this weekend so I only comfort re-read fic over the last few days, as this book definitely needs my full concentration and I really did not have that to give. It's only really this afternoon that I'm starting to feel fully better, three days into the antibiotics.
I'm also reading City of Brass by S.A.Chakraborty which is in fact really good, I absolutely enjoy it when I'm actually reading it but hard-back format really doesn't work for me, it just makes everything harder going. Really interesting world-building, it's just taking me ages and I'm pretty certain that's the fault of the format not the prose.
Speaking of format issues, I'm reading R.F.Kuang's The Poppy War in ebook format and while I love ebooks for novellas, and non-fiction is fine that way too, I can't say I'm loving reading an epic fantasy work this way. I probably prefer it to hardbacks though, so that might be a compromise for library books that I want to read but can only otherwise get hold of in hardback.
What I’m Planning to Read/Listen to Next
I came across a book of Ted Chiang's short stories the other day while tidying up - it was in a cloth bag with some odds and ends I bought from Lakeland, a delightful surprise - so probably that. Elsewise I'm planning to continue to work through the wee pile of new books I bought in Glasgow, I've got the next couple of Rivers of London books along with Mexican Gothic - as recommended by
st_aurafina and a book about walking and nature, The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane, which I feel I was recommended by someone, actually I think at an artist talk I went to about 10 years ago (I wrote about it here I think it came up in the talk but it may well have been somewhere else) because I saw the book and went 'oooh, I've been meaning to read that. I reckon that'll be my next non-fiction book anyway.
Reading on a Thursday
25 Apr 2019 10:05 amI've been feeling a bit unproductive and blah these last few days, but actually I have managed to get a bunch of things done. (The problem of having a super productive few days off last week, is that everything else feels super unproductive afterwards.) I've caught up on a couple of podcasts, watched a movie, written some ficlets for the first time in months - April will in fact have a wordcount! - along with a food blog post, finished some books and got round to a bunch of other tasks that I'd been meaning to do for ages. (Plus made progress on the ongoing unpacking and re-organising shenanigans.)
What I’ve Read/Listened to
So I did actually finish off reading China Dream by Mia Jian, I found some sequences more compelling than others - and it was definitely a book that I needed to be in the right mind-set to read - but overall it was quite a compelling read, I'm not sure I would call it enjoyable but I'm glad I read it so there's that.
Having finished the last of my library books at the weekend, I ended up being twarted in my attempts to return them for several days I finally managed it yesterday, so naturally instead of just returning my books, I came home with another three. (Two of which are in fact books that I've been resisting buying for a while so I guess that's better than the alternative.) I did however read one this morning. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini, is more of an illustrated poem than a book, but it is an absolutely gorgeous and deeply moving piece of art about the refugee experience.
What I’m Currently Reading/Listening to
I didn't end up making any sort of start on Film Fables after all, instead I got distracted by a longer term resident of my book shelves, Technoscience in Contemporary American Film by Aylish Wood, which I'm actually finding really interesting and I'm not sure why I've made quite so many false starts on this book over the years.
With the changing weather over the last few days, I've had a stinker of a weather headache so I've spent a fair amount of time knitting while listening to podcasts with my glasses off. I caught up with both Gastropod and Lingthusiasm which both have long and quite dense with information episodes so not only were they an enjoyable listen, but there was the added pleasure of having the brain capacity to properly enjoy them. Lingthusiasm in particular really requires me to have my wits about me and my full ability to concentrate engaged.
What I’m Reading/Listening to Next
Likely one of my other library books - The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley or Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi - as that seems to be my current pattern, interchanging fiction from the library with non-fiction with my shelf, but I can live with that. Also I needed to make an Amazon order at the weekend so I treated myself to a couple of tpbs of DeConnick's run on Captain Marvel, naturally in the way of these things one of these has turned up but it's the second one so it's just taunting me on the shelf until it's predecesor arrives.
What I’ve Read/Listened to
So I did actually finish off reading China Dream by Mia Jian, I found some sequences more compelling than others - and it was definitely a book that I needed to be in the right mind-set to read - but overall it was quite a compelling read, I'm not sure I would call it enjoyable but I'm glad I read it so there's that.
Having finished the last of my library books at the weekend, I ended up being twarted in my attempts to return them for several days I finally managed it yesterday, so naturally instead of just returning my books, I came home with another three. (Two of which are in fact books that I've been resisting buying for a while so I guess that's better than the alternative.) I did however read one this morning. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini, is more of an illustrated poem than a book, but it is an absolutely gorgeous and deeply moving piece of art about the refugee experience.
What I’m Currently Reading/Listening to
I didn't end up making any sort of start on Film Fables after all, instead I got distracted by a longer term resident of my book shelves, Technoscience in Contemporary American Film by Aylish Wood, which I'm actually finding really interesting and I'm not sure why I've made quite so many false starts on this book over the years.
With the changing weather over the last few days, I've had a stinker of a weather headache so I've spent a fair amount of time knitting while listening to podcasts with my glasses off. I caught up with both Gastropod and Lingthusiasm which both have long and quite dense with information episodes so not only were they an enjoyable listen, but there was the added pleasure of having the brain capacity to properly enjoy them. Lingthusiasm in particular really requires me to have my wits about me and my full ability to concentrate engaged.
What I’m Reading/Listening to Next
Likely one of my other library books - The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley or Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi - as that seems to be my current pattern, interchanging fiction from the library with non-fiction with my shelf, but I can live with that. Also I needed to make an Amazon order at the weekend so I treated myself to a couple of tpbs of DeConnick's run on Captain Marvel, naturally in the way of these things one of these has turned up but it's the second one so it's just taunting me on the shelf until it's predecesor arrives.
