Ridiculous brain thought of the day:

If I just keep running, this song will come true!

Sometimes when I'm running I tell myself crazy things will happen if I can just keep the momentum going. It's a good way to keep going, but today I took it to a whole new level. I made a new running mix and put Neil Young's "Let's Impeach the President" on it... musically, a terrible song (does anyone else worry that he's about to croak when he sings 'thank god he's cracking down on steroids'?), but lyrically a catchy and inspiring song. This song came on just as I was thinking about walking the rest of the way home, but I started to convince myself that if I could just run the rest of the way home it might just come true--Bush would get impeached--it kept me going, and I made it all the way home.

Started reading Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library: How Postmodern Consumer Capitalism Threatens Democracy, Civil Education and the Public Good by Ed D'Angelo this morning. So far a really interesting read about the future of libraries not as democratic institutions, but as just another institution fueled by and controlled by consumer culture. These concerns are very pertinent as it seems libraries are following more business-oriented practices and models these days. I hope to finish it soon and provide a more thorough review.

Otherwise, the last books I have read have been a Christian/Inspirational title and a Romance, so no reviews for those, as I wouldn't necessarily recommend them.

Got home from work the other night and got sucked into the Independent Lens special on hip hop called Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. The filmmaker, Byron Hurt, focused a lot on issues of hypermasculinity and homophobia/homoeroticism in hip hop culture. I liked his treatment of these subjects because he seemed genuinely interested in exploring the depth of them and looking at larger cultural factors rather than playing the moral blame game that people are so prone to do with hip hop. Highly recommended.

On the media tip, this morning's edition of Making Contact featured a radio documentary called Legacy of Torture about the torturing of Black Panthers in New Orleans in the 70's, coercion of testimony, etc. Very disturbing, but also very pertinent as we hear about these men getting subpoenaed by grand juries today, 30 years later, in connection with the same crimes!

Slush.

I finally pumped up my bike tires and lubed up the chain after a week of driving a borrowed car and feeling dependent on a big machine to get around town. I always feel so strange driving, so heavy and burdensome. I felt almost weightless this afternoon riding my bike to class listening to Richard and Linda Thompson, day-dreaming.

Spent the weekend in Logansport where the snow was waist-high and drifts were chest-high in parts. Toby jumped through the snow like a rabbit and made hundreds of dog-snow-angels.

On the ride home, we listened to Art Bell's Coast to Coast and I learned that UFO sightings are on the up and up. However, abductions are not being as heavily reported right now, just sightings. Also, Shadow People are a common call, leading Art Bell to conclude that another dimension is present.

Movie on Thursday

*Please distribute widely*

Join PLG for our Black History Month installment of movie night!

Who: The IU Progressive Librarian's Guild hosts a
What: Free screening of the documentary "Race: The Power of an Illusion" -- What is this thing we call ‘race’? Where’d the idea come from? What are the patterns of human variation? And if race isn't biological, what is it? How do our social institutions 'make' race?
When: Thursday, February 22nd, 7PM
Where: Wylie Hall, Room 005

We will be showing two parts of this documentary series:

"The Story We Tell" -- uncovers the roots of the race concept in North America, the 19th century science that legitimated it, and how it came to be held so fiercely in the western imagination. The episode is an eye-opening tale of how race served to rationalize, even justify, American social inequalities as "natural."

"The House We Live In" -- asks, If race is not biology, what is it? This episode uncovers how race resides not in nature but in politics, economics and culture. It reveals how our social institutions "make" race by disproportionately channeling resources, power, status and wealth to white people.

See http://www.pbs.org/race for more information about these films!

"By far the best documentary series on race of the last decade." -- Troy Duster, former president, American Sociological Association

Friday Misc.

