We've made some additions and improvements to Notes!

The Notes feature has been added to two action-taking pages:

• You can now add a Note directly on the Add a friend page - handy if you'd like to mark down where you met them or another name you know them by!
• On the Ban and unban users page (under Account -> Privacy) you can now add a Note, including to a group of users all banned at the same time (so that next year you won't need to ask yourself "hey, why did I ban these guys?")

Other changes:

• When you're viewing your existing Notes they're grayed out; click in a field to activate it to change the text (this page can be found from the header by using Profile -> Manage Notes)
• Changes to editing:
  • When you're going to create a new Note but one already exists, you'll get a warning that you're editing an existing Note
  • You can now delete a note from the "Edit note" pop-up in the hover menu
  • You can now delete notes for multiple selected users on the Manage notes page
  • When you change Notes on "Ban|unban users" page, they can be edited and saved with "Save Changes" button

Tags: notes

Like swords, but awesomer: made up words in science fiction and fantasy, The Magus, Lord of Light.

Tuesday was a very instructive day in two different ways

( Hawk )

( Othello )

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grover the Hill
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

I knew they'd catch on sooner or later. 40 years of indoctrination, though, not bad. Not bad at all.

So, when I got back from travel one of the first things I did was sit down to review the V pilot for Tor.com.

It was sort of lucky I waited until I got back, though, because my flight experience came in super-handy!

Last week, when the V pilot aired, I was far from home in a place without decent TV (the horror, the horror!).

Which reminds me: you know how you get a meal on an airplane, and it comes on a little tray just the size you expected, and all the food is wrapped tidily in little containers clearly labeled, and you eat it because it’s there, but by the time you land you can hardly remember what you ate, because there was nothing wrong with it, but it just didn’t taste like anything?

In totally unrelated news, I caught up with the V pilot.

Check out the rest over at Tor.com!

And further, slightly more political thoughts under the cut.

( Oh, SHOW. )

Tags: tv, writing

This week in Spanish class we read a story by Marco Denevi called "Genesis."  It's a post-apocalyptic story, takes place after an atomic war where only one boy survives.  At the end, though, he meets a girl.  "What's your name?" he asks.  "Eva," she says.  "And you?"  "Adan." -- which turns out to be Spanish for Adam.

The teacher knows I write ciencia ficcion y fantasia, and she asked me what I thought.  I didn't know the word for "cliche" ("cliche," says my Spanish dictionary.  Who'd a thought?), so I said the ending was very common in science fiction.

I'm not trying to put down Marco Denevi, whose only fault seems to be that he hasn't read early pulp writers from the United States (and really, why should he?).  I just think it's funny that the same story appears over and over again, almost like an archetype.

Has anyone heard of Denevi?  He doesn't seem to have written much science fiction -- I don't know if this makes his story better or worse.  According to Wikipedia, Denevi's "work is characterized by its originality and depth."

Yesterday I went down to DC to meet up with friends. We went to the Museum of the American Indian, where, among other things, we watched series of short films about American Indian war veterans (thing I did not know: American Indians have the highest per capita rate of participation in the armed services of any ethnic group in the United States). The stories were moving and brave and sometimes heartbreaking. I hadn't known that American Indians didn't have citizenship rights until 1924, which was stunning in the context of veterans of WWI. The stories of veterans of more recent conflicts were moving as well, some painfully so (the veteran of the cavalry division who became suicidal after another tribe member yelled at him for joining the division that had slaughtered their ancestors), and some heartening (the images of the gulf war veteran at an outpost with a medicine wheel hanging from a staff by his outpost, or the Vietname vet who said he made it through because his CO, a Comanche, made him invisible the first night when he was sleeping, though it was decades before he had the gestures explained to him, and found the man again to thank him).

The museum was, as always, an amazing collection. There was an stunning display of works by artist Brian Jungen, whose works were interpretations of traditional items made from recycled modern materials, such as a sweat lodge made from recycling bins, totem poles made of golf bags, a raven mask made from air Jordan sneakers. There was a whale skeleton made from plastic lawn chairs that was truly breathtaking and I had a very hard time resisting the urge to caress it. There was a skull made from unstiched baseballs covers that made me squeak in delight. It was a gorgeous exhibit, a wonderful fusion of tradition and modern materials.

(some pictures here, although the pieces have such a sense of presence that it's a pity not to see them in person.)

In the evening I went down to dance class, which was fun, as always, although it did at one point involve a fairly aggressive game of "keep Verne away from the new girl".

At the end of the evening, the instructor said we had time for one more dance. We'd been working on dances for the upcoming Argyle ball program, but since it was Veteran's day we asked for the Reel of the 51st Highland Division (usually just called "Reel of the 51st") in honour of our veterans. After we'd danced, while I was changing out of my ghillies and into the boots I'd put on for a hike that never happened (due to rain), one of the older gentlemen said thank you, from a veteran, for thinking of them. I said thank you for being a veteran, which was the more important aspect of it.

