juushika

It's the right time of year for Practical Magic* but it's no longer on Netflix and the disc I usually watch was borrowed from Dev's mother and thus did not make the move with us. So I glanced at the local library collection to see if they had it on shelves—and they don't (maybe I'll put a hold on it), but that act of glancing made a lightbulb go off in my brain:

I can ... get movies that Netflix doesn't have & which I don't want to buy ... from the library....

I knew this but did not internalize it until I did the thing. I tend to find the pacing of shows more accessible than films, and I'd rather read than either, so I don't watch a lot of movies or want to. But I have wanted to catch up on a few that speak to my niche interests, so play "spot the trend."


The Shape of Water, film, 2017, dir. Guillermo del Toro
On one hand I value that we can imagine monster-romance in terms only slightly weirder than any starcrossed/cultural-divide romance; there's power in normalizing and subverting the otherness of the Other. ...But also this is so unchallenging as to be bland: hammy antagonists; a monster almost without danger (would that the "danger" scene were anything other than ( spoiler ), because a) it's poorly handled, tonally and b) I knew it was coming & wasn't okay with it, so skipped past it, which removed what little danger does exist); it's insufficiently weird where ramping up the weirdness would compliment the theme of acceptance. There will one day be a del Toro movie that, like Pan's Labyrinth, I love rather than only admiring, and this wasn't it.

Venom, film, 2018, dir. Ruben Fleischer
This is what I wanted The Shape of Water to be, although it absolutely wants for the former's diversity and explicit text rather than romcom subtext (although it does has some Woke touches/trope subversions which I appreciate, like a male protagonist not owed access to his love interest). But what a delight! and this from someone with no interest in Marvel, comedy, or action. The first third is plot-heavy and slow, but the symbiont dynamic is the meat of the movie and has danger, weirdness, and chemistry. Danger-to-humans is a better route—it should have higher stakes, but it's more familiar and less squicky; not-quite-cannibalism reintroduces the squick and keeps things productively weird. The dark humor is what rides the action/buddy/romcom edge, and Tom Hardy is really gross (in a productive, good acting way) as Eddie and incredible as Venom's voice. The CGI is a lot, and inevitable, but killed things for me a bit: I couldn't ground myself in the action where 95% of what's on screen is digital, and there's Eddie/Venom convos where all I could think of was "Dobby was a tennis ball on a stick and it sure must be hard to make eye-contact with that." I have nitpicks, it's a trash movie, but this trash was made for me. Thank you for my trash, Marvel.


Further #monsterfucker films to add to my list seem surprisingly thin on the ground? I had the impression that this was a huge trend when by the time Venom came out, but in retrospect I suspect that was mostly a Shape of Water/It/Venom overlap, which feels like a lot in a short period but is not a lot cumulatively. And on the subject of It: I adore Bill Skarsgård but hate that damn book and also clowns, so no thank you, and more pertinently I feel like that was less "conversations about sexy Otherness" and more "society sexualizes white male actors/characters with no regard for their actual narrative role." Similarly, while anything with monsters is monsterfucker material if you try hard enough, it's that "conversations about sexy Otherness" that I want. :(

But I do have unrelated things on my list, and things to watch with Devon!


* Which is not Halloween-inappropriate, but is definitely best suited for summer. (And takes place sometime after the summer solstice! And has that dialog line about "early for roses" which tries to muddy the timeline as June-ish is rose season, but let's attribute that to a script writing error and/or the wibbly wobbly timey wimey effects of long summer days and also magic.)

August recently recovered from a five-day stint with the cat flu. It conformed exactly to expectations re: symptoms and recovery (she had a clear runny eye and nostril, just on her right side; some sneezing and squinting, but no breathing problems; mild decrease in activity but no decrease in appetite); it was still unenjoyable. I made a successful effort not to provide any contagious anxiety, because something like stress/going off her food could've lead to legitimately dangerous complications. And her vague self-pity and head-shake sprinkles of tears and snot were cute, in a gross way. But she's my baby and my lifeline, and I live in terror of anything bad happening to her ever. I'm glad it's behind us.

(Dee and I have no idea how she got sick! All the cats are indoor-only; August has limited physical contact with the other cats and zero contact with the dog (who obviously does go outside). None of the other cats have gotten sick. The windows have been open and we've had visiting porch cats, and that seems like the only possible vector: virus via early-summer open windows.)

