July 25, 2000
Jul. 4th, 2025 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeMy mood improved markedly with a visit from the tall one and his son, my grandkid, little treelet.
Wakanomori brought down a diary the tall one had kept as a kid: here is the entry from July 25, 2000, which includes our visit to Lloyd Alexander's house, where we put on a play for him and his wife Janine. Also included is a visit to the US mint in Philadelphia and commentary on the Delaware River (big!)
Wakanomori brought down a diary the tall one had kept as a kid: here is the entry from July 25, 2000, which includes our visit to Lloyd Alexander's house, where we put on a play for him and his wife Janine. Also included is a visit to the US mint in Philadelphia and commentary on the Delaware River (big!)
Horsetail Falls
Jul. 4th, 2025 11:57 amyourlibrarian posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_nature
Our last stop on the Historic 30 route was Horsetail Falls. If you look at the next photo you can see people sitting on the log stretching out into the pool for scale. .( Read more... )
a handful of microfictions
Jul. 4th, 2025 11:35 amasakiyumeHaving some feelings, so ... have some microfictions.
May 20, prompt word "serve"
Directions for serving certain abstract dishes:
--revenge is a dish best served cold
--pornography is a dish best served hot
--satire is a dish best served salty
--mockery is a dish best served bitter
--disappointment is a dish best served sour
--romance is a dish best served sweet
June 26, prompt word "kind"
"May I pay you in kind rather than currency?" the woman asked. The man was selling Dastrian funerary masks, perhaps war loot from the last conflict.
"That depends. What you got to offer?" He was suspicious--she looked Dastrian.
"These magical birds."
Impressed, the man agreed.
As he neared home that evening, the birds suddenly took flight. They plunged through the windows of his house, seizing precious objects in their talons, and flew off.
Payment in kind.
July 2, prompt word "clear"
"I'm not guilty," I insisted. It was true. Sure, I'd taken the bribe and misplaced evidence, but I did NOT betray Pereira. Yet now all I got were angry looks and curses.
"My spell will clear your name," Lady One Eye said. I believed her and didn't notice when she added, "Clear it but good."
The next day, no one knew me. I introduced myself and they looked confused. I wrote out my name, but it was like they couldn't see it.
My name had been cleared into invisibility.
May 20, prompt word "serve"
Directions for serving certain abstract dishes:
--revenge is a dish best served cold
--pornography is a dish best served hot
--satire is a dish best served salty
--mockery is a dish best served bitter
--disappointment is a dish best served sour
--romance is a dish best served sweet
June 26, prompt word "kind"
"May I pay you in kind rather than currency?" the woman asked. The man was selling Dastrian funerary masks, perhaps war loot from the last conflict.
"That depends. What you got to offer?" He was suspicious--she looked Dastrian.
"These magical birds."
Impressed, the man agreed.
As he neared home that evening, the birds suddenly took flight. They plunged through the windows of his house, seizing precious objects in their talons, and flew off.
Payment in kind.
July 2, prompt word "clear"
"I'm not guilty," I insisted. It was true. Sure, I'd taken the bribe and misplaced evidence, but I did NOT betray Pereira. Yet now all I got were angry looks and curses.
"My spell will clear your name," Lady One Eye said. I believed her and didn't notice when she added, "Clear it but good."
The next day, no one knew me. I introduced myself and they looked confused. I wrote out my name, but it was like they couldn't see it.
My name had been cleared into invisibility.
Girl Genius for Friday, July 04, 2025
Jul. 4th, 2025 04:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
girlgenius_main_feedThe Girl Genius comic for Friday, July 04, 2025 has been posted.
