Last of the harvest

And the farmers market ends too.  :(.

Embassytown, so far

Mieville's really good at starting a novel.  Worldbuilding is fast and furious in this one, and focused on exoanthropology and linguistics.  Tasty.  The characters being sort of wishy washy and unlikeable never really matters.  Too much brain candy to care until the plot sags in overkill actiony wordy bits.  That hasn't happened yet in ET.   Back to it then...

I might be a big geek

Judging by my excitement over a $15 shirt...

Embassytown

The queue for China Mieville's Embassytown was shorter than I thought it would be, so that book is up next.  I think I am ready for SFF again after reading too much about running, psychiatry, and LA hardcore punk.

I was reminded why I have cats when I came home yesterday to find boycat playing with a fat little mouse, saved the mouse from him (i.e. didn't let him eat it, because it was pretty far gone), put it out the house, then came back in to find he had a second one stashed away that he had already pretty much killed.  Two for one night...

I did not get much done this weekend other than run, make ice cream for a fundraiser at work, and help prepare for a Halloween party.  I did score a very cheap Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bashir costume though.  Should be fun.

Embassytown

The queue for China Mieville's Embassytown was shorter than I thought it would be, so that book is up next.  I think I am ready for SFF again after reading too much about running, psychiatry, and LA hardcore punk.

I was reminded why I have cats when I came home yesterday to find boycat playing with a fat little mouse, saved the mouse from him (i.e. didn't let him eat it, because it was pretty far gone), put it out the house, then came back in to find he had a second one stashedaway that he had already pretty much killed.  Two for one night...

I did not get much done this weekend other than run, make ice cream for a fundraiser at work, and help prepare for a Halloween party.  I did score a very cheap Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bashir costume though.  Should be fun.

Glee

Is taking forever to buffer, so I have time to post... 

Yesterday, we ran in the Big Gay Race, along with many other peoples.  It was a very good turnout, with some good outfits.  I ran kinda slow and had to stop near the end to catch my breath, having done a race pace 9x400 run Wednesday that made me feet hurt.  But it was fun.

Then we went to the Mill City farmers market and to Spoon River for an early birthday brunch for the vegetarian.  It was pretty tasty, but like with Greens, I'm not sure the extra price was justified.  The old Brenda's had more zing.

Then on to the Book Fair, where I got to stand five feet away from Kevin Sorbo.  And a couple friends were hawking their wares:

 A Day at the Inn, a Night at the Palace... and   Enter Oblivion .  Both good reads...

And then the last warmth of the day disappeared and it got very cold.  It's supposed to get down to 31°F on Tuesday.  Brrr. 

Otherwise, I have been reading about psych ERs, the history of psychiatric treatment, and looking at photos of abandoned insane asylums and other old fancy buildings, working on a story that has not fully taken shape yet.  Something about haunted old asylum ruins.  Maybe.  It's one of those net obsessions I can not shake and might as well put it to work.  

Anyway, time to walk the dog, since Glee is not happening right now.  It was giving me the urge to go to the new Footloose, with an angry dance homage.  Since the GF looks a hell of a lot like Kevin Bacon, I kinda feel I ought to see the original first though.  I've only seen parts of it.  I know, bad 80s karma.  I haven't seen Dirty Dancing in it's entirety either.  I can sing "Maniac, Maniac" in its entirety though.  I'd just rather watch women dance for their lives, I guess...

Strange Horizons

 Strange Horizons is having their annual fundraiser, and a friend was listing his fave SH stories.  I have a few, but the story that got me started on reading SH on a regular basis was a Charlie Jane Anders story.  I read a good one in LCRW and was looking around the web for more.

Charlie Anders, "Source Decay"  

It's all the 'throwaway' SF niblets sprinkled throughout:  "She almost pointed out that the whole "cheating" motif felt weirdly retrograde, since society was on the verge of solving the monogamy issue any day now, using limbic encryption and isomorphic hormones."

 CA, "Horatius and Clodia" 

"A few Democrats kept asking about Big Brother issues. Would I keep records of who used me to buy what? Would I mean the end of privacy? The questions were silly: interwoven databases already tracked everyone's buying and spending in detail. And I couldn't store aggregate data linked to a single person's identity for too long without slowing my elegant algorithms. It would be like forcing Nijinsky to carry sacks of ingots."

The one I was thinking of seems to no longer be there.  But those two are pretty freaking funny.  I love the more gonzo sort of SF, which is often kind of very straight and male, with a particular flavor of 60s 70s 'of course the women exist to make coffee and lay you' sexism, but Ander's stories tend to interrogate gender, sex, sexism, and sexiness almost but not quite past the point of intelligibility.  Awesome...

