Bundle of Holding: Coyote & Crow
Apr. 21st, 2025 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
This all-new Coyote & Crow Bundle presents Coyote & Crow, the alternate-history RPG set in the Free Lands of an uncolonized North America.
Bundle of Holding: Coyote & Crow
james_davis_nicollThis all-new Coyote & Crow Bundle presents Coyote & Crow, the alternate-history RPG set in the Free Lands of an uncolonized North America.
Bundle of Holding: Coyote & Crow
The not-lost art of eloquence
Apr. 21st, 2025 05:48 pmswan_towerI think I've suddenly become an evangelist for figures of speech.
During a recent poetry challenge in the Codex Writers' Group, someone recommended two books on the topic: The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase by Mark Forsyth, and Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase by Arthur Quinn. I found both delightfully readable, in their different stylistic ways, and also they convinced me of what Forsyth argues early on, which is that it's a shame we've almost completely stopped teaching these things. We haven't stopped using them; we're just doing so more randomly, on instinct, without knowing what tools are in our hands.
What do I mean when I say "figures of speech"? The list is eighty-seven miles long, and even people who study this topic don't always agree on which term applies where. But I like Quinn's attempt at a general definition, which is simply "an intended deviation from ordinary usage." A few types are commonly recognized, like alliteration or metaphor; a few others I recall cropping up in my English classes, like synecdoche (using part of a thing to refer to a whole: "get your ass over here" presumably summons the whole body, not just the posterior). One or two I actually learned in Latin class instead -- that being a language that can go to town on chiasmus (mirrored structure) because it doesn't rely on word order to make sense of a sentence. ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country": English can do it, too, just a bit more loosely.) Others were wholly new to me -- but only in the sense that I didn't know there was a name for that, not that I'd never heard it in action. Things like anadiplosis (repeating the end of one clause at the beginning of the next: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.") or anastrophe (placing an adjective after the noun it modifies: "the hero victorious" or "treason, pure and simple")*.
*Before you comment to say I'm using any of these terms wrong, refer to the above comment about specialists disagreeing. That anastrophe might be hyperbaton instead, or maybe anastrophe refers to more than just that one type of rearranging, or or or. Whatever.
Quinn's book is the older one (written in the early '80s), and something like two-thirds of his examples are from Shakespeare or the Bible. On this front I have to applaud Forsyth more energetically, because he proves his point about how these things aren't irrelevant to modern English by quoting examples from sources like Katy Perry or Sting. (The chorus of "Hot n Cold" demonstrates antithesis; the verses of "Every Breath You Take" are periodic sentences, i.e. they build tension by stringing you out for a long time before delivering the necessary grammatical closure.) And when you get down to it, a ton of what the internet has done to the English language actually falls into some of these categories; the intentionally wrong grammar of "I can haz cheeseburger" is enallage at work -- not that most of us would call it that.
But Quinn delivers an excellent argument for why it's worth taking some time to study these things. He doesn't think there's much value in memorizing a long list of technical terms or arguing over whether a certain line qualifies as an example -- which, of course, is how this stuff often used to be taught, back when it was. Instead he says, "The figures have done their work when they have made richer the choices [the writer] perceives." And that's why I've kind of turned into an evangelist for this idea: as I read both books, I kept on recognizing what they were describing in my own writing, or in the memorable lines of others, and it heightened my awareness of how I can use these tools more deliberately. Both authors point out that sentiments which might seem commonplace if phrased directly acquire impact when phrased more artfully; "there's no there there" is catchier than "Nothing ever happens there," and "Bond. James Bond." took a name Fleming selected to be as dull as possible and made it iconic. And it brought home to me why there's a type of free verse I find completely uninteresting, because it uses none of these things: the author has a thought, says it, and is done, without any intended deviations from ordinary usage apart from some line breaks. At that point, the poem lives or dies entirely on the power of its idea, and most of the ones I bounce off aren't saying anything particularly profound.
So, yeah. I'm kinda burbling about a new obsession here, and no doubt several of you are giving me a sideways look of "ummm, okay then." But if you find this at all interesting, then I recommend both books as entertaining and accessible entry points to the wild jungle of two thousand years of people disagreeing over their terms.
(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/08rQSn)
During a recent poetry challenge in the Codex Writers' Group, someone recommended two books on the topic: The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase by Mark Forsyth, and Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase by Arthur Quinn. I found both delightfully readable, in their different stylistic ways, and also they convinced me of what Forsyth argues early on, which is that it's a shame we've almost completely stopped teaching these things. We haven't stopped using them; we're just doing so more randomly, on instinct, without knowing what tools are in our hands.
