|
|
|
December 1st, 2009
maryrobinette
 | 11:59 pm - British Summertime
Rob has headed off to Hawaii to visit his folks so I’m playing bachelor girl tonight. For me, this means hunkering down with a good book. This is fortunate because I had started reading Paul Cornell’s British Summertime and was already deeply sucked into the book and the characters and then it just went places I didn’t expect.
Have you ever finished a book and immediately wanted to start reading it again? That’s the way I felt about British Summertime. It has deep, rich characters and a totally mind-bending plot. I want to understand how he pulled it off.
Comments? -- Link.
|
mcjulie
 | 10:17 pm - The Simpsons: Rednecks and Broomsticks
I'm posting this because if, like me, you've gotten out of the habit of watching The Simpsons in realtime, you probably missed this episode, which I found pretty delightful.
It did several things that I have missed in more recent years. For one thing, it actually has a B story (A: Lisa flirts with Wiccanism ala The Craft, B: Homer becomes a connoisseur of moonshine ala Sideways). The story seemed a lot more natural and character-focused than has become the norm. And it just plain made me laugh a lot.
Hulu only has the most recent 5 episodes of The Simpsons, but for now you can watch it here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/110118/the-simpsons-rednecks-and-broomsticks
|
literaticat
 | 09:51 pm - Bridget Zinn auction
I've decided to come out of hibernation to let you know that the Bridget Zinn auction is live. Bridget (in case you've been living under a rock) is a librarian and an author, who just sold her first book... and found out that she has colon cancer. We're raising money to help her out.
I've donated a YA or MG critique, and there are lots of other goodies available too, so be a mensch and bid!
Here's a link to the auction.
Here's a link to my page!
If it asks you to sign in, the ID is Bridget and the password is Rules.
Happy bidding!
|
vito_excalibur
 | 09:28 pm - in the midst of death we are in life
Today A. died. I didn't know him very well at all, but what few times I met him, he was 100% awesome. It was like hanging out with Miles Vorkosigan. Not too many people you can say that about.
Yesterday two friends of mine welcomed a brand new baby into the world.
Everybody's crying tonight, but for different reasons. I think I'm going to go hug my guy. 'Night, all.
|
juliansinger
 | 11:58 pm - long and complicated
So, late Thursday night, I logged on to my bank's website to check my balance, like anyone other than me has been doing for years now. (Since I'm easily amused, I told people I'd joined the 20th century. I finally signed up for it last week, since previously I had been thinking of it only when stressed out.)
This, only to discover that someone had taken the trouble to use my card without permission. (A someone purchasing something from dreampay.fr; dreampay also owns the sexyavenue.com site, and has a lot of people complaining about it in French. Google translate is my friend.)
Good part: I found out! And my bank is being Very Reasonable and has cancelled the card and is refunding my money (and the service charge incurred), and all.
Bad part: Nooo debit card for a week or so. (Or credit card. Yes, I only have the one. Gasp, zut alors.)
The reason why I'm /posting/ about this is because, for one thing, it impacts on my life in minor but irritating ways, and makes me growly at times, and so on.
But also, earlier today, one of those lightning fast "can we help someone out?" things went on, on LJ. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) britgeekgrrl's husband Alex was busily dying of cancer, and people wanted to help. (See here, in particular. I know britgeekgirl very very vaguely, in a "this person comments intelligently" kind of way. Other folks on my flist know her better.) They raised over $5,000 in very little time; funeral costs are covered. (I imagine she could still use fundage, even if the specific funeral costs are met.)
Had I been online, I wouldn't have been able to help, since I have no current money in PayPal and my PayPal is tied to that card. (As I understand it. My understanding may be faulty.) But I wasn't online (I was hauling books around most of the day), and other folks did it.
