Or, What I Did on my Summer Not-Actually-Vacation

I’m about to attempt something I do only very rarely: actually blog about events in my life. See, I don’t usually bother because my life isn’t very interesting, but let me lay two fun and exciting facts on you:

1) I am the site manager for TheBody.com, a massive online HIV/AIDS resource; and,

2) Every two years, there’s an International AIDS Conference held somewhere different.

I am, generally speaking, not much of a traveler. My basic philosophy tends towards, “But all my stuff is here, so why would I want to go there?” Which I think is a valid life choice, though it baffles basically everyone else. Bah. But I still don’t exactly look gift-horses in the mouth, so when it was announced that the XVIII International AIDS conference (aka AIDS 2010) was going to be held in Vienna, Austria, and that we would be sending a team to cover it, and I was asked if I would like to be part of that team…?

So basically, what I’m saying is that last week I spent nine days in Vienna.¹ And it was awesome. So let me dig back, back, baaaaaack into my memory, roughly two weeks ago…

It began on my birthday, with a string of good birthday luck. My awesome coworkers Olivia and Myles and I met at JFK airport, where we paused to ask someone where to check in. The gentleman we asked said there was a long line, but offered to take care of us himself, and reassigned our seats so we were on aisles, next to empty seats. And then the baggage guy grabbed us first out of a small mob, and then they opened a new security line right as we walked past, moving us up to the front. Birthday magic! The flight left early afternoon and continued through evening, a very short night, and deposited us in Vienna the next morning.

The face of unshowered jetlag: all told, we were awake and working for 31 hours.

The phone thing. That was fun. We wandered the streets on a tip from the hotel desk lady, looking for what we thought was an electronics shop and didn’t learn for four days was actually a subway station, whoops. (I should probably note at this point that I speak the most German out of anyone in our group, and the only thing I know how to say is, “I don’t speak German, can you speak English?”) But after a fair amount of wandering, we found a store helpfully labeled “Call Shop,” run by an Austrian gentleman who spoke about as much English as I do German. So you can imagine the fun hijinks as we tried to ask for the cheapest phones he had, with pay-as-you-go contracts. And then…

The food.

Oh man, the food. Lunch was just spaghetti with tomato and basil, since it was the only thing I was pretty sure was vegetarian on the menu. And I swear, it was the AWESOMEST SPAGHETTI EVER. No, really. REALLY.

So, phones, language barriers, food, and then scooting across town to meet the last member of our party, Mark. Fun thing about working for a website: you don’t always actually know everyone you work with in person. Mark S. King has been blogging for us for ages, and this was the first time we’d met him face to face. He was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from watching his videos (which I highly recommend). End day one. Day two was what’s known as the MSM Forum,³ and the beginning of our coverage.

I didn’t do much for that; everyone else had facets to cover, but as site manager, my job was more techy than anything else. The basic plan was for me to attend panels of the conference that particularly interested me, but other than that, basically to either chill in the media center, prepping our coverage and getting it ready to go, and tracking the conference online; or to plug our recording equipment into the press conference soundboard and record sessions there, so that the people writing coverage were freed up to go to panels that interested them. So (aside from a trip back to the call shop to purchase more minutes for our phones, and figure out how to install them, with the same gentleman as the previous day) my day was pretty chill. Instead of detailing my methods for tracking the #AIDS2010 hashtag on twitter, I’ll tell you this: Vienna’s subway isn’t like New York’s subway.

I suspect we were all a little nervous about the trip, since apparently transportation had been a bit of an issue two years ago for the conference in Mexico City. But Vienna’s public transit, it turns out, is great, and easily comprehensible to a non-German speaker, or at least one who’s used to the complex mess that is New York’s MTA.⁴ It was extremely easy to navigate, with lovely LED signs on every platform that let you know how long it would be until the next train, never more than 6 minutes.⁵ And it was clean! It was almost as if the people of Vienna didn’t treat the track and platform as a series of large trashcans. You could walk the length of the platform without your shoe landing in something suspiciously sticky! I was pretty amazed, though what really marked me as a tourist was the subway doors. In New York, they open automatically. In Vienna, they don’t; you have to either press the button or jerk the handle. I kept forgetting to do that and would stand there, baffled, until someone reached around me to open them. Whoops.

Oh, and did I mention that their subways seem to run on the trust system? That was maybe the strangest difference of all. You pay for your ticket (one trip, day pass, week pass, whatever) and get it punched by a machine so it’s stamped with the date/time you started using it. Then you can get on and off without having to swipe it or show it to anyone or anything, and keep using it for however long it’s valid. There are no turnstyles or anything; you can just walk onto the platform and they apparently just trust that you’ve paid. (Well, apparently there are occasional spot-checks to see that everyone in the subway has a ticket, and steep fines for anyone who doesn’t, but even so, my mind is somewhat blown.)

Okay, so. The conference finally got into swing the third day we were there, with the official opening session, keynote speaker Bill Clinton. I was, somehow, the only person from our group who was interested in going. That also blew my mind because it was Bill Clinton, you guys, he’s kind of a big deal! Or at least he’s a really engaging, funny speaker. I was blown away, though some of that was certainly jetlag. He said lots of smart, interesting things and generally oozed charm in exactly the way you’d expect him to. Nothing he said was controversial, and he went out of his way to defend Obama’s HIV/AIDS policies.⁶ It was interesting, and I’m glad I made the trip for that alone. (Here: have my official coverage of the thing.)

