JanerBlog

Waffed Falafel.

I made falafel this weekend, and it was yummy, as falafel usually is. But after seeing this, now I have to go dig up the waffle iron we inherited, and make the rest of the box.

Long-awaited cat photos

And now for something pleasant: Kittens, after five months. Claudia is the whip-thin black one, fond of playing fetch and capable of a four-foot vertical. Maddie is the dense calico, so compact and heavy for her size that she must be a Tardis-kitty. She is the most loving affectionate, cuddly cat I've ever known. Both allow us to clip their claws with no protest whatsoever, a testament to their foster parents.

Why I won't be watching either Avatar movie

There are currently two movies with the word "Avatar" in the title: The first just won three Oscars and ranks as the highest grossing film of all time, and the second is on the way. The current blockbuster can best be summed up as "Dances with Smurfs," and I don't really have much more to say about it because I haven't seen it and probably never will, but the upcoming movie strikes very close to my heart.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is the single best animated series I've ever seen. It was created for kids aged 6-11, but it reduced both Paul and I to tears on multiple occasions, and we watched several discs straight through, nonstop, because we were utterly captivated by the story. The writing is that good. The characters are that good. The setting is that good.

And the setting is what makes the series so truly unique. It's set in a mythical land, but not the usual Celtoid McEurope we're used to seeing in thousands of other fantasies. The land, its peoples, and its history are all based on different Asian countries, along with Greenland Inuit culture. It's a rare and beautiful demonstration of "appropriate cultural appropriation" -- where two white guys created an outstanding work of storytelling art that's set entirely in non-European cultures, and told it with research, empathy, and effort.

So. You'd think I'd be thrilled about the movie, right? Wrong.

The movie producers have gone out of their way to strip out the definitively Asian influences, starting with the cast. In a stunning display of modern yellowface, the movie team cast white kids as the three heroes, and Dev Patel, the former star of Slumdog Millionaire as Prince Zuko, who serves as the villain for the first two-thirds of the series. They also stripped out the authentic Chinese script that serves as the written language for all four nations, replacing it instead with fake mystical writing. The costumes, the backgrounds, the nations' very identities, all the details that make the series a tribute to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Tibetan and Inuit cultures are gone in favor of hollow, generic Hollywood artifice.

The movie action figures -- which are, of course, white to reflect the new cast -- only compound the problem. Sure, I can finally get a Katara now, but she looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like the strong, annoying, motherly, fierce, Inuit character I fell so much in love with. (This is actually the one place where the original Nickelodeon series really falls down hard: you can buy a zillion Aang action figures, a whole bunch of Zukos, a good-sized handful of Sokkas, and even get multiple figures of minor characters like King Bumi, Admiral Zhao, and even that loser Jet. But how about the girls? You know, fifty percent of the original team? Nothing. Zero. Oh wait, I take that back. Since I started writing this post, you can now get a plush Katara dollie. 'Cause girls love dollies, right? Seriously, I would kill for a Toph action figure for my cube, to put next to Nausicaa and Steelheart and Gran'ma Ben in my Hall of Kickass Cartoon Women.)

It's a huge betrayal, and A:TLA fans haven't been taking it lying down. Ever since the first casting call went out, sites like Racebending.com and Aang Ain't White have been leading the protests. Even Roger Ebert weighed in against the casting choice.

Unfortunately, however, Hollywood isn't taking the protests lying down, either. First, movie producers ignored and returned over 200 protest letters, then Viacom censored Racebending.com's t-shirts on Zazzle, and the latest insult comes from Facebook, who shut down the Racebending group. I guess they must feel threatened by a bunch of fans peacefully, civilly and articulately protesting an unfair casting choice, as opposed to all the other questionable groups they permit. (ETA: The group's been restored [amidst further protest, of course]).

All this is just another example of the danger of a single story, and if you only click on one link in this post, make it this one. What a sad big-screen debut for such a wonderful series. No matter how awesome the special effects are (and I don't doubt they will be amazing), no amount of fancy CG can make up for the lousy changes the movie producers made to the original, and the spectacle just simply isn't worth the betrayal.

Happy Green Day!

I celebrated by cleaning up the winter dog crap from the backyard!

And planting peas, lettuces and radishes. And celebrating the fact that I'm *not* playing Irish music to obnoxious drunk people in plastic hats.

The weather hit 60F for the first time since November, and it felt so very good to be outside in just shirtsleeves. Too bad it's planning to snow on Sunday, just in time for our first paddling trip of the year.

