For Myself and Strangers

Review: The Mysteries of Udolpho

2011-08-19T11:37:00.001-04:00

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

NOTE: Thoughts from my second tour of the book at the bottom.

In the Mysteries of Udolpho we have the grandmother of the Gothic novel, springhead of every soap opera, the original melodrama, something so outlandish and overwrought that it has been -- and deserves to be -- much mocked and parodied. At the same time, it commands some respect because of what it is -- an early novel, written when the form was still in its infancy, written by a woman at a time when women had no access to much education or ability to make a living for themselves, written at a time when the very idea of "what was a woman" had barely pushed out the roots of change.

That in itself sounds overwrought, but one must make large claims for this novel, this great ancestor of the novel, still read when so many of its contemporaries are lost in the dusty stacks of archival libraries. I will admit readily that, to finish the last 200+ pages of the novel, I stayed up very late.

But now that we have spoken to its dignity and given the respect it deserves for its place in history, let's get to the myriad stupid, irritating things Radcliffe does that infuriate the modern reader and even drove contemporary readers (like Jane Austen, most famously) to mock it.

Our heroine, Emily St. Aubert, is the only child of a gentleman of retiring and pure nature. We know this because he has the word "Saint" abbreviated in his name and because he rhapsodizes about nature and death and makes pious speeches about Heaven and death. We are told he does good for the poor even though he is, for a person of his social status, poor himself, and so everyone loves him despite his somewhat holier-than-thou attitude. He has raised his daughter to be just like him. Emily is well educated (for a woman) with music and poetry and drawing, her fine, delicate, high spiritual nature underlined by her tendency to stare at trees and mountains.

Emily has many features which are designed to mark her as a woman of delicacy and grace. She has beauty and a very sympathetic heart -- we are told -- which she exhibits when it is convenient or will underline how kind and beautiful she is. What she lacks are any braincells devoted to such foreign things as logic, reason, common sense, or even the lessons of simple observation. While she may spend long hours in raptures over leaping rivulets and verdant demonstrations of nature's power, the simpler facts elude her.

Of course, the poor girl spends so much time fainting, she must have suffered dozens of head injuries or have some sort of medical affliction unknown in Radcliffe's time but treated in ours with a colorful little pill, possibly available in the cheaper generic. She faints a lot. She faints to excess, shall we say, and over everything. Some are understandable, while others are just plain annoying. I am tempted to buy my own copy of the book for the pleasure of taking a pink highlighter and marking every time Emily faints, nearly faints, or cannot support herself. Really, she should have loosened her corset.

When Emily is not fainting, she is weeping. When not weeping, there is sobbing, crying, gasping, moaning, and sighing (oh, let us not forget sighing).

Now, she has a few things to weep and sigh about. First, her mother dies rather suddenly. Then, within probably a year, her father becomes ill and, while traveling for his health, sickens and dies. By strange coincidence (which I really want to term "coinkedink, because that's how often these "just so happens" happen) he does so near an abandoned chateau where we are presented with our First Mystery -- and there will be many more, all made Very Mysterious. Orphaned and under age, she is sent to live with her capricious and self centered aunt. This aunt toys with her by first denying, then allowing, then denying again Emily to be married to her beloved Valencourt.

Oh, let's take a moment to talk about Valencourt. Here's another useless article. He is, indeed, Emily's soul mate and mirror, although instead of fainting and sinking helpless into conveniently placed chairs, he exclaims, paces around, and skulks in the darkness. Now that I think about it, except for the bloodsucking and sparkling, he is a forebear of Edward Cullens, what with his stalking behavior, declarations, and scary possessiveness. Yes, he is the template for the Romantic Hero. He also is fairly annoying because he doesn't do much except give his money away, get rapturous in the trees, and the aforementioned skulking.

Back to Emily. Torn from her love when her aunt marries an Italian named Montoni (Dun dun dun!) and taken to Italy, she waxes rhapsodic on Venetian gondolas rowed out to sea under the moonlight and resists the attempts of her aunt and Montoni to force her into marriage with a Count Moreno. Oh, did I not mention that at least 1/3 of men who spend time in Emily's presence fall in love -- or at least in lust -- with her, often violently? Talk about pheromones. Those who resist her charms either take up the villain role of wanting to control and torment her or want to father her. And that sums up all the male characters. Anyway, to escape Moreno (among other things) Montoni takes them all into the mountains to his castle Udolpho, where he turns warlord and bandit according to the rules of war in the Italian states at the time. The central part of the novel happens in this pile, and Emily experiences constant horror, terror, fear, etc.,etc., because she won't spend any time thinking.

Now, she is in a tough situation, but she does everything she can to milk it for all it's worth in drama -- much leaning on window casements, much tender poking at emotional wounds, more sighing. She also collects ghost stories and catches glimpses of things that thrill her with terror because she won't take any time to properly observe them or think it over. But these are important, because they are More Mysteries. Anyway, her aunt dies, leaving her inheritor of valuable properties Montoni wants her to sign over. Her serving woman, Annette -- another garrulous, irritating idiot who serves only as a bridge between Emily and one of the two sensible characters in the novel, Ludovico -- helps to keep Emily upset as much as possible. Ludovico eventually engineers an escape for Emily and a Frenchman kept prisoner in Udolpho. They sail back to France and by Some Chance, their ship wrecks near that very Chateau where we had our First Mystery. Now, with the introduction of Count de Villefort (the other sensible person in this novel, for which I am SO grateful), the mysteries pile up a bit and then unravel. Emily is almost reunited with Valencourt, but he's ruined his reputation and lost his fortune in Paris, so now he's not worthy of her. They spend quite a long time tormenting each other with declarations of Separating Forever, while not actually leaving the room, and Never Seeing Each Other More, while staring and sighing.

We then have some more ghost silliness which turns out to be pirates. Ludovico vanishes mysteriously only to turn up later when the Count is attacked by said pirates (in the mountains! but whatever) and finally the mysteries begin to unravel. Emily comes of age to inherit, Montoni is captured and killed so those properties are now hers, the real owner of Udolpho is a crazy nun in a nearby convent who was REALLY the Italian mistress of the previous owner of the chalet who contrived to kill her lover's wife who JUST HAPPENED to be Emily's aunt and the sister of her father, who wanted to CONCEAL the mystery of his beloved sister's death but Emily is such a twin to this particular paragon that the truth outs, and Valencourt is not really all that bad, but just noble and stupid.

Oh, and the Thing Behind the Veil that so terrified Emily is a wax figure. I think it is the predecessor of Aunt Ada Doom's "Something Nasty in the Woodshed".

Radcliffe does a few things that nearly sent her book crashing against a wall. First, Emily sees Mysterious Things that upset, terrify, haunt, and worry her -- but we do not get to see these things for ourselves, even in part. There are some words in a document she wasn't supposed to see (but fainting messed her up there) which Radcliffe never does clear up, although by the very end of the novel we get full and somewhat tedious explanations.

Second, Radcliffe never has a character tell us a thing until they have told us why they can't tell us and made us promise we won't tell. Once they agree to speak, we get a few more minutes of details about how horrible it is and why they can't speak of it. And when they finally DO speak of it, it's rare they actually SAY anything. Or, worse still, they will simply refuse to convey information "because of honour". There is a great deal of what I consider pure deception by omission, all done in the name of paper thin honour.

Radcliffe only tops that little technique, however, by use of the "Oh, YOU know what I mean" technique. Characters will assume they already know the substance of a conversation before it happens, which of course means they are wrong about what they think they know. Usually both characters think they know and think the other person knows, and so you can imagine how much useful information is passed along. It's like the Passive-Aggressive Playbook.

Then there are the travelogues, the interminable descriptions of every terrifying or overwhelming crag, tree, precipice, cascade,sunset, starry or cloudy sky, distant view, flower, twig, dust mote. Luckily, once you learn Radcliffe's set up for these, they can be skimmed or skipped entirely. She might as well have put [insert atmosphere X here] and saved ink.

My last complaint is about Emily's dog, Marchon. The poor creature keeps vanishing, completely forgotten, until he's needed to bark an ill-timed alert or lick his suffering mistress's hand. For all the begging she did to bring him along, he was left behind at Udolpho. Oh Well. Furry plot device.

Yet, with all these irritations (and more I don't have space or patience to list) the novel still managed to capture my attention. I shed a few tears with Emily over the death of her father. I felt anxious to know how she would escape. I was mystified over Ludovico's disappearance. I stayed up to read the ending.

And yet I could not help laughing, sometimes with irritation, over the contrivance and coincidence, over the extremes to which Radcliffe went to arouse her reader's emotion and bypass any reason or rationale. Here we have the heart of the romance novel, the seedlings of the horror story, the first dark shade of the mystery. Even fantasy and science fiction can trace their lineage back here, for Mary Shelly certainly read the book and felt its influence in [b:Frankenstein|18490|Frankenstein|Mary Shelley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311647465s/18490.jpg|4836639]. The Mysteries of Udolpho stands as the Tree of Life for modern genre literature.

Also, you could make a great drinking game out of it.

[edited for clarity and because I hate typos]

July 30, 2011 -- Just got my own copy and am rereading it with the express purpose of marking every single fainting spell Emily has.

August 19, 2011 -- once again, stayed up late to finish the downhill slide of this book. Emily St. Aubert faints a total of 30 times, and gets a little faint-ish several more. Since the story encompasses a single year, you might easily suppose the young woman had a problem. Other characters who faint -- M. St. Aubert (more than once), Valencourt, Count Morona, Mme. Cheron/Montoni, Lady Blanche, St Foix, Dorothea, Annette, and an unnamed servant girl. Men usually faint due to injury, women from fear or excessive emotion. Oh, and one minor male character had fits and the mysterious nun Agnes/Lady Laurentini has "phrenzies".

And the CRYING. The weeping, sobbing, teardrops, flooded eyes, and so forth.

Still, the book holds up. I found it much easier to read, and actually looked into the occasional (stiff, boring, almost annoying) poems attributed to either Emily or Valencourt (stuff quoted from actual poets was usually good or at least tolerable). Radcliffe was not a poet, but she kept trying. The book gets an extra star for a second read (within a year!) and because it is a very good example of the early novel. It also stands as an excellent BAD example of what modern writers must not do -- the characters do not change despite all they experience. The only one who has even the smallest change at all is Mme. Cheron/Montoni who, upon the point of her death makes some atonement for her mistreatment of Emily, although it is less a change in her personality as using Emily to revenge herself upon Montoni. Still, the villains are villainous, the virtuous return always to their virtues, the silly stay silly, the loyal remain loyal -- everyone is the same person through and through from the start to the end. The only one who could be said to have learned a single thing is Valancourt, and all he learned is that he should stay out of Paris because it's full of vice he isn't smart enough to avoid.

This time through, Valancourt annoyed me far more than Emily did the first time. He's fickle, demanding, and despite his generous ways is still essentially driven only by his feelings at the moment. Still, both Emily and Valancourt are the sort who prefer to pick over the wounds of the past to keep them fresh and painful rather than moving on and letting stuff heal. Of course, if they did that, we'd have a completely different story.

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Review: Shades of Milk and Honey

2011-07-23T13:23:00.001-04:00

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book yesterday while shopping because I'd met the author online, liked her, and was curious.

Well, my curiosity is well served because I'm now hooked in at the very beginning of a series which is not yet existent. Damn it all! I hate the suspense of waiting for the next book in a series to come out, and my completionist soul rebels when publishers switch covers/sizes or forms (going from mass market to hardbacks for initial release, I'm looking at you, Dresden Files) so that I can't line the books up together on the shelf (and other things that provoke the book obsessed).

Anyway...this book is much in the same vein as [b:Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot|64207|Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (Cecelia and Kate, #1)|Patricia C. Wrede|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1276374483s/64207.jpg|505] in that it is Regency England touched with magic and modern conceits of romance. I sensed hints of [a:Georgette Heyer|18067|Georgette Heyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1202767292p2/18067.jpg] here and there (although the author is sticking more closely to Austen than to Heyer, I still see resemblances). This is an Austen-esque story told in the style of our contemporary novels, with an eye to how we think of things in the early 21st century. Under the layers of romantic intrigue are themes of style vs. substance, issues of self worth, and ideas of what makes art -- which is quite a lot to pack into a touch over 300 pages. The reading is quick and nearly effortless -- I tumbled through the first chapter sitting at the bookstore, got through three more before passing out in bed, picked it up in the morning when I woke, and read through the morning despite many cat and dog interruptions.

As for the story itself, I found a lot of themes familiar and interesting for me. I felt much sympathy for the main character, Jane Ellsworth (who surely approaches nearer the real interior life of Elinor Dashwood than we ever see in Sense & Sensibility itself). The worst I can say about the book -- and this is picking nits -- is that it ended in that whirling, pull-back-shot montage style I've noticed in YA fiction and have yet to like. I prefer stories to go on with what they started and end rather than sum up as if there is no more time. However, because there are sequels (damnitall!) I am magnanimous in my forgiveness to Ms. Kowal (even while chomping at the bit for the Winter 2012 release...is it available for preorder yet?)

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Review: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print

2011-07-04T17:00:00.001-04:00

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, Second Edition: How to Edit Yourself Into Print by Renni Browne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think this will be a very practical book, a book from which I will take notes, a book I'll turn to for practice and reminders. It's an open door sort of book, the kind that welcomes you to come in and get comfortable while you listen to the information.

This is NOT a read-once-know-all sort of book. No, this one should sit under the elbow while writing and editing. It should have post-it flags, highlighting, notes in the margin. It's a work book, a book that teaches by making you do.

The hardest part of reading this book was in not rushing to my current manuscript to apply the thing I'd just read before I finished reading the whole book.

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Review: Nightlife

2011-06-28T16:38:00.001-04:00

Nightlife by Rob Thurman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Story time!

I picked up this book and its sequel in 2007, at the Borders in North Orlando where I was attending a NaNoWriMo event. Yes, I remember quite clearly when I picked up the books. I'd read or heard about them, looked through the blurbs and peeked into the opening pages, so I bought them and put them on a shelf for later.

Later ended up being 4 years later, of course, but I'm glad I waited. Some instinct or whispering voice warned me to wait until more the series existed so that when I finished one book, I could move on to the next because, dammit, that's what happens with series -- you start one, you really like it, but then you have to wait a year or two years for the next installment and that's crazy making. I've been through it a few times. Books are like relationships to me, which makes it hard to get involved if I feel like I'm being strung along. I really hate it. So, I tend to wait until most of the story is available (like waiting for the unavailable guy you're crushing on to be single.)

Anyway, I've had the good luck to chat on occasion with Rob Thurman on Twitter. Wow. There is one impressive mind. I like this lady a lot. And I had guilt because there were the books, pulled from my storage locker of books to be read this year, and what was I reading that I couldn't start one of them...so yesterday afternoon I cracked open Nightlife. I read it on and off all evening and went to bed about 11 pm.

And woke up at about 3:30 am, flipped on my little reading light, and started in on it again. I finished it this afternoon. My own writing is ignored, dishes rot in the sink, the dog really wishes I'd take him out, and the cats have had about enough of this nasty litter box, but I HAD TO FINISH THE BOOK.

And I am SO glad I know this is a series, that more books exist, the story goes on. I would not have made it through without that meta-information. Because I got really attached. Hooked, I should say. Here are all my favorite things -- a smart assy first person narrative, main characters who are kick ass but imperfect, emotional relationships that made sense to me and felt real, and a world full of darkness and light, mystery and wonder. You know, all that good stuff I want from my urban fantasy. Hell, what I want from any book.

Now, for anyone familiar with urban fantasy, this isn't brand new ground, but it's well woven storytelling. The whole way through this book I caught threads of other books and series I've really devoted myself to (Jim Butcher's Dresden Files popped to mind, among others). Not a copy, just those same good qualities, the same level of involvement for me, the cleverness of the twists, the way the things I expected and the stuff I didn't expect came together. How much I liked all of it. How attached I got to Cal and Niko, and even to Robin and Promise and Georgina. Hell, even the Big Bad had repulsive fascination. I liked how things were not always explained out encyclopedia style because the characters don't know and don't always find out. The point of view worked really well, even though Thurman played some great tricks with it (I love tricks with points of view when they are done right.)

The second book is sitting on the couch next to me and I happen to know I will be in close proximity to the only large bookstore in a 3 county area on Friday -- if they have copies, I'll get the rest of the series. Then, yes, maybe I will delver into her other series (it isn't like I don't have some 300 books on my TBR pile, but we will let that pass for now.) I fully expect I will read these again (when I'll bump up to 5 stars). I expect I'll recommend them to others because when I get enthused, I get enthused.

I'm enthused. Sorry, Rob, that I waited so long, but at least I didn't wait forever. Now, I have to go read.

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Book Shelf Porn

2011-06-21T15:37:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I had this sudden urge to post pictures of my current TBR shelves. I'm just going to show my 2011 ambitions, though.

Oh, it' s not like I don't have another 4 CASES of books (in the house) I want to read. Oh, no, not that at all. This is just a select few I actually pulled out to read SOON. Because I'm an idiot. Keep that fact in mind. I am an idiot. And that's because I also want to read this

and this

oh, and I want to read and take notes on these

Like I said. Idiot. Not that I couldn't do it...if I gave up everything else for the year. Maybe.

My New Camera

2011-06-15T15:48:00.001-04:00

I love love love my new camera. It's a Nikon Coolpix 18x. I didn't think I would like it as much as I do.

You see, I was very fond of my (comparatively) elderly Canon digital. It had a viewfinder, which let me find a compromise with my vision -- this whole nearsighted/farsighted/astigmatic thing has made my life complex. I now have 4 (yes, FOUR) pairs of glasses with different lenses, plus sunglasses, plus a pair of stunt glasses with my regular prescription. Two are just magnifiers, but, dammit, I need those anymore (plus I am pretty sure my readers need updating). Anyway, this meant that if I used the viewscreen, I couldn't hold it far enough away to see both the picture and the setting while wearing my distance lenses, and if I took those off, I couldn't see what I was aiming at -- except if I used the viewfinder, which let me keep my glasses on for most shots. (we won't even go into the whole bi-focal thing. It's not pretty and involves nausea.)

But MIL wanted a digital camera and couldn't find one that suited her, so we decided to give her my trusty Canon because it still had the viewfinder so she'd be able to take pictures either way, and she would buy me a new one. We looked for a while and settled on the Nikon because now a viewfinder is a premium option not to be found on cameras under $500. But it's ok. It's working out.

Anyway, I still have the vision problem, but my new camera seems to compensate for my usually shaky hands, my poor vision, and my sensitivity to bright light. I get shots like this...

and this...

and even this

It's almost like I know what I'm doing. Almost.

