Matthew Lloyd > Recent Status Updates

"We are buying what we hate the most with what we love the best."
- Iphigenia at Aulis

Apparently this was the third time that I've read "A Momentary Taste of Being" - perhaps explaining the little I did remember, that it was three years ago, not eleven, that I last read it. But for the longest Tiptree story in this collection - by two hours! - it drags. The ending is not satisfying for a novella-length work; there's not enough else to it to make me want to linger on it.

Finished reading Lavinia, and I read a couple of the related essays while I did so

Another month with Ovid over

I read the entirety of "The Decay of Lying" assuming Vivian was a woman, but it turns out he was named after one of Wilde's sons, whoops

Disappointed to only now realise that "The Women Men Don't See" is the original "women would rather be in a forest with a bear than a man"

"And I Have Come Upon This Place By Lost Ways" is a reminder that we've been saying "don't let computers do all your thinking for you" for 50+ years and people still aren't listening

Robin Sachs is the perfect narrator for China Mieville, based on "Foundation" and "The Ball Pit"

Started reading Lavinia

"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" has depths to it that are far from exhausted in the age of influencer culture - although the idea that ads might be banned feels like a far fetched utopia now - but I still struggle to get through the language, especially in audio format. When I read this again in Warm Worlds and Otherwise, I'm going to try to take it slow, see if I can parse Tiptree's future dialect better.

I read this collection 11 years ago. The opening double header - a story about an airborn pandemic and a story about a massive growth in femicide - hit differently now. Stories from the 1970s, maintaining their relevance today - in a way I love it, but in another way, I hate it!

Werburgh's animal companions (geese) and Ia's unusual sea travel (leaf boat) made today's saint story dovetail nicely with Ovid's account of 3rd February in his fasti: explaining how the constellation of the dolphin came to be through the story of Arion, who was rescued by a dolphin when his boat was boarded by pirates

St. Brigid's Day: This might be Jeffs' best discussion yet: the stories of Brigid are told in a folk-tale manner that I found effective; the discussion acknowledges the interpretation of Brigid's "abortion" miracle, but also complicates it with the medieval context of "virginity", purity, and other saints - all male - who performed similar miracles.