Wake the Sun

The job search continues to be bullshit (and if anyone knows anyone in Chicago who needs a graphic designer/receptionist/office worker/retailer, or a roommate for May onward, please let me know!), but Chicago is gorgeous in it's early Spring and I am otherwise content.

The family weekend went well; I was 'encouraged' to attend church (Baptist) with my aunt and tiny cousin, but aside from that the trip was fun, drama-free, and full of suddenly-adult!cousins, (when did that happen?).

Also! Every time I wonder why I bother with Tumblr something like this pops up:



And I remember it's my #1 pretty dealer. (That's a fanvid, folks, an 'original spec music video for the incredibly talented indie pop artist Marina and the Diamonds comprised of a supermix of tracks from her inspiring debut album, "The Family Jewels."')

I feel like I just ran some kind of frustration marathon. I mean, the lead-up to tradeshows and industry meetings is always frustrating, but this is the first time they've fired the guy I was working with* on the day he was supposed to give me reams of data which was five days before I needed to have everything designed and printed. I've been having mini panic attacks all week (and it still feels like I'm not getting enough oxygen).

But! It's done! I did it! Three flyers, one multi-page hand out, and a fucking pricelist in five days!

And it's Friday, and I have most of next week off, and my boss just gave me a bag of candy (which I'm working through like a champ. No regrets!). Mm, tootsie rolls.

Enough whine. Have an awesome video (via talitha78):



* I should acknowledge that, however bad my week's gone, his was worse.

* dark_agenda's got plans to host Kaleidoscope, a 'multimedia fanwork exchange for rare chromatic source fandoms', with nominations to start in July. It sounds fantastic!

* scifi_fest is currently open for prompt claims! We've got a ton of great prompts in a variety of fandoms (and very low requirements for fanwork), you should come check them out.

* kink_bingo is open for sign ups!

* I'm reccing Puella Magi Madoka Magica fanart on fanart_recs this month.

Now, with the Community news outta the way:

* Racialicious: How you can help the victims of the Joplin and Alabama disasters

* Daily Kos: White Privilege Diary Series #1 - White Feminist Privilege in Organizations

* via cofax7, I'm pretty sure: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Ebook Piracy. So, you may not be convinced, but I am. Giving stuff away helps. Having it for easy sale also helps. In fact, despite all our “new media” chatter about publicity in the digital age, about blog tours and Twitter contests and Facebook pages, these two things seem to be the only two things that actually make a measurable impact on sales. Give stuff away to increase your customer base, and then have it for easy sale to sift money out of those who are eager to pay. That’s it.

* NYTimes: A City Prepares for a Warm Long-Term Forecast. Climate scientists have told city planners that based on current trends, Chicago will feel more like Baton Rouge than a Northern metropolis before the end of this century.

* In case you missed it: DC UNIVERSE Reboots in September

* On ColorLines: Where is Our Culture’s Racial Subconscious? In Comic Books

* NYTimes again: Fine Print Blurs Who’s in Control of Online Photos. World Entertainment News Network, a news and photo agency, announced this month that it had become the “exclusive photo agency partner” of Twitpic, a service with over 20 million registered users that allows people to upload images and link to them on Twitter. The deal allows the agency to sell images posted on Twitpic for publication, and to pursue legal action against those who use such images commercially without its permission, according to the agency.

* BoingBoing has a roundup of Terms & Conditions from various hosting services.

* via bossymarmalade: Their Islam and Ours. Always, it was so. Their Islam was always the Other for the West; whatever they imagined themselves to be, we must logically be the opposite. Read 19th century Orientalists on Islam; it is decried for being a sensual religion, Muslims are attacked for being lax on homosexuals, Muslims are too feminine … because 19th century westerners viewed themselves as being virtuous and a lack of virtue meant tolerance of homosexuality, sensuality and so on. Now, the West prides itself for being anti-sexist and gay friendly; so we must be the opposite. Always, it was so.

* This is the response Grand Rapids, MI, had to being named one of America's "dying cities."



