Danielle Reviews

So...with the new developments in Gunnerkrigg Court do I rescind my theory that Coyote is the Forest?  Nope.  In fact, if you’ll recall that I closed out the mini essay by saying “ANNIE IS COYOTE EVERYONE IS COYOTE!” 

See, I was going to do a part 2 of this theory working out some thoughts about what Kat is, and what The Court might be, but I think that’ll have to wait considering the escalating “Holy crap!” incidents in recent chapters.  

Let’s start with dividing Antimony in half and what the hell that could mean.  Now, because it’s been a while since I’ve felt like doing content I haven’t done my research to see what other current theories people are throwing around and this might not be as thorough as it could be.

https://biblehub.com/matthew/23-27.htmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wine_into_Old_WineskinsSo for Music Monday (which isn’t a thing - or is it!)  I got my favorite New Year’s song - which isn’t a thing but yeah - New Years Eve by Five Iron Frenzy.  

To be honest almost all the music I like tends towards some level 11 morose and Five Iron Frenzy are some A+ Christian Ska Punk Sad Boys - which is also not a thing but you know.  Pretty much every year it’s like the song I got stuck in my head (except for the end of 2017/2018 when it was the beginning of Binary for : If “hope springs eternal” it never did here / guess I lost all my Hope last year” which is in fact a reference to the political situation by me, thank you and oh wait that’s a tangent)

Cut for Tumblr messing up my formatting every time I try to save and edit I Swear this godforsaken website is going to drive me to youtube.

So I went to the apparently poorly marketed Jim Henson Holiday Special in the theater last night.  Like on a whim.  There was pretty much no one else in the theater.  It was a double feature of Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas and The Bells of Fraggle Rock.

I’m probably glad there was no one else in the theater to hear me snort when Gobo says “I FOUND IT” after Wembley pointed out the bell-shaped cave on the map.  Also, he almost kills all his friends.

DID YOU THINK I HAD FORGOTTEN?  DID YOU THINK I HAD FORGIVEN?

Anyway, I did a whole shakedown on The Bells of Fraggle Rock and why it’s really good and you should watch it way back, let’s talk instead about the enduring power of a dorky show called Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas.  

I watched this show a few times as a kid and liked it because funny animals and songs.  But there’s something about it that sticks with you when other things might have faded - I mean not gonna lie I was a dumbass kid who liked a lot of stupid shows.

But there’s something charming about the show - the real emotion.  You can almost overlook that Pa Otter is a serious deadbeat and that noble poverty stuff kinda rubs me the wrong way (disclosure: having deadbeat parents and growing up poorer didn’t make them good people.)

Let’s be honest, now, the real reason that everyone remembers Emmet Otters Jugband Christmas is these assholes:

These guys are a perfect part of the show in ways that you probably don’t get as a child.

For one thing they’re “antagonists” that don’t do anything besides be kind of rude to our protagonists.  They’re rough with someone’s shop, they’re mean to Kermit the Frog, but what’s the worst they do to Emmet and his friends?  They’re kind of rude.  That’s it.

And they win the talent contest.

They win it by rights, not cheating as these things sometimes go.  They win and the contest stays won.   The protagonists mostly just don’t matter to these guys who are going though the story on their own terms.

 And that’s one reason I think the story endures.  Sometimes...you can do your best and that best can be really really good and things still don’t work out perfectly.  Sometimes there isn’t a grand good vs evil throwdown and sometimes assholes “win.”  But if you pick yourself up and you try your best maybe you’ll find something different.  Maybe it’ll be better, and maybe it won’t.  

Ma and Emmet get a job, it’s doing something they love but it is a job working for someone else.  Pa Otter’s ideals may have given them the kick to take risks, but their own hard work ethic and love for each other got them a good opportunity.  The risk got them out there, but it also almost ruined them.  Endurance and love won the day.  That’s something that sticks with a person where a simple “win” might have made the story fade.  

I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while.  Twilight has unquestionably ended up in the category of “culturally relevant” and I’ve been on board the “your hand-wringing over the role models in this book seems suspect if you don’t do the same for media aimed at men” camp.  So when the talented Lindsay Ellis did a video essay on that subject I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet.