I wish I could tell you about the awesome activities and sights and sounds over the next few days, but honestly, it’s all kind of a blur. We did go out for delicious food almost every night, but were also working incredibly long days. I only went to a handful of actual sessions: a workshop on how AIDS organizations can best work with the media,⁷ a really fascinating panel discussion about sex workers and HIV, and a really dreadful panel I won’t get into because it seems polite (but which was the only thing about the conference itself I didn’t enjoy). Conference food, of course, was mediocre. But the people were great. (I also went to a tweet-up of people who were posting about/following the conference on Twitter to exchange thoughts on new media and HIV, which was pretty directly up my alley.)

We didn't have time to explore Vienna, but we did stand in front of some pretty buildings.

There was also the human rights rally, culminating with a concert by Annie Lennox. If you’ve ever read this blog before (or looked at the category list to the right) it shouldn’t come as a shock to hear that I’m a bleeding-heart progressive lefty liberal type. What blew me away about the human rights rally in specific and the conference in general was this: being surrounded by about 20,000 other people who care like I care. The rally had people from dozens of different organizations, representing, in no particular order, anti-homophobia, anti-racism, anti-poverty, anti-ableism, anti-ageism, feminism, sex workers’ rights, drug users’ rights, etc etc etc. Hey, guess what, it turns out there’s a lot of intersectionality around HIV, because HIV hits so many communities that are already lacking in privilege. If you’re fighting an *ism, there’s a pretty good chance HIV affects your cause.

More food I experienced: goat cheese patties, goat cheese baked into fresh pastries, goat cheese and spinach tarts; cucumber salad, pumpkin spice salad, and baked goat cheese salad.⁹ Not to mention the amazing gelato and pastries. Even the hotel food was delicious. Heck, even the airline bread (the only thing I could eat on the flights) was fresh and yummy. I’m not much for food. In fact, as a general rule, if I could photosynthesize instead of eat, that would be kind of awesome. But I have to say, damn, there was a lot of good food on that trip.

Time passed really strangely while we were there. Each individual day was really, really long: up at 7 AM, not back in the hotel room until midnight, and more work until 2, if the hotel’s wireless was functioning. Individual days were lonnnnnng. And yet, when the conference ended and we were packing up, it seemed like no time had passed at all. It was kind of surreal, actually, and felt like leaving the day after we arrived, and once back in New York, it was only the jetlag exhaustion and all the chocolate I brought back that made me sure I’d been anywhere at all.¹⁰

The flight home had none of the smoothness of our trip there. I’m pretty sure all 20,000 conference attendees were leaving within the same four-hour frame or so, so the Vienna airport was a freaking madhouse with an enormous mob of people we had to wade through for an hour before getting to the actual line. We were rushed through, frazzled and harried, while someone demanded to see our printed itineraries and wouldn’t let anyone on the plane without one.¹¹ Oh, and my rolling suitcase decided not to roll, which made getting from JFK back to my apartment by public transit (in 100 degree weather, on zero hours of sleep) super duper fun.

But I eventually got home. And then slept for, 16 hours. The end. You know, unless you want to look at our official coverage or check out what I wrote on the scene.

I’ve had an idea for a post percolating for awhile about how I don’t really like irony. That’s a pretty sweeping statement, hm. Let me get more specific: what bothers me about irony is that I think it contributes to a cultural feeling that genuinely liking things — specifically, happy things — isn’t cool.¹ Liking things that are artistic, or weird, or only little-known (but never popular, god no) is fine, but the only way to like something silly or fun for the sake of being fun, is to like it ironically. Which means, you know, you like it, but you don’t really like it, because that’s Uncool, and you’re way too Cool to ever just like something for fun. To me, there’s just something sad about the idea that products created just to be enjoyable aren’t worth really liking; I think it devalues joy, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to do that.

Luckily, I realized many years ago that I will never be Cool. I had angst about that for, oh, four or five minutes, then came to terms with my nerdiness and did my best to stop worrying about what other people would think of me based on the things I enjoy. And it’s very freeing! It means that when I like something, even if it is silly or ridiculous or aimed at people roughly 13 years younger than I am,² I am free to enjoy and squee and fangirl shamelessly.

This, however, is not that post. That was merely prologue, brought up so you will all know I am not exaggerating my glee when I can share this news: Today, I sort-of-kind-of met Corbin Bleu, and oh my god I love him so much!!!11!!one

Let me back up: a few years ago, I watched and kind of enjoyed High School Musical. A year after that, the creatively-named sequel, High School Musical 2, aired on Disney. And I loved it. Love. Present tense. And after that, High School Musical 3: Senior Year was an actual theatrical release³ and yeah, I saw it in the theaters three times. These movies are ridiculous. I can’t give you plot summaries, because the “plots” are nonsensical. But the cast is adorable, the songs are fun, and the dances are wonderful.⁴ These movies are 100% joy, and my love for them is 100% genuine. I keep the music from all three on my iPod just in case I need an instant shot of joy during my day, and they never fail to pick me up.

Obviously, Corbin Bleu is one of the afore-mentioned adorable cast members. And while I’ve said before that I’ll basically see anything with any of these kids in it, no matter how bad, Corbin is my favorite. Except that should be italicized and have way more vowels stuck in, and ideally be read in a sing-songy voice: faaaaaaavorite. He’s ridiculously talented, and in interviews, he always comes across as genuinely sweet. (And let’s face it, he’s cuter than a box of kittens.) And… look, I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs, but I think you get the point.

I’ve watched a lot of things just because Corbin is in them. Most of them are not very good.⁵ So a couple months ago, when it was announced that he’d be starring in In the Heights on Broadway — something that is actually good, not just gleeful, and which might actually show off his strengths as a performer — I made a noise so squeaky it’s possible only dogs could hear me, and then convinced my sister and two of my BFFies to come with me. (This consisted of saying, “Hey, want to go see In the Heights with me?” It was not a hard sell.)

