Girl Detective

My husband G. Grod and I were visiting family near Philadelphia. G. flew home on his own so I could stay for a longer visit with 4yo Drake an 2yo Guppy. As he went through security, G. was stopped for a search of his bag.

“What’s this?” asked the guard, holding up a brick-sized, foil-wrapped item in a Ziploc bag.

G., appreciating how suspicious this looked: “It’s a pound of scrapple. My mom froze it so I could take a loaf home.”

“OK,” the guard shrugged, replacing the package in G’s bag, as if that were the most reasonable thing he’d heard all day. Next he pulled out a heavy, paper-wrapped cylinder. “What’s this, then?”

“It’s an Eagles beer stein,” G said. “I took my son up to training camp at Lehigh.”

The guard then asked who they’d seen, and how the Birds had looked. He waved G. through the checkpoint.

Only in Philly, G. thought, would a loaf of scrapple not raise an eyebrow, and a heavy beer glass spark a conversation among fans. It’s good to see some things don’t change.

Empire has a good, if hard to navigate, list of the 50 greatest comic book characters. Now, lists are inherently flawed and best as discussion starters. Nonetheless, there are a lot of great characters on here from my favorite comics. (Link from Bookslut)

I’m kinda bummed Nexus and Zot didn’t make the cut. Oh, and Carrie Stetko (coming soon to the movies) and Tara Chace, too. And Batgirl and Supergirl. Perhaps I should stop thinking on this.

Others?

In Hamlet, Polonius is the father of Laertes and Ophelia. Before Laertes departs Denmark for France, Polonius sends him off thus:

…There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee.

Several well-known phrases contained therein are deployed in common usage without irony. Many critics, though, regard Polonius as a clown, or figure of ridicule; this makes his advice likely trite and not meant by Shakespeare to be taken seriously.

Though later scenes in the book portray Polonius as foolish, the longer note on this passage in the edition I’m reading, with commentary by Harold Jenkins (NB: not the man better known as Conway Twitty), says it is a mistake to read the above passage as a joke:

Such conventional precepts are entirely appropriate to Polonius as a man of experience. It is a mistake to suppose they are meant to make him seem ridiculous. Their purpose, far more important than any individual characterization, is to present him in his role of father….by impressing upon us here the relation between father and son the play is preparing for the emergence of Laertes later as the avenger who will claim Hamlet as his victim.

So, is Polonius a good father, a pompous fool, or perhaps a little of both? Methinks ’tis the latter.

I’m reading Hamlet again. When I read it in high school, I dismissed Hamlet as an annoying procrastinator. I used my paper to prove my AP English teacher wasn’t reading my work, just giving me A’s, identifying Claudius with a term that contains the letters m and f. That was me, then: “an understanding simple and unschool’d.”

The next time I read Hamlet I was in graduate school, about ten years ago. My English friend Thalia lent me her copy, with her A-level notes. It was a discouraging contrast with my senior-year experience. I loved the play. It was a feast of words–so _this_ was the source of so many famous quotes, many of which I’d thought were from the Bible.

Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcelllus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the might
Been thus encounter’d: a figure like your father
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes
Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like. –Horatio, from Hamlet I, ii, 196-206

Footnote from the 1997 Arden Shakespeare edition:

Horatio’s speech ‘a perfect model of dramatic narration and dramatic style, the purest poetry and yet the most natural language’ (Coleridge)

I decided on a slow reading: not just the text of the play, but the xxvii-page preface and 159-page introduction first, since I’ve read the play before. I read the spread of two pages, then their footnotes. At the end of each scene, I read the longer end notes for it. The preface and introduction took me the better part of two days to read. The academic jargon was so thick I only noticed my edition skipped from page 14 to 47 when I paged back for a definition of “foul papers.” I’d had to read that page transition several times to make sense it didn’t possess; it looks as if it were never bound in, not as if it fell out. The editor, Harold Jenkins, is entertainingly satisfied with himself, cutting down interpretations of other scholars with words as poisonous as Laertes’s rapier.

The Arden Shakespeare series has undergone several changes of publisher. They have a new edition of Hamlet, but I’m sticking with the one I read before, even if my copy is missing a segment. As the introduction makes clear, the lineage of the text is murky. Most copies of Hamlet rely on the second quarto, though some adhere to that of the first folio. Editors have a mighty task to decide which copy, if any, is the most authoritative for any given passage.

Asked later: What edition is your favorite/least favorite? Do you have a preference?

I scanned the board at the coffee shop, but didn’t see what I wanted. The woman at the register waited for my order.

