salinea | Reading

As I mentioned on my last Pern post, Dragonsdawn was always the most memorable Pern book for me -- for my sins, and sins indeed they are. That said, having reread it, I can understand exactly why I found this so compelling. This was the book that sold me on the fantasy of planetary exploration and colonization as a delightful and desirable experience! You could go to a beautiful new world and discover baby dragons and have random islands named after you! You could build a new Utopian society! Is Anne McCaffrey's vision of a Utopian society uncomfortably libertarian? Sure, but I was ten, I didn't know what libertarians were, I just understood that Sorka was having a very cool time as a happily free-range child exploring the Pernese landscape. I don't think it was until I read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars as an adult that I fully came to terms with the fact that going to space actually sounded like a deeply unpleasant time, logistically speaking, and let the faint wisps of the Dragonsdawn dream of First Feet Down on a beautiful new planet that's functionally just like Earth with bonus charming telepathic fauna dissipate into the ether.

I mean, it is sort of an open question though: early Pernese culture, potential paradise or libertarian cult? I do think McCaffrey knows that the colonist's blissful vision of If Everyone Has Enough Land For Themselves We Can All Just Be Chill And Not Actually Bother Society-Building is doomed to some degree of failure on account of bad actors, even before it's interrupted by Thread. She could have just made it a book about dealing with Thread and developing dragons about it, and it would probably be a better book if she did, but she's so grimly determined to put some bad actors in just to demonstrate she knows they exist. This at least is my theory of how we got Evil Sexy Avril Bitra, perpetrator of history's most inexplicable heist. "If I go on this fifty-year mission, I can steal some diamonds, steal an escape pod, launch myself back out into space, and get picked up back in a society that's moved on a hundred years from the one I left! Probably they'll still want diamonds and I'll re-adapt just fine!"

So, I can understand, I guess, why Avril Bitra. I don't understand and don't think I will ever understand why Avril Bitra's narrative foil is a would-be tradwife who nonconsensually aphrodisiaced her way into marriage with a man who has never shown any romantic interest in anything except cave systems and then spent the next eight years making a shocked Pikachu face about the fact that he continued to not be all that into her. Why is Sallah Telgar's plot in this book? What is it doing here? Why is Avril Bitra evilly torturing Sallah on the spaceship given so much page space and weird psychosexual intensity when literally nothing about this plot actually impacts the colony's situation IN ANY ACTUAL WAY? I thought a reread would leave me less confused about all this than I was when I was ten and in fact I think it did the opposite. Anne, please ... you must have had some thoughts about this, thematically, structurally ... I'm coming to you, hat in hand, asking for answers.

I do think it's very funny that in the years between 1968 and 1989 Anne McCaffrey decided that it was a bit embarrassing that she'd built biological differences into her dragons such that the queens don't breathe fire, and decided to blame it on the fact that the dragons were genetically designed by an Extremely Traditional Chinese Grandma instead. Is it also racist? Yes, extremely. But if we start talking about all the unfortunate well-meaning racism in Dragonsdawn we'll be here all day and I don't have that much day left. Racism aside I did find myself unexpectedly somewhat moved by the subplot I did not remember at all in which Kenjo Fusaiyuki, a guy who has made a Profound Mistake in moving to an isolated colony planet that's dedicated itself to being low-tech and abandoning spaceflight, desperately hoards fuel for as long as possible to put off the time when he will have to at last give up for good and all the thing he loves most and is best at in all the world.

And you know who could've saved Kenjo Fusaiyuki's life, if she had stopped to help the two guys Avril Bitra clonked on the head instead of uselessly pursuing her into space? YES, IT'S ANOTHER SALLAH TELGAR CRIME. Sallah Telgar, you have so much to answer for.

petrea_mitchell posting in

anime_manga

(crossposted from my journal)

I want to get back into posting about the anime I'm watching, especially since I wanted to check out a bunch of things this season.

Snowball Earth looks likely to become the show I keep desperately recommending to my fellow Worldcon members until Hugo nominations close next spring. Episode 1 speedruns an entire mecha show about a teenager with a special gift and his special robot fighting off an alien invasion, until things go disastrously wrong and the protagonist finds himself back on Earth after a very sudden climate change. Worse, he was planning to make up for his social isolation and awkwardness by making a bunch of friends after the final battle, and the population of Earth seems to have dropped precipitously.

