Three Interesting Things

1. Justina Ireland's advice to aspiring women writers of color is hard but from what I have seen accurate.   

2. It turns out the TSA is not going forward with the book search plan which is good because I am still bitter about the laptop/ereader ban. 

3. Apparently Bea Arthur was a truck driver in the Marines and we can speculate many reasons she chose not to discuss this much later in life, but I like the secret missions one myself. 

That Time I Did Two (or Three) MKALs at once

It started so normally. I saw that a designer who had patterns I had knit was going to take the plunge and do a mystery along.  I've talked with people over the years about what makes a good and bad mystery designer and what makes a good and bad mystery knitter.  

On the designer side, it helps if this is a person you know makes things you tend to like.  Even if you haven't knit them all yet.  If you only like some of their designs, or their early designs, then, this may not be a a good choice.  

As a knitter you need to be willing to put in a lot of time without knowing where you are going.  Or buy the pattern (it's usually discounted at the start) and wait.  And if the pressure of other people finishing the clue faster will stress you out, don't do it. Seriously, nothing will make you more humble about your knitting speed.  I like it because if I run into a hmmm, I can usually check the spoiler thread and someone will have gotten there already.  

So, I signed up for one.  No big.  And then I heard there was another - different designer, also a newbie to the MKAL and my first thought was no.  I already had a sweater on the needles and I was just going to buy the pattern and wait and oh, who are we kidding I bought yarn for that too.  

The first clue came, and it was not a small clue as some first clues are.  But it was fine because the other one didn't start for another week, and then I realized I needed to swap my colors and rip back, and well, I fell behind.  On both.  They have both wrapped and I am not done - although I am now in the final clue of both and do you know what I did?  I signed up for another MKAL.  It started last week.  I'm caught up on that one.  For now.  

"Still Star-Crossed"

I wrote this post after the pilot and then internet weirdness wouldn't let me post it. I tweaked some bits, but the only "spoilers" are from the pilot. 

"Romeo and Juliet" exists as a timeless piece I suspect in part because it is a great example of a story that can viewed as grand love ended to soon by circumstances and petty familial squabbling, or as selfish teens who dragged family members and servants into something that by all rights should have made the war between the families worse.  In fact, in a high school English class, we were assigned snippets to act out in front of class, and my group got the end, and I had the worst time not snickering because it is the only, in my opinion, false bit in the play. Sure, standing over the graves of your kids should provide perspective, but, well, Romeo and Juliet aren't even the first dead people in the play. To say nothing of the years of strife leading up to it. 

"Still Star-Crossed" covers the highlights of the play in the first episode.  So, if you are in the Romeo and Juliet are whiny brats camp, good news, they're dead.  Like several other spinoff versions - Rebecca Serle's YA When You Were Mine comes to mind - the show is concerned with the rest of the family. I think it fits nicely into what I wanted "Reign" to be, a historical soap, "Reign" just ultimately for me at least, was stymied by having picked real people but yet not wanting to be constrained by history.  With all due respect to the nice folks of Verona, my familiarity with their history is pretty minimal, so, they could be getting this terribly wrong.  

But, Capulet, Montagues, they hate each other.  The moment in the pilot that sealed it for me, was early on when swords come out, and the other townspeople all drag each other out of the way.  Because isn't that the part that's easy to forget.  As the Montagues and Capulets set fire to each others fields, and fight each other in the streets, other people are just trying to not be the fallout.  And that is pretty much the conclusion Prince Escalus has come to.  Sure, it seems he and Rosaline (now an orphaned Capulet cousin, forced with her sister to work in the Capulet household) had a little balcony moment themselves back in the day, but now that his father has died leaving him in charge, well, it is time to solve this family warfare so that Verona won't fall pray to one of the neighboring power hungry principalities.  

Rosaline and Benvolio are the only two (well, so they think) who know that Romeo and Juliet were married, not just dead and in disgrace.  They were both against it, but unable to talk their friends out of it, and now quite convinced that it's the other's fault that things went so badly. 

