[info]dnalounge update

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 12:53 AM

DNA Lounge update, wherein the kiosks are on the chopping block.

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Earliest recording of late blight

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 8:05 AM

There are reports emerging of widespread late blight in potatoes and tomatoes in the eastern USA.  It has also never been recorded so early.  Anyone hazard a guess as to what's behind that?  We haven't had much blight so far this year locally - one benefit of long dry spells.  My organic grower friends seem to be having a darned good crop of Royals for once.  Much as I love eating spuds, I'm sticking to growing Oca and Jerusalem artichokes.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701163647.htm

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The longest month of my life

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 2:21 AM
So...is it possible for the weekend to crawl any slower? I shouldn't want a weekend to be over, but for one it's a weekend I'm working and for another there's not crap that gets done on a holiday weekend. I'm mostly recovered from my insomnia (okay, I wouldn't be writing this at 220am if I was completely over it, but that's NORMAL insomnia, not "Sweet jeebus let me fall asleep" insomnia.

I know that this is going to be both the slowest and fastest month of my life, and I feel like I've just reached the top of the rollercoaster, except in this case it's not about the ride but about the destination.

A little under four weeks until I leave Michigan behind...gladly, and yet I still have a slog of a journey ahead of me that will include a side-trip to San Diego Comic Con, which I'm looking forward to, but which will also eat into my "sweet jeebus we have to pack" time.

So, you know, I'm in a weird push you-pull me state where I want tomorrow and the next day (and the next couple a days after those) to get here and be gone so I can start my life on the off world colonies, but on the other hand...the slog; it beckons.

I should be savoring these quite moments, and instead I'm eager to have them behind me and be starting over in a new state in an awesome place with my wife and a great friend instead of doing the slog.

And then...there are the moments like the ER tech who cried when she heard I was leaving, and the other who blessed me and said a lot of wonderful things about me (all true, I am fucking awesome), and all the people I'll honestly miss.

And then there's the rest of Michigan...which I won't really miss.

Crap, it's like someone opening the cage door only to tell you that you have to wait for a few days before running out into the sunshine. Oh, brave new world...hurry the hell up and get here.

Soldier Flies

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 12:10 AM
I've been composting for several weeks now in one of those big black plastic bins designed especially for the purpose. It's fun (and compulsive, as I scour the kitchen and yard for compostables that might be going to waste). When I was about 12, my mom had an open compost pile that was always full of these segmented maggoty-looking things that disgusted me to the point of fascination. I'd stare at them and think, "What if you had to stick your hand in there?" Now they are present in large numbers in my own compost pile, and I learned that they are soldier fly larvae (I don't advise clicking that link if you dislike squirmy things), which are not only harmless but such excellent composters that they sometimes drive earthworms right out of the pile. And now I can stick my hand in there, not just without fear, but without even being particularly grossed out. After all, they work for me.

They're also said to make excellent bait, should I ever wish to take up my short-lived fishing habit again, but that seems pretty cold-blooded: "Here, turn my kitchen and garden waste into compost. Thanks! Now I'm going to reward you by sticking a hook through your body and feeding you to a speckled trout!" Ah well; specks probably wouldn't hit them anyway, and ain't nuttin worth eatin but trout.

An Old Picture of Me

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 11:11 PM
Something John found recently.

This was taken probably ten years ago. 1998. As the backset is the forest growth at the back of our old Redmond house, that we moved out of in 1999. But that is the banker's suit I still fit in now. *laughs* Though I have no idea where those sunglasses went. Hm...

Read more... )

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July Fourth

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 1:07 AM

You can take my Bleeding Heart Liberal card if you like, but when I see a member of the armed forces, I like to take a moment and say "Thank you."

That is all.

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Happy Fourth of July!

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:39 PM
To all those U.S. of A'ers that celebrate.

We had a doozy of a day, with 40+ people coming for a pot luck with plenty of grilled corn and smoked ribs and John's Jerk chicken and lots of salads and desserts that everyone brought and loved. And then, in the midst of it a thunderstorm just poured down rain until the back patio was an inch deep in water, even though it was supposed to be draining through all the slats. Everyone was good about making themselves comfortable in the house, ending up everywhere... on the floor, in the dining room, and even some ended up on our front door stoop, under the overhang there, just talking.

It was great fun, though, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The six quarts of hand-cranked vanilla ice cream ALL disappeared. THAT was impressive.