Strategy and discourse management

I like the idea of a fresh-faced, earnest protest of just folks, but I have yet to meet one in the U.S. that lasted long enough to have the desired impact.  Strategy and attention to things like discourses, structural realities, and social construction, maybe not labeled.as such, were part of the more effective efforts.  And studying history in relevant contects, as opposed to what we would like to be similar circumstances.

I cringe when I read:

"In part because of police brutality, the protest is gaining more notice and notoriety by the mainstream media. Some critique the “vaguery” or “naïve idealism” of the protest’s goals, but many are starting to recognize the legitimacy of starting a public conversation about how these corporations affect our lives and what we can do to prevent them from infringing on our liberties." (Fearless and Loathing blog, self-described alternative newd voice of my ever-liberal alma mater)

Because I hear the voices of diversity/ hegemony management saying what we heard every freaking time we protested at that place, and many times after, even when we had clearly-stated goals: "We'll form a committee." 

It ends there, FYI.  Sh-fizzled.

I'd love to see that conversation, but I'm praying naivete doesn't become a danger or an albatross to these folks.  It's a stance that's difficult to sustain, without disingenuousness that starts to smell.  The problem is the history and use of the discourses that underlie the very appeal of this so-called populist approach.  Populism has been a pecuiar institution in this country.  It comes with heavy baggage.  That kind of game takes skill as well as luck, courage, and the right time and place to not cause unintended unpleasant consequences.  JIMO, of course.

Sincerely yours,

Jaded

Grand Theft Bridge?

 Heh. Owners baffled by theft of 50-foot-long Pa. bridge.

Anyone think the metal scrapping is getting out of hand?

SCOTUS Year Ahead

A good look at what's on the docket:

 Chemerinsky article.

I'm putting this here to make sure I read it again more thouroughly... 

I see we have people heading in to the Occupy MN protest on the lightrail - ready to camp out for a week or two by the amount of gear...  Deodorant, I don't remember anyone really planning for hygiene in the old days.  This may be a good innovation.  And energy drinks.  The Jolt of today.  Some things have not changed: lots of flyers to hand out.

Orangevwie

It's hard to believe it's time to rake, except that I helped the GF buy a snowblower last weekend, on order to ensure that winter comes late and only with snow too light or wet for the machine to be worth using...  The firefighting 20 something son shovels better, but he somehow managed to nge gone for all the many big snows last year.  Anyway, I can't believe it's October.

I'm reading about the history of punk, homocore, psychiatric hospitalization, and informal economic networks.  That and a cold, the marathon runner's recovery from knee surgery and other  assorted mishaps, plus my own 10k training and that work thing are keeping me off the webs. 

I have come to really dislike having to turn on a computer when I'm not at work.  Not sure how to reconcile that with the writing goals just yet, except that I tend to do a lot in notebooks the old longhand style.  I need to look into Dragon, which some of my co-workers use quite effectively.  To not be tied to the box and keyboard might make it fun again.

Best Marathon Shirt

Actually in the ten mile: "I love my pacemaker."  Booyah!

Strange Horizons

 Strange Horizons is having their annual fundraiser, and a friend was listing his fave SH stories.  I have a few, but the story that got me started on reading SH on a regular basis was a Charlie Jane Anders story.  I read a good one in LCRW and was looking around the web for more.

Charlie Anders, "Source Decay"  

It's all the 'throwaway' SF niblets sprinkled throughout:  "She almost pointed out that the whole "cheating" motif felt weirdly retrograde, since society was on the verge of solving the monogamy issue any day now, using limbic encryption and isomorphic hormones."

 CA, "Horatius and Clodia" 

"A few Democrats kept asking about Big Brother issues. Would I keep records of who used me to buy what? Would I mean the end of privacy? The questions were silly: interwoven databases already tracked everyone's buying and spending in detail. And I couldn't store aggregate data linked to a single person's identity for too long without slowing my elegant algorithms. It would be like forcing Nijinsky to carry sacks of ingots."

The one I was thinking of seems to no longer be there.  But those two are pretty freaking funny.  I love the more gonzo sort of SF, which is often kind of very straight and male, with a particular flavor of 60s 70s 'of course the women exist to make coffee and lay you' sexism, but Ander's stories tend to interrogate gender, sex, sexism, and sexiness almost but not quite past the point of intelligibility.  Awesome...