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Finished reading the original novel of Paprika. I love the movie (see: Dreampunk) so it was really fun to read the book it's based on. Definitely glad I did!

In some ways it was a bit of a let-down: I was wondering if it'd explain stuff that the movie glosses over, and it did, sorta, in that it had a lot of exposition but also not really stuff I was interested in. It explained the logistical origins of the Paprika identity, e.g., but not the emotional circumstances/how Chiba felt about creating this alter ego and the emotional dynamic. (It did also explain that "DC Mini" stands for "Daedalus Collector Mini", though, so it's got that going for it.)

Paprika the movie is intensely visual and also makes great use of the soundtrack, so I was wondering how the dream world would feel in the book, and I do think it's not as compelling in prose text putting words to everything. And the central dream motif of the parade was invented for the movie.

That said, I do think the book gets to dive deeper into corporate sexism and fatphobia/disability stuff, and in general exploring most of the same stuff with a lot of direct reference points but from a different perspective made it a very interesting read. (E.g., in the book you see the antagonist perspective much earlier, making more stuff dramatic irony rather than a big reveal.)

I do think the book makes Paprika's competence a bit more of an informed trait, since a lot of the time she's getting saved by men, despite supposedly being the best at dreams. That and some other things do make the author come across a bit sexist despite also commenting on sexism.

The ending is weaker than the movie, being more of an "outlast the bad guy and embarrass him once" than anything symbolically satisfying.

What's most interesting to me is the two bartenders, Jinnai and Kuga. They're side characters, and seemingly completely mundane (unlike in the movie), but seem to be author favorites: they're unreasonably competent and helpful, and also they close the book for reasons that aren't well-explained. It sorta feels like I'm missing a reference: why is Kuga such a natural at dream stuff that he invents time travel all by himself? Am I supposed to take them as literally Buddhist figures contrasting with the antagonist's Christian cult status? Why do they play the song P.S. I Love You constantly? I sorta like them, and I'm amused that I was being all "these guys feel like author inserts" before I realized they were literally voiced by the original author and by the director respectively in the movie. But I do feel like they contribute to "men overshadowing Paprika", and while it doesn't really seem they're trying to imply a secret dark ending in the last scene I'm not sure what they are trying to imply.

But regardless, glad I read the book and it gave me a lot to think about.

(P.S., apparently the same guy wrote the novel of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I also like, so clearly I need to read that sometime too.)

Took kiddo to see fireflies and hear bullfrogs at the marsh in Concord. Excellent opportunity to practice pointing at things and saying his favorite word, "star". Who cares about bedtime, anyways?

(Real downside is that fireflies o'clock is also mosquito o'clock.)

Went on a nice chill western MA trip. Lots of farmstands and ice cream, Mass MoCA is a really great space and a really great museum. Some various flavors of mishap but a good trip overall.

Watched Paprika on the big screen at the Somerville Theater. A favorite of mine, definitely benefited from the big screen format. Really highlighted how background music and lack of background music was used, which I hadn't focused on so much before.

I do have some nebulous thoughts about how motifs and locations are revisited to anchor the dream logic. I'd probably try to do something with that for a Dreampunk 2e (not that I'm likely to do a Dreampunk 2e).

In other news, I just read Becky Chambers' A Closed and Common Orbit, which I really liked, probably even more than The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Feels like a strong entry in second-wave robots-with-feelings media, with Murderbot and Ancillary Justice. It had some weaker spots (the heist at the end could really have been strengthened in line with the themes) but I feel like the interwoven narratives and the space it gave the viewpoint characters was very effective.

It makes me think about genre on two different axes:

1. I feel like there are two pretty distinct types of media that often get lumped under "cozy": works where nothing bad happens and character-driven works where trauma and other difficult emotions are given space, care, and value. A Closed and Common Orbit is firmly in the second category, but I do wish I had better terminology for distinguishing the two types of work. "Character-driven" is part of it but probably broader than I'm really looking for.

(Sometimes the former can be nice as well but I do feel like the conflation of the two is often used to dismiss/undermine things like Ghibli movies, Wanderhome, etc.)

2. It sorta feels like sci fi and fantasy have gotten pushed into this corner of needing world-saving violent adventurous stakes as the focus of their main plot, and this can really flatten characters' motivations and make everything feel really rushed and forced. I feel like there's a lot of room for strong stories that are character driven and have personal stakes, even if they're not going in a cozy direction. I used to associate this with long-running series, how e.g. Buffy and Dresden Files felt the need to keep raising the stakes to a point where they lost emotional aspects that were stronger initially for me, but I think it's more pervasive than that.