* * *

My last set of overlapping books included a Le Guin (and is there anything more satisfying than Le Guin, than the strength of her language, the plot-wide influence of her worldbuilding elements); a revisit of my favorite short story of all time, Kelley Eskridge's "Eye of the Storm;" and Anne of Green Gables, a childhood favorite that I haven't reread in at least 15 years and which is remains just so delightful. It's been a decided upswing after a brief series of mediocre books.

I spent this afternoon in bed, just having finished the first and a story adjacent to the second, reading the third. August climbed under the blankets with me and lay down on my chest, and we took a nap together in an idyllic setting which echoes Green Gables: my computer was turned off, my blinds down; the room lit by diffused white light and the day cool for June; sleeping atop freshly-laundered sheets. Echoes Green Gables in specific not at all, but in that atmosphere, of finding the best of a thing; of making space and time to daydream. August's whiskers on my face brought me in and out of sleep for an hour until I finally got up to make dinner.

I have a lot of sleep issues, split equally between anxiety and back pain, which means I effectively never nap—it happens about three or four times a year, generally on accident. Pleasant when it occurs (if it doesn't fuck up my back), but not something I can do on purpose, because sleep is a carefully coordinated effort that I only have the energy for once a day.

It's one of the things I envy most in my cats, but sometimes, just sometimes, August shares it with me.

Provided in bulk to cut down on spam. I am so behind in book reviews, as in all things. I've been quiet and I had some things going on around my birthday, and as soon as I was ready to write again I was hit by a few (ongoing, but today I'm stubborn, fed up, and working to spite it) days of unremitting back pain that medication just will not touch. But I've been reading a lot, and have more to read, and have been writing my notes in a fresh, new, larger Moleskine—5x8 inch; my last two were 3x5 inch, and there are benefits to both, but this larger size is so much easier to structure and to hold, and I'd forgotten how much I like it; summer is most definitely winding to a close, and I know because it rained today and Dee and I took Odi walking in it; I want to at least pretend to turn all that into some sort of record before the month is up. Ergo:


Title: The Geek Feminist Revolution
Author: Kameron Hurley
Published: New York: Tor, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 200,115
Text Number: 590
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A collection of short essays, most harvested from blog posts, about intersectional feminism within literature, media, and other geek spheres. This intersectionality is intentional, valuable, and imperfect—I wish it stretched to include mental illness, which is instead equated to bigotry in problematic ways. But on the whole, this is a step above white feminism or feminism 101, although it fails to say anything truly revolutionary. I'm not sold on the tone: anger is a valid and valuable tool, but the swearing combined with the repetitive style and content smacks of what it is: blog posts, edited but still informal and unrefined. I appreciate the intent of this collection, but as a published work I don't think it's particularly successful.


Title: Sword of Destiny (The Witcher Book 2)
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
Translator: David French
Published: London: Orbit, 2015 (1992)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 200,495
Text Number: 591
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Six short stories, largely chronicling the dissolution of Geralt's relationship with Yennefer and his first interactions with Ciri. This collection is less enjoyable than The Last Wish, mostly because it has a slow start—"The Bounds of Reason" and "Eternal Flame" ("petty politics instead of dragons" and "a comedy of financial errors," respectively) in particular run overlong. It's also, arguably, braver, offering more in the way of overarching plot, reoccurring characters, and a dense emotional register. But that last is a strange: the gritty, crude worldbuilding grates against the persistent coyness of Geralt's emotions and even his actions. His character could be profound—but the production of profundity grows tiresome.

And the sexism, in the worldbuilding and the narrative, of course persists; that Yennefer's infertility is her sole motivation is predictable and simplistic. Again, in contrast, the female character themselves are complicated and strong, especially willful child Ciri—she's lovely in the title story, which also offers complex, solid worldbuilding and an evocative atmosphere.

I will continue these, and look forward to starting the novels proper. But I can't recommend this collection and, oh, does this series have problems.


Title: Cold Fire (The Circle Opens Book 3)
Author: Tamora Pierce
Published: New York: Scolastic, 2011 (2002)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 200,845
Text Number: 592
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Daja and Frostpine are working in the snowy city of Kugisko when a rash of devastating fires breaks out. The structure of this quartet remains formulaic, but this installment is surprisingly good. The setting, fire against snow in a well-defined woodworked city, is evocative; the plot is simplistic but the characters are not—gracelessly in the antagonist's case, but the supporting cast is strong. The nostalgia is toned down and the themes of maturation are less clear-cut, which gives Daja room to shine instead of slotting her into the series's formula. I still don't love this quartet, but this is one of its better installments.

