I had a dream for the third time this week about watching the 1980s live-action Batman show with my sister so I figured it was worth a DW post :P
If you don't know the 1980s live-action Batman that I apparently watch in my dreams here's a quick overview:
- It was a weekly one-hour show that ran for about three seasons. It predates the age of season-long arcs but it had more than the usual number of 2- and 3- part episodes and some character growth even.
- It's clearly intentionally following up on the legacy of the 1960s show because it revels in the fundamental absurdity and plays for comedy, but it was also determined to not get pigeonholed as a kids' show - it has non-cartoon violence and solid emotional arcs.
- For example instead of all the silly Bat-Gadgets, they had Wayne Enterprises (TM) machines. There's a running bit where Tim always makes sure he has access to a Wayne Enterprises (TM) Automatic Soup Dispenser (TM) and nobody can tell if he's just really into soup or if he's modding it to dispense other things.
- Oh yeah, despite being called Batman, it's actually mostly about Tim and Dick. Bruce shows up in every episode for at least a few minutes but is rarely the focus. (Yes, I know the 1980s is early for comics!Tim - I assume the comics character was based on the show character? - and there's no Jay in this continuity, which lets it be a little more lighthearted about their relationships with Bruce.)
- Tim became Robin after Dick "retired" and Bruce finally noticed how neglected the neighbor boy actually was. In the show he's mostly traveling around playing poor little rich boy and Robinning with a rotating guest cast of Teen Titans (nearly every episode is in a different city - they must have had a huge travel/sets budget.)
- Dick is 100% a civilian these days he swears. He's technically in college but never appears to attend. He's always showing up to "hang out" with his little bro, or following Kory to a show, and then having to secretly superhero it up without a costume or name. The show is constantly teasing that this is the episode he'll finally become Nightwing and never follows up.
- When Bruce shows up it's usually not as Bruce, or even Batman, but as his even more useless cousin "Kenneth Wayne", who only shows up in the tabloids when he's done something so ridiculous Bruce has to send Alfred to bail him out, and therefor has an excuse to be places Bruce can't possibly be. He has absolutely 0 natural authority over the boys, who treat him as an embarrassingly untrustworthy uncle, and enjoys the hell out of this.
- Dick is dating Koriand'r, but they insist they're not girlfriend and boyfriend because "Tamaraneans don't have boys and girls, she's my Kory and I'm her Dick". This is never explored beyond that at all. (Also Kory looks a lot less human and more like Ron Perlman's Beast* (except as a hot not-girl, of course.)
- Tim spends every episode excited and/or worried about the main plot interfering with or facilitating a possible or planned date with a girl. The girls are never named or shown onscreen. Dick teases him about this.
The episode we watched last night involved Tim and Dick renting out an old mansion/party house in Philadelphia that was haunted by a very lazy demon shaped like a yellow cartoon rabbit, a very large monitor lizard who was wanted by the Mob, a bunch of people having to shelter overnight in a Victorian-themed cafe in the zoo, and every single character having to dress up as Matches Malone in the same bad wig at the same time. Also the Three Stooges guest-starred. I hope I get to watch more later, I don't think there's an official DVD release.
*did I only have this dream because I did that "name all the animals" game right before bed and was thinking about Golden Lion Tamarins??
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I did it, I got to the credits and unlocked the Queen :D
( Notes, spoilers everywhere )
I definitely want to continue playing and discover more, at least for a bit (until DD finally has time to play Hades 2, most likely, because we decided to start an 1.0 playthrough at roughly the same time.) But I'm glad I got to this point now because that'll make it much easier to take a break.
( Notes, spoilers everywhere )
I definitely want to continue playing and discover more, at least for a bit (until DD finally has time to play Hades 2, most likely, because we decided to start an 1.0 playthrough at roughly the same time.) But I'm glad I got to this point now because that'll make it much easier to take a break.
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Have only just discovered that there is a new (came out in November) biography of Decca Mitford: Carla Kaplan, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.
Via a review in the latest Literary Review which is, alas, not fully online, sounds less than whelmed, and gives the impression that it may be a tad po-faced.
Yes, about Jessica Mitford, that great tease.
Can't find any other unpaywalled online reviews of any great credibility - there are some on GoodReads but they all sound to be from people who Nevererdofer previously.
So before I, that already have several of her own biographical works and essays, collections of letters etc upon my shelves, also the previous biography, spend moolah and time on this, I wonder if anyone has already read it and has opinions?
(Have just had thought that as far as I recall, Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd did on at least one occasion encounter Unity Mitford, while undercover in Germany: but not, I think, Decca &/or Esmond, anywhere in his exploits.)
