Some brief thoughts about The Zygon Invasion

Before the review tomorrow, a redcap...

Very heavy episode tonight, dealing with a lot of real world issues that will make a lot of people very uncomfortable as they watch.  I think it's important though...Doctor Who has had a political streak running through it ever since the second serial, with its allusions to Nazism and xenophobia, to the 70's and it's tackling of Denis Healey's time as chancellor of the exchecquer, and most strongly in the final two years of the original run, when Andrew Cartmel and his band of merry left-wing writers demolished everything from Margaret Thatcher downward in episode after episode.

It's always been there.

And this is, I think, the first time it's been as strongly back.

I think it's important to address what's being addressed...it's being picked up in a lot of other entertainment media, so this is not a lone light in the wilderness.

For the first time in a long time, a cliffhanger felt like a cliffhanger.

For the first time in a long time, I really don't know what's coming next.

I look forward to a deeper watch tomorrow in HD, and then a very lengthy review that will cover all of the above and more.

Meet me back here tomorrow, friends, droogies, packmates and sundry.

FLCBS Trip of the Week

Once a week I try to hit my FLCBS in Flemington (Comics Fusion, if you want to know...they're excellent, and the owners treat me like absolute gold, so I'm always pleased to go back there) to pick up my week's pulls or requests.  Sometimes, like when I'm sick, it gets put off, but I still try to make it a once a week thing.  It's like of like a little Christmas every week for me :-)

Here's this week's pulls/issues:

THE SPIRE (Issue 4 of 8).  This is a very cool book, kind of SF meets western (in a way) somewhere on the Weird Highway.  What is it?  I'll let the pull sheet tell you:

The Spire is a mountain of metal and stone that rises from the toxic nowherelands; a city of twisting tunnels, grinding elevators, ancient machinery, and over one million human and non-human residents. Shå, the only citizen of her species, is Commander of the Watch: responsible for keeping order despite the racist views of those around her. When a string of grisly murders occurs on the eve of the new Baroness's coronation, Shå is tasked with bringing the killer to justice... and picking apart the wider mysteries tangled around the crime. But the city's new ruler seems sets to usher in a more xenophobic age, and Shå swiftly finds she has far more than one enemy at her back…

What is it to me?  The very first book I picked up when I started getting back into comics again, along with The Infinite Loop and 8house: Arclight.  Shå is amazing, the story is dense with loads of layers and subterfuge, and the artwork is to die for.

That's Shå.  I kinda have a massive girlcrush on her :-)

ANGELA: QUEEN OF HEL (1 of a continuing series)  I've always been intrigued by how Marvel handled the underworld...I used to read Hellstrom way back in the day, from it's cool beginning, muddled middle, and amazing conclusion with Warren Ellis on stories.  And here we have Angela, Assassin of Asgard, now Queen of Hel.  Haven't read yet, but I have leafed through...the art is sumptuous and lush...

...and I can't wait to dig in.  This looks to satisfy my Norse sweet tooth nicely without going all Thor and Loki.

BATMAN (#44)  I had to pick up this issue.  Considering it is essentially a roman a clef of modern society, complete with economic and racial inequality, violence between the underprivileged and the police, and the slow, sudden realisation from Bruce Wayne that he might just have had a hand in a part of this as one of the 1%...this is a book that should honestly be getting taught in schools.  Great writing, great inking and art...this one should be talked about for a long time.

The Julie Agenda for 31 October 2015 (Op. 8 for Organ in C minor)

1) Finish work.  Joy unbounding.
2) Pick up milk and bread and hot dog rolls.
3) Pick up dinner (It's Taco Night!)
4) Stop off at FLCBS to get my pulls for the week.
5) Go home, eat dinner.
6) Zonk out for an hour or two maybe.
7) Not see any trick or treaters because I live in Nowhere, Middle Of.
8) Throne of Thunder raid, and hope my sword drops since I missed it last week with the flu when it did drop.
9) On secondary monitor, a stream of B&W German Expressionist horror: Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Faust, and the 1925 American The Phantom of the Opera.
10) Get in more reading on a friend's novel in progress.
11) Maybe work on my story.
12) Sleep the sleep of unreason.

Alas, I will not be recruiting for the LGBTQIA Corps tonight.  Sorries.

Happy Halloween, everyone...or Samhain...or your celebration of choice <3

ARCHIVE: Some brief thoughts on Before the Flood (Doctor Who S09E04)

(NB: I'll be filling in the holes where I did not get previous episode reviews up before starting the blog.  Right now I think I'll time them for Saturday Morning/Afternoons, but that may change.  This is the original text, not edited for dates.)

It’s the Sunday after Whoday, so it’s time for my regular feature on the episode.  I’ve been doing these in my brief thoughts live blogging manner rather than synopsis and reaction, but that may change in the future.  As always spoilers abound, so if you haven’t watched don’t read yet.

This is the second part of a two parter, so we’ll be looking at the story as a whole at the bottom.
Here we go:


1) A passion for Beethoven!
2) Yay classical music and the Doctor!
3) Where's Beethoven?
4) His family hasn't heard of him?
5) He doesn't exist? Nooooooooo!
6) The Bootstrap Paradox.
7) I'll google it.
8) He brought all his scores to get signed?
9) He copies them all out?
10) The Doctor is Beethoven?
11) Amp...volume up!
12) Rawk our, knocks on the door by fate!
13) And guitars in the theme!
14) And here we are...before the flood.
15) I think the Doctor likes O'Donnell.
16) 1980 by taste.
17) Pre Saxon, pre Ministry of War?
18) Aww, cute excuse.
19) It's bigger on the inside fangirling!
20) She can be so prim and proper, too.

The Creative Process in 800 words or less

I am in the early phases of pre-labour on a new story.  Writing about writing is something, I think, that writers SHOULD in theory be good at, and some are, but most of us just kind of sit here and mutter about processes and other arcania and hope you'll just go away so we can cry over our typewriters or keyboards and hope the next word will come.

But I'm going to spend a few hundred words expounding on my process, because I'm not revealing anything special or unique.  I'm not explaining the magician's tricks.  I'm just talking about me, which is a subject I suppose I've got specialist knowledge of, even if I don't care to admit it.

A year plus ago I wrote a story, which I have high hopes for.  I'd say more but I can't.  But inside that story was a character named Tessa-Five (so named because...well, that'd be telling, and there's a story in that too, so...) who was my first original character since college.  And she sprung, like the Greek Gods, fully formed from my split open head and introduced herself to me.  Actually, she sprung fully formed from my head after I saw a picture on line while I was researching methods of breaking facial recognition algorithms (don't ask...at this point I'm not even sure why, but it may have had to do with the story I was writing).

You know that line from the very first Night Vale episode from Cecil describing Carlos...you know, the scientist?  'And I fell in love instantly.'

Well, I fell in love with Tessa instantly.

And then I killed her.

Yes, that's a spoiler.

It destroyed me to do it, but for the story to do what I needed it to do, it had to happen.  I agonised.  I called in multiple friends/fans/writers and asked them for ways to get out of it, and after explaining the scenario, all of them sadly said it had to be.  So I did it, knowing I was consigning someone with a backstory (which is hinted at in the story in question) to an end before a beginning.

Then I hit a drought, caused by depression, dysphoria, and other large words with a D.  Basically stopped writing for the better part of a year and a half.  When the engines finally primed themselves, and words started coming out...dribbles at first, then a trickle...it was mostly poetry.  I've always enjoyed poetry, and so this was pleasant enough.  I even played around with forms a little...I have a couple cantos finished or in the works, close to 3 dozen haiku, and so on.  It's still challenging, and that's a good thing.

