“The Book of Night With Moon” by Diane Duane

Alright so I’ve now moved onto Duane’s series about cat wizards. (I haven’t fully finished the main Young Wizards series but that’s all I have as ebooks so I’ll return to it eventually.) This book focuses on the team at Grand Central that manage the worldgates that wizards use to travel around the universe more easily.

The book focuses on Rhiow, a black female cat, who is the leader of the group. She works with Saash, another female cat, and Urrah, a male cat. They go in to fix the worldgates one day and come across the young Arhu, a new feline wizard. They take him under their guidance and start fixing the worldgates with him. A crucial part of this is going Downside, to a sort of nearby universe that the worldgates originate from. However, dinosaurs roam that area and it’s a very dangerous mission to do so. They take Arhu with them on their next mission down and discover that he’s a visionary, or a wizard that can see into the future. It’s unsurprisingly pretty disconcerting for him. After that though, something goes wrong with the gates and dinosaurs start pouring out into Grand Central. The human and feline wizards contain it, but the team has to go back down and fix it more permanently.

Downside again, they run into the young dinosaur Ith who becomes friends with Arhu. Turns out that Ith is a wizard dinosaur, and also very new at this. They descend to the depths and end up confronting the Lone Power, the god that invented entropy and death. Turns out that this all has to do with the dinosaurs’ Choice. Every species is confronted by the Lone Power early on, and if you accept its agreement then the species is tricked and doesn’t live as long. If you reject the promise of more power, then you do better, but everyone dies eventually. Ith remakes the dinosaurs’ Choice, and they all take on the form of the gods and goddesses to cast the Lone Power out. Back Topside, everything is back to normal and the feline wizards continue on their work.

I’ll just start with the caveat that this isn’t really for me. I am not a big cat person, I find the amount of washing they do in the book realistic and also gross, and I am much more interested in the humans. Rhiow works with Tom and Carl, and Nita/Kit even make an appearance at one point. And honestly the fact that cats are such little idiots in real life makes me very skeptical that they would actually make it as wizards in New York City. As outdoor cats living in apartments. Suuuuure. There are some aspects of feline culture that are pretty fun, like how Urrah is obsessed with opera, and things like that. But overall, I can tell that I’m not as into it as some other people would be.

Which makes it harder when it gets really confusing and complicated. I had a hard time keeping up with the random feline language words thrown in, and their mythology is distinct from that of the human wizards. It is a lot to keep track of, especially when they start taking on the role of the gods/goddesses. I think Duane does an excellent job writing it in a way where I could understand the gist of what was happening even if I didn’t quite get the details, but I definitely will need to reread this a few times to fully understand what the heck is going on.

It is a trilogy, and I will be continuing on with it. Despite all of the reasons that I have to be skeptical, I do still have the ebooks and therefore will read it haha. Hopefully I can grow to like these characters more!

This Is Beautiful: Sunshine

 This past weekend was beautiful! I got lucky because we had a picnic planned as well, so the weather was so nice! It was great to just relax and hang out for a little. I hope this means that we're close to a sunny summer with lots of outside time.

“The Young Wizards OTP Challenge, Days 1-17” by Diane Duane

This is part of the wizardry bundle that I got a while ago and have been making my way through. I realized that Games Wizards Play was not in the bundle and then didn’t know which to pick up next. So I went for this, figured it was short fiction and it wouldn’t take me too long to get through. 

The basic idea is that there’s a series of prompts to help writers think up scenarios, and these all have to do with a person’s One True Pairing (OTP), a couple that the writer really loves. Duane takes this and writes it about Nita and Kit. And I think that the original prompts go up to day 30, this stops at day 17.

Honestly I really like reading this. They’re short and fun, and Duane clearly tried to think of the prompts in a creative way. So the one abut wearing each other’s clothes has to do with them accidentally offending some aliens, wearing cat ears involves them turning into cats temporarily, and so on.

Duane also inserts herself in, so if you were doubting whether or not she is having fun, you can be sure that she is now. She’s in at the beginning, saying that this may or may not be canon and chatting with Nita and Kit about the challenge. The middle, she gets ice cream with them and check in. And for the last prompt it’s a silly time of her trying to think of different scenarios Nita and Kit would be spooning in without making it unnatural. Which is one of my favorites, Duane interacts with the Transcendental Pig and talks through a few.

Yeah so this I think is also up on her blog, but seeing it all together is quite nice. A fun, light read!

This Is Beautiful: Down Time

 Tis the time of the semester when it finally winds down and I can relax a little. Oof. I am in need of a rest desperately after the past few weeks, and I am looking forward to the summer when things are a little slower, and I'm not just working constantly or in rehearsals. I love being busy, but I sometimes just need a break.

“Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters” by Matt Ridley

I was handed this book by a mentor of mine who recommended I check it out as a way to talk about the social impacts of genetic research. The book is out of date, published in 1999, but I think the concept is still interesting. The book consists of 23 chapters, one for each chromosome in the human genome, and each chapter highlights how genes have impacted humans and their life. The stories don’t cover the whole genome, and they don’t cover all of genetics, but it’s a collection of snapshots of genetics.

I only have a few qualms with it, and of course it has to do with the sex chromosomes. When talking about the X chromosome, he talks about how genetic determinants of autism have been found there. And then uses that to hypothesize that this is why more boys have autism than girls, which isn’t true. Autism just looks different in girls, and the focus on autistic boys means that many girls with autism are not diagnosed until later in life. I might give this one to him, not much was known about autism in the 90s, so probably an honest mistake.

What I am less likely to give him though is what he proceeds to say about the X chromosome. The X chromosome is one of the sex chromosomes, which any transphobe will love to prattle on about how two Xs make a women and the XY combo makes a man. Those of us who are trans and recognize that intersex is a thing know better. There are plenty of people outside of the XX/XY binary and some that are XX but anatomically male or vice versa. Anyways, towards the end of the chapter Ridley starts making some absurd statements about how his daughter’s excitement about a doll couldn’t have anything to do with how she was raised, and similarly for how his son loves toy trucks. He then attempts to drive this home by talking about someone who unfortunately had to be castrated shortly after birth (infection I believe) and was put on hormonal treatment and whose parents were instructed to raise them as a girl. When they found out about this later in life, they immediately went back to living as a man. This is not the slam dunk story the author thinks it is, this is one person who was forced into a gender they did not want and did not get a say in it. Not a single trans person was asked, and if they were, the author might have found out that gender confirming surgery (when voluntary) has extremely low regret rates. And that those same surgeries are forcibly done on intersex infants (similar to this individual) to try and “correct” their sex. It’s gross and could have easily been avoided. No gender is not entirely socialized, but neither is it entirely biological and to claim that is transphobic but also obviously wrong.

My more minor qualm also has to do with the eugenics chapter. Overall it’s well written, but there’s this interesting line about how countries with strong influence of the Roman Catholic Church were more immune to eugenic legislation. And then it never gets expanded on! I have no idea which countries these are since Italy is never mentioned, or what relevance this is to the discussion about how Great Britain resisted eugenic laws. Which just, how did that get past the editors?

