I believe in peace

I stole this from galuxkitty.

( Read more... )

After several years of not cooking, I’ve been getting back into it lately.  I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I have people to cook for.  In Chicago I was pretty much on my own and limited my culinary activities to making myself salads.  Now however, I have my grandmother and parents in close proximity and willing to eat whatever I prepare. 

 

My mother writes and self-publishes books about local history.  She’s planning a party in about two weeks to thank the people who helped her on her latest book.  Since she doesn’t like cooking and I do I’m going to be doing a lot of the food preparation.  The tea I went to on Halloween gave me some great ideas (glazed pumpkin scones, walnut bread with cream cheese and apple slices, pumpkin pie meringues) and I’ve also been watching Food Network for inspiration.

 

Last night I was watching a Halloween themed “Horror Cake Challenge” and I was surprised to see a familiar face.  One of the competing chefs was Michelle Garcia from Bleeding Heart Bakery.  Bleeding Heart is a funky organic bakery in Chicago.  They were originally located in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood right down the street from my sister’s place then a couple years ago they moved to Damen and Belmont, only a couple blocks from the Whole Foods where I worked.  Michelle occasionally came into the market.  She was easy to recognize with her pink dreadlocks and prominent tattoos of mixing bowls and egg beaters.  Unfortunately Michelle didn’t win the Challenge or the $10,000 prize but I always considered her to be a local celebrity of my Chicago days so it was ever so cool to see her on national TV. 

I was all set to spend today cleaning, except then I developed the headache from Hades after going to the grocery store -- the same one that kept me in on Halloween. It's gone now, but it was enough that all I got done was spending the afternoon passed out on my bed asleep*.

Well, and a drabble. Added a new fandom to 'stuff I have written' -- yay for drabbles about book fandoms. (Suddenly you see why I took to Yuletide like a duck to water -- writing for odd fandoms is one of my favorite things to do.)

I am not adapting to the early darkness at all. For an astronomer, I sure hate the dark. No, that's not quite true. I like the dark when it comes on after I eat dinner and can sip my decaffeinated tea and watch the sunset, then go out and look at the stars. Not so much when I come home from work in the dark, or have to wake up before the sun.

* My normal response to pain is OTC painkillers and sleep until they take effect.

Tomorrow work should be busy -- I got a lunch seminar and a meeting with my advisor on 'where I am going with research**', and a lot of paper-writing and stuff.

** Basically, I'm done with one major project, unsure if I should pursue the other one further or just finish and publish, and suspect that I might need a third project to get enough dissertation writing material, but I'm going to ask my advisor. Also mention something someone mentioned to me at DPS about something I brushed over in my talk, and maybe calculating a lower limit on something. (Except I don't know -- or am not sure -- how. Maybe that, plus the F-ring feature thing that I'm helping Matt with, but is low on his priority list, would be enough stuff -- 'cept the F-ring stuff is Matt's project, and I'm just giving him the data from my data set to add to the data he has.)

My parents and I went to a literary high tea with a Halloween theme yesterday. 

 

It was held at a church in Jordanville, a small town about 45 minutes from our home.  It started off with tea and a course of all different kinds of little sandwiches, and then a story was read a loud.  After that there was more tea and a course of scones.  This was followed by two more stories and finally a dessert course. 

 

The first story read was “The Most Haunted House” from Spooks of the Valley edited by Louis C. Jones, a legendary folklorist in our area who put together several books of local ghost stories he collected.  The second story was Shirley Jackson’s always chilling “The Lottery” and the final story was Roald Dahl’s darkly humorous “Lamb to the Slaughter”. 

 

I admit I was a little disappointed that only the first story dealt with supernatural horror but still, it was quite an enjoyable and unusual way to celebrate one of my favorite holidays.  Being me I didn’t eat anything but it was interesting to see all the different things that were served and I got some ideas for things to make for the book release party my mother holding later this month. 

So I play Vampire Wars over on Facebook, and there's five special limited edition abilities available for Halloween, and all are based on Horror classics. There's Blood-Soaked Vengeance (Carrie), Hierophant Transformation (Pinhead), Bile Spew (The Exorcist), Hyde's Rage (Jeckyll and Hyde), and Clown Frenzy (IT)

In order:


yuuo and I together recognized all of these off the bat except for Bile Spew, so I went googling. Since I knew all the others were based on horror movies or novels-turned-movie, it was likely that this was a horror movie reference. I had nothing else to start with but that and the name of the ability.

