#editors note: artemy is a woman to me

[shriika]

they were yuri. to me.

[themissourireview]

I’m back with the rest of our staff’s picks for #TheMissouriReview ‘s #NationalReadingMonth, this time, just in order. Hope you enjoy!

16. “Love Poem as Eye Examination” by Victoria Chang. Her quote: “I wrote a poem ruminating on an eye doctor visit, and since I’ve struggled to write love poems on many occasions, I decided to work backwards and make the poem a love poem. This process helped me to write a love poem, although in the end, like many of my poems, there’s an acidic strain that runs through the spine of the poem.”

17. “Love Letter to Flavor Flav” by Marcus Wicker. This poem—equal parts playful and poignant—was born out of the writer’s ambivalent feelings toward the titular pop culture icon: “I’ve always been troubled by my own willingness to accept Flavor Flav as an important popular icon. As a former member of Public Enemy, he operated like nightly lubricant for the group’s straight ahead politics; but one can’t deny, he’s a bit painful to watch. When Flav still had his VH1 reality show, I tuned in every week to watch him parade around a mansion, announcing his wild-ass presence in the world of my living room. Admittedly, I think that’s kind of dumb. But also kind of cool, and maybe honest.”

18. “The Wall” by Emma Törzs. In this 2015 Jeffrey E. Smith Prize-winning fiction, set in contemporary Israel, a young Jewish woman seeks to bridge the divide between life and death as she mourns the loss of her brother. 19. “Swarf.” In this essay, Tyler Keevil writes about an accident and ensuing medical emergency during a fraught time of global recession.

20.  A Poem of the Week from 2010 titled “Noli Me Tangere.” The poet, Traci Brimhall, said that the poem came from “a desire for absolution.” She felt guilty for helping with animal studies despite the fact that “helping to catch endangered frogs for future study meant that there would be hope for the species….”

21. “Motherland” by Min Jin Lee was awarded our William Peden Prize in fiction when Judge Alice McDermott selected the piece as our best-of-volume fiction for that year.

22. The story pulls you in from the very beginning—or, more accurately, from the title itself. “How to Kill Gra’ Coleman and Live to Tell about It (Vauxhall, NJ, c. 1949)” by Kim Coleman Foote is partially born out of the author’s exploration of her own family history, which she later described to TMR’s editors. In my first semester interning at #TMR, I read this piece with classmates. It’s killer.

  23. An excerpt from Alethea Black’s memoir, You’ve Been So Lucky Already. In this piece, titled “A Place in the World,” the narrator explores the aftermath of grief while navigating through a world that’s changed overnight.

24. The poem of the week from last May, “he doesn’t flirt with me, he just texts me love poems,” by Zain Murdock. In the author’s note, Murdock described how emotional honesty factored into the poem: “This poem was really the first time I allowed myself to write about love in a way that didn’t make me feel ashamed.”

25. “Serpentine,” an essay by Ember Johnson. In this piece, which was a finalist for the 2018 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, Johnson masterfully evokes tension and anguish through her poignant exploration of her experience as a military wife and widow, offering a unique perspective on the burden of carrying on alone.

26.  “A Djinn Hums in Sakhnin” by Tarik Dobbs. The poem, which he wrote “frantically on [his] airplane home,” includes reflections on his Muslim faith.

27. “Heart-Scalded” by Daphne Kalotay. In this story, a terminally ill woman attends a party where she knows she’ll have to brave a fraught encounter with her ex. In this narrative of emotional pain and acceptance, we find intimations of magic—and mortality.

28. “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie” by Jennifer Anderson. This raw portrait of Anderson’s experiences providing “diversional activities” for nursing-home patients was a 2012 Editor’s Prize finalist in nonfiction.

29. “Actaeon,” by Kelly Weber. On the origin of the poem, Weber said, “When I started writing about my personal experiences as an aroace woman, I turned to the myth of Artemis as a model. What I found compelling about the story of Actaeon and Artemis is how it differed from other myths like that of Daphne, for example, who becomes a tree to escape Apollo. In the Actaeon story, it’s not Artemis who must change but Actaeon. His entire way of being in the world must fundamentally shift, putting the burden of change and responsibility for his actions back on him instead of the one he gazes upon.” This one’s up next on my list, as I’m studying Ovid this semester. 

30. A 2021 Poem of the Week, “Not an Ode to April 22nd, 2019,” by Gisselle Yepes. On the poem’s craft, Yepes explained, “This poem is one, too, that thinks with the anaphora, the litany in Aracelis Girmay’s poem, ‘Here,’ as it thinks with and revels in rupture, in grief, in noticing how we, Afro-diasporic people(s), more specifically Puerto Ricans, grieve, smoke, love, yell, wail, weep, and silence.”

31. A historical persona poem by David Mura titled, “A Soldier of The 100th: The Lost Battalion.” To provide some historical context, Mura explained: the 100th battalion “was part of the 442nd regiment, the most decorated unit in Europe [during World War II], and was made up of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland; the families of the latter were imprisoned in internment camps during the war and deprived of their rights as citizens.” We hope you’ll take the time to read this powerful piece.

Find them at https://www.missourireview.com/ 

[beedalee]

Magical Girl Adoptables - TEAL on DeviantART

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Please click the read-more for information, order form, and availability status; OR go to the deviantart link above! If you want to buy one via tumblr, please private message me, do not use asks or they may get lost!  💓  If you have a question please don't hesitate to ask!!! I'll do my best to help you out!

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Gifting limit is 1 gift per buyer, and only if the giftee hasn't already purchased one on this sheet themselves! Example: Buyer 1 may purchase 'adopt A' for themselves and purchase 'adopt C' as a gift for Person 2- ONLY IF Person 2 has not bought one themselves. Giftees cannot buy a 2nd one during this limitation if they have been gifted one already! This post will be updated and watchers notified when this limit is over, thank you for understanding! 💓

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Each comes with little character blurbs, but you don't have to keep them! Feel free to change their powers/theme color/gender id/personality to your liking. Also, feel free to shift their color theme as well! These are just fun prompts for me.

❄️ ROW 1: [ALL SOLD]

 Nightshade: SOLD!

- A shrewd and influential business woman who is always where the money's at. She's aggressive and confident and not afraid to make enemies to achieve her goals. After a fateful encounter with a strange, top secret alien plant species, she starts to develop mysterious abilities... Is she a vigilante, or are her motives far more selfish?

Dewdrop Dreams: SOLD!

- A sweet little elementary school girl with a bubbling and bright personality. She is friendly and creative, and is always carrying around a her most favorite paint set she got on her birthday. Not even in her wildest daydreams could she imagine that her painting would become her magical power!

Kid Zephyr: SOLD!

- To cope with a troubled home-life, this young boy is a master of playing pretend- dreaming up fantastical worlds with his friends and his faithful puppy Breezy, where they fight monsters and save magical kingdoms from the brink of collapse. Unbeknownst to him, his fantastical world he dreams of every night isn't just a fantasy at all...

❄️ ROW 2: [ALL SOLD]

C.Y.A.N. #0F4: SOLD!

- An excellent student and aspiring NASA hopeful, this young scientist never expected to be selected for a top secret program with a strangely magical and highly experimental energy source. A very serious and studious girl, she's highly skeptical about all of this... until the wormhole opens, and her and her team realize that they are the only thing standing between the planet and a hostile alien force.

Dark Marine: SOLD!

- This gorgeous gothy girl is both as mysterious as she is popular, always leaving an impression when she enters a room. But of course she keeps parts of herself tucked away- perhaps it's shyness, or maybe something more explainable?

Artemis's Light: SOLD!

- She's a preppy queen bee with her life neatly sorted out- just moving in with her long term boyfriend, graduating college, and getting a perfect job as a magazine editor... What more could she want? Certainly not something like finding out that she's the reincarnated form of a goddess, and the world that goddess came from is in peril- causing her and several other people to be transported there to defend it.

 ❄️ROW 3:

Eyes in the Dark: SOLD!

- A reticent loner who's still trying to sort out their place in life. By day, this outcast spends a lot of time dodging bullies with a vendetta- but by night, their own super-powered grudge isn't to be trifled with...

Agent Celsius: SOLD!

- She's a gorgeous FBI agent that specializes in covert operations- she's highly skilled, extremely disciplined, and has a long list of credentials... but no amount of skill would prepare her for what would happen after a botched job causes her to be exposed to a strange frozen chemical.

Pulse Runner: SOLD!

