Occupy Austin

I just spent 40 minutes or so at the Occupy Austin General Assembly (the official "occupation" begins tomorrow but they've been holding meetings for a week or two now.) I took notes!

There were probably thirty people there when I got there, and probably closer to 70 when I left. They were at Austin City Hall, which was built with an outdoor assembly area - stadium seating and all. They did have a mic so I didn't get to witness the human microphone thing.

The organizer-types introduced themselves, explained that running a GA was voluntary, rotating position, and then asked for a female to co-moderate because all the moderators were male. Someone volunteered. That was neat.

They started off with "report-backs" where people who had been getting shit organized took the mike, and this was was I was particularly interested in, because I haven't been able to figure out what these folks actually wanted to do. It was actually a lot more like a festival planning meeting than any sort of protest - it was all about process, logistics, and events, not rhetoric. Some things that stood out:

- They are planning to hold classes, discussions, and workshops throughout the occupation. They're getting volunteers from the community to run them - for example, tomorrow evening there will be a class on nonviolent communication.

- They've gotten people to volunteer heath care, water, childcare (that sounds like it will be hairy) and legal services. They've got a help line set up in case people get arrested, and six lawyers so far. (They were careful to emphasize that they do not expect nor intend for anyone to get arrested.)

- The people there were, demographically, sort of what you'd expect in Austin - young, bearded white men, older first-gen hippie ladies, a smattering of minorities. There is a Diversity Committee working on reaching out to more people, and a need for some Spanish-language press materials, which are good signs I guess.

- The first external action seems to be organizing a mass account closure at major banks. They're collecting information on local banks and credit unions and will be encouraging people to make the switch.

The biggest irony was that because they had a small spotlight on the speaker, the speaker couldn't see any of the elaborate hand signals from the audience, so I saw no particular evidence of a consensus process. But then, I left when they got to the point where they were accepting proposals for agenda items, so they may have resolved that - the organizers were vocally disturbed by that as it got darker.

So yeah, apparently all of those old hippies at the anti-war protests were wrong. This is what democracy looks like - it's tedious, nitpicky, self-conscious, and ultimately builds something a lot more complicated (if maybe not more politically effective) than easy-to-remember chants.

Kickathon!

It's that time again! Sun Dragon is holding its annual fundraiser to pay for our scholarship fund and all of the free self-defense workshops we hold. I'm not yet planning anything quite as ambitious as my month of karate-related posts from a couple of years ago, but here are some selections if you want to get more of an idea what we're up to:

Verbal Self-Defense, or, a tiny woman knocks me down by yelling at me.

The realities of running a strip-mall dojo as a non-profit: some days you teach kata, some days you teach drywall installation

Saying no: more self-defense class stories.

I would love it if you'd donate - here's the link! And I'll probably have a few more stories to tell over the next month or so.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen, part 2

This is the part that needs a bunch of warnings. Spoiler warnings, first of all - I am not going to mask them in any way. Read on at your peril. And trigger warnings - the major part of my criticism of this series concerns the handling (and amount) of rape and torture, so I will be discussing those scenes in hopefully not too much detail.

First, though, let me talk about some purely technical stuff. The series is a major accomplishment of worldbuilding, yes. However, the balance between clever worldbuilding and the structural stability of the plot is important, and I think Erikson misses the mark here. There are too many characters who are built up as "major players" who have little or nothing to do in the finale. Icarium, for example, spends eight books being touted as the uncontrollable destroyer of worlds, and spends the entire last book unconscious and chained to the ground. His role as a deus ex machina in Dust of Dreams could have been performed by literally anybody - we don't even know it's him until the last minute. Karsa Orlong, likewise - his major accomplishment takes place in Reaper's Gale, but he's dragged along for the next three books for no detectable reason. Some subplots, like the Shake/Tiste Andii/Kharkanas one, take up a big chunk of space (and are apparently going to be explored in detail in a forthcoming trilogy) but don't overall add much of anything to the actual plot arc of the series. It's possible that a lot of this stuff will seem better integrated if I read the five outrigger novels written by Erikson's writing partner, but that really emphasizes how much of this was not planned adequately (or edited all that hard, although I can hardly blame an editor for not foreseeing which subplots to cut.)

