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    Saturday, May 26th, 2012
    dragonspam
    [ cdvla313 ]
         		4:42a
    ( Thanks for clicking! )

    Off to ninja click!
    sluggy_feed 4:00a
    Friday, May 25th, 2012
    slweippert
         		10:44p
    I started it!
     Today I began the book following June n Peaches. No title as of yet, but I managed to get kid-let off with Grandma to have enough peace and quiet to write 1,019 words. Yay!

    I did set the end point at a more reasonable 80,000 words. 60 is really too short, even if I do get to the end. So, I won't consider it really finished until I go back and add what my Beta Readers tell me is missing. I'm pretty confident I won't manage to get it done by the writers retreat in July, since I do have a husband and kid-let. However, I am also confident I can get this done by the end of the year. Let's see, I wrote the last one to 60,000ish words in three months. I wonder if I can do that again...


    </a>1019 / 80000 words. 1% done!

    Current Mood: excited
    ginmar
         		9:20p
    dragonspam
    [ cornerofmadness ]
         		9:47p
    they're cracking
     Looking forward to seeing the new hatchlings.

    ( thanks )
    mrissa
         		8:22p
    Grandma turns 80.
     Today is my grandma's 80th birthday. We're having a big party for her on Sunday--where by "we" I actually mean my folks are doing all the work--but today is the official date. I don't mostly put birthdays on here because I don't want it to seem like a statement if I miss one. But 80, 80 is a big, round number. Eighty is a thing.

    Grandma is my last grandparent standing. I mean, I have Grandpa Lyzenga, but I married into him when I was full grown rather than having memories of walking with him when I was tiny; and as much as I will sometimes introduce Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil as my Lingen grandparents, and as much as they are doing their darnedest, they are in fact a really really special great-aunt and -uncle, which is its own thing and not to be denigrated.

    But Grandma has enough personality for four grandparents all by herself. (So, I know firsthand or hear quite vividly, did each of my other grandparents in their own ways. Lack of personality: not an issue in this family.) Grandma is an Energizer bunny. I wrote in her birthday card that she embodies the adage about blooming where one is planted, and I really think that's true. She does well with new people and new situations. She just dusts herself off and tries again, whatever she needs to try again, and I have never once heard of a situation she couldn't eventually make that work in. Never once. Her persistence inspires me. I hope it lasts long past 80.
    dragonspam
    [ trinastar ]
         		9:14p
    pepysdiary 10:00p
    Tuesday 25 May 1669

    http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1669/05/25/

    Dined at home; and the rest of the day, morning and afternoon, at the Office.

    ginmar
         		7:45p
    hawkwing_lb
         		11:08p
    Lovers in sweet despair
     So iTunes just cued up Mystic Lipstick (Celtic Tenors cover), a folk song written in 1989 by Jimmy McCarthy. (McCarthy wrote a number of Christy Moore's folk hits.) And it seems strangely appropriate, because I've just finished watching an episode from the fourth series of Waking the Dead that featured Irish nationalism and British politics, and I have been having thinky thoughts about Romanticism rolling around in my head since I got back from Greece.

    Greece has been terribly romanticised in its turn, of course. Leaving aside its mythological status as the Cradle of European Civilisation (a construct of the European Renaissance), the 18th century saw it constructed as a Romantic destination on the Grand Tour (et in Arcadia ego), a construct which bore little relationship to reality. The 19th century and the Greek war of independence saw the construction of a (self-built, internally contradictory) national mythology, and its growth as an Interesting Place for international Classically-interested archaeologists... well, let's just say that from a certain point of view the likes of Schliemann on the mainland and Evans in Crete contributed to the erection of Whole New Interesting Mythologies.

    And now the stories northern Europe tells about Greece have to do with laziness and profligacy, and you know what? No more true than ROMANCE. Fuck off, ECB in Frankfurt. Look at some context.

    Ireland did not, of course, see itself lionised and mythologised during the European Renaissance - quite the opposite, since the 16th century saw it viewed as a land of barbarians ripe for colonisation and the 17th century witnessed the repurposing of martyr and atrocity stories from the Thirty Years War to give voice to the anxieties and stife arising from the Rebellion of 1642 and the English Civil War - but the 18th century saw the beginnings of an interest in Irish antiquarianism and the start of a "national" impetus towards myth-making and - as the 19th century began - lionising the Catholic Emancipation movement in messianic and nationalistic terms. Nationalism and tenants' rights are the two major themes of Ireland's politics in the 19th century, and though the lack of a Home Rule victory until the 20th century prevented the canonisation of an officially-sanctioned nationalist mythology until much later, the pantheon contains numerous unofficial and contradictory saints. Complicating matters for Ireland is that its Protestant and Anglo heritage is much less easy to disavow than the Turkish heritage of Greece. If it is to be disavowed, it must be done in subtle terms, acknowledging Exceptional Anglo-Irishmen, casting the others as West Brits, betrayers of nationalism and the Historical Imperative of Irish Nationhood.

