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petitrangement · 7 years ago

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Hey, I'm not going to womansplain feminism to the readers of Esquire! That's not happening on my watch! You're sophisticated, 21st century men with a copy of the El Bulli cookbook, a timeless pair of investment brogues and a couple of Joni Mitchell albums — for when you want to sit in your leather armchair, and have a little, noble, necessary man-cry.

You don't need me lecturing you — because you're not hanging out the back of a bus shouting "CLUNGE!" at a bunch of terrified 15-year-old girls. You've got sisters, mothers, lovers — female friends and colleagues — and you've never once gone up to any of them shouting, "Blimey! You don't get many of those to the pahnd!" while honking on their breasts, in the manner of Sid James. You're down with the sisterhood. You've got eyes. You know what's going on out there. You've noted that while society's happy for a famous man to age, and become distinguished, and generally wander around looking like a fucking wizard, the women generally still seem to be 20 years younger, and standing there on the cover of magazines, all like, "Oh! My clothes… they fell off!" EVEN IF IT'S DAME JUDI DENCH.

You know the pay disparity; still 20 per cent less for women in this country, and not a single prosecution, even though it's literally illegal. You know babies come out of vaginas and it fucking stings, and that the vaginas are having a hard time anyway, what with all the waxing they get. (That's £20 a pop, my friend. Every single month. Just to feel normal. It's basically VAT on your minge. Imagine if you had to get your bum-hole stripped every 30 days — lest the mean girls at school corner you on the bus home and go, "I've heard you're like Catweazle down there. Someone who fingered you said it was like diddling a Gonk. Ugh.")

You've seen Amy Schumer's brilliant, edgy sketches on contraception and rape, and laughed along with them. You've called Donald Trump "a twat" for his sexist comments about a female news anchor being on her period. You've watched the whole Caitlyn Jenner trans thing unfold and gone, "You know what — this all seems fair enough. I am down with the trans thing."

So, no. I'm not going to womansplain feminism to you. It's the 21st century and you are, most assuredly, not a dick. You like women being equal to men — which is all that feminism means. Not all the penises being burned in a Penis Bonfire. Just women being equal to men. You are like my friend John, when he talks about dating alpha-women: "Feel intimidated by them? Christ, no. Dating and marrying powerful women is like big game hunting. I fuck tigers and panthers. Not… chihuahuas."

No. You get feminism. You don't need Tits McGee here to take you through it one more time. So, what I am going to do, instead, is tell you 12 things about women that women are usually too embarrassed to tell you themselves. Because I am a chronic over-sharer, and incapable of keeping secrets. I'm like that other Deep Throat. The chatty Watergate one. That's the Deep Throat I am.

1. No mumbling

Like you, we feel a bit embarrassed about saying the word "feminism". It's the same as when you say the word "environment". They both have that slight implication of, "I'm now going to launch into a speech that's basically about what a great person I am".

Unfortunately, in both cases, the entire future of the world does rest on people being able to say those words properly, and not mumbling "femernism", or "envibeoment".

You just have to shut yourself in a cupboard and say them over and over again — "FEMINISM! ENVIRONMENT! FEMINISM! ENVIRONMENT!" — until they feel as normal as saying "pina colada", or "Michael Fassbender". Which are both, when you think about it, much odder-sounding.

2. 'The Man'

So, when women talk about "The Man", we're not talking about you. You're just a man. You're not The Man. Similarly, when we talk about the patriarchy, that's not you, either. You're not the patriarchy. You're just… Patrick. When we're doing those "MEN!" chats, we're just identifying the general locus of the problem, ie, most of the power and influence being held by a small amount of men.

Because remember that patriarchy's bumming you as hard as it's bumming us. We're bulimic, objectified and under-promoted. You, meanwhile, are unable to talk about your feelings lest you get punched in the nuts by "a lad" telling you not to be "a bender". You are unlikely to get custody of your kids, and are three times more likely to commit suicide. Feminism's about sorting all this stuff out. Because it's about equality. Not burning the penises. I can't emphasise enough how much it's not about burning penises. No burnt penises here.

3. Periods

We're still pretty traumatised about our periods, even though we're now 40. Being a woman doesn't make "being a woman" any easier. All that womb-shit is nuts. It's like having an exploding, insane blood-bag of pain up in your business end — nothing really prepares you for when it all kicks off. One day, you're just a kid on your bike. The next, you're suddenly having to wedge a tiny Barbie mattress in your knickers, crying while you watch Bergerac, and eating Nurofen Plus like they're Tic Tacs.

