I'm lucid, but I still can't think
Good news! According to the ENT this afternoon, I do not have a sinus infection. I have the aftermath of two months of sinus infection and therefore get to put steroids up my nose until it gets better. We live in a wonderful world.
1. I had never heard of Jinwar, the Yazidi women's commune and I strongly feel I should have. Especially since "Jinwar grew out of the democratic ideology that has fuelled the creation of Rojava, a Kurdish-run statelet in north-eastern Syria, since the civil war broke out in 2011 . . . The women's revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava's philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters." I should have heard about that.
2. I'm mostly boosting this article about Mesopotamian stargazing because I studied with the professor quoted within. He was one of the best parts of my time at Yale.
3. Discussing the fading of the Ruritanian romance as a popular genre with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moon_custafer a few months back, I said that I thought its scarcity in the second half of the twentieth century had more to do with the fact that the landscape of Europe shifted so comprehensively that any further entries would have to be period pieces—after 1945, Europe was simply no longer covered with plausible small monarchies into which English or American strangers could wander and be caught up in swashbuckling intrigue. The essential conceit of creating fictitious, generally Central European countries never died out, but I think the majority of it was diverted into secondary-world fantasy or into more realist modes like Jan Morris' Hav or Ursula K. Le Guin's Orsinia or even Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which is explicitly a romance until it runs into history. Does this hypothesis actually match other people's experience? Is there an entire school of contemporary Ruritanian romance that I've just missed? Are they just mostly post-Soviet states these days?
It's snowing outside, quietly dusting down into the street. Earlier this evening I watched Johnny Eager (1942) because it was on TCM and I will never cease to love that movie; I ate some goat's milk custard for dessert and kindly did not take pictures of Autolycus while he had his head stuck in the plastic container. I have hopes of actually sleeping tonight.
1. I had never heard of Jinwar, the Yazidi women's commune and I strongly feel I should have. Especially since "Jinwar grew out of the democratic ideology that has fuelled the creation of Rojava, a Kurdish-run statelet in north-eastern Syria, since the civil war broke out in 2011 . . . The women's revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava's philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters." I should have heard about that.
2. I'm mostly boosting this article about Mesopotamian stargazing because I studied with the professor quoted within. He was one of the best parts of my time at Yale.
3. Discussing the fading of the Ruritanian romance as a popular genre with
moon_custafer a few months back, I said that I thought its scarcity in the second half of the twentieth century had more to do with the fact that the landscape of Europe shifted so comprehensively that any further entries would have to be period pieces—after 1945, Europe was simply no longer covered with plausible small monarchies into which English or American strangers could wander and be caught up in swashbuckling intrigue. The essential conceit of creating fictitious, generally Central European countries never died out, but I think the majority of it was diverted into secondary-world fantasy or into more realist modes like Jan Morris' Hav or Ursula K. Le Guin's Orsinia or even Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which is explicitly a romance until it runs into history. Does this hypothesis actually match other people's experience? Is there an entire school of contemporary Ruritanian romance that I've just missed? Are they just mostly post-Soviet states these days?It's snowing outside, quietly dusting down into the street. Earlier this evening I watched Johnny Eager (1942) because it was on TCM and I will never cease to love that movie; I ate some goat's milk custard for dessert and kindly did not take pictures of Autolycus while he had his head stuck in the plastic container. I have hopes of actually sleeping tonight.
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The workaround for history in this variant, is that Ruritania’s existence is implied, but the story is not set there, which saves on location shooting but also skirts the issue of how such a country could still exist. Sometimes there’s also the hand wave of “it survived with traditions intact because it was a totally unimportant backwater— until earlier this year, when they discovered unobtanium there and now everyone wants control which is why the ruler suddenly needs protection.”
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there's romance, then there's romance
I don't know if swashbuckling exists alongside European microstates, or any where else in pop culture other than the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The closest immediate analogue that comes to mind is lightsaber battles, but the lineage there is really samurai films, and further back westerns.
Re: there's romance, then there's romance
Say more? I'm not familiar with any of these films.
I don't know if swashbuckling exists alongside European microstates, or any where else in pop culture other than the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
I think it's really hard to get outside of superhero narratives or historical fiction nowadays.
Re: there's romance, then there's romance
In both Christmas Prince movies, which are Netflix's low rent attempt to eat Hallmark's lunch, the monarch has actual power to manage economic affairs. And there is a dungeon in the royal palace, to which a villain is sent at the end of the second movie.
Not actually worth watching, although Jenny Nicholson's humor deconstruction
The Grim Dystopia of A Christmas Prince is.
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Wakanda's definitely an inversion of that, then.