The author also has this quip where he constantly goes back and corrects himself. He will make a statement, describe it, and then in the next paragraph he’ll correct himself and say that what he just explained is wrong. Which is an interesting way to come at science, and leaves me wondering if anyone actually finds that valuable. Personally, I would rather you just explain the darn thing to me. Instead of being confusing or writing around a concept, just explain it, get it as accurate as you can, and move on. It feels a lot like he’s showing off or trying to preemptively address any criticisms or something. It just throws me off.

Beyond all this though, I do need to praise the book for how it talks about race and genetics. Ridley makes it clear that some genetic sequences are more frequent among different groups, but never talks about anything as being exclusive to one group or that differences among groups are purely genetic. And this is big for a book from the 90s! Heritability is also discussed and how it is not just genetic effects but also how the environment changes things, and there is a whole chapter dedicated to genetic determinism and how that is not a thing. Which, if I was to recommend this book, this would be the big reason. The field has struggled with how to tackle these topics and here Ridley drops all of the literary fluff and presents it simply and does it really well.

I am also just curious how the chapter on prions has changed over time. That chapter is dedicated to genetic mysteries that we still don’t know the answers to, but that means that it probably got out of date almost immediately. I used to know more about prions, back when I was taking intro genetics courses, but now I am very out of the loop.

Anyways so this was a good read, and I might have overlooked it otherwise for again being rather old. But the parts that were done well definitely have given me food for thought!

This Is Beautiful: International Asexuality Day

 This past Saturday was International Asexuality Day (IAD)! As usual it was a bunch of last minute planning, but I had a blast joining a 24 hour livestream with a bunch of international asexuals talking about what our countries look like when it comes to aces and ace rights. I had a really good time, and I'm glad that this year I was able to have a smaller commitment particularly. So happy IAD!

Why PhDs are Hard

 Honestly this weekend has been tough, I've been trying to get my spirits up for the fun things I have going on but it sucks. PhDs are so hard.

Part of it is the uncertainty. You don't know when you'll graduate, or if you're even on the right path, and you just have to keep chugging with that. Hopefully the stuff you do gets you closer, but also it might not be doing that, maybe it's a detour. And you just have to take your chances there.

Then there's how much time you put into it. Which means that you can also really easily destroy things that you put a lot of time into. And that just hurts so much more than destroying something that was already there. (It also hurts if someone else mucks it up, but then at least you aren't beating yourself up.) There's experiments you can put months into, only for one thing to be off and it doesn't work. Somehow this has happened to me multiple times and I'm getting so sick of it.

So it's just rough. And I don't know what it is about recently, but I feel like I've just been sitting in how hard it is. Hoping next week will be better.

This Is Beautiful: Flow Arts Performance

 So the flow arts group that I'm a part of at school had it's big show this past weekend. It's a good time, I really like what we do and how we work with the Chinese yo-yo group on campus. I also like that we have a scripted play that goes during the show so I get to act a little. The day of though is always such a struggle, we are there all day and if the group itself isn't stressed then the people working there are. It's just hard because I'm exhausted from the week and then I'm on my feet all day and just need some alone time hardcore. Plus it's hard to be excited during the show when I'm just trying to get through it.

Despite all of that complaining, I really loved this year's performance. I think the script was the most elaborate and tightest yet. I think the part I choreographed was pulled off amazingly well. Looking back, I'm happy and I think everything worked really well! I just am constantly questioning how much longer I can do this and if there's anything I can do to emphasize those aspects of it rather than the hard stuff...

“A Wizard of Mars” by Diane Duane

This is the ninth book in the “Young Wizards” series and it’s actually one that I’ve written about before. (You can read posts on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth books. My previous post onthis book is also available.) I’m also going to try and write this before going back to that other post to see if my perspective has shifted at all. (Alright I went back and read it and it's not a very good post, I was trying to introduce everyone to the series more than anything else. But I also wasn't a huge fan of the book back then either.)

The book opens with Mamvish, a very powerful alien arriving on Earth and going with the squad of Earth wizards to Mars. Kit is ecstatic, because they found something they’re calling a superegg on Mars and it could have clues for what happened to the Martians. Ronan, Darryl, Nita, and Carmela are all there as well. Nita is juggling her dad keeping an eye on Dairine (who is looking for Roshaun) along with all this, and Carmela brings news that Kit’s older sister Helena is coming home early from college too. Kit comes back on his own and accidentally activates the superegg, which then sends out signals to other areas of Mars. He pings Darryl and Ronan and they all head to Mars. There they are confronted with these projections of pop culture depictions of Mars. Kit decides to face the last one alone, and he heads off as Nita catches up with them. Nita meanwhile was exploring an old cave with Carmela and S’ree, allowing Carmela to pick up what some of the writing means. She heads off on her own to find the boys. Kit at the final site though is met with a gorgeous alien princess who appears to recognize him. He learns to play along with the vision, but it is ended prematurely by the presence of Nita.

Back on Earth, Kit gets grounded for going off on his own. However his consciousness is being invaded by the alien he was playing in the vision, and he heads back to Mars independently. Mamvish returns and grabs Nita to go to Mars and figure out what’s going on. They find Kit taken over by this other character, in theory an old version of him, and Nita battles the princess he was talking to. Mamvish manages to send this whole people that Kit woke up back in time so that they wouldn’t interfere with Earth. The book ends with Nita calling Kit her “boyfriend” and him being pleased about this.

Alright well there’s a lot going on in this book. I think I understood it more this second time around, but there’s just so much to keep track of. This race that gets woken up is fighting with a second city also on Mars but they also came from a different planet originally. So it’s a lot to remember when reading about them. I think the other sub-plots suffer as a result, there isn’t as much about Dairine or Kit’s family as I would have liked. And while I love seeing characters like S’ree she was mostly a cameo here.

I do think a strength of this is how it incorporates pop culture images of Mars. The whole idea is that the things happening on Mars have found a way to infiltrate the presence of it, the people on Mars are constantly fighting and therefore a lot of depictions of Mars involve war. It would be nice though to hear about how that gets filtered through the lens of the people on Earth as well, like how early depictions were more fanciful and there was an increase in optimism in sci fi in the 50s and things like that. The series is usually pretty good about not focusing on Earth, but this one felt more so, probably because it is so close to home.

The time travel thing with sending the aliens back in time is also amusing to me. There’s a whole conversation at the end of the book that’s just like “it’s complicated, but we’re fine, so don’t worry about it.” Which I kinda appreciated, at least the author isn’t getting too bogged down in the details (after a book that was very detail heavy) and just accepting that things are fine. Less is definitely more!

There’s one more book in the series, and I hope that Nita and Kit’s relationship gets fleshed out more since that definitely ended on a cliffhanger. And hopefully there’s more to the series after that as well!

This Is Beautiful: New Season of Shakespeare in the Arb!

 Auditions happened last week! And I got cast! It's the first time I haven't been super worried about getting cast, even though I did get a smaller role. But what makes this the beautiful thing that made my week is that I had a really hard week last week. And even though I was feeling shitty and had a headache and just didn't feel like talking to people, I still had a good time. It's nice to be back at acting and to know that it'll be another summer of hanging out outside again!

“Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Agender Identity” by Michael Paramo

This is a book that I backed on Unbound ages ago, and also kind of forgot about. It finally arrived pretty recently, and I’ve been so excited to dive into it! (You can see my name at the beginning as one of the backers!)

The book aims to look at asexual, aromantic, and agender identity through a decolonial lens. This is mentioned in the introduction and I think gives a great sense of the goals and scope of the work. I also think it’s noteworthy that agender is included here, some 40% of aces identify outside of the gender binary (based on recent Ace Community Surveys) so it makes sense but I have not seen an explicit discussion of it. I also am really into the poetry sprinkled throughout! It makes the book feel very different from other non-fiction books on asexuality/aromanticism.

Alright so there are different chapters looking at different aspects of the ace/aro/agender experience, the first is on coming out. And it is so validating to read about because it is something people who are out experience everyday. Hearing about the different reactions, or even just how queerness is something different that even requires coming out really reflects my own experiences.

From there it gets into attraction and I just really like the line "Dominant understandings of attraction are rooted in Western 'scientific' discourses that ascended through the burgeoning colonial world alongside eugenics." Because yes, this language has had a huge influence on queer experiences and it so rarely gets discussed. This also manifests through the specific focus and prioritization on sexual attraction, where that’s usually the only aspect of attraction that is shared (and the rest are assumed). The section on romantic attraction also talks about how specifically female platonic attraction is frequently overlooked and it is assumed that platonic relationships are stronger between men. Aesthetic attraction includes a good breakdown of how colonialism, racism, and fatphobia have all impacted aesthetic attraction and how that is entwined with eugenics as well. And finally, probably the most in depth discussion of intellectual attraction that I’ve read!

There’s a really interesting chapter on asexuality and how discussions on the internet have changed the definition of asexuality that people are using. I haven’t quite seen ace history framed in that way. It starts with a decentralized identity where everyone is using a slightly different one. There’s also just a comment saying something about how if all the aces got together they would just gatekeep the term to decide who can use it and who cannot and just… that’s the gift of prophecy right there.

The aro chapter covers the history of how romantic love being prioritized is a relatively new thing, and historically it has been used to separate out “civilized people”. Again with the racism and the colonization. There’s also a set of aro poems, which I really enjoy! This goes into the agender chapter, and just the whole section about how there’s an “agender look” is very relatable. I’m non-binary, I even got top surgery, and everyone assumes I’m a girl. It’s so frustrating. There’s also history of Christianity being used through colonization to separate out and solidify gender roles, using witch hunts to eliminate anyone outside of the gender binary. As a result, "What has come to be defined as queerness was thus separated from the whole of humanity through colonization."

The book ends with a conclusion, and in part of it the author states that yes they are asexual, aromantic, and agender, but that’s only when you look through the Western lens. Which is really powerful and highlights how all of the labels are conditional to a certain environment and experience.

This book isn’t long, it’s only about 200 pages, but I think it’s a really welcome addition to the series of non-fiction books on a-spec identities that have come out recently. It’s written by someone with all of these identities and with personal experience in the field through both scholarly work and running an a-spec journal. Even just the addition of gender I think makes this pretty needed and groundbreaking. I hope that this brings a larger awareness of colonization and racism and how those are inherently at work in the queer/a-spec community.

“Baker Thief” by Claudie Arseneault

I picked up this book as part of a book club I was in. We wanted to read something with aromantic representation for Aro Week, and this came up as a book with aromantic and asexual characters in a fantasy setting.

The book opens with a police woman, Adele, being robbed by Claire, a purple-haired thief. Claire has taken Adele’s exocore, a sort of generator or power source. As a new officer, Adele makes it her personal goal to get onto this case as soon as she learns that this is a repeat crime. Meanwhile, Claude is the baker at a local pastry chain who is befriending Adele. His twin is in town, and he is anxious to show her a stack of exocores that he recently stole under his female name, Claire. (Claude/Claire is gender-fluid so I’m going to try and use whatever name is appropriate for him/her, but I’ll swap back and forth.) His twin senses that these are people, that those with powers (witches) are inside the exocores. Witches have been persecuted in this society for ages, Claude keeps his powers secret, but this is a new level of hate. Claire and her twin start investigating together, but when Claire’s twin disappears, Claude is distraught.

Meanwhile, Adele has not been making much headway in the case. She’s assisting a more senior officer and frustrated that she cannot lead it. A separate journalist puts the pieces together that Claire is stealing exocores, so she also turns her attention to the source of them. Adele also starts up a budding romance with Claude the baker, Claude is aromantic but they have a good time together. Things get kicked up a notch when Adele follows a lead to a manufacturing plant for the exocores and finds many abused witches trapped there. Claire followed and helped her get everyone out, as well as plenty of exocores. They set up base in Adele’s sister’s house for the time being.

Claire then follows a lead right to the manufacturers and gets captured, learning in the process that there’s a witch who betrayed the community and has been kidnapping witches to make into exocores and that the lead officer on the case is behind the whole thing. Adele comes to rescue her, they start kissing, and then Claire reveals her identity as also Claude. Adele is captured, but Claire makes it away. After Adele’s co-workers save her, they all come up with a plan to stop the opening ceremony of a brightly lit bridge that’ll be directly powered by Claude’s twin. They pull it off, everyone ends up ok, and the book ends with Adele and Claude figuring out what a relationship between then could look like.

So the best aspect of the book is the world-building. The characters speak a kind of modified French, with a lot of French words and some messed with a little. The neighborhoods are also very fleshed out and developed, you get a sense of where the characters are throughout the city. Because of what the book gets into, the politics and the political climate are also very present and accounted for as well. It feels very grounded in place as a result.

To get this out of the way though, I do think that the choice of having a cop as the main character is a little odd. For a book that aims to highlight queer experiences and has a pretty diverse cast, it feels out of place. This was published in 2018, so a little before ACAB really took off in the US, but recent enough that I’m thrown off by the inclusion of it. Related, so the characters are pretty diverse, but that doesn’t seem to go too deep when it comes to race. There are characters who are mentioned to have darker skin, but that is all that their race really impacts. There is no discussion of what Black culture looks like in this world, or is there is any racism. So, I don’t know, I’m hesitant to give the book that level of diversity.

There is diversity in terms of queer representation. Claude is aromantic, and Adele is demisexual. Many characters are referenced as wearing binders (including Claude), and Claude’s twin even talks about questioning her romantic identity towards the end. Plus there are instances of neo-pronouns (some that I didn’t even realize were pronouns at first) which highlights the gender diversity as well. And all of these are very natural, there isn’t any real homophobia or transphobia present. There is some explaining in practical terms what the orientations mean, but it doesn’t feel like the book is trying to teach us something.

