sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey)
[personal profile] sovay
Current events currenting as they are, I appreciated reading about Gertrude Berg and hearing the news from Spaceballs: The Sweatshirt. [personal profile] spatch came home with T-shirt swag for the latest Wes Anderson film and it is almost parodically minimalist with its screen-print of Air Korda.

I enjoyed Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence (1958) so much that I am mildly horrified to discover that of the one film and three television adaptations to date, none appears to be simultaneously faithful to the novel and good. It doesn't push its interrogation of the amateur detective as far as Sayers or Tey, but it does care about what the question of justice looks like when the first fruits of a well-intended posthumous exoneration are neither closure not catharsis but instant rupture down all the fault lines of resentment, distrust, disappointment, and malice that the open-and-shut obviousness of the original investigation glossed over. Was justice even the spur to begin with, or just a belated alibi's anxious sense of guilt? The plot wraps up like its dramatis personae all had somewhere else to be, but until then it hangs out much longer in its misgivings than many of Christie's puzzles. Some of its ideas about adoption and heredity have less longevity than its premise, but I like the scientist explaining that his work in geophysics is too technical to afford him to be absent-minded.

In all the studio-diorama aesthetic of the video for Nation of Language's "Inept Apollo" (2025), the shot of the Tektronix 2205 made it for me. I grew up with a 2465.

it's been a busy day

Jun. 12th, 2025 08:45 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Cattitude and I got up at 5:45 so he could pill Kaja, preparatory to her dental surgery. Both the pilling and the medical care went well, and she is on soft food only for 10-14 days. Therefore Molly is too, and we have to give them different treats than the usual dental Greenies. (Kaja will also be getting anti-inflammatories for a couple of days, and gabapentin for five.)

I got email from my brother about Mom's estate. He has done the necessary formwork so Vanguard can give us the money from her account there, where we are co-beneficiaries. His share is already in his account existing account. I tried setting an account up online, which apparently failed at the last minute, so I called and got a helpful person to walk me through the process again, step by step. I had gotten far enough earlier to create security questions, including some that I can actually remember my answers to, and haven't used repeatedly elsewhere. Separately, I need to talk to someone at Amalgamated Bank about the account there, a joint account with both our names on it. I hope they'll let me, as co-owner, close the account and transfer the money elsewhere, rather than sending them a copy of the death certificate, getting the account just in my name, and then closing it.

Mark also said he's thinking of going to London next month to sort through Mom's belongings, photos, and paperwork. So he wants to know whether I'm going as well, and if so, what dates worth for me. (Putting this here so I'm less likely to forget to talk to Cattitude and Adrian and then write back to Mark.)

Minneapolis

Jun. 12th, 2025 11:24 am
sartorias: (Default)
[personal profile] sartorias
It's very poignant to be here again. I'm in Minneapolis so rarely that I can still distinguish each visit, but the overall sense is one of extended memory, that is not just of my own, but of anecdotes from my mother and grandmother about their lives here, my grandmother as a (very) young adult, and my mother as a kid.

Not all the memories of mine are good--the week we spent in Bloomington ranged from weird to horrific, the axis we kid spun around was the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom when my bio grandfather started his daily drinking and turned into a monster. We kids at least escaped with his bio kids (our age, his second marriage) but mom couldn't escape--we had the car.

The city that was best to them all (though mom only got to visit, never got to live there) was Red Wing. I adore that place! There's something so peaceful about Red Wing. And extended memory is very complete, as we heard ALL the stories about life on the farm, etc. But it wasn't idyllic--my grandmother and her older sister had to go--that was the conditions my great-grandmother accepted when she remarried in order to save the farm, around 1930, with the Depression really digging in. The man said he could abide the two younger girls but the sixteen year old (my grandmother) and her older sister had to get out and find their way on their own. Which they did, in Minneapolis, waiting tables.

Anyway I'm here for a con. I came a day early, knowing that getting in at one in the morning would leave me a zombie for a day. The weather is perfect--cool and cloudy. I think I'll go out for another walk.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Very nice and punctual but they've basically learned nothing in the year they've worked at the theatre. Not where to stand, not which row is which, or the general location of a given seat. The last two really matter during reserved seating shows. Whatever side that usher is on is going to have lines, and people may end up in the wrong seats.

So I was discussing the situation with my boss and I said my current approach was that each shift would be to pick one thing that usher does not know, and do my best to ensure they know it by the end of the shift. Last shift was "where to stand", for example. My reward is, I think, that usher is now _my_ special project who I will be working with whenever I HM.

I did assure my boss I do remember a previous HM who grilled ushers on seat location and would ding them a quarter hour for minor uniform infractions and that I wasn't going to use them as a model. Well, I do, but only in the sense of asking myself if the way I want to handle something is how that person would, and if it is, I do something else.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


An artisanal cheesemaker's attempt to save her precious cheese cave lands her in the middle of an interplanetary crisis.

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc

Wednesday reading

Jun. 11th, 2025 11:47 pm
redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)
[personal profile] redbird

Last week:

*Cattitude read Blue Moose, by Daniel Pinkwater, aloud to us, because it's one of his favorites and Adrian had never read it. I've reread the book several times, and was happy to hear it out loud.

*I read Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil, by Oliver Darkshire. Decidedly weird, funny fantasy. A lot of the humor is in the footnotes, which seem to be at least a quarter of the text. Also, the title does in fact describe the book. Isabella lives in a poor, out-of-the-way village, whose wizard keeps the local goblin market in check, until one day he doesn't. The goblins sell one thing, unnaturally tempting and dangerous fruit.

*Did not finish: Girls Against God, by Jenny Hval. I don't remember where I saw this recommended, and just couldn't get into it.