Ice cream recipe, a bit more about today, and a bit about _Princep's_Fury_ by Jim Butcher with spoilers. )

the Glorious Fourth

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 11:31 PM
I admit, I love fireworks to the depths of my unregenerate twelve-year-old soul.

Happy birthday, America!

Fallen Fairy Tales

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Added: DAMMIT! This was actually a post about the Fallen Princesses Project & also Lev Grossman (who pointed it out to me)'s new book The Magicians. Bad, bad, stupid cut-and-paste has failed me. Gone, gone, never to be re-undone. The links alone must suffice.

Here's what got pasted in instead (a comment I made to yesterday's Urban Fantasy post, but you should probably see it here, too):

* This 2008 Library Journal article by Nanette Wargo Donohue - footnoted in the Wiki "Urban Fantasy" listing - is spot on. Poor L. Miller's got no excuse!Read more... )

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Jul. 4th, 2009

  • 9:39 PM
A few recent Poynter articles I found to be of interest:

Hartford Courant Reverses Redesign Based on Reader Feedback

"Taking cues from readers in a recent poll, The Hartford Courant has opted to return to a traditional, horizontal nameplate on their front page. The oldest continuously published paper in the U.S., The Courant is reversing its move to a vertical nameplate in a redesign launched last September."
( Continued... )

This is a prompt to share your favourite redesign horror stories.


MinnPost Experiments with Real-time Ads
Joel Kramer, MinnPost.com founder, explained the project in an announcement, saying:

"Imagine a restaurant that can post its daily lunch special in the morning and then its dinner special in the afternoon. Or a sports team that can keep you up-to-date on its games and other team news. Or a store that could offer a coupon good only for today. Or a performance venue that can let you know whether tickets are available for tonight. Or a publisher or blogger who gives you his or her latest headline."
( Continued... )

This could be good, yes? However, isn't this what Twitter is already doing?

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Fireworks

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:59 PM
For me, fireworks are like Benihana Japanese Steakhouses. I know there's something inherently cheesy about both of them, and really I expect to wake up one morning and discover that yes, like any true adult, I have outgrown such base pleasures.

But every time that steak hits the grill or the fire lights the sky, a grin tugs the corners of my mouth, and I begin to applaud, and I realize the last of my childhood has yet to leak out of me.

As long as I have wonder, I shall last.

Jul. 5th, 2009

  • 2:45 PM
So Fringe has just started here, and while I haven't got around to having a look (I might this evening), I found this House/Fringe video mashup worth a look.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzGIpDFvkt0

New Dinosaurs from Oz

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 9:48 PM
Three of them, actually. "Scientists have discovered three new species of Australian dinosaur discovered in a prehistoric billabong in Western Queensland." One allosauroid theropod, Australovenator wintonensis, and two titanosaurid sauroopods, Witonotitan wattsi and Diamantinasaurus matildae. You can even read the full paper online (Scott A. Hocknull, Matt A. White, Travis R. Tischler, Alex G. Cook, Naomi D. Calleja, Trish Sloan, David A. Elliott. "New Mid-Cretaceous (Latest Albian) Dinosaurs from Winton, Queensland, Australia"); just follow the link at the bottom on the article.

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Food discovery

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 7:51 PM

I got to have dinner with The Amazing Mris and her Merry Band, and she cooked, and I discovered that one can make something with paprika and saffron and it is very, very good.  I had never even thought of combining paprika and saffron.

Yum.

Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there.

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Your Sunday Comics: Battle of the Green

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Blame [info]minnesattva for this.

(ED: Of course, I mean Hal Jordan.)

Poll #1425159 Battle of the Green
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Green Arrow or Green Lantern?

View Answers

Green Arrow
5 (25.0%)

Green Goblin
0 (0.0%)

Green Hornet
1 (5.0%)

Green Lantern
4 (20.0%)

Green Mask
0 (0.0%)

Green Sparrow
0 (0.0%)

Green Thumb
2 (10.0%)

Green Torpedo
0 (0.0%)

Seth Green
8 (40.0%)

Does the word "Green" look strange to you now?

View Answers

Yes
2 (9.5%)

No
9 (42.9%)

The Dalai Lama
9 (42.9%)

Pork
1 (4.8%)

Stones Hour in the Activity Room

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 8:23 PM

I had a dream the other night.  I wasn't in it, but it was like I was observing it.  The scene was an old age home.  The patients were gathered in a room, sitting on folding chairs.  There was a younger man with a beard, sitting at the front of the room on a stool.  He started strumming an acoustic guitar and singing Neil Young's song, "Tell Me Why."  The old timers sang along.  