What do I mean when I say "figures of speech"? The list is eighty-seven miles long, and even people who study this topic don't always agree on which term applies where. But I like Quinn's attempt at a general definition, which is simply "an intended deviation from ordinary usage." A few types are commonly recognized, like alliteration or metaphor; a few others I recall cropping up in my English classes, like synecdoche (using part of a thing to refer to a whole: "get your ass over here" presumably summons the whole body, not just the posterior). One or two I actually learned in Latin class instead -- that being a language that can go to town on chiasmus (mirrored structure) because it doesn't rely on word order to make sense of a sentence. ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country": English can do it, too, just a bit more loosely.) Others were wholly new to me -- but only in the sense that I didn't know there was a name for that, not that I'd never heard it in action. Things like anadiplosis (repeating the end of one clause at the beginning of the next: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.") or anastrophe (placing an adjective after the noun it modifies: "the hero victorious" or "treason, pure and simple")*.
*Before you comment to say I'm using any of these terms wrong, refer to the above comment about specialists disagreeing. That anastrophe might be hyperbaton instead, or maybe anastrophe refers to more than just that one type of rearranging, or or or. Whatever.
Quinn's book is the older one (written in the early '80s), and something like two-thirds of his examples are from Shakespeare or the Bible. On this front I have to applaud Forsyth more energetically, because he proves his point about how these things aren't irrelevant to modern English by quoting examples from sources like Katy Perry or Sting. (The chorus of "Hot n Cold" demonstrates antithesis; the verses of "Every Breath You Take" are periodic sentences, i.e. they build tension by stringing you out for a long time before delivering the necessary grammatical closure.) And when you get down to it, a ton of what the internet has done to the English language actually falls into some of these categories; the intentionally wrong grammar of "I can haz cheeseburger" is enallage at work -- not that most of us would call it that.
But Quinn delivers an excellent argument for why it's worth taking some time to study these things. He doesn't think there's much value in memorizing a long list of technical terms or arguing over whether a certain line qualifies as an example -- which, of course, is how this stuff often used to be taught, back when it was. Instead he says, "The figures have done their work when they have made richer the choices [the writer] perceives." And that's why I've kind of turned into an evangelist for this idea: as I read both books, I kept on recognizing what they were describing in my own writing, or in the memorable lines of others, and it heightened my awareness of how I can use these tools more deliberately. Both authors point out that sentiments which might seem commonplace if phrased directly acquire impact when phrased more artfully; "there's no there there" is catchier than "Nothing ever happens there," and "Bond. James Bond." took a name Fleming selected to be as dull as possible and made it iconic. And it brought home to me why there's a type of free verse I find completely uninteresting, because it uses none of these things: the author has a thought, says it, and is done, without any intended deviations from ordinary usage apart from some line breaks. At that point, the poem lives or dies entirely on the power of its idea, and most of the ones I bounce off aren't saying anything particularly profound.
So, yeah. I'm kinda burbling about a new obsession here, and no doubt several of you are giving me a sideways look of "ummm, okay then." But if you find this at all interesting, then I recommend both books as entertaining and accessible entry points to the wild jungle of two thousand years of people disagreeing over their terms.
(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/08rQSn)
Maybe I'm being unduly cynical
Apr. 21st, 2025 02:42 pmoursinBut this did sound awfully like that spate of books where people had A Bright Idea to Do Something for A Year and got a book out of it, which was clearly the intention, and this struck my cynical ayfeist self as 'My Spiritual Pilgrimage to a Mystical Experience, Conversion, Faith, and Publishing Deal'.
Could I become a Christian in a year?
(How long did it take St Augustine? asking for a friend.)
For my perpetual Christian road-trip – beginning in the last months of 2022 and ending in early 2024 – I purchased a 21 year-old Toyota Corolla and stocked the glove box with second-hand CDs. I filled up my calendar with Christian retreats, church visits and stays in the houses of Christian strangers all across the highways and byways of the UK – Cornwall, Sussex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Birmingham, north Wales, Norfolk, Sheffield, Halifax, Durham, the Inner Hebrides – seeking out every kind of Christian, from Catholics to Orthodox Christians: Quakers, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, high to low Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, self-professed mystics, focusing on my generation specifically, those in their 20s and 30s, the youngest set of adults in Britain.
70s flashback!!! Only in those days it was people working their way through the various offerings of the 'Growth' aka 'Human Potential' Movement that was flourishing then and I'm pretty sure that people wrote up their memoirs of their odysseys through the various practices/groups/cults on offer.
I was also, in the light of this article today, intrigued that it was two bloke friends who set her on this path: I’m delighted to see gen Z men in the UK flocking back to church – I just hope it’s for the right reasons. So am I. I have a friend who has been involved in the much-delayed and still unsatisfactory response of the C of E to certain abuse cases and some of those seem to have been connected with cultish manifestations which were praised for bringing in that particular demographic.
