Easily Distracted By Shiny Things

lenora_rose @ 2008-06-27T17:09:00

2008-06-27T22:24:43Z

Elizabeth Bear - Dust

It's often fun talking about books when I've been reading the author's own journal, including her links to reviews, good and bad. Thus I know Bear is a little bemused by the number of people who find this one of her best books.

Most accessible, certainly. It has, as she commented, an unusually straight-line narrative structure, unlike Blood and Iron, 'frinstance. The good guys are a bit easier to figure out. Although she does continue her long-running thread on the narrow difference between the good guys and the monsters - it's certainly in Carnival, Blood and Iron, and Shadow Unit, as well - there are no good guys who also commit genocide here, and the thread mainly comes out by the question of what and why the bad guys are bad.

And the two teenage girls at the heart of the story do break one's heart, and Perceval and Rien are both fabulous characters (And so far, I do like Tristen, too, although he does seem very much inside his own head, and Gavin.)

But I did find myself disappointed. Some of it was feeling like the book was, indeed, not as complex as it could or should be, though I suspect that, being very much the set-up book in a three book series, this is because the next book will introduce the yet more complexities it wants. But there also was a bit more veneer of distance here than I got in, say, A Companion to Wolves, or even Carnival. I liked Perceval and Rien, but I never felt as close to them as I could to Isolfr and his problems. (or Chaz and his though the complexities of Shadow Unit's extra structures and bonuses make that example a cheatin' one.)

Good book. Bear wins. Go ahead and read; you'll probably like.

But not my favourite.

lenora_rose @ 2008-06-26T21:56:00

2008-06-27T03:10:40Z

Nothing by way of an answer yet on why SMD dropped me like a hot rock. Theories so far include:

- The guy from the temp agency suggested it was a speed-of-data-entry issue, because that's common. My objection is simply that since I had been at the office a total of 6 days, one of which was a conference, they hadn't time to make that absolute a judgement unless I was WAAAY behind, and even then, they should have talked to me first. Also, I am sure I was not waaay behind, or even behind at all - and if my progress at the task was insufficiently satisfying, I dare to suggest they have unrealistic expectations.

- Two different people have suggested someone's daughter needed a summer job. Objections: it seems out of character for the people I met at the workplace. Also, they wanted me until December.

- The probable incompatible hours in July were too incompatible. Again, though, an issue in the works, not resolved, not even overly discussed.

Whatever the problem, I *still* think there's soemthing off about the complete lack of discussion.

However, right now I'm much more interested in resolving the 2 days of pay that got lost in the mail... at least I know they cut and issued the cheque. I also KNOW it didn't get to me and my bank account. This makes me grumpy.

_________________________

More deer!

About three weeks ago, I came in to RCC to hear that the day before, a doe had given birth on the riverbanks - someplace where at least one person could get close enough to get pictures. This morning I came into the office, looked out the window, and the three of them, mom and 2 beautifully speckled fawns, were perfectly set up in an open grassy spot. They disappeared and reappeared a few times through the morning, including some no-S*** gamboling on the part of one fawn. Then, no doubt, lay down to nap in the summer swelter. Between that and being brought an Tim's Iced-capp for no particular reason whatsoever, it was a happy morning. Alas, the work is pretty steeep, so the afternoon was stress.

__________________________

The Challenge: - Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done. - See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to add another! (2.b., 2.c., etc...) - Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

Let's see....

1) I appear in an episode of Sesame Street.
2) I have made earnest attempts to learn both Finnish and Welsh. (The Finnish lasted less time, but that's because we had a Welsh teacher. The Finnish only had a language tape and book.)
3) I helped drive sheep (badly; I was nine) in New Zealand. (At least one person on my F-list does this regularly in France, thus the caveat of location; in a country I don't even live in)

___________________________

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

First, yes, there are no few things in here I have on my anti-to-read list, as in books I mean to never read. Probably most of us do. Also things I've kind of considered but don't feel I should italicize: a prime example would be Little Women. I see it cited often enough to feel I'm likely missing something not to have read it, but I still don't think I'll get to it.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (Liked lots, but not with the passion of many Austenians)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (Parts of it - well, book three - I love...)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I've read the first two and mean to read the third...)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (For school, but I liked it more than most seemed to.)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (I read the Mayor of Casterbridge for school, and that was enough drear, thanks. i didn't hate it the way some people hate Hardy, but I didn't like it much.)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I suspect I've made more headway than many, as I've read some outside school for fun.)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (I'm not sure love is the term, but valued hugely, yes.)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
</b>29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame</b> (I loved bits of this. But as a whole? I think it may be weaker than the sum of its parts.)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and the Silver Chair.)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (AS rarelytame said: "isn't this a Chronicle of Narnia?... Why is it counted twice?")
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (Just some of the poetry.)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (This is close to being on the anti-to-read list.)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (The one Marquez novel I read put me off his long work, but I've read a couple short pieces I liked.)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (Curious, but not enough to italicize.)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (These last two I don't know enough about to judge my actual interest level.)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (If I did try one of his in spite of In Evil Hour's horribleness, it would be more likely this one.)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (I know nothing about this.)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (I read an abridged version... but didn't know that until much later. It was still as long as the Three Musketeers. I want to try the whole sometime.)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding (I have no idea why I'm curious about this.)
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (Started it... got halfway. I think I was 16. I keep thinking I should try again, I have better tolerance for older prose styles.)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (Supposedly she wrote a pile of books. Three seem to still be known, and ONE - this one - Is really good. A Little Princess is bearable, never tried LIttle Lord Fauntleroy.)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill (Never heard of it; the title is intriguing.)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (ON the anti-to-read list. Bad me.)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (Was supposed to read it for a literature class. Got halfway and punted the rest. Did NOT like.)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've read some of them.)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (Once again, a repeat entry...)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach and the Witches were better.)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (There's a weird little rewrite of the story called Jean Valjean done by a Canadian priest in I think the 1800s that I have read.)

Flabbergasted

2008-06-24T03:42:16Z

Today was a good day at SMD, the more hours-heavy of my new jobs. I made the bus that gets me there a minute late - not so good, but considering I got up an HOUR after my alarm was supposed to go off, I'll take it. I found out for sure I was doing pretty well on the rate I was told I should be accomplishing the work (So far, and accounting for my newness.) I didn't take any extra break time (Nor have I any other day; today I am guilty of going for five minutes to get tea in place of a 15 minute break and taking 40 minutes for a 45 minute lunch break. I've sometimes even taken the whole 45 minutes.) I did check my e-mail once, but the rest of my time on the internet was directly work-related, and mainly doing what I was told by my manager to do if I needed to find certain kinds of information. I played my music at a volume that might be audible to someone immediately inside the room, and didn't edit out the Nightwish, but there were no OTs or volunteers in their respective proximate areas, and the office next to mine was empty all day, so I think even the places I screwed up the harmony weren't offensive to anyone's ear. At the end of the day, I said "see you Wednesday" to all the people in my area, and even talked a bit about not being sure yet what was going on in July, but all sounded sure it would get straightened out. My direct Manager said a goodbye on the way out, and everyone waved in a friendly way.

Later, Colin phoned me at the friend's place I was at, to tell me the temp agency had called to say the SMD job is cancelled, and not to go in for the next shift.

WTF??

I am SO calling the agency tomorrow to find out what's going on. Because I guarantee you, nobody I was working with had a hint, and NOBODY has said I've done anything wrong. Sometimes the opposite.

Almost to the paperclip-counting stage. So instead I'll write a review.

2008-06-20T17:00:38Z

I seem to have lost some of my endurance for reading for hours on the internet.

This does not surprise me; it has, after all, been a skill I have used less during the last while than I did, say, while working at the bakery, where I had, on average, 2 dead hours a day during busy times.

What's odd is I still find the subjects interesting; but I drift away faster in spite of this. 200 comments into a thread that is going well, active, non-repetitive, non-trolly, and about topics worth discussion, and my brain mutters, "enough."

And it's not any lack of ability to read on-screen; I can still handle that (admittedly, i do a fair bit of "Remember to periodically look up and refocus on something as far away as reasonable, ideally out a window or otherwise into natural light" - but i always did that to some extent and it's hardly like it's a *bad* thing.) As proven by, say, reading the entirety of Shadow Unit.

But today at this job is dead like a dead thing. Bleah. And I feel that at least if i'm looking at a computer monitor, I look more like I'm working than if I'm nose-deep in a book - though the person I'm replacing did in fact advise me to bring one, and Dust is in the backpack (Along with Tom Holt, whose book I decided fit perfectly into emergency book status and therefore traipses with me everywhere now, and even gets read sometimes.)

If I do drop it like a hot rock - and it's not out of the question - SMD is going well and I would be rather happy to have another day there. Although it will lead to swapping out batteries - and songs - on my MP3 player a *lot* more. (At SMD there are computer speakers on my desk. There is no computer, however - a monitor and a router of some kind only - so no CD slot, or alternate option for music-playing. I could very well justify a player with much more space if this keeps up. Eventually. Bookshelves first.)

Of course, this jump back to extra work has also meant my brains are boiled the majority of times when I come home. Watching movies or doing archery are ok. Creative work feels a little unlikely.

But I've done full time before. I will re-adapt soon. I hope.

Speaking of movies:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I liked, in a fluffy way. Cristina had made the remark that if he tries to wear the same clothes as he did in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he's going to look an idiot. I dunno; the style was similar, but the part she was really worried about - trying to act like he's thirty - seemed to be covered. They didn't hide his aging; or Marion's, and it's rather more common in movies for men to get more mdistinguished or more grizzled - ie, age - and women to look the same. So glad they passed, and I think she stuill looked good; competent, intelligent, and a force to be reckoned with. They updated the villains from Nazis to Russians, as it's mid Red-Scare now in Indiana-Jones-world - oh, and to the FBI. Because it is the Red Scare, and Jones is a professor. ("You're a teacher?" "Part-time." I don't know why I loved that but I really really did.)

His supposed big declaration of love fell totally flat (Probably due to ending with the word "Baby", IIRC). The premise was full of the silly - but so were the others, and it was the kind of silly to be expected, and done about right to fit the rest of the series.

I'm not sure a "Mutt Jones" movie would quite work, title-wise, but if they do as they implied and continue the legacy, I'll give it one movie's worth of a chance. The actor (Shia LeBoeuf?) did reasonably well with his material; a few more clunks than the older ones or the villains, but not so much so I couldn't see him polishing up.

Quick update from someone else's computer.

2008-06-17T23:19:48Z

We have a houseguest; a pinkpurple-haired SCA member from Calgary who'll be moving here later this year and needs to look at houses. She's rather friendly and quite nice and loves cats, so it's been going pretty well, considering this was the first time we met face to face.

The three-jobs thing is working okay so far, but it is going to run into some tension in July when the SMD people go on holidays but the RCC's big seasonal rush is only petering out, not petered.

I hate canker worms. Not as much as I do tent caterpillars, mind, but the city is not currently infested with tent caterpillars nor likely to be again for some long time. But tomorrow I'm trying a totally different route to work, because it is very much NOT nice to be walking past a heavily-treed park on a heavily treed street.

Not much writing done lately; a scene finished by hand and partly revised onto the computer. But I made 3/4 of a mouse head, pottery wise, the other day. And put up more of the cell-cup photos on flickr.

Been reading various Alan Moore comics lately, mostly fromt he library. Promethea's first two volumes were good until it hit two issues of ramblings about magic and myth; I'm hoping for more story if I should pick up volumes 3-5. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume one was the same as it was when I read it the first time (I own it but hadn't read it in a while); good, squicky, excellent and not by turns, and volume 2 was similar, not as much weaker as some people suggested. But it did highlight a common theme in Moore's work of attractive women getting involved with unattractive men - only Watchmen seems to have escaped, and even it made the guy overweight, if good-looking.

I also picked up Bear's Dust from the library so I can finish it.

lenora_rose @ 2008-06-11T23:27:00

2008-06-12T04:50:44Z

Started the second new job (SMD) Monday; got a good impression of the work, and I'm in a small office where I can play my music and not horrify anyone.

Then, today, went to a workplace conference there, which actually proved a reasonable way to learn a lot about the people I'll be working with -- almost all positively -- and also to re-learn that I cannot keep my mouth closed if someone's interpretation of a remark or an event is too simplistic; I have to be devil's advocate for a greyer, more nuanced reading. Well, I guess I convinced them I'm not shy. Even though I sometimes am.

Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette: A Companion to Wolves

I've read far too many long and discerning reviews of this book, and general discussions of what it's trying to do, to feel like I have anything new to add vis-a-vis my reaction. Except I'm definitely on the side of "This Book is Full of Win."

The main cool ingredients are:
Really amazing wolves, as non-human but solid characters. Viredechtis is most definitely one of the best. Ditto the trolls, even if only through the eyes of their enemies. But the hints are hella cool. (I wonder what would happen if you locked this and The Prodigal Troll in a room together for too long?) And the (semi-spoiler).
Serious re-examination of the "Green-Dragonrider problem", aka deconstruction of the very Companion-Animal fantasy it includes. OH, hell, yeah.
Serious consideration of sexual roles, sexuality, and what happens when they don't match (albeit slightly disguised by the fact that there is indeed much buttsex, not all of it exactly what we would consider entirely consensual, and not written remotely to titillate even when the characters have fun. Thank Dog.)
A noteable feminist undercurrent because of, not in spite of, the overwhelming majority of human characters being male. And consideration of the female role in a warrior society. As inhabited by male and female characters.
Massive quantities of war, battles, confrontations, and confusions, and all that action for those who think the above all sounds dry for the page count.

My single favourite moment was the whole "conversation" between Isolfr and Viradechtis that starts with Isolfr dropping the axe handle. Communicating across a barrier that has to be there in spite of their unreserved love. And all the other moments of culture and species clash turning to comprehension, really. Although drawing the complicated mess that is sex that well is a respectable gift on the part of both authors, it's not even in the running by comparison.

Posting from work, brief.

2008-06-06T18:36:56Z

I have just officially gone from one job... to three.

As well as the Rehab Centre for Children, I'm also going to be starting part time at the Society for Manitobans with Disabilities in a position lasting at least until December, in the department that deals with issuing handicapped permits; mostly data entry, soem phones and eclectica. Even though they were getting me from the temp agency, they still wanted to interview me ahead of time, in case of disastrous mismatch, I guess. Which promptly became the single warmest, friendliest interview I've ever had. OTOH, it also seemed like a good match. In fact, the biggest danger will be that they might want me more days, in July at least, than I can actually manage, depending on the RCC's summer schedule.

I'm currently at a one-day-every-two-weeks job for a company that makes parts and technology for greenhouses. It's very quiet reception, and they were up-front that it would include a fair bit of dead time, and I could use the internet. But I'm still trying not to abuse it, so, this is pretty much it. I almost told the temp agency to take me off this one on Wednesday (Before I'd started), when I heard about the SMD job, but since that wasn't a guaranteed place, I felt I shouldn't be too quick. Also, it only goes to the end of August.

Alas, farewell, spare time. I'll miss you.

lenora_rose @ 2008-06-04T01:31:00

2008-06-04T07:13:57Z

(See slightly silly new userpic. Will, BTW, cease and desist if Amanda minds my abuse of her artwork. I also made one that cycles the whole cast, but it's too big for LJ. Mostly, they were experiments in animated icons, anyhow, as I've never succeeded in one before.)

This was a rather odd weekend...

It started, on Friday, with me going to an Autopac agent (chosen for convenient proximity to the place where I pay my credit card) to get set up in their system so i could in fact take the test for a learner's permit. I had to lug no end of ID, to confirm name, picture, citizenship, address, etc., etc. First frustration, if brief, was learning that the freaking Manitoba Health Card doesn't count as ID for name and address. WTF? Anyhow, the hurdle was passed, I had enough stuff there to count.

Then I mentioned that I'd had my learner's before, but too long ago to still count as in their system. Especially since I hadn't gone through this rigamarole.

That made her look slightly puzzled, and decide to check back. Apparently, the rigamarole is even newer than I thought. And apparently, the time I last had my license was slightly more recent than I thought; it had expired for non-payment just under the four-year deadline. I'd still needed to stop by an office and bring my ID, since they needed to change my name and address, but rather than walking out and waiting until sometime this week, she took a hideous picture of me (I hadn't washed my hair that day, and it was overdue. At least my face was scrubbed...) charged me the renewal fee, and I walked out with the learner's.

As I've said in person, it's just as well I read up for the written test anyhow, since I wouldn't have trusted myself to remember all the details of the rules of the road. But it's now straight on to the driving lessons. Ideally on a standard, since that's what we've got. (Eeeeek!)

That night we had people over to play silly board games, which is nice, especially since I've been stir crazy. The weather's been rainy so I haven't been able to plant the rest of the garden (I started on the front yesterday) and I haven't been seeing people so often.

Saturday I spent with taleisin, shopping for her birthday present and simultaneously wandering around the downtown used CD stores and bookstores, many of which she'd never been inside. I had the sense to bring most of my trade-in to date, so i ended up with three new CDs without paying a cent:

Rush - Roll the Bones (One of the two of theirs I want, the other being Hold Your Fire)
Fairport Convention - Over the Next Hill (Their newer stuff hasn't the innovation of the early years, or the sudden resurging brightness of their late 80's run, but it's solid.)
Chris De Burgh - Spark to a Flame (An artist whose songs range from pinging my totally indifferent meter to actually pretty good. But whose work I have on vinyl or cassette. The best of is actually far from his best best, but it'll do.)

I bought Taleisin two books and a CD (Her total list of swag is on her own lj), and myself three books (Oops):

Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (Rachelmanija keeps talking about Gothics. I figured for the cheap price I could try another.)
Rowena Farre - Seal Morning (memoir)
Tom Holt - Wish You Were Here

When we were all done in, we walked most of the way to our homes together. i invited her to come back to my place, since Colin could probably give her a lift, and we could lounge and hang out a while first, but she opted to walk on.

Oops. Turns out, this was a mistake, I think.

While I was gone, Colin had bought a whole salmon, a smoked tulibee, and a bunch of shrimp, and decided to invite a bunch of people over. I considered calling Taleisin back, but calculated how long I'd walked, plus how long before my brain had rested enough to go "Duh!" and figured it had probably been too much time, and too weird a timing. Sorry....

Besiudes, with people over until 1 AM, it took me until then to get to go in and finish the final part of Shadow Unit's first season. Whew... that was no small roller coaster.

Sunday we did the SF RPG usually reserved for Saturday nights, and finished the current mission, the debriefing, and the first stages of the emotional trauma-recovery. Magda is proud of her team. Again. But, ow, this one has a fair bit of emotional fallout still coming. and this GM usually is only too happy to provoke more.

Yesterday was digging in the front garden at last at last after the rain and business (The norming glories in back did the Totoro-thing; one night about three confirmed sprouts and two "That might be another if it grows up...", the next, over 20-some sprouts in their area (And about three where they shouldn't be.) Then archery, badly. I remind myself I have had good days.

Also, I turned my hair more red. Which Colin failed to notice for hours. But he did catch on.

And today, we started the set-up for my brother's fantasy RPG to resume after a two-year (For us) and one-week (For the characters) hiatus. And ocne I got home, for the first time in a while I have committed fiction again. Whee! I think I got all of two whole paragraphs in last week and over the weekend. This scene was a bit awkward and depressing, since Ketan cannot remotely say what he wants or get what he wants out of the moment. But it got onto paper.

Time to sleep.

Too Close to Being the Enemy

2008-05-30T04:03:07Z

Yesterday, I managed to stumble directly upon the single most horrible, misogynistic, violent thing I have ever seen upon the internet. How and why is a bit complicated to explain; and in the end, it doesn't matter. For exactly the same reasons it doesn't matter if the woman was tipsy in a short red dress; it makes her vulnerable, but it excuses nothing the perpetrator does.

I'd thought I was braced for misogyny. And I was; the crude words were just so much buzz. Even the first images I came upon, while horribly offensive, mostly just made me grit my teeth.