At which point Jess — my co-blogger — pointed out, you know, hanging out at the stage door to meet actors is basically a thing that it’s okay to do with Broadway shows. And then I fainted and had to be revived via smelling salts.⁶

I wish there was something more to the story than that, like, oh, a sudden gaze into one another’s eyes, instant true love,⁷ and a marriage proposal. But in actuality, it was a brief but lovely moment; he was very nice (to me and my sistren, the girls in their early teens who also started shrieking when he came outside), even more adorable up close, and YOU GUYS, I LOVE HIM A LOT.

Oh, and the show was good, too. I don’t want to understate that. I’m not nearly knowledgeable enough about such things to really critique it, but it certainly seemed to me to be very well done. Loved the music, loved the use of the setting, loved the interwoven stories. (Though my favorite moment was the joke about the 1/9 train, and how the 9 no longer exists — or more specifically, the audience reaction. Which is to say, only a handful of people laughed, a nice way of picking out who was not a tourist in the crowd.)

But let’s face it: above and beyond all that, I love this guy:

So thank you, sir, for existing, and making my not-at-all-inner fangirl very, very happy. ♥

I keep meaning to write actual entries here, but then can’t be bothered until they are no longer relevant. So instead, have a list of random bits and pieces that have been on my mind of late.

Random thing #1: I got antsy about this blog, which meant it was time to change the theme. The last one was whimsical but way too narrow, and also, I wanted something bright and cheerful. So: pink! Hooray! I also upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. (Man, the more I use WP, the more I love it. Like, in a grade school, if-you-love-it-so-much-why-don’t-you-marry-it? kind of way.)

Random thing #2: I dropped the “Nerd at Peace” tagline because I never liked it anyway. *shrug*

Random thing #3: Following up on my last post, way after it’s still a thing being discussed, Justine Larbalestier’s Liar did indeed get a new cover, this time with a person of color on it. It still doesn’t match the description in the book, but is a step. A small step, though. Avalon’s Willow explained the remaining issues very well.

Random thing #4: Once upon a time, when I was seven years old, apparently I was featured in a “word on the street” type thing in my hometown’s itty bitty newspaper. I don’t know which was better, my answer or my mom’s rockin’ sunglasses:

Random thing #5: It is a good season to be a Yankees fan. That’s all I’m sayin’ about that.

Random thing #6: I may change the format around here a bit, and link to stuff I’ve written on various other blogs and elsewhere. Mostly because I would then actually have things to post, as this is my least-frequently-updated blog. (Possibly, I have too many blogs…) Over at Tweenage, I have recently written about The Wizards of Waverly Place movie and joined Jess to review Bandslam and Aliens in the Attic, and if you’re bored and like pop music, might I recommend our Official Tweenage Wasteland Official Boy Band Watch? And at Active Voice, I significantly less recently reviewed Cindy Pon’s Silver Phoenix.

Random thing #6.5: Speaking of things I’ve written, some small pieces at work: Innovative Video Game Helps Teach HIV-Positive Teens About Safer Sex and Annie Lennox: Singing Out Against HIV, so there are those.

Random thing #7: If I do not feed my cat soon, she will likely claw my eyes out. So this is the end of the list.

Summer blockbuster season is upon us. And here’s my confession: I love ridiculous action movies. I love movies where the premise is “stuff blows up” and plot and character are entirely secondary. I don’t watch them without criticism; there’s a reason big-budget action movies have a terrible reputation when it comes to race and gender. So while I love the genre, I still watch it critically, and would be exceptionally pleased if filmmakers would shape up and start making ridiculous action movies about stuff blowing up, without resorting to alternately ignoring and stereotyping anyone who isn’t a straight, white, male character.

With that said, I’ve been to see Iron Man twice. I obviously enjoyed it; there were a bunch of aspects about it that made me decide it was worth spending money to see again. But it isn’t without its problems, and I’ve found the critiques of the movie to be fascinating. (Spoilers follow through the rest of the article.) By far the most on-the-nose critical review of the movie I’ve found is this one, by WOC PhD. She writes with far more eloquence than I could about a lot of the movie’s issues, particularly with regards to race and jingoism.

I’d like to expand on some thoughts I had while watching the movie, and again when reading her article. WOC PhD* addresses the wasted opportunities the movie had with Yinsen, the doctor who is held hostage along with the movie’s protagonist Tony Stark. He saves Tony’s life and then sacrifices himself so Tony can escape their captors. WOC PhD points out not only that the movie could have used Yinsen as a way of showing the actual effects of the war on people in Afghanistan, but also the potential problems if he returns from the dead as a villain for the sequel, which has been hinted at.

I had two further problems with his portrayal. First, I was not sold at all on his decision to sacrifice himself for Tony. As he dies, he tells Tony it’s what he wants, and that his family is dead — but that seems odd in and of itself, since when he discussed his family with Tony earlier, he did not mention that they were dead. It’s implied he’s decided Tony’s life is more important than his own because Tony has a much larger influence and can right some of the wrongs of the world in a way that Yinsen can not — but Yinsen tells him that, “this was always his plan.” Yet Tony had designed the suit with the goal of getting them both out, so why Yinsen had always planned to die when it wasn’t necessary is unclear. His death actually resembles a typical comic book fridging in some ways, except that instead of a girlfriend being murdered to give the hero motivation (or angst), a character of color is murdered to give the hero motivation (and angst — implied angst, anyway, since Tony never actually mentions him again, though I think we’re supposed to realize he was moved by the death). I’ve been told by Iron Man comics-knowledgeable friends that in every version of the origin story, Yinsen dies, so the movie writers probably never felt the freedom to have him survive”… but as a movie watcher, I wasn’t convinced. I was disappointed.