This is totally random, but I've had something on my mind lately and I realized that the people who could most likely answer my questions are...on my flist!
Some context: when I was still a Christian, I spent a lot of time appreciating the tradition of religious sisters and how that was a lifestyle it was possible to pursue. It just really made me feel good to know that there was this long tradition of women who chose to pursue faith and/or education instead of wifehood/motherhood/family/sex. You could step outside of that and you had a society-sanctioned option to become a nun, spend your life in a community of other women, and sometimes pursue an education or the arts. (Obviously I don't want to idealize life in a religious community, which could be abusive or poverty-stricken as the case may be. But so could marriage!)
Judaism is SO different and more family-focused (for understandable reasons), so I've kind of been missing that, especially since I've been thinking a lot about female mystics lately for Ann Lee reasons (though I am NOT mystic in any way at all and in fact am pretty anti-mystic in both my personality and experience, I find it endlessly fascinating). Were there different points or places in Jewish history, say, pre-19th century, in which women could pursue a different kind of life? Or, even if they married, is there a mystic tradition among Jewish women? I have the vaguest ideas about Jewish mysticism, but I only know it in the context of men.
Or is there something similar in Islam? I know there are Buddhist nuns, but I know little of that either.
I've been thinking a lot about the ways that female mystics in Christianity are both honored and seen as operating within a well-established tradition but also always dangerous and threatening to the power structure and the ways in which they kind of teeter between something that the masculine authorities approve of because they can use it (mostly to prove the power of God) and want to tamp down on because it threatens them, and how the women themselves are just concerned about their relationship with God and sometimes other women, and how complicated all that is. It's just really rich, and I've sort of wanted to write some speculative fiction inspired by it, but I want to draw from wider sources than just Christian ones and I don't know where to start!
I want to be clear that I'm looking for women operating within a patriarchal religion. Obviously there have been women religious figures throughout history--priestesses, shamans, etc.--who wielded great power, both religious and otherwise. Lots of that up to the present day in indigenous religions! And they are super interesting! I want to learn more about them at some point! But right now I'm looking for women who are inhabiting that weird place where them devoting their life to a religion with a male power structure is sanctioned by the larger society, but what they do with that might not be. And women whose experience of that religion is distinctly more mystical/untamed/transcendent than most people's. Give me some women who are married to the divine!
Some context: when I was still a Christian, I spent a lot of time appreciating the tradition of religious sisters and how that was a lifestyle it was possible to pursue. It just really made me feel good to know that there was this long tradition of women who chose to pursue faith and/or education instead of wifehood/motherhood/family/sex. You could step outside of that and you had a society-sanctioned option to become a nun, spend your life in a community of other women, and sometimes pursue an education or the arts. (Obviously I don't want to idealize life in a religious community, which could be abusive or poverty-stricken as the case may be. But so could marriage!)
Judaism is SO different and more family-focused (for understandable reasons), so I've kind of been missing that, especially since I've been thinking a lot about female mystics lately for Ann Lee reasons (though I am NOT mystic in any way at all and in fact am pretty anti-mystic in both my personality and experience, I find it endlessly fascinating). Were there different points or places in Jewish history, say, pre-19th century, in which women could pursue a different kind of life? Or, even if they married, is there a mystic tradition among Jewish women? I have the vaguest ideas about Jewish mysticism, but I only know it in the context of men.
Or is there something similar in Islam? I know there are Buddhist nuns, but I know little of that either.
I've been thinking a lot about the ways that female mystics in Christianity are both honored and seen as operating within a well-established tradition but also always dangerous and threatening to the power structure and the ways in which they kind of teeter between something that the masculine authorities approve of because they can use it (mostly to prove the power of God) and want to tamp down on because it threatens them, and how the women themselves are just concerned about their relationship with God and sometimes other women, and how complicated all that is. It's just really rich, and I've sort of wanted to write some speculative fiction inspired by it, but I want to draw from wider sources than just Christian ones and I don't know where to start!
I want to be clear that I'm looking for women operating within a patriarchal religion. Obviously there have been women religious figures throughout history--priestesses, shamans, etc.--who wielded great power, both religious and otherwise. Lots of that up to the present day in indigenous religions! And they are super interesting! I want to learn more about them at some point! But right now I'm looking for women who are inhabiting that weird place where them devoting their life to a religion with a male power structure is sanctioned by the larger society, but what they do with that might not be. And women whose experience of that religion is distinctly more mystical/untamed/transcendent than most people's. Give me some women who are married to the divine!
What hope has 10th century Icelandic culture against an armed and moderately educated 20th century American?
The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson
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Happy lunar new year to everyone celebrating! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!
