1) Nothing says "you've arrived in the 21st century" like your own Facebook fan page. I got a notice the other day that Melody Gonzalas (who may or may not be here on LJ) has created a Fans of Kyle Cassidy group on Facebook. You can join it and share rumors about me. Woohoo!

2) I have an article in the new issue of Videomaker Magazine



3) I'm reading Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary by Pamela Dean. Wait till you see my photo of her office.

4) The Secret Photo Project will be unveiled tomorrow!

That is all.

Tomorrow's afternoon activities (after her regular guitar/songwriting and found object art classes and lunch) include:

Kayaking
Canoeing
Victorian Style Croquet
Family Crests Design
Jam Session
Baby Food Roulette
Shakespearean Insults
Medieval Role Playing

That's only half of them.

Why is there no Explo for grownups?

On Friday, my friend Lisa and I hiked up at Murphy Dome with our furgirls Bella and Sedona. The dogs found the mud puddles, we enjoyed the sunshine (and one heck of a workout), and it was peaceful and beautiful to be on top of the world.

( bunches of photos back here )

You can see more photos, and read more commentary at my Alaska Blog here.

Somewhere high over the Big Island loom two huge shield volcanoes: Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. We didn't see them much while we were there, though we could feel their effects every time the warm rain fell. They're cloud busters, sweeping moisture from the tradewinds. But high above, on the peaks, the air is clear and dry.

That's why Mauna Kea is home to a large collection of telescopes, run by teams of scientists from all over the world. They sit there, high above the island, white domes in the mountain stillness.

Driving from Waimea to the Kona coast we crossed the high plains at the north of the island, home to massive cattle ranches. Suddenly there was a gap in the clouds, and we could see the observatories there, haloed in a patch of blue. I pulled over to the side of the road and cranked up the zoom.





Mauna Kea, Hawaii
June 2009

Yesterday was a learning day for me. finding out about taking panorama shots where a number of photos are taken panning from one direction to another. I learned a lot and realize I have much more to learn.

I put these panoramas together using the COOL/360 function of Ulead's Photo Impact X3 which stitches a series of photos together to look like one photo.

At any rate, here are my first results. These are all scenes within a few miles of where we live. We are surrounded by cranberry bogs and lakes.

( Click for photos. )

Paleontology and Creationism Meet But Don't Mesh - NY Times article. A bunch of scientists go to the Creationism Museum.

10 Fantastic Futuristic Materials that Actually Exist - blog article. Really interesting!

Flowchart for Determining What Your Favorite Summer '09 Blockbuster Will Be - LJ post. Hilarious.

Bulwer-Lytton 2009 Contest Winners - the annual "worst opening sentence" contest. My favorite? "The gutters of Manhattan teemed with the brackish slurry indicative of a significant though not incapacitating snowstorm three days prior, making it seem that God had tripped over Hoboken and spilled his smog-flavored slurpie all over the damn place."

MoveOn.Org: Stop the Crackdown - petition. Protest in support of the Iranian people.

Palais d'Hiver by b_hallward - fic. Dorian wrote me a story! Um, in January. But I just now realized, and so I encourage you all to go and read and love it, as I do. Yami no Matsuei, Hisoka, G.

the_good_dollar - LJ community supporting charity. Very nice cause.

The Intersection of Race and Steampunk - blog article. Really fascinating and well-written post about the role of colonialism in the steampunk genre/community.

Ebert remains one of my heroes, and his defense of his review of Transformers 2: Birth of a Nation, complete with a defense of being intellectual, is as good a piece as anything he's written.

As in other states, the primary consideration for custody in California is the best interest of the child. This includes:

the age of the child
the health of the child
the emotional ties between the parents and the child
the ability of the parents to care for the child
history of family violence and/or substance abuse, and
the child's ties to school, home, and his or her community.

Furthermore, California courts divide "custody" into two categories: legal custody and physical custody.

Legal custody means who makes important decisions regarding health care, education, and welfare. Physical custody means who the child lives with. These can be joint, sole, or split, and are not the same. Also separate and settled by the courts are visitation and sometimes guardianships by people other than parents when parents are determined to be unable to take care of children due to violence, substance abuse, mental or physical illness. However, there are legal provisions that custody cannot be taken away because a parent is disabled or wasn't married, or due to sexual orientation, or has a different lifestyle or different religious belief.

Some of you may remember that over a year ago I was interviewed by Marie Claire for an article about non-custodial mothers. It was supposed to be out in their September 2008 issue but then it never happened.

I'm told by the very lovely Lea Goldman, Features Editor, that the article is now out in their new issue (I think the August issue) which she says is on sale NOW. She messed up! It's out next week. August issue as anticipated. This is the US version of the mag. I don't know if it will be published in the UK or any other version of MC.

So if you're interested, do go check it out! I've yet to read it myself actually. A copy is being sent to me.

Dave Nicholson, the genealogist/researcher I took classes with a few years ago, is running cemetary tours again this July.

If you live in Thunder Bay and are interested in (often quirky and little-known) local history, headstones or just taking a walk and looking at flowers... I absolutely recommend his tours. He's a great speaker with a super sense of humour who knows his stuff.

Here's a link to the information site for the tours:

http://my.tbaytel.net/pafwinfo/cemetery_tours.htm

He's doing Riverside Cemetary (Oliver Road) on Tuesdays and and Mountainview/St. Patrick's (Broadway Avenue) on Thursdays. Tours run from 7:00 to 8:30 pm.

I'll definately be going again this year.

Oy. The first thing you'll notice is that I'm in a lot of damn anthologies. So I'm in like every group reading in the place. Woo! All this is tremendously fun, and I'll also be at the Goblin Fruit part on Thursday, bringing homemade champagne mango chutney.

