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[personal profile] steepholm
Another long truancy from LJ. (Thank you for the nudge.) There are reasons.

I'd meant, according to custom, to post pictures from Japan, where I went over Easter with daughter and daughter's boyfriend, a repeat of last year's excellent "once in a liftetime" trip. However, as I connected to WiFi at arrivals in Haneda it was to find that, while I was in midair, the Supreme Court had decided that I was no longer a woman — although, only when I was in the UK, and only for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010. I remained a woman for the purpose of case law and other legislation. This ruling was welcomed on all sides as bringing "much needed clarity", and was followed by a bunch of organisations and institutions, who had clearly been eager for the opportunity, to show just how creative they could be in finding ways to stigmatize, mock, humiliate and endanger trans people.

We had a great time in Japan, and I'd love to say that brooding on all this didn't cast the slightest shadow on the experience of exploring Tohoku. It did, though.

I think that our three days in Sendai, which included day trips to Matsushima Bay (praised by Bashō in perhaps the laziest haiku ever written, but I can't blame him) and the mountain temple of Yamadera (which, being Englished, means 'mountain temple') were particular highlights for me. I'll put some pictures in a future post.
But throughout, I was dreading the Ovidian metamorphosis that would apparently overtake me on touching down at Gatwick. Tiresias is said to have changed sex after accidentally encountering two snakes copulating. In my case the snakes were (metaphorically, I add, in case any lawyers are reading) J.K. Rowling and Kishwer Falkner, one of whom funded the SC case while the other took the decision and origamied its ramifications into something several times their original size.

Anyway, I've no wish to go over that here, either. I did discuss some aspects of the decision and its fallout over on Medium — and you're very welcome to read it.

Overall, this has not been a great year so far. In January my job (along with that of my colleagues in other Humanities departments) was placed under threat, largely because STEM subjects have failed to recruit enough of those lucrative foreign postgrads on which the UK higher education sector depends — a fall-off prompted in turn by the Government's Reform-appeasing decision to place onerous restrictions on such students' visas. The redundancy threat was later withdrawn, but there's a distinct 'never glad confident morning again' mood at my institution, as at others. It's hard to feel valued in such circumstances.

Then, my brother had a major stroke, which has left him (for the moment at least) in a rehab facility, and almost immediatley afterwards my cat died (admittedly she was 18, but still). The roof and top floor ceilings of my house and those of my neighbours need to be entirely replaced, which will be extremely disruptive and necessitate about 5 months of all-over scaffolding, starting this Monday. All of this was happening against the daily background of slaughter in Gaza and elsewhere, a laughably principle-free government at home and a deranged one in the States. So, one way and another I've had better six-month years.

There's plenty of good stuff too, though — and next time I'll be more cheerful!

Hurt/Comfort Exchange creator reveals

Jul. 12th, 2025 05:12 pm
regshoe: Redwing, a brown bird with a red wing patch, perched in a tree (Default)
[personal profile] regshoe
My lovely Kidnapped gift was by [personal profile] sweetsorcery—thank you! :)

I, meanwhile, was pleased to match on The Warm Hands of Ghosts and Laura/Pim again. It's a good pairing for the angsty kind of hurt/comfort where the hurt (of both characters) is bigger and more complicated than the comfort can fix, but it still matters...

A Relapse and a Respite (2411 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Laura Iven/Penelope "Pim" Shaw
Characters: Penelope "Pim" Shaw, Laura Iven
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Feelings, Wrapped in blankets while hurt/sick
Summary:

The flu isn’t quite done with Laura, after all; Pim takes care of her, but she has other things on her mind too.

Garden progress!

Jul. 12th, 2025 12:06 pm
moonhare: farmer bunny (gardening)
[personal profile] moonhare posting in [community profile] gardening
The garden is doing well this year (mostly). We picked a couple of green peppers last week, and yesterday we got a cucumber!

Main garden
Pics! )

(no subject)

Jul. 12th, 2025 11:29 am
skygiants: the aunts from Pushing Daisies reading and sipping wine on a couch (wine and books)
[personal profile] skygiants
lest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.

This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.

84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.

Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.

As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.
jazzfish: an evil-looking man in a purple hood (Lord Fomax)
[personal profile] jazzfish
The paperwork for my credential has FINALLY gone through, so I am actually done with BCIT. Unless I need to get a transcript or something, I guess. \o/

Meanwhile, have some links. Roughly zero percent of these are cheerful.