Escalus decides that to solve this family warfare they need a union between the families.  And so he's decided that..Rosaline and Benvolio should get married.  They are not thrilled with this plan.  There's other intrigues and such, Lady Capulet hates Rosaline for not being grateful, Rosaline's sister Livia has marrying up plans, and Paris is only mostly dead since Romeo ran him through before taking the poison.  So, the scene has been set, lots of people love and hate each other and are scheming for power.  The sets and costumes were amazing, and while again, I cannot speak to the specific costume authenticities, there is no glitter. 

While I ultimately bailed out on "Reign", I still think it will appeal to those who liked "Reign' for the soapy historical intrigue.  I imagine they will not sustain the number of sword fights found in the pilot, simply because they are going to need to hang on to more of the cast going forward, but we all know Shondaland shows will kill your faves, so probably not everyone is safe. 

Three Interesting Things

1. I usually resist think of the children framing, but in the case of Philando Castile who was killed by a police officer in a traffic stop, the stories of the students at the school where he worked asking their parents tough questions reminded me of Torey Hayden long ago saying that the questions kids ask about sex aren't the hard ones, it's the questions they ask about when the world doesn't work the way we have taught them it should that are the hardest. 

2. I didn't frequent Gifford's Ice Cream much as a kid, but certainly remember the Bethesda outpost.  The son of the founders has written about the abuse he grew up with.  

3. It looks like the world's first cat video might be thanks to Thomas Edison. 

Roxane Gay in DC

With DC's MLK library under construction, some of the larger library events have been roaming around.  In a site that was perfect for me, Roxane Gay spoke about her new book Hunger with WAMU's Alicia Montgomery at All Souls Unitarian Church, aka on my street.  (Okay fine it was like six blocks away.  Still my street!) The space was packed, and well, you may or may not know the church dates to 1913, so there are fans in the seats in the sanctuary.  All of this to say is was a little toasty and there was a persistent hissing sound that may have been due to the ancient boiler system or the sound system, but in the end it was still a great evening and I for one hope for more events that are so convenient to me.  

Montgomery noted that Gay had taken an ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer approach for this book, and asked her to recount the most stupid question she had gotten so far.  Gay was asked to describe her body for an interviewer.  She declined to do so.  

Gay talked a lot about the processing of trauma, and how differently we treat self medication when it happens with drugs and alcohol rather than with food, but also noted that food is still different because you have to eat and that it changes even going to the doctor for headaches or what have you.  She mentioned being on a panel about fatness with several other authors and having a woman come up to the mike during the Q&A and say she was an OBGYN who was afraid to treat fat women and asked how to get better.  Gay's answer, get over yourself. 

Montgomery noted that Gay had referenced a loss in the book, in a way that implied that it was the loss of a child.  Gay talked further, confirming she had been pregnant, and then had lost the child far enough into the pregnancy that it felt more like a stillbirth, and that the doctor had told her her weight had caused it and while she knows better now, it was hard to get past that.  

There were a number of audience questions, and they were great.  A lot of people asked about writing advice.  Gay mentioned that she felt voice was something you find as you write more, and the affectations you picked up from others fall away.  It doesn't descend from on high, it something you find by doing.  She also talked about the need to be relentless in publishing, which is a patriarchial, looks focused, racist business.  

She had made several references to spending more time in LA of late, and one audience member asked if there had been any more movement with any of her stuff that had been optioned and Gay did mention that she was writing a pilot for Amazon called "Grown Women", much as she had said she wanted to in Bad Feminist.  There was also some discussion of "The Bachelorette", and Gay said that it's always a weird thing. It's great that there's a black bachelorette.  But being the first black anything, here Rachel is, she's accomplished, she's an attorney, and these are the dudes they have brought her?  

As I said, it was a great evening, made even better by running into folks I knew in the audience.