Second thing: what would y'all like to talk about or possibly even do at my kaffeeklatsch? We could all bring Art Things to trade around or discuss how The Smiths suck, even though everyone insists on imitating them, and the connection between prog rock and zombies and how if one never heard another word about either of them it would be awesome.

Other suggestions? (And if there is anything specific you want me to address in my How I Wrote The Orphan's Tales talk, let me know)

Anyway, please come to these things what I am doing. I promise fun for all!

Friday 11:00 AM, Salon E: Panel

Egocentrism and Creativity.  Scott Edelman, Eileen Gunn, James Patrick
Kelly (L), John Shirley, Catherynne M. Valente, Gene Wolfe

[Greatest Hit from Readercon 13.]  "I'm Michael Swanwick, and with the
possible exception of Gene Wolfe, I'm the best writer present today." This
introduction at Readercon 1 (at the Wolfe appreciation panel!) drew big
laughs for its nerve (and apparent self-delusion), but in retrospect it
seems to be merely precognitive (Nabokov observes that "there is no more
pure love in the world than the love a young writer has for the old writer
he will someday become"). Swanwick now maintains that "modesty and a
reasonable awareness of [one's] limitations have no place in a writing
career."

Friday 12:00 Noon, Salon E: Panel

The Catharsis of Myth, the Shock of Invention.  Ellen Asher, Theodora Goss
(L), Elaine Isaak, Laura Miller, Catherynne M. Valente

[Greatest Hit from Readercon 8.]  In writing or reading fiction, we place
a high value on the degree to which the plot unfolds in unexpected ways.
But much of the power of myth and fairy tale derives from the way it
fulfills our expectations.  How do the best works of fantasy reconcile
these seeming opposites?

Friday 2:00 PM, VT: Group Reading

_Mythic Delirium / Goblin Fruit_ Group Reading (60 min,.)  Mike Allen,
Amal-El Mohtar, and Jessica Paige Wick (co-hosts) with Leah Bobet, M. M.
Buckner, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne M. Valente, Joselle
Vanderhooft et al

Joint reading from _Mythic Delirium_, the biannual magazine of speculative
poetry edited by Allen (which just published its tenth anniversary issue),
and _Goblin Fruit_, the quarterly online zine of fantastical poetry edited
by El-Mohtar and Wick (whose Summer 2009 issue is due out now).

Friday 3:00 PM, VT: Group Reading

Interfictions 2 Group Reading (60 min.)  Delia Sherman (host) with
Amelia Beamer, K. Tempest Bradford, Matthew Cheney, F. Brett Cox, Michael
DeLuca, Jeffrey Ford, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira Lipkin,
Rachel Pollack, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine

Readings from Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing_,
edited by host Sherman and Christopher Barzak and forthcoming in the fall
from Small Beer Press under the auspices of the Interstitial Arts
Foundation.

Friday 5:30 PM, RI: Talk (30 min.)

How I Wrote The Orphan's Tales.  Catherynne M. Valente

Friday 8:00 PM, ME/ CT: Talk / Discussion (60 min.)

Annual Interstitial Arts (IAF) Town Meeting.  Ellen Kushner with
discussion by Liz Gorinsky, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira
Lipkin, Delia Sherman, John Shirley, Sarah Smith, Catherynne M. Valente
 

Interstitial Art falls in the interstices of recognized genres.  The
Interstitial Arts Foundation is a group of "Artists Without Borders"
fighting the Balkanization of art. They celebrate work that crosses or
straddles the borders between media, the borders between genres, the
borders between "high art" and popular culture. They are not opposed to
mainstream fiction or genre fiction, nor are they seeking to create a new
category. They are just particularly excited by border-crossing fiction
(and music and art), and want to support the creation of such works and to
establish better ways of engaging with them. The IAF has had a presence at
Readercon from its beginning. In 2007, in cooperation with Small Beer
Press, the IAF published Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial
Writing edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, and in fall 2009 they
will present Interfictions 2, edited by Delia Sherman and Christopher
Barzak. They are also doing a lot with visual arts.  Interstitial Arts is
an idea, a conversation, not a hard-and-fast definition-and it's a
conversation you are invited to join.

Saturday 12:00 Noon, VT: Group Reading

Federations Group Reading (60 min.)  John Joseph Adams (host) with K.
Tempest Bradford, Robert J. Sawyer, Allen Steele, Catherynne M. Valente,
Genevieve Valentine

Readings from the original and reprint anthology (cover blurb: "Vast.
Epic.  Interstellar.") edited by Adams and published by Prime Books in
January.

Saturday 2:00 PM, VT: Group Reading

Clockwork Phoenix 2 Group Reading (60 min.)  Mike Allen (host) with
Saladin Ahmed, Leah Bobet, Mary Robinette Kowal, Barbara Krasnoff,
Catherynne M. Valente.

Readings from the second volume of the annual non-theme anthology
(subtitled _More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness_) edited by Allen and
just published by Norilana Books.

Saturday 3:00 PM, Salon A: Event

The Rhysling Award Poetry Slan.  Mike Allen (MC) with Michael Bishop, Leah
Bobet, Lila Garrott, Greer Gilman, Ernest Lilley, Darrell Schweitzer,
Sonya Taaffe, Catherynne M. Valente

(A "poetry slan," to be confused with "poetry slam," is a poetry reading
by sf folks, of course.)  Climaxed by the presentation of this year's
Rhysling Awards.

Sunday 11:30 AM, NH / MA: Reading (30 min.)

Catherynne reads from her novel forthcoming in 2011 (not yet titled--much to my chagrin. But I promise Communist goblins!), based on Russian
folk tales and Stalinist history.

