Work Work Work

condnsdmlk and I curated a vidshow about Work at VidUKon this year, and I was really pleased with how it turned out, so I'm posting it here, including the descriptions which we spent a silly amount of time on. Unless otherwise indicated, they're all (sometimes paraphrased) Marx quotes.

Description: An exploration of all work related things -- waged or otherwise. Office work, forced labour, team work, striking, playing hooky...we have it covered.

1. Under Pressure (The Martian) by violace. From each according to ability.

2. Go Places (Parks and Recreation) by nicole_anell. When sacrifices benefit all, joy is not limited or selfish -- our happiness will belong to millions.

3. Past in Present (Chak De! India) by sol_se. Society is not made up of individuals. It is the sum of interrelations -- the relations within which individuals stand.

4. Tightrope (Mary Poppins) by chaila. "Capitalist production relies on the creation of a particular type of worker, and therefore a particular type of family." - Sylvia Federici

5. The Fucking Manual (The Thick of It) by Trutgras. The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape.

6. Working for a Living (Hustle, Leverage) by thingswithwings. A greater amount of assets increases the power objects have on man; every new product escalates the potential for mutual swindling and plundering.

7. Hello (Kitchen Confidential) by trelkez. Great world-historic facts and individuals appear twice: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

8. Piece of Me (Britney Spears RPF) by obsessive24. At first sight a commodity might appear obvious and trivial, but look closer and you'll see that it is full of subtleties and spiritual niceties.

9. Tired (Firefly) by thedothatgirl. It is only as a worker that she can maintain herself as a physical subject. It is only as a physical subject that she is a worker.

10. Just Dance (Newsies) by ua_the_terrible. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

11. Never Go to Work (Stargate Atlantis) by grammarwoman. The worker feels himself at home only during his leisure time.

12. The Organization and the Assets (multi) by echan. Work is an alienation of life.

13. Freedom (Underground)  by frayadjacent. The most momentous thing happening in the world today is the movement among the slaves.

14. Wretches and Kings (Battlestar Galactica) by jarrow. The history of all previous societies is the history of class struggle.

15. Power in Union (Pride) by condnsdmlk. To each according to need.


Many thanks to everyone who recommended vids for this show!

recent reading

What I've read since I last posted

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. I liked this even more than Binti, mainly because it dealt with the emotional aftermath of the events in that book, because I found Binti's relationships with her family really complex and interesting, and because it has quests in the wilderness . Both books deal with Binti becoming a different person than who she was raised to be. It dealt with coming home after leaving and all the complex emotions really well. But then, on top of all that, Binti discovers that who she thought she was, what she thought was her heritage, wasn't even true. I like how the stories interrogate the notion of a pure, authentic, true cultural heritage (which exists in opposition to corrupting outside influences). As with Binti, and as with The Book of Phoenix, I really wished this book had been longer, and spent more time with the characters just interacting and with less focus on the plot/action.

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor. This is an older book that Binti. The story is in principle really interesting, but I actually stopped reading it about 3/4 through because...there was just so much plot, so much action, so much movement from one place to another. I wanted time for the characters. I wanted to spend time with Phoenix before she escaped the tower, so I would understand her motivations more, and how and why her belief about herself and the world changed so much, so fast. I wanted to see her everyday life during that year in Ghana, not just have it described to me by the narrator in retrospect. It really reminded me of Kate Elliott's A Passage of Stars, in which so much happens and the main character just keeps passing through various events and people's lives and...I just want time for the relationships to breathe.

Among Others by Jo Walton. Written as the journal entries of a disabled Welsh teenager at an English boarding school circa 1980. She knows magic, she loves to read, especially SF, and she's fled an abusive mother and a family who she loves but who didn't protect her. One of my favourite books this year. The prose was gorgeous; the main character so deeply felt. (I did have a "goddamn it, I got tricked into reading YA again" moment. It's not that I have any problem with YA, I just wish I could find more stories centred on women over 30.)  An added bonus: the character takes the train from Shrewsbury to Cardiff several times in the book, and I took the same train to/from VidUKon while I was reading it! This was my first book by Walton but I definitely want to read more.

I've come to realise that for a story to really stick for me, I almost always need there to be a slice of life element. I think that's just one of the reasons my three favourite tv shows all have a lot of episodes where the characters are just doing stuff, getting serial character development but no major long-term plot developments, before the Big Plot starts.

What am I reading now

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. A clone murder mystery in space! I was already sold from the moment I heard that description (which is funny, none of those things in isolation is something I'd automatically go for, but  in combination they sounded fantastic). As it happens, it's also a big story with fascinating politics going back hundreds of years before the time the story is set. And presents clones and cloning in a very different way than I expected. The prose is not nearly as lovely as Among Others, which I finished just before, so it took me a while to come around to this. But the unfolding plot has been fun and interesting and now I like it a lot.

What I'll read next

I really want to read The Power by Naomi Alderman, but I'm putting it off till I've read more of the books I already own. Probably Redshirts by John Scalzi (another author I haven't read any of yet). I also now have two volumes of Saga to read, which means I probably need to go back and skim/reread all the rest of them.