Babylon 5: Rewatch

	Babylon 5 is easily one of my favorite shows of all time. So I was actually a little bit worried when we started to rewatch it recently. I was introducing my best friend to the show, even though I've been friends with her longer than the show has existed, somehow she's never ended up watching it with me. We actually started by watching In The Beginning, one of the TV movies that was made later on in the show's run. I consider it to be one of the best television movies of all time (and I have a huge weak spot for tv movies) so it's a great place to start.
	Some people would disagree with watching this first, because the brilliant thing about B5 is that you get a very slow reveal of a lot of major story points. There is actually a throwaway line in the pilot movie that gives away one of the biggest plot twists of the fourth season. From the beginning, J. Michael Straczynski (the showrunner and head writer) knew what was going to happen for the most part, and that comes through so brilliantly when you rewatch the show and know what comes later. But there's a trick about B5: the first season is not really good indicator of how good the show is going to get. A lot of people give up without finishing it, not realizing what they are missing. But if you start with In The Beginning, you're giving them a taste of just how moving and powerful this show really is, and who these characters are. So I think the trade off is worth it.
	The first season was generally as bad and as good as I remembered. There's a lot of debate amongst fans as to which is worse, the first or fifth season. But when you rewatch the first season, you see these great glimpses of what will come later. Having this foundation makes the rest of the show better. But there is some real scenery chewing when it comes to acting, and some really boring episodes. The thing is though, as much as the show hasn't really aged with some of the writing and the themes that it presents, the acting is very much a part of it's time. It is some late 90's acting with just about every guest star that comes their way. Oh, sure, I love them all the same. But you can't really say that they are being even slightly subtle.
	The place where Babylon 5 excels is in the writing, especially the third and fourth seasons which are written entirely by JMS. It's actually very scary to watch this show and see political ideals that we're hearing our primary candidates espousing right now. The formation of Nightwatch and Clark's government recall the Patriot Act. Only the Patriot Act was signed into law years after the show was off the air. It is a stark and telling reminder of how history repeats itself, even into the future. The show is also chocked with memorable characters, a fabulous sense of humor, and some of the best alien designs that television sci-fi has ever seen. While the bulk of their aliens are still bipedal, this isn't Stargate where they're all more or less human (SG-1 is one of my favorite shows, so yes, I know the in universe explanation). About half of the special effects still look good, while some of them are laughably bad at this point. Which is a pity.
	The only problem with rewatching Babylon 5 is that eventually you finish those amazing third and fourth seasons and you get to Season 5. Like I said, people debate which is the worst season of the show and I am firmly in the Season 5 camp on this. We didn't even bother to buy it until I could get it used for under $12 and with a gift card. And you can tell how much the show runs out of steam because we've stopped watching it regularly. During third and fourth season, we would watch 2-3 episodes a couple times a week. Once we watched a few episodes every night for a few weeks. But as soon as we started season 5, we started waiting weeks in between watching a single episode at a time. It's just not compelling, the new characters aren't as interesting. There are decisions made about other characters that actually make you reflect on earlier episodes and like them LESS. Season 5 actually lessons what came before it, and that's a huge shame.
	It pains me that my favorite show ends on such a bad note, and I was very tempted to just pretend that season 5 didn't exist. But I couldn't skip over some of the major story points that happen, and the actual series finale is probably the best series finale I've ever seen. So we plod ahead. In general though, I think anyone who like sci-fi should absolutely have seen Babylon 5. Start with In The Beginning, you can skip The Gathering if you want (it's good for completionists, but it's not a great place to start). But make sure you just keep going through the first season. Ignore the over the top guest stars and focus on the main players. Fall in love with Ivanova, Garibaldi, and Dr. Franklin. Pay attention to G'kar and Londo, Vir and Lennier and Na'toth. Just focus on getting to know them. Then, about halfway through second season, you'll realize you've been pulled in. When you get to third, then you'll really start to get it. But if you get bored during season 5, well, I wouldn't get upset with you for skipping it but if you love Londo and G'Kar you really owe it to that storyline to finish it. But no matter what, make sure you end with Sleeping In The Light. Even if you skip Season 5, watch the end of the show.

