I’m back! Trying to add a few things to the layout, things might look borked for a while. You’ll get surprise presents when it’s all sorted out (IY”H)!

My wrist is getting better and I can type with both hands now, though I still can’t do everything I’d like to do. Updates will resume shortly IY”H, though this week is going to be fairly busy for me, and my health is not perfect either (even besides this unfortunate injury, sigh).

I took down a comment spam filter a while ago – I had problems with it and I was frankly curious what would happen. It’s strange, most of the spam I get consists of lengthy, baroque, and sometimes downright bizarre compliments. I guess people are most likely to approve comments containing compliments? There was even one which said that my site increased the size of their testicles. Lolwut?

Along completely different lines, I also got spammed by a Chareidi website (I’d rather not say which, but it’s not one I normally visit). Spamming is asur, people!

Dear everyone,

I’ve injured my left wrist & can only type with one hand. It’s not broken & it’ll hopefully heal soon. Until then I’ll only type the minimum amount necessary for work… I have two entries almost finished though, I might end up posting those. Sigh! BTW, next up is Lightspeed Magazine… IY”H.

PS – recommend me games that can be played with the mouse only

I’ve won a book on Haikasoru’s latest contest. I hope it gets here in one piece! My Book Depository orders get here without problems, but I’ve had books won in contests end up completely lost in transit.

They had an interesting topic: the future of gender, so I’m going to reproduce my answer.

The questions were: “What is the future of gender? Is gender static, or does it shift naturally? Can it, and should it, be manipulated purposefully for scientific or social ends?”

I think gender and sexuality are going to become increasingly flexible with the progress of medical science, but that doesn’t mean they are going to become less important, or irrelevant. To the contrary, people tend to be especially attached to the identities they themselves choose – for example, people who convert to another religion tend to be more vocal about religion than people who stay with their parents’ religion.

Yay Genderform already lists 947 different possibilities, and the list goes on… I think writers often manage to reinvent the wheel, and come up with groups intended to be fictional which already exist. (Not really gender-related, but the other day I even managed to find a story in this year’s Hugo crop which seemed to reinvent Asperger syndrome.) Worse still, the fictionalized group often ends up treated as inhuman in the story universe. I’m hesitant to link to TVTropes because it can eat up time like nothing else, but the Hermaphrodite page is a good example, featuring only a few realistic portrayals of intersexual characters and a lot of, um, alien porn or straight-up fetishism.

A discussion on fictional gender might seem like a diversion from the future of gender, but what I’m trying to say is, the future is already here, it just goes unnoticed by the people who are not “early adopters”. As for whether gender should be manipulated purposefully, my answer is more or less the same – if it can be done, it will eventually be done, and in many cases, it has already been done!

*

Tim Lieder is taking submissions for his second anthology of Bible-themed horror stories. I thought the first one was awesome (I didn’t like the Catherynne Valente story, though) and I’m all for Bible fiction, so this is great news. Submit stuff, I want to read the anthology as soon as it comes out

*

You can’t be pro-GLBT and still work to exclude transgender and transsexual people, that’s a contradiction in terms. Harvard University still tries to pull it off – post by DesiArcy.

*

I realized Amazon also sold clothing items, so I decided to search for clothing items I like to wear – for example, wrap skirts. It’s not that I’m going to order anything from Amazon – the shipping would probably cost much than the actual product – but it’s a fun diversion, you know?

Except it was The Lulzy Fail. Apparently everything that even vaguely resembles clothing I wear is somehow “exotic”, “tribal” or “Gypsy”. (These items have nothing to do with actual Gypsy clothing, but nevermind.)

If you don’t know me in person – I wear two kinds of clothing. Either the “all black with metallic implements of torture” type of oldschool rivethead clothing (with a dash of goth or punk) or loose clothing with color prints.  This time I was looking for the latter, since the former is usually just a black skirt, a black shirt and my mostly self-made accessories, I don’t need an online store for that.

I like bright colors and busy prints, ideally both at the same time, but I often have to compromise on bright colors (sigh!) since it’s hard to buy this type of clothing locally. As a religious Jew I’m also a modest dresser, which really constrains the type of clothing I can buy in mainstream shops, even when I’m taking layering into account.

So I am apparently Super Exotic because I wear long skirts. Go me?

Due to health problems and work-related issues I haven’t been able to post much lately… I’ll try to make up for the delay, G-d willing. First, a bunch of links I thought would be worth sharing–

*

An article where two YA authors talk about their experience trying to sell a YA novel with a gay protagonist has caused quite a furor lately. “The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation.” A huge flamewar erupted with some people essentially claiming the authors were lying. Here is a summary.

Flamewars of this kind make me uneasy irrespective of my viewpoint being represented… but some people linked to resources I was previously unaware of, and these are definitely worth sharing.

I’ve found a list of YA spec fic with major LBGTQ characters, collated by LJ user tanuki_green. This particular entry looks especially interesting, to me at least: “Guardian of the Dead, by Karen Healey. An ambitious urban fantasy making thoughtful use of Maori folklore. A major supporting character is asexual.” (Edited to add: Wow, this review is… discouraging, to say the least. Sigh!)

