sunlit_stone

On account of half the members of my dad's book group not being able to make it in person tonight, the other half decided they might as well all meet remotely. No cake this month. Thankfully, I got the call about it before warming the butter. Now I've got some under-ripe tomatoes that were going to go into a streusel cake and some red and black raspberries that I was planning on using as a backup in case the tomatoes were too ripe for the cake. I'll probably cook with the tomatoes and either eat or freeze the berries.

The usual receptionist is recovered enough she might be in next week, though it's still too soon to say for sure, and even if she's in, whether she'll be up to her full or operating at a reduced capacity. It's certainly pointing to an end stage of the gig, which somehow has me enjoying it more. The inability or the difficulty to savor the indefinite, I suppose. Something along those lines.

Current Mood: indifferent
Current Music: Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush

prettygoodword

apiculture (AY-puh-kuhl-tchuhr) - n., beekeeping.

That is, the science of raising or maintaining colonies of bees and their hives, especially at scale. The word was apparently coined in French, from Latin apis, bee + cultūra, cultivation, on the model of agriculture (“field-culture”), and taken into English around 1860.

—L.

andersenmom

Weekly Score: 66.7% (8/12)

Goal 1: Declutter house and take care of family. 70% (7/10)

Review: Sadly, I didn't get much done even though I only had a couple of days. Managed to get packed and get the laundry done, but wasn't as good with dishes as I would have liked. And got no cleaning done at all.

Goal 2: Catch up on Fannish50. 50% (1/2)

Review: I got one post published, but didn't write the one I'd hoped to get done this week. I was a little busy, and I probably could have done it if I'd been thinking.

Goal 3: Prep for writing retreat. 0%

Review: I planned on not doing anything for this week.

Intentions for the future: Work on the next zone, at least five minutes every day. Keep up on dishes and laundry - which will be fun now that we're back off the trip. G2: Write at least three posts, and publish at least three. They won't be the same, but there will be some done. G3: I'm going to spend some time looking for a place for us all to stay. I might send a reminder email to those who haven't answered me yet, too. My foot is starting to feel better, too, so that helps.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Ride or Die - Jeff Satur

queenlua

Okay, yeah, as people watching my Tumblr may have already noticed, I gave Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 a try on a whim (mostly because of this post tbh) & I had a grand old time & now I'm here to dump some thoughts about it before I lose them forever.

Full disclosure, a big reason that I got SO into this game (devoured it in ~2 weeks) was because Bird Guy got into it too, at exactly the same time, and did you know it is VERY fun to blast through a big bombastic game in Your Favorite Genre alongside the love of your life? Highly recommend it. We were heckling each other and swapping strategy protips and speculating wildly about the plot together the whole time; it was SO weeby in our household lol.

We historically have somewhat divergent tastes in video games (he plays FPSes, Soulsbornes, and grand strategy games; I tend more toward turn-based tactical RPGs, narrative-driven RPGs, stealth-action games, and platformers). There's also a lot of places where our tastes overlap (we both love a good puzzle game, hence both of us getting oneshot by Blue Prince a few months back, and we both enjoyed e.g. Breath of the Wild), but up until now I don't think he's ever liked anything in the (admittedly fuzzy) space of "big, bombastic, narrative-heavy 90s/00s-style RPGs."

( a list of all the ways this game is a big fat love letter to A Specific Era Of RPGs )

So, yeah, the game nailed a 10/10 on "bottling up a bunch of highlights from the RPGs-of-a-specific-era into a modern Essence Du Jour." This will probably make me sound either sappy or deranged or both, but I really do feel like it let me share something precious and lovely with my husband in a way that finally got him to enjoy it too, and I'm pretty grateful for that. Sort of like the first time I took him to see fireflies in Kentucky because he, a west coast boy, had never seen them before.

Combat, however—combat is very different than any mainline Final Fantasy game, and it rules, actually.