Sailing heart-ships
thru broken harbors
Out on the waves in the night
Still the searcher
must ride the dark horse
Racing alone in his fright.
Tell me why, tell me why

When I woke up, I thought about the dream and wondered what the music in old age homes would be like in another twenty years when I'm no longer just observing.  I pictured a crowd of old farts, leaning this way and that, some asleep, some hooked up to oxygen, some whispering to themselves, and half of them half crazy.  Up in front there will be a middle aged woman at the piano, playing a wobbly, slowed down, "Black Magic Woman," striking every note as if with a hammer. 

I told Lynn what I was thinking and said, "Imagine 'Layla.'" 

She said, "They'll be playing screwed up air guitar."

Other performances I'll probably pay good money to see:

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vita" performed on the accordion. 

A barbershop quartet of guys with wigs, bad chompers, and cardigans doing "Ramblin Man."

They're already probably doing this one -- "A Walk On the Wild Side."  I perceive it as a piece performed by a middle school chorus.   

"Beast of Burden" with group hand clapping.

If we're lucky, they'll save "Us and Them" for when they hand out the meds.
 

Everybody had to pay and pay


greeeeeeen gobley

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 5:17 PM


just something ive been trying to get out of my head...
not perfect but its something.

whats you all think?

On Independence

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 4:47 PM
ID4 is my favorite movie for today. (Not gonna watch it; out of time... but maybe in the morning.) There's a reason for that. One, it's about blowing stuff up, and well, that's what Mr. Jefferson said you ought to do on July 4, was blow stuff up... and two, is the great riff on the Henry IV St. Crispin's Day speech:

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

In these days where despite our seeming successes at the ballot box we seem to be semi-permanently less free than we were at the turn of the century, perhaps it may well be time to simply remember that the Cascades are high and the Emperor, whatever color or party he may be, is far away... that all politics, ultimately, are local, and to simply concentrate on seeing to it that we here in this little corner of the world live as freely as we can, faraway kings and armies be damned, and to foster that idea wherever it will take root... building islands of freedom until the islands can be connected by bridges and ultimately by land mass...

Freedom for me is about going where I want when I want how I want, and the converse personal responsibility that I alone am *ultimately* responsible for my personal safety.... and also about being with whom I want to be with, and the converse personal responsibility to maintain those relationships how I and those with whom I maintain them see fit, to communicate, sometimes to lead and sometimes to be content to follow. This past year has been all about that - learning to live by myself, without four-wheeled conveyance, learning the sheer joy of zen with motorcycles and the satisfaction of taking care of your own wheels. It's been about making friends, and also about being independent... about learning who I am and where I *want* to be in the world... and carving out that niche and making it my own.

May you find your own Independence... and your own community. It's a very American thing to do.

Now, let's go blow stuff up! :)

A sunny day

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 12:03 AM
Today I decided I IZ NOT SIK and went out to my cats in Warwick Avenue, who were particularly needy. Each one of them got twenty minutes of determined cuddling, after which I sat down with my computer and tried to write my autobiography, since the cats had settled down happily and where grooming themselves contentedly.

All, that is, apart from F, who came to sit beside me and, noticing how my attention wasn't on him 100%, put a white-socked paw on my chest and told me, "Meow." I tried scritching him, but even petting him with one hand while looking at the screen wasn't enough for him, eliciting more polite paws and determined "Meows."

He's so lovely. If I hadn't had to meet Alex, I would have stayed far more than my contractual hour.

Anyway, then I met Alex at Notting Hill, we had a good lunch at Pain Quotidien, walked through Portobello where I took a lot of lousy photos with the wrong setting, then caught a bus home.

I am still suffering with a damn cold and my throat still hurts, but a lot less than it used to. Last night I managed to sleep fairly well by falling asleep in front of the Tv on the sofa, let's see how it goes tonight.

Passions

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 6:53 PM


"All have won, and all muist have prizes," as (I think) the Dodo proclaims after the Caucus Race.  Very clever, all of you.  This is the best I could come up with:

Oysters delight to bark and bite
Though we all say them nay,
And clocks proceed from day to night
Implore them as we may!
 