It's about 75% comedy, 20% earnest mecha action, 5% horror, and all good so far. It's also like someone saw Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet and set out to prove that the premise had a much better show hiding in it.

Rooster Fighter has a pretty thin premise (tough-guy fighter except he's an actual chicken) and yet it's so well executed that I keep deciding to watch one more episode. At some point I think I'll hit a wall and suddenly not care anymore, but today is not that day.

Daemons of the Shadow Realm has managed to conceal a very important piece of its information about its setting from its trailers, which makes for a pretty big shock in the first episode. Congrats to the marketing department, except had I known that piece of information from the beginning, I would have been more interested. Anyway, the last Arakawa Hiromu adaptation I saw felt meh (Arslan) but this is going very well so far.

Mao is the other big adaptation of a manga by a famous long-running author, and um... if you like Takahashi Rumiko's work, this is definitely another Takahashi Rumiko work. I was not gripped.

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun! season 4 inspired me to finally finish season 3, where I'd gotten bogged down in the Harvest Festival arc. Hoping the Music Festival goes better. So far, so good.

Kujima: Why Sing When You Can Warble? is about a boy who meets a migratory anthropomorphic bird-thing and invites it home to live with him. Mildly heartwarming things ensue. This was billed as a "horror comedy", and I feel like the premiere could have used more of both. OTOH, there is some delightfully demented voice acting. I'm going to give this one one more episode.

Killed Again, Mr. Detective? had an interesting-sounding premise, but it's very, very much a light novel adaptation full of light novel tropes that I'm sick of.

Witch Hat Atelier had an excellent first episode featuring the rare anime fantasy world where it all fits together, unlike the usual visual mishmash. Then episode 2 introduced a few characters I feel like I've seen in a million other school and school-like shows, and I was a lot less excited. I'll see how the rest of the season goes.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Poll #34481 round 186 theme poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 66

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Collaborations & Remixes
19 (28.8%)

Journey/Travel
28 (42.4%)

Whump
19 (28.8%)

lessonsinescapology

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glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fics/fanart/fanvids/other kinds of fanworks/fancrafts/podfics have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here.

umadoshi

Our planter is here! Getting it wasn't actually a saga, but it felt a bit like one. ( TL;DR: delivery service annoyance )

We also both took yesterday off (and I'm off the rest of the week, but got up at my usual workday time today in hopes of getting a fair amount of manga work done), and ventured out to buy veg seeds for the planter. (We also still need to get soil/fertilizer/etc., but want to read up on it more first. I think I might order a hard copy of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, which I got on sale in ebook recently and like so far.)

Yesterday's important lesson: when noting down which seed varieties we like the looks of, include the source, because our local store, at least, has separate displays for each originating company, and knowing that would make it much easier to check for the various varieties. Anyway, here's what we wound up with (descriptions are in my last post):

Basil: Devotion.

Cabbage: Early Golden Acre (green) and Serpentine F1 (savoy).

Spinach: Bloomsdale and Renegade.

Lettuce: Brighton (Butterhead), Black Seeded Simpson (green leaf), Red Salad Bowl (red leaf), Grand Rapids (green leaf), Freckles (romaine), and Drunken Woman.

Current Mood: busy

setsuled posting in

disneyplusshows

Here comes the nostalgia. The new episode of Daredevil: Born Again, written by Jesse Wigutow, relied heavily on past content. If you like to linger thoughtfully over past episodes of TV series, you may enjoy this episode more than the less sentimental among us.

( Spoilers for Daredevil Born Again S02E05 )

Daredevil: Born Again is available on Disney+.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Hell's Kitchen
Current Music: "Can You Hear Me" - David Bowie

sholio

I had a need for fluff and so I wrote me some (plus banter and a smidgeon of angst and sex) from my nebulous Babylon 5 post-canon fixit future: A Nice Little House on Narn.

----

Today I discovered the existence of Murderbot Maladies, basically a whump / h/c event for May, but the list of prompts is AMAZING and I am going to reproduce it under the cut. As someone who has participated in h/c events basically since they have existed on LJ and similar, I can only say that this is perhaps the best prompt list I've seen, mixing as it does a number of serious h/c staples with such glorious inventions as "harpooned", "inhaled a drone", and "accidentally called Mensah 'Mom'".