(And having noted the other day that Witchfinder Hopkins was pretty much in that demographic of young men aged 18-24, I'd really like to know where these Gen Z converts are in relation to issues like ordination of women, LGCBTQ+ inclusivity, etc etc.)
2025.04.21
Apr. 21st, 2025 08:06 amlsandersonWhat did JD Vance have to do with the Pope's demise? -- You decide!
Mars King at the Pioneer Press reports: “Whether you have an official autism diagnosis or an inkling that you could be on the spectrum, you are invited to a happy hour on Wednesday. Happy Hour for Adults with Autism kicks off at 4 p.m. April 23 and will give attendees the chance to socialize without the stigma, according to event sponsors Fraser, a provider of autism and early childhood mental health services, and Sheletta Brundidge, a local business owner and mother of three children who are on the spectrum.” Via MinnPost
https://www.twincities.com/2025/04/19/happy-hour-adults-with-autism-minneapolis-rfk-jr/
The Star Tribune’s Jon Bream reports: “Monday marks the ninth anniversary of Prince’s passing. As Paisley Park has done previously on April 21, it will be open for free for people to pay their respects.” Via MinnPost
https://www.startribune.com/prince-anniversary-death-paisley-park-chanhassen-concert-film-greensboro-candle-lighting/601335340
Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold Trump officials in contempt
Senator warns of US getting ‘closer to a constitutional crisis’ as Samuel Alito’s dissent signals deference to Trump
Edward Helmore
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/20/amy-klobuchar-samuel-alito-trump-immigration
How the Fuck Do Some Democrats Not Get That Due Process Is the Fight?
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
The ancient history of Iceland's warring Viking families
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0l4kk08/the-ancient-history-of-iceland-s-warring-viking-families
Mars King at the Pioneer Press reports: “Whether you have an official autism diagnosis or an inkling that you could be on the spectrum, you are invited to a happy hour on Wednesday. Happy Hour for Adults with Autism kicks off at 4 p.m. April 23 and will give attendees the chance to socialize without the stigma, according to event sponsors Fraser, a provider of autism and early childhood mental health services, and Sheletta Brundidge, a local business owner and mother of three children who are on the spectrum.” Via MinnPost
https://www.twincities.com/2025/04/19/happy-hour-adults-with-autism-minneapolis-rfk-jr/
The Star Tribune’s Jon Bream reports: “Monday marks the ninth anniversary of Prince’s passing. As Paisley Park has done previously on April 21, it will be open for free for people to pay their respects.” Via MinnPost
https://www.startribune.com/prince-anniversary-death-paisley-park-chanhassen-concert-film-greensboro-candle-lighting/601335340
Amy Klobuchar calls on supreme court to hold Trump officials in contempt
Senator warns of US getting ‘closer to a constitutional crisis’ as Samuel Alito’s dissent signals deference to Trump
Edward Helmore
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/20/amy-klobuchar-samuel-alito-trump-immigration
How the Fuck Do Some Democrats Not Get That Due Process Is the Fight?
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
The ancient history of Iceland's warring Viking families
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0l4kk08/the-ancient-history-of-iceland-s-warring-viking-families
Clarke Award Finalists 1994
Apr. 21st, 2025 09:10 amjames_davis_nicoll1994: At least four MPs die from unrelated causes, Tony Blair uses his new position as leader of the Labour Party to make bold economic statements unbounded by reality, and in a bold rebuke of a half million years of effort to isolate Britain from the continent, the Chunnel opens.
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 1994 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Vurt by Jeff Noon
A Million Open Doors by John Barnes
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Broken God by David Zindell
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick
Poll #33014 Clarke Award Finalists 1994
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 60
Which 1994 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View Answers
Vurt by Jeff Noon
10 (16.7%)
A Million Open Doors by John Barnes
17 (28.3%)
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
29 (48.3%)
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
49 (81.7%)
The Broken God by David Zindell
6 (10.0%)
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick
29 (48.3%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.
Which 1994 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Vurt by Jeff Noon
A Million Open Doors by John Barnes
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Broken God by David Zindell
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick
Recent reading
Apr. 20th, 2025 08:26 pmtroisoiseauxRead A Gallery of Rogues by Beth Lincoln, sequel to The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, collectively a rollicking middle-grade series about young Shenanigan Swift and her sprawling extended family of nominatively-determined eccentrics— and, in this one, the Swifts' estranged French relatives, the Martinets. And a gang of theatrical art thieves! And an Interpol agent who is the long-standing ~nemesis~ of Shenanigan's uncle Maelstrom! Once again, this book feels like was written specifically to appeal to my 10-year-old self - it somehow reminds me of a whole bunch of memorable MG books circa the mid-2000s, including The Mysterious Benedict Society, Lemony Snicket, The Willoughbys (by Lois Lowry, apparently??), and Roxie and the Hooligans, with the added bonus of being casually, joyfully LGBT-affirming and diverse - but I don't actually begrudge it for arriving two decades late.
Read The Novices of Lerna by Ángel Bonomini (and translated from Spanish by Jordan Landsman), a collection of short stories I picked up after hearing about the titular novella, in which a young man is offered a secretive academic fellowship alongside - it turns out - his twenty-three doppelgängers. I'd actually gotten my wires slightly crossed and assumed that this book was only the titular novella - which I had also assumed was, like, an actual novel? - so the short stories were a surprise, but they were great: lyrical, atmospheric, and strange, with a tendency to end on an abrupt, unsettling note that rattled around my head for a while afterwards.
Read The Novices of Lerna by Ángel Bonomini (and translated from Spanish by Jordan Landsman), a collection of short stories I picked up after hearing about the titular novella, in which a young man is offered a secretive academic fellowship alongside - it turns out - his twenty-three doppelgängers. I'd actually gotten my wires slightly crossed and assumed that this book was only the titular novella - which I had also assumed was, like, an actual novel? - so the short stories were a surprise, but they were great: lyrical, atmospheric, and strange, with a tendency to end on an abrupt, unsettling note that rattled around my head for a while afterwards.
Old-Timey Con Report (Part 3) - Blame it on the Monkey King
Apr. 20th, 2025 12:42 pmlydamorehouse
Image: A very unstable LEGO gummie tractor made from a packet picked up at Minicon (GPS room)
My second (and last, as it happens,) day at MInicon was a real mixed bag and I am, in fact, still sorting out a lot of how I feel about it. As I noted in the previous post, most of my panels (4 out of 5) felt no better than 'meh,' with at least two of them sinking to 'is this an unmitigated diaster??? I think this might be a disaster!!' in my book.
But, it's possible that my standards out of whack. And, at least one person in the audience of one of the panels I thought was possibly The BIGGEST trainwreck, actually said that most of what I told her about privately was not at all visible to the audience (which is good!) She had a great time and thought the panel was fun. The problem may just be me.
So, take everything below with a very large heaping of salt.
Saturday
My first panel on Saturday wasn't until 11:30 am and so Shawn and I did our usual alliterative errands. We went to the cardborad recycling place, the coffee shop and stopped for cardamom spinners at Brake Bread (yes, spelled like that. They are a drive-up and bicycle delivering--as in, home deliveries by bicycle--bakery, so it's the screeeeeeeech of braking suddenly that they are evoking, along with the pun on breaking bread, of course, I believe.) But, so I got to have fancy coffee and fancy food before heading off to Bloomington and the convention.
My first panel of the day yesterday was the one I was most concerned about, "The Monkey King Travels West." While I was willing to name names in the previous post, I am going to be a little more circumspect in this post, since the person I had the most issues with will very likely be the one to decide if I'm on paneling again next year.
I can't even say that the pre-panel chatter started well.
I was, at least, delighted to have Delia I. to my left and Anna W. to my right. ( CW: transphobia )
Because, once we got underway, I was still upset on Phoenix's behalf and on behalf of all the queer folks in the room (including myself) and so I was not really in the mood to try to follow the moderator's questions, some of which seemed a bit rambling and all over the place. Like, was this about the legendary figure of the Monkey King or was it about the cross-pollenation between Eastern media and Western and vice versa? The answer seemed to be [cue: meme] "Both! Why not both?"Which might have worked if the moderator had a better hypothesis, you know? Instead it was, as I said, disjointed at best and, of course, I was struggling to engage. This moderator, too, has a tendency to hog the microphone, which is generally not considered best practices.
Let's just say I was happy when it was over and I fled.
Delia I. was hot on my heels. Delia had heard that there was a potato/taco bar in the GPS room happing RIGHT NOW, and so, having connected up with
naomikritzer who was waiting for me outside the programming area, we all headed for much needed food and debriefing. We spent a huge amount of time in the GPS room, actually, talking to the various folks there and trying to build gummy LEGO vehicles from the packets they had available. Despite the picture above, mine was not successful in the room. We had all postulated that the gummies might work better if they were colder/stiffer, and that proved to be true of the leftover pack I took away with me--my fingers had been all over it, trying to build something (so, OF COURSE, I had to take it home!) I ran off around 1 pm to meet up with one of my new pen pals, Roger P., who is actually in a gaming group with
caffeine , who is someone else I had a tremendous amount of fun with spending time with at con (and getting to see pictures of the newest grandbaby!) Roger was not at con, so we met at a nearby (walkable) Caribou. Roger turned out to be just my sort, so we probably chatted for an hour or more? He brought a book that he wanted me to sign and so I did that. It was a nice break to get OUT of the con, too.Surprisingly, Naomi was just where I left her so we continued to hang out there for much of the afternoon. We'd been thinking about going out to get Szechuan at a place Naomi loves and, in retrospect, I wish we had. We ended up having a great time in the hotel restraunt continuing our conversation with Aaron V G, but the service and the food were... iffy. Naomi and I both ordered the butternut squash ravioli, and this is what we got:
Image: Mediocre food masquerading as froo-froo.
The dark droozle of stuff was, I think, supposed to be balsamic something or other, but, insted, tasted like something WAY too sweet. It was edible, but, honestly, only barely. We also lost our server for a long time (I did not even see her flitting about taking care of other people in the restaurant) and I had to flag down another server (who actually turned out to be the manager) and see if we could order more food, etc., etc. I mean, at least this I understand. The hotel probably had a lot of trouble getting people who wanted to work on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. And, I mean, no harm, really. Thank goodness I had HOURS before I needed to be at my 7 pm panel.
Even though I would have missed the company, I do think the two of us would have been better off at Szechuan.
At some point in here, I also wandered the Dealer's Room and happened to stumble across the author of O Human Star, Blue Delliquanti.
jiawen recommended this web comic to me and it is AMAZING (and made me cry the good tears.) I had an absolute fucking fan squee freak out to actually meet Blue in-person. I may have said something stupid like, "Wait, wait, YOU wrote THIS??" which, I mean, why else would someone be sitting behind a display of the graphic novel set? Anyway, I gushed pretty incoherently at Blue about their art and stories and then I absolutely blew the budget I was set by buying all three volumes of O Human Star and had them sign them. I was wearing my ConFABulous t-shirt and so Blue mentioned that they thought they might like to attend that con sometime, and so I gave them my pitch for Gaylaxicon which is what ConFABulous will be THIS year. I need to remember to follow-up today and make sure to have John T. or Don K. reach out to them.
I am sure I am missing a bunch of other stuff that happened in here, but now we move on to Disaster #2, "The Pitfalls and Benefits of Writing Humor."
We were down a moderator because the person who was supposed to take that role was, I believe, sick or otherwise unable to come to con. I was a little thrown at the beginning of the panel when Wesley suggested that the audience boo the missing panelist, but okay. We all joked that we should take turns moderating and so Wesley assigned himself the role of "the one who reads the panel description," and I assigned myself the role of "the person who suggests we all introduce ourselves and picks who we start with." This was mostly all fine (booing aside,) and then... somehow the Monkey King came to haunt me again.
Again I am going to be a little more circumspect about the panelist I am about to discuss because she is actually a very good friend of mine, who I think just misstepped BADLY.
But, y'all, it was bad.
( CW: micro-agressions and racism )
I have NO IDEA what my friend says to Wesley or how he takes it, because I am intercepting Wesley's liason to let him know that Wesley might need a STIFF DRINK after this panel and this would be why.
I had two more panels to go before I could go home
Again, however, I asked a friend of mine who was in the audience how this whole scene played out to her, and I think we were really lucky that the microphones in that room were kind of crap and I'm not sure how sure how much of it was heard by anyone but the panelists and the first few rows. My friend was seated in the middle and said she tuned out the whole Monkey King thing because she had no interest in any of that and so had no idea anything had really happened.
After the debacle that was the Humor panel, I flagged down one of my fellow panelists, Ozgur, for the next one ("The Restaurant at the End of the Book," for which I am the moderator) and asked him if he would be willing to be a stealth co-moderator, There is one panelist that could be a problem, and I had seen that person at the bar, so 50/50 they were sober. So, I said to Ozgur that if I seem to be floundering to please jump in and help me wrestle the topic back to plumb. He agreed.
Thus armed, I went into the next one.
Turns out? This was the best panel I was on all weekend. The panelist I was worried about? A perfect addtion to the panel, extremely lively in all the right ways. We stayed on topic with only a few, very natural diversions into related topics, like the history of certain foods, etc. I think panelists were happy because I asked those that created recipes for their books to share them, and at the end, I made sure that anyone who had things they wanted to plug had the opportunity to do so. Ozgur never had to rescue me, and, more importantly, IT WAS FUN.
My last panel was "Who is Voting for Team Rocket?" and our moderator decided to take that literally and had a fun little part at the end where we voted on various villains in various catagories and whoever suggested them won a small figurine that she had picked up at the dollar store. This panel did not pop, but it also did not fail, so it slotted in nicely to the 'it was okay' set of panels.
What a wild damn ride.
This is not my usual experience at Minicon at all. I am blaming the Monkey King, because clearly I have displeased him with my lack of knowledge. Hopefully a penance of several chapters of A Journey to the West will put my life's vibe back in order.
last! frost! date!
Apr. 20th, 2025 06:11 pmwaterswordYesterday was the first really nice day we've had since, like, October, and it was also the spring workday for garden #4. My bed there is now nicely topped up with compost and I will put asparagus and rhubarb in when I get back from the Obligatory Family Event next week. (I also got a bunch of numbers from fellow gardeners and am going to try to organize an expedition to a local native nursery.)
Today was a little chillier and windy, but I got out and planted four kinds of peas (Snak Hero, Cascadia, Mammoth Melting, and a sweet pea mix) and pruned the rosemary in my plot in garden #1. Providence is so beautiful in the spring, and everything has started blooming practically overnight, trees foaming with white and pink and gold, daffodils and tulips and violets glowing.
Tomorrow is the election for the board for the group backing garden #3, I am not running and no one can make me.
ETA: Goddamn it, I am informed no one has volunteered to lead the infrastructure committee, which is what I care about anyway. But I only care about a subset of things in infrastructure (benches and the pollinator garden) and what I have said before still applies: I don't want to be in charge of shit! I am very good at it but it is very bad for me! This is not how I want to spend my one wild and precious life!
Haikai Fest: "Small Child Adventures"
Apr. 20th, 2025 07:05 amjjhunterLet's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===
every wooded path
The Lost Forest, every hole
home to mystery
_
===
every wooded path
The Lost Forest, every hole
home to mystery
_
Culinary
Apr. 20th, 2025 06:29 pmoursinNo bread made this week, last week's + rolls holding out.
Firday night supper: sardegnera with spicy Calabrian salami; okay but not the great sardegnera I've accomplished.
Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones loosely based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, made with Marriage's Light Spelt Flour.
Today's lunch: lemon sole fillets, which I baked thus - first cooked chopped shallots, chopped up butter and pancetta in hot oven for 15 mins, then added quartered little gem lettuce for a further 5 mins, then added petit pois (tinned, recipe said frozen but they only had huge bags of frozen) and white wine + water (recipe said vegetable stock but didn't have any) and placed sole fillets on top and seasoned with salt and pepper, baked for a further 5-10 mins, added lemon zest just before serving (this was about finding something to do with spare packet of pancetta left over from the other week); served with warm green bean and fennel salad (dressing actually olive oil + white wine + tarragon, left for a bit to marinate and strained over the beans) (this was using up the fennel left over from last week, also last red onion); and sticky rice with coconut milk and lime leaves.
Old-Timey Con Report (Part 2) - Friday Night
Apr. 20th, 2025 08:24 amlydamorehouse
Image: con material--program book, table tent, pen and notebook
Friday Night
I will not bury the lead. Thank you to everyone who wished me luck with logistics. I MADE IT TO THE CON IN PLENTY OF TIME.
I got an email from a friend shortly after I posted my pre-con report on Friday afternoon, letting me know tht 494 was so backed up that a trip that should take 11 minutes was taking 36. So, I absolutely should NOT wait until 5 pm to head out if I wanted ot get there in time. This prompted me to call Shawn who also realized that she had a meeting with the Board of the Friends of the LIbrary (her volunteer gig) at 4:30 pm so she actually couldn't stay at work as long as she wanted to, anyway. Our compromise was that I would pick her up at 3:45 pm. That gave me plenty of time to get her back home and get ready to head out.
The highway was pretty awful. But when I left it was only just after 4 pm, so I had an hour and some change before I needed to panic. Thus, when I hit the slowdown near the interchange, I just went into my Zen driving mode. I listened to the songs on the radio and just let the ebb and flow of the stop and start just be whatever it was going to be. I often have a weird amount of patience for traffic jams? The thing is, there is really no point to getting upset (unless you are late and/or you really need to pee or something) because you can't make the traffic move any faster by yelling at it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I absolutely have also spent plenty of traffic jams yelling and fretting. Sometimes it's cathartic to just tell everyone else on the road how stupid they are. But this time I was able to just relax into it... and so I made record time. Somehow managed to get to the hotel by 4:30 pm.
The upside is that it gave me a chance to orient myself.
Image: an inflatable saucer, in the atrium, pool side, if you will.
For those of you less familiar with this convention, this was the first time (I believe) that Minicon has returned to a hotel that used to host us nearly since time immemorial. I have spent so much of my local con life in this particlar hotel (since, for a while it also hosted CONvergence) that I actually dream about its architecture. It's nooks and crannies are all well known to me. The only draw back to this 'muscle memory,' if you will, is that I still have, in my mind, a map that no longer perfectly overlays the current configuration, ala, "Dealer's room = this spot, programming = these rooms, Con Suite = this place."
Because of this, while I likely would have had plenty of time to actually get some food at the con suite, I ended up wandering around aimlessly. The good news is that I had a chance to check out the dealer's room a bit, say hello to a number of my panelists who were handselling their books, and figure out where my panel actually was. I talked to a couple of friends that I never see anywhere other than cons, specficially Greg J. who apparently spent his vacation last year bicycling all the way to Duluth which is hella impressive to me. He was very demure. "I took it easy. I only biked 40 miles a day." Meanwhile, I was thinking I would be exhausted after mile 5, but, honestly, good for him. It's absolutely the kind of thing I would enjoy if I could actually bike for that long and that far.