But let the bears eat little boys
As is their ancient right;
And let their pretty passions rise
To give us all delight!

DWJ09 - Day Two

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 3:47 PM

Originally published at Cheryl's Mewsings. Please leave any comments there.

It has been a long day at the conference, and I have followed that with a couple of hours updating the Westercon 64 web site, as we (SFSFC) have won the bid and now have a convention to run. I am particularly pleased with us having Patricia McKillip as a Guest of Honor.

But I should be reporting on the panels. There were several, but basically only two overall themes. The first is that Diana’s books are very much concerned with how families treat children. In her life Diana has seen a significant change in this, from the Victorian system in which children were often kept in the dark, or fed a pack of lies, “for their own good”, to the modern practice in which we attempt to have a much more open and honest relationship with our children. Diana appears to prefer the latter approach, but fills her books with adults who treat children rather poorly at times.

The other major theme has been one of complexity, metafictionality and the like. Diana’s books are seldom what they appear at first sight, and generally reveal many levels of complexity and disguise as you read them. There is a definite project in evidence - Diana wants her readers to think for themselves, and ultimately take responsibility for themselves. This does make her books a more difficult read that those of other YA authors, but they are also more rewarding. And, as Sharyn November noted this evening, if you meet someone who loves Diana Wynne Jones books then that person will almost certainly be a very interesting person to talk to.

I also managed to bag a quick video interview with Andy Sawyer on the subject of the new John Wyndham novel published by Liverpool University Press. Why a book about Nazi clones, written by one of Britain’s best-loved SF writers, is having to be published by a small university press is beyond me. Someone should make an offer to do a mass market version.

I’ll try to write more about individual papers when I do the final con report. Right now I need sleep.

For all the genre movies being made these days, hard science fiction films are still rare. Intelligent ones, rarer still. I had to go out of my way to see Moon (the nearest theater playing it was an hour's drive away), and it was well worth the trip.

The plot is, by sf standards, basic. Sam Bell is the only human resident of a moon-based automated mining station. He's only a couple of weeks from the end of his three year contract, when there's an accident. And then . . . well, anything more would be a spoiler.

Thanks to a smart script by Nathan Parker (especially noteworthy these days for having the courage to leave some things up to the viewer to figure out), solid direction by Duncan Jones, and a truly outstanding performance by Sam Rockwell, Moon succeeds almost completely. Does the science work? I honestly don't know enough to say for sure, but I was able to suspend disbelief while watching. There are a couple of fairly minor questions that remain unanswered. But overall, I recommend searching it out.
Some of them are even slebs! )

P.S. You may (or may not) have noticed that LoudTwitter seems to have died and so my Twitter tweets (and everyone else's) are not getting posted to LJ.

As I am posting more to Twitter than LJ these days this means that, unless you check my Twitter page occasionally, you may miss out on the goings on of my life. No biggie unless you are interested in how I am or what I am doing!!

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It’s A Wonderful Life by rwboughton | A Voice For MS

My reply/comment:
I too am Uncle Billy, although we all become him to one extent or another as we age. I, however, was Uncle Billy at age 30. My descent into Uncle Billy -ness began at age 18 or so. Yay MonSter! Then again, I do not remember ever seeing the film and so I can only base my definition UB-ness on this article. I may have seen the film but I do not remember doing so. This UB-ness does come in useful when watching reruns on the TV though - I can never remember what happens even if I have only just watched it - reruns are never boring to me because the plot often seems totally new to me (although I sometimes get a flash of recognition)! I am 42 in August and used to be a computer programmer but my brain may was well be that of a 99 year old with Alzheimer's on my bad days.

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Lilypup, artist

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 11:02 PM
On the landing this morning, a profound installation making evocative use of organic and inorganic materials, plus a wide sense of dynamic spatial awareness. I have utilised found objects, deemed to be 'garbage' by the mundane world, in an attempt to demonstrate the inherent futility of existence and the interpretation of canine agency within it.

I have decided not to take heed of my critics' uncomprehending words ("That was my sponge! And what the hell happened to this loo roll??") , or their pathetic failure to understand my genius. Clearly post modernism is beyond them, but I am an Artist, and must endure.

Lily

la vie soggy

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:35 PM
Oh come on - I mean even if you're that into Michael jackson, surely Man in the Mirror can't possibly be your favourite track?? 4 Music is doing solid MJ and a week after rest of UK, I am drunkenly catching up. I am about to see THriller for the first time in about ten years.. I had forgotten Vincent Price rapping over it..

