"(T)he falling cost of renewable power changed the calculus" of energy sources. A pretty compelling statement about nuclear power, from the guy who headed the NRC for years. Okay, then.
Sarmatian mortuary objects came up, for me, as I was researching The Ax and the Vase many years ago, and I've remained intrigued at this culture. Recently, a burial was found - looks like a VIP ... worth the click if only to take a look at the absolutely exquisite horse's head ornament found in the grave. Clovis' father, Childeric, had a horse burial (as well as a bee burial)
Swear to Maud, K.D., I just bought a wrap dress. (To be fair, I am nobody's idea of a romantic heroine.) On writing quibbles, rage-inducingly bad ideas, and other fun, from K.D. James. (Also, yes, the date of this post gives some idea of how long it's been since I was doing my regular blog rounds. Apologies to those I have neglected.)
Of more recent vintage, hooray, a new post from The Arrant Pedant! It doesn't even matter what it is, just go, read, enjoy. He's OSUM. (Okay, what it is is a linguist's view from a uniquely spelled name. Now go read!)
Now. Here's the thing about history: it's not a game, not even a dynamic with winners and losers, good and evil. It's deep and complex, it's diverse and layered. It's MESSY. There isn't anyone alive who doesn't simplify it with their slightest allusion to it ... but not all of us get punished for that. But lately? Any punishment in a storm, and the political era we're enduring is one long shit-storm. We need to be careful about punishing people with, or about their invocation of, history. Click on, for a well-organized, concise history of the origins of the modern country of Israel.
Finally, can the literal dress of a racist, patriarchal past be reclaimed from its worst implications? Yes, fella babies: for the first time in a long time, it's a fashion link at last. And don't forget the click beyond, an interview about the Little House books, and the Wilder women.
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Monday, December 17, 2018
Collection
It happens all the time in casual speech—saying carpe diem rings deeper and graver than “use time wisely.
I know I link The History Blog a lot, but here is a post resurrecting one of the old interests at my own blog, which I haven't touched on in a long time: jewelry design. Take a look at the simply stunning geometrical engraving on this remarkably preserved bulla. Exquisite.
Tom Williams' blog has a great discussion about authorial exposure, participation, and the many varieties of advice authors can find online, on his 12/14 post - this is one of those times I will say, "READ the comments!" (FWIW, I actually do get more engagement on my personal posts, but I think the past few years of caregiving and death have led me to tap into some thoughts and themes that resonate - and, given a lack of actually getting this blog OUT there, those posts are the ones that bring people to pipe up.)
Per usual for this year, I am running short on content but don't want to leave this post in Drafts any longer, so please enjoy these photos of December snow, decorations, and The Poobahs. My spirits of the season ...
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| SNOWCAKE! |
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| Penelope side-eye is the BEST side-eye |
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| Add caption |
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Collection
The Lady of the Lake, in her own words. Yes, I have been slow to get to this story - but tell me this is not the best plot bunny ever - Nyneve becomes an actor in Paris ...
Aieeeee! Stephen G. Parks has a writer's worst nightmare. Sigh - but he probably did the right thing.
Ahh, the beautiful standards of art - where a woman's nudity is all but mandatory, but a man's is the time for censorship. Imagine actually thinking, "Okay, now I wish I'd seen naked Batman."
Aieeeee! Stephen G. Parks has a writer's worst nightmare. Sigh - but he probably did the right thing.
Ahh, the beautiful standards of art - where a woman's nudity is all but mandatory, but a man's is the time for censorship. Imagine actually thinking, "Okay, now I wish I'd seen naked Batman."
Monday, May 14, 2018
PROSSA-seez
Since my last post, there has been some indication of life in the WIP. I have the comments to thank, in part, but also mindfulness that baby steps really are the most important, sometimes.
After a week at work that was extremely difficult - not because the work was hard, but thanks to office politics which demand emotional and professional bandwidth I don't have these days - I've returned for a new week with my head down and my feet steady. You have to keep your ambitions small when things are overwhelming, and a week that ends with the advice to document difficulties is overwhelming.
So the WIP may be viewed as a saving grace - something for my brain and soul to resort to, which is "under my control" (cue the laugh track of every author I know enjoying the idea they "control" their writing). Well, perhaps it is just a refuge - a puzzle to work under stress, a world outside the one I have to occupy day-to-day. A promise to be winkled out.
A week ago, it was scary facing the dragon, but right now it is oddly satisfying to contemplate going at something so big. With work being just as daunting, the strange truth is that the butter knife is turning out to be an unexpectedly efficacious tool.
The thing is to see it as a TOOL, rather than a weapon.
I don't want to kill a dragon. I want to write a book. It does seem rather fighting-a-beast terrifying, given that I have been out of the world I want to build for so long, but thanks to perspective and a certain assist from Jeff Sypeck, I realize that not only is this not a fight ... the fact is, it's an enterprise I can take or leave, and that somehow makes me want to claim it, to get the best of it, to create something remarkable.
Or just create something.
Whatever the words, the point is *motivation* - something I have not had for six months, really.
As with the WIP, so goes the job. I'm off my game - even just cognitively, my mom and I both are up against forgetting things, being blankly unable to identify how to deal with things, the recurring embarrassment of displaying our sieve-brains. It's pretty giddy, but I have trust that it is temporary. You have to.
And you have to work for a living. And, if you're a writer, you have to write. You don't have to publish, but you have to *write*.
And so. I entered my credentials for the expense system at work. All I'll need to do to start that item on my to-do list is hit "enter" when that bubbles up to the top of said list.
I sorted piles. I knew which pile is the easily-dispatched stuff, and I knew which pile I had to defer for today. It left me with a nice proportion of stuff I knew could be managed. I managed it. Printed nameplates. Scanned uploads. Scanned several small things to email to specific people. Deferred the items I'll have to scan and share around looking for who should see it. Laid out two FedExes. I'll enter credentials for that in the morning.
It sounds, perhaps, unbearably elementary, but it's just conscious inrementals I usually implement every day without the consciousness part:
What is routine is now something I have to think about, but that doesn't mean it's not advancing.
Inevitably, this is where I get all writerly and point out that it's the same for the WIP. Ooh, meta.
But it's true. Opening the doc can be a step, but of late it's not enough. One window amongst others can be ignored, so - having realized that research is my entry point - I squared off with the manuscript and found a piece of research I could manage. It is so vanishingly small it may seem silly: but, it was an image, already followed by the character description it inspired. I deleted the image.
That is work on a manuscript. Tiny work? Undoubtedly. But it is "in there", and "in" is where I wanted to be. Right?
This led me on to a more substantial idea, which might get very exciting indeed. The WIP having been born out of research for The Ax and the Vase, there are relics of that novel in this one. I put them in place in the years when WIP was related to Ax, even if it never was a "sequel" in my mind. And ... the stunningly obvious fact has at last pierced my callused brain, which is: that work is not relevant to this work.
My next step may be some deletions. If I ever feel the need to refer back to anything in Ax, I always have that manuscript available. But that may be absurd conjecture.
In the meantime: deletion is work. It is "in." I want to be in. So some extensive surgery could feel really good.
Leila: remember the time you got me to cut 60 pages out of Ax? I will think of you with a bloodthirsty smile as I get to slicing again.
The butterknife is a tool. Which can do a great deal, in the right hands (and when you know where to apply it).
It's pretty exciting.
I'm coming back to life. Not from death. Just from a long detour.
Thanks to Jeff and Leila, especially, for helping me find the path - and maybe lighting fires under my posterior.
After a week at work that was extremely difficult - not because the work was hard, but thanks to office politics which demand emotional and professional bandwidth I don't have these days - I've returned for a new week with my head down and my feet steady. You have to keep your ambitions small when things are overwhelming, and a week that ends with the advice to document difficulties is overwhelming.
So the WIP may be viewed as a saving grace - something for my brain and soul to resort to, which is "under my control" (cue the laugh track of every author I know enjoying the idea they "control" their writing). Well, perhaps it is just a refuge - a puzzle to work under stress, a world outside the one I have to occupy day-to-day. A promise to be winkled out.
A week ago, it was scary facing the dragon, but right now it is oddly satisfying to contemplate going at something so big. With work being just as daunting, the strange truth is that the butter knife is turning out to be an unexpectedly efficacious tool.
The thing is to see it as a TOOL, rather than a weapon.
I don't want to kill a dragon. I want to write a book. It does seem rather fighting-a-beast terrifying, given that I have been out of the world I want to build for so long, but thanks to perspective and a certain assist from Jeff Sypeck, I realize that not only is this not a fight ... the fact is, it's an enterprise I can take or leave, and that somehow makes me want to claim it, to get the best of it, to create something remarkable.
Or just create something.
Whatever the words, the point is *motivation* - something I have not had for six months, really.
As with the WIP, so goes the job. I'm off my game - even just cognitively, my mom and I both are up against forgetting things, being blankly unable to identify how to deal with things, the recurring embarrassment of displaying our sieve-brains. It's pretty giddy, but I have trust that it is temporary. You have to.
And you have to work for a living. And, if you're a writer, you have to write. You don't have to publish, but you have to *write*.
And so. I entered my credentials for the expense system at work. All I'll need to do to start that item on my to-do list is hit "enter" when that bubbles up to the top of said list.
I sorted piles. I knew which pile is the easily-dispatched stuff, and I knew which pile I had to defer for today. It left me with a nice proportion of stuff I knew could be managed. I managed it. Printed nameplates. Scanned uploads. Scanned several small things to email to specific people. Deferred the items I'll have to scan and share around looking for who should see it. Laid out two FedExes. I'll enter credentials for that in the morning.
It sounds, perhaps, unbearably elementary, but it's just conscious inrementals I usually implement every day without the consciousness part:
What is routine is now something I have to think about, but that doesn't mean it's not advancing.
Inevitably, this is where I get all writerly and point out that it's the same for the WIP. Ooh, meta.
But it's true. Opening the doc can be a step, but of late it's not enough. One window amongst others can be ignored, so - having realized that research is my entry point - I squared off with the manuscript and found a piece of research I could manage. It is so vanishingly small it may seem silly: but, it was an image, already followed by the character description it inspired. I deleted the image.
That is work on a manuscript. Tiny work? Undoubtedly. But it is "in there", and "in" is where I wanted to be. Right?
This led me on to a more substantial idea, which might get very exciting indeed. The WIP having been born out of research for The Ax and the Vase, there are relics of that novel in this one. I put them in place in the years when WIP was related to Ax, even if it never was a "sequel" in my mind. And ... the stunningly obvious fact has at last pierced my callused brain, which is: that work is not relevant to this work.
My next step may be some deletions. If I ever feel the need to refer back to anything in Ax, I always have that manuscript available. But that may be absurd conjecture.
In the meantime: deletion is work. It is "in." I want to be in. So some extensive surgery could feel really good.
Leila: remember the time you got me to cut 60 pages out of Ax? I will think of you with a bloodthirsty smile as I get to slicing again.
The butterknife is a tool. Which can do a great deal, in the right hands (and when you know where to apply it).
It's pretty exciting.
I'm coming back to life. Not from death. Just from a long detour.
Thanks to Jeff and Leila, especially, for helping me find the path - and maybe lighting fires under my posterior.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Collection
Danger, Will Robinson! Plot bunnies ahead! But wow is this a GREAT mind-blower for Friday the 13th. The Atlantic on the possibility of truly ANCIENT civilization (... ?). Man, oh man, the fiction you could write riffing on this idea! OSUM. This appeals to me immensely, with my increasing thing about systems and scale ...
Oh my gosh, what a splendid piece of YA literary history. Also, I love a teacher names Mrs. Teachum. I just like the word teachum, like hokum, absurdum, or bunkum but so much more appealing. Go make with the click.
And a little more from Smithsonian Magazine - e-cigs are using the same advertising gambits decades and even generations-since prohibited for combustible cigarettes. PLUS a back-to-school special ad, which I don't think the old school ever even tried. Stay classy, vape-producers!
If you can fix this truth in your minds, namely, that the true use of books is to make you wiser and better, you will have both profit and pleasure form what you read.
--Sarah Fielding
Oh my gosh, what a splendid piece of YA literary history. Also, I love a teacher names Mrs. Teachum. I just like the word teachum, like hokum, absurdum, or bunkum but so much more appealing. Go make with the click.
And a little more from Smithsonian Magazine - e-cigs are using the same advertising gambits decades and even generations-since prohibited for combustible cigarettes. PLUS a back-to-school special ad, which I don't think the old school ever even tried. Stay classy, vape-producers!
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Collection
Dunking doughnuts outside the 54th floor, Louis and Mrs. Armstrong at the Sphinx, a woman neck-deep in grapes, Malyshka the Russian Space Dog of Sputnik II ... oh and so indescribably MUCH more. Photos from The Atlantic's amazing archive.
In fuzzy-history-we-think-we-know: did you realize that the Equal Rights Amendment passed forty-six years ago, almost to the month? But it has never been ratified. Yes, ladies - and women too - there is still a deficit of two states' ayes to enforce what even CONGRESS was able to say yes to, way on back in 1972. More than a quarter of states in the theoretically United States still don't care to accept the amendment, two generations on. I am not proud to note my home state remains a holdout.
Tom Williams has a good post, reviewing New Grub Street by George Gissing. As interesting as the work looks, one of Tom's points is meta - that the work contains the flaws it rails against. He also points out that the complaints of the fictional author in New Grub Street are still with us today. To take this one more layer of meta, this morning before I saw his post, I happened to get up and turn on The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe as my background to waking up and getting ready. I was fascinated by its repeated commentary on a writer's raw deal in publishing, out of the Poe character's mouth, and got curious about the world of publishing circa, say 1941 or 1942 (the movie came out in 1942). Little is to be found about Brian Foy, who wrote the screenplay, in a cursory search, but he seems to have started life as a child entertainer before becoming a writer - easy to imagine he was exploited in more than one way in his given professions. I leave the link to Tom's post with only the observation that there is either hope or despair in knowing that it's never been easy in publishing.