Men, imagine if, some time around your 12th birthday, some manner of viscous liquid — let's say gravy — suddenly appeared in your pants, in the middle of a maths lesson. And then it turned up every month for the next 30 years. You'd be all like "NO!" and "WTF?!?!" and "SRSLY??? THIS????" That's what we're like, too. We're not wise, or in touch with nature, or down with it. We're just people with a whole load more laundry issues than you. Have you ever tried to scrub blood out of a Premier Inn sheet at 6am, using just travel shampoo and your toothbrush? It's one of the defining aspects of being a woman.

4. Abortion

Likewise, imagine accidentally getting pregnant at 16, then having to run past a barrage of anti-abortion protestors outside your local clinic, all holding up pictures of dead foetuses. We're not dealing with this in a special, noble lady-way. We're like, "THIS IS ALREADY A REALLY, REALLY SHIT DAY. I PRESUME YOUR CONCERN FOR THE WELFARE OF CHILDREN EXTENDS INTO A LIFE SPENT VOLUNTEERING IN CARE HOMES, FOSTERING AND DONATING YOUR WAGES TO THE NSPCC — AND DOESN'T SOLELY REST ON HARASSING AND ABUSING TEARFUL, POSSIBLY RAPED WOMEN WHO ARE TRYING TO GET A SAFE, LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE SO THEY DON'T FUCK UP THE REST OF THEIR LIVES."

Here's another thing we're too embarrassed to say: we'd love it if a big bunch of pro-choice men turned up at these clinics, and helped escort the scared women in. That would be some top bro solidarity.

5. Talking

In the last year or so, we saw this study, from America, and it broke our hearts a bit, because it explains so much: in a mixed-gender group, when women talk 25 per cent of the time or less, it's seen as being "equally balanced". And if women talk 25–50 per cent of the time, they're seen as "dominating the conversation".

And we remembered all the times on social media, or in conversations, an angry man has said, "Women are WINNING now. Women are EVERYWHERE. It is MEN who are being silenced", and it all made sense.

6. Fear

We're scared. We don't want to mention it, because it's kind of a bummer, chat-wise, and we'd really like to talk about stuff that makes us happy, like look at our daughters — and we can't help but think, "Which one of us? And when?" We walk down the street at night with our keys clutched between our fingers, as a weapon. We move in packs — because it's safer. We talk to each other for hours on the phone — to share knowledge. But we don't want to go on about it to you, because that would be morbid. We just feel anxious. We're scared. Given the figures, we can't sometimes help but feel we're just… waiting for the bad thing to come. Because that would be a realistic thing to think, and we like to be prepared. Awfully, horribly, fearfully prepared.

7. Tired

We're tired. So, so tired. From the moment we grew our tits, we've been cat-called in the street; commented on by relatives ("Ooooh, she's big-boned"; "Well, you'll be a heart-breaker") as if we weren't standing there in front of them, hearing all this. We've seen our biggest female role-models and icons shamed in the press, over and over: computers hacked and nude pictures released; sex-tapes released. So we know even success, and money, will not protect us from the humiliation of simply being a woman. We know we must have our babies when we're young — the eggs are running out! — but we must also work for less money, as discussed above. So that makes us tired.

This is why, maybe, women can become suddenly furious — why online discussions about feminism suddenly ignite into rage. Tired, scared people are apt to lash out. Anger is just fear, brought to the boil.

8. Wanking

We masturbate as much as you do. One of the few times I have been personally offended was when Martin Amis commented on a column I wrote about female masturbation. "Christ," Amis said, "that's sort of lad's mag talk — sort of more male than male."

Obviously, I am noble enough to recognise that Amis is from an older generation — one whose women, by and large, did not feel comfortable discussing their sexuality in any great detail. But it does seem amazing that a clever, well-travelled man, whose job it is to examine the human condition, and who had a pretty steamy relationship with Germaine Greer at one point, has never realised that women can be just as driven by their desire as men.

