So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'd been spending so much of my free time on either the border slide project for the Printing Museum, or the newsletter I do for the Long Beach AGO Chapter, that Sunday evening, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have free time. Much less being able to spend it with such a fascinating (albeit occasionally harrowing) book as Nana's opus.

I think I've mentioned the border slide project before. Here's a picture, so you know what I'm talking about:


border slide racks.scaled by James Lampert, on Flickr
The Printing Museum has a rather large collection of "border slides," brass matrices used for casting border material on Linotype and Intertype linecasting machines. And I've been spending an inordinate amount of time cataloging them and developing a storage system for them.

And now, it's mostly done, and I can get back to reading! But of course, that digression is off-topic for this thread. And it's time for me to go home.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

As others have mentioned, that's not at all the case. Feel free to post about anything you're reading, as you did. You're all good.

Ok. Thank you for clarifying I just got confused hahaha

 

[Greg Cox]

LADY MACBETH by Ava Reid.

A novel from her point of view.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now into the "Lower Decks" section of Nana's book, and nearing the end of the chapter on Ms. Newsome. I never realized how old she is: she looks, and sounds, as young as her character, but she's 41! And she's evidently the sort of person who naturally commands both respect and love from those around her.

And it turns out that Marina was far from the only one Nana was unable to interview. The chapter on Ms. Blalock was kind of mute on the subject, but the one on Ms. Park was very clear on it.

*******

. . . And Nana didn't even have a chapter on Rebecca Romijn, for lack of an opportunity for an interview.

But all in all, it's one of the best behind-the-scenes books I've ever read. And I might also say that I had to resist an urge to go back through my novel, and add scenes inspired by this opus (let's face it, my protagonist is a musician, not an actress, and women in music have generally had a somewhat easier time than women in acting).

Now about halfway through Left Behind and Loving It, by The Rev'd D. Mark Davis, a Presbyterian pastor friend of mine. It is a very well-reasoned refutation of the whole "left behind theology" business, done with humor, warmth, and a great deal of insight. (And given that he invokes at least one other Maxwell Smart catchphrase, besides the one in the title, I'm guessing that he, like me, is a Get Smart fan.)

 

[Smiley]

Rereads of some smart tie-ins and Spider-Man books:

Star Trek: Forgotten History
Star Wars: Choices of One
The Amazing Spider-Man: Big Time: The Complete Collection Vol. 3

 

[Commander Troi]

women in music have generally had a somewhat easier time than women in acting

Having read & watched A LOT of interviews with women in music, I'm not so sure about that.

I'll always remember Kim Carnes talking about a record company telling her, "We already have a girl."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Well, I know of only one major orchestra (the Berlin Philharmonic, if I remember right) that was all-male within my lifetime.

And one of the most beloved (founding?) members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was "Sweet Emma" Barrett (1897-1983), who had already had a long career as a jazz pianist and singer before the PHJB was started.

And women composers go all the way back to Hildegard of Bingen, and include such luminaries as Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, and (regrettably mostly forgotten until recently because they were African-American) Margaret Bonds and Florence Price.

In music, at least in classical and jazz, what matters is your chops. If there's any "casting couch" at all, or male producers demanding "f***ability," it would be in various forms of opera, or in various forms of popular music.

 

[Commander Troi]

Ah. My knowledge is definitely from rock and pop. Some of the stories are truly ugly.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And please note that I'm not denying that sexism, racism, LBTQ+-phobia, and vile mixtures thereof don't happen in music; they simply don't appear to be as common, perhaps because so many musicians are relegated to the orchestra pit or the organ loft.

After my previous post, I abruptly thought of classical synthesist/composer Wendy ("Switched-On Bach," "A Clockwork Orange") Carlos. When Walter Carlos dropped out of sight, and re-emerged as Wendy, there was a small matter of a Playboy interview she later regretted giving, and some rather insensitive remarks (and, I understand, a mocking song) from outside the realms of classical music, electronica, and new music, but within those realms, with relatively few exceptions (surprisingly few for the era), the general response was, at most, no more than my own response of mild curiosity, a surprised blink, and hardly missing a beat in buying up new releases like the TRON soundtrack, Digital Moonscapes, and her lecture-demonstration album Secrets of Synthesis (and a Weird Al Yankovic collaboration pairing a tongue-in-cheek Peter and the Wolf with her own sequel to Carnival of the Animals).

 

[Christopher]

with relatively few exceptions (surprisingly few for the era)

I always hear people say that when they come across examples of inclusion and acceptance in the past, as if they expected progress to be linear, but it tends to be more cyclical, with advances in acceptance followed by pushback from the bigots and reactionaries, or just a reversion to the mean as compassion fatigue sets in. So things get better and then worse again, and a couple of decades later the pattern repeats. There's some overall forward movement over the long term, yes, but in the past couple of decades, it seems that the reactionary rhetoric has gotten more extreme too.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

You get no argument from me about it getting more extreme. And more vocal. And a great deal of it is done in the name of Christianity (and Judaism, and Islam), giving all three bad names. But thankfully, acceptance (which is an authentic value of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, the Enlightement, and of America) seems to be becoming more common.

 

[Denise]

Just finished reading Captain's Oath by Christopher Bennett, which I enjoyed, and Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson, which was also fun (though not my favorite of her Jackson Brodie books).

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Just read A Piece of the Moon by Chris Fabry, All Through the Night by Tara Johnson and the Mistletoe Season 3-novella anthology, with stories by Pepper Basham, Kathleen Fuller, and Sheila Roberts.

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

This thread definitely contains plenty of non-Trek reading, which makes it extra fun to read. Even if it were more limited, the Twain books are just background reading for "Time's Arrow," right?

Actually, Times Arrow was what put Twain's writing on my radar to begin with!

 

[carcinoGeneticist]

Just finished reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Whenever I would have the book around one of my friends he'd start laughing his ass off about Dickens' name.

 

[A Ruffian]

Just finished reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Whenever I would have the book around one of my friends he'd start laughing his ass off about Dickens' name. (insert eyeroll emoji)

One eyeroll emoji coming right up:

 

[Greg Cox]

Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel by Kiersten White.

About Lucy Westenra, naturally.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The first issue of Tom Scioli's Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre, which came out this week.

The Roaring Twenties roar a little differently when Godzilla attacks Long Island. Jay Gatsby, consumed with grief and rage, assembles a team of historic and literary heroes, including Sherlock Holmes, to battle Godzilla and save the world.

Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but ridiculous and fun.

 

[Bryan Levy]

Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but ridiculous and fun.

Eh, for the first couple of volumes LXG was ridiculous and fun. Then it got creepy and weird.

 

[KRAD]

The character as seen in the episodes is generally consistent with what is known by the public at large about Twain's personality and writings. It passes the standard for most TV and movie depictions of historical figures or biographies. A date in error is very easily overlooked, and there could be an explanation for the change in attitude like there was in Doctor Who's "Vincent and the Doctor."

Hogwash. It takes very little effort to be at least vaguely accurate with such things, and sheer laziness to not be. But Joe Menosky and Michael Piller didn't even make an effort, they just went with general perception, and thus got everything wrong. This was exacerbated in Part 2 by the revelation of who "Jack" was, which was an even more egregious misreading of history.

It may "pass the standard" for TV and movie depictions, but that standard, frankly, sucks, and should be higher.

Well, I know of only one major orchestra (the Berlin Philharmonic, if I remember right) that was all-male within my lifetime.

And one of the most beloved (founding?) members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band was "Sweet Emma" Barrett (1897-1983), who had already had a long career as a jazz pianist and singer before the PHJB was started.

And women composers go all the way back to Hildegard of Bingen, and include such luminaries as Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach, and (regrettably mostly forgotten until recently because they were African-American) Margaret Bonds and Florence Price.

In music, at least in classical and jazz, what matters is your chops. If there's any "casting couch" at all, or male producers demanding "f***ability," it would be in various forms of opera, or in various forms of popular music.

This entire post is, to put it mildly, hilariously naive. Trust me, there's PLENTY of sexism (and also ageism) in classical and jazz. (I just yesterday spent a car ride with a dear friend who's a viola and French horn orchestra player who is 66 years old, and all the travails she's been facing due to age and gender.)