Tom has another post of interest - short, beautiful, and poignant - about the Palace of Peace, the elite, and rumors of war. Sigh.
In fuzzy-history-we-think-we-know: did you realize that the Equal Rights Amendment passed forty-six years ago, almost to the month? But it has never been ratified. Yes, ladies - and women too - there is still a deficit of two states' ayes to enforce what even CONGRESS was able to say yes to, way on back in 1972. More than a quarter of states in the theoretically United States still don't care to accept the amendment, two generations on. I am not proud to note my home state remains a holdout.
Tom Williams has a good post, reviewing New Grub Street by George Gissing. As interesting as the work looks, one of Tom's points is meta - that the work contains the flaws it rails against. He also points out that the complaints of the fictional author in New Grub Street are still with us today. To take this one more layer of meta, this morning before I saw his post, I happened to get up and turn on The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe as my background to waking up and getting ready. I was fascinated by its repeated commentary on a writer's raw deal in publishing, out of the Poe character's mouth, and got curious about the world of publishing circa, say 1941 or 1942 (the movie came out in 1942). Little is to be found about Brian Foy, who wrote the screenplay, in a cursory search, but he seems to have started life as a child entertainer before becoming a writer - easy to imagine he was exploited in more than one way in his given professions. I leave the link to Tom's post with only the observation that there is either hope or despair in knowing that it's never been easy in publishing.
Tom has another post of interest - short, beautiful, and poignant - about the Palace of Peace, the elite, and rumors of war. Sigh.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Collection
The (Not) Just No Stories ... Casey Karp tells us about yet more ways for The Internet of Things not just to run, but to ruin, our lives. Not scary at all!
Art history, religious history - on the history of the fig leaf, all the way to Instagram. Spiff.
Reider reading! I am shamefully late to getting to it, so probably anyone here who frequents the comments at Janet Reid's blog has read this already, but Jen Donohue was published recently, and her short story is very good. Hop on over to Syntax and Salt, sink into it slowly, and enjoy.
Can we please dispense with the precious little phrase "open secret" now? In the past three weeks alone, we've encountered an open secret in Hollywood - oh, and in politics - now it's academia - and media-curated regions of the world or remoter reaches of the United States - and it's been discussed about Silicon Valley for many years, at this point. "Casting couch" is a phrase probably nearly as old as the phenomenon is, which may be about a century at this point (if you only count *film*). THIS IS OUR CULTURE. Not some isolated little "secret" - open or otherwise - affecting isolated little islands of people other than ourselves. This is the world. Women have never not-known this. So who thinks this is any sort of a secret? Oh yeah. All those men who're so surprised that rape and sexual extortion/blackmail/revenge is a thing. And it's not a secret, even from them. They've just enjoyed the privilege of obliviousness.
Art history, religious history - on the history of the fig leaf, all the way to Instagram. Spiff.
Reider reading! I am shamefully late to getting to it, so probably anyone here who frequents the comments at Janet Reid's blog has read this already, but Jen Donohue was published recently, and her short story is very good. Hop on over to Syntax and Salt, sink into it slowly, and enjoy.
Can we please dispense with the precious little phrase "open secret" now? In the past three weeks alone, we've encountered an open secret in Hollywood - oh, and in politics - now it's academia - and media-curated regions of the world or remoter reaches of the United States - and it's been discussed about Silicon Valley for many years, at this point. "Casting couch" is a phrase probably nearly as old as the phenomenon is, which may be about a century at this point (if you only count *film*). THIS IS OUR CULTURE. Not some isolated little "secret" - open or otherwise - affecting isolated little islands of people other than ourselves. This is the world. Women have never not-known this. So who thinks this is any sort of a secret? Oh yeah. All those men who're so surprised that rape and sexual extortion/blackmail/revenge is a thing. And it's not a secret, even from them. They've just enjoyed the privilege of obliviousness.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Collection of GOULS
Tis the season, after all ... let's have some gruesome collections for October!
Starting off, we have Frances Glessner Lee, a nice little old lady who created meticulous, scientific dioramic recreations of murder scenes - still used today by police departments, and now in conservation and on display for their many interests even beyond those of justice.
Hallowe'en vacation trip ideas? We got 'em - how does the Cornell library sound? Well, honestly, pretty good to me any time of year - libraries are churches, for readers and writers. But right now, they are putting on The World Bewitch'd, a display of witch trial writings, spooky drawings and manuscripts - interestingly, exploring the gendered portrayal of witches in (European/American, I suspect) history. Didn't we just do this? Yes. Yes, we did. And I, for one, don't mind one bit doing it again: “It’s a time of year when people are thinking about the subject …"
Yep.
Oh, the library isn't scary enough for you? How about a trip to Tokyo, where the headlining photo alone might make you yelp? Or, if you're feeling oldschool: Transylvania? The catacombs of Paris are a classic ghastly destination. London offers an ever-so-British tea celebration, featuring Night of the Living Tarts. (Which describes all to many American prefab costumes aimed mostly at women.) Keep scrolling for some surprisingly disturbing smiling bananas, or start your planning for a trip to Croatia ...
Okay, and the next story I am not going to link, because it has stuck with me, and its presence in my thoughts is the point of interest. I'd be curious what others think. The Anne Frank (or "refugee girl") costumes that came out this year, and were rapidly yanked. Objections point to the extreme insensitivity of co-opting the identity of a tragic victim of war for trick-or-treats, and I cannot say this is not a terribly ill-considered product ...
... but, the fact is, I keep coming back to "because little girls have to be princesses and witches." And I don't like the implications there. As poor a route as it may appear, at least the idea of an Anne Frank costume brings with it the possibility of discussing who she was and what she went through with a child - and what the elements of the costume MEAN. So many costumes *are* appropriations - and exoticizations/sexualizations of cultures to which a given child doesn't belong ... and the inevitability of that sexualization part - well, see my "joke" above regarding Night of the Living Tart, and don't kid yourself it waits for legal age.
A part of me is not sure I want to simply mute the subject of Anne Frank, because ... a part of me actually thinks this COULD be done without the heartless indifference shown by this offering. Minus mass-production. Definitely minus the cutesy-attitude pose of the poor child who modeled this monstrosity.
Is it trivialization to make of Anne a mass-produced costume? Yes. But was it trivilization when my brother went as Nathan Hale, and isn't the entire holiday predicated in many aspects on the trivialization of death - a defiant raspberry in the face of mortality? The core of Hallowe'en in its original costumes was to elude the specter of Death by aping someone already dead. Of course, that has "evolved" (eroded, changed, become subject to market concerns), but at the end of the day it's all about remembering those who *have* passed, and the line is sometimes difficult for some people to see or frankly even to think about. It's a gross-out holiday, it's a time for scares and ENJOYING morbidity, it's a festival.
