This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

Have you seen "I'm Gay," Eugene Lee Yang's music video/dance performance, dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community? It is stunning.

Trigger warning: it contains representations of violence toward the LGBTQIA+ community.

(Those of you who can't see the video (of Benedict Counterbatch, Murray-arty, and Count von Count), go to my Blog Actual.)

Thanks to the ever reliable codename: Apocalyptica the Flimflammer.

Thanks Lora :o)

This video by "recreational mathemusician" Vi Hart, called "Twelve Tones," is half an hour long, in addition to which, once you watch it, you'll want to watch it again. It's so worth it. I'm not sure how it'll be to watch if you have no music literacy whatsoever, but in case it's helpful, here's the Wikipedia page about the twelve-tone technique. (Personally, I think you can get a lot out of the video even if you don't understand everything that's going on – and it may make you want to go out and learn new things! It did for me.)



(Thanks, D!)

I have many deep and meaningful thoughts to blog, but I've been too busy doing important things like eating a double-decker peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich while sitting in a kayak in the middle of a lake next to some loons. So this will have to do for now: have you seen/heard the a cappella version of the trailer to the (wonderful) movie Inception? On a recent road trip, my companion played the audio for me. I have never laughed so hard while driving through New Hampshire. Here it is:



(And here's the actual trailer for comparison.)

I have a to-do list the length of, um, something long (why did I set myself up to have to take time to think up a clever metaphor?) so this will be quick, but -- I'm reading a very funny book. It's called Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School: Book the First) and is by Gail Carriger. A new character was just described thusly:

The door burst open. A young man stood before them. He was a tall, swarthy fellow of the type that Petunia would swoon over; rakishly handsome in a floppy way.
"In a floppy way" had me howling, and can't you just see him perfectly? I just started Chapter 5, which is titled, "Never Hurl Garlic Mash at a Man with a Crossbow."
Over at the CBC Diversity blog, Rebecca Rabinowitz has written a really wonderful post about the problematic depiction of fat characters in children's literature: Diversity 101: Who's That Fat Kid?
And a friend recently directed me to two wonderful TED talks in which men -- Jackson Katz and Tony P…

This No Blogging thing is intensely peaceful, but I thought I'd break in with a few things that've been piling up.

First, the Horn Book Magazine asked me what's the strangest children's book I've ever read... so I wrote them a little piece about Moomins. If you can't get your hands on the current (March/April 2013) issue but want to read my words, follow the link.

Next, the recent This American Life episode "Reruns" -- about people stuck in a particular moment -- was all-around great, but I especially adored the final act, in which Sarah Vowell discusses people who inappropriately equate themselves with Rosa Parks. Vowell is so dry and funny and CORRECT. Follow the link to listen.

Finally, underwater photojournalist Brian Skerry's TED talk contains some spectacular photos, and also some hope for our oceans.  Press play.

Happy Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day! Someone who uses voice recognition software and draws should start a VRS comic strip. The objects that appear suddenly in my scenes because my VRS has misunderstood me are visually amusing. I just dictated the line, "'I will,' she said with a sob," and my VRS typed, "'I will,' she said with a saw." I feel like a spontaneous saw could really add something to a conversation.Gentlemen of Cambridge: to the man, when faced with a long, narrow corridor of sidewalk between snowbanks, you have waited at your end and let me pass first. This has literally happened to me twelve times since the storm (which I know because at a certain point I started counting). In this northeast USA city (meaning, a city where strangers tend not to pay much attention to each other and rudeness is not particularly unusual), I am startled and touched by this thoughtfulness, then startled that I am touched. Thank you for your gentlemanly beh…

I would like a poster of today's xkcd to hang on my wall: Diagram of the Up Goer Five.

Also, I like this (surreal!) video about Finnish ice fisherpeople.

******

Okay. Here's my public events schedule for NCTE-ALAN in Vegas next weekend. Location of all events: The MGM Grand Hotel & Casino | 3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South | Las Vegas, NV 89109. Which is just WEIRD.

Sunday, November 18th

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Signing in the Penguin Booth, #101-105.

12:00 PM – 12:30 PM: Signing at Anderson’s Bookshop, Booth #147.

Monday, November 19th

8:40 AM – 9:15 AM: ALAN Workshop -- Fantasy Panel. With Rae Carson, Shannon Hale, and Maggie Stiefvater. MGM Grand | Level Three | Premier Ballroom | Rooms 309-311.

9:15 AM – 10:15 AM: (silent) ALAN Book Signing.

I... cannot explain why that last book signing is silent. But I will try to find out.

ETA: Ha! Okay, regarding the silent signing: ALAN takes place in one big ballroom, and the next panel will be going on during the signing. So we will ha…

The new movie of the musical Les Miserables, coming out this winter, is live sung -- the actors are singing each take live, instead of miming to a recording. This video explains how and why, and I think it's pretty interesting. (H/t, B!)

I like the funny political videos the folks at actually.org are creating. Rosie Perez sets Mitt straight on whether it's easier to get elected as a Latino; Sarah Silverman and Lizz Winstead agree with Mitt that people aren't people, corporations are people; and here's W. Kamau Bell, who hates science:



(Thanks, B.)

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Sometimes, after doing a search for a particular song in my iTunes library, I take a look at the whole range of songs the search brought up and use that as my random morning playlist. For example, this morning, I'm listening to all the songs in my library that appeared when I searched for the word "heart." This includes "Sleight of Heart" by Aaron English (you should all be listening to the songs of Aaron English); "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young; "Empty Hearts" by Alison Krauss; "Learning to Fly" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers; "Love Montage: I Saw Him Once/In My Life/A Heart Full of Love" fr…

This post contains spoilers for the Bourne movies, including the most recent.

So. I don't know what they're lacing these Bourne movies with, but (with the exception of that godawful, boring, too-long car chase in the second movie) I never want these movies to end. It turns out that the drug is not in fact Matt Damon, because The Bourne Legacy (out now), which doesn't even have Matt Damon in it, has the same effect on me. Aaron Cross, you are the genetically-modified assassin OF MY HEART. But why, why? WHY do I love these movies? They are chock-full of ideological problems. (In TBL, we get to see some kickass operatives who are people of color and even one who's a woman, and then, three minutes later, they're all dead. Producers, you have a captive audience. Make your main star in one of these movies someone who is not a white man.) Also, the plots are absurd. (Aaron Cross is a genetically modified/enhanced black-ops assassin for the US government, but he's run…

Re: Bitterblue travel: I'll be in Sweden (Stockholm and Kristianstad/Malmö), Spain (at least Madrid, not sure beyond that yet), France (Paris), and the Netherlands (at least Amsterdam) in September -- it's official, my transatlantic flights are booked -- and I'll post more details when I have them.

Re: blogginess: There are a few updates I need to post to this blog, including some sort of page of Bitterblue reviews... I'm afraid some aspects of the blog have dropped to a currently unreachable part of my priority list, so things aren't as tidy around here as I prefer them. I will get to it some day. In the meantime, what blogging time I have, I'm trying to focus on new posts. I have a couple planned. One is about Tim Riggins. :-)

Re: gorgeous clouds, check out this stupendous link to "60 insane cloud formations from around the world." Thanks B, via B! :)

And re: awesome music videos, I love this ASL interpretation of Gotye's "Somebody That I U…

Thanks, Amanda.

I love what Jay Smooth has to say about language, communication, the "N-word," our society's rules about the use of that word, what a double standard is, and what a double standard isn't. Thanks to Jay Smooth for seeing the complications and expressing them well -- as he always does.

I am stupendously pleased today to direct you to Amy Stern's latest post at the YA Subscription, "The Disreputable Analysis of Frankie Landau-Banks."

Back in January, some friends and I spent two happy hours analyzing E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. We filmed it. Amy has now uploaded 15 clips from our conversation, and done an awesome job introducing each clip in her blog post. Amy, you rock.

Go watch, go listen. Join the conversation. All the participants in the conversation studied at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College; if you're wondering what kinds of conversations can happen there, this is a good example.

The participants are:
children’s lit professor Deborah Kaplan; children’s lit critic Rebecca Rabinowitz; assistant agent at the Sheldon Fogelman Agency Amy Stern;and YA writer Kristin Cashore. (*waves*)
As a visual aid, here is my color-coded copy of Frankie. You know I got a LOT out of a…

Hey everybody, sorry for the radio silence this past week. I've been on the road. I plan to be back next week, hopefully with some info about the Bitterblue release. Until then, I thought I'd share this beautiful little video of a book being born. Make it big on your screen; it looks great. Thanks, Jess.

In lieu of a post today, I'll link you to Cindy Pon's interview with me about Bitterblue, over at The Enchanted Inkpot. Cindy is running a Bitterblue ARC giveaway, so head over there if you're interested! Many thanks to Cindy, who asks really good questions :).

My 30-second Hunger Games movie review: I had to leave the theater around minute 90 because the camerawork was making me sick. If you're prone to motion sickness, consider taking your meds or whatever, and DO NOT sit close. The frustrating thing was that at the moment I left, they'd just entered the arena, and FINALLY there was some point to all the shaky cam, zooming, fast panning, quick cutting, deliberate unfocusedness, etc. Finally it was effective. But my body couldn't deal with it anymore at that point. Very disappointing. The one judgment I was able to form before succumbing to the horror of "Is the whole movie going to be shot like this? Oh NO," was that District 12 didn't seem all …

I try to avoid turning my blog into a publicity machine, but this has been the kind of week that leaves a gal uninspired, in addition to which, I have two nice pieces of news. So brace yourselves.

The first comes with a thank you -- to Kirkus Reviews, for their review of Bitterblue, which is beautiful (the review, I mean!) not just in content, but in form. At the moment, the full review is only available online to subscribers.  I'm sorry about that, because it's a really lovely review. The most spoiler-conscious among you should probably avoid it (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), though all things considered, it manages to be nice and vague about plot. Here's a (spoiler-free) excerpt for those of you who aren't subscribers, but would like a taste: "Gorgeous, textured prose is filled with images of strange beauty and restrained horror. It propels an intricate narrative dense with subplots and rich in characters familiar and new."

The second news is a mention of Gracel…