Collie's Bestiary

Try any of these books for more on this fascinating and amazing era. The Secret History of the Mongols was written a scant 20 years or so after Genghis' death, and is startlingly realistic instead of sycophantically complimentary. The author of the other two books is eminently readable and well researched. I especially recommend the [...]

(Originally posted in June 2005) Well, crudpuppies. I've been so head-down in work and thesis writing that I realize I've let not one but two posting dates slip by me. I apologize; I'll try to do better in the future. For now, please enjoy the following book review… while I go back to typing madly [...]

There were a number of very nice "grace notes" in the story which I rather liked. The panel of Butterfly whispering her safeword, "Jamaica," to the violent (and bad) dominant — after she'd killed him in self defense — was creepily elegant. I was unsurprised to see archaic crosses on his shirt, in fact; it [...]

Thinking about it, there are a number of religious themes running through Butterfly's story, as well as some extremely common (and unfortunate) tropes. The narrator is, of course, raped by her father as a child, then years later has a sexual bondage game go badly wrong, with the strong implication that this is why she [...]

I've been told I tend to ramble quite a bit in my book reviews, and that they're consequently more interesting… so I thought I'd try doing one as pure train of thought. The "book" in question is the comic book titled "Punisher MAX: Butterfly." Because this work is train of thought, there will be spoilers [...]

The closing symphony was by Prokofiev. The music was expertly performed, and it was clear by the end of the piece that the musicians were playing their hearts out and, at its conclusion, exuberant at having successfully performed a passionate and technically difficult performance. Consequently I find myself feeling faintly guilty at not really caring [...]

Just got back from the Richly Russian program performed by the Symphony Silicon Valley — that's the reason this blog entry is on the 21st instead of the 20th, as is usually scheduled. I wanted to include a review of the performance I heard today… yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Ahem. [...]

(Since I seem to be musing about honesty recently… a short college paper written in 1999 for a primate anthropology class. Enjoy!) A current 'hot' topic in primate studies today is the issue of infant killing. Our readings contain three articles on the subject. The first was the 1977 Hrdy article "Infanticide as a Primate [...]

Now that I think about it, I realize there was a constant emphasis of the Pharaoh — a symbol of rightness and order? — triumphing over entangled, combative animals. Do the raging animals symbolize the disorder and "unright" chaos of the assaulting foreigners? Further (in a personally exciting moment of inspiration) I wonder: does this [...]

For my birthday in October, my wonderful housemate took me to see the display on King Tutankhamen at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. It was, quite simply, amazing. Not only were the precious items quite breathtaking, but the information which accompanied the display was fascinating. There was some history on King Tut, including probable [...]