Public Service Announcement: Salutations!

Good afternoon, all of you lovely people! As you might have noticed, Grain of Truth is moving toward being back in business! Here are some things that I hope you all will look forward to:

1. I have a backlog of books to review for you. Since we saw each other last, I had the extreme good fortune of being in a young adult literature class, so some seriously exciting things there. I am also currently reading James Brotherton's Reclaiming the Dead, speaking of exciting.

2. Grain of Truth is going to merge (somehow) with my other blog, Tangential. It began as an academic blog and slowly became more and more about art, but I figure it's easier to put everything in one place. Still considering whether or not to move all (or any) of the Tangential posts over here, but the idea is, you might be seeing some of my creative work shortly.

3. Hopefully you will also get an update about my bigger projects soon. Hush hush for now.

4. I will be signalboosting this blog with my tumblr, which you can find here. Follow me and I will follow you back!

5. A blogging schedule/calendar! The idea is to work toward this, so please bear with me.

In fact, please bear with me on all of these things: I am trying to establish a schedule for most parts of my life now that I'm out of school, and it might be a little crazy for a while.

Anyway, toodles, and thanks for reading!

One Night for One Drop with Cirque du Soleil

As it turns out, Cirque du Soleil's founder, Guy Laiberté, is also the founder of a non-profit organization called One Drop, the manifesto of which is "to ensure that water is accessible to all, today and forever." In honor of World Water Day (March 22nd, 2013), Cirque du Soleil put together a one-night show where all proceeds go to One Drop. But, seeing as how not very many people can get to Vegas to see an exclusive one-shot at the O stage in the Bellagio, they also built a website, One Night for One Drop, where potential viewers can access the content for a minimum donation of five dollars. Unluckily for any of you who are just finding out about this, I procrastinated and waited until the last night that content is available (oops!).

The show itself was spectacular. As I mentioned, it borrowed the stage of O in the Bellagio, which is one of the best shows I've had the honor of attending. It was an appropriate choice, as O is a water-based production, and they utilized it in some of the more spectacular ways that O does: namely, synchronized swimmers and extreme high-dive. In addition there were dancers of all sorts, two of the best solo aerialists I've ever seen, and several guest appearances, including Jackie Evancho singing Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water" (alongside a familiar face from O!), David Garibaldi, a spoken word performance by In-Q, and an original quartet by Danny Elfman entitled "Fragility."

Overall the music was stunning. The performances were stunning; one of my favorites featured a swimmer in a mermaid tail and a contortion artist who was "born" out of a seedpod-like structure, like the mythic/folkloric barnacle goose.

The cast incorporated a grand total of two hundred and thirty seven Cirque du Soleil artists and guest performers from twenty countries and ranging from ages two to eighty. The cause is important and deserves to create the ripple effect Guy Laiberté described, what those of us who live on the internet might call signalboosting. However, there was one thing that threw me off guard about this show, and it was some of the costumes.

There were several acts which seemed to serve as a reminder that not everyone in the world is blessed with plumbing, or with access to any clean water (or with the financial flexibility to acquire tickets to a nice, plush seat in the Bellagio, or internet access at home, for that matter). That is all well and good, but the performers in these acts were marked as participating in a non-western culture in one way or another.

The first of these was a dance number which was clearly supposed to represent Indian women searching for water: they were clothed in garments reminiscent of Saris and carried pots, exiting the stage with them full and on their heads.

The modifications to the Sari-like costume (because they were definitely costumes) have arguable, functional purposes. The masks that the performers wore do not. They serve a unifying purpose, yes, in much the same way that an ancient Greek chorus was meant to be a mode of storytelling, not individuals with personalities, and the same way that members of a chorus line are dressed identically. But in the context of the message "these people are less fortunate than you," covering the faces, arguably the most expressive part of the human body, and replacing them with identical caricatures came off as oppressive to me as a viewer. It seemed to emphasize the otherness involved in the situation in a negative way, which was perhaps worsened by the inherent voyeurism in the act of watching a production.

