Dec. 4th, 2017

hermionesviolin: image of a bicycle painted on pavement inside a forward-facing arrow (moar bike lanes pls)
Back on Sep 14 the free bike clinic at work had told me that my gear chain was way stretched out (like you usually get it replaced at 0.5 and mine was at 1.0, something like that).

I basically never bring my bike for full on tune-ups, though, because I don't wanna not have it. (I literally think the last time I did was 4 years ago when I had an accident and was literally injured so I couldn't ride.)

The Thursday that Ari came in for #nerdvacation #AARSBL17 (Nov 16) I knew I should drop my bike off for a tune-up on my way home because I was gonna be T-commuting with Ari to the conference for the next few days -- but it had been rainy and unenjoyable weather for biking in recent days and riding that day was so enjoyable that I wasn't willing to give up even the brief ride from the bike shop to my house.

Ironically, I'd taken the bus a few days prior 'cause it was too cold (my brakes literally freeze up #stepthroughframeproblems) and had chatted with Alison H, who said that by the time winter comes she is so ready to be done biking because it's stressful. Which I am sympathetic to (and I think she does more owning-your-lane etc. than I do), but I have genuinely gotten used to biking my commute route such that it doesn't stress me out that much* and I value so highly the convenience of not being dependent on infrequent busses to get home if I go to anything after work.

* Years ago, when I was first bike commuting, I asked some frequent bicyclists at Coffee Hour how to bike on Mass Ave. without feeling like I was gonna die -- 'cause I figured these regular spikes of anxiety couldn't be good for my long-term health -- and Tara's husband David's suggestion was basically just that you get jaded/used to it, which she protested was unhelpful, and I did appreciate other people's suggestions (take side roads, etc.) but it is also true that the reason I'm relatively chill about biking on Mass Ave. now is that I've gotten used to it.

Last Monday, Nov 27, on my way to work the gear chain popped off for no apparent reason, which I took as my sign that I should take it in. Wheelworks opens at 10am, so I brought it in after work that day -- and it was totally empty except for some staffers who've known me forever \o/ (Unlike the last time I was there.)

They said they could have it for me the next evening, and in fact it was done at like 11am the next day. (And it was well below freezing that morning, so I couldn't have biked to work anyway, so that worked up serendipitously well.)

Everything feels a little tighter now (and it has black pedals now! how will Cate recognize my bike? the last time I got the pedals replaced, they only had red ones in stock, which had the unintentional result of making my bike really easy to spot) so some biking feels more difficult, but it also feels smoother and less like it's going to fall apart :)

While I was there last Monday night, Alexi was saying I could probably get another season out of this bike (in my head I thought, "So I'll keep this bike for at least another 2 years," because I always go longer than recommended before actually bringing it in) and we talked a little about what I would get as a replacement. I said I still wanted a step-through frame but had learned that I would probably prefer a lighter frame. Alexi said they don't make my exact model any more and I probably wouldn't be able to get one that's lighter and also has the rider sitting so entirely upright but said it's actually easier on your back if you're curled over a little (like how slouching engages your back muscles less than standing up straight), which I'm not entirely sold on, but I don't have to make a decision immediately.
hermionesviolin: young black woman(?) with curly hair and pink sunglasses, facing away from the viewer (every week is ibarw)
Last week I went to see The Breadwinner (animated film about an Afghani girl who disguises herself as a boy) with [personal profile] bironic (partly because [tumblr.com profile] finnglas had posted excited about it).

I had not realized that in addition to being produced by the white Irish woman who did The Book of Kells [Nora Twomey], the film was based on a book by a white Canadian woman [Deborah Ellis] and had a white Ukranian-Canadian woman [Anita Doron] as its other writer.

The voice actors all seem to have Middle Eastern names, and an Afghan women's choir does the song over the closing credits, but I was still somewhat uncomfortable with "White People telling a story of Oppressed Brown People."

I did some digging after I got home that night, and The Breadwinner seems to be part of a series of middle grade novels -- though the movie was based on the first book (which came out in September 2000).

The GoodReads blurb for the first book says, "A political activist whose first book for children, Looking for X. dealt with poverty in Toronto, [author Deborah] Ellis based The Breadwinner on the true-life stories of women in Afghan refugee camps."