( what the combat is like )

The plot's another thing I was a little apprehensive about going in. The premise sounded a little stilted/weird/cheesy to my ear, and the vague rumblings I'd heard about the game online made it sound like it was all going to be some sort of philosophical-dilemma-disguised-as-a-story sort of deal, which is just not interesting in to me. (I very seriously entertained majoring in philosophy; I've taken classes on "what if we were a brain in a vat tho" kind of dilemmas; I get the appeal. I just don't find it as appealing these days :P)

Without spoiling, I'd say it doesn't really demand deep philosophical wrestling any more than, say, Christopher Nolan's Inception does—it's there if you want it and I'm sure forum nerds are arguing about it at we speak (<3 you forum nerds, you are my people), but it's mostly focused on some broader thematic concerns and the attendant characters. I don't think the characters or their world are quite as juicy in terms of their interpersonal dynamics or as fully-fleshed-out-in-relation-to-their-world as, say, the Final Fantasy 10 cast... but they're interesting enough (Verso and Maelle prove particularly chewy), there's good synergy in the ensemble, and the game REALLY leans hard into the light-and-dark interplay suggested by the title. The bright/charming bits are SURPRISINGLY goofy and silly and disarming for it; the grim bits are grim in a PG-13 way but no less satisfying for it.

Okay that's al lthe general stuff. Some more spoiler-y and off-the-cuff thoughts below—no major spoilers but if you're like "I do not even wish to Know The Name Of Potential Bosses In The Game," yeah, here's your chance to stop reading.

( vaguely spoilery stuff )

oh god also i forgot to mention the soundtrack. straight bangers, every single one of them. i have the sheet music for "alicia" and "verso" sitting on my piano as we speak. truly it is the 90s again and they got their own damn Uematsu lol

hannah

I'll be working this week, and possibly in the foreseeable future as well. It's hard to say - the woman I'm sitting in for needed emergency surgery to have her gallbladder removed, and organ removal always constitutes a careful recovery period.

I don't know how long I want to do this. Full-time, at least. It's the gnawing nighttime feeling and the looming mornings that are getting to me more than lost afternoons at the gym and visits to farmers' markets. Having less time to get my daily living activities finished so I can get writing done in the evening. I'm sure there's a knack to it I can pick up with practice. Breaking the weights out for some evening workouts is something I'm out of practice doing, but I'm getting back into easily enough. I can't drop and do twenty pushups straight, and I'm still capable of a few with good form, so I'll hitch myself back to that goal, among others. Something achievable.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: nothing now

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday, more Japonisme from another early Modernist:

Muramadzu, Arthur Davison Ficke

A mouldering Buddha sits as warden
Beside the ruined mossy gate.
He must be rash, or strong with fate,
Who mounts unbidden to this garden.

The pine and cypress intertwining
Cover the lotus-pool with shade.
But where the ancient graves are laid,
A dreamy veil of sun is shining.

I do not know what shapes are here,
Nor why the sun so strangely shines ....
It is a place of ruined shrines ....
The distant wind is all I hear ....

What secret makes this place beguiling
I know not; nor what visions lost
Stir like a frail forgotten ghost
While Buddha’s lips are faintly smiling.

Fiske is better remembered as a Western authority on ukiyo-e prints than as a poet. This first appeared in a 1907 collection, in a section of poems written while on an around the world tour that included his first visit to Japan. No one has been able to explain the title.

—L.

Subject quote from Superstition, Stevie Wonder.

sideways

"There is a sense that we are lost. In the streets, in the temples, you can hear it in their voices, their manner - an anger just beneath the surface, a growing dissatisfaction, a self-involvement above the needs of others. It is not the same world in which I was born, Delenn."

Haha okay Babylon 5 T_T

prettygoodword

monopolylogue (mon-uh-POL-i-log) - n., a performance in which one person plays multiple characters.

Often, especially, all of them. Not a new coinage (which is from mono-, one + poly-, many + -logue, talk) as it dates to 1819, used in a playbill advertising a performance by Charles Mathews. Charles Dickens would, on reading tours, perform monopolylogues of his own works.

