Note

I am quite aware that Three Interesting Things has fallen to the wayside. I keep thinking yes, I will do it this week, and then...not doing it, which is why I hadn't pointed itout sooner. There's a number of factors, including me trying to contain my mad on the internet. Being angry can be useful, but it can also be draining. And yes, I can only post happy things, but I have to sift through a lot of other things to find the things I want to share. 

I am sorry if you miss it. I miss it. I am hoping by posting about it, I will get the mojo back. 

"DC I Love You: First Dates" in Mount Pleasant via the Folger Shakespeare Theatre

Content note: references to deceased relatives.

I have to tell you, when you offer an immersive theater experience about romance set in my neighborhood, well, I basically hadn't finished reading the description before I loaded the ticket into my cart. 

After two weekends in Mount Pleasant, the Folger is going to do a version at the Folger, and I understand the stories will all be different. 

This show requires a little set up. Basically each scene involves different characters in a different location. There apparently have been six or seven prior versions of this in other locales. 

The group had headsets connected to the actor's mic's so that if there were cars, dogs, kids, or other city noise, we could hear. It also meant some of the scenes you had an angled vantage of. So it was almost like staged eavesdropping. 

The five scenes were all, as the title implies first dates. They all, spoiler, went well. There were two fix ups. One random stranger meetup at a political trivia event. And two app dates, one of which was between two school friends. The dates were all a blend of funny, awkward, emotional, and sweet.

The process of moving between each worked really well. There were a few tech hiccups, but I was in the very first group, and nothing that took away from the overall experience. 

The couples were of multiple races and gender pairings. 

Note: The Mount Pleasant version of the show involves one location that is only accessible by stairs, and one location that is a bar, so is restricted to people allowed to enter bars. 

It's Not IP That's the Problem

Probably worth noting before I dive in here, that my latest release is a fairytale mashup, so obviously I am on the side of various existing intellectual property. And of course, as an author, some of books have been scraped to feed so called AI without consent or payment. 

I think there's a kind of prevailing ugh about things based on existing properties, aka IP that is mostly about the fact that we are on the zillionth Superman and Spiderman remakes. And yes, not saying none of these have been interesting or delightful. They have. 

But most musicals are based on IP. And I love a musical. What I suspect some people are tired of is not IP per se, but use of such a limited part of the IP.

I had proposed a rule for one of my book clubs that we only read two books by any author. Not because there aren't authors I am basically willing to read whatever they write. There are. But there are so many authors out there. Half the fun, to me at least, of book club is discovering authors you wouldn't otherwise have tried. And honestly it's a monthly book club. 12 authors a year is really very few when you look at the literally hundreds of books published each week. 

Same with TV and movies. Part of the challenge is that people who make TV and movies are very busy, so they have little time to consume other entertainment. So when they do, they mostly reach for stuff they loved before they became a TV or movie person. Which means so much of what we see is on a weird delay.

Sure there are exceptions, but the exceptions are the really huge things. Things that even people who barely read know is a book.

Speaking of which, I am actually up to date on a TV show.  Shocking news.  I watched "Murderbot".  It is based on a book.  I think it probably is enjoyable to those who haven't read the book, but YMMV. 

The Joy of Bookish People

A friend mentioned a sudden yearning to attend the Gaithersburg Book Festival Friday night and so Saturday we went. I confess I am spoiled living in this area. We have several independent book stores that do events. We have the National Book Festival. We have a number of other events. So I get picky. What will the weather be like? Will there be track work on the metro that weekend? 

Well, this weekend was beautiful. Warm enough to make a tropical blooded person like me happy, but not hot enough that people melt. Breezy but not gusty. Sunny and picturesque. 

And it was lovely listening to authors, reading the excellent T-shirts, totes, and hats bookish people break out when they will be amongst other bookish people. 

I ran into a few writers I know. I chatted in line with a few people. And yeah, I came home with a few more books. 

Make Big Asks

One of the helpful things someone said at a social justice meeting was ask for all the things, don't hold back. I think we are often encouraged by the status quo to ask for small incremental change. To not expect big things to quickly from large institutions. 

Except when you are working with others, especially others with goals counter to yours, big asks are the only way you even get something close to what you want. 

I once hopped in a cab. It was New Year's. I was not drunk, just car free and I had missed the last metro train. I caught the cab in Maryland but need to get to DC. When you cross jurisdictions like that the cab drivers sometimes attempt  negotiation. The cab driver proposed I pay him $50. (I am making these numbers up, this was a while ago.) I said absolutely not and offered to get out of the cab. 

He asked for a counter offer and I said $10. Now I knew this was a maybe a $20 ride but he started with with more than double that, so I went super low as a counter balance. And do you know what happened. He decided to turn the meter on instead. He tapped it when it hit ten (about halfway home) and I wisely did not make a big deal of it still being less than $50 when we arrived. 

When people are trying to convince you that there are too many human rights, or too much due process, responding with reasonable counters just pushes you closer to what they wanted. So dream big, and make big asks. 

It's May

It's AANHPI Heritage Month. I was reflecting on high school. I was a multiracial teen of European, Chinese, and Hawaiian descent. Still am. Well, not the teen part.

My high school combined European and American history into one two year course. China got only vague mentions in this course. Hawai'i came up briefly, when it got couped, and then annexed. I've mentioned before that my history teacher announced that they did not know how to pronounce Queen Lili'uokalani's name and were not going to learn. I wish I could tell you that was the moment I decided to do an independent study, but I can't recall. 

In my senior year, I did, for one elective credit, an independent study on Hawaiian history. I met with the anthropology teacher, who had agreed to be my advisor. And I presented a paper, along with sources to a committee in order to get my grade. 

So even as a teen, I knew there were gaps in what I was being taught, places I was going to have to fill in. There is some weird assumption on the part of some, that while everyone needs to know about the Treaty of Ghent, not everyone needs to know about what was happening in places not predominantly populated by Europeans. Even the American history textbooks cover the US with the European settlers as the main characters and everyone else as supporting players.

There are so many great books - fiction books even, you don't have to read history unless you want to (um, unless you are in school). There are so many great books by Pacific Islanders, by Asian Americans, by Asians, and by native Hawaiians. Some raised in the diaspora like me, some not. There are translated books. (I have been gobbling up translations of books about cats, coffee shop time travel, and dreams.)

Here are some suggestions I made last year for the Pasifika read along: http://www.talkapedia.com/2024/04/pasifika-reading-challenge-suggestions.html