Maybe I’m just tired, but while I was eating an orange just now (11PM) my brain composed the following:
Oranges grow
on orange trees,
though the trees
are not orange
– they’re green.
All posts by Friederike Wunschik
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Last week the Supreme Court of the US ruled that video games are protected by the First Amendment. They basically came to this conclusion because they compared video games to other forms of storytelling – such as oral traditions, (comic) books, film, and TV – and found that what is depicted in games is not that different from what we see, read, or hear in the other media (read the entire ruling here). They also pointed out that humanity has a long tradition of telling itself stories of violence, citing some fairytales as evidence.
A few days later there was this opinion piece in the New York Times by a medical student, describing how fairytales helped her come to terms with some of the strange cases and encounters she had to deal with in hospitals. From one of the Grimms’ versions of Cinderella (in which the two step-sisters have their eyes picked out by doves during Cinderella’s wedding) to Bluebeard’s chamber full of dead wives, fairytales describe weird and disturbing goings-on and try to analyze them without the help of Freud and other more modern theories. They are one of the basic mirrors our species holds up to itself in an attempt to understand and warn.
Today I found this excellent summary and analysis of the various Bluebeard versions by Terri Windling. It also describes how over time the depiction of the characters and the moral of the story changed. How a story of pluck and courage turned into a story about obedience. Go read it. And then you’ll understand why my first reaction to Charles Perrault’s morals of the story was “this sounds like he wrote something he heard about and didn’t quite understand what was going on and so tried to tack something on to the end.” A similar sentiment to the one Susan Sto-Helit has when she reads the fairytale of the clock-maker in Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time.
I would also like to point you in the direction of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, simply because as a child I delighted in this irreverent re-telling of some of the best-known fairytales.
Go read all of that. And then go to the Gutenberg Project and read some fairytales. After all, they are some of the oldest stories we’ve been telling ourselves over and over again (Warning: some are pretty gruesome). And you might even want to try out a video game, the new narrative medium of choice for some.
Beijing Dance Theatre’s “Haze”
A week ago I went to see the Beijing Dance Theatre perform Wang Yuanyuan’s Haze.
My first reaction after the final curtain was “Wow! They just danced for 70 minutes straight!”
But of course it’s way more than just that. The choreography is engaging and (this probably sounds weird) well-paced. I liked the choice of music, the minimalist backdrop, and the lighting.
The surprise for me (and it took me a while to realize it) was that the dancers were not extremely good at bouncing off the floor, but were actually dancing on a mat.
I know modern dance can sometimes be strange or leave you feeling like you’ve missed something, but this choreography is not like that. It was aesthetically pleasing and impressive in an endurance-sport kind of way. It also did a good job of visualizing the multiple meanings of the title. The title Haze alludes to air-pollution, but also to the hazy circumstances that cause financial crises, and finally to the confusion that the multiple layers of social interactions (with veiled intentions and unclear goals) can cause.
Splendid Sunday
Today I’ve got two things to show you.
1) A few weeks back I planted some black beans (I let them sprout first) and they came up nicely.
Of the three plants that I have, one is already done with flowering and is now letting its pods dry, so I picked four pods off and shelled the beans. This yielded 16 beans! Hooray!
All my gardening happens inside the flat and there are no pollinating insects in said flat thanks to the bug screens we put in the windows. So, I chose beans because they are self-pollinating and required no tending besides a little watering and removal of old leaves.
I know that I won’t harvest enough beans for more than one meal (if that) but I like the idea of harvesting at least something.
2) After dinner I made churros. I got the recipe from the 50th issue of Donna Hay, so it’s not necessarily like any traditional recipes. But they were delicious anyway.
This is my version of the recipe (I winged it a little):
- melt 50g of butter in a saucepan (but don’t let it brown)
- add 1cup of water and let this boil
- once it boils turn down the heat to low
- add a mixture of 1cup flour, 1teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 cup sugar to the butter-water
- stir until you’ve got a ball of goop
- with an electric mixer beat two eggs into the goop until you’ve got a smooth dough
- heat some oil in a wok or saucepan (it needs to be deep enough for the dough to swim on)… turn it to medium heat
- using a bag with a nozzle (I’ve got something that looks like a childrens’ syringe) squirt strings of dough into the hot oil
- fry the strings of dough until they are golden brown, take them out and let them sit on some kitchen paper
- serve warm
I made skinny twisty churros… you can make them fatter and less twisty. I also melted some chocolate to dip them in. I’m sure they’d be great with maple syrup or honey.
finished socks for sister
This is just a short post to show off the fantastic Maeva socks I knit for my sister. I used the Magic Loop technique to knit two socks at the same time… in order to avoid second-sock syndrome.
Summer Refreshment
Completely by accident I have come by the ice-tea flavor of the summer for me: elderflower-mate.
2 umbels* of elderflowers
3Tablespoons of yerba mate tea
4 Tablespoons of sugar (or more or less, depending on taste)
a little less than a liter of boiling water
Let steep for about a day. Place bottle (or jug) in refrigerator.
Enjoy.
*umbel is now my word of the day.
