Love, Love, and more Love

One thing I noticed about all the stories that we read last week was that their seemed to be some form of "love" in each tale. It was quite prevalent in It Takes Two, but in the other stories I don't think it was quite as obvious. In The Island, the main character as this infatuation with the "island." She is so determined to save this "island" that this infatuation can be seen as a love for this wondrous creature. In The Pelican Bar, the main character's parents loved her to the point of sending her away to an institution in order to change her life and she loved to dream of The Pelican Bar which helped her through the toughest of times. Finally, in The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Matilda was willing to change into a vampire so that she could go save her boyfriend and Lydia. There were quite a few more examples in the rest of the stories. I think Spar should go without explanation.

Story volunteers for Sept. 1

According to my notes, here are the folks who are launching our class discussion of this week's stories. Let me know, please, if I'm misremembering.

• Swanwick and Gunn, "Zeppelin City": Caleb Weeks
• Broderick, "This Wind Blowing, and This Tide": Katy Santi
• Sterling, "Black Swan": Bailey Carpenter
• Genge, "As Women Fight": Jenny Strack
• Baxter, "Formidable Caress": Amelia Baez

Remember, no summaries necessary; we've all read the stories. Talk instead about what strikes you as interesting, unusual, surprising, or worth unpacking within the stories. Pose a question or two for your classmates. No outside research required, though you're certainly welcome to do some if you're curious.

And of course, you needn't wait until our class meeting to start the conversation. You could start with a blog post -- a new post, please, not merely a comment attached to this post. Each story deserves at least one thread of its own.  Thanks, all.

Bugchasing

While reading The Coldest Girl in Coldtown I kept getting this feeling that I'd read something like it before. As it turned out, I had, but it wasn't fiction. Lydia's character reminded me of a phenomenon called "bugchasing", where people seek to become infected with the HIV virus. Some of the terminology used in bugchasing even arises in the story; the Eternal ball shares some qualities with "Bug parties"(gatherings of chasers and carriers) and vampirism, which is regarded as a gift in a lot of vampire mythology, is similar to the term "gift givers", the term used to describe HIV+ people. It isn't a perfect comparison, but I thought it was interesting how closely science fiction could approach the real world.

Stanford Prison Experiment

Hey everyone. Just thought I would share a link with you all. Clicking the title of this post will take you to the official website of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. If you click through the slide show you will get the full explanation of what happened and a little introduction to why (known as "The Lucifer Effect"). We've discussed this in several of my psych classes, and that is probably the biggest reason I didn't see the captors in "The Pelican Bar" as aliens, but just people. Humans are capable of terrible things. Like Mama Strong said, "Humans do everything we did. Humans do more."

Pixar

So, as I was talking to Mark and Adam the other day, I noticed my supercool Cars band aide. And then it dawned on me. Cars is scifi. So are Wall-E, Monster's Inc, and UP (well, Doug is, at least). I always think of children's movies as being full of fantastical make-believe, like The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast, and these Pixar movies are no different. For some reason, it really surprised me that these Pixar movies are science fiction. I think this is because they're fun, zany, and completely improbable. This goes against the stereotypical motif of struggle and hardship. When I picture science fiction, as a whole, it seems like something that would come in dark colors, greys and blacks and browns, not in the flamboyantly bright primary colors of Pixar animation.

My only question is: what about Toy Story? Science Fiction or Fantasy?
(BTW title is a link to the original trailer.)

Sonnet 116

In class we mentioned the dual nature of the title to describe the situation in Spar. The obvious combative meaning of the word comes to mind throughout the story as these two are in a non-stop confrontation with one another, like a game of tug-of-war with no end in sight. Then, there is the statement on page 141 about the two of them being shipwrecked strangers clinging to the same spar. Further down on that page, the narrator recites a few lines of a poem. I remembered this poem from another class, and I assumed there had to be some reason for her use of this particular sonnet. This Shakespearean sonnet is another allusion to a ship lost at sea, and if she is metaphorically clinging to that spar, the only hope for survival is love, or in a less literal sense from the poem, a connection. The title is a link to the entire sonnet and a note explaining what a bark is.

Speaking of the Dead

We were talking about zombies in class today and how they exist mostly in movies. That reminded me of a preview I saw for a television show that is about to come out on AMC titled "The Walking Dead". Some of you may have already seen this trailer, but for those of you who have not, please enjoy.

Also, we were talking about how zombie movies these days are mostly a parody, not really intended to be creepy. However, I found this trailer to be a throw back to the olden days and over all pretty chilling. Let me know what you think.