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.