• A Date With John Waters -- I couldn't have picked 'em better myself! If you must celebrate Valentine's Day, this is the way to do it.
• On the Valentine's tip: If you're buying anything for loved ones, consider ordering cookies from Middle Way House's Foodworks Catering company! I tried a "buttercup blossom" yesterday--totally delicious!! Here's the link: http://middlewayfoodworks.org/MWFW01292007/Valentine_Cookies.html
• Making Contact was really good today -- Dr. Carol Anderson talks about the limitations of the civil rights platform and why the fight for human rights was given the backseat. You can listen to here lecture here: http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2007/0607.html
• Going to see Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mtn. Boys tonight at the Buskirk-Chumley theatre--hooray!
  

book reviews 2/9

I've been reading a lot of fiction lately, mostly for my genre fiction reader's advisory class. Here are a couple reviews for books I enjoyed a lot:

Brown Girl in the Ring (1998)

Author: Nalo Hopkinson

Genre: Science Fiction / Fantasy

Plot Summary: Magic mixes with dystopian themes in a Toronto of the near future. Toronto has become a "donut hole city"--the upper class has abandoned the city and taken its infrastructure with them. The coalescence of suburban sprawl and urban decay has created a barricaded inner-city, called "the burn," in which the poor and people of color must reinvent their world without the modern trappings of capitalism. People barter and farm for sustenance and turn to herbs for health care. The rich can still afford hospital care, but organ transplants are provided from pigs. A prominent politician in the suburbs is in dire need of a heart-transplant and uses this as an election ploy to get voters excited about the prospect of reinstating voluntary human organ donors. Against this backdrop, a fantastical story with voodoo at its forefront emerges. Ti-Jeanne is a young mother who lives with her herbalist and voodoo practicing Mami in the burn. Mami has always disapproved of Tony, Ti-Jeanne's estranged ex-lover, but his buff (crack-like drug) addiction and involvement in a drug ring ruled by a duppy (an evil spirit from Caribbean folklore) provides an avenue to reconciliation when Tony seeks Mami and Ti-Jeanne's aid in escaping the burn. The drug lords are recruited to find the politician a heart transplant and Tony is blackmailed to find a match and commit murder to obtain the organ. Ti-Jeanne must not only save Tony from the drug lords, but must protect her family as well. This mission turns into a story riddled with generations of family connections, Caribbean folklore, voodoo, and mystery.

Geographical Setting: Toronto, Canada

Time Period: Near Future

Appeal Characteristics: Brown Girl in the Ring is a deliberately paced, engrossing read. The characters are vivid and likable, but take a back-seat to the action when necessary. This makes for a storyline that is both character- and action-oriented. The tone is somewhat bleak with its emphasis on dystopian themes and the misuse of traditional magic. Hopkinson’s writing style is frank and direct and the story takes place over the course of a few days, which makes it a quick read. The dialogue is mostly written in patois, a creole dialect, which adds authenticity to the novel’s African Diasporic themes and traditions. These references to Caribbean folktales, lore, and magic frame the story and add ethnic and multicultural dimensions to a genre somewhat unaccustomed to such motifs. For these reasons, Brown Girl in the Ring is a refreshing addition to the Science-Fiction/Fantasy genre.

Read-alikes: Hopkinson has spearheaded a place in the sci-fi/fantasy genre for third world writers and writers of color with her short story anthologies So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy and Mojo: Conjure Stories. These make good readalikes for readers who enjoyed Hopkinson’s emphasis and treatment of tradition, ethnic and multicultural themes, and magical elements. Fans of Hopkinson’s direct writing style, dystopian themes, multicultural representation, and strong young woman of color protagonist will enjoy Octavia Butler’s Parable series: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (should be read in that order).

Red Flags: Some violence, strong language, voodoo/magic themes, implied sexual situations.