“Can I get a depth charge?” I asked, not surprised when she furrowed her brow and wanted to know what it was.

“A cup of coffee with a shot in it.”

“Oh,” she smiled. “We call that a red eye. Where are you from?”

Minnesota, I told her. She placed my order, then had another question.

“What do you call it when it has TWO shots in it?”

“A double depth charge. What about you?”

She laughed. “A _black_ eye.”

Vive la difference.

I visit NYC once or twice a year. That’s just enough time between trips for me to forget the basics of the subway. I may very well do it wrong the first time every trip, which is embarrassing, because I’ve lived in subway cities before! Perhaps the midwest, or motherhood, has dulled my city mojo. Here’s my attempt to reinforce what I learned yet again on this trip to Gotham:

(Sung, of course, to the tune of “Wheels on the Bus”)

The trains of New York run UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN
The trains of New York run UP and DOWN,
NOT just one way.

I’m watching the season premiere of Sesame Street with my kids. Murray seems to be the monster of the show. I wonder if they’ll feature other monsters in an alternating manner. No Cookie Monster? Wrong. Just wrong.

I wish I hadn’t watched the Feist “1, 2, 3, 4″ video before this. It’s delightful, and would have been a joy to be surprised by. Jack Black’s octagon enthusiasm was pretty fun to watch.

Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential received good reviews when it was published in 2000. I thought, “I’d like to read that.” Then I watched a few episodes of his Food Network “A Cook’s Tour“, and was put off by his on-air persona. But my favorite local food writer wrote a positive article about him, and his book was turned into a decent, though canceled, sitcom (now available on DVD). I thought I’d give the book another chance. Then a few years went by. A friend lent me the book. My husband lent it to someone else. I got it back, and finally read it. And I wish I’d read it way back when.

I’m now a fan of Bourdain as a guest star on “Top Chef” or from his Travel Channel show “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” for which he has a blog. From what I’ve read, part of the the unlikeability of Bourdain’s former Food Network show was about its production, not its star. His book is written in the acerbic, funny, and in-your-face provocative way that he comes across in person.

What most people don’t get about professional-level cooking is that it is not at all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking – the real business of preparing the food you eat – is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator …. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions.

The essays that make up the book alternate between personal anecdotes, behind-the-scenes looks at chefs and line cooking, and advice on food–don’t eat fish on Mondays, go to brunch or order meat well done, and own one good chef’s knife rather than a big block of mediocre blades. They are loosely arranged in the order of a multi-course dinner. “Loose” is the key term here, because it wasn’t always clear to me why some essays were in particular “courses,” and they did not flow chronologically.

In the eight years since this book was published, much of what he notes has become common knowledge, so the shock value it must have had has lessened. To be fair, though, some of the explosion of food knowledge and appreciation of fine dining is likely due to this popular book. I was both entertained, and a little disappointed in the book. I enjoyed the anecdotes, but they never delved much below surface level. I learned about food, though a lot in the book I knew already. This book was of its moment, and momentous in the changes it helped inspire. Eight years later it’s still good, but perhaps more culturally significant in retrospect than currently relevant.

At Inside Higher Ed, “The Innumeracy of Intellectuals” by Chad Orzel. (Link from Morning News)

Intellectuals and academics are just assumed to have some background knowledge of the arts, and not knowing those things can count against you. Ignorance of math and science is no obstacle, though. I have seen tenured professors of the humanities say – in public faculty discussions, no less – “I’m just no good at math,” without a trace of shame. There is absolutely no expectation that Intellectuals know even basic math.

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, “How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science” by Peter Wood. (Link from Arts & Letters Daily)

At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn – and worse, fail to develop as “whole persons” – if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren’t among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who “feel good” about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.

The intellectual lassitude we breed in students, their unearned and inflated self-confidence, undercuts both the self-discipline and the intellectual modesty that is needed for the apprentice years in the sciences.

I had an experience similar to those that Orzel describes at a dinner with a group of liberal arts grad students and professors. When our bill came, everyone looked around, hoping someone would step up to figure it out. I was the only volunteer. I looked at the total, mentally added 20% for tip in my head, divided it by the number of people at the dinner, then collected money and gave change. One of the professors, who’d recently been awarded a Genius grant, thanked me for taking charge, and said she was hopeless at math. I was in a liberal arts program at the time, but I told her I’d been a business student as an undergrad. She nodded as if this explained it all.

Wood’s article ties the decline in math and the sciences to the rise of an esteem based education system, which has been much bruited about online, of late, which I’ve written about here and here.) I was reminded of an English friend. When she showed early promise in school, she was urged toward the sciences, and went on to a PhD in biology from one of the world’s premiere universities. If she had been a US student, might she have become one of the overeducated liberal-arts baristas that Woods decries?