Here are a few things that I have on heavy rotation.
TWS has released the Korean version of the Japanese debut song: 다시 만난 오늘 [Nice to see you again (Korean ver.). The original Japanese version is one of my favorite TWS songs, so I quite enjoy the Korean version too, once my brain got past the inevitable linguistic confusion of hearing a different version of a familiar song. They did a short round of promos on Korean music shows, and it was fun to see how they added small easter eggs to the choreography for each performance.
Dokyeom and Seungkwan, the two main vocalists of Seventeen, released a unit album last month. It's packed full of songs to show off their voices. The title track is Blue. I also quite like Seungkwan's solo track, Dream Serenade, and the b-side, Prelude of Love.
I've also being doing a deep dive into all of ILLIT's 2025 music, and I really missed a lot! I really love their entire June 2025 EP, bomb, but if you need a more specific starting place, try 빌려온 고양이 (Do the Dance) or bamsopoong.
I'm also listening to NMIXX's Blue Valentine.
What are you listening to lately?
Here are a few things that I have on heavy rotation.
TWS has released the Korean version of the Japanese debut song: 다시 만난 오늘 [Nice to see you again (Korean ver.). The original Japanese version is one of my favorite TWS songs, so I quite enjoy the Korean version too, once my brain got past the inevitable linguistic confusion of hearing a different version of a familiar song. They did a short round of promos on Korean music shows, and it was fun to see how they added small easter eggs to the choreography for each performance.
Dokyeom and Seungkwan, the two main vocalists of Seventeen, released a unit album last month. It's packed full of songs to show off their voices. The title track is Blue. I also quite like Seungkwan's solo track, Dream Serenade, and the b-side, Prelude of Love.
I've also being doing a deep dive into all of ILLIT's 2025 music, and I really missed a lot! I really love their entire June 2025 EP, bomb, but if you need a more specific starting place, try 빌려온 고양이 (Do the Dance) or bamsopoong.
I'm also listening to NMIXX's Blue Valentine.
What are you listening to lately?
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I was cautiously optimistic about this year’s Newbery winner, Renée Watson’s All the Blues in the Sky, because I liked Watson’s earlier book Piecing Me Together. However, these hopes collapsed when I realized that this is yet another example of my least favorite Newbery genre: Books in Verse About Death.
There is probably someone, someone, who could make me enjoy a Book in Verse about Death, but unfortunate Watson is not that person, or at least this book is not that book.
Our heroine is Sage, who recently lost her best friend when she was hit by a drunk driver while walking to Sage’s house for Sage’s birthday. Sage is now part of the grief group at school, where she sits inwardly sneering at the two members who lost people after a long illness (a grandmother to dementia, and a twin sister to leukemia), because THEY don’t know what it’s like to lose someone unexpectedly.
And, you know, technically this is true. But one feels that at some point someone should point out to Sage that she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death for years, watching a loved one slowly wither away.
And okay fine, Sage’s Aunt Ini does eventually point out that everyone grieves differently and you can’t directly compare grief etc etc. However, there’s a scene where Sage screams at these girls that they don’t understand anything, and I really, really wanted one of them to scream back that they might not understand her grief but at least they’re TRYING, unlike Sage who very obviously doesn’t give a damn about them. Like, her disdain is so obvious that the other members of Grief Group (the ones who also lost people unexpectedly and are therefore acceptable to Sage) comment that Sage doesn’t like the girls whose relatives died long, slow, agonizing deaths, and Sage responds that it’s because they “don’t know how good they had it.”
But of course no one screams back at Sage. Of course when Sage apologizes, everyone accepts it, instead of telling her to stuff her apology where the sun don’t shine, or at least pointing out the fact that she blew up about how the others don’t understand her pain when she hasn’t been trying even slightly to understand theirs.
And then! And then! ( spoilers for the ending )
There is probably someone, someone, who could make me enjoy a Book in Verse about Death, but unfortunate Watson is not that person, or at least this book is not that book.
Our heroine is Sage, who recently lost her best friend when she was hit by a drunk driver while walking to Sage’s house for Sage’s birthday. Sage is now part of the grief group at school, where she sits inwardly sneering at the two members who lost people after a long illness (a grandmother to dementia, and a twin sister to leukemia), because THEY don’t know what it’s like to lose someone unexpectedly.
And, you know, technically this is true. But one feels that at some point someone should point out to Sage that she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in the Valley of the Shadow of Death for years, watching a loved one slowly wither away.
