Fate by S. G. Browne

Fated by S. G. Browne is basically about the personification of Fate, getting screwed over by Destiny (who is also personified....and also a huge slut).

I liked it. It was quirky. And I love reading brief asides like:

The thing about Love is that she's codependent. 

Or:

The thing about Desire is that she's bulimic.

And it was nice to read. I'm still a little bit weirded out by the end, but overall I liked it.

On The Rez by Ian Frazier [This is not a tragedy]

From the first page of On The Rez:

This book is about Indians, particularly the Oglala Sioux who live on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, in the plains and badlands in the middle of the United States. People want to know what a book is about right up front, I have found. They feel this way even if the book does not yet exist, if it is only planned. When I describe the subject to non-Indians, they often reply that it sounds bleak. "Bleak" is the word attached in many people's minds to the idea of certain Indian reservations, of which the Oglala's reservation is perhaps the best example. Oddly, it is a word I have never heard used by Indians themselves.

The point of this book, I think, is to show that even though life is hard on the reservation, it isn't bleak. There is hope, these are people living their lives, and to compose one note tragedy stories on the news does a disservice.

Frazier recounts the story of SuAnne Big Crowe, star basketball player. Even though her life was cut short due to a car accident, her existence didn't seem bleak. The same week her team won regionals, while the entire rez was riding high from the victory, NBC ran a story called Tragedy at Pine Ridge, where (page 226):

NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw announced, "This is Thanksgiving week, of course, but on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota it's hard to find reason to give thanks, when tragedy is never out of season." 

Of course, the success of the high school girl's basketball team was not mentioned. Or anything good about life on the reservation. And that's pretty much the crux of the problem. Page 227:

Indeed, from the beginning of the report to the end, NBC did not find one good thing to say; the "bleakness" story is a rigorous form, with little room for extraneous details. [...] the NBC story irritated people on Pine Ridge no end, especially SuAnne. She talked to anyone who would listen about all the good on the reservation that NBC had overlooked, and about the unfairness of only showing the suffering and apparently hopeless side.

The cool thing about now is that when Frazier mentions the Boys and Girls club on the reservation, started in memory of SuAnne Big Crow, I can look it up on the internet immediately. The book was published in 2000, before the last recession. I had a sinking feeling; please, please don't let this have gone under. And it hasn't!

So not everything is bleak. Things are rough, yeah, but its not tragedy 24/7.

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Creative spellings, or, they're called the Old 97's!

Part of what has been awesome about the many hits coming into the Champaign, Illinois that I wrote a few months ago has been the many creative spellings of "Champaign" (and a few creative "Illinois" spellings).

Until I saw this:

Yeah. This blows creative spellings of Champaign, Illinois right out of the water. The search words are "according to the old ninetysixers, is champaign ill bad"...

The band is called Old 97's. Really, really close. One number off.  I've also never seen anyone spell out "ninety-sevens" before when referring to them.  Named after the Johnny Cash song, Wreck of the Old 97.

Anyway...did you know there are people using Bing now? Yeah, me neither.

Grad School Seems Like A Terrible Idea, Or, Quotations!

From this video on Library Sciences Grad School:

"You will live on gin and valium, and when you run out of them, you will survive on pure spite."

Lisa Loeb - "Do You Sleep?" [Or, Laundry is TEH SEX]

On the train (392 Saluki!) up to Champaign from Carbondale, the above song came up on shuffle. 


I really, really loved this song in high school, but never had the stomach to listen to it whenever I was actually going through a similar situation. I mean, "Now I don't know and I don't care if I ever will see you again" comes right after she practically begs to know if he's still thinking of her. Begs to know if he's losing sleep over her. 


And the video? As close as you get to washing a man right out of your hair...er...laundry. Its painful, your hands are going to blister from the hot water, but when you're done its all clean and you're exhausted and it was totally worth it. 


Lyrics:

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?

do you sleep anymore?

do you take plight on my tounge like lead?

do you fall gracefully into bed anymore?

I saw you as you walked across my room

you looked out the window -- you looked at the moon

and you sat on the corner of my bed and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head

Now i don't know and i don't care

if i ever see you again

i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will be there

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you keep me anymore?

you kick my foot under the table

i kick you back can't say that i'm able

to stand for you or fall for you ever again

wish for a perfect setting

wishing that i am letting you

take me where you want me all over again

you can't give yourself

absolutely to someone else

now i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will see you again

i don't know and i don't care

if i ever will be there

i saw you as you walked across my room

you looked out the window -- you looked at the moon

and you sat on the corner of my bed

and you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head

do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?

do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?

do you sleep anymore?

i don't know (do you eat sleep do you breathe me anymore?)

and i don't care (do you sleep do you count sheep anymore?)

if i ever will be there (do you sleep anymore?)

will be there 

Connie Willis's Remake [Frankly, My Dear...]

