I have a great deal of emotions when it comes to Joss Whedon. Many of them conflicting and all of them complicated. But I’ve got to tell you, he did the most stunning job with Natasha Romanoff (Natalia Romanova, for all you purists out there) aka Black Widow in The Avengers. I’m assuming that you’re like me and have already seen the movie twice. (Good nerds!) If not, spoilers ahoy!
So the second season of Game of Thrones comes to a close, with lots of action, feelings, and setup for next season. A lot happened in the extended finale, so let’s get cracking!
Oh, Theon.
On the surface, Snow White and the Huntsman is my favorite kind of fairy tale movie: dark and gritty in parts, almost painterly in its cinematography, fast paced and fun. The magic meted out by the power hungry Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) is ruthless and more than a little intimidating. Not for me are bursts of tacky humor and saccharine coziness, which is what Mirror, Mirror seems to be (the other Snow White movie of the year, suddenly making it seem like a hot trend alongside the popular TV series Once Upon A Time). Yet, even though this movie gets quite a few things right, when it fails, it fails at some of the most crucial elements. Continue reading
Happy National Donut Day!
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Mansa Musa: The Lion of Mali
When Lois messaged me to tell me the sad news, that Leo Dillon passed away last weekend, my heart sank. All I could type back was “NO! NO! NO!” repeatedly, in all-caps. Without a doubt, Leo and Diane Dillon have been at the top of the list of my favorite book illustrators (sharing the ranks with Gennady Spirin, Maurice Sendak and Edward Gorey). When a great talent departs this Earth, even having left behind a bounty of beautiful work, the loss that is felt can be staggering.
Leo and Diane (photo: Lee Dillon)
Leo and Diane Dillon met as young art students at Parson’s in the ’50s, and they’d been married and creating stunningly lavish and inspired art since. During their career, the couple have produced (together and independently) work that garnered them such awards as the Caldecott Medal and the Hugo Award. The Dillon’s style blends classic influences, like Art Nouveau and Renaissance style, with modern and psychedelic tones that are distinct and recognizable.
From illustrating chapter and picture books, like Virginia Hamilton’s The Girl Who Spun Gold and Verna Aardema’s Why Mosqitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, to doing covers for many sci-fi and fantasy books by authors like Harlan Ellison and Madeleine l’Engle, the only praise left to give is to simply let the work speak for itself. Our hearts go out to Diane and their son Lee.
A beautiful mermaid from the “Herstories” colelction
Armadillo Woman
Out of 29 lovely comments who entered the drawing for a free autographed copy of A Feast of Ice and Fire, the lucky number that came up is 14!
Congratulations Rosalia, whose comment was: “My favourite recipe so far is the Breakfast at Winterfell. Though we’ve tryed many. I’ll love to share it with Arya!” The winner will be contacted by e-mail.
Both your Geekquality editors here and Sariann and Chelsea at Inn at the Crossroads have really enjoyed reading your comments and your creativity. I only wish we could offer more books to give away, but alas there was just that one copy. However, the book is now available at many major bookstores and online through Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Sounds like the perfect thing to help you prepare a dinner for the season finale watching party, yeah? If you spot a copy or would like to share a photo of yourself with the book, the Innkeepers have a little photo gallery going.
This guest post is written by Miranda, a Filipino Australian with a Texan accent who’s used to having confused strangers wonder where she’s from. She likes terrible puns, melting cheese on everything, and long walks by the beach while discussing comic book costumes. She is as tall as the smallest member of the bear family. She can be found on Tumblr.
I’m not completely sure that I want to to watch Firefly. On Halloween, the show entered a list that also includes the Blind Banker episode of BBC’s Sherlock, The Invincible Iron Man #4, and every single whitewashed Asian movie, i.e. The List of Things I Want to Like that Don’t Like Me.
Kaylee from Firefly
This doesn’t mean that I won’t watch the show, someday. After all, I love Nathan Fillion; I’m a fan of Joss Whedon; I’ve heard the quotes and seen the GIFS. I’ve even admired some of the Firefly cosplay and Halloween costumes I’ve seen, with the exception of Kaylee’s traditional Chinese jacket and parasol, which at first looks like a culturally-appropriative Halloween costume, but is actually something she wears on the show.