Signal Boost

Via Vito-Excalibur, there's a fellow LiveJournaler named Liz, who also goes by Denelian, who could really use some help right now:

Liz is wonderful. She is funny, creative, a talented writer, and one of the smartest people I know. She has a slightly warped sense of humor, an incredible imagination, and a healthy appreciation of the absurd. She's currently attending OSU and working on a dual degree: a BS in Journalism and a BA Political Science. In the time I have known her, she has been an amazing source of support and sanity-checking.

But now, Liz needs help.

She has some serious medical problems, which I am sure she would not be comfortable having listed publicly in detail. The combination of them, however, has taken a huge toll on her - she basically cannot lift or move one of her legs, and can no longer get dressed, bathe, or go anywhere without help. She is only allowed to walk 50 feet, and that with a cane or walker. She can only sit up for up to 30 minutes before the pain becomes unbearable. Despite several surgeries, her hip is not improving. She is in severe and chronic pain, even with heavy medication - when I asked, she said her usual pain level starts off at about an 8 out of 10 each day, and only goes up from there.

And somehow, she has been managing to pass her college classes. Even to do quite well in most of them. Until the last few quarters, when the lack of accessible classrooms and university facilities has made it literally impossible for her to get to her classes. Her hip problems mean that even if she can get to a class, she cannot sit up through it.

Her health problems have forced her to drop a lot of classes, the last few quarters, because she literally cannot get to the lectures, and cannot remain sitting through them. This has caused her GPA to drop from a 3.5 to a 2.8. But that is not the biggest problem.

See, the financial aid Liz has been getting for school is based on how many units of classes are taken. Not the number completed, but the number scheduled. So if a class is dropped, or a Withdrawal is filed, it still factors into the total units counted for financial aid. Liz has had to drop at least one class per quarter since the beginning of 2008, partly due to unanticipated complications (MSRI) after one of her hip surgeries, which cost her an entire quarter's worth of classes.

[snip]

And that's bad, but there's worse. You see, the only medical insurance Liz has is through her enrollment in the university. So when she is no longer enrolled, in a month or so, she will have no medical coverage. Her university allows students to purchase medical insurance for one quarter after their enrollment ends, so she has the option to buy another three months' insurance.

Go have a look at the whole entry. If you're able and so inclined, you may want to consider bidding on something in her charity auction or just using Paypal to donate a couple bucks her way.

New Pinup!

Over the last couple of months, I've been doing some pinups for folks. I don't want to share them all quite yet because I want the giftees to have the right of first post. Ironically, the last one gifted is the first one to make it out on the intertubes, so I finally get to post it!

Guy Davis is hard at work on the third graphic novel of his creator-owned series The Marquis, so I made him a pinup to celebrate.

(click to embiggen)

I can hardly wait to see what fresh new horrors crawl out of his wonderfully twisted brain. If you're not familiar with Guy's personal work, you may know him from his long run on Mike Mignola's BPRD from Dark Horse. A whole bunch of other folks are doing really gorgeous Marquis pinups, and Guy's collecting them on a special blog. Go have a look!

My Husband is the Awesomest

So Paul is a darn good designer, and recently, he's had a couple of really major coups. Some of them are still in the pipe, but here are a couple I can tell you about.

First, a while back, Thomas Dolby had an open contest on his blog to design the tee-shirt logo for a one-shot concert he was giving in London. Paul won, and you can see the logo being used in the concert here and here and here.

And secondly, Paul's a regular visitor to Warren Ellis' Whitechapel Message Board, where each week, Warren posts a new "Remake/Remodel" challenge, where artists and designers take a crack at re-imagining old, forgotten (and usually public-domain) characters. Paul usually does at least one design a week if not more, and his submissions are usually really well received. Fast forward to this week, when Warren gave the following challenge:

You are an artist/designer. You have to put together the cover for a comic called SUPERMAN. It is issue 1 of this book.

You have been told that Superman is a man who dresses predominantly in a shade of blue, and wears a red S symbol. You know nothing else about the character.

The cover must include a logo and the text THE COMPLETE STORY OF THE DARING EXPLOITS OF THE ONE AND ONLY SUPERMAN.

And that's it.

It's up to you what kind of company you're at. What kind of comics you make. How you translate that description of Superman. What era you're in. Who you are, even. Go nuts with it.

You have one week. Go.

The story's received quite a bit of press in the last couple of days, and guess whose image is getting shown far and wide?

Yup. He is my husband. He is full of awesome.