( The prompt list )

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

Nothing! My big accomplishment is having the energy to put together a Book Club for the 616 Discord. It consists of two comics about the Avengers doing their taxes.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Ultimate Wolverine #16 )

What I'm Reading Next

Not sure yet; it's hard to tell how much brain I will have at any given time, as I am currently getting two or three days between migraines. In baseball non-fiction reading, I am partway through Billy Bean's autobiography but I don't know what fiction to try reading. Probably I should just go for some more tropey m/m romance or something.

Current Mood: dorky

glitteryv posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: BTS
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Jeon Jungkook
Content Notes/Warnings: N/A
Medium: Digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: N/A
Artist Website/Gallery:

BlueSkies_Chin |

blueskies_chin
Why this piece is awesome: It's a simple piece featuring Jungkook during the first part of the Arirang concert. I loooove the coloring as well as how the artist used highlights to indicate the parts of Jungkook's fit that's reflecting the stage lights.

Link: ✨ (on Twitter) | ✨ (on Insta)

sholio

I saw this in the bookstore on Friday while I was idly browsing for something to buy so I didn't just walk out with my drink from the cafe and nothing else, and I remembered that I had meant to read this for a while. By Sunday night, I was done with all 500+ densely typed small-print pages.

I needed something different from the light, forgettable books I've read so much of in the last few months, and this definitely filled that need. It was absolutely immersive in the best way. The writing is gorgeous, not just on the wordcraft level (although that, too; this book is a lavish feast of description) but also thematic and structural and just generally ... good! Good in the way where you feel that every choice was deliberate, every thematic styling meaningful. It was a really good book about incredibly compelling, terrible people. I did almost nothing on Saturday except read this book.

Also, in a twist that will surprise no one, it made me think of Babylon 5 in a couple of very specific ways. I'll put that at the end.

The other thing it reminded me of was The Great Gatsby, which .... knowing that the book is almost 40 years old and has been widely dissected, I don't know if this is something that's been talked about to death (is it widely known by basically everyone that it's sort of a Gatsby retelling? is that like the most obvious of obvious comparisons) but in any case, it was a similar reading experience (for me) of being slam-dunked into a world of terrible rich people who I want nothing more than to follow and find out what new entertainingly terrible thing they'll do next.

Also, the narration is lovely. This book has some shatteringly beautiful descriptions of fall/winter/spring in New England.

( Spoilers galore, I mean really, so many spoilers )

( Babylon 5 vs The Secret History )

queenlua

since there's been some lively discussion about dewitt's the last samurai here on dreamwidth before: i found phil christman's post on dewitt's latest book very interesting, and that post links to all kinds of other very interesting bits and bobs—e.g., dewitt's reflections on david foster wallace's writing. posting here for those who may find such things interesting!

duskpeterson

If you are not visiting the palace in order to attend the Chara's court, then chances are that you are here to visit the council. As you enter the east doors of the palace, turn right, then left, then immediately right. The long corridor before you leads north to the council chamber and council quarters.

Upon reaching the end of the corridor, you will once again find yourself facing high doors, this time plated with copper. Unless you are actually attending a council meeting, the door you want is to either the left or the right of the council chamber. Enquire with the guards as to how to reach your destination. Mainland visitors are likely to be escorted, under guard, to the room they are seeking.

Attendance at meetings of the Great Council are by invitation only. If you are invited, arrive early. If you have been asked to speak with the council, you will be shown to a chair at the bottom of the council table. Do not be insulted. This is where the Chara himself sits, when he is invited to speak with the council.

Remember those high doors? They were designed to keep out the Chara and his guards, back in the days when animosity still simmered between the Chara and the Great Council. These days, the animosity takes less blatant forms, but the Chara is still not permitted to enter the council chamber except with permission of the Great Council's High Lord.

If you are not here to speak with the council but wish to attend a council meeting, you will be shown to a chair at the back of the room. (If you are not accustomed to sitting in chairs, it is best to practice beforehand.) As in the court, your job will be to stay as quiet and motionless as possible. At only two points in the meeting should you move: rise from your chair when the High Lord of the Great Council enters the chamber, and rise again when he leaves. A herald will announce when this is necessary.