But as I've been writing, Tessa's been popping back into my head.  I always knew I was never finished with her, because she has so many tales to tell.  I know how she grew up, I know how she got her nickname...the last night or so I started to get pictures of her crew (best word to use without giving away more), and some characterisations.  I even saw, in my head, her partner, and was lucky enough to witness a few scenes of really snappy dialogue between them.

And so there's a story coming.

It's not her origin story.

But it's a story that tells a lot about how she became the person she is at the beginning of the story I mentioned above.

And I'm excited to be ready to tell it.

My process is slow...the story has to burn before I can write it.  It has to come from need...if I don't NEED to tell the story, if the story isn't invading my dreams and waking thoughts, it's not ready.  When it's time, it's the only thing I can do.  Music is key as the right music allows me to get into the right mindset for the right scene or sequence.  And then it's just a straight through sprint from start to finish.  It drains, but I've learned to expect the drain, and the drop off at the end where I wonder what's next.

I've woken up 2, 3, 4 am, written a 3000 word short, and gone back to sleep because the story needed to be told then.

It's all about need.  Desire is lovely, but it has to be need.  Burning, aching, almost brain in fire need.  Without that...there's nothing.

What...you expected me to tell you how to write a story?  I barely know how I write mine, other than what I wrote above.  Do your own thing.  Read a lot so you know the rules.  Use the rules, then break them.  Keep writing.  That's all you can do.  Try new things every time.  Let people read your stuff and listen to their criticisms, because they're not as close to your precious baby as you are.  Don't take a creative writing course...it'll only lock you into one particular way of writing.

And write.

Just write.




**NB: the chart/graph above is inaccurate on one count...the 'all the work while crying' phase extends past the deadline mark.  I do love deadlines, especially th whooshing sound they make as they go whizzing by.

Poem 28 October 2015 - Götterdämmerung

Who will be there
at the end
to speak our names
to the indifferent wind
as the sun glows ever redder
and the oceans mist and boil away?

Who will be there
at the end
to speak our lists of
omissions and commissions
to an uncaring black sky
streaked with violent aurorae?

Who will be there
to carve the words
into wood or stone
telling our tale
though none will ever pass by
to read it?

Who will be there
to hold my hand
to lay down next to me
to wait with me
until the wolf rises up
and eats the sun?






Julie Knispel
28 October 2015

Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Your tells are so obvious
Shoulders too broad for a girl
Keeps you reminded
Helps you to remember where 
You come from
     Transgender Dysphoria Blues,
     Against Me!
     (lyrics by Laura Jane Grace)



(with apologies to Laura for absconding with her title)

Some days are better than others.

Some days...you really don't want to know.

It's always there as a baseline.  On one level or another, I'm always aware.  Sometimes it's as simple as the way I walk.  Other times it's the fact that my natural hair is thinning...I know a lot of that can be blamed on losing it three times when being treated for cancer, but it's also a bunch of hormones I don't even want in my system that are systematically causing my hair to retreat to the hills.  It's the angularity to my face...even though that is changing somewhat, and I am seeing more and more of me in there instead of a masque.  It's always the shoulders.  Always the chest, even though I have naturally occurring breasts that are not disappearing with my weight loss, which I find as some small comfort.

I'd say it's my hands, but I have tiny short fingers, so...meh.  My hips definitely...but maybe less that when I get rid of that belly fat.  It's definitely them, because I have such a disconnection to them that it borders on...I don't know.  I hate them, and want them gone in the worst way.

And I have to take the slow path, and do everything right, because of my 'history.'

I can't dive in the deep end of the pool.

I have to wade in fro the kiddie side, and do what the doctors tell me.  And get my letters, and spend my hundreds of dollars to change my name, and everything else.

You want them to notice,
The ragged ends of your summer dress.
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl.

The thing is, I'm never going to be 'every other girl.'  I'm generally OK with that.  The people who matter think of me that way, and it goes some way toward assuaging the feelings I have about things.  They encourage me, support me, love me.  They watch me experiment, watch me playing with makeup like a 13 year old (since I never did growing up) and learning the ropes, and encourage me and give me tips...and occasionally ask me how I did something, which is cool.  They occasionally help me with clothes, which is so huge you have no idea.  They've volunteered to go with me to get my first bra, to my first appointment with the actual doctor I want to see.

And those are down the road.

And for a week now, I'm back in the I can't bare to look at myself in the mirror state.

So I take my mood stabilisers and my antidepressants, and I talk to people, and I ride it out.  As best I can.  With loads of tears, mostly, and a lack of energy to even do my nails to make me feel a little better.

It hurts.

It hurts in a way that is really indescribable, because there's nothing really like it.

And it sucks.

(Transgender - Courage by iMcQueeni)

Evening Music with Julie: Pergolesi , Stabat Mater

Osda svhiyeyi (Good evening).  It's 9:20 PM, and this is Evening Music with Julie.

Stabat Mater is a musical setting of the Stabat Mater sequence, composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi in 1736. Composed in the final weeks of Pergolesi's life, it is scored for soprano and alto soloists, violin I and II, viola and basso continuo (cello and organ).

Many pieces which were said to have been composed by Pergolesi have been misattributed; the Stabat Mater is definitely by Pergolesi, as a manuscript in his handwriting has been preserved. The work was composed for a Neapolitan confraternity, the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo, which had also commissioned a Stabat Mater from Alessandro Scarlatti. Pergolesi composed it during his final illness from tuberculosis in a Franciscan monastery in Pozzuoli, along with a Salve Regina setting.

The Stabat Mater is one of Pergolesi's most celebrated sacred works, achieving great popularity after the composer's death. Jean-Jacques Rousseau showed appreciation for the work, praising the opening movement as "the most perfect and touching duet to come from the pen of any composer". Many composers adapted the work, including Giovanni Paisiello, who extended the orchestral accompaniment, and Joseph Eybler, who added a choir to replace some of the duets. Bach's Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden is a parody cantata based on Pergolesi's composition.

The work was not without its detractors. Padre Martini criticised its light, operatic style in 1774, and believed it was too similar to Pergolesi's comic opera La serva padrona to adequately deliver the pathos of the text.

Concerto Köln is conducted by Peter Dijkstra with. soprano Johannette Zomer and countertenor Maarten Engeltjes

Dodadagohvi, osda svnoi (Until next we meet, good night).

Ayv gvgeyui nihi, sidanelvhi <3
Ayv gvgeyui nihi, adageyudi <3 <3 <3

COMICS: Paper Girls #1

Sometimes, when I'm looking for a new comic to read, I take a leap based on little more than blind faith and hope.  So far, it's done pretty well for me, and while several of the series I picked up were sadly limiteds and have defined ends (damn it, The Infinite Loop, I need more of you and Teddy and Ano, like, yesterday), I can't say I've picked up anything that hasn't rewarded my reading.

One I took one of those flying leaps on, and just got the first issue of, is Paper Girls, from Image Comics.  It is, if I remember correctly, described as a young adult adventure...and if that scares you off, then I don't know what to tell you.  Plenty of the best stories have had, at their core, a group of teenagers with discovery of just how big (and terrifying) the world really is.  While this is simply issue one, I think there's some hope this will be a good one.

Our core crew is a quartet of newspaper delivery girls on Halloween 1988...a time I remember all too well as being entirely confusing and totally not fitting in anywhere.  It's not a time I'd go back to willingly, and it's recreated here in fine detail.  Erin, KJ, Mac and Tiffany are our main characters, each as different from each other as possible, bound by the singular fact that they deliver the same newspaper.  When Erin is harassed by a bunch of older teens, the feckless trio come upon the scene, chase them off, and offer her a place in their little group...an offer she seems to take up pretty quickly.