I am really tempted by this - anyone fancy?

Sometimes I do love being British. Tonight at the very monent the Music in the Gardens concert commenced, the heavens opened. The British did not squawk, panic or mutter. They opened umbrellas, crawled into lurid rainproof gear, repacked picnics and settled down to listen to the music. I picked up my rug, wrapped it around me and someone lent me an umbrella. I was very proud, especially as I was there with a crowd of Germans and Indians! I took white and pink fizz, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, chicken, brie and baguettes and Kiplings French Fancies to illustrate the British picnic, and that all went down well :)

The concert was splendid with lots of my pop favourites - Borodin's dances, Peer Gynt and a rousing encore of both de Souza for 4th July and Rule Britannia. It made me really want to go to the proms sometimes.

First steps

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:49 PM

First steps
Originally uploaded by sbisson.
Footprints on a black sand beach.

Kalapana, Hawaii
June 2009

Torchwood radio plays

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:37 PM
For anyone interested in Torchwood - The three radio plays that aired this week can be downloaded (legitimately) here for the next few days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/torchwood/download/

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the third is the best and they're all OK.

Next week five nights of the TV show, all that they're airing this year. I have to be out on three evenings, I just hope that my PVR works properly...

Later:

Since posting this I've been told that this link doesn't work outside the UK. Overseas listeners should be able to find them via the BBC iPlayer site for the next couple of days.

There are also apparently somewhat less legit torrents, and they've been posted to alt.binaries.sounds.radio.bbc

Jul. 4th, 2009

  • 10:22 PM
Ok, look. There is always - always - the same guy in the box that the coaches and family sit in at Wimbledon's centre court. The camera never really looks at him, but he's always there. He's been there for years, with his neat little grey goatee and impeccable suit and wide-brimmed hat, and he seems perfectly intent on the tennis. But he can't be everybody's coach, and if he were staff I'd expect him to leave the box as soon as the visitors had been escorted there. All I can think is that he's some sort of ninja-like bodyguard, ready to leap in to protect Andy Murray's mum at the drop of a KGB umbrella. He's been there every year for as long as I can remember.

Who the hell is this guy?

4th July

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 10:22 PM
We obviously don't celebrate Independence Day, but we did celebrate Gauntlet Day, i.e. the 2nd anniversary of the Gauntlet shopping arcade in Glastonbury. The radio station did a roadshow, and singer Tasmin Archer very kindly donated her time to the Make a Wish Foundation, which raises money for sick children.

Archer did an impressive set and turned out to be a very nice person: she made a point of coming over and speaking to Lily, who now Wuvs her. I must look out more of her work.

Scathingly Briliant Idea

  • Jul. 5th, 2009 at 7:16 AM
Combine the features of the popular games Lego Star Wars and the forthcoming Lego Rock Band to produce:

Lego Cantina Band.

Roles

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 4:59 PM
I love being Aunt LuLu.

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Pebble Blacked

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 9:35 PM

Pebble Blacked
Originally uploaded by sbisson.
Lava pebble on a black sand beach.

Kalapana, Hawaii
June 2009

Happy 4th July

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 9:31 PM
...to all my American friends. To us, this has been D's birthday and Gauntlet Day (the 2nd anniversary of Glastonbury's classy shopping arcade), but I'm aare of its wider significance, so have a good one!

My Father And My Birthday

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 4:32 PM
My Dad Sends Me Many Cards

My Dad enjoys sending me many cards on my birthday. This selection is from him and him alone this year.

He is a lunatic, but I love him.

Urban Fantasy, too

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 4:06 PM
Wanted to let everyone know how much I'm enjoying the discussion following yesterday's post. Terri Windling turns out to have a strong thread about this going on her Facebook Wall, as well. She also told me that Mercedes Lackey wrote her series as a direct response to Bordertown, which I hadn't known.

As I keep saying to anyone who will listen: "This is not hard to research! It only happened 20 years ago! We're not dead! Just ASK!"

I'm now particularly interested, in an OED geeky way, in the first recorded use of the term "urban fantasy", which [info]jongibbs asked about yesterday. From TW's Facebook thread comes this note from
Russell Blackford at 5:37am June 23
I co-edited an anthology called Urban Fantasies back in 1985. The expression "urban fantasy" was in use well before then. I picked it up from Lee Harding, and it was applied during the early 80s to books such as Harding's _Displaced Person_ (known as _Misplaced Persons_ in the US), which was published in 1979. I'd be confident that it goes back even further. Mind you, what is now known as "urban fantasy" may be rather different, but still ...