After the council meeting, you may wish to visit the council library, just off the head of the chamber. This lovely, light-filled room was added during the reign of the Chara Purvis, at the beginning of this century. It is considered the finest law library in the world, containing hundreds of books of commentary on matters related to the law. Do not to touch the books unless you are here to do research. To Emorians, law books – even books of commentary – are sacred objects.

Northern mainlanders should be aware that stealing a law book can be punished by death. If you must steal something in the palace, confine yourself to objects unrelated to the law.

[Translator's note: In order to visit the Great Council in session, as well as its law library, read Law of Vengeance.]

selenak

This week starts with some actual rl good news, as the foreunner of right wing autocrats on this continent, Victor Orban, was crushingly defeated. Among other things, this caused a lot of J.D. Vance memes going viral, given the Orange Menace had sent him to campaign for Orban; my favourite is the suggestion from one of our green politicians, Ricarda Lang, for Vance to campaign for the AFD next. This sounds like a great idea to me, except he already did that when speaking at the G7 last year, so maybe his magic touch fails over here.

On to fictional joy. I've read The Autarch's Heir, the fourth volume of Jo Graham's space opera saga The Calpurnian Wars (No.3 was reviewed by me here, and it is as compulsively readable as the previous entries. Though I have to admit I was half-wrong about the previous entry presenting us with the Space!Egypt to the Space!Rome that is the expansion-hungry Calpurnia), in that while the previous location definitely had Egyptian elements, so does Lono, the location of The Autarch's Heir. As before, while there are some characters from the previous cast around - in this case, sisters Aurore and Dian Melian - , we get new central characters to go with the new location, to wit, one Bel Alan, con man, and the drunk and depressed Calpurnian Commander Antisia, formerly the Faithful Lieutenant of murdered Autarch Julus, who has her own problems, such as one Thurinia gunning to be next Autarch, aided by her commander Vipsani. (I must admit that fond of ancient history as I am, I continue to get a kick out of the Roman paralles. In this case: what's not to love about Mark Antony as a Lesbian in space?) It's the first novel to give us something more about the Calpurnians than their expansionism, not just through Antisia's pov, and now I'll have to call them Space!Sparta as well because the way they're raised is definitely more in line with Sparta, transported into a sci fi frame, than with Rome. Anyway: the plot kicks off when Bel Alan, our main character, is contacted by the Lono resistance to steal the priceless Solaste Crown by pretending to be the natural son of the late Julus. At which point, and here I have to go for a spoiler cut, I did think: ( Spoilers made an assumption based on history. ) And yes indeed, it was. Bel makes for an engaging hero because he really isn't into either revenge scenarios or monarchy. He's also, a first for a main character in this series, not a believer. (I find this refreshing within this universe, not because I dislike the various numinous connections the other main characters in previous novels had, but in terms of world building we were due one atheistic sympathetic main character.) I also continue to love the way this series treats compassion and kindness and redeemability as important. Dian, one of the Melian sisters who in the previous novel was in what was probably my favourite scene in which Caralys, the heroine of said novel, was kind to her despite Dian having been hostile towards Caralys the entire novel. And now we see Dian more fleshed out and in a scenario where she in turn is able to show charm, wit and compassion - without negating the earlier issues. Not only is her sibling relationship with Aurore fun, but her hook up with Antisia is a great take on the "relationship started for utiliarian motives becomes meaningful" trope. (Btw, and speaking of Antisia: ( Here it gets spoilery again. ))

The one caveat I have is that while this novel tells its own story, I wouldn't start the series with it but start at the beginning if you're a new reader. (None of the novels are very long, so this doesn't mean years of your reading life, don't worry.) By now, I just think knowing the previous goings-on adds a lot of satisfying texture to what is already a very enjoyable story.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Munich

foxinthestars posting in

anime_manga

Fandom: Ascendance of a Bookworm
Author/Artist: foxinthestars
Title: Viscountess Eeville and the Spotted Shumils
Pairing: Ferdinand & Rozemyne
Rating: General
Word Count: 1005
Highlight for Warnings: *none*
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction; I do not own Ascendance of a Bookworm or its characters.
Summary: An animated movie song lands Rozemyne in Ferdinand's lecture room for more literary culture shock. As usual, everything she knows about storytelling is wrong — including the idea that everything she knows is wrong.
A/N: Just a little slice of hopefully-amusing culture shock, inspired by a private joke/earworm I get whenever I see the series' worst villainess. Novel canon (although the current anime season is eventually supposed to cover when this takes place).