Mac, who seems to be the leader of the crew, is what my mum would have called a 'bad influence.'  Short hair, Wax!Trax Records shirt, Doc Martins and smoking, she calls the shots.  KJ would be the athlete of the group, it seems, with her field hockey stick slung across her back, while Tiffany would be the technical support with her Radio Shack 2-way radios and allsorts.  Erin, who seems to take the place of audience analogue, has her own quirks, as evidenced by the opening pages and the nightmarish scenes that start this series off.

If we thought that things would settle down after the teens were chased off, we were pretty mistaken when, immediately after Mac is essentially told by a cop that she's end up no better than the rest of her family (a plotline I hope will be developed), she gets a call for help across radio.  Mac and Erin speed off to find KJ tending to an injures Tiffany, who had been jumped by another group of older teens who happened to also steal her 2-way.  Mac is pissed, and warns them over the radio that they're coming for them, and for their stuff.

Without wanting to reveal much more, this is where the weird really hits the road, and we veer wildly into left field.

Firstly, as you could probably guess, I love our main characters.  I think they're pretty well written, and I'm sure future issues will only deepen their characters.  I know I already worry that one or more of them are going to get hurt through the telling of the tale, and I don't want to see that happen.

I love how weird the story is.  Weird can mean so many things, but in my case I am using it in the manner of Weird Tales and stories of that early ilk, with unknown (and unknowable) things from Beyond.  It's the only way to really explain what is going on, and I hope it remains weird and doesn't settle into any standard tropes.  I think it would be awesome to have a weird YA story in the racks every month...or something at least to replace the weirdly wonderful Shadowgirls, which we never got a second series of.

:-(

The artwork by Cliff Chiang, with inks and colours by Matt Wilson, do a great job recreating that strange time between decades when the Soviet Union was falling apart, we suddenly had no military enemies (and so began creating new ones), and kids my age really had no idea what kind of world we'd get by the time we were our parent's age.  Brian Vaughan's story captures that perfectly for me, and I can only imagine where we're going with this story.

Definitely looking forward to Issue 2.

(Images courtesy Comic Book Resources)

Some brief thoughts about Supergirl, the Pilot Episode

So, in the interest of full disclosure, a few notes:

1) Julie is, in general, not a fan of superhero comics, despite enjoying comics a whole lot.
2) No, you cannot look at the fact that I've started reading Spider-Gwen as evidence to the contrary.
3) My interests tended toward the DC Vertigo line and the Marvel Midnight Sons lines, with some indies as a side thing.
4) Nowadays, 90% of what I read is indy.

That said, we all know there's been a huge spate of superhero TV shows, mostly thanks to the massively successful Marvel Comics Universe, which I fully admit to enjoying a lot.  What can I say?  I am large, I contain multitudes.  I am excited about Marvel's Jessica Jones (and no, not because David Tennant is in it), and the little girl inside of me was excited enough by Supergirl that I had to give at least the pilot a chance.

So here are some thoughts...

Melissa Benoist is perfectly cast as Kara/Supergirl.  More importantly, she gets the balance right between phenomenal cosmic power and 20-something awkwardness and self-doubt.  She chafes at the diminishment she feels at the name Supergirl, even with her boss offering several arguments to the contrary.  She's fun and she's serious.  She understands her powers and what they mean, and isn't afraid to use them to help people...the only thing she has ever wanted to do.

Mechad Brooks as Jimmy...sorry...James...Olsen.  Inspired casting.  I love how neatly they wrapped up why he was there at the end of the episode, even if it seemed pretty obvious to us on the outside.  Working as a surrogate/messenger in a way for Superman allows the big guy to have a presence without actually being there which is EXCELLENT.

Loads of baddies from Krypton.  Come on, we had to have them.  Admittedly, I hope the series is not solely focused on essentially a civil war between Krypton factions, but you can't have a Super-series without them.  I'm cautiously optimistic here.

The sister/sister bit, with Alex Danvers being jealous of Kara's powers to the point of asking her not to use them, and then being part of a super secret organisation to monitor 'extraterrestrials' was a bit too tropey for me to swallow, but I'm hopeful that it won't be a major distraction, and simply become...less antagonistic?  Not everything has to be grimdark, and this has too many shades of a dark Agents of SHIELD for me.

Fun in an at first really awkward, but eventually hilarious way, was the ever evolving costume.  We start off with the expected Male Gaze version, which Kara utterly refuses, step by step evolving toward the costume we know and love (No capes?  Capes are so out!  Capes would make the suit more aerodynamic, why didn't I think of that!  OK, this cape is bullet-proof.).  It could have been so easily mishandled, but it really went a ways toward portraying Kara as a woman with a vision unwilling to compromise for her ideals, and I liked that.

First episode, I know...and miles to go before we sleep (hopefully many miles, based on the ratings), but I'd love to see some crossover with villains from other DC properties if it makes sense.  I already know we'll see plenty of time spent on how being a hero changes Kara's life, including most likely romantically.  I'd like the see the relationship with her sister explored more in depth.

Mostly, I'd like to see the show be unafraid of tackling serious issues, handled correctly, and without turning fully grimdark.  This is Supergirl...you can do those things and still have some light.  I think it can happen.

Put me down for next week's episode :-)

Poppies...

Hey.

You.

Yes you.

Come over here, will ya?

I got something really really good...open your mind so wide, it's like the universe is in there.

It's called reality.

You know those Muslims you hate and fear?  Didja know that nearly 50,000 of them fought in World War II for the freedoms you hold so dear?  They died in the trenches, flew spitfires, and bled for you.

Didja know that far right British political parties like Britain First want to scare you into hating them using the poppy symbol that is one of the universal symbols of the blood spilled in the war?

Did you know that Britain First sold poppies without permission of Royal British Legion (who hold the rights to the poppy symbol for supporting soldiers' charities) and then kept the money?

Do you really want to buy into that fear?

Do you know that fear is one of the reasons we're in the steaming pile of shit we're in?

I've got more, you know.  I can tell you about the codetalkers that kept our military messages secret with the only code that couldn't be broken because it adhered to no standard Latinate linguistic structure.  I can tell you how we kept an entire portion of out nation in concentration camps because they looked different and might be sending information to the enemy.

I can tell you how the entire history of the United States is predominantly (as in 99+ per cent) white and predominantly (and in just about the same amount) male.

So...want some reality?

*micdrop*

Come on Jessica...don't play the hero with me...

Will I be adding this to my viewing list?

Yes, yes I will.

Jessica Jones, Sense8, Who, Game of Thrones, and the pilot of Supergirl looked pretty damned good...there's some very very good speculative TV happening...and a lot of it is online.

Morning Music with Julie - Alan Hohvaness, Symphony No. 63

Osda sunalei, sidanelvhi. It's 11:45 am, and this is Morning Music.

The Symphony No. 63, Op. 411, Loon Lake is a symphony for orchestra in two movements by the American composer Alan Hovhaness. The work was commissioned in September 1987 by the New Hampshire Music Festival and the Loon Preservation Society. It was completed in early 1988 and premiered August 18, 1988, with conductor Thomas Nee leading the New Hampshire Music Festival Orchestra. The ending of the piece was later revised by Hovhaness at the request of his wife; the revised symphony premiered July 2, 1991, and is the only version available on recording.

William Yeoman of Gramophone praised Loon Lake, writing, "Here, songs both avian and pastoral for a multitude of wind soloists punctuate a luminous, if occasionally overcast, orchestral skyscape." Music critic David Hurwitz was more critical, however, remarking:

With only two movements, it’s as long as the concerto (about 26 minutes). Most of the time is taken up by the second movement, a sort of rondo in which arabesques for woodwinds flecked by Hovhaness' characteristic bell sounds alternate with a model hymn straight out of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia. Eventually, these two elements begin to intermingle, but it takes an awfully long time, and each listener will have to decide if the music overstays its welcome. Of course, Hovhaness has an intensely characteristic style, but the devil is in the details: in the balance of elements and sense of timing. Fine as the performances are, it’s hard to make the case that these works find Hovhaness at his best.

I tend to think the music does not overstay its welcome, and in fact is just the right length for what Hohvaness has to say.

You be the judge, though.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is conducted by Stewart Robertson.

Notes Toward a Biography: The Geek Variations, Op. 7

I had a certain benefit growing up...if it can be said to be a benefit...in that being AMAB meant the fact that I liked things like science and stuff of related ilk was pretty generally acceptable.  The odd counter to that is that at the elementary school I went to, I was the only AMAB to be classified for the gifted program...everyone else was cisfemale.  That would change in high school, when unfortunately peer pressure and it's horrific power over teenagers desperate to fit in would take it's toll...and I'd discover all kinds of things that very nearly derailed me, but again, a story for another time.

But I loved science.  I was big time into paleontology, and was often found out in the yard, or down by the brook, or out in a field, trying to dig up dinosaur bones or mammoth teeth.  There was loads of shale and sedimentary rock around, so I was usually pretty lucky in finding dendrites and all sorts of micro-fossils.  I loved my microscope.  I loved my chemistry set, even if my parents regretted ever buying it for me (sorry, mum and dad, I really didn't know that would happen if I did that!).  I loved slipping out on the roof for the addition built on our house and watching the stars and planets circling overhead...or charting the Jovian moons around Jupiter with binoculars.

It was acceptable.

It was, I admit, a little daunting for my parents to have a 4 year old me explaining 2001 A Space Odyssey to them, after I begged the to watch it after seeing Star Wars and reading TV guide and seeing the magical letters SF next to 2001.  I think they figured I'd be bored after 20 minutes.  I sat through the whole thing, raptly hooked.

In high school my attention got dragged toward music and literature, but my love of all thing science-y never fully abated.  Bio, Chem and Physics were all a blast, even as I was spending more time in the music department because of certain...comfort levels...that I still didn't have words for.  I discovered the world of Stephen King at this time too, via a little paperback titled The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, which was the coolest weird western I could have possibly imagined (a shame it got rewritten to 'match' his current writing style...but the original will always be a special book for me).

As college came around, and I was pretty certain I wanted to be a writer, I discovered still more amazingness in science fiction.  Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Roger Zelazny, Mervyn Peake, and especially Michael Moorcock...I devoured their stories, ad their multiple angles at attacking the genre of speculative fiction, and dove in.  Somewhere there's a box with my juvenilia in it, stuff I weep at the idea of reading because I was SO.  SERIOUS. when I was younger (You know...'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now') and my stories were full of BIG IMPORTANT IDEAS and absolutely telegraphed from a mile away.  One of my stories got me kicked off the college newspaper staff (which was hilarious because I was E-I-C) when it was read as one thing when it was about totally the opposite.

Good times.

Time passes.

I start teaching at an observatory, which was some of the most enjoyable time I ever spent...having access to a scientific center where I could share my love of the stars and planets with people who may never have looked up at the night sky before.  I got to use one of the largest telescopes in the state.  I was in heaven.

Then I got sick, and my energy levels dropped to sub-zero integers, and that went away.

Still more time passes.

Doctor Who comes back.

Torchwood arrives.

I find my way into the Doctor Who fandom (a.k.a. the fandom that eats itself).

I meet some friends, and one of them insists I could write some awesome fanfic if I just tried.  Considering I'd given up on writing in general, I gave it a go, and I think I've written some good stuff...stuff I've been, and will continue, posting here.

My love of science fact hasn't diminished.  I may not have the energy to lug out a telescope and stargaze, but I can read, and I read everything I can get my hands on.  I keep my copies of Uranometria 2000.0 at bedside if I want to just look at things.  I've got dozens of astronomy and astrophysics sites on bookmark so I can keep up on what's happening in the field.

And I see more and more women making inroads into STEM careers, and I smile.  Because everyone can be into science, both fiction and fact...it accepts everyone and anyone so long as they're looking for questions that might not be answered, rather than answers that can't be questioned.

I'm proud to be a geek, across the board.  There's nothing wrong with enthusiastic enjoyment of something, be it comics, the latest Moorcock book, or the newest set of papers from the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.

:-)

FIC: Twelfth Night

(NB: several years ago I organised and ran a short series of fiction on Gallifrey Base centered on the Chirstmas Holiday.  I called it, naturally enough, the 12 Doctors of Christmas, with one tale for each Doctor.  I reserved the 12th Doctor for myself because I already had a story I was in the middle of writing, and it was my series, so I was the boss of me.

I didn't realise at the time, but that story would be just about the last thing I'd write in the Who universe for a very long time.  A Combination of factors, physical, emotional, and psychological, conspired t keep me from being able to write for close to two years.  It's only recently that I've started writing again, and characters I thought long lost are shuffling back to life.

I am particularly proud of this piece, because at that time, the Twelfth Doctor hadn't any serious screen time yet, so anything I did with him personality wise would be my own perception based on the actor himself.  I think I did him justice.

I hope you enjoy.  Thanks for reading.)

Twelfth Night

By Julie Knispel

I wish you a hopeful Christmas 
I wish you a brave New Year 
All anguish pain and sadness 
Leave your heart and let your road be clear 

They said there'd be snow at Christmas 
They said there'll be peace on Earth 
Hallelujah, Noel, be it Heaven or Hell 
The Christmas we get, we deserve

I Believe in Father Christmas,
Peter Sinfield



Two shapes emerged from shadow into the light of a street lamp.  The first, an older man with wavy salt and pepper hair, walked with his head down, a heavy scarf flapping in a cold December breeze.  Behind him, a younger girl struggled to keep up, her long chestnut hair mimicking her companion’s scarf.  Her breath visible in the evening chill, she called out ahead.

“Why exactly did we have to park all the way back there if we’re heading all the way up here?  Couldn’t we have just landed, you know…here?”

“It’s safer this way.  Trust me,” he replied over his shoulder.

“Safer?”

The girl stopped.

“What do you mean, safer?  What do you think we’re going to find?”

Her eyes went wide as a panoply of ideas flew through her consciousness, each more terrible than the one before.

“Cybermen?  At Christmas?  No.  An Ice Warrior.  Or…”

The Doctor turned, his ageless face betraying an odd mix of nervousness and sadness.

“Oh, something far more insidious, and potentially more terrible, than that, Clara.”

“What could be more terrible than Cybermen at Christmas?”

He took a few more steps, stopped, and motioned to his right.

“The past.”

The mayflies, they know more than we do...some brief thoughts on The Woman Who Lived

Greetings, constant readers, droogies, and members of the pack. It's time for my weekly post reviewing the most recent episode of Doctor Who.

This week we're taking a look at The Woman Who Lived, the second part but not really to last week's The Girl Who Died. This week's episode was written by Catharine Tregenna, bringing a return to Doctor Who of a female writer for the first time in way entirely too long. I'll have some things to mention about this later, but they're certainly not bad!

As usual, some guidelines apply. This is by necessity filled with spoilers. If you haven't watched, you should probably stay away until you have watched. These are, of course, one person's opinions, and while I may come at things from a unique angle, my opinions are by far not the only ones.