Phoenix’s Kiss (a poem)
Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:53 pmritalovettShe runs to me with her skirts billowing in the wind
Free as the air now that she has fled from her kin
Away from our fathers who swore we’d never be together
Her hair flies around her just like a phoenix feather
She tells me that we would make the loveliest pair of brides
As she grows her herbs and brews in her cottage in the countryside
I am the little fairy who clings onto the witch
A lifetime with her is worth more than all our families’ riches
I’d give up everything just to feel her kiss
Because no man could love me like she does and G-d knows how I’d miss her
We walk by the riverside with her soft hand in mine
We sing by the stream and she picks her flowers all to pass the time
She is a magic woman, and she is my home
When we’re together, nothing could go wrong
And I’m her little starlet whom she has summoned from the sky
With her love oh I feel like I could fly
I’d give up everything if I could just feel her lips
And there’s nothing I could trade for love as sweet as this
And I’m the little fairy who clings onto my witch
A lifetime with her is worth more than all the world’s riches
I’d give up everything if we could only kiss
Because no man could love me like she does and I don’t wanna miss her
Free as the air now that she has fled from her kin
Away from our fathers who swore we’d never be together
Her hair flies around her just like a phoenix feather
She tells me that we would make the loveliest pair of brides
As she grows her herbs and brews in her cottage in the countryside
I am the little fairy who clings onto the witch
A lifetime with her is worth more than all our families’ riches
I’d give up everything just to feel her kiss
Because no man could love me like she does and G-d knows how I’d miss her
We walk by the riverside with her soft hand in mine
We sing by the stream and she picks her flowers all to pass the time
She is a magic woman, and she is my home
When we’re together, nothing could go wrong
And I’m her little starlet whom she has summoned from the sky
With her love oh I feel like I could fly
I’d give up everything if I could just feel her lips
And there’s nothing I could trade for love as sweet as this
And I’m the little fairy who clings onto my witch
A lifetime with her is worth more than all the world’s riches
I’d give up everything if we could only kiss
Because no man could love me like she does and I don’t wanna miss her
"The Witness for the Dead" by Katherine Addison
Jul. 2nd, 2025 06:15 pmrocky41_7 posting in booksYou know that feeling where you're enjoying inhabiting a book so much you don't want to reach the end? This week I finished The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison, and that's how I felt.
Witness is a companion novel to Addison's breakout novel, The Goblin Emperor (TGE), which I read for the first time last year and never got around to reviewing. You don't need to have read TGE to enjoy this one at all; Witness focuses on a minor character from TGE and his adventures after the events of that novel. Thara Celehar is a prelate of the god Ulis, and his role in elven society is something like a cross between a priest and a private detective. He has the ability to commune, in a limited fashion, with the dead, and he is employed by the city to provide this service to the people. This may involve reporting a deceased's last thoughts to a mourner, asking a deceased to clarify a point on their will, or seeking answers from a murder victim to bring their killer to justice.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jul. 2nd, 2025 04:59 pmwaterswordFace of sadness & rage: the public library here has had to cut its streaming services, likely in part because of the destruction of the IMLS, which funded a lot of that. This is a fucking travesty.
It's been too hot to bake, so I picked up a loaf of bread and am basking in the season's first tomato sandwiches. Bliss.
One thing I want to do before the end of the summer is borrow the ice cream maker and dehydrator from the Thing Library; my ice cream quest continues (Dutch Chocolate is perfectly fine but not a standout); blueberrying has not been scheduled but I have agreement that it sounds like fun from the people I want to go with. I am up to H.M.S. Surprise in the Aubreyad and enjoying myself thoroughly.
I love summer so much. I feel like a person.
The Way Up is Death, by Dan Hanks
Jul. 2nd, 2025 01:39 pmrachelmanija
In a prologue that's very Terry Pratchett-esque without actually being funny, an enormous floating tower appears in England, becomes a 12-hour wonder, and is then forgotten as people have short attention spans. Then thirteen random people suddenly vanish from their lives and appear at the base of the tower, facing the command ASCEND.
I normally love stories about people dealing with inexplicable alien architecture. This was the most boring and unimaginative version of that idea I've ever read. Each level is a death trap based on something in one of their minds - a video game, The Poseidon Adventure, an old home - but less interesting than that sounds. The action was repetitive, the characters were paper-thin, and one, an already-dated influencer, was actively painful to read:
Time to give her the Alpha Male rizzzzzzz, baby!