Read on Ao3, Read on DW

wolffyluna

I'm trying out the Gideon Method with both my writing and craft projects. The short version is: you have five 'slots' for works in progress. You work for about 12 hours on one project, and then you got to the next project in the queue for about 12 hours, rinse and repeat. Once a project is done, it's slot is opened and you can add a new project to the rotation.

I'm not sure how well it will work with writing compared to crafts? With writing you're much more likely to go "wait, what was I doing with this one again?" But it seems worth an experiment.

Behold, my current Gideon queue:

sholio

Space Swap revealed today, and I got a lovely gift!

Not Their Hero (Murderbot books, gen, 9K!!)
SecUnit and Gurathin accompany Ratthi to a scientific conference, where they end up accepting a request for assistance against a corporation. It goes about as well as one might expect, given Murderbot's history.

I was amazed and delighted to find out that I had received a 9K gift, and it was a great time - plotty casefic with a dash of h/c, very canon-feeling, with interesting OCs and worldbuilding, fun character dynamics, and a great Murderbot voice.

(I have *no* idea who wrote this and cannot wait to find out.)

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Shane Hollande & Ilya Rozanov (but ofc they're together)
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: leporidaee on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: More lesbian Hollanov - excellent staunch portraits of them both, with WIP vids below. Very nice!
Link: Heated Yuri, backup link here

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Hockey RPF
Characters/Pairings: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni (Geno) Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Shea Weber, Joe Thornton
Rating: Explicit
Length: 15,934
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, First time, AU: royalty, Secret identity

Summary: It’s actually his father who suggests it.

“Take the rest of the summer for yourself,” he says. “Do something fun.”

“Fun,” Sidney repeats blankly.

Reccer's Notes: I'm into hockey fics now! This is a classic, already reccd here ages ago and worth revisiting. It's a royalty AU with added hockey, which is where Sid meets Geno. There's a fun, hot and charming initial romance, then Sid has to get on with his life of obligations, including the frustrating search for a suitable royal-lineage husband to cement political ties. Ultimately, love wins, of course, and it's a satisfying, well written story.

Fanwork Links: You're the One That I Want (locked to AO3)

sholio

It's really too early for me to feel like doing a full Babylon 5 rewatch yet, so instead I had a possibly cursed idea, which is to watch IMDB's top 10 and bottom 10 rated episodes and report back on them. And in fact I think I am going to do exactly that.*

*Unless I get distracted by something along the way, as often happens.

The best/worst lists are hidden in case you want to preserve the element of surprise.

The 10 best episodes according to IMDB, starting at the top

1. Severed Dreams 3x10
2. War Without End Part 2 3x17 (Since Part 1 is also in the top 10, I'm just going to watch them together, I think)
3. Z'ha'dum 3x22
4. Endgame 4x20
5. Sleeping in Light 5x22
6. The Long, Twilight Struggle 2x20 (By about this point I will probably have died of Drama and Tragedy. RIP me.)
7. Point of No Return 3x09
8. The Coming of Shadows 2x09
9. The Fall of Night 2x22
10. War Without End Part 1 3x16 (will be combined with part 2)
11. No Surrender, No Retreat 4x15

This looks fun! (For Babylon 5 values of fun.)

And as an escape from all of these heavy episodes, apparently I will be watching, in order of worst to ... slightly less worst:

IMDB's lowest rated

1. TKO 1x14
2. Infection 1x04
3. Secrets of the Soul 5x07
4. The Gathering 1x00
5. Grey 17 is Missing 3x19
6. Grail 1x15
7. The Long Dark 2x05
8. Strange Relations 5x06
9. The War Prayer 1x07
10. Survivors 1x11

Genuinely surprised that they're not even all from season one and five! Absolutely unsurprised that most of them are! I do genuinely like some of these, and at least one of them, I skipped most of when I was originally watching season one, so it will be interesting to see what I think of it now.