I was lying down and petting Gillian, curled up by the window at the foot of my bed, and there was this lovely, spicy scent. Then I realized that we were right by my bookself, which is where I put the last BPAL scent I wore, a month or two ago: Inez (golden amber, vanilla musk, myrrh, cedar, carnation, and red sandalwood). Needless to say, I now have a spicy, honeyed scent. I haven't worn many scents lately; I go through phases with it, as all things. But the time away makes me more receptive when I return; I'm not tuning out the tendrils of scent, but rather keep catching them, that sweetness, that resinous base and dryness. I usually wear Morocco when it's warm and Inez when it's cold, as both are resinous carnations but Morocco is a lighter, thinner scent and Inez has a marshmallow thickness, more bodied and palpable, which can be cloying. But today, unseasonably warm but still spring, it suits.

I hate summer, I hate sun and heat, but I also try to live in each season as it comes—I like to be cold in the winter rather than blasting the heat, I consume media during the seasons in which they're set; as a result, the seasons develop atmospheres, associations, identities. I've gotten good at summer: fostering crossbreezes, turning off my computer tower, savoring the brief dark respite of night; summer and I have grown intimate. I don't look forward to it coming, but I'm so keenly aware of what it is that these warm days have a strange since of nostalgia. I can't convince my brain that knowing and not-quite-having something isn't necessarily the same as missing it!

August's one-year-here anniversary passed without fuss—as it's the day before the 4th of July it was difficult to forget, but arbitrary dates still are arbitrary so I didn't pay it much mind. But in its way, it's a fantastical, gigantic thing that I have this cat; that I've had her for over a year, now. I feel like I've already said everything I can about the ways in which she's changed me. When I got a cat I knew it would be a change, and that's what I was there for: one life-changing experience, sign me up. A dog, we've found, is a large change, a day-to-day behavioral change (especially for Dee, goodness knows); a cat is smaller. They don't require daily walks or need to learn commands; they become a presence in the house, your life, and your bed. But that, still, is huge—especially for me.

So it's too much and too little, when I write about her—about how I love her every time my heart beats, about how she's filled a void in my soul, about how this cat is my favorite, my favorite thing ever, favorite being ever, my dearest love. It's melodramatic (as I tend to be), and gracefully overlooks the fact that she poops in a litterbox and breaks into any plastic-wrapped ANYTHING left ANYWHERE and annoys the everloving shit out of me for a minimum hour before each of her meals, and it's accurate—as accurate as I ever could be in telling you about my cat.

It's 90 degrees here today. I hate summer, we know, but this one hasn't been nearly as soul-destroying as last year—it's been more mild more often, and we better know how to cope with heat in this house (for my room, that means: crossbreeze. crossbreeze. no really: open the damn windows, all of them, yes.), and in a way I'm embracing this summer—reading summer books, tolerating with the warm weather—not for the sake of summer itself but so that when autumn and the rains come they will seem all the more glorious.

90 degrees, and August is stretched on my bed as drowsy and pliant as any cat could be, and I love her. I would rather love her than do or be or have almost anything. I would rather have her in my life than likewise. There's a steady breeze, and we've passed the magical time of day—5p—when the temperature goes from rising to falling. She'll curl up more as the temperature drops, she'll move from lying flat on my bed to sitting on her microfleece blanket, and she will always be perfect.

One year, guys.

Have some pictures.



( +3 )

Dear Universe,

I think that's the best addressee. With these things, it's hard to be sure. Lately, the warm muggy weather finally broke; it's been wet and cool outside, almost too cold, and last night I had to nudge the window almost shut and the cat slept curled against me and half under my blankets.

So my request is that, perhaps, I wake up tomorrow and it's September. I would love nothing more than to just skip over summer. I know it's not a particularly reasonable request, and there'd be all sorts of awful consequences for the flora and the harvest—but if it could be done somehow, then I'd really like to do it. I'm okay skipping only as far as September 1st: I could survive a lingering week or two of hot weather. It's three months of it that I'd rather do without, especially in the face of the beauty that's been outside my window the last two days. I don't want to give that up.

So let me know how that sounds, yeah?

Hopefully,
—Juu

Kitty under my chair.

August has discovered the magic of microfleece blankets. I'm not horribly surprised—Madison goes crazy for them, she'll kneed and suckle on them like some replacement mother; August just kneeds and ... puts her nose one the fabric. It's like she's not sure why her nose and mouth need to touch it, she doesn't drool or suckle at all, but they have to be there or the experience isn't quite complete. Honestly it's like she's not sure why any of it has to happen at all—she gets this look of WHY AM I KNEEDING PLEASE SEND HELP that morphs into NEVERMIND TOO COMFORTABLE PLEASE GO AWAY. Kitten loves her blanket.