So I googled.

The first result made me blink, stare, then begin laughing hysterically.

I’ve deeply drawn to the films of Lars Von Tier. There’s something about his worldview that validates the pessimism about human nature that I feel as a chronic depressive. Stephan Rylance’s review of Von Tier’s lastest movie, AntiChrist, really clarified this aspect of Von Tier’s work for me.

The Agonies of an Antichrist by Stephan Rylance

On the liter side is “Truly, Truly Outragous”, an article on Samantha Newark who was the speaking voice of Jem (Britta Phillips was her singing voice) on the 1980’s cartoon series Jem and the Holograms. Jem was a great show and the interview addresses it’s gay appeal and even mentions fan fiction.

Truly, Truly Outrageous by Noah Michelson

During August and September when I was still working at the supermarket I developed a daily after work ritual—I’d put on the soundtrack to Inglourios Basterds and polish off an entire bottle of wine while playing Farmville on Facebook. It’s only been a little more than a month but I already feel a combination of horror and deep nostalgia for that time in my life. The soundtrack however I have only enthusiasm for. It was recently posted on The American Nightmare, a music blog I sometimes follow and I would strongly recommend it.

Inglorious Basterds Soundtrack at The American Nightmare

As in, it thinks doing a Kino's Journey/Slayers fusion fic would be a good idea. Or even a crossover type dealie taking Kino, Hermes and the feeling of Kino's Journey* and bringing it into other settings. Just as kind of a series of one-shot crossovers to play with settings/characters of various series and to write Kino and Hermes.

* If you like thoughtful anime, I recommend this series highly. Basically, the premise is that Kino is a traveler who only stays a few days in each town she visits and Hermes is her motorrad (think motorcycle with AI). A lot of the episodes are stand alones or two-part arcs, and they're very concept oriented. For example, the first episode, Kino visits a town where the inhabitants developed an ability to read each other's minds. As time passed, they discovered that knowing the innermost thoughts of even loved ones was making it impossible to live with them, so they all isolated themselves and used robots to do everything. The one person Kino meets tells her this, then invites her to stay, since she's the first person he's talked to in a while and he wants to live with people who he can't read. It's a very matter-of-fact anime, showing great beauty and kindness, but also great suffering, irrationality, and brutality. (Oh, the ending...) "The world is not beautiful, therefore it is."

I really liked it, because it was... I guess because it wasn't depressing for the sake of angst, but because it was matter of fact, showing the world which was. It's on my list with Haibane Renmei and Mushishi for cerebral anime that I liked from club and want on my shelf.

In English, a queen can be a Queen Regnant (a monarch), a Queen Consort (the wife of a monarch) or a Queen Mother (the mother to the monarch). But a king is always a King Regnant -- the husband of a monarch is a Prince Consort. I don't think the father to the monarch has a title. Then again, reading Wikipedia indicates a lot of it is because Britain -- who tend to be what sets usage of noble titles in the English language, since most English speaking countries either look to Britain for their nobility needs or don't have nobility -- has only had two reigning queens in the current era. Victoria outlived her husband and Elizabeth II is still alive, so that means that 'widower of previous monarch/father to current monarch' has never needed a word, and apparently Victoria couldn't get Parliament to call her husband king since he wasn't British. (Elizabeth II made her husband, Philip, a prince, but not Prince/King Consort.)

Now, the reason I think about this is for fantasy writing -- or non-English-language fanfic*. I mean, if I have a country that didn't have the tradition of men inheriting first, then the courtesy titles for spouses and parents should be consistent with that. So, either one has to go with Queen/King as only meaning a monarch, and Prince(ss) being a term for 'member of monarch's immediate family or direct descendants, who is not the monarch him/herself' -- so you end up with this being the Prince(ss) Consort, former Prince(ss) Consorts/now Prince(ss) Father/Mother, and the 'normal' children, grandchildren, and siblings to the monarch. Or you could have King/Queen be the term for a spouse/widow(er) of a monarch as well as the monarch him/herself. (This would also extend downward -- so a Duke or Duchess could be ruling a Duchy or the spouse of the ruler of the Duchy.)

