Blind Prophecy

Yesterday, in between burritos and book-shopping and bars, Jennifer and Daniel and I stopped by to see the Cardboard Robot Rumble. I’m starting to think a lot of San Francisco’s greatest “only in San Francisco” stuff is a result of people sitting around, smoking the weed, and saying, “you know what used to really fun when I was 8?” Anyway, the Cardboard Robot Rumble was hilarious. I had fun making up 300-style dialogue for the robots (Madness? This is Roboto!).

All 71 pics

I haven’t updated on books lately. I’ve been reading quite a bit.

Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Pahalniuk. Contains many of the same Pahalniuk elements we know and love – the small personal story that incorporates just a bit of mysticism that ends up dramatically altering society and causing chaos. Told in the style of a post-mortem biography, Rant Casey is probably “patient zero” in a plague of super-resistant rabies that has reshaped society as we know it in the not-too-distant-future. Entertaining, smart, riddled with Pahalniuk’s hyper-masculinity, the book has some great insights about culture and modern man’s need to connect with the world in visceral way. I also learned more than I ever wanted to know about the way the human body responds to black widow bites and other types of venom.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. Synchronicity, apparently, becaue where Rant talks about werewolves as an interpretation of rabies, Peeps presents vampirism as nothing more mystical than a parasitic virus that alters your brain chemistry to create the kind of reactions seen in historical myth on vampires, but there’s no flying or shape-shifting or coffins. When you consider that I also saw 28 Weeks Later last week, it was a perfect trifecta of supernatural-event-explained-by-virus. Anyway, Peeps is technically a “young adults” style of novel and it’s a thinly-veiled warning about STDs, not terribly deep but a fun light read with an interesting take on why vampires might exist (and it’s more than just as hosts for a virus).

Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton. Yeah, I know I’ve supposedly sworn off the Anita Blake books, but I was desperate for something to read (I didn’t have anything on hand), and a realization struck me… I’ve been upset because the series started out with such potential and great stories and has deteriorated into smut. But after 13 books, I feel invested enough in the characters to keep reading. So, no guilt, but no expectations either. Anyway, Danse Macabre has a typical Anita Blake plot… badass vampires are visiting town and Anita has to fuck more monsters than ever to control her exponentially expanding powers. The uber-vampires in Europe mess with her from a distance, various lovers get pouty, Richard acts like a dick, and Anita realizes she’s not as prudish as she used to be. Sadly, Anita doesn’t kill anything in this book. I really wish she’d have a story where she has to solve a mystery and shoot a monster again. On the plus side, Anita is finally dealing with her homophobic impulses and the men in Anita’s life might finally get to start having fun with each other.

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle. A fine read, but started off slowly. A man who lives in a cemetary and talks to ghosts learns what it means to be alive. A love story. It had some really nice moments, but I had a really hard time staying engaged in this story. I’m not sure if that was the story itself failing to capture my imagination, or outside distractions like birthday week.

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano. I just started this one, but it’s really very fascinating. The author has already opened my eyes to a lot of my own biases and assumptions – things I’d never been aware of before – and lays out one of the best arguments for the common fight between gays and lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people, feminists, etc. She lays out a great case for explaining how heterosexism, sexism, biphobia, transphobia, etc. are all symptoms of a bigger problem, oppositional sexism (the idea that male/masculine/maleness is “opposite” and non-overlapping with female/feminine/femaleness – and that this is the “natural” and “right” order of things) combined with the negative associations about feminity (even among feminists). As a biologist and a trans woman, the author cuts through a lot of the debate based on extreme positions claiming gender expression is all about biology/hormones versus those who think gender expression (especially gender expression of feminity) is purely social construct. She argues, rather brilliantly, that while there are biological differences and influences on gender, our oppositional sexist society has a tendency to amplify and codify these difference rather than accept them as simply expressions on a continuum. Seriously, anyone who calls themselves a feminist or queer activist ought to read this book.

And one movie report…
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I had so many opportunities to see this movie while I was working at Sundance, but I thought it sounded overhyped at least a month before 99.9% of most people had ever heard of it (that comes from having to edit the write-ups coming from the Sundance programming staff). Anyway, it finally rose to the top of my netflix list, and I liked it well enough. I wasn’t completely blown away (in fact, I thought the screenplay was rather predictable and self-indulgent), but had some nice sentiment and great acting, awesome direction, and intense production values.

Today is a totally lazy day. I think I’ll go hunting and gathering for food in a bit, but I’m not up to any more big adventures this week. Next week we&’re talking about doing the Grease sing-a-long at Castro Theater. Two weeks until the opening of Fantastic Four 2. Also, I got an Amazon gift certificate from my sister, so I ordered Shortbus and pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book.

Filed under: books, livejournal, movies by Jere Keys