From page thirty-eight of Remake:

"Frankly, my dear - I love you, too," Clark Gable said, and crushed her in his arms. "I've always loved you!"

 There's a knee jerk reaction to this, that they're fucking with literature and they should just leave it the hell alone. The happy ending comes at the price of meaning. And in some cases, yeah, okay, I get it. The ending to the movie for I Am Legend had that feel, yeah.

But changing the parts you don't like is what fan fic is all about. And maybe sometimes parts need to be changed. Maybe I want to change the end to Lost, because I hated the end and I knew what I wanted to happen with it, and it didn't.

In case you've forgotten the ending to Gone With The Wind:

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Julian Assange And Rape: Or, Why I'm not sleeping tonight

I can't sleep because I'm thinking about the charges against Julian Assange. And the trolling. And Sady Doyle and her ladybusiness.Yeah, I know. Specifically, what I'm thinking about is what people say about this specific part:

 Later the same week, according to the police report, Ms. W got in touch with Ms. A to try to seek out Mr. Assange, after he had failed to keep a promise she said he had made to call her. In the conversation, the report said, the two women discovered that both had had sex with Mr. Assange without a condom. A friend of Ms. A’s said in an interview this summer that the two women then decided to insist that Mr. Assange have a test for sexually transmitted diseases.

Women be bitches, amiright? I mean, Jesus, all this guy wanted to do was have sex without a condom! These two ladies were just mad that he was sleeping with the both of them at the same time! Hell hath no fury like two bitches scorned, AMIRIGHT??

Hey, but don't believe me! Let's just look at the top rated comment from a news article on MSNBC.com:

If someone has wronged you the best way to get back at them is to convince everybody around you that the person that wronged you is a rapist or a pedophile. Then watch the world make him a villain and want his head on a stick.

Yeah. Because rape is such an easy charge when people are famous.

But there's another interpretation of the fact that those two met with each other.  And dude, since interpretation is all ANYONE has been doing about this, lets go ahead:

You meet this guy that you idolize. He's kind of a rock star hero, in a political sense. He's exposing corruption, which is something that you happen to really believe in. You love that he's making information free. Your knees get weak around him and, yeah, you are sexually interested in this hero of yours. And he's at your apartment!

Oh My God, you think, things are going so well! He's stroking your leg! He's interested! Only. He gets a little rough, and you say no. He gets rough and breaks your things. He won't wear a condom. You say no. He doesn't take no for an answer. You feel weird about this. Your hero, this guy that you freaking idolize, that you respect, isn't respecting you back. But most of all, you said no.

But maybe you caught him on a bad night? You're confused. This guy is supposed to be good. Good guys don't rape.

Then you meet someone else, someone else who had the same thing happen to them. She said no. It happened anyway. While she was asleep. ("In the report, she described waking up to find him having sex with her again, without a condom.") You can't consent if you're asleep.

You feel sick to your stomach. What happened to you was not an isolated event. This is a guy that didn't take no for an answer. This girl you just met has never had sex without a condom and is now scared that she might be HIV positive, because apparently the only way this guy will have sex is without a condom. This is a guy that will do this again. And again. And again. Unless he is stopped. So you and the other person band together, and it is your mission: not to let this happen to anyone else.

Is that what happened? I have no idea, but its certainly plausible from the police report that was leaked.

Now, I have no doubt that he's being targeted because of Wikileaks. Would he be extradited on this charge were he not the founder of Wikileaks? Probably not. But does this mean that he didn't rape those women? Is there some kind of natural law that I don't know about, that says that progressive guys don't commit rape?

Anyway. I've been kind of in awe of Sady Freakin' Doyle the last couple of days, with her twitter campaign calling out American "Progressives" who insist that Assange must be innocent at the hashtag #Mooreandme, so named because Michael Moore posted part of the bail money, and then went onto Keith Olberman to spew a bunch of nonsense:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I'm sorry, but its not just a broken condom according to the police report. Its the allegation of non-consensual sex while sleeping WITHOUT A CONDOM that gets me. And, honestly? If you say that you won't have sex without a condom, then the person you are having sex with does something to render the condom null and void without telling you...that's wrong. You consented to sex WITH A CONDOM for a reason. Not continuing to wear one is rape, because permission for unprotected sex was NOT GRANTED.

Anyway. Much love to the Sady Doyle, who has taken the world onto her shoulders. And just my two cents. I've been sitting with this all weekend.

[Edited to include this awesome picture:

I added Sady's twitter to my RSS and she has not disappointed!

What can I say, proof this woman has taken twitter by storm]