—L.

hannah

Things which I don't get to say nearly enough: "Can you break a hundred?"

To make things as simple as possible, I got paid in cash earlier today, and to make things really simple, it was a mix of twenties and hundreds to use as few bills as possible. I'll freely and happily admit it cut down on the volume of currency being exchanged. It also struck me that while $100 is a standard unit of currency, it's an atypical one, which isn't a combination of traits I see much.

My plan was to break them into twenties if the bank was open for customers, or deposit them intact in an ATM kiosk if it wasn't. On the walk to the bank, I decided to buy a luxury imported British film magazine at Barnes & Noble, and in thinking about how to pay for it, I asked the clerk my question.

Then I said it was fine, and handed over $21 to more easily make change for the $15.50 price tag. A much more ordinary type of payment. I took the hundreds to the bank and deposited them at the ATM, as I'd planned.

And for a moment there, just a brief moment, I had a glorious glimpse into another life where I always asked that question.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Betting On Trains - Hem

hannah

Thinking it'd look more professional, I went with a messenger bag instead of a backpack today. As professional as it may have looked, I'm going to go back to the backpack. So much easier for so many things on so many levels, not the least of which is being able to ride a bike. Yes, I know bike messengers do it all the time. No, I'm not a professional bike messenger, and I'm unwilling to try. Especially if I'm already wearing a nice dress.

There wasn't much time to read at work, mostly because I'd been given an actual task to do: sorting through patient folders and setting aside old records to discard. Not as much fun as it'd have been if I'd had an MP3 player with me, and still satisfying to see the piles start to rise, and space in the drawers start to emerge. Where there's space in a drawer, there's objects to be discovered, and found my second office perk. A stain remover stick's not much, but it's still something I could take home with me. The first thing is a large can of cold brew coffee sitting in my fridge, waiting for a morning I need a jolt beyond all meaning.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: nothing now

hannah

It was such a slow first day, midway through the afternoon, I was being paid to sit there and read. It won't be like that every day - not even other days this week - and even if it doesn't get repeated, I can savor having had it for a little while.

So far, it's a front desk job like all front desk jobs: phone calls, emails, appointments, office supplies. People called, I called them back. Documents were scanned into the computer and copies were made. The clients were largely punctual and there's no music playing. While I doubt I can get away with headphones or a radio, there's a fan I may use for white noise to make the periods of sitting around, waiting for more nothing to happen, a little easier to get through without having to fall back on monetary compensation. Even if I got through a large chunk of some reading today.

Though I suppose longhand writing notes are always an option. If I remember to bring the right notebooks tomorrow.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Tupelo Honey - Van Morrison

prettygoodword

premonish (pri-MON-ish) - v., to warn in advance.

Although admonish now means something more like rebuke, especially after the fact, it originally meant warn beforehand--from Latin ad-, against + moneō, warn/advise. This much less known word replaces the prefix with pre-, here in the sense of before.

——L.

sideways

Title: Pigeon Talk
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: Widdershins (Jack O'Malley, Ben Thackery)
Wordcount: 3,478
Summary: One week he's the bastard second cousin of the king long kept in hiding, a rumour so far outside anything Mal's ever had hurled his way before that it's almost funny. The next, he talks to pigeons.
Remarks: How did this end up as long as it did. Good grief. Anyway, deeply hypocritical for Mal of all people to complain about Being Perceived on a discomfiting level, but also he totally would.

◘◘◘

( what's a pigeon got to talk about anyway? )

andersenmom

I have to admit: I don't actually have these songs, as much as I'd like them, because bus isn't on iTunes. I can't buy them. Sadly.

( Hilarity under here )

Current Mood: determined

hannah

Ending the month with good news: I've got a new gig. It's full-time and starts on a week where I'll have Friday off, so it'll be an easy adjustment and a decent way to test out if I'm cut for it long-term. Or even medium-term, into the next couple of weeks until the usual receptionist gets back.

