Maybe I should sue . . .

From a Grady Hendrix article for Slate.com:

At least Anne Rice's vampires were still primarily bloodsuckers. The first sign that something was awry came with the introduction of Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A prime example of the brooding, crying-on-the-inside, leather-jacketed emo boy of the '90s (see also: Dylan McKay, Beverly Hills, 90210; James Hurley, Twin Peaks), Angel was a vampire who had a soul. He fell in love with Buffy, teared up a lot, and believed in random acts of kindness. Angel, in short, sucked. Or, rather, he didn't suck, which was the problem. When he did suck, he took limited amounts of blood from consenting human women, or sucked blood against his will, or sucked rat blood.

G.M. Malliet

Part of the fun of a trip to the library is browsing the new books for ones I would otherwise miss. A few weeks ago I discovered a new mystery series by G.M. Malliet, centered around British DCI St. Just and containing various homages to and parodies of mystery writers and sub-genres. What makes these books stand out from other "themed" mystery series is Malliet's wittiness and writing skills.

An example, from Death and the Lit Chick (which takes place at a mystery writers' convention):

. . . St. Just strode briskly past, gathering odd scraps of conversation as he went.
"You have to have a corpse by page fifty-seven. Page seventy at the absolute outside."
"Says who?"

"Why, so says everyone. It's the industry standard."

This, of course, occurs on page 70. The first body does not show up until page 96 (and page 112 in Death of a Cozy Writer).

Malliet also uses that time-worn staple of mysteries, where something a character says triggers the memory of something significant in the investigator, but she can't quite put her finger on it, not until the very end just in time for the final confrontation. In other books such an event sends me flipping through previous chapters to see if I can find the connection myself. In Lit Chick and Cozy Writer, however, Malliet has St. Just figure it out two pages later, and while it is not irrelevant to the investigation, it is not crucial to the case either. Both times had me laughing out loud.

I look forward to the next installment.

8 years . . .

A couple of months ago, when Mr. Beadgirl finally got his new office, he asked me to make him a wall quilt for it. For about a week I racked my brains, trying to come up with a good design, but I wasn't really inspired by anything. Then I walked into the City Quilter and saw, prominently displayed, beer fabric, and inspiration struck.

I started with a 12 inch square of just the beer fabric, and surrounded it with a 1.5 inch border of gold dupioni silk (from a pillowcase I had made years before which had fallen apart). On the border I sewed beer bottle caps, as many and as varied as I was able to collect from Mr. Beadgirl's beers. For the next border I wanted fabric that said, over and over, "No TV and no beer make [Mr. Beadgirl] go crazy," a modification of a Homer Simpson line which is itself a parody of a line from the Shining. To do that, I ironed plain white fabric onto the shiny side of freezer paper, and cut out 8.5 by 11 sheets and fed them into the printer, printed out pages filled with the line, and removed the backing. That wasn't interesting enough, however, so I then stained the fabric with coffee (I tried to get coffee rings, but the fabric was too absorbent), then layered on torn up bits of documents from Mr. Beadgirl's work (including, as he was amused to notice, the Securities Act of 1933) which I attached with 3 coats of Modge Podge. I wanted to get the idea of papers layered on top of his "state of mind" as they are layered on his desk, but between the lack of time and the need to make sure no confidential client information made it into the quilt I had to settle for torn scraps. I backed the quilt with heavy black dupioni and then quilted the center square (which was a royal pain -- the silk backing didn't move well). Because of the Modge Podge and the uncooperative backing I gave up on quilting the outer border, and simply tied it with a few scattered crystal beads. With a few late nights I was able to finish it in time for our anniversary last week.

Mr. Beadgirl loves it.

Pretend it's still Halloween . . .

So perhaps you have heard of vampires? And how there is a book or two out there about them? Even though I've always liked vampires (from a mythological standpoint), I've avoided almost entirely the current crop of books and movies about them, because I really don't like how creators have taken scary monsters that represent true evil and turned them into sooper-speshul, hawt, emo whiners (or invincible, kewl, I-wish-I-could-be-one-that'll-show-my-meanie-classmates superior beings -- White Wolf, I'm looking at you).

I guess we could blame Anne Rice, but Interview with a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat were actually quite good, albeit completely different in tone from each other. Unfortunately, Rice got too caught up in the mythology and turned it into a incomprehensible mess, while also focusing too much on the sexiness and decadence of being a vampire and not the tragic or disturbing consequences. When you have the vampire matriarch explain over and over why her tribe's ritual cannibalization was really ok and not at all icky, and how it was totally not her fault she became a vampire, it was evil patriarchal men (the bastards), well, in my opinion you've totally lost sight of what it means to be a vampire.

But that's what a lot of these series do. They take the sensual appeal that Bela Lugosi brought to Dracula, and transform vampire stories into melodramatic romances. Of course, that means having vampire heroes who just hate having to leech off innocent humans, and so they drink animal blood or steal from blood banks or only victimize criminals, all the while whining about how tortured they are. Or writers get caught up in the special strengths of vampires, and end up making them ridiculously powerful and superior to humans, practically Mary Sues and Marty Stus. That's one of the main reasons I could never get past the first couple of chapters of an Anita Blake story, not even as a melodramatic teenager. And if Wikipedia is to be believed, Anita Blake has garnered a laughable amount of specialness and super powers by now.

Which isn't to say all pop culture vampires are bad. I've heard the Sookie Stackhouse series is lots of fun, and I can't say enough good things about Kostova's Historian -- it was fascinating and scary, and a great update of and homage to the original Dracula. And of course I was a big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That show did a fabulous job portraying monsters and monster-fighting as a dead-on metaphor for adolescence. And Angel was was pretty good character, even if he was arguably the proto-emo vampire boyfriend. My favorite part, however, was when Spike went out and got himself a soul (uh . . . spoiler!). I was fascinated by the fact that Angel, the first "good" vampire, had his soul thrust upon him as a punishment, whereas Spike, who had been trying to be good for a while, acquired a soul to make himself a being worthy of love. I wanted an exploration of what it means to be good, and what role free will has, but unfortunately it was not that kind of show.

There are a lot of fascinating ideas that could be explored with vampires, and the nature of good and evil, agency and free will is just the beginning. Watching Coppola's version of Dracula over the weekend, particularly with Renfield wailing on about how "the blood is the life," I was struck with how vampirism could be seen as a total perversion of the Mass. Although maybe it's for the best that no popular writers (that I know of) have really latched on to this -- in the hands of Dan Brown, we'd probably end up with a book about how Jesus' followers were the first vampires and sucked His blood, and ever since the Church has been behind a murderous vampire conspiracy. That's why I find most current vampire books disappointing: they don't explore the issues I find interesting.

So as a reaction to the over-saturation of contemporary vampire books, and because it was the week before Halloween, I decided to read the original -- Bram Stoker's Dracula. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I was a little afraid it might be too gothic (I don't like gothic, at all, at least not the overwrought style of Ann Radcliffe) but it wasn't, and I liked Stoker's technique of telling the narrative through diaries, journals, and newspaper articles. I also liked that Stoker gave the vampires a mesmerizing appeal without allowing the characters (or us) to completely lose sight of what they really were. It is a product of its time, and so the theology was a bit suspect, the characters tended to use ten words when two would suffice, and the constant statements about how Mina was so much stronger and smarter than the typical flighty, faint-hearted woman caused a lot of eye-rolling. Over all, though, I liked it quite a bit.

They Just Can't Get No Respect

I love the New York Times Book Review; it and the Sunday puzzle are my favorite parts of the NYT, and I impatiently wait every Saturday morning for the newspaper to hit the curb so I can go fetch it in my pajamas and settle in to reading it when I am not refereeing toy disputes between the Beadboys. The Book Review, however, is rather notorious for ignoring genre fiction. So this week I took note of the essay on the last page, Picking a Genre -- a mildly amusing look at different genres. And even here, certain genres get short shrift. For example, romance is in the illustration, but not discussed. Science fiction and fantasy are not mentioned at all, unless you count the blurb on "fabulism" or magic realism. And so continues a longstanding tradition of ignoring genre.

Remember when the Book Review announced Dave Itzkoff would be doing a regular column (Across the Universe) on science fiction? I nearly cheered out loud, but apparently the NYT's definition of "regular" differs from mine -- according to the NYT archives, he has written a grand total of 14 reviews and articles on science fiction (depending on how you classify certain novels), and none in the last year. They dropped the "Across the Universe bit back in 2006. A perfect illustration of the Book Review's disdain for genre fiction, and rather foolish given the growing popularity (and mainstreaming) of science fiction.

