Arisia Panel on Glassblowing techniques - 16JAN2011

Well, I thought it would be good to have a netbook at Arisia so I could upload notes to a blog.  I didn't manage to get to many panels, but here are my notes on glassblowing.  Not edited.  The panelists hid their name tags, but I recognized Suford Lewis, so she's the only one quoted here by name.

Mainly, I got the impression that glassblowing could get very painful.  Shards of broken glass endangering others.  Cuts and burns for the glassworker.  Expense. Always the danger of your piece blowing apart, cracking as it cooled.  Good for a violent-artistic temperment.  Also good for the geek, as Suford says near the end.  Chemist/Artist.

There did seem to be a simple less expensive path, not involving kilns etc. The old fashioned kind I suppose I remember from childhood demonstrations.  I'm sorry I missed the lecture on Renaissance Glass given the day before (when I was wandering the hotel looking for Zoe who turned out to be camouflaged in a corner of FastTrack where I kept returning and not finding her...)

Rough notes:

hot method
rebuilding furnace could take a month.
crucible: bricks and castable material. could take up to a week?month? to get going again.
natural gas, propane, newer electrical furnaces
own studio vs sharing: let someone else maintain equipment So expensive to run. Not practical to have own. Also not 'green'.
10 am to 10pm heavily utilized community studio.
teaching facility.
"renting studio time"
glory hole = furnace in which you heat the glass
friendliness generous
We Fusers are smallest group (Suford Lewis) at edges of really popular techniques. kiln formed.
$60 per hour NY vs $100 per month 10 year ago subsidized by state
innovations driven by 'can you top this' more than any other craft fields.
hot-head torch. $20 DeVardi - Imported Indian Glass. Sell soft glass gorgeos colors, $5/lb good to play with.. . 1 lb bottleof mat pro gas. $8/tank. spectrally correct safety goggles. metal sticks called mandrils. clay called beaded. marvels = graphite to play w/ . tungsten at craft store.
cool down slowly with vermiculite in coffee can.
Compatibility.  How many know about glass compatibility?  You can't take any cool looking glass, broken stuff etc.  Things need to expand or contract at same rate.
COE=coefficient of expansion
need to match or your stuff falls apart.
For kiln work use 90 COE or 96 COE. Can't mix.
With kiln work you do everything flat.  Then finaly last fireing is at lower temp, the slump, where falls into shape.
people on e-bay sell you stuff w/ wrongly labelled COE. Find out when falls apart.
Window glass is 72 COE. Cheap, good for practice pieces.
Soda lime glass 96 COE for furnace work.
goh josh melts his own blues & other colors but most people buy.
whether piece survives has to do w/ shape and what you're making.
solid paperweight more stable than something thin w/ different thicknesses.
Annealing beads in vermiculite ok.
Giraffes that are not continuous could be more difficult.
Slow cool down is essential.  If temperature too different in different parts of piece, then changes size at different rates and crack.
oxypropane torch and bar-silicate
Test COE by fire bead where full-fuse between 2 glasses.  View w/ normal polarized sunglasses and view the microfractures.  Haze arond the
Blow thin bubble with known and new glass.  If stable then same COE. If not then not. (pop or squish.)
96 glass by Bullseye are consistent. "insane about " QA.  Their freely available from the website handbook 7-10 part PDF is very useful.  Section 5 is bible for fuser. Guideline.  YOU stil need to calibrate the kiln.
kiln=annealing oven
"We wind our own annealing coils."
Suford: "I bought a used kiln." full sized 28" diameter kiln. I started w/ published recipes.  Things got overly melted or didn't go to full fuse. Spent ~ 4 months comparing pyrometer, what kiln was doing, until I developed recipes for my kiln that worked the wayI wanted it to.
Kilns are long-lived and not fussy but each seem to... most important that temp the same all around.
Ruth had flaky analog kiln that needed changing every 15 minutes. Partner built a digital controller for it.
Question on WArm Combing techniques: Heating glass up enough to move. Glass in kiln, fuse, once reach liquid state...I don't want to spend $200 on a graphite comb.
Suford: ONe of the joysof group studio is being able to buy such equipment. Fun to play w/ but didn'twork for my style. KIndof like a rake. Asbestos gloves. Going over bull fuse. Never take glass > 1750 F.  Fusing 1450-1550.  To do this techniqueyou ned 1650.  Manipulate colors on very soft fluid surface.  Hard since it is all glowing red at that superheated state.
Lamp work. Glass blowing. Fusing.
Safety:
1) Goggles. Dihelium spectacles for lampwork. Emission spectra of heated
2) If doing .. need goggles for different spectra.
Some rely on peripheral vision, but very dangerous. Could lead to macular degeneration.  Also glass shatters and tiny shards fly all over the place.  Need goggles.
Also, expect to get burned and cut.  If that freaks you out, don't touch the medium.
Piece of red-hot glass shooting down your shirt.
Salem State has semester class. Somerville open studio coming up, too.
powdered stuff or enamel, need mask.
If you're generating particulates, you should wear a respirator.
powdered glass fusing onto metal substrate.  or directly onto hot glass.
Brass will do sparky terrifying things, but embed it into glass and get cool 3-d effect, bubbles, amber color.
Suford: be very careful incorporating non-glass into glass. Can fall apart.
Mi: Cu is compatible. e.g. josh simpson's copper baskets into which he has blown glass.
Won't work with iron. will crack.  Try google search.
Zinc pennies in glass not good.  NOt good to heat Zinc anyway.  I know someone who encases them into paperweight, but the piece can explode. Also Zn is hazardous.
Bathsheba Rosen with computer controlled 3-d files, astronomical,microbial, uses lasers to create microfractures inside glass block.
Suford: similar technique w/ controlling glass bubbles in block.
Deep depressions or even small, trapping little air as possible because it will expand.
Then add another piece of glass on top to trap the bubble.
Textured surfaces of some glass that is sold for trapping bubbles too.
Roll hot glass in Baking soda, burn it off.
COLD WORKING AND SURFACE DECORATION
Vase sample.
Step 1: made a shiny vase.
Step 2: masking material called buttercut. Drew oak leaves and laid oak leaf mask.  Used sander to edge away non-masked material.  Shiny leaves on rough background.
This technique could be used with mirror or window glass.
Photo-sensitive resist. Dry image. Scanned, photoshopped. Sandblast a photographic type image on your piece.
There is also glass that will make a reddish or amber color when exposed.
People etch beads or use copper painting for electoforming.  PUt painted copper with chunk of Cu in solution run electricity through and get Cu deposits. "electroplating gone mad." gnarly.
Suford: Edgings, tack fuse.  Using color-metallic pens you can write w/ then fire.  Chemical etching. Jars of armarage(?)  Contrast of shiny texture andmat.
STAIN GLASS COLD WORKING OPTIONS
Glass grinder - motor w/ spindle, wet setup-sponge touching edge of cyllinder.
smooth the edges or contour just right.

Bizarre extreme shapes or mosaic - get a glass bandsaw.  diamond. wet.
$300/machine $100/replacement blade

Blown glass piece.
grinding wheel to grind mark off bottom. PUnte attachment.  She tries to make them beatiful so don't have to come off. She put an insulating button on this vase. tucked in.
Josh Smpson glass downstairs is all ground and polished.
Pointing - where when it melts a little flows into sharp point. Grind through and put into kiln again to smooth where polished.
Beads
millini=millefiore like designs
you build a rod so that when you cut disks out of it, each has the image. e.g. fractal ferns. LIke with fima-clay.  Or get a mandril=thin steel rod with ...
It's cheaper to learn it in College.  e.g. MIT has faculty and staff glass-blowing classes.
Suford: Glass is the most wonderful medium for someone who wants to do artistic expression but also wants to be geeky about it.

picking dandelion leaves by flashlight after 9pm

That bunny has me really well trained.  If I go outside, then come back in without dandelion leaves, she looks disappointed.  So I go out again to collect some.