(you can click on each picture to see it full sized)

Review: Howl's Moving Castle

2011-06-08T15:00:00.001-04:00

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How often are we our own problem? How often do our own beliefs -- about ourselves, about our world, and about what our lives will be -- stand like a wall between us and what we really want?

This is the essential conundrum facing Sophie, the protagonist in Howl's Moving Castle. She's a young woman living in a world where fairy tales and magic are a part of everyday life, and she has very firm -- and very self-defeating -- ideas about all of it. The eldest of three sisters, helping her stepmother run the hat shop her father left them, Sophie believes her life is all about sacrifice and messing things up. Fate is against her, she thinks. She'll always make mistakes and she will never achieve anything worthwhile.

Oh boy, is she wrong. But it takes her a lot of mistakes, worrying, misunderstanding, love, and courage for her to learn to see herself and the world around her in new ways.

That's what I love best about this book, this transformation of a young woman. Sophie is a marvelous character, someone a reader can relate to no matter what age the reader is. We all get in our own way, and we all struggle to realize it. Sophie's adventures with the Wizard Howl and his magical castle serve to help her grow and mature. The book itself is --oh, that most terrible of words -- charming, as if it cast its own spell.

It's not quite a perfect book. As with many books written for a young adult audience, it gets in a big hurry to end as fast as it can after the climactic action. Some questions are never answered (and, potentially, never should be). Some of the secondary characters are a bit thinner than I like. Then again, I found this book as an adult, and it isn't required to live up to my adult expectations.

One warning -- if you've seen the Miyazaki movie, this is NOT the same story. Miyazaki took elements from the book to illustrate his own story, and the two are only superficially related. I've seen the Miyazaki version several times and it's very wonderful, but it is not the book. The book is, in so many ways, a much superior story.

6/8/11 Good gravy on a stick but I enjoy this book! This time, of course, I saw a few new things -- like a harkening back to what irritated me so much when I read The Mysteries of Udolpho in the poor communication, the assumptions, and failure to think of things instead of reacting in fear because they are strange or unknown. Still, much better here!

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Review: The Master and Margarita

2011-06-04T18:16:00.001-04:00

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have no idea what I think of this strange tale of the devil and the mortals in early 20th century Soviet Russia. It is an angry tale, a vengeful satire, with references not known to me so that I couldn't appreciate the finer points and details. For me, it was a wild, whirling tale, a fluttering of colors and images told in an arch tone.

I read it slowly, taking in sections and letting them digest in my mind. I spent some time on Wikipedia looking up things like Primus Stoves and Woland, and reading about the novel itself. It does take some study to grasp a book translated from another language and written some 80+ years ago.

It's hard to run down any proper narrative thread, for there really isn't any, at least, not until well into the novel, when one finally meets the titular Master. The story comes to the reader like fluttery bits of torn colored paper collected together and laid down, adjacent and overlapping, fixed into a collage that eventually forms first one picture, then another, until the whole is apparent. Yet what the picture is, I cannot tell. It's still beyond me. I grasp the sarcastic tone, the dislike of overwhelming bureaucracy, the anger at restraint and cruelty and greed for power, money, and status, but I sense there are other layers in the book to which I am blind -- jokes, observations, philosophy and references for which I have no clue, glimpses into a time and a culture of which I know little.

Ah well, there's no help for it. Still, I enjoyed reading the novel, enjoyed the madness of it, the resolution of it, the odd tilt of it. I'll have to put it on my list of books to reread.

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More on Stupid People

2011-06-02T08:22:00.000-04:00

I must admire this particular article

Viewpoint: Facebook Is Not Your Frien d

because, once again, it points out what is, to me, FREAKING OBVIOUS. I make no claims to genius, to greater perception, or to mystical knowledge. I've just had a lifetime of assuming that anything I did in public is, you know, PUBLIC, and after my first year or so waddling around the Internet (back in the dark ages), it was borne in upon me that the Internet was REALLY SUPER PUBLIC.

Maybe I should make that a larger font, with color.

THE INTERNET (including all social media, email, instant messaging, etc.) IS PUBLIC.

Yeah, I know. It won't help. I feel a bit like Charlton Heston.

Music Muscle Memory

2011-05-31T18:36:00.000-04:00

While randomly tooling through the TV channels while waiting for water to boil, I paused on VH1 Classics, on a show called Classic Albums. They were talking about Queen.

I went back in time.

It would have been 1977 or possibly 1978. My mom, stepdad and I had just moved to a newly built house in the wilds of Ocoee, Florida. I am reasonably sure it was 1977 because I don't think I'd started junior high yet. I sat on the floor of my new bedroom in front of my Micky Mouse record Player that looked exactly like this one, with my small, precious collection of "non-kid" albums -- ones I'd been carefully building up when I was spending weekends with my dad, who would buy me pretty much anything.

And on that record player, with its nubbly white plastic cover and the big white hand over the stylus, I would play Queen's A Night at the Opera. I still have the LP, sitting in storage in a crate. Inside, over the pictures of the band members, I recall I'd made little notes about which one I liked best -- at 12, I was quite fond of Roger Taylor, with John Deacon a close second, although now I rather admire Brian May. I remember it being summer. I remember the harvest gold carpet, the hum of my new ceiling fan just installed, my adamant refusal to get an actual stereo (which showed up for Christmas in a year or so and sounded much better), and listening to one particular song over and over again.

When Brian May started talking about the song on the VH1 show, and then played it, I found that I still remembered the words. I stood in my living room and sang along, recalling the harmonies I'd made up so many years ago. I was just discovering science fiction about then, and the song appealed to me for that as well as the folk music influence, the harmonies, and just the sound itself, although I did not fully understand the lyrics until, really, today when May discussed them. I could feel the sun through my west facing window, smell the newness of the house, feel the sharp corner of my wooden bedpost in my back where I would lean while listening.

The show cut to a commercial in the middle of the song and I had to change the channel to stop the flood in my head -- the particular pains and pleasures of that summer, the sheer weight of years between that time and this, were just too much for me. I rallied eventually, hunted up the song on YouTube -- the concert version was different enough not to hit as hard, and oh my but I love a 12-string.

Brian May talked about his regrets that the song was never released as a single, because singles had more of a chance to affect someone's life. No worries, sir. It did.

What I Think Of People Who Don't Think

2011-05-31T11:33:00.000-04:00

Grousing and bitching to ensue.

I recently ran across this article about a mother who, in response to the experiences of her other children, her own thoughts, the thoughts of her husband, and a reasonably well thought out philosophy, decided to keep the gender of her recently born child private. Apparently this became a topic for news coverage with outcries of "GENDERLESS CHILD" - the first stupid thing I saw. In the article she writes a well-reasoned, calm, and perfectly balanced response.

Where it got interesting was in the comments section where I witnessed just how little people actually read before reacting and also how little they think about what either they are reading or what they are saying. What's more, I see the same stupidity being repeated in various news media. It's plan irritating.

Let's go about this in small, logical steps, shall we? I'll go slow, although I fully expect the 6 or 8 people who will read this are quite capable of the same simple thought process in which I am indulging. At least three of them have already reached the same conclusions and could do a better job expressing them.

OK -- first, THIS CHILD IS NOT GENDERLESS. "Genderless" means to be without gender, that is, without any discernible or detectable signs of being either male or female. While I imagine it might be in some measure possible, an actual case of it would be a medical issue (and no one's business, really) but nothing leads me to believe this is the case. The child has a gender.

It is just not a publicly announced gender. The family knows. In time, the child will know. After that, those whom the child and the family think should know will know, or the child will begin to present as one gender or another somewhere along the great continuum between the imaginary binary of "male" and "female".

Second -- WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE? So, some small human being has not had his, her, hir or [pronoun of your choice] gender announced to the world at large, in the rather annoying traditional way. This is important? Why is it important? What will happen if we, the public, do not know RIGHT NOW?

I have thoughts on that, and they relate to the mother's article. Not revealing the child's gender does upset a tradition, and the many MANY institutions and behavior sets which are attached to and based on one's gender. It denies people the option of NOT THINKING. Gender is a code, a stereotype, a set of expectations at one time amorphous and rigid. We can tap into it and just follow a script without having to apply any critical thought. Now, humans are constantly giving gender to items which have none -- bottles, pens, books, furniture, cars, etc. -- so you can see how this plays out. Gender is part of our language, part of our social system. We aren't always sure what it is, but we insist that everything conform to it.

Many people are upset about lacking the knowledge about this specific person because it denies them the ability and opportunity to shuttle that person into some rigid classification or other. Pink or blue cloths. Dolls or cars. Long hair or short hair. Music lessons or baseball camp. Reading or mathematics. Knowing a person's gender gives us a script so that we can talk without thinking. I'm sure someone else could go into it far more deeply. None of the screaming and accusing are actually about any damage or problems for the child -- they are screams and accusations of those being denied this particular power. Their privilege has been removed. They might have to *gasp* think before they say anything. And they are reacting to that headline of "Genderless Child" as if the parents had taken up kitchen knives and deprived the child of physical gender identifying body parts.

None of which, of course, they are moved to do at this point.

Now, not much after I saw the article above (via facebook, as it happens) I saw this one come by on Twitter (yes, I'm back on Twitter and don't ask me why. I suspect it's just a summer thing.) Here we have an entire blog devoted to people who do not grasp the maxim "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt". Of course, these particular bad examples are taking The Onion as actual news instead of the satire it is, but the lack of thought there is typical of the lack of thinking about almost any news story that goes around.

I've long been critical of what I see in the media, and I tend to pull apart the stories and headlines before I wade in with an opinion (at least, a public opinion). I try to apply the critical thinking I learned in school (and, hell, from Mythbusters, for cryin' out loud). But it does take effort. I can't give in to my first emotional impulse. I especially can't get too close to any tool of social media, internet communication, or anything else where I can embarrass myself until I've completed it. So, ok, it takes some discipline, but one only has to make the mistake a few times to want to avoid the consequences from then on. However, I now wonder if those consequences are still around. Does the derision and scorn I feel for such open displays of idiocy -- shared, I know, by at least a small portion of people -- have no power? I fear it does not. What I think about it -- because I do think about it, at length and sometimes when I'd rather be sleeping -- has no merit. I'm tilting at windmills. However, I will not be unseated from my Rocinante of a blog quite yet.

I'm Still Singin'

2011-05-16T14:44:00.002-04:00

I got a new camera! This sexy new digital also does video (my old one did, too, but I never figured it out. This one is much easier.) So, when my little church group sang on Sunday, The Husband hit the "record" button and..

Glamour Pup

2011-05-14T21:55:00.007-04:00

The Husband had this week off between semesters, and it was Spring Graduation over at the big ol' University, so we wanted to stay far far away from anywhere Grads and Parents and panicky people with cameras might be. So, yesterday, we loaded the poodle into the car and took off north-ish.

Well, first we had to drop him off for an embarrassing haircut.

WE did not request pompom feet. WE asked for a short all over action cut, with just a little fluff on the head, ears, and tail, and -- of course -- his cute little beard. But we got pompom feet. I do not like pompom feet.

In any case, we have pompom feet, so we drove to a park on a lake and spent the afternoon teaching Zeus to swim.

Zeus is not sure about the swimming thing. We took him out on Monday to a beach on the river, and he discovered he could not walk on water. Yesterday he learned some other things about water.
Like how The Husband can emerge from under the water all submarine like and scare an unsuspecting puppy right out of the water.

Puppies still can't walk on water, though. This fact is not enough to keep him from trying.

He's also a very glamorous puppy, even with an embarrassing haircut.

Review: The Annotated Sense and Sensibility

2011-05-14T16:34:00.002-04:00

The Annotated Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is always delightful to me to read (and re-read) Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. This annotated version just added to and expanded on that delight. The extensive notes, illustrations, and maps explain much -- in language, in social behavior, in culture and in period of time -- that either no longer exists in the 21st century or has altered greatly over 200 years. Here, at last, I understand the ideas behind the "Cult of Sensibility". I know now the significance of the word "picturesque" so often invoked in the novel, and why it means much more in context and in that era than it means now -- which made many a bit of irony and comedy suddenly funny to me. Like the other edition in this series, it included a detailed chronology of the novel and an extensive bibliography of source material, making this a perfect edition for anyone taking a scholarly approach to Austen (or late 18th/early 19th century literature in general). As always, the format of text on the left side and notes on the right made for easy reading.

In short, this edition did exactly what good annotation does -- expand, illuminate, explain, and reveal. While I probably won't read this version exclusively when I reread the novel, I expect to revisit it periodically.

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Review: The Annotated Persuasion

2011-05-11T09:28:00.002-04:00

The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen

This is an excellent edition for the reader coming to Persuasion for the second time, especially one who wants a greater familiarity with the physical reality of the setting and some insight on a literary level into the writing.

I'm very fond of annotated versions of novels, especially novels written before the 20th century. Words change meaning and implication over time. Social mores change, styles of living change, even what it means to be rich and poor change. In the case of this, Jane Austen's last complete novel, someone who does not have a certain amount of familiarity with late 18th/early 19th century English society and culture will lose much of the nuance of the story -- the obstacles appear absurd and contrived, the situations dull, the various difficulties faced by the characters ridiculous without that knowledge. This annotated version gives all that information in a fairly unobtrusive but convenience way, by playing notes on each facing page of the text.

It includes maps of areas, references to Austen's letters as source material, interesting facts, definitions of words as used at the time, and much more detail, trivia, and observation by the editors which add to the novel without interfering with it. I enjoyed the Annotated Pride & Prejudice I read a few years ago, and I'm looking forward to starting the Annotated Sense & Sensibility by the same editors.

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Review: The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy

2011-05-05T22:44:00.002-04:00

The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy by Leonard S. Marcus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This lovely collection of interviews with 13 well known fantasy authors concentrates mostly on their children's/YA fiction, but it gives lovely little glimpses in the varied world of writers. I only read the interviews with the authors with whom I was familiar -- Lloyd Alexander, Diane Wynn Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle and Terry Pratchett -- and just glanced through the others. The interviews are not extensive or very personalized -- many of the questions are the same for each -- but that just made the comparisons more interesting.

What it really gave me was insight into the varied methods of writing. Some of these authors write daily, for set hours. Others write when moved. Some research, others consider their whole lives research for their writing. Some love to revise, some dread it, some have ambivalent feelings. Many faced difficulties getting published. All seem to love Tolkien. I enjoyed finding these little facts and knowing the authors that touched and formed me (Alexander's Time Cat stands in my memory as my first indication science fiction and fantasy existed).

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Review: Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction

2011-05-05T20:43:00.002-04:00

Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction by Jane Donawerth

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wow. This book was...work. Work I enjoyed, work I took on by my own choice and work I was satisfied to do, but...work.

How does one review a book like this, full of things one didn't know diddly squat about until one read it? I can't speak to its accuracy, its depth, its breadth, or any other such qualities used to measure books that offer critique on other books. All I can tell you is my own experience with it.

Looking at the bones and growth of science fiction through a feminist theory lens is an interesting experience. Going through science fiction books and stories via the road of literary criticism renders even the familiar strange and even unknown territory. Donawerth caused me to add a lot of books to my reading list, both fiction and nonfiction. I've learned new words and phrases-- essentialism, hetero- and homodiegic, male narrative. I've discovered new forms of narrative I never realized I was reading. I have a lot of ways of looking at science fiction. I took a lot of notes.

Although structured in the "tell them what you will tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them" method I recall from 1990s college classes, and not occasionally diving deeply into academia-speak, I still found it very readable. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of this book were responses from some authors of works analyzed to Donawerth (chapters of the book were published elsewhere) in which these authors -- Anne McCaffrey and Emma Bull pop to mind most readily, but there was at least one other -- disagree or expand on Donawerth's assertions. This made the book more like a conversation. Donawerth was also very thorough in citing the texts from which she drew the ideas she applies to fiction, which added to the conversational tone.

I appreciate learning how to see literature in this particular way, because I am interested in how gender is handled in science fiction, both as stories and as writing.

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Rumination and Cud Chewing

2011-05-04T11:45:00.005-04:00

I've kept some kind of journal or diary since I was roughly 12 or 13. I still have most of them in a chest upstairs -- except for the ones I kept on the computer, which are locked up in files of various shapes and sizes, or online, somewhere. For some years, this blog was my journal. It was amazing to write my thought and have other people, people I didn't even know, hear me and respond. It was affirming and enlightening and really cool.

Then the internet became the morass of interconnections and Google exposure that it is. I started thinking about what all those people I didn't know might think of what I thought. The blog slowed down, not because I wasn't thinking or had nothing to say, but because I had nothing to say that I felt comfortable with just any old person who happened by to hear. I saw over and over the unintended consequences that went with speaking one's mind in full out public. My venue changed and I wrote my thoughts in smaller, more protected areas, to a select group of people, but even that got tricky and had unintended consequences. I got careful. I went silent.

At some point in 2008 I started reading The Artist's Way. One of the techniques Julia Cameron, the author, recommends are Morning Pages -- basically, a daily diary or journal, three pages of hand writing, put the pen to the paper and don't pull it up again until done. I did this for a while, got scared at what came out, stopped. I went back to it last fall, trying to do it her way, but eventually doing it my way and going back to the original journaling I did as a kid. The three page format still lingers on stubbornly, but I'm breaking free of that particular dictum. Some days I don't write. Some days I write only a half page. Still, I write.

I hadn't realized all this until just this morning while randomly poking around at something else. I looked through the list of blogs on my feeds -- my old blog roll here is much neglected since not everyone uses a feed and even the blogs I have there I don't read regularly. I wondered why I don't read blogs like I once did, why I don't write in my own so much, why everything I start to write seems boring and trite and a waste of effort. Where once I would think "I can't wait to blog about this!", now the idea of telling everyone my latest adventure seems like an exercise in utter idiocy or egoism. Aside from a few dear people who stop by, no one really notices me and that, in and of itself, can take a certain toll. One puts a blog online for various reasons, but a big one -- one that can't be denied if your blog is public -- is to get some attention, to have acknowledgement from the world that you exist, that you have some weight and power, that you have worth. It's painful to be ignored and it is all to easy to ignore people these days. Our technology encourages us to live in little bubbles of our own, protected from intrusion by email, voice mail, iPod ear buds, personal video, cubicals, spots on the couch. We can sit in a room with a dozen other similarly hooked up people and be entirely alone -- and encouraged to be so.

So I'm ruminating about this and about why I have, as yet, not pulled the plug on this, my blog, my little corner of Internet real estate. Perhaps it is just because I've had it so very long. It's mine, more or less. It doesn't demand dusting or feeding. I don't have to pack it up when I move. It waits. I wonder what I want to do with it. Put out book reviews? Sure. Make observations on the world? Yeah, occasionally. Report on my life? OK, why not?

Many people have turned their blogs into businesses. I haven't done that. This started as a personal journal way back when I was clodging together and uploading individual pages. It's still like that. It's whatever I want it to be when I think about it, there the instant I want to access it. I still occasionally have little daydreams about it. I've also gotten a healthier perspective. I no longer derive any self worth from who reads it or what my stats are -- I can't remember the last time I checked my stats although I recall clearly a long period when I obsessed about them. I find that I no longer really mention the blog much. I don't have it listed in my Facebook account -- then again, I don't list much there because I resent even having to BE on Facebook, yet cultural pressure is such that I am on it.

But this isn't what it once was to me. My deeper, weirder thoughts don't show up here anymore. They go into a little notebook only I see. But, even there, the Rules of Blog I've internalized control what I say. Don't talk about other people, at least not beyond how what they do affects me directly. Don't mention names. Don't say anything embarrassing to yourself (how sad is that? I can't even tell MYSELF this stuff.) Careful talking about sex, about politics, about religion, about death, about children, about anything that might poke a troll to pour shit onto you for their own masturbatory pleasure. I find these rules emerging and I ponder them. I'm writing on paper with a pen, I remind myself. No one really is curious about the damn thing. I don't advertise it. Why can't I say what I want?

Yeah, there it is, the other side of freedom -- being responsible for what you say as soon as it becomes available to other ears, eyes, minds. And dealing with what other people think, dealing with what your thoughts expressed excites in them. Dealing with their defensiveness, their anger, their pain, their applause, their praise, their...whatever.

So, it sometimes is hard to come here and write like I could 10 years ago or 12 years ago (yes, it's been that long). But I hold onto this because...because I can.

Germs, now with More Germs

2011-04-30T06:59:00.004-04:00

Yes, The Husband brought home the latest version of plague from the teeming stewpot that is the university campus. True to form, the virus took one look at my allergy weakened system and jumped right in. I was aware the very instant it took root -- 3:45 pm yesterday afternoon. I woke up this morning at 10 til 6, hating my life, my head socked in hard with some variety of green cement. I've already exceeded recommended dosage on at least three different meds, so I'm just sitting up while the clock ticks. I can't even use the much hated "nasal irrigation system" because when I say Blocked Solidly, I am not using a metaphor. I am not comparing the state of my sinuses to some hypothetical situation. What we have here, people, are Facts in Snot.

So -- no going to a wedding of friends today. No taking the dog on an adventuresome walk. I'm not even planning to leave the house unless someone sets it on fire. Throat hurts, ears hurt, even my freaking teeth hurt. I will stay under my purple fuzzy blanket and fight this dragon of a virus, all the while bitching mightily. I have a new box of tissues and I'm not afraid to use them!

Review: Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper

2011-04-27T18:42:00.002-04:00

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a weird trip. It does not unfold as do others of its ilk, a fact acknowledged by the author in a little afterword (which redeemed the whole thing for me). Cody fooled me. So, let me explain.

This is a nice, white, middle class girl's trip into the dark side, only she doesn't quite know why she does it and neither do we (at least, until that final 6-8 pages). We get, in equal portions, funny, raw, wry, cruel, sickening, too-hip, trying-too-hard, and painfully-honest. She's not trying to make a political point. She's not on a feminist soap box. She's not handing out excuses or explanations, or accusations or blame. She's just telling us "Hey, I did this. This is what I saw. This is what I did. Boo-ya."

And it works. At times I didn't think it was going to work. Really, I almost stopped reading a time or two because (read my status notes!), trained as I am by other memoirs in which a Nice Girl/Guy does Something Transgressive and Has A Crisis, I was waiting for the big boom, the disaster, the Horrible Thing. Didn't happen. What I thought was a build up toward a climax wasn't anything but time going by. My bad. Cody maybe didn't know where she was going until she got there, but it was...cool. Once we both got there, I was good with it.

You could, if you wanted, take this book apart and use it in a number of ways, but you'd be pushing. Cody isn't going there. You'd have to pause at some points and put some words in her mouth or translate her unambiguous text through some version of Babelfish. There are no big lessons here, no realizations about culture, no sociopolitical conclusions. It is, to borrow a hackneyed phrase, what it is. And I like it a lot more because of that.

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Still Life With Puppy Ain't Still

2011-04-23T09:05:00.002-04:00

Life continues here in the Upstate to be a steady monotonous drone spiked with occasional train whistles and dog farts. The Husband is still awaiting confirmation of his summer employment, which would go a long way toward relieving some of my sublimated stress. Our 6 month old puppy is the Giant Farting Dog. At 50 lbs (yes, really) he has the power to clear a room. His are the "Silent but Deadly" variety. Unlike Ophelia, he doesn't even give warning purrs.

Speaking of which, Ophelia continues to amaze. On her last vet visit, we got the bad news that she had kidney disease and that her life expectancy was likely only weeks long. However, she got an antibiotic shot for a mild infection and another adjustment to her insulin. The prognosis was she would continue to lose weight until she failed.

Well, she's been eating like a fiend since then, even demanding I give her canned food, and gaining back some of the weight she's lost. She's wandering over the house at will and napping in her old favorite places. She sleeps on my pillow each night and no longer has the weird burbling purr but a normal purr. She's attentive. She understands when I tell her to head toward whatever it is she wanted me to do -- water from the sink, for instance, or the kitchen for a meal. She's using the litter box more (as long as the one she wants is clean, which we are striving to maintain) instead of pooping and peeing on towels. She's even cleaning herself more, which she has not done in a very long time. While I am under no illusion she is "cured", it does make me feel better in that her whatever time she has left, she is active and comfortable. When it is time for her to go, I still wish she goes quietly on her own without requiring medical intervention. Until then, I'm happy I still have my babycat.

Roses bloom in our little garden, along with some herbs and other flowers. I planted seeds that have sprouted and will (I hope) bloom over the summer. Right now it's rainy, and it's been rather cool since a couple of warm weeks at the beginning of the month -- more like early spring than late April. We put the comforter back on the bed last night, and we've been glad more than once we didn't take off the mattress warmer. All our winter clothes are packed and upstairs in the attic. Happy me -- my summer clothes from 2 and 3 years ago, which I haven't been able to wear the last year+, all fit or are a touch large. While my weight loss has stopped because I am stress eating (even when I'm not hungry, I find myself eating. It's a problem.), I have not gained significantly. I have to add in more exercise, which may help with the stress.

Obviously, walking the dog would be exercise, but he is going through a period of being impossible for me to walk. All the good manners we strived so hard to teach him only show up when The Husband is holding the leash, and even then only when he has his Gentle Leader head harness on. I want a new collar for him so that the rope burns, bruises, and pulled muscles in my shoulders will cease. I'm going to look for something else to let me control this teen-age puppymonster.

Review: Lord of Light

2011-04-20T14:38:00.003-04:00

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm delving deeply into this book in one of my groups which is doing nothing to clarify my own thinking -- or maybe it is. Hard to tell on a stormy morning with chores ahead and a headache hovering behind a wall of caffeine.

So, let's see. First, this is my second Zelazny book, and -- shock of shocks -- the first I've liked. I enjoyed this one once I caught on to what was happening. So now I feel compelled to go back and read those damned Amber books with a different eye.

As to the book itself -- I think this is an example of Clark's Third Law turned sideways and maybe backwards. Any advanced technology that is forgotten is indistinguishable from magic and cloaked in mysticism.

<spoiler> So what happens when a group of technologically advanced humans seek to colonize a newly discovered world? How do they view themselves as they fight strange new life forms, carve out cities, create what they need to survive and thrive? And how to their descendants see and remember them?

What if those first colonists could be "reborn" into a new body as they wished? What if they could cultivate new abilities beyond their current technological levels? How would they see them selves?

Those are the questions this book poses and then sets about answering. In this world, those space colonists become Gods, adapting the Hindu pantheon as a model, and then set about keeping the world they've inhabited and conquered as their own version of paradise -- for themselves, not for their descendants.

And then, what happens when one of those first colonists, one of those would-be gods, decides the whole thing is a bad idea and he needs to fight it so that humankind can develop on their own, inheriting what they should have inherited in knowledge and ability? What happens when a man decides to kill the gods? </spoiler>

I wasn't initially interested in the book. It took some 50 pages or so before I got a handle on the structure (which is a looping frame -- the book starts at a point that chronologically connects to just before the ending, then jumps back to a new beginning to explain how things got to the point at the beginning of the book and then moves forward again. Also, it is helpful to have some background in Hindu mythology ( a few minutes with Wikipedia should be enough), The language has the somewhat stilted yet lyrical qualities we often associate with old myths and ancient tales, which juxtaposed nicely with the talk of technology-as-magic. The protagonist, Sam, is a full and complex character, faulty and flawed yet determined and capable of bouncing back from everything thrown at him. He learns and changes some, too, as the story progresses, although his original ideas and his determination to carry them out does not waver. He's adaptable, his goals being more important than his methods (ends justify the means, in his world).

It's a complex novel, but not a big one. Zelazny is sparing with description, hints rather than tells, indicates more than shows, and leaves much in the mind of the reader to be done. It's a book that yields to a lot of discussion.

A final note -- while the book is ostensibly science fiction and a good argument can be made to classify it as such, in my opinion it is a fantasy. We are TOLD that the various miraculous things we see are technologically based, that they are machines made by men (or entities who once were men), but their action, appearance, and how they are regarded tallies closely with how devices of mystical and unknown or unexplained properties are regarded in works of fantasy. We are told there is science, but we are not shown it, and even those who use this technology, who build it and understand it discuss it in terms nearly identical to those used by others who regard them as purely magical. So, per Clark's third law and the general understanding of the word "Fantasy" as a literary genre, I classify this book as a fantasy.

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Review: A New Species: Gender and Science in Science Fiction

2011-04-18T16:20:00.004-04:00

A New Species: Gender and Science in Science Fiction by Robin Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not exactly light reading, but interesting enough that I read it a second time to take notes. A feminist analysis of science fiction starting with Frankenstein and ending up with The Handmaid's Tale and Always Coming Home is a bit of an undertaking, but this isn't that lengthy a book and most of the language is comprehensible to those not steeped in the mindset of literary criticism (although it helps if you took a couple of lit courses in college). Roberts delves into such things as the cover illustrations of Golden Age pulp SF magazines to explain how modern women SF writers used Science Fiction to discuss and illustrate issues of gender inequality, the dangers of patriarchies, and the conflicts and synthesis between so called "hard" and "aoft" science.

This also makes me rethink my responses to certain books I read years ago (and generally didn't like), so that, in addition to a new list of books I want to read, I also have to reread a few.

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Review: The Mysteries of Udolpho

2011-04-05T10:51:00.002-04:00

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the Mysteries of Udolpho we have the grandmother of the Gothic novel, springhead of every soap opera, the original melodrama, something so outlandish and overwrought that it has been -- and deserves to be -- much mocked and parodied. At the same time, it commands some respect because of what it is -- an early novel, written when the form was still in its infancy, written by a woman at a time when women had no access to much education or ability to make a living for themselves, written at a time when the very idea of "what was a woman" had barely pushed out the roots of change.

That in itself sounds overwrought, but one must make large claims for this novel, this great ancestor of the novel, still read when so many of its contemporaries are lost in the dusty stacks of archival libraries. I will admit readily that, to finish the last 200+ pages of the novel, I stayed up very late.

But now that we have spoken to its dignity and given the respect it deserves for its place in history, let's get to the myriad of stupid, irritating things Radcliffe does that infuriate the modern reader and even drove contemporary readers (like Jane Austen, most famously) to mock it.

[;spoiler]Our heroine, Emily St. Aubert, is the only child of a gentleman of retiring and pure nature. We know this because he has the word "Saint" abbreviated in his name, and because he rhapsodizes about nature and death and makes pious speeches about Heaven and death. We are told he does good for the poor even though he is, for a person of his social status, poor himself, and so everyone loves him despite his somewhat holier-than-thou attitude. He has raised his daughter to be just like him. Emily is well educated (for a woman) with music and poetry and drawing, her fine, delicate, high spiritual nature underlined by her tendency to stare at trees and mountains.

Emily has many features which are designed to mark her as a woman of delicacy and grace. She has beauty and a very sympathetic heart -- we are told. What she lacks are any braincells devoted to such foriegn things as logic, reason, common sense, or even the lessons of simple observation. While she may spend long hours in raptures over leaping rivulets and verdant demonstrations of nature's power, the simpler facts elude her.

Of course, the poor girl spends so much time fainting, she must have suffered dozens of head injuries or have some sort of medical affliction unknown in Radcliffe's time but treated in ours with a colorful little pill, possibly available in the cheaper generic. She faints a lot. She faints to excess, shall we say, and over everything. Some are understandable, while others are just plain annoying. I am tempted to buy my own copy of the book for the pleasure of taking a pink highlighter and marking every time Emily faints, nearly faints, or cannot support herself. Really, she should have loosened her corset.

When Emily is not fainting, she is weeping. When not weeping, there is sobbing, crying, gasping, moaning, and sighing (oh, let us not forget sighing)

Now, she has a few things to weep and sigh about. First, her mother dies rather suddenly. Then, within probably a year, her father becomes ill and, while traveling for his health, sickens and dies. By strange coincidence (which I really want to term "coinkedink, because that's how often these "just so happens" happen) he does so near an abandoned chateau where we are presented with our First Mystery -- and there will be many more, all made Very Mysterious. Orphaned and under age, she is sent to live with her capricious and self centered aunt. This aunt toys with her by first denying, then allowing, then denying again Emily to be married to her beloved Valencourt.

Oh, let's take a moment to talk about Valencourt. Here's another useless article. He is, indeed, Emily's soul mate and mirror, although instead of fainting and sinking helpless into conveniently placed chairs, he exclaims, paces around, and skulks in the darkness. Now that I think about it, except for the bloodsucking and sparkling, he is a forebear of Edward Cullens, what with his stalking behavior, declarations, and scary possessiveness. Yes, he is the template for the Romantic Hero. He also is fairly annoying because he doesn't do much except give his money away, get rapturous in the trees, and the aforementioned skulking.

Back to Emily. Torn from her love when her aunt marries an Italian named Montoni (Dun dun dun!) and taken to Italy, she waxes rhapsodic on Venetian gondolas rowed out to sea under the moonlight and resists the attempts of her aunt and Montoni to force her into marriage with a Count Moreno. Oh, did I not mention that at least 1/3 of men who spend time in Emily's presence fall in love -- or at least in lust -- with her, often violently? Talk about pheromones. Those who resist her charms either take up the villain role of wanting to control and torment her, or wanting to father her. And that sums up all the male characters. Anyway, to escape Moreno (among other things) Montoni takes them all into the mountains to his castle Udolpho, where he turns warlord and bandit according to the rules of war in the Italian states at the time. The central part of the novel happens in this pile, and Emily experiences constant horror, terror, fear, etc. etc., because she won't spend any time thinking.

Now, she is in a tough situation, but she does everything she can to milk it for all it's worth in drama -- much leaning on window casements, much tender poking at emotional wounds, more sighing. She also collects ghost stories and catches glimpses of things that thrill her with terror because she won't take any time to properly observe them or think it over. But these are important, because they are More Mysteries. Anyway, her aunt dies, leaving her inheritor of valuable properties Montoni wants her to sign over. Her serving woman, Annette -- another garrulous, irritating idiot who serves only as a bridge between Emily and one of the two sensible characters in the novel, Ludovico -- helps to keep Emily upset as much as possible. Ludovico eventually engineers an escape for Emily and a Frenchman kept prisoner in Udolpho. They sail back to France and by Some Chance, their ship wrecks near that very Chateau where we had our First Mystery. Now, with the introduction of Count de Villefort (the other sensible person in this novel, for which I am SO grateful), the mysteries pile up a bit and then unravel. Emily is almost reunited with Valencourt, but he's ruined his reputation and lost his fortune in Paris, so now he's not worthy of her. They spend quite a long time tormenting each other with declarations of Separating Forever while not actually leaving the room, and Never Seeing Each Other More, while staring and sighing.

We then have some more ghost silliness which turns out to be pirates, Ludovico vanishes mysteriously only to turn up later when the Count is attacked by said pirates (in the mountains! but whatever) and finally the mysteries begin to unravel. Emily comes of age to inherit, Montoni is captured, the real owner of Udolpho is a crazy nun in a nearby convent who was REALLY the Italian mistress of the previous owner of the chalet who contrived to kill her lover's wife who JUST HAPPENED to be Emily's aunt and the sister of her father, who wanted to CONCEAL the mystery of his beloved sister's death but Emily is such a twin to this particular paragon, and Valencourt is not really all that bad, but just noble and stupid. [/spoiler]

Radcliffe does a few things that nearly sent her book crashing against a wall. First, Emily sees Mysterious Things that upset, terrify, haunt, and worry her -- but we do not get to see these things for ourselves, even in part. There are some words in a document she wasn't supposed to see (but fainting messed her up there) which Radcliffe never does clear up, although by the very end of the novel we get full and somewhat tedious explanations.

Second, Radcliffe never has a character tell us a thing until they have told us why they can't tell us and made us promise we won't tell. Once they agree to speak, we get a few more minutes of details about how horrible it is and why they can't speak of it. And when they finally DO speak of it, it's rare they actually SAY anything. Or, worse still, they will simply refuse to convey information "because of honour". There is a great deal of what I consider pure deception by omission, all done in the name of paper thin honour.

She only tops that little technique, however, by use of the "Oh, YOU know what I mean" technique. Characters will assume they already know the substance of a conversation before it happens, which of course means they are wrong about what they think they know. Usually both characters think they know and think the other person knows, and so you can imagine how much useful information is passed along. It's like the Passive-Aggressive Playbook.

Then there are the travelogues, the interminable descriptions of every terrifying or overwhelming crag, tree, precipice, cascade, view, flower, twig, dust mote. Luckily, once you learn Radcliffe's set up for these, they can be skimmed or skipped entirely. She might as well have put [insert atmosphere X here].

My last complaint is about Emily's dog, Marchon. The poor creature keeps vanishing, completely forgotten, until he's needed to bark an ill-timed alert or lick his suffering mistress's hand. For all the begging she did to bring him along, he was left behind at Udolpho. Oh Well. Furry plot device.

Yet, with all these irritations (and more, I'm sure, I don't have space to list) the novel still managed to capture my attention. I shed a few tears with Emily over the death of her father. I felt anxious to know how she would escape. I was mystified over Ludovico's disappearance. I stayed up to read the ending.