Sunday 1:00 PM, Salon F: Autographing

Sunday 2:00 PM, Vineyard: Kaffeeklatsch

I wrote this a while back for a true-life wedding horror stories anthology. I ended up never submitting it, because I still gave a shit what some of the people involved thought. I am so past that now. *rueful grin* And it gives you an idea of what a clusterfuck my second wedding was. Yes, second. Adam is husband #3. Also husband the last. I finally had the good sense to marry my best friend!

Every word of this is true. (And the last line is where Adam pops up.)

The Groom
Here comes the Groom, on the arm of his mother, as is traditional in a Jewish ceremony and as is traditional in his life - he has lived with his mother for most of his life. The Bride has started to wonder about the Groom, in fact - he's been a bit of a dick over the past few months. At first, she chalked this up to moving stress (new apartment). When the dust of moving settled, she chalked the behavior up to wedding stress. But she is beginning to wonder if, in fact, this is simply his base personality, beginning to reveal itself.

Bit late now, though. All the people are here, and the flowers, and she's in this big dress. So. Here comes the Groom.

The Best Man
(There is no Best Man. There is no Best Man because the Groom decided to dramatically reveal controversial information about his life to his disapproving brother a matter of days before the wedding, thus causing said brother to back out not only of being the Best Man, but of attending the wedding altogether. Ditto the Groom's father. The Bride thinks that the Groom really could have waited a few days, but she was not consulted. Consequently, she will never meet the Groom's brother or father. Also, the ratio of bridesmaids to ushers is now askew, but she will persevere.)

Usher #1
Usher #1 is the Bride's childhood best friend and (mutual) first crush. He would be The One That Got Away, but for the fact that they never got together in the first place. This is openly and regretfully acknowledged to be a repeated accident of timing. When Usher #1 bends to sign the ketubah, the Hebrew marriage license, he whispers, "Why is it not me up there marrying you?"

"Because you were dating someone else when I moved back here."

"Oh, yeah." He looks up and grins. "I'm free now. Wanna elope?"

"I wish!"

Usher #2
Usher #2 is the Bride’s high-school friend, the Groom’s co-worker, and Bridesmaid #3’s husband – though he almost wasn’t that, by today. Usher #2 and Bridesmaid #3 separated after he cheated on her, a scant few months ago. During their separation, Bridesmaid #3 kissed Usher #3. Usher #2 discovered this upon perusal of her diary and ended up stalking Usher #3 through a shopping mall with a knife. Miraculously, Bridesmaid #3 took Usher #2 back, and the Bride is forced to have him in the bridal party if she’s to have Bridesmaid #3. Usher #2 has conditions under which he will participate.

“I don’t want to be in any pictures with Usher #3.”

“Okay,” says the Bride. “You won’t be in any pictures.” It’s Usher #2 who’s causing trouble, after all. She’s not going to penalize Usher #3 for it.

“And he can’t come to the bachelor party.”

“Fine. He’ll come to the bachelorette party instead.”

Usher #2 is clearly not content. He expresses this by adding his own, very goth, modifications to his tuxedo, and by refusing to tie his hair back as the other ushers do. But he is there, which means that Bridesmaid #3 is there, and that is what counts.

Usher #3
Unbeknownst to anyone but the Bride, the Groom, and Usher #3, Bridesmaid #3 isn’t the only one who’s been kissing Usher #3. Usher #3 and the Bride have been doing a bit more than kissing. This has been the case for quite some time, and it makes for rather a strange wedding experience for Usher #3.

Besides the Usher #2/Bridesmaid #3 situation, even.

Bridesmaid #1
Bridesmaid #1 initially refused to be a bridesmaid unless she could wear faerie wings. The Bride patiently explained that it was not that sort of wedding. Bridesmaid #1 reluctantly gave up on the wings, but has continued to be difficult. “I want to wear a purple dress!” No, the Bride explained, you are wearing green. Forest green velvet. Bridesmaid #1 acknowledges that the green sets off her eyes beautifully, but continues to sulk.

This is the way of Bridesmaid #1. It has long been accepted that one cannot talk sense into her. She will, for instance, forever be known as the lesbian who only dates Swedish men. The Bride opines that, if Bridesmaid #1 dates men, she is bisexual, not a lesbian – but Bridesmaid #1 insists that she is a lesbian, despite having not seriously dated a woman in five years and having seriously dated Swedish men in the interim.

The Bride does not know what the deal is with the Swedish men. One of them is accompanying Bridesmaid #1 to the wedding, of course. The Bride did not know his last name until two nights ago when, having left Bridesmaid #1 several messages pleading for said name so she could finish the placecards, she threatened to write his name in as “Bork Bork Bork” a la the Muppet Show’s Swedish Chef.

Bridesmaid #1 is here because she and the Bride have been friends off and on since seventh grade, and because she was the last girl Bridesmaid #1 fooled around with.

Bridesmaid #2
Bridesmaid #2 is the Bride’s sister. The Bride has many anecdotes about Bridesmaid #2, but not in her role as Bridesmaid #2; she has been a model Bridesmaid. We can move on.

Bridesmaid #3
Of all of the Bridesmaids, Bridesmaid #3 has been the most helpful – has acted, in fact, much as a Maid of Honor ought to.

But the Bride has almost lost Bridesmaid #3 due to the hijinks of Usher #2. Bridesmaid #3 has offered to back out to avoid conflict among ushers, but the Bride won’t have it – Usher #2 needs to simply shut up and deal, since the whole thing is really his damn fault.

Bridesmaid #3 does not know that the Bride has schtupped Usher #3. The Bride does not think she’d take it well.

Bridesmaid #4
Bridesmaid #4 is the co-worker Bridesmaid, and is another model Bridesmaid. She is, in fact, the only Bridesmaid the Bride still speaks to seven years later.