There was a very similar feeling to the 'African' act, where the performers were dressed almost exclusively in animal print. The act, strangely, contained a sort of fashion-show runway walk, which also seemed preoccupied with emphasizing (and in this case exoticizing and sexualizing) the otherness of the people involved. 

There was also a 'South American' act, which featured dancing reminiscent of flamenco and Capoiera, a Brazillain martial art, and women dressed in Carnivale attire (lots of feathers).

This is not to say that all of the choices, or even most of them, were bad - that would be impossible - but several of them gave me pause. One that didn't was an act in which all of the performers were clearly supposed to be penguins and, regardless of phenotype or gender, they were all dressed in black and white vintage punk (items like a bowler hat, vest and tie, spats, and leather tailcoat appeared beside hoodies, striped and skintight dresses, and boots).

The moments that gave me pause were not the dominant strain of the show, and I recognize that One Night for One Drop has made a project of trying to incorporate the global community; these performances were meant to be a celebration of culture. As it was, the execution sometimes felt like parody, not homage. I wonder what the designers had in mind, but I wonder more what people of these cultures would have to say about the show's representation of them. 

Going Back

Going through your old things has a way of getting to you, one way or another.

That’s jumping ahead a bit, but there really isn’t any way to begin this story, except, perhaps, before I was born.

When my mom was a teenager, she made friends with two young men. I don’t have strictest permission to write about them publicly, so we’ll call them G and B. They were a couple, and they became fast friends with my mom, her siblings, and the rest of the family. I don’t remember any details of how they met, or where, or how they became so close: it was always just a simple fact that G and B were part of the family and always had been. They were there before my mom went to college, where she met my dad; they were there for both my parents when my dad got in the car accident that took most of his right arm; they were at my parent’s wedding; and they were part of every major family function for as long as I can remember. Every Christmas Eve my mom’s side of the family comes over and we have too much food, too much to drink, generally make merry nuisances of ourselves, and have a gift exchange.

All of this is important because one of them, B, can now only attend in spirit. We honestly think that he does, but that’s a different story. It’s important here because of another reason.

Over the last weekend, I graduated from Western Washington University and, true to my role as a member of the boomerang generation, have moved back into my parent’s house until I can get my feet under me. Moving is an insane process, especially when you’ve been splitting time between two locations and have acquired detritus in both (I come from a long line of pack rats); after coming back there was literally no floor space left in my room, and half the garage was incapacitated. My first reaction was to tear my room apart and get rid of everything I knew could have a better home elsewhere.

The process is still in motion, but while cleaning I came across something I didn’t remember: a blue metal gift box with a gold ribbon. Inside was a gift from B from years ago, an antique beaded purse with the figure of a man, possibly a soldier, astride a horse. There was a note underneath it. B wrote to me about how, when he was a kid, he enjoyed making beaded jewelry. His grandmother noticed this, and, being the dedicated auction-goer she was, bought the purse and brought it to him. She thought he could take it apart to use the beads. He wrote that he “didn’t have the heart to cut it up.” I am so glad that he didn’t, not because I love the purse (though I do), but because if he had, the note wouldn’t have existed, waiting for me to find it.

In loving memory of B, 1945-2011

The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day One: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

It's difficult to put a reaction to this novel into words, so I suppose I will start at the beginning.

Patrick Rothfuss, according to wikipedia, was born in Madison, Wisconsin and received an MA at Washington State University in 1999. He took his sweet time with Name of the Wind, his debut novel, and won the Writers of the Future short story contest in 2002 with an excerpt from it. It was published in April of 2007 and the sequel, Day Two: The Wise Man's Fear, was published March of last year.

I first heard about this book from my Dad. As one half of my only beta readers (the other being, of course, my mom) he picked it up and immediately told me how much I needed to read it. My avid love of fantasy is something I largely attribute to my parents: when Harry Potter appeared on the scene my mom took it upon herself to read me the first book as a bedtime story and my dad, not one to hesitate, started reading The Hobbit with me at the same time. From there we moved on to The Lord of the Rings and it was all over. That said, I cannot stress how much he knew I needed to read The Name of the Wind. I groused and put it off and did a year of college, insisting that something that good would have to wait until I could read it nonstop. That much was true, but I'm still kicking myself under the table for waiting.

