HSU IT Department

...but in case anyone asks, The Magic Flute @ Chicago Lyric Opera is amazing!

Since I'm serious about my New Year's resolutions this year, I decided that on Sundays I will do a brief "take stock" on how I'm doing, to keep myself on track. So how are we doing at the end of Week I, you ask? Well, grading on an A-to-F scale:

1) Get physical: C Took the stairs up all six flights at work (and however many it ended up being at the parking garage) every day, and walked the stairs at lunch two days. In the grand scheme of things it ain't much, but it ain't nothing either. That which makes me huff and puff makes me stronger...

2) Write more: F Wrote maybe 300 words this week >:| I do slightly excuse myself what with all the holiday cleanup at home, holiday catch-up at work, and prep to go out of town. But still. On the plus side I posted here 5 days out of 7. Still haven't decided if I can count that or not as "writing." On the whole I think not...

3) Slow down: C Very tough to avoid multitasking at work but I did make some progress. Also did well with not automatically turning on the television as background noise (a bad habit of mine).

On the whole this is pleasing. If I were doing fabulously I'd fret over keeping it up for the next 51 weeks; as it is, I can look forward to slow but steady improvement, right?

Reveals are up for mini_fest so I can post this now too, yay! The prompt came from lady_of_clunn and was so wonderful I had to seize it bodily, run off with it, and hide in the corner where I could savor it thoroughly.

Title: Till By Turning, Turning We Come 'Round Right (LJ) (AO3)
Rating: PG
Characters: Hermione/Snape, with cameos by Ron, Harry and Professor McGonagall
Prompt(s): Every year, Hermione uses her time turner to secretly leave a Christmas present at Spinners End for a young Severus, hoping she might be able to change his fate. Every year she returns to her own time and Severus is still dead - will this year's present be successful?
Warnings: Gratuitous abuse of physics, epilogue endangerment, and a short-lived last-minute red herring.
Summary: Hermione's greatest Christmas gift goes to an unsuspecting recipient.
Word Count: 7800
Disclaimer: Thank you, JKR, for giving us these characters. No copyright infringement was intended, no money was made, but a lovely time was had by all.
A/N: Enormous thanks to my kind and speedy betas nursedarry, ennyousai, and noeon; any purple prose remaining is no fault of theirs. And most humble thanks to lady_of_clunn for giving me a nugget of pure gold to work with. I hope that despite my minor alterations it still shines for you.

They say that if you make your resolutions widely public you're more likely to keep them. Behold my official 2012 Resolutions, posted here for all to see!

1) Get physical: I will be more regularly active. At present I do nothing but sit on my butt most of the day, most days a week, and it's beginning to show. Literally.

2) Write more: I will carve out time to do more writing. I've been lazy about it and I want that to stop. Signing up for fests and exchanges here helps in that it forces me to sit down and crank out the words, but I want to will do more original writing. My online writing group is going to think I do nothing but lurk and crit other people's work if I don't get busy.

As part of this goal, I will apply to Clarion West. I've talked about this for years and it's time to take the plunge. Among the instructors for the next session are Connie Willis (THE Connie Willis, be still my heart!!), George R. R. Martin, and Chuck Palahniuk. Yowza!

3) Slow down: Perhaps as a result of regular work on top of freelance work, I have become hasty, as Treebeard would say. I find myself frequently rushing through tasks, even the pleasant ones, and increasingly impatient. I never used to be so, and I don't care for what it does to my temper and my peace of mind. So will slow down the pace of my life, in all areas. I will take time to do a given thing consciously, savor the present without constantly rushing off to the next thing.

Wish me luck!!

Just ran across this piece by Lev Grossman (The Magicians) about fanfic, which he calls "the cultural equivalent of dark matter" LOL! The full article is worth a read -- it's long, detailed, and on the whole pretty accurate (and non-derogatory) about fan culture. As a bonus, it specifically identifies the first K/S fic, which I hadn't known before ("A Fragment Out of Time," 1974, in a Star Trek zine called Grup).

Most of all I'm hugely amused by this:

Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.

Yesss! I always knew we were saviors of literature, guardians of the cultural flame!!

I wish to heartily recommend to your attention a wonderful HG/SS fic entitled Karakuri by the talented talesofsnape. The plot is complex, clever and logical, everyone is very in-character, and the writing is top-notch with wonderful turns of phrase, lively dialog and excellent vivid description. In addition to the main characters we get an appropriately sweet/vague (and wonderfully blunt) Luna, as well as a glimpse into the strong and long-standing friendship between Severus, Lucius and Narcissa. There is romance, humor, wit, Dark magic, a mystery abduction, and -- of course -- snark, a given for any tale including our favorite Potions master:

Hermione grinned. "You have an evil tongue, Severus Snape."

"Only my tongue, Granger?" Snape growled. "I must be slipping."

Also, please to look at my flashy new icon, also courtesy of talesofsnape, which is a quote from the story. Now be off with you, go forth and read.