The other major technical issue I have is the heavy-handedness of the Messages. They're worse in some books than in others - for example, Midnight Tides is my least favorite of the novels partly because its full of melodrama, but mostly because it was written as a scathing indictment of modern Western capitalism (probably just American capitalism, actually.) It would have been bearable if Erikson didn't use every other scene as a soapbox to rail about debt, colonialism, the profit motive in military conquest, treatment of the poor, of veterans, etc and etc. The empire of Lether is cleverly created to illustrate these points, and it would have done so just fine without all the explicit ranting. Toll the Hounds has the same problem, one or the other of them is a little too Religion is Bunk even for me, and in Dust of Dreams the message appears to be Women are Vindictive Shrews who Hate One Another.

Which brings us to our next problem. As I said in the previous post, Erikson has a lot of female characters and generally handles them as well-rounded, fully-developed people.

Who get raped a lot.

Not all of them, sure, and some of them are handled in ways that show he's at least trying - the mid-battle rape of Stonny in Memories of Ice, and her immediate, bloody, and immensely appropriate revenge (and subsequent trauma) is probably one of the better ones, and the fate of Felisin in the mines seems realistic both in terms of sheer human behavior (young, powerless woman uses sex to secure protectors in a no-rules prison environment) and her individual reaction (serious trust and intimacy issues, a relationship with sex that even the male characters of dubious morals recognize is pretty fucked-up.) But those are the best-handled ones, and there's a long, long downslope. Seren Pedac gets really drunk after witnessing her friend's suicide and gets gang-raped, and Erikson makes a totally hamhanded effort to explain that of course this isn't her fault or anything, it was still caused by her subconscious desire to punish herself. Which is only minorly tolerable in that it's explained by the person who slaughtered her rapists, so his opinion of the excusability of their behavior is pretty clear. (And then he arranges for her to get some magical therapy, which... ok, fine. I guess.)

But then we have Karsa Orlong, who considers rape a privilege of victory in battle (he later - many books later, when Erikson is obviously trying to rehabilitate his character - explains that he only rapes people because of the drugs his tribe used to make them fearless, but this is a total retcon - the first rape scene explicitly made reference to the fact that he didn't use the drug.) We have Shurq Ellale, an undead woman who needs to feed her sorcery by having sex with men, and who incidentally rapes a guard in the house she's robbing. (This is given zero attention, explanation, or justification.) We get many, many incidental scenes, mentions, and threats of rape throughout. And then there's Hetan.

Hetan is a woman we first meet in Memories of Ice. She's a member of a barbarian tribe, the daughter of the warlord who rules all the tribes. She's clearly a sexually liberated woman - she sleeps with a number of the male characters in an aggressive way, which is totally played as consensual and for laughs, and her brother witnesses all of this and clearly thinks it's just fine. She's also clearly described as a ferocious warrior, and it's clear that in her culture women are not only fighters, but tremendously effective ones. (They're humanoid but not actually human - the genetic relationship is never fully explained but they physically differ from your garden-variety human.)

We don't see her again until Dust of Dreams, where she's married to Tool, who has taken over leadership after her father's death, and she has twins by one of the funnier earlier encounters and a son by her husband. Now her tribe as portrayed as totally patriarchal (despite offhand references to female warriors and clan leaders) and the women as totally beaten-down and oppressed. Hetan is criticized a number of times, offhandedly, as being a slut. And when Tool is killed, the "traditional" "punishment" is delivered to his family - his children are to be killed (the ten-year-old girls will be raped first so they can "carry [their killer's] seed to the gods.") And his wife will be maimed and then raped until her will is broken, then kept around to be "used" at the whim of any male of the tribe. The women carry out the maiming and then stand around and cheer as she's raped - one of them later explains that as long as there's a "hobbled" woman around, their husbands are less likely to brutalize them in bed. The book is filled, as well, with examples of women being shrewish, jealous, possessive, insecure, and horrible to one another, in the usual fashion of "Erikson tries to make a point."