Then I came face to face with something that was so hideous I cracked. At first I had a hard time believing what i was seeing; this meant I started at it too long to shake it out of my head. I fled the site. I tried to find something to deal with until I'd recovered enough that I could go to bed without nightmares. And I mean it; they would have made the one where Colin murdered me look... butterflies.

I cried.

I don't cry at real things often. Books, sure, music, cheesy movies... there are some movies and things I can't NOT cry at. Even if I try.

The words "Those were photographs. That means it was real." rang in me.

Of course, the person who dared to post such an image - the person who dared to do such a thing - would be glad I reacted that way. Look at the poor fat feminist cry. The bitch can't take it.

I'm glad I reacted that way, too. Because it means I am human.

I have met clueless assholes in my time. I have met men for whom women are of no worth if they won't put out. I've met them mostly in passing -- or chosen to keep my distance.

I have never, even face to face with someone who was demeaning women or committing sexual harrassment, ever imagined there were people out there who hated 50% of the population That hard.

I'm not naive. I'm occasionally idealistic. I know that in large parts of the world, women are still almost chattel, or else no almost about it. I know the North American rape statistics, and the fact that they're low compared to almost any third world country. I've grown furious at no end of reports of crimes - an assaulted woman fighting back, only to have a second man, seeing her strike his friend, assault her himself. I understood the anger, and I know why I grit my teeth when people mock the extreme end of feminism, even though I agree that the extreme end is as bad as any other extreme group. I know why I refuse to stop using the word feminist to describe my politics.

I remember being assaulted when I was twelve. I mostly think of the boys who did that as dangerously unthinking, clueless to what they did, not malicious. Not evil.

But I never imagined there could be a gulf that big between men and women, a hate that hateful, an action that hurtful. This was evil.

So I cried, and I knew the person who posted that - not hidden, but in mid-forum, midstream, where it could be come across by someone expecting no worse than words - would gloat.

I tried to pray. I may be Christian, but prayer has never come easy to me. It doesn't soothe me, it doesn't feel like it's heard. The times I feel myself reach to the divine, or the divine reach to me, come by other routes. But I tried. I tried to pray for peace in me, but more, I prayed that the person on the other side would, even for a moment, imagine the reaction of those who came across that image - and would feel the slightest, remotest spark of empathy.

It still felt unheard, unsent, but I repeat it here.

Because the thing I loathe second-most, after knowing those pictures was real, is what it did to me.

For the first long stretch of today, I had a hard time looking at any man. I've been having to remind myself that the most insensitive and doltish of all my male friends would all of them, as a whole, rally around their female friends, would defend one if for some reason she couldn't defend herself. Are willing to respect brains and self-confidence. Even the most body-judgmental still see and consider women as people. But I was exceedingly glad that my workplace has 70-odd X chromosomes and one Y.

I could deal with Colin, though for some reason, I was glad he wasn't in the mood tonight either. I trust him utterly, so i was glad to cuddle up to him, talk to him, look at him and be happy and open around him. But.

Last night when i went to bed, late enough and long enough that i was both exhausted and not likely to have a nightmare, he rolled over to face me. I was facing the wall.

I couldn't take it. I had to get him to turn the other way. because my regular brain knew, "Colin. Familiar and warm sleeping lump. Kinda furry, good to cuddle."

My lizard brain was saying "Something bigger than you and more dangerous than you is right behind you and you're totally exposed."

Also, I was physically incapable of fleeing to him to hold me when I found what i found. Not because he was asleep; because at that moment, I couldn't have borne it.

That's why I'm angry. because while I am as guilty as the next person for saying "Men!" in mock amusement (deeper and even more sincere than usual apologies to all my male friends and relatives) I have never, in my life, come remotely close to being hateful towards, or afraid of, men as a whole. Specific people, of course. But not the whole gender.

Hatred towards one whole gender was why I was so outraged in the first place.

I wish I had never, once, seen the capacity for it within myself. Even at a low grade level, even as a passing reaction.

May they gain the spark of empathy I nearly lost.

Minor setbacks and more book reviews.

2008-05-29T04:23:01Z

My paycheque last week did not arrive. Usually, if the temp agency does not receive my hours for a given week, I have at least one, and often two, phone calls. This time, no warning. I'd thought it was due to the long weekend (They mail our cheques) but, no love, and this week's cheque arrived in timely fashion. Sigh. I guess I fax them tomorrow.

OTOH, I've seen the first season of Criminal Minds for significantly lower than I expected, and if I had more paycheque, I might have forgotten that I'm broke, and owe several people birthday presents or money. So, um, yay for being broke? Or maybe just yay for not impulse shopping.

____

One of the things I'm supposed to be doing these days is attempting to get my learner's permit again (I had one several years ago, but too long ago for their records, which are apparently four years.) I keep running into setbacks. Today i was ready for the test, mentally, or at least felt I was. However, the last time I needed to get a learner's, you walked in and did it. They needed ID on the spot, of course, but that's easy enough. and I checked and it said that you do not need an appointment for a written test.

Alas, the last time I got my learner's was late '02 or '03 (I explicitly set it up to learn in winter, snow being much harder than pavement). Since it is a bureaucracy, it took a while to put through some 9/11 security rules. (It was just after progressive licensing, which had been on the agenda since pre-9/11, for example.) So I didn't know that these days you need to talk to Autopac and show them government ID to get into the system before you can stroll in casually to take the test. Basically, they have to have proof somewhere that you're really a citizen and really live where you say.

So, because I don't carry my passport with me, I couldn't take the test today. Bleah. Easy fix, I should ahve it next week.

____

I cleaned out my keyboard a little the other day. Now two of my arrow keys and one of the "Alt"s, though in place and working, are not held in place by anything, so they come out if I press them in any way but very precisely, and sometimes even then they "jump" a bit. I hardly ever use "alt", so that's okay, but the moving arrows are a nuisance.

____

Colin and I are talking about taking in an event, not this coming weekend, but the weekend after. This has several disadvantages:

- I'm working a totally new job on that Friday (It's a one Friday every two weeks, so not exactly the big bucks.) and even though it's a relatively close event, that puts our departure time later than ideal.

- My cousin's social is that weekend. I meant to at least put in an appearance, even if it meant missing half of the game.

- There's a good chance I'm also busy the weekend after: which, if I'm absent the week of the event, would mean two weeks of not-gaming. If I'm in town, at least I can make it for enough to make it worthwhile.

- I suspect that soon I'll be needing to be more active with work for Amy's wedding.

However, it has a few advantages:

- outdoor archery!

- seeing out of town friends again

- Fun!

- I suspect some clay work might be portable... to finish/work on, as well as possibly to sell.

It might help, though, if I finish at least the new underdress. (Which would also mean practice with a cotehardie-like thing, which is good, as that's what the bridesmaids dresses are mdoelled after.)

Some books I've read recently, in fairly quick:

Naomi Kritzer - Freedom's Apprentice / Freedom's Sisters (Read in Vancouver)

Apprentice was a re-read, to get me back into the feel of the setting of this trilogy (I didn't think I needed to go to the start of book one, Freedom's Gate, but I didn't trust myself to jump into book three without some re-introduction.)

Mostly satisfying. I was disappointed when the genies' own world and culture felt altogether just as mundane as the one on this side of the gate, though I could appreciate the mirror-image intention of it. I liked the effort to portray something very like bipolar disorder as the price for magic -- although I didn't always *feel* it when Lauria was in manic state. I thought parts of the solutions were rushed or not wholly reasoned out -- detailing the points I mean would be spoilery -- and not always just in ways that were in character. And I'm not sure I was convinced by any of the romances or possible romances, though I did totally believe in the sisterly bond with Tamar and Lauria, as a sisterly bond.

Margaret Mahy - The Pirate Uncle (read msotly in Vancouver)

Mahy writes two kinds of books: fairly serious YA that explore complex themes, atypical families, and teenaged romances, frequently with a supernatural bent, and always steeped in New Zealandness. And totally absurd young kids' books with pirates, adventure-book cliches, witches and silliness.

The Pirate Uncle is kind of in the territory between: it's full of odd piratical imagery, kids' adventure story cliches, absurdities, odd family relationships, romances, and a running serious theme. Also, lots of humour, and some strong modern New Zealand coastal imagery.

Alma Alexander - Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage (Just after the Vancouver trip)

I confess, at one point I was very worried that this book, in spite of some solid writing, was going to provoke a rant on the Magical Negro trope (Although in this case it would be First Nations.) Several of the minor characters are from different First Nations groups (Anasazi and -Quilcah-(sp?)), and two of them are explicitly present to teach the main character some part of their traditional magic.

This was smoothly avoided, however; the characters are real, solid people, nobody is present just to be exotic, wise, and mysterious, or just to get sacrificed. The different traditions are present to help create a new kind of magic, emerging from all of them, not for mere colour.

The book as a whole feels necessarily episodic, since several parts of the story take place in wholly different locations with wholly different people, but they're all bound together nicely - for now. Being first in a series, it also does suffer a little from introductionitis - there's enough plot here that a reader is unlikely to curse and swear if it's all they had to read on a desert island, and there was no hope of seeing the sequels, but it also has a lot of earmarks of being the start of a bigger story.

Lisa Goldstein - Tourists (Just after worldweavers.)

Technically a reread, but I usually remember books I've read better than THIS (I'd remembered the mother's experience with the taxis. I'd forgotten most else, including the fact that there were two daughters, not one.) A strange book, more magical realism than fantasy. About feeling alien in a foreign country. And a lot of other things, like myth and reality, anthropological observation and acceptance versus being a part of a place.

I like Lisa Goldstein's work, in general. For literary fantasy and magical realism, she's accessible, even friendly. (I find le Guin's more literary works, for example, rather colder.) Her writing is smooth on the surface, inclined to state things directly, giving the impression everything is plain, while the subtext makes it clear that it's otherwise. They tend to seem slow, with not much happening, and like the violence, even if it happens on page, something startling and alien, not a part of how the world should work at all. On the other hand, I kind or appreciate the worldview, and, as with the plain-looking sentences, more is happening underneath. I remembered quite liking this one and its feeling of culture shock, where even the most earnest of the family members end up reacting badly to being in Amaz and not America. My opinion didn't change. I can see why she has a smallish following and not-great sales, but I also deeply regret that more people don't appreciate these books.

Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto (Last week)

I had this on my shelf anyhow, but I blame rachelmanija for talking about gothics. Since this is the uber early gothic.

Now I want to read more of the modern ones - not necessarily this second, but sometime. Fortunately, her last threads on the subject named names. So I wrote some down.

Tanya Huff - Blood Trail (This week)

Since she was at the Convention, and I'd only read one of her books (Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light), and that years ago, I thought it only fair to read more. A friend of mine described her books as solid entertainment, well made and not inclined to insult one's intelligence, but not likely to make one jump up and down... well,t he way I was yesterday about what Bear and Bull are doing with the Shadow Unit Finale. Oh, and also, that she managed to grab onto the vampire meme early and well. (That was pretty close to my impression from the one book I read, except that the meme was the Urban Fantasy of the Elves & Rock n' Roll variety)

That's about right. I did particularly like her werewolf pack dynamics, she was smart and the characters we were told were competent in their areas really were.

Good enough to remind me to pick up more of hers if I'm in the mood for solid entertainment but *not* deep psychological warpings of my mind or heavy literariness, or some Dunnettery.

Just Started / on the to-read pile:

Cassandra Clare - City of Bones
Dorothy Dunnett - The Disorderly Knights (Started a while ago, read a few chapters ehre and there, so I haven't abandoned it. I've been in the wrong mood to keep going, it seems)
Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette - A Companion to Wolves (!!!)

lenora_rose @ 2008-05-28T01:27:00

2008-05-28T07:26:34Z

The first part of the final episode of Shadow Unit, season one, just went live.

It's set this week. Meaning there's no clue from the presence of the livejournals what will happen or has happened. In fact, one of the characters who has an LJ missed a date on Saturday*.

And hasn't posted since.

And now I know why.

Oh, fuck.

Fiction does not leave you panting in terrified reaction. This is storytelling, pure and solid. The elusive gold of storytelling.

I kid you not.

Not the episode. The Season. If you jumped straight to Refining Fire, it wouldn't hit you in the gut. You need all the other painful, twisted, fabulous stories first.

I can't write. I could never write like that. And yes, of course, I don't want to *be* Bull or Bear, or even the creator of their writing. but right now, I don't even want to look at the dross of the Serpent Prince.

* With a real person. Shortly after photos were posted on cvillette's lj of trollcatz on a climbing wall. Even though she doesn't exist. The meta is getting META.

Long weekend

2008-05-20T06:40:27Z

Friday

I chose to go to a reading Jane Yolen was doing at the Millenium library, were I could also meet up with forodwaith for the first time in a while.

Jane Yolen read only one story, a short allegory about ghosts, souls, and Hitler. The rest of the time, she took question after question, mainly from the children in the audience. As one might expect of a lady who's been in writing, particularly for children, for decades, she handled herself extremely well, with quick pat answers to smart-aleck questions, serious and non-patronizing answers to most serious questions; it was fun watching her switch gears between them that fast and that smoothly.

Afterwards, forodwaith and I wandered up to the Exchange District, ostensibly so I could look a bit for gifts for tiene and Brannie, though i really didn't feel like serious money-spending shopping so much as like browsing. The wind, i should say, was gusting up to 50 or 70 km, so this was periodically rather breathtaking, but we managed well enough. We also ended up at the Underground Cafe, where I think I ordered something other than a Sunburger for the first time ever (Okay, I've occasionally, when really hungry, ordered a cup of soup or a salad as well, so I have tried more of the menu than that, but I've never ordered their other sandwiches.) A very tasty spicy tuna, with a distinct taste of curry. We then walked back to Osborne to do more window shopping - I did end up buying a stick of wax for my shell-stamp, oops - but on the way there, we got caught across from a wide open and sand-filled parking lot just when the wind decided to gust. I managed to block my face enough to keep it out of my eye and my mouth, though i got enough in the ear, and it stung a little along my limbs.

The evening ended up confused; First stopping with Amy and _aura_ to discuss Amy's wedding plans and dresses, then we meant to make dinner plans, which changed three times before we all wound up back at abacchus and _aura_'s place to watch the Emperor's New Groove - new to senekal, but an old friend to most of the rest of us. With Colin joining us from the other direction entirely.

Saturday night I went to Prince Caspian with taleisin and Colin.

First impression was, this is a very good fantasy movie. Better than Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

It thoroughly rearranges the order in which the story is told from the book, but I'd expected that; Lewis's choice of order is complicated and a bit odd, and works sometimes to the detriment of the adventure itself. It also rearranges the actual order of events slightly, adds a battle (though one that, far from being an action set piece only, does a fair bit of revealing of character, and has consequences that drive the plot), and made what was previously a minor temptation scene (in which all the good guys successfully resist) both more explicit and considerably more dangerous to all concerned. In fact, in general, all possible sources of tension are made heavier and darker -- as is the mood. As are all the deaths. Part of this is that Prince Caspian, the book, is made rather lighter and easier than it should be, considering its subject matter of a bloody revolution against an oppressor, and in some places I did find myself thinking, "That was what Lewis should have been getting at, but only mentioned as even possible once."

The thing is, it still captures the story, if in a different shape, and in spite of the grimmer tone, the spirit is recognizeable from the book; it's the same spirit grown up. I'm not wholly sure it's a children's story -- there are more deaths, certainly, and no resurrections, though there is a minor miracle. this might take more explaining to younger kids, at least.

Oh, and Reepicheep is fabulous, both in performance and in visuals. Trufflehunter the badger, like the Beavers in the first movie, doesn't really move like an animal anymore, or seem shaped quite right. The mice do much better; perhaps because mice and rats are more inclined to stand on their hind legs, they looked less artificial that way, and when they dropped to all fours, which they did more often, they looked even better.

(In the realm of dangerous temptations: I also encountered Peg Kerr's "Bad place" directly for the first time - with Radcliffe, at least it's only Finno who thinks he's seriously hot. Oh, dear.)

(But rather better, while the events and characters are massively different, the mood is about right to keep me going in the Serpent Prince. Where I seem to have sprouted an extra character I may or may not need. Ack. And the problem with this being my token heterosexual male book; a not-insignificant female character, a healer, has yet to get named, because the men writing the story haven't thought to ask her. Grrrr. You'd think Ketan himself would know better.)

Yesterday I did a day pass to visit Keycon.

The first panel I went to was called "write what you know - and bluff", and was hosted by two small-press authors and a small press editor. They didn't say much that was egregiously wrong while I was present (The female writer came close to saying fantasy could be less researched and more invented, but before I had to scream in disgust and interrupt, she clarified that she meant how it was possible to extrapolate from research to develop the world.), but I still got the impression they were discussing at a level well below several internet discussions I've been in -- and not necessarily with people any more published than they or I, so I can't entirely attribute it to a lack of high level pros. The editor seemed to have the point of view I agreed with most, but he also said the least. I gave up on it when the male writer said that alien races pretty much have to be extrapolated from human cultures -- with an example of a race a pro writer invented that is basically the Japanese taken to extreme -- because how else do we relate to them? And the other two agreed without caveat. (The potential for this approach to support unconscious racism never seemed to occur to any of them, never mind that this is rather more debateable than they seemed to find it.)

Instead I saw the second half of a panel with Tanya Huff, Jane Yolen, and two people whose names I didn't catch for coming in late, but one of whom was clearly involved in film making, and the other with Canadian television production. The subject was meant to be film and tv adaptations in general, but they spent a great deal of time on Starship Troopers around when i came in, and all the things the movie did wrong, including the possibility it was meant for intentional parody of itself. They moved on briefly to insult Battlefield Earth, then went on to Bill C-10 for a lengthy stay (Bill C-10 is a tax bill, but it includes a clause that indicates the right of the government to refuse tax credits, a major way films are funded, to any Canadian film deemed inappropriate for the general public standards. In other words, ick.) A few more topics snuck in at the very tail; they could have easily gone over time, it seemed.

However, I went over to listen to Decadent Dave and Bill and Brenda Sutton do songs by Stan Rogers. Which was a very nice hour.

Next was Jane Yolen's Guest of Honour speech, which was interesting, though I recognized a few tidbits of repeat material from the question and answers at the Library. Also, I spent that, and some of the other panels, sketching out pieces of ideas for a pottery design.

I then took a break, mainly because I needed to walk a bit (and get some reasonably healthy calories in me) before sitting again, to visit the dealer's room (No pretty jewellery or other ephemera remotely in my price range, considering my price range right now is rock bottom, though I bought books on credit card.) and to go up and wander the consuites. In mid-afternoon, they were basically dead, but one suite was selling various soups for very cheap, so I had some carrot ginger soup, some pretzels, some actual carrot sticks, and, oops, a buttertart. The movie room was showing A Nightmare Before Christmas, which I've been meaning to watch again for a while, so even though it was already a third through, I stayed for the rest even though there'd been a panel I wanted to go to in the hour or so I was missing.

Back downstairs, I glanced in at the art auction, but while some of the art looked very nice, it also looked like it was most of the length of a hall away from me, and while they toured a piece around a bit while bidding happened, they rarely reached the back. I listened to enough of a science panel to know that even though the person talking seemed to know at least enough of his subject to talk, he was also too dry. I wandered until the next panel change and wound up at Heroes Have Heroes too, where four of the authors present and one artist all discussed their influences, the people they love to read, the people whose work they like to look at -- Jane Yolen and Dave Duncan (I think, my head was down staring at my sketches, so i was depending on voice and context) -- at least seemed to have done enough looking at galleries and art shows to have intelligent things to say to support David Mattingly in his art-based side. I was amused that it was Eric Flint who admitted one of his characters was directly ripped from Dorothy Dunnett, just because he wasn't the one I would have expected to say that. Tanya Huff talked about some of her very pragmatic commercial decisions made before writing a book, based on seeing what sold when she worked at a bookstore, which is a kind of influence, if not usually considered a heroic one. (This may sound off-putting to some, or like selling out, if you weren't listening to her on the spot - I got a very different impression, perhaps because she also talked about trying to make the best book she could of the kind she chose.)

Anyhow; old familiar lesson; the subjects of the most interesting panels I made it to weren't the most interesting subjects listed on the program, but the speakers were knowledgeable, and reasonably well spoken and seasoned.

Oh. Because I arrived pretty much right when panels that interested me were starting, I hadn't got a look at the art show yet. By the time I took my break, it was closed to prepare for the auction, but because the con had moved to being a four day con, they meant to reopen it after the auction pieces were picked up and paid for. I checked as the auction was underway, and was told they'd be ready probably by five-ish. After the influences panel, I checked again,a dn they said six - this time firm and official-like

After that, I ran into a friend who had errands, including dinner, to run, so I went and picked up fast food with him. On my return, i decided to sit in on the Weakest Chevron, the Stargate (Mostly SG-1) trivia contest that was about the only thing happening that late (Besides the Aurora dinner), zipped out to see if I could finally visit the art show, only to learn they had decided it wasn't worth it to reopen from 6 to 9, and were only going to do so the next day. Bleah. Returned to see the rest of the contest; for someone only to the end of season 4, I would have done better than you'd think at the trivia, and not because it didn't get harder as it went on. Some bits may stick in my head later as spoilers, but if I'd been worried about that, I wouldn't have been there.

All this, of course, fails to mention the various people I see rarely that I got to stop and visit with along the way, though these were numerous.

I went up to the consuites again, talked with a few people but mainly got a drink at the Blender that was exceedingly tasty.

After that point, the main things going on were musical. The first was the Luke Ski concert. This year's musician guest was not someone who could sit in on a filk room, though he wrote pop-culture and geek-culture parody songs, because many of them were rapped and all of them used a dj for background. VERY funny, though, and very skilled at his musical and comic timing, although I'm not sure the tidbits of costumes he added on along the way were wholly necessary for the comedy.

The filk room stayed quiet a while; Peggy O'Neill and Ky were the only actual musicians present for some time. Peggy used the lull to work on composing a song, mostly on fine-tuning the words, which was edifying in some ways. We were eventually joined by a multitude of others; those who sang or played, besides the three of us who started there, were the Suttons, Dave Clement, John Speelman, Tanya Huff, Bodi_kat, Sun_in_her-Hair, and one lady I didn't know. Overall, it was a pretty good group; although the fact that we started into silly animal songs was partly my fault even if totally out of character for me (I opened with "Frogs"). It segued into chickens exclusively, then into bad food songs (I added in the Mollys' "The Haggis", tune slightly tweaked when I realised I started in the wrong key to hit the high notes - d'oh! At least the adjustment seemed to work.) then scattered around, so I got to actually sign things more in my usual style. My breath control sucked, again (I nearly broke Vaskilintu, and I usually nail that one.), but I'm getting still better at improvising working harmonies. Dave and John seemed in good form - John did "the Seawall", from their Dandelion Wine days, and just about took my breath away. Bill Sutton mostly did comedic work in the evening, though he'd proved he could go full bore at the Stan Rogers afternoon show. Still, his parody version of Mattie Groves just about killed me (As well as poor Mattie). Tanya Huff had some pretty interesting material, entirely new to me - although, being able to see her lyric sheet sometimes spoiled some of the funny, so i didn't crack up, even if I grinned. ("You picked a fine time to leave me, Narsil"?!!?)

Much fun had, I was reluctant to go home when it all broke up, though it was three AM and I was getting ahrd pressed to see straight, I was so sleepy. I made it home just fine - a dead quiet walk, and the most worrisome thing I noticed was that Ghost Love Score didn't come up when i expected it on my MP3 Player.

The next few days will be work to go to, dirt to dig in the garden, plants and seeds to put down, and driver's handbooks to finish reading through. And, hopefully, versions of tiles to draw out in detail; this wont be a ceramics project I can just jump into, it needs yet more planning.

A folkie among the metalheads

2008-05-16T02:54:06Z

(I so need an MP3 player with more than 512 mb of space... alas, it's somewhere behind needing a pottery wheel, a new set of bookshelves, and a filing cabinet. And possibly even behind a new pair of jeans, though the lack of rush there has been mainly that I just don't wear them much. It would be behind a bicycle, except I think the in-laws have that one covered.)

The Nightwish concert went pretty well. I did feel a bit alien to the audience style, which definitely has different protocols from even the rock concerts I've been at, and certainly from the folk ones, even the heavy insane folk ones like Horace X. I think the last place I saw that many hands upraised towards the stage with such fervour was in a Mennonite church service. ;P

Of course, the gesture was a little different, and they never head-bang in a Mennonite church.

(We were kind of wanting to see what might happen if Brannie tried to head-bang, but I think she would have taken out three or four people. In front and in back. And given herself whiplash form the momentum.)

So I got to meet up with the classmate, C, I was hoping to see there., along with a group of her friends who seemed pretty nice. And Brannie and Dan tried to goth up a bit; while she looked good, I think he made a better goth.

We stuck to the standing section, for those of us inclined to rock out and/or dance. This has an added disadvantage in a converted movie theatre, as the floor was aslant, so any heels were automatically a couple of inches steeper than anticipated.

The opening act, Sonic Syndicate, might have been decent; it was hard to tell. Their sound "guy" was definitely crap. The Garrick does not have the best acoustics ever, but it's better than THAT. The guitars were a wall of noise, not even as clear as thrash guitars ought to be. It didn't help that many of their lyrics were not in English but in Holler, but even when the one singer was singing (And he seemed to have a pretty good voice) it was fuzzy as all hell. It certainly added to the impression that their songs weren't nearly as distinct one from the next as they should be. The crowd responded, but not ethusiastically, and there was room to dance a bit.

Nightwish's sound "guy" was better. It was obvious even during the sound set up, as they went through the drum kit (Which Jeff described as only the third most ostentatious he's seen; it's certainly well up there for me.) You could hear each drum get crisper as it was tapped. And as they did the sound check, people kept drifting in and drifting in to pack it much tighter. C. and the friends she'd brought still had room to let down their hair and headbang, and I managed some dance steps without elbowing people too often (Sorry Jeff).

They still made a mistake in the volume of the mix; Tuomas' keyboards were too far back, and so were Anette's vocals (Marco came through with a lot more force). Not inaudible by any means, but not given their full place in the band. So it could have been better that way.

Still, the band knew what they were doing, music wise, and crowd-wise. They didn't overact too much, considering the sheer melodrama of the music; a couple of times someone on stage was smiling during one of the most sad or strange bits, but far less than the audience was doing. Anette was occasionally tweaking melodies to better fit her own vocal range and comfort zone - sicne, as Jeff remarked, she did it to songs she sings on the album, and did hit some of the highs, she wasn't doing to because she hasn't the range to handle it; I got the impression though that she's still trying out what the changes do to the songs, if that makes sense.

At the start, I found myself thinking that while Anette was not a blonde, as Jeff said her voice made him think she should be, she still wasn't as goth as the others. She grinned and bounced and vamped around the stage rather more like an adorable bouncy thing, skull shirt or not. Then i noticed that the guitarist, Emppu, who *is* blond, was at least as non-goth; inclined to grin and share jokes. I got the impression he might be the most fun to talk to. Even the uber-goth Tuomas turned out to have an adorable grin where appropriate (In this case, adorable is Brannie's word, not mine).

The music was good, though I do have a hard time understanding why people in live concerts shout and roar and cheer in the middle of songs, whenever the tempo speeds up, whenever it slows down, whenever they feel like it. It does seem kind of a bad idea to drown out the music that's putting you into your mood. Sheer at the start or end, yes, sing along, hell YES!, pump your fists and head-bang, well, sure. (Suddenly realise you can do the Hay Bransle steps to Seven Days to the Wolves... I'm sure I've done worse.) But I kind of thought they'd want to hear the music.

The sheer roar they managed to try and call the band back for the encore started to overwhelm even me, though; it was considerably harder to bear than the volume of the concert itself, for whatever reason. Ouch.

There's a lot to be said of the mood of a live show, too, even when the studio versions of the music are officially crisper and lack a roaring audience. And they did pull off the Poet and the Pendulum, all 13-some minutes and several moods, very well. Ditto Sahara; I think Jeff might be right that that was one of the ones that really kicked ass live. The Siren, while distinctly different with the different vocal style, also really got me.

The set was, perhaps not oddly, virtually all from either Dark Passion Play (the new album and the one Anette sings on from the start) and Once (Generally considered their Best) They did only three songs from elsewhere; one of those something they did for a movie soundtrack or the like, and not on any of their albums. I can't complain too hard as it did mean they did mainly work I know, but it seemed an odd choice.

The set list, according to Jeff (And based on the set-lists they tossed at us, which were only mostly accurate) was:
Bye Bye Beautiful (Dark Passion Play)
Dark Chest of Wonders (Once)
Whoever Brings the Night (DPP)
The Siren (Once)
Amaranth (DPP)
The Islander (DPP)
The Poet and the Pendulum (DPP)
Come Cover Me (Wishmaster)
While Your Lips are Still Red (Unknown - movie soundtrack?)
Sahara (DPP)
Nemo (Once)
======
Seven Days to the Wolves (DPP)
Dead to the World (Century Child)
Wish I Had An Angel (Once)

Songs I'd have liked them to try:
Ghost Love Score (I guess two epic lengths would have been a bit much)
Sleeping Sun

All is Well, All is Well

2008-05-14T04:11:48Z

The eyepatch and steri-strips came off yesterday, which is good, as it did mean I could go to archery. The cut is hard to see on a casual look, because of how the lid folds, but it's not too hard for me to display it; it doesn't take much more than closing my eye long enough to let a person focus on it. In some ways it hurts more; the gaping is closed but it's puckered and it will scar, and now it's exposed to air and rubbing. And it's obvious now that some of the ache is from most of the weight of a cat landing hard on my eye, not just eyestrain, even if there's scarce any obvious bruising. Ah well, I will take it over having the patch blocking my sight and the strain on the other eye, any day. It heals, I can function. And See. That's kind of useful.

But mostly I've been busy with things like, let's see; my brother's return to Winnipeg on Sunday (Whee!) which also involved stopping at Abacchus and _aura_'s for pot luck (Colin made a *turkey*) and to teach mom how to play Munchkin. Also to give mom her birthday gifts.

