![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
We make ours in boring circles and put a bunch of extraneous stuff on top of 'em.
The dogs, though, they like theirs a particular way.
They like 'em a lot.
|
Page Summary
September 2009
|
One of my favorite passages from one of my favorite books, The Jane Austen Book Club. This was the afternoon that made a reader out of Grigg.
Soon he had learned: From Arthur C. Clarke, that "art cannot be enjoyed unless it is approached with love." From Theodore Sturgeon, that "sometimes the world's too much to live with and a body sort of has to turn away from it to rest." From Philip K. Dick, that "at least half the famous people in history never existed," and that "anything can be faked." What Grigg liked best about science fiction was that it seemed to be a place where he was neither alone nor surrounded by girls. He wouldn't have continued to like it as he grew, if it really had been as girl-free a world as he initially thought. His first favorite author was Andrew North. Later he learned that Andrew North was a pen name for Andre Norton. Later still he learned that Andre Norton was a girl. For the convenience of those of my relatives who've started their annual round of phone calls and e-mails, one click access to my "amazon wish list™". Just twelve more days 'til my thirty-ninth birthday! And, y'know, whatever other gift giving occasions fall on that day. If you didn't ask about this, just pretend this was one of those bicycling entries you usually skim over.
adj. Having more than the usual number of digits... ...they'd call it Rainy Day Ramble. Inspired by Erin's mention of this Eamonn McCabe audio slideshow at the BBC, I just put up some pictures of my own working space in this Flikr set. If there's a way to put links into Flikr photo notes, I haven't figure it out. So y'all get them here, instead. This sample photo features my tools:
This is pretty extraordinary. I was listening to WEKU this morning and heard the end of Edmund Rubbra's 8th Symphony, which is titled Hommage a Teilhard de Chardin. That's interesting enough in and of itself, but then the announcer (should I call him a dee-jay? classical music guys at public radio stations don't seem like "dee-jays" to me) mentioned that there's a "Teilhard Suite" at the Gratz Park Inn, which is only two blocks from our house. Um, suite in this case meaning "rooms in a hotel" and not "what classical music guys are normally talking about when they use the word 'suite.' " Whatcha smilin' at there, smiley? Tomorrow night's special two hour NOVA, "The Bible's Buried Secrets," looks to be a corker. Top Chef is back and (finally) in New York. Man, I hate its website, but I'm sure glad Gwenda talked me into watching Life. That guy's doing something with the "quirky detective" characterization that I think is a little deeper than what I've seen before. The humor is there, but it's thinly masking something a lot scarier. Gotta Netflix season one. And speaking of detectives, extraordinary characterization, and Netflix, we've got ourselves on a slow drip of the last season of The Wire, which aired after we'd trimmed the pay channels off our satellite package. Unless this is the first time you've ever read about television on the internet, then you've already heard that, for a lot of values of "best," this is about the best message the medium has ever transmitted. Now, when is somebody going to put The Name of the Game on DVD? Updated to add this video so you can watch the nifty title sequence and listen to the hip David Grusin theme to The Name of the Game. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. —Authorized King James Version
And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. —New King James Version Do for others as you would like them to do for you. —New Living Translation Do to others as you would have them do to you. —New International Version And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. —English Standard Version Y como queréis que hagan los hombres con vosotros, así también haced vosotros con ellos. —Versión Reina-Valera Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. —New American Standard And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. —Revised Standard Version And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. —American Standard Version ...and as ye wish that men may do to you, do ye also to them in like manner; —Young's Literal Translation And as ye wish that men should do to you, do ye also to them in like manner. —Darby Translation And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. —Webster's Bible As you would like people to do to you, do exactly so to them. —Hebrew Names Version et prout vultis ut faciant vobis homines et vos facite illis similiter —Latin Vulgate καὶ καθὼς θέλετε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς ὁμοίως —Textus Receptus καὶ καθὼς θέλετε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς ὁμοίως —Morphological Greek New Testament I know up on the top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights. —Yertle the Turtle (After Keith Olbermann, fidei defensor) Know, oh prince, that according to the Daily Telegraph, Barack Obama collects Conan the Barbarian comic books. What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? - "The Road of Kings" Robert E. Howard Kind of gets you right here, don't it? Print ad for Portland's River City Bicycles, via the Copenhagen Bike Culture Blog. There are thirty-six lots fronting our block of North Upper Street here in Lexington, a city-sized blue life raft in a sea of red. It's a pretty diverse block, architecturally. There's an Episcopal church built in the late fifties at one end and a wood sided shotgun house converted to a daycare at the other. Otherwise, it's mostly single family homes of various shapes and sizes built about a hundred years ago, though two of the biggest Victorian piles have been converted into apartments, as has the largest building on the block, four stories of white brick that the YWCA dedicated as