Maid of Honor
The Maid of Honor disappeared for a year. Specifically, the year between her selection as Maid of Honor and the rehearsal dinner.

Stephen King writes that we never again have friends like we did when we were twelve. This is true, and it’s why the Maid of Honor is the Maid of Honor; she was the Bride’s best friend in middle school, in high school, and the Bride has only recently moved back home, has not yet noticed that they have grown apart. The Bride had only begun to notice how unpredictable, how unreliable, the Maid of Honor was before naming her Maid of Honor. But really – this is the Bride’s best friend from the tender, easily-imprintable age of twelve. Who else could be her Maid of Honor?

The Maid of Honor shows up for the rehearsal dinner. The Bride confronts her. The Maid of Honor’s apology? “I was afraid – this whole wedding thing. I was afraid that the Groom would replace me as your best friend.”

The Bride thinks that disappearing for a year makes that a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, the Maid of Honor showed up for the wedding; right now, that is enough.

Flower Girl
Here is the Flower Girl – the four-year-old daughter of the Bride. Her golden hair is curled, her little white basket overflowing with rose petals. The Bride is aware that one cannot expect a four-year-old to follow complicated instructions; the Flower Girl’s are simple.

* Walk through the doors.
* Bridesmaid #2 will be up front. Walk toward Bridesmaid #2.
* Toss petals on the ground while walking.
* Upon reaching Bridesmaid #2, stop and wait for the Bride.

The doors open. The Flower Girl casts one frightened look back at the Bride, who smiles encouragingly. The Flower Girl steps forward, and the doors shut behind her.

There is a collective “Awwww.”

There is a moment of absolute silence.

And then there is uproarious laughter.

The Bride bites her lip, grins, and repeats her mantra: “No matter what the Flower Girl does, it will be considered cute.”

The Bride later learns what transpired: The Flower Girl stepped forward into the crowded, brightly-lit room, relatives and strangers and camera-flashes, and stopped short, deer-in-headlights, for a long moment. Long enough that Bridesmaid #2 began to gesture at her half-frantically.

Upon seeing Bridesmaid #2, the Flower Girl remembered half of her instructions: Get to Bridesmaid #2.

And took off running.

Not a single petal hit the ground, and it seemed that her feet didn’t, either – the photographer was unable to get a picture of her walking. The picture in the wedding album is of the Flower Girl airborne.

The Bride
Now stands the bride, breath held, heart pounding, in no way sure of herself and her actions.

But the people are here. The flowers. The dress. Bit late now to bow out.

The doors open.

Five days later, she will meet the love of her life.

http://notalwaysright.com/not-so-righteous-indignation/2180

(A customer claims they had found cockroaches in several pizzas we had delivered earlier. My manager tells me to go ahead and give them their money back.)

Me: “Here’s your money refunded in full, and again, we’re very sorry for this. It’s never happened before.”

Customer: “This is unacceptable! We’re never ordering from you again. You should feel ashamed!”

Me: “Again, we’re very sorry. If you could just give me the pizzas back, I’ll dispose of them for you.”

Customer: “Well…I don’t have them anymore.”

Me: “What did you do with them?”

Customer: *sheepishly* “I gave them to my kids.”

http://notalwaysright.com/as-the-checkout-line-churns/2181

(I’m ringing up a customer and notice her last name is the same as mine. I have a very uncommon last name, so I made the mistake of mentioning this…)

Me: “Your last name is [name]? Mine, too. Wonder if we’re related?” *chuckle*

Customer: *very serious* “What is your name?”

Me: “Oh, I was joking, we’re not related; almost all of my family lives up in New England.”

Customer: *more serious* “What is your name?”

Me: “Uhhh…I’m no–”

Customer: “Do you have a brother named [brother’s name]?”

Me: “Yes, actually…”

Customer: “Is your mother [mom’s name]?”

Me: “Uh, yeah…”

Customer: “And your father’s name is [my estranged father’s name]?”

Me: “Well, he’s my biological father, yes.”

Customer: *sticks out hand* “Nice to meet you, I’m your step-mother!”

(The entire line of about a dozen people behind her gasps, like they were watching a soap opera.)

Me: “Oh, God…please don’t tell my father I work here.”

Customer: “You know why your father left your mother, right?”

Me: “Uh…no?”

Customer: “Because she cheated on him with [my stepfather]!”

(The line behind her gasps again.)

Me:” Oh, okay…”

Customer: “You know, your father is very heartbroken about you. You’ve grown up to be such a beautiful young woman. You should call him and talk to him just so he can see how you’re doing.”

Me: “Actually, we don’t–”

Customer: “You and I need to go out for coffee sometime. I have a lot of stories to tell you.”

Me: “Okay, well–”

Customer: “I promise, I’m not an evil stepmother. Well, I’ll see you later, sweetie!” *bounces out the front door*

Me: *speechless*

Next customer: “Sweetie, are you okay?”

Me: *still speechless*

Next customer: “Why don’t you take a break? We don’t mind waiting.”

Entire line: “No! Go take a break!”

Me, to my boss: “Hey, I’m taking a break. I’ll be back in–”

Boss: “For God’s sake, go home! I’ll see you on Monday.”

http://notalwaysright.com/double-the-60hz-double-the-fun/2179

(I notice an elderly couple in my department, browsing TVs.)

Me: “Welcome to [electronics store]. Is there anything I can help you find today?”

Husband: “Yes, we’re looking for a 46″ TV, but we aren’t sure what kind we need. Can you help us?”

Me: “Certainly. First off, what will you mostly be watching? Sports, movies, video games?”

Husband: “Mostly porn.”

Wife: “Oh, don’t tell him that!”

Me: “Well, then I suppose we’ll be needing an LCD with motion processing.”