The relationship between Claire and Adele is a good example. They have a conversation about what a relationship could look like between an aromantic individual and a demisexual (not aromantic) individual. And it is really cool to see that conversation played out! What I don’t love about it so much is that it seems like the relationship is based on adrenaline from them saving each other and things like that. I don’t know if I actually believe that the characters have any chemistry between them. And then also, this is a book that is supposed to highlight aromantic experiences. Why do the protagonists end up in a relationship? It seems to contradict the main point where aro experiences are all about celebrating not wanting a romantic relationship.

Overall it’s a pretty good book, I likely would read a sequel. I would say though that there’s a few too many ideas in it and it could benefit from some focus as well as cleaning up the relationship that for some reason the characters are in. And rethinking the cop thing. Ugh. But we will see if anything else ever comes from this series, right now it’s the only one she’s written.

This Is Beautiful: Lots of Progress This Week!

 A week ago today, I submitted a manuscript to a journal. I had been working on it for several months, and had gotten a bunch of experts in the field to help me out with it, which was incredible, but I then had to coordinate a lot of edits and suggestions. So sending it in was a huge milestone and regardless of what happens next I'm really pleased!

The other thing I did was film the footage for my Dance Your PhD submission. I have also been thinking about this project for about as long, and just being able to get it filmed was a huge step. Now we just have to edit it and put all of the parts together! This is so exciting!

2024 is going to be a great year for me, I'm going to get so much done. I'm ready!

The Princess Bride Shadowcast

 This past weekend I was in a shadow cast of "The Princess Bride," and it was so much fun! I decided to turn this into a blog post because there ended up being just a bunch of things I wanted to reflect on from the experience.

So many people mentioned to me that a shadowcast of "The Princess Bride" is so different because it was made to be a movie, and isn't based on a stage show the way something like "Rocky Horror" was. There are a lot of fast cuts and transitions that we just have to like approximate on stage and do our best with. But that does mean that there are some gaps, some transitions aren't the most smooth, and sometimes it looks pretty different from the screen. It might not be the most polished, but I was also told that our enthusiasm made up more than enough for it.

People also mentioned that they noticed things more while watching people act it out. A pretty popular one was the relationship between Rugen and Humperdink and how they seemed so much more gay this time around! I think part of it was the cast leaning into it and just making it more obvious by virtue of being there, but also yeah they definitely had something going on. I know for me, I felt like I was picking up so much more on the physicality of the characters since I was seeing someone else mimic it in front of the screen. Same with line delivery, Humperdink has a bunch of kinda awkward pauses that always catch the cast off guard.

I was continuing my type cast as an old lady with a bit part and playing the Ancient Booer. Just sheer shrieking at the freshman playing Buttercup. I got told that I made a bunch of audience members jump, and others didn't even recognize me at first! Just shows you how important the physicality is.

Anyways so a less polished post this week, but shadowcasts have been increased in my estimation, I didn't think much of them previously but now I think it's a really cool way to watch a movie! Especially one that you've seen before, having the cast there really changes things. I hope I'll be able to participate in others.

This Is Beautiful: Manuscript Submitted

 I don't know if I'm going to say much right at this moment, but suffice it to say that I just submitted a manuscript to a journal. It's a project that has been really personal for me, and much of it has been spearheaded by myself personally. I'm so glad that it got submitted finally, because I was reaching my limit of feedback that I could take from the other authors, as grateful as I am that they are helping me out. Next up is feedback from the editor though, haha. Hopefully more good news soon though!

"Single At Heart" by Bella DePaulo, PhD

 This was a great book to read, not the least because the asexual/aromantic group that I run at my university was able to get Dr. DePaulo to speak as part of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week back in February! She is such a cheerful, friendly person, and was a very charismatic and engaging speaker. I grabbed the book as part of preparing for her talk, and it is truly such an entertaining read.

The idea of the book is that being single is not something to look down upon, but something to celebrate! There is a subset of the population that actually prefer being single and are happiest this way, these people are called "single at heart" in this work. But throughout, there is evidence that single people are more stable, have huge support networks, and are really flourishing!

I think what was most interesting to me is that the single at heart community is made up of people who are all different sexual and romantic orientations. You can be aromantic and single at heart, but you don't have to be! Similar to asexuality, there are more asexuals and aromantics in the single at heart community than the wider population, but they are far from even the majority! That is just so fascinating to me, and it demonstrates that dismantling amatonormativity and emphasizing all of these things that the aromantic community has been talking about as well for years really benefit so many people.

I also have to wonder if being single at heart isn't just a special kind of like stability or enlightenment or something. Here are these people who are so satisfied with themselves and love solitude and quiet. There is also evidence that the single at heart are less neurotic, more stable. It definitely seems like something to almost aspire to. Personally I relate a lot to the single at heart community, but I'm not completely single at heart. I am in a relationship, and we do live together, and I'm pretty happy that way. I do value my alone time, but I also like sharing the stupid little things I do all day with him. I certainly think I'd be fine being single, but I'm also happy as I am. That being said, it makes me think if I could be single at heart, or if I would get frustrated trying to exist in a world built around couples. And is it something that I could become? Or is it more innate? I'm not sure, and the research isn't really there yet either haha.

This is a great read, for anyone, not just the single at heart. Discrimination against single individuals is rampant in our society, and most people don't even realize that this is an issue because they are so okay with it. Step one to dismantling this is going to be to educate ourselves and everyone around us about singlism, and then working to make the world a better place for everyone to live as they would like.

This Is Beautiful: New Reed

 Alright so I'm a saxophone player, I've mentioned it a few times before now. My latest challenge that I'm tackling is circular breathing. It's something that you never quite think that you can do yourself, but you hear about others doing it and it seems SO COOL. I mentioned it offhand one day to my instructor and we've been working on it. Let me tell you, I could not get a single note out. I was practicing for weeks with a glass of water and a straw and getting that down, but on the horn nothing was coming out.

And then I got a new reed and everything just works now! It just works! I can get noise of out the horn and it's glorious. My tone sounds supported, everything is so much better. I really need to remember to change my reed more frequently, I tend to use them until they are absolutely dead because I'm cheap but there truly is no need for that. 

“Wizards at War” by Diane Duane

Just finished the seventh book in the Young Wizards series (check out the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh books I wrote about previously). This is also the last book that I read as a teen, and I kind of assumed it was the series finale for a while. It definitely feels like one for sure with the way it opens.

Nita and Kit have just returned from their little exchange program thing, and the other aliens are still over at the Callahans’ as well. Tom and Carl stop by to give some sad news, there’s a Pullulus, or a giant thing of dark matter, dramatically speeding up the expansion of the universe. It’s impacting wizardry in a way where spells aren’t working as well because they can’t update the metrics of the space in time, and it’s causing people to become disconnected, more irritable, and eventually will cause the adult wizards to lose their wizardry. So in essence, this is a warning that Nita and Kit are about to be promoted to Senior wizards.