And okay fine, Sage’s Aunt Ini does eventually point out that everyone grieves differently and you can’t directly compare grief etc etc. However, there’s a scene where Sage screams at these girls that they don’t understand anything, and I really, really wanted one of them to scream back that they might not understand her grief but at least they’re TRYING, unlike Sage who very obviously doesn’t give a damn about them. Like, her disdain is so obvious that the other members of Grief Group (the ones who also lost people unexpectedly and are therefore acceptable to Sage) comment that Sage doesn’t like the girls whose relatives died long, slow, agonizing deaths, and Sage responds that it’s because they “don’t know how good they had it.”
But of course no one screams back at Sage. Of course when Sage apologizes, everyone accepts it, instead of telling her to stuff her apology where the sun don’t shine, or at least pointing out the fact that she blew up about how the others don’t understand her pain when she hasn’t been trying even slightly to understand theirs.
And then! And then! ( spoilers for the ending )
2026/022: Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur — Ian McDonald
Under a high blue heaven, under the zealous sun, the kid and his dinosaur travel a hot, empty highway. [first line]
Tif (short for Latif) is an orphan of Arab descent, whose ambition is to become a buckaroo at one of the dino rodeos. The novella's opening presents him, with his dinosaur, on a journey: only gradually are we shown where he's going, and why -- and where he's come from.
This is the post-apocalyptic future of the country formerly known as the United States of America, now a dangerous wilderness of miliciano gangs, religious states, and aggressive Dominion raiders. Tif's parents were killed in the South Dakota purification. He's recently been sacked from Dino! Dino! after a Timursaur escaped and wreaked havoc.( Read more... )
In War and Peace, I've read through Book Three and the unglamorous shambles of the battle of Austerlitz, and one theme that's stuck out to me is the sort of... grim bureaucracy(?) of war: the Russian-Austrian war council adopts a battle strategy that many of them know won't work, more or less because they want get out of this meeting and it's basically already in place/too late to change their approach; the commanders actually in the field are mostly worried about not being the person blamed for anything going wrong:
The selected messenger ends up being Nikolai Rostov, who does not die (despite, among other incidents, finding himself directly in the path of a unit of hussars charging at full gallop, because of course he did) but does fumble the chance to meet his idol Emperor Alexander: "But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the thoughts he has dreamed of for nights," he's too shy to approach him even though he literally has an excuse to do so?? On the other hand, Prince Andrei is personally taken prisoner by his hero, Napoleon, although at that point he's kind of over it, having had an ongoing near-death experience and an accompanying revelation about "the insignificance of greatness."
I ended up skipping ahead in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings to read "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933), which was the main basis for the musical Guys & Dolls— it turns out that in the original story, there's no bet over whether gambler Sky Masterson can convince "missionary doll" Sarah Brown to join him on a day trip to Havana; he just falls for her on sight, tries to woo her by winning a guy's soul in a craps game to build up her mission, and then she catches on and comes marching in to gamble for his soul, which really ought to have made it into the musical but I've decided is how they make up off-stage between "Marry the Man Today" and the finale. (On the other hand, Sky's father's warning about not taking a bet from guys who "show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken" and "offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear," because "as sure as you do you are going to get an ear full of cider," is wholesale Runyon.) I agree with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer that someone really ought to write a crossover between Runyon's dim-witted gangsters and P.G. Wodehouse's dim-witted toffs, especially because the last few (as read in order) stories have in fact involved befriending random civilians: in one, a trio of American gangsters are hired to assassinate the king of a small European country, only to discover that the king is about six and really keen on Al Capone and baseball; in another, a group of tough guys running a ticket-scalping racket (maybe more surprised than I should have been to discover this was a thing since at least the 1930s??) adopt a nice little doll who got stood up at the Harvard vs. Yale football game, and learn to love the epic highs and lows of college football in the process.
Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself, Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the commander in chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between the two flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed (which he very likely would be), and found the commander in chief (which would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before evening.
The selected messenger ends up being Nikolai Rostov, who does not die (despite, among other incidents, finding himself directly in the path of a unit of hussars charging at full gallop, because of course he did) but does fumble the chance to meet his idol Emperor Alexander: "But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the thoughts he has dreamed of for nights," he's too shy to approach him even though he literally has an excuse to do so?? On the other hand, Prince Andrei is personally taken prisoner by his hero, Napoleon, although at that point he's kind of over it, having had an ongoing near-death experience and an accompanying revelation about "the insignificance of greatness."