The Name of the Wind is the best book I've read in a year. More. I was ensnared by The Graveyard Book and Child Thief, but this one took hold and didn't let go. It took me probably a full week to burn through its seven-hundred plus pages and now:

Excepting, of course, that this one has a sequel.

The Name of the Wind features a complete world with well-thought out concepts and is populated by theologies, philosophies, and several languages. It has two differing and conflicting versions of a creation myth. It has established rules. It makes statements about social class and stigma. It is populated by rich, captivating characters who are nothing if not convincing.

But I think the thing that kept me reading the most is that Rothfuss carefully cultivates a sense of urgency in every aspect of this story. In the "present" strain which bookends (and interrupts!) the novel, there is an urgency in the mystery of how legendary Kvothe came to be reduced to unassuming (and potentially depressed) Kote, and an urgency in why his apprentice is so desperately attached to his old self. In the "past" strain of the story every single plot is motivated by a sense of fleeting urgency: Kvothe spends most of the novel hideously destitute, which makes everything more valuable and he willing to go to greater lengths to get the money necessary to continue his education; The Woman (as he calls her) is often described as wild and he is never certain of when he will see her again; the one thing he desperately wants to know the most about is largely considered a faerie-story by others and thus will get him branded as insane or childish if he pursues it.

A device which helps along this sense of urgency is that Kvothe is telling the story himself, so he often drops hints about the future and how the story will unfold and then takes his dear sweet time in getting to them or simply leaves it at "but that, as they say, is a story for another time." These sleeper-cliffhangers are sudden and can happen at pretty much any time; as a reader I personally was spurred onward, looking for the loose ends. The end of the book is one of these sleeper-cliffhangers, and it's possibly the most powerful line in the whole novel because it happens twice, once in the prologue, and once in the last chapter. When it appears in the prologue, there's no context with which to put it in place, it's just an intriguing hook. When it appears at the end, it turns into one of those lines that make you either want to huck the book across the room or try and find a bookstore open at midnight.

Another thing which deserves mentioning is Rothfuss' attention to female characters. He makes a point of the fact that women students are rare in the environment in which Kvothe is studying, but he goes to great effort to put several of them in very significant positions in the story. Each of them are unique, memorable, and each of them has a different kind of strength. For example, Mola is a distant upperclasswoman studying in the Medica who is analytical and efficient. Fela is a student who works in the Fishery (read: campus workshop) and is able to sell her products for profit. Devi is a former student and moneylender who doesn't take no for an answer. Denna is fiercely independent and more than once insists on not being "beholden" to anyone: in a word, she does what she wants. I think fantasy and sci-fi novels, especially epics, have a general tendency to lack strong female characters and The Name of the Wind breaks that stereotype wonderfully.

Coming up next is The Wise Man's Fear. I'm sure it'll be just as good as book one.

Cheers, and good-night.

English 311: Afrofuturisms Reading List

For those of you who don't know what Afrofuturisms means, the simple version is African American science fiction. The more complete version includes such factors as reflections of slave narratives and discrimination, in either a bleak dystopian format or, conversely, through imagining a better future to make up for the loss of cultural history and identity through eutopia.

In other words: awesome wrapped up in intensity.

Here's our reading list:

Imperium in Imperio by Sutton E. Griggs, 1899

There were a lot of people in my class who contested the Sci-fi (SF) classification of this novel, but it's about what the title says it's about: an empire within an empire, a government within a government, and it's an imagined eutopia, as my teacher defended it. (My own opinions on SF and genre boundaries in general make me inclined to agree, but more on that later or never.) One of the drier texts, it's about two boys who both go on to become great orators, each championing the same cause, racial equality in the United States, in very different ways. The society itself doesn't feature much in the story until towards the end. Not highly recommended, but interesting. 