I'm gonna be honest with you — for the first five years of my adult life, most of my decisions were made by the contents of my pants. My vagina was — by way of Audrey II in Little Shop Of Horrors — constantly shouting "Feed me!", and breaking into musical numbers when I was trying to listen to my brain instead. If I had not discovered masturbation, I would have spent the majority of my time sitting on shed roofs, like a cat on heat, yowling at the moon. If a young woman isn't to go mad, then masturbation is a needful hobby, as vital as going on long country walks, to get a bit of air in your lungs, and pursuing the revolution. And what a hobby it is! It doesn't cost anything, it doesn't make you fat, you can knock it off in five minutes flat if you think about Han Solo, or some monkeys "doing it" on an Attenborough documentary, and it means you can face the world with a kind of stoned, post-coital cheerfulness that would otherwise require Valium, or constant spa-breaks.

There's a reason why God designed our bodies so that, when we lie down in bed, our hands naturally come to rest on our genitals. It's the Lord's way of saying, "Go on, have a fiddle. Find out how you work. And then, when you go out into the world, you won't be waiting for some bloke to come along and have sex on you. You'll be in the sex, too. It'll be like this… joint endeavour? A thing you can do together? That was kind of how I planned it all along, TBH. So, my Eleventh Commandment is 'Thou Shalt Buff Your Fnuh.' That's official. Signed, God."

9. Clothes

You know when we stand in front of a full wardrobe and say, "I don't have anything to wear!"? Obviously we have things to wear. You can see all the shit from where you are standing, fully dressed, ready to leave the house. What we mean is, "I don't have anything to wear for who I need to be today." What women wear is incredibly important and not just because we live in a society with a $1.5 trillion fashion-industry, and spend most of our spare time looking at cut-price Marc Jacobs handbags on theoutnet.com.

As we are the half of the world that still doesn't get to say as much as men (see stats earlier), how we look works by way of our opening paragraph in any social setting. Think of all the different kinds of looks women can have, depending on their clothes, hair and make-up: "Slutty". "Ball-busting". "Mumsy". "Manic Pixie Dream Girl". "Gym-bunny". "Mutton". "Nerdy". "Unfuckable".

Now think of all the ways men can dress. It's basically "some trousers". Ninety per cent of what men wear is "some trousers". You're just getting up in the morning, putting on your trousers and getting on with stuff.

And we fret about all this — appearance, clothes — because it matters. If we're still getting talked-over at meetings, is it because we're not dressing powerfully enough? If we're getting sexually harassed, is it because we're wearing the wrong skirt? In 2008, a rape case was overturned because the judge decided the alleged victim must have consented to sex, because her jeans were "too tight" for the accused to remove on his own. This is what we're thinking about, when we stand in front of the wardrobe. Will this outfit define the rest of today? Will it, if I am very unlucky, affect my life? Is this going to be the subject of a court-case? Could I run for my life in these shoes? Do I have anything for who I need to be today?

10. Male feminists

We're embarrassed when other women say, "Men can't be feminists!" We don't want to get into an argument, but we just can't see the logic in it. Feminism can only work if men are feminists, too — because the only indice by which feminism will succeed is based on how many people believe in it, support it, and want it to happen. By definition, it has to be a populist movement. There's no point in only 27 per cent of people believing in equality because the maths, very obviously, show that you won't be equal if 73 per cent of people think you're not. You can't go and… hide the feminism in a special secret place, and only let certain people have access to it. Besides, as discussed above, men need feminism almost as badly as women do. So, lady-balls to "men can't be feminists". We disbelieve that. In our vaginas.

11. Carbs

Our ultimate aim, when it comes to men, is to find an amusing mate we can have sex with, then sit on the sofa with, watching re-runs of Seinfeld and eating a baked potato. Discount all that Christian Grey/abs of steel/"bad boy" shit. Our priorities are: 1) Kindness; 2) Jokes; 3) High tolerance of carbs.

12. Trainers

It actually was us that threw those horrible old trainers of yours away. That story about how a time-portal opened up, and they were stolen away by your own teenaged self? That was a lie.

Caitlin Moran's fee for this piece has been donated to Refuge, refuge.org.uk

This article was first published in 2016.

Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran is out now, published by Ebury Press, £20

#Caitlin Moran #esquire #articles #feminism

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iluvtv · 6 years ago

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Thank you, it’s my attitude that keeps me young...

Processing Russian Doll has not been easy. It took a week and a full rewatch for me to even begin to touch this beautiful program’s intricacies through type. The iterations and research I prepared for this post have been almost as vast and extensive as the show itself. Nearly a month later I decided to save the diatribes for casual conversation. Theories on how the show is a study of the Jewish allegory of Dybbuk or that the loss of characters throughout each life is mirroring the constant death of video game culture can surely be found elsewhere. Instead, I share a version of the draft I started jotting during my rewatch of this beautifully complicated story while sitting on the couch next to my own Mother, both of us quietly reckoning with the histories which brought us to that shared moment.