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Jul. 4th, 2009

  • 1:04 PM
It's been a quiet weekend. I had game night last night, bought two games, had a good coffee this morning and great tea yesterday afternoon...

Oh yeah and I licensed several pictures to the latest round of purchasing for the Washington Tourism Board. You can see them in this lovely slideshow:



What can I say? I'm pleased, I'm proud, I'm thrilled that most of these are being licensed again and... yeah. It also pays a pretty penny, which doesn't hurt. I'm thinking about investing in a new lens so I can go do something completely different. Something macro or something long zoom... something that doesn't involve dark clubs and close spaces.

And now... to zone for a bit. I seem to have plans this afternoon. Darn!

Busy day

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 8:50 PM
Drove over to Bolsover to visit Mum.

Bill drove us to Mansfield (flatter and fewer cobbles for her wheelchair) and we Did Shopping.
Helped by the sweet lass in Bon Mache giving Mum a 40% off voucher, she bought many summer clothes.
I bought two jackets, black and blue, from Anne Harvey, reduced from £65 each to £15. Blue one is viscose and black a linen/cotton mix, reserved enough for work, casual enough to make me happy.

We stopped for coffee.
We are, I should point out, in a coffee shop in the middle of a city.
So in comes a dragonfly.
From where, I know not, no ponds or gardens for miles.
And then the screaming starts, staff and patrons act as though a rat had just come in. It's a dragonfly, for heavens sake, what's it going to do? Mug them?
So, armed with a large glass (glass is so I don't damage it) I attempted a rescue, this involved climbing over chairs and in the window.
Except the buggering thing had a wing span greater than the pint glass.
Got it in, sideways, eventually, released outside, probably to a sad end.
If I'd had some way to carry it, I'd have released it where it had a small chance of surviving, such as Bill's pond. But I was pushing a wheelchair, laden with bags and a Dorothy.
Oh well, at least it had a small chance.
I couldn't believe how hysterical the coffee shop staff were. Yes, it was a large dragonfly, but they are harmless, beautiful things. Highly unusual to see one in such an urban setting but for heavens sake, it was a dragonfly!

FF
afternoon = doldrums of creativity

words since last report: 1875
word total: 2455
word goal Still 5-7k, looking pretty good.
tyop du jour: n/a
darling: n/a
mean things: A lecture on Wordsworth first thing in the morning.
quirks: This werewolf, who still looks not unlike Claudia Black, wears t-shirts that say things like MY DOGMA ATE YOUR KARMA.
reason for stopping: Like I said, doldrums. Also, I think it's time to take a cool bath.
exercise: Walkies!
work outside the box: Provender provided.
feline assistance: None, although [info]mirrorthaw is being assisted by the Inspector of Saucepans.

Jul. 4th, 2009

  • 11:57 AM
For many of us, there's a snap of gratification in discovering shared thoughts, tastes, experience of any kind. There's an extra zing, as least for me, when I discover a shared insight with someone smarter than I am. I got that zingeroo today, when reading [info]peake's riff against a definition of science fiction.

Back when I used to lurk at SFRA meetings--this is way back--one of the Hot Names was Darko Suvin. His tastes and his approach to the genre intersected rarely with mine, so my interest was confined mainly to trying to figure out why Suvin's thought seemed so insightful to many. In the essay linked above, [info]peake hits the same ripple I did--a precise definition of 'cognitive estrangement.' I listened to one or two papers on Suvin back in the mid-eighties, when his name was batted around a lot, and learned some interesting things about Suvin's ideas running parallel to some of the modern playwrights, and how he'd been inspired by Russian literary criticism. But it always seemed to me other than a (perhaps implied) connection to New Criticism and the infatuation with isolation and alienation of the fifties and sixties, there wasn't enough of a definition of 'estrangement' to be useful.

Estrangement is not confined to worldbuilding, or paradigm clashes. Nor is it confined to the old fist-in-the-air-fervid "what the future will be like Progress continues . . ." or the dark and threatening "what the future will be like if X continues." There's personal estrangement, familial, kinship, cultural, and emotional. There's estrangement from one's own childhood, from one's own body caused by catastrophic illness. You can look at Kafka's Metamorphosis as literal, which gives you a spectrum of estrangements, or metaphorical, which changes everything. Or does it?