Wife: “Why’s that?”

Me: “Well, we wouldn’t want it to blur during the good parts…”

Despite all rumors regarding (and efforts toward achieving) my Untimely Demise (tm), I am not yet, in fact, deceased. Give me some time. We're working on it. The current plan for achieving my Untimely Demise (tm), which is cleverly drawn on a flipchart in full color with attached notations on Post-It Notes and several penciled-in recommendations, involves an avocado, a Bic pen, an orange Sharpie marker, my partner's wife's cell phone, banana-flavored bubble gum, a duck, six radishes, and a Hello Kitty toaster. Do not ask. You do not want to know.

Oh. Well. Dude. This is why I don't enjoy writing short fiction: because the short stories are about things. Ideas, events, objects.

The novels are about people.

Okay.

During one of our rainy weeks, I noticed that Ronan had worn a hole in the sole of his latest pair of Riley Roos. Now, I knew the hole was coming--leather soles just don't last forever, especially when grandma and daddy let a toddler ride a bike or toy on asphalt or concrete--but I was hoping they'd last another month.

Anyhow, his sock was getting soaked and his only other pair of shoes are high tops (converse knock offs from Old Navy) that don't let his ankle flex as much as I'd like. In other words, if he runs flat out in the high tops, he comes back inside with very large lumps on his forehead.

We go through a lot of arnica gel.

Anyhow, Target has toddler converse. I'm generally opposed to being sucked into certain brands. But the soles are flexible enough to bend in one hand. And they came in red. So I bought him a pair. My tiny child fit into toddler size five. FIVE. This is unbearably tiny, but the fit was good, not too tight, not too loose, toe room.

He nursed non-stop last weekend through the week. And ate tons more. I was hoping it was a developmental growth spurt and it was, to some extent. He's now rhyming, creating nonsense words. And trying to do pull-ups. Hanging from anything that seems sturdy, whether or not it actually is. He no longer requires me to spot him on the chain ladders at the park. He climbed *down* one today while I was engaged in conversation with someone else. (Hey, if my garden thrives on benign neglect, why not my child?)

And those shoes are now much harder to get onto his feet. Lace up shoes are harder to slip into by their very nature, of course, but sheesh. I'd hoped to get more than a couple weeks out of these. They fit once I get them on, so not all is lost.

I suppose I need to get a picture of him before he outgrows them. I have a feeling he might need a new pair before we get back from Indiana. Oy.

I'm skimming through Shayara stuff again. Pondering releasing bits of "My Empire for Ashes" during Blogathon, if I can get into editing headspace by then... and pondering getting back to writing Jessa and Fenris's as-yet-untitled story. Because that comes next, and because the person Fenris is largely based on is on my mind quite a bit lately.

And it occurred to me that, while the main story of Shayara is a big sprawling thing on grand epic themes, the side stories and before-our-story-begins stories are very focused and intimate. An organic process, I think. I've lived half my life with these characters, and they've grown until there's no room in the main story for great swathes of their individual stories.... and I love people, fictional or not, so while I tell stories of revolution and redemption, I make room to tell you about lost loves and broken hearts and the fractures that shape these people. I have a bad case of the "why"s, you know. An estimated 20K of "My Empire for Ashes" is because, the night before the big battle that closes Act Two, Katrina comes to the castle to see her abandoned daughters - her sole return to the city after she left thirtyish years ago to join the Council's breeding program - and, when she is dismissed, she and Telenias see each other on the balcony -

and they both pause.

And I thought Huh. Why?

They have a history, that's why. Why? He was the first person she met when she stumbled into the city. So wait, why did they break up? And why did she go to Stephen? Ah, now that's a story. And one that the main arc is too packed to hold.

So.

And Jessa is one of my favorite characters - and you never get to see her in the main arc. She dies five years before our story begins. But she's Important, in that there might never have been a revolution had she not stood up first. And she's Important to many of our characters - you never meet Jessa in the story proper, but you see her light reflected everywhere. In her daughter, in her best friend, in people who respected and admired her, in one who was obsessed with her and one who had her killed.

And Fenris (in icon), the aforementioned best friend, is one of my favorite characters as well. Him, you get to see plenty of! But he wouldn't be who he is had it not been for her being who she was.

And they have a story, oh yes. That would never really be told in the course of the main arc, because, well, she's dead.

And I find that telling these stories that happen thirty, twenty, ten, five years before our story begins - it gives you so much more of this world and its evolution. It gives you the Council getting more and more malevolent. It gives you backstory and worldbuilding.

And it gives you these people. These big complex people who, alas, cannot be my primary characters, but who I still love.

The problem with writing in this world is that it is so large. And so by narrowing the focus, you lose so much. And by going from comics to straight text, you lose a lot, too - I can't paint characters with color and scene and movement as vividly as I could with comics. What I love about comics is that you can tell so much more of the story in them. No ham-handed descriptors - the visuals are right there. And you can hide things - Jeramie's facial expression in this scene, the object on Fenris's desk in that scene. Things the eye skims over on a comics page sometimes, that on your second and third read you'll go "Oh. OH. Holy shit, dude, that was right there."

So I'm sculpting instead of painting; I am cutting away everything that is not this story. But - I honor and love people. And I want to tell their stories, too.

The Fairyland fan community, onaleopard , is trying to get featured on LJ Spotlight. This would be fantastic, obviously, in terms of getting more eyeballs on the story.

If you love Fairyland and the community around it, consider suggesting onaleopard  to LJ? Thank you-- this continues to be one of the most extraordinary experience of my life, and I can't wait til next Monday.

lj_volunteers
You might not know that most of the Support on LJ is provided by volunteers who are users just like you. And if you volunteered, you could be just like them. Check out this community to see how they keep LJ running and how you can help.