Filif, Sker’ret, and Roshaun agree to stick around a help out, plus Kit calls Ronan over from Ireland. Ronan’s ability to channel one of the Powers That Be has given him some insider information about a potential weapon. Most of them head off with Ponch (after checking in with some old friends like Sree and Darryl on the moon with other recently promoted wizards) to try and find this weapon. Meanwhile, Dairine and Roshaun first update Roshaun’s parents and then go to see Dairine’s bot children. The bots manage to extract more information from Dairine that she didn’t know was there, and she learns that this “weapon” is a version of the Lone One (the Power that created death) that never turned evil. This is called the Hesper, and Dairine takes off to find Nita and the others. Nita meanwhile has gone home to try and check in on her dad, and learns that Tom and Carl have lost their wizardry. Sker’ret goes with her and they end up fighting off mercenaries on Sker’s home planet where they run into Carmela who has fled Earth to find them.

While Nita’s gone, the group disguises themselves as the giant bugs that inhabit the planet Ponch brings them to and the start poking around. Ponch though ends up bringing the Hesper to them where they chat about how life on this planet is around the collective, there are no “I”s and no individuality. Nita returns with Carmela and they talk to the Hesper, learning that her name is Memeki. They get found out and brought before the king bug that’s inhabited by the Lone One. Carmela ends up blowing it apart after the Lone One dismantles wizardry from working (she has a hair curler that doubles as a blaster). The Lone One manifests and starts being vicious, so Ronan sacrifices himself to release the Power from him. This triggers Memeki into becoming the Hesper, she cleanses the planet in the process. Ronan is dragged back from death and they head home. Filif breaks off in the process to check on his home planet as well.

The others book it back to Earth where the Pullulus has become a big problem. Multiple things are tried that fail, including Roshaun disappearing after blasting it with some sun power. Kit tells Ponch to take Carmela home and save their parents, Ponch refuses and then turns into a gigantic dog-shadow that rises up and fights the Pullulus. It gets revealed that Ponch is a sort of god-dog now, leading his species to further enlightenment. They head home and learn that they still need to go to school tomorrow, so there’s that to look forward to.

There is so much that happens in this book. Like truly so much, the narration jumps between Nita, Kit, and Dairine depending on who is doing what and there are many new concepts introduced. My favorite part though is that so many characters return and make another appearance which not only cuts down on the novelty a little but also shows the extent of this issue. Sree represents the Senior Wizard for like a whole ocean now, and Darryl helps to give advice. We get to catch up with Gigo and Logo on Dairine’s planet of wizard computers too. I really like that Ronan gets to come back though since we spend the most time with him and hearing about how he’s doing when Nita checks in on him. But there’s also how the world gets expanded, such as returning to the Crossings with Sker’ret and hearing about Sker’s relationship to his family, or seeing Dairine on Roshaun’s world talking to his parents. It hits a very good mix of old and new content. And not to bring this up again, but the fact that this powerful being isn’t on Earth is so great and so non-humanoid/Earth centric.

Now I’m sure that this was on purpose, but it is a little confusing to me that we do not get a great sense of what the Hesper even is by the end of the book. Yes they’re a Lone Power that never fell, but what does that mean beyond the Good Guys getting another warrior? In theory all of the other Powers work towards supporting life so it cannot be that different of a job. And part of this is likely because just so much of the Powers is outside our comprehension, they all exist outside of time and usually outside of space so really what hope is there for us to understand that? I hope it comes back in later books though because I would love an explanation.

Then there’s Ponch becoming the dog god. What a good boy. It is interesting that there are cat wizards and whale wizards, but no dog wizards. Ponch was probably the closest but apparently that’s being a god or something. I wonder if this means there can now be dog wizards or something? At the very end of the book it talks about Kit’s grief over this, over not having Ponch as a pet anymore. But before it gets too far into it, Ponch is revealed to be part of every dog ever and talks to Kit through a random sheepdog. Which is really sweet, as a dog person I was crying a little.

This is such an excellent book. It incorporates so much work from the previous books in the series, ups the ante considerably, and goes in some cool new directions. It’s a lot of what I like about this series all in one book. I’m excited to keep reading and get to books that I did not read in my youth as well though!

This Is Beautiful: Happy Aro Week!

 It's the week after Valentine's Day, so happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! I'm so glad that there's a week to celebrate this identity and that it's another week of me doing event planning with the queer center on campus. Hug an aro!

“Wizard’s Holiday” by Diane Duane

This is another installment in the Young Wizards series, following these posts on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth books. This one splits the narration between Nita and her sister Dairine while they both have their own holiday over spring break.

Nita comes home from break to learn that Dairine signed them both up for an exchange program without telling their dad. Dairine is now grounded, but Nita and Kit are allowed to head off to another planet for two weeks. They head to the other side of the galaxy to stay with another wizard, Quelt, and her family. Life there is incredibly peaceful and lovely, but Nita keeps feeling there’s something wrong. With the help of Ponch, they learn that the wizards on this planet set it up so that the species would remain exactly as they are, without evolving. To fix this, Nita and Kit go to meet the delegate of the Lone Power that was given a home there, and she takes them to the heart of the planet. Meanwhile, Ponch gets Quelt who has realized what she has to do. Quelt releases the spell, and their species goes onto the next thing (which apparently doesn’t involve physical form, they all disappear).

Meanwhile, Dairine is at home with three new wizards. There’s Sker’ret who’s like a giant centipede, Filif who’s a tree, and Roshaun a humanoid who’s a prince on his planet and let’s everyone know it. They do a bunch of tourist-y things along with Kit’s sister Carmela. Roshaun then sees an image of the Earth’s Sun and realizes that it’s about to explode so they all have to band together to go fix it. They’re successful, and return with Dairine appreciating Roshaun a little more.

I really like how this book continues to expand the world of the series. Now we get to meet wizards from other planets, and other species, and it really emphasizes how non-Earth centric this series is. I particularly love the antics of the group visiting Earth, it’s very entertaining. Not to mention thinking of the logistics of hiding all of them!

Nita’s path has always been more interesting and also harder to understand for me. Interesting because it’s all about embracing risk when moving onto something new, and for that you do need some of the Lone Power, or the Power that represents death. It speaks to this interesting balance the series has where you need some death and some danger, but overall it’s what the wizards fight against. But this is also more confusing, especially when I was younger, because I have no idea what an existence without bodies looks like, I simply can’t wrap my head around it. What does that mean? Did they all just die? And I think I got it more this time, but it’s still so weird to me.

The combination of the two storylines though makes this a really entertaining and insightful book. I think it frequently gets overlooked in the series, but it’s a solid installation. Onwards to the next one!

This Is Beautiful: Visiting Old School

Last weekend, I went back to my undergrad institution (Vassar College) for the first time in many years (certainly since the pandemic). I was going to give a talk and network, but I also just wanted an excuse to go back and to talk to my old mentor. It was really cool, leaving as a student and coming back as a peer of my teachers sure is interesting. But I think I got to do most of the tings I wanted, I saw my favorite teachers and met with some students. I even caught a circus show!

It made me really happy to go back and see the place again. Of course also glad for what I learned from people, but it's a nice reminder that these connections don't go away after graduation.

“Orientalism” by Edward Said

An anti-racism group that I am currently moderating just picked Orientalism by Edward Said to be our next book club reading. I recently finished it and I think it’s a very interesting and applicable work, I think the methodology behind it is sound, if it’s at times a little too academic-y.

The book takes the approach of looking at the study of the “Orient,” or really western parts of Asia, throughout history and by doing a close reading of scholars, provide a framework for how orientalism works and functions within society. Through this, he shows that orientalism props up a certain structure of power and thought that rarely gets questioned in society. Some hallmarks are that the Orient is “other” or foreign, that it is unchanging and backwards, and that it needs the West to help modernize it.

What’s really fascinating is how little these aspects have changed over time. You can see all of these aspects in how we talk about the Middle East today, or terrorism, or oil. It is kind of ridiculous in that all of these people are writing about how the Middle East never changes and yet they’re the ones using the same playbook throughout the generations of scholars.

I really enjoyed the format of doing these close readings of text, but to be honest sometimes the name dropping and quotes made it seem very academic and hard to follow. Which might also be a product of the book being written in the 80s, it’s older and not written for a modern audience. But once you get past that, the content is well worth your time!

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about anti-Palestinian sentiments, or about racism towards Asians and Middle Easterns more broadly. It remains very relevant and super applicable today, so I don’t doubt that we have much we could learn from it.

This Is Beautiful: Weekend Away

 Last weekend I headed out and was in New York to celebrate my cousin's birthday. It was busy but it was nice to have a change of scenery! We stayed with my grandparents and saw a bunch of people that came in for the weekend. Traveling is so hard when you're in school, but it is nice when you can get away with it.

“Talking to Dragons” by Patricia Wrede

So my partner and I FINALLY finished this book and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I talked about the first, second, and third books a while ago, and we did start this book then, but then we went back to the fall semester of school and that prolonged absolutely everything we wanted to do.

This book is different from the others in that it’s entirely written from the first person perspective. The narrator is Cimorene’s son, Daystar. He leaves home with a mysterious sword and goes into the Enchanted Forest. There he meets a fire witch Shiara and a baby dragon (specified as too young to have chosen a gender or a name). In the forest he meets all of our old friends one by one. First there’s the witch Morwen who helps Shiara out by giving her a kitten, then the wizard Telemund, and finally Kazul the dragon at the castle. And of course the wizards are met along the way as they attempt to cause trouble. Once at the castle, Kazul knows exactly what to do which is to start a battle with the wizards while Daystar uses the sword to get into the castle and free the king. Of course they’re successful, and everyone is reunited!

I was surprised how this book is quite different from the others. There’s the narration style, and also the time jump of seventeen years since the end of the previous book. I think though, that this results in a very satisfying ending. You don’t feel as though the author is simply retreading past ground, she’s trying out different things and using it to pull all of the remaining threads together.

I was frustrated a bit by the setup of the book. The idea is that King Mendelbar has been stuck in the castle, and the only option is to wait for Daystar to grow up and free him. It is specified that Cimorene has been trying every other option to get him out, but the other characters seem pretty resigned. Which is rough, and also begs the question of what have they been doing for seventeen whole years??

If you accept that though, this is a fun book. You get to meet all of the old characters and see what they’ve been up to, while meeting some fun new ones. I’m a big fan of the baby dragon and the shenanigans they get up to, and the talkative lizard Suz who pops up now and again. It’s a cute story, really well done for what it is, and definitely had a good time going through it together.

This Is Beautiful: Ballet

 I recently went out and made the questionable decision to buy pointe shoes again. It's been nine years since I've done pointe work, I'm essentially starting from scratch, but it's been interesting getting back into ballet a little more. It definitely makes me remember why I stopped, this stuff hurts so much, but you get to look so graceful and actually imitate professional dancers. And maybe it's a little unhealthy, but the calluses I'm starting to get feel like a badge of honor. Both that I'm doing this, and that I'm somehow doing this while in grad school. And I think progressing on my own has allowed me to go at my own pace so I don't feel like this is a chore so much and more that it's something I want to do. Dancing, it's so fun and it sure beats your body up. But it's really cool to see the progress over time.

“A Wizard Alone” by Diane Duane

When it came to the New Millenium Editions of the Young Wizards series, I was probably the most curious about this one. (You can see posts on previous books in the series: first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.) The book has to do a lot with grief, and also with autism. So, you can imagine that it would need an update from its original publication in 2002, we now know a lot more about neurodivergence than previously.

The book alternates between Kit and Nita’s narration. Kit’s house has been having a “wizardly leakage” of sorts where the TV and the remote yell at each other in Japanese and Ponch is still coming into his powers. He’s worried about Nita, who is grieving her mother, but doesn’t want to press. He gets contacted by the Senior wizards, there’s a new wizard who has been on his Ordeal for several months. Kit goes to find the new wizard, Darryl, and finds out that he’s an African-American autistic boy. He was diagnosed young, but began to have a much harder time coping with his environment a few months ago. Kit is surprised by this, but as the Senior wizard reminds him, wizardry isn’t reserved for the neurotypical. Kit goes home and researches autism, including reading about what autistic people have written about it. He starts using Ponch’s abilities to jump between worlds to enter Darryl’s mind. Shortly after this though, Kit starts to take on some of Darryl’s characteristics including being withdrawn, and he shortly goes back into Darryl’s mind against the counsel of the senior wizards.

Nita meanwhile has been having a hard time grieving her mother. She’s frustrated with the other students that treat her as fragile, and even more annoyed with those that pretend nothing happened. Thankfully she has a pretty good counselor at school, but feeling like she has to take care of her dad and sister is leaving her drained. She starts having dreams, first it’s a clown going in circles, then a giant robot. She thinks it’s for Dairine at first, but then realizes that it’s Darryl! After doing some research, she learns that Darryl is an Abdal, or a Pillar, he’s essentially a saint or a direct conduit for the One Power that created life. She realizes that Darryl has been prolonging his Ordeal to try and trap a fragment of the Lone Power that created death at his own expense. She then realizes that Kit has disappeared to go back in there and will get stuck as well so she goes in after him.

Once in there Nita finds Darryl’s kernel, the instructions for his internal world that she learned about in the last book to save her mom, and tweaks it so she has an easier time. She joins the others and smashes a mirror that represents the trap that Darryl has set. The Lone Power leaves, with the agreement that Darryl will stay and trap him further. (The Long Power knows that Darryl is a Pillar so the extra investment in him makes sense. But also Darryl now knows he can be in multiple places at once from interacting with Nita and Kit separately so this trap isn’t an issue for him.) Nita offers that Darryl use the kernel to tweak his brain, and Darryl explicitly refuses to do so. He wants to keep his autism, to keep playing the hand he has been dealt. They all head home, and end up meeting up with Darryl on the moon. Darryl is clearly still autistic, he has a harder time with some aspects of conversation. But he’s gotten much better at dealing with his environment.

Alright so there were a lot of changes made here. I couldn’t remember the full details of the original, so I did do some digging and found both a review from an autistic individual and a post from the author that talks about this a little. The original version didn’t have the caveat that wizardry isn’t just for neurotypical individuals, and the autism is portrayed as a symptom of how Darryl has been keeping the Lone Power trapped in his inner universe. So when you get to the end of the book, Darryl gets “cured” of the autism and emerges as a neurotypical person. And that’s been criticized, of course. Having said that, before that point the portrayal of autism is fairly representative and respectful. But the ending certainly needed to be changed. My favorite inclusion though was of Kit researching autism and reading about autism from autistic people which you so rarely see. Plus his mom, who’s a nurse, talks about how autism can look so different between different people and this is just one person’s experience which is good. So the new editions are a major step up, and I’m honestly so impressed that an author went back and did so many edits in response to feedback from readers! Really nice to see.

Of course the other part of this book that I appreciate is the discussion of grief. This is largely Nita’s side of the plot, where she’s dealing with her mother’s recent death. At the beginning of the book, she doesn’t feel well enough to help Kit with this because she doesn’t want to let him down. She also has her own conversation with the Senior wizards about how she’s obsessively been looking up vocabulary after her interactions with the clown and robot. And they tell her to take her time, grief is on its own time and she shouldn’t do anything until she’s ready. By the end of the book though, she is pissed off, and ready to use that anger to save Kit. She’s annoyed at herself for taking so long when her wizardry partner clearly needed her. And at the end of the book she’s ready to tell the counselor that she’s done, she certainly isn’t over her mother’s death, but she’s ready to be a part of life more actively now. I don’t think it’s a perfect representation, maybe if she also went to normal therapy and not just grief counseling I’d feel better, but I do like the caveat that she isn’t totally unaffected by her mom’s death anymore. Grief is really weird where you’ll feel fine, and then suddenly it’ll hit you all over again. Or you’ll be openly experiencing it and be like “ok good I’m supposed to feel this so I’m feeling it and also this SUCKS.” There’s so many contradictions to it. So this is a good start to showing that in fiction, and since all of the other representations are so bad this really stands out.

So that’s this book! Moving onwards to the next one.

This Is Beautiful: Giving Talks

 Honestly, I'm real proud of myself for getting at the place where I can even enjoy public speaking. If you take a step back, there's a lot of work that goes into getting data and into presenting it in a way that people can understand. So it's really cool to be giving a presentation and communicating something that you're passionate about!

Anyways, this is brought to you by me doing my annual presentation to the department updating them on my progress and it going well. I was super anxious beforehand, but it all came together! Good stuff.

“A Wizard’s Dilemma” by Diane Duane

This book has been the hardest for me to read, even from the beginning. And that’s saying something for this series where I feel emotionally wrung out after most of them (you can read about the first book, second, third, and fourth that I read previously).

The fifth installation begins with Nita and Kit trying to fix some pollution in the water. Nita is frustrated with Kit and they end up getting into a fight. Kit then becomes preoccupied with his dog, Ponch, finding some area where he can practically invent new universes. Nita meanwhile has to deal with her mom getting a brain cancer diagnosis. To try and combat it she starts to learn about universe kernels, a sort of core that contain all of the laws of the universe. Once found, you can start to manipulate them, and her plan is to find her mother’s and create a world inhospitable for the cancer.

Along the way Nita meets other wizards also learning about kernels, including Prayala, a sort of otter-like alien with many more legs. The Lone Power (inventor of death) ends up inhibiting Prayala and offering Nita a deal: lose her wizardry and he will save her mother. Nita runs out of time and heads into her mother during surgery with Prayala. She tries to leave Kit to spare him, but Ponch takes him through one of his universes and to Nita anyways. Nita faces off against the Lone Power, who kills Prayala his host, and is about to give up when Kit appears with Ponch. Nita mom also manifests in her own body and tells the Lone Power to scram. She realizes his plan though, to act beaten and then force Nita’s mom to constantly be worrying about her health. To effectively stop living and start only avoiding death. So while they get rid of a lot of the cancer, not all of it. Nita gets ready to spend some time with her mom before she inevitably deteriorates.

The biggest thing about this book is that it is such a good book about grief, and coming to terms with death. What would you give up for your loved ones? What is a life worth? And how can you decide when this is in no way a rational choice? Nita makes up her mind to give up her wizardry for her mother, and it’s only with Kit’s help that she can move on from that. The book doesn’t actually get to the point where Nita’s mom dies, but way before then Nita realizes what the alternative is and what she has to do. The book ends with Nita dreaming about her and her mom in Timeheart together, talking about what happens after her mom dies. I can’t imagine what this is like to read if you have actually lost a parent, but I know it rings so authentically for me and I complain a LOT about books and how they tackle grief. This doesn’t shy away from grief and its messiness and that is such a strength of the work.

The side plot with Kit and Ponch is also really cute. It doesn’t say much about like emotions and things, but it’s really neat to get more of a look into Ponch’s mind and his relationship with Kit. Right before the end Kit gets taken to a world that is exactly like his home but perfect. For a minute he thinks about staying there and getting everything right and maybe even convincing himself that this is the place he’s from. But that doesn’t change that it wouldn’t be real and it wouldn’t be his universe. I have some mixed feelings about this, as I don’t think we can prove that the world we are living in is “the real one,” but he says something interesting about wizardry. Which is that it’s for engaging more with the real world and not for hiding it. Which is a neat idea, the things you do should get you closer to the reality of the world. Again, may not be totally sound, but a cool idea that melds with the rest of the book.

Final thing I want to comment on is minor but resonates with me. Nita’s mother used to be a ballet dancer, heavily implied that she was a principal or something as she has a poster of herself dressed as a swan princess. With the context of her illness it talks about how her body used to be under total control and now isn’t, or about how she knows about pain through dance. And that you shouldn’t mess with swans, they are fierce. All of that isn’t super expanded on, but I sure wish people didn’t think of dancers as weak and feminine and more so as a strong, fierce, swan. It’s another detail that brings this story to life.

I’m chugging through these pretty quickly, but I’m eager to get to some beloved characters and see how the world expands from here! From what I remember, all of the books are pretty emotionally challenging, but I think this one is probably the most brutal in the series. So at least there’s that to look forward to.

This Is Beautiful: Mitski

 Over the break I really wanted to expose myself to new music, so I figured I would pick one artist and just binge their stuff. For better or worse I chose Mitski and then realized that she has a whopping like six albums out so I had my work cut out for me.

It was a good time though, it was definitely interesting only being able to listen to each album a few times and then moving onto the next one. And I got to hear how her sound changed over time and figure out which ones I liked the best. I think next time I'll pick a more manageable artist, but still had a good time with this experiment.

“A Wizard Abroad” by Diane Duane

Moving right along, this is the fourth book in the Young Wizards series (you know the drill, there’s the first book, second book, third book, and this is my post on the fourth). This one always felt like a break from the earlier three to me, even when I was younger. It’s Nita’s first time on her own, in a different country, and it’s now openly dealing with romance. Not even I could have missed that when I was younger.

