The celebration today at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church was wonderful, especially the theatrical presentation that was put on before Mass. The choir and the musicians and the woman singing the role of Joan and the puppeteers from Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre were absolutely breathtaking, and I know I'm leaving somebody out, so I'll just say EVERYBODY did amazing things.

Those of you who know about the May Day Parade around here know about In the Heart of the Beast. May Day is a big deal in my neighborhood. There are numerous videos of the parade, which has only foot-powered vehicles in it, and of the ceremony of the Tree of Life in the park. (My personal favorite parts are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy2aVp9tHss>when the Tree goes by</a> shrouded in the parade on a cart, when the <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKu23BWA-08>boats of the Sun*</a> touch the shore and bring the Sun back to us, and when the <a href=http://chictraveler.com/events/minneapolis-may-day-parade>Tree of Life</a> rises up then.) In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre first started over at Walker Community Church. Walker Church burned down a week ago. In the Heart of the Beast is going to <a href=http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/155849175.html>provide space</a> for Walker Church to have services while they rebuild -- but many other organizations to whom Walker gave space are without a home now. Walker Community Church has quite a history with local organizations: <blockquote><i>The fire that destroyed Walker Church took with it the meeting place of many organizations — Occupy MN, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Women Against Military Madness, the MN Coalition for a People's Bail Out, Women’s Prison Book Project and many others. Some, such as CUAPB, lost computers, scanners, and many records, as they had their offices there. The groups that used the space come from a long line of community groups, grassroots organizations, and theater companies that have used the space. KFAI got its start in the church, and the building was the site for meetings for local organizing for the 1970s Cesar Chavez/United Farm Workers lettuce boycott, and for organizing against Honeywell. Theater companies such as At the Foot of the Mountain, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, and the Palace Theater all performed there. In the Heart of the Beast, originally called the Powderhorn Puppet Players, first began using the church as a studio space, and that was where the Tree of Life puppet was created — an iconic puppet still used in MayDay celebrations. Music groups, such as Ancestor Energy, played there. The space was used by political campaigns, includingLinda Berglin, and as a sanctuary for refugees and immigrants. In recent years, HECUA (Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs), the RNC 8 Defense Committee, Twin Cities Indymedia, and many others have found a home there. -- from <a href=http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/06/01/alive-memories-people-and-communities-walker-community-methodist-church>tcdailyplanet.net</a></i></blockquote> At the link above is information on helping with the rebuilding effort and links to several of the affected organizations as well. I can't believe Walker Church is gone. I definitely believe it will rise again. * Video taken by local fan DavE Romm, so you may see a few familiar fannish faces here and there.

Review copy provided by Tor.

I am not the main audience for this book. However, I have it read less than 20 hours from receiving it, which tells you something about how readable it is. scalzi has not lost his touch for writing briskly paced narratives in which something is always propelling you along to just one more chapter, and then just one more, and then suddenly you have finished the book. Even with the last three bits being attendant short stories rather than chapters, there was not significant loss of momentum--instead I felt interested in seeing how he handled that particular structure. The use of the word "codas" for them seemed particularly appropriate, as each handled denouement that was totally appropriate to the book but didn't really fit in its traditional structure.

However, I have an argument with John Updike. What's that? Wrong John, different guy wrote this book? Okay, good, we can all go have our tea, done then. Wait. No. Updike was the most recent one I was reading as the origin claim--it may have been someone else--that you do not get to argue with a book for not being what you wanted it to be, only for how it did what it was doing. And while there were a few jokes that were a bit close to Galaxy Quest's jokes for my taste, I'd say Redshirts executed what it set out for. (Yes, I know, same source material will inspire similar jokes, but the bit about the redshirt who only has one name anybody uses...ah well.)

It's not an argument but more bafflement: I am not entirely clear on why this is what he set out for. Thought it would be fun, this is what he wanted to do and he did it? Sure, okay. But...why? It's 2012. Why did a writer of Scalzi's talents feel like writing a send-up of Star Trek's worst excesses in 2012? Granted he can do it. Of course he can. It's just...really? Because yes, filmed SF--TV in general--has some generic idiocies that can be expanded from the send-ups here. Not all deaths are well-earned, not all technobabble solutions are well-babbled. But the specifics here were pretty darn specifically Star Trek, mostly ToS, down to the gender-bias of the casting. And I just didn't feel like Star Trek--especially episodic Star Trek, rather than movie Star Trek--is a thing that's been insufficiently sent-up as of 2012, and this book didn't change my mind or illuminate anything my friends hadn't mocked a dozen times. Yes, there were other things scalzi was doing, but I found myself wishing he'd done them in another framework. I realize that the fish in a barrel were necessary for the rest of what he was doing here, but: fish. Barrel.

Now, everything about the marketing of this book makes its framework clear. If it comes as a surprise to anyone that this is a book sending up Star Trek, frankly, that person is a bit thick, or else is from such a different cultural background that they will have no idea what it's on about and will probably have to stop reading in utter confusion. So for the vast majority of people--who are running out and buying things rather than having marketing departments send them out--I imagine the response will be either, "He wrote this and it's clearly what I want," or else not. Nobody should be clutching their bosom and saying, "Why sir, I had no idea." As in fact I am not. I just...sometimes get review copies of things I am still not the main audience for. Is all.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I can't tell you how pleased I am that it's freaking June, and we haven't seen triple-digit temperatures yet. [knock on Ikea particle board] It's inevitable, I know, but I'd rather put off that crap as long as possible. Seriously. So, while it's hot (low to mid 90s) it's not hot-hot. Oh, how our standards lower over time. LOL!

In other news, the current project [Cold Iron] is still rocking along at 700 words a day. I hit the 1000 mark on Friday. My old speed used to be 2000-3000 words a day. I'm hoping to get back to that soon, but I don't want to push myself too far and freeze up again. (That sucked.) I know I have this tendency to not listen to myself and then end up forcing myself beyond the point one should. Sometimes you gotta listen to the inner baby-head--or at least I do. I need to be more gentle with myself. I'm not the only one guilty of that kind of behaviour, I'm sure. :) Feedback from my beta-readers is filtering in too. That's been a huge help. (Thanks, y'all!!!) And I'm liking how things are tying together plot-wise--a lot. It's cool watching this story weave itself into new knots with deeper, fuller characters. The story has gone directions I didn't expect. (My favorite thing about being an organic writer, really.)

Every once in a while I step back from the writing and think about how odd the process is. It's nice having a healthy, realistic perspective regarding how books are made. I truly love books. Always have. Always will. But I never understood how much blood and sweat is spilled in the creation of them. It makes the whole concept of great storytelling both even more awe-inspiring and less* at the same time, if that makes any sense. But that's what true love is really about, I think. It isn't just the romantic highs. It's also the fits of boredom, the self-doubts, the messes, and the arguments no one else sees. It's bravely trusting even when you're not entirely sure it's safe. It's giving everything you can even while knowing you'll never see it reciprocated. That's true love. And that's the part of all this that I don't think can be explained to those who only write for the money, the ego boost, or the imagined fame. Writing isn't easy. If you want easy, for dog's sake do anything else because holy crap are you wasting your time.

On the other hand, true love isn't for the faint of heart either.
----------------------------------------
*Because, damn, that shit gets ugly. As Neil Gaiman says--if when your art goes public, you start to feel like you're naked, that's a sign you're probably doing it right. If you don't think that's painful or terrifying, think again.

from firecat

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REI has a climbing wall, a photo by marymactavish on Flickr.

REI has a climbing wall

elisem wrote a post about envy and competition and comparing oneself to others.
http://elisem.livejournal.com/1745373.html

The gist of my comment there:

For me, envious comparison is a depression symptom, so when I read analyses of why it's not a good idea, even though I agree with them, I get the same feeling that I get when people tell depressed people to just cheer up.

Competing and comparing in and of themselves aren't bad, IMO. The problem is when they aren't consensual. Either because they pop into a person's head when the person doesn't want them, or because a person -- or a group or a whole society -- is trying to force another person to participate in them.

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Today: ribs are sore; one side of my face is slightly swollen; I'm giving my bike a definite side-eye. That said, considering that 1) the last time I had a serious bike accident, I woke up in the hospital with amnesia, and 2) there was a car about 20' behind me- WOO, drivers with good reflexes!- it could *definitely* have been worse.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Who is today's ODNB Life of the Day?
Windsor [née Warfield; other married names Spencer, Simpson], (Bessie) Wallis, duchess of Windsor (1896-1986), wife of Edward, duke of Windsor.

And it's not even her birthday (which is, I think, how Lives OTD are normally selected).

Though her husband resumed a somewhat cool relationship with his mother and siblings, the duchess was never received by the royal family and remained fiercely hostile to them.

Larf? I fair lay on the ground.

Tick-a-tick-a-good-timing!

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The 100 things blogging challenge.

'O Fortuna' from Orff, Carmina Burana - misheard lyrics, animated.

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This morning the_child departs with the rest of her class for their eighth grade trip. They're going to California for five days, to climb redwoods and ride horses and hike up mountains. She'll be back in time for JayCon, but most of this week will be quieter than usual around Nuevo Rancho Lake.

This is a bigger deal than might seem obvious. She's a Waldorf kid. In that system, the teacher stays with the class from first through eighth grade. So this is a good-bye trip for Mr. C— and the eighteen kids in his class. They've been like family to one another since 2004. More than half her life. Some of the kids she's going with she started mixed age kindergarten with at age three and a half. Eleven years she's been with them.

It's all about transitions this month in the Lake household. Me, purging my basement. the_child leaving behind her grade school. My birthday coming up, celebrated in health and happiness for the first time in four years.

So, yeah.

And my daughter grows up another step. Maybe, so do I.

Yesterday mlerules and Team E— came over to help me get my basement at least somewhat more sorted. And by "help" I mean, "do all the work while Jay sits in a chair and dithers over high school class notes".

It's an unholy mess down there right now, in a lot of ways worse than when we started. Luckily, they are coming back over this morning to get the job pushed into something resembling a state of completion. This is way above and beyond the call of friendship.

Yes, I took "before" photos yesterday. Yes, I will take "during" photos this morning. Yes, I will take "after" photos this evening.

Things that will (probably) be accomplished by the time they leave today:

• Most boxes sorted and rationalized


• Many cubic feet of recycling taken away


• Boxes of stuff taken to Goodwill


• Boxes of magazines taken to a used book store that handles such


• A big crate of door prizes set aside for JayCon


• Basement restored to moderate livability


• Genre car fitting back into the garage

• Old boxes of stuff (dating from the move to Oregon from Texas) not yet gone through


• Office not yet moved back downstairs


• Books not yet sorted into proper order

the_child

lizzyshannon

Your Sunday moment of zen.



Graffito, Portland, OR, 2006. © 2006, 2012, Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

The current photo series is from my 'favorites' file, hence the dates jumping about



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

What Will Be — Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, a sci-fi novel so brilliant, it reads like an account of the past.

Darwin's Ghosts, By Rebecca Stott — Before 'Origin of Species', many European and Arabic thinkers had outlined the principles of natural selection.

Cook's View of the Transit of Venus — This is cool. 18th century science, on the hoof.

What You Hate Most About Waiting in Line

The Amazon Effect — An interesting history of everybody's favorite serial market power abuser.

2 troubling examples of Google's conflicts — Google showed their hand with the banal evil that is the Google Books settlement, which in its current proposed form overturns three centuries of copyright law and abrogates core intellectual property rights of all authors everywhere in favor of one corporation's interests. Their famous motto is long dead, why would anyone be surprised now?

Are women better than men? — Roger Ebert on writing triggery and ill-advised blog posts.

“We are a sideshow no longer” — At his first same-sex marriage since Obama's big announcement, a longtime advocate reflects on a decades-long fight. (Via Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Conservatives Attack Scientific Findings About Why They Hate Science (Helping to Confirm the Science) — Some would like to dismiss the inconvenient findings about the political right, but the science won’t let them.

How Obama Was Dangerously Naive About STUXNET and Cyberwarfare — A Times exposé suggests that the White House failed to consider how our own cyberweapons would be used against us. Juan Cole with more on this.

?otd: Do the clouds expect it when it rains?

Trying to pull together several threads of discussion I've seen around, by both writers and readers. Villains sell. Should I be joining the party in order to be a success?

Happy birthday, Allen Ginsberg, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and John Norman. Imagine the party.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

At the end of the "school year" at SteelyKid's daycare, they do a little ceremony for the ages that might be/are going to camp (there or elsewhere) for the summer, where each class sings a little song. SteelyKid's been practicing this year's song and is super-proud of it, and yesterday we got her to sing it on-camera, directed at her brother.

(The first bit is cut off, but once you've heard a full verse you've heard it all; this is not a song with a surprise ending. Though you will miss our new pendulum clock (fully mechanical; we're not sure how old it is, it was Auntie's) bonging the hour around the time of the last verse.)

Also admire the face and body painting. From top to bottom, that's a crown on her forehead, a skull on her near cheek, a stylized kiss-lip-print on the cheek you can't see, three bracelet patterns on her near arm, and a classic heart-with-name-banner tattoo-pattern on her far arm. (The examples in the Klutz book said both "MOM" and "DAD"; when I asked her which she made an undecided face, so I said I could probably fit her name or her brother's. She chose hers.)

Those were all her choices alone, by the way.

I've been reading about Mitt Romney's son Tagg (which is short for "Taggart," rather than being a Palin Name). It seems he's going into business, and family friends and other rich white guys are rushing to invest in him.

Now the likeliest possibility is that he's inherited his father's business skills (simultaneously increasing corporate profits and human misery), so they're probably making a good investment.

Still, heredity is never a sure thing, so there's another possibility. Perhaps he's stupid and incompetent, and his investors will have to keep pouring in money out of loyalty or desire for political favors. And eventually he runs for president on the grounds that his success in the rough and tumble real world of business uniquely qualifies him. Does that sound familiar to you?

Happy birthday, pennski!

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Summer in our house is a bit of a trial -- once things get warm, we tend to leave the windows open a lot. We have awning-style windows all over the house -- hinged at the top, and closing with a latch against the frame at the bottom. Perhaps there were screens for this type of window made when the windows were new, 60-odd years ago -- maybe there still are -- but if any came with our house originally, they were long gone by the time we bought it. So, there are annoyances. Flies and mosquitoes do vex us. But perhaps worst pest is the cat. With the windows open the house becomes fully permeable to cats; they move in and out at will. And one in particular is a darkling beast, red in tooth and claw. Which I don't mind in principle -- controlling the rodent population is a good thing -- but I am a bit more squeamish about getting a personal introduction to the quarry. Particularly when it is either a) several weeks dead or b) on my window sill, still alive.

Just this evening there was a rustling under the blinds next to my computer. Hal took a peek and suggested it might be time to close the window. I'm not sure what good he thought that would do, since when I looked it was clear that our own personal doom beast, Tinka, and her 'kill' du jour -- a live mole -- were already inside on the window sill. Tinka just sat quietly, waiting for us to admire her skill and beneficence. The mole waved one of it's digger-clawed forepaws vaguely. At first it wasn't clear to me if the poor creature was near death or just stunned, but it seemed increasingly to be reviving. Sfter some initial disorganized flapping and milling about I put on my gardening gloves and took the squirmy thing back outside, and set it down. In my vegetable bed by the front steps. The bed is admittedly mostly fallow just now. But any woman who puts a live mole in her own vegetable garden and watches it dig itself in has got to be in the running for World's Worst Gardener.

On the other hand, it looks like the mole may live. And I'm here to tell you they're surprisingly powerful little guys. I could really feel some serious muscle torque behind the squirming in my hand as I carried it out. I guess it's not that surprising once I consider it though -- takes a lot to move earth out of the way that fast, even if it was mostly mulch.

So one of the things I did for my birthday was go off and try the whole storefront paint-your-own-pottery thing, at a place called Paint the Town in University Village. I had a very good time doing it -- hey, doodling and doin' crafty stuff in a social setting where someone else cleans up the mess, what's not to like? -- and today, after my Chinese 203 class final exam was in my rearview mirror, I went to collect the fired result. I'm happy to report that I am Not Displeased with the result. Not ecstatic, mind, 'cause the glaze/paint behaves in ways I did not fully expect or plan for, but within the paradigm of a first try, it's not bad at all:



I will try this again, I think. Especially now that I know that Paint the Town carries garden markers among the stock of bisqueware. Doodling in public, yay.

My wheels went out from under me during a bike ride today; I got the wind thoroughly knocked out of me, and my face feels as though I've been punched in it; slightly swollen. Wrist is whinging about being sprained (it isn't); nose not broken, but insists otherwise. (Yes, I was wearing a helmet.) Considering that the last time I had a serious bike accident, I wound up in the hospital with amnesia, it could definitely been worse- but OW.

Home from Florida. Did not turn into a zombie. Met felisdemens; I don't think she turned into a zombie either. Ate alligator tempura and saw injured raptors and rescued kitties. I mean we saw rescued kitties, not that we rescued them.

I. Am. Tired.

Call me in about seventeen years or so. I should be up for people again by then. Probably.

Gunbuster Collectibles From My Personal Collection

• Top wo Nerae! Gunbuster (Anime, manga, CDs, art books, figurines, shitajiki, cels and artwork)
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Anime, manga, CDs, art books, figurine, toys)
• The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Anime, manga, light novel, CDs, art books, shitajiki, figurine)
• Azumanga Daioh (Anime, manga, figurines, shitajiki, poster)
• Lucky Star (Anime, manga, CDs, figurines, art book, shitajiki, toys)
• Aria (Anime, manga, CDs, art books, shitajiki, figurines)
• Bubblegum Crisis (Anime, CDs, cels, art books, figurine, poster)
• Dirty Pair (Anime, light novel, cels, shitajiki, art books, posters)

"Dude. Dude. Dude dude dude."

I was thinking about temples and foundations, as I often do.

"What?" teinedreugan asked me.

"There's a thing," I explained, "where you sit and stare at it and you don't get anywhere and then suddenly you know what to do and you can do research and...." I kissed him.

"Bye!" said whispercricket, as I packed up my computer and prepared to scurry up to the office.

"whispercricket understands!"

"I wasn't even really paying attention," she comments.

I am pulling books off the shelves, flipping through the indexes, muttering 'stretching the cord', which I looked up on a few websites, but I want things in books, for citations. I toss Seth: God of Confusion onto the bed in its notebook, and add Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture, and go through several books and put them back.

Then I pause, and take one of those books down off the shelf again. "86, 86...."

I was actually looking for page 87, but close enough.

I read. "At Edfu, inscriptions in the temple tell us that it was oriented from Orion in the south to the Great Bear in the north."

I put the book down.

My mind is exploding.

Pedj-shes.

Current Mood: ecstatic

Wiscon panel report: Class, Culture, and Values in SF&F
Tracks: Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing Science Fiction (Power, Privilege, and Oppression)

Description:
Class isn't just how much money you have or what work you do; it also involves cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes that are expressed in how you talk, what you do in your free time, and all sorts of less tangible elements. (See Barbara Jensen's book Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America, due out in mid-May.) The SF&F writing and fannish communities are mainly middle-class folks, which makes the class values of SF&F works mostly middle class, too. What works and creators explore classes outside the mainstream, white, European, middle-class value systems? What class markers tend to show up most, or least, often? Do these works show the non-middle classes positively? negatively? realistically?

Panelists:
Moderator: Debbie Notkin
Eleanor A. Arnason
Alyc Helms
Danielle Henderson
Rose Lemberg

[My notes aren't a complete transcription and may represent my own language rather than the actual words of the panelists. I welcome corrections. I did not identify all audience commenters by name. If you said something I paraphrased here and want your name to be used, please comment or send me a private message.]

[The book mentioned in the panel description, Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America by Barbara Jensen, is available at http://cornellpress.cornell.edu/ For a 20% discount use promo code CAU6.]
( Read more... )

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Mm, just had a lovely few days with rysmiel who was on this side of the Pond for a couple of weeks. There was much tasty food, including a meal out, watching of Doctor Who (Matt Smith is excellent, has restored my faith in newWho utterly, as Rysmiel suggested would be the case), as well as chatting away on all manner of topics. Not to mention much cuddling, got to make good on all those online hugs, after all. He is rather lovely, and everything was very *nice* ::grin::

Happy happy hobbits :)

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