4_eyez
Josh Neufeld has a lot going on. His cartoons played a starring role in Earth 2100, the ABC special about climate change, and his new graphic novel, A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, comes out in August. And he still finds time to update his LJ!

montreal
Residents, visitors, French speakers, English speakers—anyone interested in Montreal is welcome here. Find out everything from where to buy a tart burner to how get around on public transit, but be sure to check the memories and tags before you post.

What does the Human Brain sound like? - Click here to find out.

Brain's response muted when we see other races in pain - I wonder what the findings would have been in people with bi-racial parents.

How Chaos Drives the Brain - HAVE you ever experienced that eerie feeling of a thought popping into your head as if from nowhere, with no clue as to why you had that particular idea at that particular time? You may think that such fleeting thoughts, however random they seem, must be the product of predictable and rational processes. After all, the brain cannot be random, can it? Surely it processes information using ordered, logical operations, like a powerful computer?Actually, no. In reality, your brain operates on the edge of chaos. Though much of the time it runs in an orderly and stable way, every now and again it suddenly and unpredictably lurches into a blizzard of noise. - Very interesting article, 4 pages.

How the Wii helps Parkinson's patients regain control - Apparently it is becoming a pretty abundant prescription, too.

The Truth Behind Secret Recipes in Coke, KFC, etc - Interesting, I like the way this was written. : )

People Unsure of Beliefs are More Close-Minded - Interesting study with interesting findings.

How Salamanders Regrow Limbs - last one, I promise. It was too cool not to include hehe.

Quote of the Day:
"All things are difficult before they are easy." - Dr. Thomas Fuller



This week's writing prompt: Wonder

To the rodeo last Saturday. It's always an engrossing event, even if it is much the same every year, not least because it features a brand of old-fashioned machismo that's rare in the world of sports - or anywhere else I know, for that matter.

All the events - the bareback riding, the steer wrestling, the calf roping, the barrel racing etc. - all lead up to one that everybody wants to see and which is saved until the end, bull riding. It's the biggest, boldest and often briefest of them all. The rider has only to stay on for eight seconds, holding on with just one hand, but most are thrown well before that. It certainly looks dangerous; once the 2,000 pound bull has unseated its rider, as it always does, the bull is often not done with him.

So we start off here with a lad saddling up in the bull-riding regalia, a mixture of the practical and the showy that marks this sport. Often these guys seem impossibly young, like teenagers on a dare, but they are brave ones indeed, and highly skilled too. There's a lot of mental and physical preparation here for something that will last only a matter of seconds. I love watching them getting psyched up.

Photographically speaking, the rodeo represents a bit of a challenge too. You have to be in full control of everything - aperture, shutter speed, ISO and focussing method. And it's still hard to get anything good, because the animals and their riders have to be doing the right things too. I didn't get any iconic shots this year that I'm totally happy with, but there are a few others behind the cut that are OK. Clicky?.

( Read more... )

Oooh. Now there's a glittery interesting idea.

Maybe I'll start calling myself an Interior Decorator. Because I make images that I hope people will use to furnish / decorate / configure their interior life.

Saturday I was so Fake Disease(tm)y that I barely got out of bed and needed a wheelchair to go watch the fireworks.

Sunday I went for a 20-mile bike ride.

If I were keeping such a list in an organized fashion, I'd have to add: "Éiden, stop wiping bread on your shoulder" to that list.

EDIT: The card drawing is now closed! I will be drawing your cards throughout the day. Thanks for your patience! :)

This month there are no sponsors. Instead, if you feel moved, tip me using the button at the bottom of this entry. You do not need to pay me for your card! You can request a card whether you donate or not.

( The Rules, Suggested Uses and Warnings )

What is this all about?
The Balance Cards are a personal revelatory deck I created to address the imbalances in the world and bring them into harmony. The One-Card Draw is a service I offer as frequently as I have the energy, but I also do full readings. Consult the Balance Cards website for more information.

Ask and receive.



The Balance Cards Website.

The new Fairyland chapter is up!

Chapter 4: The Wyverary

In Which September Is Discovered by a Wyvern, Learns of a Most Distressing Law, and Thinks of Home (But Only Briefly)

This features one of my favorite characters so far, who started out as a giant cat but decided somewhere along the way that he would rather be a wyvern. Hope you all enjoy it--especially my librarians in the house!

No site updates this week, if there's anything you want us to add, let us know. Still working on getting other e-versions linked up. And if you have the inclination and are liking the story, please consider donating. (Sadly the Beast did not get the job we were so hopeful for.)

Discussion post in onaleopard!

"Hey, Ronan, what do you want to do today?"
"Peeek."
"What does 'peeek' mean?"
"Peee-yonk."
"What does that mean?"
"Onk Onk!"
"Onk onk?"
"Yeah."

And now he's barking out the window.

And now he's ordering me to shake my rump.

Ahhh, toddlers.

Turns out that Frank Gehry hates disabled people.

And previously, I'd figured the only thing he really hated was coming up with a second idea in his lifetime.

I find the former a little more annoying, of course.

There's yet another chapter of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland up, complete with a reading by yuki_onna. So go read it (or read the earlier chapters first, if you haven't already).

A new chapter of haikujaguar's Spots the Space Marine went up last week, but I'm behind enough that I didn't catch it until today.

I'm assuming that the next chapter of Tim Pratt's Bone Shop will also go up today, but since it's still Too Early to Be Awake on the West Coast, you might want to wait to check that link.

As always, when there's great free fiction on the web, and if you have the money to spare, sending some of that money to the makers of that fiction is a wonderful thing. If you don't have the money to spare, sending nice words and telling others about the good free fiction is also a good thing.

Administration
Hello to new readers greenmother and thunderpigeon!