Yesterday was Colin';s birthday, but not terribly celebrative; we went to archery and not much else. A lot of people who don't always show up made it, though, so much fun was had. Also, someone else on the range had a crossbow; at least one of our members actually got to try it out. And was doing much promoting of the SCA, since the guy with the crossbow, barely more than a teen, was exactly the kind of person tog et interested in heavy fighting.

Tonight, Colin and I went to The Garwood Grill, which I found indifferent, as an anniversary dinner. Then went to hang out with tiene, her husband, and Brannie and not her husband, and ended up playing Munchkin Cthulhu, while some other, unexpected guests played Rock Star in the background. (It makes marginally more sense to me than Guitar Hero; the drummer is at least learning a skill actually relevant to drumming. I still think neither makes half the sense of DDR, which may not teach you much about dancing, but gives you exercise and rhythm sense.)

Tomorrow is the Nightwish concert. We're trying to go in a group; Jeff and I, Brannie and Dan, and Tomaas and his brother. And maybe others if i hear from them.

I did manage not to murder the cat... I even fed her!

2008-05-10T03:45:26Z

This morning I woke to a completely new sensation; a raking hind claw stomping across my right eye socket.

OW.

(fuck)

Easy enough to understand what happened.

Élise has an unfortunate habit of leaping onto the bed by leaping onto Colin, rather than going via the foot of the bed, which is Irina's route, and not incidentally closer to the door in the first place. Since I'm the one who lets the cats sleep by me, and Colin doesn't want them there even when they aren't landing on him with their full weight and momentum, this has gotten her flung off a few times, you'd think she'd learn. Of course, it sometimes also gets her pushed, usually more gently, towards the person she's actually there to see.

Unfortunately, this time, she jumped even higher up his body than usual, and Colin shoved her my way a little too hard.

I'm not sure if I screamed or just vaulted up, I just know that my hand was pressed over my eye and there was the wild scrambling noise in the hallway that cats make when they're not quite up to teleporting but are trying to break the sound barrier. I lay there a moment in sheer reaction. Then I launched out of bed, answering Colin's "Are you ok?" with "I don't know yet!" and charged for the bathroom, to see if I was just leaking blood -- or vitreous humor.

The eye itself is fine. The short slash across my upper eyelid, on the other hand, not so much. It was bleeding badly, and when I stretched the lid to get a better look, she'd managed to open the skin really interestingly; deep and wide both. My first reaction was that it probably needed stitches, and I should head to a clinic as soon was one was open. My second, while applying alcohol to the injury, was that so long as my eye was closed or normally open, the injury stayed kind of closed too, so maybe it wasn't so bad. Colin was willing to go with whatever I thought was right, since it was my eyelid. My third impulse was to get indecisive. My fourth was to check with my local health care expert.

So I called mom. She agreed with my first impulse, although she did say I could probably sleep a few more hours, too, as it probably wasn't urgent. I decided I was pretty awake for the meantime. Colin dropped me off just before 8:00: the clinic opened at 8:30. Because I went and got a drink and a granola bar from a cafe instead of standing on the spot, I ended up about sixth in line. I was seen around 10:00. The doctor was reasonably young, a little sardonic in a way that would put one at ease, and a little impressed by the cut. He re-cleaned it (It had been leaking a little blood and a fair bit of whatever the pale clear fluid is that skin wounds leak.) put steri-bands over it because it was in a place that was really bad for stitching, and they pretty much act as plastic stitches. Oh, also a tetanus shot, because I sure can't remember when I last had one.

I almost forgot to tell him the posters in his office were fabulous. He had three of the evil cute bunny, with comments like "Vomit everywhere. Just one of the things you can do with the help of alcohol" and two from despair.com, including one on birth control.

He wants me to keep the bands on 48 hours at least, 72 if I can manage it. So I get to greet my brother at the airport in an eyepatch!

I can open the eye to about half mast, which means I can read, as I look down to do so, but most of the time, I'm better off with the full-out eye-patch, because it keeps me from trying to open it wider to see better, and it looks a lot less ugly. Colin's been doing comparisons to Frankie from Sky Captain.

But it would be the right eye. I think I'm not doing archery tomorrow. The arrows would be... interesting.

I have been getting to appreciate depth perception once again, but what I'm really missing is peripheral vision. I tend to walk around looking far more at things in the vicinity and far less at where I'm going, and count on periphery to tell me if I'm about to hit something. Not so good a habit after all, even if it has meant I've spotted more falcons in the city than most people.

Also, the strain of using one eye where you usually use two does bring on a headache.

lenora_rose @ 2008-05-07T10:07:00

2008-05-07T17:05:09Z

Let's see what actually makes it into text here.

I went to Vancouver for about 8 days. Enjoyed the time with the in-laws, the direct relatives, and meeting a couple of Colin (Or his parents') friends that i hadn't before. And his parents' fifteen year old foster daughter, and one of her friends. (Did I mention his dad is over 70 and his mom is at least close?)

I did some writing while in Vancouver (Dana is Love; I don't miss having a laptop with that thing around); on Gods in Flight rather than Serpent Prince, because new text is much easier to produce on a Dana, and editing on it is rather trickier. It wasn't until late in the trip that the main human character finally gave me her name, and at that, it was the first and middle, the surname I figured out yesterday (Lilas Meridian Larkhame - usually goes by Dia or Meridian.) The demigod admitted to his a while ago.

Which also led to the question; longitudinal lines are meridians; what are latitudinal ones other than the equator and the two tropics?

Not planning to continue with that just yet, though; for oen thing, both characters started their sections with infodumps, and while the second one (the demigod's) can probably be cut for now and moved into later dialogue, Dia's opening ramble about herself and her country probably can't. Ouch.

But mainly, I did want to see if I can finish Serpent Prince first. And it's cooperating and throwing me a few ideas how to clean up after the latest "Ulp. That wasn't in the last draft" incident.

Colin stayed a few days longer than I did (I set it up so I could travel and still work my usual time at the Rehab. Centre for Children). While he was away, I started to overhaul my study, which so far has mainly consisted of emptying boxes and/or file folders of papers and figuring out what is still relevant or useful. Thus, for the time being, I have four empty boxes and a lot of stacks of paper.And almost filled the recycling bin with discards, not counting the basketful and a bit that are now sitting by Colin's shredder because they're financially related.

I also discovered two gift cards from my wedding that were mixed in with the regular wedding cards. I thought we'd separated them all out while we were going through them. Whooops. Fortunately, one hadn't quite expired (They have a two year limit. My anniversary is next Tuesday.) The other one technically has, but I was also informed by the other store, when I was checking about the expiry, that it is now illegal to have a gift card or gift certificate expire (it didn't used to be), and that one expiring means the store needs to issue another for the same amount. But the kid at the counter there was useless useless useless even before we got to the gift card. (Okay. You work in a game store that specializes in European board games, and you don't recognize a piece from a Settlers of Catan expansion?)

Going through my wedding cards, though, reminded me rather guiltily of something: I never did send out thank you cards for the wedding proper. I got the ones for the social out, with my maid of honour's help, but the wedding ones just kind of got lost in the shuffle. Partly because I meant to make it a minor craft project (As in one that would only take two or three months) and personalize them. I had all the necessary doodads, but really, card-making, while well within my abilities as an arty type, just isn't one of the arty things that most interests me. I then, realising how late they'd run, decided to put it off to my first anniversary, and make it look like a deliberate plan. With a typed-up and printed out note inside on just that. And that, though easier, text wise, than all the handwritten, never happened either, though it would ahve made personalizing the cards themselves easier.

It's not a lack of appreciation for the various people who were there celebrating, for the gifts and kindnesses and all the things I knew or did not know they did for my sake. It kind of makes me feel bad. But at the same time, I'm also not the kind of person who is put out when I don't receive thank you cards, or considers it a major point of etiquette. (I liked getting a couple of the ones that were photos of the happy couple, from friends, but that's for the gift of the picture. The ones that were just cards, not so much. The ones that never arrived? Um, I'm not even sure if there are any.)

But something tells me if, by my second anniversary, they're not done, they won't be.

Does anyone do scrapbooking or other crafts that could use some pretty papers, gel pens, decorative stickers, cards and papers with flowers pressed into them, etc?

I talked to the temp agency about working for arts-related or general non-profit, and they're okay with that, though I was warned it limits my possible jobs even more than already working one job does. They're also, to my surprise, perfectly okay with me either turning down jobs several times if I'm not sure about the place, and with me sending out resumes on my own (Meaning I can cover a number of other businesses I otherwise could not.)

Time to print up new copies of my resume. I did the updates a couple of months ago, during school, but I need a handful of the physical objects.

On the art front, I may be too late to get into the Keycon show. Not that I probably couldn't talk them into giving me a spot if it were just a deadline thing, but their site says they actually sold out. It would likely be pretty small money as it is, since Keycon is not exactly a big art sale place.

I'd been thinking about going to the con anyhow this year, as it's the 25th, and, more importantly, Jane Yolen is one of the guests, and I had a couple of panel ideas that might have worked (especially with her presence), and the programmign the last time I went was very much in need of a shot in the arm. Also, i miss filking.

If I don't get into the art show, though, I think I'm better off saving the money and the weekend for other things. I have an idea for a relief tile series, which is a ceramics project I could work on from home without any equipment I currently lack. Also, one I could actually make molds for once the first set is done, and produce en masse, without feeling too guilty about it. Alas, it will take a lot of sketching out ahead of time, and I *will* need a clay-dedicated rolling pin after all. I also decided that since my animal heads are currently all different colours, too different in size, and some of them are very unsatisfactory to my eye (I hate the panther) I should redo most of them if I ever want to make the chess set. (Thus, I have not deleted my otter and donkey reference photos - although the otter is one of the pretty results, IMO).

(Both of these not being food things, I can use low fire commercial glazes and the easiest to find public kilns, too!)

Goblin War - Jim C Hines

I typo'd that as "goblin wear" the first time. A somewhat more worrisome picture.

The first plus about this book is that the giggles start in the acknowledgements page, usually fairly dry. The second is that Jim updates us on the previous two books mainly by use of a two-page call and answer recitation that is similar to a religious ceremony -- except with lines in it like you'd expect from goblins. Funny, not boring, short.