Alex died, just a bit ago. But people did things that took Britgeekgirl's mind off the financial aspect, for just a little while. And that's a mitzvah. (To use a language not mine.) And, thank y'all.
|
madrobins
 | 08:44 pm - And by 8:43 pm
Feed Avocado and make her lunch
Read NY Times (especially Science section)
Do crossword puzzle
Make cake
Do all dishes other people are supposed to have done, but never mind
Shower
Write until noon
Drag dog
Frost cake
Pick up car
Deliver Avocado from after school play audition to doctor's appointment
Work on editing book
Make dinner
Fall over
Actually, I cheated: Avocado begged for pizza, so Spouse picked up a frozen one on the way home. It's all over except for the falling over part.
|
txanne
 | 08:39 pm - HASTUR HASTUR HAST--
Via Spiny Norman at Making Light, I give you...
The Adventures of Li'l Cthulhu.
Current Mood: driven mad--with FUNNY!
|
scarlettina
 | 06:35 pm - Five Things for a Tuesday evening
1) I received both the Noble Collection catalog and the Levinger's catalog in the same mail drop. This is only one of many ways you define torture in the age of austerity budgeting.
2) I discovered that Sophie knocked over a bin full of bead tubes onto the baseboard heater. How did I discover this? The smell of melting plastic filling the room. Spent the better part of an hour cleaning up the scattered beads (all of which were glass) and the icky, melted plastic. I suspect I'll be smelling it all for a while, though.
3) Tossed caution to the wind today and sent a query regarding an internship to KUOW (local NPR affiliate). They never responded to my volunteering e-mail from back in October, but this missive, I have been told via a fairly rapid and obviously personal response, is being circulated to the internship person. We'll see what happens. New career in radio? Who knows? If not, I may investigate the possibility of podcasting...if I can come up with something interesting and original to discuss regularly.
4) On loan from jackwilliambell, I've been listening to an audio version of a biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. It's only my second audio book and a far more positive experience than the first, which was a crappy historical novel--the reader was absolutely remarkable, but the book itself was just awful. The Hamilton book, on the other hand, is fascinating. I'm about halfway through it and I'm enjoying it not just as an amateur student of history but also as a numismatist since there's a great deal of talk about America's earliest currencies and their evolution. My bedtime reading is another nonfiction book that I expect to finish tonight and will write about tomorrow.
5) I've sold some items on Etsy--yay! I've added to the mix Scrabble tile monogram pendants. I've kept the cost down on them and can supply any initial that might interest you-just specify what you need.
|
e_bourne
 | 06:18 pm - Car fail
Our car is broken and is still broken. We are sad. They called Monday and said it had blah blah spark plugs blah blah blah wires wrong with it. It would be ready today.
Then they called back and said it had blah blah coolant leak blah blah blah.
Today they called and said fuel hose cracked blah blah. They are not charging us for the labor on the fuel hose. They have to order parts.
It's pretty annoying for Mark as the car is (are?) his legs these days. Oh you fine piece of German engineering. How could you betray us by getting old?
|
fringefaan
 | 06:06 pm - Mud-in-the-List
Now, said the Duke, I am going to strip away the walls of this castle; and you must know that you are on the edge of Fairyland, which is the name you keep avoiding, by the way, on the very edge, to be exact, and when the walls of this castle disappear, the wind which always blows from that place will strike you, and as you will no longer be protected by these walls of mine, that Fairy blast will kill you. It's a cheap way to be rid of one's enemies and very much to my taste.
"Not bloody likely," said somebody in the crowd. The Zanzibar cat horripilated like a bottle-brush. He arched himself on the Duke's hump and spat a ghastly gah! like an ordinary cat. There was a stir in the crowd as the Miller's daughter pushed through. She did not look, to those who looked at her, like the same girl she had been, sweet as a lamb and so shy she could not hold up her head. She looked possessed. She looked, in fact, (as they blinked and rubbed their eyes) not at all like a young girl of twenty but like a woman twice that age, and a spinster too, and a hard one too, as hard as nails, or maybe a many-times-married woman, because the effect is -- curiously enough -- much the same. All this came out in her face gradually as she walked the length of that courtly hall, and as rooms seem to listen to what's being said in them and to conform themselves to it, so the hall shrank as the Milleress walked down it until it seemed to the army of Appletap-on-Flat that they stood in a smoky tavern on the edge of the Merry Marches where a desperate and infamous gambler sat in front of a half-spent fire and that the gambler was the Duke. Some even fancied that the Milleress looked rather like a landlady, a comparison that evoked painful memories in many. The Duke's cat, still threatening, had nevertheless hidden behind the Duke's neck. He plucked it into his lap and stroked its fur. It settled, though cautiously.
It is very much to my taste, he repeated, and accords well with my fancy. I will do it now.
"You will not," said the Milleress. The room shrank a little more.
-- Joanna Russ, "The Zanzibar Cat (Hommage à Hope Mirrlees)"
|
netmouse
 | 08:59 pm - stolen unapologetically from Claire Light's .sig
This awesome quote:
But that's the problem with sexism. It doesn't happen because people -- male or female -- think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man's wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he'd be a better manager. It's not that women shouldn't be up for the big awards. It's just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don't know . . . deserve them.
The conservatives are right: affirmative action is huge blemish on the face of our nation. And until we stop giving awards to men who don't deserve them over women who do, we're sunk. Because our default is to somehow feel like Philip Roth's output is impressive while Joyce Carol Oates' is a punchline. Our default is to call John Updike a genius on the basis of four very wonderful books and many truly weird ones, while Margaret Atwood, with the same track record, is simply beloved. Our default is to title Ayelet Waldman's book, "Bad Mother," while her husband's is "Manhood for Amateurs." Our default is that women are small, men are universal. Well, I know men get sensitive if you call them small. But gentlemen, sometimes you are.
-- Lizzie Skurnick
|
jon_decles
 | 03:16 pm - Life, the Universe, and Everything.
The Herakles Play is finished and will be premiered at the Rustic Dionüsia on December 12th.
From the first of August, not a single day left my schedule unchanged by circumstance: not until the opening of the Great Dickens Fair, the day after Thanksgiving.
The kids had the flu. I have some bronchitus. The Show Must Go On!
Herewith an example of the Old Adage: "Never Pass Up an Opportunity for Shameless Self Promotion."
We opened The Great Dickens Christmas Fair this past weekend. I am Micawber, Jon is a satyr in the Naughty French Postcards, Ana is a Fairy, and Byron is the Key Goblin (which is where your lost keys go): he gets to shoot Magic Boogers, and has invented tap dancing for himself.
And in time for the Holidays!
If I have already sent you this, I apologize. My brain is a little
foggy of late, what with so many changes in my life.
The long-awaited sequel to "The Particolored Unicorn" is at last in
print. It's called "Storm Wars!" You can take a look, and even read
the opening, by going to the link below.
http://www.Piswyck.com
Very truly yours,
Jon DeCles
and a Cast of Thousands
"The Particolored Unicorn" is Back In Print!
You can read the opening, and possibly purchase your own copy, by going to:
http://www.xlibris.com/TheParticoloredUnicorn.html
And now you can get it as a podcast at http://unicorn.libsyn.com
And, At Long Last, the Sequel, "Storm Wars!" is available. Take a look by going to:
http://www.Piswyck.com
--And Be Sure to Visit Our Website at:
http://home.pon.net/rhinoceroslodge
|
madrobins
| 03:15 pm - As of 3:15
Feed Avocado and make her lunch
Read NY Times (especially Science section)
Do crossword puzzle
Make cake
Do all dishes other people are supposed to have done, but never mind
Shower
Write until noon
Drag dog
Frost cake
Pick up car
Deliver Avocado from after school play audition to doctor's appointment
Go to market
Work on editing book
Make dinner
Fall over
Somewhere between Editing and Dinner, there is a glass of wine in my future.
|
knitting
[laswa]
| 04:44 pm - Dumb question
I know I could just push up my sleeves, but I wondered if I am alone on this and/or if anyone else is smarter about it than I am.
