HSU IT Department

I don't know who azalea is, but as soon as I can stop laughing she's got my vote for Cleverest Shakespeare Adaptation of the Year. Or maybe the decade. Her spoof of King Lear, entitled (what else?) King Winchester, contains, among other gems, the following:


Dean: For God’s sake, let us sit upon the couch,
And talk about this in a reasonable way.

Sam: O, insupportable!
Dean: Dude, calm thyself.

Dean: ...How shall Sammy fare, outside our lines of salt
And from the cover of my Glock remov’d?

*snort*

Having finished the freelance consulting work which absorbed (sucked dry?) most of my free time for the past six months, I've fallen back into reading with a vengeance. Thus:

Caleb's Crossing, by Geraldine Brooks. Brooks just gets better and better. I started out with People of the Book and was a convert almost immediately; Year of Wonders confirmed it and by the time I got to March I'd become an evangelist. Her writing is truly luminous -- spare but every word well-chosen, and she evokes a time and place better than almost anyone I've ever read. As with People of the Book, she's taken a small historical snippet and built an intensely believable story around it. Her fiction is more real than most people's history.

Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century, with everything from big-game hunters going after triceratopses to unresolvable paradoxes to an old man visiting 1950 in an attempt to find a nice Jewish boy for his daughter. Great fun, if a bit uneven (some are better than others). The Le Guin at the end was, as she always is for me, the star of the show.

All four Tiffany Aching books from Terry Pratchett. All of his books make me laugh; the best ones also make me cry. These did. His witches are the most practical, hard-headed, loving, smart, wonderful women I've ever encountered, whether they're practicing "persickology" or avoiding "the cackle", and the Nac Mac Feegles are the best anti-fairies you'll ever meet.

Dracula, My Love, a huge disappointment. Thin, boring, uneven. Skip it. If you've read Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tapes, you've read a far far better version of this already. The author tries to turn Mina into a modern woman but doesn't succeed very well -- instead of thinking for herself she's like a weathervane, swinging around to believe whoever is telling her tales at the moment, so it comes across as more of a slightly discordant medley than a coherent tune. In fact, Bram Stoker's Mina is in some ways a more consistent and stronger character than this one. There's a completely irrelevant sub-plot about Mina finding her father and mother, which doesn't even make Mina a more interesting character since it's a very cliche Victorian solution. The book was a bit of a snooze in places because James had to recount in all the events of the original book in order to tell Mina's version of them; apparently she didn't want to assume that anyone had actually read the original, which to my mind is a major flaw (what's wrong with demanding your readers come to a book with a little context??). Finally, the ending, while not bad in and of itself, was entirely wrong for the story thus far. It would have been a tolerable ending for a different version of the story, but for me it didn't fit this one well at all.

So there. Right now I'm working on A Discovery of Witches, which I was excited about until I found out it was only #1 of a trilogy. Why must everyone do trilogies? Why??? I blame it all on Allen and Unwin.

The Toronto Star had a truly scathing piece on the hat crimes committed at the royal wedding. Being a nice person who doesn't violate copyright I won't post the entire column (and besides it's really long), but here's an excerpt:

Friday was a dark day in hat history. Crimes were committed that would harrow thy soul and freeze thy young blood. I offer Exhibit 1, Princess Beatrice’s blot on millinery, and throw my client on the mercy of the court. Not myself, of course, your Honour, as I have a number of other clients who have yet to enter a plea.

Beatrice is wearing what appears to be a mushroom-coloured silk doorknocker surrounded by an octopus in strangely Fallopian death throes. It might just as easily be an ancient birth control device known as a Dutch cap — they were still making them that beige colour in the mid-1970s — or a still-rolled condom combined with a snake metaphor, stuck for reasons best known to Beatrice on the top half of her face rather than her actual head.

Read the rest of it here. And laugh.

Of course the wedding itself was beautiful, elegant and all that is classy (and yes, I got up for it but not at 3am!). But oh, the hats. The strange exotic weirdly-positioned did-they-look-in-the-mirror Alice-in-Wonderland hats.

I love that we brought with us from Ye Olde Countrye the English Common Law, cask-aged ale, tea (earl grey hot) and the tune for "God Bless America," but thank all the gods of whatever flavor and denomination there may be that we did not import the British worship of hats on important occasions.*

I mean, Aretha's at the inaugural was humorous enough but can you imagine the respect the U.S. would have (not) commanded if Dubya had had to flaunt the c'boy hat at every formal event? Yikes!