Anyhow, this is a decidedly satisfactory end to the Goblin trilogy, which is itself a trilogy of the *right* kind, which is to say three separate stories that stand alone and make a satisfactory larger story. Which comes to a distinct close. Jim has not completely shut the door on writing other stories in this world, but he's made sure that if he does, even with the goblins themselves, they won't be the first trilogy done over again.

Anyhow, the story this time starts with a group of humans, more numerous and much smarter than an adventurer's crew, coming in and capturing Jig and various larger and tougher goblins, to draft them into a war against ... hobgoblins, orcs, and fellow goblins. The word here is, cannon fodder. If any of them were to miraculously survive the battle, the king of the country has made it clear he's interested in exterminating the goblins on his land once and for all.

Jig, still runty and waay too smart for his own good, and with a rather weird god in his head, promptly escapes and decides to look into this enemy army, which sounds, at first, like the people he ought to sympathize with. Turns out things aren't that easy. Not only are both sides in the war badly flawed, there, are, it turns out, some complicated dealings going on with the gods themselves.

Which is one of the best things about this book. We finally get a real look at Tymalous Shadowstar, at where he comes from, at what he fought against, why he lost, and why, most of all, he survived in the wake of that loss. Oh, and what he's god *of*, which i don't remember being addressed before, at least not in this kind of detail, revealing his limitations. Shadowstar, it seems, is much more like the goblins he adopted than he let on, and more like Jig in particular -- and a bit more of a bastard than Jig already thought he was.

The other best things about this book are the same things that are plusses about the others; unexpected bouts of common sense, and not only by Jig, smart ways to get out of situations. Getting the goblin's perspective on how to survive something that looks suspiciously like a quest, and their unorthodox means of undermining all the fantasy tropes. Smudge the fire spider, even though within the books it seems like Jig has to push his pet's tolerance and fondness a few times. I really hope that between adventures they get to relax and have fun with each other a bit more.

Jim is moving on now to a new series, about fantasy princesses and fairy tales, starting with The Stepsister Scheme. I'm not disappointed in him trying other territory; I'm looking forward to it.

Emma Bull - Bone Dance

I'm assuming there's a statue of limitations on spoilers, and book over a decade old (about 15 years I think?) is on the other side of it.

Anyhow: there are several things about this book that are implausible nowadays, and some that were back then. You can criticize the post-apocalyptic setting with the "even nuclear bombs couldn't turn Central America into an archipelago" or grumble about the global warming result from that apocalyptic war. (Most of which I let slide, because, not important to the current story). You can think, as I do, that considerably more infrastructure could probably be restored in a place like Minneapolis than was in this book, even though this book does considerably less of the "The world has gone to hell" than, say, the kinds like Mad Max that assume everyone is on the run and gone feral. People here are living in a city, with local agriculture around it, feasible markets, some, if rationed, electricity, and hints of other structures either in place or cobbled back together. People have jobs, or enough leisure to visit night clubs. But, based on the sheer quantities of things like music discs, movies, and books, in the present, the existance of libraries, of endemic used stores, I find it harder to believe that Minneapolis has reached the point where (per the opening scene, so not a spoiler) only the richest of rich can get any copy of Singing in the Rain, and only a handful would get the joke in that opening about "Debbie Reynolds dies at the end". Even with electricity severely limited, since the same thing is implied about books, which, not needing the scarce electricity, are readily available. There are around 20 used bookstores in Winnipeg, as many new (And the new ones, including Chapters' and McNallys, are *significantly* larger). I doubt Minneapolis could run that far out of books even if few new ones were being produced.

However, and here's the most important thing, those are *surface trappings*. The surface trappings are off. Oh, no. The thing is, you might as well complain that voodoo isn't real, so the story couldn't happen. Or that an androgynous created body, essentially a puppet, can't wake up one day as a living being with inherent knowledge. The story is set where it's set because that's what makes it easiest to tell this story, with this point. It's not aiming for physical realism so much as emotional truths.

The story, about Sparrow's transformation from wary outsider to fully involved human, the sacrifices made, by hir and others, to get hir there, those have the punch of truth. The action is given a hectic pace, with shootings and dead bodies, plots and counterplots, daring escapes and hard choices, but if that was all there was, that and the wonky surface trappings, it would be read once and thrown aside.

There's more underneath. The heart of this book isn't in whether the exact apocalypse and the exact scarcity Sparrow deals with make sense. It's not even in the action-movie like plan to take down the Monopoly, or defeat the last Horseman. It's about what it means to try to live in a society, to take its benefits, and yet pretend that what happens to people you know, people you see every day, doesn't matter. Trying to say, "I'm not a part of this." And what it does to the person who tries it.

Or maybe it's the realisation that everything you are is given to you by someone else, not naturally inherent in you, by genetics or lessons or connection -- and doesn't make you less you. Or one of the other hidden lessons or messages, about belief or what it means to be God's Vessel. It doesn't matter which.

The emotional heart, the personal vision, the people, are all vivid, the writing is solid and fast and the action is convincing, and I found that even with surface trappings askew, I was sucked into the book.

What surprised me, actually, on the reread, is how much of that transformation, of the sense of personality of Sparrow and others, Emma Bull gets across in how few pages. She manages to let a single scene stand for a whole relationship (I first had this thought rereading Sparrow's gig at the club with Theo -- and Sher, but I could as easily mean several others after that), but makes that scene complicated enough and nuanced enough that, if the reader is paying attention to the nuances, the relationship feels solid and clear in its shape. Many writers could hardly make one scene depict the whole of a two-dimensional relationship. Each page includes some detail, some event, that turns the whole thing over again. The villains are left rather flat, but Sparrow and hir allies and friends turn real very fast.

Blackmore's Night - Under a Violet Moon

Since I have their most current album, why not continue at the other end, with their first?

The contrast is, to say the least, noticeable. The the Village Lanterne, there's a distinct return to rock feel in some songs. There's a lot more surety in many of the lyrics, even those that are shamelessly about fantasy or love or romance. There's less repetition of choruses.

Under a Violet Moon is much more acoustic, which isn't necessarily bad. It's more uneven, and the unevenness feels like that of a band still coming together. The shameless positive feeling and slight cheese to the lyrics in Village Lanterne is here sometimes positively naive and awkward with it, as well. Wind in the Willows is hard toge t through if one is paying attention at all, and musically weak with it.

There are still standout tracks; the first four songs, for instance, are all strong in their own way; Castles and Dreams is a bittersweet story about believing too much in same, and if it seems belied by some of the rest of their own music, at least it hints at a realistic look. Past Time with Good Company, being written by Henry VIII is one of the few truly renaissance pieces, and performed the most like it, to its advantage; very danceable, though. Morning Star remains one of my favourites, quickpaced and easy to dance to. The instrumentals are mostly solid, as you'd expect from a longtime guitarist of some skill, although I think the attempt to limit it to acoustic and to things that sound more cod-medieval hurts it slightly.

Still, I did find my expectations slightly disappointed.

It's certainly good enough that, had I started here instead of with their current work, I'd have still decided I want to seek out more. I just might not have added the "NOW!" to it. It hasn't dissuaded me from wanting more of the work in between, either.

But I have died a thousand times, watching all these angels fall...

2008-04-22T03:09:23Z

Off to BC for a week as of tomorrow night. Not sure what Internet connectivity will be like in the meantime (Not that I've exactly been taking advantage now while I have it, as much as I ought) so i don't know how much I'll post. I'm still holding out hope to be reviewing or at least commenting on Goblin War, Bone Dance, and The Mirador sometime soon, if only when I return. (I come back five days before my husband)

IN the meantime, I just posted this for my SF gaming group, as I wanted them to know what happened when my character (the group's Captain and a pilot/knife-fighter) fled upstairs after an especially traumatic revelation. I think it's mostly comprehensible without the big picture plot, and it's a bit purple and only moderately edited, but what the hell. I welcome comments, including criticism (Especially critique if it's useful):

Captain Magda Kerren

She has a handful of coherent thoughts left in her when she enters her apartment. The first is to lock the door; Bart, and possibly Alex, will follow her.

Something very much like hysteria is burning inside her; she isn't sure if she opened her mouth, if she'd let out a primal scream or some idiot little-girl sobbing. Neither would be forgiveable. So she will not speak.

Not that it changes the feeling inside her, the way it seems to sear away logic and reason and usefulness, the things that matter. It's loathsome. Not soldierly. And more, not Oriflamman. One of the things that made her embarrassing to her family, however much they cared, even before her string of failures as a Captain.

But this is where her sharp and well-trained mind is her enemy, and her body - agile, but too weak, too easily worn out - is her best ally.

Her mind does do her one last favour; it marks out limits. The furniture is sparse, and not hers. The walls are battered enough. When they are gone, some poor person will need to live here. Better they find it liveable.

So she won't pull out the knives.

Some part of her is aware there's an even better reason not to pull the knives. She lets that thought blur.

She considers stripping the billowing caftan, but she can't count on always being put into a fight in convenient moments. So instead she plants her feet in first position, loosens her knees, and begins to sweep into a martial sequence.

Magda is fully aware the formal footwork, the strikes and jabs meant for a pell or a knife-tree, bear no resemblance to a real knife fight. The one time she was in a real knife fight, she survived by throwing a trash can lid at her opponent, and stabbing him, without any technique whatsoever, in the first fleshy bit she could reach.

She'd expected Jamison to have something to say about that, some remark about how her wrist had been out of line or how she should thrust, not flail. He hadn't, of course. He'd posed for her and had her show him again how she'd stabbed, as best she could recreate it, without the blade. Since her memory was her curse, she'd managed it pretty exactly. His bruise had been purple for a week.

So he'd shown her what an amateur would have done with the same thrust, how her unrealistic practice had in fact let her spot the opening and exploit it, even in the real world, where fights were a second or two of panic.

That memory - not the fight, but Jamison's calm demonstration, always comes to her at the beginning of a routine. It had grown into part of the mantra, part of the action that cooled anger and shame, brought the calm she needed to push on to the next mission in spite of catastrophe.