I am making Norwegian mittens for the first time, and it is a bit of a learning curve: small needles, tight gauge, intricate pattern. The point being that it is requiring all my concentration just to knit. Trouble is the dpns keep getting caught in the cuffs of my sleeves and moving either too far in to throw the yarn over or pulling out of the stitch altogether. It is driving me mad! It happens with shirtsleeves as well as sweaters (a necessity in our house).
Sure, go on, giggle. Then tell me if you have a brilliant idea...
TIA
|
knitting
[rhiannon76]
| 04:14 pm - FO: Baby Surprise Jacket
I finally gave in and joined the masses in making Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. And I loved it so much that I've already started another one. This first one is for my niece.
( Pics and commentary. )
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/blah.gif) okay
|
davidlevine
 | 01:06 pm - It's not all about me
Word count: 11740 | Since last entry: 2849
Finished the first draft of... um, this thing I'm working on. Which
definitely isn't a short story, at almost 12,000 words, but I don't
think really deserves to be a novelette... it's not a novelette-sized
plot. I think it must have a lot of stuff that can be removed.
But it isn't really meant to be an independent story anyway, it's
meant to be a chapter of a novel, or to be more accurate a story
in a book that's a collection of stories about the same characters.
(This is all new to me and I'm still figuring it out.) It's probably
too long for a chapter anyway. I'll see what I can do about editing
it today.
I don't think this is the first story/chapter in the book, either.
Nor do I have even a vague idea what I'm going to write next. Whee!
Also: celebrated the Endeavour Award win by buying myself a new
MacBook Pro. Shiny! I now have an iBook G4, in great shape, for
sale at a reasonable price.
In other news...
- Applications open today for next summer's
Taos Toolbox workshop, a two-week
master class for SF/F writers taught by Walter Jon Williams, Nancy
Kress, and Carrie Vaughn.
- Applications are already open for next summer's
Clarion West workshop, an
intensive six-week workshop for SF/F writers taught by Michael Bishop,
Maureen McHugh, Nnedi Okorafor, Graham Joyce, Ellen Datlow, and Ian
McDonald.
- The current Wild Cards trilogy wraps up with Suicide Kings,
the concluding volume of the Committee Triad, which will be released
on December 22. To celebrate,
Pat's
Fantasy Hotlist is having a contest to win copies of the first two
volumes. (I'm not in this trilogy, but Wild Cards is too cool
not to blog about.)
|
netmouse
| 02:09 pm - Go Cleveland, Akron, and Summit County
Awesome: Last night, Cleveland City Council voted 21 - 0 to protect against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on gender identity and expression. Akron voted 10 - 2 to do the same based on both sexual orientation and gender identity and Summit County voted 11 - 1 to pass a countywide ordinance protecting against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
|
knitting
[lilac99]
| 12:59 pm - FOs: Nakniswemodo09 # 7-9
Three more sweaters for Nakniswemodo09 challenge over on Ravelry. Here are #7, #8, and #9.
Wow #9 means I'm 3/4 of the way through this marathon. I've got one sweater almost done and another sweater 50% done so maybe I'll finish/make my goal after all.
( On to the sweaters )
x-posted to personal journal
|
athenais
 | 10:05 am - The happy entry
Happy birthday to papersky! I hope it is splendid.
|
athenais
 | 10:03 am - The sad entry
It's unseemly to parade my grief or losses more than I already have. But today is World AIDS Day and I have lost friends to AIDS. So I will say only this: sometimes, when I remember the 80's and become mistily nostalgic for them, I also remember how quickly everyone had to learn about HIV and AIDS, how fearful we became as a nation, how fearful or fearless, terrified or courageous, irresponsible or compassionate (sometimes all those things in turn) we became as individuals. It changed everything.
Somewhere it still is, right now, every minute.
|
seanan_mcguire
 | 09:56 am - Holiday shopping list #1: Urban yet awesome.
The urban fantasy/paranormal field is huge, and it's easy to miss things in the hectic whirl of books as they come and go. In an effort to make your holiday shopping a little easier this year, or at least a little less crazy-making, here are some urban fantasy/paranormal suggestions for the book-lover on your list—or for you, if you haven't read them all yet!