It’s...not that bad.  I would read all of Twilight before I ever read anything by Heinlein again.  

A lot of it depends on whether Twilight is your “poison” so to speak.  It’s a specific genre that isn’t usually meant for men, so I understand men not being drawn to the book or even finding it off putting.  I find certain tropes that end up in male writing off-putting. And not just sexism. (For example your Scalzi, Brandon Sanderson, Andy Weir, and their insufferable “I’m so much smarter than my genre tropes” writing that makes me want to punch them in the goddamn teeth.  ...and I LIKE Sanderson.)

I do read other young adult novels aimed at young women, even ones that take place in high school, and so I have some tolerance for Twilight’s brand of tropes.  So the base book is something I can stomach but isn’t something that men are generally exposed to.

On the other hand it didn’t really draw me in like a better book would.  Most of the time when I read a book that’s good, or even compelling, I can’t put it down and want to keep reading it.  I had zero trouble walking away from Twilight until my checkout was almost expired.

I’m going to be “coming back” officially like soon from my unofficial hiatus and 2017 sucks funk.  (Ugh it’s over now but I don’t feel better.)

But I feel I have to say something.  Just a little something. 

When I was young, and unhappy I read and reread the Earthsea trilogy.  Especially the Tombs of Atuan.  The idea of being a young high priestess with her own secret underground world really appealed to me.  A place just my own, the power to punish those who’d wrong me, there was a part of me that was very sad that she was “rescued” from this life in the end.

Now, of course, there was more to it than that and I realized it even at the time.  But the dark secret place stuck with me.  And though I’ve grown up and read more of her books, the famous and serious ones, the important ones.  That feelings of beautiful, lonely, melancholy is still what I think of when I think of her work.  

I’ve never blamed authors like Octavia Butler or  Margaret Atwood for distancing themselves from the label of “science fiction” because there has been (and continues to be) a lot of hostility towards women who write science fiction - who consume science fiction.  If the gatekeepers want them out, how dare we try to insist they belong here when they write something wonderful.

In college I went through several lit classes that used Norton Anthologies, and only recently did they add a section on “speculative fiction” and one of the very few selections was by LeGuin.  There was some discussion in one of these classes on what is the “literary canon” and who decides it.  Some gatekeepers want women out.  But LeGuin was one of the authors who elevated the genre.  

Go see Coco. It was beautiful and very engaging.  You should go see it.  The pacing is great, doesn’t feel like it drags. 

I make it no secret that I live in Arizona, but I wasn’t born there.  So I can’t speak as much on the accuracy or not of the Day of the Dead aspects.  I have been to local exhibits about it, and the imagery seems familiar but it’s not something I’m intimately familiar with.

And the imagery is where it stands out.  There’s a real sense of wonder in the Land of the Dead.  The character designs there were amazing, and great verbal and sight gags throughout.

To address the elephant in the room : it’s not really that much like Book of Life at all. 

There were just a couple things that were disappointing.  

Nooooooow let’s talk about those things....

WITH SPOILERS!

So...I survived hurricane Irma.  My first summer vacation was to Tampa.  That was...exciting.  

And then we barely made it through London Heathrow and apparently a hurricane was hot on our tails.

You know it managed to hurricane on me in the desert like two years ago?  Frickin’ Norbert.

Anyway.  ALL THE MOVIES I WATCHED ON THE PLANE.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

I thought it was better than the first one in a lot of ways.  I think that Lindsay Ellis said everything better than I ever could.   

My Cousin Rachel

Ooooh mystery and sexism.  Not bad. But not really my style.

Alien Covenant

The bad thing about having to do Freudian analysis exercises for lit class is that I can’t help but think that Ridley Scott really wants to suck a dude’s dick but feels really uncomfortable about that fact.

Kung Fu Panda

Wow, I really missed out not watching this sooner, this was pretty funny.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I liked this one though it did seem just a liiiiitle long.

I tried to watch the new Mummy movie but the machine didn’t want to let me.

Four episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine so now I went and borrowed the first three seasons from the library. 