I'll be doing scheduling, some emails, some phone calls. Front desk work on the Upper East Side. It'll be easy to get there, and it'll be done indoors and sitting down. I don't think it's going to be all that relaxing and I'm going to have to go back to doing workouts at night in my apartment instead of at the gym for the duration. But it's just for a little while, to see if it's a good fit.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Music: Tin Angel - Joni Mitchell

oracne

My schedule is finalized! I didn't list participants in case there were changes.

Who will I see at Readercon next month?

The Works of P. Djèlí Clark

Salon I/J Friday, July 18, 2025, 1:00 PM EDT

Our Guest of Honor P. Djèlí Clark rounded out his first decade as a published author with a Nebula and a Locus for his fantasy police procedural novel, The Master of Djinn, and both those awards plus a British Fantasy Award for his monster-hunting novella Ring Shout. His short story "How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub" is short-listed for the Hugo this year. As a History professor at University of Connecticut, he investigates the pathways leading from West African storyteller/poets (griots, a.k.a. djèlí) to the American abolitionist movement. Help us celebrate the works of our honored guest!

The Purposes of Memorable Insults in Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Salon I/J Friday, July 18, 2025, 5:00 PM EDT

Some of the most quotable lines in science fiction and fantasy are zingers. Wit can do a lot to build a character, a world, and a universe, and has the ability to either support or undermine reader expectations. This panel aims to explore and elaborate on the use of wit—and especially takedowns—in literature, exposing how a verbal jab can serve as more than just a punchline.

Moving from Traditional Publishing to Self-Publishing [I'm moderating this one]

Salon G/H Friday, July 18, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT

It's becoming increasingly common to hear of authors whose self-published work was so successful that they were picked up by a traditional publisher. But what of the authors who have gone the other way, by turning their backs on traditional publishing and going into self-publishing? Panelists will survey the varying reasons for making this transition, how authors have navigated it, and what this might say about the state of publishing overall.

Kaffeeklatsch: Victoria Janssen

Suite 830 Friday, July 18, 2025, 8:00 PM EDT

Meet the Pros(e) party

Salon F Friday, July 18, 2025, 10:15 PM EDT

Program participants are assigned to tables with a roughly equal number of conferencegoers and other participants, and then table placements are scrambled at regular intervals so that everyone gets to meet a new set of people in a small-group setting. Think of it as a low-key sort of speed dating where you need never be the sole focus of anyone's attention, and the goal is just to get to know some cool Readerconnish people. Please note that this event will include a bar and is mask-optional, unlike most other programming.

The Works of Cecilia Tan [I'm moderating this one]

Salon I/J Saturday, July 19, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT

Our Guest of Honor, Cecilia Tan, has a publication history that spans Asimov's, Absolute Magnitude, Ms. Magazine, Penthouse, and Best American Erotica, among others. Writer and editor of science fiction and fantasy, especially as they intersect with erotica and romance, she is also the founder of Circlet Press, an independent publisher that specializes in speculative erotica. Her own writing earned a Lifetime Achievement for Erotica in 2014 from Romantic Times magazine. She also contributes to America's other pastime, baseball, in her role as Publications Director for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Come hear our panel discuss Cecilia's many talents and accomplishments.

Un-Kafkaesque Bureaucracies [I'm moderating this one]

Salon I/J Saturday, July 19, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT

In fiction, bureaucracies are generally depicted as evil in its most banal form, yet many of the actual bureaucracies that shape our lives exist to protect us from corporate greed. How can—and should—we tell other stories about bureaucrats and bureaucracies, particularly as the U.S. stands on the precipice of disastrous deregulation? And might fantasies of bureaucracy (such Addison's The Goblin Emperor and Goddard's The Hands of the Emperor) be the next cozy subgenre?

