This Is Beautiful: "How to Argue With a Racist"

 I'm going to eventually write a full post about this book, but I absolutely loved reading How to Argue With a Racist by Adam Rutherford. As a genetics student who also does DEI, I've noticed more and more bigots using genetics in their arguments. But I also don't feel that my PhD program has really fully prepared me to go toe-to-toe with these people since you inevitably end up getting a really narrow expertise in these programs. This book helped with that. There aren't any super complicated concepts, I learned about these in class and I'm sure the broader public could keep up here, but it covers details that I didn't know or weren't mentioned in class. It's an excellent read; I'm recommending it to others in my program!

“The Last Stand” by Paris Hansch

I got my hands on this book by signing up for Hansch’s mailing list (you can join me here). It is a prequel to her other books about the same world. I was not totally sure what to make of the book itself, I do have my complaints about it but most of them are inherent in what this book is designed to do. Which is to actually purchase her other novels.

The book follows Celia who is the lead priestess at a dragon temple. Her powers as such include manipulating an element and being able to influence others’ emotions. When the book starts she is rather shaken as she just used her powers to kill an assassin. Which is traumatizing enough as it is, but she also made a vow to not use her powers to kill and broke that vow. She immediately has to go from that to swearing her daughter in as a dragon priestess, turns out that her daughter is very talented as well. She then gets word that the Empress is trying to destroy her community, because also earlier that week she awakened the powers in two individuals who then went on to try and assassinate the Empress. The book ends with the Empress killing everyone in the village, the only survivor is Celia’s daughter who discovers that no one remembers her village or her at all in the aftermath.

My main issue is that everything happens so fast. It goes from peace to annihilation in maybe 20 pages or so, which seems a little overblown and ridiculous. If there was a history of animosity, I could find that believable, but the whole premise is that nothing wrong was really done on the part of these people. The incident that sparked this was told through a flashback, which does not really help and mostly muddies the timeline a little bit.

There also is not time to get to know these characters. This could make sense if the prequel was to a story featuring these characters more, but I think the sequels take place hundreds of years later. There is this one character, Tobias, who is implied to have instigated the annihilation and assassinations but that is not resolved by the end. So unless he lives for several hundred years I do not know if that loose end will ever get wrapped up.

Anyways so I am not sure what to make of this book. It was an enjoyable read for sure, and it is short and free. But I don’t know if I’ll be diving into her other books just right now.

This Is Beautiful: Acting

 Last week I was in another play! It was "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie. I was playing both Marston and Narracott, which even combined is the smallest role in the play but that's alright. I couldn't have fit anything bigger into my schedule.

Narracott is only on stage briefly, he's some boat guy mostly. And Marston is a classic frat boy asshole without a single brain cell. I surprisingly had a lot of fun with this role! Because he's just so dumb he's so easy to make fun of and just be in character while he's confused or distracted with different situations. And he surprisingly has some fun lines, nothing really beats the "wizard car" or the enigma of a line that is "tricky, what? I say, wizard place for a holiday, what?" Plus then I get to die brutally on stage before shit gets real which is pretty fun.

I do think that all of the recent acting that I've done has made me much more confident as an actor, which is cool to see. Well by recent acting I think I mostly mean playing Puck, by far the largest and most intense role that I've had. I feel like that gave me a bit of a boost and now I can take minor roles like Marson and still have a ton of fun and make choices with them. 

Anyways it's a good time and I'm having fun. I am glad to have some free time back in my life though.

Madison, Wisconsin

Last week I was at a conference in Madison for a few days. It was a wonderful time, I ended up really liking the city. I cannot totally tell if that is because this was a great place to have a conference or if I actually like the place, but regardless I had a great time.

The town itself feels like a small college town. I was really amazed how few cars there are around and how quiet it is. Most of it is very walkable, especially if you’re sticking to the downtown area near where the university is. There is a bus system, I never really used it though. The airport is maybe 20 minutes from downtown, and since I did not have the time to go far away I just never needed it.

The conference I was participating in was at the Monona Terrace Convention Center, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and has a rooftop garden! There are a few other Wright places around, I did not have time to check them out, but still really cool. It is also very close to downtown which was nice as I could skip a session and just head to a museum.

In the center of town there is the capitol building. It’s a huge structure and really recognizable as it looks very similar to the capitol in DC. Taking a tour is free, but you can also just hop in and wander around. The building is gorgeous, there is so much marble and fancy rock everywhere! In the center there are some panels with historical information, but the tour also gets you into areas like the governor’s conference room, the courtroom, the senate, and others. And the tour guide gives you tidbits of history about Wisconsin as a state as well as Madison. You can also climb up to get onto the roof and see incredible views of the city! Well worth a visit for sure.

Close to the University of Wisconsin is the Chazen Museum of Art. It is run by the school and definitely has the feel of a small but well cared for university art museum. I think the biggest name that they have is an Andy Warhol but do not let that deter you, the collection is still fun to wander through. The best part, for me anyways, was a temporary exhibit about discrimination and exclusion at the university. It was incredibly well done, they go from the beginning where the school purchased land from the indigenous people up until more recent events and testimonials (I think the most recent I saw was from 2018). You can even look at it online here. It’s really great to see an institution taking the time to examine and document their history instead of covering it up.