Second, Yinsen never got to be a character in his own right. The other two major supporting characters, Pepper and Rhodey, are shown to have lives outside of Tony Stark’s existence. While they both center around Tony, they do at least do things on their own. In her introduction, Pepper alludes to evening plans outside of work, and she also attends a fancy event not only without Tony, but without a date at all. Rhodey, meanwhile, we see at work. He’s kept busy there even when Tony is not watching him, which we know from scenes where Tony walks in and Rhodey doesn’t expect to see him. Now, we see them both from Tony’s POV so we only get hints about these lives, but they do exist.

Yinsen, on the other hand, does not. We meet him when Tony is captured, and he dies when Tony escapes. He references having a family, but not that they’re dead until he himself is dying; and he doesn’t do it in the context of letting us know him better, but rather as a way to show that Tony is isolated and sad without having a family of his own.** We know he speaks many languages, but we don’t know if he learned them in school, or as a traveler, or what. We don’t know if he’s a surgeon, an engineer, a professor, or something else entirely. (He does save Tony’s life medically; but he also assists him as an engineer or builder, and he’s been to see Tony give a lecture — where? When? Who knows?) We don’t know how he was captured or how long he’s been held there. Yinsen exists only while Tony is with him; when Tony is gone, he vanishes. That was hugely disappointing to me.

One place where I disagree with WOC PhD is with regards to Pepper Potts. I do agree with just about everything else she writes with regards to gender in the film, particularly about the female reporter and Pepper’s “take out the trash” line. Ught. But about Pepper and Tony’s relationship, she writes:

“Granted, Stark does make some attempt to express feelings for her in the later half of the film, but she quickly shuts him down. While the scene is meant to show Potts’ ever critical eye toward her role as super hero hag, it reads as the masochism of a woman who does not think she deserves love. Hence she falls in love with a man who won’t give her any and yet demands so much of her time that she “has no one else.” – yes that is a real quote. Or the intelligence of a woman who knows she is not, ultimately, going to get love but hangs on.”

This is in reference to the end of the film, where Tony lets Pepper know he is romantically interested in her, after she has hinted that she feels the same towards him through the whole film. However, she rejects him, referencing an earlier scene in which they had danced awkwardly and started to have a discussion of how they feel — only for him to run off in the middle to deal with a major plot revelation. Now, as a watcher of the movie, I hadn’t even thought about Pepper being left without explanation at that point, because it is a major plot revelation and Tony reacts quite understandably. The narrative follows him and not Pepper, and no further thought was really given towards what she thought or felt at that moment, until she brings it up in her rejection of him.

I did not see that as her a woman who feels she does not deserve love, or that rejection as masochism on her part. On the contrary, I thought it was a great move on the filmmaker’s parts to further her character. Pepper actually had an emotional reaction to being left there, even though we didn’t see it, since the movie wasn’t about Pepper. She was a fully-realized character, who reacted understandably. Being left without explanation or apology was enough to make her realize that, while she may have feelings for Tony, he is selfish and even if he reciprocates those feelings, that selfishness will leave him unable to give her what she wants and deserves from a relationship. Rather than settling for that, even though she cares for Tony, she rejects him. I was impressed and pleased by that choice.

One further gender-based criticism of the film. We know a lot about Tony Stark’s father: he was one of the developers of the atomic bomb; he founded a major arms company that Tony inherited; he died when Tony was relatively young; there’s a lot of controversy about whether he was a patriot or simply war profiteering; people generally feel Tony has a lot to live up to with regards to his dad. How would his dad feel about the direction Tony took the company in? How would he feel about the weapons Tony has helped create? Or the under-the-table deals to give those weapons to bad people? Tony struggles with those ideas throughout the film.

Tony’s mother is never mentioned verbally. The only actual reference to her at all is in a montage of newspaper headlines about the Stark family, which provides us with Tony’s history. The headline reads, “Husband and Wife Perish,” or something very similar. She has no name, and she has no impact on Tony or his story, whatsoever. I am realize this is a fairly common problem, but it still annoys me greatly, since you’d think that even if he had no relationship with his mother, that would still affect his character. Grumble.

Okay. All that said? I really enjoyed the movie. It was fun, it didn’t take itself super-seriously. It was phenomenally well acted, and in many respects well written. Though never confirmed by Tony himself, it’s clear he suffers from PTSD after his time as a prisoner. It’s referenced by other characters, one a gossip show host and one the villain trying to cut him out of his own company. Tony himself is not written as a character who would acknowledge that he needs to attend to his mental health, but it was also clear to me as a watcher that his decision to build a new version of the Iron Man suit and use it as a hero was all driven by PTSD, in large part. His decision to try and do the right thing may have been driven by having seen the consequences of his actions first-hand, but the obsessive way he goes about it is indicative of greater problems. I loved the way the movie illustrated that without beating the viewer over the head with it.

The movie was clever. The action sequences engaging. The special effects managed to be brilliant and not cheesy. Tony’s character and Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of him were fantastic. I can’t say I recommend this as an action movie with no faults — they’re there and disappointing. But what it gets right, it gets right much better than other movies in its genre, and it is certainly a cut above standard action movie fare.

* I’m not quite sure how to address her or what name she generally goes by — the blog is on hiatus so it seems that a lot of the usual informational pages are missing, and I’ve only started reading recently. If anyone knows of a more accurate name/handle, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

** I do think it’s interesting to have that trope, that while a character appears to have everything, the character actually has nothing without a family, applied to a man instead of a career woman as a way of showing that she should get back in the kitchen, but that’s neither here nor there.