It’s interesting to ponder, as I’ll decide within the next year which school to enroll 4yo Drake in for kindergarten. The open arts school that everyone in the neighborhood sends their kids to? The Math/Science/Technology magnet school down the street (whose deal breaker may be that it begins at 7:30am)? The German Immersion school?

At the Atlantic, “Two–Make that Three–Cheers for the Chain Bookstores.” Link from the NBCC blog, Critical Mass.

Although there is some reality in the image of the chains as predators (ours is a capitalist economy, after all), it is not the whole truth or even, perhaps, the most important part. The emotional drive behind the anti-chain crusade is an understandable mistrust of big corporations allied with the knee-jerk snobbery that is never far from the surface in American cultural life. “I am a reader,” the interior litany goes, “therefore I belong to a privileged minority; I patronize exclusive bookstores known only to me and my intellectual peers.” With the chains, which target a wider public and make the process of book buying unthreatening to the relatively less educated, the exclusivity factor disappears.

I enjoyed the article, because I’ve always enjoyed Barnes and Noble and Borders. (Not so much Books a Million.) On a trip to London, I can’t tell you how many happy hours I whiled away browsing in Waterstone’s, and admiring their floor by floor displays. I also shop at amazon.com. And my independent book and comic stores. I love books; I love shopping. Therefore I love bookshops.

I’m really enjoying Season 5. Last season it was pretty clear from the get go who the final three were going to be, and they were so talented that something of the joy of competition for a supposedly amateur prize got lost. This season, though, has a mad mix of personalities, from “leathuh”-lovin’ Stella to 3rd-person using Suede. The judges are so bitchy they sound like they might have been at the bar just before coming to judge’s table. Perhaps my only complaint is that Bravo has thrown in the towel with its marketing, spoiling all the surprises of what the challenge and who the guest judge is going to be, both on its site and in the previews.

Last night’s Olympic challenge was a nice variation on the ice skating challenge from season 1. Only Joe seemed to realize he was designing for people with muscles, but he still came in third, after Korto’s striking white outfit and Terri’s impressive, though boob-squashing, three-piece stunner.

Jennifer’s choice was baffling. She keeps saying she’s a surrealist, but I didn’t see it at all. Like Daniel’s, her outfit looked vintage, not modern, and definitely not sporty. Daniel is a pouty, anxious (remember Daniel Franco?) guy who I hope goes soon. Blayne really needs a smack upside the head about the dangers of tanning. He’s going to look 23 going on 45 sooner than he imagines. Terri, LeeAnne and Korto are the ones to watch, I think. And if Joe couldn’t win last night’s challenge, after insisting again and again that he would, he should just go home.

For more commentary on last night’s episode, visit Project Rungay.

Sara Mosle of Slate writes about traveling with her kid, and doesn’t feel the love for the GoGo Kidz Travelmate, which has been a staple of our family travel for over a dozen trips in three years now. It’s not perfect, but we’ve never had to remove the wheels at security. They either send it through a larger machine or wand it. We’ve been able to forgo taking a stroller when we visit family, and the thing gets so much attention in airports you’d think we were rock stars, which can be a nice little esteem boost on a harried traveling day.

Link there from Game Theorist, where the author agrees with Mosle on two points: buy a seat for your under-2 kid, especially if you’re parenting solo; and pack as if for a desert island.

I’ve found it’s good to prepare for the worst, with ample food, toys, books, diapers and bribes, ahem, rewards for good behavior. But paying for the seat? I never paid for a seat for Drake before he was two, even when I traveled alone with him. I’d haul the infant seat up to the checkin desk, ask if there was an available seat, which there always was, get moved so I had the adjacent seat, and voila: seat without paying for it. I was given this advice by kind author Jennifer Weiner, who I’d emailed before a trip to her hometown, Philly.

For now-2yo Guppy’s first two or three roundtrips, I had him in my Maya Wrap sling, with older brother Drake in the seat next to me. The Maya Wrap made it easy for me to transport baby Guppy and nurse him on ascent and descent to protect his ears. It also encouraged him to sleep, which he did for all but one very screamy Maya-Wrapped flight.

Which brings me to my travel advice, which is really more emotional than what to stock in your diaper bag. Yes, there are a few things I do, like give my kids a prophylactic dose of Tylenol before they fly. (Many swear by Benadryl, but many also curse it because it can backfire and make the kid wired, instead.) I am also not afraid to ask for help from flight attendants and strangers.