Writing, like experience, is a process. For many, this show has brought on personal reflections of their own existential crisis. Presently, a communal and varied reception is floating through our technological ether, acting as intellectual interpretations of such.

And so, in an unusual act of rebellion, I will let my work here act as nothing more than an experiment in my strange and frequently limited relationship with emotions. An armored sort of void that is not without its own challenges.

Like Nadia I sometimes might be written off as the abyss.

And yet neither of us are enthusiastic about or entirely unharmed by such descriptions.

I have no illusions of blowing any minds here with an overtly innovative (though so often it feels that way to me) analysis of Russian Doll, and if you want to avoid spoilers perhaps just stop now (though nothing I say here would ruin your own experience with the show). However, if you want to go exploring through some proverbial baggage with me — I have just too many thoughts, tangents and feels not to write anything at all...

But first:

Holy.

Fucking.

Shit.

I am at once moved, inspired, shaken and totally stunted. The vast creativity in writing and performance and imagery and music within these eight 24-minute episodes could debilitate many an artist. It's so easy here to rationalize giving up. There is no way I could ever create something as powerfully moving and detailed as Russian Doll.

This speaks to the intense fragility (so rarely acknowledged) which Headland, Lyonne and Poehler’s creation has provoked within.

This show, like it’s namesake which holds infinite women inside one another, is an onion. It can be peeled endlessly away— there is no core. The similes housed are so nuanced that solving them all would be a luxurious and laborious service. An intellectual’s ideal wank. Something future generations may hang their Philosophy dissertations on; much like the very pretentious characters which this show so cleverly mocks.

How very unusual, a narrative with notably distinct translations identifiable to everyone from the now aging homeless advocate of New York City in the 90’s to the Jewish millennial living in San Francisco currently participating in gentrification, to the middle-aged dad who never quite got over his suicidal tendencies, to the gamers and engineers entirely distracted with code. It is a glorious conglomeration of our own narcissism and the show’s creative genius which will allow us all to see ourselves here.

Twitter threads and articles debating such translations could distract our own heart for hours. In the end, though it is compassion which will leave room for growth and learning. In time we will not just slice the orange in half and find the ripeness in the fourth dimension but we will also discover another layer, or perhaps metaphors even the creators missed.

In part isn’t this some of the beauty of an increased number of minorities (ahem women) making art reaching the mainstream? The long-whispered narratives of silenced humans have become far more infinite and intricate than the stories we have heard before.

One might argue that the very notion that Nadia’s misfortune is provoked because she is “bad” defies a complex yet deeply scientific female perspective. It seems rational that a writer's room compiled exclusively of women would have enough experience in niceties to understand that no experience or person is entirely one thing. It is empathy whicxh allows us to view the sum of one’s parts. It is humanity which allows us all to persevere, coexist and most importantly notice that others are just doing the same.

And so there are moments in Russian Doll which speak to me so precisely.

The show’s playful exploration into Jewish Mysticism, which I once studied so diligently.

Nadia’s food choices, which I consistently noted before the subtle stitch of their relevance became obvious threads of the tapestry of her stories. The cottage cheese and roast chicken which is so spot on and terribly, neurotically Jewish. The fact that I noted her breakfast of cut watermelon in episode two as though it were a plot point -- which it did eventually become. My takeaways here so painfully reflect my own layered and tumultuous relationship with my body and moreover nourishment.

Nadia’s penchant for drugs and the ability to maintain her relationship to artificial mood enhancements. Through my lens of a similarly uncomplicated love affair with inebriation, I can’t help but find this characteristic terribly charming.

And oddly enough, Nadia’s clear choice of Emily over Anne. This one is tricky as I have zero memory of reading Emily of New Moon and yet I clearly remember loving it while Anne of Green Gables bored me. I know this sounds contrived but my mother concurred: I was a girl who loved Emily; couldn’t be bothered with Anne.

Then there are the less overt parts of Nadia. The painful side effects of what can be more easily spelled out. These are the elements of self I skip over (as did Nadia presumably) the histories of abuse and dysfunction, the draw towards said abyss and the imaginary, the solitude. Here we have a vibrant woman, unabashedly possessing an immodest thirst for life — an extrovert essentially, who somehow manages to remain on the peripheries. Again, this would be a perfectly apt way to describe me. Through silly, fun, terrifying, real and completely magical events however, Nadia is forced to reckon with both her past (and future) and come to terms with relativity.

I mean life is relative, right?

Watching all this forced a reckoning of my own.

People fade, plants and animals die, fruit rots and all the while Nadia battles with the existentialism turning 36 inevitably breeds.

(Speaking of invoked narcissisms I have for years threatened to throw myself an “I still haven’t gotten married or had kids so you never had to go to a bunch of bullshit showers but I’m going to have a huge double chai blowout” of my own. As the time approaches (14 months) this seems increasingly unlikely but the relevance of this age was definitely not lost on me).

Through all this sadness it is the small acts of kindness which somehow makes everything all right again and again. Very subtle pieces of humanity perpetuate life.

Relatively speaking.

Compassionate and honest interaction essentially induces a continued existence.

Alan says, “Our bodies can’t keep lying the way that our minds can”

And when Ruth mentions she heard the author of Emily of New Moon is haunting a house rather than the more familiar trope of Lucy Maud Montogomery’s suicide this makes me think the show is so much more about how you survive and persevere than how you fade.

As I slowly worked through these episodes (the first time) I wished hard that this show would offer hope and eventually it did just that.

But boy did it put me through the wringer through the process.

#dybbuk #russian doll #natasha lyonne #amy poehler #leslye headland #jewish fod #hey alma

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captainignatiuspigheart · 4 years ago

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Wow, the last couple of weeks alternating surging heat and grim weather has thorough melted every bit of my desire to do anything, including remembering the time before the heat haze. Still – we shall prevail! It was a quietish couple of weeks in any case, though did have a couple of cool things in it. Not least that I’ve been able to live outside in my gazebo office, and keep a close eye on our ridiculous cats and their shade seeking antics. We were all sad when the thunder and hailstorms drove us inside… Taking keen note of the foul weather I finally picked up some serious LEGO storage towers and did some reorganising. They don’t take up less space, which is unfortunate, but I can access key bricks sets much more easily!

Big fella in a hedge

Little lady in her rooftop fort

Last week turned out to be a mini podcast week, so I’ve spent more time talking than usual (taking up precious drinking time, alas). More We Are What We Overcoming, which has become a cornerstone of my fortnightly routine, and really does help me think about how I feel and how I’m behaving in this quarantini time. That’s not the same as actually changing my behaviour, but being aware that I’m doing little but drinking and sighing at the sun is a start… My other half and I were also interviewed for the Knot Ready podcast: a look at marriage from a modern, feminist perspective, since we’re nearly twenty-two years into a non-marriage we have some insight into why folks may not get married, or at least, possibly, why we haven’t. It was a lot of fun to chat about how we got together (half a lifetime ago!) and other stuff. I’ll definitely remember to share when our episode is out, but you should subscribe to the podcast anyway because Lucy is pretty ace and it’s a genuinely interesting subject.

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I am KNOT READY 💍😘 . I am ready to tie the knot! I am lucky enough to have found an amazing person who makes my life better and who I want to commit to fully 💕 . So when I say I'm freaked out by marriage – it's not a commitment thing! . I'm freaked out that this institution, this human invention, controlled by religion and the state and shaped through time by patriarchal narratives, has become synonymous with romantic love, and not just culturally but for me personally! Something has got it into my head that our relationship is incomplete without marriage, despite suspecting on an intellectual level that nothing much will change afterwards. . Why am I spending a silly amount of money on one day? Why did it make me sad to not be engaged to my person? Why is marriage so important to me? . Freaky questions! For some answers, turn to Knot Ready 💍😘 Episode one comes out this Friday! Link in bio to subscribe or learn more 💖

A post shared by Knot Ready (@knotreadypodcast) on Jun 23, 2020 at 12:13am PDT

We’ve also seen a few more genuine humans in the meatspace, a thing which makes me feel ever so odd. I suspect that I have been at home for too long… But we had a lovely slow wander around the University Park lake and a bit of the radically altered campus up the back of the Portland Building. Lots of baby birds, and our friends’ new baby of their own.