    Then you have the Romantic Irish movement at the end of the 19th century, existing alongside Gaelic revivalism and the growing European antiquarian interest not only in "Celtic" cultures, but in magic and mysticism. No overview of Irish Romanticism is complete without an understanding of how the likes of Yeats and the rest of the Celtic Twilight literati partook of an international intellectual/literary atmosphere that included members of the Theosophical Society and the Order of the Golden Dawn. (And if anyone can point me to a solid and readable academic study that discusses this, I'd be grateful - I used to have a handful of references, but that was when I was still in school.) Lady Gregory was connected with figures from this milieu, and Yeats himself was a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn. A misty mysticism pervades much of Yeats' writing. He positioned himself as a "national poet" of the new Ireland, even after independence, and as many of the other literary figures who entered the national pantheon (Pearse, for example) not only died in the Rising or in the War of Independence/Civil War years, but had a vested interest in portraying their relationship to Irish Nationhood in mystical, quasi-religious, at times messianic terms (it is easier to get people to die if you position dying as a salvific act), misty mysticism pervades Irish literature of the late 19th and early 20th century.

    It is an obscurantist haze layered over a complicated reality. What makes it worse is that misty mysticism - or at least its salvific/messianic nationalist offshoots - remain common currency in certain puddles of political rhetoric, and enjoyed a much wider currency than they do now within my own lifetime. (See Northern Ireland, pre-Peace Process.)

    And both the misty mysticism and the complicated historical reality inform present national politics. But because our national myths (our dialectics, even!) rely all too much on the Romantic Mirage (and its obverse, the Lazy Irish Savage: hello, ECB! Our financial woes are actually mostly your fault, since you helped provide the credit - and then mandated the socialisation of debt - that got us to this point!), it is nearly impossible to even construct an argument about history today without engaging the Mirage. (The Mirage is politically useful, in that it elides discussion of class and the historical benefits conferred thereby: many of the present prominent political figures of the Republic have several generations of political connections, and those that do not generally come from publican or professional backgrounds.)

    It's impossible to ignore it, you know. It just sits there, even if you never mention it, pulling the conversation askew with all the gravity of a soul-sucking black hole.

    I say this, because I am contemplating opening Kevin Hearne's Tricked, which based on previous track record, will be an entertaining pseudo-Celtic mixed mythological romp set somewhere in the continental United States. While at the same time I am still reading Ian McDonald's King of Morning, Queen of Day - which at least in its first part, juxtaposes the weird and Romantic with the utterly mundane and is the better book for it. The more painful: but McDonald understands that the layers of the rotten onion (the Matryoska dolls of Irish mythology, each one stranger than the next) have a kind of recursive complexity impossible to reduce to linear clarity. The only possible shape is the spiral. Not the line, not the circle, but a twisted helix bending around an indefinable centre.

    My analogy runs away from me. Still.

    *rambles along, ramblingly*

    This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479383.html. There are comment count unavailable comments there. Comment where you like.

    Current Mood: awake
    new_scientist 7:10p
    stillsostrange
         		5:35p
    A question for the crowd
     I named a character once in The Bone Palace, an offhand reference that didn't warrant an entry in the dramatis personae but is still in print. Now I find myself needing to write more about that character and a) not liking his name much anymore, and b) finding it a bit too similar to someone else who shows up quite often. How many of you would be wildly irritated if I changed someone's name between books? (I doubt most people even remember that he was ever mentioned, but somewhere out there is the reader who will.)

    Current Mood: working
    sfwa
    [ sfwa_admin ]
         		4:02p
    SFWA Seeks Volunteers for the Norton Award Jury

    SFWA is looking to convene a Norton jury for the 2013 award.

    The Norton Award is presented to young adult or middle grade science fiction and fantasy novels. The membership at large votes to place several works on the ballot which the Norton jury can augment with additional selections.

    Interested volunteers should contact the office of the vice president at vp@sfwa.org.

    Please include your name and email address as well as a sentence or two about the following:

    1) Your experience (if any) as a reader or writer of young adult and/or middle grade fiction.

    2) Your interest in serving as a juror for this award.

    Volunteer applications should be sent by Friday, June 8.