- A dirt-biking champion and general rough-housing type of girl, she's a speed demon with a short temper. There is rumor that she got into a huge accident, as noted by a large scar on her collarbone- but she always brushes it off. After acquiring her electrical powers, of course she can hardly be held down for a second- but can she slow down long enough to pay attention to issues bigger than her?

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[overlycaffeinatedwarmage]

So four of us were at MegaCon last weekend and we had a chance to talk KC’s ear off.  We also had a chance to listen to her a bit.  I, of course, took notes.  Here’s what I got.  Please feel free to ask questions about anything I have.  I will flesh out what I can!

Panel notes:

None of her characters are based on real people that she knows. Too much bad shit happens to them. An element of her work that she’s proud of: she uses her history degree with her writing. Favorite mythologies to write are about gods (didn’t mention one particular cultural pantheon). Lots of cross over with various mythologies throughout the world. Makes sense since people travel and talk. Many of the giddy traits cross over, some of the gods are identical across cultures too.

Mythology has everything that Urban Fantasy has in it, romance, heroes, monsters, etc. Really UF is a retelling of the old stories in a modern way. We even have similar stories across stories, just like they did. God in a jar mythology is a common theme (Artemis is in a jar right now dajuan note).

World building: Write what you need for first book, world building wise, never enough pages for world building per book. Don't do all at once. Too much, leave some for future books. Your editor will always tell you to cut it down anyway. You need to know the world and back story even if audience doesn't yet. Audience will know if you contradict something and they will tell you. But don’t box yourself in, don’t let others write your rules, break them if you need to.

Writing is a you learn as you go craft. When you read your old stuff, think to yourself "look how far I’ve come!" rather than cringe at it. You aren't perfect. Enjoy what you are now and learn from it and grow from it. Work on the story, that’s what people care about more than the grammar and perfect characters, those are important but secondary to the story itself.

She knows the major beats of story now, but not all the details yet. Mystery authors are her favorites (Agatha Christie was mentioned several times). Liked mischievous gods, assholes, they more fun. If they are good, watch out! (Daj note, I got big HINT vibes here! Artemis isn't as altruistic as she seems maybe?? Personally, I've been wondering about her for a while. There is definitely more going on with her.)

Stay in genre but make it new, fresh spin: take new things, Pythia, new abilities. Hard to make vampire different, same with witch. Pick new creature to explore. Go back to original myths Bonicon: ox type thing, napalm from butt (need to look up name, I am 100% sure I either misheard or misspelled it). Must do some digging to find new stuff.

Add some realism, how do the characters get money? Stuff like that (ie early Cassie and Billy cheating casinos) Mystery, how keep threat level up? Kill someone else! World expansion: story or character come first? It depends All characters must have an arc. Even supporting characters, must change or not believable. Five characters in a scene, all should have a distinct voice. A friend should be able to tell which character said a line a dialogue Character best friend? Rosier, she would hang out with him (we cheered, loudly).

Personal discussion:

Mircea always a rogue. No one should be surprised by his shit in RtS. It was telegraphed all the way back in TtD.

Cassie is an extrovert who had to learn to be introvert by upbringing. She is learning to let people in now.

Cassie has a woman’s strength, is girly and ok with it. Meant to be a character many women could relate to.

Dory by herself would be boring(?) Dorina is what makes her unique or interesting. She would be more cookie cutter character without Dorina.

KC doesn’t want to write cookie cutter characters or stories.

There are so many characters out there for all types of men (strong, weak, nerdy, whatever) but not all types of women. Cassie is an “everywoman" character that every woman could see an aspect of themselves in. Because think about it, if shit were to hit the fan what would you do? Go out guns blazing or hide behind the sofa? Probably hide behind the sofa.

There was a lot of Tolkien talk about the three whole female characters in those books. I’m a little foggy here because Tolkien is not my thing, (I had to ask who everyone was to be sure I understood, yes I was a little embarrassed). One character was the prize for the king, one was a warrior woman or essentially a “man with boobs," and one was actually a woman with her own agency. There have to be more roles for women in fantasy than this. We deserve better. There is nothing wrong with the warrior woman, but that’s not all woman and many can't see themselves like that. (Daj note I can't see myself in the warrior women and I'm stronger than the average woman. Strength, power is not my strength.  I’m excited to see a wider variety of role models for young women.)

There are at least 3 more books after BtT. Big stuff is coming! No, we didn’t ask what!