Meanwhile, we're taking a chill week in Western Mass with Auntie Grandma. Kiddo's at an age where we take him to cool places and all he wants to do is play in the mulch and such, but he did take some interest in cows and continues to be into ceiling fans, so gotta call that a win.

I appreciate Ponyo more than I used to. I mean, it is dorky, but not as bad as The Cat Returns, which also isn't that bad. Not everything can be Totoro, after all.

Some of that is just appreciating Lisa, Sosuke's mom, more. I endeavor to be the sort of parent that when your kid's goldfish turns into a magical girl in the middle of a typhoon would say "Life is mysterious and amazing, but we have work to do now, and I need you both to stay calm."

But aside from that, I have thoughts about the "mundane world" as portrayed in the film. It's very common for kids' media to have a mundane world and a magic world, in various ways, and then to have plausible deniability such that adults or at least non-protagonists can be unaware and/or dismissive of the magic world. And Ponyo appears to have this setup too: there's the magical ocean world and the mundane human world, and they're explicitly framed as needing to be kept separate. But I think it's more interesting/works better to think of it more akin to magical realism.

( Read more... )

Just finished To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. I really liked it! If you want anticolonialist indigenous YA fantasy and that manages to make steampunk and dragons synergistic, I'd heartily recommend it. Some classic "misfit at a fancy school" vibes but updated and self-aware.

Some fascinating artistic and worldbuilding choices that took me a while to fully process but in the end I was 100% onboard with. And who doesn't want to get thrust into adventure after being chosen by a baby dragon?

I'll be at Arisia tomorrow at Sarah Morrison's Artist Guest of Honor signing with some Dreampunk stuff. If you're there, come say hi!

I feel like it says several interesting things about our society that I'm noticeably more actively gendered as a woman when I'm out and about with a baby. (Mask and long skirt are obviously contributing factors as well, but I've had those for years.)

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. This graphic novel was really fun and interesting because it takes place in a rather surreal space future with a lot of weird unexplained elements like buildings (ruined and occupied) free-floating in space. It started as a webcomic which seems relevant to how it has different sections that feel very different genre-wise (slice of life space building renovation, boarding school flashback, sci fi adventure). I think it works though and it keeps you on your toes about what to expect. You might call it found family overall, but not in an excessively cozy way IMO. I feel like the thing it reminds me most of is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Does some cool stuff with color, though that did hurt character recognizability for me a bit. Definitely a worthwhile read.

My next read was Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Sort of a magical realism memoir about being a trans woman, the way trans stories are told in the mainstream, and about brutality and violence. I think it felt very real and very compelling, the way it's presented with various fantastic elements some of which seem like direct metaphors and some of which are harder to interpret and generally with a heightened but authentic emotional register worked very well for me. Reminds me of, like, Hitherby Dragons or The Magic Fish or Freakboy, but really its own thing entirely. I'd definitely call it a must-read.

Things I did not anticipate: a phase where kiddo's really into door hinges

Just finally finished The Owl House. The last season definitely felt rushed in a way that made the conclusion feel a bit more like pretty theatrics than a satisfying conclusion, but it was a great show overall with some great characters and I do really like Luz's mom and the whole deal with King. We'll have to figure out what we're going to watch very inconsistently next.

Also just finished Trans-Galactic Bike Ride. Kickstarter anthologies can be a bit hit or miss, but this one had some really strong stories. I especially loved Charlie Jane Anders's "The Visitmothers", which I'd read before in one of her own anthologies, and also "Lucy Doesn't Get Angry" by Tucker Lieberman and "Rovers" by Marcus Woodman.

Before that I read The Wicker King, which is well-written and also super-effective against me specifically. A little hard for me to talk about, but had cool book design and a lot of emotional impact. I guess I'd say it's an interesting counterpoint to I Saw the TV Glow in a lot of ways despite what it's trying to do being very different.

Five years ago, wearing a certain dress, a button came off, I found said button, and I was all "I should sew this button back on".

But it's not a dress I wear very often, especially when I'm not going to much in the ways of events.

So, it just languished in my room.

Now, five years later, I need to wear this dress.

And I was able to find the button.

Just finished reading the novel of The Maltese Falcon. I enjoyed it! If you like the movie, which follows it quite closely, I'd recommend it. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd recommend watching it on an airplane. I think the third person limited, without visibility into anyone's thoughts, heightened the similarity in feel to the movie and as well as Sam Spade's apparent lack of emotion. You can definitely recognize a lot of pop culture noir ideas being established here, and the writing is strong and effective.

Somewhere I'd picked up the expectation that the homophobia and fatphobia would be worse than they actually are. Sam's not going to avoid slurring folks about their sexuality when it benefits him, but he's just as cruel about other things, so it sorta feels more natural/less dated than I was expecting. And you could certainly find fault with the narration at points, but the characters are taken seriously and not treated as one-dimensional. And to some extent, you know, it's a novel from 90 years ago. Would you rather have modestly-problematic gay and fat criminals or no gay and fat representation at all?

Tangentially from that, while it's not the authorial intent, the idea of Sam Spade as aromantic has been sorta bouncing around in my head. Like, he's got the noir dynamic of several attractive women falling over him and him sorta brushing it off and even when being positive responding in a cool, sorta dispassionate way, and the whole way he's like "even if I might be in love I'm not going to let it cause me to make bad decisions, I know what happens to people who make bad decisions when they think they're in love" at the end. It doesn't really hold water textually, but the lack of insight into what Sam's really thinking does create more ambiguity than you'd otherwise get, I do think it could be an interesting angle to explore in modern noir works.

All in all I think it's a strong novel even beyond its influence on later works and I'm glad to have read it.

If we marked months by the natural world Wanderhome-style, we might have one for the emergence of chives, after snowdrops but before forsythias and violets. As is traditional, I made chive biscuits with ours. This year I opted for lazy Bisquick drop biscuits rather than the fancier ones with layers. Garlic, green onions, and vegan cheese rounded them out well.

In other news, kiddo's favorite song is officially South Australia by the Pogues.

A rather niche thing, but if anyone's interested in Sig: City of Blades or just likes tinkering with Forged in the Dark mechanics, I just posted my adaptation of a|state's excellent Trouble Engine to Sig. Check it out!

https://xavid.itch.io/trouble-in-the-city-between

Tried my hand at an experimental Battenberg, one of my favorite English cakes. It didn't rise properly (maybe my baking soda/powder are too old? or I didn't cream my butter properly?) and I manifestly need more practice working with marzipan. It was still tasty though!

I also did some carpentry to fix our Little Free Library. The kit we got had the post in two pieces you screwed together to save on shipping, and turns out that's not the most structural approach, so sometime during the renovations it broke and fell. I got a new cedar post at Arlington Coal and Lumber and then discovered that not all cedar 4 x 4 posts have the same actual finished dimensions. Whoops! But I put in a bit of a shim to fill the gap and it seems to work okay, so I'll call that a phoenix.

Side effect of watching the Great British Bake-Off: making Cornish pasties.

I'm going to iterate on the pastry recipe next time and also shape them more like I think of the canonical Cornish pasty shape, but they were tasty and fun to bake.

Side effect of watching the Great British Bake-Off while also holding a baby and being generally ridiculous: singing "Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? / Choux pastry is a place on Earth."

Just posted my Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine introductory heist one-shot, To Rob Death’s Dominion. Steal the jewel that justifies existence from the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, or fall into chaos trying! If you’ve ever wanted to see what the fuss is all about with Chuubo’s but wanted either something bite-sized or something a bit less pastoral, this is what you’ve been waiting for.

Check it out: https://xavid.itch.io/to-rob-deaths-dominion

In addition to various more usual culinary activities, and prompted by my inadvertently getting the incorrect sort of dairy-free yogurt, I ended up making this Vegan Yogurt Cake. It worked surprisingly well given that the sort of yogurt I used was completely different than the yogurt the author referred to. Goes well with my cranberry sauce et al, and I could totally see making it again or experimenting with it.

Sarah's aunt visited a couple weeks back, and as is tradition we watched a combination of movies with "red" in the title and vaguely classic movies.

Red Notice was a very fun, twist-filled Lupin-esque heists-and-adventure-archaeology sort of deal. It's not, like, clever or anything, but it had some fun action sequences and never got boring and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

We then watched The Comedy of Terrors mainly on the strength of me contending that I like Vincent Price, though afterwards I realized I'm not really sure what else I've seen him in. A bit slow-moving at the start, but it has a good cast and the climactic sequence was very fun and had some good jokes. No Arsenic and Old Lace but I'm happy to have watched it.

Red 2 was a fun spy action film with a bit more actual coherence than Red Notice. Anthony Hopkins does a really fun job.

And now, without Sarah's aunt, we watched Spirited Away: Live On Stage, the recording of the Japanese Spirited Away stage play. It was very well done; very close to the original in terms of script with a few added songs, but really great puppetry, stage transformations, and clever transitions to represent the spirit world convincingly without excessive use of projected special effects. I'd definitely recommend it. (Also makes me think about how Spirited Away is and isn't like common portal fantasy architypes and how that relates to gameable structures.)