In the first half of the fifth chapter of Games Wizards Play<\/i>, Nita and Kit pay a visit to their mentee. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: I have absolutely zero regrets about living in New York City. It was a goal of mine to move here for many, many years, and the spectacle of this city has not dulled for me. I love it here.<\/p>\n
But I left the Bay Area less out of choice and more out of necessity. A long-term relationship I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d invested years in suddenly and unceremoniously ended, and it came on the heels of learning that my apartment was not under rent control, meaning that my monthly rent went up nearly 167% in one month<\/i>. I was priced out of a place that I had also wanted to live in for a long, long time. I miss Oakland more than San Francisco, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t deny that the city still holds a lot of meaning for me, both as a writer and as a queer man. It was my gay escape in 2002, and the first weekend I ever spent there was so magical for me. I have complicated feelings on the Bay Area these days, namely due to the tech industry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s throttling of so many non-white, queer\/LGBT, and artistic communities. Oakland and San Francisco are two of the most beautiful cities I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever been to, and I do feel a comfort when I visit.<\/p>\n
So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 yeah, the opening sequence of chapter five gave me FEELINGS. The right hill in San Francisco will give you an unreal view. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a big fan of Corona Heights Park, which gives a 360 degree view of the city that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unbelievable.) It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a city built deliberately into its difficult and challenging geology, and, for the moment, most of the homes still have the sort of colorful character Duane references here. (You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find an entirely unintended similarity in Games<\/i> and Anger<\/i>, since I also talk about the way houses look in the Bay Area.) Duane masterfully invokes the sense of wonder most people have when they travel to San Francisco for the first time. But I love that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the lead-in to the uncomfortable interaction with Penn. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a contrast here that feels undeniable to me, given that San Francisco is so wonderful and beautiful, and then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dropped into Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s home, and the magic of San Francisco disappears.<\/p>\n
Now, I know that much of what I do here is speculation, and yes, that is HALF THE FUN of Mark Reads. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna make a bit of a guess here: I think<\/i> that Duane is making a commentary on how women are devalued in comparison to men. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible that Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behavior here is due to other reasons. Indeed, he even admits that he has difficulties in crowds, and: HARD SAME. I GET THAT! As soon as I feel that the dynamic of a crowd has pulled control away from me, I panic. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m less triggered by panels or readings than one might think. I feel like my physical position in the room allows me to place myself in relative control of the situation. Concerts aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as bad, but I have problems with nightclubs and bars, and for some reason, the louder the music, the more overstimulated I become.<\/p>\n
So, that might<\/i> explain why Penn was so rude during the Antarctic reception. It does not, however, explain why, in the comfort of his own home, he is repeatedly<\/i> dismissive of ONLY Nita. He believes that his wizardry too technical<\/i> for her, which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 look, does he think that only his own branch of wizardry is complex? ALL OF IT IS, OH MY GOD. I also feel like he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know who Nita is at all, because hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she executed some of the most complex wizardries ever???<\/p>\n
Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s both graceful and petty (THE GOAL, REALLY) in response to Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treatment of her, demonstrating that not only is this wizardry hardly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too technical\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for her, but Penn isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly as flawless as he thinks he says. WHICH IS WHEN HE ASKS HER TO BACKSTOP HIM. LITERALLY DO WORK FOR HIM! Yeah, you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t excuse this shit with an anxiety disorder or a hatred of crowds. It is, of course, most egregious when Nita leaves the room and Penn drops the worst insult of all:<\/p>\n
After a few moments Penn said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Just one question real fast. You passed her all that stuff, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just giving her a boost.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Oh, HONEY, NO, YOU AREN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN CLOSE TO THE TRUTH HERE. First of all, if anyone<\/i> is the more powerful wizard, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d argue that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Nita. NEED I REMIND EVERYONE OF THE EVENTS OF THE WIZARD\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S DILEMMA<\/i>, because HOLY SHIT, look at Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creativity and power! But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a far more insidious dynamic here: men are socialized and taught to devalue women. We are told repeatedly that most major \u00e2\u20ac\u0153contributions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to society came through our gender, and that women wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be anywhere without men. It manifests in so many different ways, and I think<\/i> this is what Duane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to do. Again, I could be wrong, but Penn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fixation on Nita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible inferiority doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel like an accident, nor does it exist within a vacuum. His views are influenced by the world around him, so he had to pick this up from somewhere<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Whew, PLEASE tell me we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna meet Merhnaz and her family next. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SO EXCITED. Also, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s NICE, and I need nice after this.<\/p>\n
vid<\/p>\n
Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the first half of the fifth chapter of Games Wizards Play, Nita and Kit pay a visit to their mentee. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[533,510],"tags":[513,511],"class_list":["post-4434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-wizards-play","category-young-wizards","tag-diane-duane","tag-mark-reads-young-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}