then there are blackbirds

Awesome A:TLA things:

» white_lotus's Lunar New Year Exchange has begun posting! Things I've consumed & enjoyed so far:
+ stitch me the fabric of fall, creepy/awesome Ursa fic!
+ Waiting to Spark, sweet and believable and complicated Katara/Zuko.
+ Isobel, an awesome Toph and Azula vid!
+ The Grace That It Takes, adorable Sokka/Suki! ♥

And some awesome non-A:TLA things:

» gyzym: rumor has it, the first Glee-related gleeface I've had in a long while. SANTANA ♥

» Cities of You is an awesome art project based on Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities! Check it out. :)

-- yeah, I think it's time for a tag. *g* (Though the thought of going back to tag all of my linkspams... oh god. /o\ I NEVER MEANT TO GET INTO THIS HABIT, YOU GUYS!)

+ eccentricyoruba on historical globalization
+ such_heights on recent events
+ some gorgeous photos of Afghanistan
+ Beau Sia: Check Yourself
+ oyceter on 30 Rock (& Tiger Beatdown here)
+ Asian American Women in Leadership conference
+ Historians admit to inventing ancient Greeks (... oh, The Onion. xD)
+ crossedwires: on a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise
+ Driving While Brown (via the_future_modernes)
+ crossedwires has a batch of Undercovers icons!
+ some more Undercovers icons!
+ Pompeiian wall painting of a threesome, via my tumbleroll!
+ Petition for National Holiday for Native Americans
+ 2010 Asian American music festival
+ wistfuljane: on Fanlore's tropes and genres, more on Fanlore and its Tropes & Genres category
+ a blogspam by angry asian man (includes several links on The Social Network, for those of you who are interested!)
+ Oxfam urges that aid for Haiti be earmarked for agriculture
+ 9th Conference of the Puerto Rican Studies Association
+ Kollaboration in Seattle, 10/23
+ Cayman Islands Brewery recycles for a cause (via Repeating Islands)
+ Get Arthur and Gwen Laid Campaign (Hello Merlin fandom! &hearts Maybe I will come back to you one day...)
+ Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots
+ The lovely cherrybina has put up a picspam/math poll that is EXCEEDINGLY HAPPY-MAKING TO MY NERDY SELF, JUST SAYIN'.
+ Deb Reese on Neil Gaiman
+ Reconsider Columbus Day
+ axelrod on Spirit Day
+ Kate Harding On Good Kids and Total Fucking Assholes
+ trinker: Render unto... (interesting thoughts on translation!)
+ Oh Aaron Sorkin, no.
+ Glee linkspam at access_fandom
+ This female character flowchart pisses me off. This post explains some of the reasons why; inkstone's linkspam goes into further detail. marina makes an interesting point, but to me, the chart reduces all those strong female characters AND REAL WOMEN to their (perceived as) problematic characteristics for... what, exactly? We already hold women- real and fictional- to impossibly high and contradictory standards; I'm not happy with the fact that the chart flattens all those different contexts to highlight their flawed narratives/perceived negatives. We should be talking about how these women are flawed and STRONG/AWESOME ANYWAY, not reducing them to their flaws, and frankly, I don't see the chart furthering that discussion much. Even if the creators are just having a spork at notions of/expectations for "strong female characters," this is so totally not the best format in which to do it. **eta for bossymarmalade on Yoko Ono, because YES.
+ VAMP responds to "Prostitutes of God" documentary
+ more links from vi
+ Surprise-- the Very Dark Side of US History (trigger warning applies)
+ Bechdel Test Comment-ficathon!

Pre-Montreal tab-clearing! Have a good weekend, lovelies; I'll see you on the other side. &hearts

+ This list of the 15 most overrated contemporary American writers makes me wonder just what Anis Shivani's definition of "contemporary" is. (My list would include Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer, just sayin'...) Still, the snark was enjoyable to read!

+ Mao's Last Dancer looks shiny.

+ Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather, Devil Wears Prada fic by woldy! UNF.

+ Troy Polamalu's hair is insured for a million bucks. Why do I suspect that this is less whimsical than it first appears?

+ MC Jin's rapping in Cantonese these days. (Interesting commentary on bilingualism!)