I wasn't born in Michigan and I've never lived there, but Grand Rapids is where my parents are from and where most of my family's lived (and continues to live) for several generations. We go up there every couple of years for Thanksgiving, my grandma's always sending me stuff about new art exhibits and festivals and public transportation (it's like she's trying to tell me something). Which is the long way of saying this video made me cry like a baby.

* ( Lastly, some pretty )

In personal news, my sister was successfully bribed into picking up the cat (currently named Felicia) and taking her to the clinic. If everything checks out I might even have a home for her, so fingers crossed!

Happy Friday, everyone! And wishes for a good Passover to those in the middle of it. And Good Friday, that's today too, right?

I'm heading home to spend Easter with my family - like most of our religious holidays it's evolved into a big family dinner followed by presents, pie and a movie. Only we have to hunt for the presents :D There's also an egg hunt, despite all three of us kids being over 20 and Grandma invariably forgetting where she hid the last egg.

Hope you folks have a good weekend however you spend it. Here, have some links:

* sitara and I need a third roommate by June for our apartment in Uptown Dallas. Details are back thataway if you or someone you know is interested!

* Boingboing: iOS devices (iPhone/Pod/Pad secretly log and retain record of every place you go, transfer to your PC and subsequent devices. WTF, Apple?

* Slacktivist: The 0.014 percent solution

Planned Parenthood — a major source of health care for working class women in this country — receives a portion of federal Title X grants, somewhere between a tenth and a fourth of that funding.


Title X grants last year totaled about $317 million. That’s about 0.0000917 0.00917 percent of the federal budget.


None of that fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of this funding went to provide abortions. The Hyde Amendment has been law for decades. (Oddly, the same members of Congress who vote to ensure that the Hyde Amendment remains law are the ones who love to pretend it doesn’t exist — railing against “federal funding for abortion” as though they didn’t realize no such funding exists because it would be illegal under the Hyde Amendment.)

Yet Congressional Republicans spent the week pretending two things that were not true: 1) That cutting Title X funding would make a significant difference in the federal budget, and 2) That this had something to do with abortion.

* Colorlines: The Casual Violence That Dehumanizing Language Breeds. Part of Colorline's campaign against labeling people 'illegal'.

* Sociological Images: Visual Overview of Inequality in the U.S.

* Colorlines: On Brooke-Lynn Pinklady and the Importance of Self-Definition

* Ta-Nehisi Coates: Lies Damn Near Everyone Told Me

If you had told me before I began this research that 30,000 blacks fought for the Confederacy, I would not have been surprised. That was me barely four years ago. People fight against what we perceive to be their own interest all the time, right? Even being black, even being skeptical, I really had no sense of how deeply the Confederacy was rooted in the explicit and outright domination of black people. Not some amorphous "people of color." Specifically black people.

* Boingboing: Why the weather is wacky

* Boingboing: Save Google Video before it goes dark!. I need to set up the script on my desktop when I get home, let it run over the weekend.

* Smithsonian Magazine: When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?

* ProPublica: Unraveling the Spin on the Fight Over Hidden Debit Card Fees. Note to self: research ways to deal with banks as little as possible. There's gotta be a better, if less convenient, option.

( Videos go under a cut )

Finally, Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane adventures, died on Tuesday. i09 has a wonderful obituary.

A couple of links:

* Al Jazeera's 'Disaster in Japan' live blog for March 15th (previous days linked in the post)

* On Good.is: Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan: How to Help

* Nuclear energy 101: Inside the "black box" of power plants. Also, Fukushima Nuclear Accident – a simple and accurate explanation.

* Al Jazeera's spotlight on Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt, and Algeria.

~*~

There's more - sweet baby bunnies, there's more - but I'm not in a good headspace for going over it right now. Let's talk about TV instead.

I've been faithfully watching Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko) since Crunchy Roll started airing it and folks, let me tell you, this show is amazing. Amazing. You should click on that link and watch it (it's free!).

Wandering Son's a lovely, slow, slice of life story about trans kids in Japan - growing up, struggling with identity, and love, and family, and friendship, and puberty. It's gorgeous, beautifully animated and acted and full of sympathetic characters and, just [flails].



