Good Intentions (July Reading)
Aug. 14th, 2011 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseTen Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978 (Chris Carlsson, ed) (2011): 328 pages of left-flavored essays on the late '60s / post-'60s / '70s San Francisco liberal scene. This wasn't great: it's SF History 201, and I needed City History 101. Also, the essay quality was uneven; a few were very entertaining and well-written, many were competent, and several had careless copy editing mistakes, such as an extra endnote. If the writer doesn't care enough to fix easy stuff like spelling and commas, can I trust they got the facts right?
When I opened the book, I was most excited about essays on the SF State College strike (Margaret Leahy), feminism and sexism in activist groups ("Making Sexism Visible: Private Troubles Made Public", Deborah A. Gerson), and the LGBT movement ("Sometimes You Work With the Democrats, Sometimes You Riot", Tommi Avicolli Mecca), but was surprised by additional essays I liked as much or more for bringing my attention to unexpected corners of history. These included "Coming Together: the Communal Option" (Matthew Roth), "Mujeres Muralistas" (Patricia Rodriguez), and "The Farm by the Freeway" (Mirjana Blankenship). On the other hand, essays that seemed designed to personally irritate me included a spiritual-environmentalist paen to San Bruno Mountain, (personal connection: Caltrain passes it every morning), and the uncritically male "Rise and Fall of the Underground Comix Movement in San Francisco and Beyond" (Jay Kinney). When discussing his comix heroes and community, Kinney mentions very few women involved with the movement, and doesn't seem to consider this a concern. Since at least one printer used by the comix writers and publishers was based out of "seedy Capp Street" (p276), with no further discussion of safety, it feels like outreach to people outside the initial artists' circles was a low priority. That's a flag on my feminist radar, especially as Kinney discusses the end of the comix era and artists' movement into other fields, such as mainstream comics, which continue to have problems embracing women as people, rather than sex objects. It was an enthusiastic but disappointingly uncritical essay.
Additional essays focused on the Mission Coalition organization, community organizing in the Mission, labor strikes, housing, murals, Native Americans in San Francisco and the Alcatraz occupation, the Filipino community and the International Hotel evictions, antiwar protesting, and immigrant experiences in San Francisco. Overall, the collection was mildly interesting, but so uneven I can't recommend it unless you have a lively pre-existing interest in accounts of that era. I'm taking recommendations for further reading on San Francisco history to feed my itch for local history.
Fullmetal Alchemist vol 1 - 8 (ch 1 - 33) (Hiromu Arakawa) (2002 - 2004): Manga. Brain candy. Addictive brain candy. I must apologize for the capslock in advance, because I know it's coming.
The premise: two boys try to resurrect their mother with alchemy. It backfires spectacularly. Now they're on a quest to get their original bodies back. I got as far as page 3 of the first volume before thinking, "this is going to be awesome, or a trainwreck. But it could be an awesome trainwreck!" And I was right! There is fridging (Nina Tucker), and the Ishbalan civil war is probably not social justice compliant, and I don't care. The story slides past the worst possibilities during the initially episodic storytelling and firms up nicely, adding vivid secondary and tertiary recurring characters as the plot develops an arc and the worldbuilding opens up. The female characters are at least as competent and likeable as their male counterparts. The story's focus is on the military, but civilians, kids, old women all get their moment to shine. The expanding storylines loop around and back into Ed and Al's quest, sticking to and heightening the premise's emotional core. In short? ROCK ON.
ED. AL. BOYS, YOU ARE ADORABLE AND I WANT TO SMOOSH YOUR LITTLE CHEEKS. SORRY, ED. I came in assuming the Elric brothers would get equal angst, but Edward Elric wins on protagonist points (best alchemical powers; most likely to win angst contest; when Ed and Alphonse fight, Al has to apologize, even though Ed's probably at least as wrong). But! This is a story about Ed, Al and a quest with more things happening. There's the aftermath of a genocidal civil war, military-political intrigue, an unwinding cast of dozens. Arakawa may love Ed's protagonismos the most, but she has great affection for all her heroes. Even the ones she kills off. (MH, RIP. How were you so awesome? Oh, right: you got an AWESOME DEATH SCENE and a smashing good funeral.) So I am happy: I have intricately-plotted commute entertainment which is just dark enough I can trick myself into thinking it's even darker, without the attendant character-dislike that sometimes permeates psychologically harrowing fiction. I'm worried this could tip into confusing liking the characters with the characters being right all the time. So I will just have to keep reading to see if this goes off the rails. My life, so hard.
Also,norabombay? FMA is fantasy, but it's heavily influenced by the European industrial revolution, so there are trains. Lots of trains. *Innocent face*
Maskerade (Terry Pratchett) (1995): Magic, mysterious deaths and the stage... Discworld does Phantom of the Opera. Pratchett's writing is a pleasant cup of tea, but very often I find it's high quality English Breakfast when I am craving Earl Grey. Or oolong. Or jasmine in green tea. I like the Discworld novels without the powerful attraction other people do.
Numbers game: 10 total finished. 10 new, no rereads; 9 fiction, 1 nonfiction; 8 manga, 1 essay collection.