But the thing that’s held me in best stead over flights both good and terrible is to know that flying with kids is largely about luck. Sometimes it’s good–weather’s good, kid is good, all is well. Sometimes it’s bad–flight delayed, long time on plane without moving, blowout diaper, peed-in pants, inconsolable screaming. And I won’t know what kind of luck I’ll get till the trip is done. So I tell myself to enjoy it if it’s good, and try not to flip out if it’s bad. I try to remain calm, apologize within reason to those around me (many of whom have told me not to worry; they had umpteen kids at home and they know what it’s like and can they give me a hand?), and put on the best parenting behavior that I can, even when (note, not “if”) I’ve felt like screaming and crying, or running to the restroom to hide.

This week’s 2.5 hour flight with the kids was a dream. The flight left on time, arrived early, and the kids never fussed. They were happy with books the whole time. I enjoyed it. And I can only hope that we’ll have such a good experience on the return flight. But I know, too, what to do when (note, not “if”) it doesn’t go as well.

A few geeky tidbits gleaned from reading Titus Andronicus.

For Battlestar Galactica fans:

Goths: As he saith, so say we all with him (5.1.17)

For Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans:

Cocytus’ misty mouth (2.3.237): While Cocytus refers to a a river in the classical underworld of Hades, the phrase Cocytus’ misty mouth may suggest the hellmouth, or entrance into hell, that was a stage property in Christian cycle drama still performed in the sixteenth century in England.

I saw a production of Titus Andronicus a few weeks ago. It was an all-female, creatively staged outdoor production. I brought popcorn, a lawn chair, and I loved it. Interestingly, I enjoyed it far more than I did the Guthrie’s recent Midsummer Night’s Dream, which had bells and whistles aplenty. The latter production, full of songs and elaborate stage pieces, distracted me from the play itself. The Titus production, though, made me _think_ about the play, and want to read it to muse on it further: the contrast of casting women in such a violent, patriarchal play; using a circus as background, and the setting of the 1930’s Dustbowl, an era of US history I’d read about recently (The Grapes of Wrath and Out of the Dust), and during which government and family were painfully relevant issues.

Titus is one of Shakespeare’s earliest, and bloodiest tragedies. The title character returns to Rome triumphant from war against the Goths. Their queen and her sons are his prisoners. He refuses the crown of the deceased emperor, and instead names the emperor’s elder son Saturninus, though the younger might have been better suited. As a token for the twenty-one sons he lost in the war, Titus kills the Queen’s eldest son. An entire play of very bad things ensue as he discovers that family, not the state, are where his loyalties should, and do, lie.

Why, foolish Lucius, dost though not perceive
That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
But me and mine…

What fool hath added water to the sea
Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?

The chief villain is the Queen’s lover, Aaron the Moor. Utterly without scruple for most of the play:

what you cannot as you would achieve,
You must perforce accomplish as you may.

Aaron also comes to learn the value of family, when his infant son is threatened repeatedly with death.

The play includes many murders, a brutal rape, and several disfigurements. It is not for the faint, or to read with breakfast. But the tale of an aging military man losing a battle against change is timeless.

I also very much enjoyed Julie Taymor’s spectacular film of Titus, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins in the lead. Filmed at Rome’s famed Cinecitta, the look of the play must be seen to be appreciated. Taymor’s elaborately visual production enhances the extreme events of this difficult work.

Some, including Shakespeare scholar Harold Bloom, argue that Titus Andronicus is a dark comedy, spoofing popular violent plays of the time. Either way, it’s an interesting play to see and read, though not a masterpiece.

At the Guardian, Hilary Mantel on “Real Books in Imaginary Houses” (link from Pages Turned)

But I am intrigued by the divide between those people If who say “I haven’t time to read”, and those for whom reading is like breathing and who, though they may be caught up with all sorts of texts, always have a novel on the go. For some people, the consumption of stories is a barely conscious function that runs parallel to eating, sleeping, having sex and earning a living. How do you live life without stories - live in just a single narrative, and that one your own?

One of the things I’ve learned about myself after having two children, now 2 and 4, is that I need to read and write. If I don’t, I become cranky, anxious and depressed. So I’ve had to remake my life to carve out time for these things. I have to say no to things. I have to remind myself that I don’t need any more hobbies, thank you, I have more than I can manage right now.

And I supposed that’s the only way I can understand someone who says “I don’t have time to read.” S/he must have some other passion, talent or hobby that comes first. Likely one that I’d say, “Oh, I don’t have time for that.”