Zoe says that Chestnut is really an alien spy sent to learn about human beings.  The aliens are learning quite a lot.

The Bunny Beach, by Rafaela Zeballos (Age 6)

One day my bunny got too many walks. She was super stressed out. I wished that there was a bunny beach. There weren't any where I lived. And, also, there were too many dog beaches. There were dog beaches that could hold more dogs than there were in town. And some dog beaches didn't have any dogs, because there were too many dog beaches.

So, I decided to make a bunny beach. We took an airplane to Washington D.C. and we talked to the President! And we said, "There needs to be more bunny beaches. There are too many dog beaches."

So, the President said, "OK. I will pass a law that a quarter of the dog beaches will become bunny beaches. And there shall be no dogs allowed on those bunny beaches. So the bunnies can be safe."

So, the President called up his architects and the architects took down the sign for the dog beaches and said they were bunny beaches! And, also, they made a sign that said:

BUNNY BEACH
No Dogs Allowed.

So, I brought my bunny over to the bunny beach. And there were a lot more bunnies! We had a lot of fun. I played in the waves and made sand castles while my mommy watched the bunny and played with her and shared spinach snacks with her.

The End

zero landfill plants

Subaru has a sponsorship plug on NPR where they boast that all Subarus are made in "zero-landfill plants". I keep thinking that when you buy a new Subaru, you open up the trunk and there are all the scraps that they couldn't throw away. With that image still in my mind, the plug goes on to say that "Love: It's what makes Subaru a Subaru". And I think that their customers would have to love them to put up with that, and I'd much rather have a car that was made by great engineering.

It's still not as bad as the plug for Saab, which says: "Saab: Move your mind.."

And I think, "....Because this car ain't going anywhere."

Click to lie

Adobe keeps wanting me to update my version of Flash. When I click to do it, it displays a long, hard-to-read agreement and wants me to click the box that says I read and understood it. Somehow, that's the box I'm not ready to click, even though I ignore these sorts of things all the time and just click through to get other software I want. What are the legal implications of this World Wide Dishonesty? Does anyone but Richard Stallman care?

Harvard-Dartmouth vs. Yale

The late great Mark Ellis Gordon, father of my childhood friend Barbara Gordon, maintained that the holiest day of the year was the day of the Harvard-Dartmouth football game. The second holiest day was Yom Kippur. In the year when the two collided, he did take Barbara to the game, though he wasn't happy when Barbara told her grandmother about it.

As a grownup, I've often heard about the important Harvard-Yale game. Nothing about Harvard-Dartmouth.

Mr. Gordon attended Harvard in the early 1950's or late '40's. Is there something in sports history about Harvard vs Dartmouth in the 50's? 40's? 60's? that would explain his POV?

frog in the bathroom

There was a frog in our bathroom this morning. Zoe found it hiding behind a jar of conditioner. It was tiny. It looked like one of those plastic frogs that glow in the dark, or have a push-pin at the bottom so you can attach them to your clothes. This one crawled. The kids took it to school in a portable terrarium. I hope it survives. Rod has been searching on the web and he thinks it is a spring peeper, the smallest NH tree frog.

bunny in kitchen, photos

I really need to find the flash camera.

the bunny seems happier in the kitchen, now

She's used to the family.  She sniffs at everyone's sneakers, nibbles on some of them.
I'm told she got caught under the 'fridge yesterday.  But she obviously got out.  I'm curious if she's sufficiently intelligent not to do that again.
She looks less like a tribble, more like an overgrown caterpillar.  Then she'll hop out of caterpillar and be quite a rabbit again.
She's cute, doesn't mind being patted, and makes us laugh.  Fulfilling a pet's function.
Last night, when I got home, there were PVC pipes leaning against the garage door. Rodrigo says he'll use them to construct an outdoor pen.  Cheaper than pressure-treated wood, and safer if she chews on them. Goes his reasoning.

the bunny wants to jaunte

She'll be quiet and still in one corner of the kitchen.  I'll turn around and she's someplace else.  I know she can jump onto the Rubbermaid storage box I had once thought would block her escape to the rest of the house.  I haven't seen her jump up.  I walk away, hear a thud, and there she is on top of the box with a helpless bunny "How did I get here?  This place is interesting.  I don't think I could ever get off" look to her. But, once, when I reached to pick her up, she jumped off the box, back onto the kitchen floor, without effort or harm.

I can't get over the impression that we have a small alien prisoner. She wants to teleport. She wants the power to turn invisible. Someone should write a story about hyperintelligent bunnies who can do these things. For now, she is dissatisfied with life. But where else should she go?  To hide in the backyard until a hawk or fisher cat eats her? We will build a pen for her, an outside pen. We will. That may cheer her up.

She is so not a dog. At most she is like a cat in that she is aloof. She tolerates being picked up and patted. She will sometimes walk up to me and sniff at my sneaker. She is very curious. Sometimes. She is also content to lay about resting for long stretches of time.

She is cute and soft. I feel affection for her. This weekend, I was alone in the house with her, and noted that she did have the calming, cheering influence of a pet. The girls are thrilled with her. When they Skyped me, they asked me to get the bunny so they could see her. She huddled in a corner, not wanting to socialize, but I scooped her up anyway. Her life's purpose is to be cute for my children. You're on, Chestnut. Time for your closeup.

Chestnut.

Meet Chestnut?

Someone bought all four of those fluffy white bunnies, but the bunny lady has another, younger bunny. Zoe and I like that this one has brown eyes, not pink. She's only 7 weeks old. The fluffy white ones were 12 weeks old.  Somehow, we've already named her Chestnut, even though we're not sure if someone else will grab her first.  We think she's awful cute.

RoRo says she looks like a tribble with feet.

bunny on the brain

I saw these bunnies on craigslist and I want one.
I resisted the dog for good practical reasons.  We might cave on the bunny.  Its fluff-to-trouble ratio is looking highly favorable.  Lower vet bills, less drama.   Kipling never wrote about giving your heart to a bunny to tear.

botany and prepositions

A few sprigs of chives have sprung up through the poison ivy next to the sidewalk outside my office building.

Literal truth just begging for symbolism.

not a sequel, not a prequel, 1984.1?

Is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead a parralelquel?

Has anyone written a parralelquel about a guy who monitors the 2-way TV's in 1984?  He probably works in a cubicle among many.  His life is probably not too different from Winston Smith's.  My guess is there are folks now with similar jobs in nursing homes or prisons.

They must have some rules as to what kind of activity to report.  Probably lists of boring rules, with jargon.  I bet there's official jargon, for reporting activity, and slang that the monitors use for joking about the people they're forced to watch all day and night long.  I mean the 1984 folks, particularly, but I imagine it exists to some extent in real life.

I remember a high-tech day care center that would give parents a secure URL/Web address so they could watch their kid from their PC at work.  It is a reassuring feature for guilty/worried/lonesome parents.  But with some disturbing implications.

decent weekend

Saturday skating with Rafi.
Sunday Avatar with Zoe.
Got past page 100 in #1B1T and read some 21st century Ray Bradbury too.
Monday managed to swim before work.
O.K. Now work.   :^)

Rafi's haircut

First off, she looks adorable with it.  She was already adorable, and beautiful, but sometimes, as the day wore on, she looked... well like she could use some attention to her hair. 

Second, I've wanted her to have a short hair cut for years because

• I thought it would look good because she always looked great with her hair tied back. 
• Half the time she is off to school before anyone brushes her hair.  By the time I see her Friday night at Aikido her hair is often a disaster.

Third: I did not trick her the way my mother tricked me.  When I was 6, my mother asked me in a bright voice:  "Would you like a pixie cut?" and that sounded so magical I said yes.  I didn't know it would mean cutting my hair off.  I remember crying in bed that night missing my hair.  In defense of my mother, when I look at my first grade photo with the pixie cut I must admit it's a lot cuter than the 2nd grade photo of me with longer hair.

Remembering the pain of that pixie cut, I did not use trickery.  I used propaganda.  I asked Natalie to cut my hair short first.  Then I asked Rafi, "Do you want a short hair cut like Mommy?"  Rafi said "Yes!"  And her hair cut came out even better than I expected.  I'm amazed at how cute she looks.  She's pleased with herself.  That's the best part.

I, alas, don't look as good with a pixie cut as I did when I was 6.  No photos until it grows out.

Fourth:  Propaganda may not have been needed.  She had already taken a scissors to her own hair a few weeks earlier.  She wanted her hair cut.

As to donations, yes I would like it if it went to a child who could use it.  We'll measure it and send it off if it is 12".  I am too much an animist to send my 6-year old daughter's precious talisman of a braid to wipe up nasty oil spills.  My hair clippings, fine, but they've gone up Natalie's vacuum cleaner already.

on route 3 south this morning...

A pickup pulls in front of me in traffic.  It's a large olive drab Nissan Titan.  If it gets into an accident, will the police report be titled "Crash of the Titan"?

milk and sugar with that?

Years ago I weaned myself from loving cream in coffee down to only liking skim milk.  Now I find even half-in-half makes coffee undrinkable.  Whole milk, on the edge.

• really great coffee is great black and wrecked by sugar.
• somewhat bad coffee is drinkable only with sugar
• really bad coffee is undrinkable
• some great but strong coffee, such as some espresso, is improved by milk
• some mediocre coffee is best with both milk and sugar
• turbinado is the best sugar for coffee
• sometimes turbinado adds flavor to bland tea, but white sugar is better in mate or mate with tea

cheesecake is easy!

I baked a surprisingly good cheesecake last weekend, and it was rather easy.

I mainly followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for "cheesecake cockaigne", though I left out the sour cream topping, and that was just fine with my husband, kids, and me.

The crust was supposed to be graham cracker, but I couldn't find any when we started this, so we ground up oat-flake-cluster cereal with corn flakes. (The kids had fun squishing the crumbs in the cereal bag, by rubbing a mug over it.)  Then I noticed that the tub of cream cheese that I thought we needed to use up and thus the reason for the start of the project wasn't full at all--in fact we didn't have enough cream cheese, so we shelved the crumbs until I had purchased more cream cheese and actual graham crackers.

So the crust was about 2/3 ground up cereal flakes and 4 graham crackers--to make 2 cups of crumbs.

I mixed it with just enough slices of softened butter in a glass pie plate until I could smoosh it around the edges into a crust.  Baked it at 350 F while making the cheese filling.
The recipe for graham cracker crust called for adding sugar, but that seemed ridiculous, so I ignored it.

The cheesecake filling was a mixture of whipped cream cheese, regular cream cheese, a bit of cottage cheese and 2/3 pound packet of "neufchatel" lowfat cream cheese.  It was supposed to be one and a half pounds of cream cheese. I'm not sure how close I came to that amount.
The recipe's cup of sugar seemed too much, so I added about 4/5 cup.
Then whipped it all together with the marvelous Kitchenaid mixer (so happy to have purchased one at last!)
I added the 3 "large" eggs, one at a time like the instructions said.
The recipe called for almond or vanilla extract.  Almond sounded better, but I couldn't find any, so added vanilla.  Then a dollop of real maple syrup.

Blended it so that it was mixed and poured it into the pie plate.  Turned the oven temp up to 400 F.  Baked about 40 minutes.

It came out light, fluffy, kind of like a cheese souffle. 

And what remained was still good days later when taken out of the fridge.

Definitely didn't need a sour cream topping.  Would be a nice thing to take to a party.

improvements needed on facebook (or whatever replaces it)

• Allow me to filter out the Virtual World games

I want to know how you are doing. I don't care about your virtual farm or mafia world.

• As soon as you add a friend, you should be prompted for the name of a group.

Everyone is not the same sort of friend. "Friends" belong to different interest and social groups. I like hearing about all my facebook friends. I don't need to remind those in California to go to our town meeting. There are friends to whom I'd like to chat about a Tim Burton-esque moment, and many facebook "friends" whom I would not want to bother with that stuff.

Thus whatever replaces facebook will be something with a natural easy interface for adding friends to appropriate groups, and easily sending messages to groups. Some "friends" would be in several groups, of course.

I should be able to sort them into privately decided on groups. I should also be able to define public names for groups into which my "friends" can sort themselves. All of this should be extremely easy to do and not require me to read directions as to how to do it. It must be intuitive.

When you "confirm" someone as a friend, you should get a popup asking what publicly-defined groups you'd like to be in. For example:

• Margie's Movie and TV Discussions
• Guinea Pig willing to read Story Drafts
• Tell me about the kids. Photos please.
• All the minutiae about your day, really.
• Issues relating to our town's public schools
• People who might buy my sculptures

Democracy makes 49% mad

All this talk of "the people are against this" and this bill is being "shoved down our throats" ignores the fact that there was an election, and a majority of the people voted for the Democrats. Health Care reform was a major platform under which the Democrats campaigned. We got what the majority voted for. That's how democracy works. When I compare expenditure on Health Care to that on a bloody unnecessary war entered into by our previous, Republican, Administration, I'd say the Democrats are wiser at spending our money, and lives.

$5 for a box of summer

California raspberries in February.

Notes on Boskone panel: The Heroine's Journey

The Hero's journey is physical with internal parallel.
Archtypical Joseph Campbell, orphaned baby, foster parents, journey to end in becoming Wise Old King.
Real people make things for work and find a partner and have kids.
Getting Back what you lost.
Isis: Putting pieces of a man together so you can have a baby.
Greer: Girls in labyrinths.  Eilonwy and her bauble.
LeGuin's Tahana irritated other writers to write better.  Wizard of Earthsea vs Tombs of Ituan.
Theme of Escaping constricting female role.
Bujold: Women inherit from mother-in-law.  Go out and stay out.
Ista was stuck back at home.  At 40 she tries again.
Bujold was given credit for writing about a middle aged woman.  Someone in the audience remembered a crack about a 50-year-old heroine entering a dragon's lair:  Is it hot in here or is that just...
Bujold:  Women attract men.  Men defeat other men and get the woman automatically.  That's why men and women are both looking at men.
Bujold:  Not just the guy's story and flip it.  What is woman's power?
Janet Kagan's Mirabile.
Goddesses Priestesses figures, mother role.
Nanny Ogg - Middle Aged.
Demeter--Balbo lifts skirts and dances to make Demeter laugh.
Writing a Woman's Life.
Christopher Broockmeyer's tale of an Action-Adventure Grandmom: All Fun and Games

the best quote I heard at Boskone 2010

was when Verner Vinge said:

That humans will be here in a million years is kind of depressing.  There should be something much better around that we made or that we became.

 It reminded me of how we tell our kids we want them to be better than us, not take after us.

Rafi on the Boskone Badge

The Artist guest of honor at Boskone was John Picacio.  They used one of his cover illustrations for the Badge.  We noticed that the child in the image looked a lot like Rafi.  I tried to snap a photo of Rafi before leaving for the con Sunday morning but ran out of time and didn't manage to get the angle just right.

Edgy Mr Ed

This morning my husband was talking about how prime time television used to have more innocent shows with fantasy elements--like I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, and Mr Ed.

"Mr Ed, a talking horse.  A kid's show in prime time," I said, but then amended,  "No.  It was suitable for kids, but it wasn't a kid's show.  Because Mr Ed wasn't about a talking horse.  It was about a man who was frustrated with his wife and his small town middle class life.  His wife thinks he's a dolt, but he has this talking horse like a superman secret identity superpower."

