stuff and nonsense

[kindkit]

Today I gave myself an apocalypse buzzcut. It was . . . sort of accidental? In that I didn't mean to cut the front of my hair quite that close, but by the time I realized, it was too late to do anything but buzz it even shorter.

It reveals rather mercilessly how much my hair is graying, and how much it's thinning as well. (Thanks, testosterone! Though I suppose a balding trans guy is a lot less likely to get called "ma'am," so, well, thanks, testosterone.) I like how the texture feels, though--suede!

While I was clipping away I took a bunch of pictures of the back of my head, so that I could see what the hell was going on back there. And one of them turned out, by chance, kind of cool.






I am not, by the way, nearly as bald as that picture makes me look. The lighting was less than ideal.

Anyway, I had planned to take the polish off of my nails today, because I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday about my HRT. But fuck it, I might as well keep it. Though I will have to remove it anyway, and re-do, because it's badly chipped.

In other news, I've somewhat regained my ability to read books, so I'm slowly working my way through An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon. It's tough going--the story is engaging, but the content is painful. The main character, Aster, is a biomedical genius on board a generation ship. She's also an enslaved person, subjected to exhausting forced labor, terrible living conditions, and brutality (including sexual assault) from the guards. I'm only about halfway through, so there's a lot I still don't know, including how the ship got this way (or whether it was always this way). I have a feeling that both the backstory and the plot resolution are going to hurt.

When An Unkindness of Ghosts gets to be too much, which is often, I'm re-reading Jane Austen. Mansfield Park at the moment, which is my least favorite Austen, but I keep thinking I should give it more of a chance. But . . . eh. It's not just that it feels prematurely Victorian, but that the whole book focuses on morality about the wrong things. Oh no, look at all this sexual immorality that our pure heroine is untempted by! Look at the (*gasp*) amateur theatricals! Meanwhile, everyone's entire fucking life is built on the income from a Caribbean plantation, or in other words on the income from the forced labor of enslaved people. (Come to think of it, this particular book may not be such a contrast with An Unkindness of Ghosts after all.)

Apart from reading I'm still heavily into everything Rusty Quill. I'm enjoying the leisurely unfolding of the flight to Svalbard on Rusty Quill Gaming, and I've watched at least part of a whole bunch of Twitch streams.

I'd still like to play Ensemble if anyone's interested, though my brief glance at the rules suggests that the mechanics are weirdly un-remote-friendly. (I know they started designing it long ago, but I'd have though they could suggest how to modify it for remote play, at least.)

Comments

[sovay]

And one of them turned out, by chance, kind of cool.

That's absolutely great. You look like a portrait by Nan Goldin.

[vilakins]

Coolness! But no blue or purple, or did it get shaved off? I had the back of my head shaved a few years ago and loved running my hands over the seductive suediness.

Mansfield Park is my least favourite Austen too. Fanny irritated the hell out of me; basically exactly what you said. I doubt she expresses Austen's views with all the balls in her books, but if there was a point to her, I missed it.

[kindkit]

Cooooooooool.

[kindkit]

The purple, which was supposed to last 4-6 weeks, lasted for 2 washes. I might try it again when my hair has grown out a bit. I guess I should dye my hair while I still have enough hair left to bother with!

There's not much wit or joy in either Fanny or Mansfield Park. I think I read somewhere once that Jane Austen was going through an Evangelical Christian phase when she wrote it.

[sovay]

I think I read somewhere once that Jane Austen was going through an Evangelical Christian phase when she wrote it.

I will nonetheless always be fond of it because a friend of mine in college wrote a parody chapter entitled "Mansfield Jurassic Park" in which the Crawfords are eaten by a pair of velociraptors who assume their identities and except for the fact that the new Crawfords go on eating other characters, this makes no difference whatsoever to the plot.

[vilakins]

What a pity the colour didn't last! I was thinking of trying some chalk streaks in my hair; I don't mind if they wash out while I'm experimenting.

Oh, really? I never heard that; it would certainly explain it. I have no idea why those people think fun and humour are so wrong, yet intolerance and bigotry are just fine. I'm glad that phase didn't last.

[lilacsigil]

That is an excellently framed photo, and I'm sure the very short hair is going to feel great in hot weather regardless of your original intent!

[mllesatine]

I loved "An Unkindness of Ghosts".

That's quite the gun show in your picture. :P

[rydra_wong]

That's an AMAZING photo.

[torachan]

That's a great pic!

But yeah, I've been on T for about ten years now and there is a noticeable difference in the volume of my hair. D: I've always had thin hair as in the actual strands, but I had a lot of it and it could be very bushy. Now it's thin strands and thin volume. ;_;

[oursin]

I've seen an essay - possibly more than one - that addresses Austen's engagement with anti-slavery themes in Mansfield Park through the use of names and allusions that would have been resonant to contemporary readers (e.g. the Mansfield judgement of 1772, Norris, a slave-trader who wrote an account of the Guinea Coast, and I think Fanny reads Cowper) but don't have the same subtext for modern readers.

[lilliburlero]

Love the haircut!

I've taught Mansfield Park a few times, and I've come to the conclusion that one of the problems with it is that it never quite accounts for where Fanny's almost superhuman moral courage comes from: what in her miserable upbringing has given her the self-esteem necessary to see through and reject Henry Crawford, and to stand up to Sir Thomas? I think we are supposed to conclude that it's Edmund, but Edmund is ghastly, nothing to be done there. I once commented in a tutorial that he was a terrible prig, and a student vociferously agreed "yeah, a total prick". (Serves me and my antique vocabulary right.) I have a bit of a blind spot for Austen heroes, though - I don't quite get it even with the ones almost universally agreed to be attractive - Darcy, Wentworth.

