- Location:apt
- Mood:
tired - Music:'S-E-X-X-Y' - They Might Be Giants
So here in West Michigan we were expected to get a piece of the solar eclipse on Sunday 20 May 2012. Though we were far from seeing the maximum of the total annular eclipse, we were expected to have some 40% totality, I believe it was, at sunset.
This is not the first sunset eclipse around here -- we had one ten years ago.
Minor Solar Eclipse of Monday 10 June 2002.
What's an annular eclipse? It's when the whole Moon passes in front of the Sun, but the Moon is at the far end of its orbit, so its angular size is smaller than that of the Sun, leaving a ring (annulus) of bright Sun -- we had a 91% off-center total annular eclipse here eighteen years ago. Total Annular Solar Eclipse of Tuesday 10 May 1994. You had to be west of the Mississippi to have any chance of seeing that this year.
But... we've had high heat and lots of haze for a couple of days. And Sunday's forecast was in the low 90s and only partly sunny.
24 hours to go -- and this is Saturday's hazy sunset at the Holland MI Amtrak station.
It's Getting Darker
But not from the eclipse. By 8pm, it was socked in to the west.
See that big cloud? That's where we need to be looking...
Ironically, the big dark cloud moved east, but it was clearing in the east.
Ersatz panorama shot from West to North to East. You can just make out a reddish glow above the white trailer, but that still may be too far south.*** (Click on photo for larger.)
And then the rains came...
No eclipse for us. Six hours later and the rolling thunderstorms are still coming in.
Ah, West Michigan wins another round against astronomical events.
Dr. Phil
*** WZZM-DT13 showed the clouds rolling in from their Weather Ball tower, which is east of us by about 20 miles. They did some enhancing and managed to pick out a red disk on the horizon at sunset with a bite out of the bottom -- the eclipse did happen. (grin) I tried some editing tricks on my photo, trying to pick out just the red channel and boosting it, but didn't have enough pixels or bits to work with, I guess. (double-grin)
- Mood:
crushed
Peekaboo I Love You
from Lamaze
Peekaboo games with everyone in the family including the pets. An interactive cloth book with flaps to open and peek under. Great book for Rosie to practice her sign language. And her Peek-a-boo. :)
Smile!
Baby Faces Board Book #2, by Roberta Grobel Intrater
This book introduces the common phrases used to coax a smile out of a kid while also expressing love for babies in all moods. Rosie seemed fascinated by the photos.
Grandpa
Talk-about-Books, by Debbie Bailey (Author), Sue Huszar (Photographer)
Basic statements about what kids do with their grandpa, illustrated with great photos and captioned sweetly.
Peekaboo Morning
Text and illustrations by Rachel Isadora
When Rosie points to this book, she says "Daddy", and sure enough the legs on the front cover belong to Daddy. This is a joyous book. At the end when the baby finds "You!", Brian started a tradition of bringing the book up to Rosie's cheek as though the baby in the book is giving her a kiss, and she loves that too.
Everywhere Babies
by Susan Meyers, illustrated by Marla Frazee
Wonderful rhymes, and delightful, easy to understand, yet complex, illustrations, that Rosie has spent more time with as she learns more words and concepts.
Do you have a favorite baby or toddler book to recommend?
- Sun, 23:06: There's an ant on my screen. When I scroll a page really fast, I wonder if it's going "wheeeeee"! #random
- Mon, 00:03: Am beat after 3 sweltering days/nights at the Arts Fest. Will post more after tomorrow, when I recover from the fest AND a Monday tour.
another nice review of V-Wars
Money quote:
None of the stories here are weak. Each author has a strength and unique voice, and those add up to a rich experience. Readers see the Vampire Wars as they play out across the country, and even around the world: on the talk show circuit, along the Mexican-American border, on an Indian reservation, in the Bronx, in Chinese gangs, in the backwoods, and in Europe. I think what I appreciated best about the world building is the way that a multiplicity of vampire archetypes are at play here. This is really a vampire aficionado’s dream. Vampires run the gamut of classic western vamps, to flesh-eaters, to psychic vampires, and everything in between. They’re called by their cultural names, and are even sometimes pitted against one another. Anyone who enjoys vampire horror from Carmilla through Anne Rice (maybe not Twilight fans so much) is sure to have a great time with this book.
