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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Review: Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition


Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition
Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition by Ben Schott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book is brilliant. Each entry has 5 parts: an article about the word, the word itself, the transliteration, the English definition, the literal definition. Let me tell you, often times the literal definition is simply poetry. Is there a German word for "the completed feeling of an entire story from a short phrase"?

Many entries in here fall into "why is there not a word for that in English" or "holy crap, there's a word for that specific concept?!" But sprinkled throughout are words that are touching and bittersweet.

Erlösungsfreudeschuldbewusstsein
Guilt at the relief of a loved one’s death.
deliverance-joy-shame

Some words in here are profound, you know that if they are used then there is a much longer story behind the situation.
Schubladenbrief
The letter you write, but never send.
(desk-)drawer-letter

And some are short poems. Japanese has the succinct structure of 5/7/5 for their haiku. I believe that Germans have truncated the art of confined poetry to a single word.
Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen
Kicking through piles of autumn leaves.
autumn-foliage-strike-fun

Some words are so specific it seems silly that they exist at all.
Geheimgangsverlockung
The conviction that all old, large houses must contain secret passages.
secret-corridor-seduction

Some make you wonder why we don't have a word or phrase for it in English yet.
Leertretung
Stepping down heavily on a stair that isn’t there.
void-stepping


Where should one catalog this book? Poetry, linguistics, reference? It's so damn good perhaps one copy belongs in each section. And I'll leave you with one last word that you will need while reading.

Zeuxisgelächter
Laughter so prolonged and intense it causes physical pain.
zeuxis-laughter



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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Warehouse 13: In My Wheelhouse (13)

Today’s post is brought to you by the husband/wife team that is Adam and Allison.

Also, spoilers abound.
I’m going to talk about Warehouse 13. I really like Warehouse 13. It is an amazing bit of television. It’s amazing that it started as a science fiction show, utterly failed, and carried on to become a great fantasy show. I could talk about how it’s one of the few shows with a steampunk ethos. I could just gush about the characters. But I’m going to focus on something that’s actually amazing.
Warehouse 13 is one of the most queer friendly and feminist shows I have ever seen.
Recently we watched episode 4×17. In it, the main crew of the warehouse have to take physicals for work. We find out that Pete and Myka both have something. In Pete’s case. it’s low testosterone, while for Myka it’s ovarian cancer. These are both very gender-centric conditions but are handled in unexpected ways. For Pete, there’s a running gag of him trying to prove his manliness but the episode culminates in a situation where, in order to escape the effects of an artifact, he has to be completely honest and open. By breaking down and crying he takes control of the situation and proves that he can “man up”. It’s an interesting juxtaposition. Myka’s cancer is an interesting choice not because of what happens in this episode but because of her already established character . While she is incredibly fond of her niece, it is clear that Myka has no immediate plans for kids of her own. Giving her a disease that will most likely effect her fertility is an interesting choice. Her not being a mother now or in the future is never even mentioned. So for taking the two leads and giving Pete a condition that screams “man” and Myka one that says “woman” it was different to see the direction that the show took.

But then my wife and I realized that it wasn’t really different for Warehouse 13. During an episode where an artifact is found that grants wishes (4×5), Myka ends up pregnant. Stereotypical? No. Myka spends the whole episode freaking out, not wanting to be pregnant, and wanting her body back to its proper shape. Pete is the one who wished her pregnant. Because he wants to be with her romantically? No. Despite the male/female odd-couple partnership, they are more like siblings than anything else. It comes out that Pete just wished for that because he wants a kid. He’s the one with the ticking biological clock. And he doesn’t want to be romantically entangled with Myka. If he did he would have just wished for that and gotten a kid the regular way. No, he realizes how lonely it is to work for a secret agency and knows that Myka is indeed his partner and one of the only people he can be honest with. Who better to share your life with? The ironic gender treatment has been a constant theme to the show. There’s the standard bodyswap episode (2×8) that’s not so standard. Pete (in Myka’s body) attends Myka’s class reunion and ends up being very popular with her old crush because “Myka” seems to just fit in as one of the guys. Instead of it turning into an embarrassing situation it becomes one of frustration. At the end Myka has to essentially ask for a reset and earn a second date now that she’s herself again.
And it goes beyond just gender subversion. There are two queer characters: Steve Jinks, who is gay, and H.G. Wells, who is a bisexual woman who had to present as a man in her professional life. Sorry, let’s take a moment to unpack these characters. I’ll start with H.G. In her own time she presented as a man to be taken seriously as a writer. In reality she let her brother front for her in public. Her introduction to the show is that she’s an ex-agent for the Warehouse, a genius, and went mad over the loss of her daughter which propelled her into villainy. Already she has more depth than just an oppressed working woman or wronged mother. There’s the added bonus that she never identifies as a wife. Even when she’s identified as “mother” it’s relative to a character who’s not present, and it’s not necessarily for the better. She is always her own character and even motherhood turns her into a wolf rather than a lamb. As the show progresses she is rehabilitated and comes back as an agent. Her new emotional anchor? It’s Myka. Yes, H.G. Wells and straight-identified Myka develop a purely unaffected relationship. They have incredibly chemistry together both from their performances and through the scripts. While they never become explicitly romantic there are clear looks and conversations that show they both know that they have a connection. It’s not a clear-cut relationship but it is a strong and sincere one.
And then there’s Steve Jinks. How is he written? Perfectly. How do we know he’s gay? for the most part because he comes out to Claudia when she thinks that there might be something romantic between them. Yes, there’s another trope defused. They take the two young and photogenic characters, put them on a mission together and let the sparks fly… and fizzle. Claudia and Jinks end up with their own sibling relationship after that awkward start but it’s just another time that the show doesn’t go where the standard path would. It lets the characters grow rather than fit into a mold. So how often does Jinks’ homosexuality actually come up? Just about as often as any other character’s heterosexuality does. The gay jokes are few and far between, and we really only see it when it’s relevant. Jinks has an ex that he’s forced to work with in the field at one point. The ex is a guy. That’s really the end of it. If there’s ever an awkward moment that happens because he’s gay the only people to be made uncomfortable by it are characters. It’s never used to make the audience squirm.
And that’s the show in essence. It’s irony at its most functional, taking the set up for old tropes and standard outlines, then twisting them against expectation in service of character development. Every character on this show is nurtured, tested, and grown. The result is an organic cast that can propel the program though what would be a weak episode for any other show with deftness.  It’s that organic factor that makes it, too. Instead of these roles and orientations being used to make a point they’re used to make people.
All of this? This is just one reason why this show is great.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Somewhere along the Continuum

A while back I wrote a post on my own site about how time travel works (and doesn’t) in fiction. It’s full of all sorts of breakdowns and spoilers so read through with caution. ButI bring it up because I love time travel. I come from a physics background and while I know that the restrictions on real world time travel are severe compared to fictional methods, I absolutely adore the thought experiments one can run through with it. I love watching and reading stories about it, extrapolating the physics of their version of time travel, of picking apart the bits where they missed an opportunity or overlooked a limitation. I love that time travel stories at their best are both hard science fiction (inherent in their acknowledgment of physical laws) and great at character studies (what can be more introspective than meditations on accepting power and reshaping the world by one’s own desire and hand?). And there’s a good time travel show on television right now.

That show is Continuum.
It’s not perfect. There are some pacing issues and the tonal shift between seasons one and two is a sharp one to say the least. But it is interesting and it’s utilizing the time travel tool very well. In the future there was a large economic collapse and this time around the corporations of the world bailed out their governments. They have since (legally) taken power of Canada where the show takes place. There is a terrorist organization called Liber8 (liberate) whose aim is to overthrow the corporations and reinstate a more democratic rule. The twist is that they use terrorist tactics (they take down a skyscraper in the pilot) while the corporations stay within orderly legal means of obtaining their goals. Right there it’s a nice set up because there’s at least something on both sides that will resonate as well as put off most people. The story follows Kiera Cameron. She’s a police officer for her government/corporation SadTech. She is part of the task force that ends up taking down most of the Liber8 members and is there at their execution. Something goes wrong (or right) and instead of being executed, Liber8 jumps back in time, accidentally taking the nearby Kiera with them. She ends up in present day Canada and, due to her cybernetic implants, makes contact with a fledgling engineer who will (possibly) grow up to found SadTech.
The setup sounds like it’s aimed at reinstating the existing future with both a SadTech employee and the founder of the company working together against Liber8. One of the beautiful things about this show is that nothing stays that simple with either plot or the time travel conceit. The founder of SadTech is not yet the man he’s supposed to become and is prematurely being confronted with consequences that, as a young man, he could never foresee. Kiera is torn between wanting to return home by way of maintaining the status quo but is also a protector. With new and advanced terrorists in our present, she also feels compelled to protect people.
This show is not afraid to have people change their minds while maintaining motives. This becomes incredibly obvious by the second season. Only a few episodes into season two and you’ll see people that have changed sides, groups that have ideological schisms and people who think they are fighting the same fight they started but now using tactics they would have eschewed before. The people in this show change and sometimes they don’t even know it. While the first season seems more like plotting to make statements the real dynamics are under the surface. It becomes clear that nearly everyone is actually fighting to win over opinions both of the public and of key individuals. It’s dark and complex and a bit cynical on every side.
And then there’s the time travel. It’s used well. There’s a twist in the finale of season one that, while I caught the events, I missed the implications of. I had been so busy focusing on the plot that I didn’t realize a large piece of what had been a mystery was revealed, and only caught it while watching through a second time. What’s really spectacular is that when certain aspects of time travel come to light it doesn’t just show how their world works. It also shows how some of the characters work.
If Person of Interest is a speculative fiction of near future thought experiment in government and individual rights then Continuum is the science fiction long term version of the same concept. It’s about to finish off the second season in one more episode if you’re following the first run Canadian broadcasting. It’s currently doing a staggered broadcast on Syfy but I have no idea where that is. If you have Netflix, I believe season one is waiting there. However you want to track it down, this show is worth getting into.