Not that it's her blanket. Boy is using it over his long weekend here, and then it'll return to the living room because my dirty little secret is that the freakishly soft feel of that fabric makes my skin crawl. Said blanket has been necessary for the weekend, however, because we hit the sweet spot in this week of remarkable, overcast, cool summer weather: Rain. Buckets of rain. It's pouring now and has been pouring all day, hours of it, I fell asleep to the sound of heavy rain and woke to find it even heavier. All of this unseasonal coolness has been welcome—seriously, Dee and I won't stop talking about the weather—but this rain, it feels too good. It's perfect. It makes me long for autumn as if it weren't already here—because I know well enough that it's not: this weather can't last forever, and now that it's had its grand finale it'll probably pass. I've come to embrace summer in the last few years, as I've learned the art of sleeping in sunlight (and since Boy has an air conditioner in his room), but this is my weather and my home: the sound of rain, the gray sky and silverblue light, the cool humidity, the cold breezes, long sleeves and blankets and a sudden craving for warm food covered in cheese. It hurts me a little to know that after this will be many more weeks of heat—not that the heat has been bad this summer, and we've found all the little tricks for coping with it, but ah, this weather. I want it to last forever.

Devon's visit has been fantastic. He got here Thursday night, and leaves this evening—we've been doing four or five days together every two weeks, which seems to work out wonderfully: the longer visits are more relaxed and fulfilling, and the weeks off give us more time to engage in our own local lives. This weekend's weather has me in the mood for books, sleep, and staying in, so we're thoroughly wasting our time away with a marathon of the original American McGee's Alice, and it's perfect. We're sleeping when we want to sleep, sometimes at night but also to the sound of the rain during the day; we have the windows half open and most people would think it's way too cold in here but that just makes the snuggling even better.

You may have noticed at some point that sleep and I are not particularly good friends—but August has me napping at all hours, these days. We curl up for a cuddle and sometimes when she drifts off, so do I. That, like this casual non-schedule that Devon and I have had this weekend, feels surprisingly natural. It embraces my preference for sleeping in sunlight and the fact that I wake up so often that pretending to get a solid chunk of sleep is foolishness, and it dismisses so many of the anxieties that make sleep difficult—like the simple expectation that I'll sleep now, for this long, and then be awake and engaged with the world. As a result of course I'm less engaged, but...

Basically, August is teaching me to be a cat. Some of it already there, in little realizations that tickle me—like when we watch out the window together and we both perk at the same sound or movement. But my sleep issues are one of the hallmarks of the disconnect between my self-as-human and self-as-cat, and so this.... Well, back in that post I wrote, "A cat that can't catnap hardly feels a cat at all." And now, sometimes, we catch a bit of sleep in the sunlight for no reason at all other than the fact that the bed feels nice. There's that argument in the therianthropy community about nature and nurture—if this identification is innate, or if it changes and grows; if it's inherent nature, of if it's tainted by affectation. It makes me feel like something of a charlatan that so much of my personal experiences are about the disconnect between my human and cat identities, and therefore about (re)learning mentalities and behaviors—not because they're not mine, but because I get in my own way where they're concerned. And for all that anxiety I still don't give a flying fuck how it might be perceived, because these little lessons, these little naps, make me so happy.

So it's been a pretty nice long weekend, I guess is what I'm saying.

What with this overcast cool weather, I feel like we've taken a step back in time to 1816: the year without a summer, and I am in the mood for books to fit such wonderfully dark days. And in that vein would you please to:

Recommend gothic novels. That delicious sort of horror, rich with atmosphere. I have most of the classics on my TBR list already, but do please mention your favorites—personal recommendations carry weight. I'd also love recommendations for modern gothic lit, novels one may not expect to fit the genre, southern gothic, subversive gothic—anything which I may not have yet discovered.

And/or recommend Halloween-ready books. No real definition here—but texts from Poe to Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, vampires or werewolves or ghosts or none of the above, be they horror or haunting or darkly festive, whether or not they're set at Halloween, I'm looking for the sort of fearful pleasures one would curl up with in late October. Books meant to be as frightening—yet enjoyable—as we want Halloween to be. Because this weather has me feeling we've already skipped ahead to autumn!

And thank you.

( For what it's worth, my personal recommendations. )

Crossposted to bookish