In his 1851 short story "What Christmas is as we Grow Older," Dickens says that the holiday is the time to "bear witness" to our parallel lives, our "old aspirations," "old projects," and "old loves." He says, "Welcome alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly."

I like that idea, to accept and acknowledge the "never was": paths not walked, loves that didn't work out, actions not taken. "[F]or, who shall say that they are not our teachers"?

Read the full essay here. It's lovely.

Well, isn't that a nice pressie?




And here it is, for your edification and jollification:

--+--+--+--

Title: The Lighter Side of Death Eating, or, Is That A Krampus in Your Pocket Or Are You Just Glad to See Me?
Word Count: 466
Rating: PG
Summary: The spirit of Death Eaters, present
Warnings: Scary teeth?
Author's notes: Krampus (interestingly, a week ago when I wrote this piece, the article looked like this, which is a MUCH scarier picture!!)


The drawing room was crowded and noisy, the women's sparkling jewels and bright velvet robes contrasting with the black rags and the masks worn by the men: horned, goatlike, with sharp hungry teeth. Over the animated conversation and the pounding of the drums, Lucius waved a languid arm at the newest arrival. "Antonin!" he called. "Welcome!"

Dolohov made his way towards his host and accepted the proffered glass of Lagavulin, noting the heavy crystal appreciatively. "You do live well, don't you, Lucius? Quite the lord of the manor."

Lucius cocked a pale eyebrow. "The perquisites of breeding," he said. "When your family has been around as long, and has such exquisite good taste, as the Malfoys, one tends to acquire a certain patina of --"

"Заткнись, мудак," said Dolohov with a snort.

"Tsk, tsk. Such language." Lucius took a sip of the amber liquid, rolling it appreciatively in his mouth. "Vulgarity is the last refuge of the linguistically incompetent, Dolohov. Or don't they worry about such trivialities as literacy at Durmstrang?"

Dolohov opened his mouth to reply but just then the drums reached a crescendo and thundered to a halt, the sudden stillness causing the crowd to fall silent expectantly.

"Ah. That's my cue. Do excuse me." Lucius stepped forward, beckoning to a slender young man in a particularly vicious mask and a tall, aristocratic blonde witch in deep green robes.

The three of them moved to stand in front of the fireplace, facing their assembled guests. Behind them, above the carved stone mantel, hung a large oil painting of a muscular man, naked, with the head of a goat. His horns swept back in a long graceful curve, black hair hung curling to his shoulders, and his mouth was open in a vicious grin, displaying needle-sharp teeth. Branches of walnut and yew were fastened above and below, with holly berries scattered like drops of blood, as red as the eyes of the creature in the portrait.

"My wife, my son and I bid you welcome to this Krampus Nacht feast," Lucius said into the expectant hush. "Although we have suffered setbacks, tonight is a time to dwell on the successes the new year will bring. I bid you all, charge your glasses for a toast to the spirit of this eve." He turned and gestured to the portrait. "As he takes away the wicked children to meet their deserved fate, so shall we sweep away the blood traitors and the unworthy among us to create a better world." A murmur of approval ran through the crowd, and all around the room, hands raised crystal glasses of fine wine and whiskey.

Lucius raised his glass, Draco and Narcissa following suit. "To Krampus!"

The echo came crashing back: "To Krampus!" And the drums began again.

FeministSF blog reports that Pink Narcissus Press has issued a call for submissions for two new anthologies of short science fiction. (They also accept art.)

'Queer Fish' will feature fiction encompassing all senses of the word "queer": gay fiction laced with elements of the unexpected, the eccentric, and the strange. Possible genres include (but are not limited to) paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy (urban and traditional), steampunk, and soft horror. Stories with a subplot of male/male romance are strongly preferred. (Deadline: March 31, 2012)

‘Daughters of Icarus’ will feature stories exploring gender roles in society, using the medium of science fiction. Stories of any length, by authors of any gender, will be considered. (Deadline: May 31 2012)

You can "look inside" their last anthology, WTF?!, on Amazon (check out the very funny "WTF Manifesto" on the back cover LOL!).

Detailed submission information is here. Come on, you know you've always wanted to go On Beyond Fanfic -- now is your chance!!

An amazing piece on NPR's All Things Considered tonight. They're doing a series called "Winter Songs" where they invite various people to choose a song that evokes winter for them, and explain why. Tonight their guest was choreographer Bill T. Jones, who chose a Schubert piece called "Die Leiermann" (The Hurdy Gurdy Man), which is part of a song cycle called "Winterreise" (Winter Journey). Jones talks about how the song for him is bound up with memories of his father, in particular one winter afternoon when he saw his father from the window of his fourth-grade classroom. Go here to listen to it.

Is there a song (beyond the obvious, like carols) that you associate with winter? Oddly enough, for me it's Abba's Move On. I had just started dating my first boyfriend in October of 1980, and he had given me this album. I had to go away over Christmas with my family to south Texas, and I was convinced he would forget about me in the TEN DAYS I was gone so I listened to it relentlessly before we left. So there you go: Abba + South Padre Island = winter song.