That said, let's begin.

The Doctor, for the first time in quite some time, is traveling alone whilst Clara is doing her teacherly duties. He's using another of his weird mocked up locating devices, though apparently this one doesn't go ding when there's stuff. In any event, he follows it to...a coach robbery, being masterminded by the one and only Knightmare, scourge of the rich. He's well pissed that the Doctor interrupted his heist, the Doctor is well upset that he's found what he's looking for and has to have an argument with a highwayman, and the coach drives off, leaving both of them miffed.

This is when we find out that the Knightmare is, in fact, Ashildr...or as she is calling herself now Me. She has taken this name because she has seen so much die, lost so much, and only she remains. Thus, Me. The Doctor is none too thrilled with this, as one could imagine...he wanted to save a girl, and created an emotionless being instead.  Despite this, they head back to her manor, where she explains her robbery (adventure), and takes him to her great room, where wall after wall is filled with bookshelves and journals. As she walks off for a bit, the Doctor begins to read through the journals, discovering the depth of her heartbreak page after page after page.

Meanwhile, Me is talking with a strange creature out in the shrubbery surrounding her manor before returning to the Doctor. He confronts her about the journals, and she admits that she had a hard time remembering, and so she writes her life so she does not forget. When pressed on the missing pages, she says some memories are too difficult to hold on to.

They finally discuss what they are doing in the same place. Me is searching for a gem held by the young lady she was trying to rob, said to be the rarest gem in all the land. The Doctor admits he's looking for a piece of alien tech...which happens to be the same thing Me wants. She begs him to take her with them when they are done, but he refuses without a reason why.

One house break in nearly gone awry later, they are in possession of the gem, and the Doctor discovers the depth of her plan...she's allied herself with leonine alien Leandro, who needed the gem to open a portal to his world, and has promised to take her with him. The gem requires a death to activate, and the Doctor watches in horror as she calls for her aged servant, but when two soldiers come in to announce the capture of Sam Swift, the notorious brigand, she grants mercy to her servant, and Leandro and she head to the gallows.

A small amount of hijinks later, the Doctor is on horseback, rushing to the gallows to stop Ashildr from this act. He gets there in time to see the end of Sam's standup act, and tries to extend it as much as possible until he can get to the gallows and stop the hanging via a psychic paper pardon from Oliver Cromwell.  The people still want a hanging, and are happy to consider the Doctor, but Ashildr jams the gem onto the chest of Sam Swift, leeching his life force and opening the rift between universes. Leandro reveals a double cross...he wasn't going back, he was bringing his brothers through to pillage this world, and had no intent to take her anywhere.

As she watches, laser blasts begin to pummel the city, and her compassion is finally unbottled. She begs the Doctor to do something, then quickly says 'They need us.' She runs up to the gallows and sticks the other med kit on Sam's head, where it is absorbed and begins to counter the effects of the death rift gem. Leandro is disintegrated, and all's well that ends well.

We end the episode with Sam, Ashildr and the Doctor drinking beers in the local tavern, where the Doctor explains finally his reasoning for not taking her: as someone functionally immortal, he needs someone mortal to keep him grounded, to remind him how important life is, to not give in to entropy and malaise and to always keep fighting. Having two immortals traveling together would not be good. He even mentions Captain Jack Harkness, and tells Ashildr she'll meet him sooner or later.
Reenergised, Ashildr says if he is going to save the world, then she will save those the doctor leaves behind...the patron saint for them. The Doctor snarks that it sounds like he's made an enemy, yet Ashildr says 'It's your friends you have to keep an eye out for...and I'll have my eye on you.'

End episode.

First off...wow. What an episode. Perhaps not the biggest in terms of plot, but oh the things it revealed. We finally see what happens to the people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor, and we find that it is not always pretty. This is the kind of story I'd write if I were writing for the show, and hews pretty close to the kind of fic I write, so it was wonderful to see it realised on the screen. Smaller story, smaller cast, but every person important, every line of dialogue terse and necessary.

Catharine Tregenna...female author! It's about time, Moffat! She's given us a great script, and I find it interesting that much like Rona Munro's Survival, it deals with so many aspects of female identity...even down to the cat aliens. I wonder if the leonine aliens are somehow related to the ones from Survival...that might become head canon for me. The script was wonderfully written and executed, and we have hints that Ashildr will be back again this series, which is a huge yay for me!
Maisie Williams showed so much depth this week...from the emotionless almost Arya Stark-esque manipulator to the emotional, 'true' Ashildr. The flashback scenes were chilling and extremely sad. And no matter where she was placed, she did a great job. Still can't see where people would complain about her acting.

The Doctor was...the Doctor. Capaldi has fitted the role around him, and with each passing episode this year, the line between actor and role has blurred to almost nothing. I hope beyond hope rumours are not true, that we're seeing the last full series with him, followed by an interregnum year of specials before a regen. Here's where I'll insert my obligatory 'Moffat must go' because while this series has blown last years out of the water, Capaldi deserves at least 3...no, 4...no, 7...years of episodes.

Fun episode, a nice balance of light and very very dark, and a nice lead in for 90 minutes of Zygons!

Poem: Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit

Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit;

aber ich will euch wieder sehen

und euer Herz soll sich freuen

und eure Freude soll niemand von euch nehmen.

Sehet mich an:

Ich habe eine kleine Zeit Mühe und Arbeit gehabt

und habe großen Trost funden.

Ich will euch trösten,

wie Einen seine Mutter tröstet.

It seems somewhat strange to be writing this.

After all, I know what I believe,

And I seem to recall what you believe,

So writing this serves no purpose really

As you'll not be looking down to see the words,

Black pixels on white screen;

Not even pen and ink any more.

But there are things that remain unsaid

And this is the only way I have left to say them.

To say that you are missed is the grossest understatement.

I can't count the number of people who miss

all of the things you brought to their lives.

And not just your friends; people you never even knew

have been touched as well.  They see us in pain

and they reach out to us, trying to stop the shakes,

the shudders, the tears, the cries.  They cry with us,

understanding our pain, our loss. They know you though us,

and our loss becomes theirs as well.  That is how far

your reach is; even now, you touch people's lives.

They come less for me now, but that does not mean

in any way that I am 'over' this.  No one really

gets over something like this; they just process the pain

in different ways.  For me, it is turning to anger.

Not at you.  Never at you.  There has never been a single

moment in which I have felt a whit of anger

because of this.  I am angry at a cold, callous

unfeeling world that allows horrors to continue apace

yet steals away someone with a family

who had so many more years of life and love to

experience.  I am angry at people who say you

are in a better place.  The better place is here,

with your family, with your friends. 

I am angry at the illness, and how it took you from

your family.  From your friends

From me.

And I am sure you would laugh, if you were here,

to know that despite belief, or lack thereof,

I have spent hour after hour bargaining with

something that isn't there.  I can almost hear it,

actually, along with a snarky yet well intentioned

remark about how futile it is to ask for something

from something you don't believe in.  Despite that

I carry on. 

I am writing this for myself as much as anything else;

mostly to try and expose and understand my feelings

because right now, a month on, I'm no closer to

understanding that than I was.

Everyone says everyone mourns in their own way,

that there's no right timeline, there's no wrong

way to experience the feelings of loss.  You know

I always felt things the keenest; I know this because

you always tried to protect me from things that were

actually going on.  You never wanted me to hurt,

and you never would have wanted me to blame myself

for the things that happen.  We were the same

in that respect.  Arguments over who was really

at fault, each side arguing for itself, not the other.

You were far more than a friend; in every way

except genetic, you were my sister.  And do genetics

really matter, anyway?  You encouraged me,

wanted me to be myself, and stood up for me like

a big sister, even though I was older than you.