And yet I could not help laughing, sometimes with irritation, over the contrivance and coincidence, over the extremes to which she went to arouse her reader's emotion and bypass any reason or rationale. Here we have the heart of the romance novel, the seedlings of the horror story, the first dark shade of the mystery. Even fantasy and science fiction can trace their lineage back here, for Mary Shelly certainly read the book and felt its influence in Frankenstein. The Mysteries of Udolpho stands as the Tree of Life for modern genre literature.

Also, you could make a great drinking game out of it.

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Review: Decoding Gender in Science Fiction

2011-03-31T22:51:00.002-04:00

Decoding Gender in Science Fiction by Brian Attebery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had written a lengthy and rather glowing praise of this book, but my browser saw fit to skip to some random page and delete the whole thing, which has rendered me too disgusted to attempt a rewrite at this moment.

Suffice it to say that I found this book so readable, so accessible, and so interesting that I am determined to shell out some $30+ to purchase my own copy after I return this one to the library, because as much as I tried to absorb the information and as many notes as I took (yes, I actually took notes on the book), I am sure I did not catch everything and that this book will stand up under repeated reading.

Do not translate "gender" into "feminism", because while that is one topic touched on in the book, that is not the sole subject, just as "feminine" is not the sole gender. This book is excellent for anyone who reads SF and identifies with "The Other" implied or overt, or for anyone curious about how exactly science fiction has stretched itself to explore issues attendant to issues of gender and otherness.

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Review: Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

2011-03-31T22:47:00.004-04:00

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Johannes Cabal is, as the title says, a necromancer. He's a madman, that's for certain. But he's rather brilliant and a dedicated scientist. He's audacious in his single minded determination to continue his work, whatever the cost. And it has cost him -- his soul, for one thing, which he traded in the usual way to Satan. Only now he needs his soul back. Why should this be a problem?

I liked this book much more than I expected, and perhaps a bit more than I wanted. Johannes Cabal is not what you might call a likable character. He's a very broken person, but he has no idea that he's so very damaged. He verges on to real evil as he tosses away anything he thinks stands between him and his goal. Yet I developed a real sympathy for him, which surprised me.

Set in some indeterminate, alternate "now", Cabal takes a trainload of satanic carnies on a soul-gathering tour of the countryside -- it felt more English than American, but there are no real geographical points for reference, save that there is a Europe of some kind, and there's been at least one World War. Really, the time and place felt incidental to the plot. It's intended to be timeless, a fable.

Now, the whole idea of the Evil Carnival is well known -- Howard includes a thank you dedication to Ray Bradbury on the acknowledgments page -- but this particular angle on it is new to me. The idea of selling one's soul to the Devil is well used, too, as is the idea of wagering with Satan, but, still, I liked this particular twist and turn of it as the story developed. The part of the book I found most difficult -- and the part that engaged me emotionally -- was the relationship between Johannes and his brother Horst. They are both monsters, you see, but I kept getting echos of Frankenstein here, in that even monsters have feelings, and it is perhaps actions that determine who is the monster and who is not. I can't go further without spoilers, but the relationship between the brothers was a rich mine which, while not fully exposed, was at least very involving. I'd have liked it to turn out differently, but it was authentic to the characters. However, there is a sequel and this is a rather magical world, so I can foster a tiny hope.

As for the humor -- and this book is intended to be funny -- this isn't a laugh out loud sort of book, at least not for me. I'm fine with that. The humor was mostly dry and subtle, which is my preference, although Howard does take a few wild swings in his metaphor. It echoed Pratchett and Fforde with hints of Monty Python and avoided the sort of clowny winking and nudging I tend to find annoying.

If I wanted to dig up a quibble (and I really am not driven to quibble about this book) I'd say that the rather obvious Giant Questions are left barely sketched in. Why is Johannes so obsessed about defeating death (we get a tiny bit of explanation at the very end)? What really caused Johannes' damage, his particular kinds of blindness? Why does he both hate and love his older brother? What happens to certain other essential characters in the book after their brush with the Carnival? There's also a bit of playing with the presentation of the story -- one chapter is told in odd pieces via intercutting the much accented/misspelled/dialect-ridden school report of a young boy with the author's third person voice. I understood what was being attempted (trying to create a boy's version of being tempted and saved in his own voice) but it felt like a lot of work to make the couple of points the author was going for.

I guess I'll have to pick up the second book (sophomore efforts are so often weaker, but I'm rather hoping the whole story existed and was just broken into chunks). If any of the above sounds appealing, then you might want to take a peek into Johannes Cabal's journey, too.

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Just so SOMETHING shows up

2011-03-31T22:47:00.003-04:00

Hey, now I can easily cross post my book reviews to here. Aren't all of you so lucky? At least it means something happens and maybe I'll get around to talking again.

Not that much is happening to talk about. Life is still somewhat suspended. Husband is still awaiting a permanent job. I'm still waiting until I'm not waiting for something else to happen. The puppy is still growing (and growing). Sure, I could tell you about Caliban and the Mouse. I could tell you about how Ben loves our new screen room. Ophelia chugs along. Bea is fatter than ever. I even have pictures I could post if I'd just take them off my camera.

But I don't and who knows when I will?

Well, maybe guilt will help.

Oh, Yeah, I have a Blog

2011-03-10T10:03:00.004-05:00

It isn't that nothing much happens to me -- I never let that stop me from writing here before -- so much as nothing I felt like typing about has happened. Life tumbles from moment to moment. I do things, I see the results, but at this particular point in my life, yelling it to the ether (and the 12 stalwart souls who follow this blog) doesn't seem so crucial.

That could change, which is why I haven't taken the silly thing down. So...a summary of the first few weeks of 2011.

We have a dog. He is a standard poodle named Zeus and -- despite all my efforts -- he runs our lives.

We have four cats now and they run whatever parts of our lives the dog does not run.

We joined a Unitarian Universalist church in the area and are enjoying it very much. I'm very involved there with committees and choruses and running a group of my own. That runs the parts of our lives we can wrest away from the dog and the cats (although the dog does come with us on certain meeting nights).

We are back on that "where will the next job be?" treadmill. No guarantees, lots of promises and wishes. This is more stressful than I can really describe, since I do my best not to let even myself know about this stress.

I've lost about 40 lbs, with more to go, but hardly any of my pants fit anymore and I shall be forced soon to drag out the sewing machine and Start Taking In. However, it would be dreadfully easy to gain the weight back again. But, I had about 3 months of no aching hips or back and I got rather used to living with a minimum of pain. Then, about 2 weeks ago, I slipped and fell onto my back at the park. That, coming at the end of 2 weeks fighting a sinus infection, helped me stop losing any weight and start letting it sneak back up on me. I go to the chiropractor tomorrow. I LIKED living with minimal pain, I liked roaming around at will (well, with knee braces on) and I liked losing weight. My blood pressure is getting back to normal and I hope to get off the damn pills soon. I have little daydreams of what I'll be like when I lose the next 40 lbs.

We are still in SC, I still am allergic to the place (allergy season just started a few weeks early) and I'm hoping the rain will clear up today as I am quite tired of constant rain.

I'm reading a lot more, or trying to. That feels surprisingly good. I'm not knitting as much, which bothers me a bit. I'll get it balanced in time.

So, that's pretty much my news. How're all of you?

If you are curious

2011-01-12T11:29:00.001-05:00

as to why, again, I am posting so rarely here, you can find out by going here.

Yes. There is a new male in my life. Providence help me.

A Room of One's Own

2010-12-20T09:55:00.003-05:00

At long last, I have an office in our house. Well, office and craft storage, and cat room, but at least it has no litter boxes in it!

Due to the marvelous efforts of The Husband, my walls are painted in shades of rosy purple (yes, it actually works) and the "A-frame" desk set we found fits perfectly. My comfy reading chair is installed (complete with cats). All I need now is a desk lamp and a reading lamp -- and, of course, to completely clean out and arrange everything. But that's minor in comparison!

We will also be getting the puppy in January, so we must make space for all those things puppy-related. I'm still working out how I feel about events so conspiring -- losing Pooty still has all the pain of losing someone you love, and no other pet will replace him. I think it is more difficult because I wasn't expecting it in the least. Ophelia I know will be passing soon-ish -- she's given us enough scares and with her diabetes and her age, I'm hardening myself to it. Pooty just...went.

Anyway, we will be adding Zeus to our household in January. He's wiggly and curly and should be an interesting addition, especially now that Caliban is just barely turning into domesticated feline (he still gets very agitated at times, very suddenly, and will bite VERY hard. This weekend, I was petting him when he looked out a window and saw a strange cat in another yard some distance away, and just LATCHED onto my hand. He was all sweet and apologetic later, but it HURT.)

Anyway, I have more books to bring up, all kinds of stuff to arrange nicely, garbage to gather, and maybe I should eat a little breakfast that doesn't involve a Christmas cookie.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading

2010-12-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson

Surprisingly enough, reading about someone else's adventures in reading is surprisingly interesting, involving, even addictive.

I originally picked the book by the title -- I suspect someone on Goodreads I know had it in his or her list and I grabbed it from there, or perhaps I saw it somewhere else. I can't remember. But I checked it out from the library and, while checking the first page, got hooked. While I don't have the author's job or her reading appetite (at least, not any more -- once upon a time I read to live), she and I share many habits -- the "double booking" (although I tend to keep book harems), the mood reading, the piles of books yet unread waiting for that moment I know is coming when I will want one of them, the problems of friendships and book loaning, the idea that each book is a relationship. I was surprised to read someone else putting these thoughts into words. My reading has slowed, I think, because of late my life hasn't left me with the energy and courage to start up these new relationships. It's easier to reread familiar books.

I've also compiled a new list of books I want to try reading (like I needed MORE). Whether Nelson liked the book or didn't finish it, the casual way she discusses books and book readers is so true to my own life that I have to try her recommendations.

This book has a few years on it, aging in a way that is particular to such books -- after all, she's talking about books and authors that were new to her in 2003, and 7 years is enough time to put some age on the titles she mentions. However, the ideas about reading and readers don't age. Her voice -- familiar to me, casual, honest, funny -- captured my attention and made me read when I should have slept.

Encouraged by her example, I'm dedicating 2011 to a similar task -- reading one book a week and keeping a record of it. I don't expect to get a book deal out of it (if only!) but I might reduce my "To-Read" shelf a bit. 52 books seems, at once, like a completely attainable goal and like the purist folly, but I feel inspired.

2010-12-16T22:21:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite comics of all time, 9 Chickweed Lane, is currently irritating me greatly. Let me explain. In the current story arc,Seth, a character who identifies as gay, is taking it upon himself to inform another character, Roger, who is married with many children, thatRoger is also gay. Family members of Roger are variously surprised that Roger hasn't figured it out for himself.

Now, this is offensive to me. I find it incredibly insulting that having a character presume to dictate to another person what that second person's sexuality should be is used for humor. The gay community has dealt with this sort of thing for...ever, actually. Many a gay person has been told they could just be straight, they really are straight, if only they'd realize it. And that's insulting. It's no less insulting when the situation is reversed. Seriously, I would not consider doing such a thing or even offering it as a joke to tell someone what their sexual identity should be. It is deeply wrong.

It offends me, too, because usually 9 Chickweed lane is perceptive, sharp, and aware. Mr. McEldowney has impressed me for years with his story lines, his sharp jokes about everything from politics to religion to cats, and yet here he seems to have a giant blind spot. That "everyone" (well, one person so far, but that character is a stand in) proclaims to know Roger's sexuality better than he does is just more mud.

Seriously, I'm of the opinion that, all other things being equal, how someone chooses to identify is his or her own damned business. If someone wants to live a life of denial, well, that is his or her right, just as it is someone's right to say "I'm gay", "I'm bi", "I'm transexual" or even "I'm straight". It's not up to anyone else to dictate, to walk over and say "Hey, you are gay."

You know, in many situations, that's considered bullying, and there's a lot of outcry about it. But, in this case, the character doing the bullying is also gay, openly and apparently happily. This gay character tried living in denial for a while but came out to himself and the world, and yay for him. It would be nice if such things were non issues, if someone's sexuality was like someone's eye color, just another factor of identity without particular judgment attached. But the particular behavior being used here is so very wrong, no matter how it's being couched for purposes of humor, that I find myself just shaking with anger about it.

However, being gay does not give one any more carte blanche to dictate sexuality to others than being straight does. It simply isn't acceptable in any case. It isn't "context appropriate". Gay people are insulted, bullied, tormented and made miserable by this very behavior and if it's wrong to try to make gay people be straight, then the reverse is also wrong. That should be obvious.

Anyway, I'm angry about it and I wish I could tell Mr. McEldowney that. I was holding out a little hope that he was going to make the very same point I am making and have Roger get up on Seth about Seth's control freak, presumptuous, bullying ways, but today's strip took that possibility off the table and made me think that Mr. McEldowney thinks that it's perfectly fine and appropriate behavior without considering the ramifications of it.

Yeah, I take my comics quite seriously.

And we move on

2010-12-14T14:33:00.002-05:00

Thanks, everyone. I'm not quite passed the cry-at-every-thought stage yet, but I'm working on it.

Picked up a book at the library called "So Many Books, So Little Time" in which a woman tries to read a book a week for a year, and writes about the experience. I'm already well into it quite unexpectedly, but I've bemoaned my lack of reading so much that I'm going to make a stab at it myself.

Yes, 52 books in 52 weeks. It's not impossible. Once upon a time I read that and more. I have at least two friends who manage more than that and yet still keep up with house, pets, jobs, and lives. I just have to do a little pruning of time wasters -- and I have plenty of those. Part of that will be cutting down on frivolous computer time via the power of a timer. Yes, yes, I hear you. Going to try it anyway.

Got my book list going, too, in an attempt to trim down the huge pile of books I have waiting for me to read them. I'm instituting only a few rules for myself -- I will give a book 3 chapters or 100 pages, which ever is larger, and if I don't like it I drop it into stuff for Bookmooch and move on. If I don't finish a book within the week allotted, I list it as "unfinished", stick a marker in it, and go to the next book. If I really loved it, maybe I'll finish the next book faster so I can go back to the one unfinished. If I finish a book early, I can go on to the next book. There's no guarantee on the order of reading -- I can pick any book I currently own or can check out from the library (I'm limiting -- ok, trying to limit -- what I buy for a while until I pare down what I have) and I can read whatever appeals. No rereads unless I have finished 52 books.

Sounds completely doable at this point. We shall see.

Goodbye, Pooty Prince

2010-12-12T19:50:00.001-05:00

Petruchio, the cat we called Pooty, died tonight.

He walked up to me on the street in Mt. Dora 15 years ago. It was instant love.

I will miss him forever and ever.

Pooty

2010-12-12T08:43:00.003-05:00

My lovely grey stripy boy is not doing well. He's 15 now, so his refusal to eat is indicative.

More as time reveals.

Book Review -- All About "All About Eve"

2010-12-01T20:44:00.002-05:00

All About "All About Eve" by Sam Staggs

I've seen the movie All About Eve an embarrassing number of times, and I've wondered often about how this little gem of classic film came to be. All my questions are answered in Sam Staggs' book -- in fact, he answers questions that had never occurred to me.

Yes, this book is full of juicy gossip, but that's not the heart of it (just the fun part). Staggs explores everything connected to this movie, from the much debated origins of the original short story "The Wisdom of Eve" to its assorted homages and reinventions everywhere from on Broadway to in porn. He explores much of what went into making the film -- script, acting, directing, editing, costumes, set, music -- and even spends a rather involved chapter digging into assorted interpretations of the text.

Mostly, this is a fan of the movie telling all he can find out to other fans of the movie, all in a chatty, breezy, very readable style. I stayed up late reading this because it was so much fun and so interesting. While it might delve into too much minutia for a casual reader, it holds treasure for classic movie buffs.

And I shall never think of Celeste Holm in the same way again.

Book Review -- Edward R. Murrow, An American Ori

2010-11-27T09:59:00.003-05:00

Edward R. Murrow: An American Original by Joseph Persico

I have great admiration for the movie "Good Night and Good Luck", and it made me curious about Edward R. Murrow (he started out with the moniker "Egbert", and I blame him not for dumping that one.) Joseph Persico's biography of Murrow gave me a lot more understanding not only of the man who was so instrumental in creating radio and television news, but of the period in which he lived and the influence he has still on how we perceive and receive information via broadcast media.

It has the feel of good research -- copious quotes from others who knew the man, historical background on events of the period (but not so much as to divert attention from the subject), and authorial insight and opinion that is carefully marked out as such, which gave the feel of good conversation. Far from a dry recitation of facts, Persico gives details that bring scenes to life and calls on enough people who witnessed what Murrow did and had opinions about him to give a very well rounded picture of this complex human being. The book was really enjoyable as much as informative. While Persico repeated certain items about Murrow -- his pride, his private nature, his pessimism, his conflicting drives -- each time it seemed those essential features were described interacting with a new situation and resulted in a new facet being revealed.

Although most people remember Murrow (if they recall him at all) because of the movie and the McCarthy exposing episode of "See It Now" which it featured, that particular important episode did not dominate or overshadow the book. Murrow did far more than that, and had more pivotal career moments and crucial events in his life. His work during WWII and Korea, his almost one man effort to create a true news service for CBS, his own activities to help European intellectuals excape fascism -- all of these form the bulk of the book and are equally if not more important. If not for them, the McCarthy episode would not have happened.

I can recommend this book as solid, engaging reading to those interested in either broadcast history, media history, or Murrow himself, as well as to those who'd like to round out their knowledge of the US in the first half of the 20th century.

Hair Cut

2010-11-27T09:23:00.006-05:00

After a couple of months of dealing with the pains and trials that go along with having very long hair (aka hair that extends below the waistband of most of one's clothing), I finally cut off enough to donate to Locks of Love. Here is the pictorial evidence.

BEFORE (yes, that's 3 + feet of hair)

Via the Camera

2010-11-17T10:53:00.002-05:00

Enter a Title Here

2010-11-16T11:06:00.002-05:00

So, let's catch up, shall we?

I made another stab at NaNoWriMo. I got into a story, just writing to write, and by about 5000 words I was well sick of it. I fiddled with what I'd made, pushing it and pulling it, but nothing would make me like the characters I'd made, the world I'd found, or the situations I'd devised. The premise wasn't too horribly bad -- a young man with a strong belief in science and "progress" (in the 19th century sense of the word) meets up with a long existing group of people who use magic in the same way he uses technology, during a war. The world incorporated a lot of early 20th century/WWI ideas and imagery. The young man had caused the death of a child while trying to sabotage the enemy soldiers who had occupied his village during the war. The magicians, who had lost their political power during the rise of industrialism, were using the war as a way to get back into power.