The Book Review does review mysteries (called "crime", I guess for the same reasons some publishers try to gussy up scifi/fantasy by calling it "speculative fiction"), but the books reviewed are overwhelmingly of a type. Because God knows it's not worth reading if it doesn't have a brooding, lonely recovering alcoholic with health issues, a tortured past, a dead lover, a dismal apartment, and too much familiarity with the seedy underbelly of the city. That's it for genre fiction, however; scifi is barely touched and I think the editors think the civilization would collapse if they reviewed a romance. Reportedly, an editor once said, in explanation, "Well, we have to draw the line somewhere." Why? What does that mean? Isn't the point of the Book Review to highlight both "important" books and good books, books the readers of the NYT would be interested in? Are they aware of the diversity of taste in the city? Are they actually arguing that it is impossible to find a well-written, smart book in certain genres? That sort of attitude just encourages the idea that the NYT is a snooty paper for the upper class. Which it kind of is, if you only look at the styles section and the book review and the way they ignore local news. But its front page journalism is far superior to that of other local papers, and more to the point, they review populist music, shows, and movies all the time. So why not populist books? Good populist books -- there is a lot of schlock in scifi and romance (and "crime" and fiction and non-fiction . . .) and I think readers would love to be pointed to the best of the genres. It's simple, really; at the very least, once a month they could omit a review of yet another quickly written, irrelevant in a year, political book (or just cut it in half) and insert a page or half page with quick reviews in a genre. C'mon, NYT, you can do it. It might even increase readership and ad revenue.

Miscellaneous crafts

I've finally had some time to finish, or at least work on, crafts I started a while back.

For Halloween this year I decided to cover some fake pumpkins in glitter; an idea that is not at all common. I bought cheapo plastic pumpkins and painted them black, because I wanted to go for the black/charcoal/silvery look I saw in a Martha Stewart magazine. I then covered one with fine black glitter and one with silver. The black one came out pretty well (except for some smudges here and there):
It looks especially nice with the dried leaves and foliage. The silver pumpkin, on the other hand, did not come out so well:
The glitter dried splotchily, leaving some areas more silvery than others, partly I think because of the glue I used -- M.S.'s instructions said to use craft glue, which I found to be very thick. I think next time I'll use watered down glue or Modge Podge. In the mean time, I suppose I could reapply some glitter to even out the tone, but then the whole thing will end up looking like a disco pumpkin, which . . . not the look I was going for. I also may try to coat the pumpkins lightly with spray adhesive, to see if that prevents glitter shedding.

Right after Halloween is the Day of the Dead. Ever since my father died on All Souls Day I have been interested in the iconography of Day of the Dead (even though my father was Puerto Rican). Two years ago I made calaverita earrings:
Last year, inspired by Alicia Policia's felt skulls (one of which I bought) I decided to make a two-dimensional one myself. I finished the facial features, but then stalled on how to finish it until a few days ago:
The edge needed something, so after experimenting with colored lace I decided the rickrack worked best, especially as it is a marigold color, a flower often associated with Day of the Dead imagery. It then took me another half an hour to pick green perle cotton to hold the rickrack in place with french knots (sometimes I can be too picky about color). Once it is done, I will back it with another layer of felt. I'm also working on the brightly colored skeleton kits from Mill Hill.

Finally, inspired by my success with the Hungry Caterpillar quilt, I decided to get going on the Brown Bear quilt for Beadboy2. Behold the center of the top:
So much faster to put together than the odd pieces of the first one. I think I will add another border using the people fabric.

It feels good to work with my hands again.

Winner of the National Book Award

Amazing how school, housework, and my damn wiener kids take up all my time. I finished Jincy Willett's Winner of the National Book Award over a week ago, and I have not had time to put together a post about the book (which I really enjoyed). (And I finished Northanger Abbey last night, so I am way behind.) So I will make two points:

1. Just as all the cover blurbs say, this book is funny, funny enough to make me laugh out loud on the train. But what they don't tell you is that the book is also downright scary. Willett so effectively portrayed a sociopathic, abusive man that I felt actual dread while reading the book, waiting to see what he would do next.

2. Her characters, particularly the two sisters who are the heart of the book, were marvelous. They were so much more than the hypersexual "bad" sister and the intellectual "good" sister. Abigail was no pathetic woman relying on men for approval; Willett forces one to see her genuine sensuality and love of life give her an integrity of character one would not otherwise expect. Even when she she falls into the thrall of the aforementioned sociopath, their relationship is not simply one of abuser and abusee, but something far more complex (as is Abigail herself). And indeed, by the end, it becomes apparent that Abigail is much stronger and more self-aware than people (including the readers) give her credit for -- and not in the "victim overcomes her abuser" way that Willett so brilliantly lampoons.

Dorcas, too, is wonderful. She narrates the book, and she recognizes the danger the sociopath poses right away. But she both fails and stands by her sister in unexpected ways, which adds depth to her character. I've read many books where the intellectual narrator is undone by his flaws; Dorcas was refreshing in that she was well aware of those flaws, and she coped with her failures. Unlike those other characters, her failures never bring her down or humiliate her permanently in some awful way. She seems to realize that her mistakes, and the emotions she could not control, are simply part of life. She does not wallow, and that makes her so much more likeable than the other characters.

I don't think I have done the book justice.