Out in hardcover just this fall, we have Frostbitten [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], the latest in Kelley Armstrong's fabulous Women of the Otherworld series. If you're not familiar with this gorgeous patchwork world of werewolves, witches, sassy necromancers, and more, I highly recommend it. I also recommend starting with Bitten [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], the book that started the whole adventure. Fun, fast, and best of all, if you love it, you don't have to wait for the sequels the way the rest of us did!
I stumbled over Wicked Game [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Jeri Smith-Ready this last year at DucKon, and was instantly delighted by her sense of humor, snappy writing, sexy heroine, and totally awesome sideways take on vampires. Best of all, the sequel, Bad to the Bone [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], is already available! You can have your cake and eat it to with the staff of WVMP, the radio station with bite.
Tanya Huff is always a masterful mistress of urban fantasy, and she proves it again with her latest release, The Enchantment Emporium [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. She introduces the Gale family of witches, a mysterious junk shop in Calgary, and more, in a fast-paced rocket ride of a book that will leave you gasping for more. I really, really enjoyed it. Plus it's hardcover, so it makes an excellent tool for killing spiders.
The first book in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series, Ill Wind [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] totally rocked my socks off—enough so that I tracked down and devoured the rest of the available volumes (all nine of them) in less than a month. This is the gift that keeps on giving, although it may get you nasty looks from the person whose book budget you've just blown all to hell and back. The Weather Warden books are fast, fun reads, suitable for reading on vacation. Especially during a storm.
Lori Devoti's Amazon Ink [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was one of those awesome surprises, a book that does something that totally unexpected and yet totally awesome at the same time. Combining Amazons who are more Xena than Wonder Woman with the modern-day Midwest, Traveller culture, and a genuine affection for tattoos makes this book a rock-and-roll romp for urban fantasy fans of all ages. Seriously. I'm loaning my copy to my mother, and then to my youngest sister.
In Dead to Me [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Anton Strout (and in the sequel, Deader Still [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]) we are taken where sane men too-often fear to tread: into the strange and surreal world of humorous fantasy, which is too often overlooked in favor of its serious siblings. These books are purely in the spirit of Bureau 13, Men in Black, and The Middleman, with their snarky, cynical humor and tendency to turn the absurd into the morbid and creepifying. I recommend them for anyone who likes to laugh. And we all like laughing, right?
A Kiss Before the Apocalypse [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] and Dancing On the Head of a Pin [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Thomas E. Sniegoski are noir done right, angels done right, end-of-the-world done right...really, they're just right, and they're incredibly enjoyable to boot. An angel and his dog, a love story worth living for, and a whole lot of things worth dying for combine to make one delicious bundle of awesome.
Finally, of course, you can do worse than ordering Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] for any readers in your life, or pre-ordering A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxies]. Surprise them with time-delayed goodies! Better yet, get both, and then astonish them with your foresight when the second book shows up in their mailbox. Or just buy extra copies for yourself, thus giving me a holiday gift. I am neither picky nor proud.
What can you add to the list? Wow us all!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/thoughtful.gif) thoughtful
Current Music: Full Frontal Folk, "Seven Bridges Road."
|
madrobins
| 09:03 am - And Today...
Once again I am looking for a job. In a desultory God-I-Hate-Looking-For-A-Job sort of way, but still.
Meanwhile, today I am (or intend to be) mighty:
Feed Avocado and make her lunch
Read NY Times (especially Science section)
Do crossword puzzle
Make cake
Do all dishes other people are supposed to have done, but never mind
Shower
Write until noon
Drag dog
Frost cake
Pick up car
Deliver Avocado from after school play audition to doctor's appointment
Work on editing book
Make dinner
Fall over
Somewhere in there I need to find a yarn needle (my old one seems to have gone walkabout) so that I can finish the Christmas stocking I just knitted for Sarcasm Girl's Beau. It's a rich, full life, as klages says. Some days richer and fuller than others.
|
|
|
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/acedia/littlegent/sad.gif){kind=small}
sad