The culture war is a metaphorical war (for now), but the metaphor is valid makes two points, neither in as much detail as I would like.

One: "We liberals really need to acknowledge that (a) we are in a culture war and (b) we are the aggressors. Racism, sexism, and homophobia have been features of the dominant culture since... well, pretty much forever. We are engaged in a conscious effort to marginalize -- and, if possible, extirpate -- these tendencies, and we are using whatever means we have at our disposal to do so, including the sword of the state."

Two: "...[A] very deep cultural and psychological problem on the liberal-left, which is a pervasive tendency toward various types of Whig history, in which history itself is more or less assumed to move in an inevitable direction, with a sort of vaguely Marxisant or quasi-Christian eschatological faith that in the end the good guys have to win because that’s the ultimate plot line."

I do not, in fact believe that 'the moral arc of the universe ... bends towards justice,' because why would it? Any bending has to be done by us, by people who act to bend it, and in the face of thousands of years of tradition, fear, and resource-insecurity.

San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. ... There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
--Hunter S Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"

Related, I Want No One Else To Succeed: "I've been doing this experiment on classes for the past 10 years and not one class has agreed unanimously because there’s always somebody who doesn’t want someone to have what they have because they don’t think they deserve it."

Also related, [personal profile] rachelmanija reviews Dying Of Whiteness: "[W]hite people perceive their own interest as upholding white supremacy and punishing people of color and liberals. They value this so highly that they are willing to deprive themselves of money, material goods, and even their own lives in pursuit of this goal. And they are doing exactly that: literally killing themselves as a side effect of killing people of color, in a kind of cultural murder-suicide." Erik at LG&M reviewed it some years back as well. His concluding words feel prescient. "Until whites stop preferring to kill themselves rather than admit non-whites as full citizens of the nation, fascism will continue to be a serious threat to the rest of us. And to themselves too, but they will be A-OK with that."

Who Goes MAGA?, a fictitious analysis of various personalities. "It attracts those who mistake confidence for competence, who confuse being loud with being right, who think that admitting uncertainty is weakness." (Also links to Dorothy Thompson's 1941 essay "Who Goes Nazi?", also worth a read.)

And, in case the previous weren't depressing enough: Assuming the can opener of free fair elections and a subsequent Democratic victory in 2026 and 2028: "Will America’s non-fascist party have the will to purge the government of fascists?" In which the FBI is conducting witch-hunts against employees who were friendly with people on the director and deputy director's 'enemies lists'. Primarily concerned with There Will Be No De-Trumpification:
Imagine it is 2028 and Democrat X has won the presidency. Kash Patel will only be four years into his term as FBI director. Dan Bongino is now a career employee of the bureau. The entire agency will be stacked, top to bottom, with Trump loyalists.

Would a Democratic administration have the will to purge these Trumpist elements from federal law enforcement?

I’m pretty sure I know the answer. And you’re not going to like it.

There will be no housecleaning of any Federal agencies; Trump appointees will remain in place despite their commitment to opposing Democratic governance and priorities. There will be no significant rollback of ICE's increased budget and powers.

We have the model for this: Obama in 2008 declining to go after the banks; Biden's appointment of Merrick Garland to fail to investigate the 6 January coup attempt. Hell, the pardon and rehabilitation of Richard Nixon.

Well. Two hundred fifty years was a good run, I guess.

Assortment

Jul. 12th, 2025 04:12 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

Walkouts, feuds and broken friendships: when book clubs go bad. I don't think I've ever been in a book club of this kind. Many years ago at My Place Of Work there used to be an informal monthly reading group which would discuss some work of relevance to the academic mission of the institution, very broadly defined, and that was quite congenial, and I am currently in an online group read-through and discussion of A Dance to the Music of Time, but both these have rather more focus perhaps? certainly I do not perceive that they have people turning up without having reading the actual books....

Mind you, I am given the ick, and this is I will concede My Garbage, by those Reading Group Suggestions that some books have at the end, or that were flashed up during an online book group discussion of a book in which I was interested.

Going to book groups without Doing The Reading perhaps goes under the heading of Faking It, which has been in the news a lot lately (I assume everybody has heard about The Salt Roads thing): and here are a couple of furthe instances:

(This one is rather beautifully recursive) What if every artwork you’ve ever seen is a fake?:

Many years ago, I met a man in a pub in Bloomsbury who said he worked at the British Museum. He told me that every single item on display in the museum was a replica, and that all the original artefacts were locked away in storage for preservation.
....
Later, Googling, I discovered that none of what the man had told me was true. The artefacts in the British Museum are original, unless otherwise explicitly stated. It was the man who claimed to work there who was a fake.