Rewatched Deadpool

“They were good men, he says bitterly. They aren't bad men. You don't know what bad means. You did it to them, you broke them down. You made them do crazy things. Was it interesting? Did you learn enough?” His voice is trying to shake. “Everybody has aggressive fantasies. They didn't act on them. Never. Until you poisoned them.”

They gaze at him in silence. “But nobody does,” Connie says finally. “I mean, the fantasies.”

“They were good men,” Lorimer repeats elegiacally.

It’s been bouncing around my head for a while that James Tiptree Jr.’s “Houston Houston, Do You Read?” is a really great short story and you should read it.  For my monthly book club we recently read the collection of short stories “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.”  It’s a great collection, highly recommended.  But the individual story can be found here, and as an audio drama on The Internet Archive (It’s #17).  

Read it now there are spoilers in the next paragraph.

The plot is briefly that a mission from the early space program goes wrong and the men go through some type of time distortion and end up in the future.  They are picked up by a ship full of women.  And they come to find out that there are no men left on earth.  They don’t take it well.

The lead quote is from the end of the story and really stuck in me.  The repetition of “They were good men.”  

One of these good men tried to rape a woman.  One of these good men tried to take over the ship and kill people because women ruling themselves offends him religiously and personally.

We hear again and again the things “good men” do.  This isn’t a comment on any particular incident - this has stuck in my head since April, I’ve had this draft started for weeks.  You can’t go very long before someone, somewhere, some “good man” has done something harmful to women.  

A man can be a good man -  to men - and it doesn’t say anything about how he it to women.  There’s another line at the end:  

“what do you call yourselves? Women's World? Liberation? Amazonia?

“Why, we call ourselves human beings.” Her eyes twinkle absently at him, go back to the bullet marks. “Humanity, mankind. She shrugs. The human race.

Which illustrates the problem : woman is other.  Man is human woman is...something else.  The way the men talk about women in the story is masterful at illustrating this : bantam hen, chicks, space bunnies, bees, ants.  Dehumanizing.  And we see inside the head of the “good man” the one who “sides” with them.  Even he is disdainful of women, doesn’t like talking to them, thinks of raping  them and tying them up, taking the ship from them.

“Good men.”

I guess you could argue that they are drugged and not responsible for their actions.  But before they are drugged they don’t want to believe in a ship full of women, before they are drugged the Captain says he’d hit them to punish them if they were his daughter, before they are drugged the captain brings up the subject of rape “ I guarantee the conduct of my crew provided you can control yours.”  “Provided you can control yours.” 

The drugs don’t make them what they aren’t.   

You hear this excuse a lot : it was a different time.  You might read me being terribly unforgiving to shows from my childhood when they’re sexist or racist or otherwise badly behaved.  An insidious way to excuse horrendous behavior - and to keep it spreading - is to minimize it under the excuse of “it was a different time.”  I’m not saying we should not read or watch old material, but let’s call bad what’s bad and not try and forgive bullshit.  

This is pretty funny.

The scenes with the werewolves are some of my favorites.

Just really cute.

In which awkwardness reaches dangerous levels.

I know I should be taking this seriously but I’ve been marathoning X Files and the dissonantly cheerful music now feels inexorably tied that thing they were going in Season 5&6 -

-oh DEER!

Slow burn horror movies are my favorite and this is amazing.  

I’m not even sure I’m qualified to speak on how great this is.  

AAAH THE PHOTOS IN THE CLOSET.  AAAH AAH AAH.

Oh this is classic!

I love the sunken place imagery.

Hmm, could do without the flashbacks to the foreshadowing.  Minorest of quibbles though.

Oh man holy shit.

In which a kid really needs therapy.

The little lights/eyes in the tree is great.  

Mmm...we got us some fantastic.  

I love all the appropriate stuff on the TV.

Seriously though if she would have gone and reached out at the very first and said “yes, this is all more than I can handle”  things would have -

-HOLY SHIT THE DOG

Problem with horror movies is there’s a finer line  between scary and goofy than we like to think.  

Uhm. ‘k.