It hasn't been so long since I found the idea of friends dressing up as dead-John Jr. and dead-Bissette-Kennedy pretty funny, even though they decided against it because it was "too soon." Nor since I dressed up as Sarah Palin and found out *I* was the one scared and grossed out all night, thanks to the utterly disgusting reactions of men who apparently felt there was no human in the suit, and it was okay to explain every last thing they'd like to do to the costume. Aieee.
We know (I hope) that I am not a costume. We may know it's "too soon" for, ahem, the Dead Kennedys, or 9/11 "joke" costumes, or disgusting would-be-but-not-actually commentaries on the volatile political climate of the day (are you bracing yourself for all the khakis, white shirts, and torches this year? or people dressed as toppled Confederate statues? because you need to). But we don't flinch at a ghost soldier from some bygone war, or the purely grotesque. Poe is literature, not cruelty ... and yet, the imagery in his stories is genuinely harrowing.
Oh my. That got long. And in a collection post, no less - one I started in hopes of lighthearted Hallowe'en fare. Oh, dear.
Hey, who still uses the apostrophe in Hallowe'en?
Ahem. And on we move ...
Maybe you need something to read. John Davis Frain always has splendid flash fiction on tap, and this Hallowe'en season is no exception. This is a guy well schooled in ways to die!
My online writing pal Colin Smith was recently published, and I failed to observe the occasion in a timely way, but I am so rarely timely it is to be hoped he'll consider "belated" (as we do in my family) only prologation of the celebration. It's a GREAT, creeping-atmospheric tale - not specific to Hallowe'en, but appropriate to it nonetheless.
Say the travel ideas I threw out above aren't on your menu - staying close to home this year? Well, then, how will you decorate? An AT-AT of your own (the caption on the headline photo here is worth the click all by itself)?
Or you could just find something that might be interesting and paint it black. Here is a little history of the color for inspiration. The click beyond this time? In fact is the article where I found this link - and well worth a look, for the history of the Little Black Dress. Above average research and depth for a fashion article.
You can't buy a doll in rigor mortis.
Starting off, we have Frances Glessner Lee, a nice little old lady who created meticulous, scientific dioramic recreations of murder scenes - still used today by police departments, and now in conservation and on display for their many interests even beyond those of justice.
Hallowe'en vacation trip ideas? We got 'em - how does the Cornell library sound? Well, honestly, pretty good to me any time of year - libraries are churches, for readers and writers. But right now, they are putting on The World Bewitch'd, a display of witch trial writings, spooky drawings and manuscripts - interestingly, exploring the gendered portrayal of witches in (European/American, I suspect) history. Didn't we just do this? Yes. Yes, we did. And I, for one, don't mind one bit doing it again: “It’s a time of year when people are thinking about the subject …"
Yep.
Oh, the library isn't scary enough for you? How about a trip to Tokyo, where the headlining photo alone might make you yelp? Or, if you're feeling oldschool: Transylvania? The catacombs of Paris are a classic ghastly destination. London offers an ever-so-British tea celebration, featuring Night of the Living Tarts. (Which describes all to many American prefab costumes aimed mostly at women.) Keep scrolling for some surprisingly disturbing smiling bananas, or start your planning for a trip to Croatia ...
Okay, and the next story I am not going to link, because it has stuck with me, and its presence in my thoughts is the point of interest. I'd be curious what others think. The Anne Frank (or "refugee girl") costumes that came out this year, and were rapidly yanked. Objections point to the extreme insensitivity of co-opting the identity of a tragic victim of war for trick-or-treats, and I cannot say this is not a terribly ill-considered product ...
... but, the fact is, I keep coming back to "because little girls have to be princesses and witches." And I don't like the implications there. As poor a route as it may appear, at least the idea of an Anne Frank costume brings with it the possibility of discussing who she was and what she went through with a child - and what the elements of the costume MEAN. So many costumes *are* appropriations - and exoticizations/sexualizations of cultures to which a given child doesn't belong ... and the inevitability of that sexualization part - well, see my "joke" above regarding Night of the Living Tart, and don't kid yourself it waits for legal age.
A part of me is not sure I want to simply mute the subject of Anne Frank, because ... a part of me actually thinks this COULD be done without the heartless indifference shown by this offering. Minus mass-production. Definitely minus the cutesy-attitude pose of the poor child who modeled this monstrosity.
Is it trivialization to make of Anne a mass-produced costume? Yes. But was it trivilization when my brother went as Nathan Hale, and isn't the entire holiday predicated in many aspects on the trivialization of death - a defiant raspberry in the face of mortality? The core of Hallowe'en in its original costumes was to elude the specter of Death by aping someone already dead. Of course, that has "evolved" (eroded, changed, become subject to market concerns), but at the end of the day it's all about remembering those who *have* passed, and the line is sometimes difficult for some people to see or frankly even to think about. It's a gross-out holiday, it's a time for scares and ENJOYING morbidity, it's a festival.
It hasn't been so long since I found the idea of friends dressing up as dead-John Jr. and dead-Bissette-Kennedy pretty funny, even though they decided against it because it was "too soon." Nor since I dressed up as Sarah Palin and found out *I* was the one scared and grossed out all night, thanks to the utterly disgusting reactions of men who apparently felt there was no human in the suit, and it was okay to explain every last thing they'd like to do to the costume. Aieee.
We know (I hope) that I am not a costume. We may know it's "too soon" for, ahem, the Dead Kennedys, or 9/11 "joke" costumes, or disgusting would-be-but-not-actually commentaries on the volatile political climate of the day (are you bracing yourself for all the khakis, white shirts, and torches this year? or people dressed as toppled Confederate statues? because you need to). But we don't flinch at a ghost soldier from some bygone war, or the purely grotesque. Poe is literature, not cruelty ... and yet, the imagery in his stories is genuinely harrowing.
Oh my. That got long. And in a collection post, no less - one I started in hopes of lighthearted Hallowe'en fare. Oh, dear.
Hey, who still uses the apostrophe in Hallowe'en?
Ahem. And on we move ...
Maybe you need something to read. John Davis Frain always has splendid flash fiction on tap, and this Hallowe'en season is no exception. This is a guy well schooled in ways to die!
My online writing pal Colin Smith was recently published, and I failed to observe the occasion in a timely way, but I am so rarely timely it is to be hoped he'll consider "belated" (as we do in my family) only prologation of the celebration. It's a GREAT, creeping-atmospheric tale - not specific to Hallowe'en, but appropriate to it nonetheless.
Say the travel ideas I threw out above aren't on your menu - staying close to home this year? Well, then, how will you decorate? An AT-AT of your own (the caption on the headline photo here is worth the click all by itself)?
Or you could just find something that might be interesting and paint it black. Here is a little history of the color for inspiration. The click beyond this time? In fact is the article where I found this link - and well worth a look, for the history of the Little Black Dress. Above average research and depth for a fashion article.
BOO!!!!
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Collection
Look. I don't do the online crush thing, I really don't. But scrap the romance attached to "crush" and give me some leeway to crush away, because John Davis Frain just came up with the BEST TITLE EVER for a flash fiction piece, AND it all hinges on an Oxford comma. Glorious - go and enjoy this spiffy, quick read. And the click beyond? Special bonds with Mr. Schroedinger. Dead or alive. So. Many. Science jokes. Loving it!
