{"id":11860,"date":"2016-08-06T14:14:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T18:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860"},"modified":"2016-08-15T22:46:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T02:46:12","slug":"july-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860","title":{"rendered":"July 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/27994288486_7e9949b968_k.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/27994288486_7e9949b968_k-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"27994288486_7e9949b968_k\" width=\"576\" height=\"768\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-11863\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/27994288486_7e9949b968_k-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/27994288486_7e9949b968_k-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/27994288486_7e9949b968_k.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what happened to July, but I have it on reasonably good authority that it&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n<p>I went to Readercon (for the second time) last month, and while I had a really nice time and attended some great panels and readings &#8212; and bumped into some really nice people &#8212; I think I was a little out-of-sorts for a lot of the time, maybe a little under the weather, and I was definitely a less active participant than I would have liked to have been. This month, in just a couple of weeks actually, I head out to Worldcon (for the first time), and I&#8217;m committed to being friendly and more actively involved.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t always do <i>well<\/i> with that, but that&#8217;s the plan. There should be lots to see there, if nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of nothing else, that&#8217;s pretty much the rest of what happened last month. There was good and there was bad, but mostly it just went by ridiculously quick.<\/p>\n<p>But I read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860#stories\">thirty-six short stories<\/a> (and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860#books\"><s>one<\/s> two books<\/a>) and saw <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860#movies\">ten movies<\/a>, so there was that at least. Also just a tiny little bit of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860#music\">music<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"stories\"><strong>The stories<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> &#8220;The Last Sailing of the Henry Charles Morgan in Six Pieces of Scrimshaw (1841)&#8221; by A.C. Wise (<a href=\"http:\/\/thedarkmagazine.com\/last-sailing-henry-charles-morgan-six-pieces-scrimshaw-1841\/\">The Dark<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Magnifica Angelica Superable&#8221; by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/magnifica-angelica-superable\/\">Lightspeed<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Blameless&#8221; by Jeffrey Ford (<i>A Natural History of Hell<\/i>)<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery&#8221; by Cat Valente (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com\/stories\/the-limitless-perspective-of-master-peek-or-the-luminescence-of-debauchery\/\">Beneath Ceaseless Skies<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Jonas and the Fox&#8221; by Rich Larson (<a href=\"http:\/\/clarkesworldmagazine.com\/larson_05_16\/\">Clarkesworld<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Mountains His Crown&#8221; by Sarah Pinsker (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com\/audio\/bcs-171-the-mountains-his-crown\/\">Beneath Ceaseless Skies<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Sabbath Wine&#8221; by Barbara Krasnoff (<a href=\"http:\/\/mythicdelirium.com\/about-the-clockwork-phoenix-anthologies\">Clockwork Phoenix 5<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Two Bright Venuses&#8221; by Alex Dally MacFarlane (<a href=\"http:\/\/mythicdelirium.com\/about-the-clockwork-phoenix-anthologies\">Clockwork Phoenix 5<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Binti&#8221; by Nnedi Okorafor (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tor.com\/2015\/08\/17\/excerpts-binti-nnedi-okorafor\/\">Tor.com<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Pathways&#8221; by Nancy Kress (<a href=\"http:\/\/clarkesworldmagazine.com\/kress_06_16_reprint\/\">Clarkesworld<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Something Borrowed, Something Blue&#8221; by Gwendolyn Kiste (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.3lobedmag.com\/issue27\/3lbe27_story6.html\">Three-Lobe Burning Eye<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a name=\"books\"><strong>The books<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>ETA<\/strong>: I actually read two books, and I really liked the second of them&#8230;but for some reason forgot to mention it. That book was <i>A Head Full of Ghosts<\/i> by Paul Tremblay. My review over at Goodreads:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/23019294-a-head-full-of-ghosts\" style=\"float: left; padding-right: 20px\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" alt=\"A Head Full of Ghosts\" src=\"https:\/\/d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net\/books\/1415678368m\/23019294.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/23019294-a-head-full-of-ghosts\">A Head Full of Ghosts<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/648612.Paul_Tremblay\">Paul Tremblay<\/a><br \/>\nMy rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/1368644504\">4 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I really enjoyed this. One of Tremblay&#8217;s smartest moves is his choice of narrator, the (mostly) (unintentionally) unreliable Merry. I don&#8217;t think the book would have been half as effective if not seen through her not-always-comprehending eyes. The book is maybe a little too long, and there are some small parts of the plot that seem questionable, but it&#8217;s a serious look at the horror genre, and specifically exorcism, and where evil actually comes into play. In some ways, it&#8217;s a horror novel that made me feel a little guilty about enjoying horror novels.