The implied opposition to the theatricals (I think) is less about the morality of the activity itself, than the fact that almost everyone involved is using them for an ulterior (and often rather tawdry) motive, and deceiving themselves that it's all Good Clean Fun? And the horror of Maria's adultery is how banal it is, how automatically society goes to work to clean up, ostracise and continue on its way. Self-deception (up to, and including the source of the Bertram wealth, of course) seems to be the master note of the whole thing, but having uncovered just how pervasive and profound it is, Austen seems to have shocked herself a bit, and hurriedly pushes the carpet back over with the most unsatisfactory romantic denouements ever.

[tree_and_leaf]

The point of Fanny is that she is dependent, exploited, and trying to maintain her integrity despite having been brought up to be meek and cowed.

[tree_and_leaf]

I liked this take on it - https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/07/10/in-defense-of-fanny-price/ - but I think I agree with you about the problem being that Fanny's moral courage doesn't seem to have obvious roots. Though possibly Austen was trying to suggest that because she's been marginalised, she's developed a keen sense of character. And I suppose she's clinging desperately on to the one bit of agency she has, i.e. being able to say 'no' to an unwelcome proposal.

[tree_and_leaf]

Austen seems to have taken her faith seriously throughout her life (though there is not much evidence she was ever of the Evangelical party), and it didn't stop her being exceptionally sarcastic.

[executrix]

It's sort of like "The Music Man": "Not a wholesome trottin' race, but where they sit down RIGHT ON THE HORSE." Nobody minds Henry Crawford's excellent Shakespeare readings (although the fact that he does good cold readings suggests that he is in fact an actor in everyday life). The problem is that "Lover's Vows" was sort of the Georgian version of "50 Shades of Grey," that shockingly allows a happy ending for a woman who had an illegitimate child.

However, as noted above, illicit flirtation is going on--and it would have gone on even if they were putting on a Christmas pageant.

I think a later novel, Trollope's "The Small House at Allington" sheds some light on Fanny. Lily Dale REALLY wants to sleep with Adolphus Crosbie, and REALLY DOES NOT WANT to sleep with Johnny Eames, even though Johnny is a socially eligible match and wants to marry her. Even though Henry Crawford would be a good catch for the penniless Fanny, she wants Edmund, and as far as she's concerned, that's that.

[kindkit]

That is genius. And really, the Crawfords kind of already are velociraptors roaming loose among the sheep.

[kindkit]

I've seen mention of that in the annotations of my edition of Mansfield Park. It seems like a reach, to me--coded messages just don't seem very Austen-like.

I wish I still had my copy of Orientalism so I could re-read what Said had to say. Though I'm sure modern scholars have taken the analysis much further.

[kindkit]

I'm finding that it helps my sympathy for Fanny if I think of her as profoundly traumatized, which is a very reasonable interpretation. But it does leave open the question of how, then, she manages to show such a degree of moral rigidity independence.

[kindkit]

It is nice. I'm a little worried about the top of my head getting sunburnt, though!

[kindkit]

*grins*

I've finished An Unkindness of Ghosts now, and I'm very impressed by it. It could have used a bit more editing, in my view (the plot's kind of baggy, and there's an irritating number of misspellings), but it's an amazing story.

[kindkit]

Aw, thanks.

[kindkit]

*nods*

My hair type is similar to yours, from the sounds of it (very fine strands, but lots of them), but it started thinning once I hit about 45 and my estrogen production dropped off (a very welcome development in every other way). Both my mother's brothers were quite bald, and I think that's going to be my fate. It's annoying, because my biological father had a full head of hair all his life!

[kindkit]

Edmund is both a prig and a prick.

My feelings about Austen's heroes are all over the map. I like Darcy, and I mostly like Knightly, but I'm indifferent to Wentworth, Edmund Ferrars, and what's-his-name from Northern Abbey, and I can't stand Edmund. My favorite is probably Colonel Brandon, although he's not technically a hero I guess. His falling in love with a girl half his age is a leeeeeeetle creepy, but he's gentle and kind and his behavior otherwise towards her is not creepy.

You've given me some good things to think about as I plod through the re-read. It makes me wonder (I'm not sure about the timeline of her writing, and too lazy to look it up right now) whether she was feeling her way towards an entirely different kind of novel, one not dependent on the marriage plot, but didn't live long enough to get there. What remains of Sanditon certainly feels very unlike everything else she wrote, larger in scope, less focused, more worldly and satirical rather than ironic.

[kindkit]

Well, the heart wants what it wants, I suppose. Even if it inexplicably wants Edmund Bertram.

[mllesatine]

*g*

[oursin]

It's such ages since I last read Mansfield Park - I'm pretty sure the edition didn't even mention this aspect.

[lilliburlero]

I don't think that works as a chronological development - Emma post-dates it - but I do think Mansfield Park might have been an conscious experiment in writing against type: Mary Crawford as a typical Austen heroine, but morally ambiguous; a marriage plot in which the heroine's triumph is the rejection of a proposal, not the acceptance of one; a more panoramic view of society altogether. I think the opening page is one of the most amazingly economical pieces of writing about class and social mobility, and the importance of women's marriage decisions to those things, that I've ever read.