strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Jul 25 05: from the road
Am presently spending the week in Lake Tahoe with Paul’s family. Sky is clear and blue; lake is more so. It’s lovely. The only thing I might change is the chorus of chainsaws speedboat engines in the background, and even that can be ignored with a little practice. I mean hell, if we can tune out the sounds of Hell’s Kitchen, we certainly aren’t going to be bothered by that.
I’ve finished a couple of books and have another in the queue. I’m knitting hats for the delicious Avery and her forthcoming sibling. There has been swimming and napping. There will be nature hikes and possibly an excursion on the water in a rented kayak. All is good.
Internet access from here is extremely spotty, though, so I should get this posted and get back to my leisure—our Alarming Quote of the Month, taken from the letters to the editor of this weekend’s USA Today:
It is because of civil liberties that terrorism goes unchecked.
—D. Barton
Daytona Beach, FL
Jul 22 05: further shiny
Various parties will be interested to learn that the international trailer for Serenity is now available online.
Oh, I can’t wait to see this movie.
geek love
Oooh. Want.
Had this thing been in production a few years earlier, it would doubtless have ended up on somebody’s desk in Pattern Recognition. Especially as it was produced by some industrial design shop in Moscow.
That thing is shiny.
Jul 20 05: the death of nine million cuts
Yesterday I bought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on my lunch break. I’ve only read the first chapter-and-a-half, but I can say two things about it:
- It looks like fun.
- There’s a typo on page 10.
Normally I wouldn’t sweat this sort of thing. I work in publishing. I am aware that typos happen. But still: If I were the editor and I’d sold nine million copies on the first weekend and there were an uncaught homophone-substitution error in the first chapter of each and every one of them, I’d be fighting off the urge to bonk my head on the desk once or thrice. My sympathetic cringing, it was heartfelt.
That is all.
…what?
I got back from SF yesterday morning. Saw some old friends; saw Reuben get married; helped my cousin put together a brunch with my aunt and uncle. All lovely. The only downside was the return on the red-eye. I always forget how poorly I sleep on planes until it’s time to actually do so, at which point it’s too late and nobody ever has any Ambien to share. I kept being roused from that twilight-dozing state which passes for airplane sleep by finding that the (otherwise charming) seven-year-old in the seat next to me had sprawled out into my lap again and was burying his sharp little heel in my thigh. He was a bit of a thrasher, was Noah.
Anyway, now it’s jet lag time. Yesterday was not good, but today is infinitely worse. I have a major case of Stupid today. Uggh. I may even resort to coffee. That’s how bad it is. Thank heavens I’m down to the easy parts of the Big Crazy Project.
UPDATED: Just to demonstrate the point made above: I just realized that today is Wednesday. So I actually got home the day before yesterday. See? Stupid.
Jul 16 05: shadows and fog
I’m in San Francisco this weekend, back in the metropolis of my birth for the first time in what seems like forever. I’m on this completely insane fly-by; there are a zillion people I should have called to say “let’s get together,” only there’s no time to see any of them. If you are one of these people, and you are only learning about my visit now, please accept my humble apologies; better, I thought, to slip in and out unnoticed than to dangle the promise of something that I’d never be able to pull off. (Although I guess I’m blowing my cover by posting this. Bad idea there.) I flew in last night, coming into SF more than two hours late, having sat in a seat that at irregular intervals smelled strongly of puke. Sunday night I go home on the red-eye. Monday I spend the day tripping over the furniture. For now, I’m staying with my cousin.
I’m here for Reuben’s wedding. Tonight was the bachelor party. I worried that there would be straight-boy jiggle-bars, but I figured I could see how the other 90% lives for an evening. Instead, we were told we’d be going to a SF comedy club to catch the 11:00 act. But first we were going to have dinner at some tiny restaurant I’d never heard of.
Oh, the meal. May I please recommend this restaurant to you? It’s Albona Ristorante Istriano. Hot damn, what food. I had pan-fried gnocchi with a hint of nutmeg in a sirloin sauce; this indescribably wonderful mushroom soup; a veal shank that melted off the bone; and a heavenly ripe-canteloupe sorbet that Bruno, the proprietor, had improvised today because he’d found these amazing melons at the market. Throughout the meal, Bruno went to great lengths to make sure we knew all about what he was serving, what he recommended, and how he had cooked it all. He put together sampler dishes of some of his favorites for us to enjoy. He made us feel like family.
We never made it to the comedy club. We decided to linger over the meal instead, swapping stories and drinking much wine and making each other laugh our asses off. I don’t regret that decision for an instant. If you’re in the area, I can’t recommend Albona highly enough.
Jul 4 05: heads-up
It’s the Fourth of Joo-lye and most of you are probably away from your computers by now, so it’s safe to announce this: I’m a-gonna be on national television in just under an hour. I’m one of the New York Pops Festival Singers singing God Bless America on the “NBC Presents the NYC Fireworks Spectacular” show that starts at 9 Eastern.
Bear in mind the following:
- It was recorded last week, in Bryant Park, during a Serious Rainstorm.
- Neither the orchestra nor the chorus were actually performing the music you’re hearing on television—the music was actually recorded long before the footage was shot.
- Did I mention it was raining?
- I’m probably going to look like a major dork. We were instructed to look happy, excited, patriotic, etc. while we were lip-synching. We all came off the stage feeling like Up with People, which is never a good sign. I personally had chosen to set my dial at Infused with the Radiant Light of Joyful Patriotism. This may have been a mistake.
My own much-more-authentic Independence Day celebration was this morning. We went to the parade out in Port Jefferson, in the company of a two-year-old in pigtails. She waved her little plastic flag like there was no tomorrow, and we watched every fire engine in northeastern Long Island go down the street. It was pretty great.
UPDATED: Pffft. I stood in the rain for that? Feh. That’s the last time I sell off my artistic integrity that cheaply, I tell you.