I ended up skipping ahead in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings to read "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933), which was the main basis for the musical Guys & Dolls— it turns out that in the original story, there's no bet over whether gambler Sky Masterson can convince "missionary doll" Sarah Brown to join him on a day trip to Havana; he just falls for her on sight, tries to woo her by winning a guy's soul in a craps game to build up her mission, and then she catches on and comes marching in to gamble for his soul, which really ought to have made it into the musical but I've decided is how they make up off-stage between "Marry the Man Today" and the finale. (On the other hand, Sky's father's warning about not taking a bet from guys who "show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken" and "offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear," because "as sure as you do you are going to get an ear full of cider," is wholesale Runyon.) I agree with
osprey_archer that someone really ought to write a crossover between Runyon's dim-witted gangsters and P.G. Wodehouse's dim-witted toffs, especially because the last few (as read in order) stories have in fact involved befriending random civilians: in one, a trio of American gangsters are hired to assassinate the king of a small European country, only to discover that the king is about six and really keen on Al Capone and baseball; in another, a group of tough guys running a ticket-scalping racket (maybe more surprised than I should have been to discover this was a thing since at least the 1930s??) adopt a nice little doll who got stood up at the Harvard vs. Yale football game, and learn to love the epic highs and lows of college football in the process.Tags:
I'm finally feeling mostly human after being down with a cold for about a week; serves me right for being a judge at the regional science fair and exposing myself to all those middle school germ factories. Well, I read a lot, anyway.
Shroud by Adrien Tchaikovsky - first-contact with a very alien alien species on the tidally-locked moon of a gas giant. Earth is (FRTDNEATJ*) uninhabitable, humans have diaspora'ed in spaceships under the iron rule of corporations who cynically consider only a person's value to the bottom line, and the Special Projects team of the Garveneer is evaluating what resources can be extracted from the moon nicknamed "Shroud" when disaster (of course) strikes. The middle 3/5 of the book is a bizarre roadtrip through a strange frozen hell, as an engineer and an administrator (both women) must navigate their escape pod to a place where they might be able to call for rescue.
When I'd just started this book I said that it reminded me of Alien Clay, and it really does have a lot in common with that book, especially since they are both expressions of Tchaikovsky's One Weird Theme, i.e. "How can we see Other as Person?" He hits the same beats as he does in that and other books that are expressions of that theme (for example, the exploratory overture that is interpreted as hostility, the completely different methods of accomplishing the same task) but if it's the sort of thing you like, you will like this sort of thing. It also reminded me a bit of Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward, in the sense that it starts with an environment which is the opposite of anything humans would expect to find life on, and reasons out from physics and chemistry what life might be like in that environment. Finally, it (weirdly) reminded me of Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher, because the narrator, Juna Ceelander, feels that she's the worst possible person for the job (of survival, in this case); the engineer has a perfect skill-set for repairing the pod and interpreting the data they receive, but she's an administrator, she can do everyone's job a little, even if she can't do anybody's job as well as they can. But it turns out that it's important that she can do everyone's job a little; and it's also important that she can talk to the engineer, and stroke her ego when she's despairing, and not mind taking the blame for something she didn't do if it helps the engineer stay on task, and that's very Summer.
I enjoyed this book quite a lot!
[*] for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown is what took me through most of the worst of my cold, as it's an easy-to-read micro-history-slash-memoir, which is one of my favorite nonfiction genres. Brown is the astronomer who discovered a number of objects in the Kuiper Belt, planetoids roughly the size of Pluto, which led to the inevitable question: are these all planets, too? If so, the solar system would have twelve or fifteen or more planets. If not - Pluto, as one of these objects, should not be considered a planet.
I really enjoyed the tour through the history of human discovery and conception of the solar system, and the development of astronomy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He manages to outline the important aspects of esoteric technical issues without getting bogged down in detail, so it's very accessible to non-scientists. Interwoven in this was his own story, the story of his career in astronomy but also his marriage and the birth of his daughter. It's an engaging, chatty book, and one must forgive him for side-stepping the central question of "so what the heck is a planet, anyway?"
Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk, which B had read a while back when he was on a Herman Wouk kick. I'd read Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and Marjorie Morningstar, but that was it, and I remembered he had said it reminded him a lot of our time in the Bahamas and Caribbean when we were living on our boat.
The best thing about this book is Wouk's sharp, funny writing - his paragraphs are things of beauty, his characters drawn crisply with description that always seems novel. The story itself is one disaster after another, as Norman Paperman, Broadway publicist, discovers that running a resort in paradise is, actually, hell. It's funny, but the kind of funny that you want to read peeking through your fingers, because you just feel so bad for the poor characters.
On the other hand, this book was published in 1965, and it shows. I don't think the racist, sexist, antisemitic, pro-colonization attitudes expressed by the various characters are Wouk's - he's Jewish, for one thing, and he's mostly making a point about these characters, and these attitudes. The homophobia, I'm not sure. But the book's steeped in -ism and -phobia, and I cringed a lot.
