I lost my fake ID, but you lost the motel key

[sovay]

How today has gone: the noises I just made on discovering a not completely empty bag of cough drops in the farthest corner of the counters in the kitchen are more traditionally associated with the lottery. Have some links.

1. I am delighted that sholio has made a gifset of Bill Maxwell from The Greatest American Hero (1981–83): "FBI agent and absolute weirdo."

2. Courtesy of moon_custafer: cogent thoughts on having feelings about problematic art. "And so if Harry Potter or BA or Voltron or whatever other problematic thing was your lifeline it's okay to be upset that it was yanked away from you by bigoted creators and racist corporations and bad writing. It's okay to mourn that thing, to miss the joy it brought you, to think back on the good memories you had of it, to not want to jump on the hate bandwagon, to be upset when people mock the people like you who cared about it."

3. Courtesy of ashlyme: Judith Bingham's Salt in the Blood (1995), a maritime ghost story for chorus and orchestra, full of chanteys and fragments of ships' logs. I want a libretto.

P.S. Courtesy of my father: "Meet the Sea Slugs That Chop Off Their Heads and Grow New Bodies." It should maybe come with a content warning for video, but personally I cannot resist statements like "Self-amputation, known as autotomy, isn't uncommon in the animal kingdom. Having the ability to jettison a body part, such as a tail, helps many animals avoid predation. However, no animal had ever been observed ditching its entire body."

Comments

[swan_tower]

Hah, thank you for the edit -- I looked first at the original comment and had a moment of "Mercedes Lackey did WHAT?!" before I wondered if you meant MZB instead. And yeah, by all means be angry at JKR for being transphobic . . . but on the scale of "things people may have done that you should be bothered by," there's a lot worse out there than her.

Some things, I will probably never bother with.

Yes, the easy end of the wedge is where it's someone whose work I've never much bothered with. There are so many things to read and watch in the world, I'm perfectly happy to go enjoy something that doesn't come with so much baggage attached. (I had no idea about Helprin; I just watched the film of Winter's Tale the other week, which is my only knowledge of him or his work. "Beautiful mess" about summed it up.)

[sholio]

Hah, thank you for the edit -- I looked first at the original comment and had a moment of "Mercedes Lackey did WHAT?!" before I wondered if you meant MZB instead.

Hahaha, yeah, I posted that without really thinking too much about it, and then was looking at that and going "... wait, wrong 1980s fantasy author!" I have those two closely associated in my head due to having encountered their books at about the same time.

(I had no idea about Helprin; I just watched the film of Winter's Tale the other week, which is my only knowledge of him or his work. "Beautiful mess" about summed it up.)

I haven't actually seen the movie, but absolutely love the book. It's one of those books that I read young and settled into my head and stayed there - it has gorgeous imagery, flying horses, beautiful tragedy ... and a COMPLETELY FUCKING BATSHIT plot. (To be fair I've avoided the movie due to being too attached to the book, and now I'm looking it up on Rotten Tomatoes and being amused by the reviews: "A fine book fights gallantly to escape from its straitjacket, but eventually lies down and allows itself to be trampled underfoot by bad ideas.")

[swan_tower]

I have those two closely associated in my head due to having encountered their books at about the same time.

Just don't ask me how long it took to remember which books were written by Robin McKinley and which were written by Patricia McKillip.

(To be fair I've avoided the movie due to being too attached to the book, and now I'm looking it up on Rotten Tomatoes and being amused by the reviews: "A fine book fights gallantly to escape from its straitjacket, but eventually lies down and allows itself to be trampled underfoot by bad ideas.")

I rather suspect that any time your instinct says "I'm too attached to the book," you should listen to it, unless somebody who knows you well and whose judgment you trusts tells you that you'll like the adaptation.

[sovay]

I rather suspect that any time your instinct says "I'm too attached to the book," you should listen to it, unless somebody who knows you well and whose judgment you trusts tells you that you'll like the adaptation.

People who know me well and whose judgment I trust have told me all sorts of favorable things about Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004), but I still don't think it's going to happen.

[sholio]

People who know me well and whose judgment I trust have told me all sorts of favorable things about Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004), but I still don't think it's going to happen.

As someone who really loves the book and has also seen the movie, I say stick to your guns on that. The movie was very beautiful and nothing whatsoever like the book.

[swan_tower]

Yeah, I don't . . . regret seeing the movie? But despite very pointedly referring to it as Hauru no ugoku shiro in an attempt to convince my brain to take it on its own terms, I bounced, hard. The beginning was too much like the book for me to stay on board when it slewed around and suddenly became something else entirely. (I even remember the point at which it happened. It was when they encountered the Wizard Suleiman and the words that came out of my mouth were "You're supposed to be a man, and dead." Basically after that point, it had nothign to do with the book.)

[sholio]

I also had that issue. It's a pretty movie, and decent on its own terms - but not merely failed to be an adaptation of the book, but felt like it missed almost every point I liked best about the book. Sometimes I'm completely able to get past that if I like the new version - e.g. I'm an avid Marvel comics reader going back to the 80s, but so far I've been able to roll even with version adaptations that ditched some of my favorite elements in the original, like Rogue being a teenager who is basically Character In Name Only. But that one just noped me right out for some reason.

[swan_tower]

But that one just noped me right out for some reason.

I think it's because the shift is so abrupt and in the middle. If you're going to do something wildly different with your source, I prefer it to be signaled right at the start -- like, Constantine is an absolutely terrible Hellblazer movie, but since its starting scenario is "so let's say John Constantine is American," you kind of knew that going in. As a result, even my husband (who's a big Hellblazer fan) likes the film, because he can take it on its own terms.

I also suspect the midpoint veer in Hauru no ugoku shiro means it doesn't set up its eventual theme very well, but I'd have to watch the movie a second time to verify that, and . . . I don't really wanna. :-P

[sovay]

As a result, even my husband (who's a big Hellblazer fan) likes the film, because he can take it on its own terms.

Plus Tilda Swinton.

The original book of Howl's Moving Castle is one of my very deep childhood imprints and I just don't want to see it done wrong and everything I have heard about the differences—including this conversation—suggests I would not be able to parse them as anything other than wrong.

[swan_tower]

Plus Tilda Swinton.

There are no flaws in this argument.

The original book of Howl's Moving Castle is one of my very deep childhood imprints and I just don't want to see it done wrong and everything I have heard about the differences—including this conversation—suggests I would not be able to parse them as anything other than wrong.

Since there is a 99.999% probability that you're correct, that is the right choice. I am in the same boat, except for the bit where I did watch it and didn't like it, and while I'm not going to magnify the problem to the point of saying my life would have been better if I hadn't watched it, I don't think my life would be in any measurable way impoverished by the lack.

(Man, I wish I still had my Howl icon that I used when I was blogging my way through DWJ's entire body of work.)

[sovay]

(Man, I wish I still had my Howl icon that I used when I was blogging my way through DWJ's entire body of work.)

Can you point me toward the image it came from, at least? (It sounds like a tremendously useful icon.)

[swan_tower]

Unclear phrasing on my part. I still have the image; I just don't have it uploaded as one of my icons. It's the cover of the edition of the book I imprinted on; Calcifer will always look like that to me. (Since it's how he's described!)

[sovay]

It's the cover of the edition of the book I imprinted on; Calcifer will always look like that to me. (Since it's how he's described!)

Hah! That is also the first edition I read (and still own) and the first image I associate with the book, but I have seen so much fanart since, I didn't know if you'd drawn your icon from another source.

[swan_tower]

Oh, yes -- I made a very determined point of tracking down that edition so it could be the one on my shelf. The only reason I took the icon out of my list was because I wasn't using it much after I finished that project, and there were others I felt I needed more. (I didn't know I would be having this conversation someday, heh.)

[sovay]

Hah, thank you for the edit -- I looked first at the original comment and had a moment of "Mercedes Lackey did WHAT?!" before I wondered if you meant MZB instead.

Same.

there's a lot worse out there than her.

I really would not try to construct a sliding scale of when it is considered reasonable to persist with art and when to nope out. Everyone's tolerances and vulnerabilities are different. I know you are not actually advocating any such gatekeeping, but even the rhetoric we have for discussing this subject is so volatile and loaded, I want to be clear.

[swan_tower]

I really would not try to construct a sliding scale of when it is considered reasonable to persist with art and when to nope out. Everyone's tolerances and vulnerabilities are different. I know you are not actually advocating any such gatekeeping, but even the rhetoric we have for discussing this subject is so volatile and loaded, I want to be clear.

100% agreed. The only thing I'm pushing back against is the rhetoric that seems to want to reject the concept of scale entirely and treat all things as the same, all the time, for everyone, and always deserving of being cast into the outer darkness forever.

[sovay]

The only thing I'm pushing back against is the rhetoric that seems to want to reject the concept of scale entirely and treat all things as the same, all the time, for everyone, and always deserving of being cast into the outer darkness forever.

I don't think anyone in this thread is in danger of making that argument, but it should indeed be stepped on firmly whenever encountered.

On the subject of being cast into the outer darkness forever: David Schraub, "N(R)IMBY." It's a blog, not a newspaper, so it should be accessible. "It's no answer to say that the person should do the work of repentance and redemption before they can make a claim to 'live their life' in any space—the work of repentance and redemption occurs in occupied space; it is impossible to do it from a place of social banishment."

[swan_tower]

I don't think anyone in this thread is in danger of making that argument

Oh, no -- at that point I'm just railing against the stuff the piece you linked to is railing against.

The N(R)IMBY thing . . . so, I have a non-theoretical example one step removed from my immediate vicinity. At one point my husband got a job application from a guy working at the same company in the tech industry equivalent of a menial position, who was wildly overqualified for his current job and trying to trade up to a better one. Turns out the guy had a felony conviction for assault against his girlfriend. The guy had served his sentence, gone to anger management, was in a stable relationship with somebody new, etc. etc. . . . and nobody would hire him for anything other than a menial position where he would basically never talk to anybody. Because why hire the guy with the problem in his past when you could hire the guy who didn't assault his girlfriend years ago? My husband chewed this over with me as well as with his boss and various other people at the company, and ultimately he made the decision to hire the guy, despite the conviction. And the guy turned out to be an excellent employee who never caused problems, because he genuinely had turned over a new leaf. He passed away last year from cancer, and his mother tearfully thanked my husband for having given her son the second chance that nobody else would.

Redemption can happen. The question of where it should be given a chance to happen . . . is not an easy one.

[sovay]

Redemption can happen. The question of where it should be given a chance to happen . . . is not an easy one.

I am glad your husband was able to provide a space where it worked out.