Wow, so working full time actually, you know, takes up a lot of time. Who knew?

Anyway. On the subway today, I reread Bruce Coville’s The Dragonslayers, probably for the first time since I was twelve. And it’s just as awesome as I remember. It’s about a spunky redheaded princess named Willie (it’s short for Wilhelmina, but an appropriate name, as she’s “the most willful person in the kingdom”). Willie wears army boots under her frilly dresses, and is outraged at the notion that she should get married before she has a chance to go out and have an adventure. So when a dragon appears, she runs away to slay it on her own, and does so with the aid of an aged Knight named Elizar and a brave young squire, Brian. They all want to slay the dragon, though it’s Willie who eventually does so. It’s a cute story for kids, with a truly rockin’ heroine. It was one of my favorites for years.

Which got me thinking. Basically everything Coville wrote was one of my favorites at some point. Right back to one of the very first books I can remember reading. Because the thing was, unlike the rest of my family, I was slow to learn to read. I didn’t have the patience for it, and I have very clear memories of how frustrated I was in first grade, struggling to read a worksheet. And then sometime in second grade, someone handed me a copy of Space Brat, and I tore through it. It’s the first time I remember reading something easily or eagerly. It was also the first time I thought it might be interesting to try and write a story. And it was my first introduction to science fiction and fantasy. In other words, Bruce Coville had an almost absurdly large influence on me, and, not surprisingly, is still one of my very favorites today.

Now, as an adult, I also appreciate them on another level. As a kid, I didn’t realize how hard it can be to find dynamic female characters, and girls I can identify with. But Coville novels are chocked full of them. Willie, obviously, is a good example. But glancing at my bookshelf (yeah, I own a few and am slowly acquiring more — first the ones I had as a kid, and then, hopefully, the many I missed before rediscovering my love of them in college) I see quite a few with girls in the lead (all of whom are ripe with personality and quirks of their own) and even in the books which center around guys, there are usually a few girls in the background. (It’s also not just that he writes female characters well; his books also tend to place high values on honesty and fairness, and have also dealt with self-acceptance and occasionally sexuality.)

So here are my quick rundown of a handful of his books, which I feel are among the most excellent.

The AI Gang
I think I may be just about the only person who has ever heard of this trilogy, but even though I haven’t read it since middle school, I remember most of it vividly. Most vividly of all I remember the female characters. It’s about a group of kids whose genius parents have been gathered on a former military base on an island, to work on a top-secret project. The kids are geniuses themselves and quickly realize their parents are there to create genuine artificial intelligence, and decide to beat the adults at their own game. Meanwhile, a shadowy villain is trying to gain control of the AI for himself.

I think the group was six kids, though it may only have been five. Two of them were female, but, like I said, I remember those two really clearly. Rachel was one of the nicer of the group, and she and her twin brother had built their own robotic head and programmed it to tell bad jokes. She loved music. And she kind of dated one of the boys, which I thought was fantastic, because the boy was also one of my very first fictional crushes. And there was Wendy, who was exceptionally awesome. Like me, she was short, messy, and had an extreme fondness for oversized sweatshirts. Her specialty was miniature robotics, and she had turned all of her dolls into talking alarm clocks that valiantly tried (and usually failed) to get her up in the morning. Her full name, if I remember right (sadly, I haven’t been able to find copies of these books yet) was Wendalyn Wendal III. When asked how she could be the third, given that women usually change their names upon marriage, she answered, “I come from a long line of strong-minded women.” Wendy was smart, she was outspoken, she was unconcerned about her looks (again, dirty sweatshirts — and a tendency to regularly eat hamburgers the size of her head), she was stubborn, and she was all kinds of awesome. (She was also, you might guess, my favorite.)

The Nina Tanleven Ghost Series
An awkward title for another trilogy (The Ghost in the Third Row, The Ghost Wore Gray, and The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed), but these are about the only ghost stories I’ve ever really enjoyed. I also think that this is Coville’s best series — especially The Ghost Wore Gray, where the ghost is a southern Civil War soldier, and as the book goes on you learn his story and how he ended up overcoming racism. And it brings you that message without being trite or after school special-y. And it makes me cry.

Anyway. The trilogy is about two girls, Nina (“Nine”) Tanleven and her best friend Chris. They meet at the beginning of the first book, having both been cast in a local musical, and quickly become best friends. They also develop the ability to see ghosts, and spend the three books finding tragic spirits, solving mysteries, and letting the ghosts finally sleep. I love both characters, and I love their relationship. I also love Nine’s relationship with her father — her mother walked out on the family, and she and her father are extremely close. Overall, it’s a series with rich characters and amazingly powerful back stories.

My Teacher…
I think these are the best known Coville books; they faded away for awhile, which is a shame, but are now being reprinted with kicky new covers, which is awesome. And though the first book is largely just a wacky story about a girl saving her sixth-grade class from what they think is an alien invasion, the series gets darker and much deeper as it goes on. The kids discover that the reason aliens are snooping around Earth is fear — they’re worried because humans are the first species to develop extremely destructive technology, and to be close to space travel, without having reached a planetary peace. No one knows why humans have such an urge to kill and harm one another, but the aliens are afraid that their sickness will spread if they stumble on to the secret of faster-than-light travel too soon. They’re so scared they’re considering blowing up the planet to avoid the potential dangers. The fourth book is the protagonists’ quest to find proof that humanity is inherently good, that it can become peaceful, and is worthy of survival and respect. In other words, really heavy stuff, and it doesn’t shy away from some of the darker human impulses: aside from finding beautiful things humans have created, the kids visit war zones, torture camps, and areas of poverty and starvation. I won’t spoil the end for you, but I will say that it’s fucking amazing, and to this day, I still mentally compare every science fiction novel I read to the conclusion of the My Teacher series. (And not that many measure up.)