KC does not write romances! This has been said before but needs to be reiterated. She writes about people and people have romance, sex, friends, enemies, etc so of course there would be elements of that in the books. Otherwise the characters would not be believable. She does write damn good stories and characters though. All of her characters have arcs, they change because real people change. The bigger the character the bigger the arc. Smaller or side characters have arcs too, though, they just have smaller ones.

There are some obvious hints in books as to what is coming that we are all missing. (No, we didn’t ask what they were. We did our best not to blatantly ask for spoilers. There were things that we would say that she'd just smile at, but I'm not saying what. I'm doing *my* damnedest not to spoil people as well.) People will sometimes pick up the smallest of hints she thinks they will miss though.

Yes, Mircea has a foot fetish. Why not? It's mild as fetishes go really. (We had a good giggle about that.) Again, it's a thing that makes him real. Rian chose Casanova for a reason and it's a BIG reason. If you catch my drift ;) (More giggles and an embarrassing amount of discussion was spent here.)

Rosier speech "fake it, everyone else is too" has gotten her through a lot (daj note, me too. It’s my favorite speech in the series, I give and get it often.)

Again, any errors are mine. I do not speak for Karen Chance so do not hold her to anything that I have written here. Most of this is cobbled together from notes and exhausted, overexcited memory.  She is free to correct me on any errors that I have made, and I sincerely apologize for making them and potentially speaking out of turn. She was an absolute blast to chat with and I am honored to have been given the opportunity to spend a few hours with her this weekend. I will forever claim that she is one of the kindest authors and people that I have met. I know a lot of wicked cool people, so I don't give that praise lightly. Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll will try to answer what I can. If my roomies have anything to add, please feel free! @emberfaye @pritkinspalemoons @annalane

[tinseltine]

Look Back at the Movies of 2018

Tinsel & Tine's

Look Back at the Movies of 2018

By Le Anne Lindsay, Editor

This year feels like the fastest movie season to date. I still feel like we just stopped talking about the movies up for awards last year, like The Shape of Water, Call Me By Your Name, 3 Billboards, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread etc.. Now we already have 2019 Golden Globe Awards nominations, and Oscar noms just a month away on Jan 22, 2019. This years’ crop of movies being talked about for awards are a bit more main stream than some of those films that I just mentioned from last year, which were not your average movie-goers cup of tea. Whereas this year: A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book, Vice, Black Panther, The Favourite, these movies have more universal appeal. They’re important, but contain more humor. Even If Beale Street Could Talk with all its social implications, on the surface is a romance. Then we have a couple of family dramas like Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased & Ben is Back which no one is going to be able to keep straight, as Lucas Hedges is in two of them and two are about drug addiction, but they’re not artsy films. I'd like to thank God and the Universe for continually orchestrating my life so that every year I get to see and enjoy an abundant number of movies. Between film festivals and often going to the theater 3-4x a week. I feel I can formulate a pretty darn good end of the year list. Much of which does coincide with the movies being bandied about as noteworthy, but I threw in a couple of surprises. I’m gonna start with my least favorite movies of 2018, because it's a short list. It's always difficult for me to say I hate a movie because of the work and number of people involved in getting even a short film to the screen. But there's always a few that should have gone through a lot of reworking before being released. Then I move on to my Top 10 Favorites. This was particularly difficult to pair down this year, I had 26 movies that I really, really liked. So I have a Just Missed the Top 10 category and an Honorable Mention category. Note: Links go to my full review of the movie Hope you enjoy and hit me up on Facebook or Twitter to discuss your favorites!