- Mood:
pleased - Music:"Poor Old Dirt Farmer" by Levon Helm
www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunda
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
The weekend was a blur, roadrunner style. Thank goodness I was caught up with my wordcount so I wasn’t actually trying to write at the same time as juggling the two daughters and their need for snuggles, soccer parenting, the birthday card factory line, actual birthday party attendance involving two year old’s first dip in a pool (only mildly traumatic), the desperate need to catch up on Futurama movies as a family unit, the weekly grocery shop, picking up daughter after Polish dancing and, oh yes, a migraine.
Whereas what I actually wanted to do all weekend was to lie on the library bed and read my new Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story book constantly. And/or listen to the novelisation of the Dalek Masterplan which I got out from the library in a flurry of Jean Marsh & Peter Purves adoration (their recent audio play The Anachronauts totally did for me, and Jean Marsh’s brilliant audio rendition of the original Upstairs Downstairs novel complete with grumpy Scottish butler impersonation DID NOT HELP).
May is disappearing at a frantic rate. People keep asking what I want for my birthday. More time please, instead of it ribboning out of my fingers and disappearing into the sunset.
June is upon us, and with it comes not only the school holidays (which I rather look forward to these days – my elder daughter is old enough that having her home is marginally more compatible with me getting some writing done than is having to juggle her school & activity routine) but also Continuum travel, and one of my twice-yearly bouts of actual outside-the-house work.
So… the novel writing is likely to slow in the first half of June, which is frustrating as I’m currently on something of a roll. Luckily I have signed up for the Clarion Write-a-thon (proper link to my page here – I think it wasn’t set up yet last time I linked) to get me back on track.
This year’s goal is simply to produce more stuff. Stories, books whatever. Words, Tansy, words!
Moab was awesome, in case you were wondering, but, then, it always is. I will post up some pix tomorrow, but in the meantime I leave you with more angel wallpaper:
( 1024x600 images under the cut )
- Location:HOME.
- Mood:
tired
This is common with Aran. He'll wander into the room and announce whatever is currently running through his head, usually beginning with "I was thinking about..." or "I was just imagining that..."
In this case, he said, "I was thinking about the time in our old house when we had gnomes."
And I wondered if he understood the truth.
Like many autists, Aran had no imagination when he was small. Everything was absolutely literal. TV was real. Stories were real. There were no metaphors, no similes, no hyperbole, no lies. In order to jump-start imagination, I used puppets. With puppets, Aran could see how pretending worked. I acted like the puppet was a real person, but Aran could also plainly see that it wasn't. So that was pretending! Slowly, steadily, he started being able to develop an imagination. He would interact with the puppets and even invent games with them on his own. But he was still oddly concrete with it--everything he imagined had to be something he could see or hear.
So one day I told him that gnomes lived in the house. I described them as little men with red pointy caps and blue coats and long noses, and told Aran how they lived in the walls and under the floor, where they sometimes knocked or made other noise. Later, when Aran was in his room, I went down to the basement and knocked on the cellar ceiling with a broom. Kala, who was upstairs, rushed into Aran's room. "Do you hear the gnomes knocking?"
This started a trend. Every so often, Kala or I would create a mysterious sound effect somewhere in the house and we'd blame it on the gnomes. When something went missing, we said the gnomes took it. We left out food for them sometimes, and when Aran went back to check later, it was always gone. This fascinated Aran no end. The world was full of things he couldn't see! Amazing!
Aran's imagination is varied and rich now. He has a highly-developed inner life, and he owes to the puppets and the gnomes.
But we never did tell him the truth about gnomes. Just never got around to it. Now, however, I'm wondering if I should say something. Does he know he were making it up? Would I be shattering some deeply-treasured belief? Would I be wounding him forever?
Maybe I should ask the puppets.
I started reading K. J. Parker with the publication of "Amor Vincit Omnia" in Subterranean and in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine a couple of years ago, and I loved the story, reprinting in last year's Best of the Year book. I quickly snapped up the Subterranean Press novellas Blue and Gold (which is magnificent) and Purple and Black (which is merely very good), as well as, last year in Subterranean, the also magnificent "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong", which I again reprinted. Obviously, it was time for me to read some novels, so I bought Parker's best known (seems to me) work, The Engineer Trilogy, and I read it over the past year or so.
The first novel is called Devices and Desires. In it, an engineer working at a factory in the city-state of Mezentia is condemned to death for violation of specification. It seems that Mezentia is the source of all quality machined goods in this area, and they feel that one of their strengths is the reliance on strict specifications for anything they make. Any deviance is criminal. The engineer, Ziani Vaatzes, was caught making a toy for his beloved daughter for which he made an improvement to the established design.
So, Vaatzes escapes, and makes his way to the country of Eremia, which has foolishly got itself embroiled in a war against Mezentia. Vaatzes offers his help -- he can design defensive equipment for them which will make it difficult for Mezentia's mercenary force to take the Eremian capitol city. It turns out that Eremia's ruler, Duke Orsea, is a pleasant and honorable but irredeemably stupid man. He takes on Vaatzes. This, it is made clear, is the first cog in Vaatzes' ultimate engineering design -- a "machine" to allow him to return to his wife and daughter. The rest of this book is the story of the siege of Eremia. The key character in it, besides Vaatzes, is Duke Valens of the neighboring country of the Vadani. The Duke is, apparently, an outstanding ruler, as well as brilliant at whatever else he does -- hunting, war, and writing letters to Veatriz, Duke Orsea's wife, whom he loves but cannot, of course, have. Though their relationship is in essence innocent -- and Veatriz appears to sincerely love Orsea -- it proves not surprisingly to be another fulcrum in what becomes a tragedy. And this relationship becomes another element, another cog, in Vaatzes' machine.
I won't say too much more about the plots of the books, because saying much about book 2 would spoil book 1, to an extent. (Not that important an extent, in my opinion, but then I realize I'm much less sensitive to spoilers than many readers.) The second book is called Evil for Evil, the third The Escapement. The books are somewhat symmetrically structured, each opening with the same sentence, applied in each case to a different character; each involving a siege or attack on a different city. The ultimate theme on the surface is, perhaps, people as machines -- the way people can be manipulated in the service of a larger plan. Look one level beyond that, though, and almost all the terrible things that happen can be laid at the door of love -- Vaatze's love for his wife, Valens' love for Veatriz ... and a couple other examples that it would be a spoiler to discuss.
There is a plethora of major characters, almost all quite interesting. Miel Ducas, for example, is the scion of one of Eremia's leading families, and, like Valens, is a sort of perfect nobleman, but for different reasons -- Ducas is born to this role (and thus ends up forced out of it) while Valens has had to construct himself. Gace Daurenja is a psychopath, but a truly brilliant inventor and engineer -- apparently the only man superior in that sense to Vaatzes. Lucao Psellus is a minor clerk in Mezentia who, partly because of his fascination with the motivations of Ziani Vaatzes, is thrust into an unwanted role as leader of the defense of the city. Add smaller roles for Veatriz, for Vaatzes' wife Ariessa, for the original chairman of the ruling organization of the Mezentines, Boioannes ... These are a group of people who are mostly, viewed objectively, quite awful people, but who are often quite sympathetic.
One of Parker's great strengths is explanation of technology -- approprate for something called The Engineer Trilogy. (See for example a really neat article about swords in Subterranean, Fall 2011.) In these books there are long and fascinating sections about subjects like metalworking, hunting, and siege defenses.
Parker is a very funny writer, in a very black way, and these books are continually funny. Some of the humor is cleverness, some is very dry irony. None is slapstick, nor is any verbal hijinks.
The main shortcoming is that the plot, in its purposefully machinelike working out, becomes a bit implausible. On the one hand we are to believe that Vaatzes had his whole plan worked out from the beginning -- but there are enough clearly unplannable for contigencies (the whole question of Gace Daurenja, for one thing) that this just doesn't really make sense. The other problem is the ending -- the wrapup is a just a bit too "neat", in many ways. It's also morally queasy-making, as one group is just sort of brushed away. And the resolution of the central individual stories has the feel of the author manipulating the characters' reactions to make a point, rather than natural human responses.
At any rate, I certainly recommend these books ... and The Hammer is next on my list of Parker novels to try ...
This entry was originally posted at http://filkertom.dreamwidth.org/1522117.h
The parade and ceremony seemed so much more successful to me this year than last year, mostly because of the weather. Whereas last year it felt we were unable to banish the gloom from the park, this year's weather was warm and marveleous. It almost felt that all our work was done before the parade even started. We found a good spot near our usual location, at the point where the parade turns from Bloomington Avenue to head for Powderhorn park. Here's Fiona with a couple of her friends (Delia had wandered off to meet up with several of her own friends).
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Pictures follow. Lots of pictures.
( The parade begins )
( The Tree of Life is carried in the parade, shrouded )
( I loved the big cranes )
( With my interest in the heart of flesh/heart of stone theme, I was happy to see the heart here )
( Stiltwalkers appear throughout the parade, always traditional )
( Sloths appeared in the parade to remind us to slow down and smell the flowers )
( Yes, at the May Day parade we have violins in the marching band )
( All the floats in the parade are human-powered )
( Community May poles )
( Part of the South American dancer contingent )
( One of the four horses representing the four winds, I think )
( More marchers )
( The May Day parade keeps community front and center )
( Marching bees )
This may be my favorite picture of the day. It says it all:
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( One thing I enjoy about the parade each year is that it's so colorful )
( After the parade ended... )
( We headed to the park to picnic and watch the ceremony. Here's the sun, preparing to be rowed across the lake )
( And when the sun finally arrives on the opposite shore )
( The Tree of Life miraculously rises up to bless the community )
Happy May Day!
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This entry was originally posted at http://pegkerr.dreamwidth.org/1601106.h
But here I am in California, and I don't even need to leave my garden. There hasn't been a cloud for weeks; the sun is still high enough to make observations easy; I am playing with sheets of paper and pinholes. Something has licked half the sun away already. Anyone seen A'Tuin recently? *glowers suspiciously at turtles*
What the boys will do when their sunshine disappears, I do not know. That also might be fun to observe, but I shall be outside. Am acquiring last-minute tan, just in case it never comes back again.
This entry was originally posted at http://filkertom.dreamwidth.org/1521909.h
One of them, one I remember from my childhood, one I listened to over and over and over again, one I loved deeply, was this:
I always sang along to that fading "I will remember Massachussetts" at the end of it, and Massachussetts was a magic place for me back then, just this weird long word with lots of double letters which might as well have been in Fairyland or on the Moon as far as the young me was concerned, growing up in a different culture, on a different continent.
But today... today, I will remember Massachusetts - not the one I finally did get to visit, all those years later, as an adult, but the one that was so magical to me back than, back when I lived in the world of my imagination and Massachussetts was a place of magic. Because Robin Gibb is dead.
And so it goes. It drifts away further and faster every year. The memories of my childhoon seem even to me as though I am talking about a differnet era, a different lifetime. And those who peopled the greater sphere of my life are starting to fall away. The writers I read when I first took flight in the worlds of fantasy, like Anne McCaffrey. The singers of my youth, like the Bee Gees (of whom now only one, Barry Gibb, remains - dear GOD I went and saw these guys in concert once, and even THAT now seems like a dream).
My hair is silver gray.
When did that happen?
When did I blink and find myself looking over my shoulder and childhood, and youth, and even the early adult years - when did I step into middle age, when did the world change around me?...
Agenda
I headed down to Hurst to meet up with my wonderful agent and 3 other awesome Texas authors (I was clearly the newbie there). Then I headed over to Plano to meet up with
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7){kind=small}
displacedtexan, then up to Denton to see friends, up to Bowie to see family, and finally back home (a little bit ago.)GPS
The new Tom-Tom GPS is well and truly dead, so I went back to my ancient Garmin which hasn't been updated for years. There was one point on Highway 121 where the GPS showed me flying through air like the bus in the movie Speed. The construction around DFW airport is particularly...inconvenient.
Karma
Mostly due to unfamiliar roads and constructions, there were two occasions this weekend when I ended up cutting someone off. I must therefore practice extremely nice driving for the next two months to get my car karma back up...
Playlist
I forgot to put in a Portuguese language CD, so I just had music for all that driving which was kinda relaxing. But it was a weird assortment:
Los Lonely Boys The Very Best of Los Lonely Boys
The Band Perry The Band Perry
Siren's Song Daughter of Ocean
Meaghan Smith The Cricket's Orchestra
Over the Rhine Drunkard's Prayer, and
Pink Martini Joy to the World (uh, yeah....I haven't changed out discs in a while)
Hay
I saw a LOT of hay baled up on my drive through North Texas and Oklahoma. This is a good thing. After the last two years' drought, seeing all that hay actually baled up is a relief.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/20/my-l
http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18630
Bradbury Award winner Neil Gaiman and I use the award statues to fight to the death. Photo credit: Charishawk (click on photo for a Nebula Awards photoset).
As I think most of you know, I flew in to the DC area last Wednesday to take part in SFWA’s Nebula Awards Weekend, not only because was going to be an awesome time with awesome people, but because I am president of the organization, so me not showing up to the thing would be, you know, tremendously bad form. Here’s what went down.
First, as I noted earlier, I left my travel bag in my car, which unfortunately contained my Mac Air, several books, my car key, and a bunch of cables relating to electronics. This annoyed me terribly. Contacted several cab companies and the DC cab commission to locate it. The good news, such as it is, is that the Mac Air is lockable and trackable from the moment anyone tries to access the Internet with it, so I locked it and will have it post a note asking to be returned. Also, almost everything I had on the computer was also redundantly stored elsewhere, so I have lost no work. Finally, the thing is insured. The bad news: It’s still not returned. I am going to have to work on the assumption that the bag and its contents will continue to go missing, especially since I am leaving the area tomorrow morning.
Other than that the weekend was fantastic. I was pretty busy, with two board meetings and a SFWA business meeting, both of which will be of limited interest to people who are not SFWA members but which were very productive and useful. Go us. I also participated in a panel on humor in science fiction and fantasy, which also included James Patrick Kelly, James Morrow and SFWA’s newest Grandmaster, Connie Willis. I thought it went very well, personally; between the four of us we covered a lot of ground in the subject. I also participated in our mass author signing, sitting between Nebula nominees Carolyn Ives Gilman and Mary Robinette Kowal; I signed a fair number of books, which makes me happy.
The big event of the Nebula Awards weekend, not entirely surprisingly, are the Nebula Awards themselves, which this year had Walter Jon Williams as MC (he did a great job), astronaut Mike Fincke as our keynote speaker (he was very inspiring), and of course Connie Willis as Grandmaster (immensely charming and heartfelt). And we gave away some prizes too. And then there was the after party, in which everyone poured into the SFWA hospitality suite and ate and drank and talked very loudly about things until it was time to go to sleep.
I really love the Nebula Weekends because in a sense, as SFWA president, it’s my party — I get to host some of of the most interesting writers in the world and celebrate their achievements. But it would be horribly, horribly wrong for me to take any of the credit for the success of the weekend. That properly goes to Peggy Rae Sapienza, in her role of Nebula Weekend event co-ordinator, Steven Silver, and a huge raft of volunteers who have put time and energy into the event. I got thanked by people for the weekend, but I’m not foolish enough to take the credit. That goes to the people who made it work.
At the moment I’m pleasantly dazed from everything and since I have an ungodly early flight tomorrow, I’m likely to crash early tonight. But to everyone who came to the Nebula Awards Weekend and made it wonderful: Thank you.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/20/ne
http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18627
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, of which I am the president, gave out its Nebula and other awards last night. Here’s what won, by whom, and who published it.
Novel
Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella
“The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, October/November 2011)
Novelette
“What We Found,” by Geoff Ryman (F&SF, September/October 2011)
Short Story
“The Paper Menagerie,” by Ken Liu (F&SF, March/April 2011)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife,” by Neil Gaiman (writer), Richard Clark (director) (BBC Wales)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult SF and Fantasy Book
The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)
Damon Knight Grand Master Award
Connie Willis
Solstice Award
Octavia Butler (posthumous) and John Clute
Service to SFWA Award
Bud Webster
Congratulations to everyone above!
My Books
Page Summary
- comrade_cat : there should be a big crinkle, assuming this map is right [+0]
- dr_phil_physics : One Big Dud [+0]
- ginmar : (no subject) [+2]
netmouse : Some favorite baby books [+2]
- marrael : My tweets [+0]
- kradical : another nice review of V-Wars [+0]
- spiziks : The War Continues [+0]
- cassiphone : Weekend go Whoosh [+0]
- agilebrit : Being in Moab... [+1]
- spiziks : Aran and Gnomes [+0]
- saya22 : (no subject) [+0]
- ecbatan : Books: K. J. Parker's Engineer Trilogy [+0]
- filkertom : GAME OF THRONES/LEGEND OF KORRA Spoiler Thread [+1]
- pegkerr : May Day pictures, belatedly [+0]
- desperance : Big yellow eye is blinking [+4]
- filkertom : Farewell, Robin Gibb [+9]
- anghara : It drifts further away every year... [+1]
- j_cheney : Quick Summary [+0]
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scalzifeed : My Last Few Days: A Quick Recap [+0] - scalzifeed : Nebula Awards Winners [+0]
