Thursday, November 12, 2015

Phantosmia Pareidolia and A Happy Day

Today was a fantastic day, start to just ending. My brother had a confused beginning, which my father identified as probably having had no sleep. An extraordinary engagement from Dad. We talked about a history hiccup I found on the Veterans Day internet, got more clarity on Dad's experience. Walked Wild Wing trail in company with first experience nature encounters, called a friend to meet for lunch, and then my niece called stuck in traffic minutes from where we were. The two women in my life who are recently certified rescue people - one alpine rescue; my niece, certified deep water rescue met for the first time. I found a new interesting connecting person in my long-time search for people who understand that science is not disparate from divinity, is in fact completely related. Alistir McGrath, professor of both science and religion and labeled a Christian Apologist on wikipedia, but that's a subject for other people, another time. Found some forward motion on the writing I've been mulling long and scribing short. Not a single pareidolia event, but if I live long enough I'll find Carl Sagan's face in the spots on my hands. And this final note before I sleep: I had another phantosmia experience. I was reading a facebook post from a friend about how war communications were sometimes sent (Western Union, although how terrifying for a woman waiting for news - opening that not knowing if it was I love you or sorry to report) and I smelled the fragrance worn by the woman receiving the telegram. Distinct. I've had this experience a handful of times before - Another Country with Rupert Everett, he was wearing a boutonniere, and I smelled it, with the movie on over my shoulder, not watching, and smelling the flower, turned to the TV to see it in his lapel) I looked up olfactory hallucination when that happened. Stroke, Parkinson's, okay. A book I reviewed on goodreads, which I could find but not today - I saw the author at her desk writing the book, smelled the paper, ink. My first public disclosure of this stuff. Does it matter? No. If I lived in any other century but this one, I'd be in a walled bin somewhere for even mentioning this. I think it's just the continuation of a marvelous 24 hours in any person's life, only I looked at every hour. Appreciated each quarter hour. A singular day.  It cannot be surprising that all my senses are open to the wondrous.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Surrounded by Men

Anxiety levels inexplicably elevated, I checked a free biorhythm site this morning. Okay, so I checked two. Not helpful and not surprising. What's wrong with me? Not knowing when the next time I'll get to Vault of Midnight, thought I'd order Monstress Vol. 1, and also a couple of other female-drawn/written comics, so I searched what's out there. And light dawned! Two compilation lists of Top 50 Female Comics people: both by men. Looking up Nancy Meyers filmography to compare to Nora Ephron filmography earlier today, I find on imdb a "weighted average" for a couple of favorite movies. Doesn't seem possible that males under 18 and males over 45 all rated one movie exactly 5.1, but imdb writes we weight and we're not telling you how. Read some reviews of Spectre earlier. All men. Because reviewers are. Men. Comic book bloggers. Men. Rotten Tomatoes reviewers. Men. Men men men men. Does it surprise you that 5000 men thought Mixed Nuts was so so? Liev Schreiber alone is outstanding in that movie. Madeline Kahn, divine as always. I am fully aware there is woman-driven media out there. But not the first results in a search. You have to dig to find women reviewers, directors, subject matter experts, and even when the search has woman or female in the search parameters, the results are male written. Double whammy. Female content is curated by male gaters. Is that because male views are more popular? More searched for? I doubt it. But I've been wrong before. PS I just tried to find a link to Monstress, and got this. While I'm sure Asian-American pedagogy is a worthy subject - another G U Y! aaiieee! PPS The default players in my multiplayer games are men. Have to actively switch to female. PPPS Phoned Vault of Midnight, set up an account, signed for email notification of new Monstress and Captain Marvel releases. Monstress Vol. 1 is in my box, waiting to be collected. Life is calmer now.