The Dog who Was a Cat inside

Really nice and short parable on identity and sexuality.

RaceFail - A Year In

I almost feel like there's not much more I can contribute to the RaceFail conversation. I think most of what I could say has been said with more eloquence and authority by others. N. K. Jemisin has a comprehensive round-up of what RaceFail has led to and how it was a very good thing for pulling the community kicking and screaming into the discussion. It has really pushed the issue of race and gender to the forefront of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy community. People are starting to really question when panels or short story collections are almost exclusively filled with white males. Authors are starting to consider more fully the prospect of using non-white and/or female main characters without reverting to shallow stereotypes. Elizabeth Bear also has a nice little run-down/summary from early on in the discussion.

One thing I can say is perhaps the focus should be renewed to more fully include the artwork that surrounds the SciFi/Fantasy world. For instance, should a collection of stories by Chinese authors feature a western dragon on the cover (As pointed out by fantasy artist Janet Chui)? This may be a bigger battle with bookstores and publishers as seen by Justine Larbalestier's ridiculous experience of fighting with her U.S. publisher to not have a white girl's face on the cover of her novel about a black girl with identity issues. Not only do publishers have difficulty understanding irony, as she puts it:

Liar is a book about a compulsive (possibly pathological) liar who is determined to stop lying but finds it much harder than she supposed. I worked very hard to make sure that the fundamentals of who Micah is were believable: that she’s a girl, that she’s a teenager, that she’s black, that she’s USian. One of the most upsetting impacts of the cover is that it’s led readers to question everything about Micah: If she doesn’t look anything like the girl on the cover maybe nothing she says is true. At which point the entire book, and all my hard work, crumbles.

And the same shit is continuing to come out from the same publisher, Bloomsbury.

This Too Shall Pass

Appropriate title for the label executives obstinately fighting progress every step of the way. OKGo writes and interesting and straightforward explanation of why EMI won't let their videos be embedded despite the original success of the band due in no small part to their early viral videos. Their latest amazing video below:

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Latest Song

FARMACIA Nada de Nada (video) from FARMACIA on Vimeo.

I don't know why I love this song so much, but I worry that I'm playing it so much I'll begin to hate it. The music video is wonderful if only for the abundance of cheesy synth playing and overall dorky-ness of the musicians. Also, the green cross pharmacy sign reminds me of the ubiquitous pot dispensaries symbol in LA.