Hamlet, on Facebook. (Link from Morning News and ALoTT5MA)

Guess what? White people love Facebook (link from my friend lxbean), which I recently joined. I’m discouraged by how many things I like that White People like–81 out of 106, right now. I don’t delude myself that I’m unique, but it’s a humbling reminder of how herd-like my supposedly independent thinking is.

At the Literary Review, Philip Davis argues that reading Shakespeare changes our brains in the moment, not by discussing it after the fact. (Link from Arts & Letters Daily)

Shakespeare is stretching us, making us more alive, at a level of neural excitement never fully exorcised by later conceptualisation; he is opening up the possibility of further peaks, new potential pathways or developments.

He offers early studies of brain activity to back up his theory. I’ll be interested to see if these experiments are sound and stand up to scrutiny. I’d also be interested to learn if there’s a difference in the brain’s response to reading Shakespeare versus hearing/seeing Shakespeare performed, as it was intended.

At the Guardian, Alice Wignall uses the opening of the “Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging” film to muse about “the power of teenage literary passions.” (Link from Bookslut)

The truth is that you never love books the way you do as a young reader. My generation consumed with fanatical zeal the works of Judy Blume and Paula Danziger and the far less wholesome American series, Sweet Valley High. And contemporary teenagers are just as likely to be found with their heads stuck in a book.

I am one of about two people in the universe who didn’t like the Angus book, but I can see why so many do, because it reminded me strongly of two books that I LOVE, Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’ Diary.

I don’t think I do love books I read now, as an adult, as ardently or so well as I did those when I was young. That’s why reading Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Dodie Smith’s I Captured the Castle and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the first time as an adult was bittersweet; I wished I’d been re-reading them since girlhood.

I read Blume and Danziger (The Solid Gold Kid was a favorite), but missed the Sweet Valley High phenomenon by a few years. I was reading Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and the Hardy Boys right up till I started sneaking more salacious fare, like Blume’s Forever and Wifey, Judith Krantz’s Scruples, Princess Daisy and Mistral’s Daughter, Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave, Lace by Shirley Conran, Judith McNaught and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s bodice rippers, Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, and those truly dreadful V.C. Andrews books. Of these, I might have one Pern book still on my shelf. All the rest have been duly and rightfully purged. And yet, I didn’t just love them, I LOVED! them, and I feel affection for them for that, if nothing else.

Wignall’s essay suggests that boys aren’t nearly as impressed by what they read as are girls. I question this, though. Tolkien, Harry Potter? Superman, Batman, X-Men, et al? Where would these be without their fervent boy-reader followings?

How about you–do you love certain books with the same fervor as when you were young?

If you enjoyed the viral dance video, “Where in the Hell is Matt?” you’ll probably enjoy this new video featuring the same vocalist, Palbasha Siddique. If you still haven’t watched Matt dancing, please do so immediately. MinnPost’s Michael Metzgar sums it up well:

The “Matt” video features American video game designer Matt Harding doing a goofy little dance in spectacular settings around the world, often accompanied by the indigenous people of the 42 countries he visited. It struck a chord somehow, linking the world in silly, unabashed happiness. (emphasis mine)

I first found the Matt video through a link on a national news site. So I was pretty surprised to find that the vocalist for Matt’s video lives IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. She’s visiting family in Bangladesh right now, competing in an American-Idol-esque competition.

The popularity of the Matt video spurred her to make “Maa”, about longing for home, with her band, Melange. The song is similar to, and the video reminiscent, of Matt’s. It’s set in and around downtown Minneapolis, so it has a lot of pleasant associations for me. In one shot, you can see the building G. Grod and I lived in when 4yo Drake was born.

If you squint and use your imagination, this looks kinda like superhero versions of G. Grod and me.

Dead End Kids is the fourth collection of Runaways, the young adult superhero series created by acclaimed comics writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y the Last Man, Ex Machina, and more.) (Reviews of volumes 1, 2 and 3, here.) Buffy creator Joss Whedon takes over the writing reins for another story about a group of misfit kids from LA whose parents were supervillains. They’re trying, and succeeding about as often as they fail, to do good, unlike their parents.

Their LA hideout was busted, so they seek the help of their parents’ former colleague, the Kingpin. They think they can manipulate him for a place to stay, but soon end up on the wrong side of the Punisher and a LOT of ninjas. They get away, but strand themselves in 1907, surrounded by warring factions of “Wonders,” as the super-powered people of that time were called.

Like much of Whedon’s work, the story has a girl whose power alienates her from others, and both she and others have to make tremendous personal sacrifices. Some endings are happy, but not all. This is a good read, for fans of the ongoing series and for fans of Whedon.