In case you don't feel like following the link to learn the history of the dance, it's one of the first modern dances accepted into the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, and it was invented by members of the Scottish Highland Division who were held as prisoners of war in WWII, as a way to keep active in the prison camp.

I was thinking about that, driving home in the rain - the link between dancing and war, the war dances and welcome home dances for warriors in Native American culture from the films I'd seen earlier in the day, and the dance I'd done in the evening to honor people who danced as a way to stay sane and alive during conditions I cannot imagine. It was interesting to have that tie come up from two of my major activities of the day, and, I hope, an insight into the balances we try to keep in life, the multiple threads of history we try to honour, and the many ways of remembering that become part of our cultures.

(okay, maybe not such a short post after all.)

Tags: linkses, observations, public

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I dreamed last night that I had feloniously copied a DVD multiple times and my player had locked up and was broadcasting an alarm that wouldn't stop even once I'd unplugged it. I was trying to preemptively prove I hadn't had the purpose to commit a felony, but couldn't think of any good arguments. Thanks, law school, for making me feel guilty in my dreams.

Check out this "little book of mini-sagas" from Brian Aldiss on his website:  http://bit.ly/44LUpF. 

Aldiss recently published his long-awaited novel Walcot, which he mentions briefly toward the end of a long interview I did with him (and posted right here!) some years ago about his excellent and very dark dystopian novel, Harm. 

I can't wait to read Walcot!  And one of these days, when I've got the time, I will reread the entire Helliconia series.  With Ballard gone, Aldiss and Moorcock, and to an extent Harrison, are all we've got left of the leading lights of the British New Wave -- and all three of them are still producing very strong work.

(h/t Marie-Joelle Moll Bouyat)

Bad Spock Drawings

I especially love this one. Apart from the fact that it is hilarious in its own right, it was also clearly drawn during someone's economics class, and I have been there.

The best part is that the blog has existed for two years and is still being updated.

Tags: links, trekkiness
Current Mood: amused

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AdvertisingForLove/~3/HV9kpru876I/baby-bunting-bob.html

Blogging from 30,000 feet! In-flight internet!!  So cool!

 I never thought I would say this, but I really hope this ad is fake, because it disturbs me to think that anyone could write this and actually mean it. It's got to be a joke, or a code, or an advertisement; it just can't possibly be real...

My Bob, sweet Bob, pretty Bobby Miller,
Will you come to-night, Bob, you dear lady killer?
Shall I order fritters, Bob, you cooing, booing bubby,
Or will you bring me lozenges, you squeezy, squisy squbby?
If you disappoint me, pet, all night I'll cry and sob,
And never live to see you, Bob, my baby, bunting Bob.
Delamaine

Do you even need me to add my own commentary to this?  Is there anything I can say that can possibly follow this piece of drivel?  I feel, if anything, that this might be an advertisement, but as you can imagine, a Google search for Bobby Miller isn't too enlightening, given what a common name it is!

What do you make of this?  I have nothing.  All I can say is that if this was real, and I was Bob, I'd be so out of that relationship as soon as possible.  Sounds more like a nursery rhyme for a kid than anything else.  I don't know.  I am out of clever ideas on this one.

Having trouble reading the ads? Click one to enlarge!

©2009 Pam Epstein

 
 "An artist should ruthlessly destroy his manuscripts after publication, lest they mislead academic mediocrities into thinking that it is possible to unravel the mysteries of genius by studying cancelled readings. In art, purpose and plan are nothing; only the results count."

-- Vladimir Nabokov

Quoted by Alexander Hemon in his review of the new Nabokov fragment appearing now with publishers' brass band fronting.  www.slate.com/id/2235023/


Of course Nabokov wasn't in the business of selling his drafts to collectors -- a nice source of income for those who need it.

This piece of news about a Vatican conference on astrobiology, concentrating on the possibility of extraterrestrial life -- to boldly go where no one has gone before, to seek out new life, new civilizations . . . and convert them -- reminded me of that great Saturday Night Live spoof of Star Trek, at the end of which comes the Captain's Log, Final Entry:

We have tried to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. And except for one television network, we have found intelligent life everywhere in the galaxy.

After watching as the Church led a scurrilous and bigoted attack on gay rights in Maine and elsewhere, after reading of the officially sanctioned sexual abuse of children, and continuing efforts to minimize those crimes, after reading again of new efforts from Rome to marginalize American nuns and roll back the gains of women in the church, and outside of it, it's just too ironic for the Vatican to be looking out there for intelligent life -- though I guess it's probably easier to find in another galaxy than in St. Peter's.

