Good morning and merry Christmas, all, however you celebrate (or tolerate) the day! I hope it’s a good and safe day for you and all those you care about.
Personal
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
For a while I wasn’t sure I’d make it—concentrating on reading has been difficult this year—but with nine days to spare, I’ve completed my Goodreads challenge of 52 books this year. Sure, it’s lots of Star Trek, and I neglected my Hugo Best Novel project, but I hit my goal. 📚
📚 fifty-two of 2020: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A fun YA fantasy monster fighting adventure based on Navajo mythology. Part of Rick Riordan’s project to use his clout to to highlight marginalized voices and cultures, which I very much respect.
Shortest day of the year — but from here on, things just get brighter. Let’s hope that applies figuratively and socially as well as literally.
Happy solstice all; blessed Yule to those who celebrate in that manner.
📚 fifty-one of 2020: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sure, Asimov’s gender politics don’t age particularly well. But he was always a brilliant and breezy writer, and for all his faults, he’ll always be a favorite. This collection of robotic puzzlers is always enjoyable.
One of my current ongoing projects is an in-universe chronological rewatch of Star Trek. To do this, I created a tracking spreadsheet based on the work of the Star Trek Chronology Project. I should hit the 20% point tonight, with This Side of Paradise and Devil in the Dark. 🖖🏻
A “behind the scenes” peek at how my setup for indulging my DJ Wüdi alter-ego is arranged. djay Pro AI on the top monitor, OBS and associated support apps on the iMac’s screen. The controller is a Pioneer DDJ-400.
📚 fifty of 2020: Smut Peddler Presents: Silver ⭐️⭐️⭐️
The latest in @ironcircuscomix’s always enjoyable series of erotic comic anthologies. This time, all about love and lust among older participants (though I was amused to note that I’m older than some of the subjects!).
📚 forty-nine of 2020: Clash of the Titans by Alan Dean Foster ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Foster does his usual solidly enjoyable adaptation work. And I’m pretty sure that this movie was responsible for the majority of my knowledge of Greek mythology for much of my youth (and beyond…).
Nice to meet you, Elliot
Something I noticed over these past few days that I find both heartening and a little amusing:
When I first saw the headlines popping up on Twitter and elsewhere that Elliot Page had announced his name and pronouns, I had no idea who this person was. I haven’t watched Umbrella Academy, and most of the headlines were something along the lines of “Umbrella Academy star Elliot Page…”, so it didn’t clue me in, and I just shrugged it off as someone who wasn’t in my awareness. It wasn’t until other headlines also mentioned “Juno” and some Juno-era pictures were shown that I figured it out.
And I think that’s pretty cool, because in all the news I was seeing in my feeds, not a single post or news headline was deadnaming or misgendering Elliot.
Sure, it’s likely that some amount of that is due to my particular circles of friends and acquaintances, who tend to be more aware of these sorts of things. But still, they were linking out to articles, some in fairly mainstream publications, so even if the person posting was being respectful, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if the news articles weren’t.
But it took me nearly a full day to clue in to why this person’s announcement was making so many headlines — and I think that’s pretty cool. I’ll happily spend a little time being mildly confused if it means that cultural progress is being made.