Month: August 2024

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Life / Reading Notes of the moment

  • The comics I await most eagerly are:
  • While weekly serialization feels brutal on the artists’ side for being too fast for them to produce the work, this pace remains slow for readers. It is jarring to open a chapter in a middle of a conversation when I can’t remember who was even involved… I’m definitely going to have to re-read many of these to write about them once they are complete. Or delay reading them until I can do so in larger sets of chapters.
  • Most of my comics are about women, and that’s because I’m picking those out of the adventure, drama, and romance sections because action heroines are fun (I’ve had decades of male-centered stories!) and prefer their art.
    • There is more gender balance in the women-led stories – so many male characters all around in various roles (not just as romantic leads, but also as allies, fans, supported, fathers, villains…) where the reverse isn’t always true for the man-led ones.
    • There are more elaborate artsy details in most of the stories I choose. I skim lots of types of comics, and reject many of the heroine stories if the art doesn’t call me (or if they are beautifully drawn but ramble about strategic agriculture!), but I have this problem more frequently with the action hero stories. Those are generally illustrated much more simply, and I’m less interested in those art styles.
  • The ‘boys love’ comics I’ve chosen combine drama and adventure successfully with romance elements. (Love IS love!) As I was telling a friend about them, everyone is remarkably good-looking, plus, there is sex, drama, and adventure – what’s not to love?

Reading current Korean comics has become a proper hobby. And I get excited when I see other people reading comics from the same publisher on the train, but am hold myself back from asking for their recommendations… for now.

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Book (Manhwa): Winter Wolf by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche

Cover art for Winter Wolf by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche

Winter Wolf
by soonmu, cheong yong, rubyche
published by Tappytoon (2 seasons; 61 chapters, complete)
Undated

I’ve read the first season (through chapter 36) of this spooky mansion romance. Because, as a former redhead, I feel obligated to read manhwa about other redheads. (You know, for the cartoon sisterhood.)

The revolution arrived, and Lysithea is on the losing side. Her family members and others in the nobility have been executed or will be once they are found. She is paying smugglers to get her out of the country by sea, so she can live abroad with a foreign aunt. But while she is exhausted from being in hiding and on the run, her horse takes off, and she finds herself traveling on foot through the snow to an abandoned mansion, where her next ‘broker’ (smugglers are fussy about their professional nicknames) awaits her.

Her broker is expecting her, but her next step required the horse she just lost, plus getting to port before the ice does. Also, the abandoned mansion they are sheltering in has a reputation for being haunted. Her broker insists that the moaning and cries for help she hears at night are just her imagination. As her lack of sleep wears down her sanity, she fears she may need an escape from her own escape plans…

This story has classic horror movie tropes delivered well, and a heroine who is both brave enough to investigate things that go bump in the night and exhausted enough to periodically choose to just stay in bed and pretend not to hear the moaning – I respect her deeply for BOTH of these attitudes. There are very few characters in the story, and they are all suspicious! There is plenty of suspense at the end of the first season. (The fact that there are two seasons is something of a spoiler, I suppose. But: you’ll live.)

Season 1 of Winter Wolf is enjoyable.

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Coffee: Potent Slovene-Turkish Coffee

The Slovene language packaging of the Turkish-style coffee my team member brought back from Slovenia!
The Slovene language packaging of the Turkish-style coffee my team member brought back from Slovenia!

Goodness, this stuff is powerful. And I made myself a double!?!

Turkish coffee is a special beverage: finely ground coffee, boiled repeatedly, and served as a thick brew that settles out, so it needs a moment before you sip it. As a known coffee appreciator, my team member S. brought me back a package of the popular brand of Turkish coffee she enjoys in Slovenia. (She also has sold me on visiting her highly regarded country, and also on visiting the city of Trieste in Italy, just on the border.)

Thanks to the magic of Google translate’s photo translation option (so good!), I know that I can boil 7g of powder (my usual French press’ scoop size) for each 100ml of water. S recommends boiling it repeatedly, to let it get thick and frothy. There are disputes online about whether or not stirring is necessary, but I choose to stir a little and swirl a lot in a tiny pot on the stovetop.

It is delicious! It is strong! It is mildly terrifying unsweetened! It should be measured during preparation and consumed in smaller cups than I usually use, to ensure a general sense of moderation. It is not desirable nor pleasant to drink/eat the sediment at the bottom of the cup, so don’t knock back the last bit as you would with espresso (you will not find undiluted sugar, it is quite the opposite sort of surprise).

This Turkish (Slovene-Turkish?) coffee is satisfying to an espresso-fan like myself, though my mouth sounds the alarm when I begin sipping that it might be dangerously strong. If you hang out with me and are a fan of potent caffeine, ask me to prepare some for you when you come over.

(Yes, it does appear that coffee is “kave” in Slovene.)

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Life: Facial Graffiti

All the kids are making their eyebrows bolder now. (I want to blame the fabulous eyebrows on Korean drama actors, because those are some very attractive brows, but I doubt it is all their fault.) The women at work have them drawn in geometrically idealized eyebrow shapes with strong verticals and sharp edges, which they create with multiple tools, attention, and skill each morning.

My eyebrows, on the other hand, which have never matched my natural haircolor at any point, are fading from a neutral brown to white. They are mostly curves and awkward (startled or skeptical) angles. I’m not good at ‘multiple tools’ and ‘skill’ in the mornings. So, when I was getting my brows threaded into tidiness, I signed up to have them tinted. Tinting faded brows is the lazy way to roll out of bed and rush off to work without having a graphically important pair of features missing.

Tinting is a delicate professional thing: every box of hair dye you’ve ever seen tells you not to try it with hair products, because they will maim you. Sure enough, the eyebrow places use henna, which stains hair effectively with non-blinding, largely plant-based ingredients. My handler chose light brown, and got to work.

As she was finishing up and fresh, faintly-lemony scents evaporated from my forehead, she told me that the first day of henna is not the way it will really look: it just needs some time to finish setting. I have used henna for hair in the past, and know what she meant. So I wasn’t entirely surprised by the results.

But I was a little surprised.

Surprised in a way that could be seen from a distance.

It looks like my eyebrows have been drawn in with a Sharpie (TM).

I had other plans after my brow appointment, but cancelled them once I realized how bold my brows now (temporarily) are. My mother called, and I described this to my mother in my typical way. She couldn’t. stop. laughing.

Having delighted my mother means that I’ve achieved something worthwhile today.

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