iPad 2 Camera is meh-y

It gets the overall point across (and there's no green animal eye glow), but it doesn't convince me not to pack my camera on vacations that the iPad is coming along.

Learning From Fairy Tales [The Six Swans Retelling]

From Shelley Jackson's retelling of "The Six Swans" (renamed "The Swan Brothers" in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (pg 93):

        Women are trouble -- if it isn't an evil wife, its an evil stepmother. Or mother-in-law. Mother's are usually all right, unless they're witches -- watch out for witches. And their daughters.
        You might be all right with kings, princes, and fathers, unless, as is usually the case, they're under the influence of someone else, usually a woman. Men are weak. Sometimes they rescue you, but they always have help -- from ants or birds or women. Sometimes you rescue them. This is kind of sweet.

         You can trust animals. Sometimes they turn into people, but don't hold that against them.
         Children had better watch out.

[Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.]

In Praise of Fairy Tales [Happily Ever After]

From My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me:

...The National Book Foundation, which administers the National Book Awards, states that "retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales are not eligible" for their awards. Imagine guidelines that state, "Retellings of slavery, incest, and genocide are not eligible." Fairy tales contain all of those themes, and yet the implication is that something about fairy tales is simply...not literary. Perhaps snobbery has something to do with their association with children and women.

I love retellings of fairy tales. One of my favorite books from my "young adult" days was Ella Enchanted. I've probably read it fifty times since the time I was twelve (thirteen years ago).  The entire book feels perfectly crafted, each sentence and word fitting in perfectly with the flow of the story. In high school, I reread Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West at least twenty times. And Gregory Maguire's other book, Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister.

I love all of it. And it should be recognized as awesome. I reread Ella Enchanted again and its still perfect. I picked up My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me yesterday from the library, and I'm looking forward to it.

The 150 Book Challenge [Updates]

So far the challenge is going pretty well. I finished book 29 yesterday, and I'm midway through book 30:

I've been able to cycle books pretty quickly, partially because I've mastered keeping a flow of books coming. Without new books to read, the whole process would stop.

[Amazingly, the last ten books I have read have all been by women. That happen all the time.]

One thing that has been holding me back, though, has been how cold its been here in DC. I spend 15 to 30 minutes every day waiting for the bus (I have to transfer buses, which accounts for some of that time). Its been too cold to get my hands out of my coat to hold the book, so I've been waiting until I actually get in the bus to begin reading.

I've got to read 12 to 13 books a month, which so far I've been right on: I hit 25 books the last day of February. With the last few books added into the mix, I've been finishing a book every 2.3 days on average. In order to stay on pace, I have to finish nine more books this month.

In the wings, I have one of George R. R. Martin's books in my To Be Read pile. Those have been challenging this year, because they are 800-1000 pages long, and have taken 6-7 days to complete. So far to combat that I've been trying to get through at least 100 pages of it a day, no matter what.

Right now I'm 22 days ahead of where I was last year, or 7 books ahead. So its going pretty well. Just for a comparison, here's 2010:

And here's the same time period again, this year:
 

Pretty awesome. More books read in the same time period.

Fancy Feast - MOST RIDICULOUS COMMERCIAL OF ALL TIME?

No really. This is ridiculous. It is a CAT FOOD COMMERCIAL, you guys!

It aired during the Oscars, and I was immediately upset.

Know Who Arcade Fire Is [Or Hipsters Will Kill You]

From  Funemployed Chicago. Via WHO IS ARCADE FIRE?

Save your own life. Know Arcade Fire:

Why Women Don't Read Fantasy [Excerpt]

From page 344 of A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

Beauty, they called her . . . mocking. The hair beneath the visor was a squirrel's nest of dirty straw, and her face . . . Brienne's eyes were large and very blue, a young girl's eyes, trusting and guileless, but the rest . . . her features were broad and coarse, her teeth prominent and crooked, her moth too wide, her lips so plump they seemed swollen. A thousand freckles speckled her cheeks and brow, and her nose had been broken more than once. Pity filled Catelyn's heart. Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?

 Italics are from the text.

This Brienne woman is badass: she is basically the equal, if not the better, to most men in battle. But she fails in being beautiful. And therefore is to be pitied. I almost threw the book when I read that part.

It reminded me of when someone wrote on a Huffington Post blog this of Elena Kagan's mother's reaction to her daughter becoming the first female dean of Harvard Law School:

She nodded, unsmiling, and sighed in that stoic way that was now so familiar to me. "Yeah..." then a long silence..."but I really wish she were married."

Never mind her other accomplishments...How is she doing with the menfolk?

[Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.]