And I was heartily uninterested in anything about it. Oh, I could have plotted it out and plodded through, but the characters were as flat and pasty as cold oatmeal. Bored. Bored bored bored.

So, I stopped. I figured I'd dive back into one of the unfinished stories I have -- plenty of that. Then I just wiggled around, trying to reconnect to it. Now I'm just struggling to re-establish the very practice of writing. Well, struggling isn't so much a proper word. I'm trying to re-establish the habit of it, since the driving impulse isn't there, and needs to be nurtured into existence again.

So I'm writing crap. It's like composting. You have to pile up the garbage and let it rot for a while. Then you can ladle it back into the soil, plant seeds, and see what happens. Compost takes time to make, though, and you have to keep adding to it. So, I'm composting. It smells.

It's also well and truly fall around here, with strong hints of winter every once in a while. Took forever for the trees to change, but the color is marvelous. Of course, now that everything has caught the hint, it's raining. The trees could be background for Persuasion. Anne Elliot would love them.

So, that's where I am and what's happening. Still knitting -- will have to post a few pictures, I know, to prove it. Busy at the UU. Losing weight (22 lbs down as of Sunday. 80 to go.) Holidays hurdling in. Cats being cats. The Husband still in suspense about having a job and getting into the PhD program he wants. We are still working on turning this house into a home, trying to develop a reasonable social life, and not let the laundry pile up.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

2010-10-27T21:27:00.002-04:00

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen -- edited by Susannah Carson

If you hate Jane Austen, this book will do little to change your mind. If you are indifferent to her, you may not be tempted further by these essays. If you love and admire her, this book will possibly bore you or irritate you after different writers either repeat what you already know or dislike what you like and like what you dislike.

However, if you are unsure about Austen or if you are curious to know what the fuss is all about, this book isn't a bad place to start.

This collection of essays that explain, praise, examine, accuse and otherwise give some kind of answer to the question implied in the title covers her 6 novels, her fragments, and her juvenilia do cover a range of opinion. Yes, most of it is positive and some of it feels a bit silly. Many of the essays were written long before the idea of the book came into being. Some are very scholarly and some are quite chatty. Some few are downright picky. Still, it does dig up quite a lot of thought about those 6 books as various authors talk about their favorite characters or novels, defend what they love most and excoriate what they despise. The novels are considered as single topics, as a group, and occasionally in comparison with more modern works.

My reaction to it was occasional surprise as someone pointed out an idea new to me, or bristly irritation as yet another author could not resist the lure to stick "It is a truth universally acknowledged" into the piece he or she wrote. On a few, I wondered why they bothered to write at all. Of course, I am an admirer of Jane Austen, so this book would do that.

But if you have read only a few of the novels, or perhaps only seen some movies based on the novels, this book could prove much more interesting and educational. It might well draw you deeper into the oddity. It might introduce you to the cult and offer you the Kool-aid. It will certainly open your eyes to, not only the novels and the woman we barely know who wrote them, but to the audience of Jane Austen and how she is regarded and has influenced our world. It could push you away or pull you in.

I already know I want to purchase a copy so I can go through with a highlighter and pen, to argue, to underline, and to explore, so that when I reread the books I can look for what these assorted authors claim is there.

I seriously doubt it will change my mind about Mansfield Park, however, but I'm going to give it a try.

I'll give this some sort of title later

2010-10-27T11:27:00.005-04:00

Ophelia seems recovered. We are still figuring out the insulin thing, which means a morning trip to the vet for a glucose test. She's not thrilled about this, but she likes the ride in the car and the treat when she gets home. She's pretty much like she was before Saturday. She has not pooped yet, though. I am waiting in a small ball of terror for the horror she will deposit soon. I just hope I notice her waddling toward the bathroom so I can shove her into the litter box. Otherwise, I'll be scraping it off the floor and, really, I don't want to do that.

It's stormy here! It's stormy everywhere, according to the news. Last night we had several tornado warnings and watches, one after another, as squall lines marched through from the west. Once again I thought how fragile this little townhome is. I grew up in cinder block homes. It's standard construction in Florida, what with termites and hurricanes and carpenter ants. Concrete fares better. This place is stick construction, and not that good in any case (There are some distinctly curvy walls around here and we've seen how many bad nailing jobs, wrong screws, and other scary construction stuff was going on when it was built.) There is no real "safe room" except the downstairs powder room, and that's not really "safe". A tornado would rip this place up, chew it like gum, and leave a small smoking pile. This isn't a thought I much enjoy on stormy nights.

In fact, I don't feel particularly secure in this house under most circumstances. If someone wanted to break in, there's not much to stop them except, perhaps, the threat of being seen or heard (as everyone is packed in fairly tight). Because the place is so dark and we have the front screened in, I leave the front door open, depending on the screen door to disguise that fact, so as to allow light and air into the house. The lock on the screen door would take all of 30 seconds to break. Of course, both the downstairs windows could be broken with ease, and the sliding glass door does not have a lock bar (why? I don't know. I wanted one. We never got it. I should get one.)

Of course, security is something of an illusion in any house. A determined person can break in to most places. Neighbors in places like this -- transient, everyone a stranger -- tend to ignore any odd goings on. No one wants to get involved or possibly make a mistake. Still, I'd like a little more illusion. Perhaps we will put in an alarm system -- we've discussed it before.

Oh, it's autumn here. We drove up to the mountains in NC and I took pictures. Have a look.

A Weekend in Horror

2010-10-25T22:32:00.002-04:00

Well, ok, not the WHOLE weekend. Saturday was pretty good until about 6 pm.

We spent the day driving up to NC to look at changing leaves, visit a little boutique town we like, and drive up to a mountain retreat area we'd heard about. The town was fun, the retreat was beautiful, we took many pictures and came home happy.

Upon opening the door, we saw a long trail of poop and vomit going around the living room and into the kitchen. Also, we could not find Ophelia. That's because she was laying between the wall and the refrigerator, limp, cold, and unresponsive. At first we thought she had died, but no, she was having a severe hypoglycemic seizure. We got a little Kayro syrup into her mouth, wrapped her up in some towels, and headed to the emergency vet -- a half hour drive. 10 minutes into the trip, she woke up and started screaming. She screamed with some small breaks until we got her to the vet.

Driving with a screaming cat is hard on the nerves.

So, they got her warmed and stabilized. $400 later, we do not know why her sugars bottomed out. She was fine when we left. She'd obviously eaten (judging by the food she vomited up, she'd eaten plenty). She got her normal dose of insulin. We have no idea. So, we have her home again and will be trekking to our local vet for glucose levels each day this week. She's on a super low dose of insulin.

She's eating, she's drinking, she uses the litter box. She's unstable on her paws but that's coming back (she's quite exhausted). She's also a 17 year old diabetic cat. We just want her to be comfortable for however long we have left with her. I don't want to put her to sleep. I want her to go to sleep on her own and pass that way. I don't ever want her to scream like that again.

It's been emotionally difficult, as you might guess. Nothing like contemplating life and death and losing a creature you love so much to put a sour twist on the weekend.

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We watched the new BBC Sherlock Holmes "A Study in Pink" and were impressed. I really liked the way the characters were interpreted through our current modes of understanding people who are "different". Watson's "moving wound" is explained as a psychosomatic injury (he has a lame leg although shot in the shoulder, and there's the hand tremor) and Holmes describes himself as a high functioning sociopath. Also, the hilarity of the constant comments that they might be gay lovers (including Holmes himself trying to be nice while completely misunderstanding Watson's comments) really added a lot -- good use of consciousness of other modern interpretations and literary speculation.

It doesn't hurt at all that Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Holmes, is delicious enough to spread on toast.

I see touches of both the recent Robert Downey Jr. version and my much beloved Granada Television series with Jeremy Brett, which are all used to great advantage. Really, it was a lot of fun. I can't wait to see the rest of the series. The Husband and I already agree the DVD set, when available, will be OURS.

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While typing all this, Ophelia waddled her way over to the window seat, clambered up with nary a scrabble, and has settled down on her cushion there. All seems right in her little world.

Accomplishments

2010-10-19T18:18:00.002-04:00

I made two variations on Bourbon Walnut Apple Pie today. Totally winged it in the old fashioned, "Recipe? I don't need no stinkin' recipe!" way -- poured Jim Beam into a pot with melted butter and brown sugar, cooked that, added walnuts and home made applesauce/pie fill, cut up more apples, put it all between Pilsbury's best pie crusts, and there was pie.

And it is good.

Still knitting. Finished a big project, now working my way through smaller ones. Spent the day sorting audio books onto various mini SD cards because my MP3 player has teeny storage and also I'm OCD like that. Life is pretty good. Weather is nice.

I'm now singing in 2 groups at the UU, which is kinda cool. I feel better for having the music. Telling myself I had to give that up because (because, because, BECAUSE...) it wasn't possible for all kinds of reasons was a big mistake. Apparently, I do better when there is music. I feel better. Life is a touch easier.

It's also better that I'm supposed to be somewhere at a certain time every week. It's finally becoming clear to me. I have to have a state of dynamic tension to be creative. That is, I have to have some things I must do, things that pull me in a particular direction, in order to pull out time to write or make things or anything else creative. If I don't have the tension (not too much, just a little) then there's no energy for being creative. No energy for much of anything. Having all the time I want and nothing in particular I have to do seems a recipe to be able to do nothing. Doesn't work. Don't like it.

Which leads me up to NaNoWriMo. Yeah, it's coming up again, just a couple of weeks away. The Husband asked me (in front of someone else, the sneak) if I was going to do it. No, no, he didn't ask. He SAID I was going to do it, and after a split second of being pissed and all "Who are you to tell me what I am doing blah blah blah!" I realized, "Oh, yeah, I AM doing it."

Oh, I have some excuses piling up. I don't have a good place to sit and write (sitting for a few hours typing does require a good place to sit and a proper desk at the right height and all. Otherwise, it hurts, and if it hurts I tend to stop doing it.). The couch isn't reasonable. I've tried it, and it is just not cooperative. Theoretically we will be painting my room upstairs very soon and moving stuff around to make me some kind of writing area. I keep trying to picture it and nothing happens, but there's still time (there is also a lot of crap that needs to be sorted only it isn't MY crap, so I ain't doin' it.)

Anyway, there's that.

Silences

2010-10-13T12:29:00.003-04:00

Once upon a time, sadness meant -- for me -- talking. Writing. Singing. I felt sad and I had to make it known. The deeper the sadness, the more I had to get it out.

Gradually, that has changed. Developing the illness of depression marks the distinct beginning of that change. The first time, right after the surgery, I stopped talking. Not completely, of course -- I kept up an earlier version of this weblog and I wrote a lot -- but I tended to not talk to people. I didn't notice this myself. It was pointed out to me by The Husband, who said people were asking him what was wrong with me, as I'd stopped talking. In social situations, others found me reserved. One friend even thought The Husband was dominating, possibly abusing, me, because he was always the one to speak while I rarely did unless he was not around.

Talking to other people became a performance. It exhausted me. I could rise to it from time to time, but afterwards I had to retreat to some quiet corner.

As the depression waxed and waned, my communication did also. Eventually I stopped writing, siting any number of reasons, but finding the words harder and harder to find. Online communication became one of the few ways I spoke to anyone, and rather than being silent around others, I simply avoided people (no reason to draw attention to myself by being the Sphinx in the room). Even making comment on web posts became difficult. I'd start to type something and the thought would come "Why say this? What good will it do? No one is going to pay attention anyway." and I would delete. This weblog also fell silent. Why post the same thing again and again? Who wanted to listen to my whining? I didn't even want to listen to it. If I was tired of it, the world had to be. Why bother?

I'm working on that.

______________________________________________________

Lately I've had moments of missing my mother, missing her in that deep down from the gut way that brings tears to my eyes. It's been a very, very long time. In a handful of years or so, I will be the same age she was when she died. I thought I'd dealt with all this -- really, her death controlled my life for such a long time that I had to work hard to put it in perspective and make it just a part of my life and not the great, central, overbearing tragedy that ruined everything. It's a common event -- many people lose one or both parents while they are young. Some lose their parents as infants, and some lose a father even before their own birth. I'm no different from all of them. I can't elevate my particular loss to some high, important point and expect the world to stare in pity and awe.

I get tired of it, too. I get tired of the ache. I get tired of this old wound trying to reopen on me.

Book Review -- Jane's Fame by Claire Harman

2010-10-09T12:41:00.001-04:00

Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman

This isn't a biography, at least not in the traditional sense -- it's the history of her fame, really. It's about how her audience(s) has thought about, reacted to, derived from, understood and misunderstood both her and her writing.

That's quite an unusual subject for a book.

What made me give it four stars? I wish I could write an intelligent, well thought out explanation for that, discussing the various strengths and weaknesses of the books, the accuracy of the research, the validity of the arguments and conclusions, but I admit I cannot. I have no idea how accurate the research is, although it is copious and well documented (at least, the last 50 or so pages of the book are endnotes, bibliography, acknowledgments, and index). I'm not sure what the stated argument was -- that Jane Austen is now known far beyond what she would or could have ever expected when she was alive? That she would be confused and amused, shocked and delighted by the forms her fame has taken? That she is rarely -- if ever -- portrayed as she was, but more often as various people wanted her to be? That the reactions to her life and her writings are a unique phenomenon? That her place in the Western Literary Canon is deserved because the surface simplicity (that, apparently, disgusts, disarms, misleads, and outright blinds many readers and critics) is a shell over depth and breadth? That she really was a writer of small things? That it is impossible for a reading audience to ever really know an author, and all readers create for themselves a Jane Austen of their own?

Those are just a few of the questions pinning down the pages of this book. Answers are less prevalent although, from the tenor of the questions, it isn't hard to imagine what Harman's opinion is.

This is, of course, a book intended for those already positively disposed, in some degree, toward the works of Jane Austen, or any of the works derived from those original novels. In fact, in some ways it is more about those derivative works and the feelings, responses, and opinions that lead to those secondary works. Why is it that Jane Austen is so important that, although there are only the 6 complete novels and some fragments, we continue to create more in the way of movies and books attempting to continue, copy, or imitate her work?

Jane's Fame really doesn't dig in to that particular question, although it certainly works hard to state it clearly and at length. Perhaps there isn't a single answer, or Harman is not willing or feels it worthwhile to proclaim a single answer. This is a book to prompt more discussion. It brings together many opinion (quoted excerpts range from those of her own siblings to somewhat snarky discussions on current Internet forums). As a collection of the varying opinions and an assessment of the current state of the "Janeites" or "Austenarians", it's very engaging, interesting, and slightly provoking. It's also worth, I think, purchasing for myself (this is a library loan) and examining more closely at some point hence.

Update again

2010-10-09T11:44:00.002-04:00

I should have gone to visit someone this weekend. I didn't go. Between money, commitments, and an assortment of other things, it just didn't feel possible. I also have some guilt about it, because I wanted to go and said I would, and here I didn't.

I'm now almost a month into using Nutrasystem to lose weight. It's mediocre food in careful portions along with an eating guide. It makes the whole thing very brainless, which is about the level I need. I do get mad craves for real food from time to time. I've lost about 10 lbs. I've also realized just how easy it would be for me to become anorexic. Seriously, I noticed the mental process last week when I looked at my calorie count for the day, realized I was really low, and heard in my head "But when I don't eat, I'm good. It's good when I don't eat." That's kinda crazy. No, that's a LOT crazy. I'm allowed 2000 calories a day (way normal average adult level). If I eat 1500 a day, I will lose weight, and I really need to lose weight to take the pressure off my knees and hips and to lower my blood pressure. Most days I manage about 1200 calories, some days less. There's no real hunger going on, but I do lack energy. Still, I'm hauling a lot of extra 'me' around, and getting rid of some of that would be all to the good. The Husband is also doing Nutrasystem, and we are trying to be really good about the whole "portion control" part of it. Honestly, I eat pretty much what I want. I just try to eat very small amounts of it.

One side effect has been I am very self conscious eating around other people away from my house. Another is I tend to get dizzy and light headed at the drop of a hat, which is annoying. Balance. I need to work on balance. Also must start monitoring the blood pressure again, as that's a hunky part of the whole mess.

On the good side, I have eaten more vegies in the last three weeks than in the prior three months. I figure it will be about 3 months before eating smaller portions will be natural, when my eyes and stomach will "recalibrate". It takes, what, 30 days to establish a new habit, and 3 months to make it really stick? We plan to do the Nutrasystem food as the central part of our eating for 6 months, with the last 2 months being a shift to cooking and portioning food for ourselves. I might keep up the food bars a bit longer, since they make easy (and actually tasty) quick meals for breakfast or lunch.

My big goal is 100 lbs, which would put me back at the weight I was when I graduated highschool -- which is not, technically, "thin" (Disney would not hire me then for a front line position because I was too fat), but, damn, I look at pictures of me from then and wonder why all these assholes kept telling me I was too fat (along with everything else that goes with it). I will happily be that fat again. I will also ride my bicycle. However, I am staging it out -- 25 lbs first, which will be the weight I've gained since moving to SC. Then, another 40 lbs, which will be the weight I've gained since my miscarriages and assorted injuries. Everything after that will be just that much better.

The Husband and I joined a Unitarian Universalist church back in July. Since then, I've joined the chorus and started a yoga class there, and we are both getting a little more involved in regular activities there. It's actually nice. I have reasons to leave the house during the week. I'm starting to resemble a normal person. It's good to be singing again. I'm debating getting a small keyboard, since the piano simply will not fit in the house. Have to look.

I'm also knitting constantly. I really am enjoying it. I've made a ton of scarves, two hats, one shawl (and working on another), and I'm working on my first sweater. I'm surprised how much I really get into it. Each finished project is a little step up, even if it doesn't come out exactly right. I feel like I'm learning, and I'm making something.

Writing is standing still, but now I'm not so negative about it. I think that might come back, too.

Anyway, that's my life at this point. How're you guys doing?

2010-09-06T18:10:00.002-04:00

Nightwatch: A Novel by Sergai Lukyanenko

A very Russian book, I have to say, without really knowing what that means. That is, I know it only as someone born into Middle class America in the midst of the Cold War, who has read very little Russian literature, learned only a little of the great nation's history, who has heard only a little of its music, who has only once been slightly drunk on vodka, can know it.

In short, this is a depressing book, but not deeply depressing. Resignedly depressing, I guess, describes it best. That's the point of the book, I think -- not the magic, not the epic struggles between Dark and Light which it borrows from classic high fantasy and dumps into the streets of 1990s Moscow, not the Twilight that doesn't mean teen angst and sparkly vampires.

Ok, enough pseudo-philosophy. Night Watch is a good book, I'll say, although I can't say I like it much. I fully expect I'll read the other three books in the series. I don't expect to enjoy them. I do expect to think about them, and to put a little vodka in a tiny cold glass.

Can I tell you what it is about? Not really. In part, it's because, as often happens for me when reading translated works, I feel like I'm missing some cultural understanding that would make things a little more clear. Anton, Svetlana, Olga, Boris/Gesar -- these characters are familiar but not quite real. Anton, the protagonist and voice for this tale -- told mostly in first person, although it's perfectly possible the few third person segments could be him speaking, too -- is young, learning what it is to be an Other, and mostly over his head. He himself is a minor part of the world in which he lives, yet he's at the crux of all the events that take place. He's that single grain of rice, the bit of grit, the one who doesn't really know what to do and doesn't really have the power to do much, yet is still there, the crux around which things swirl.

And it's a sad, barren. desolate world.

Hi there

2010-09-06T15:01:00.003-04:00

I have yarn and needles and another Thing knitted, which meant I started yet another Thing this morning. I have three other Things I want to be knitting, but there's this whole lack of hands/arms/eyes problem. Can only knit one thing at a time and I have a Must Finish A Thing rule to avoid little knots of yarn with needles roaming the house and scaring the cats.

So far, everything I've knitted has been some form of Square or Rectangle. Today I am branching out with a Hat, which while knitted flat, will eventually be Round, like a head. This means Decreases. Yes, decreasing is the next skill to conquer.

Meanwhile, when I'm not knitting, I'm looking at knitting stuff online. One thing I saw was a nifty thing to hold my Hoard of Yarn. It was a hanging closet shelf thing, all cloth and nylon, that for the mere price of $50 would hold All The Yarn neatly and away from claws. I looked at it with lust for a while, then something clicked over in my head. I'd seen this before.

Then, while roaming through Lowes looking for something else (paint or bug killer or something like that) I remembered that little Click and I headed for the Organizer aisle. Yep -- for $17.99 I bought a fold down hanging sweater shelf (nylon, cloth, cardboard) which looks JUST LIKE the $50 Magic Yarn Hoard Holder (well, except for color). And it is in the downstairs closet holding my Hoard right this minute. I feel so frugal. I can buy more yarn!

In other news, Ophelia, my beloved and now elderly cat, is obviously winding down. She's 17, diabetic, and she'd getting frail. Oh, she's healthy -- good teeth, plenty of opinions, pooping and peeing, which means she's eating and drinking. But she's getting thinner, which seems to be the way cats tell you they are getting old. And she has returned to her gassy kitten ways. This is ok for her, but deadly for the rest of us. Currently, she likes to reside either under the couch (right where I sit) or in a window seat next to the couch (where I sit). As a new twist, today she's decided to lay on the throw pillow right next to me.

And she farts. Oh dear clouds in hell, she farts. It's deadly stuff, I tell you. I'm looking for a pattern to knit a gas mask.

Oh, Yeah, Blog

2010-08-24T20:03:00.003-04:00

It's like this.

I've rediscovered knitting. Yeah, I know, it was there all along, but I'd sworn it off years ago and given away my collection of needles, books, and yarn. I'd stopped knitting. It was too hard, too useless (in Florida), took too long, etc. etc.

I'm finishing up my third knitted project right now. I'm still doing things with straight sides and no pieces, but I'm learning stitches and perfecting little things like counting rows and remembering whether I am knitting or purling. I have another project directly in line, and I'm planning my excursion into socks with a yoga sock pattern (no toes, no heels, just dealing with the 4 double pointed needles, which, trust me, is PLENTY).

I'm a yarn whore, too. The addiction, I get it. I have three plastic storage boxes full of various yarns. Lucky for me, they are all small enough to slide under the couch. Well, one of them is in use as a step for Ophelia to reach her spot at the window, because it's a bit too tall to go under the couch. But she NEEDS it sitting there.

The Husband is a yarn pimp. He finds yarn and holds it out to me, telling me how cool the color is or how nice it feels and how he wants a scarf out of it. He has one scarf so far and I think he intends I will make him enough scarves that he can wrap them around every portion of his body to walk outside. I told him that if he brings me yarn, a pattern, and the appropriate needles (if I don't have them), I'd knit what he wants. I figured that would help me with my own addiction.

I was wrong. He's learned to read the code on the labels around the skeins. I'm in trouble.

So , that's where I've been. It's hard to type and knit at the same time.

Update, short version

2010-07-22T20:33:00.002-04:00

Stomach virus. Some OTC meds, a bland, white, starchy diet (mashed potatoes!) and lots of water are my prescription. Have eaten at last. Am waiting for headache to go away.

Catch up, short version

2010-07-22T10:27:00.002-04:00

1) still no job. job promise. no actual contract.
2) The Husband's office is painted. Part of the hall downstairs is painted. Babysteps.
3) I am sick to my stomach. Or rather, my stomach is sick of me. Something like that. Going on 40 straight hours of near vomit, waves of pain, and assorted unpleasantness. Feels a bit like pancreatitis, but not exactly. Doctor's visit this afternoon.
4) Knitting. Purling. Knitting more. Lusting for yarn. Figuring out double pointed needles.

That is all.

Cuyahoga

2010-07-02T09:48:00.004-04:00

Hey, didn't tell you -- The Husband and I visited teh Jammies in Ohio! Usually there's a big gather in July, but that wasn't going to work for us due to The Job situation (or the Lack of Job situation, which should resolve around the 9th, I HOPE), so we decided to make our visit early.

We didn't do a damn thing :) Well, we baked, and we ate, and we read books, and we talked a lot, and we petted dogs. The Husband took long walks with Little Miss, the Hyper Hound. I scritched Little Foot a lot. We relaxed. No big excitement, but it was relaxing. We saw Blue Herons nesting up there. The weather was pretty nice. There was little drama (well, there was a touch of drama, but it was the Technology Decides to Fail but Gets Fixed variety). In other words, a better than average vacation.

Ophelia went with us again and had a whole room to herself (instead of being tucked in the foyer with her traveling apartment. She seemed to accept it all in stride. Now she's home and back to sitting in my bathroom in front of the toilet and occasionally yelling at the wall. We do not know why.

One thing that has happened is Jammies, in her gentle way, encouraged me to take up knitting again. I gave away all my knitting stuff probably three + years ago, as I hadn't touched it in even longer. But, yeah, I stopped by the craft store, picked up a couple of basic books, some needles, and some nifty yarns. I've done up one practice swatch, unraveled it, and am starting another with a different stitch. Oooo, go me. I might even make something.

Anyway, I'm home now. We are contemplating Home Improvements -- putting in some shelving and painting the kitchen, maybe painting bathrooms, then plotting to paint more rooms as the summer creeps on. Neither of us can tolerate this beige world much longer.

Book Review - Jane Slayre

2010-06-28T08:20:00.003-04:00

Jane Slayre -- Charlotte Bronte, Sherri Browning Erwin

This is the third of the recent group of classic romance/horror humor mash-ups I've read and it is the very best of them. It succeeds in being a fun, light read because it avoided the traps of the almost-good "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" and the waste of paper and time that was "Sense & Sensibility & Sea-monsters". No cheap jokes, no junior high sex puns, no glaring and stupid mistakes in the additions, no missed opportunities, and no pointless, tedious grafting onto the original story. The humor is dry, understated, and dovetailed nicely with the original voice of the main character.

That Ms. Erwin not only has read Jane Eyre, but understood and appreciated it, was apparent in her handling of the original material. (I think part of that understanding and intelligence is indicated by the proper spelling of her first name). She maintained qualities of the original characters and, while indicating the humor of the new situations in which she placed them, she never ridiculed or insulted them (I particularly liked her transformation of Mr. Brocklehurst -- it was everything I could desire). I didn't have a single eye rolling moment and my curiosity about how the story would develop and end remained high until the last few pages answered all.

I've read Jane Eyre several times since my first foray in 6th grade. When I first read about this book, I speculated that the Brontes might be better suited for such a mash-up. Their writings are much more emotional, excessive, and interwoven with Byronic Romanticism and Gothic motifs. These made room for adding in the changes without overstretching credulity (not the case with the two Austen mash-ups, which required much subtler humor and, being tighter and less prone to emotional broad strokes, had less room for what was sledged into them.)

Quite a good, fun, light summer read.

Hunting Expedition

2010-06-12T19:15:00.002-04:00

There's not much that's better in my little life than a trip to the local Barnes & Noble, unless it is a trip to Barnes & Noble with an unlimited bank account. We made a trip up for the express purpose of picking up a particular DVD and discovered they were having a buy 2, get one free sale. So, we have acquired Forbidden Kingdom, the second season of The Wild, Wild West tv series, and the Sherlock Holmes feature film collection.

Of course, once we'd finished with the DVD section, we rummaged through the books, and obviously we found some. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, which looks quite unique and interesting. I picked up Defining Moments in Books, which (unfortunately, in my opinion) has the iconic image from the movie Lolita on the cover. The Husband picked up a book on interviewing and another called Creative Cursing, which he expects will be useful no matter what job he gets.

But the biggest trophy of the day, the prize of the hunt, was the second volume of Bloom County, the Complete Library. The first was wonderful. I didn't know the second was out and it was almost at the end of our tour of the store when I spotted it, grabbed it, and now it's mine.

Time to sink into that.

Exciting Frontiers in Baking - The Sequel in Chocolate

2010-06-07T12:16:00.004-04:00

Yes, I tried the rolled cake (the fancy name is "roulade") again this weekend, this time with chocolate. It takes a lousy picture (the lighting in my kitchen is not flattering) but it tasted wonderful.

The details: I have a 17 inch pan which is larger than my recipe calls for (so far I've found 3 different sizes of jelly roll pans. I don't have room for 3 pans.) so I got ambitious and increased the recipe a bit -- 6 eggs instead of 4, 1/2 cup flour instead of 1/3 -- and it seemed to work ok. The cake came out soft and spongy. Filling -- chocolate cream cheese and Nutella. I also made my first ganache to cover the cake. Ganache is EASY! It is also delicious. I must be very careful with this new knowledge.

The final touch was chopped hazelnuts.

It didn't come out too sweet, which did concern me. There's no added sugar in the ganache, just what's in the baker's chocolate and the tablespoon of cognac. I didn't get quite enough sugar in the cream cheese according to some critics, but the cake itself has a lot of sweetness, plus the Nutella is sweet, so I think maybe a few more tablespoons into the cream cheese will do the trick. It's a lovely balance of dark and light chocolates and very satisfying.

It's also a lot of beating. I'm serious. First the yolks must be beaten creamy, then the whites must be beaten stiff, then there's folding and sprinkling flour and floodling around. The ganache is all about the beating (food processor!) and the cream cheese is beaten and mixed.

The one sad occurrence in this success is the slowly encroaching decrepitude of my Cuisinart multi-mixer. The mixer bowl, cheap plastic that it is, doesn't want to stay on the mixer, which means the steel blade won't stay seated unless I press hard down on the lid. Thus resulted in one good, solid splash of half mixed chocolate across the kitchen as the processor tried to launch itself into orbit. With our limited storage space, another multi-use machine is the obvious choice, but maybe not the lowest end version . We've had this one for maybe 5 years now, and the blender pieces all work fine, but I don't think we can get replacements for the mixer parts.

Oh, The Husband and I also visited one of those lovely cookery boutique stores (not William-Sonoma, but a locally owned store) to lust for the LeCreuset pans we want and to get a new iron skillet. We don't fry food much, so I hadn't really missed our old skillet when it wandered off. Now that we are trying to cook more of what we eat, I realized I know how to make corn bread, and it's better in an iron skillet than in a Pyrex pan.

Ironic, isn't it? When we had a big kitchen, we rarely used it or what we had in it. Now that we are exploring the real joys of cooking, we are in a mini-kitchen. Where once I dreamed of travel, I now daydream about kitchens.

Mavro as Nate Ford

2010-06-04T09:19:00.003-04:00

I'm following the adventures of Mavro in The Book Of Mavro like its is episodic TV. In some ways it is better than TV (no commercials). It reminds me a little of my favorite show, Leverage, in that it's someone scamming criminal types both because they like it and for the greater good.

I now look at the mail in my spam box with a new eye. Some of that shit is outright WEIRD.

Exciting Frontiers in Baking

2010-06-03T12:54:00.002-04:00

I made my first jelly roll cake this week. It didn't last long enough to get a picture of it to post. However, it was yellow cake with cream cheese and strawberry jam filling. I haven't got the trick of filling and rolling quite down -- what looks like stingy filling when the cake is flat becomes OMGODTOOMUCH when you start rolling.

I'm going to try a chocolate one next, with a filling of Nutella and cream cheese (I have a recipe for chocolate cream cheese) and a ganache frosting. Ganache, according to there recipe I found on Cook's Illustrated, is disgustingly easy to make. It's so easy, in fact, I could make it all the time and just keep some in a jar with a spoon stuck in it.

That would be dangerous.

I'll try to get a picture of the next one, if I get it rolled up right.

The Addiction Continues

2010-05-30T22:16:00.004-04:00

I ordered the latest installment of Leverage DVDs last March, when they were announced. They were released May 25th, but because Barnes & Noble is a blessed place, they sent the discs out a day early so I got them on Tuesday. The rewatching -- with commentary -- finished today. There were also some sharing of episodes with others I've succeeded in addicting, which slowed down the process, but increased the pleasure.

Oh, glory be! If all television was like this show, I'd be doomed.

I'll be honest -- just like the first season, not every episode was my favorite. A couple I didn't like nearly as much, but I suspect that, with repeated watchings, just like last season, they will grow on me. They did do a marvelous job of building a new arc upon the edifice of the old, rolling with the punches. Writing, acting, directing, camera, effects -- I just don't get tired of this show.

Also, the gag reel was a long spin of incredibly funny wrongness. The Husband and I couldn't breathe for laughing.

Season 3 starts in a few weeks. I'm just able to contain my excitement. Oh please, please, let them get a good 5 seasons. I think, based on the shows so far, they can get a wonderful five seasons before they risk repeating themselves or wearing the idea thin. Depending on what happens with the meta-arcs, it's possible they could swing a 6th, but by then a lot of the Big Questions of the story should be more or less settled or even resolved -- the writers have done such an excellent job of creating characters with great depth, with demons and questions and room for growth, but at some point they have to let the growth happen. First season was Nate's "stage 1" -- his was the large arc -- and some maturing for Hardison. Second season was Sophie's growth and Nate "stage 2", as well as some set up for Parker and Elliot, and a little more for Hardison. Season 3 promises to bring some resolution for Nate, show us the results of Sophie's growth, and -- potentially -- more exploration of Elliot.

At least, that's what I'm hoping for. Waiting, waiting, waiting!

Book Review

2010-05-29T00:03:00.002-04:00

Just finished today Nick Rennison's Sherlock Holmes: The Unauthorized Biography, which is a slightly tongue in cheek take on the famous detective that states he was in no way fictional. The author has done a fair bit of research on the political and historical goings on that the illustrious detective could have had a hand in and does a nice job of picking out supposed clues (obsfuscated, of course, by Dr. Watson) to determine what really went on.

It's a nice review of my favorite fictional detective's life and adventures, and was much more interesting to read than the biography I recently attempted on Conan Doyle (here relegated to literary agent for Watson). While revealing nothing of great surprise about the character and sticking fairly close to the canon/popular view of him while proclaiming not to, it was still an interesting game of speculation and "connect the dots".

I'm currently listening to the audio version of Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice, which I read several years ago and enjoyed while barely remembering a thing about it. It's such a fan fiction-y piece, complete with a Mary Sue and (eventually in the series) romantic entanglement with the detective. Despite this, it's very well written, logically constructed, backs itself up nicely with the canonical material, and is good fun. I was discussing with a friend that, as out of place and unlikely as the May-December romance is, it serves a good purpose in getting any questions about sex, propriety in the time setting, and romance tucked out of the way so the adventures can be gotten on with. Otherwise, those particular themes would have dangled like anvils around the neck of any story to come after the initial entry of the series. Further books in the series are much too good to let that stand in the way. My particular favorite is O! Jerusalem. I've just picked up last year's entry into the series (now that it is in paperback, although not in mass market...had to go with a trade, which will just mess up my shelves!) and now have to wait for this year's entry to go through its hardback cycle.

Back in Blue

2010-05-25T17:07:00.002-04:00

Bebe Bleu, my beloved Mazda 3, is back in the driveway, looking shiny and new-ish. The awful, terrible, violence inducing VW is back at the rental agency.

I will say that, after I figured out the head rest and got used to the braking and acceleration, I hated it a little less. This is not love, it's just less virulent hatred. The whole plastic-y, tight, tiny interior, the lack of any space for human legs in the back seats, and the amazing number of blind spots in a car with so much glass were simply staggering. It is not the car for me. I never want to see the inside of one again. I'm not all that jazzed to see the outside, either.

But my Mazda runs just fine. I have new seat covers on order and I need to vacuum the interior to go with the whole "clean and shiny" theme I have going there. but it feels so good to drive my own car. Also, my knee does not bump the steering column. It's all good.

How To Build Brand Hatred

2010-05-24T16:38:00.002-04:00

You've seen it -- I know you have -- the stupid "Punch Dub" campaign for Volkswagen. According to this, it's based on a kid's game where kids would "playfully" punch each other when they saw a VW Bug.

I think it's an excellent way to make people hate a particular car brand, unless they have severe masochistic inclinations. Seriously, if someone were to punch me because they saw a stupid car (which is exactly what kids would do because, let's face it, kids are not yet socialized nor have their brains developed completely, so they do idiotic things) I would be inclined to not only hate the person who hit me for no good reason, but the car that inspired the violence.

Talent -- I Haz It

2010-05-18T17:46:00.002-04:00

I just sneezed twice. Being the polite sort, even when there are only cats around (and not wanting to snot all over my keyboard and monitor) I put my hand up in front of my nose and mouth. For no particular reason, I put the back of my hand toward my face.

And on the second sneeze, I bit my own hand.

Wait, it gets better. I didn't take a hunk out of my hand or anything. My head rocked from the force of the sneeze and I caught a bit of skin on the back of my hand between an upper and a lower tooth, and the sneeze forced my jaw shut.

I now have a toothmark and a tiny, painful bruise welling up.

That's not something just ANYONE can manage, you know.

A Man with A Dream

2010-05-13T13:13:00.003-04:00

The inventor of this problem solving technology tells the world why he even thought this up.