Of One Blood, by Pauline Hopkins, 1902-1905

Published serially in the Colored American's Magazine, one of the first publications written by and for the emergent black bourgeoisie in America, Of One Blood is a story which relies on the familiar, but appropriated, constructions of Romantic mysticism blended with the sciences and the explorer/colonization trope. Interesting, sometimes confusing, but first and foremost to put forward an important agenda for the time in which it was written: that the human race is, quite literally, all of one blood. More recommended than Imperium, but still not a must-read.

Black Empire, by George S. Schuyler, 1936-1938

Also published serially and actually consisting of two novels, The Black Internationale and Black Empire, Schuyler satirizes the ideas of how to achieve racial equality contemporary with his time, mostly through the use of a evil genius and lots and lots of money. A reimagined future, though I'm still not clear on whether it's supposed to be a dystopia or a eutopia. Pretty darn good, if taken with a touch of dark humor.

Nova, by Samuel R. Delany, 1968

Nova was, by far, my favorite thing we read. A space-opera set in the thirty-second century, it's a race to the edges of the then-known universe to find a dying star in order to plunge into it, with plenty of economic and societal commentary and intrigue on the side. An absolutely enjoyable trip.

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, 1993

Parable was my second-favorite read of the quarter, despite its being bleak, dark, and triggering. At first it felt a little like the only thing between life currently and the universe of Cormac McCarthy's The Road with a dash of P.D. James' Children of Men thrown in. Luckily it turns out slightly less bleak than the former, though not by much. Good, interesting read with a strong female lead.

Cheers, everybody.

Three-Movie Weekend

From the archive of unfinished posts:

The Wrath of the Titans, directed by Jonathon Liebesman and starring Sam Worthington, was, I think, actually better than its predecessor. Clash of the Titans was decent, in a b-movie kind of way, but it had one problem: it tried to tell the story of a classic myth and failed to do so. Wrath broke with every mythic convention I can name, and was better for it. Because it hardly acknowledged myth, it didn't really have expectations to fill. I'd watch it again.

The Raven was shockingly well done. When I first saw the trailer, all I could think about was how badly this movie wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, but it turned out to be more than that. Cusack played a shockingly convincing Poe, the circumstances/traps were appropriately squirm-worthy and awful, and the mystery was downright decent. I would be willing to own this movie.

The thing you've got to understand is that The Three Musketeers is ridiculous, hands down. The Musketeers are primarily in tight leather, one of them is practically a ninja, they uncover DaVinci plans for steampunk airships and build them, and Orlando Bloom has a pompadour. In summation? It's awesome. One for all and all for one!

Cheers!

Prometheus

Ridley Scott's latest Sci-fi/Horror/Survival flick, starring Noomi Rapace as scientist Elizabeth Shaw, an...interesting...prequel to the Aliens series.

I am beginning to hatch a theory that the more special effects Ridley Scott - who brought us such titles as Blade Runner (1982), Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), and the Alien franchise (1979-present) - has access to, the grosser his films are bound to get. Primarily, I regret to say, Prometheus was gross.

Yes, the effects were praiseworthy. Yes, I enjoyed all of the design. Yes, I appreciated the multiracial cast of characters. Yes, the script had great Alien-esque moments. Yes, the performances of the actors were stunning. However, my first and foremost gut reaction is that this film was disgusting. It was like Scott sat down with the design and animation team and said "I want this to be as gritty, organic, nasty, and invasive as you can possibly make it without our audiences physically barfing, okay?" Because that's about how I would describe the pale, writhing-in-black-goo penile snakey Elder God facesuckers that the film's progenitors of the human race created.

Not to say that it wasn't realistic in the sense that if one was actually on an alien planet going up against bio-engineered creatures of mass destruction, that's probably what it would be like, so props in that direction, but seeing it in movie-theater high-definition, that's something else entirely.

That being said, the stars of the show were Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, and Charlize Theron, for their performances. Fassbender played a spookily accurate android, Theron was appropriately blunt, no-nonsense and corporate, and, most importantly, Rapace more than carried the strong main female role. I don't know if anyone could quite pass Sigourney Weaver's Ripley (flamethrower, anyone?), but Rapace did a heck of a job.

In short? I'd recommend seeing it at least once. It's a good concept and well-executed to boot, but bring your brown paper bags. Cheers.