I have just finished up a week of EPIC GEEKINESS.
There are some who would maintain that my entire life is one of epic geekiness, beginning with the fact that four of the six cats I've owned over the years have been named after characters from fantasy novels. If that weren't enough, I pepper my speech with references to Star Trek and Doctor Who, I'm a medieval textile historian thanks largely to my career in the Society for Creative Anachronism, and I recently set up a pull list at my local comic book shop. That doesn't even touch the books on the shelves, the movies next to my DVD player, or all the appearances at conventions, the fanzines I've edited and contributed to, the costumes I've made and worn....
All of the above is true, and more than true, and I have no problem with it. It may be inborn - my dad was one of the lucky, lucky people who visited the World of Tomorrow in New York in 1939, so I come by it honestly - or it may be cultural, but I've been a geek at least since the day I first picked up a copy of The Hobbit and found myself on the road to the Lonely Mountain. My poor mother sometimes wondered if this was a phase that I'd outgrow, but at this point? Probably not happening.
At the same time, the past week has been geeky to the point of epicness, even for me. Consider what I've done:
- March 28-30 (last Friday through Sunday) - as I mentioned last Saturday, I spent the weekend at Conbust 2014, the annual minicon at Smith College run by members of the science fiction club I co-founded back in 1979. I was a panelist all three days, saw several old friends, made some new ones, and basically had a blast. I know I've groused sometimes about how I never intended my legacy to Smith to be a group of SF enthusiasts who slaughter marshmallow peeps for fun, but seeing the girls at the con, realizing how much fun they have and what a great job they do at normalizing the geekiness that nearly got me thrown out of my dorm...you know, if that's the mark I've made on Smith, I have no problem with that.
- April 1 (Tuesday) - Shards of Time, Lynn Flewelling's newest Nightrunner novel, came out. This series, about a pair of spies/thieves/rogues in a fantasy world with matrilineal monarchies, centuries-old wizards, and a rich backstory, is one of my all-time favorites. Shards of Time, which involves a locked room mysteries, ancient ruins, and a danger that might cost one of the leads his life for the second time, is the last book in the series, and let's just say I devoured it and leave it at that, shall we?
- April 3-4 (Thursday-Friday) - despite all the geekiness that's shaped my life, there was one thing I'd never done until now: gone to an advance movie screening. I've been to midnight book release parties, including a Harry Potter party where the air conditioning at my local Barnes & Noble went on the fritz around 10:30, but I'd managed to avoid the early and/or midnight movie premieres for the Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Batman, the Avengers, and all the other genre films I've enjoyed so much over the past dozen or so years.
That streak ended two nights ago, when I finished up at work, drove down to West Springfield, and lined up outside the Heck Piazza Dodecaplex for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I've loved all the Marvel movies, but this one, based on Ed Brubaker's brilliant mid-2000's run on the comic book, has been on my radar ever since the title was announced two years ago...and between stunningly choreographed action, excellent performances, a generous dollop of tragedy, taut direction, and a script that not only hits all the right notes for a superhero film but aims straight at such evils of the modern security state as surveillance, drone strikes, the Bush Doctrine, and the sheer stupidity of Operation Paperclip back in the 1940's, all I can say is:
GO SEE IT
GO SEE IT NOW
IT IS MAGNIFICENT
I HAD TO TAKE FRIDAY OFF FROM WORK TO RECOVER
DO NOT JUDGE ME SEE IT FOR YOURSELF
I AM NOT JOKING GO SEE IT NOW
Ahem.
As I was saying before I reverted to being a fangirl, yes, really, I took the day off from work because I went to a movie premiere, and the first person who laughs gets smacked upside the head with a wet halibut that was not clubbed to death by Sarah Palin. I'm almost 54, and if I want to flail and make dolphin noises over a movie, by God I will.
Besides, my mother is no longer around to roll her eyes and wonder why I'm being silly, so I figure I might as well go for the gusto while I can.
As you can imagine, all of the above was as close to a perfect storm of geekiness I'm likely to experience, at least for the foreseeable future. Fortunately the third item on the list gave me the fodder for next week's diary (see below, and yes, I am doing it at last, this is not a joke or a drill, next week I am finally dissecting the lefty roots of America's most patriotic superhero, BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!), and even more fortunately I foresaw how tired I would be and deliberately mapped out my schedule so I could bring you the next quarter's worth of diaries instead of a diary that required actual thought.
So! Here's the lineup for late spring/early summer. This may be tweaked if circumstances dictate otherwise (see last June and July for the entire epic saga of The Back Spasm That Wasn't), but God willing and the crick don't rise, here's what you can look forward to over the next twelve weeks:
April 12 – Captain America: Socialist Scum!
April 19 – Manic Pixie Girl of My Dreams, You’re Annoying!
April 26 – The Poetry of Cheese
May 3 – guest blog by E.C. Ambrose
May 10 – Medievalism for the Masses
May 17 – Summer Cover Art Edition
May 24 – Lo! Wild Talents!
May 31 – A Maze of Twisty MFA Novels, All Alike
June 7 – Cabinets of Curiosities
June 14 – Modesty Blaise is Not a Blonde!
June 21- The Misogynistic Aardvark
June 28 – Today We Are Exploiting the Apocalypse!
It's going to be epic, True Believers, so mark your calendars and have fun!
(and oh yeah, the movie? SEE IT. Seriously).
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What are your summer plans, my friends? Are you planning anything epic? Semi-epic? Have you ever had a perfect storm of events and interests push you over the edge from "fan" to "raving drooling manic"? There's no shame in being a fan, so spill....
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