Or you can just use the male terms as unisex terms, and use the Consort as a title for a spouse. I know for my tweaks to Green Ronin's Blue Rose setting, I'm changing it to drop King/Queen as the title of Aldis, and just go with Sovereign (the name of the office), with the Consort (or Consorts) being any spouses.

* I specify the language since a lot of politeness and titles and stuff translate better figuratively than literally.

Today is a rainy and gray day. But that's not what I'm here to complain about.

So, last night, I finished my first read-through of papers and went to the fabric store and out to dinner. I get home around 6, and go to my computer.

( Rebecca Versus the Computer )

TLDR: Desktop at home is borked. Considering I tried at least a half a dozen time to either restore from backups or reinstall the operating system, with no helpful results, I think my only recourse is to send it to Apple and let them deal with it. (It's two years old, so no longer under warranty, and I don't live near a place that is certified to repair Macs. I could ask at Best Buy, or somewhere, since it's not like I can void the warranty by taking it elsewhere.)

I have the laptop, so I can head home tonight and do something (and get my files off the external drive), but expect me to be slow about everything computer-related in the next couple of days.

* Seriously, the computer is set to backup the disk every hour when I'm at the computer. I even have a program (Time Machine) that remembers the changes I make between backups, and keeps track of it, so I can essentially browse my hard drive as it looked in the past. Reminds me that I should get an external drive for work.

I just finished reading Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart.  It was really wonderful.  It’s the story of a twelve year old girl named Meggie whose life with her bookbinder father, Mo, is disrupted when Dustfinger, a charming but untrustworthy figure from her father’s past appears at their house one night with a mysterious warning.  Gradually, Meggie learns that her father has the power to read people and things into and out of books and that nine years before he brought the Dustfinger as well as the villainous Capricorn and his henchman Basta to this world while accidentally banishing his wife into the pages of a book titled Inkheart. 

 

Capricorn, who has established himself as a crime lord, is after Mo hoping to use the bookbinders magical gift for his own gain.  Kindhearted but deserate to return to his own world Dustfinger is sometimes helps, sometimes hinders Meggie and Mo.  Their other allies are Meggie’s great-aunt Elinor, a devoted book collector, Farid a boy Mo reads out of The Arabian Nights, and Fenoglio, the author of Inkheart.

 

While Capricorn and his henchmen are certainly evil-- ruthless brutes who cheerfully commit arson and murder—Funke is not afraid to make her heroes deeply ambiguous.  Dustfinger’s loyalties are always questionable, Farid has a fascination for fire that sometimes make it seem as though he would be more at home among Capricorn’s followers than his enemies, Elinor lives in and for books and has little use for people, Mo keeps secrets from his daughter, Meggie herself is possessive of her father to the point where she isn’t sure that she wants to see her mother returned from the pages of Inkheart and Fenoglio takes an almost megalomaniac pleasure in the face that the characters he created have come to life.  Far from detracting from them, these flaws make the characters seem more human and in the end, even more heroic.

 

Inkheart is an exciting adventure story but it is all about books and the way stories can transform and enrich the world.  Books have great power in the world of Inkheart.  On the most superficial level Meggie, Mo and Elinor all love and value books, both for their content and as physical objects while Capricorn and his men are largely illiterate and actually burn books yet it is not that clean cut.  Books are not without their dangers.  This is illustrated by Elinor’s distain of real people and general disconnect from life as well as by the fact that the villain of the piece, Capricorn, actually comes from a book.  It is not just Mo’s power but Fenoglio’s skill as a writer that allows Capricorn to come to life.  The worlds that books open are far from harmless. 

 

I felt like Funke was very brave in introducing themes that couldn’t be easily resolved.  The easy way is to say “books should never be burned, books can’t harm anyone.”  Funke says “books should never be burned, but books just might have the power to burn you.”

 

There are two more volumes in the Inkworld Trilogy as it’s called, Inkspell and Inkdeath.  I’m looking forward to going to the library and devouring them.