[info]peake goes on to give an example from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (which I have not read in its entirety), referencing his idea of family resemblances when we use words or concepts. I really like this example because while [info]peake goes on to give us various facets of one understanding of 'sport' there is (especially to all childhood readers of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time) another set of meanings for the word 'sport.' How many of us read L'Engle and thrilled to her definition of a sport being the odd one, the special one? How many of us launched madly into science fiction looking for just that connection, because we felt like sports in our daily life? And that sure as heck didn't mean having anything to do with locker rooms, games, and running sweatily around being pounded by large specimens of phys ed pulchritude while being shrilled at by whistle-blowing coaches.

For me, this 'sport' phenom represents the tension between what is generally understood as mainstream fiction and what is generally understood as genre: Margaret Atwood can say that her sports are all organized teams that just happen to have elements of . . . [carefully avoiding any definition that might lead to spec fic] . . . to the extent that she labors hard to reinvent the rules of oddball 'sports' that the oddballs have grown up internalizing, which makes her work seem to be well-written retreading of familiar landscape. Whereas new genre writer X over here claims that her work is not the least bit sporty--not cliche and predictable like all that science fiction and fantasy that everyone else in genre is writing--but she's got this great idea about organizing her characters into these things called teams . . . and so she earnestly re-invents the rules of organized playing that others have grown up internalizing, having read Austen, Sterne, Meredith, Joyce, dos Passos, Rebecca West, and so her work seems stylishly written retreading of very familiar ground.

[info]peake also takes a brief swipe at the tendency toward taxonomies in some critics. My own feeling about taxonomies is that they are interesting even when I don't resonate with the divisions, because it shows me how someone else perceives patterns in how fictions fit together. I tend to distrust taxonomies that attempt to reduce works in order to dismiss them as "just another example of this type of story" but I really like the ones that open the subject up to perceived patterns, because that, at least I think, helps one to see a larger pattern in how writers dialogue with one another's ideas as they all contribute to building this mirror to civilization called literature.








Happy 4th of July!

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 3:46 PM
Amazon's giving away a free copy of any version of the Star-Spangled Banner today (or until Monday, actually). Realistically, that means a free copy of the Jimi Hendrix one, but there are versions by Jordin Sparks, Marvin Gaye, Molly Ringwald, KISS, and others, too.

No real plans for the day, other than hoping for some mild schadenfreude when any assholes who set off illegal fireworks when we're trying to sleep blow their hands off. Not a fan of parties, of course, and 'song's not feeling all that well today. We're currently just taking it easy, catching up on recorded movies on the Tivo. Currently watching Renaissance, thus fulfilling our annual quota of French Neo-Noir Animated Black-and-White Sci-Fi .

The Democratic Unionist Party

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 9:45 PM
For as long as I can remember, I have been aware of the Democratic Unionist Party, founded by the Reverend Ian Paisley in 1971 and now the largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland.

Now I discover that there is another Democratic Unionist Party (referred to by its members as الحزب الإتحادي الديموقراطي‎) in Sudan, founded in 1967. I doubt very much that Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal were aware of it when they rebranded and slightly expanded the Protestant Unionist Party four years later, but I shall be on the lookout for parallels as I do my weekend reading of African history.

she sewed my new blue jeans

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 12:44 PM
We managed to get back from the farmer's market with only four varieties of cherries, and having spent only about five minutes singing along with the busker who was doing Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun, Blind Boys style.

Good times.

And now it's just me, a sofa, a laptop, a cup of strawberry peppercorn tea, a Saturday, and forty student manuscripts.

Excelsior.

(348 miles to Isengard.)

Speaking of new coffee roasters...

  • Jul. 4th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Is there anyone out there who's local who's interested in helping me test out my roasters?

My idea is, if I can get a few people together, we can taste various coffees made with various roasts (light to dark) made as espresso or cone-style drip. And everyone can walk away with some freshly roasted coffee.

(Or, if you have, you know, actual *seating* in your home, I could bring the coffee, and my Silvia if desired. "Fresh roasted" means "roasted 4-24 hours beforehand"; it takes a bit of rest for roasted coffee to reach peak flavor. Though I could bring the roasters along for people to roast some of their own if they'd like.)

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