The Magic Shop
The Magic Shop series reminds me of old fairy tales and fables in that just about every book has a lesson to it; a kid with an obvious flaw will stumble upon the mysterious Magic Shop (run by the even more mysterious Mr. Elives) and end up with some kind of magical object which sparks an adventure. Through the course of the adventure, the kid learns to cope with whatever his or her flaw is. They also often draw upon traditional tales and mythologies in their backstories. These books are all excellent and charming, but I’d have to say the best, hands down, is Jennifer Murdley’s Toad. I adore this book, partially because of the sarcastic talking toad, but mostly because it’s a book about a girl who is unattractive and has low self-esteem, and the story is notably not about how she gets beautiful — it’s about how she comes to value herself for her personality and not her looks. She’s offered the chance to be compellingly beautiful and extraordinarily powerful, and her struggle — her longing to finally feel worthwhile by becoming beautiful — is moving and compelling, and makes the ultimate payoff (that Jennifer is special and smart, and that’s more important) even better.

(In terms of issues that are near and dear to my heart, I’d also give a nod to The Skull of Truth, where a kid who’s a compulsive liar ends up in possession of a skull that forces people within its influence to tell the truth. This causes general havoc everywhere he brings it, but also an interesting scene at a family dinner when his uncle, after many years, comes out to the family. The kid’s reaction is well done; he’s confused and unsure of how to interact with his uncle, and eventually comes to the conclusion that, well, he loves his uncle, who really is the same as he always was, it’s just something to get used to.)

Okay, so, in conclusion… I don’t think I can think of a single other male author — and very few female ones, for that matter — who so consistently writes so many dynamic girls. For anyone out there who might be looking for good, positive books to pick up for a niece/cousin/daughter/young girl who would like to read about someone female, I’d definitely recommend any of the above. Or just about anything else he’s written.

Like I’ve said before, NBC’s Scrubs is one of my very favorite shows on the air now, and perhaps my favorite sitcom of all time. Despite the awesomeness of its recent musical episode, I think this season represents its shark jumping (and is likely the last season, regardless); but still, the show remains an excellent watch with one main problem: I absolutely can not stand the JD, the show’s protagonist (played by Zach Braff). And yet my completely loathing of his character is evened out by my admiration for Elliot (Sarah Chalke), who I think is not only one of the best written female characters on the air right now, but is the character from the show who has had the most development and growth in its six seasons. So, a two part series; in this entry, I explain why I adore Elliot, and in the next, I’ll get into why I find JD to be loathsome.

So. When we first begin the show, Elliot is uptight, neurotic, repressed, scatter brained, clumsy, prone-to-crying, and severely lacking in any kind of confidence. As a doctor (a first-year intern, actually) she’s inexperienced and barely able to keep her head above water. In the first season we learn that she’s from a wealthy but distant family and she’s desperate for parental approval; this is a need that, in the hospital, translates to her desperately craving approval of the hospital’s paternal figures, Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox. She fails to win it from either. Furthermore, her social awkwardness repeatedly gets her in trouble and isolates her from everyone around except DJ. She crushes on JD, even long after their attempt at a relationship fails miserably.

In short, the Elliot we meet in season one is a mess. The reason I love the character is because through the course of the show, we see her grow from this mess into a self-possessed, competent, dynamic woman. In many ways, her character arch is deeper and more complete than anyone else’s on the show.

Through the first three seasons of the show, Elliot follows a fairly typical pattern for designated romantic interests. She has a crush on JD; they hook up, it fails. Then JD has a crush on her, they hook up, and it fails again. Most of Elliot’s storylines revolve around who she is dating, even when it is not JD, though a few episodes touch on her other relationships — particularly her friendship with Carla, a Latina nurse at the hospital. Carla is clearly one of the first non-white people Elliot has ever been friends with (and, more importantly to their relationship, possibly the first person who wasn’t from a similar middle to upper class background). In the first season, they clash repeatedly and only become friends because of their mutual friends; by the third season, Carla asks Elliot to be one of her bridesmaids. Though the friendship is only the focus of a few episodes, it is one of the first clear indicators that Elliot is maturing.

In the first three seasons, Elliot does have one plotline which is only semi-related to her dating life*. In season two, she’s cut off by her father when she refuses to accept his directive that she become a gynecologist. He paid for her college, her med school, and now pays for her apartment; without his money, she’s left unable to afford her extravagant apartment. She also has no background in financial planning or budgeting. Elliot is forced to move abruptly but due to work doesn’t have the time to find somewhere to live. For a few episodes, Elliot lives out of her van, with all of her possessions stored inside it. Then she spends a few nights sleeping on JD’s couch. Eventually, her van — and everything she owns — is stolen. She hits rock bottom and her recovery from this lasts into season three, and marks the real turning point for her character.

In the season three premier, Elliot (still reeling from losing all of her possessions and feeling generally awful about herself) realizes that her friends now pity her, and no longer think she’s capable of helping them out when they need it. She finds this unacceptable and for the first time gets pissed off instead of depressed. She begins to demand that they — and everyone else — take her seriously. (Of course, our visual cue for this transition is a montage of Elliot getting her hair cut and wrecking her room, the end result of which is that she begins to wear outfits where her bra strap shows, accompanied by way too much eyeliner [which, of course, the show jokes about]. I like the character development, even if I think this isn’t the best way to do it — if I recall DVD commentary correctly, this was actually in result of getting the note that the show needed to be “sexier” to boost its ratings.)

