What's In Karen's Tabs?

[karenhealey]

What up, Internets?

I have a post I'm going to make tomorrow on Awesome Teen Comedies with Serious Messages, but tonight I am actually watching said teen comedies, so you get what will probably be a regular Saturday thing: What's in Karen's Tabs?

I am screening out all the boring stuff. You don't really want evidence that I'm googling the correct hanzi for "Taiwan". This is a selection of the veeery best.


Reading:

The House of Aunts, by Zen Cho, at Gigantosaurus.

The first time she saw the boy across the classroom, Ah Lee knew she was in love because she tasted durian on her tongue. That was what happened–no poetry about it. She looked at a human boy one day and the creamy rank richness of durian filled her mouth. For a moment the ghost of its stench staggered on the edge of her teeth, and then it vanished.

She had not tasted fruit since before the baby came. Since before she was dead.

After school she went home and asked the aunts about it.

“Ah Ma,” she said, “can you taste anything besides people?”

Go read this story right now. It's incredible, and it does so much: young love, the sick touch of colonisation and invasion, the strength of women, the generation gap, and more, all wrapped up in evocative prose, dialogue that is heartbreaking and hilarious, and superb characterisation.

ME: HOLY CRAP
BFF ROBYN: RIGHT?
ME: I MUST READ EVERYTHING SHE'S EVER WRITTEN.

And so:

The Four Generations of Chang E, by Zen Cho, at Mascara Literary Review.

起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion- The Lion Bows), by Zen Cho, at Strange Horizons.

Zen Cho's dreamwidth account, qian, with a sticky post at the top listing everything in print. I just read the ebook in which "Prudence and the Dragon" appears - most certainly worth the tiny amount I paid, and then there are MORE stories!


Watching:

Twilight and Eclipse Commentary Moments. RPatzz and KStew bring the trolly, trolly lols on this excellent tumblr blog tag.

You're Beautiful (Episode 4), SBS Youtube channel.

This k-drama is awesome, but I can only take it in about ten minute chunks or all the FEELINGS rush over me and I commence to squealing. My sister came in and I paused it to give her the brief summary - cross-dressing trainee nun joins boyband in place of her twin brother so that she can preserve their dream of trying to find their mother, is found out by mean bandmate with heart of gold, who threatens to tell but doesn't, and creepy bandmate who doesn't even tell her he knows but is just like, and now she is my girlfriend? She is not found out by the dumb blond bandmate, who is getting really wound up about all the apparent gay among his friends.

ME: Okay?
FABULOUS SISTER: ... okay...
ME: *starts episode again*
FS: Is that the girl?
ME: No, that's the creepy one.
FS: Oh, so THAT'S the girl.
ME: Nope. That's the mean one with the heart of gold. They are meant to be.
FS: But he's wearing sequins!
ME: He sure is! And this is how the world's least convincing cross-dressing passes.


Cooking:

Purple Ombre Sprinkles Birthday Cake. I am doing this the second I have a vaguely viable occasion to cook it for. Like, "Happy Tuesday!"

Slow Cooker Spiced Porridge for a crowd. This is the recipe I did last night. It cooked HEAPS, and I've got breakfast sorted for a week.

Bourbon Brown Sugar Chicken. I cooked this for dinner tonight, with steamed corn, seeded mustard mashed potatoes, a chopped salad, and some carrots I threw in the roasting dish. My picky, picky family declared themselves satisfied.


What's in your tabs, Internets?

Comments

[brainwane]

Zen Cho. SO glad you discovered her! I love all her stuff.

She got interviewed by the Outer Alliance in a podcast in December (as, I now realize, you have seen in her DW posts).

[derryderrydown]

I've just popped some randomly invented apple & cinnamon fairy cakes in the oven but, next time I get the baking urge (probably... tomorrow), I am SO making that purple cake! But I'll probably do it pink, because I have red food colouring but not purple.

[brownbetty]

Those Twilight commentaries are sort of amazing. Or rather, ~ amazing~.

[karenhealey]

Tilde emotion is the best.

recommenting w/editssss

[colorblue]

I was so happy to see this pimp post! Zen is amazing, isn't she? One of these days I'm convinced she's going to blow up huge, and I can tell people that I've known her since way back when and watch everyone be all impressed.

Also, currently in my tabs:

businessweek article on scams run from virtual office spaces. My cousin in India emailed this morning, asking me whether a certain futures trading company, based in the US and advertising high-paying job postings there, was legit, and when I investigated it really really WASN'T (their office turning out to be a virtual office space just the tip of the iceberg here). I am all @_@ at the thought that I've uncovered an ongoing scam.

50books-poc's rec seeking post for Hugo-Eligible works. (Both "The House of Aunts" and "The Four Generations of Chang E" are eligible for the Hugo Awards. Hopefully they get nominated.)

Festivids! My favorites so far are Soul Survivor & The Fear.

eggless chocolate mousse recipe, which turns out REALLY GOOD. (Okay, so I did not exactly follow the recipe, because I didn't have golden syrup and am incapable of following even the simplest of recipes, just kinda mix things together to see what works. but I did use the recipe as a starting point and inspiration, and it yielded the best mousse I've ever tasted, so!)

Also, are you getting into kdramas? Which other ones have you watched so far?

Re: recommenting w/editssss

[karenhealey]

Oof, you know what, I am totally going to spring the $50 for membership to nominate House of Aunts because damn if that isn't the best novelette I haven't read in a very long time.

I have not watched other kdramas! Do you have recommendations?

Re: recommenting w/editssss

[colorblue]

Capital Scandal! I do not really care for the main pairing, but the secondary pairing, and secondary female lead, is probably my favorite in all of kdrama land. I mean, Cha Song Joo is a beautiful courtesan who is secretly a revolutionary assassin spy! Couldn't really ask for more. *_* (or, actually, could ask that the last three eps of this drama had never happened. So, watch for the sheer awesomeness of Cha Song Joo, but stop before the ending.)

[revena]

No lie, I have now slept on my thoughts about The House of Aunts TWICE since I emailed you in a rec'ing fervor over it last night, and I still can't articulate how awesome I found it.

[karenhealey]

I am just like, he was really scared but he kept looking because the baby would be even scareder! And she doesn't want to be nailed because she is not two people, she is Ah Lee, she doesn't want to be a "good" wife and ALSO SHE IS ALREADY BEAUTIFUL.

[qian]

Hi, a friend drew my attention to this post! I am super late, but just wanted to thank you for the kind words. I am terrifically happy that The House of Aunts worked for you and really appreciate your recommending it!