strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Mar 29 03: XY
So today Paul and I escorted Mom to my sister’s baby shower in Port Jefferson. Of course, once we got there, we had to evacuate the premises: as Paul described it, “it was like an Oprah episode in there.” Estrogen so thick you could cut it with a knife. So Paul and I and bro-in-law Jason went to Jason’s…anti-shower? Bath? We never really knew what to call it. It was a boyfest. Highlights:
- All 6 attendees discussing the best way to transform the malfunctioning gas grill into a functional charcoal grill, to facilitate barbeque
- Higher mathematics as we attempted to make change for everybody’s contributions to the beer-and-barbeque fund
- Round-robin bocce tournament (note: avoid the piles of unraked leaves)
- Would it rain? (yes)
- Burgers and Dogs
- Tequila, and discussion of the relative merits of The Good Stuff (provided) versus The Cheap Stuff (absent, saints be praised)
- Why Vinyl is Better than Digital (exhibit A: Pink Floyd/Animals)
- Yahtzee (Paul won.)
Fun for everybody. I had forgotten how the other half lived. I took advantage of my opportunity to be Secret Homo Anthropologist and took notes, but left them on the host’s living-room floor among the Yahtzee scorecards. (The list above is all I could come up with off the top of my head.) So much for my cover.
Mar 20 03: wingèd messenger
Lovely article about John Crowley, one of my great favorite authors. I first read Little, Big (1981) in high school and was never the same. I re-read it more or less annually. Most of the article is about the Ægypt quartet, which is as erudite and absorbing and bottomless as the article makes it sound. God only knows when Book IV will finally be released; the first one came out in 1987 and the second took 15 years to appear. (But those in the know never gave up hope.)
The article tells you how Little, Big ends. At first I was horrified, but I think if you are enticed to read the book by the article then it’s a fair trade. Some might consider it a useful explanation of what the hell that was all about, anyway. Oh, read this book.
Found out about the article via Neil Gaiman’s journal. It’s a fun moment when you realize that one of your favorite authors is just as crazy about one of your other favorites as you are.
Mar 18 03: over there
Just so I know where to find it, if nothing else: the blog of Kevin Sites, solo CNN journalist posting wirelessly from Iraq.
Mar 17 03: deadsand
I have assigned myself a deadline: I must have a reasonably polished draft of The Sensible Chicken in hand (or at least on my person) when I arrive in England on the 17th of April. Attendant muses, if you are even still there: I abase myself at your feet. I am ready. Use me as you will.
pithed off
Thread on the SDMB currently asking what we’re going to call the new war. Apparently, “CNN is calling it ‘Showdown: IRAQ’; MSNBC is calling it ‘Conflict with Iraq’; The New York Times is calling it ‘Standoff with Iraq,’ ” but none of these have sufficient panache. Many answers have been suggested. One wag (specifically jimm) has given an answer I think deserves propagation: “The first Gulf War was ‘Gulf War A.’ This one will therefore be known as: GWB”
Pass it on.
slightly hysterical and mad
Okay, there’s this very funny article you should read; I’m sure it would be even funnier if I had ever (a) read anything by the Brontës or (b) been a teenage girl. It also contains the word “Wensleydale,” which Paul and I long ago decided would be a swell name for a dog. Courtesy of the (London) Times Online.
Mar 10 03: the end is near
Apparently tonight the BBC aired the last episode of Farscape. We have two weeks to go here in the States; I am sad nonetheless. I’m going to try to get this out of my system now, rather than sitting on it for two more weeks. And it’s my blog, so I can if I wanna, no matter how pathetic it may appear. So here goes: Despite an outcry from a fanatical viewership; despite critical acclaim—hell, a roomful of TV critics actually heckled a SciFi exec at a wintertime press conference until she agreed to discuss the cancellation of the show; despite…oh, my wishing it were otherwise and hoping really really hard; despite it all, the show is really going off the air.
Here’s an interesting analysis of what happened, but I’m not in a mood to be so even-handed. I’m just a narrative junkie. I can’t help it. And this particular narrative had it all: fresh ideas, good scripts, talented actors, inventive visuals. And now it’s been axed, four-fifths of the way through its Big Story. The creative team behind it says to think of it as a vacation; that one way or another they’ll find a way to finish it off, it just may take a year or two to accomplish. Well, that all sounds lovely and all, but in the meantime, fie upon the dumb suits who made the call. Fie upon the folks who decided that dream-analysis talk shows and candid-camera-meets-horror-movie reality shows and yet-another-alien-conspiracy dramas were preferable ways to spend their money.
Fie. It was cool, and you killed it. I cast my despite in thy teeth.
Onward, then: anybody know a network exec who’s looking to fill a hole in the schedule? Because hope springs eternal, and geeks are patient folk.
minus 28
Greetings, queer Brits. Thinking of you.