The ending was, unsurprisingly, also a cliche.
( Read more... )
Jeremy Greer
Jul. 1st, 2025 09:25 pmradiantfractureOf all the things to be grieving right now, this is a weird personal parasocial one. You have been warned.
( Jeremy Greer )
§rf§
( Jeremy Greer )
§rf§
Girl Genius for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Jul. 2nd, 2025 04:00 amgirlgenius_main_feedThe Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, July 02, 2025 has been posted.
Landscape
Jul. 1st, 2025 06:06 pmpjthompsonRandom quote of the day:
“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.”
—Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons.”
—Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Bert and Ernie, Celine Dion, or the Band of the Coldstream Guards. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Books read, June 2025
Jul. 1st, 2025 01:22 pmswan_towerDeath in the Spires, K.J. Charles. An excellent historical mystery, straddling the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth. Years ago, an Oxford student was murdered in his room; thanks to one small detail of this case, the surviving members of his group of friends know that one of their number must have done it. But no one has ever been convicted.
The detail in question felt slightly contrived to me, but I accept it as the set-up for what is otherwise an engaging story about personal relationships. The novel proceeds in two parallel tracks, one building up the history of these friends at university, the other showing what's become of them since the murder. It does the thing a dual-timeline novel needs to do, which is keep suspense around the past: yes, we know who's going to get murdered, but the lead-up to that matters quite a lot, first as we see how this group coalesced into such brilliance they were nicknamed the "Seven Wonders," and then as we see how things fell apart to a degree that you can form plausible arguments for basically anybody being the murderer. (I say "basically" because it's deeply unlikely that the protagonist, who is digging back into the case against the advice of everyone around him, is the killer. There are stories that would pull that trick, but this never pretends it's one of them.)
I found the ending particularly gratifying. The past sections do enough to make you like and sympathize with the characters that finding out who's responsible is genuinely a fraught question; once the answer comes out, there's a deeply satisfying sequence that tackles the question of what justice ought to look like in this situation -- for more than one crime. Those who deserve it wind up with their bonds of friendship tentatively healing after years of rift. I got this rec from Marissa Lingen, and she tells me there will be a sequel; I look forward to it enormously.
( Read more... )
The detail in question felt slightly contrived to me, but I accept it as the set-up for what is otherwise an engaging story about personal relationships. The novel proceeds in two parallel tracks, one building up the history of these friends at university, the other showing what's become of them since the murder. It does the thing a dual-timeline novel needs to do, which is keep suspense around the past: yes, we know who's going to get murdered, but the lead-up to that matters quite a lot, first as we see how this group coalesced into such brilliance they were nicknamed the "Seven Wonders," and then as we see how things fell apart to a degree that you can form plausible arguments for basically anybody being the murderer. (I say "basically" because it's deeply unlikely that the protagonist, who is digging back into the case against the advice of everyone around him, is the killer. There are stories that would pull that trick, but this never pretends it's one of them.)
I found the ending particularly gratifying. The past sections do enough to make you like and sympathize with the characters that finding out who's responsible is genuinely a fraught question; once the answer comes out, there's a deeply satisfying sequence that tackles the question of what justice ought to look like in this situation -- for more than one crime. Those who deserve it wind up with their bonds of friendship tentatively healing after years of rift. I got this rec from Marissa Lingen, and she tells me there will be a sequel; I look forward to it enormously.
( Read more... )
This book has ruined me.
Jul. 1st, 2025 02:48 pmritalovettSo I’m probably going to be rereading the first ACOTAR book until I can get to the bookstore and purchase the rest of the series. I had expected to read just the first book and be done with it, but now I cannot think about anything else. When I say that I took my copy to bed with me just so that I could have something to hug after going through that emotional roller coaster…
I haven’t felt this way about a book series in so long. Not since I read Twilight for the first time as a teenager. Like, this is highly considered a “trashy” romance book, as are most BookTok books. But I leaned into it because I needed a distraction and ended up falling head over heels in love with all of the characters. And everyone in this book needs a damn hug. Feyre, Tamlin, Lucien, Rhysand… even that wretched bitch Amaranthe. I just wanted to lock everyone in a locket and keep it close to my heart.