I remain both boggled and fearful of what the future may bring.

Another Problem Solved

2010-05-10T12:55:00.002-04:00

The Better Marriage Blanket - Watch more Funny Videos

I wonder if it works for cats and dogs, too.

Truth, in Color

2010-05-10T08:49:00.002-04:00

And, sadly, I really think it does.

But It Seems So Real

2010-05-08T09:01:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine -- a clever and devious sort of friend -- has a new hobby.

Book of Mavro

I can't help but think "Mavro" is a variation on "maverick", that much maligned word from which all meaning was beaten during the 2008 US Presidential elections. That's sad, because I really prefer thinking of it as a fairly fun 1950s/60s western TV show about a gambler/con man. Either way, it is fitting.

And, just in case Mavro wants someone new to play with, I suggest he check out this goodie my buddy Scott found, if only for the incredibly humor caused by the complete lack of basic scientific knowledge and application of logic. As dumb as Mavro plays to scammers, I'm not sure even he can manage to be that dumb. But, it might be a worthy challenge.

Surrender

2010-05-05T11:23:00.003-04:00

I gave up on "The Man Who Wrote Sherlock Holmes", even though I was close to 200 pages in. Mostly, I gave up on it because it must go back to the library early -- The Husband wants to return all library books before he graduates, even though they are not due for another 3 weeks. So, there goes my planned reading on women in science fiction.

So, I may have to check it out elsewhere. I might. It was SORT of getting interesting, but it still had some big problems. For example, the author insisted on telling us every damn time A.C. Doyle played cricket, including the names of the opposing teams and often the score. I DO NOT CARE! It's nothing against cricket, really. I'd feel the same no matter what organized sport was involved. Tell me that Doyle played X sport and that he played it on and off for X years, and I know all I need. Tell me about the one or two incidents where something Very Interesting happened in association with a particular game, and that's all good. I find it hard to work up interest in the details of amateur sporting events that took place over 100 years ago.

So, there's that.

Another annoyance were the tiny, fleeting references to the Holmes stories as being derived or related to particular incidents, locations, people, or ideas. When the author actually got into explaining how X became a part of the Holmes world, I was interested. However, saying "Doyle used this name in his Holmes stories" is, again, a rank of detail filed under BORING. Seriously, I already know that authors often pull place names, character names, and even small details from the world and the people around them. This is not a big secret (if it is to you, you should get out more). I do not need a comprehensive list of every person, place, or thing Doyle crossed in his life that eventually turned up in a book. This is NOT INTERESTING, not even on a Trivial Pursuit level.

In short, the book could have benefited from a much more ruthless editor -- one with a whip as well as a red pen, perhaps.

Don't know what book I will pick up next. I have the next Stieg Larrson book on my e-Reader. I also have the pile of books on the shelves waiting for me. Since my Serious Summer Reading list is no longer available, I might just indulge in major amounts of Not Serious Reading.

Or I could pull down that bio on Edward R. Murrow...

It's White

2010-05-03T11:33:00.003-04:00

I picked up my rental car today, a car to tide me over while Bebe Bleu is in the shop having all that body work replaced.
The rental is a new model VW Beetle, all shiny and white.

So far, I hate it.

Lemme 'splain. It looks really cute. I'll give it cute. However, it and I have some serious differences of opinion. Let's start with that head rest. No matter how I adjust the seat, the headrest hits me where most headrests hit -- right at the point that forces my chin into my chest. I do not care to sit like this, and I especially do not care to drive like this. In fact, adjusting the seat promises to be a real adventure. I spent 15 minutes trying to get it correct and even then, I have to squeeze under the steering wheel (at least until I can adjust that thing). My mother was notorious for hunching over the steering wheel when she drove (one reason she hated to drive was because her back and shoulders hurt after about 20 minutes, but she never learned to sit back and relax in the seat). I'm sitting up straight and hunched over the wheel because I can't get the seat adjusted properly. I'll spend another 1/2 hour on it tomorrow.

The first time I touched the brakes, I almost put myself through the windshield. Let's just say they are tight and touchy. There's no smooth, gradual slowing down. The thing throws out a grappling hook and an anchor.

The acceleration is...hesitant. Yes, that gas pedal insists you make a commitment to going, and it will check after you press the pedal to make sure you REALLY want to go. No, really? You don't like this spot here, in the driveway, away from all the traffic? Can't we stay here and get ice cream or something? Do you REALLY want out there? Oh....all right.

Apparently, between the problems with the seat and the position of the headrests, at my seated height, the thing is FULL of blind spots. I'm a paranoid driver. I check in every direction before I move a car because, dammit, people come out of no where and just assume you will kindly go immaterial so they can drive through. I've yet to figure out how to de- and re-materialize, so I watch for those idiots. I can't see several points on this car, which just cranks up the paranoia.

I figure I can make it to the grocery store and Pak-mail in this car. I know that if I drive it a bit, I will get used to the brakes and the acceleration, and if I fiddle with all the buttons I will eventually reach a compromise with the seat. However, that won't solve the biggest problem I have -- pure claustrophobia. Everything is too close.

Let me clarify. I drive a Mazda 3. It's not a big car. In fact, it's a small car because I really prefer smaller, more nimble cars. The VW's interior feels TEENY compared to my Mazda . It's as if everything is too close to my face and my elbows. My nose is going to hit that rear view mirror, I just know it.

Two weeks. For two weeks I will be one of those White Cars that straggles out just long enough so you can't make the right hand turn or pull into a lane. I now understand what those people are going through.

I Need More Compasses

2010-04-29T11:14:00.004-04:00

I haven't known which direction I'm going for about two years now.

When I lived in Florida, I knew pretty much without thinking which way was North and which way was East. Even the fact that I-4 said it went east and west didn't obscure the fact (known to every Orlandoan) that it goes North and South in the middle of the state -- yes, it starts in Daytona on the East coast and eventually ends up in Tampa on the West coast, but it wants to go to Disney, too, and detours for a long while. Anyway, I knew what I meant, as did most of my friends, highway signs notwithstanding.

Anyway, I knew the directions. I knew that when I lived in Ocoee, my bedroom window faced West, and when I lived in Orlando it faced East. The house in Eustis faced South. I knew which way to look when I heard thunder -- storms nearly always came from the West and North. The Orlando International Airport was south of Orlando, and the Altamonte Mall was on the North side. See? I knew were I was. Even when I moved and lived in a different house, I knew which way was which.

I miss that.

The townhome we now own is an end unit and has its few windows on three sides. It faces east, the patio is on the west, and the single side window downstairs is on the north side. We live in Seneca, which is west of Clemson, which is south of Greenville and North of Atlanta.

I have to check maps to know this. I never feel like I am properly oriented. My internal compass insists that all of South Carolina is upside down and facing the wrong way. Seriously, in my mind, when I sit with my back to that downstairs window (which I do often because that's how the living room is oriented) I am sitting with my back to the South. That puts the West on my left hand, which moves Seneca further east. Two years now I've looked in the cardinal directions and recited the proper name for them, but at any given moment if I'm asked what direction I'm facing, I can't remember. I con sult maps constantly if I dare go anywhere. I memorize landmarks. I drive around and get lost, then try to find my way home again, usually a fool proof method of learning my way around.

I still don't know where anything is.

It doesn't help that most of South Carolina -- or, at least, the Upstate -- is arranged, not in the traditional more-or-less grid pattern familiar to Floridians, but as a series of adjacent and occasionally overlapping triangles. I don't know how many times we've gone to a particular location from a particular location on one road, and returned on another road. It's confusing. At first I accused The Husband of trying to deliberately keep me at home so that I wouldn't use expensive gas and possibly find expensive things to do.

Now I realize it's a state wide conspiracy.

Inivisble Monsters should be Pink and Blue

2010-04-28T18:48:00.002-04:00

The view out of my living room window is particularly lovely this year. I just rearranged the living room so I could take advantage of it. I can sit here and see all the roses, the wisteria, the azalea and rhododendron, the fuschia, the colombine, the bridal veil, and many of the herbs that survived the winter. I can see both the seed-bird feeder (which has regular visitors now) and the hummingbird feeder (as yet unvisited, but it's still a bit cool for them). The butterfly bushes are a little less visible and not yet blooming, but I should be able to see them when they finally make with the flowers.

I can also see the cheap, ugly, weathered-grey fence that marks the property line, the power pole that juts up in the midst of it, the recently killed-by-poison honeysuckle, and the back corner of the ugly little convenience store that is far too close to where I now live. Compromises, always.

Still no definitive word on a job at Clemson. Graduation is next week. The Husband's cap and gown hang on the back of the door (he didn't walk the first time, but this time he is). Mom-in-law will be here, so there are some attempts at housecleaning (which will get more frenzied as the actual date gets closer).

I feel the future moving around like the invisible monster in the old Jonny Quest show. It's looming around making noises, but I can't see it clearly at all. I wish I could throw paint at it so it would show up.

Endless Geeker

2010-04-26T13:02:00.002-04:00

The Husband was touring our Netflix account yesterday when he happened upon this. He started to stream it, then decided I needed to know about it. So, in geeky happiness, we curled up on the mini-couch and started streaming to my laptop.

I am enthused.

Ok, let me rephrase that. I (and The Husband) are giggly, happy, geeky crazed for this lovely little indie movie about something near and dear to our hearts -- gaming, and the people who game. He and I often bemoan the loss of our old gaming group and how difficult it is to find/form a new one here in the land of the too-cool college student. Our single semi-successful attempt was low on fun, as it is very hard to meld two old-timers into a group of young gamers, especially without the GM on your side (we were, in effect, the Joanna character, only with much less success).

I recognized people I know (and still love) in these film characters. I've lived those situations. I swear the costumes were lifted from the closets of dedicated Rennies, SCAdians, and con-goers. And the endless battle between cooperating to tell a story and players vs. game master is so familiar it isn't even funny, but then it is made funny here. Even better, the fact that this is a (very good, very well done) home made film just makes the whole thing perfect. If it had been a high budget, major production, it would not have worked. This, on the other hand, is filled right to the final second after the credits have rolled with all the things the geek-at-heart love so much.

Yes, we have the DVDs on order.

Celebrating the Post-It

2010-04-25T10:00:00.002-04:00

Anyone who knows me can attest -- I love me some office supplies. One of my very favorite office supplies is Post-it notes in all their various incarnations. And the wonderful Post-it is 30 years old now.

I have one very classy Post-it dispenser (that will one day grace a desk again) which holds both the standard Note and two colors of the Flags. I love me some flags. I have high lighters with built in flags that are indispensable when studying a book or editing a manuscript on-page (editing on the computer has its place, but for a first time, really heavy edit, paper, pen, and Post-its rule). I have huge Post-it pads and the little sticky tabs for labeling folders. I can't go through the local Staples without giving the Post-it display a once over for anything new and exciting.

I don't remember exactly when I discovered the wonder of the Post-it, but I suspect I knew about them by 1984. I don't recall having them in high school, but they were part of my college equipment. I discovered, too, that my cat, Precious, would stop laying on my books (spread across the bed, of course) and sit on a Post-it stuck to the floor. She also loved Post-its.

Book update

2010-04-23T10:49:00.002-04:00

I'm still trying to plow my way through the Arthur Conan Doyle biography. I'm not even 100 pages in and he's just reached his early 20s and his career as a physician. Honestly, I'm kinda bored. The biographer has that typical stodgy biographer voice, reciting fact after fact and pointing out where this or that influenced the Sherlock Holmes stories. Since the title of the book is "The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes", I figured there would be a lot of linkage to Doyle's personal history, but I'd really hoped the book would start with the Holmes stories and work out from there to reveal Doyle. That would have been different and potentially interesting.

But, no. Stodgy, droning biographer drones stodgily on. I'm giving it about 50 more pages to see if things pick up (since we've already covered all the Doyle ancestors and have gotten to the point just before his penning of the Holmes stories). Then I'll decide if I want to keep spending time in this droning book.

There's Always...

2010-04-21T09:24:00.003-04:00

...something new for me to bitch about.

I've moved into Allergies - Stage 2, which appears to be what originally triggered our suspicions that Something Is Wrong With Sherri. This morning, while not severely congested and with little actual sinus action, I am having that ol' tightness in my chest and trouble breathing.

Yay.

I'm on the point of completely closing up the house and turning on the A/C, despite the fact it is in the 50s outside and looks like it might rain again. Yesterday's rain washed a LOT of pollen out of the air -- I saw those yellow rings around the puddles outside. But there's always a new pollen blooming out there. I don't yet know the growth cycles of the various flora to which I am allergic so I can't guess which one it is this time, but I'm betting it's one of the few that also grows in Florida, since the breathing thing started there.

The runny nose, congestion, and general ick is kinda S.C. specific -- well, outside of a cold. Allergies are a little like having a cold without the pretty colors in your snot. I'm pretty sure that, were I to run into an opportunistic virus, I'd have some sinus-eating disease by now.

Anyway, the decongestant is swallowed and I'm preparing to clean the kitchen sink so I can do the dreaded, hated, and totally disgusting sinus irrigation thing. Self inflicted near-drowning for health. Why is it all the things one should do for one's health are painful, icky, or unpleasant in some way? Whose idea was this? Those people probably gets off on enemas. I don't want to meet any of them.

*sigh* I also need to get a new filter for the vacuum and a better filter for the A/C system. You know, M. Night Shyamalam could have made The Happening by skipping the weird, behavior changing plant spoors into super potent pollen and having everyone die of sneezing and congestion. Would have freaked people right out because it's SO REAL.

Tuesday Afternoon

2010-04-20T12:43:00.003-04:00

That's one of my favorite Moody Blues songs. I'm so dazed that it seems impossible that it actually is Tuesday afternoon already. My head, it is thoroughly mucked with.

Still in the throes of Allergies, although it is raining today and I'm holding out hope that will stick more pollen to the ground so I don't have to breathe it. I'm taking a Walgreen's generic with the bizarre name of "Wal-zyr-D". Seems to be working. It's still tricky to do any thinking or to try to concentrate on any particular task.

The Husband and I are mourning our late, lovely cat, LaGuz. I remember when I realized something about death. I was no more than 3 or 4 years old and my pet Parakeet, Robin, died. I've lost many pets and I'm familiar with it, but it never loses the sharpness. If I let myself live in fear of that pain, I'll never feel brave enough to love anyone or anything.

Weekend Summary in Bullet Points

2010-04-18T20:39:00.004-04:00

Good Things

Joezer coming to visit
The Husband made gooey brownies
Watched 4 episodes of Farscape -- I've never seen the show
Perfect weather
Walk around the Botanical Gardens

Bad Things

Car got smashed by a hit and run driver
LaGuz, our old lady cat, is very bad off and ~~we have decided to let her go~~ died Monday morning
Sick with allergies, constant headache, coughing, and runny nose
Missed a friend's birthday party because of said allergies

I'm most upset about our cat. Of course I am upset about her. There's no challenge quite equal to that of losing someone or something you love to death, except perhaps dying one's self. LaGuz is refusing food and water, even her favorite things. She can barely walk. It's time.

This World, It Is Odd

2010-04-17T18:28:00.003-04:00

The officer from the Highway Patrol handling our case just stopped by. The guy who hit our car hurt his leg pretty badly (we couldn't figure out how he could have gotten away without a scratch) and he panicked, drove to the hospital, and got himself patched up.

Here's the kicker. When he got home, he called and turned himself in. He admitted that he probably fell asleep on his way home from work and was going too fast. We have his insurance information.

Do you believe that? The hospital did not report is as a vehicle-related injury, so he COULD have gotten away with it. But he was decent and honest about it.

Sometimes I think this world isn't so bad. He lives around the corner from us. I kinda want to send him a get well card or something.

It Goes On

2010-04-17T13:40:00.005-04:00

The Husband was taking LaGuz to the vet this morning. She's still limping and he's worried (as am I). On the way there, not five minutes from the house, a large Harley overshot the curve, crossed the center line, creamed the side of my car, and kept on going.

He left behind a piece of his running boards, which is why we are sure it was a Harley. He trailed bits of my car yards along the road. Highway Patrol suspects he was either messed up on chemicals or driving on a suspended license, because otherwise -- what the hell? -- he would have stopped. They are looking for him, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, the entire driver's side of my car has been pretty nicely messed up. Side mirror is gone. Wheel covers are a loss. Front bumper has a hole. All four panels are crumpled. The car is drivable, but it ain't a happy thing.

LaGuz did not make it to the vet (short hours on Sat.)

Also -- $200 deductable on my insurance.

*sigh* Ok, that's all the drama I need for the week. It can stop now.

Another Not-So-Stellar Week

2010-04-16T20:28:00.002-04:00

Allergies are completely kicking my ass. I think I pulled a muscle in my chest sneezing. I've even run a fever, although there is no sign of infection. I feel like the Atlantic is trying to fill my head.

LaGuz, our Kitty of Perpetual Worry, is limping badly on her rear right leg. We don't know why. She's eating (as much as she ever eats), drinking water, and when she wants to go somewhere, she just gets up and goes, although it is so painful to watch her that we carry her around until we figure out what she wanted (Potty? Water? Food? A different place to lay?) We are both concerned that she's coming to the end of her life and we just aren't paying attention, but she still wants to eat treats, she still shows occasional interest in playing, she still wants to be pet and snuggled, and she enjoys looking out the window -- totally normal cat stuff. So...on we go. I have this dread of going to look for her one morning and finding a little feline corpse.

Still no word on the job, so we've done nothing to the house as yet. We talk about it and think about it, but until we know if we are staying or going, we can't act. The Husband is churning through his last few weeks of school, hovering in that limbo land -- knowing the school has him scheduled to teach two classes next fall but not having a contract, wondering how we will survive over the summer, attending department meetings like a member of the faculty without actually being a member -- it's crazy making because it could all go up in a puff of dreams in a second with the magic words "We can't offer you a contract" are said.

And what if the other two positions he's applied for don't come around either? He hasn't found a lot of other potential positions. They would all mean moving somewhere else, too.

I'm waiting for the NiQuil to kick in so I can breathe. As soon as I can breathe, I intend to pass out.

Guess What?

2010-04-13T20:36:00.001-04:00

We bought a house.

Now all we need are jobs.

Not Just Pollen

2010-04-12T19:44:00.004-04:00

Pollen is back up after last week's cleansing rain. I'm not sneezing -- I have drugs -- but I have a runny nose and that sloshy feeling in my head.

But it's still beautiful here.

The Good News

2010-04-09T09:04:00.002-04:00

The Husband successfully defended his thesis, so he graduates. Now he has one class (the hated Art Class, which just goes to show an inexplicable teacher who believes himself capable of teaching talent can completely shut a willing student out of the learning process) to complete and he is all graduated and stuff.