Medical
I got two decent nights of sleep in a row, which helped immeasurably. Still feeling weak. Stayed home yesterday because I wasn't up to any level of activity.

I have had to be very patient with myself. I want a cookie.

Little, interrupted jags of sleep last night, interspersed with chills-and-sweats, which I'd thought were no longer a problem. Feh. That does mean I remembered fragments of my dreams, though. And I dreamed of dancing. Which means my sex drive is back.

Blogathon
Up to $115 - thanks, new sponsor emmalyon!

Sponsor me!

I hope to get my big press-release-y post about Blogathon done today. And I need to update the auctions list.

Readercon Schedule
Friday 2:00 PM, Salon B: The Year in Novels. Charles N. Brown, Ernest Lilley (L), Shira Lipkin, Graham Sleight, Paul Witcover

Friday 3:00 PM, VT: Group Reading. _Interfictions 2_ Group Reading (60 min.) Delia Sherman (host) with Amelia Beamer, K. Tempest Bradford, Matthew Cheney, F. Brett Cox, Michael DeLuca, Jeffrey Ford, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira Lipkin, Rachel Pollack, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine

Friday 8:00 PM, ME/ CT: Annual Interstitial Arts (IAF) Town Meeting. Ellen Kushner with discussion by Liz Gorinsky, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Shira Lipkin, Delia Sherman, John Shirley, Sarah Smith, Catherynne M. Valente

Sunday 12:00 Noon, VT: Broad Universe Group Reading. Inanna Arthen (host) with Helen Collins, Elaine Isaak, Shira Lipkin, Jennifer Pelland, Joselle Vanderhooft et al.

So yeah, I thought I was only doing one panel + one reading! This is still good, though. Will also be doing the Meet the Pros(e) party. I also somehow got signed up for a two-hour improv workshop, but I don't know that I'm up for a two-hour improv workshop, so I declined that.

I really need to get my bio/bibliography written up today. After this post.

Link Soup
* Fabulous Facebook song. I haven't had friend requests from assholic ex-boyfriends - just the good ones. Have had some puzzling ones from people I haven't dated, though.
* I kinda totally want to do this.
* shweta_narayan is compiling a list of YA characters of color. Go help!
* Cool clock.
* Cakes based on Threadless tees.
* Adam reviews F&SF.

Daily Science
Two UQ Science researchers have proved two famous physical laws that have been widely used for the past 25 years do not always work.

Plans
This might be the day I actually get out of the house and see Moon. Also, I have enough of my brain today to do some catching up on e-mail, I think.

The Gold-Box Deal of the Day is the Seagate FreeAgent 1TB USB External Drive for $99.99 (48% off). Yes, a TB -- an external one, at that -- is now under $100. I'll resist griping about the way things were when I was young, and we only had floppy disks, and hard drives cost more than a new car, and we walked uphill both ways in the snow, and we liked it.

The videogame Deal of the Day is Mario Super Sluggers for the Wii for $25.98. I suspect that playing this will depress me less than watching the Mets, so I might switch all of my baseball attention to this game for the summer.

For those who like the high-end remotes, there's a sale on refurbished Logitech Harmony Universal Remotes, with prices of up to 70% off. This includes their Xbox 360 remote, btw.

In DVDs, every season of King of the Hill is on sale for $13.49 a pop.

Finally (for those folks who didn't read LJ over the weekend), this is your last day to get a free copy of any version of The Star Spangled Banner. So go grab one!

Last month, the folks at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction offered free copies of the August/September issue to folks willing to blog about it. Since free reading material ranks only after free food on the hierarchy of Free Things I Like, I naturally jumped at the chance.

Let's break things up by category here:

New Short Stories:

"You are Such a One," by Nancy Springer. A touching, occasionally gorgeous (and occasionally twee, alas), tale of a woman seeking a place in which she can be real. Good use of the second person to shake up what could have been a predictable tale of a woman's mid-life crisis.

"The Hunchster," by Matthew Hughes. Take a typical piece of flashfic -- complete with "surprise" ending -- and flesh it out with a huge amount of Stephen King-lite background about the characters and town until it's at a traditional short story length. That's what you've got here. The writing itself is actually pretty good, but the story is nothing special.

"Icarus Saved from the Skies," by Georges-Oliver Châteaureynaud (translated by Edward Gauvin). Beautiful prose (Gauvin surely deserves some of the credit, of course), but distinctly ugly characters, emotionally. A man who inexplicably starts to grow wings finds a woman who seems to love him only for those wings. It's meant (I'd assume) to be more a prose-poem than a narrative, so the fact that both characters would annoy me as real people is probably something I can overlook, but I don't find myself drawn back into the tale itself.

Novelets:

"The Art of the Dragon," by Sean McMullen. Great hook: A giant, invulnerable, cybernetic dragon appears over Paris one day and starts to destroy works of art, with any humans inside museums or near falling rubble merely unintended casualties. It eventually flies over the entire planet (although it explicitly skips LA, and although I'm all about snarking at the City of Angels, the Getty should have been an obvious target), before settling down for a nap. That's when things get dull, as we get way too much of the narrator and associates talking about the dragon and why it might be, but too little progress. And the ending itself is just weak.

"A Token of a Better Age," by Melinda Snodgrass. I am not a fan of Snodgrass's short stories, which I always find frustrating, as I share her general skepticism, and was a fan of her run on Star Trek: TNG (and I adore Wild Cards, even as I find her stories in the collections generally subpar). Suffice to say, this feels very much like a Snodgrass story, so if you like that sort of thing, you'll like this. The concept itself is certainly fine -- Roman history mixed with some Lovecraftian ideas. The writing itself just didn't click for me.

