Revenge of the Media

No. I'm not watching Earthsea tonight, in all it's whitewashed glory. Author Nalo Hopkinson and Leguin each rant about it. Remind me never to sell the rights to anything I've written that's really close to my heart. I'll end up screaming at the television (apparently, according to the director, it's a "multicultural" adventure because there are British and American actors in it hahaha hahaaha).

Speaking of moving pictures, the trailer for War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise is out. In true conservative SF fashion, all of "mankind" and "men" and "man" are in trouble, according to the voice-over. I always wonder what all the women are doing when the men are out getting slaughtered. Oh, yes, that's right. That's how I got interested in my research topics.... try watching Cold Mountain instead. There are actually people in that movie. For an urban guerilla movie, check out Guerrila, which looks cool.

Nicola Griffith has an excellent, excellent essay called "Alien in Her Own Tongue" about the frustration with the proliferation of "he"s in the media. This article really resonated with me, and helped me figure out what was bothering me about all the he-man language. I haven't backed down in my defense of neutral pronouns since.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to plug some books I haven't read but know will be good because... because... I just do. I had to cancel my recent amazon.com order due to money constraints, but on it was Catherynne Valente's book The Labyrinth, which you can order at a slight discount from Nightshade Books . Also, Vandermeer & Friends (& Co. & Conspirators? et. al? it's actually edited by Jason Erik Lundberg) also have a new book out, a quirky mix of fiction and recipes which looks like a lot of fun - check out Scattered, Covered, Smothered.