Right now he's in the slightly chillier north interviewing for another job he's not sure he really wants in a place we aren't sure we really want to live. He's still hoping the University will come up with the money to hire him there. Yes, it would mean another year of living in this too-small townhome, but since by next Monday we should own that, we can make changes here we couldn't in a rental (like TOWEL BARS! and COLOR ON THE WALLS!), that's not so terrible a prospect as it otherwise might have been.

But, we must accept the If bunnies that collapse into Fact as they come.

A Message

2010-04-06T23:43:00.004-04:00

I've heard this message for years, but never managed to make it my own. I think this may have planted the idea -- at long last -- in my head. I know words have power. I think it words and they create my reality. It's time to take control of my reality.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson

2010-04-05T19:04:00.002-04:00

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson

I tend to avoid books that get a lot of attention, but reading the blurb at the library made me pick this one up. It was on short term loan so I bought my own copy to finish it.

This is a compulsive read. The style might be bumpy for those used to the 1st person/ narrow focus 3rd person point of view common to most modern mysteries. We have a big cast of characters and we get peeks of various lengths into the minds of several, but mostly we stick with the two protagonists. Lizbath Salander is by far the most enigmatic and therefore the most interesting, but Mikael Blomvkvist is the one with whom we spend much of our time. I'm sure there are some rough spots in the translation, too, but they didn't get in my way.

Characters are a big hunk of this book, and they make the plot move along. Set in Sweden, it took me a bit of time to get used to the names and other differences. I didn't labor over that, though -- once I got into the swing of the narrative, I was involved in watching the pieces come together. One thing I noted was the amount of computer tech info used, which is pretty up-to-date now, but I imagine will be dated and "old" in a few years. Still, it's well done and, again, does not get in the way. It's accurate enough not to trigger any "ain't no way" reactions from me, which is all I need.

What I liked best was what I like in any good mystery -- several threads, lots of possibilities without any obvious red herrings, and a surprise in the "whodunit". Information is fed out regularly through the narrative and the use of "now he knew" to get you to turn the next page, while obvious, worked and only felt a little contrived. Most of the threads were knotted off at the end, except for some that dangle for the sequels and aren't essential to the mystery (but are great for character development).

This book also contains some very horrific scenes of violence, in particular about violence against women (and a few violent actions against animals), but the book isn't ABOUT that. The book also contains a bit in the way of revenge fantasies. If you trigger on such descriptions, you might want to avoid the book, or at least have someone who has read it tell you were those sections are so you can skip them or get a synopsis. They do not make up a big portion of the book, and they either are part of the mystery or give insight into the characters. I'm looking forward to plowing into the next books in this trilogy and I hope they are equal to the first book.

Yeah, The Universe Has My Chain

2010-04-05T13:38:00.001-04:00

News -- town house not being auctioned. Foreclosure forestalled. Closing date confirmed.

Also, the cat boxes (cleaned last night) suddenly contain MAJOR STINK. gah!

Is The Universe Jerking Me Around?

2010-04-05T09:54:00.002-04:00

Latest thing...I'm waiting with some anxiety to find out what happens with the house. I was fine until Saturday.

You see, Saturday a strange man showed up at our door (in a repeat of the event that started this whole mess) wanting to look at the townhouse because it was going to auction on Monday. He and his partner wanted to buy it, but (he assured us) they could certainly look at any offer we wanted to make...

Being as we have a contract and a closing date, you might guess we were, shall we say, nonplussed? No, nonplussed isn't right. We were pissed and panicked. The paperwork to delay the foreclosure was supposed to have been filed last week! What the hell? Who was selling it out from under us? When were we supposed to find out? What's going on?

After some initial panicking with attendant running around in circles, the man told us that he printed out his list of local foreclosures over a week ago. His information could be out of date. We made some calls and checked the county website that lists auction properties -- this one isn't on the list. But we just are NOT sure. The agent says that the foreclosure paperwork went in on time and all should be well, but he can't be certain until Monday.

The auction is today. Monday. Wee. So, sometime tomorrow an If Bunny will stop hopping and we will know if we own this place or if we should start packing up.

Despite that, we took down the greenhouse, converted the pieces into a set of window awnings, and cleaned up the patio so it is pleasant to sit there. The fountain tinkles and burbles outside the window. The breeze blows cool. The azalea and rhododendron bloom. Later today I will clean and fill the bird feeders and hang them up, and clean out the pots of the plants that didn't survive winter. Life has to go on, right?

And we are still waiting to find out where The Husband will get a job. Might be here. Might be elsewhere. If Bunnies still hop -- the Easter Bunny ain't got nothin' on 'em.

Things I Find

2010-03-29T10:26:00.002-04:00

Make Your Own Chocolate Bar

No, seriously. The place is in Germany, but they ship to the US. And they offer all KINDS of stuff to put in milk, white, or dark chocolate.

B&N has a new eBook lending system in beta. (scroll down and look on the right side of the list of features)

Ok, now that is interesting. It isn't restricted to books for the Nook, either. Not being able to lend eBooks has been one of the arguments against them. This system works kind of like a print book -- aka you can't read it while it's on loan.

Alexa Meade Paints People

I mean she paints people -- those are people with paint on them. Click on the pictures in her portfolio, then run your cursor over the pop up picture until the "next" button appears on the right so you can see different views. Coolest Thing!

I Can't Even Imagine How To Title This Post

2010-03-24T23:14:00.004-04:00

Sometimes great minds come up with solutions to problems you didn't realize could, should, or would be solved.

Case in point.

Discreet Odor Neutralizer Pads

I love the brand name.

And this.

Kush™ Bosom Sleep Support

It's a tit pillow. Never have I ever, ever considered needing a special pillow for my boobs. I haven't thought about it in any context whatsoever. I'm simply floored.

And it could only look more suggestive if it had a foreskin. I SAY NO!

Movie Joy

2010-03-24T21:53:00.002-04:00

B&N recently had a DVD sale and I succumbed because, really, we watch a LOT of movies around here, so new movies (or new old movies) are always needed. And, for cheap, I was tempted to get several of my favorite good-bad movies.

Oh, come on, you know what I mean. Movies that are so bad they swing around again and are good in a way never intended by the people who made them. And I have a real winner here.

Do you remember Red Sonja? If you were watching action/fantasy/sf movies in the 80s, you remember Red Sonja. Bridgette Neilsen and Arnold Schwartzenegger in what was easily the best cheesy sword-n-sorcery-n-babes in chainmail movies ever. There's NOTHING intelligent about this movie. The acting ranges from barely competent to outright laughable. The plot is thinner than a spaghetti noodle, and almost as limp. On the good side, the effects were fairly competent. There are a couple of images that actually had some emotional impact.

Don't let any of that spoil the ride, though. This is a movie to watch with friends. It's a movie you can make into a drinking game. It begs for snarky commentary.

Also in the "so bad it's good" category is The Shadow. This one is a little sexier (yes, Alec Baldwin wasn't always scary-looking) and the plot is smarter, but there's still a bit of cheese to spread on your cracker here.

I also picked up a few honestly good movies -- The Blues Brothers, Romeo Must Die, City on Fire. And I picked up a mediocre oldie that I love, Spencer's Mountain, which is good more for the actors who star in it and the scenery than for the plot. Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara -- what's not to love? And I have a wee little crush on James MacArthur in his pre "Dano" days.

Yay for movies :)

Books - Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films

2010-03-24T12:39:00.006-04:00

Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films: A Critical Analysis of 103 Features Released in the United States, 1950-1992

by Stuart Galbraith IV

I picked this one up while wandering the stacks at the Cooper (Clemson University) Library, and I took it home to read about the 20-odd Godzilla movies, among others.

The introduction essays to the book point out something I've learned myself over the years -- that the common conception of Japanese SF/F movies (of the 50s, 60s, and 70s especially) is of cheaply made schlock, kiddie movies, laughable and stupid films of men stomping miniature buildings while wearing rubber monster suits is both true and grossly false. Like the American movies that inspired them, these movies are also dealing with very real, very important fears and hopes, and represent how a culture looks at those fears and hopes via the venerable method of fantastic story-telling.

The book starts out with the classic Kurosawa film Rashomon before delving into the steadily murkier waters of giant monster movies I so love. Once we get into Godzilla (Gojira) country, I'm happy. The book has even changed my mind about one of the movies, Godzilla vs. Biollante (Biorante). In this one, our favorite radioactive not-a-saur goes up against -- wait for it -- a giant rosebush mutated with his own cells. Yes, this cracks me up whenever I think about it, Godzilla as hedgeclipper, but the essay points out small bits in the movie I missed, such as how this movie is actually rather dark and even a touch haunting and thoughtful. Sure, that's a big stretch for a rubber monster movie, but considering how moved I was when I saw the original, un-Americanised version of Gojira, and how really scary mid- and late-90s additions to the series are, I think I need to give this one another chance.

While often interesting in terms of history, "critical analysis" is, in my opinion, an overstatement of what the book contains. Each movie is presented with a plot summary, some facts about the actors and crew, notes about changes made to American versions, and comments about critical reception. The author touches on various themes in the movies -- few of which are obscure, as they were often delivered to the audience with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the kneecap -- but never delves far into the particular cultural or historical events taking place prior to or during the movie's development and production. Even more disappointing, the author makes no attempt to unpack any symbols or ideas that are peculiar to the Japanese and are obscure to an American viewer.

I've seen many of the Godzilla movies (and these movies are the major subject of the essays), and I've seen several of them multiple times. They brim with puzzling relationships, actions, ideas, and images that I'm certain make perfect sense to the Japanese but are mysterious to me (just as I know that many US films contain perfectly understandable cliches, tropes, symbols, and stereotypes that are strange and obscure to those outside my culture.) I hoped some of those might have been explained in a movie analysis, but they rarely, if ever, are.

Nevertheless, the essays are accessibly and entertainingly written. They contain a lot of facts about the movies, the directors and the production companies. Galbraith gives us a peek into a world more complex than most of us ever consider.

Spring Maddness

2010-03-23T17:22:00.002-04:00

The windows are open, the sun is shining, and there's a lovely breeze blowing (semi)warm through the house.

I have scrubbed kitchen cabinets and am awaiting the magic moment when I can wipe the Easy-Off out of the oven. Dammit, spring cannot make me clean the floors, though!

Dying,

2010-03-23T09:56:00.003-04:00

Every few weeks I get a little reality check about my own mortality. My hair grows out enough that my ever-increasing grey roots show and I must decide if I want to dye my hair again.

My hair has really gone grey the last few years, but not in an attractive way. No, I have the whole grizzled, salt-n-pepper look, my natural chestnut shade either fading to a steely color or darkening closer to black. I don't find this change very charming. It's not that I protest the greying of my hair -- that stared when I was 17 and I'm sort of used to the idea. It's how UGLY the particular grey I'm getting looks. It's not white. It's not silver. It's really, really grey, like white sheets washed in dirty water.

It's also sprinkled in weird patches. I started greying at the crown of my head. It's just now reached my temples with little streaks. It hasn't quite made paths on the back or sides. That just looks weird. It's almost like someone dribbled bleach on my hair.

So, I'm in the middle of my debate right now. I have a box of hair color sitting by my bathroom sink. Dying my hair is some work, because I have a lot of hair. It's now officially down to my butt and has to be pulled free of any waist band. Yeah, it needs a serious trim, too. So, it's a pain to do it. Am I bowing to societal pressure to stay young looking? Is it so deep in my psyche that I can't overcome or resist? Or is it just my personal aesthetic that says my hair looks ugly with its scattered dirty grey?

Seriously, every time I wait and wait until I have a good inch or two of roots to see if either the grey has increased to overcome the dark, or has lightened somehow to look less dingy. The increase I see, the color change I don't. And I debate using those chemicals on my hair. Should I stop now? Should I just quit messing and do it regularly? Maybe I'll follow my mother's lead and dye my hair until I turn 50, never letting anyone know about my grey. Of course, my mom's grey came in at the temples and was pure white. Dad, on the other hand, epitomized "grizzled". Guess who I'm taking after?

Doin' Business

2010-03-22T13:35:00.003-04:00

The Etsy Store is up and running.

Magpie and Jay

It's taking a bit of time to enter all the inventory. I have to hunt the storage unit to see where my big box of boxes went.

There is apparently interesting weather stirring. My head is thinking about popping open.

Music Goes Round and Round

2010-03-20T00:13:00.002-04:00

New computer means making sure I have all my happy CDs turned into MP3s. I am so glad I am old fashioned enough to prefer CDs. I've lost files often enough, or had to make emergency back ups and not gotten it all, that I really like that whole "more or less permanent" media feeling.

As I've combed my collection to fill holes, I find myself rediscovering music I haven't listened to in years -- you know, the way old people do? I'm an old people now, or at least working my way toward it. And I have music I haven't heard in 10 years or more.

For instance, I was once a huge Dire Straits fan. Now, Dire Straights hasn't made an album in the studio since 1991, and I don't have them all (I'm missing one studio album and all the live and compilations). At some point after Brothers in Arms I lost interest. The same goes for all my Talking Heads, Bare Naked Ladies, Laurie Anderson...oh, there are just so many. Would you pick me as a King Crimson or Emerson, Lake and Palmer fan? I got CDs that demonstrate it.

We have a few hundred CDs. Lots of them are The Husband's yoga and exercise CDs -- once upon a time he bought anything that sounded like it might activate an alpha wave. We have a lot of Disney soundtracks (just got a few from the Pixar movies, still want The Incredibles.) I have a few big band collections, and a lot of stuff I ripped while at the Mother-in-Law's house.

Among the more odd bits are CDs from my Ren Faire days -- Baltimore Consort, in particular, and New World Renaissance Band, Clannad and Enya and The Chieftains. I don't listen to it anymore. In fact, listening to the Celtic/Traditional songs that were practically all I heard for so many years can bring me to tears. It's too solidly attached to a particular time and place in the past, a time and place far gone now.

For that matter, as much as I used to live and die for Kate Bush, now I rarely pull up a song (her last album didn't do much more me). Instead, I'm all about Imogen Heap and Tori Amos. Like a lot of people, my music life was pretty much my teens and twenties, which means a lot of late 70s/80s music (and most of that is on LPs). I used to love such questionable music as Foreigner and Styx (well, early Styx isn't questionable). I think I played Queen's Bohemiam Rhapsody and Kansas's Point of Know Return until the LPs wore out.

However, some music remains with me. I can listen to Steely Dan/Donald Fagan all the time. I get moods for Sting/The Police from time to time. I can happily dig into Bobby McFerrin for a few hours. I'm not tired of Thievery Corporation or Chemical Brothers yet.

And I still -- occasionally -- tune in to something new. Maybe.

Further Progress

2010-03-17T11:18:00.002-04:00

I made another thing yesterday.

Also -- SPRING!

2010-03-17T10:34:00.003-04:00

I finally finished reading The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice Weaver Flaherty.

I started the book last summer as part of my attempt to get over my own blocked writing. It took me a long time to read not because the book is difficult or boring. It is neither of those things. However, it is a book packed to bursting with ideas that require digesting. A doctor and scientist goes through her own mental illness, which causes changes in her relationship to writing. That leads her to explore how our brains allow us to write (or keep us from writing), among other things. This is a small book -- 307 pages, including extensive notes and index -- but is is incredibly readable. It is funny, poignant, insightful, and very, very quotable.

I intend to read the book again, this time with a highlighter, and to take notes. There's too much in this book for one reading, and all of it interests me.

I also added Don Quixote to my reading list. I've had the book on my shelf since I picked it up last year. Ambitious? Yeah. It's one of those books that sits on a lot of "good intention" lists.

I Made a Thing!

2010-03-16T13:50:00.003-04:00

I decided this week to get back into making jewelry. So, I made a Thing.

.It takes a lot of stuff to make a thing

Marking out the wire.
Fitting the stone to the frame (it's a moonstone cabochon)

Finishing up.

And here's the finished product. Whadaya think?

I am toying with the idea of making a strand for it. And I'm thinking about what to put in that Etsy store.

Another Interesting Book

2010-03-15T21:12:00.002-04:00

My list of books to read grows always.

CHINA GIRL
Burying Bones: Pearl Buck's Life in China
By Hilary Spurling

Review by Elaine Showalter

How does a woman overcome the suffocating messages of her culture to become an artist? In Burying the Bones, Hilary Spurling unearths the creative roots of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Pearl Buck (1892-1973). Spurling points out that, although Buck's most famous novel, The Good Earth, is still in print, the author is 'virtually forgotten. She has no place in feminist mythology, and her novels have been effectively eliminated from the American literary map.' Boldly conceived and magnificently written, Burying the Bones should repair Buck's literary fortunes and restore her to the pantheon of feminist heroines.

I've not read any Pearl Buck, although I have (I think) a copy of The Good Earth in my pile of good intentions.

The Future of Books

2010-03-09T10:55:00.006-05:00

Don't Believe the E-book Skeptics says Nathan Bransford, agent extraordinaire (well, at least, blogging and twittering). EBooks may not be that big a thrill now, but they will only get better. Being an ebook aficionado myself, I like to believe that. Right now, I like eBooks for their portability and ease. It's wonderful to travel somewhere carrying my ebook in its case, which is about the size of a medium hardback, but lighter, and know I have some 80 books to chose from inside. I look forward to the newer developments and the ability to one day be able to update my ebook reader with the same ease I update my MP3 player.

I can't deny there are downsides to current ebooks. They aren't very pretty, and I can't find every book I want in a digital format. I have worries about ebook sellers having more control over my books than I do. Issues with Digital Rights Management (DRM) concern me.

However, part of me refuses to give up my printed paper books. Part of that is I'm always aware that ebooks are device dependent, and devices are notorious for not working when you want them to work. They run out of power and can't be recharged. They get dropped or bumped or spilled on and their delicate inner workings cease to function. They become outdated (rather quickly) and have to be replaced with new technology. They can require specific formats of books to work. The books they contain are also limited in that I cannot share them with others easily.

There is also the beauty of books themselves, on several levels, and that's what
Jonathan Jones reminds us when he says Print is beauty bound – even in a digital age.

I get a very specific satisfaction from a book as a physical object. I can look at it, touch it, hold it. I appreciate the feel of good paper and binding. Some books are marvelous for their sheer size and presence -- something difficult for any electronic book to replicate. I imagine books as threads through time. A specific book I own can pass into other hands and other lives. I might make notes in it and start a conversation with those who read after me, even commenting on notes made by someone who had the book before me. I don't see those particular qualities of books ever becoming part of an ebook.