After this, people finally begin to respect Elliot (though it does not happen all at once, and she backslides repeatedly, even as she makes progress). She also gets into her first mature relationship, dating Shawn, the world’s most perfect boyfriend. This is where we see her begin to decide what she wants in a relationship and go after it; for example, she acknowledges to Shawn that her job has to come first, but that she’ll make him a priority when she can — and if that’s not acceptable, they can’t be together, and that while she’ll be sad, she’ll understand. She also goes after him when he tells her he’s moving and doesn’t want a long-distance relationship, telling him that she thinks the relationship is worth fighting to keep together for the six months they’ll be separated. In season one, Elliot had neither the strength nor maturity for these actions (in fact, we know that for sure, because she first meets Shawn in the first season and they date very briefly). Now she does.

Unfortunately, JD’s main plot in season three is that he realizes he still loves Elliot after one of their failed attempts at dating, and spends the season pining for her. She makes a mistake while she’s feeling vulnerable and sleeps with him (I don’t think the writers handled her end of this well, as we never really get much of a glimpse into why she does this); then, when she’s finally at a point where she’s ready to live with Shawn and take their relationship to the next step, JD professes that he thinks he, not Shawn, is right for her. Elliot makes the decision to dump Shawn for JD — who immediately realizes he doesn’t love her after all, and they break up. But even this, as frustrating as it was as a viewer, shows Elliot’s maturity. JD attempts to patching things up between her and Shawn with lies; Elliot tells Shawn the truth, even though she knows that means he won’t want to be with her again. And, of course, in the moment when JD first breaks up with her (at the rehearsal dinner for Carla’s wedding), he looks terrified and says, “Please don’t cry.”

Elliot, who has been crying regularly since the first episode, says, “Ohhh, I won’t,” and proceeds to shove him across the table, then brushes her hands clean, sits down, and asks for a glass of wine.

And despite the fact that JD has been Elliot’s crutch and closest emotional support for the last three years, Elliot does not immediately forgive him. Her very understandable anger carries through into season four, where we hit the next Elliot story arch — and my favorite. After the breakup, she feels isolated because JD lives with their closest mutual friends, making her uncomfortable spending time with them. While off alone, she meets the hospital’s new resident psychiatrist, Dr. Molly Clock. Molly is a relentlessly upbeat, confident woman, who becomes both Elliot’s closest friend and her unofficial mentor. Through this relationship, Elliot finds her own inner confidence, and finally hits her stride as a doctor. For example, she’s able to present and defend her point (that a former drug addicted patient should be allowed to have a heart valve transplant despite being a “bad candidate”) at a meeting of the hospital ethics committee, which would have sent her into hysterics not long before. I find this relationship to be beautiful and well done — considering that all too often, television portrays women and shallow and backstabbing (particularly towards other women), it’s exciting to see how Elliot and Molly support and help one another. And as a direct result of this relationship, Elliot finally stops craving acceptance from Dr. Cox. The episode after Molly leaves to take a job at another hospital, Elliot runs afowl of Dr. Cox, but when he opens his mouth to tell her off, she cuts him off, declaring that she did what she had to to treat her patient, and that she doesn’t care what he thinks. (In season five, she goes out of her way to help Dr. Cox and he responds by being incredibly rude and condescending; she glares at him and comments that she doesn’t care anymore, but the one thing that’s been true since she started is that he’s unsupportive and mean to her. Upon realizing that she’s right, he apologizes and begins to treat her as something akin to a colleague. Considering that Dr. Cox is a misogynist if you read not too far between the lines, this is particularly impressive.)

Elliot’s relationships have also moved forward as the show progressed. Elliot’s type through the series is controlling, and her craving for approval (particularly from men) means that she’s consistently let herself be controlled. With the exception of Shawn, this was the pattern through season four. But in season five, we finally see Elliot break out of this pattern, and with a real snap, too. She and JD (having finally become friends again) agree to go after booty calls together, neither of them really wanting a full relationship. JD backs out, but Elliot finds a guy she thinks is attractive and goes for it. At first, it is just a booty call: he’s there when she wants sex (and Elliot, through the five seasons, has finally become comfortable with the fact that she does want sex) and she doesn’t have to worry about him the rest of the time. But eventually Elliot finds that she actually likes Keith, the guy in question, and they get into a real relationship, and unlike past guys she’s dated, this is a relationship on Elliot’s terms. Which isn’t to say it’s perfect — there’s still a vast power imbalance, though it favors Elliot (who is Keith’s boss) — but for Elliot, it’s a big chance.

If nothing else, the ways Elliot has grown up can be symbolized by this: in season two, Elliot hit her lowest point when she was temporarily homeless. In season six, she’s got her relationships, career, and finances under control to the point where she buys a house of her own.

And finally, there’s this: Elliot does all this while remaining neurotic, repressed, scatter-brained, and clumsy. She is still the same character, at her core; much like a real person, Elliot stays herself, while she grows and matures. Furthermore, I think it’s interesting that she is this complex, developed character and she still hits a lot of the traits that television tends to apply to all women: she’s consistently worried about her weight and the way she looks**. She wants to get married and have babies, to the point where she’s occasionally desperate to find a man. On a lesser show, those would be the traits that define her character; here they’re part of her larger neuroses, and what defines her is her struggle to conquer them and grow.

*I describe this as semi-related because I think it’s clear the situation is still a set-up for her second season hook-up with JD.