"I never thought of it that way," said my husband. "He is frustrated with his wife--he probably married her straight out of high school.  The horse is his superman alter-ego.  That would be how to remake the show.  Have Wilbur be obviously psychotic, with Mr Ed just talking in his mind."

That led to whether Slaughterhouse Five should be interpreted as literal science fiction time travel, or as the character being psychotic, or as Magical Realism.

arisia 2010: silver costume

I didn't take many photos at Arisia. Here are two of people I don't know.

Someone needs to reinvent galoshes.

They're practical.  I'm tired of having to change my shoes when I'm running in and out.  There's also the puddle-sock hazard.
The old galoshes and rubbers were difficult to remove.  And they acquired a hopelessly un-Cool reputation.  Someone is going to re-invent galoshes, make them Cool, and make lots of money.

Arisia 2010

Ro helped Rafi with her Kamikazi Kids Pink Sparkle French Princess costume.

Pie helped Zoe with her Kamikaze Kids Phoenix costume.

Unicorn-C sold at the Art Auction!

Commercials we stop channel-surfing to watch

Currently, it's the American Express commercial with the frowns and then the smiles.  If commercials are engaging, sponsors don't have to worry about Tivo.

Four strings, eight dollars.

I bought a "First Act Discovery" ukulele for Hanukah on Sunday.  We gave it to Rafi, but she agreed to share it.  Sunday night, I looked on the web for how to play it.  Found a great on-line ukulele tuner. I wish I could find a similar page for lute.  There was also http://www.theuke.com, which has learn to play in 3 minutes (1 chord) or 4 minutes (another chord), and free sheet music with tablature.  Printed out jingle bells, home on the range, and auld lang syn.  Now we're all set.  Let's see who actually ends up playing it.  If any of us.  Lots of fun, the bit I did.  It did come out of tune after one attempt at Jingle Bells.  Is that normal?

Rafi raisin dog face

What a clever little girl!

600 Credit Cards

Rafi began to memorize The Charge of the Light Brigade, but now she's changing it.

She recites the first stanza straight, and the second one up to "Theirs not to reason why". But then she recites:

Theirs but to do and buy.
Into the Shopping Mall rode the 600.

Food court to right of them
Food court to left of them
Food court in front of them
Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!

Then she collapses in laughter.

I'm not sure if we're going to finish the poem. So far, it has been educational. She has learned the words "blunder", "dismay", and "reply". She has learned the poetic principal of having one Soldier stand for all of them. She's learning how to parody.

She turns 6 next Monday.

my email wants to be Twitter

When I log into my yahoo email, the welcome screen now says:

What are you doing right now?

It provides a line for me to type in the answer.
I'm torn between: "None of your business!" and "I'm checking my email, duhh."

Rafi's latest story

The Girl Annabelle and the Mysterious Boy Named Kevin

By Rafaela Zeballos, Age 5.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Annabelle. And she was very nice. And one day she met a strange little boy. The boy was the same age as Annabelle was. And that day the boy and Annabelle became friends. But there was one thing about the boy that the girl didn't know about the boy. The boy's name was Kevin. But when the boy was just about to tell Annabelle his name, he thought Annabelle would think his name was lame. But he knew his parents always told him to tell people his name. So he took a deep breath and told Annabelle his name. And this is what he said: Hi. My name is Kevin. And the girl said back: Hi. My name is Annabelle. And when they were grownups, they married each other.

The End.

Ogunquit Cell Phone Photos

Along the Marginal Way

Sam and view nearby.

Surfer ready to encounter Bill.

Zoe on a tamer beach.

Questions for Dr Phil

Isn't it traumatic to have one's worst weaknesses exposed on national television? Are a lot of the guests hurt more than helped? Is there a support group for them?

Camping, Lessons Learned

• Bring more towels.
• Figure in a half day to set up and another half day to tear down. (Maybe under 3 hours, if you're good at it.)
• Ideal camping trip is three or four nights. Rodrigo says three nights.
• Have an extra sleeping bag or quilt handy in case it gets cold in the middle of the night.
• You really need to find your swiss army knife before the next time.
• Don't forget pillows.
• Rain entertainment should also be packed. (According to Zoe.)
• The more stuff, the more to sort through to find what you need, the more delay in getting anywhere.
• Having one bag for one category of stuff was useful. E.g. the "medicine cabinet" bag, the non-cooler food bag, etc. Do this with the rest of the items, so you won't lose the bottle opener again. (also see, swiss army knife.)
  

Food lessons:

• The Coleman forks that screwed together to be very long were great for hot dogs. I could cook five hot dogs at a time by holding them in the flames of a wood fire. No waiting for coals.
• Don't use the Coleman forks for marshmallows. They stick terribly. Bring disposable wooden skewers for the marshmallows.
• One packet of hot dogs was enough for one night. And next time remember lettuce.
• Bring fruit. Apples, oranges, grapes--all were good.
  
• The propane burner did come in handy. So next time bring something in which to boil water for tea, and some tea.
  
• Freeze a carton or two of lemonade and put them in the cooler to defrost and drink. That would be more useful than the blocks of melted arsenic-contaminated tap water.
• Food takes up a lot of room. Pack enough for the first night cookout and some stuff to nibble on for breakfast. After the first night, eat out. Or go grocery shopping while there.

family camping on the Cape

I needed to take a vacation before my co-worker went away for a month. I did not want to spend more than the cost of a new Energy Star refrigerator, the item that has been topmost in my future large expenditure plans.

We bought a Coleman Bayside 8 tent for about $160 from Target. It's a roomy 8-person tent that we could stand up in. The four of us could sleep in it with our luggage around us. It wasn't stuffy, like the reasonable small tents I'd slept in before. It would have been nice to have more windows one could see through with the rainfly on, other than the two through the door. With the rainfly off, it is a good screen house. I can envision using it as a refuge from bugs in the backyard. Its best feature is a swinging door, which you can secure with Velcro when you and/or your kids are going in and out frequently. When you're in or out for a while, you can zip it shut like in a normal tent.

Carver

I wanted to visit Plimoth Plantation, so the first night we stayed in Miles Standish State Forest ($14). It was decent, though more of a getaway for the metro-Boston resident or budget-alternative to a hotel than a destination worth crossing state lines for. We were disappointed by trash left around the campground and in our campsite. There was also a lot of electronic noise from fellow campers. We had to listen to baseball until after the supposed quiet time of 10pm. One nice feature was a small pond within view of our campsite, where we could wade or even swim.

Before the trip, I'd looked at websites for different campgrounds near Plymouth MA and on Cape Cod. One of them, "Paine's" in Wellfleet had seemed very snooty. They had families with children segregated into a section separate from the all-grownup parties. After our first hour in Miles Standish listening to whiny and crying children from surrounding sites, I decided they had a point. After my darling child began bawling at the top of her lungs after 10pm, I conceded that our family was no exception.

It takes a while to get used to camping. I woke up in the middle of the night because I was too cold, then was woken too early by five-year-old Rafi. I tried to amuse her with a notebook and pen I fished out of my pocketbook.

"I'll write a story," said Rafi.

"Great," I said, and closed my eyes.

"Mommy, how do you spell 'Once'?"

"O-n-c-e, but I gave you the pen and notebook so you'd let me sleep. Just make up a spelling. It doesn't matter. Please let me sleep."

I closed my eyes.

"Mommy, how do you spell 'upon'?

I was zombie mommy and not in the mood to learn anything. We tubed Plimoth plans and headed for the beach.

Just Off Cape on Dwellable

Brewster

We stayed at the Sweetwater Forest campground in Brewster MA ($32 times 3 nights). It's on a large plot of land that contains a picturesque marsh, sandpit, and pond. There were horses in a privately owned farm in the grounds, but they were not for the campers to ride. There was canoeing and fishing in the pond but not swimming. If you walked out onto the boat dock, you could see large turtles swimming in the pond. I think that's the first time I've seen large turtles in New England, outside of an aquarium.