Delightful Dirty Stories
Joey Comeau has recently self-published a book of dirty stories that “are weird and fun and often bewildering, like sex itself” titled The Girl who Couldn’t Come. There is also math, ghosts, and time travel.
You can read some of the stories here.
Personally, I enjoyed the ones I read. It felt like the author really likes his characters and wants us to like them too.
Some stories are strange or shocking or surprising (like the twist in “And then the Werewolf”). But mostly they are about people having sex. And not in a “throbbing manhood” or “unleashed passions” kind of way.
My favorite is “one two three four five six seven eight”.
This book is for anyone who has sex.
Joey Comeau is a Canadian author who also works on the asofterworld.com comic.
Prinzen auf Pferden
Zu ihrem 31sten Geburtstag vor zwei Wochen erhielt meine Schwester von einer Freundin ein Buch. Der Titel dieses Buches lautet “Wann kommt denn endlich der blöde Prinz auf seinem dämlichen Gaul!”. Dies hier ist mein Eindruck von diesem Buch.
Der Titel ist witzig und ansprechend. Er suggeriert gleichzeitig, dass der angebliche Kleinmädchentraum vom Prinzen auf dem Ross zwar albern ist und eigentlich ganz doof, aber auch, dass er trotzdem in Erfüllung gehen kann. Außerdem wird einem das Gefühl vermittelt, dass hier einer weiss wie sich das anfühlt wenn man da sitzt und glaubt für immer allein bleiben zu müssen und wie man es mit Humor nehmen könnte.
Leider hatte ich das Gefühl, der Autor gehe davon aus, dass alle seine Leserinnen mehr oder weniger Klone von Bridget Jones seien. Zumindest hören sich die Ratschläge an, wie die, die Bridget (im Buch) auch liest und hört: mach mehr Sport, bilde Dich, iss wie ein normaler Mensch, erweitere Deinen Horizont und suche Dir neue Hobbies. Auch so Weisheiten wie “schraub Deine Erwartungen zurück” und “am besten klappts mit jemandem, der aus einem 40km Radius von Deinem Heimatort stammt” hätten aus dem Bestseller von Helen Fielding stammen können (Bridget schnappt sich am Ende den ehemaligen Nachbarsjungen).
Besonders lachen (um nicht zu weinen) musste ich über einen theoretischen Zeitplan einer hypothetischen Frau. Diese lernt im Mai zwei Männer kennen und geht mit beiden aus. Im Juni trifft sie einen dieser Männer ein zweites Mal. Im Juli hat sie mit diesem Mann Sex. Anfang August hat sie ein zweites Mal Geschlechtsverkehr mit oben erwähntem Mann. Mitte August treffen sich beide schon regelmäßig zweimal die Woche. Dies geht wohl so weiter, bis sie im Dezember für ein paar Tage gemeinsam wegfahren. Im Februar nennt er sie Anderen gegenüber “meine Freundin”. Im Mai (es ist ein Jahr seit dem Anfang vergangen) hört sie ein erstes “ich liebe Dich” von ihm.
Ich weiss ja nicht ob ich da ein bisschen verwöhnt bin, aber wenn ich mich in der Vergangenheit zweimal die Woche mit einem Mann getroffen habe und Sex hatte, dann habe ich erwartet, dass er mich seine Freundin nennt.
So humorvoll der Titel des Buches ist, umso mehr ist man von dem Mangel an entsprechenden Techniken für den Umgang mit dem Single-darsein enttäuscht.
Hispanic Superheroes in North American Comic Books
The PDF below is my Masters Thesis as I handed it in in September 2010. I was awarded my M.A. earlier this year.
I quite liked doing the reading for this thesis. I had a lot of fun talking to people about it while I was writing it. And I was very lucky that the first issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics published its first issue in June 2010 and that they made all articles available for free.
I examined the representation of Hispanics in the superhero comics of the two largest US-American comic book publishing houses, Marvel and DC Comics. The aim is to expose the hegemony discourses contained in the stories and to analyze the construction of possible Hispanic identities that can be found in this medium.
This baby was written with Scrivener and I recommend you go get a free trial version now (Windows or Mac) just so you can see how amazing and flexible it is.
Getting Started and Writing a To-Do-List
I’ve been playing around with WordPress and uploaded, deleted, and re-uploaded stuff. I’m sorting through my things to see what else I want to share in this space and jotting down ideas for posts on bits of paper.
Also, I added flattr-buttons to some of the stuff I’m sharing. (To find out what flattr is watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvExIWf_Uc) I feel kinda silly doing so, but I figure since it’s all voluntary, I’ll let others decide whether they think my content is worth flattr-ing.
What else?
Oh! I get to write out a concept for a competition with a barbecue theme! That should be fun.
It looks like May will be busy. I spent the first week of the month in Berlin, I set up this site two days ago, I need to finish up a project this week, start a new one, write bills, update my mother’s website (tcm-nuernberg.de), and take a friend to the ballet at the end of the month.
I want to finish up some socks I’m knitting for my sister. She has also requested a shawl.
I really want to sit down and finish reading Edward Said’s Orientalism so I can have an opinion on it.
So, I think I’ll just get right on all of that.