"The Bones of Giants," by Yoon Ha Lee.. This is the only entry in this collection that I see making it into one of the sixty-three annual "Year's Best" volumes. It's a superbly-crafted story involving necromancers, ghouls, and a quest for vengeance. There's also some great world-building, some interesting magic systems, and some nice subtle humor.

"The Others," by Lawrence C. Connelly. This is a direct sequel to a story I never read, but it stands nicely on its own, too, as the relevant setting -- that the Gamma copy of a cyborg named Cara has lost her access to the central computer in the process of colonizing a world -- becomes clear quickly enough. The story focuses on something I've got a soft spot for, namely the nature of individuality in a world featuring clones or similar beings. It's not Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang or even Singularity's Ring, but it's a fun, if predictable, story. And if the overall ending is predictable, there's a nice twist that got a laugh out of me. ETA: After writing the above, I went to the F&SF site, and saw that the story to which this is a sequel is available for free to read. I haven't done so yet, but kudos to GVG and his staff for deciding to make this available (and I hope this is something they'll regularly do for sequels).

"Three Leaves of Aloe," by Rand B Lee. A well-written story that never quite achieves greatness, mainly due to the tropes. Amit, a Mumbai-based call center employee, is told that her teen daughter -- suspended after her fourth fight -- will be expelled from school unless they agree to put a "nannychip" in her. A tale told by her uncle's wife convinces her that this would be a bad idea. The writing's fine, and I like the characters, but there's no real storytelling depth here.

"The Private Eye," by Albert E. Cowdrey. Shockingly, this is set in Lousisiana, an unusual twist for a Cowdrey story. It's a decent little tale, nicely capturing the setting and giving us some nice, larger-than-life characters. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly worth reading and enjoyable.

"The Esoteric City", by Bruce Sterling. Sterling appears to do very, very good drugs. This is a gloriously fucked-up tale of a businessman, a mummy, a trip to hell, and of Turin. It peters out a little near the end, but is still a blast to read.

Reprinted short stories:

"The Goddamned Tooth Fairy," by Tina Kuzminski. If you told me that "Tina Kuzminski" was a pen name for Charles de Lint, I wouldn't be surprised. This is a beautiful little tale about a love, grief, and magic. It might actually be the best piece in this volume (which I guess is the point of a classic reprint). GvG provides a nice introduction.

Snowfall, by Jessie Thompson. Harlan Ellison provides what can only be called an Ellisonian introduction to the story, writing for nearly as long about the story as Thompson takes to tell her tale. Alas, I wasn't half as moved by the story as Ellison was. It's poetic and well-written, but there's just too little there.

Cartoons: Remember National Lampoon in the late '80s, when the cartoons were all written and drawn by folks who'd gotten the message to be tasteless, but hadn't figured out how to be funny? Well, replace "tasteless" with "somehow science- or fantasy-related," and that sums up this batch. Seriously, not one cartoon that was worth the space it took up. The magazine could have sold seven half-page ads and made money off these pages instead of paying folks for these clunkers.

Nonfiction: Columns by Lucious Shepherd (snarking on Watchmen), Elizabeth Hand (a well-written books column in spite of that fact that her taste and mine are completely opposed when it comes to the topic of Laura Miller, who Hand incredibly calls a "topnotch critic," a term I'd no more use for Miller than I'd use "topnotch actor" for Yahoo Serious), and Charles de Lint (good recommendations as always, especially for those of us behind on their Kim Antieau). All are worth reading. GvG has his now-infamous editorial, which has been discussed at length elsewhere, so I'll say nothing of it here (especially as it was a lot less relevent to my reading experience than the rest of the material above).

Overall, would I recommend this? I'm not sure I'd pay $6.50 for an anthology with only a few stories worth reading, but I'm also a picky buyer. Then again, the stories that are worth reading -- the ones by Yoon Ha Lee, Bruce Sterling, and Tina Kuzminski are all must-reads -- are very, very worth reading, and the weakest stories (once I drop my general inability to like a Snodgrass story) are also the shortest. So if you come across this, there's a lot of good material. Is it better than, say, any random issue of ChiZine, Lone Star, or Strange Horizons? Probably not (and since none of the latter cost anything to read, there's a longer debate about print vs webzines that I don't have time for today), but it's also no worse, and much as many folks (myself included) like to snark at the state of the print genre mags, this issue of F&SF, at least, still shows that the print mags can put together a great collection (cartoons excluded).

Just bought a new magazine, that's only available online, but if you purchase it, they send you a nice printed properly magazine that you can read in bed/in the bath/in the garden.

I bought it on recommendation of a friend, because it's a new project that's trying to put out a magazine that, well, people like us might like. Basically, for the geeky girl/woman who's not that interested in celebrity gossip, and tanlines. But we're not talking a mag like your Women's Realm or that ilk either - they describe themselves as being for women who enjoy intelligent thought and beautiful men. And, mmm, they're not wrong.

My only quibble having received it, and reading the first issue, is that it may skew for younger audiences than me (in my early forties) - but I think that's most of my flist, so. *grin* And that may change for the mag, as they sort out what their demographic is, who knows. It's closer to my interests than most mags you find in the shops though, that much I know. Livejournal is referenced more than once for example...

im off to work

in a rut

way behind on the bills

feeling pretty crappy in general,
physically, mentally, financially

hope your lives are better

hope you had a good weekend

have a great day

take care
Ossie

It's Monday, so why not start the way we mean to go on, and by that I mean "with something completely nuts"?

For your daily recommended dose of insanity, here's something I found on IO9 this morning, a remixed trailer for Roland Emmerlich's 2012.

"Run away from plot! Run away from character! You just want some... Disaster!"


2012: THIS IS A DISASTER from Garrison Dean on Vimeo.

Gotta love those bongos!