The campground boasted a miniature golf course, but it was more of a collection of miniature putting greens. No windmill and no kitch--it wasn't proper miniature golf.

The water and electric hookup sites were somewhat close together but landscaped in a pleasant way. The tent/no-hookup sites were slightly more spaced. When we asked to stay an extra night and had to move, we got to stay in the "DLK" site, which was really beautiful--overlooking the pond in one direction and a small playground in another. It was also very secluded. I overheard someone saying "DLK" stood for "David L Klein". A websearch reveals he was a co-owner of the campground, who died in 1996.

We bought a sticker for the national seashore ($45). We went to the Marconi beach and had a great time riding waves in the seaweed. We went to the other two National Seashore beaches in the Provincetown area, but arrived late in the afternoon and found them cold. We drove through P-town with difficulty, and decided we needed to walk or bike there from somewhere else. We looked longingly at art galleries, then drove to the first pizza place on Route 6 that had parking. Very good pizza.

Give Parsons the Emmy

Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series:

First off, it's cool that four of the nominated actors are on broadcast and I've actually seen three of those four shows. Well, I've encountered The Office while flicking channels, but it was way too creepy for me to watch past a few lines of dialogue, so I can't judge on Steve Carell's nomination.

I do enjoy both Alec Baldwin in 30 Rock and Charlie Sheen in 2 and a half men. They're good actors with great comic timing. But the roles they play are relatively attractive and, as the 2-1/2 men song goes, "manly men".

Jim Parsons has impressed me as an actor who is doing a fine job with an exceptionally difficult role. He manages to balance his portrayal of an innocent, egotistical nerd with obsessive-compulsive issues without making the role either too broadly cartoony or too uncomfortable to watch. He keeps it at a light-comedy level, good characterization, and fun to watch. That must be really hard. He deserves the Emmy.

Outstanding Commercial:

My favorite commercial this past year was the Verizon cell phone commercial about a teenager who got an actual but vicious pony for Christmas, instead of a new Verizon cell phone like her two friends,who are shown commiserating with her, along with the Verizon network personified.

That wasn't among the list of nominees.

Readercon Thursday Goblin Fruit Party

At the open "Launch Party" for the poetry e-zine Goblin Fruit, I met a poet Mary Alexandra Agner, who works with satellite technology at Lincoln Lab. I flipped through her chapbook (new word I learned that night) and thought her poetry was rather good, which was a pleasant surprise for I usually have trouble connecting with modern poetry.

Two women played harp and several women sang. It was pleasant and made me nostalgic for lute music.

I heard a publisher of a print magazine Realms of Fantasy trying to coax an on-line author to publish in print as well. She called an e-zine publisher from across the room to her defense of online over old print media. The e-zine publisher was way more inclined to discuss rather than debate. He and the print publisher had an interesting time comparing experiences and business models. That is, I found the conversation to be very interesting and a kind of a continuation of an interview I'd heard recently on Terry Gross with an editor of Wired magazine who recently published a book called Free, about on-line business models.

Then an acquaintance started talking to me, which pulled me away from my shameless listening in. After figuring out how we knew each other, I looked at my watch. 10 before midnight. Way past my bedtime, and I still had an hour's drive home. Sleepiness thus intruded on my vacation Friday, but I think it was worth it.

world's oldest

Prostitution ought to and will some day be a respected profession, with training, certification, professional societies, and a code of ethics. Like lawyers, mental health workers, and clergy, prostitutes will and should be able to provide clients with legally-protected assurance of confidentiality.

And, no, that won't take the fun out of it. Quite the contrary. These are the Dark Ages.

Thursday night Readercon Panel: Character..Breakthrough..Mind

From 9 to 10 the crowd and I were at a panel discussion called: The Origin of Character in Breakthrough of the Mind. It seemed to be on how characters can run away with a story and do things that the author hadn't planned for them in the first place.

The most interesting anecdote on this was told by Peter Straub. He was writing a story about two families. His purpose was to contrast the life of two boys being raised in different trying environments, one rich and one poor. Across the street from one of the boys lived a cranky old man. The kind of cranky old man always yelling at kids to get off the grass. Eventually the cranky old man turned out to have a very interesting past and story. He took over the novel. The novelist talked about having to throw away pages and pages that didn't belong in the story any more, and that his wife complained, "those were the best pages."

Writers talked about the "gift story" that would show up as inspiration. Ellen Hand had such a story occur to her about 20 years ago. One morning she began to think about a woman who saw Elvis. She started writing at 10 am, finished at 10pm, mailed it off the next day, and it was published. She says that these gift stories occur only once in every eight years or so. The young writer Daryl Gregory said that he's still waiting for his.

The moderator Jim Kelly kept referring to the voice of his subconscious that tells him how to write as "the little guy". Soon the entire panel was referring to their "little guy."

The panel ended with responses to a question as to how to silence the inner critic when the critic suppresses your writing instead of helping you improve it. Some talked of the value of deadlines, so you can tell the critic you don't have time to listen.

Thursday night Readercon 8-9pm

So after last year's exhausting day at readercon, I decided to go just to the free Thursday night this year.

(Actually, my natural cheapness was at work. Soon after I started a new job across the street from the readercon hotel, I checked the website for early registration. It was more than early registration for Arisia, and they don't have the whiz bang costumes and movies and special effects to pay for. And I wasn't sure what I'd be up to in July. Early July is usually a hot sunny time when people go to the beach. That hasn't happened this year, but how were we supposed to know?)

At 8pm I went to a reading by Elaine Isaak. She read from an as-yet-unpublished novel. It has an interesting premise, in that the main character is a barber-surgeon from the Middle Ages. Actual magic occurs, so it is fantasy, not historical fiction. I heard some kludgy words in beginning paragraphs, but later the story got more interesting as the main character developed depth. I would like to read what happens to him when the book comes out. Though I know, of course, it's bound to be bad, for you don't want to be one of her heroes.

Around 8:30 I poked my head into the panel discussion on authors talking about reviewing books. One author (Malzburg?) was giving a tribute to a reviewer named Burgess, who'd been reviewing SF books since 1965 and who died two years ago. Maltzburg turned to another panelist, Gene Wolfe, and said: "You know, Burgess called you one of our Greatest Living Science Fiction Writers".

Wolfe replied, "Burgess was very insightful."

That was a great response, and got a big laugh. It seemed a little bit too true in this case, at least to me.

I know that authors need to be egotistical. On the other hand, I gave up after the second book of Gene Wolfe's Torturer series, because it was just going on too long and he didn't move the story forward and he was just too pleased with himself and what he could write. The details of his world were just too gruesome to put up with any more without it moving the story forward at a more reasonable pace. After the first book, I thought he was a great writer and had created a compelling character. I got the second book to read more. After the second, I decided he was too egotistical to be a good-enough writer for me to keep reading him. Of course, he's the famous published author on the podium, and I'm not.

FNX vs BOS

As we were leaving Earthfest, an esplanade concert sponsored by WBOS, I met a young intern from rival station WFNX. He was handing out cards for his station.

Aren't you in enemy territory? I asked.

He said yes, but was there to tell people that FNX was better. I like FNX and said so. I also grinned, called him "sonny", and waxed nostalgic about the early '80's, when WFNX was "The New Music Source".

"We still are" he said.

I reminded him that WBOS had just given us a great concert. He agreed, but said that BOS wasn't a real local station like FNX was.

"They have robots. We have live DJ's. They stole our playlist."

Fine, but, driving to work a couple of Fridays ago, I listened to 92.9 playing FNX music, while on FNX the DJ's were having a call-in as to whether Michael Jackson was going to heaven or hell.

My guess would be heaven, but who the hell are they to pose such questions?

mint tulips taffeta

came in my head this morning before I was out of bed. It's been years since I last read The Demolished Man, but those three words stay imprinted in my brain. Little sensory tastes--sweet, then tragic. A woman the detective liked but could not love enough to marry.

