Five Faves: Rums (Guest Post by Noah Mueller) #MonthofJoy
I want to take a moment to talk about rum. Rum is a distilled spirit that is frequently associated with the Caribbean because a major ingredient is sugar or molasses and the Caribbean has long been known for its sugar plantations. As a result, rum became the drink of choice for many of its residents. Generally speaking, there are three types of rums: light, dark and spiced. Dark rums are dark because they have been aged or because manufacturers have added coloring. I discourage buying young rums with added color because they’re masquerading as being older than they are. If you want a young rum, buy a light rum. Spiced rums frequently are darker than light rums, but this is because of a variety of spices that have been added during the manufacturing process. My favorite type of rum is the aged variety. Like Scotch, well-aged rums have a different flavor profile than younger varieties, and good aged rum can be enjoyed neat. I’ve been told that the older a Scotch is, the better it is. I’m not a Scotch drinker, so I cannot verify this, but I can say with certainty that this is not true for rum. In my opinion, the aging process for rum follows a bell curve with the best rums being aged somewhere between 12 and 16 years. Some rum manufactures will blend rums of different ages, and this is acceptable to me as long the “average” falls somewhere in this range. Now for my top 5 favorite rums.
My OASIS 29 Con Schedule: Come See My Shenanigans!
I’m a guest at OASIS again! And let me tell you, I am super excited. Last year, I had the great pleasure of meeting A. Lee Martinez, who is both one of the nicest dudes that ever walked the Earth and also almost nearly as funny as me (not quite, but he gets like 9 points for being pretty cool :P; I don’t know what these points are on about). OASIS is one of my local conventions, located in sunny Orlando. I’ll be there for the full run of the convention — May 19th to May 21st. This year, the Guest of Honor at OASIS is urban fantasy master Faith Hunter, author of the Rogue Mage series and the Jane Yellowrock series, among others. She has something like 9 million books published under one of her 9 identities (OK, so she’s published around 32 books under three names, but 9 million is pretty close…). It should be a lot of fun to chat with her on panels in a couple weeks! And what am I up to? Boy howdy am I in for a busy weekend. This is my schedule:
Space Opera, the Course: Seeking Your Input!
Last month, I asked the following on Twitter (and Facebook): The idea behind this came from a conversation with the lovely Nina Niskanen. She suggested that I might teach a course on space opera for a more general audience using an online service . Her own interest came from the perspective of a writer who wanted to write space opera but didn’t know enough about it. I thought that sounded like a great idea. Alas, I didn’t have the time back then to really begin putting anything in motion. Teaching full time, working on a dissertation, attending conferences, applying for jobs, etc. But I’m about to graduate with a PhD in English (focused on science fiction). That means not only will I have a hell of a good credential for this sort of thing (aside from my existing work as a podcaster, etc.), but I’ll also have quite a lot of time over this summer! And so here I am asking for your input. Since a lot of people who expressed interest in this are not academics or traditional students, it’s important to me to figure out how best to approach the structure, focus, and presentation of this course. Below, I’ve broken things down into some general categories with occasional ideas about what I’d like to do. Mostly, this post is a series of questions for your consideration. If you’re interested in any of this, please leave a comment or send an email with the subject “Space Opera Course” to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com. Getting this feedback will ultimately help me create a better product for people! If you know someone who might be interested, point them in my direction. General:
Dear Carrie Fisher: Thank You For Everything
Dear Carrie Fisher, This isn’t an easy letter / post to write. When I learned that you had left us for whatever is after this life, I broke down into tears and sobs. Losing you felt so personal, even though we had never met. In a way, losing you is personal. I first saw Star Wars when I was a little kid. My parents gave me a set of the original trilogy on VHS, which I watched over and over and over. When I had to stay home from school because of severe asthma attacks, I watched Star Wars. When I needed a friend or an escape from the world, I watched Star Wars. So, in a very real way, you were big part of my life. You were one of my heroes. I learned so many things from you. When you stood up to Darth Vader, led the Rebel Alliance against the Empire, and stood your ground on Endor, I learned about the power of sacrifice and the value of standing up for what you believe in. Your strength and resilience in adverse conditions reminded me that heroes can be more than fists and guns. They are leaders with strong values — a commitment to justice, honor, friendship, and even love. When you met the Ewoks, you didn’t just stand up for the seemingly powerless, you lifted them up. You loved them. You valued them as people. And you loved your friends and respected their decisions. You were in so many ways a role model on film — one of the first feminist heroes of my childhood. I will always be a fan of Star Wars, and Leia will be one of my heroes until the day I leave this world.
The Science Fiction Canon: Function, Limits, and Problems
@renay How do we create an inclusive sf canon that also recognizes the impact publishers had on which works we influential? — Grand Moff Duke🐍🚀 (@shaunduke) December 21, 2016 I have spent a lot of my time in graduate school thinking about how to talk about literary canons and ways to disrupt them. The literature classes I teach always include works that have otherwise been excluded from the Western Canon in a deliberate attempt to draw into question how canons are formed and the limited scope they present to us as readers. It’s a tightrope game. On the one hand, survey courses have to teach students about crucial works of literature in an effort to provide some kind useful and repeatable literary knowledge base. On the other hand, simply repeating the canon is sort of like reading the headlines in a newspaper without ever looking at the article itself; sure, you’ll have a firm understanding of a literary tradition, but you’re missing out on a wide range of compelling material that could make for an even deeper reading of a field. In the realm of science fiction, that can be a bit tricky. Because science fiction is already a small bubble of a much larger literary world, text selections are often arbitrary or based on vague notions of what appears to be the “common core” of the field (we’ll come back to this in a bit). Worse, science fiction “people” too often assume they know what the canon “is” and push that perspective on others as if it has weight — which it does due to the power of cultural suggestion. I’ve heard too many stories of someone in the science fiction community telling someone else that they have to read X and Y if they want to be considered “educated” about the field; ironically, you’ll hear the same ten names repeated in these claims, suggesting such individuals have a less comprehensive knowledge of the field than they assume. There are two false assumptions in these claims: That they speak using the authority of an existing literary canon. That the purpose of a canon is to provide a reading list one must consume to be considered “knowledgeable” about a field. I’ll return to the first of these later. The second assumption is remarkably easy to debunk. Let’s use Western Canon as an example.
The “True Fan” Argument of Stupidness (or, Could We Stop This Nonsense Now?)
As a giant Star Wars fan, it is inevitable that I’ll come into contact with people claiming to know what a “true fan” looks like. In the last year, that argument has become more prominent than ever. In the wake of The Force Awakens, hundreds of people flocked to the Star Wars franchise to declare themselves fans. And old school Star Wars fandom wasn’t happy. Those new folks didn’t understand Star Wars. They didn’t really love it; they were just in it for the exciting new ride. They were just half-assed fake fans. None of this is particularly new to the fan world. People have been calling other people out for being fake fans longer than I’ve been alive. But as an argument, the “true fan” reasoning is, at best, bullshit. There are a couple reasons for this: