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| Look what the Book Elves left on my porch today!  You can get yours here.Also, some other good news today, which I will share when I can. | |
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| Anything else I had to say about the Criminal Minds season finale is subsumed in ZOMG Reid knitted it himself!
He makes a pretty good Four.
Also, I'm glad they did the Emily thing the way they did the Emily thing; it's good to see Will but he should have known better; I'm pretty sure that UNSUB plan fails on usual the Evil Mastermind overclever subroutine of relying on a coincidence they could not have known about in advance; I bet that's Kevin's cousin; Penelope needs a Stern Talking To of the variety she just gave Morgan a few weeks back; I'm still the only person in this fandom who likes Strauss, but dammit I still like Strauss; and FASTER JJ KILL KILL!
Discussion in comments of parallels between JJ in Hit/Run and Hotch in 100 is open for business. | |
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| The following contains discussion of fitness, health, and weight issues. If that is triggery for you, please page down now!
Ob. Disclaimer: I absolutely support anyone's right to live in their body as they choose, at any size they find comfortable. This is entirely about me, and my efforts to reclaim my health and strength after half a decade of abusing and neglecting my poor body.
Well, I'm wearing a pair of jeans that, based on the brand and cut, must date back to 1987 or so. They're Chic, size 14 tall, and in high school they would have been baggy on me. Now, they fit loosely except for the waist, which is a bit snug--but then, that happened when I was sixteen, too, though the jeans were size 11 then. This is because eighties jeans were cut to fit absolutely nobody except a young Brooke Shields. They do, however, still make my ass look fantastic, a characteristic generally not shared by modern lower-rise jeans, which make nobody's ass look good. Not mine, not yours. Possibly Jessica Simpson's. But they do let one bend at the middle without pinching one's ribcage on the waistband, which I suppose is a win. I guess that means I am officially back in my high school clothes, generously speaking. As I also have a black bat-winged sheath dress from Chico's that I loved in high school, and have been hanging on to for sentimental reasons. I might dust it off for an eighties party later this year. If only I had some slouchy elf boots. I suspect I will save the jeans for eighties nights at goth clubs. I think I still have one pair of slouchy socks hoarded away somewhere... ;-) This is all prelude to saying that I'm hovering somewhere around 187, and have been for about a month now with the usual ups and downs--but I'm obviously building muscle, because I seem to be shrinking. At one point a month or so ago I noticed I had obliques, there under the slack middle-aged tummy. This week, I noticed the top set of ab muscles. Also, my thighs are no longer getting in my way during most of yoga--that stopped after ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7) scott_lynch and I walked somewhere around 40 miles in three days of NYC. I can do Hero's Pose and Lightning Pose without cheating now, and my body doesn't actually interfere with my ability to do a lunge anymore. It's still getting in the way of twists, and my biceps interfere with Eagle Pose, but that's not new. I'm a solid girl. I can also wear most of my beloved old corp-goth work clothes again, justifying my hoarding tendencies. Two suits are a bit tight, but they were always on the skinny end of the rack. I had to move the buttons back on a green suit I love, that I had expanded a bit when I was gaining weight. It's a size 12. I am facing the surprising possibility of shrinking out of my wardrobe again. In any case, look for a much better-dressed Bear at conventions this summer, since I love these clothes and don't have a dayjob to wear them to anymore. Curiously, I'm about 17 pounds heavier than the last time I fit in these clothes, which tells us about the power of rock-climbing. Muscle is heavy! My current weight goal is somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 pounds. Which should make the same size, roughly, as when I was in high school and weighed 150-ish. I was on track and field then, and at my most muscular before now, but I'm pretty sure my upper body now dwarfs what I had then. (Shoulders! They're awesome!) Also, um. Boobs. Some cup sizes have come to roost since then. Ahem. So I'm less than thirty pounds from my goal, which is very pleasant. My body is behaving as it should; everything physical is so much easier than it was in 2004, when I couldn't walk a half-mile without agonizing pain (now I can run five 12-minute miles back to back); and I'm enjoying the reduction in back and joint pain and the ability to sleep comfortably on my side or back again without feeling like my own belly is crushing me. I seem to be part of a coterie of SFF writers and fans on the "get healthy the old-fashioned way; move more and eat less crap" bandwagon, which pleases me. (personally, I have been following the efforts of Scalzi, Doctorow, Lynch, Sykes, Downum, Silverstein, Connolly, Buckell, and I'm sure a few others whose names are eluding me because it's time for lunch.) It pleases me because I'd like to see a lot of these people around for a damned long time. I'm also noticing changes in appetite, which tell me my body is adapting to its new lower caloric demands. Two whole pieces of fruit is too much to eat with lunch now; I am contented with half of each (plus some protein and vegetables and brown carbs, of course). (I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, about ten servings most days; I've finally figured out how to reach my RDA minimum of potassium, and it goes like this: a cup of fortified cereal in the morning (Special K protein plus, since I can't find Total Protein around here anymore), half an orange, a small banana, eight ounces of green coconut water, and half a sweet potato. Some strawberries or mango don't hurt either, or some beans.)) For those who are curious about how I did it (my doctor was, and she laughed out loud when I said, "Counting calories, restricting sweets and saturated fat, and getting off my ass!" She then replied, "So doing all the boring shit we tell people to do, huh?"), here's my plan, fondly called The Discipline: It's a refined version of the Hacker Diet, which relies on good old thermodynamics to make things happen. I'm keeping my caloric intake around 1700-1900 calories a day, exercising for about an hour a day on average, drinking lots of water and not too much caffeine, avoiding refined carbs (mostly: I get 100-200 calories of "treat" a day, which could be a glass of wine or a beer, or a brownie, or... PRO TIP: Guinness is lower in calories than most "lite" beers, and tastes a fuckload better. Now you know.), eating roughly twice as many vegetables as the FDA suggests, and trying to keep my protein intake around 20% and my fat intake around 25%--and also trying to keep my protein intake above 100g a day without too much reliance on red meat, or meat at all. (I do use protein supplements--whey and soy, mostly.) I eat a lot of high-protein dairy (skyr!) and I try to limit myself to 100-200 calories a day from refined sugar, which is roughly 20-40 grams. Or, well, half a can of non-diet Coke. Managing sodium intake is a killer. But I'm working on it. Sleeping eight hours a night also pisses me off, but it seems to be necessary. I got six last night, and noticed the difference on my run this morning--I kept having to walk up hills I normally cruise up in second or third gear. I also exercise six days a week--usually two days of climbing (with a little yoga); three days of running; one day of yoga. I also try to get in some vigorous outdoor time when possible--kayaking, hiking, walking the dog. Walking to the store. Picking up my jump rope for five minutes on an otherwise sedentary day. As I said, one of the most successful weeks of the Discipline recently was when Scott and I were on Manhattan, eating every goddamned thing in sight. But we also made a point of walking two-thirds the length of the island at least once (Riverside to Chinatown, with side trips), and we walked as much as time permitted, otherwise. I know it sounds like my fitness routine is crushing, and seven or eight years ago, it would have crushed me. (Hell, I had the pleasant experience recently of putting in a Rodney Yee video that, in 2006, I could do maybe fifteen minutes of, and having the full hour workout be only just pleasantly challenging.) But remember, when I started out, I weighed 285-290 pounds and could not walk a half mile. One good habit builds on another, it turns out--and I find myself drinking more green and herbal tea because black tea doesn't taste good after the first mug, and I find myself not hungry for seconds unless the food is exceptionally good, and even then not always. There's not actually a lot of privation; I just want more of what's healthy for me. It's okay if I have a measured ounce of cheese on my beans and rice, instead of as much as I can fit in the bowl. It still tastes just as good! Better, since it's as easy to afford small quantities of really delicious food as it is large quantities of sort of icky food. And far more satisfying. Who knew? Which is so different from all my old pathological ways of dealing with food and drink that it's a little croggling. Most of this, of course, is just basic health maintenance stuff, and not too hard once you get the hang of it. And it's not like I don't give myself days off: I will in fact have two or three drinks on a night out, for example. I'm fully planning on onion rings after archery tonight when I get dinner with the Thursday Night Shooters. Just... not too damned often. And budget for it. It's not the extremes that set one's level of health; it's the baseline. | |
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| My stuff is packed (puts comb in pocket) and in an hour or so I'm taking the train southwards. I'm going to DC for the Nebulas. I'll see some of you there, or around DC -- in addition to the Nebulas I have plans for museums, a tea party, and a playreading. I'm looking forward to it. | |
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| The first volume of Shadow Unit is now available as a proper paper book with a gorgeous Kyle Cassidy cover. It will be available through Amazon within a week, and will slowly filter its way through the rest of the online distribution system.  This volume contains the first half of Season 1. Volume 2 should be available in about a month, with other volumes to follow. And of course, Shadow Unit in its entirety is available for free online, and as a modestly priced ebook through the usual sources. The story began in 2007, and will end in 2013. It's not too late to discover one of the coolest collaborative serials in the genre internets! | |
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| http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/stuff.html We are surrounded by stuff. Physical property, objects we use. Even the poorest of us have some basic stuff: footwear, clothing. Having possessions is one of the defining characteristics of being human—with the questionable exception of a few animal species that have been observed using ad-hoc tools in the wild, nothing else owns anything (and even the tools used by chimpanzees or crows appear to be spur-of-the-moment constructions, abandoned after their immediate use rather than retained for their future potential).
But where do our priorities lie? I am thinking that there are at least two categories: stuff we pay too little attention to, and stuff we prize too highly. And sometimes there are types of stuff that fall to a greater or lesser extent into both sets ... Stuff we pay too little attention to:
Our beds. (Bruce Sterling flagged this up in a memorable essay a couple of years ago.) You spend roughly a third of our lives sleeping. Your bed is therefore the single piece of furniture you use the most. Nevertheless, because we're unconscious most of the time while we use them, we tend to discount their importance. It's not just a matter of comfort: poor or interrupted sleep is associated with a variety of medical problems, some of them quite serious. (It doesn't get much more serious than tail-ending a truck on your motorway commute to work because you didn't sleep well, does it?) If you're going to spend on household furniture, it should rationally make sense to spend more on your bed and bedding than on everything in your living room put together, 42" 3D LCD TV set included.
Our chairs. I'm not sure I buy into the argument that our chairs are killing us: what's doing the killing is our working practices, which promote long periods of immobility while seated in cramped or poor conditions. But our chairs certainly aren't helping, and if you use one at work, it's the second piece of furniture you use most of the time. Yet all too often office supply departments buy work chairs strictly on price rather than on ergonomics or fitness for purpose. (Memo to self: investigate new office chairs.)
Stuff we pay too much attention to:
Wrist watches. Once upon a time—not so long ago—the capacity to accurately time was an expensive instrumentation problem. A town or village might have a central clock, in a tower; setting it and keeping it running accurately was a technical task. It became critical for trans-oceanic navigation (and if you want to know why and don't know, you could do worse than read this book), leading up to the invention of the portable chronometer in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; for a long period, portable nautical chronometers were used (frequently being carried by hand) to copy time callibration from the Greenwich observatory to other master clocks around London. By the mid-19th century the vast expansion of railway networks made accurate time-keeping a matter of strategic military importance; and the increased availability of horological skills bought the compact pocket-watch, and then the wrist-watch, within the budget of every gentleman.
But today we're surrounded by clocks—fast, accurate, ubiquitous. Clocks are literally everywhere, inside every computer, cellphone, GPS unit. Young folks today, in many cases, don't wear (have never worn) a wrist-watch, because they're never without a pocket phone. The wrist watch is, in fact, comprehensively obsolete.
Despite its obsolescence, the wrist watch has been reincarnated as an article of jewellery. They're everywhere in the shops around us, not merely accurate quartz-controlled watches (or devices controlled by radio-broadcast time signals) but archaic geared analog devices. The user interface—digits or traditional clock-face—is increasingly embelished, while usability takes a back seat to fashion. At the high end, one-of-a-kind individual works by master horologists sell for six-digit prices.
I'm not mocking the cult of the wrist watch as jewellery (I own a couple myself) but I am, nevertheless, puzzled, if not baffled, at the way an obsolete technological niche has been repurposed as a luxury item.
But.
All of this is leading up to me asking a simple question.
Given the technologies we can foresee arriving within the next decade, and the stuff that's already here, let's look forward 30 years. What everyday items in 30 years time will we not be paying enough attention to? Or continuing to use despite their obsolescence, for purposes radically at odds with their original role?
(My money is on: smartphones, in both categories. Maybe laptops in the former. And rooftop solar panels as a social signaling mechanism about the degree to which their owners are concerned for the environment. Bicycles ...? Toilets ...?) | |
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| I just had one of those labor-saving strokes of genius that I need to share with the world. Which is to say, the easiest method ever in the history of popovers.
Here is my basic popover recipe:
2 tablespoons solid fat (butter or animal fat (duck fat, mmm) or solid shortening)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (250 ml) whole milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup (140 g) all purpose or white whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
This tactic assumes you own a wand blender and a wide-mouthed quart Mason jar and a microwave. If not, just make the popovers the way you normally would--or if you are missing the wand blender but have a normal blender, you can melt the butter in a different container and use the normal blender.
About an hour or two before dinner, take your Mason jar. Put the butter/whatever in it. Put it in the microwave and melt it. (If you are making Yorkshire pud and are waiting for the roast to be finished before you add the fat, skip this step for now, and stir the fat in before you bake the popovers.)
Add the milk, eggs, salt, and sugar to the butter in the Mason jar (or blender)(or just put them in the blender if you are adding the fat later). Do not put the eggs directly into the hot butter before diluting it with the milk. Otherwise you will have scrambled eggs, which are nice, but not popovers.
Whiz them all up with the wand blender.
Add the flour and the wheat gluten.
Whiz that too, until you have a nice smooth batter.
Let the batter sit on the counter until dinner is nearly ready. If you are roasting something at 400 degrees, you're good; otherwise preheat your oven to 400 (F). (200 C)
Liberally grease 9 cups of a 12-cup muffin tin, or if you are making Yorkshire pud, drizzle a little of the fat from the roast into the bottom of the cups. If you have one of the giant-sized six muffin muffin tins, then you will have bigger popovers and they need to bake a little longer.
Using silicon cups for this results in popovers without stumps or a lot of loft, as they just levitate themselves out of the super-slick cups entirely. They still taste good!
If you are using fat from the roast you're making, add it now and stir it in.
Divide the popover batter between the nine greased cups. You can just pour it from the blender or the Mason Jar.
Stick in oven. Do not peek! If you open the door before they are set, they won't rise properly.
Bake for 35 minutes or until deep mahogany brown.
Pull pan from oven. Tilt popovers in cups, or remove them to a rack or basket. Pierce each one with a bamboo skewer. (careful of the steam!) The purpose of these two procedures is to (a) prevent them from getting soggy and (b) prevent them from collapsing.
Eat.
However you meant to eat them. Do not plan on leftovers.
Wash your one. dirty. dish. Oh, and the wand blender, sure. And the muffin tin. But that was inevitable.
ETA: Nota Bene
For even more loft in your popovers, preheat the muffin tin with the grease in it in the 400-degree oven for a few minutes before pouring the batter in. This is a bit tricky, though, and can be skipped. | |
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| Diese Bücher stammen aus einem Nichtraucherhaushalt und sind alle in einem sehr guten Zustand.
Zahlbar per Überweisung, Buchpreis plus Porto nach Gewicht. Preis verhandelbar.
Linea diretta neu 1a
Linea diretta neu 1b
Langenscheidt Verbtabelle Latein
Langenscheidt Verbtabelle Italienisch
Langenscheidt Verbtabelle Französisch
Latinum Ausgabe B
Kanji und Kana Japanisch Langenscheidt
Praktisches Lehrbuch Japanisch 1 Langenscheidt | |
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| - Tags:science!
- Laune:curious
 - Musik:Morning Edition
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| So I'm finally catching up on the last three episodes of Criminal Minds. And damn, I really like "The Company." | |
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| http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/this-is-what-the-future-of-the.html Lots of meaty analysis from Paul Mason, economics editor at BBC's Newsnight, on the nature and origins of SYRIZA, the Greek leftist bloc that is opposed to German-imposed austerity measures (as opposed to PASOK, the main centre-left party, which is reluctantly going along with things).
SYRIZA is an umbrella organization with a bewildering, mangrove-like array of tap-roots. It's also quite possible that there'll be a new election in Greece next month—if the current attempt to form an emergency government of national unity, being brokered by President Karolos Papoulias, fails—and SYRIZA will get to form the next government.
As Mason notes: the resulting government may, in effect, be little more than a left-social democratic government, despite its symbology and the radicalism of some of its voters. By forcing the mainstream parties into positions where they could not express the will of the majority of centrist voters, the EU may end up destroying the Greek party system as it has been shaped since 1974.
Meanwhile, I note with interest that Greece has the highest per-capita military budget in the EU, the military budget has barely been touched by the austerity measures devastating the rest of the Greek economy, that Greece imports most of its weapons from Germany and France (generously funded by German and French bank loans), and that the military, within living memory, have taken an over-active role in Greek political life. (One hopes that the fate of the junta will act as a salutory warning to any would-be successors.) | |
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| So, basically, all I want out of a toothbrush is that it will clean my teeth. I have no brand loyalty, I don't care about fancy bristles or contours, I just want a goddamn toothbrush so my teeth don't rot and fall out of my head. Okay? I went to brush my teeth this morning and noticed that my toothbrush looked like a dandelion clock. Aha! says I. The last time I was at Walgreens, I thought to purchase a new toothbrush. So I fished it out of the bag where it was reposing with the cough drops . . . and discovered that the manufacturer felt it necessary to package the toothbrush so impregnably that it required scissors to get at it. No, really, they say so themselves: CUT HERE. And you can scrabble at the package with your fingernails as much as you want--you ain't getting in. I found a pair of scissors and cut the package open. WIKTORY! THE TOOTHBRUSH IS MINE! Threw the package away, turned toward the sink, and thought, Why am I suddenly in a cloud of artificial mint?I looked suspiciously at the toothbrush. It was all blue and green and contours! and fancy bristles! because you can't buy a toothbrush at Walgreens that isn't, and I just went for the cheapest one that wasn't some eye-wateringly awful color because I really do have better things to do with my time than comparison-shop the toothbrushes. And, yes, it smelled of artificial mint. Strongly of artificial mint. I turned back to the wastebasket and fished out the package. And here I quote, because I could not possibly make this up: SCOPE® Scented Handle
Enhances brushing
experience through
release of fresh Scope®
scent from the handle. o.O said I. And also O.o But I needed to brush my teeth and the goddamn toothbrush was already in my hand. I've never thought particularly about my brushing experience before, but I have to tell you that it is not in the least enhanced by the release of Scope® scent from the handle of my toothbrush. Frankly, I feel disturbed. And weirdly disenfranchised from my own dental hygiene. And like a tiny army has invaded my head wielding weapons soaked in artificial mint. O.o I say. And also o.O But this is apparently what you get if you don't stand in the aisle of Walgreens and read the packaging of the toothbrushes. Here, mintily, endeth the lesson. | |
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|  For centuries, the wampyr has drifted from one place to another. From one life to another. It's 1962, and he's returned to New Amsterdam for the first time since he fled it on pain of death some sixty years before. On the eve of social revolution, on the cusp of a new way of life, he's nevertheless surrounded by inescapable reminders of who he used to be.
For a thousand years, he's chosen to change rather than to die. Now, at last, he faces a different future....
The capstone novella to the New Amsterdam sequence, ad eternum* will be shipping soon. It can be preordered here!
The limited edition comes with a 9,000 words chapbook, "Underground," which concerns the adventures of Mary in Paris between New Amsterdam and "Twilight."
Sf Signal has a review up. It's spoilery, and there's one factual error, which is probably my fault for being insufficiently clear for new readers. But:
"...top notch: stylish without being hard to consume, descriptive without being padded, and conducive to engrossing the reader into this world."
WIKTORY!!!
*or Ad Aeternum, if you prefer. In retrospect, the lowercase/bad-Mediaeval-Latin thing doesn't work as well as I'd hoped. Oh well. I'll just leave this here as an apology for anybody who is irritated.
Makes it easier to google....
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| http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2012/05/10/you-dont-have-to-read-my-books/ http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=9622 To my friends, acquaintances & family: you do not have to read my books! Truly. My being a writer is not meant to oppress you in any way! Read what you want or don’t want. Forget I write books at all! Be free!
Okay, scratch that, family, you do have to! But everyone else is in the clear.
Reading an entire book is a big time commitment. And the older you get the more painfully aware you become that you are not going to be able to read all the books you want to before you die. It’s a very long time since I finished a book I wasn’t enjoying. If it’s not grabbing me within a page or two then we are done.1
It’s also a long time since I’ve picked up a book in a genre that doesn’t interest me. I have loads of friends with zero interest in YA. That’s cool. I’ve known people who write genres I have zero interest in—cosy mysteries—and I don’t read them. I would never in a million years expect any of you2 to read one of my books because you felt you had to on account out of our friendship/acquaintanceship3. Trust me, I wouldn’t read a book of yours unless I thought I’d like it. Feel free to treat mine likewise.
When I first started meeting writers I would always make an effort to read their books. If I liked them, I mean. But, well, here’s the awkward thing. A few of those writers,4 who I adored?
I hated their books.
And then there’s this whole awkwardness as you try to reconcile their awesomeness with the dreadfulness of their book and you can’t and you think about them differently than you did and it would never have happened if you hadn’t been so stupid as to read their book in the first place.
On the other hand, if you read them and they’re a total genius you find yourself staring at said writer as they tell a deeply stupid fart joke5 and wondering if they really did write those books. Reconciling the genius with the regular everyday person is also odd. Why do they not have a genius radiance to them?
Just because I am a writer does not mean you have to read my writing. I have friends who are lawyers who I do not hire, editors and agents who neither edit nor agent for me. I have friends in all sorts of different sectors with whom I rarely have conversations about their working lives and vice versa.
Yes, writing’s a big part of my life. But it’s not the only part and it’s not all I am. You don’t need to read my books to hold a conversation with me. I can talk about cooking, gardening, a multitude of sports, I’m well-versed in politics in at least two countries and have a decent grasp of many other topics—especially fashion and what you should and should not be wearing. Honestly, there are very few things I don’t have an opinion on. I even enjoy talking about the weather.6
And, honestly, talking about my books is just about the last thing in the world I want to do. I mean, I’m thrilled that there are people who have stuff to say about books I wrote. That’s incredible.7 But by the time my books are published I’ve already talked about them a billion times with Scott and Jill (my agent) and with their editor and I’ve done interviews about them and told school kids and book store owners and librarians about them. Even though all of that can be incredibly enjoyable I do wind up being completely over my own books. I’d much rather talk about someone else’s books. Like Courtney Milan’s say. I love talking about the subversive things she does with romance.
Many of my non-writer friends feel the same way. When they’re socialising they don’t want to relive their work day. They don’t want to talk about accounting or waiting tables or banking or gardening or whatever else it is they do to make money. They want to forget about it, speak of other things, gossip, and relax.
On top of that there’s the whole homework thing. “I bought your book!” Someone will tell me and then every time I see them after that they’ll say, “Still haven’t read it yet. But I’ll get to it. Sorry! I really hoped to get to it before now.” I keep expecting them to say: “I’m so sorry but my dog ate your book. Otherwise I would have totally read it by now!”
Gah! You don’t have to read it. No one’s going to test you on it. Certainly not me. If you really feel you must read something of mine: there’s this here blog. Some of the entries are way short. Or how about my twitter feed? Even shorter.
In conclusion: don’t even think about wearing this outfit.
The end.
- Okay, often I don’t get past the first paragraph. I know. I’m terrible. Oh, I should be totally honest many times I can’t get past the cover.
- Except my immediate family.
- Is that a word?
- Very few. I seem to have the mostly-meet-good-writers fairy.
- As opposed to deeply genius fart jokes. There are many!
- I’m not kidding. My favourite phone app has a state of the art radar so I can watch the rain coming in. What? Weather is interesting, people.
- I don’t think I’ll ever get over how amazing it is that anyone reads my books who isn’t related to me. It is a joy.
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| 3000 words today to finally put this damned overdue novelette to bed. Tomorrow, I give "Terrestrial Radio" a final revision pass and start my heavy research reading on "The Deeps of the Sky," which is a narrative in search of a conflict currently. There's a lot of ground to cover before I head out to WisCon. State of the Honeydew:
2012: "The Death of Terrestrial Radio:" April 30, 2012</strike> "The Body of the Nation:" May 09, 2012
Weird West story: June 1, 2012
OWW EC Review: May 15, 2012"The Deeps of the Sky" (Hard SF adventure story): June 1, 2012 OWW EC Review: June 15, 2012 OWW EC Review: July 15, 2012 First draft EII story: July 15, 2012 "The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward" (Collaborative short with truepenny): July 31, 2012 Fireside story: August 15, 2012 Final draft EII story: September 1, 2012 "Underworld": September 15, 2012 An Apprentice to Elves: 2012 with truepennytravel: CAPA University: May 12, Hartford CTWisCon: May 25-28, Madison WI 4th Street Fantasy Conversation: June 21-24, Minneapolis MN ConVergence: July 5-8, Minneapolis MN Readercon: July 12-15, Burlington MA Armadillocon: July 26-29, Austin TX Pi-Con: August 17-19, Enfield CT ChiCon: August 30-Sept 3, Chicago IL Viable Paradise: October 5-14, Oak Bluffs MA World Fantasy Convention: November 1-4, 2012, Toronto ON Canada 2013: Modern fantasy story: January 2013 Steles of the Sky: January 2013 "Dark Leader": March 2013 "Something's Gotta Eat T. rexes": September 2013 travel: World Fantasy Convention: October 31-November 3, 2013, Brighton England UK No fixed deadline: Karen MemorySmile (unless its name is actually Salt Water) Unsuitable Metal
Gotham JazzUntitled Gangland Urban Fantasy That Keeps Bugging Me "Form & Void" "Untitled Space Opera Thingy" aka "Periastron" "Posthumous Jonson" "Steel" "On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera" "This Chance Planet" "Flush" | |
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| This is a gym update, and not much more.
I'm back to working 5.10s, which makes me feel like a real grownup climber, and if I can continue without re-straining my shoulder or fucking up a pulley tendon, I may persist in being a real grownup climber. I never really expect to get much beyond 5.10s -- I started too late in life, and I only climb two or three days a week -- but I feel more secure on the wall than I ever have, and I'm even eyeing a 5.8 on the huge, terrifying, massively overhung wall on the back of the gym. I got up one thing on it a couple of years ago, but that was before they re-engineered it to take out the rest point in the middle. Maybe in another ten, twenty pounds or so.
I did get two holds higher on the 5.10a that I have declared my current project (there's another one I tried yesterday and will come back to, but it's very overhung) and I got up all but the last ten feet of a brutal 5.9 that would be a ten anywhere else on the planet except at the madly underating gym where I do most of my climbing. A combination of two slopers and a long reach to the third hold, with largely absent feet, defeated me. But I fought it until my hands quit. Which is something.
I am learning about slopers. What I have learned is that slopers suck.
This means I'm back to climbing as well as I was last August, although I think I'm not yet quite as strong. The stamina is good, though--running helps, it turns out.
And now back to trying to write the last damned scene of this story. | |
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| http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/05/bubble-20.html The smart, fashionable startup-people these days are all trying to come up with brilliant and innovative new business models that disrupt struggling industries and synergize for break-out growth potential forming new markets. (Ahem. At least that's what they say.)
I submit that it is somewhat harder to disrupt an industry that has been dead for so long that the corpse is fully skeletonized. By the time that we've got people seriously pitching for an IPO on the back of the poetry market[*], we're scraping the bottom of the barrel that started out full of brilliant and innovative new business models. What next: a dot-com startup targeting the overdue-for-disruption steam locomotive market?
I am calling this a bubble economy in startup bullshit, and it's just about ready to pop; we are now at the stage of the shoe-shine boys offering stock tips, and if I had any money invested in hyperparasites like Zynga I'd be yanking the eject handle as hard as I could.
[*] I have nothing against poetry; it's just that it has been impossible for anyone to earn a living as a working commercial poet in the English language for close to three-quarters of a century and counting. For various reasons, we just don't seem to consume the stuff any more. Or we give it a backing track and call it rap or rock music or blues. Gramophone killed the poetry star. | |
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| Even if we never wear these shirts,
lie on these sheets,
eat off these tablecloths,
they will still flap out blue
between the buildings,
an unexpected line of colour
like a grace note.
(And should we live to bring them in
they will smell like fresh sunshine.)
Happiness lies poised between
eternity
and the next moment.
This shirt reaching out its wet arms
to yesterday's wind and sun,
now dryly embraces my arms.
And every leek cut lengthways,
every garlic clove chopped,
every basil leaf
is both its own good
and the potential of a meal
if the world goes on so long.
Yes, we could die on any morning,
slipping between moments,
gone between words in a conversation,
our worlds could end at any time.
Yet here we are, doing laundry,
making dinner,
making poetry,
making the mindful choices,
living in every moment,
because it is this moment,
every action its own action,
every word a benison.
(So the injunction "Live as if it's the last day of the world" was countered by "If it was the last day of the world, I wouldn't bother doing laundry". I've thought about this a lot since. And though I would like to, I do not always live up to it.) | |
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| 1. We have a new car. The elderly psychotic Swedish car had devolved into panic attacks (the car started setting the car alarm off randomly--and silently, so it was like panic attacks IN MIME) and we finally just said fuck it, and bought a new (used) 2009 Subaru Forester. With all-wheel drive, which I am going to be loving come next winter, I tell you what. 2. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a hawk cam, which as I type this is showing three fluffy baby hawks. (Ooh, and a parent just showed up with a small dead thing. Rock on.) 3. And speaking of fluffy!cams: Kitten Cam! (via heresluck) 4. Not a cam, but to complete the fluffy trifecta: Clouded Leopard cub getting some really primo chin skritches. 5. Neil Gaiman likes my Sandman essay! 1 This is the first time in my life I've written an analytical essay about a work by someone who's still alive to have an opinion. And he likes it! I have some cognitive dissonance, but it is the most awesome dissonance in the history of things that jar your brain when you put them together. --- 1@neilhimself For the record CHICKS DIG COMICS contains the best SANDMAN essay I've read & I've read too many. http://bit.ly/GT3TLe Well done @pennyvixen 22Oh, come on. How could I not footnote at a time like this? | |
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