Let's move on to something I can talk about coherently, shall we? My roommate D and I spent Saturday afternoon burning through both seasons of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers and, well. Never have I seen that much Awesome and that much Fail packed into the same space.

The basics: LXD (for short) is a webseries that runs on Hulu. It's about dancers! There's a nominal plot, but mostly it's about showing off the work of some incredible artists.

The awesome: The vast majority of the characters are people of color - something like 13 out of 19 of the reoccuring characters (in the first season). Ditto for the background dancers (though I didn't go back and count, heh). Every single one of them is a fucking amazing dancer. We've got b-boying, we've got ballet, tricking, krumping, hip-hop, roboting, popping, tap... all integrated into the environment and the (again, nominal) plot. There's no special effect or wire work, everything's shot on location, the cinematography is beautiful. Also, there is Harry Shum, Jr.

The fail: The show is really, really, really bad with woman. Only 3 of the aforementioned repeating characters are female, only two of them are dancers (there are more in the background, but not many). All three are love interests/plot devices and, ugh. In the 7th episode of season 1 (S1Ep7), one of them literally has control of her body stolen by a dude in a sequence that should come with a trigger warning. The only all-female dance routine (S2Ep5) is all about how women seduce and kill men, good times. There's also some messed up race stuff (especially the Eaters in S2Ep3 - black demons, really?) and ablism (the psychiatric hospital scenes, especially in S2Ep8). There's also a weird weaponization of dance/art that I'm iffy about.

The neutral: The writing is terrible - they basically threw a bunch of Cool Stuff (chi chakra Ra! Secret organizations! Boarding schools! The occult! Love triangles! Etc!) at a wall to see what would stick. The end of season 2 is so hilariously bad it comes out into awesome. The acting's not great either, but most of these guys are dancers, not actors.

So. If you want to watch a bunch of amazing, often adorable and/or attractive dudes dance and can ignore the fail (and the plot), LXD's worth a look. If nothing else, you should catch Harry Shum, Jr's intro chapter (he shows up at 1:08, dancing starts at 2:20):



Why is there no fanfic for this, fandom? I am disappoint.

A quick one today, for I am ill and also swamped at work (hurray).

* There are major protests going on in Egypt and Yemen and smaller ones going on in Libya, Jordan, Algeria, and other North African and Middle Eastern countries. There have been several protester deaths in Egypt and the Egyption government is attempting to shut down internet access and restrict information...and the twitter feed I'm following (@SultanAlQassemi, an Op Ed writer for The National) says army vehicles are moving into Cairo. This is a big deal, folks. Al Jazeera has a spotlight on Egypt, BBC News - Middle East has general coverage. Mother Jones has 'What's going on in Egypt, explained.'

* colorblue has a followup/link roundup to the last round of Book!Pirates: piracy & literary festivals

* Speaking of book pirating, History is a weapon has the entirety of Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' online. Fellow USians (and anyone else who's interested), if you haven't read this yet you need to. Know your history.

* The first Potluck food carnival, as hosted by glass_icarus, is live! YUM.

* notgreenorblue, a characters of color in comics fest, is open for prompt claiming! I snagged 'Jaime Reyes, an a/u in which Jaime Reyes is part of the Young Avengers' because I am incredibly predictable.

* Porn Battle XI is up and running until Feb. 3rd!

* bb_shousetsu is still taking signups for their all-women Bang*Bang Special #1.

* purimgifts is open for signups

* festivids has gone live! Sweet, sweet vidding goodness. I'm especially fond of Space Oddity (Community).

* talitha78 has a roundup of three incredible non-festivids vids.

* the_future_modernes has a post up about pretty, pretty dreadlocked dolls.

Is not here! It is thisaway in the shiny new readathon comm.

I've had a couple people tell me 'oh shit, was that today?' - if this has happened to you, let me know. We can push things back a week if we need to.

So we're not completely One Piece-less over here:

* I'm in a constant state of [facepalm] re: Wikileaks and the way things are going down (when I'm not busy being struck by the cyber-thriller narrative - did you know Anonymous has gotten involved?). I'll put up more links in my next readalong but in the meantime: Boing Boing is a good (if unabashedly biased) source for news. Also, tsukinofaerii has a minor PSA + links: "Keep up on the WikiLeaks news. Whether you agree with what they do or think that they're dangerous, read the documents".