So. Yeah. First of all, the idea that a tribe would allow their women extensive weapons training and combat experience, and then treat them like disposable sex toys, seems totally, ragingly implausible. And also unwise. So I tend to think that Erikson made this change in order to come up with the worst possible fate for Tool's family, so that his audience would believe that he'd lose his temper. (And he does, briefly, but he then calms down and his little tantrum doesn't seem to have any long-term consequences.) And that's where I have a problem. This isn't a natural consequence of war or a desperate scheme gone horribly wrong, this is a situation specifically crafted so he can describe a mutilation and gang-rape. And when I think of these books, that's the image I think of. Not the heartbreaking conclusion to Deadhouse Gates, not any of the well-earned rewards the survivors get at the end of the series, not any of the thrilling battles or cunning plots. It's this one deliberately shocking image. And so I don't actually recommend these books much, and I won't recommend them at all to women. It's a damned shame.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen

I've spent the past five weeks rereading the Malazan Book of the Fallen so that I could read the tenth volume with everything fresh in my mind. On the one hand, I'm glad I did it, because that tenth volume wouldn't have made all that much sense without all those details handy. On the other hand, this is a really, really problematic work of fiction on a bunch of levels and I don't necessarily even like it. I've reviewed all the individual books in some detail on Goodreads, and if you've read them that may be of interest to you, but this post is going to talk about the series as a whole. It will have a bunch of spoilers, and I'm not marking them or anything. Read at your own risk.

A little background, for my non-fantasy-epic readers. The Malazan Book of the Fallen is a ten-book fantasy series that sold for a notable amount as a package deal. It's often compared to A Song of Ice and Fire (the Game of Thrones series) and that's not a bad comparison. Malazan has much, much more magic and a wider scope - less politics, many more gods, more trench fighting and fewer knightly duels - but they're definitely in the same general part of the genre. The last book was published this year. I had read the first nine more or less in a row a couple years ago, and decided to reread them to both confirm my severely mixed opinions about the series and also to be in decent shape to read the newest. (I did the same thing for the latest ASoIaF book, and will likewise do it for the last Wheel of Time novel in the spring. Yes, this is for fun.)

First, the good stuff. It's a deeply complicated series that more or less pays off in the end - it's really an impressive feat of worldbuilding. Many, if not most, of the characters are believable at least and remarkably well-rounded and deep at best. The characters are put in various dangerous situations that feel genuine and offer many, many emotionally wrenching moments throughout the series - the Chain of Dogs plotline, if it were offered as a novella, is one I would probably order everyone I'd ever met to read. And those moments generally echo throughout the series - they're not just tearjerker setpieces, they have realistic consequences, particularly to the characters who witness or endure them. While the writing is occasionally a touch overwrought, it's generally appropriate to the setting and the dialogue matches the characters well enough that in a later book a character can make a joke about "talking like a marine" that was hilarious without having to go into any detail.

Erikson also has tons of female characters, and they're generally just as well-developed as the men. (There are plenty of one-note bit characters of both genders, and the female ones grate a little more for me, but that's probably to be expected.) I've seen at least one criticism that his women are just men in a dress, but I don't think that's true - sure, his female soldiers read as soldiers first and women second, but the men do, too, and the nature of the soldier is a major theme explored throughout the books. There are plenty of female politician-types, assassins, women of various species that aren't quite human, prostitutes, scientists, witches, etc, and they are both memorably female but also just well-rounded characters.

He has a noticeably large number of queer characters and handles them well, for the most part. There are a bunch of lesbians who pass unremarked and have love lives that don't stand out - some have lovers die tragically, some have a bunch of casual sex, and at least one couple settles down to live happily ever after. The gay men don't have it quite so good - either they're so unremarked that I didn't notice them, or there's really only the nelly stereotype who can't figure out the mechanics of having sex with a woman. (This is more weird and less appalling in execution than it sounds, but it's still not exactly a positive portrayal.) There are a bunch of bi characters, too, of all sorts - the woman who likes sleeping with other women but doesn't fall in love with them, the tribal warleader who pretty much bangs everything willing, the straight woman who will happily have public sex with another woman just to watch her audience squirm. The topic is in general handled naturally, and I very much appreciate that.

There are a lot of good things going on in this series, and I would recommend fans of epic fantasy read it, except. And that except is big enough to warrant its own post.

So Close!

I know I haven't been keeping up with this blog very well this summer, but since I've recorded previous Crossfit Totals here it seemed the best place.  I've been using the Wendler 5-3-1 strength training program since February, and I thought I'd try a Total and see where I ended up.

