Ben Franklin proposed the turkey as America's national bird. He said that "the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird [than the eagle], and withal a true original Native of America."

Good point. However, if he had carried the day, what on earth would Americans eat themselves stupid with every November? Bald eagles? Pigeons? Tofurkey (the mind boggles, or rather cringes)?

I have made apple pie, I have made pumpkin pie. I have made homemade cranberry sauce, I have prepared orange-honey glaze for the turkey. I have peeled and cooked 3lb of tiny little onions in order to make my dad's favorite creamed onions. I have broken out the good china, the Irish linen tablecloth, and the extra leaf in the table. (All I need is a pair of wolfhounds to make it a Very Malfoy Thanksgiving...)

I have prepared clever comebacks for the conservatives and the Christians in attendance.

Bring it on. Let the family descend, damn it, I'm ready. And if not, there's always Obliviate.

Now, since all my American flisters will be in a tryptophan-induced coma starting tomorrow, I'm relying on all of you from across the pond (in various directions) to keep me amused over the long weekend. Don't let me down!

OK, one more: Metamorphosis of Solitude. If you like urbane witty Snape with his tongue at its razor-sharpest, this is the fic for you :)

Go Supernatural! Love the fan mania (of course). Sadly I have no SPN icon, but I think this one works well. Also hugely amused that sidekick Garth is Sheldon's drug-addicted cousin Leon from Big Bang. Ah television, thou art a small and incestual world...

This. Several possible puns occur to me (Tooth or consequences? To tell the tooth?) but in the end all I can think of is Bite me, you silly man. Have you nothing better to do with your Canadian dollars? Such as buy gold??

Joss Whedon has apparently filmed, secretly, in 12 days, his own version of Much Ado About Nothing! So it's my favorite Shakespeare ever + Joss = ♥ ♥ ♥ It's a perfect one for him to do: the dialog is fast and clever and witty, much like his own. He cast a bunch of Whedonverse folks in it, including Captain Tightpants (aka Nathan Fillion), Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker. (Sadly, no Giles though.) He filmed it as indie flick but I really hope it gets picked up for wide distribution. Must! See! So excited!!!

I have five -- count 'em, five -- books that I am reading AT THE SAME TIME. Granted, they're five very different books (Victorian bad-boy fiction, librarians are awesome, medieval roman a clef, women's colonial history, and World War II brit-love), that still seems excessive. Some have been lingering a long time, I admit. The WWII book has been in progress since, oh, May of last year, but hey, it's still on my nightstand within the top 5" of the pile, so it counts, right?

This is the only way I can read multiple books. If I were to try to read two or three fantasy novels at the same time, or two or three histories, my brain would go all bobcat-pretzel on me. But as long as I can file each one in a separate location, I seem to be able to deal with it. I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing. Many recent articles debunk the Myth of Multitasking (apparently we can't do it, we just THINK we can), so perhaps I'm really only half-reading -- or in this case, 20-percent-reading -- each of them. But I disagree. When I'm reading one, I'm totally involved in it. I don't read a page of this one, a page of that one, a page of the other one. That would be multitasking (and actually a pretty accurate description of what I do at work, where I'm constantly discovering a window buried underneath several others, and saying "Oh look, I totally forgot I was in the middle of that email/document/analysis/presentation/YouTube video..."). Reading a chapter or two of a different book each night is more like having something different for dinner, eating what you're hungry for instead of having turkey every night for a week.

So yeah, I'm OK with the multiple book maintenance thing. Anyone else do this? Or is it just me?

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

Because, you know, it just looks like fun :)

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I knew it!!!!

Yet again, a book I desperately wanted to like but didn't. The premise sounded intriguing: the king of Abascar, a kind of city-state, decrees that all things of color and beauty be "donated" to the castle and everyone will from then on wear only shades of grey and brown ("Abascar's Winter"). At some indeterminate point in the future, he promises that all will be returned to the people and Abascar will be brighter and more beautiful than ever ("Abascar's Spring"). But one young woman, a mysterious foundling raised by the Gatherers (men and women exiled for petty crimes; they live outside Abascar's walls and hope to be readmitted at the annual Testing), knows how to draw colors from nature and create beautiful things for her friends. Auralia's colors eventually spark (literally) changes in the city.

OK, so far so good. But the author leaves massive holes EVERYWHERE. Explanations, if given at all, are so thin as to be transparent. Why would the people agree to this nonsense? What's his motivation in the decree (come to that, what are the motivations of ANY of the characters)? Why isn't there a thriving black market in colorful stuff from the other cities? Who are these Beastmen and why haven't they been stamped out long ago by the other cities? Why was Jaralaine so unhappy and why on earth is she ( here )? What the hell is wrong with the King all these years? Why is the annual event called the Testing when nobody is tested? Why was Scharr ben Fray exiled? Why does Stricia completely lose it when ( this happens )? What are these Northchildren and are they real or imaginary? WTF is this Keeper that everyone dreams about and why does he, or it, even matter? Then there is the very bizarre denouement of the story which a) is way too melodramatic, b) makes no sense whatsoever, and c) has nothing to do with Auralia or her colors! (It's all down to jealousy and the fact that alcohol is flammable.)

Worst of all, the central pivot of the story -- the fact that Auralia's colors have some kind of magical power -- is only ever mentioned in passing!! She has no idea that they do (in fact she says they don't). The first time it's mentioned is third hand, when one of the Gatherers says that so-and-so's breathing was better when he wore a yellow scarf that Auralia made for him. Why didn't so-and-so himself mention it? Or better yet, why didn't we see this happen?

Everything that happens in the story has this same third-hand feel to it, as if the most fascinating bits are happening off screen and we only get glimpses of them or hear about them later. Good characters jump off the page, make you feel like you've met them; these characters come across like mannequins that the author moves around. The author invents weirdly-named animals and plants for no apparent reason (vawns? why not just have them ride horses like normal people??). The characters are paper cut-outs, one-dimensional and cliche: the mad king, the noble prince, the stalwart and loyal soldier, the mysterious foundling, the exiled wise counselor. The fact that the most interesting and complex character in the whole book is the guy who tortures people in the dungeon, who appears for a total of about 5 pages, should tell you how limp and pale the rest of them are.

I ended up just skimming the last hundred pages. Don't waste your time.