* Sarah Dopp wants to build an online marketplace for gender-variant clothing solutions and could use some help.

* via copperbadge: the USA network's Characters Unite campaign is donating $1 to charity for every pledge made on its website. It's very rahrah USA and kind of pompous but hey, a dollar is a dollar and pledging is free.

* Also from copperbadge: A Not So Brief Lesson In Holiday Giving. To sum up: when people ask you for money, be critical. Know who's getting your money, know what they believe, and if you can't get hard facts, be suspicious.. Many links in the comments.

* via bossymarmalade: fandom_stocking is open for wishlists and fills! Recs, icons, fic, art, music, vids, it's all good. Mine is here :D

* Thought of You is a beautiful short animated piece (if you can get it to work, Vimeo's giving me grief).

~*~

* The Hathor Legacy has a holiday gift guide up: 66 Gifts for the Rockin’ Anti-Sexist, Anti-Racist on YOUR Friends List

* So does Boing Boing (I don't have anyone to give the Giant Bucket of Legos to but omg, a giant bucket of legos! Also I think I'll bite the productivity bullet and check out Minecraft.).

* rm is hosting a marketplace for small business, artists, authors, crafters, and other entrepreneurial types.

* If you've missed it, denise has complied lists of artisans and other creative types (with things to sell) in the DW community.

* If you like comic books and are interested in supporting indie artist, a couple of my favorite webcomic creators have holiday packages up: Family Man, Hanna is Not a Boy's Name, and Lackadaisy. Spike of Templar, Arizona has her shirts on clearance (I <3 my Phineas Rage shirt). And any time is a good time to buy Hark, A Vagrant! swag (I <3 my Curies in Love shirt too).

Other artists who are not having sales (so far!) but have awesome stuff: The Thrilling Adventures of Babbage and Lovelace, Girl Genius, Gunnerkrigg Court (books separately available at Better World Books! And, you know. Amazon and places), The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (I just got a couple prints and they are gorgeous) and wow, I did not mean to shill quite that hard but there you go.

* While I'm at it, remember: the Hayate x Blade v.1-3 Omnibus is out in stores!


Do any of you folks have favorite indie artists, authors, musicians, creatives, et al that are selling things this holiday season?

~*~

I've got plenty of interest in the One Piece thing (reread? readalong? book club? I need a name for this thing), hurray! I'll get the details together and put a post up later this week.

~*~

* Current fannish projects: 1) finishing my (biosex-swapped Avengers IN SPACE!) illustration for the Cap/Ironman Reverse bang, 2) a fill for this Inception/Hikaru no Go crossover prompt at inception_kink, and 3) a Middleman/Losers crossover (with Wendy and Jolene!) for intoabar.

* TV I'm watching: Current seasons of Castle, Community and Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (why?), season one of Psych, Futurama and Darkwing Duck, season two of Sports Night and Mythbusters.

* Books I'm reading: Cold Magic by Kate Elliot and Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua. I've been picking away at both of them for over a month because I'm in some kind of book-reading slump, it's terrible.

* ( Sunday night, round 9 pm-ish, my roommates and I decided to go sing us some karaoke. )

* We've settled on a 'Post-Colonial Monsters' theme for the big gayborhood Halloween block party - I'm going as Vampire!Judith Butler, D as Zombie!Emma Tenayuca, S as an Anarcho-Communist!Mad Scientist, and I'm told cheshire3000 will be joining us as a Sparkly! Muslim! Vampire! Plus maybe a couple other people? IDK, but it's going to be amazing.

* My boss left yesterday for a two-week business trip to China. Without telling me he was leaving on a two-week business trip to China. Or leaving any instructions. Sadly, no one is surprised.

* There are only two volumes to go in the Totally Epic Hikaru No Go Reread! We're planning a party type thing for the final discussion post and everyone is invited :D More details when we have them!

* Is the spacing on my header borked or is it just me?

We played this video on a loop all weekend:



He later gave the Quran to a local imam.

Now with autotune!