Deadlift: 205

This is not quite a personal record - I've hit 215 before, and attempted it today, but didn't get it all the way up.  (That I was able to break it off the ground was heartening, though!) But it's pretty respectable, since it's thirty pounds more than I could pull at the beginning of the year, and twenty more than immediately before starting the program.

Squat: 195

Respectable, since my best recorded number is 205, and I strongly suspect that was at a wildly inadequate depth. Also forty pounds up since the beginning of the year.  I suspect I can get a lot more mileage out of this movement in the next couple months.

Press: 95

AAAARGH. I got 100 pounds up to my FOREHEAD and couldn't get it all the way up.  I am going to add some tricep assist work to try to get this in better shape. Not that 95 isn't fifteen pounds up from the beginning of the year (and that's a significant jump for a movement involving relatively small muscles, unlike the other two) but dammit I wanted to hit triple digits.

Overall, some very satisfying progress. I'm going to continue this program through the end of the year at least, since I haven't topped out on anything yet. I'll do another Total at the new year and see where I am.

Round 2

After a lovely and totally successful birthday week-to-ten-days, I am feeling the need to tighten things up a bit again. I haven't been super bad, but I have had some cheese, and some tortilla chips, and some potato chips, and rather a lot of booze. Its also about time to do another caffeine detox. So back on the wagon I go, and we'll see where that puts me. I am going to do the Whole30 again, with pretty much the same terms as last time. I will endeavor to report in a bit more often this month.

Losing

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend time with a bunch of folks that I very rarely get to see. They were all at least marginally aware of my adventures in Paleo, and if they weren’t, my mom made sure they heard about it.

Of course, what everyone really wanted to hear about was not the RA remission but the weight loss. I’m totally a fan of that side effect, so I talked about my 25 pounds, and about finally discovering what being full felt like, and my mother invariably chimed in there with “It’s totally true! You should see it. She’s never eaten portions like these before!”

(A note, lest you get the wrong impression: My family is not neurotic about food. Rather the opposite - we LOVE food. We think about it, talk about it, and celebrate around it. None of us were more than average-American overweight before my little metabolic meltdown. Mom’s reaction was more surprise than approval. There was food left! Even after Dad finished! That never happens.)

And then, every time, something odd would happen. The people I was talking to would start to tell me why they couldn’t possibly do it. I’ve seen this almost every single time I’ve had this conversation. It’s not odd that people resist change. It’s not odd that people don’t want to give up beer and bread. But it’s odd that people think that this is a logical conversational gambit. I’m not a salesman. I’m not earning points for conversions. And in every case, I wasn’t the one to bring it up. (Although, to be fair, sometimes my mom was.)

So on the plane I started wondering about this. Why is “Oh I can’t do that, here’s why:” the response to “Hey I feel really good and have lost a bunch of weight with these guidelines.” And here’s my theory:

We get so many messages about eating being bad that we start to believe we can’t possibly be good

Think about it. Junk food is bad. Processed food is bad. GMO food is bad. Monoculture food is bad. Meat is bad. Carbs are bad. Fat is bad. Eggs are bad. Alcohol is bad. (And then we get to “bacon is bad” and the entire culture yells “Fuck it!” and orders more bacon.)

It’s this impossible weight to carry every time you put a bite of food in your mouth. Everything is wrong, bad, unhealthy, possibly immoral. Everyone who pays the least attention to these sorts of things (i.e. most American women) knows she’s doing the wrong thing every single time she eats. It’s almost impossible to avoid concluding that you’re just a bad person who does bad things and that’s the way it is.

And so when someone says, in effect, “Hey look, I’ve been a good person and you can see my reward!” (and yes, my jawline is totally a reward,) it would seem both unrealistic and arrogant to say “Oh wow, I’ll go be a good person too!” So they mutter and stammer and come up with excuses, because that huge weight of negativity makes it impossible to actually weigh a new diet on the merits.

I’ve spent years - most of my life, really - being interested in nutrition, educating myself, comparing claims and, recently, testing them. I don’t think about food in terms of “good” and “bad” - I just wonder what effect it will have on my body. But this is very much not a mainstream position, and I lost sight of that. So if I sound arrogant or sanctimonious about this stuff, I apologize. But I really do worry that moralizing about nutrition is making it emotionally impossible for people to try new things and find stuff that works for them.