rhythmia

Happy Birthday emryssa and jimmysassypants!! And happy summer solstice! :D


Hope you're having a lovely lovely day, full of tasty food , friends and family.

I will be posting about my Yosemite trip, and books I have read, and responding to flist posts and comments. But not this week. Maybe next week I'll be in the right head space. I may be lurking around, but most likely not writing.

I wanted to let you lovelies know that, no matter how long it is between times that we talk with each other, no matter how far away from each other we are, I love you. Please take care of yourselves, and cherish your loved ones.

♥

I think I'm on 6?

1. I am unreasonably amused by the reactions I'm getting from my hair still, since a lot of people I am colleagues with haven't seen it yet. XD So today when I was driving over to another store to drop off lab supplies, the manager there totally didn't recognize me. Then she said that she loved my new hair. *preens a little* haha, I'm getting a little vain about it. :P It all balances out the fact that my grandparents think I'm nuts for coloring it and cutting it so short. :P

2. I'm going with the girls to Yosemite tomorrow! \o/ So excited. I hope I don't turn into a melonsicle. T_T Four and a half day weekend, because the three of us are about ready to crack due to long-term rl insanity. >.< Will attempt to work on fic on the drive. :P

3. 10/10 on my chapter 2 stats quiz! \o/

4. New Arashi fic and flail on my flist. Fandom is so awesome. ♥

How are you lovelies doing? *flops over*

Ehehehe, I stayed up too late last night. -_-

But for today, I went out to dimsum with my mom, aunt, uncle and grandma to celebrate my aunt and uncle passing their citizenship test. \o/ So some time in....May? June? will be the swearing in ceremony. I love going out with them because my aunt and uncle are truly partners, and they're both pretty sharp. Uncle loves the puns, and he manages them in Cantonese, and plays with how certain English and Cantonese words sound similar. My current favorite is how their class explained how to remember the name of the current President: It's their parents! Their "Ah ba ma" is Obama. *giggles*

Happy thing two: hanging about with the Lunch Bunch. Being lazy together in the same space, Husband watching a kdrama on Queen's computer, Fred passed out on the bed, and the Queen and I curled up reading different books and cross-commenting and having random conversations. I'm borrowing the Queen's copy of Kitchen Confidential, and I am hooked. I love behind-the-scenes type books and television programs. If Japan ever gave us a show showing what all the producers, ADs, etc. do in the background of Arashi shows, I would be v.v. happy. :P

Happy thing three: maybe this makes me vain, but Husband really liked my new haircut. ^_____^ She wants me to have this style for her wedding, haha.

I'm plotting out that junior high!girlfriends!Arashi fic. >.> I think I may work on it properly when I go to Yosemite with the girls this weekend.

♥ So how are all you lovelies doing?

It's Friday! -_-

I've been tagged by the lovely solarwind, to post each day with a happy thing, however small.

Work today was insane. Seriously. I didn't get to each lunch until 4:45 because customers never stopped coming in. I got there at 9:30 this morning.

Happy thing! My coworker bought me snacks to eat! ♥ Edamame, popcorn, and mini-meringues from Trader Joe's, and then put them out in hopes that I could swing back and munch in between customers. It sort of worked. :p

Happy thing 2! My friend texted me back; I have tickets to the SJSU production of Vagina Monologues this Saturday! \o/

Also my online statistics course quiz 1 was amazingly easy. \o/ Probably because I ingested the lesson in every way possible, from text, video, online lesson. :P

Okay, to bed for me. I need to get to work crazy early to get through work before customers start coming in and making it impossible. >.>

♥ to all you lovelies. One day when I can brain again I'll post about books I'm reading.

Yay for finally getting inspiration again, I was worried I wouldn't be able to finish the prompt for kegom who commented on a fic meme ages and ages ago. ^^;; For the interested, it's Sho/Ohno/Jun, prompt 'sleepy', over here. :D

...seeking suggestions. I'd originally created the writing comm just to keep that separate from my fandom and offline meanderings and make it easy to keep track of stuff. Would y'all want me to post here like a notification whenever I post there?

also: anyone any good at wireless internet? We've got one comp downstairs connected by wire to the internets and the router, and two upstairs using wireless. Every time someone calls in on the landline (not calling out though) the wireless drops out entirely. And when someone's using the downstairs computer, a lot of the time the connection upstairs slows to a crawl. Cue massive amounts of frustration from my brother trying to download anything upstairs. Suggestions?