I should be surprised that a half-Asian sci-fi universe has no Asians, but I am used to such disappointment. Firefly is yet another show that proves that Western pop culture may love “Asian culture”, but it has no love for Asians. This is no great revelation. In the 1930s, Anna May Wong – the first Asian-American movie star – was passed over for the part of O-Lan in the film adaption of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. The role instead went to Luise Rainer, a German actress, because of the Hays Code regulations (most of the main Chinese characters in the movie were played by Western actors, in fact). Today, there is always one or another instance of whitewashing to cause outrage. From the 2010 movie adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, to the renaming and whitewashing of Jeff Ma in the movie 21, it sometimes appears that we haven’t progressed much from Anna May Wong’s time. The casual use of “Asian culture” without Asian representation continues to be just as prevalent.
More like, “No thanks!”
In fact, Western pop culture doesn’t truly love “Asian culture,” which is an entirely simplistic and misguided phrase. What it loves is a stereotypical pan-Oriental culture where all of Asia looks like China Town. All the men are kung-fu masters, triad members or shy nerds with small penises. All the women are dragon ladies or demure geisha girls who want to love you long time. Western pop culture cares about Bollywood dancers and Chinese acrobats. It cares about giggly Japanese school girls and brooding Yakuza members. It cares about pandas and Hello Kitty. It does not care about me. Continue reading
Friends With Boys, written and drawn by Faith Erin Hicks, is a touching short graphic novel about adolescence and trying to find a way to fit in. Maggie is about to go to high school for the first time, and while that’s a rite of passage that’s daunting for lots of teenagers, it’s especially scary for her – she’s been home schooled up to that point. For years, she has been classmates and best friends with just her three older brothers, with their mother being their teacher. Now Maggie has to deal with making new friends and feeling left out of her brothers’ lives (they’ve been in high school for a while already), all the while coping with the fact that their parents are now separated.
Inspired in part by her own childhood, Hicks writes and draws a story that’s a refreshing look at sibling relationships and coming of age. Maggie’s older brothers are all very different (well, two of them are twins, but their effort to maintain their differences makes for another touching element of the book), but they also have a loving and close relationship with their younger sister. At school, Maggie also befriends a bubbly punk rocker girl named Lucy who immediately takes a shine to Maggie and pretty much insists on becoming her best friend. Maggie expresses how she’s never had a girl for a friend, growing up with brothers, and in bonding with Lucy she finally starts to open up more to the world around her.
Hicks includes little details that help flesh out her brothers as characters, while still keeping the focus on Maggie. Hinting at the male siblings’ life outside the family, the story just reinforces Maggie feeling alone, trying to cope with missing her mother, with having to make new friends, and with the fact – oh yeah, I forgot to mention it – that Maggie is constantly being followed around by a ghost.
At one point, Maggie wonders if by growing up a tomboy, who dismissed all things “girly”, she made her mother want to leave. It’s a really heartbreaking thought, a kid taking on blame where none is needed, and Hicks illustrates it perfectly. I also enjoyed the way the Maggie and her friends spend their time together: going to see Alien at a late-night screening, hanging out at the cemetery looking for ghosts and making rubbings of tombstones, having heartfelt conversations while watching a play being rehearsed. All in all, Friends With Boys is a sweet, quick read filled with likable characters, hitting all the right notes of wistfulness and humor.
In a bit of a departure from tradition, instead of seeing a little bit of everybody, this whole episode takes place in King’s Landing, as the city prepares for Stannis’ siege. I think it would be safe to call the result epic.
Shit just got real.
Probably the only thing that rivals my love of a good book is the love of food. I’ve done my share of kitchen experiments, with some results (a 3-course traditional Russian dinner, or a boozy apple pie with a cheddar crust) more successful than others (a batch of peanut butter cookies as stiff as hockey pucks and just as delicious). I love looking through food blogs filled with mouth-watering photos and fun recipes, and for months now, I’ve been drooling over a website that combines all the things that I love, food and fiction: Inn at the Crossroads, a cooking blog recreating recipes from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.
A meal fit for a Khaleesi
The clever, artfully styled project is the delicious brainchild of two Bostonians, Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer. Covering everything from simpler recipes, like oatcakes and pear brandy, to thematic feasts spanning the realms from King’s Landing to the Dothraki Sea, the site is a great feat of kitchen wizardry. While they might not recreate every recipe for lack of certain ingredients, or just because it’s a bit much (stuffed peacock, anyone?), they’ve also been able to translate really significant elements of the book into edible presentations, like making a cupcake to resemble the horse heart eaten by Daenerys. Now the kitchen mavens have put their skills to use in creating the official companion cookbook to Martin’s series.
