I just finished my smoke. Time to clean up the mess. ;)
In all serious, though, Yes, Roya was something of a revelation. I feel like I have been wWhew!
I just finished my smoke. Time to clean up the mess. ;)
In all serious, though, Yes, Roya was something of a revelation. I feel like I have been waiting my whole life for this story. It is the erotica I have been craving; it is everything I desire in real life, everything I have experienced in a piece here and a piece there but never as a whole; it is arousing, loving, brave, sexy, caring, submissive & dominant, defiant; it makes me proud to be bisexual, actually. And that is quite an affirming thing....more
I fall more and more in love with Phryne Fisher with each passing tale. She is almost too many things to relate here, but mostly I love her because shI fall more and more in love with Phryne Fisher with each passing tale. She is almost too many things to relate here, but mostly I love her because she feels real, well developed and constantly developing, a woman who could have and should have lived (and I am damn sure some Phrynes have always existed and continue to exist to this day).
Her complexity is what I look for in a good character, and her complexity makes every action she takes, every decision she makes, every risk, every piece of procrastination, every love and every hate utterly believable.
I never got very far on the TV version of Miss Fisher because it was pulled from Netflix just after I started (it might be back now ... I dunno), but having the brilliant narration of Stephanie Daniel breathing life into Phryne is more than enough for me. It may take me a while, but this is a series I expect to finish listening to. ...more
I spent my entire time reading Stephen R. Bown's Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail tryinI spent my entire time reading Stephen R. Bown's Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail trying to figure out how to turn it into an HBO prestige mini-series in the spirit of From the Earth to the Moon or Band of Brothers.
I even think I could do it.
But that's not at all about my skill. It is entirely about how compelling Bown's tale of the search for an answer to scurvy is.
Scurvy is, you see, one of the nastiest things to prey upon humanity. Ascorbic acid isn't a problem for most species on Earth; they make it within their bodies, but great apes (including humans), bats, capyberas, and guinea pigs have to get their ascorbic acid from outside sources. And if we few species don't get it, we are fucked. Our old injuries come back to haunt us: healed broken bones unknit, gums soften then give up their teeth, old scars reopen (inside or outside the body), lethargy and depression dominate our waking hours, and we can't sleep because insomnia sets in, our skin becomes mottled and riddled with pustules, and our organs shut down until we die. Scurvy is nasty.
But scurvy isn't a virus or a bacteria. It is a disease of malnutrition. It is a lack of antiscorbutics, a lack of ascorbic acid, a lack of vitamin C. It seems so simple to solve, doesn't it? Yet for hundreds of years the solution was a mystery. Then, when the solution presented itself, when a Naval Surgeon discovered the importance of citrus fruit, the solution was overwhelmed by patronage and the class system and prestige -- at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
And scurvy's influence on the world's navies may also have been just as influential on the state of the world at large. Scurvy influenced revolutions and wars and trade. Scurvy, once upon a time, was the world's most horrifying killer. We like to think it is gone, but wherever there is malnutrition, scurvy is right there waiting to rear its nastiness.
Now ... Bown doesn't just make all of these competing concepts clear and compelling, he elevates the search for a cure to scurvy and all the follies that held that cure back to the level of heroism & tragedy. And maybe that is why my brain went to an HBO prestige mini-series. I can see Bown's absolutely true tale populated by all the finest Commonwealth actors: Paul Bettany as Blane; Cumberbatch as Pringle; maybe Aidan Turner as Lind; and one of the Hemsworths as Cook.
I want to write that show, produce that show, direct that show, but I want to do it because Bown deserves the love for what he has done. It is a history, yes. But it one of the most compelling histories I have ever read. And I want everyone to find their way to Scurvy. Damn, does Bown deserve it.
(and I haven't even mentioned the counter-factual writing prompts!)
Reading The Plague during the COVID pandemic was not the best decision I’ve ever made, and not for the reason I think you may be thinking. If you wereReading The Plague during the COVID pandemic was not the best decision I’ve ever made, and not for the reason I think you may be thinking. If you were thinking that the undertaking must have been massively depressing, you’re not wrong (and it definitely slowed down my progress), but the sadness The Plague conjured wasn’t the reason I wish I had read Camus’ masterpiece years ago rather than during our first plague of the 21st century.
It was a poor decision because I will never be able to divorce my reading of The Plague from what it says about this time ... right now ... that we are all living through. Had I read The Plague before the pandemic, I would have brushed up against its allegory of Vichy France and set it aside because I would been absolutely captivated by the beauty in the book, the hope & glory that people find in life even when hope is dashed and we are forced to face how absurd our existence is in the face of the greater universe. I was able to see and feel the sombre beauty as I read The Plague during COVID -- my brain did see all the marvellous things Camus was doing -- but I was unable to engage with them intensely, wholeheartedly, completely, to immerse myself in their life affirming brilliance, to truly feel the way Camus intended me to feel.
Instead, I was watching a replay of all the stages we’ve been going through since January 9th, 2020. The Plague is a mirror to the pandemic. The quiet resolve of some, the mad stupidity of others, the selflessness and selfishness, the uniting of a community before it tears itself apart, the role of religion, of government, of force, of personal responsibility, of charity, of internal and external pressures, of isolation and the lack thereof, of denial and acceptance and fear and relief. All of the things make up The Plague, and reading The Plague during the pandemic was exhausting rather than exalting. But I will love it forever, even though it can never be the love that it might have been. It truly is one of the greatest books ever written. ...more
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