(And, John? I swear I started this Collection post days before you stopped by and commented!)
Who else loves to read the latest science or health/medicine headlines while indulging in many grains of salt? Have you ever joked about how eggs are healthy now, but used to be vicious little cholesterol time bombs? Or fat is good, but bad, but what'll it be next week? Welp, here's the latest - on "regularly cleaning" your kitchen sponge ... or not. Thanks go to NPR for actually looking at the science without taking too long a trip into the deep weeds.
Prayer where the gods moved the Earth. In another blow to the myth of The Dirty, Stupid Past, we find that ancient Greeks not only could identify tectonic zones, but may actually have sought this real estate as a sort of direct conduit to the worship. To caveat the point: this is another one of those may have done theories. I encourage anyone reading the link to do so critically (and not just because it's Newsweek), because correlation is not causality.
... and just a little more of the not-so-dirty, not-so-stupid past - a map drawn in the 1500s, which turns out to be accurate to modern satellite mapping. So, nearly half a millennium ago, we were not utter morons. Only our tools have changed. GO SCIENCE!
Still. It's an intriguing theory, and I am sometimes more interested in intriguing ideas than empirical proof, when it comes to history. Even those ideas I tend to dismiss, I can still enjoy thinking about. Even writing about. I mean: how irresistible, for a writer? To contemplate the characters, the place, the time - where earthquakes and the fear they engendered were manifestations of the divine? And this, fella babies, is why I say I am not an historian. It gives me the out to indulge creativity ...
(And, John? I swear I started this Collection post days before you stopped by and commented!)
We do not want to make public health recommendations based on five sponges from Germany
Who else loves to read the latest science or health/medicine headlines while indulging in many grains of salt? Have you ever joked about how eggs are healthy now, but used to be vicious little cholesterol time bombs? Or fat is good, but bad, but what'll it be next week? Welp, here's the latest - on "regularly cleaning" your kitchen sponge ... or not. Thanks go to NPR for actually looking at the science without taking too long a trip into the deep weeds.
Prayer where the gods moved the Earth. In another blow to the myth of The Dirty, Stupid Past, we find that ancient Greeks not only could identify tectonic zones, but may actually have sought this real estate as a sort of direct conduit to the worship. To caveat the point: this is another one of those may have done theories. I encourage anyone reading the link to do so critically (and not just because it's Newsweek), because correlation is not causality.
... and just a little more of the not-so-dirty, not-so-stupid past - a map drawn in the 1500s, which turns out to be accurate to modern satellite mapping. So, nearly half a millennium ago, we were not utter morons. Only our tools have changed. GO SCIENCE!
Still. It's an intriguing theory, and I am sometimes more interested in intriguing ideas than empirical proof, when it comes to history. Even those ideas I tend to dismiss, I can still enjoy thinking about. Even writing about. I mean: how irresistible, for a writer? To contemplate the characters, the place, the time - where earthquakes and the fear they engendered were manifestations of the divine? And this, fella babies, is why I say I am not an historian. It gives me the out to indulge creativity ...
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Collection
Once it is known that buyers are willing to purchase items with dubious or nonexistent provenance, the market for those items expands, which in turn encourages the kind of looting that we’re witnessing today in the Middle East. The connection between a scrap of papyrus and on-the-ground violence may be difficult to see. But it exists.
Many have seen the headlines of the $3M judgment against Hobby Lobby in regard to the thousands of tablets and bullae they amassed by questionable means. Here is a closer look at their path to such startling acquisition - and the speed at which they took it. "Breakneck" is not often the pace of archaeological commerce. This is an interesting, in-depth look at the people involved and the often all-too-shady business of trading antiquties.
Sometimes, it's a shame I am so slow to toddle through the blogs I follow and read; John Davis Frain has a personal and extremely good entry on Independence Day. It is both unique and universal: the trick of a mighty fine writer. It's also brief, and not really about flag-waving. So, worth a click any time of year.
I was late, too, to Celia Reeves' blog, where some weeks ago she talked about a Day of Remembrance. Beautiful post, with a photo worth clicking on to enlarge and really look at closely.
Colin Smith has two posts I wanted to share with anyone who hasn't seen them already (again, I am shamefully late in my perusal). One on writing about writing, as a pre-published author. And another, from the genuine-interest-in-people side of the "where are you from - really" question. CNN link worth a click beyond as well, from the "I am exhausted" side. These two pieces make good companion looks at the question - and not super-long reading, either.
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
"... and ALWAYS for something completely different"
It was about 1983 when Mark and I became best friends. I use his real name because enough time separates us, and the name was common enough around here then, that it's as anonymous as calling him any other name.
Fifteen to his fourteen, I was in high school, but he was the cool one. I came over one time, he turned on the party light he'd built and calibrated to respond to his stereo, and he plunged my brain into something incomprehensible.
It was the original radio recordings of Hitchhiker's Guide.
I had no understanding of what was coming out of his speakers, there was no reference point by which I could make sense of the chorus of Cyrius Cybernetics voices buzzing out their little piece of the universe being built out of sound effects and voice acting. It all made no sense to me, and as is still to some degree my wont, that which was unfamiliar made me resistant, because I hated the confusion.
It probably took half an hour at least for me to even get that there was a story being told.
For me, back then, "writing" meant books - I was scarcely aware that the fare on our TV set (we used to call them "TV sets" - now ask me about hifi) involved composing scripts - and books came in few genres. Lots of nonfiction, for which I hadn't yet gotten the hang of caring. 19th century lit of various stripes, owned by us but belonging to nobody in particular. Mom's romantic novels. Dad's joke books; nothing else he might read could possibly have interested me.
So I "got" Bennet Cerf and even Art Buchwald, and novels by Poe and the like. But comedic science fiction? In radio format? I only understood radio drama as something that had gone the way of the dodo shortly after Baby Snooks cut her teeth.
Douglas Adams bent my brain.
***
Then I got to college and read Richard Brautigan. It is more than my eloquence can even attempt, explaining this lit, but Trout Fishing in America meant a lot to me once. Thirty years on, I'm not sure my geriatric behind could make head nor tail of it anymore.
***
Then I discovered Donald Harington. The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, only one of the Stay Moronian novels he penned, layered in ways even by then I couldn't intellectually cope with. Historical fiction? Yes. Picaresque? Yes. Folk tales? Yes. Family epic? Yes. Fantasy? Yes. All of, and so much more than, the above.
And it was Harington who put it best: we must write neckties.
Write things that are impractical and colorful. Write neckties.
***
Recently, I have picked up my late and beloved Aunt L's copy of The Known World. I was fortunate to meet Edward Jones at a conference years ago, and yet somehow in the vagaries of the TBR pile, this has never quite hit the top at a time when I ended up finishing it. This week is different.