And I think that's what hurts the most...I haven't

just lost a friend, I've lost family.

I keep waiting to see you post on my wall.

I keep waiting for an e-mail, or a message on Skype.

I keep waiting to hear how Basti is doing for United.

There are a million million conversations I will

never finish, nor even start.

Life is like that, in the saying and the doing;

a million beginnings, a million endings,

never in precisely the right order, and never ending

when you are ready for it to end.

I only hope, with the saying and the doing said and done,

That I was for you what you were for me.

Siehe, ich sage euch ein Geheimnis:

Wir werden nicht alle entschlafen,

wir werden aber alle verwandelt werden;

und dasselbige plötzlich, in einem Augenblick,

zu der Zeit der letzten Posaune.

Denn es wird die Posaune schallen,

und die Toten werden auferstehen unverweslich,

und wir werden verwandelt werden.

Dann wird erfüllet werden

das Wort, das geschrieben steht:

Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg.

Tod, wo ist dein Stachel?

Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?

Julie Knispel

17 August 2015

Midday Music with Julie - Gounod, Requiem

Osda svhiyeiditlv. It's 12:30 pm and this is Midday Music.

At first blush, it seems almost as improbable that Gounod should have written a Requiem as it does that Saint-Saëns should have written one. But Gounod did, and so did Saint-Saëns. On record, at least, both have fared poorly in both number and performance.

Though Gounod is today linked almost exclusively to opera, thanks mainly to Roméo et Juliette and Faust , he was in fact a deeply religious man who, like Liszt, came very close to joining the priesthood and taking holy orders. He immersed himself in the study of 16th-century polyphony, with special attention paid to the masses of Palestrina; unusual perhaps for a 19th-century French composer, he came to revere the keyboard works of Bach, proclaiming the Well-Tempered Clavier “the law to pianoforte study … the unquestioned textbook of musical composition.” Who has not heard Gounod’s meltingly beautiful Ave Maria , a descant set over the C-Major Prelude from Book 1 of Bach’s WTC ? In fact, it wasn’t an opera but a Mass that brought Gounod his first public acclaim in 1855, the Messe Solennelle , aka Saint Cecilia Mass , and throughout his life, he continued to write music based on religious subjects.

Today, the extent of Gounod’s sacred works is little appreciated, their having been eclipsed by his operatic efforts. But this was not always the case. Saint-Saëns declared that Gounod would be remembered principally for his religious music; indeed, his masses, sacred oratorios, and motets far outnumber his operas. Daudin’s note even claims that there are three more Requiem masses in addition to the one on this CD.

Mostly avoiding the theatrical drama of sinners facing their Maker and souls condemned to the eternal fires of Hell—there’s no Berlioz or Verdi here—Gounod’s Requiem is often compared to that of the very popular, almost exactly contemporaneous setting by Fauré in its comforting and non-judgmental tone. No deity could fail to be moved, for example, by Gounod’s exquisitely beautiful Benedictus, which sets a duet for solo soprano and tenor against the chorus. But I’d have to say that in terms of musical style and vocabulary Gounod’s Requiem is closer to Saint-Saëns’s setting of the text, if you’re familiar with that score, than it is to Fauré’s.

If you’re a collector of Requiem masses (like I am), you will find none more appealing than Gounod’s.

(Notes courtesy Arkiv Music)

Triptych: Three Songs for Solo Performer, Op. 4-6

(NB: this is an essay I wrote several years ago trying to explain to people about the trials I went through during my treatment for cancer.  I felt it germane to share here.  Please excuse the dates...the story is more important...)
I.
Death’s Dream Kingdom


Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.
                                    The Hollow Men
                                    Thomas Stearns Eliot


This may well be the last time I tell this story…I had told myself that I wouldn’t talk about it any more.  But today is one of those once in a lifetime days, and I want to mark it in this way.  Some of you know this story; some of you do not.  Those of you who do know, bear with it, OK?

May 15 2000 is a day that will always be emblazoned in my memory.  For one thing, that was the day my local record store was able to finally get in a copy of King Crimson’s The ConstruKCtion of Light album for me.  More importantly, that was the day that doctors at Hunterdon Medical Center told me that I had cancer.

Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is typically a very treatable cancer…not quite as much so as Hodgkin’s Disease, of course, but cure rates are generally very high.  It responds well to traditional chemotherapy (which for NHL is cytoxin/vincristine/adriamycin with a prednisone chaser) and radiation…6 cycles of chemo, spaced 2 weeks apart (if memory serves), followed by 35 to 40 sessions of radiation.  Boom, you’re done, come back in 3/6/12 months as indicated.  You’re done, and you’re a survivor.

My NHL decided part way through to become a bit more atypical, and started growing again through the chemo.  I’m told this happens, and they have a secondary regimen of chemo for cases like mine called ESHAP (for etoposide, methylprednisolone (solumedrol), high-dose cytarabine (ara-C) and cisplatin).  It’s high-level, high-dose, meaning you get the meds 24 hours a day for 6 days straight.  They usually like to keep you there an extra day following the regimen, I always was stubborn and demanded to be discharged, and always was back in the hospital a day later with fevers and vomiting.

What can I say?  I’m a slow learner.

This was followed by radiation and near constant CT scans, all of which showed a tumor deciding to thumb its nose at the world.  Literally, I think if it could have flipped the bird, it would have.  The doctors tried additional regimens of Rituximab (rituxan), which is a monoclonar antibody that latches on to certain proteins found in cancer cells.  I was told pretty much straight out they didn’t have much hope for this working as the traditional therapies didn’t seem to want to do their job, but it was worth a go.

It didn’t work.

Through all of this I was getting weekly blood counts done, getting procrit and neupagen shots to boost my red and white counts (I was seriously aenemic and lymphopenic, conditions that continue to a more limited degree today), and trying to work a full time job, because I thought that was what you did.  You carried on trying to live.

I was sat down one day in a conference room with my oncologist who laid everything out to me.  The tumor wasn’t responding, it was not shrinking, it was still active, and I had 2 real choices:

1)      I could have a stem cell transplant
2)      I could stop treatment

The third option would have been clinical study, but I wouldn’t qualify for that without doing the transplant.

You know that phrase, ‘I didn’t have anything to lose?’

Well, frankly, it’s bullshit.

The phrase really is ‘I really didn’t have a choice.’


II.
Fear in a Handful of Dust


What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow     
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only   
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only      
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),  
And I will show you something different from either     
Your shadow at morning striding behind you    
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; 
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
                                    The Waste Land,
                                    Thomas Stearns Eliot


Stem cell transplants are like…if you haven’t had one, you really don’t know.  And that sounds so pompous, but it’s true.  It’s one of the scariest things I can possibly imagine, and if I were allowed to get all metaphysical for just a moment (you’ll allow me that, won’t you?)…

Being in the Transplant Unit is like sitting at the gate between Purgatory and the Underworld.  You ultimately have a choice…you can try to walk away, or you can be pushed in.  The emphasis is on try, because despite the fact that you’re bedridden, you have to work.  You have to fight.  You have less than zero energy, you have no immune system, and still you have to keep breathing, sometimes almost willing yourself to do it.  You’re given enough chemotherapy to kill off your bone marrow and the tumor…enough chemo to kill a person…and then given a few days to recover from that.  Then they pump you full of cells they harvested from your own body…

…and let me interrupt the narrative there.  Stem cells come from your bone marrow, mostly.  But to get the numbers needed for a transplant, they have to force the cells into an easier to harvest place…like your bloodstream.  So you get pumped full of neupagen, which forces your narrow to make white cells and stem cells…so many that your bone marrow gets packed and the cells are forced out into your bloodstream.  Your active bone marrow is concentrated in your thigh bones, your hips, your sternum, your facial bones.  And they’re super packed.  Massive bone ache.  Imagine the achiness you have when you have the flu, and multiply it by dozens of factors of 10.  The pain got so bad one day I called my dad and asked him if he had anything stronger than Tylenol I could take.  He told me to come up to his place…it took me nearly an hour to walk from my apartment door to my car, it hurt so much to walk…

Aside done, narrative continues.