A letter from the filmmaker says:
Deep within the threads of The Breadwinner are stories that give the film its heart—from personal stories such as cast members Kawa Ada and Noorin Gulamgaus families both fleeing war to try to find a new life to larger stories of conflict such as the role of the West in Afghan affairs, the proxy wars fought by Superpowers, and the prioritization of short-term goals at the expense of long term stability. Every story gave depth to the characters and a deep compassion to the form of the film.
[personal profile] bironic emailed me the NYT Critic’s Pick article noting, "The journalistic roots of the original book are reassuring. Still, this was the only snippet in a movie review that begins to look at the question I wondered about."

I did some more digging.

A Mary Sue article says:
Initially, I was concerned by the fact that this film was an adaptation of a white Canadian woman’s book…by a white Irish woman. However, while the source material wasn’t created by Afghan women, both Ellis when writing her books and Twomey when making her film did everything they could to incorporate the participation and perspectives of Afghan women.

When writing The Breadwinner (and subsequent books in the series), Ellis traveled to Pakistan to interview refugees at an Afghan refugee camp. It was there that she met a mother and daughter whose story she fictionalized through Parvana.

For the film, Twomey made sure to cast all-Asian/Arab folks for the voice cast, and the composers worked with Afghan musicians to make sure the film had Afghan input from every angle. The fact that Afghanistan’s first lady has spoken highly of the film makes me think that it manages to be as authentic as it can possibly be without having been written/created by an Afghan woman.
An interview with Anita Doron also reveals that they had a cultural consultant
As soon as I signed onto the project, I asked to attach Afghan artist and TED Fellow Aman Mojadidi to be a cultural consultant. Andrew and Anthony agreed immediately — they were deeply invested in making sure what we created would be as authentic and truthful as possible. Aman read various drafts of the script, and we had lengthy conversations about life in Afghanistan. I’d ask him questions like: “If I make Fattema and company stop closer to Kabul on their way to Mazar, is there a regular stop people take with roadside chai at about a day-and-a-half walking distance?” (Answer: “Yep — Salang Pass.”) He provided specificity and a sense of humor and understanding of the world, which was invaluable.
and she also just generally did a lot of research -- "I spent months and months researching and feeling and seeing Afghan poetry, stories, music, food, crafts, fabrics and so on."

***

The NYT article says:
Harsh disappointments befall the characters, and they are depicted frankly, but in a way that encourages young viewers to form an affinity with the characters rather than cringe at terror. The director, Nora Twomey, has a nuanced way with characterization and action, and the voice cast, led by Saara Chaudry of “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” is terrific. In its alternating of Parvana’s day-to-day struggle with the tale she tells herself, the movie doesn’t promote bromides about stories and storytelling transcending reality. Rather, it demonstrates that the way imagination refracts reality can provide not only solace but also real-world strategy. (emphasis mine)
***

One thing I was reflecting on after the film was how the father's story about their people being a people at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains who were attacked over and over again by invaders was so reminiscent of Marjane Satrapi's introduction to her graphic novel Persepolis (2002), even though Persepolis is about Persia/Iran and The Breadwinner is about Afghanistan. The two countries are right next to each other, and I wondered how far one had to go before a people's identity stopped being the nomads who were conquered and became the conquerors.

From the 2002 Introduction to Persepolis:
In the second millennium B.C., while the Elan nation was developing a civilization alongside Babylon, Indo-European invaders gave their name to the immense Iranian plateau where they settled. The word “Iran” was derived from “Ayryana Vaejo,” which means “the origin of the Aryans.” These people were semi-nomads whose descendants were the Medes and the Persians. The Medes founded the first Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C.; it was later destroyed by Cyrus the Great. He established what became one of the largest empires of the ancient world, the Persian Empire, in the sixth century B.C. Iran was referred to as Persia -- its Greek name -- until 1935 when Reza Shah, the father of the last Shah of Iran, asked everyone to call the country Iran.

Iran was rich. Because of its wealth and its geographic location, it invited attacks: From Alexander the Great, from its Arab neighbors to the west, from Turkish and Mongolian conquerors, Iran was often subject to foreign domination. Yet the Persian language and culture withstood these invasions. The invaders assimilated into this strong culture, and in some ways they became Iranians themselves.
I paged through a copy of the book The Breadwinner at a local bookstore, and it didn't have the story the father told (in the book he tells a somewhat different story) and I can't find it online, but I remember it used language like "Aryana" and had a series of conquerors (it used cut-paper animation to nice effect there -- having basically the same male figure on a horse, just with slightly different clothing etc. each time, representing various different conquerors).

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hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (Default)
Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)

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