The novel is a quilt; not merely featuring a wide cast, but it is in itself a wide cast of a large net. There is factual history to be found here, and some detail so vivid it feels like documentation, or memory, or The Sight. Scenes are discussed as if by a storyteller - BY a storyteller, of course - but the "there-ness" is complete, the characters breathe and move in life not because of our intimacy with their imagined thoughts, but because they are viewed with respect - both literal and in the perspective sense - to their humanity. Human action, nuance by nuance. And so the omniscient document becomes the novel, and draws us into the curious world of freed men who owned slaves, in American history.
Having not so long ago finished reading Gigi Amateau's Come August, Come Freedom, there is a resonance, though her style is more what my brain would have called "traditional" as I grappled with all of the experimental and unexpected and creative work mentioned.
***
My own work is "traditional" in the extreme, of course. I don't color outside the lines; it took me too long to learn how to stay *in* them. But the obvious truism to (neck)tie up this post is this: without listening to, reading, learning from those who don't need the lines at all, I would not be able to color at all.
Fifteen to his fourteen, I was in high school, but he was the cool one. I came over one time, he turned on the party light he'd built and calibrated to respond to his stereo, and he plunged my brain into something incomprehensible.
It was the original radio recordings of Hitchhiker's Guide.
I had no understanding of what was coming out of his speakers, there was no reference point by which I could make sense of the chorus of Cyrius Cybernetics voices buzzing out their little piece of the universe being built out of sound effects and voice acting. It all made no sense to me, and as is still to some degree my wont, that which was unfamiliar made me resistant, because I hated the confusion.
It probably took half an hour at least for me to even get that there was a story being told.
For me, back then, "writing" meant books - I was scarcely aware that the fare on our TV set (we used to call them "TV sets" - now ask me about hifi) involved composing scripts - and books came in few genres. Lots of nonfiction, for which I hadn't yet gotten the hang of caring. 19th century lit of various stripes, owned by us but belonging to nobody in particular. Mom's romantic novels. Dad's joke books; nothing else he might read could possibly have interested me.
So I "got" Bennet Cerf and even Art Buchwald, and novels by Poe and the like. But comedic science fiction? In radio format? I only understood radio drama as something that had gone the way of the dodo shortly after Baby Snooks cut her teeth.
Douglas Adams bent my brain.
***
Then I got to college and read Richard Brautigan. It is more than my eloquence can even attempt, explaining this lit, but Trout Fishing in America meant a lot to me once. Thirty years on, I'm not sure my geriatric behind could make head nor tail of it anymore.
***
Then I discovered Donald Harington. The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, only one of the Stay Moronian novels he penned, layered in ways even by then I couldn't intellectually cope with. Historical fiction? Yes. Picaresque? Yes. Folk tales? Yes. Family epic? Yes. Fantasy? Yes. All of, and so much more than, the above.
And it was Harington who put it best: we must write neckties.
Write things that are impractical and colorful. Write neckties.
***
Recently, I have picked up my late and beloved Aunt L's copy of The Known World. I was fortunate to meet Edward Jones at a conference years ago, and yet somehow in the vagaries of the TBR pile, this has never quite hit the top at a time when I ended up finishing it. This week is different.
The novel is a quilt; not merely featuring a wide cast, but it is in itself a wide cast of a large net. There is factual history to be found here, and some detail so vivid it feels like documentation, or memory, or The Sight. Scenes are discussed as if by a storyteller - BY a storyteller, of course - but the "there-ness" is complete, the characters breathe and move in life not because of our intimacy with their imagined thoughts, but because they are viewed with respect - both literal and in the perspective sense - to their humanity. Human action, nuance by nuance. And so the omniscient document becomes the novel, and draws us into the curious world of freed men who owned slaves, in American history.
Having not so long ago finished reading Gigi Amateau's Come August, Come Freedom, there is a resonance, though her style is more what my brain would have called "traditional" as I grappled with all of the experimental and unexpected and creative work mentioned.
***
My own work is "traditional" in the extreme, of course. I don't color outside the lines; it took me too long to learn how to stay *in* them. But the obvious truism to (neck)tie up this post is this: without listening to, reading, learning from those who don't need the lines at all, I would not be able to color at all.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Collection
Casey Karp's blog is a new favorite, not just for his talents in wordlery, but also because he brings the learn-y stuff. This week, take a look at some of Amazon's REALLY chilling new problems. One, the new world in gig-economy logistics, and two, the Authors Guild article he links from that post, about how a new algorithm may cost the publishing industry - and authors. The final sentence here is pretty frightening.
I enjoy Jeff Sypeck's unique outlook; here is an interesting area of cultural context leading up to the American Civil War. Excellent quote from Mark Twain on this. Looking at what we consume as relating to what we enact.
"Rubber ducky, I love you - and the writing you help me do!" Maggie Maxwell has a great strategy, apparently used by IT programmers. I've never heard of talking to the duck, but it does make a kind of sense. (Though, personally? I tend to use actual coworkers or other writers or readers, depending on my issues ... Writing buddies really DO make great ducks. Heh.)
I enjoy Jeff Sypeck's unique outlook; here is an interesting area of cultural context leading up to the American Civil War. Excellent quote from Mark Twain on this. Looking at what we consume as relating to what we enact.
"Rubber ducky, I love you - and the writing you help me do!" Maggie Maxwell has a great strategy, apparently used by IT programmers. I've never heard of talking to the duck, but it does make a kind of sense. (Though, personally? I tend to use actual coworkers or other writers or readers, depending on my issues ... Writing buddies really DO make great ducks. Heh.)
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Collection
Donna Everhart celebrates making it halfway through a WIP. I very, very literally have no idea what that is like - because I don't know when it is.
"(B)limey, what's that?" Simultaneously cool and creepy, BBC shows us one of the creative innovations in security, as the global definition and even concept of privacy leeches away. "The ability to choose when and how to divulge information about ourselves is one of the things that make us human, argues graphic designer Leon Baauw"
Also at BBC online, this piece of art and science history took my breath away, but do be warned, for the squeamish there exists the possibility this could take your lunch away. Have you ever heard of dissectable "Venus" waxworks? The art is incredible - but, for a historical novelist like me, the look into the psychology of another age, the attitudes, is INVALUABLE. These sculptures are eerie and undeniably lovely.
More RULES for writers! Y'all know how I love those. Still, analyses like these do yield some intriguing data. Such as: the average published author relies on about 1/4th as many exclamation points as the average amateur writer. (I am not published, but if I had ten exclamation points in both my novels combined, I'd be surprised.)
Ever since learning what vocal fry is, I have become fascinated by the science of speech. Here is a GREAT piece on hating women's voices:
"[By] propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility." Depressing, but certainly true. Take a look at Newsweek's in-depth piece about the ascendancy of the shareholder - a pretty good history of Wall Street and business education over the past generation.
Have you ever been to a marketplace where haggling is common? Many Americans have not, but I have smiling memories of "special for you!" pricing on a vacation or two. The Atlantic analyses some of the history - and the future - of the way we shop. Hmmmmm.