German and English editions of Inkheart

Whenever I’m confronted with a situation my first instinct is to curl up and die.  Luckily my second instinct is who get up, figure out what I have to do and do it so I managed to  work things out so I won’t have to go off my medication. 

 

I had enough Abilify (the most expensive of my meds) to last two weeks so ended up refilling my generic Prozac and getting then got two weeks worth of Cymbalta.  It wound up costing about $145.  Hopefully by the time I run out of everything my insurance company will have received and possessed my payment for October and November and I’ll be properly covered.

 

I have to say dealing with health insurance and trying to keep myself in meds is always good for a sleepless night. 

I’ve come to expect that if something can go wrong with health insurance it will and it apparently has in the case of my COBRA plan.  I found out today when I was trying to refill my antidepressant prescriptions that it’ll be about two weeks till my coverage kicks in.  In the meantime I have to decide if I’m going to shell out around $800 for meds or go without. 

 

This situation is mainly my fault—I apparently misunderstood something in the 20 page COBRA starter packet—but still it seems like a really bad state of affairs that people have to face choices like this.  I’d like to see a world where you could get the medication you needed without going through huge bureaucratic hassles and/or spending a fortune.  I’m lucky of course.  Withdrawal from my cocktail of psycho-active drugs isn’t going to be pleasant and it’s certainly not medically advisable but I don’t know that anyone has ever died from going off Cymbalta, Prozac and Abilify.  I know there are people out there who face life and death choice with regards to medication.

 

I know there are many people who consider socialized medicine a terrible thing and are against President Obama’s proposed Healthcare reforms (my father is of this opinion as are several of my high school friends who I communicate with through Facebook).  I don’t want to belittle their views but However from my perspective, that of  an individual who doesn’t have a lot of money and suffers from a chronic medical condition, healthcare reform seems necessary and socialized medicine seems like a really great thing.

90% confident I won't do NaNo this year. I'm just too drained these last couple of weeks. I might sent a NaNo-esque goal, but something less like a sprint in that I won't need December to recover. Maybe to write every one of the 31_days prompts for a different fandom, or to take a month where I draw every day. In the state I'm in, I'm just not in the condition to do something intensive like NaNo.

In other news, my officemate can't find someone to open the observatory for her lab students. Normally one grad student handles these things, but he's not answering the phone. If he doesn't show up by the time I head to group therapy, I said I'd come by and help. Which will probably mean taking the late bus home and just passing out. I already didn't sleep well, since I feel bad about not doing much for Ben's birthday this weekend, and I'm still trying to work out what to do about the whole holiday thing*, besides to buy my tickets for Boston. (I found out that Shortline offers a special bus from Cornell to Newton over the break, and I can get the T from there to a couple of blocks from my aunt's house.)

* By 'the holiday thing' I mean that Dad wants me to visit Florida with him and Marjorie**, Mom wants me to visit Nebraska with her, my siblings and my friends. Both of them have said it's ultimately my decision. Dad had assumed I'd be in Nebraska for Thanksgiving -- I don't know why, since I don't go home over that break, though I did visit him in Florida once.

** I don't know if the invitation applies to Ben, but Dad is asking Jenn and Matt next year, since he can't put up all four of us in his condo.

On Friday I went to an exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum called “American’s Rome: Artists in the Eternal City 1800-1900 that spotlighted the Roman themed work of 19^th century American Artists. The exhibit included many painting of ruins and the commentary on these featured a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun that I really liked:

“(America is) a land where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a common-place prosperity, in broad and simple daylight… Romance and poetry need Ruin to make them grow.”

Reading this I couldn’t help but add horror to Hawthorne’s list of ideas that require Ruin to thrive. Horror often mines ancient evils. Hawthorne himself looked back to his puritan ancestors in House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter. Later H. P. Lovecraft would create a dark New England of sinister in-bred ghouls and otherworldly terrors. Stephan King’s characters stir up paranormal discord by unearthing Indian burial grounds. America then does have its picturesque and gloomy wrongs, either uncovered or created, but I can see the appeal of European settings, of the “old world” and its imagery. Though it’s been tarnished by war, murder, injustice, evil and insanity America remains comparatively shiny and new.

In Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell there’s an amazing chapter where William Gull gives a tour of London spanning from druid times to the present day, revealing layer upon layer of history and mystery. It’s simply not possible to give such a tour of an American city. Because Native American culture and lore was essentially erased even the oldest parts of the country only go back a few centuries. The idea of a thousand or even two thousand years of documented, known, decaying history fascinates me.

It doesn’t surprise me that many of Edger Allen Poe’s most popular short stories are set in a mythical Europe and draw on centuries old imagery of the inquisition, skeleton filled catacombs and ancient family lineages. I thought of stories like The Pit and the Pendulum, Masque of the Red Death and The Fall of the House of Usher when I read Hawthorne’s quote.

I also thought of Hostel, a film I watched a couple of weeks ago for the first time. An extremely violent tale of American’s abroad who are lured to a hostel that provides victims for those willing to pay to murder and torture, Hostel was widely criticized when it was released for exploiting post-9/11 xenophobia and paranoia. Meditating on the quote by Hawthorne however I feel like it belongs in an older, gothic tradition where the American consciousness is mesmerized and frightened by the mystery and gloomy wrongs of an older world.

What if one day, you wake up in a world too perfect to be real, with no memory of who you had been or how you got there, and there seems to be no one else but you. Little by little, you begin to remember your life, but what if it turns out your life never existed, and neither did you, because nature put some of man's interference to right, and you died, long ago?

This is the world in which [MAIN CHARACTER] now lives. It seems that the only future for her is one of empty nothingness, ceasing to be at all, because how can there be a future without a past? But as she starts to remember the life she had once lived, she begins to seek a way out, and uncovers a surprising truth.

Now... I just need to figure out names.

Over on blue_dragon, I posted a new story idea that I'm going to be doing for this NaNo. (the urban fantasy is going to be done next year -- I need more than just October to worldbuild this, I realized.)

I have an idea for a title, and while knowing the plot outline wouldn't hurt, it's not necessary for this poll. I'm looking for what sounds the best to people, what might be more likely to catch their eye on the shelf.

I was originally thinking "Chronicles of an Imaginary Mind", but I'm not sure if that's the word I want.

The title now is thus:

________________ Of An Imaginary Mind.

EDIT: As of now, it's looking very likely that the title is now "Requiem For An Imaginary Mind". If you like the sound of this one too, vote for 'other' and put in Requiem.


Poll #4514
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What sounds best/catchier in the blank slot to you?

If you picked Other Suggestion or Different Title, enter here.

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is one of those books that I’ve loved as both a little girl and a grown woman. Visually it appeals to me enormously, the illustrations are gorgeous, but beyond that I’ve always been fascinated by the story (simple and epic all at once), by Sendak’s sly sense of humor, by the sense of joy and the edge of darkness the book contains. In a lot of ways Where the Wild Things Are has always struck me as a story that works on a primeval, Jungian level charting the child’s process of identity building in a mythic fable. Growing up is like Max’s journey. You over step boundaries, you reject authority, you play with other roles and unacceptable behavior, you run amok but then hopefully you return your parents, your home, to love and safety and order.

I felt like Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are film did a really good job with the difficult task of adapting Sendak’s book. The movie is visually striking in its own right and doesn’t slight either the playfulness or the sometimes menacing edginess of the original.

Screenwriters Jonze and David Eggers stay true to the narrative outlines sketched by Sendak while fleshing out the story. We see a bit more of Max’s home life than the book shows. Nine year old Max (Max Records) is an extremely creative little boy with a rambunctious streak. His older sister can’t be bothered with him and his divorced, working mother loves and encourages him, but sometimes she kind of wants a life of her own. At school his science teacher talks about the sun dying. Wanting attention, confused, angry, sad and frightened all at once Max lashes out. First he trashes his sister’s room after her friends wreck the igloo he’s built. Then he behaves badly indeed when his mother has a (male) friend over for dinner, eventually biting her before he flees.

Max arrives in the world of the Wild Things to find one of them, Carol, in the process of breaking things. Max immediately identifies, as well he should. The Wild Things, especially Carol, are like giant, motherless children. Theirs is an id level world of joyful rough and tumble anarchy on one hand and frightening destructive violence on the other. Initially they consider eating Max but when he assures them he can do away with sadness and loneliness and make it so they’re happy all the time they make him their king. They all have wonderful, raucous fun together and Max sets them to work building the ultimate fort but the family of the Wild Things is no without it’s conflict and Max isn’t able to make them go away. Carol ultimately becomes as frustrated with Max as Max became with his mother and like Max lashes out.

The themes of the fallibility of authority figures and the currents of destructiveness that exist even in loving families are new to the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. There was a certain gleeful amorality to Sendak’s version but in the film it’s spelled out more clearly the ways Max grows through his experiences among the Wild Things—he returns because his time as king has taught him empathy for his mother.

So, this week I have the following I would like to do:

-- Finish my drawings for MAX and mrcaex
-- Finish Winry Rockbell, Martian Space Pilot! (a Fullmetal Alchemist AU) for scifibigbang
-- Put together two Halloween costumes. I'm going as the Virgo Cluster as a Museum of the Earth volunteer and as Tetra from Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker for CJAS's Halloween party. I might also repair my Amelia costume for CJAS Costume'd Kareoke on Friday.
-- Clean my apartment.
-- Help with some RPG stuff and get my activity for the Museum event ready.

Work is slow, and the thing I really need to do there (besides grading) is sit down with my adviser and have a 'Let us plan where I go next so I can get my PhD in a timely fashion'. He's out of town for Tuesday and Wednesday, so I could get away with taking that time off for home (and grading) if I finish everything in my office tomorrow.

Next month, I'll haveyuletide and yuletart, doing some art for scifibigbang, and slayers_request. Plus, finishing Christmas gifts and ag_over_18 will probably do a Secret Santa.

I wonder if maybe I should take a break from NaNo and maybe just do something like mekosuchinae is doing -- pledge to write every one of the 31_days prompts, which still gets me writing, but lets me work on other projects. Plus, I have one unfinished NaNo already, that doesn't suck and isn't fanfic. (I have three in total: the one that needs massive editing to salvage (if it can), the fanfic which needs its third part, and the one that really just needs a second half and some editing.)

But, that does kind of make me feel left out, since I really like the NaNo community. I like going to write-ins and such, and it would break my winning streak. But on the other hand, I don't want to win just for the sake of 50,000 words and a cute banner and certificate. I want to turn some of my scribbles into things other people can read. (Well, they can read them now, but it would make me cringe.)

And doing scifibigbang is making me realize that my writing has gotten somewhat more stable -- in that, a lot of my older writing from several years ago doesn't look like it sucks. For a while, I was improving fast enough that reading my old writing was painful. Now it looks like a lot of my drafting skills are stable enough that drafts look good when I re-read them, even years later. Which might mean I need to take more risks and start editing to see if I can improve myself more.

spacelogic: [SPOILERS] Babylon 5 and Women

[Harry Potter] cluegirl: Fanfic evolutions... a thinky-post.: "So... for awhile now, there's been something happening in the Snarry ship that distresses me, and it's only been just recently that I've been able to put words to it; Harry has become a moron."

[Supernatural] yourlibrarian (in mind_over_meta): Victimhood in SPN: "The end result of the four seasons of SPN so far, has been to equate the supernatural and those who fight it to a lower class status, and those who are victimized by it to higher classes."

[Twilight, Urban Fantasy genre] the_willow: Twilight & Other Creepy Thoughts: "I think I've figured out the appeal of Edward Cullen."

General:

rood: Why the AO3 needs to be translated (looking at it from a German, EFL speaker, perspective)

stele3: Meta: Movie recasts in fic: "So that got me wondering: what do people get out of those sorts of stories? Is it sorta like re-watching a favorite movie, but on your computer screen? Do you prefer your movie recast AUs to be changed fundamentally, or straight-up?"

InsaneJournal: in case you missed the news in announcements, there's a weekend-long sale of Permanent accounts, at the price of $40.

squeaky is also doing daily backups of the databases on the site, which causes "about 15 minutes of downtime each day". They're currently scheduled at 2:30PM (Eastern/US time).

LiveJournal: the_shoshanna: LJ search can turn up locked posts.