When I opened the book, I was most excited about essays on the SF State College strike (Margaret Leahy), feminism and sexism in activist groups ("Making Sexism Visible: Private Troubles Made Public", Deborah A. Gerson), and the LGBT movement ("Sometimes You Work With the Democrats, Sometimes You Riot", Tommi Avicolli Mecca), but was surprised by additional essays I liked as much or more for bringing my attention to unexpected corners of history. These included "Coming Together: the Communal Option" (Matthew Roth), "Mujeres Muralistas" (Patricia Rodriguez), and "The Farm by the Freeway" (Mirjana Blankenship). On the other hand, essays that seemed designed to personally irritate me included a spiritual-environmentalist paen to San Bruno Mountain, (personal connection: Caltrain passes it every morning), and the uncritically male "Rise and Fall of the Underground Comix Movement in San Francisco and Beyond" (Jay Kinney). When discussing his comix heroes and community, Kinney mentions very few women involved with the movement, and doesn't seem to consider this a concern. Since at least one printer used by the comix writers and publishers was based out of "seedy Capp Street" (p276), with no further discussion of safety, it feels like outreach to people outside the initial artists' circles was a low priority. That's a flag on my feminist radar, especially as Kinney discusses the end of the comix era and artists' movement into other fields, such as mainstream comics, which continue to have problems embracing women as people, rather than sex objects. It was an enthusiastic but disappointingly uncritical essay.
Additional essays focused on the Mission Coalition organization, community organizing in the Mission, labor strikes, housing, murals, Native Americans in San Francisco and the Alcatraz occupation, the Filipino community and the International Hotel evictions, antiwar protesting, and immigrant experiences in San Francisco. Overall, the collection was mildly interesting, but so uneven I can't recommend it unless you have a lively pre-existing interest in accounts of that era. I'm taking recommendations for further reading on San Francisco history to feed my itch for local history.
Fullmetal Alchemist vol 1 - 8 (ch 1 - 33) (Hiromu Arakawa) (2002 - 2004): Manga. Brain candy. Addictive brain candy. I must apologize for the capslock in advance, because I know it's coming.
The premise: two boys try to resurrect their mother with alchemy. It backfires spectacularly. Now they're on a quest to get their original bodies back. I got as far as page 3 of the first volume before thinking, "this is going to be awesome, or a trainwreck. But it could be an awesome trainwreck!" And I was right! There is fridging (Nina Tucker), and the Ishbalan civil war is probably not social justice compliant, and I don't care. The story slides past the worst possibilities during the initially episodic storytelling and firms up nicely, adding vivid secondary and tertiary recurring characters as the plot develops an arc and the worldbuilding opens up. The female characters are at least as competent and likeable as their male counterparts. The story's focus is on the military, but civilians, kids, old women all get their moment to shine. The expanding storylines loop around and back into Ed and Al's quest, sticking to and heightening the premise's emotional core. In short? ROCK ON.
ED. AL. BOYS, YOU ARE ADORABLE AND I WANT TO SMOOSH YOUR LITTLE CHEEKS. SORRY, ED. I came in assuming the Elric brothers would get equal angst, but Edward Elric wins on protagonist points (best alchemical powers; most likely to win angst contest; when Ed and Alphonse fight, Al has to apologize, even though Ed's probably at least as wrong). But! This is a story about Ed, Al and a quest with more things happening. There's the aftermath of a genocidal civil war, military-political intrigue, an unwinding cast of dozens. Arakawa may love Ed's protagonismos the most, but she has great affection for all her heroes. Even the ones she kills off. (MH, RIP. How were you so awesome? Oh, right: you got an AWESOME DEATH SCENE and a smashing good funeral.) So I am happy: I have intricately-plotted commute entertainment which is just dark enough I can trick myself into thinking it's even darker, without the attendant character-dislike that sometimes permeates psychologically harrowing fiction. I'm worried this could tip into confusing liking the characters with the characters being right all the time. So I will just have to keep reading to see if this goes off the rails. My life, so hard.
Also,
norabombay? FMA is fantasy, but it's heavily influenced by the European industrial revolution, so there are trains. Lots of trains. *Innocent face* Maskerade (Terry Pratchett) (1995): Magic, mysterious deaths and the stage... Discworld does Phantom of the Opera. Pratchett's writing is a pleasant cup of tea, but very often I find it's high quality English Breakfast when I am craving Earl Grey. Or oolong. Or jasmine in green tea. I like the Discworld novels without the powerful attraction other people do.
Numbers game: 10 total finished. 10 new, no rereads; 9 fiction, 1 nonfiction; 8 manga, 1 essay collection.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:39 am (UTC)(FMA was the one that we were watching with the guy who held JD and the rest of us at AK-47-point, so I never did wind up finishing watching it.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 01:51 am (UTC)There's no Johns. Or Ivans, or Vanyels, or any variation on same. I had a great moment when I realized Ed and Al are fulfill a lot of the Justin and Grant dynamic, minus the sex. Because this is YA, not Cherryh.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 02:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 02:24 am (UTC)And then he was startled and disappointed that we didn't come back next week.