"(B)limey, what's that?" Simultaneously cool and creepy, BBC shows us one of the creative innovations in security, as the global definition and even concept of privacy leeches away. "The ability to choose when and how to divulge information about ourselves is one of the things that make us human, argues graphic designer Leon Baauw"
Also at BBC online, this piece of art and science history took my breath away, but do be warned, for the squeamish there exists the possibility this could take your lunch away. Have you ever heard of dissectable "Venus" waxworks? The art is incredible - but, for a historical novelist like me, the look into the psychology of another age, the attitudes, is INVALUABLE. These sculptures are eerie and undeniably lovely.
More RULES for writers! Y'all know how I love those. Still, analyses like these do yield some intriguing data. Such as: the average published author relies on about 1/4th as many exclamation points as the average amateur writer. (I am not published, but if I had ten exclamation points in both my novels combined, I'd be surprised.)
Ever since learning what vocal fry is, I have become fascinated by the science of speech. Here is a GREAT piece on hating women's voices:
"[By] propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility." Depressing, but certainly true. Take a look at Newsweek's in-depth piece about the ascendancy of the shareholder - a pretty good history of Wall Street and business education over the past generation.
Have you ever been to a marketplace where haggling is common? Many Americans have not, but I have smiling memories of "special for you!" pricing on a vacation or two. The Atlantic analyses some of the history - and the future - of the way we shop. Hmmmmm.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Writerly
The WIP, currently being called Generations of Sunset, though this perhaps doesn't even qualify as a "working" title since it doesn't (*), is in fact still a thing.
I haven't had much to say about it of late, being distracted by such epochal life changes as a haircut, getting some cabinets for my kitchen, a sick puppy (who is fine now, she just gets an upset stomach now and then), a tiny travel plan or two, and the joy of watching someone I care about a lot falling for someone new. But I do still play around with WRITING.
For my writer pals who stop in here sometimes, I have a question. Have any of you ever given a character some trait that suits your purposes, more than necessarily follows reality?
I'm writing in a period when life expectancies were not what they are today. In The Ax and the Vase, the historical character Bishop Remigius of Rheims was extremely long-lived indeed, but this was true of the actual man, and indeed I used that longevity to speak to his charisma; that he was so venerable marked his holiness for the other characters. In GoS, though, I have a serving woman living a very long life.
It was perhaps easier for anyone, servitor or queen, to get in an extra decade or three, living at a royal court, as opposed to squalor or slavery outside of a palace.
Some people did of course live past thirty-five, even in the "Dark Ages" (well, or just before them). What I am doing, stretching this character across generations, isn't exactly fantasy. But the character's life is directly tied to my need of her presence in every place, at every birth, even through the deaths, through her time.
I don't ask other authors whether they've done this in order to get approval, but out of curiosity. Zeniv has to live a very long time because she is not merely important, but she views the coming of new generations, and is part of the setting, the changing world. She is one pair of eyes witnessing what may be a death (the dynasty of Theodoric the Great) or a birth (a new age, what we came to call the Dark Ages), or may just be the world as it is.
This doesn't quite rise - or sink - to the question of ethics in writerly choices, but I am curious about choices like this that other writers make.
Has any of you ever stretched the parameters of your setting, of history, or usual expectations to accommodate your needs for the story? How?
* As with so many things I think to be clever, the title is a bit of a pun. For many of us, sunset marks an ending - it is the end of the day. But we forget, that is only one way to look at things. Sunset is the beginning of the next day; your dreams are not a closing out of the day past, but the first thing in your mind before you wake to a new day.
I haven't had much to say about it of late, being distracted by such epochal life changes as a haircut, getting some cabinets for my kitchen, a sick puppy (who is fine now, she just gets an upset stomach now and then), a tiny travel plan or two, and the joy of watching someone I care about a lot falling for someone new. But I do still play around with WRITING.
For my writer pals who stop in here sometimes, I have a question. Have any of you ever given a character some trait that suits your purposes, more than necessarily follows reality?
I'm writing in a period when life expectancies were not what they are today. In The Ax and the Vase, the historical character Bishop Remigius of Rheims was extremely long-lived indeed, but this was true of the actual man, and indeed I used that longevity to speak to his charisma; that he was so venerable marked his holiness for the other characters. In GoS, though, I have a serving woman living a very long life.
It was perhaps easier for anyone, servitor or queen, to get in an extra decade or three, living at a royal court, as opposed to squalor or slavery outside of a palace.
Some people did of course live past thirty-five, even in the "Dark Ages" (well, or just before them). What I am doing, stretching this character across generations, isn't exactly fantasy. But the character's life is directly tied to my need of her presence in every place, at every birth, even through the deaths, through her time.
I don't ask other authors whether they've done this in order to get approval, but out of curiosity. Zeniv has to live a very long time because she is not merely important, but she views the coming of new generations, and is part of the setting, the changing world. She is one pair of eyes witnessing what may be a death (the dynasty of Theodoric the Great) or a birth (a new age, what we came to call the Dark Ages), or may just be the world as it is.
This doesn't quite rise - or sink - to the question of ethics in writerly choices, but I am curious about choices like this that other writers make.
Has any of you ever stretched the parameters of your setting, of history, or usual expectations to accommodate your needs for the story? How?
* As with so many things I think to be clever, the title is a bit of a pun. For many of us, sunset marks an ending - it is the end of the day. But we forget, that is only one way to look at things. Sunset is the beginning of the next day; your dreams are not a closing out of the day past, but the first thing in your mind before you wake to a new day.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Collection
Okay. Y'ALL. I love my country, but even apart from the sulphurous-tinted mass metastasizing in the White House, there are reasons much of the rest of the world finds us bewildering (not to say bat-splat cray). I ask you: kitten. fur. perfume.
Nobody's beating the sweet, bread-baking scent of my Gossamer, no way no how.
Casey Karp has an insightful post about security and yet more pitfalls of modern technology. Now doesn't Luddite little me feel all smug I never so much as connected my Bluetooth? But man. I can remember when I used to change the oil and even my pads and rotors. And yeah, I'm going to keep linking stuff like this. When did privacy become so recklessly unhip?
Maggie Maxwell has another uplifting one - on how to handle that bad review. Oh, ow. But she's right!
Okay, enough doom and gloom. Take a trip over to American Duchess's blog, where the saga continues, with the 1820s dress and its restoration. Post 1, linked previously. Post 2, here's how they dated it. The comp dresses and fashion plates are fascinating; but then, I'm a research nerd. Post 3 - the guts of the gown! - coming soon.
Grammar pedant and/or legal story time - why the Oxford Comma matters. A labor dispute digs into gerunds and forms, and drivers get better overtime terms.
Nobody's beating the sweet, bread-baking scent of my Gossamer, no way no how.
 |
| "The HELL you say?" |
Casey Karp has an insightful post about security and yet more pitfalls of modern technology. Now doesn't Luddite little me feel all smug I never so much as connected my Bluetooth? But man. I can remember when I used to change the oil and even my pads and rotors. And yeah, I'm going to keep linking stuff like this. When did privacy become so recklessly unhip?
Maggie Maxwell has another uplifting one - on how to handle that bad review. Oh, ow. But she's right!