I enjoyed this book (for some value of "enjoy") right up until near the end, where a sudden shift in tone ruined everything.
Reflecting on it, I think this ending is a better ending than the glib alternative of the resort's problems are solved, the future looks rosy, and Norman raises a glass and looks forward to dealing with whatever Paradise throws at him in the future. But because everything has gone somber, it feels not like he's learned a lesson and acknowledged reality, but that he's had his face rubbed in horror and decided he can't cope. If he'd celebrated his success and then ruefully stepped away, it would be an act of strength, but he runs back home, defeated, and all his experience along the way seems pointless.
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand - I got this book in a fantasy book Humble Bundle, so I was expecting fantasy, which this is very much not. It's a psychological thriller, following the first-person narrator Cass Neary, a fucked-up, drugged-out, briefly brilliant photographer who has been sent by an old acquaintance to interview a reclusive photographer - one of Cass's heroes - on a Maine island.
I kept reading because the narrative voice is fabulous and incredibly seductive, even though the character is a terrible person who does terrible things in between slugs of Jack Daniels and gulps of stolen uppers. It feels very immersive, both in the sense of being immersed in the world of the novel's events and in the sense of being immersed in the perspective of a messed-up photographer. But overall it's not really the sort of book I typically read, and it's not something I'd recommend unless you're into this type of book.
Shroud by Adrien Tchaikovsky - first-contact with a very alien alien species on the tidally-locked moon of a gas giant. Earth is (FRTDNEATJ*) uninhabitable, humans have diaspora'ed in spaceships under the iron rule of corporations who cynically consider only a person's value to the bottom line, and the Special Projects team of the Garveneer is evaluating what resources can be extracted from the moon nicknamed "Shroud" when disaster (of course) strikes. The middle 3/5 of the book is a bizarre roadtrip through a strange frozen hell, as an engineer and an administrator (both women) must navigate their escape pod to a place where they might be able to call for rescue.
When I'd just started this book I said that it reminded me of Alien Clay, and it really does have a lot in common with that book, especially since they are both expressions of Tchaikovsky's One Weird Theme, i.e. "How can we see Other as Person?" He hits the same beats as he does in that and other books that are expressions of that theme (for example, the exploratory overture that is interpreted as hostility, the completely different methods of accomplishing the same task) but if it's the sort of thing you like, you will like this sort of thing. It also reminded me a bit of Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward, in the sense that it starts with an environment which is the opposite of anything humans would expect to find life on, and reasons out from physics and chemistry what life might be like in that environment. Finally, it (weirdly) reminded me of Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher, because the narrator, Juna Ceelander, feels that she's the worst possible person for the job (of survival, in this case); the engineer has a perfect skill-set for repairing the pod and interpreting the data they receive, but she's an administrator, she can do everyone's job a little, even if she can't do anybody's job as well as they can. But it turns out that it's important that she can do everyone's job a little; and it's also important that she can talk to the engineer, and stroke her ego when she's despairing, and not mind taking the blame for something she didn't do if it helps the engineer stay on task, and that's very Summer.
I enjoyed this book quite a lot!
[*] for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown is what took me through most of the worst of my cold, as it's an easy-to-read micro-history-slash-memoir, which is one of my favorite nonfiction genres. Brown is the astronomer who discovered a number of objects in the Kuiper Belt, planetoids roughly the size of Pluto, which led to the inevitable question: are these all planets, too? If so, the solar system would have twelve or fifteen or more planets. If not - Pluto, as one of these objects, should not be considered a planet.
I really enjoyed the tour through the history of human discovery and conception of the solar system, and the development of astronomy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He manages to outline the important aspects of esoteric technical issues without getting bogged down in detail, so it's very accessible to non-scientists. Interwoven in this was his own story, the story of his career in astronomy but also his marriage and the birth of his daughter. It's an engaging, chatty book, and one must forgive him for side-stepping the central question of "so what the heck is a planet, anyway?"
Don't Stop the Carnival by Herman Wouk, which B had read a while back when he was on a Herman Wouk kick. I'd read Winds of War and War and Remembrance, and Marjorie Morningstar, but that was it, and I remembered he had said it reminded him a lot of our time in the Bahamas and Caribbean when we were living on our boat.
The best thing about this book is Wouk's sharp, funny writing - his paragraphs are things of beauty, his characters drawn crisply with description that always seems novel. The story itself is one disaster after another, as Norman Paperman, Broadway publicist, discovers that running a resort in paradise is, actually, hell. It's funny, but the kind of funny that you want to read peeking through your fingers, because you just feel so bad for the poor characters.