Of course, just as I was heading into my panel I ran into Eleanor A. and Ruth B. who invited me to dinner with them, but, at that point, it was about fifteen mintues until the start of my panel, and so I had to decline.
My first panel was "On Learning How to Write," and I was moderating.
I have to admit that some weird vibe was in the air for me for this whole convention. I only had ONE panel that rose above "meh" for me and at least two that I might classify as "unmitigated disasters."
"On Learning " fell into the 'meh' catagory and, I guess, as the moderator, I only have myself to blame. I thought the panelists were will chosen. We had a wide range career options--self-published, small press, and traditionally published. There was a time in my career when I might have been snotty about the fact that I, a PROFESSIONAL, was seated at the table with anyone who wasn't also traditionally published, but it's not 1998 anymore and lots and lots and lots of people I respect (including many of the folks on that panel with me) are having hybrid careers and/or are making a very fine living as small press or self-published authors. Lois McMaster Bujold and Ursula Vernon self-publish these days, for crying out loud. SFWA accepts self-published authors. The lines--which never needed to be there in the fist place--have been blurred to the point of zero distinction: Writers are writers.
I bring this up because it felt to me like Wesley Chu, who was Minicon's Guest of Honor this year, seemed a little prickly about these distinctions. He seemed to keep wanting to tell us how many books he has out, generally. More speficially, when the question of beta readers came up he seemed to want to go on and on about how beta readers are worthless because they're just some randos. At this point, I may have leaned into the microphone to note that my beta readers aren't randos. Not only are they people I trust and RESPECT but a number of them are multiple Hugo award winners--so maybe Wesley just needed a better set of friends.
Do I regret this in the sober light of day?
No, actually, I do not.
First of all, I also have beta readers who are not award-winners who are amazing and for WHOM I WOULD DIE FOR. I chose them because they understand me and my writing and I have read their writing and/or respect and admire their experise and intellect. My beta readers--ALL OF THEM, including those who beta read my fanfic--have HELPED ME IMPROVE MY CRAFT, full stop.
Second, do not dis the experise of the other panelists on my watch.
I will have you know that Ozgur Sahin is an award-winning author; Douglas Van Dyke is an award-winning author; Deb Kinnard had already started the panel out with a whole thing about "not being smart enough to be a science fiction author" and "only" being a romance author. (DEB I TOO AM A ROMANCE AUTHOR, HOW ABOUT WE DON'T.) Guy Stewart, who I know less about, had just finished telling a lovely story about how his DAUGHTER is his beta reader and I'm sorry. But I don't care how many books you've had published, no one gets to call anyone's child a 'rando' or imply that they don't contribute in a meaningful way. My son has helped me work on my novels, including traditionally published ones.
So, yeah, that one probably could have gone better.
If there were extra prickly feelings afterwards, it's entirely my fault. I did pull Ozgur aside afterwards to ask what he thought of the panel (and spectifically our GoH's performance on it.) Ozgur had a generally a better sense of it and was much more willing to chalk some of the comments up to Imposter Syndrome and general nerves than I was. By chance, later, one of the audience members I ran into said that they thoughs that particular panel was very encouraging, so at least I got across what I wanted the panel to be about--which is that there are lots of ways to learn the craft and none of them are wrong (or right, for that matter.) If you are writing you should do whatever feels right for you. Get words down on the page. That's the most important thing. And, to be fair to Wesley, he also reiterated that sentiment several times.
I will say that I went into the next panel I had with Wesley on Saturday fully willing to give him a second chance, but that panel was one of the two near unmitigated disaster panels, so.... more on that later.
To finish up Friday--I ended up finally making it over to the con suite to get some food. I ran into Mike S. there and his friend Tom (whose last name I have forgotten, if I was ever told it.) They both got up and started to leave, so I asked if they could have their table. They said yes, but then talked about going somewhere else to talk and I said, "Well, stay here! I would love your company." I think they were both surprised by this? But, I like Mike a lot. I got to know him a bit outside of convention space when I was regularly working at the Maplewood Library. We would run into each other there and talk about the books he was checking out, etc. Plus, he and I are mask buddies? In fact at one point on Saturday when we had finished eating at the potato/taco bar at the GIS room, he reminded me when it was time to mask back up. Plus, he and Tom are both interesting guys. Once Micheal Mirriam joined us, the talk turned to airplane near-accidents, and I learned that Tom was in the navy in (and I'm guessing here because he didn't say, but it sounded like probably) Vietnam. I loved hanging out with all of them, and not only did we gather Michael M, but also
pegkerr so it felt very much like a classic Minicon moment.It felt like time to drift back towards the programming area and so I stood around near registration with Adam Stemple, Ari S., and Delia I. Adam and were loud and boisterous (like we are--I later joked that we can easily be found by "echolocation," although in our case, you just follow the vibrations of our LOUDNESS until you spot us.) Eventually, it was time to go to
naomikritzer 's panel on "The Female Gaze." The people on that panel did a good job, though I will confess I was not all that invested in the topic. I was there to see Naomi. We connected after for a little bit, which was nice, but I was turning into a pumpkin, so I didn't stay terribly long after.This is getting a bit long and the next section on Saturday is likely to be even longer, so I'm going to break these in two.
2025.04.20
Apr. 20th, 2025 08:53 amlsanderson‘It blew us away’: how an asteroid may have delivered the vital ingredients for life on Earth
Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existence
Robin McKie Science Editor
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/20/it-blew-us-away-how-an-asteroid-may-have-delivered-the-vital-ingredients-for-life-on-earth
The big picture: Wolfgang Tillmans’s tender image of two boys off the coast of Denmark
The German photographer captures a moment of tranquility one Scandinavian summer
Emily LaBarge
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/apr/20/the-big-picture-wolfgang-tillmans-ocean
The Fighting Temeraire: Why JMW Turner's greatest painting is so misunderstood
Matt Wilson
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250415-jmw-turner-at-250-why-his-greatest-painting-the-fighting-temeraire-is-so-misunderstood
‘Why be toxic?’: Russell T Davies hits back at claims Doctor Who too woke
Screenwriter says he has no time for ‘online warriors’ criticising show, which now has two minority ethnic leads
Hannah Al-Othman North of England correspondent
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/17/russell-t-davies-hits-back-at-claims-doctor-who-too-woke
Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existence
Robin McKie Science Editor
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/20/it-blew-us-away-how-an-asteroid-may-have-delivered-the-vital-ingredients-for-life-on-earth
The big picture: Wolfgang Tillmans’s tender image of two boys off the coast of Denmark
The German photographer captures a moment of tranquility one Scandinavian summer
Emily LaBarge
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/apr/20/the-big-picture-wolfgang-tillmans-ocean
The Fighting Temeraire: Why JMW Turner's greatest painting is so misunderstood
Matt Wilson
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250415-jmw-turner-at-250-why-his-greatest-painting-the-fighting-temeraire-is-so-misunderstood
‘Why be toxic?’: Russell T Davies hits back at claims Doctor Who too woke
Screenwriter says he has no time for ‘online warriors’ criticising show, which now has two minority ethnic leads
Hannah Al-Othman North of England correspondent
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/17/russell-t-davies-hits-back-at-claims-doctor-who-too-woke
Tomorrow some new building will scrape the sky
Apr. 19th, 2025 06:46 pmsovayFrom my office window, I just watched a visitor deliberately smell a Bradford pear and regret it. The trees have really broken into bloom, so I took my camera out into the blotter-paper overcast that kept thinking about raining and then not quite.
( Once I was outside Penn Station, selling red and white carnations. )
spatch has been showing me Hill Street Blues (1981–87), which after a season and a handful I can see resembled nothing else in the Nielsen ratings of its time, structurally, tonally, perhaps even politically, since what I would not have expected from a cop show of the early Reagan administration is so much emphasis on what we would now call non-toxic masculinity as an ideal if not always achieved. Its attitudinal snapshots are fascinating. It is working seriously for diversity. Its interlocking narratives and human messiness make sense of it as the yardstick for J. Michael Straczynski in creating Babylon 5 (1993–98), which is how I heard of the show originally and what it is currently doing in my eyes. I am also enjoying the worldbuilding of its fictional city, whose geographical location is deliberately obscure but whose individual neighborhoods and businesses and sports teams are throwing out runners all over the plot. Actually, to my surprised pleasure, it reminds me distinctly of Frederick Nebel's Kennedy and MacBride.
( Once I was outside Penn Station, selling red and white carnations. )
spatch has been showing me Hill Street Blues (1981–87), which after a season and a handful I can see resembled nothing else in the Nielsen ratings of its time, structurally, tonally, perhaps even politically, since what I would not have expected from a cop show of the early Reagan administration is so much emphasis on what we would now call non-toxic masculinity as an ideal if not always achieved. Its attitudinal snapshots are fascinating. It is working seriously for diversity. Its interlocking narratives and human messiness make sense of it as the yardstick for J. Michael Straczynski in creating Babylon 5 (1993–98), which is how I heard of the show originally and what it is currently doing in my eyes. I am also enjoying the worldbuilding of its fictional city, whose geographical location is deliberately obscure but whose individual neighborhoods and businesses and sports teams are throwing out runners all over the plot. Actually, to my surprised pleasure, it reminds me distinctly of Frederick Nebel's Kennedy and MacBride.