Okay, enough doom and gloom. Take a trip over to American Duchess's blog, where the saga continues, with the 1820s dress and its restoration. Post 1, linked previously. Post 2, here's how they dated it. The comp dresses and fashion plates are fascinating; but then, I'm a research nerd. Post 3 - the guts of the gown! - coming soon.
Grammar pedant and/or legal story time - why the Oxford Comma matters. A labor dispute digs into gerunds and forms, and drivers get better overtime terms.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Collection
It just does not get better than the idea of "poop studies" as the "motherlode" of information in archaeology. (Ask an archaeologist!)
The Caustic Cover Critic has a great look at The Clothing of Books, which sounds as fascinating and somewhat frustrating as he describes. It makes you wish you could see this author speak on the topic that gave rise to the book itself, which is how covers are the wardrobe of a book.
Fellow Reider Donna Everhart's debut, The Education of Dixie Dupree, has found its way into my hands (can I just say: deckled edges ... you had me at deckled), but I have not had time of late to crack into it. Everyone has splendid praise for it, but either it's a busy season for me or I am savoring the anticipation for a while. I like to say it is the latter! Alla y'all will be done and feeling Bittersweet, longing for more, by the time I settle down on a long winter's day with an afghan and a Gossamer the Editor Cat, to enjoy it on my own.
Popularizing science and scholarship in the news is a blessing and a curse. While it can dumb-down or over-promise studies and breakthroughs to the lowest (read: most exciting) terms, journalistic coverage of historical study, archaeology, medicine, and other gee-whiz science serves the very real purpose of providing hope and inspiration to those suffering pain, ignorance, or fear and to those who may in turn bring innovations of their own into the world. Here is a great slice-of-life look at one such story - the supposed 14th-century caesarean ... or not - and its journalistic and intellectual implications. (Found by way of The History Blog's perhaps less critical look a the story, where the comments are worth reading.)
The Caustic Cover Critic has a great look at The Clothing of Books, which sounds as fascinating and somewhat frustrating as he describes. It makes you wish you could see this author speak on the topic that gave rise to the book itself, which is how covers are the wardrobe of a book.
Lahiri's talk begins from her own experiences as the child of immigrants, always dressed incorrectly in clothes that are durable but out of fashion, marking her out as an Indian amongst Americans.
Fellow Reider Donna Everhart's debut, The Education of Dixie Dupree, has found its way into my hands (can I just say: deckled edges ... you had me at deckled), but I have not had time of late to crack into it. Everyone has splendid praise for it, but either it's a busy season for me or I am savoring the anticipation for a while. I like to say it is the latter! Alla y'all will be done and feeling Bittersweet, longing for more, by the time I settle down on a long winter's day with an afghan and a Gossamer the Editor Cat, to enjoy it on my own.
Popularizing science and scholarship in the news is a blessing and a curse. While it can dumb-down or over-promise studies and breakthroughs to the lowest (read: most exciting) terms, journalistic coverage of historical study, archaeology, medicine, and other gee-whiz science serves the very real purpose of providing hope and inspiration to those suffering pain, ignorance, or fear and to those who may in turn bring innovations of their own into the world. Here is a great slice-of-life look at one such story - the supposed 14th-century caesarean ... or not - and its journalistic and intellectual implications. (Found by way of The History Blog's perhaps less critical look a the story, where the comments are worth reading.)
Friday, October 21, 2016
"Dixie Dupree is eleven years old and already an expert liar"
For my Reider readers and beyond, many of you have seen me mention The Education of Dixie Dupree, Donna Everhart's upcoming debut novel. For those who have not: I've been eagerly awaiting this book for a LONG time now. Eagerly!
Well, I am not alone ... and pre-order is always an option.
Donna knows I have a "thing" about the intimacy of reading, but I also have a thing about supporting good authors, and without a doubt she qualifies. The struggle to wait is real.
But now ... the wait is but a couple of business days!
Well, I am not alone ... and pre-order is always an option.
Donna knows I have a "thing" about the intimacy of reading, but I also have a thing about supporting good authors, and without a doubt she qualifies. The struggle to wait is real.
 |
| COOL cover, right?" You know you're curious. |
But now ... the wait is but a couple of business days!
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Ego Tripping - Nikki Giovanni
Today, I did not want to make the moment I shook her hand about myself. So instead of telling Nikki Giovanni how she had affected me, I said only thank you.
But the first time I ever read Ego Tripping is still indelible, powerful in my experience. You don't forget moments that change you, that elevate your perspective.
I hope it is forgivable, permissible, for me to reprint her work. It is too important to just hope you will click somewhere and read. And so ...
The line that captured me a generation ago, and holds me to this day is "I am so hip even my errors are correct" ...
As I grow older, though, it is "I cannot be comprehended except by my permission" that comes to mean more and more.
What gets you, in this piece?
Or in any other poem?
But the first time I ever read Ego Tripping is still indelible, powerful in my experience. You don't forget moments that change you, that elevate your perspective.
I hope it is forgivable, permissible, for me to reprint her work. It is too important to just hope you will click somewhere and read. And so ...
I was born in the Congo
I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built
The Sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
That only glows every one hundred years falls
Into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
Drinking nectar with Allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
To cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is Nefertiti
The tears from my birth pains
Created the Nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
Out the Sahara desert
With a packet of goat's meat
And a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
So swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son Hannibal an elephant
He gave me Rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son Noah built New/Ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
As we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
Jesus
Men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
The filings from my fingernails are
Semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the Arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
The earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
Across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
Like a bird in the sky
The line that captured me a generation ago, and holds me to this day is "I am so hip even my errors are correct" ...
As I grow older, though, it is "I cannot be comprehended except by my permission" that comes to mean more and more.
What gets you, in this piece?
Or in any other poem?
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Collection
Always a sucker for a good sword-making article, I reveled in Tom Williams' latest post, looking at the combination of iron and carbon best calculated for "the whole cutting into your enemy and killing him bit." Pattern welded steel - the work of ages.
In "worst pink label EVER" news ... yes, it is true. Melania wore a pussy-bow blouse (why yes, of *course* it was PINK) to cap this weekend's sexual assault extravaganza. Sigh.
By the way. Is there ANYBODY left who doesn't understand the concept of rape culture?
In a much happier link: death! And taxes! Please click and enjoy a short story from Stephen G. Parks - and leave him some feedback, too, if you have any.
Teh Funnay! Also: because I needed MORE blogs to be addicted to. What it's like to be married to a writer. Pure reality gold, my friends.
In "worst pink label EVER" news ... yes, it is true. Melania wore a pussy-bow blouse (why yes, of *course* it was PINK) to cap this weekend's sexual assault extravaganza. Sigh.
By the way. Is there ANYBODY left who doesn't understand the concept of rape culture?
In a much happier link: death! And taxes! Please click and enjoy a short story from Stephen G. Parks - and leave him some feedback, too, if you have any.
Teh Funnay! Also: because I needed MORE blogs to be addicted to. What it's like to be married to a writer. Pure reality gold, my friends.
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