On the other hand, this book was published in 1965, and it shows. I don't think the racist, sexist, antisemitic, pro-colonization attitudes expressed by the various characters are Wouk's - he's Jewish, for one thing, and he's mostly making a point about these characters, and these attitudes. The homophobia, I'm not sure. But the book's steeped in -ism and -phobia, and I cringed a lot.
I enjoyed this book (for some value of "enjoy") right up until near the end, where a sudden shift in tone ruined everything.
Don't Stop the Spoilers
Two characters die unexpectedly; a minor character, and then a more major character, and everything goes from zany slapstick disasters ameliorated at the last minute to a somber reckoning in the ashes of last night's party. In this light, the ending feels jarring: the resort's problems are solved, the future looks rosy, and Norman realizes he is not cut out for life in Paradise and, selling the resort to another sucker, returns to the icy New York winter.Reflecting on it, I think this ending is a better ending than the glib alternative of the resort's problems are solved, the future looks rosy, and Norman raises a glass and looks forward to dealing with whatever Paradise throws at him in the future. But because everything has gone somber, it feels not like he's learned a lesson and acknowledged reality, but that he's had his face rubbed in horror and decided he can't cope. If he'd celebrated his success and then ruefully stepped away, it would be an act of strength, but he runs back home, defeated, and all his experience along the way seems pointless.
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand - I got this book in a fantasy book Humble Bundle, so I was expecting fantasy, which this is very much not. It's a psychological thriller, following the first-person narrator Cass Neary, a fucked-up, drugged-out, briefly brilliant photographer who has been sent by an old acquaintance to interview a reclusive photographer - one of Cass's heroes - on a Maine island.
I kept reading because the narrative voice is fabulous and incredibly seductive, even though the character is a terrible person who does terrible things in between slugs of Jack Daniels and gulps of stolen uppers. It feels very immersive, both in the sense of being immersed in the world of the novel's events and in the sense of being immersed in the perspective of a messed-up photographer. But overall it's not really the sort of book I typically read, and it's not something I'd recommend unless you're into this type of book.
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In today's dubious triumph over aphasia, I told my client I'd emptied out her utility kit.
Her toolbag. I couldn't remember toolbag and tried to use the next best thing to describe the object in question.
It was a fairly remarkable moment on a number of levels, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be shaking my head over it for quite some time.
Her toolbag. I couldn't remember toolbag and tried to use the next best thing to describe the object in question.
It was a fairly remarkable moment on a number of levels, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be shaking my head over it for quite some time.
As a postscript to the educational privilege meme, two more prompts:
Added byhamsterwoman,
- the family/cultural attitude towards education--and also the attitude of the peers
And bycahn,
- Intellectual activities outside of school and family were available and facilitated
( for me, these are linked )
Added by
hamsterwoman,- the family/cultural attitude towards education--and also the attitude of the peers
And by
cahn,- Intellectual activities outside of school and family were available and facilitated
( for me, these are linked )
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Educational meme from thistleingrey (also seen at a couple of other places under lock). I've answered for both my sister and myself (generally similar answers, sometimes not), as well as for my kids. (Will eventually lock.)
( Cut for length )
thistleingrey (also seen at a couple of other places under lock). I've answered for both my sister and myself (generally similar answers, sometimes not), as well as for my kids. (Will eventually lock.)( Cut for length )
I'm delighted to announce that my poem "the jacarandas are unimpressed by your show of force" is nominated for the 2026 Rhysling Award long list!
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(lydamorehouse Feb. 16th, 2026 02:45 pm)
lydamorehouse Feb. 16th, 2026 02:45 pm)
Image: a gorgeous lino cut of a much larger than is accurate loon attempting to drown a bald eagle in what I must assume is a Minnesota lake. She is pushing the eagle down with one webbed foot. The art is entitled "el pueblo unido" (the people united)
jiawen pointed out that "jamas sera vencide" is actually the rest of the phrase "will never be defeated." I feel dumb. I have literally shouted this in the street, so I should have known. The artist did sign this at least, though I can not read their signature. But, if you repost this, just be sure to include the signature.I've been knocked out of the revolution by a head cold.
I tested, it is not COVID, but even so I don't want to infect the good people at the Food Communists so I have stayed home from the resistance. In fact, I have been face down since Friday. So much phlem; so disgusting. I can not wait to get over this. Sadly, too, this cold is the WORST Valentine's Day gift I have given my wife in our 40+ years together. Do. Not. Like.
Instead, I spent part of today catching up on some correspondence.
I am still struggling how to explain everything that's going to my Japanese pen pal because things here are sort of mundanely exceptional. Her last letter ended with the line, "I heard an ICE agent shot and killed a woman, I heard she was one of the members of the movement to get ICE out of town."