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/108408-fred\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n<p><s>I finished one book, which<\/s> The first book I read for a monthly meetup group. And&#8230;well, I didn&#8217;t much like it. As I wrote in my Goodreads review:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/25533076-hex\" style=\"float: left; padding-right: 20px\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Hex\" src=\"https:\/\/d.gr-assets.com\/books\/1431542969m\/25533076.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/25533076-hex\">Hex<\/a> by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/author\/show\/1864374.Thomas_Olde_Heuvelt\">Thomas Olde Heuvelt<\/a><br \/>\nMy rating: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/show\/1699334504\">2 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m being generous here. It&#8217;s an interesting set-up, and one that almost works for a while, but I was actively not enjoying the book by the end. This never felt like a real place, with real people, and maybe some of that&#8217;s an artifact of the translation and moving the story to America, but it kept me at a real distance. There are plenty of disturbing ideas here, but there&#8217;s a big difference between that and haunting images, much less ones that are tied to genuine human emotion. The book creeped me out plenty, but it never scared me, despite near-constantly telling me how unbelievably scared the townspeople supposedly were. (The town might feel a mounting dread, but I rarely did as a reader.) The book has lots of upsetting images, but that&#8217;s all they are: upsetting. They don&#8217;t go any further than that. A witch with stitched-shut eyes is genuinely creepy, absolutely, but in the end she&#8217;s not used in service of an interesting story. I stumbled over a lot of the writing, thought it took way too long to tell what story it had, and by the last few chapters just didn&#8217;t care.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/review\/list\/108408-fred\">View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a name=\"movies\"><strong>The movies<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Real Life:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;Real Life&quot; was a little dated but still quite funny.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/749078091230744576\">July 2, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>House:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">House is like if Zardoz and Suspiria had a baby and dropped acid, like a lot, while it was in the womb.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/749421283482402816\">July 3, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Spotlight:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Spotlight is very good. It might not be as good if it wasn&#39;t about such an awful and important story, but it&#39;s very tight and well acted.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/749795759109861376\">July 4, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Lost in America:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I enjoyed Lost in America. I think I&#39;d only ever seen the Garry Marshall Las Vegas scene before.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/750047061433868289\">July 4, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Alfie:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Watching this, you can kind of see why Alfie made Michael Caine a star, and why nobody really talks about the movie much anymore.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/750906458582114304\">July 7, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Harmontown:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Watching Harmontown. I don&#39;t know if I would have liked it more or less if I&#39;d listened to the podcast, more or less if it was 2 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/754354968619061248\">July 16, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Midnight Cowboy:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Midnight Cowboy was very good, but it&#39;s not hard to see why, when it gets discussed, it&#39;s mostly about one or two specific scenes.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/754509500397346816\">July 17, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Everybody Wants Some:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Everybody Wants Some is a bunch of likable guys I don&#39;t really want to hang out with.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/757027457090347008\">July 24, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>Room:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I&#39;m not 100% sure about Room as a movie, but Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are both really great in it.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/757421456565428227\">July 25, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<li>The Hidden Fortress:<br \/>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Maybe not my favorite Kurosawa but The Hidden Fortress was very good. More than just the film that introduced George Lucas to the wipe edit!<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Fred Coppersmith (@unrealfred) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/unrealfred\/status\/759608115864211457\">July 31, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a name=\"music\"><strong>The music<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There wasn&#8217;t much, but for the sake of completeness:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/videoseries?list=PL62qRURJS1HDmj8oeDyhKxRLLAWopSDlA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know what happened to July, but I have it on reasonably good authority that it&#8217;s over. I went to Readercon (for the second time) last month, and while I had a really nice time and attended some great panels and readings &#8212; and bumped into some really nice people &#8212; I think I &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=11860\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,8,14,15,28,222],"class_list":["post-11860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-monthly-mix","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-personal","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11860"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11878,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11860\/revisions\/11878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}