Sidetracks - February 8, 2018

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. For more links and commentary you can follow us on Twitter, Tumblr. You can also support us on Patreon.

Clare

1. This profile of Christopher Priest, whose turn of the millennium run on Black Panther heavily inspires the upcoming film, was fascinating.

2. I love archives, so I very much enjoyed this piece about James Hyman’s magazine archive.

3. This Reddit user’s grandmother was a hardcore gamer in the eighties; they shared her handdrawn map of Ganon’s Castle.

4. FX designer Andrew Glazebrook built a miniature 90s video store; the result is nostalgic and astonishing.

5. Pier Dominguez’s examination of Bruno Mars’ unique, broad appeal and why his sweep at the Grammys upset people was a great read.

6. I initially clicked out of Jenna Wortham’s article on RuPaul and Drag Race, but I’m glad I went back to it, because it both uplifts the show while talking seriously and complexly about gender. I was especially appreciative of how RuPaul talks about the complexity of people with masculine privilege using femininity—how it’s both radical and can be a privileged act—and how Wortham discusses the impossibility of a drag king version of the show, because puncturing masculinity would be too radical to put on television.

7. I’ve been thinking a lot about YouTube as an algorithmic hellscape (I’ve started watching bullet journal videos again after horking down beauty guru content and video game trivia, and watching my suggestions change radically made me feel surveilled), so I was fascinated by techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci’s TedTalk on how the algorithms used to sell you things can also be used to limit information access or exploit the vulnerable—because the algorithms don’t know or care why, just how.

Jodie

8. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw has a new comics column over at the Daily Dot, and I want to read everything she mentions (but I can't because of the book buying ban - woe).

9. I also just found this Required Reading for Comics column over at Paste Magazine. Again, lots of things to add to my TBR.

10. There are a couple of cool new short story columns appearing as well. Charles Payseur started X Marks the Spot over at The Booksmugglers.

11. Maria Haskins has a Sci-FI & Fantasy Short Fiction Round Up over at the Barnes & Noble blog.

12. Meanwhile, over at Strange Horizons, Brandon O'Brien launches the Jewellery Box.

13. Speaking of Brandon O'Brien, he wrote a great thread recently about why signal boosting marginalised voices is so important and why it's unfair to expect other marginalised voice to do all the boosting.

14. forestofglory wrote an excellent post about the difficulty of finding SFF that imagines hopeful futures. As I spent much of last year searching for this kind of SFF I completely agree that it's very tough to find.

15. Kate Elliott got a new dog called Finn and he is adorable.

16. Sarah Dollard also got a new dog. He's called Chidi, and is again adorable. (Lady Business - bringing you all the hard news!)

17. Oh look there is still a huge gender bias in children's books for the younger ages. This is shocking considering there was very little public commitment to work on this after the last study.

18. Finishing up with a sad article about South Korea's women's ice hockey team, and inequality in sports. I really feel for everyone on this team.

KJ

19. The Guardian presents a 101-level introduction to the philsophers and philosophical concepts discussed in The Good Place. Spoilers through late in Season 2.

20. On a related note, here's an interview with Todd May, a philosophy professor who serves as a consultant on the show.

21. The recent passing of Dolores O'Riordan, lead singer of The Cranberries, was a sad moment for me and many of my age cohort. One of the remembrances that made the rounds was this video of The Cranberries's NPR Tiny Desk Concert, which showcases her voice and the rest of the band at their acoustic best.

22. FanGirl Jeanne writes "The Temptation of Hope: The subversive feminism of Rey's character arc in The Last Jedi," on the way that Rey's story subverted expectations for female characters in general, and specifically as a character in Star Wars.

Susan

23. This article on a poisonous book is really cool, although I like quartzen's follow-up suggestion about how dangerous magic books are handled in fantasy libraries.

24. I know people told me that Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition was going to be a thing, but I still couldn't believe it until I saw the trailer. I am GENUINELY BAFFLED, but I kinda want it? Even if only to laugh at Gladio's ridiculous proportions.

25. This review of robo-tea:1cup, a visual novel about genderqueer robots and tea, makes it sound super cute and possibly relevant to renay's interests!