Building: LEGO Hidden Side’s Newbury Haunted High School #70425

OK, so I built this ages ago, but it’s really pretty. Thing is, in its standard configuration it sprawls a little wide, and is distressingly not quite a modular building. So I fixed it! My goal was for it to fit in with the other modular buildings, but of course it’s four studs wider than a baseplate, so something had to go. In my first attempt I tried to compact the bay windows but made a horrible mess, so dismantled the whole thing and rebuilt it using the instructions and deviating where necessary. Where necessary was a bit of a pain – to keep the play functions I needed to keep the bay windows and the full width of the clock tower. My only viable option was removing the four silver unicorn spires with their supporting arches, and that hasn’t really hurt the build much. I’m not super-happy that the decorative ground floor arches are now somewhat obscured, but I’m chuffed with the overall result. That it gave me a chance to go nuts on a swirly tiling pattern in coral pink was a massive bonus. I’ve kept all the play features, but lost some of the details inside. I may remove all the worn detailing too and just have a lovely school in between the detective’s office and the bank. As was noted in the Brickgeekz Facebook group, its colours do rather resemble the now-exceedingly rare Town Hall which I could never quite afford. Win!

Four studs too wide…

It fits!

Beautiful flooring

Play features intact

Watching: Space Force

This is certainly quite fun. A show about Trump’s cretinous “space force” which supposedly satirises the idea, but instead gets caught up doing a sort-of sincere NASA knock-off to get Americans back on the Moon. It doesn’t seem to be sure what it’s taking the mickey out of, leaving the comedy unfocused and swaying madly in each episode. The characters are pretty stock fodder: uptight air force general played by Steve Carell, who looks rather lost, desperate to make it funny by crashing in and out of character while relying heavily on clearing his throat to cover all forms of emotion; very smart scientist guy who isn’t that great with people in the remarkable form of John Malkovich, who shows off his comedy chops nicely (largely by staying in character); total arsehole PR guy Ben Schwartz, who is utterly hateable (in a good way) but of course redeems himself, sort of; space force pilot/astronaut Tawny Newsome, desperate to get on the moon and be somebody; the air force general’s neglected daughter who just wants to have some fun / get any attention at all from her dad. The supporting cast do a great job too, but the tone constantly swinging from idiots messing up the mission to “hurray USA” sentiment leaves them all out in the cold. It’s just odd. I did enjoy the show, and it certainly has some splendid moments, mostly as they get towards the moon landing itself, but I’m not going to be racing back for season two. The Chinese are the main rivals in this new space race, and it’s a bit… broad… for 2020.

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Doing: We Are What We Overcome

The next of our “lockdown specials”, lovingly recorded by Zoom and broadcast live in Facebook. Didn’t quite work last week, for no clear reason, so we popped it up on Tuesday instead. We talked about the thorny subject of change, which we seem to have to deal with all the damned time! It’s an interesting issue, covering not just what change is and how it feels, but how we learn (or don’t learn) to deal with it. All terribly pertinent and that. We came back yesterday Monday 19th to discuss how we feel about the easing of lockdown (or whatever the fuck this shower of wank called a Tory government are doing): check that one our here: Facebook Live.

Kickstarter Reward: Munchkin Bricks 2

With all the global lunacy I’d quite forgotten these were on the way! The last-but-one project of Guy Himber, aka CrazyBricks. These are pretty silly accessories and things to accompany the equally silly Munchkin card/boardgame. I just thought they were really cute, god knows what I’m going to do with them. Particular favourites for me are the chibi cthulus (some may become gifts for others…) and the splendid octobricks!

Swag

Swagger

You should definitely check out his current project, which is already very well funded and heading for far-reaching stretch goals: Dino Dudes! Yep, it’s just what it sounds like. Go get em! Nicely covered here by the excellent Beyond the Brick channel:

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Reading: Provenance by Ann Leckie

My first Leckie, having not yet gotten around to reading the acclaimed Ancillary Justice series, though this one is set in the same universe. It’s perfectly fine small-scope space opera, focusing on a young woman’s attempts to secure her future (by being named as heir to a senior politician – her adopted mother in a society with interesting communal creche arrangements) by breaking a thief out of prison and lording her victory over her brother. The thief has apparently nicked some precious vestiges, Leckie’s intriguing concept of highly-prized mementoes of the past, which might be anything from an actual artifact, eg a bell used in the first summoning of parliament, to a signed bus ticket on a special day. The Hwaean people are obsessed with the things, and it would be a terrible shame if they turned out to be fake… There’s lots of running around with aliens and robots and occasional murder of diplomats and so on, all risking the failure of a super-important peace accord between humans and some potentially terrifying aliens. Provenance is neatly written, though it loses something in having the plot summary on the back cover take only the first chapter or so to resolve, leaving me unsure where it was going after the exciting sounding heist was dealt with so quickly. It never quite recovered for me, which definitely confirms that I should not read the back cover of books I’m about to read. The author’s interest in diversity and multiple genders, modes of address and interesting social set ups are fun and satisfying to read about, so I suspect I’ll enjoy getting properly into the Ancillary Justice vibe; I just shouldn’t have started here.

More LEGO. SCUM: A Star Wars Story

I’ve now built the main cast of our Star Wars RPG! Clockwise from top-left: my Tusken raider with savaged translator droid strapped to my back, Jon’s Twi’lek bounty hunter, Ben’s Nautolan hacker, Diarmuid’s hapless and much abused Imperial officer, Joe’s GH7 medical droid (a real delight to assemble) his Mandalorian bodyguard (played by Charlie). It’s fun! Now I wanna build some of our missions…

Watching: Agents of SHIELD season 4

I’m sure you’re growing weary of this, but Agents of SHIELD is a goddamned delight. Best show on TV? Maybe. (Warning: many spoilers ahead.) This was the last of the seasons that I’d seen before, so was by far the most familiar. And yet, in the style of all their seasons, a MILLION things happen, overwhelming any sense I had of how long any of the events took. To give you some idea of just how wild this season is, we go from introducing Ghost Rider, in a surprisingly coherent way, to another Avengers nightmare of AI coming to life and taking over various characters with robot duplicates (in this case, Ada, built by splendid returning cast member John Hannah), followed by an incredible immersion of the main cast in a vast virtual reality “The Framework” (built by Ada, John Hannah, and Fitz) a terrifying alternate reality where Hydra has won and rules the world, busily oppressing and annihilating inhumans so that Ada can build herself a real body. Jesus Christ, it’s a lot. Add to that a new director of SHIELD, the ongoing friction between SHIELD and the inhumans vs the rest of the world, plus god knows what else that I’ve forgotten, and I’m happily mindblown. Of course, it’s also the doomed FitzSimmons romance show too, as those two get yet another absolute kicking when we see that Fitz is the chief Hydra scientist, experimenting and murdering all sorts of folk, like Simmons… How will they put themselves back together? Who the hell knows because at the end of this season most of the team is abducted and wake up in SPACE! In truth I’m already a good way into season 5 and I could not be happier.

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Doing: MissImp’s virtual improv comedy drop-in

I’ll admit, I’m as behind on these as I am on everything else… First up, The Tiny Glass Person with Feña Ortalli:

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Followed by the marvellous David Escobedo in Discovering Your Dynamics:

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Last Week: LEGO, Knot Ready, Space Force, Provenance, MissImp, CrazyBricks, Agents of SHIELD, We Are What We Overcome… many things! I’ve gotta get back to doing this weekly… TV, books, much LEGO, some improv and podcasts. https://wp.me/pbprdx-8Gx Wow, the last couple of weeks alternating surging heat and grim weather has thorough melted every bit of my desire to do…

#Agents of SHIELD #Ann Leckie #custom lego #David Escobedo #Dino Dudes #Knot Ready #lego #LEGO Hidden Side #MissImp: Improv Comedy Theatre Nottingham #Space Force #Star Wars Edge of Empire #TV review #We Are What We Overcome

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eviegracecaldwellresearch-blog · 8 years ago

Photo

janne iivonen

1. No mumbling

Unfortunately, in both cases, the entire future of the world does rest on people being able to say those words properly, and not mumbling "femernism", or "envibeoment".

2. 'The Man'

3. Periods

4. Abortion

Janne Iivonen

5. Talking

And we remembered all the times on social media, or in conversations, an angry man has said, "Women are WINNING now. Women are EVERYWHERE. It is MEN who are being silenced", and it all made sense.

6. Fear

7. Tired

8. Wanking

9. Clothes

10. Male feminists

11. Carbs

12. Trainers

It actually was us that threw those horrible old trainers of yours away. That story about how a time-portal opened up, and they were stolen away by your own teenaged self? That was a lie.

Caitlin Moran's fee for this piece has been donated to Refuge, refuge.org.uk

This article was first published in 2016.

#Ladiesprojectresearch

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