Mar 6 03: fun with language
A phrase I hadn’t seen in ages cropped up in the Times today: stink eye. As I understand it, this would be on a par with The Hairy Eyeball, which is one that I dearly dearly love. I first encountered it in a Lynda Barry strip some years ago, and even now I don’t see it much. But boy howdy, is it a good one. (“n. A glance, usu. of suspicion or hostility, made with partially lowered eyelids…1963 N.Y. Times Mag. (Nov. 24) ‘He gave me the hairy eyeball!’; Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, H-O by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994.”)
cultural report
Kudos to Sari, who this evening had her first gallery opening as part of a juried photography exhibit. Granted, it was distinctly subcultural (“Excuse me, I’m looking for my friend? She’s a short Jewish woman with dark hair?”) but we were all so very proud. And then we went out for Greek food afterwards. Deeee-liteful.(It should be noted that Sari’s photos don’t actually appear on the website linked above. She may be the only artist whose works don’t end up in one of the panoramae. I am appalled. She got very high scores on the linger-and-ponder scale, as far as I could tell.)
orientalism
I will never, ever understand Japan. Still—and probably because of it—it fascinates me. Dad bought pearls there once on shore leave, for his mother; Becky wears them now. Lynne says I would love it there. Tokyo subcultural anthropology? The brain-shattering clatter, the stale cigarette smoke and Yakuza dignity of the Pachinko parlor? Thousand-year Buddhist temple-quiet? Gigantic horizon-striding robots bent on apocalypse? Public nakedness in an onsen in the mountains as the snow is falling upon the hot spring? I’m game for all of it. Bring it on. [thanks to Warren Ellis for the link]
Further inconsequentia: “apocalypse” means “revelation.” Irrelevant, yet noteworthy.
query
Anybody know how to construct the shortest possible URL linking to a particular work on Amazon? My URLs are always eleventy-seven characters long, and you’d think there would be some kind of shorthand. Amazon is unhelpful on the subject, but that hasn’t made my curiosity subside.
(Of course, the more I think about it, the more I realize I should be linking to a good independent bookshop like Cody’s instead. So now I feel curious and guilty. Sigh.)
Mar 5 03: writer boy
Lynne in Boston reports that she met this guy in a bar recently. He’s in town doing the book-tour thing. Seems like quite a book; I’m not sure if I’m more jealous of the trip itself or of the writing borne of it.
Both, I guess.
too good
Found during research: Why one should carry an iron nail in one’s pocket while playing overland croquet. An article taken from Phooka, the quarterly journal of the venerable Overland Mallet Club. The OMC was founded in 1891 in Pook’s Hill, England and is an organization of theosophist-sportsmen whose members are fond of “overland croquet, hard liquor, and the natural history of the Fairy Kingdom.”
Except, sadly: it wasn’t, and it isn’t. Much as it warms the heart to ponder such a society, the OMC is actually the sort of thing that is much more likely to leap out of the heads of a bunch of guys in Berkeley. But for just a moment Chelsea teemed with presences seelie and unseelie, seen and unseen.
To my knowledge, there are no active chapters of the OMC—not even in Berkeley. Which doesn’t mean that it mightn’t be fun to start one up, perhaps over a flask of something and a copy of Little, Big. (Note to self: about time to read that again. Haven’t in at least a year.) Anybody up for a game?
And since you weren’t asking: The research sought the total mass of the iron in the average adult human body. It turns out to be about 4 grams, which may or may not be enough to forge a smallish carpenter’s nail out of. Depends on the nail, I guess. Bear in mind that the smelting process would be unpleasant in the extreme.
dang!
Yesterday was Mardi Gras! Or, as I have since learned, Pancake Day! And did I make jambalaya for all my friends? Did I eat pancakes? Did I, in fact, do a blinkin’ thing to honor it? Nope, nope, and nope.
Of course, it’s not as if I give anything up for Lent either, unless you count a feeble attempt not to gorge on Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs until Easter is officially here. I’ll have to make do with the cups until then. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are in fact nature’s most perfect food. Cadbury Creme Eggs, on the other hand, are simply vile. Make a note.
Man, now I’m jonesing for chocolate and what I should be doing is leaving for work. Exit.
Mar 4 03: mechanical bull
Received a come-buy-preview-tickets flier in the mail today for a new musical. Not an unusual occurrence—I get at least one a week—although I’m not sure how I ended up on this list in the first place. What makes this show stand out is that it may be the worst idea I’ve heard in a long time. What is it? Urban Cowboy: The Musical.
Run for your lives.
Mar 2 03: further farewells
For a long time, I have kept the chief prop in the Sno-Balls project on my desk in a little paper bag. In the event that I felt like continuing it.
Enough is enough, though. My desk is too much the tragic mess to be this prepared for contingencies. Even in the name of Art. So out it goes.
(It shows no signs of decay.)
Mar 1 03: it’s alive!
Wow. The creature has escaped and is running amok.
The Horror of Blimps has been picked up by the Internet Stream of Hipness. I’ve received links to it on e-mail discussion groups I receive (like the one about the Foglios’ fabulous Girl Genius); I’ve found links to it on blogs I read (like Theresa Nielsen Hayden’s, which is marvelous). Suddenly, this thing is everywhere. The ‘views’ count on the thread itself, back on the board, has gone berserk—it’s clearly about to become the most-viewed thread in board history. It has spawned its own metathreads. Fascinating: we’re watching this thing be born, and it may turn into one of those things that circulates forever. That, or it will finally get the SDMB kicked off the Chicago Reader’s server (known as ‘the hamsters’) for taxing it beyond its capacity.
(With that in mind, I’ve changed the various links so they point at a non-SDMB archive of the piece. Poor hamsters…)