**Actually, there’s an episode that’s about how hard it is to dress professionally as a woman: the female doctors who don’t take time to dress up or worry about their looks get mocked by everyone at the hospital; when Elliot gets her makeover, she isn’t taken seriously because she does put time and effort into how she looks.

First off: The Seventh Blog Carnival of Feminist Fantasy and Science Fiction Fans is up. Lots of cool stuff there.

Okay. So I’ve complained about gender roles and stereotypes in books, so it only seems fair that, when I find a book that doesn’t leave me irritated, I should share it. So here’s the first of what will, hopefully, be many book reviews to come.

The City of Ember and The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau

These books could practically have been created with me in mind. My favorite type of science fiction — one of my favorite genres, period — is the dystopia. A friend who worked at a book store spotted these and realized they’d be right up my alley. And oh boy, were they ever.

The main characters populate a small city called Ember. We don’t know much about it at the beginning, except that it was built for them by some people in the distant past, and that the Builders left instructions for the citizens of Ember to leave after two hundred years. But the instructions were lost, and no one seems to remember that they ever existed to begin with.

As the story unfolds, we learn more about the city. Specifically, the readers learn that it’s underground and powered by a generator that runs off a massive river beneath the city, but that the citizens of Ember don’t know how it works — nor do they even know that they’re underground. They all believe that their city is the only light in a dark world…But the generator is beginning to break down, and no one knows how to fix it, bringing more and more blackouts into the city. And supplies are running out, too. The Builders gave them great storehouses with everything they could ever need, designed to last two centuries. More time has passed than intended, and now everything from canned veggies to lightbulbs are running out. The city is dying, and its citizens are trapped.

Our main characters are Lina and Doon, a pair of twelve year olds who have finished their schooling and are entering the city’s workforce for the first time. Lina is a messenger — the city doesn’t have phones, so messengers take a small payment to literally run across the city carrying messages between people. Doon is assigned to the pipeworks, and his goal is to learn how the generator works so he can fix it for the city. Instead, all he gets to do is fix leaky pipes.

Lina discovers two important things: one of her friends works in the store rooms, and there are a few cans of very rare, thought to be used up, supplies left, which a small group of people have been sneaking out and eating. She also finds what looks like a very old, important set of instructions, but she can’t figure out what they mean: her baby sister got to them first, and tore and chewed them up. Worried about the people who are hoarding supplies, especially as blackouts become more frequent, she realizes the instructions have something to do with leaving or fixing the city. But no one will take her seriously except Doon. Together, the two of them try to stop the hoarding and figure out how to save the city.

Aside from presenting a fun adventure, the book tackles a couple of questions that parallel our own world. First, the hoarding of scarce resources. At first, Lina wonders if it’s okay — if there’s only one can of pineapple left, who should get it? How can anyone decide that? And if no one can decide fairly, does that make finders-keepers fair? But she realizes quickly that hoarding is not okay at all…and when she tries to get the problems fixed, she realized that it isn’t just one or two people. Even the mayor, the city’s highest authority, is in on the corruption. Lina knows that the Builders intended the city’s supplies to belong to all of its citizens, which means the mayor is stealing from people who elected him. Who can you turn to to get rid of corruption, when the people who have the authority are the ones who are corrupt?

The second major issues is environmentalism. Everything in Ember’s environment is constructed, but their situation is eerily reminiscent of the current world’s. Ember has a finite amount of resources, which are running out; and their environment is breaking down, in the form of their generator breaking down. At first, everyone can pretend it won’t be a problem, and hope for a miracle solution. When there’s no miracle, they wait for the government to solve the problem…but the government is corrupt and hoarding goods rather than fixing the problem. So when most citizens choose to ignore the obvious problems, it’s also the young, motivated citizens who have to take matters into their own hands, and find their own solutions.

Needless to say, it’s very easy to look at the situation of Ember, and see a simpler version of today’s society. The corrupt administration is buffoon-like and easily defeated, but still reminiscent of the Bush administration: it lies and is misuses resources. Ember’s dying resources parallel global warming and oil shortages. And while their solutions aren’t applicable to the real world, they do make a very strong point: denying a problem makes it worse, and merely acknowledging a problem without actively seeking a solution still doesn’t help. It’s also optimistic: the characters are regular kids. They’re smart and motivated, but they don’t have any special skills. All they have is the urge to help their city, and by getting involved and doing what they can, they find they have the ability to save the day when other people refuse to.

And that doesn’t even get into the sequel, which tackles war: what makes a war just? What is worth fighting for? And when everyone around you is set to fight, how can both individual people and leaders find solutions? Needless to say, it’s another intense, interesting read.

Finally, the series gets even more credit with me. It avoids the female character pitfalls I’ve written about before. To begin with, Lina and Doon, in slight ways, invert gender stereotypes: Lina is active, outspoken, and physical, where Doon is quiet, emotional, and thoughtful. But almost more importantly, the story shares the spotlight between a male and female protagonist (putting Lina slightly in the forefront — they share time, but ultimately it seems that the series is about her, with Doon as her best friend), and notably, they aren’t romantic with one another. I can’t think of any other series where there are no romances whatsoever, let alone another series where the female and male protagonists don’t fall for one another. They’re best friends, they care deeply about one another, and they consider each other family. But they never get romantically involved.

Overall, I give the series an A+. It presents a fascinating, eerie world (but manages to keep its dystopia from being too depressing to enjoy) that deals with hard problems. It doesn’t present solutions to our society’s problems, but does give the message that only if we readers get passionate and get involved can they be fixed. The characters are interesting and fun. The story is exciting and well constructed. I’ve read both books twice through now, and am keeping them for future readings. I can not possibly recommend them enough.