I haven’t felt this way about a book series in so long. Not since I read Twilight for the first time as a teenager. Like, this is highly considered a “trashy” romance book, as are most BookTok books. But I leaned into it because I needed a distraction and ended up falling head over heels in love with all of the characters. And everyone in this book needs a damn hug. Feyre, Tamlin, Lucien, Rhysand… even that wretched bitch Amaranthe. I just wanted to lock everyone in a locket and keep it close to my heart.
Robert and Gracia Fay Ellwood
Jul. 1st, 2025 10:03 amsartoriasI think one or two old Mythies might still be reading here; at any rate, these old friends had been on my mind this spring. Came back to discover that they died a week apart at the end of May/beginning of June.
They met in the very early sixties at the U of Chicago, where both were studying. Robert was a bit on the spectrum; he said, and he stuck with it, he would never date anyone who couldn't read and love Lord of the Rings, which had blown him away when it came out. In retrospect I don't even know how he stumbled across it because to my later knowledge of him he didn't read fiction. Maybe he thought it was a northern saga when he stumbled on the first volume? Anyway, his field was religion and Japanese literature, and I remember him sitting in his rose garden reading copies of ancient Japanese texts for pleasure.
She was also blown away by it, but not especially by him. But he'd fallen hard for her, and when she also loved LOTR, he wasn't about to give up. They married around 1963, I think; by the time I met them in 1967, they were living in West LA, he a professor of Religious Studies at USC. They used to host many meetings of the early Mythopoeic Society; he'd disappear while she socialized with us gawky teens. She was a great role model for us; she was a scholar, married to someone who respected her brains, which was tough to find during the mid and late sixties.
I was on hand to deliver both their kids, now middle-aged. He married my spouse and me in 1980. They became Quakers later; they were firm pacifists and human rights advocates.
Time is just so relentless! But they used theirs well, living gently and kindly, always loving beauty, grace, and laughter.
They met in the very early sixties at the U of Chicago, where both were studying. Robert was a bit on the spectrum; he said, and he stuck with it, he would never date anyone who couldn't read and love Lord of the Rings, which had blown him away when it came out. In retrospect I don't even know how he stumbled across it because to my later knowledge of him he didn't read fiction. Maybe he thought it was a northern saga when he stumbled on the first volume? Anyway, his field was religion and Japanese literature, and I remember him sitting in his rose garden reading copies of ancient Japanese texts for pleasure.
She was also blown away by it, but not especially by him. But he'd fallen hard for her, and when she also loved LOTR, he wasn't about to give up. They married around 1963, I think; by the time I met them in 1967, they were living in West LA, he a professor of Religious Studies at USC. They used to host many meetings of the early Mythopoeic Society; he'd disappear while she socialized with us gawky teens. She was a great role model for us; she was a scholar, married to someone who respected her brains, which was tough to find during the mid and late sixties.
I was on hand to deliver both their kids, now middle-aged. He married my spouse and me in 1980. They became Quakers later; they were firm pacifists and human rights advocates.
Time is just so relentless! But they used theirs well, living gently and kindly, always loving beauty, grace, and laughter.
Ramblings about ACOTAR
Jul. 1st, 2025 10:40 amritalovettDiscovering ACOTAR in my 20s is probably the biggest mistake because now it’s going to be my only personality trait for the next year. I loved this book, I can’t explain it. It reads like a spicy fairytale. I’m so excited to continue the series but at the same time, I almost don’t want to because I know I’m going to cry harder than what I did with this one.
I know people have a lot of qualms about this author’s writing style. And I totally get it; to me, it feels like she underexplains a lot of things, and breezes through the story. World building clearly isn’t her strong suit.
I know people have a lot of qualms about this author’s writing style. And I totally get it; to me, it feels like she underexplains a lot of things, and breezes through the story. World building clearly isn’t her strong suit.