Worst Movies of 2018

In order of most disliked

RED SPARROW (20th Century Fox) dir Francis Lawrence, starring Jennifer Lawrence & Joel Edgerton. Lawrence plays a Russian ex-ballet dancer turned reluctant sex spy in a poorly executed thriller set in Russia. Everything about it felt phony and forced, except for one small scene where Mary Louise Parker steals the show. SECOND ACT (STX Films)– dir Peter Segal, starring Jennifer Lopez, Leah Remini, Vanessa Hudgens, Milo Ventimiglia. A movie about a woman without a college degree lying her way up the corporate latter in a cosmetic company. Parts of it remind me of a cheap imitation of Amy Schumer’s I Feel Pretty, but Shumer had a handle on her plot devices and comedic timing. I think if they kept the main plot of Second Act on the relationship of the mother and daughter discovering each other, that could have helped a lot, but really this movie is short on charm and big on makeup caked on like colorful spackle. A WRINKLE IN TIME (Disney) dir Ava Duvernay, starring Storm Reid, Chris Pine, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon & Mindy Kaling. This much anticipated film based on a beloved children’s novel did not translate well to film - story-wise, visually it had some good moments, but Jennifer Lee, Jeff Stockwell’s screenplay needed punching up and smoothing out all over the place. And I can’t let DuVernay entirely off the hook as the pacing of the film is way off too, but mostly, it was a waste of Oprah. LIFE OF THE PARTY (Warner Bros) dir Ben Falcone, starring Melissa McCarthy, who I love (I’ve become addicted to reruns of Mike & Molly) but this movie about a 40 something year-old woman returning to finish her degree at the same time as her daughter, went nowhere. It wasn’t at all funny, it wasn’t heartfelt, it wasn’t mother/daughter bonding, it wasn’t McCarthy run amok, it was just boring. ADRIFT (STX Films) dir Baltasar Kormákur, starring Shailene Woodley & Sam Claflin. Based on the true story of Tami Oldham’s 42-day ordeal lost at sea, but told through a cheesy story device that’s a cheat for the movie and completely unnecessary to hold the attention of the audience.

My TOP 10 Favorites Movies from 2018

1. BLACK PANTHER (Marvel Studios) dir Ryan Coogler, starring Chadwick Boseman. The movie hit theaters last February and broke all kinds of box office records, heavily featured women (Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright) in key roles. Once and for all it broke down the myth that movies with a black cast don’t make money overseas. But best of all, it’s a good movie. When I saw it a 2nd time I knew it wasn’t just about the social implications. It was about enjoying something that was cinematically pleasing. 2. CRAZY RICH ASIANS (Warner Bros.) dir. Jon M. Chu, starring Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh. Same goes for this movie, which I also saw in the theater twice. The ensemble works very well together, the movie has great energy, Singapore is gorgeous and it was so nice to bring a quality rom/com back to the screen. 3. GREEN BOOK (Universal Pics) dir Peter Farrelley, starring Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali as Tony Vallelonga an Italian-American bouncer & African-American classical and jazz pianist Don Shirley embarking on a road trip down to the segregated south- this is the new odd couple. As much as I love a good romance, I think friendships and bromances are more interesting to watch unfold on screen. Also saw this twice and loved it even more the second go round. 4. PUZZLE (Sony Pictures Classic) dir Marc Turtletaub, starring Kelly Macdonald & Irrfan Khan a remake of an Argentina film (2010). I know most people did not get a chance to see this movie, it played at Ritz 5 for probably only a week, but it’s a quiet gem about a current day housewife living in a New York suburb who discovers she has a knack for quickly putting together jigsaw puzzles and unexpectedly finds more than just a fitting puzzle partner after answering an ad to join a competition. 5. MR SOUL! (BlackStar Film Festival) dir. Sam Pollard and Melissa Haizlip. SOUL! was a nationally televised weekly variety show that aired from 1968-1973 on PBS featuring prominent and emerging Black artists including poets, classical, pop and jazz musicians, dancers and political figures. The documentary is not only an amazing look back on seeing early performances of people who became household names, but it's also an interesting biopic on the creative host and producer Ellis Haizlip, who had his finger on the pulse of an early post-Civil Rights Movement America. 6. A STAR IS BORN (Warner Bros) dir Bradley Cooper made this classic his own and made a fantastic decision to make his partner in this endeavor Lady Gaga. Not only does their chemistry and music make this a more than engaging film. But Cooper captures up-close the backstage feeling of the entertainment industry in so many ways. 7. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (Annapurna Pictures) dir Boots Riley, starring Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick a lot of buzz was generated for this first time filmmaker and rightly so as Riley's style is to keep dialing up the crazy, notch by notch until you're at a full rolling boil of absurdist, off-beat, comedic Sci-fi soup with a social message. Not easy to do in one movie, but I feel he really pulled it off. 8. HOTEL ARTEMIS (Global Road) writer/dir Drew Pearce, starring Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista, and Zachary Quinto. I know I’m alone having this one on my top 10 list, but I truly enjoyed this strange action thriller. From the production design to the pre-apocalyptic setting, to the idea of taking place inside a secret high-tech hospital and supposed safe space for criminals to get patched up by an agoraphobic nurse. 9. RBG doc (Magnolia Pictures) dirs Betsy West & Julie Cohen. I saw On The Basis of Sex too and Felicity Jones is good casting as a early pioneering Ruth Bader Ginsberg, but the documentary is so much more encompassing of this remarkable woman’s life and journey. Before seeing this doc what I basically knew about this female chief Justice of the Supreme Court, I got from SNL skits and seeing some “The Notorious RBG” T-shirts. So glad to now be aware of her huge contribution to our freedoms and civil liberties. 10. LOVE, SIMON (20th Century Fox) dir Greg Berlanti, starring Nick Robinson, Katherine Langford, Jennifer Garner, Josh Duhamel - In this post "Glee", legalized Gay marriage, "Moonlight" Oscar winning, Caitlyn Jenner accepting society we live in - it's hard to figure that a movie about a young boy feeling extreme anxiety about admitting he's gay would be anything worth discussing. Yet, that's part of the value and charm of this movie along with a likeable young cast.