The book starts with Nita’s parents sending her to Ireland to stay with her aunt, arguing that she needs some time away from Kit to be a kid and things like that. Nita’s annoyed, but leaves. Once she gets to Ireland, strange things start happening, things like mythological creatures from the past coming back to the present. The source of this is that magic is hanging around longer than it should, ideally magical energy dissipates in a few days, but here is has been sticking around forever. She goes to find other wizards and see what information they have for her. In the process, she learns that Ronan, a boy in town she met and found attractive, is a wizard as well. He introduces her to the rest of the community, and Nita learns that her aunt (Aunt Annie) is a wizard too! They get everyone together and decide that they have to reenact a battle from ancient Ireland in order to reset the magical overlays.

To do this, they need four weapons, the cup (water), stone (earth), sword (air), and spear (fire). Not the exact weapons from ancient history, but weapons imbued with the spirit of the originals. They find the first three relatively easily, but Nita has to call Dairine in to get molten metal from the heart of a star for the final one. To smelt it, Nita and Kit (Kit started sneaking over to Ireland pretty early on) learn that the town blacksmith is a Power who couldn’t bear to leave (it’s implied she’s a vulture later on). So she smelts it into a spear, and Ronan, who has some of the spirit of the Power that used to be in Peach from the last book, begins to carry it. They cross over into another plane for the battle, and almost immediately there are attacks and deaths. The wizards make it down, and just when all seems lost, Ronan throws the spear into the Lone Power’s eye and they all go home.

Alright so even rereading this, there is so much to keep track of. There’s whole segments of Irish history in here, and even now I mostly skimmed those and didn’t think about it too hard. You get the details that you need anyways. I bet that I could go through and actually learn a lot about Irish history and mythology if I actually dove into it, it’s that detailed.

There’s also the romance, which I skipped over in the plot summary. Essentially, Nita and Ronan kiss and that’s how Nita realizes that he has part of a Power in him. It doesn’t lead to much, so I don’t find it super necessary, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It doesn’t take over the plot, and it does add to Nita’s experience being on her own and meeting someone. Just the right balance for me, personally.

We also get introduced to a cat bard in this book. I haven’t read the cat wizard series from Duane, but I bet that she follows up on these characters. Which is great because they are very cute, and since the series is already pretty non-human-centric, might as well!

Having said that, so much of the book is about how you can be surrounded by members of your own species and feel the most alone you’ve ever felt. I think it really hits something key to traveling, or even just growing up. You feel out of place and alone and uncomfortable when you are somewhere that you don’t have roots or a connection to. Similarly to Nita, I spent a semester abroad in Scotland. So I could still understand the language (mostly) but I felt so lonely while I was there. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, but the profound sense of detachment I sure still remember.

It really does feel like the books get more mature at this point. Plenty of characters die here (all unnamed, but still) and after this the series for sure gets a little more dark. I am excited to keep going though!

This Is Beautiful: Scott Pilgrim vs the World

 Now I haven't read the graphic novel, and I'm about to watch the Netflix animated show, but I really love the movie starring Michael Cera. My partner hadn't watched it yet so we watched it together the other night and I forgot just how much I adore this movie. It has such a unique and evocative blend of comic book aesthetic and video game noises and mechanics. You wouldn't think that all three (movie, comic book, and video game) would work well together, but it's so distinctive and merges together so well!

And then there's the fact that the casting is incredible! Everyone in it has so much talent. And the plot I think is still different from any other movie. It takes a really critical look at relationships and how everyone gets hurt, and you can't fully escape that past, regardless of if you hurt others or were hurt yourself. The final battle with Scott using self-respect to defeat the villain, coming clean to Knives and Ramona, is something that you still don't see in media frequently. I wish more would take the self-respect route rather than "love" or something.

With the new show, maybe I'll finally pick up the graphic novel. I haven't been avoiding it, I just haven't had the need since I like the movie so much. But this could be a really cool comparison of the different formats for the same story.

“High Wizardry” by Diane Duane

This is the third installment of the Young Wizards series! (I wrote about the first and second books previously.) Interestingly, this is the first one where we are not getting Nita’s point of view the entire time.

The book starts out with Nita and Kit going to a space museum to get out of the house while Nita’s family gets a new computer up and running. Dairine is caught messing with it and gets sent along with them. While at the museum, Nita and Kit realize that Dairine is both a wizard and that she has absconded to Mars. This leads them to break the news to their parents, and head off after Dairine on her Ordeal. Dairine meanwhile is off sightseeing the solar system, gets chased by some aliens, and then ends up on an unfamiliar planet that functions like a giant computer chip. She starts teaching the chip (called the motherboard) and ends up creating a race of little computer guys. The computer guys start arguing about the problem of entropy and they want to stop time in the universe while they reprogram it. Turns out that this is the Lone Power (the Power that invented entropy and death) tempting them, but Dairine dissuades them by sharing her memories and becoming part computer as well. Nita, Kit, and the talking parrot Peach catch up to her. Peach gets killed for talking smack to the Lone Power, and Dairine ends up defeating the Lone Power by holding him to the planet and recreating the first lights after the Big Bang. It’s then revealed that Peach is actually another Power, who takes the Lone Power home to recover. The rest of the kiddo all head home alright.

This is a really inventive book for a number of reasons. Dairine’s manual is a laptop, and it is hinted that this is a beta version of a new manual aimed at more experienced wizards to help cast spells faster and such. But it’s a sign of a larger theme of the book which is the potential of technology with magic. Dairine uses her laptop to cast spells, and creates a lifeform that isn’t biological, it’s entirely technology. So far we have seen Nita deal with life forms and Kit with inanimate objects, but no computers or artificial intelligence yet.

We also get an interesting insight into the Powers with this book, from seeing the Lone One be defeated right from the beginning and the transformation of Peach. I remember being fascinated by the Peach plot twist because Peach has been a really endearing character from the beginning, so to have her change into an all-powerful being sure is something. I wonder if Duane planned that from the start or just came up with it for this book.

We also finally get to see more of space, and of more life forms. There’s a really big transit station that Dairine goes through, and Nita and Kit eventually follow. It is like something out of Star Wars, the beings are incredibly diverse and rarely do you see a hominid. I really love how this universe is so non-Earth and non-human centric, it’s great to see.

Speaking of Star Wars, I am amused that the pop culture references when it comes to Dairine have clearly been updated in the more recent edition. (In Deep Wizardry Dairine is reading Percy Jackson, for instance.) But the Star Wars and Darth Vader references have not changed at all! Reading this has also made me think that maybe the relationship edits are more me misremembering than changing the books that much, Nita and Kit have another conversation about their relationship and I definitely remember that in the original. Other than that, I don’t think this book changed too much.

And finally on a superficial note I always liked this book as I super identify with Nita here. As the oldest sibling as well, it is hard to have your “thing” and then see a sibling start to do it as well. And potentially do it better. So I loved all of the little exchanges where Nita calls Dairine a brat and things like that, it’s very accurate to my sibling dynamics.

I’m blazing through these, but I’m having such a good time! Onwards to the next in the series!

This Is Beautiful: Back Home

Holidays and vacations are nice, but there's nothing like being home and being in your own space! Got back over the weekend from spending the holiday in Florida and I'm looking forward to another week of a little staycation before classes start up again. Of course I have projects that I'm working on, but other than that it's rest time!