    Volunteers must be active SFWA members. Feel free to repost.

    Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA

    mekkavandexter
         		1:11p
    Faderhead Fridays: The AndyChrist Lets the Blood flow (video marginally NSFW due to language)

    Originally published at makeshiftDaisy.. You can comment here or there.

    Previously I have mentioned, casually, somewhere, around the way, that I should write a post about why I generally (99.9%) of the time prefer male singers. It’s got a lot to do with masculinity and general aggression and testosterone, and yes, things that confirm regardless of everything else, my ovaries are way over on the straight-lady Scale O’ Kinsey.

    Seriously? Around 3 minutes in.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7k_0vlNIKQ&feature=plcp

    There’s my explanation on why I prefer male singers right there, even semi fuzzy (embiggen for added flavour). Picture, meet your thousand words.

     

    makinglight 3:04p
    "Felony Interference with a Business Model"

    http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013973.html

    Fox, CBS, and NBC have sued DISH Networks over its "Auto Hopper" feature, which allows viewers to auto-skip commercials in programs they record.

    What's wonderful isn't that the TV networks are claiming that skipping commercials is "copyright infringement." I mean, that's insane, but no, there's more. The networks are also claiming that if you record a bunch of shows intending to skip the commercials...and then, the next day, you watch the commercials anyway...you're guilty of "copyright infringement" anyway, because you intended to skip the commercials back when you recorded the shows. They're arguing that this supposed "infringement" (which is, of course, not actually infringement) inheres in the intent.

    It goes without saying that the word "copyright" is here being used in ways that would be utterly unrecognizable to the people who originally devised the concept. Beyond that, this is Because-We-Say-So legal reasoning of the purest, most flamboyant kind.

    The problem isn't that these loopy arguments are going to win in this particular case. The problem is that the entertainment conglomerates have the resources to keep doing this kind of thing nearly forever, endlessly wearing away at the legal system and at our notions of what's just and unjust.

    Pretty much the same way the energy conglomerates have nearly unlimited resources to keep propping up the notion that there's a "controversy" over whether we're undergoing anthropogenic global climate change.

    The problem is that in order to spur economic development, we created a class of human organizations that are sociopathic. Our army of killer robots has made it clear: they work for themselves, not for us, and they will break the world.

    hawkwing_lb
         		6:05p
    Thucydides, Book 2, Chapter 3
     Thucydides, Book 2, Chapter 3.

    Section 1:

    οἱ δὲ Πλαταιῆς ὡς ᾔσθοντο ἔνδον τε ὄντας τοὺς Θηβαίους καὶ ἐξαπιναίως κατειλημμένην τὴν πόλιν, καταδείσαντες καὶ νομίσαντες πολλῷ πλείους ἐσεληλυθέναι （οὐ γὰρ ἑώρων ἐν τῇ νυκτί） πρὸς ξύμβασιν ἐχώρησαν καὶ τοὺς λόγους δεξάμενοι ἡσύχαζον, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐπειδὴ ἐς οὐδένα οὐδὲν ἐνεωτέριζον.

    The men of Plataia apprehended thus that the Thebans were within and [apprehended that the Thebans] had unexpectedly seized the town, and fearing greatly and thinking that many more had entered (for they did not see in the night), they advanced to come to terms, and accepting the terms, they kept still did nothing, especially since they [ie, the Thebans] offered no violence to anyone.


    Section 2:

    πράσσοντες δέ πως ταῦτα κατενόησαν οὐ πολλοὺς τοὺς Θηβαίους ὄντας καὶ ἐνόμισαν ἐπιθέμενοι ῥᾳδίως κρατήσειν: τῷ γὰρ πλήθει τῶν Πλαταιῶν οὐ βουλομένῳ ἦν τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἀφίστασθαι.

    But negotiating these matters, they perceived that there were not many of the Thebans and they thought - by making the attempt - to easily prevail over [the Thebans], for the throng of the Plataians were not wanting to desert the men of Athens.


    Section 3:

    ἐδόκει οὖν ἐπιχειρητέα εἶναι, καὶ ξυνελέγοντο διορύσσοντες τοὺς κοινοὺς τοίχους παρ᾽ ἀλλήλους, ὅπως μὴ διὰ τῶν ὁδῶν φανεροὶ ὦσιν ἰόντες, ἁμάξας τε ἄνευ τῶν ὑποζυγίων ἐς τὰς ὁδοὺς καθίστασαν, ἵνα ἀντὶ τείχους ᾖ, καὶ τἆλλα ἐξήρτυον ᾗ ἕκαστον ἐφαίνετο πρὸς τὰ παρόντα ξύμφορον ἔσεσθαι.