How dangerous is caffeine?

Under the influence of three cups of free coffee and too much sugar, I purchased a duck decoy lamp for my nightstand. Perhaps I should stay out of Building 19.

A gray May Day

Would I be wrong to say to a woman leaving the ladies' room with me:

"Hey, come on. There's swine flu. Please wash your hands."

Miss USA 2009

Flicking channels the other night, I came across the Miss USA contest. I called my five-year-old daughter in to watch. Don't they look like Barbie dolls?

Yes, she said, smiling. They look exactly like Barbie. Except they're a different color from my Barbie. And they can move without someone moving their arms and legs for them.

I had switched on just in time for the finalists' questions. Historically, this has always provided a chance for some amusement. The first one fit the stereotype perfectly. She was asked if Health Insurance should be the right of every American. Her response was something to the effect that in politics, it's less important if you're left or right than that you have integrity. Integrity is very important, she said. It was like Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin: I'm going to ignore that question and answer this one instead.

Next was Miss California, who waffled when asked about Gay Marriage. Apparently she didn't waffle enough, for her response started a mini-controversy that is still in the news today.

The other two actually gave reasonable answers to their questions. I also decided that they were the two prettiest. I hung around until after the commercial to see them come in last. I thought the contestant who gave the non-answer won, but when I look it up, I see that Miss North Carolina won. The waffler came in second. Miss Arizona, the non-answer-giver, was second-runner-up. I don't remember Miss Carolina's question--perhaps it was before I turned on the show. I've tried Googling for it, but there's only blogging about Miss CA.

It reminded me why I stopped watching beauty contests. They keep not picking the prettiest ones to win.

I was also curious why they bother asking the contestants questions. Is the point of the questions to not pick someone who can give a reasoned response, but to make sure you've selected a spokesperson who will avoid answering any political question no matter how absurd she sounds in her non-response? Without having heard Miss Carolina's Q&A, I can't say.

528xi. Try to date this guy.

He played her Sinatra in the Elantra. He maximized his Maxima, bought the ultimate Altima. But even his impressive Impreza failed to impress her.

--You wanna roll in a Corolla? she scoffed.

-Yes, your ass in a Yuris, he insisted.

--Don't cram me in a Camry. I won't sit in a Fit.

-No dice?

--No vice in your Versa. Your Prizm's a prison.

-Wanna Forerunner for foreplay?

--Don't deny me my Denali. Rip my bodice in an Odyssey.

In her Explorer he tore her fedora. He caught his cape in the door of the Escape. But he focussed her in his Focus, ravaged her in a Rav4, humped her in her Hummer, mounted her in her Mountaineer. The priest arrived in his Prius and they were wed. They happily tumbled into their Tundra.

Through the rear-view of her Vue she could see her ex- in her CRX. The tourists in the Taurus waved good-bye.

The slob in the Saab sobbed, Could I date chicks with a Matrix?

The commute's not getting to me. Really. I'm fine.

He looked at us from his Stratus. Our mother drives an Armada.

so not a dog was fed
so not a word was said
so not a deal was made
so not a debt was paid
so not a thing happened
in the Sonata

murtaugh list

Clever idea on "How I met your mother" Monday night: The Murtaugh List, or list of things we're too old for now.

I thought if I typed it into Google the next day, I'd find mention of it. Didn't get a chance to look until today. Found this.

We'd just been talking about the issue the night before seeing the show.

In your thirties, you find you can't get away with stuff you got away with in your twenties. You're not flexible if you don't stretch regularly. You can hurt yourself if you try things you used to get away with. But you're better in a week or two.

In your forties, the damage lasts for months. Or is permanent.

margie catching up with pop culture

There's a song that I thought was by Joe Jackson that I recently read was by Sublime. I googled Sublime, wondering, Is this a new band?
No. They broke up in 1996, after their lead singer died of a heroin overdose. And they sang other songs I've heard and didn't identify as being by the same people.

arisia 08

best lecture I attended:
Effect of microgravity on human body, or how to get to mars without killing the crew.
Very packed with information. Speaker (Dr. Schneiderman) was very well prepared.

best lecture I only made it to the last 10 minutes of:
Artist Guest of Honor Dave Seeley's description of process, on Sunday.
I wish I could have made it to more.

what I like about Arisia:

variety: panels on art, writing, physiology, burlesque

very nice art exhibit. I'm sorry I didn't buy the hand-painted leaves and space shuttle tie.

great children's program--both fast track and childcare kids were very happy with their weekend.
The lady in charge of childcare/kamikaze costuming kindly let the younger child go up on stage with her elder sister even though the costume was a Building 19 starfleet uniform and a lizard hat--not quite a creatively produced costume.

very accepting atmosphere. Lots of people dressed weirdly walking around and everyone smiling.

unofficial motto of Arisia: We embrace the stereotype.

easy & inexpensive polenta?

There's a recipe in The Gourmet Slow Cooker, by Lynn Alley, that says 3 cups water, 1 cup polenta, 1 teaspoon salt--cover and cook on high for 1.5 hours stirring once or twice.

According to a quick internet search, stone-ground corn-meal is ok to use instead of genuine polenta.

If this works, I've found the killer app for the crockpot.

peanut-butter oatmeal cookies

Current recipe--I'm still experimenting. My attempt to make cookies relatively more healthy.

Cream together:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter (natural, i.e. only peanuts)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup orange juice

Combine, and add to above:

• 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Add

• 1 cup chocolate chips (= 6 oz)
  

OR

• 1 cup raisins soaked in orange juice.

Stir in:

• 1-1/2 cups oats

Drop by tablespoons onto buttered cookie sheet. Squish down with a fork.
Bake @ 350 degrees F about 15 minutes.

A long Friday at Readercon

After reminding everybody in my writing group about it last winter, I missed the deadline to register for Readercon at the early-bird rate. Unemployment hit in early May: I decided not to register at the $50 rate. Besides, my family had so much fun at Arisia in January, I knew we'd be going back there next year.

But I thought I'd go to the free Thursday night activities. Only Thursday morning, I was in Wakefield for a job interview. By Thursday night I was too sleepy to drive. I looked at the one-day prices, and the schedule for Friday. It sounded like it could be very informative to just go for that one day.

The next morning I was still uncertain whether to spend the $45 it would cost ($35 for registration, at least $10 in gasoline to drive there). And also whether to take a day away from the job-search.

In the shower, I reasoned: One of my main goals is to write my novels well and get them published. These lectures and panels will probably help me with that goal. Then I should go to it, even though I didn't register in time for the less expensive rate.

My sweet husband agreed to stay with the kids for another day. I drove down to Burlington. The great thing about Readercon, from the point of view of one who has to drive to it, is the adjacent free parking lot. Arisia and Boskone are more accessible from Public Transportation, but that's not really practical from NH.

There was only a short line at registration, so I had no problem getting to the first panel on time.

At 10 am there were two panels that sounded interesting: In Salon F, a talk on the Four Categories of Fantasy, and in the ME/CT room Robert Sawyer was going to talk about his new Web based pilot for the CBC on "SF as a Mirror for Reality", and invite the audience to contribute ideas. Well I'm into Web stuff and new media, but I thought there might be less expert and useful information in some sort of audience participation thing, so I went to the talk on the Four Categories of Fantasy. I've written some fantasy. I might write more. I thought it might be helpful.

The talk was very erudite and literary. The divisions of the 4 categories sounded like a good idea:

1. portal, where normal people enter a panel to a fantastic world, like The Lion, The Witch And the Wardrobe.
   
2. immersive, where the characters live in the fantasy world and see it as normal. Like The Hobbit.
3. intrusion, where the fantasy elements come into the real world, like, Interview with a Vampire.
4. liminal. This is less clear, but seems to me to be one in which the fantasy element was ambiguous. Kind of like things disappearing in the fog when you never do have clear evidence of a monster grabbing them. I think I've seen old TV shows where a character had a particular magic quality, but the magic could also be explained away as coincidence or something. Nanny and the Professor? I wonder if Radar's abilities in MASH would qualify. Even though his skills were based on those of an actual person.
   

But other than that, they lost me. There was a lot of talk with words like "teleological" and so on. I kept trying to pay attention. I kept failing. Do I need more caffeine? I asked myself. Do I need ritalin? Finally, I decided I'd spent too much money to sit it through out of politeness.

I left and went to Sawyer's panel, which was entertaining and interesting. I was sorry I missed the beginning.

At noon I went to a panel on the Sycamore Hill Writing workshop. It looked like a lot of the writers who'd been at least once to this workshop came to Readercon. They were spread out across the front of the room--about a dozen of them. As I'm in a monthly writing group, it is of interest to hear how other groups of writers help each other with writing. The panel was relatively useful in that vein, and amusing in its anecdotes, and in the way the panelists teased and interacted with each other.

At 1pm there was a panel on "Transcending Your Influences." I think it was a good panel because Ellen Kushner was such a good moderator. She kept the participants on topic, and asked them good interview questions: What were your influences? When did you turn the corner in escaping imitation? etc. She had quite a variety of personalities to keep in line, which kept things lively.

James Morrow talked about being billed as "influenced by Kurt Vonnegut" in his early works, and how it got to annoy him. He also said it was gratifying to read reviews of new writers who are described as being "influenced by James Morrow". It's a good sign you've arrived.

I made a note to read something by James Morrow. I like Kurt Vonnegut, and I liked the way Morrow talked.

The 2pm talk on "Consciousness, Free-Will, Evolution" was a live equivalent of the old fashioned speculative essay, with a break for a very interesting 7-minute introduction to Spinoza. The main speaker tied in particle physics and neuroscience for an explanation of subjectivity and consciousness. At the end, I said to the woman sitting next to me, "He lost me pretty early, but it was very entertaining." She agreed.

At 3pm I went to a panel on Writers Groups and Writers. I actually managed to meet someone I knew there--I sat next to Janet, who is in my writing group. The panel there gave some reasonable advice and amusing anectdotes. One member of the panel teaches writing, and has directed plays and written plays and screenplays and stories. I asked her if I should give my screenplay to my regular writing group or find a screenwriting group. She said the format for plays and screenplays is so different that it makes sense to find people who understand screenplays to critique it.

Janet and I compared schedules for the rest of the day. We'd each chosen a different panel for each remaining slot. She was staying in the same room for the 4pm talk on The Influences of Blade Runner. It sounded very intriguing. At the very least, I thought it would be fun to listen to people talk about Blade Runner. But it was given at the same time as a panel called "Objects in the Room may be Scarier than They Appear", which seemed to be about how to write details about objects in stories to give them significance and add to the suspense or creepiness. I don't write horror, but it still sounded more useful in learning the craft of writing. So I decided to go to that instead of to the talk that I thought would be more fun. Wrong decision.

The "Objects" panelists said that an object should only be in a story if it's going to be used, or is very important, for example, in illustrating a character. Fair enough.

My problem is that "illustrating a character" leaves a very large loophole of ambiguity. Dickens will wax on and on about the contents of a character's room, but I know we can't get away with that any more. Nor do I wish to. The panel wasn't able to offer any rules other than to use your instinct to decide on whether to include something. That, and write to the end and then prune out what wasn't needed. Reasonable advice, but I was hoping for more techniques, heuristics, illustrations from actual stories. Illustrations on how to make an object scary.

I'd always thought one of my weaknesses is in deciding how much detail to paint in a scene. So, at the question period, I asked how you find the right level between Dickens and people just interacting in a white nothingness.

The quantity of details Dickens uses is too high, one of the panelists agreed, with some amusing images to back him up.

"But how do you know what's the right amount?" I asked.

"Less is more," they said. "Kill your darlings." Really new advice.

"But I think my problem is the other extreme," I said. "If I write all dialog and no descriptions, should I just give up and write screenplays?"

I'd become a persistent questioner. That horrible annoyance of question periods. Bad Margie. But I'd spent my $35, I was missing the Blade Runner talk, and I wanted to learn something.

Objects, I thought. This panel is on objects in stories. What other advice with respect to objects could they give? So after someone else had a turn, I raised my hand and tried to ask a question that seemed closer to what was implied in the panel's title.

"What about a red herring?" I asked. "Like in a mystery. If there was one object of significance, and you wanted to disguise it among other objects, how would you do that?"

"I wouldn't know how," said one panelist, and they went on to the next question.

For this, I missed a fun discussion of Blade Runner. Janet said she'd go to it. If you're reading this, Janet, how did that go?

At 5pm I went to "A Tale of Two Disciplines" where panelists discussed the joys of connecting areas of study, and the need to fight against the academic bureaucracy's tendency to divide them. Several said they started writing SF as a means of combining disciplines. One of them said the best ideas for sf stories come from combining two disciplines that may seem to be the most difficult to connect.

At 6pm I went to a panel labelled "If All Men Were Tolerant...How would you shock your sister?" In part, I went to hear Celia Tan, whom I've heard give hilarious readings at Arisia, and who has a clear fun way of speaking when on a panel. I suppose I was also hoping to hear something that might be a bit shocking. There was some discussion of the satirycal Obama New Yorker cover. Barry Maltzberg complained that it's just the stupid liberals who can't stand to win, trying to shoot themselves and lose an election that they would otherwise be set up to win. Maltzberg also complained about the Thomas Disch video that was to be shown later that night. That is too shocking, he said. It is too close to his death. It is wrong to take his greatness and pathologize him.

At 7pm I went to "Economics as the S in SF".
The panelists just didn't explain very much about economics or SF. They didn't go deeply into anything, aside from a decent discussion as to what lay behind the monetary system. I was hoping to hear a good analysis of novels like Pohl & Kornbluth's The Space Merchants or hear of new titles and how some novel postulated an economic system or event and created a society from it. Someone asked about The Space Merchants, and they said, "Good example," but didn't elaborate as to why. I wanted to ask them to compare The Space Merchant's society to that of Ursula K LeGuin's The Dispossessed, but what was the point? I don't even think they discussed the John Brunner novel that was in the blurb.

At 8pm there was a small group in a big room listening to a discussion on the personal essay. It was nice hearing the personal situations that led the various fiction authors to turn to the personal essay. (Or, in Judith Moffet's case, to be about to turn to it--she's started to write about the birds and other fauna about her rural home.)

At the question period I asked them to compare the personal essay to blogs. Of course, I had in mind that I like to blog about the sort of topics that would go into a personal essay, but I prefer stories to be in more formal containers.
Panelists praised the formal constraints of a proper essay and dismissed the blog as allowing too much immediacy and spelling errors and lack of editing.

I nodded meekly, thinking, "but I try to edit it." Several bloggers in the audience didn't take it so meekly. Farrah Mendelsohn defended the artistic merit of the blog she had kept for a few years, and the value it had had to her readers and herself. Another blogger had a similar comment. The panelists said, we're not saying blogs are bad, just that they don't have the formal constraints of an essay. Tom Purdon, who was on the panel, said he contributed entries to Asimov's forums, but, as a professional writer, always felt an obligation to carefully edit his words, no matter in what format they were to appear.

I was glad I'd asked a question that got people animated.

At 9pm I went to the panel that was comparing translations from the first page of Zemyatin's novel We. I was glad they had a native Russian speaker on the panel, as well as someone else who had done Russian translations. The other two panelists also had good input as to the philosophy of translating. There was a handout for this talk--a grid in which 4 translator's versions were compared side by side. I wondered which one I had read in paperback from the library years ago--certainly not the most recent one, which, in all but one case, anyway, turned out to be the least favorite.

After that I stuck around to go to the "Meet the Prose" party. It had sounded fun--the authors were going to have sheets of stickers with a line or two from their works. We plebians were to be given sheets of wax paper with which to collect the stickers, and then be able to rearrange the words, kind of like in the refrigerator magnet poetry game.

The start of the party was running late. I watched the awarding of the "Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award" It seemed in line with having a dead guest of honor. This award was to a dead sf writer who'd been forgotten for many years but shouldn't have been, because his work was Really Really Great. Barry Malzberg, in announcing the award, said that it didn't have to go to a dead writer, but that no living writer would want it.

I looked around for refreshments, saw only a cash bar. I wondered what kind of a goyishe definition of the word "party" meant a cash bar and no food. But I thought it would still be fun to get all the stickers and put them together. Then they announced that they had forgotten to obtain the wax paper for us to hold the stickers. I thought, if I'd known, I could have brought some from home. I also thought, don't they have volunteers? Aren't there grocery stores in Burlington? Couldn't they have sent someone out to buy some?

So I walked around collecting stickers. That was fun. It was interesting to read the bit of a story, and sometimes ask the author about an intriguing line, or complement him or her on one that made a pithy or amusing point. I met a few French-Canadian authors who said they wrote in English first, even though they had been raised in French. I had some nice conversations with people. The sticker thing was a good way to get people to talk and mingle.

I only wish I'd had a reasonable place to put them. I started with my plastic badge, but it got full. Then I reasoned that t-shirts often have messages on them anyway, so I started to collect them on my t-shirt. I was hoping that it would be easier to pull them off and re-stick them from the cloth than it would be from paper. People at the party seemed to think it was some kind of wild statement to be decorating my shirt like that. I could only compare this crowd to that at Arisia, where stickers on a t-shirt would be the weakest sort of personal statement.

It seems like Arisia has an unstated purpose as a place for the different drummer types to be able to express themselves in wild exhibitionist ways in an friendly accepting environment.

An unstated purpose of Readercon seems to be to let obscure science fiction writers get together and talk about being writers, and maybe meet some of the few people who are actually reading their stories, and try to sell to them and to the small group of other potential readers. That's fine. Because it also drove home the lesson that even if I achieve what I see as an utterly desired milestone of writing success--a story in Analog, a novel actually in print and in the bookstore--it wouldn't be an amazing Nirvana. I'd just be milling around in that room, with an orange stripe on my badge (indicating "participant") instead of a blue one (indicating "attendee").

Gefilte fish jars and Bonne Maman...

...jam jars have interchangeable lids. Instead of keeping a hodge-podge of glass jars for storing leftovers, we save and reuse just those two types. Thus we have containers for large and small amounts of leftovers, and only one set of lids to match for both. The Bonne Maman jars are fairly pretty, and the Gefilte fish jars are nice once the labels are off. They're good for storage because they go straight down--the mouth of the jar is about the same diameter as the jar itself.

Our sugar bowl is a Bonne Maman jar with a red and white gingham lid.

Leftover tomato-lentil sauce, or green split pea soup, goes warm into a big glass gefilte fish jar and seals well enough so that it can be left in the fridge while we eat something else the next day. I think soups and sauces keeps better in glass jars than they do in plastic ones in the refrigerator.

Glass is easier to clean. Not good for lunchboxes, of course.

Rafi, please pose

Here we are at the Smithsonian Air&Space Museum, trying to get a photo of both girls in front of the Kitty Hawk:



Here's the photo:

Butterfly Video

Video of Rafi in the butterfly exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in D.C. late last month:

Robins CSI

At 1am Saturday Rod heard screeching. He wasted a lot of time looking for a mouse in the kitchen. The next morning we saw the robins' nest near the top of the porch staircase.



At the bottom stair was the remains of one baby bird.





On the step nearby to the area under the porch were more feathers--remains of the 2nd baby?

Rod said if only he'd known, he could have turned on the light and scared the predator away. A day later he said, if the nest was vulnerable, the predator would have just come back, eventually.

The robins had a nest in the same place and raised two broods from it last summer. This brood was the second one of this summer.

Help Iraqi Refugees

parallel universe list

List of phenomena explainable by the existence of parallel universes:

• socks from the dryer
  
• where flies go after you don't manage to slap them
• the amount of sand that can be shaken out of a small child's shoe
  

robins

There's a nest of robins over our porch-door. When we open the door, the parent robin nearly always flies away.

My husband got curious and tried to look at the baby robins by holding up a mirror near the nest. The babies poked their heads out and begged for food.

At what point in their development do birds develop the natural fear of strangers?

Now we love our '97 corolla

A google search for "97 corolla MPG" turns up 35 or even 31 MPG highway for the automatic transmission model.

When I was commuting 40 miles to and from work along I93, I calculated a rough estimate of 37 MPG. On a recent trip to Virginia, my husband said he thought he got 40 MPG. On the drive back, we filled up the tank, drove 84 miles, then topped off the tank. 1.7 gallons brought it back to full.

I admit, when we first got the car, I missed my old zippy '89 Civic (Laguna gold, my first new car.) But now we're very happy with our dull green corolla.

Intergenerational sociolinguistics at the supermarket this morning

The only way to get through the soda aisle was to push my cart between the shelf where a young man was stocking soda bottles and his pallet of bottles.
I waited until a point where I thought it would be the least interruption. "Excuse me," I said, as I pushed my cart through.
"How are you today?" he said without warmth.
Is that what people say now instead of 'excuse me'? I wondered. But I had to reply, "Fine. How are you today?" That's is the minimum response my imprinting considers polite. I found myself saying it as quickly as possible, and not being surprised--though I was still slightly disappointed--when he didn't follow up with the similar minimum 'Fine, thank you'.

I wondered how far 'How are you?' has devolved. Its words haven't yet reached the same artifact status as those in 'How do you do?', which I've often noticed trips up foreigners who understand English but haven't yet learned that it's just a polite phrase spoken at introductions. The only possible verbal response to 'How do you do?' is to repeat (with slightly different emphasis) 'How do you do?'

But 'How do you do?' must originally have meant something like 'How are you?'

At the checkout, I have two cloth bags. They must put the rest of my groceries in plastic. The young woman bagging the groceries asks, "Do you want your milk in a bag?"
"Yes," I reply. "Milk sometimes leaks."
She gives the slight grimace that baggers always give when I make that reply to that question.
I ask, "Did I lose my ecology points for that?"
She asks "What?"
I repeat the question and she smiles.
It occurs to me that using 'ecology' as an adjective in that way places me back in the '70's or '80's. Nowadays, people would use the adjective 'green' instead.

You try arguing with a 4-year old

I see Rafi's eyelids fluttering, so I bend over and give her a kiss.
"Good morning," I say. "You're a beautiful little girl."
"Are we gonna die?" she asks.
I've heard this before. "Not today," I say.
"Not today?"
"Not this year."
"Not this year?"
"Not for a long long time."
"When? In what month are we going to die?"
"Nobody knows. Nobody knows when they're going to die, but I wouldn't worry about it."
"You wouldn't worry about it? Well, I would."

I give up, leave the room, tell my husband. "I can't argue with that."
"'Because I said so,'" says my husband. "People would be happier if they could accept it. But not from their politicians."

polyandry is better for raising children

With polygyny, you have more children than one man can support. With two husbands and one wife, you have no more children than one woman can produce, but you have the earning and nurturing power of three adults to raise them.

Three adults can trade off sitting up with a sick child or a sleepless baby. They can take turns babysitting and let the other two go out for a night of adult entertainment.

From a kid's point of view, there's always a dad to help you with your math or show you how to throw a football. And your mom is probably more cheerful and relaxed than other moms.

This could be a solution to middle class financial stress. For those of us making under $100 grand, it should not only be legal, but encouraged.