A place to work

I've been making a lot of changes in general, but one of the biggest things I've been doing over the last few months is making the business side of what I do more formal, organized, and stable. This all really started with the fact that I'm working on a very long-term, very expensive film project. Which complicated my taxes, and my entire financial situation. But it got me started down a lot of really good roads in general, which includes finally setting up my home office. Or at least, getting started on it. It's probably not QUITE there yet. I've been meaning to set up an office/work space since we bought our place five years ago. Since the master bedroom is actually our guest room and "library," the large walk in closet is really ideal for it. Unfortunately in the five years since we moved here, that closet became the natural dumping ground for "stuff that has no other home." I would occasionally pull things out of there to go through them or find a new place, but then we would have somebody come and visit and I'd have to push it all back in so nobody would see the cluttered mess. Finally, last month, I reached a breaking point with it. I realized I would never actually get everything sorted if I was going that slowly with it. So my best friend came over and we hauled everything out of it. Every piece of paper, every random box and stack of books. It all went into the middle of the guest room floor, which also wasn't ideal but at least let me gauge what I had. It was amazing how quickly everything fell into place from there. Once I declared that the office could only house objects that had to do with my film and writing work, it was easy to see what needed to find a place and what didn't. Once that option was off the table, I got more creative with where other things could be stored and quite frankly, I just got rid of a bunch of it. Five years in a closet? Obviously I don't need it. A lot of what guides me on this quest to get rid of the clutter is many years of reading Unclutterer. There are very few blogs I've found so helpful when it comes to just getting you to understand your own relationship to your stuff. There's also enough humor and a kind-hearted nature to the site that makes it easier to take the hard lessons they're sometimes teaching.
The room isn't quite where I want it, but now I'm starting to have a much better plan of where I do want it. A lot of the pieces were already there - my desk is a vintage kitchen table that I bought years ago. I had already hung up a bulletin board years ago. My writing and film books were already organized, just on a different shelf so it was easy to bring them in. But now I'm filling in those gaps. Like a lot of people, I'm using Pinterest to organize what I might want to purchase and use. I've been visiting a few sites that sell my favorite styles of office supplies for ideas, like See Jane Work and ThinkGeek. I can pin the different items I like on each site, and then see what I've found and what I like.
Of course the biggest thing is going to be what we're doing this weekend: covering the entire back wall in white board paint. It will turn the entire surface into a big dry-erase board, letting me scribble whatever strikes my fancy in any configuration I like. With it being the back wall, it also won't take up any space. Which is nice since the space is already pretty limited. That's the goal for this weekend, and then I'll only need a couple of small touches to make it a fully functional office. After that, it's just making everything work better than it does, or more stylish. Anybody have any suggestions for me on sites I just have to check out? Stores that sell really awesome and cute supplies?

Bound by Donna Jo Napoli

Bound has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, and even though I could tell it would be a quick read and I found the cover very enticing, I just never picked it up until a few weeks ago The story is a retelling of Cinderella, based in China. When I was very young, the story of "Chinese Cinderella" whose fairy godmother was a fish was my favorite version of the fairy tale. I also very much love new versions of fairy tales, especially when those versions completely dispense with all but the most necessary trappings of the original. Bound does not disappoint on either level. It is a very short book, and I got through it completely in one sitting. I was completely immersed in Napoli's world from the beginning, and while I can't speak for it's historical accuracy, I did appreciate that it seemed thoroughly researched.

The main character, Xing Xing, is a girl who has been allowed much more freedom than other women of her culture. Her feet have not been bound, she has been taught to read and write calligraphy. But her sister, Wei Ping, is suffering through the foot binding tradition. As with traditional versions, Xing Xing's step mother (who is Wei Ping's mother) is a cruel woman, but the brilliance of Napoli's writing is that the stepmother is not purely evil. She is very complex for a character of this type in a young adult book.

The story is well written and quickly paced, and I very much enjoyed it. The only thing that I can say to it is that it is a book very firmly rooted in it's age group. I read young adult fiction often, it is probably one of my favorite genres in general. I find that most things labeled YA are done so only because they have a young protagonist, and that they still engage my mind at the same level as a book written for adults.

I don't mean it as an insult to say that Bound isn't that way, I think that probably works in it's favor for the age group it's intended for. I would encourage middle-school English teachers to pick it up and consider it for their classes. I think it is a very good book for teaching students some really great lessons, about history, culture, art, and storytelling. But for an adult reader, it can be a bit simplistic and it is a very light read.

Overall, I think if you have an interest in new ideas on old fairy tales, it's a must read just for it's storyline. But you only need to plan an afternoon to read it.