Kutural Gadflies

 Just finished: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. I don't know what else to say about this scathing, perfect little book beyond that I wish I could make everyone in so-called Western civilization sit down in a chair with their eyes forced open, Clockwork Orange-style, until they'd read it. Until they make this atrocity fucking stop. It's one impassioned cry in the midst of genocide but it's a very powerful cry.

The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui. I have mixed feelings about this novella, which is a military sci-fi about a pilot, sidelined after a career-ending injury, who plots an elaborate revenge against the empire that blew up her planet. I first encountered the author at the same event where I first encountered Suzan Palumbo, and this could be a paired reading with her book Countess, only I read Countess first and preferred it. Which is not to say that this book isn't good, because it really is, but it's a bit inevitable to compare two anti-colonialist lesbian revenge fantasy space operas that end in tragedy that came out the same year, y'know?

My main criticism is that it suffers from the same issue that a lot of space opera suffers from, which is that there's a big universe and a limited cast of characters, doing all the things. The genre wants scrappy underdogs with interpersonal drama, but it also wants its protagonists in positions of power, which you can do in longer-form work but is challenging in a first-person novella. The Third Daughter is very hands-on, and it's implied that Mother is as well, but at least the former is ludicrously incompetent for someone running a massive empire. Which is to say that if you've blown up someone's planet, you probably shouldn't promote three young people, all of whom are childhood friends, from that planet into critical military positions. Especially if you're going to fuck at least two of them.

That said, I like the romance in this one more, if you can call it a romance; it's wonderfully toxic. And the ending is a gutpunch.

Currently reading: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. This continues to be excellent. One thing that I think is really cool about it, among the many things that are cool about it, is that she's decided to capitalize the word Black in all instances, not just where it applies to humans. Which has the intended effect of anthropomorphizing the creatures she writes about in a way that identifies them as the racialized Other, and thus part of the struggle for liberation. Look, this is poetry about marine biology, I'm going to basically love everything about it.

Lost Arc Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. I just started this one last night but we have a future Lagos that is mostly underwater, save for five skyscrapers. Which is a cool enough concept that I'll overlook that the book starts with both a dream sequence and the main character dressing for work. I'm into the worldbuilding so far.

This one was clearly ripped off the Ashley Madison hack, with a weird reference to Rohinie Bisesar (the woman who stabbed a stranger to death in the PATH Shoppers Drug Mart). The latter is even name-checked in the show, which I'm kind of surprised is legal.

The plot is needlessly convoluted. A hacker gets the database for Not!Ashley!Madison Dot Com, and appears to be blackmailing either the owner or someone in the database. People in the database include a well-regarded judge and a pastor of a megachurch. She's about to reveal the identity of someone in the database to her married best friend, but will only do it in person. They agree to meet in their usual spot in the PATH, but the hacker, who arrives first, is being followed. She makes her way to a Shoppers, where she's stabbed to death by a masked assailant.

( you know the drill )

By no one's request, I have downloaded Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent season 2 so that I can watch it so you don't have to.

This one is bad. Like, I normally like my trash TV but it's possible for a pop culture product to be actively harmful and the season opener, "White Squirrel City," is definitely that. It's also an incredible microcosm of our cultural moment.

Which is to say, a few years ago the cops cleared a tent encampment at Bickford Park. Residents were violently displaced, their possessions confiscated, and either forced to go elsewhere, minus their belongings, or shoved into insufficient temporary shelter. This is a major cause of death for homeless people.* Then, to film the copaganda show, they set up a fake tent encampment in the same place where the city had evicted real ones.

So it's one of those situations where even if it had been Great Art, the price of creation would have been outweighed by the moral violation. That said, it's also bad art.

Here is an article from the excellent Grind magazine about all of the things wrong in this episode. The author says it better than I could, and also points out its most egregious flaws, leaving me to nitpick and mock the minor ones.


( spoilers )