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Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders (2005)

Author: Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Genre: Mystery (Amateur)

Plot Summary: Ivon Villa is a Women's Studies professor in Los Angeles. Her and her lesbian partner's desire to adopt a Mexican baby brings her back to her home town of El Paso. On the plane into El Paso, Ivon reads in a magazine about the hundreds of murdered women whose mutilated bodies have been found in the desert around the maquiladoras (factories) in Juarez, just across the border from her hometown. Her cousin, Ximena, is a social worker who helps women working in these maquiladoras. Ximena sets Ivon up with a pregnant factory worker who is unable to care for her child once it is born. Against the backdrop of heated family tensions, Ivon and her loved ones find themselves in the middle of the tangled and dramatic mystery of the Juarez murders. Due to ineptitude's of the authorities in the U.S. & Mexico, Ivon finds that to get to the bottom of the murders, she must act by herself. SPOILER: Not only does the woman carrying the baby Ivon wants to adopt turn up mutilated in the desert, but Ivon's little sister, Irene gets kidnapped from a fair in Juarez. Ivon's search for Irene turns up a trail of government corruption, sexual predators, prostitution rings, live snuff films, and the consequences of a general laissez-faire border culture brought about by NAFTA and globalization.

Geographical Setting: El Paso, Texas / Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

Time Period: Contemporary (1998)

Appeal Characteristics: This novel is based on real events, so the reader learns a lot about border culture and the history of the Juarez murders as the plot unfolds. Fans of strong female protagonists will love Ivon, the butch and headstrong main character. The reader also spends a lot of time immersed in Ivon's Latino family and feels the tension about her lifestyle choices (being a lesbian, dating a white woman) and decision to adopt. The writing style is witty, the characters are likable and well defined, and the pace is very fast. The book is a definite page turner as most chapters end with new information or cliff-hangers. As a reader it's difficult not to become as obsessed as Ivon is with solving the murders. The mystery isn't necessarily solved in the end, but Gaspar de Alba suggests in the last chapter, "This wasn't a case of 'whodunit,' but rather of who was allowing these crimes to happen? Whose interests were being served? Who was covering it up? Who was profiting from the deaths of all these women?" (333). The mystery is left dangling, mostly due to the fact that it is based on real events and the murders are still a fact of life in Juarez.

Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Alicia Gaspar de Alba's fictionalization of a true story and immersion in Mexican culture would most likely enjoy her historical fiction novel about a 17th century Mexican radical feminist, Sor Juana's Second Dream: A Novel . Fans of Gaspar de Alba's vivid characterization, tough lesbian protagonist, and exposure of political ineptitude would enjoy fellow Lambda award winner Elizabeth Pincus' The Two-Bit Tango , a hard-boiled lesbian mystery novel set in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Another novel featuring a lesbian sleuth is Elizabeth Sims' Holy Hell: A Lillian Byrd Crime Story , also a good readalike because the subject matter is similar (mysterious disappearances of women and discovery of mutilated corpses) and because the protagonist is drawn to the killings in a personal way and ends up being pursued herself due to her interest in the crimes. Readers who liked the wit and fast-paced writing style of Desert Blood would enjoy Abigail Padgett's The Last Blue Plate Special, the second novel in the Blue McCarron mysteries in which a lesbian social psychologist and her partner investigate a string of potential serial murders against successful women in California. This novel is also a good readalike because it features interracial romance as well as struggles with homophobia. Readers who enjoyed learning about border culture through Gaspar de Alba's social-critique-style would also enjoy James C. Mitchell's Choke Point, a private investigator mystery involving border culture, narco-trafficking, maquiladoras, and government corruption. Readers looking for more information on Juarez would greatly enjoy Charles Bowden’s nonfiction work, Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future, a photo-essay on the corruption, drug trafficking, and disappearances on the US-Mexico border.

Red Flags: Graphic descriptions of mutilation, rape, and murder. Adult language. Sexual situations (hetero & homo). Racial tension, homophobia.

Snow Days!

I love the power of the snow to transform landscapes, making old places feel new. Yesterday I went to Griffy Lake and walked nearly across the entire iced surface of it, all the way to the spot where the geese where lounging in an open circle in the ice. Scores of ice fisherman dotted the frozen surface of the lake and sled and ski tracks were everywhere. Jimmy ice-skated through the snow and Toby chased him, nearly knocking him over multiple times. My mom and I cleared the powdery snow from the top of the ice with our boots and scooted around makeshift rinks in the waning sunlight.