*Disclaimer: I have NO DOUBT that all MY British friends and acquaintances would have had far far better taste.

This week I got to do the following:

* Spend several many hours with my six-year-old nephew (he can spot a police car six blocks away and says very firmly that we are not allowed to manipulate (!) his words -- such the vocab!)

* Play "I spy with my little eye" with nursedarry's six-year-old twins (Me: "I spy with my little eye something yellow." Twin 1: "Is it [twin 2]'s bogeys?")

* Hang out with my supremely smart/talented/interesting brother and introduce him to the movie District 9 (in exchange he introduced me to Dead Silence, which cements my belief that clowns and ventriloquist's dummies are CREEPY AS HELL)

* Go to my half-sister's wedding (she's six months pregnant, so when the minister got to the part about "Will you accept any children God sends you?" somebody shouted, "It's a bit late for that, isn't it?" and we all fell about laughing)

* Have lunch with a friend from high school whom I have not laid eyes on in about 30 years (we're, um, wider and grayer than we used to be, but still had lots to talk about)

* Spend a couple of hours with my 92-year-old grandmother (who still goes to her French Club and walks every single day, I should be so lucky when I'm 92)

* Do happy hour with a guy who was my boss at Domino's Pizza about 25 years ago (the day I walked in to apply he and one of the cooks were quoting Monty Python; I dropped the next line of dialog and he said, "Excellent, you're hired!)

and finally...

* Take to lunch and get to know cassie_black12 and alovelycupoftea, brought here by nursedarry from across the pond, who are delightful and interesting women, just as nice in person as they are here on LJ

* Adventure to the house of lijahlover, who was kind enough (THANK YOU!!!) to have nursedarry and the rest of us all over along with veritas03 who is not from across the pond but who adventured from the wilds of the American South to be there and who is also lovely in person :) We were highly amused because as we drove up we could see the males fleeing the premises ("Aaaaaagh! Mum's crazy online smut-writing friends are here -- run, run, run!!!")

(Alas, I did have to miss out on Sunday lunch at ladyoneill's house, where I'm sure A Good Time Was Had By All!)

So yeah, week made of awesome :) I could not have crammed in more excellence if I'd bribed the aliens who run the universe personally.

I'm not quite sure what to make of Our Tragic Universe other than that I liked it. It was a bit like a reality show (an actual reality show, not one of those fake ones where everything is scripted) in that the characters and events were incredibly realistic and believable, to the point where you felt as though you were watching real people living their real lives.

This is something several of the characters talk about in the story: the idea of writing "fictionless fiction" or a story so real that it doesn't seem like a story but like real people. The book fits that category, apart from the odd coincidences -- for example, they apparently live in an incestuously tiny universe in which everyone is either related to, sleeping with, or broken up with everyone else. "Meet Bob. Bob used to date Mary, and is Fred's brother. Fred used to date Susan, who is Mary's co-worker and the sister of Al, Bob's boss." That sort of thing. I suppose in real life that's probably not far off, though: Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon demonstrates we're all much more closely connected than we think, and even without that I'm willing to bet that most people have a relatively small social circle, and meet new friends through their existing friends.

Lending additional verisimilitude to the events of the book is the fact that not everything is explained, tidily wrapped up. There are loose ends (what the heck was the Beast on the Moor?!), unresolved emotions, all is left open-ended -- much like real life, it's messy, not neat. And this too is discussed in the book: the idea of a storyless story, in which there are no pat answers.

At least two of the characters are writers, including the main character who is working on a novel, This is supposed to be a no-no in the world of writing, a lazy author's way out. "I have no ideas...I have no ideas...Aha! I will write a novel about how hard it is to write a novel!" In this case, the main character's ambitions to write were peripheral, not the central core of the story but rather a useful vehicle for creating situations where the characters could have philosophical discussions about what literature is, what story is, what kind of meaning we look for in a story. It certainly was not centered on the mechanics of writing, cranking out stories. So it didn't feel like a cop-out at ll.

Despite the loose ends and questions, I felt quite satisfied by the end. Other things it reminded me of: My Dinner With Andre and beer-fuelled late-night college bull sessions :)

For the moment, at least. The Donald is running him a close second, but this complete and utter geyser of stupidity will really take some beating.