1) What's a fair price to charge for a hair cut? (Yes, I do have to ask because I only get it cut about once every 2-3 years ^^)

2) Is it rude to ask to pay at the man's hair cut rate if what I want is, in fact, a man's hair cut? I'm not picky, I just want to chop my hair off so I can donate it. :P

I'm not cutting this because this is very important to me.

A couple years ago, my friend M introduced me to this amazing animated show called Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was visiting him, he showed me the first episode, and I ended up watching something like four or five episodes in a row before we went for dinner.

Why was I hooked? I was 22 years old at the time, and it was the first time I had ever seen an American cartoon that had dark-skinned characters opening the shot, where their skin color was just part of them and not something to be "A special teaching moment for the white kids", and they were hilarious kids who didn't get killed off. Katara and her brother Sokka had me in the first five minutes.

They were heroes, they coded as Eskimo/Inuit/some flavor of First Nations and their fantasy world drew me in. Aang is a young boy trapped in the ice, they rescue him, and I saw him and was all "jfaojra he's adorable and he looks like a monk-let!"

This was an amazing world with different cultures that I could see were based on East, South, Southeast Asian, Tibetan, First Nations and Native American Indian, and Pacific Islander cultures. I learned from the community that the (white) creators were dedicated to accurately portraying those parts they drew from, and they didn't exoticize them, and they didn't screw it up. *_* This was the characters' world and they lived in it and it wasn't like anyone drawing attention to how cool and Asian it was. *__*

It was an animated show NOT, for once, based on Western/European aesthetics and cultures, and wasn't full of wince-worthy crappy kung fu wannabes. This had martial arts styles I (and my friend M) could actually recognize! :D

And then I learned the movie was coming out. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan. And here is what the initial casting (not final, I hope hope hope it's not final) looks like.

D:

I just. I can't. This hurts so much to see. They whitewashed the leads. Completely. And it's like a slap to the face. It's already so rare to see people of color on screen, when a role calls for someone of "any race" it always seems to default to white. People of color get to be thugs, Magical Negroes or Mystical Asian/Indian Wise Man, the sidekicks, the token who gets killed off, the sexy native girl who snarks back and resists the Great White Hero but gets won over and falls in love with him anyway, etc. etc. And now this is a chance to have a full of cast of POC, with awesome roles that aren't stereotypical, for a smart show that has already won over kids and 'grownups' of every age, race and ethnicity.

I call bullshit. Complete bullshit on Hollywood, that you have to have a white face to sell to white audiences. First assuming that the only audience that matters is white, which makes me a nonentity, and then condescending to white people that they're so dumb that they won't watch anything with people that *gasp* don't look like them. Like I've been doing ALL MY LIFE.

You know what's really kind of a shock? Shyamalan is Indian, and he got interested in the project because his daughter wanted to dress up as Katara. Think of all the kids who love this show, who are people of color and get to see characters who look at least a little bit like them, and learn that Hollywood is saying, "No. You don't count, you don't matter."

Once the Christmas retail rush calms a little I'm going to be writing a letter as in the link below, believe you me. Please spread this around, it's not "just a kids show," it's about sending a message that we can't stand for this sort of institutional racism. It's going to be yellowface, people! Orientalism at it's finest!

Links with things to read here:
The Letter Writing Campaign!

Vejiicakes' post
Tablesaw's post
Rawles' post
Angry Asian Man's post
Angry Black Woman's post (faojra I love her writing)

Personal references during the bloghopping:

oyceter's post on films and tv: What These People Need is a Honky

Smillaraaq's post on Native American Indians portrayal in media

ETA:
A possibly hopeful note from vagabond_sal
Clearinghouse of info at glockgal's place and also here
More links and reactions from jbramx2
Racefail bingo on deadbrowalking comm
Lemon Press's reactions and links
old, but an interview with the creators of Avatar

It just looks like I am. :P Sorry, work has been sucking my energy lately so I have just enough to read entries. I will get to all those comments piling up in my inbox, I'm still thinking of good replies! ^^;;;


Tonight, calculusdude16 had a choir concert. Carmina Burana, delicious. C and I were both in choir together frosh year of college when we did Carmina Burana, and let me tell you, it's a different beast being part of the singing and getting to listen to it from the outside. ^___^ So awesome.

erjika, jimmysassypants and I drove down to watch it. Armed with knitting and too many snacks from my grandmother, heheh. My college choir played it really straight, this version was awesome and I hope they tape it and I can get my sticky little hands on it. Because they had supertitles (was dorkily squeeing about it) and the tenor they had singing the Roasted Swan song while they're all in taberna? *dies* The guy was dressed like a roasted swan. And acted it all out. The bass dragged him off the floor before sining his part, and the tenor was still twitching. XDDDD

Also, the supertitles reminded me of how....earthy this piece is. XDDD Springtime of youth! A boy and a girl in a room together! Giving up all the riches of the world to have the Queen of England in one's arms! Drinks for all!