The footwork is easier, more monotonous than that of kickboxers or kung-fu stylists. She hears a knock, hears someone try the door, and Bart's voice, but they are far away; in her mind, the furniture turn to other shapes of obstacles; equipment in a damaged engine room, the much crueler tables and chairs of an interrogation chamber. But mostly, she keeps seeing them as people, bystanders in the public square, turning to stare as she pulls the only viable weapon she has, and shrieking in her mind, struggles to get to the front to strike down the monsters who would hack a man's ribcage open in public.

So she sweeps through the movements, lashing out at imaginary opponents who are always more numerous, more vicious, more skilled than she. They kill her fifteen times in the first hour. She's taken out twenty-seven of them; unusually good, even imagining herself with two knives.

Not good enough.

Never good enough.

But how could she be good enough, when she didn't even recognize his face until it was far too late?

She'd been looking at his hands, at the way they were tipped not with neat fingernails but with blood and scab and ruin. At his feet, toes all but broken in the process of pulling the nails. At the fact that she could see the ruin of his feet at all, that they dragged him barefoot across a square that was far from clean or safe.

Not excuse enough. She'd even said, frustrated but firm, that stopping that public torture-murder wasn't their mission.

It was their mission. And she'd stood by and done nothing. She'd thought it horrible, her stomach had twisted, trying to avoid remembering similar atrocity at much closer quarters.

She hadn't noted his features, only the bruises and lacerations that hid them.

She'd been trying to avoid seeing his features, this person she'd assumed was an anonymous stranger on an alien planet. Even so, she only recognized his picture, so very belatedly, because she was so used to pictures that hid the damage the real people endured.

Magda didn't keep souvenirs. She didn't have to. She could call up any of them in her mind, crystal clear pictures of their faces. Scotty, his petallish alien limbs splayed in a way she knew was all wrong, huge holes pitted through his skin and flesh, pulp spurting across the room. Suzy, bruised, still stunned, her lips working uncontrollably, but only shaking her head and shrinking back when they tried to find out if and where she was hurt.

The precise pattern of burns on Lukas's ribs. The expression on Jimmy's face on finding Ori dead, and on learning the crew would be separated. Locked in solitude, unable even to see each other's hurt.

Ori, slack and unconscious, just before the pillow pressed down. The knotted muscles in her own arms, because even comatose, he fought for oxygen. If he hadn't been so far gone, her weak arms wouldn't have been enough to hold him.

And sometimes she sees photos or vids of them as they were. It usually makes her catch a breath, surprised, at how whole and healthy they are. How unlikely that seems.

She can't remember them that way yet.

So she hasn't been remembering.

Even though she still expects, any moment, for someone to condemn her for a murderer. Not much different from the men in the square, cutting a man's heart out for all to see.

Barbaric.

Her steps turn staggering; she regathers herself, forces muscle to move correctly, in spite of wear, in spite of her limits.

Finally, the emotions drain away; the shame and the rage and all the tangle of horror. She doesn't stop for having reached that state; it makes her push harder, because it makes one truth crystal clear.

One of her brothers had once told her that love wasn't an emotion, because emotions were temporary. Even emotions like grief, that could take years, were still temporary, transitory. Love was not, and neither was its opposite.

She drove her body until she was numb, no longer angry, and found him all too right.

When all feeling was fled, hatred remained.

And so there is nothing for it but to turn and thrust again, and drive herself past numbness, past muscle-burn and shin-splint, past shaking hand, into complete blankness. Nothing less than oblivion will do.

Second wind comes, and dies fast, and third and fourth winds faster. She staggers now and cannot recover. She keeps moving.

Her lungs ache, the old Oriflamman wheeze grows in her breath. The edges of her throat begin to feel as raw, cracked and peeling, as if burned.

Eventually she finds oblivion; she topples.

She rouses again, far too soon after. And all the pictures she'd been avoiding come back over her at once, murder and murder and murder, and one sob forces its way out her ruined throat. After the first, the rest flood out. Not just for the man she'd come to rescue and utterly failed to recognize, but for all the rest of the dead.

She remains that way well into the night; well into the very dark hours. And it's in the last of the utter dark that it comes to her; weeping is even more of a waste of time. There had been twelve people in the crew. One confirmed dead, and there is no doubt others were slaughtered before him, through the last several months. She can't waste any more hours.

She needs to collect her crew, and put together a plan. They're up against a government and a religious order. And if anyone is alive, they will be found.

Magda knows, viscerally, that "Everyone comes home" is a polite lie. Neither Scotty nor Ori came home. And at least one, probably several, of Apollo's crew will not.

That doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.

By the time the others might be awake and ready, so was she; precisely clean, crisp and ready in her flight leathers, the sweat-soaked clothes left behind in a puddle.

She's ready to take on the world once more; which is good, because she'll have to.

Mister, don't you understand that I'm dancing as fast as I can?

2008-04-17T03:00:03Z

Oysterband last night. Whooo.

Mom had to cancel last minute; we ended up dragging Cristina out instead (She and taleisin are the two people who borrowed CDs after the last music night, and since it was only one ticket, I thought it might be unfair to ask Brannie and Dan.)

The weirdest thing, on walking in, was that they didn't have a dance floor set up in the front. The WECC had it completely cleared for Horace X, with rows of seats behind and tables to the sides, and it got so jam-packed that after a while of only being able to bounce in place, I literally got pressed right out of it. I'd have figured the same thing here. Instead, they'd set it up as they did for Fairport Convention; tables down the middle and rows down the sides. So we snagged the very front stage right row, with me eyeing the six feet or so of space immediately in front as an ideal dance spot.

The second odd thing, to me, was that it had an unannounced opening act. I didn't mind, I just thought they usually listed the opener, even in small type, somewhere on the posters. In this case it was local singer-songwriter, Dan Frechette, a name I knew I recognized from Folk Fest and the like, but couldn't remember if I knew him as a good performer or a bad.

Evidence suggests, good. Aside from one overly country tune, I enjoyed pretty much all of his set, which included tastes of fifties jazz, rockabilly, and comedy. He was pretty good with the patter, too.

The main act was about what you'd expect. They started with Over the Water, also the opening track to the new CD (Freshly available this side of the ocean, but out since late 2007 at least on the other, IIRC), with Chopper plucking at an odd little square box with keys to make the tinkling opening (Called a mbira in the album credits). It's a slower piece with emphasis on harmony, so I sat to listen, then stood up before they kicked into the next song -- an odd choice, I think, If you Can't Be Good (a fast rocker but not one I would have picked off Rise Above.) Still, it was plenty of good excuse to dance. So I did.

Most of the dancers stayed on the other side of the stage, or at the far back (The lights were up enough, at Dan Frechette's request, that the band could probably see that, though J. J. did at one point joke that we must have a rule about no dancing before 10 PM.) So essentially, I had enough space the whole time, even when joined by others, to go all out. So I did.

I counted: I *didn't* dance to 3 tracks and two part-tracks, one of the latter only because I was fetching water. The damage is... not bad, actually. My calves are a little sore today, especially obvious going down stairs -- however, my right knee and left hip, the bits that twinge on me sometimes at the best of times, are beign nicer about it than I thought they would. The worst problem is that the lingering cough from my cold will probably linger an extra day or two. SOOO worth it.

This is the third time I've seen them live. The first time, I was seventeen. I have yet to be disappointed in the show they can put on. Or the music. I listen to them less than I used to mainly out of intense familiarity. The acoustics in the front corner of the WECC aren't perfect (Better even as far as the chairs where Cristina and Colin sat), but they're plenty good enough to appreciate the things they do. I got to appreciate again that Alan Prosser is a better guitarist than I tend to account for, considering the fiddle tends to get the really hooky bits, and the cello grabs more attention than a bass. The new drummer is pretty good, from the point of view of someone who kind of did have to pay attention to the beat.

My only real disappointment is that they pretty much disappeared from the stage at the end; Prosser came back to do esoteric guitar-putting-away-stuff, and did pause to chat, although I think it was with a member of the Dust Rhinos, as it happens. So I didn't feel like walking up and doing the fangirl "Can I get your autograph?" on the new CD Colin bought me.

Aside from the opening and closing numbers, I can't swear as to order. But here's the full set list, as divided by albums:

From Meet You There:
-Over the Water
-Here Comes the Flood (Not remotely to be taken for the Peter Gabriel song. More raucous than the album version)
-Where the World Divides (The album version is also on, gasp, their myspace page)
-Walking Down the Road With You
-Bury Me Standing
-Just One Life
-Dancing as Fast as I Can (A slow track, making it rather harder to dance to than you'd think from the title. But already my favourite; before the concert I thought I only favoured it because I got to hear - and dance to - a live version in advance off myspace. Nope.)

From Rise Above:
-Uncommercial Song
-If You Can't Be Good

From Here I stand:
-Street of Dreams (I wasn't sure how this would go off without a woman. It went off SPLENDIDLY.)

From Deep Dark Ocean:
-Native Son (With the welsh opening verse)
-Be My Luck

From The Shouting End of Life:
-By Northern Light (The old fast version but with a slow fiddle teaser from the new acoustic version on their myspace page)
-Everywhere I Go
-Put out the Lights (The last encore, done totally acoustic - by which I mean off the stage and away from the mikes, too. And opening with a relatively new cello bit.)
-The World Turned Upside Down. (The next to last encore)

From Holy Bandits:
-When I'm Up I can't Get down. (Which segued into Granite Years, so I can place it near the end.)

From Deserters:
-Granite Years (The main set closer)

From Wide Blue Yonder:
-Oxford Girl (A splendid near acoustic version (they used the mikes but I think they unplugged the instruments))

From elsewhere:
-A set of English polkas, I think a match for the ones on Alive and Acoustic, and certainly familiar.
-John Barleycorn (Similar to the Big Session version, though obviously without all the guest voices)

Tracks I wished they'd played but they didn't:

Rise Above
Molly Bond
False Knight on the Road (No keyboard on stage that i could see, so therefore impossible. Still...)
We Could Leave Right Now

And of course, there were plenty of others they could have played and made me happy to hear. As it is, my complaints about the set list? Well... none. Wisting after other songs they could have played isn't to say they did wrong, it's to say I'd have been okay with MORE.