Rick Santorum, speaking in New Hampshire, blames "the abortion culture" in American for -- guess what? The failure of Social Security!! Yes, apparently the problem is that American women aren't breeding like rabbits and producing new little taxpayers at a high enough rate for Mr. Santorum. He goes on to say, apparently with a straight face, "We have seven children so we're doing our part to fund the Social Security system." Srsly?? The reason for having children is to create new little cogs in the great consumer machine, whose sole purpose in life is to work and pay taxes and have seven children in their turn to do the same?? Just breed, work and die?? Appalling. I really really hope his wife and children kick him somewhere painful for this colossally ignorant statement.

What makes it all the more funny/terrifying/ironic is that I just finished reading The World Inside, which takes Santorum's viewpoint to its logical, albeit extreme, conclusion. Makes me sick. The solution to the problem of too many people to support is not to create more people. Unless you're Rick Santorum, of course, in which case you buy into the idea that we can consume our way out of any problem.

David Brooks had a terrific column on this very issue last month. He points out that most of what we're consuming today costs little or nothing to consume and creates very few jobs (FaceBook only employs about 2000 people). We are increasingly chasing gadgets to boost our quality of life without adding any value or creating any wealth.

Wealth has to come from somewhere. You have to create it by adding value to something, value that someone else wants and will pay for. Instead, we're only adding value to our own stuff -- our FaceBook pages, our Flickr accounts, and yes, our LiveJournals -- which our friends and family may enjoy but no one will buy.

What this means is that we have to find a new approach to -- or new definition of -- a healthy economy. Double-digit growth and constant consumption won't cut it any more, it isn't the kind of consumption that provides millions of jobs and creates wealth that flows around to others.

And maybe -- just maybe -- we'll get to the point where both parents don't have to work, where we can have a bit less emphasis on acquisition and a bit more emphasis on enjoyment. That wouldn't be a bad trade-off as long as we adjust the birth rate down (are you listening, Rick?) and learn to measure our success in quality, not quantity,

OK, first you have to know that Harlequin has published a romance novel with a librarian as the love interest. The novel is of Harlequin's typical quality. Or lack thereof. Among other gems we have mention of things like "her burgeoning purity."

*koff koff*

But all is not lost!! The brilliant Derangement and Description has summarized the novel (so you don't have to suffer through it yourself) in her latest post, "Terrible romance novels are better with kittehs."

Go. Read. Giggle. Then if you can still breathe, and feel like writing, ArchivesNext is hosting a multiple choices quiz/writing contest to check your burgeoning qualities.

kthxbye

Get your own unique "visual URL" from buzub.com -- you pick out your own unique combination of icons and it's only yours, no one else can use it. Then you put the visual URL on, well, whatever you want: a t-shirt, stickers, your forehead. Anyone who sees it can go to buzub.com and look you up and then get bounced to, well, wherever you want to take them on the web. Your website where you are selling your self-published Great American Novel. Your LJ. Whatever you want.

These are way more fun/cooler than those boring QR codes. I might have to do it just because it's a neat idea. But where would I want to send people?? It would be boring to send them to my business website; on the other hand I don't want to send the general public here to my LJ. Will have to ponder this...

You've always wondered how it got started. Now, the secret is revealed!!

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"The Obsolete Man," starring the small but indomitable Burgess Meredith (try not to think of him as The Penguin).

"I am a librarian! That is my occupation! That is my profession! If you people choose to call that obsolete--"

"Since there are no more books, Mr.Wordsworth, there are no more libraries, and of course, as it follows, there is very little call for the services of a librarian."

"[Y]ou cannot destroy truth by burning pages!"

"You have no function. You are an anachronism...You're a librarian, Mr.Wordsworth. You're a dealer in books and two-cent fines and pamphlets in closed stacks in the musty mines of a language factory that spews meaningless words on an assembly line. WORDS, Mr.WORDSworth. That have no substance, no dimension, like air, like the wind. Like a vacuum, that you make believe have an existence, by scribbling index numbers on little cards...You inject into your veins with printer's ink the narcotics you call literature: The Bible, poetry, essays, all kinds, all of it are opiates to make you think you have a strength, when you have no strength at all! You are nothing, but spindly limbs and a dream."

"I don't care. I tell you: I don't care. I'm a human being, I exist....and if I speak one thought aloud, that thought lives, even after I'm shoveled into my grave."


And then the old man proceeds to show him just what librarians are made of. No wonder this one ranks #8 on the list of Top 25 Twilight Zone episodes. Yay for my chosen profession :)