I still get the "oh, oh oh, totus floreo! Iamamori virginali etc etc~ Novus novus novus amor est quo perdio! quo perdio! quo perdio!" part stuck in my head. And the final O Fortuna sent shivers down my spine. Mmmmm, I love this piece.

I'm not expecting to change anyone's mind about things at this late date, I just have some thoughts that I want to articulate that have been floating around in my mind. I'm letting the outrage simmer on the backburner for a while, though it does power this essay/ramble. ^^

Please be aware that I am willing to discuss things civilly (like an orange), and that I don't have sources and citations to back me up. Just things I've picked up and pulled out of my ass, so if there are facts I get wrong, tell me. ^_^V

I keep hearing ads for Yes on this proposition to Protect Marriage, sponsored by the Knights of something or other on my favorite radio station (which saddens me, but that's funding and advertising for you). And it made me think. Marriage as we know of it, as a bond of love and devotion and so forth, hasn't been around that long. Historically, marriage as an institution is for economic benefit, usually that of the husband's and/or the father/family of the wife. Women are commodities traded around that serve as a symbol of that economic tie. I'm not sure how recent it is, but the romance stuff as a reason to bind people together doesn't seem to me to be a driving force to marriage until the last couple of centuries, maybe? Anyone out there know better?

So my thoughts are, my big thing about marriage here in the United States is that it is tied to a slew of benefits such as reduced income tax, visitation rights in hospitals, power of attorney, custody rights of children, etc., etc. From my limited understanding, civil unions and domestic partnerships don't have the same spectrum of rights. So we have a separate-but-equal situation going on here, and we all know how well that idea goes down now. If the rights were the same across the board and it's just a matter of the term, then I don't care, whatever. But that's not the case.

Personally, I don't have any great attachment to the institution of marriage. From my observations of my family, other people, teevee, for all that marriage ceremonies seem to involve vows and promises, the marriage bond is no guarantee. It's not a guarantee of financial security, or happiness, or any affection at all, or a perfect home life, or even fidelity. Because people are people. We make mistakes. We aren't perfect. So I don't see how "granting" marriage (argh, so condescending) to a group of people in any way threatens marriage for anyone else.

Though that message on the radio having histrionics of 'gay marriage' being taught in schools did mention that certain groups of people were afraid of their children being exposed to gay people and *gasp* thinking that it would be okay to be gay and love each other. I'm thinking though, I was never taught about marriage, period, in the public schools that I attended. I learned a lot about STDs that I think were meant to frighten us into not wanting to have sex, but never about marriage.

If we called them all civil unions or whatever in the eyes of the law, in the sense that whoever is on either side of the partnership, the laws and benefits apply the same, that would be great. Then there could be separate religious/secular ceremonies that have more emotional impact for the people involved, for people to celebrate their bonds with each other.

Our bonds to our special people are precious, right? No matter what the gender is of the special person. So if some religions don't want to offer that particular ceremony, yes we could cry discrimination, but then again, freedom of religion. I feel that they would be the poorer for not providing a place to share in that joy for the people who believe in that religion, for better or worse, but that would be the way the religion goes. I'm not very firm in my argument here, hehe.

Anyhow, if anyone else has a better way of understanding the arguments for 8, I'd be interested in hearing them, because right now I'm just sort of confused about the logic there. I voted no on proposition 8, because we need to get beyond this discriminatory behavior. I personally am a very strong supporter of queer rights. You may not like the idea of gay people (or trans, or queer, or--) getting married, because the institution is tied to religion and your flavor of religion doesn't acknowledge gay people. But this is an issue of economic benefits, civil rights, as much as anything else, and taking rights away from a group of people does us all harm.

To end on a slightly silly note, think of it this way: Gay people getting married means they get to enjoy all the trials and tribulations of het people getting married. Including divorce and lawyers, trying to coordinate two sets of families joining together without crazy Uncle Lee dumping soup on Auntie May at the reception, and trying to decipher joint tax returns. :P

Okay, have at with the tomatoes!