Five Flavors of Dumb

The last book I read was Antony John's 'Five Flavors of Dumb'.
The basic plot is this: High-schooler Piper, through a weird turn of circumstances, becomes the manager of her Seattle school's resident punk band. The twist is, Piper is deaf.  I was drawn to this book because I have a passing interest in Deaf culture. I don't recall ever seeing a YA book with a deaf protagonist before, and was so happy when I found it at my library.
I appreciated that some nuance of deafness was portrayed, as opposed to full hearing or total deafness. Piper's deafness is described as 'moderately severe', and she wasn't born deaf, she lost most of her hearing at a young age due to genetics. She has a hearing aid which allows her to hear a certain amount of sound, though it's not very useful sound unless it's close, clear and there's not much other sound going on in the vicinity. She is also good at reading lips. While I was initially disappointed at the book having her lip-read, I later realized that just because you can't assume a deaf person can read lips, doesn't mean no one, hearing or not, can ever read lips. And there's nothing in the book that indicates that it's common. Piper just says that she's really good at it. The most important thing in terms of whether or not the book too 'the easy way out', was whether her hearing aid and lip-reading 'normalized' her in terms of her interaction with others, and functioning in a world that assumes hearing. And it did not. She still had special needs, or at least special preferences. She felt whole, but different.
That leads me to another thing I liked about the book. She busted stereotypes of disabled people in the media. She was neither the patient saint, nor the angry, fiercely-independent 'there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with me' person who gets offended at the slightest hint that there are some things that are harder for her. She has plenty of angst with specific people who treat her like she's something broken that ought to be fixed, but she doesn't seem to have angst with herself and her abilities.

Whatever Wednesday: Catching Up

On this Whatever Wednesday, I'm going to do a quick couple of mini-posts of some of the posts that I meant to do earlier this week: Song Sunday, Movie Monday, Teaser Tuesday.

Song Sunday:
Born to Run by (who else, duh) Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, we've all heard this at least once. I recently had occasion to look up the lyrics and I confirmed a lyric I thought I'd heard him sing about 'strap your hands round my engines (no thanks Bruce, not that I don't love the song) and discovered I'd never noticed: the song is addressed to a person named Wendy.


Movie Monday:
The last movie I watched was Danny Boyle's 'The Beach' (from 2000, I think). This was the first time I'd seen any of Boyle's movies, and though there were a couple missteps, I conclude that he's a good filmmaker. The movie had a delicate, ever-present sense of distant but impending doom of some sort, increasing as the film neared its end. It starred a young Leonardo Dicaprio (who I learned from Inception and later, Romeo + Juliet, is actually good), the always-superb Tilda Swinton and featured a haunting turn by Robert Carlyle in an instrumental supporting role.

Teaser Tuesday:

"Do you understand any of that?"
I had to confess I did not. (Also, at the edge of my mind a picture briefly took shape: Uncle Eustace scrambling up the mountains of Samoa to sell Robert Louis Stevenson a tombstone.) --from 'The Gawgon and the Boy' by Lloyd Alexander

Whatever Wednesday

Whatever Wednesday: in which I talk about, well, whatever. Like what's on my library shelf. I've got 'Cook Yourself Thin' and have tried several recipes from it, all delicious. Try the turkey burger and sweet potato fries. I've never liked sweet potatoes but now I may be a convert, at least where seasoned oven fries are concerned. The turkey-bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich is also excellent, and I plan to try the baked peaches soon.

I'm also re-reading Tamora Pierce's 'In The Hand of the Goddess', second in a medieval fantasy series about a girl who becomes a knight. The prose is so-so, but I read this series as a teenager and it's like comfort food,

The last book on my library shelf is 'Whatcha Mean, What's A Zine?' by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson. It's all about zines (mini self-published magazines); the history, what you can write in one, various ways of making one, publishing it, getting together with other zinesters. I write a zine, called ReWrite and though it's been out of print due to lack of printer, it's about time for another issue now that I have a printer.

I also have a DVD out, of the Twilight movie. Having had so much fun watching New Moon, yelling at the weird dialogue and throwing chips at the screen whenever somebody was shirtless (which seemed to be 80% of the time), I thought maybe I'd try it with this one. Plus, the bad vampire with the dreads is in this, and he doesn't even get chomped by baby werewolves yet. I tried to watch it before, but just couldn't. Maybe I will this time.

I'm oddly of two minds regarding the series (which I freely admit I have never read, I just sort of followed the story from the outside). I like some things (like Jacob, Bella's truck, her father, mother, Alice and most of the Cullens). I don't like other things (looking at Edward, Bella's disregard for her own soul and the wishes of someone she's supposed to love, her idea that being a vampire isn't a state of being but a matter of convenience). Oddly, I want to like her. I credit Kristen Stewart's eyes. I look at them and somehow believe. Believe what, I'm not sure. I do like Bella better after having ducked into Eclipse for a minute and seen part of the quilt scene with her mother.

I have this fantasy that the Twilight series is actually a series of prequel novels to 'the main story' set 20 years later, in which Bella is a powerful vampire queen, deadly enemies with Edward, and separated from the baby, possibly raised by Jacob or at least watched over, Ben Kenobi-style. I think Bella's true potential lies in villainy, and I do mean that as a compliment.

Tardy Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:
"Yeah." She grins. "Insanity. Brilliance. Such a touchy call. Look, Cameron, I'm just a messenger. I don't know everything. But I do know this: you're being given a chance. Take it and you might live. Stay here and you will surely die." Dulcie cuddles Mr. Bubbles Kitty, fluffing him with her fingers. "Whaddaya say--you, Gonzo, connecting the dots, finding Dr. X, getting a cure, saving the universe? You down, cowboy?"

from 'Going Bovine' by Libba Bray.