See, yeah, she needed to acknowledge it to disempower it making it a metaphor for mental illness and the feelings of being overwhelmed and helplessness she’s had since her husband died.

Ppppfffaaahahahaha “My cousin’s not coming because I broke her nose in two places.”

So it still lives in the basement because it’ll always be a problem but blahblah overcoming it. 

Tl;dr : No movie is perfect but this is one of my favorite serious superhero movies ever.  

This movie was a great time.  I’ll even - for once - forgive the gray hue of the film in man’s world since it serves in contrast to Themyscira.  I enjoyed Gal Gadot (tall ladies represent!) and thought that she was completely charming.  Dr. Poison is my favorite villain in like forever.  Great look, great menace.  

Spoilers and more detailed thoughts below.

I LIVE!  Excuses are boring, let’s get right back to work.

 I ended up liking X Files.  Well, I “like” X Files in the “this is something I like to watch but also like to claim I don’t like to watch.”  It helped when I learned that a lot of people I know also find the myth arc episodes to be weaker.

So, I was GOING to do a “pre movie” set of my favorite X Files episodes, and then if I made it through the series then maybe a second set.  HOWEVER Netflix decided that I was done watching X Files a few episodes shy of the end of Season 5.  

Let’s go!

Number 10:  Kill Switch

I don’t think that Kill Switch is one of the best episodes of the show, but it’s one that I enjoyed a lot because of my own preference towards tragic AI and ambiguous endings.  Some of it is too dorky and I’m not sure I consider it a really “good” episode, but it’s one that I especially enjoyed.

Number 9: War of the Corprophages

Is pretty much here for that one effect.  You know the one.  Crawling on my screen.  *shudder*  Also, though, a lot of interesting fakeouts in this one. Usually that’s kind of frustrating but I thought it was compelling how they unwrapped this one. I’m not a fan of “jealous Scully” episodes, though.

Number 8:   Ice

Yes, yes, it is another rehash of “Who Goes There?” / The Thing but I think that they did a good job.  This episode was one of the first ones that I sat still and actually watched.  Before that I would just kind of “let it run” while I wander around.

Number 7:  Die Hand Die Verletzt

An interesting episode in that it subverts your “small town” expectations.  Also your cultist expectations.  X-Files is nominally about searching for truth but the truth can be elusive when dealing with repressed memories, false memories, and satanic cults.  Creepy without being too gory.  

Number 6: Piper Maru & Apocrypha

One of the few “Myth Arc” duology episodes that I enjoyed.  The black oil arc in general was one of the more tolerable parts of the “myth arc.” And I appreciate the reintroduction of Krycek.  This one also seems like it could stack “on top” of the tangled conspiracies rather than supplant them like some others tried to “it’s aliens!” “no it’s genetic engineering!”  “No it’s false memories!” Until you don’t care anymore.  Black oil has such a visceral impact - genuinely unsettling.  

Number 5: Unusual Suspects

An interesting opportunity to flesh out The Lone Gunmen some with great use of Mulder as a side character.  Funny without being too corny.  Sometimes elaborating on interesting side characters kills the charm, but I think that this did the opposite for me.  

Number 4: Humbug

This is one was one of my first real favorites.  There was some good humor here, and some effective use of the characters.  Scully eating the cricket (real or not) is a good highlight.  Mulder jokingly hitting on the hotel proprietor.  And the sideshow actors get their own good lines “Imagine, going through your whole life looking like that.”  

Number 3: Paper Hearts

Probably kind of a weird episode to be on a favorite list, but I have weird tastes.  I mean, we KNOW that the episode is going to come to nothing, but this episode is a great examination of Mulder’s character.  While I’m not the biggest Mulder fan Duchovny does a great job here going through a huge range of emotions.  And just the plot idea - what if Mulder has replaced one terrible terrible event with another one in his mind.  What happens if you replaced banal and sick and human evil with a grand dramatic conspiracy.  And Mulder is just as obsessed and just as rules breaking and just as careless with people as he ever was.  It kind of puts into light just how great the collateral damage can be when the collateral damage is potentially a little girl.  Great character exploration.