The other art museum that I went to was the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMOCA). This was a cool museum, it is located roughly between the Chazen and the capitol building on State Street, which is a main street of sorts for shops and restaurants. (Usually it is crawling with students though.) There were also two exhibits addressing race in there as well, one curated by Black female artists and one by a Black man. Both were really cool and incredible to walk through. And there is a sculpture garden on the roof! My one complaint was that there were multiple installations that basically required you to walk into a dark room and feel uncomfortable, after the first one of those I really did not want to enter the second but did my best. It just feels like a lot for a visitor to take in during a small amount of time.

I have to say, usually with the Midwest there is the “Midwest nice” where people act courteous but are also super racist and I did not get that vibe here. Everyone was super friendly, and with all of the art installations about race and just the sheer volume of “Black Lives Matter” signs around I felt as though the city was making an effort to be inclusive. Maybe that is not true of everyone, maybe that changes the second you leave downtown, but it was nice to see some effort being made.

I really enjoyed my time in Madison, enough that I would definitely consider visiting again. I only saw the three different places and never even left the downtown area (there is also a zoo and a botanic gardens). Hopefully I can come back soon!

This Is Beautiful: Live Theater

 This past weekend I went to see TWO live shows. One was "Bakkhai" that a student theater group was putting on, and one was "Much Ado About Nothing" that a local theater troupe was performing. Both were so fun! And they were very different vibes as well, "Bakkhai" is a cautionary tale about not making a god angry while "Much Ado" is a Shakespeare comedy. But both of them really made me appreciate the difference with live theater and having people physically in front of you doing the motions in real time. It is so different from watching it on a screen because you are there and get the small shock when actors yell at you or can see them sweat under the lights. And it feels so much more immersive that way. Live theater is awesome. That's all.

“The Border Keeper” by Kerstin Hall

Look, I love the free ebooks that I can get from Tor.com, but I’ve now had two in a row that I don’t really love and I think it speaks to how when you are just getting a random book, they can be hit or miss.

I don’t even know how I would sum up this book as I had no idea what was happening a lot of the time. There’s this man and he goes to the Border Keeper mentioned in the title with a request to find someone. She takes him into another world, I’m not sure if it’s like the world of the living and the world of the dead or a realistic world and a fantasy world or what the distinction is, but they go over there and do some things and eventually find her. How he knows that he found her I do not know, it just is stated in the text. And there’s also a subplot where the Border Keeper accidentally split her child’s soul in eight pieces and they are all hunting her down. At the end of the book the man defeats these pieces, I also do not know how this happens. But it’s implied he spontaneously becomes a god.

I think the main issue is that we never get enough information to actually figure out what is happening in the book. It is not a very long book either, so we do not have enough time to become attached to the characters or the world before getting lost in the sauce as it were. The result is a confusing mess where I just figure I should finish the book even if I could not tell you what happened in it.

Once again, there is a sequel. I will not be looking to read it.

This Is Beautiful: Taking a Break

 Alright look I'm starting to get burnt out to a crisp. It's getting to the point where I am now structuring breaks into my schedule, which I usually don't do. And it's working pretty well for me so far. So would recommend. Just plan to do the minimum amount of work and give yourself a break periodically, you deserve it!

Los Angeles

 Last week I was at a conference at Las Angeles. It was my first time in the city and my first time on the west coast! It was an interesting trip, I don't think I loved the city itself, but it was fun for less than a week.

The best part was the food by far. I had some amazing ramen that probably ruined every other ramen experience for me. And we found great takoyaki that made me really sad that I live in an area without a good takoyaki place. I wanted to get a Korean dog from K-town, but never found the time unfortunately. There also was this incredible Lebanese place that we stopped by on our last day. So good!

By far the worst part is the transportation. It's really hard to get to most places by foot since there's so much sprawl, but there aren't a ton of public transit options. I did see a few street cars, and some buses, but not enough where they were convenient. So if you want to get far you have to call a cab. And then you hit the traffic. It takes so long to get anywhere just because of all the cars in the road. There's so many highways, and they are just all packed. You have to plan really carefully in order to get anywhere.

It's also a city that really has not dealt with homelessness very well. There's architecture everywhere designed to deter homeless individuals from staying places, spikes on the benches and things like that. There are usually a few tents on each street corner. It's honestly really sad to see. There were a bunch of COVID-19 testing sites on the street, but I also never saw anyone manning those. 

Then there was all the smog. I thought I caught a cold or something while I was there because my throat hurt, but then I went home and recovered pretty quickly. I literally think I just couldn't handle the air! We went up to the observatory and when you look down, you just see it as a blanket covering the whole city!

So it was a fine trip, it was nice to get out of the house. But I doubt that I'll be going out of my way to return to LA anytime soon.

This Is Beautiful: Playing Music

 So last week I was away at a conference in LA. I honestly didn't love LA, and I didn't love the conference because as fun as it was and as helpful as it was, it was pretty big and overwhelming. But when I got back I had a band concert the next day. I wasn't looking forward to it, I missed the last rehearsal and I was pretty tired. But it was a great time! I felt good about the performance, it felt fun, and it was energizing! It honestly was a great reminder that I love doing performances like this, and I love making music with other people even if the conditions aren't ideal. We have our holiday concert coming up in a few weeks, I hope that one is just as rewarding as this!