    Therefore it seemed to them to be [the case that] they had to attack, and they rallied alongside each other by digging through the common walls, so that they would not be seen going through the streets, and they stood wagons without yokebeasts in the streets, so that they would be in place of walls to form barricades, and made ready the other things as it appeared appropriate for the things about to happen their preparations.


    Section 4:

    ἐπεὶ δὲ ὡς ἐκ τῶν δυνατῶν ἑτοῖμα ἦν, φυλάξαντες ἔτι νύκτα καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ περίορθρον ἐχώρουν ἐκ τῶν οἰκιῶν ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς, ὅπως μὴ κατὰ φῶς θαρσαλεωτέροις οὖσι προσφέροιντο καὶ σφίσιν ἐκ τοῦ ἴσου γίγνωνται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν νυκτὶ φοβερώτεροι ὄντες ἥσσους ὦσι τῆς σφετέρας ἐμπειρίας τῆς κατὰ τὴν πόλιν. προσέβαλόν τε εὐθὺς καὶ ἐς χεῖρας ᾖσαν κατὰ τάχος.

    After all in their power had been prepared, they kept watch while [it was] still night, and towards the beginning of the same dawn they advanced from the houses upon them [the Thebans], so that they would not lay hands upon be fighting [men] who would be better prepared after daybreak and would be engaged on an equal basis with the other men the enemy, but since in the night they'd be more fearful, [the enemy] would be weaker than their own men who had experience with the city. And so straight away they made their assault and went to hand[-to-hand] as quickly as possible.

    This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/479171.html. There are comment count unavailable comments there. Comment where you like.

    Current Mood: awake
    new_scientist 5:00p
    new_scientist 4:43p
    new_scientist 4:15p
    new_scientist 1:09p
    new_scientist 1:12p
    hawkwing_lb
         		2:48p
    Yearly rebaptism by ice and salt accomplished. The sea high, rolling moderately-sized breakers up onto the sand in the tiny bay between the headland and the harbour. A current dragging southeast along the shoreline, the water so murky you cannot see your feet. The smell of weed, the waft of old fish from the harbour, the rattle of a train coming into the station over the viaduct. The cringing moment before jumping headlong into a wave and the shock of cold as it breaks over your head.

    More people on the beach than usual. Often it's all but deserted bar dog-walkers. Today Loreto girls (I was ever that young?) getting their too-long skirts wet in the surf, Polish families, a handful of Igbo women in flower-printed wraps, Irish people turning the traditional summer shade of Peeling Tomato: I left my kit beside a trio of young sunbathing possibly-Albanians (I am good with identifying foreign language groups but not that confident) and splashed off into the water for twenty minutes (roughly). I am all tingly and sleepy now, and decided to skip on going to town in favour of being a coffee shop yuppie - spending money I don't have in order to see if I can get more work done. Where work = writing a funding report in order to get a pathetically tiny amount of money. Still. Money.

    Here's hoping this brief summer lasts a little longer.

    This entry was originally posted at http://hawkwing-lb.dreamwidth.org/478752.html. There are comment count unavailable comments there. Comment where you like.

    Current Mood: awake
    stillsostrange
         		8:59a
    Sie ist der hellste Stern von allen
     Þæt, as they say, wæs god concert. We had great seats, the pyrotechnics were gorgeous--and hot*--and the set list was very nice, even if I would rather have heard "Rosenrot" than "Bück Dich." We had to miss the last encore to get home to the babysitter--the opening whistle of "Engel" chased us into the parking lot, and I'm not sure what they played next. I got to see "Haifisch," though, which I love unreasonably.

    They played "Ohne Dich" and it was quite nice, but I'm afraid Laibach did to that song what Johnny Cash did to "Hurt." They'll never top that cover.

    That's another concert off my life list. Having seen Leonard Cohen and Concrete Blonde, and given up on Siouxsie or the Creatures, the list is getting short. It would be nice to see Laibach. The rest would need a time machine.



    * Not unlike many members of the band.**

    ** But Till, honey, the reason you can't get laid in Germany is because German women understand your lyrics.

    Current Mood: tired
    daily_coyote 11:46a
    Lazy Dayz

    http://www.dailycoyote.net/index.php/?p=3224

    photo taken March 2012

    one year ago: Hey Shorty
     two years ago: Moody Views
     three years ago: Quite The Mouthful
     four years ago: Watching Snowflakes Fall

    new_scientist 1:00p
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