Number 2: Bad Blood 

If you can glance down and look at number one you might see why this episode would be number two.  I enjoyed the she-said he-said aspect.  I enjoyed the vampires just trying to get by and living in a trailer park.  Loved the “I WAS DRUGGED!” joke.  Duchovny and Anderson did a great job switching up the acting but still being in character.  It was so much fun.

Number 1: Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”

It’s a working title.  IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.  (Oh god I’m so sorry my brain is too scattered to read Lacan for you lately and it’s finally time it really is.)

1. My Mom by Eminem - Not my faaaavorite song because abusive hypercritical moms who jump down your neck for every little thing are why I have trouble with singing stuff that doesn’t literally apply to me.  And I’ve never done drugs.  Unlike my mom.   

2. I Don’t Care by Apocalyptica ft. Adom Gontier - No no, not the music video version.  The version with profanity.  “I’m getting tired of this shit, I got no room when it’s like this, what you want of me just deal with it.”  There we go, there’s the right emotional level.

3. The Outside by Red - “What if you were always wrong - and what if I said I knew it all along?”  I could write a half an essay on why this is like the best song for people disaffected with their family.  

Disaffected by?  Moving on.

4. A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley - “And your mother’s still calling you insane, and high, swearing it’s different this time / And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her and that God never blessed her inside”  Can you believe that Rilo Kiley is a “them” like Pink Floyd?  That still gets to me, it really does.

5. Small Town Trap by Eve 6 - I grew up in a town of 5000 people that was a total amoral shithole.  Kind of more evocative of a general “this is what I have overcome” than to this specific and immediate situation.

6. Mama Who Bore Me from Spring Awakening - “Mama who gave me no way to handle things who made me so bad.”  Did you know my grandma died?  She was by all accounts a terrible parent, too.  Not that my mom learned anything but “at least you don’t have it as bad so you should be grateful.”  Fine, you win, “cool motive still murder.”

7. I Will Not Bow by Breaking Benjamin - “I will not bow, I will not break I will shut the world away. / I will not fall, I will not fade I will take your breath away. And I’ll survive - paranoid.  I have lost the will to change.”  I find this song oddly uplifting despite being about someone who’s enduring despite being 900% done arguably while dealing with someone who cares very much about appearances - OH WAIT.

8. Carry On by Fun. - “ If you're lost and alone Or you're sinking like a stone Carry on / May your past be the sound Of your feet upon the ground Carry on.”   Fun is REALLY too family oriented for me in general, or “Be Calm” would be here instead.  But Carry On has the enduring sentiment and the only thing explicitly stated about parents in this is that they’ll die.  So, you know, "La mort de l'auteur” and all that.  

9. You’re Gonna Go Far Kid by The Offspring - “ Slowly out of line And drifting closer in your sights / So play it out I'm wide awake It's a scene about me /There's something in your way And now someone is gonna pay/ And if you can't get what you want Well it's all because of me.”    I have a feeling if you don’t know why this song might evoke feelings of growing up in a manipulative and messed up household and processing those feelings and experiences then I’m not capable of explaining it briefly.  

10. Let Go by Red - Oh man just the whole song. Though right now I’m homing in on “I can’t ignore you anymore.” You know how some bands have a God or Girlfriend problem?  Red has a “religious metaphor or crappy childhood metaphor” problem.   

And that’s ten and time for bed.  Share with me your favorite songs for dealing with your terrible childhood.

Full disclosure : while I was totally into these books up to around book 10 I still haven’t got around to reading the last couple books of the series. Overall I enjoyed the Netflix Series of Unfortunate Events adaptation. So this is just kind of a quick impression review with some SPOILERS but first some not spoilers.

There’s a real Wes Anderson X Tim Burton vibe to the show, which is quite pleasant if you like that sort of thing.  If you don’t like that sort of thing it might be insufferable.

Making each book into two forty minute episodes is something I have mixed feelings about.  The books are short.  A fast reader could read the first book in less time than it takes to watch the film.

So it can drag a bit at times.

Some of the effects are super clunky and not in a charming way.

Watching rather than just reading about the grim things that happen to the kids can sometimes be a bit uncomfortable, especially with how things can be dragged out a bit.