Currently reading:

*Installment Immortality, by Seanan McGuire, the latest book in her InCryptid series. I started it late last night, and only read a few pages before turning the light out.

*Twelve Trees, by Daniel Lewis, nonfiction about trees and climate change. I picked this up at the libraru, as a "book with a green caover" for the summer reading challenge.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Have never worked a show run by human golden retrievers...
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
I got home to find the day's mail had brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #83, containing my poem "Below Surface." It is a poem of empire; I wrote it at the start of the third week in January after shouting, "I ran out of curse tablets!" It bears about as much relation to the realities of the Emperors who died at Eboracum as the medieval Welsh legends of Constantius and I see no reason that should impair its efficacy. The issue it belongs to is gone, showcasing the elusive fiction and poetry of Steve Toase, Christian Fiachra Stevens, J. M. Vesper, Vincent Bae, and more. John and Flo Stanton contribute interior art as well as the reliable spirit photography of their front and back covers. You might as well pick up a copy before it disappears.

I photographed some ghost windows. I bought myself some white chocolate peanut butter cups. [personal profile] selkie's gift of tinned mackerel with lemon did not survive the night.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Tales of dissidents, dissenters, and iconoclasts taking on the status quo...

Five SFF Books About Oddballs Resisting Conformity

I'll never see my mom's guitar again

Jun. 10th, 2025 02:47 pm
sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
[personal profile] sovay
Under the circumstances, I had different weird dreams than I would have expected: writing a poem, watching some incredibly threadbare film noir with no waking equivalent, hearing a performance from a musical theater star ditto. I am beginning to think the pop culture of my dreams actually is the hell of a good video store next door, leavened in the last few nights by dreams of re-reading real-life authors currently in storage like P.C. Hodgell or Joan D. Vinge. I remain physically fried, news at nowhen. At least the rain seems to have kept off the neighborly leafblowing which perforated so much of yesterday. The news continues to feel like stupidly lethal cosplay, which I remember from the last round of this administration, which doesn't make me hate it less.

From This Day Forward by John Brunner

Jun. 10th, 2025 09:00 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The sudden, shocking, return of Shockwave Reader. Will the living envy the dead?

From This Day Forward by John Brunner

The Witch Roads, by Kate Elliott

Jun. 9th, 2025 01:35 pm
mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is the first book in a duology, and it's the kind of duology that's really one book split into two volumes. The end of this book is merely the stopping point of this book, not in any way an ending. If that bothers you, wait around until the other half is out.

Honestly I can't tell you why I didn't love this book. I wanted to love this book. It's a secondary world fantasy where one of the central relationships of the book is an aunt and nephew, and that kind of non-standard central relationship is absolutely up my alley. It's a fantasy world where magical environmental contamination is a major threat, which is also of great interest to me. Sensitive yet matter-of-fact handling of trans characters, check. Worldbuilding that deviates from standard, check. And there wasn't anything that made me roll my eyes or say ugh! It was just fine! But for me, at least, it was just fine. Honestly if this is your sort of thing I kind of wish you'd read it and tell me what you think might have been going on here, or if it's just...that some books and some people are ships passing in the night.

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E

Jun. 9th, 2025 02:01 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The 2023 Second Edition corebook, TECHNOFANTASY, and more

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


No rules, no bureaucracy, just some randos messing around with the past, present, and future.

Five Stories About Time Travel on a Limited Scale

Clarke Award Finalists 2000

Jun. 9th, 2025 10:21 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2000: The theft of an Enigma Machine comes too late to play a significant role in World War Two, Sellafield highlight British dedication to nuclear saafety, and the Conservatives, informed polling has them 2% ahead of Labour, discover that they are actually trailing by 13%.

Poll #33234 Clarke Award Finalists 2000
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53


Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Distraction by Bruce Sterling
11 (20.8%)

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
39 (73.6%)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
41 (77.4%)

Silver Screen by Justina Robson
8 (15.1%)

The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
4 (7.5%)

Time by Stephen Baxter
11 (20.8%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Silver Screen by Justina Robson
The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Time by Stephen Baxter

Letter Writers!

Jun. 9th, 2025 08:52 am
oracne: turtle (Default)
[personal profile] oracne
Love for our Elders is a program to send handwritten letters to older adults. "Our mission is to alleviate social isolation among older adults through handwritten letters and intergenerational connections."

All that skin against the glass

Jun. 9th, 2025 05:11 am
sovay: (Viktor & Mordecai)
[personal profile] sovay
It would be neither entirely fair nor completely accurate to say that the second season of Andor (2022–25) holocausted too close to the sun for my tolerance, but it got a lot closer than I had thought was possible.

Nervous, tired, desensitized. )

tl;dr we will be returning to the series once I cool down and the news out of L.A. and D.C. could stop being quite so bleeding-edge at any second. I should decompress with some queer film.

boring knee update

Jun. 8th, 2025 07:23 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
My right knee is healing, and stretching worked significantly better than yesterday. I even did a few carefully selected PT exercises this afternoon.

I can do more things standing up, and walking around the apartment is easier. However, I seem to have been leaning too much on the other leg, because my left knee started to hurt earlier. Not badly, but enough that I am putting the cane aside for the moment.

update Monday, 6/9: my knees feel mostly OK today. I am still being careful about walking a lot or standing too long. I just got the mail, figuring the two steps down to the mailboxes would be a useful check of how I'm doing. It was doable, but did hurt a little; I'm glad I decided not to go out. (The sidewalk is down another half dozen stairs, which are a bit more difficult than the ones inside, but the main thing is that this way I only had to climb back up two stairs.)

I heard from the GI doctor's office this morning, and have an appointment Friday at 10:30, which will be telemedicine. I hope my knees will be feeling a lot better by then, but if she had wanted to see me in person, I would have called a lyft and taken the quad cane with me just in case.

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