Just Missed the Top 10

SPIDERMAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (Sony Pictures Releasing) dir Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman. Since Columbia still owns the rights to the Spiderman character, they like to get good mileage out of the web slinger, hence the terrible Andrew Garfield Spiderman reboot thrust on us while we were still in the throes of the Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst upside down kiss. Thankfully, something was worked out between Marvel and Sony so that we have the Tom Holland Spiderman of the MCU. So when I first heard about this animated Spider-verse, I was like, why? Is this necessary? Probably not. But it’s so well done I don’t question it anymore! Love the mixed media graphics and the fantastic sci-fi premise of having multiple spider people from different dimensions come together and initiate a new black/latino Spiderman into the realm. A SIMPLE FAVOR (Lionsgate) dir Paul Feig, starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding a good campy script, some excellent costuming and unexpected humor turned this quasi-thriller into an early fall sleeper hit. A QUIET PLACE (Paramount Pictures) dir John Krasinski, starring Krasinski and Emily Blunt. A tight, emotional ride containing horror tropes, yet written for someone like me who likes to be thrilled with fear at the movies, but not up for anything too sinister that stays with me as I try to sleep. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR (Focus Features) dir Morgan Neville. This doc on Fred Rogers, the well-liked host of the popular children's television program "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", is an honest look at this man of principals who truly believed in the transformative power of love - love for others, but most importantly, for yourself. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT (Paramount Pictures) dir Christopher McQuarrie, starring Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg this 6th installment in the Mission: Impossible film series shows there’s still A LOT of juice left in the franchise. So many amazing stunts, fun and thrills.

Honorable Mentions

(alpha order) ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (Marvel) dir Peyton Reed, starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer – kept pace with the original in terms of style and storytelling, while adding in more shrinking, enlarging sight gags in all the right places. BLINDSPOTTING (Lionsgate) dir Carlos López Estrada, starring Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs – A good first effort by these screenwriters/actors, but it’s the final scene which makes the movie above average. BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (20th Century Fox) dir Bryan Singer finished by Dexter Fletcher, starring Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello – seemingly Epic music biopic, not truly as good as it seems, but a fun ride. FIRST MAN - (Universal Pictures) dir Damien Chazelle, starring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll - Not as well loved as La La Land, but as far as commitment to filmmaking and vision this movie is stellar. GRINGO (Amazon Studios) dir Nash Edgerton, starring David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton – Wish this movie had gotten more attention. It takes you on a nutty adventure showcasing Oyelowo's comedic chops. IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna Pictures) dir Barry Jenkins, starring KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King – Beautifully directed, strong cast, wonderfully adapted from a James Baldwin novel. Didn’t make my top 10 because sometimes it’s hard to watch movies based on the themes of systemic racism.(click link for Q&A with Barry Jenkins) PETER RABBIT (Sony Pictures Releasing) dir Will Gluck, starring Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson – Not just adorable, but truly entertaining. THE FAVOURITE (Fox Searchlight Pictures) dir Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn - Stylized, female-centric period piece, balancing a delightful tone of zany ridiculousness and historical accuracy. THE HATE U GIVE (20th Century Fox) dir George Tillman Jr., starring Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, KJ Apa, Common, Anthony Mackie – I really fell in love with this family unit and the messages ring clear, but not too loud. TULLY (Focus Features) dir Jason Reitman, starring Charlize Theron & Mackenzie Davis – Oddly, I condemned “Adrift” for using a similar storytelling device as “Tully”, but here it works. Besides, the meat of the story is about roads and paths started down, but not followed and wondering how you ended up being in your current life; which, I truly related too, despite not being a wife or mother. WIDOWS (20th Century) dir Steve McQueen, starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo – After “Hunger” “Shame” and “12 Years A Slave” it was a great idea for McQueen to bring his extraordinary filmmaking skills to a heist film with a touch of Lifetime movie. The climax had our audience talking back to the screen, and the actresses are all on point. I had “Widows” in my Top 10 at first, then relegated it to those that just missed the top 10, and then honorable mention. I think it kept getting pushed down just because I don’t really like the final scene. Share :)