the Phillis Wheatley Center about seventy years ago. There are wealthy people and working class people living in these homes, students and retirees, office workers and factory workers and even one science fiction writer. The racial makeup is so close to a fifty/fifty balance of black and white that I think it tilts on who has grandkids staying for the weekend. I've just come back from taking a little walk with the dogs, and while I was out I counted the number of Obama signs I saw in the yards and windows of those thirty-six lots. There are twenty (including two in one yard and one in the daycare playground.) I decided to count them because while I was sitting at my desk earlier this morning, I heard some very young children slowly walking up the street and making quite a noise. There were three of them, all less than five years old if I'm any judge, holding hands in a clumsy, toddling daisy chain anchored by a smiling woman in her sixties. Every few steps they would stop, and she would ask, "How do you spell it?" And the three children, one little boy and two little girls dressed identically down to the pink bows in their hair, would peer at the closest sign and shout, "O! B! A! M! A!" And the lady would say, "That's the President's name!" ------- Our local Pulitizer Prize winning editorial cartoonist offered this today. I used to wear a beard back in the nineties sometimes, but Miss Gwenda ain't much for beards. However, I knew that the Mr. Fantastic thing I've had going on since I was 25 had to have extended to my cherubic cheeks by now and was curious what a white beard would be like. I actually managed to talk her into letting me grow it out. For a little while, anyway. This is day ten of the experiment. It'll take me another couple of weeks to grow it all the way in, at which point I'll take another picture, shave, and post the before and afters. My idea was to let you, the people, decide whether I could keep it or not. But, alas, this household is not a democracy. And even it was, well, y'know, you don't actually live here. I turn 39 at Christmas and feel that I have every right to look like a bookish middle-aged type. I had a conversation with a guy last week who pointed out that the stuff I like being good at it—writing, riding bikes, cooking—is stuff that I actually keep getting better at it as I get older. Bring on the forties, that's what I say. By now, it's well known that, like one in every five American women, Sarah Palin is a Wal-mart shopper. I'm not sure whether she counts herself among the 63 percent of Wal-mart moms who say they "worry about having enough money to pay for daily necessities like groceries and rent," but just in case she is, I thought maybe I could find a way to ease her mind a little bit. Now, obviously, the Republican National Committee didn't drop $150,000 on just one outfit for Governor Palin. Presumably, that's the budget for all 68 days from the time Senator McCain selected her as his running mate through November 4th, when she can switch back to her trusty state of Alaska charge card. So that's about $2,206 per day. Well, I hope the RNC kept their Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue receipts, because I'm about to save 'em a bundle! I went to wal-mart.com and poked around the women's apparel pages and came up with this outfit in just a few minutes!
And why not let the Governor say it with diamonds? They're a mom's best friend, right? The text on the webpage for this Austrian crystal Mom bracelet sounds kind of elite-y, but don't hold that it against it. "This elegant 18kt white gold-plated bracelet shimmers with Austrian crystals. The word "Mom" repeats, encircling her wrist." I think it's kinda sweet, myself. Now, reader, you could do what I just did and go come up with outfits for Governor Palin yourself. Heck, if we all stick to an $89 budget, then the RNC would only need to spend $6052 to dress the Governor in a new outfit for every day of the campaign! Which is only a little over three times what the average American family spends on clothing in a year. But instead, why don't you go here, and make sure you know where your polling place is. I, who have never written a novel before, am trying to write two concurrently. What's it about? The second book is called Sarah Across America, and some of you have heard me read from it.This is a book about slavery that turns into a book about freedom. What are my research needs?
What's it about? This is a book about exploration and distance—geographical, social, and psychological. Exploration is the bridging of distance. Geography is the study of how distance collapses or expands. The people who have access—however limited it might be—to the “magic” in this world are the people whose work has to do with different kinds of distances. Cultural workers like artists and shamans, certain kinds of engineers and physicists—like aeronauts and submariners, telephonic engineers and astronomers—and the social scientists who work the interfaces between those fields of work—geographers. The main differences between this world and ours are these (at a “guiding principles” level anyway, of course the differences would “really” occur as an untellable metastasization, a fractal expansion headed down an inescapable and unexplorable rabbit hole):
Hit the closer (and so narrower, remember that) view button once, twice, and European expansion into the Americas is limited to the Caribbean, which is largely Spanish, and to the Eastern Seaboard of what is now Canada and the United States, which remains a set of British colonies. The novel is set in a 1930s. What are my research needs?
Brunhilda, please report to the stage. Shamelessly lifted and offered to you in lieu of original content. (By the way, anybody know if there's anything good on the teevee machine tonight?)
The finest growth that farmland can produce is a careful farmer. --from "Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer," Wendell Berry
My nephew, William Rowe, third of that name to better this piece of ground. |