Not starting this tonight (probably) because I have other things to do, but Soon™.

flareonfury posting in

fandom_on_dw

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umadoshi

Our impending new raised planter is still showing as scheduled to arrive tomorrow while we're both home/not working, so here's hoping!

We just spent a while sifting through some seed listings on the Halifax Seed website (and I mostly kept myself from looking at tomato seeds, since we are not growing any tomatoes from seed*).

*I really wish there were some indication of what tomato varieties will be offered as seedlings, and also wish I knew if the different plant nurseries tend to offer similar varieties of tomato seedlings or not. (ALSO-also, we need to decide whether to focus on trying a few different types to see how we like them vs. focusing on a few determinate plants with the intention of just processing most/all of the fruit into sauce.)

(The seedling sale from a relatively nearby nonprofit that I'm hoping to make it to does offer a short list of potential varieties of things, with the caveat of "These are all the options that we have intended to grow but as all farmers and gardeners know, not every crop pans out. We apologize in advance if some of these options are unavailable, or not ready." For tomatoes, it says "Roma, Brandywine, Scotia +more! / Tropical Sunset, Sungold, Red Torch +more!")

But as noted yesterday, we don't plan to put tomatoes in the actual planter anyway. Thoughts for the actual planter so far: ( thoughts + variety notes )

Current Mood: hopeful

selenak

In which there is added poignancy due to the sole good RL news these past ten days, i.e. the Artemis II moon mission, which I admit to following avidly.

( Are you ready? )

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Munich

skygiants

Scorched Earth is described on its website as a piece of dance theater about a detective reopening an Irish cold case, a description which fascinated us so much that we made a second patently absurd decision to once again park in NYC just exactly long enough to see a show before continuing on our multi-state travel.

If you'd forced me to describe what I expected from this show, I would have hazarded something like 'Tana French book, adapted as a ballet?' Not at ALL correct. The cold case is not a mystery, not full of twists: we've got one detective, one suspect, one victim, one piece of land (and one ambiguously metaphorical donkey.) The ninety-minute show begins with a series of projected documents explaining the history of Irish Land Dispute Murders before establishing a more-or-less regular pattern: short interrogation scenes between the detective and the suspect, interspersed with bursts of emotion and memory, some dramatized and some in dance.

Sometimes -- often -- this worked extraordinarily well. The land under dispute is represented, personified, by a dancer in a ghillie suit who slithers in and out of the central interrogation/morgue table* like a giant muppet, or the Swamp Thing and dances a violently romantic duet with the suspect -- and it could have looked so silly, as I'm describing it it sounds silly, and instead it was haunting and evocative, perfectly elucidating the narrative themes of the show while also just being a gripping and powerful piece of performance.

*remarkable piece of set design, that table; afterwards we all agreed it was the hardest-working table in show business

Other times, the balance felt a little off; the dialogue would tell us something and then a duet would be danced and I'd think, well, you didn't need to tell us both ways, one or the other would have worked fine. Or I'd start to admire the dialogue for its spareness in suggesting the complexity of a dynamic -- who's from here, who isn't, who has rights to land, who doesn't, what's worth punishing on behalf of the community, what isn't -- and then it say it again more explicitly and I'd be like, well, okay, but you didn't have to. What I'm saying is that I think the show probably could have been just as powerful at sixty minutes as at ninety minutes. But I wasn't at all unhappy to be there for ninety minutes! I was compelled the whole time! If the show sometimes told me things about the situation more times or more explicitly than I needed to hear them, it did an admirable job of not telling me what to think about them, and trying to decide what I did think about them left me plenty to occupy my mind.

A lot of the creative team seem to have a history with Punch Drunk and have worked on Sleep No More explicitly, and it was interesting for me to compare/contrast -- the style of expressive choreography is notably similar, but Sleep No More is a piece of theater that has almost no dialogue, that draws a lot of its power from being oblique and ambiguous to the point of fault. Finding that exact right point of convergence for dance and theater seems to be an ongoing challenge and point of interest for the people coming out of the Punch Drunk school and I'm very curious to see other explorations of it.

lessonsinescapology

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