And in case people were wondering about the state of queer YA, here is a post with actual statistics. A few quotes: “Less than 1% of YA novels have LGBT characters.” “50% of LGBT YA books are about boys, with only 25% about girls.” [The rest feature LGBT parents, multiple characters, etc.] “only 4% of LGBT YA books are about transgender or genderqueer characters.” – I assume asexual characters would be included in this category? (Edited to add: Dash made the point that it made little sense to group these categories together – I agree)

*

Something completely different, here is a video game project I’ll be keeping an eye on. Warco is a first person shooter, except you shoot film, not guns: you play as a news correspondent in a war zone. I loved the photojournalist theme in Beyond Good and Evil (the game, not the book!) and this looks similar, except it’s set in a realistic setting.

Alas, with this type of game everything hinges on the storyline. It can be a gritty drama where you learn something about real-life war zones beyond “ooooo third world country getting destroyed!” (sigh) or it can be something totally failtastic, or something else entirely…

I think this would be a good opportunity to link to Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical article on writing about Africa. (It also has a sequel!) …wow, I’ve even found a crowd-sourced “how to write about poor people”.

*

And a third topic, here is a poignant essay on Martin Luther King’s impact, by HamdenRice. It struck really close to home because it’s related to what I see people go through in my own ethnic group – of course there are differences, but it’s close.

In Hungary most Jews are afraid to admit they are Jewish, because they do not want to be on the receiving end of verbal and yes, physical violence. They are in the closet for this very reason. When I decided in my teens that I would become more religiously observant (and eventually Orthodox), I knew I could not remain in the closet without constantly lying. Why won’t you eat this – just a bite, why won’t you go out with us on Friday evening, why won’t you shake my hand etc. – I would’ve had to lie in response to all these questions. You can’t really live a religious life in the closet because it affects every little thing you do.

But this meant I became the token Jew everywhere – even when there were lots of other Jews in the group, since they would not tell the non-Jews. Sometimes they would not even tell me, and I’d find out about it through mutual acquaintances.

And yes, I became a target. I’ve been in situations where I had to defend myself physically, where I had to run, I’ve even been in a situation where a policeman walked away from such an event. People say at least anti-Semitic violence is not institutionalized in Hungary (implication: you shouldn’t complain) – well, if a policeman refuses to protect you, i think that’s exactly what’s going on. Two of my friends decided to pursue similar cases through official channels, with quite negative results – one of them was even told to drop the case or they would prosecute him.

But you know what: it’s not that bad. What’s the worst thing that can happen? “They will kill us” – newsflash: they’ve already tried and we’re still here. We need to be proud of who we are.  If we all did it together,  eventually we would not have to live in fear. …and it would certainly be easier on me, the token Jew!

This one is mostly for Hungarians, I moved my book swap list here. (It’s still up on moly.hu and that version won’t be going anywhere for the time being, this link is for people who don’t have an account on Moly.) You can also buy books from me

Also known as I really need a haircut I’ve just gotten a haircut, but the image is a bit older… it was taken on 27 April by Miklós Nagy, who asked me completely out of the blue to accompany him to an event where his photos would be shown. So, after a long ride – surprise visit to Budapest! – I ended up in a room full of Famous People(TM) including my favorite Hungarian contemporary painter, and the task of fixing a computer.

Thinkgeek has a T-shirt for this occasion but unfortunately I have yet to own an exemplar. (Donations welcome! )

So if you’re interested in a prezzey in its natural habitat (ie fixing a computer), click here and scroll down a bit – I come after two shots of an elderly lady.

It’s not visible in the photos but I’m wearing a Space Invaders-themed T-shirt under a half-open black shirt, and an ankle-length black skirt. Modesty! Layering! Etc! I also have a long overdue post in WIWT_Modest…

Just a small post -

First of all, Expanded Horizons has a new issue out, I just finished uploading the content. Make sure to visit! It also has an autism-related story.

Second, I registered on Playstation Network, my username is “prezzey”, add me and I’ll probably add you back – if I don’t have the slightest idea who you are, first send me a message, leave a comment here, etc. you get the idea. (BTW I have the same username on Xbox Live.)

Third, I was very angry to see when I came online after the chag that the Pesach robots video has been removed – here is a writeup of the contents in case you were wondering. This video has been online for a year and I had no idea it would disappear over the holidays… *sigh!*

Pesach starts in an hour (at least in my time zone), I hope everyone who’s been preparing is more or less prepared! (I could fall asleep standing. ) I’d like to take the time to wish a kosher Pesach for my Jewish friends, a joyous Easter for my Christian friends and a happy spring holiday for everyone else!

To mark the occasion, here is a really cute Pesach video from Israel… with robots!

I’m sorting through my books and I have quite an amount of duplicates, books I want to sell, etc. I only used to swap books, but these days I get more and more queries from people who want to buy my books. So I priced some of them… here you can take a look at the catalog. If you speak Hungarian, you can also try here (registration required, but you can also read my short descriptions of each book including minor dents, etc).

Most are in English and Hungarian, some are in German. Prices are kindasorta negotiable and I also accept trade-ins if you have something cool (books, used games, cheap DVDs of arthouse movies, etc. you get the idea).

There will be more coming on Thursday IY”H, and the missing prices will also be updated. (I just don’t have those books here with me right now so that I could accurately set their prices.)

Prices include tax but do not include shipping.

I prefer to ship to Hungary and Austria, but I can ship anywhere. If you live anywhere else it’s probably not worth it (especially since the prices are adjusted to the Hungarian market), unless you absolutely need that vintage Hungarian copy of The Chrysalids…