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[biofunmy]

Get Ready for NASA’s First All-Female Spacewalk

It happened by accident, really. After a rocket launch aborted mid-flight, grounding two astronauts who were supposed to go to the International Space Station, NASA had to shift its schedule. Without thinking much of it, the agency announced that Christina Koch and Anne McClain — two women — would do the spacewalk instead, and just in time for Women’s History Month.

“First All-Woman Spacewalk,” celebratory headlines declared, only to turn critical when it was announced that, actually, the first all-woman spacewalk would not happen as planned, because NASA didn’t have enough spacesuits to fit the two female astronauts. (Both needed a size medium.) “Make another suit,” Hillary Clinton tweeted.

NASA did prepare another suit, and Ms. Koch and Jessica Meir will make history on Friday when they venture outside the International Space Station for a six-and-a-half-hour mission. It is the first all-woman spacewalk in more than five decades of spacewalking.

Jessica Bennett, The Times’ gender editor, and Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the “Lady Astronaut” book series, discussed the walk’s significance — along with spacesuit construction, menstruation in space and who’s really better at dealing with the stress of spaceflight.

Jessica Bennett: So these women are installing lithium-ion batteries to improve the station’s power supply. And then Ms. Koch will remain in orbit for a number of months, so that researchers can observe the effects of long-term spaceflight on a woman’s body. It’s fascinating to think that we just don’t know enough about the effects of spaceflight on a woman’s body.

Mary Robinette Kowal: It’s not surprising, given how few women have been in space. Of the more than 560 people who have been in space around the world, only 65 have been women. There are some things that we’ve learned from the ground, such as the fact that men and women have different sweat patterns. Men sweat more than comparably fit women, and the areas where they sweat the most occur in different parts of the body. On a spacewalk, the astronauts have to wear a cooling and ventilation garment to maintain their body temperature at a safe level, but it was designed for male bodies.

JB: So basically like how office temperatures are set at the temperature for men’s bodies. I’m shivering in my cubicle as I type this.

MRK: Exactly. The fictional “ideal man” is used to set chair heights, temperatures and even ladder rungs. But there are other questions, about things like vision, that can only be tested in space. Male astronauts go through a vision change over extended periods in microgravity. They get nearsighted, essentially. Women haven’t experienced the same change. We don’t know why.

JB: Speaking of bodily differences, I will never forget reading about how, as Sally Ride prepared to become the first American woman in space, in 1983, she was asked by male NASA engineers how many tampons she might need for a week. “Is 100 the right number?” they asked her. “No, that would not be the right number,” she told them. Can we agree that is a lot of tampons? Apparently they strung them together like sausages, tying their strings so they wouldn’t float away.

MRK: Can you imagine the bandolier of tampons floating around the cabin? They ended up cutting the number back to 50. To be fair, the engineers probably did some intelligent math by looking at tables of absorbency and average flow. However, if there had been any women on the team, they might have known to just ask her and then double that for redundancy.

JB: The agency also designed a makeup kit for Sally Ride, right?

MRK: Yup. Because of course a woman would need makeup in space! Sally Ride, in fact, did not want it. “It was about the last thing in the world that I wanted to be spending my time in training on,” she said in a 2002 interview.

JB: What happens when you try to put makeup on in space?

MRK: You can’t include powder, because it would float and become an eye irritant. So, you’ve got mascara, eyeliner, blush, eye shadow, eye-makeup remover and lip gloss.

JB: God forbid you go into space without lip gloss.

MRK: While Ride had no interest, Rhea Seddon was aware of how the media treated women without makeup. “If there would be pictures taken of me from space, I didn’t want to fade into the background,” she said. This time NASA asked the women astronauts to help them develop the kit.