They pump you full of those cells, and hope you don’t die from the shock to your system.

Then you wait.

The first few days after transplant are the worst.  You have 0 white blood cells.  Your platelet counts are zero.  Your red counts are uber low.  You can’t get up to take a shower, because if you cut yourself or fall you’ll bleed out before the doctors can get to you.  Your food, if you have the energy to eat, is mush.  You lose your hair for the third time (the doctors came in one day and said they were amazed I still had hair.  I turned to them, stone faced, and started pulling it out clump by clump).  You get anti-anxiety meds on request.  Occasionally (it happened three times while I was there…there were 8 beds in the unit) a nurse comes by, closes all the shades on your windows and doors, and sits with you for 10 or 15 minutes.

I don’t suppose I have to explain why.

Thankfully my doctor was a Yankees fan, and when he was on site and off duty and there was a game on, he’d come in and sit with me and we’d talk Yankees.  My other doctor was a big David Bowie fan, and so we talked music…he always had something to say about the Genesis and Yes music I had playing in my room.  Most nights I either fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, ativan-induced slumber, or by crying myself to sleep.  Quite often the nurses would come in and sit with me…I guess they saw that a lot.  And they were always amazingly good to me…if I wanted lemon ice or something, I’d find a tray with a dozen cups of it on it for me.

I had a computer there, because I knew I was going to have all the time in the world to play Diablo II and stuff…it barely got used, because half the time by the time I got up in a sitting position, I was wiped out for the day.  I had brought a book about PC hardware with me…a huge, 1200 page hardcover, and the doctors and nurses looked at me like I was nuts.  I told them I’d read it all while I was there.  I maybe got 5 pages read.

I watched a lot of black and white TV.

I didn’t do a whole lot else.  I wasn’t able to do a whole lot else.


III.
There Will be Time


And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
                                    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
                                    Thomas Stearns Eliot


Today is July 16 2011.

I was admitted to the Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center Bone Marrow Transplant Unit on July 16 2001.  Therefore, today marks 10 years to the day that I began the end of my treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

A lot has happened since then.  I went to my first concert after treatment on September 6 2011…Yes at the PNC Bank Arts Center.  Two days later, I saw the Flower Kings at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick NJ.  3 days after that, I sat in my living room as I watched other, more monumental changes happen.  I’ve lived in two different places since then.  I’ve grown my hair back out, cut it all back off (which prompted no end of fearful comments from people at NEARfest who knew me and my story…‘Please tell me you’re OK!’).  My hair is growing thinner…and grey.  My energy levels are not what they once were.  I get tired easily.  I get sick more easily, and getting sick lingers.  I’m contemplative a lot more than I once was.  There have been long term lingering effects beyond these…I am sure, despite my genetic predisposition toward them, that my cardiac issues have not one bit been aided by the stresses my body was put through during treatment.

At the same time…

There is time.

Time for me to try and find myself again, wherever (and whoever) I may be.  There’s time to connect to people I thought long lost.  There’s time to continue whatever journey I am here to travel.  There’s time for decisions, and revisions to those decisions.  There are moments…some as small as watching a bird fly by, some far more grand than that, in which I find some degree of comfort, of being.  There were times through all of this I could have stopped, laid down, and said ‘This is where I end this.  I won’t go further.’  And I’m not at all ashamed to admit that there were countless times I thought that would be the right decision, for  myself and for others.

But I carried on.

If you’ve read this far, I give you a massive amount of credit…and I’ve also added you to my ‘potential stalker list.’  (I’m kidding about the list.) (Maybe.)  This will probably be the final time I talk about my fight with cancer, but I thought of all times, marking the tenth anniversary of the final phase beginning was as appropriate a time as any to mark this point in the journey.

Chuck Palahniuk (hurrah, I learned how to spell his name!) said in his 1999 novel Invisible Monsters, ‘Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.’  If you are reading this, then in some way you have been part of the process of remaking me.  The me I am today is not the same person who walked into that transplant unit in 2001, nor am I the same person who was diagnosed 15 months previous.  I mean that in a biological sense as well as a metaphysical sense; all the cells in my body have been replaced dozens of times.  But in a metaphysical sense, I am not the same person either…and each of you has had a hand in molding the person I am now.  What I write here is as much for you as it is for me.

I thank each and every one for you for what you have brought to my life…whether it is as small as a smile, or as large as saving me from myself.  You’ve made me, and did so with far more skill than I could have mustered on my own.

Do I dare?

I’ve decided that the answer to that question is ‘Yes.’

Shantih shantih shantih.

A heap of broken images... (String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 3)

Last night I came out in a sort of inverse, unusual manner to someone I've known for several years online.  I say inverse and weird because for the entire time she has known me, she's known me as Julie, and as a female.  But after a dozen times trying to tell her, and then deleting the stuff I was writing, I finally broke down (literally and figuratively) and told her.  Thankfully, she was more than accepting, and it went well.  But as one could gather, I was absolutely terrified out of fear that I'd be seen as telling an untruth.  My sin was one of omission...I was being truthful, because I am Julie, but I omitted the fact that Julie is also trans.

I met this friend through a web forum for a relatively popular British TV series (wink wink nudge nudge), and we both share a passion for writing fiction based on said show.  She's been a source of constructive criticism and encouragement, and I was worried about losing that, and worried about losing a friend who has listened to me in the past when I needed.

Luckily I don't have to worry about either.

~~~~~

I'm in the fifth day of a depressive streak with liberal lashings of dysphoria.  As I've been asked several times what dysphoria is, let me give you a definition and then me.

Dysphoria (from Greek: δύσφορος (dysphoros), δυσ-, difficult, and φέρειν, to bear) is a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation. It can also mean someone that is not comfortable in their current body, particularly in cases of gender dysphoria. Common reactions to dysphoria include emotional distress or indifference.

Now, me:

I hate my shoulders, my neck, my chest, my hips, my 'bits.' Each one is a reminder that I was AMAB, and hormones have conspired to give me a body to match.

I hate my chest, my waist, my hips, my 'bits.'  Each is a reminder that there is next to no estrogen in my system, and for everything I do with makeup and clothes and wigs, I'm half of who I need to be.

I hate that gender therapy is so expensive.

I hate that I can't just have my GP prescribe me T-blockers and estrogen.

It doesn't bother me that people don't get it.  I don't want them to understand,  not because I am selfish but because I genuinely don't want anyone to understand how this feels.  No one should ever feel this, ever.

~~~~~

I'm strongly considering leaving Facebook.

The Blackout was one part of it.  Realistically though, the fact that stuff I write that matters to me generally (not always) gets no comments or anything, whilst memes get all sorts of said same, is part of it.  Some people care, I'm not at all saying that.  But it's the same few every time.  I love them for it.  But I get a general feeling of either malaise or familiarity...and I'm not sure the later is a positive thing always.

I have the benefit of generally feeling safe there.  A lot of my friends do not.