+ This Tina & Mike still via angry asian man is HOT, y'all. People who are still watching Glee, promise to let me know if I should poke my head in just to watch that scene? ;)

+ Rambutans in Puerto Rico! ... I have still never tasted a rambutan. ;____; Someday I can has??

first; Link-boosting ephemere's incredibly powerful No country for strangers (in response to Charles Tan's No Foreigners Allowed):

I will not say: no foreigners allowed. That is a rather horrible thing to say considering an overwhelming tendency here to welcome foreigners with open arms and bend over backwards for them, at the cost of discriminating against our fellow Filipinos. It is a statement that assumes we have the power to say such a thing and enforce such a rule when we, well, don't. "No foreigners allowed" is a fantasy -- a short-sighted, narrow-minded, twisted fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless.

Instead I will say: this is no country for strangers. This is not a people that can be known by observation alone, without the risk of actual engagement. This is no land where you can set yourself apart and then delude yourself with claims that comprehension naturally comes with high-minded goals and noble intentions to enlighten a system whose only fundamental flaw is ignorance of your ways. This is not a place that needs more foreigners coming in to visit, then taking away with them their misconceptions and their privileged judgments -- because we have been misrepresented enough, not just in the international community but also amongst ourselves, and false categorizations and claims about who we are and where we came from and where we should go are unneeded and shouldn't be welcomed.

This is a place where one must know rage to know sight. I wrote, somewhat recently: "[S]ometimes rage is useful. Sometimes anger is necessary. Sometimes you need a great and brutal force to drive ugly and hidden secrets into the light; sometimes self-satisfaction and complacency cannot be worn down gradually, but must be wrenched apart. Sometimes fear is the only edge that will compel you to walk a difficult and unfamiliar path. Sometimes you can't just politely ask rotting structures to make way for the construction of new ones. You have to knock them down. Burn them to the ground." I believe this is as true of the writing of fiction as it is of development policy, or economic research, or the study of Philippine institutions.

second; videos via angry asian man for week of win day 7--

+ M.I.A.'s new music video for Born Free is both a shock to the heart and (imo) an embarrassment of riches, but seriously: trigger warning.

+ Two segments from Caught in the Act, featuring Misnomers and the amazing Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai.

+ And to end on a lighter note, here's yet another Glee audition roundup!

eta because I dropped a link! /o\ avendya's Blood Makes Noise is an incredible (first!) vid about Morgana. Send her some love!

deepad's written an open letter to Charles Tan, and ciderpress has a post taking down (yet another Glee-related incident of) hipster racism.

As for me, I need to stop engaging for a while with the things that make me angry. Instead, I'm clearing out my mental/emotional space: for the next seven days, I am going to make and/or link to satisfyingly squeeful things, with enough shiny to wallow myself back into a good mood. You're all welcome to join me if you like! :) Ergo,

week of win, day 1:

+ Via angry asian man, Raymond Lee's official Glee audition. SHOWERS OF SPARKLY HEARTS, OMG YES PLEASE, etc. etc.

+ Attention Gwen and Morgana (and OT4) lovers: if you haven't seen leupagus's Home to the Weary, it is a joygasm waiting to happen.

+ Just found a youtube clip of the Of Montreal concert I saw a few years back!

The Party's Crashing Us may still be my favorite song of theirs, ever. &hearts

+ Not relevant to anybody else, but fuck if I'm going to ignore RL awesome when I has it: I have accrued a fairly ridiculous number of paid vacation hours, and am going to see the World Expo in Shanghai this summer! *\o/* *\o/* *\o/*

first things first: happy happy birthday, midnitemaraud_r! &hearts :D i hope you're having a fabulous day!

so on wednesday i was flailing so much about SYTYCD that i neglected to mention i caught the episode of Glee that came on right after it! i am bad at watching TV shows in general, but i am especially terrible at non-crime/hospital TV shows, so the fact that Glee was actually entertaining for me was kind of a surprise. i tend to find these sorts of shows rather cringeworthy, but so far the good bits outweigh the cringey bits, so yay for that! even if i did have BUST THE WINDOWS OUT YA CARRRRR stuck in my head for hours after, oh god. xD

i also watched The Informant last night, because i figured Matt Damon was worth a try and the premise sounded interesting, and... wow, the movie is actually nothing like what i thought it was going to be. Matt Damon was good, but the character he played was- oh my god, i have never been so aggravated watching a movie in my life. i love Matt Damon and i respect him as an actor, but i spent most of the movie wanting to punch him in the face. ( slight spoilers )

annnnd now i have Merlin 2x01 downloading, just to continue the trend, but i am Not Watching It until i get my beta-work done!

ETA: OH AND. at work the other day, i discovered that there is a strain of ethanol-sensitive Drosophila (fruit flies) called cheapdate. no, i am not lying; according to this paper, cheapdate is actually an allele of amnesiac? BIOGEEK HUMOR, IT NEVER FAILS TO AMUSE ME. xD