JB: This is so fascinating, because this wasn’t just considered fluff — these were serious conversations happening at the time about whether women could and should be allowed in space. As I understand it, there’s a report from the 1960s that raised concerns about putting “a temperamental psychophysiologic human” (read: a hormonal woman) together with a “complicated machine” (the spacecraft). The authors of that same report also feared that microgravity might increase the incidence of “retrograde menstruation” — i.e., blood might flow the other way.

MRK: I would blame it on the 1960s, but honestly, there are people today who don’t understand how menstruation works. The irony is that the actual science parts of that study demonstrated that, in many ways, women are actually better suited than men for space travel. They are smaller and lighter, on average, and consume fewer resources.

JB: Women astronauts also handle stress better, is that right?

MRK: Yes. We know this because of a series of experiments conducted by Dr. W. Randolph Lovelace II with women who called themselves the “First Lady Astronaut Trainees.” The Air Force started the program, then worried that people might think they were actually going to send a woman into space. So they passed it off to Dr. Lovelace’s clinic. He ran a group of women pilots through the same tests he gave the male Mercury astronauts. Among other things, he found that they handled stress testing significantly better than men.

JB: This happened in 1960, and yet there is a famous 1962 NASA letter written to a young girl who was interested in becoming an astronaut, in which the agency explains that they have “no present plans to employ women on spaceflights” because of the training and “physical characteristics” required.

MRK: Well, by that point, they realized that they wouldn’t need receptionists and secretaries in space. Seriously. That was one of the reasons for the support of the initial testing.

JB: How much better did those women actually handle the stress?

MRK: Let’s compare John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, with Jerrie Cobb, the first of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees. Glenn’s stress testing consisted of sitting in a dark room for three hours. There was a desk with some paper. He wrote poetry. Cobb and the other women went into a sensory deprivation tank. It was thought that six hours in the tank would induce hallucinations. Cobb was in there for 9 hours and 40 minutes when it was finally ended by the staff. But she didn’t write any poetry so … you know. One of the women in the FLATs was a mother of eight, and I always imagine her feeling like this was a vacation.

As a side note: For years, the Air Force thought women could not fly jets, because their ability to tolerate the high-gravity forces of acceleration seemed to be lower. It turns out the G-suits were built for male bodies and didn’t make contact in the right places for women. When they got suits that fit, miraculously, they performed as well.

JB: So that brings us back to spacesuit sizes. The earlier all-woman walk didn’t happen because both women needed a size medium torso. But of course, NASA didn’t have multiple mediums ready, because they simply hadn’t needed the size. Is it safe to say that spacesuits have been designed by and for men?

MRK: Certainly this generation of suit, but it’s important for people to understand how outdated these spacesuits are. The suits we’re talking about were designed in the late 1970s based on Apollo technology. Rhea Seddon, one of the first six astronauts, worked with NASA to create suits that would work for women. So they designed extra-small, small, medium, large, and extra large suits. The extra-smalls were never built. The smalls and extra-larges were cut for budget reasons. Men complained about not being able to fit, so NASA brought the extra-larges back. They never brought back the smalls.

These suits are modular, so you can swap out parts, but it’s a time-consuming process, never designed to be done in zero gravity. So when they decided to restaff the last spacewalk and postpone the all-female walk? That was absolutely the right choice.

JB: So do we think NASA might consider hiring a female spacesuit designer?

MRK: In fact, they have. The lead spacesuit engineers at NASA for the Artemis suits, which we’ll take to the moon, are Amy Ross and Kristine Davis. It’s a truly beautiful piece of engineering, with a back entry, which not only makes donning it easier but also means that the geometry of the shoulders allows for a wider range of motion.

One other thing I want to mention is that this spacewalk won’t truly be an all-woman team. The robotic arm will have to be driven by one of the men on the station. The spacewalk on Oct. 10 was the first time that women outnumbered the men. The coordinator on the ground was Stephanie Wilson, also an astronaut. Jessica Meir operated the robotic arm, and Christina Koch spacewalked with Andrew Morgan. He was the only man involved in the spacewalk.

NASA is working on having gender equity in the program. Currently they have 38 active astronauts and 12 of them are women. But it’s an international station. The other countries have only three active women astronauts.

JB: So in other words, let’s not call this a victory just yet.

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