True, but we all are, Eiko. We all are. Like, in a way that is almost unimaginable.
I can't even answer the question "what did you do today, Lyda?" normally any more. What did I do? I spent a couple of minutes sewing some hearts onto my high-vis vest. I got the idea from the other mom/protector at my school bus stop patrol. The buses we are guarding are full of largely elementary age kids and, you know, their lives are scary enough right now. Also, the corner that I've been assigned is next to a business where workers regularly wear reflective vests, so it makes us stand apart. I had already sketched "Legal Observer" onto the back of mine, but I decided the hearts are actually a lovely addition. Makes it clearer why we are there.
I answered a Discord video call from the mutual aid folks who are doing laundry for people too afraid to use public laundry spaces or go to the laundromat. I signed up to be a driver and they have been going through the painstaking task of following up on the OVER SIX HUNDRED volunteers and vetting them all to make sure that they are real humans and are actually sincere in their desire to help. This is doublely important right now because ICE is weaponizing our kindness against us. After all, a bunch of plain-clothed shithead ICE agents pretended to have car trouble in order to lure a literal Good Samaritan out of their house in order to abducted them. These fucking fuckers. Also, their "worst of the worst" narrative kind of collapses when you are luring out helpers. Like, yeah, I'm sure there are some hardened criminals who would help you jump your car, but it's not a good look. It's right up there with kidnapping children to use for bait.
Then, fueled by my rage after having read about that, I spent some time trying to decide if I was well enough to go to the AFL/CIO MN protest at Stewart Park today. I decided not and then lay around coughing and miserable, regretting my choice in Signal code-name. Like this was my chance, y'all! Did I pick some deep Marvel cut? Or an obscure anime reference like the otaku I am? No. No, my code-name is really kind of dorky, even if I did choose it for a reason that makes sense for the people who met me in Real Life (tm). Ah well. We can't all be Mouse or Spider-Man.
And this all sounds so crazy without context.
It's going to be a weird letter, y'all.
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Charity secures 1000 acres for Wales’ largest rewilding project:
The charity’s approach will include introducing hardy cattle and Welsh mountain ponies to the land, with ancient breeds of pigs to follow. Their grazing and roaming will support habitat restoration.
Peatland rewetting and natural water retention across the site over the next five to ten years means the project will contribute to increased biodiversity, cleaner water, healthier soils, improved carbon storage and reduced flood risk for downstream farmland.
It is hoped these actions will create conditions to boost various species, with the potential for red squirrels, pine martens, polecats, curlews and hen harriers to return.
The charity also aims for much of the work to be carried out by local tradespeople. Community participation will also help uncover and share stories of those who lived and worked across the site’s 55 historic stone landmarks, from Bronze Age cairns to traditional upland buildings.
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Not sure if this can at all be mapped onto Cranford (based on Knutsford): Knutsford's Booths Hall granted special building status:
The house was built in 1745 for Peter Legh after he married heiress, Anne Wade.
The building was extended in 1845 by his grandson, Peter and remodelled in 1858 into an Italianate style by Edward Habershon for John Legh, a nephew of Mr Legh.
In 1917, the Legh family auctioned the hall and estate.
....
Historic England says it was listed for ‘demonstrating fine craftsmanship in the brickwork and stone detailing’ of each phase.
Special features include the unusual and well-preserved first floor conservatory with a curved glass roof.
The good survival of interior features and decoration from all three building phases using high quality materials and a high degree of craftsmanship.
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Another kind of heritage: Green’s Dictionary of Slang: Five hundred years of the vulgar tongue, including the invaluable Timelines of Slang.
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Smutwalk: Mapping Nineteenth-Century Obscenity - though actually, not all of the physical places are still there. Still. I think one might manage a tribute to Pornographers of Ye Olde Tymes stroll.
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Queer love and friendship: 1920s Fitzroy Square:
In 1927, Bobby and his queer working-class friends gathered in his Fitzroy Square flat. Though surveillance documents, we can learn about these vibrant gatherings, the people involved and the passionate, intimate letters that survive. These records offer a rare insight into queer lives of the time.
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How Not To Do Heritage, we feel (guy has quite rightly been getting crapped on on social media): History professor finds huge Iron Age hoard: 'The collection will be auctioned at Noonans in Mayfair on 4 March as part of a coins and historical medals, external sale.'. Observe the guy's creepy smirk in the photo.
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Downcrawl and Skycrawl, twin toolkits from designer Aaron A. Reed that help you create spontaneous tabletop roleplaying adventures in the Deep, Deep Down and the Azure Etern.
Bundle of Holding: Downcrawl-Skycrawl
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