yet another series of random observations

[freckles_and_doubt]

1. smoczek makes damned good potjie, even with ostrich necks. Ate too much. Also, drank too much, and played cat-cushion for far too long - leg numb. On the upside, Meep cute.
   
   
2. Never underestimate the simple, giddy, essentially postmodern glee caused by listening to acoustic David Bowie covers sung in Portuguese. maxbarners bought the Seu Jorge Life Acquatic album, which I have subsequently borrowed as a stop-gap while I acquire my own copy. I loved the music in Life Acquatic, and that was even before my Gigantic Bowie Fangirling Phase, which is still rampant even if slightly tamed. Portuguese is a lovely language to accompany acoustic guitar, it's all soft and flowing, and the acoustic arrangements lay pleasingly bare the melodic and tonal complexities of Bowie's music. Also, Seu Jorge is capable of rewriting "Space Oddity" with a slightly rocking Latin rhythm, and doing full justice to the doomed-loved-ballad of "Lady Stardust". Am hooked.
   
   
3. So, Sheri S. Tepper. Tepper is a thoroughly under-rated writer who to my mind should win far more awards than she does: her narratively-driven science fiction novels weave feminist and ecological themes into striking, sweeping, often quirky and original space opera or post-apocalyptic landscapes. In the category of Random Ginormous Fantasy Epic, though, she has her earlier True Game works, which are technically sf but actually feel like fantasy, not just in their semi-magical component but in the colour, symbol and glitter of a medievaloid world. This is actually nine short books, grouped into three sets of three. The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped is chronologically the first series, although actually written later; its strong-minded heroine offers one of the best explorations of shape-shifting I've come across, as well as some truly magical settings, creatures and people, and a very interesting attack on societies which repress their women. The True Game is the most high-medieval, all ritual and colour, a highly stylised social structure whose essentially fascist and self-destructive elements are mercilessly exposed as the story unfolds. The Jinian trilogy, which concludes the series, gets further into ecological issues, the nature of magic and the exposure of the science-fiction rationale which actually underpins the world. This series is one of my comfort reads, I've lost count of the number of times I've revisited it; it's a madly beguiling mix of whimsy, colour and underlying seriousness, and the world itself (like many of Tepper's an animate entity in its own right) is enormously appealing in sharp contrast to the human stupidity the narrative forces one to condemn.
   
   In a nutshell: shifters, sorcerors, necromancers, wizards, dervishes; heraldry and hierarchical battle, feudalism and fighting. Chasm cities build on giant roots of vines. Endearing beasties that sing, and duets with same. Rolling stars, forest spirits, amorous giant pigs, pastoral unicorn romances. Love, hate, revenge, dreams, knowledge lost and found. Tough women, rather self-absorbed men, journeys through the memories of a world. Gnarlibarrs. Shadows. Mean-spirited academics. Mystical chess sets. Hope. Despair. Loss. The incredible joy of magical powers, and the terrible realisation that we probably don't deserve them. Also, my editions have extremely beautiful stylised covers.
   
   And, see, not so much with the postmodernism, either! I am forced to admire my own self-restraint.