A Feast of Ice & Fire (Random House/Bantam, May 29), with an introduction by Martin himself, is a must for any history geek/foodie/fan of Game of Thrones. Since late last year, Chelsea and Sariann have carefully researched new recipes and updated old ones, set and photographed the dishes, and also enlisted photographer Kristen Teig to photograph the enticing cover for the book. Last week, over a virtual plate of spit roasted boar and a mug of mead, I caught up with the authors for a little Q&A in anticipation of the book’s release. Read the interview below and at the end you will find information about a giveaway!
How did you two meet? It seems you both share a love of food and various geeky hobbies.
Chelsea: We actually first met when Sariann moved into the apartment! I’ve been in the same place with my boyfriend for several years now, and we sort of play “Musical Roommates” every few years or so. Sariann was a friend of a friend, but clearly fit right in from the start.
Sariann (photo: K. Teig) and Chelsea, your Innkeepers
Do you guys have a background as far as the culinary arts?
C: Neither of us is professionally trained, although we both come from food-loving families. One of the perks of this approach is that if we could make it, anyone can! Continue reading
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This guest post is written by Sylvia, a student teacher by day, an aspiring nerd critic by night. She can be found on Tumblr.
Korra couldn’t have less in common with Aang, the previous Avatar. A 17-year-old girl from the Southern Water Tribe, she is as hot-headed and eager as she is talented. When she runs away to Republic City, her stubbornness and impatience get in the way of her bending studies, but it is clear from the start that she is destined for greatness. – Korra’s character profile
Korra
Since I witnessed the unspeakable disaster that was The Last Airbender movie, I had been waiting restlessly for the reveal of the new Avatar. I needed something great and wonderful to wash away the memories of M. Night Shyamalan’s wooden dialogue and befuddling plot; something that captured the originality and cleverness and, above all, the heart of the original series, Avatar: The Last Airbender (TLA). Fortunately, Korra burst onto the screen in the premiere episode of Avatar: The Legend of Korra (LoK), eager and ready to deliver everything that a fan could hope for.
Like Aang, the previous Avatar, Korra is tasked with the incredible responsibility of maintaining balance in her world at an early age, and she also has to carry the weight of the series on her shoulders. She takes on both roles with zeal, her enthusiasm replacing the charm of Aang as the main draw for viewer’s sympathy. When Korra kicks her way into her house and screams, “I’m the Avatar and you have to deal with it!” she is basically kicking her way into our hearts. (She kicked her way into mine!) Korra might be a “reckless teenager” but her character is wrapped up in good intentions. Continue reading
We got a little glimpse of just about everyone in this episode, as the noble families all gear up for war. There are only two episodes left in the season, so we can be sure big things are about to go down.
My BROTP
Saga (Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), a brand spankin’ new series from Image, is a beautiful adventure that takes place on faraway planets. Hazel, the narrator of the story, is first seen as a baby being born within the first few panels. We find out about her parents, Alana and Marko, a pair of starcrossed lovers from opposing nations embroiled in a battle in a galaxy “far, far away”. Immediately following her birth, Hazel’s parents are forced to go on the run, as armies from both their nations come searching for them. Along the way, the young parents find out that they’re being chased by more than just armies.
The story so far is packed with diverse, interesting character. The main protagonists are a biracial couple with a child and there are a few supporting POC characters (however non-human, they’re still not white). The indigenous people of the galaxy are a snarky bunch who constantly call out the fighters on the pillaging of their land. Plus, there’s a Monarchy that has televisions where their heads should be. Many have, pretty accurately, described Saga as “Game of Thrones meets Star Wars”.
There is one thing that I’ve found problematic about Saga and it’s the casual use of ableist language. The r-word gets thrown around a little bit, which might actually be more attributable to Vaughan as a writer than Alana as a character. While Alana is a strong warrior, and a complex character dealing with wartime motherhood above all else, her usage of this word feels very forced and anachronistic given the fantastical setting. It’d be great if Vaughan could find a different adjective to illustrate Alana’s frustration.
Saga really has it all – fantasy settings, sci-fi, romance, adventure. The series is only just on its 3rd issue, and all three have sold out in stores. However, never fear, you can buy the digital editions through Comixology. Can’t wait to see where the story will head!
We’re keeping it simple and streamlined, no pics, tons of links! Tell us what you’re Geeking Out about this week! (And have a wonderful weekend).
What’s on your radar this week? Tell us in the comments!
Check out our previous Geeking Out posts.