10,000 Catholic believers at a Marian shrine in Knock, Ireland, waited in vain yesterday for the Blessed Virgin to make a predicted appearance.  The closest they got was a Battleship Potemkin moment when a baby carriage fell over, which was apparently taken as a sign.  Sad times for the one trule and apostolic faith when this is the closest we get to an apparition — whatever happened to beatific blue-clad women floating in the sky above Lourdes etc.?  

So this bit of oddball news sent me in search of other Marian apparitions — there are many, but two of the weirdest I came across were the ones posted below, where throngs (okay, small throngs, but still) appeared to be seeing a vision in polarized glass, both in the most secular of sites — Clearwater, Florida, and Springfield, Massachusetts..  My own reaction was more earthbound, along the lines of "Are people  really this incredibly stupid, or what?"  I'm all for visions, I would LOVE to see the Virgin Mary or anyone else — Elvis, Bigfoot,, D.B. Cooper — but these seemed to be stretching, even for people desperate to Believe.  Makes that tortilla with Jesus' face on it seem like the Shroud of Turin.

http://springfieldintruder.com/?p=1077

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWul9UC_w_c

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I wish my brain would let me in on things sooner. It was only just now when I caught the tail end of a half-formed thought flickering through my head, something like, I wish it could be tomorrow already - with the attendant sense of things I might do tomorrow, e.g., sit at the computer some more, maybe roleplay online - that I realized I was not wanting to go to bed, probably because it will be dark and possibly because I might think. And, okay, knowing this does not fill me with joy, but it at least gives me more options than /not/ knowing it does. Not knowing it just results in my staying up later and later until I can't avoid going to bed any more but still don't feel any better about it. Knowing it...may allow me to make things somewhat better, and at least lets me consider short-circuiting the stupidity loop.

I wouldn't object to my brain getting triggery and weird on me if it would just /tell/ me about it as soon as it started. I don't mind improving my ability to pick up on clues and reason things out, but I do mind that I never seem to practice on anything except myself.



(At some point which really, really, really isn't tonight, I should overhaul my 'self found in left luggage department', 'self-perception out of cheese error', and 'following the cat' tags, editing for consistent use. This entry, however, is pure following the cat.)

Tags: following the cat

Stupid Shakespeare thing: Article about Shakespeare and ageism from Psychology Today which is making me pissy because of the usual disregard for context and because it turned up on my flist at a time when I am feeling pissy anyway because I cannot fall asleep. FFS PEOPLE JAQUES != SHAKESPEARE, AND THE APPEARANCE OF ADAM -- WHO WAS PLAYED BY SHAKESPEARE -- BEING AN AWESOME AND LOYAL OLD GUY SUGGESTS JAQUES' INTERP NEEDS TO BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.

Awesome Shakespeare Thing: DAVID TENNANT AS HAMLET ZOMG.



ISN'T IT CHRISTMAS YET?

Tags: gripes about minor things, hamlet, links, shakespeare on film, things that are awesome
Current Mood: why can't I sleep zomg

( Here's what I'm up to... )

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Writing bylaws for the organization I'm starting is no fun at all. I have not learned this legalese yet, darnit. I was hoping to be able to bring them in some completed form to a brainstorming session tomorrow, but that's clearly not going to happen.

But at least I went for my run! The view on the treadmill--a reflection of my ponytail swinging back and forth--is not nearly as nice as fall leaves, but I have a sneaking suspicion that treadmill running is slightly easier than sidewalk running. Or I'm just getting better at doing it, which I hope is the case anyway. The next run is the 20-minute one, which, frankly, terrifies me, but I've gotten this far without any signs that I'm about to keel over and die, so I should be able to handle it. I hope.

I am amused by my Thanksgiving plans, which involve dinner with my professor and his wife. On the one hand, I am mildly intimidated, as he is my professor, but on the other, I'm really looking forward to hanging out with people my age for an evening. I'm sure other people will be there as well, of course, but I don't think it's going to be very many. Heh. Well, I suppose if conversation stalls, I can always ask if he's picked up the new Hitchhiker's Guide book yet. (I have not. I've heard it's actually a very good continuation, but since I kind of feel like Mostly Harmless was Adams's attempt to head off all potential future sequels at the pass, I'm not sure I entirely approve. Though I'm sure I'll buy it eventually, once I have book money to justify doing so.) (Also, yes, I am prepping conversation topics. Because I am a dork.)

And I am surprised to discover that I'm mildly disappointed not to have an 8:30 class next semester; instead, I start at 10:00 four days a week. I haven't loved being up so early, but I do get more done this way. Oh, well, at least next semester will be more consistent.

The cat needs to do her job and kill the damned house fly buzzing around the bathroom. Get on it, cat.