The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction

Create / Collaborate Saturday, July 19, 2025, 8:00 PM EDT

In an article of the same name (https://www.fansplaining.com/articles/endless-appetite-fanfiction), Elizabeth Minkel discussed how "2024 was the year [fanfic] truly broke containment—everyone seemed to want a piece of the fanfiction pie, leaving fic authors themselves besieged on all sides." Attempts to steal and monetize fanfic proliferated, as did reviews treating living authors as distant and unreachable. What do these trends say about larger changes in attitudes toward stories and creators? How can fans of all kinds nurture supportive connections to authors?

andersenmom

Weekly Score: 61.1% (22/36)

Goal 1: Declutter house and take care of family. 55% (16/29)

Review: I think I tried to do too much. And my sleep schedule has been off, so that hasn't helped, and neither has the foot.

Goal 2: Catch up on Fannish50. 83% (5/6)

Review: I wrote the three posts I wanted to, and posted two of the three for the week. I'm looking forward to this, actually. It's been a lot of fun.

Goal 3: Prep for writing retreat. 100% (1/1)

Review: This seems to be going so easily that I can't believe it's going to be this easy. But the letter went out, I got two of four emails back. I'm really excited about this! I hope it works well.

Intentions for the future: G1 - we're going on a trip, so I'm going to get at least one load of laundry done before we go, and do five minutes cleaning in living room and family room on Monday, and five minutes cleaning in Entry, front porch, and dining room on Tuesday. I also want to make sure the sink is clean, even if the dishwasher sits with clean dishes when we leave. G2 - I want to put up one more post, and hopefully write one or two of them before we go. G3 - I don't have anything planned for this week - I didn't expect to do anything.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Polariod - I-dle

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday, after an influencer of Pound, Pound himself—at least in part:

The Sole Survivor, Rai San’yō, tr. Ezra Pound

A force cut off
Fighting hard,
Shut around.

I burst the bonds,
I alone,
I returned,

Fleeing by night
Through the crags of the border.

My sword is broken,
My horse fallen.
The hero drags his corpse to his native mountains.

Rai (1780-1832) was an Edo-period historian and poet. In November 1915, Pound attended a London performance of sword dances by Itō Michio (1892-1961), some of which were accompanied by songs sung by Uchiyama Masami (I can’t find good dates on this guy), one of them being this. This translation (made with Uchiyama’s assistance, credited as “from notes by”) was first published in the Dec 1916 issue of Future without naming the author. The original title was “Kogun Funto,” which more literally means “exhausted warrior,” and the original form was a single four-line stanza.

—L.

Subject quote from Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift.

hannah

Every time I think, "I need a peer group," I need to remind myself about the various corners of fandom. Escapade is very much made up of my peer group in a not insignificant number of ways, and spending a good chunk of the weekend in such a group's company was a balm. Soothing, comforting. We're of different ages and backgrounds, and we're peers with one another in a way I don't much get in other places.

I even got some practical suggestions for the ongoing job hunt. It always remains to be seen how helpful they are, and the point stands that they're practical, with specific tasks and methods. Another thing to remember: look to one's peers for help. Not for everything, but for many things.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: nothing now

hannah

I received what I'm going to take as a fine compliment today: someone I'd met all of four hours earlier said I sounded like I wrote professionally for magazines and other publications, simply from how I talked.

I've decided it's up there with multiple people - completely independently, several years apart, none of them knowing each other - telling me I speak in real life the way I talk online.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: American Car - Mike Doughty

Profile

sunlit_stone

October 2024

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Lettuce for Crossroads by branchandroot
Resources: P r o l o g u e

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 9th, 2025 10:14 am

Reading

Swap our places.

apiculture

12 Week Year WAM Week 02

clair obscur: expedition 33 retrospective

Seventh of the Seventh.

“when you believe in things that you don’t understand then you suffer / superstition ain’t the way”

(no subject)

monopolylogue

Take my business.

Second day in.

July the First.

premonish

pigeon talk

Fannish50 #09: bus

Valentines and maple leaves.

Readercon 2025 Schedule

Week Year WAM Week 01

“slowly lurching toward your favorite city / pierced through the heart but never killed”

Sunday night.

Put the foot down.

Profile

October 2024

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags