My Yuletide 2011 recs set is my largest yet, and I've decided this year to divide it by theme. First up, 'Bending', which encompasses serious & not-so-serious looks at beings with complex gender/species identities.

Also, because of the size of the set, my top ten picks are starred (***)

( 5 recs in Fairy tales, Galaxy Quest, Georgette Heyer, Hainish Cycle, The Matrix... )

And Espresso Recommendations passed 600 recs with these!

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Tags: heyer, milestone, misc film, myth, rarelit, rec, yuletide

My recent Fanlore meanderings have got me rereading some Buffyverse classics. Here's a few I haven't recommended before...

( 1 Angel, 3 Buffy under the cut... )

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Tags: angel, buffy, rec

I should have mentioned this earlier, but avanti_90 has written a really interesting Earthsea story for me for Help Japan. It's not something I've seen before, a set of thoughtful possible alternative futures for Tenar, which 'fix' the changes in UKLG's characterisation of her between Tombs & Tehanu. It's her first story in the universe; she usually writes Vorkosigan stories, and I can see the influence on a couple of the AUs.

Uneaten, by avanti_90
Four paths that Tenar did not take

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Tags: earthsea, rec

In the six weeks of amplificathon, I managed to record audiofics on all of 5 days... My excuse is that I decided Mr EA's Skype set was too noisy to use for anything longer than a ficlet, but it took me well over a month to get hold of a proper microphone. I still haven't worked out how to use it properly...

I've recorded a few more of my shorter Earthsea stories, and one Dalemark vignette. Plus, ellen_fremedon kindly gave me permission to mangle record the amazing story she gave me for Yuletide some years ago, The Veins of the Forest. The total haul is ( under the cut... )

I'm running out of short dialogue-light stories of my own that I can bear to reread, and could do with some incentive to keep trying now that the Amplificathon's over, so if you've got a suitable story that you'd like me to record, drop me a comment. I have no acting skills whatsoever, so I'm sticking to literary fandoms for now -- or original stories, I suppose?

*Using new microphone

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Tags: audiofic, crossover, diana wynne jones, earthsea

Signal boosting kalypso's post:

Owen Holland ... is a PhD student at Cambridge University. In November last year, he made a peaceful protest against a visit from the minister for universities and science, David Willetts, by reading out a poem, while fellow-protesters repeated lines from the poem. This caused the minister to abandon his speech.

His case was heard this week by the university's court of discipline. The university's own prosecutor proposed that he should be rusticated (suspended from the university) for one term; the court decided to make this seven terms, ie two and a half years, a very serious disruption of his academic career. His senior tutor and graduate tutor were not permitted to speak on his behalf.

See also this report in The Guardian.

There are two petitions against the severity of this sentence, one for current members of the university (requires Raven login) and another for everyone else (if you're a past member I'd suggest stating as much).

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Tags: liberty, petition

Is something up with LJ again? There's been a couple of posts lately with pictures under a cut where I've not been able to see the pictures (no frame, just a couple of blank lines with nothing highlightable). Has anyone else had this problem? I'm wondering if it might be a style incompatibility.
ETA: Fixed now. Seems to have been LJ scrapbook not being available.

Tags: blogging

John Adams' opera The Death of Klinghoffer -- one of the most beautiful bits of contemporary classical music, imo -- is having its (more than twenty years delayed) English debut next month with the ENO. The opera is an exploration of the hijacking by Palestinians of the Achille Lauro in 1985, which resulted in the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound American Jew. It's particularly known for its humanisation of the hijackers, which led to much wailing & gnashing of teeth in the US after early performances, and a dearth of subsequent performances.

There's an interesting interview with the librettist, Alice Goodman, in the Guardian, where she claims the critical outcry forced her to give up writing. The interviewer comments: The piece has become a cursed opera, repeatedly refused a home by companies scared of contamination by association.

It has only been staged once before in Britain, as far as I can tell, at the Edinburgh festival in 2005, but there's a shortened television version directed by Penny Woolcock available on DVD, which I've recommended before.

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Tags: music

Inspired by synecdochic who asks for nominations for the best albums of the past 30 years. Her guidelines require the album to form a cohesive whole, which excludes several that I'd otherwise have picked, and I also excluded pieces of music composed significantly earlier than the recording. ( Ten picks under the cut... )

Quite a large overlap with the last time I tried to compile a similar list, back in 2005. Interested in other people's lists, but (as might be obvious), I'm not knowledgeable about non-classical music.

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Tags: meme, music, steve reich

Dark is Rising

Watch for the Greenwitch, by Selden
'In the light from the bonfire the Greenwitch rose up, tall and ragged against the sky, like something from long ago. Not the fine past of the grail, of long spears and iron, thorny, intricate poetry and patterns. Not even the past, thought Jane, of neat sharp flints laid out on red velvet under museum lights, axes and arrowheads. Something older, like rough rock, the rings of yellow lichen spreading out through the years like ripples from a stone thrown into still water.' The luscious description really makes this unusual slow-building horror story, which spins off Greenwitch

Lord of the Rings

Back to the Beginning, by Adina
'He searched but could not find. For twice the lifespan of a man in these diminished days he searched for the one he had lost. Never had it taken so long; always before he had found his love within a hundred years.' This Fourth Age Legolas/Gimli story runs with a highly unusual premise to its poignant ending, and features an interesting version of the much older Elf. Well worth a read despite a scattering of typos

Shakespeare (Henry plays)

The Sky Above Us Shoots to Kill, by La Reine Noire
'My brothers were out on the claim and I was in Warwick's saloon when Black Meg and Clifford her mad dog took off Father's head with a Bowie knife in the middle of the street.' The Deadwood universe makes a wonderful alternate setting for Richard's malevolence

Vorkosigan series

Twenty-Year Man, by Ellen Fremedon
'He ran his gloved fingers under Ivan's collar, very slowly and lightly--Ivan shivered--and came up with a tiny slip of clear plastic, all that was left of a pharmaceutical patch. "Punch," By said. He slipped it into a sealed pouch and secreted it in a pocket. "Or to you and me--fast-penta."' This future novella starts out with a bit of a cliché, but matures into a complex & twisty plot resembling the political machinations thread of A Civil Campaign. Ivan takes centre stage, but there's a large cast including a well-drawn OC

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Tags: bujold, dark is rising, rarelit, rec, shakespeare, tolkien

A teensy selection of film recs for Yuletide 2010 (*not to mention 2009). (And yes, you did read that right. At my current rate of reading 2011, I should be finished sometime in 2013.)

Blade Runner

Keep Breathing, by Kittydesade
'...She liked the rain. It felt and smelled different here than it had on the colonies. You could chew the rain, it had a flavor, the whole city did.' Most of the tiny amount of fanfiction for this film focuses on Roy Batty, so this study of Zhora is a treat. The inevitable ending is beautifully written

Spirited Away

Along the Way, by Ariana
'In the end, you discovered that you had lost three days along the way, exchanged for a shiny purple hairband and the knowledge that moving to a new place was perhaps not the worst thing in the world.' A moving conclusion to Chihiro's story, with a lovely smooth style & a spot-on ending

Becoming, by Springgreen*
'But long before that, the river once was not, once was a swirl of gas slowly coalescing, then a molten core of lava, then earth and rock and veins of metal. Then came the rains and the run off from snow-capped mountains, and time, so much time, carved a course. That was the river.' This lyrical telling of the river-god's legend is stronger, perhaps, in the beginning than the end, but well worth a try

Tales of the Bathhouse, by Littlerhymes
'Like most of her kind, the weasel was very bold and very clever, and in a more prosperous year she would have been far too clever to even think of trying to steal from a sorceress. However in times of hunger, daring was in much greater demand than wit.' A charming set of tales within a tale which fleshes out the bathhouse universe & its inhabitants completely believably

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Tags: misc film, miyazaki, rec, yuletide