The Wordsmith's Forge

NBC is launching TWO shows with leads who have a physical handicap.  I am thrilled.  I usually go for speculative fiction, but other things catch my interest occasionally.  I watched Reasonable Doubts  for the Deaf lead, because I was enchanted by all the sign language, and that was a courtroom drama. 

... is hilarious. Link courtesy of my partner Doug.

Cut for spoiler.

( Read more... )

Here's a post about Star Trek: Into Darkness that lowers my interest in the movie.

First, Star Trek is rehashing an established antagonist instead of pursuing new ones.  This does not thrill me.  Second, they're miscasting a character of color with a white actor.  This actively annoys me.

 Compare several lists of comics with black heroes.

Female superheroes redrawn with costumes that cover their whole bodies.  SO MUCH WIN.  I love Wonder Woman.  

MOAR PLZ.  If you spot crowdfunded or otherwise independent art with fully clad heras, I'm interested in links.

 Got a black woman on the cover, cool, I'd pick that up and look at it further.

Another contributor leaves DC.  Yyyyeah.  I prefer my Green Lantern black and breathing.

 For $5 you can see the Cirque du Soleil piece they did for World Water Day.  I actually got to see that live -- my parents bought tickets for all of us -- and it's breathtaking.  I found it very Pagan-esque too.  Highly recommended.

... is no more.  Now this was clearly fair use, in the category of satire (though not with the snarky tone usually applied to that), but those rights are useless if you don't have the money and energy to defend them.  Copyright owners rely on that.  So now nobody gets to enjoy those fanworks anymore.  This is where copyright stops being an asset (by protecting creators' right to profit from their work) and becomes a liability (by stifling creativity and cultural growth).  There was no profit being made.  It was just for fun.

Think about how much of modern culture is a reprise of things that have been done before, a way to take apart and re-imagine what we already have.  Except a handful of people keep taking things away, so there is less for everyone to work with.  That's a problem.

I am becoming increasingly fond of creators who show up and go, "I made a thingie.  Let's everyone play."  If it's a cool thingie and I like watching other folks play with it or I play with it myself, I'm morely likely to want to support it and fund more of it.  I am less and less inclined to spend my very limited funds on conventionally copyrighted material.  I still buy some of it.  But I'm buying less, and the bar is rising, and most of what I buy is stuff that I got hooked on a long time ago.  It's just less likely to feel worthy of my attention.