I say I'm strongly considering leaving Facebook, and I won't, because I need my connections to my friends more than I need the rest of the service.  But I don't have to like it.

~~~~~

I'm arguing with myself whether I'm going to post a poem or a story this coming week.  Story wise, the last one I posted I posted an excerpt and then linked to the upload on Whofic...but I think I'm going to just post the stories here from now on.  40,000 stories on the archive, and 20,000 of them are Tenth Doctor, and likely Ten/Rose or TenTwo/Rose fic.  Considering (not bragging) my writing influences are Chambers, Zelazny, Moorcock and Ellison, and I tend to deal with BIG ISSUES (genocide, gender issues, war, etc.) I don't fit in there either.

I'm also giving brief consideration to self-publishing my short novel as a fundraiser thing for LGBT charity.  And a friend and I have had brief discussions about a T-shirt for the same thing.

Time will tell...it always does.

~~~~~

It's Whoday, so expect more happy geek stuff (as opposed to morose Julie!stuff) later.

Morning Music with Julie: Rautavaara, Angels and Visitations

Osda sunalei, sidanelvhi.  It's 10:20 am and this is Morning Music with Julie.

Einojuhani Rautavaara; born 9 October 1928) is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.

Rautavaara was born in Helsinki in 1928 and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Aarre Merikanto from 1948 to 1952 before he was recommended for a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. There he was taught by Vincent Persichetti, and he also took lessons from Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He first came to international attention when he won the Thor Johnson Contest for his composition A Requiem in Our Time in 1954.

Rautavaara served as a non-tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1957 to 1959, music archivist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1959 to 1961, rector of the Käpylä Music Institute in Helsinki from 1965 to 1966, tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1966 to 1976, artist professor (appointed by the Arts Council of Finland) from 1971 to 1976, and professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy from 1976 to 1990.

Rautavaara suffered an aortic dissection in January 2004. He had to spend almost half a year in intensive care but has since recovered and managed to continue his work.

Angels and Visitations (1978) was the first in Rautavaara’s Angel Series (the latest being the Angel of Light, or Seventh Symphony, that I reviewed last June). Rilke was a prime mover this time, though the composer’s childhood vision of a “mighty presence” is equally significant. Musically, the work enters on cymbal sea-spray backed by quietly curling string figurations. Contrasts abound, from the cold purity of the string writing (8'00'', or thereabouts – echoes of Sibelius’s Sixth), to disruptive interjections (roughly 40 seconds on) and rhythmic computations reminiscent of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (11'27''). One can easily imagine Angels and Visitations as the soundtrack to a troubled dream sequence and the performance is – like its disc companions – wholly convincing.

Einojuhani Rautavaara's masterpiece, Angels & Visitations, performed by Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

Evening Music with Julie: Rautavaara, Piano Sonata No. 2

Osda svhiyeyi. It's 9:23 pm, and this is Evening Music.

The most interesting aspect of hearing piano music by a composer known primarily for his orchestral work is in spotting those inimitable harmonic fingerprints that help define his musical personality. Rautavaara's piano music is full of tell-tale signs, even in an early work like the Op 7 Preludes, where he indulged a sort of clandestine protest against the 'neo-classical' confines he experienced in Helsinki and America.

Rautavaara was studying with Copland at the time but chose to keep his Preludes to himself.

And yet it's Copland's Piano Sonata that spontaneously comes to mind during the austere opening of his 'The Black Madonna of Blakernaya' from Icons, perhaps the most striking of all his solo piano works. The translucent colours in 'The Baptism of Christ' make a profound effect, as does the serenity of 'The Holy Women at the Sepulchre'. Aspects of 'angels' seem prophetically prevalent – whether consciously or not – in the Etudes of 1969. Each piece tackles a different interval: thirds in the first, sevenths in the second, then tritones, fourths, seconds and fifths.

The third is reminiscent of Messiaen, and the fifth of Bartók, but Rautavaara's guiding hand is everywhere in evidence. Spirituality is an invariable presence, especially in the two piano sonatas, though the Second ends with an unexpected bout of contrapuntal brutality. Perhaps the most instantly appealing track is the brief but touching central movement of the three-and-a-half minute Partita, Op 34, with its gentle whiffs of Bartók. Laura Mikkola plays all 28 movements with obvious conviction. Naxos's recorded sound is excellent.

Lauro Mikkola performs on piano on this recording on Naxos.

Dodadagohvi, osda svnoi. Ayv gvgeyui nihi, sidanelvhi <3

Ayv gvgeyui nihi, adageyudi <3 <3 <3

What's in a name? Everything.

If I name myself, I recognize who I am. By recognizing who I am, I am becoming myself.
          Robert Fripp



So, names.

Names are obviously extremely important.  They help us identify objects, help us to categorise those objects, and so on.  They also are part of our identity...they can delineate the changing of age group, from child to teen to adult, or label generations of you happen to be.

They help us know who we are, and become who we are meant to be.

I've known this for a long time...the Fripp quote above is one I've used time and time again on this subject.  It came more strongly to my head today as I ran post work errands.  My first stop was the grocery store, where I had to sign after ringing up the stuff I got, and where I get to use my name (since I have not legally changed my name yet, I'm often having to use my deadname).  And it's written out all fluidly and nice and clear, with an extra second of care taken in signing.

Then I go to the bank to cash my paycheck, and my signature can best be equated to a 2 year old with a crayon.  I honestly don't give a fig how it looks.  And while I've realised for a long time how little I care for my deadname, it hit me that strongly that it's something I want less and less every day.  And when baseline want is 0, well...we're hitting some serious negative integers.

When I was little, I already had issues with my name.  I loved my dad and I loved my grandfather, but I was not like either of them.  Nor was I like my mother, nor my eventual 'little' brother.  Sensitive, reading, drawing, not liking roughhousing (that changed over the years in the right circumstances, speak no more say no less), and wanting to know when I'd start getting dresses and my long hair.

That obviously never happened.

Well, the long hair did, after much fighting.  And I ended up losing it 3 or 4 times, but that's a tale for another night.

But speaking of nights...every night, before I fell asleep, I swore to myself that when I could, I was going to change my name.  And I always had a particular first name in mind.  It's pretty obvious, since it's in the name of the blog.  But I wanted a Juliet, and as much as I love Shakespeare, I was afraid that'd be too cliché.  So, loving French culture, Juliette seemed just peachy to me.  Close friends knew me as Julie...the closest, the ones I trusted, were told about Juliette.

That left me with a middle name, and I went through dozens of permutations over the years, with none of them ever being right.  Somewhere I have notebooks that'd look for all intents and purposes to be baby name books, with line after line of ideas and thoughts and scratched out names and so on.  It was harder than knowing what first name I wanted...but t had to be right.  It had to sound right.  It had to feel right.  It had to be me.

Finally, I came across Alexandria.  And in conjunction with Juliette, it was like two puzzle pieces clicking together.

I was born.

And in naming myself, I began to know myself.

And in beginning to know myself, I started to become myself.

It made it easier to come out, to tell people.  It made it easier to decide to be wholly honest with therapists, because I had to.  It gives me a path forward I want to carry on with...because honestly, if I didn't follow my heart, I'd be dead.  Becoming myself has allowed me to let people get closer to me, and the friends I have now are truer for it.  Even the people who knew me in high school, now that we've reconnected, see a different, more honest, more open me, and are happier for it.

I'm happier for it.

Because I'm not pretending all the time to be someone I'm not.

I want...need...to do the legal name change.  In NJ, it's expensive, and not a guarantee.  All it takes is a judge to say no and I'm out several hundred dollars.  That terrifies me, to be honest.  But I kinda have to take the risk, you know.

Because Julie deserves a chance to BE, outwardly as well as inwardly.

And I deserve to give her that chance.