This one is more complex, and about masquerade and fantasy as much as 'hoax' perhaps: The schoolteacher who spawned a Highland literary hoax

This is not so much about fakery but about areas of doubt: We still do not understand family resemblance which suggests that GENES are by no means the whole story.

Brick

Jul. 12th, 2025 05:26 pm
profiterole_reads: (Kings - Jack and David)
[personal profile] profiterole_reads
Netflix's German movie Brick was intriguing. People end up stuck in their building when a mysterious black wall suddenly surrounds it.

I thought the explanation at the end was solid (movies like that tend to either leave you without an explanation or have an explanation so basic that no explanation would have been better).

Matthias Schweighöfer (Ludwig Dieter in Army of Thieves, Jack of Hearts in Heart of Stone) stars in this.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Well... if you're interested in reading a book about how living in an over-privileged Connecticut town is terrible and nobody should ever do it (especially if that's going to intersect badly with their terrible childhood) then this is a book you'll like. I preferred Dreadful - the realism : magic ratio in this book leaned a little too realistic, also, I just do not believe that the only school choices are a. fancy schools for wealthy overachievers that have massively high standards and high stakes testing b. xenophobic schools with very low standards and c. homeschooling. Even if there are no public school options there still have to be artsy fartsy schools for wealthy people who know that their kids cannot do the pressure cooker thing starting in kindy.

Sydney Film Festival 2025

Jul. 12th, 2025 11:24 pm
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[personal profile] littlerhymes
I saw a bunch of movies at Sydney Film Festival, several weeks ago. My favourite was probably The Circle (2000, Jafar Panahi) screening as part of a Panahi career retrospective. He's an Iranian director who has been persecuted, imprisoned, and forbidden to leave Iran at various times, and has won numerous film awards.

This movie is set over the span of one day, starting in a hospital maternity ward and ending in a prison cell, giving glimpses into the lives of women under the Islamic State regime. A grandmother laments the birth of a girl because it will mean her daughter (the baby's mother) is likely going to be divorced by her husband; a young woman newly out of prison tries to secure passage home; a woman tries to secure an abortion; and so on, through all the hours of the day. It's so skilfully directed and so naturalistically acted and shot, each storyline bleeding into the next so simply. Panahi was present at this screening and took questions after the movie (some much worse than others, as is the way with public Q&As).

I also had a great time, in a very different way, with Lesbian Space Princess (2025, Emma Hough Hobbs, Leela Varghese). Princess Saira of Clitopolis, a world entirely peopled by lesbians, must go on a quest to rescue her ex-girlfriend, who has been kidnapped and held hostage by Straight White Maliens. This is a silly, funny and very Australian animation with art in a style that reminded me of Adventure Time. The humour is mostly as obvious and silly as indicated by the names; and the other villain of the story, aside from the incels, is Saira's own lack of self-esteem.

There's some very knowing nods here - there is a "problematic (space) ship", the main character's magical girl moment is straight from Revolutionary Girl Utena, one of the other main character is from a "gay-pop" group who runs away from overwork, etc. This session was introduced at the film festival by the directors, who said "we are two nervous people, between us we made up one confident person who could direct this movie."

I liked The Mastermind (2025, Kelly Reichardt). Set in 1970s against the backdrop of the student protests against the Vietnam war, a struggling suburban dad decides to rob a museum of several artworks. He recruits a few people and so begins a rather terrible heist. This is a slow moving, understatedly funny movie, watching all of his schemes unravel in the most obvious ways.

And I liked Twinless (2024, James Sweeney) - when Roman's twin Rocky dies, he ends up at a grief counselling group where he meets Dennis, who has similarly lost his twin Dean. The two strike up a friendship, with Roman the gruff hockey loving straight guy from Idaho, and Dennis the urbane gay guy. Then the movie flashes back, and there's several very funny and/or devastating reveals. It's structurally interesting and the black humour made my neighbour physically cringe at times with second hand embarrassment.

And then there were 2 movies I straight up did not enjoy. Both were documentaries unfortunately lol.

Tokito (2024, Aki Mizutani) subtitled "The 540-Day Journey of a Culinary Maverick" is purportedly a documentary about chef Yoshinori Ishii, who opened a new restaurant in Japan in 2023 after many years living and working overseas. I say 'purportedly' because this is nothing more than a glossy advertisement. It is beautifully shot, gorgeously filmed, but it is just an ad.

The Shadow Scholars (2024, Eloise King) is a documentary about Oxford Professor Patricia Kingori's research into the world of "contract cheating", focusing on the booming trade in Kenyan writers selling their work to students in the global north. The subject is fascinating and I was so interested to hear from the Kenyan writers - these intelligent writers who are capable of doing the work on their own merit but the credit and qualifications go to the privileged students who can buy their labour, reinforcing global inequalities. However - it's a very clumsy and vague documentary that spends a lot of time on filler interstitials - my god, yet another panning shot of Oxford?
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[personal profile] penaltywaltz posting in [community profile] wipbigbang
I have to make a few unexpected edits, but the final counts for submissions are 219 fics to WIPBB and 45 art projects to WIPRB! It looks like we're going to have plenty for artists and writers to choose from.

Claiming will go live on July 17th, so keep a lookout to the pinned post for links to the summaries! Also, please remember to check the newly updated schedule for the start and end dates of each stage of the bangs.

Neversink

Jul. 12th, 2025 08:40 am
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[personal profile] mallorys_camera


Went sour cherry picking with the fabulous [personal profile] rebeccmeister.

[personal profile] rebeccmeister is (as my beloved Marybeth used to say) a real find. Sparkling, intelligent, humorous, plus she is the change she hopes to see in a completely nonperformative way. In a perfect world, she would live two blocks away from me so that on rainy days, I could race over to her house & watch her retool chair splines. Learn from her example how to use tools!

She wore the coolest dress, too. Its pattern was leaf ants!



The morning had gotten off to an inauspicious start on account of the propane running out before it could fuel the flames necessary to heat the water that makes my coffee.

I'd had to drive up to the Farmcart Coffee pop-up in town, where I splurged on a cappuccino & eavesdropped on a conversation between the ridiculously beautiful barista and two ridiculously beautiful young women, all of whom had recently (and most ridiculously of all) emigrated from the Deep South to fuckin' Wallkill, New York.

Why would anyone emigrate for any reason to Wallkill, New York?

"We're Jehovah's Witnesses," the beautiful barista explained with a radiant smile.

Oh, of course.

Wallkill is actually the center of the American Jehovah's Witnesses branch. They publish The Watchtower here! And also 17 million Bibles every year! Old Testament only. The JWs are not big on the New Testament.

The barista was just so lovely! We chattered about the differences between Italian and Spanish, how the two languages had practically identical grammars but differed in the way they were voiced, Spanish using various accent marks to signify pronunciation, while Italian relies on doubling up consonants—

I remembered then that my very favorite TaxBwana client of 2024 had been a Jehovah's Witness preacher. His house had burned down with all his tax documents. I'd used forensic accounting to rectify them. He was very elegant and intelligent, and we'd had a free-ranging conversation about all number of fascinating things, and it wasn't until the very end of our third meeting that he handed me a card with his JW ID.

Why don't I become a Jehovah's Witness? I wondered for 10 minutes or so.

They're not big on Jesus! They recognize that "infinity" is an impossible mathematical concept, not an architectural template for the afterlife: There is only room for 144,000 in the Jehovah's Witness Heaven. Best of all, they seem to take care of each other! Like if I was a Jehovah's Witness, even now 10 Jehovah's Witnesses would be showing up at the casa to swap out that propane tank! And I wouldn't be late for my meetup with Rebecca.

###

I picked six pounds of sour cherries. This is enough for three pies.

Originally, I had planned to pick enough for BB and me. BB was a talented cook & baker, and each year, he baked three special pies for Flavia, his long-term honey. Sour cherry pie was always the first.

This year, I guess, I will bake a sour cherry pie for Flavia. Though I am an indifferent baker; my pie crust in particular has the texture of shoe leather.

But it's the thought that counts, right?

I'll freeze it until I see her again.

###

It was 91° at Samascott by the time Rebecca & I bid adieu and 95° by the time I got back to Wallkill.

I swapped out the propane tank! Pretty easily! So, I no longer have to become a Jehovah's Witness.

I pitted the cherries.

I will bake my pies today.

###

Afterwards, I sat out on the backporch and read The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories. It grew dark. The fireflies came out.

There is a ghost story I'd like to write for BB though I don't think he'd like it very much.

He never even read Elliot Roosevelt's Motor Car, which I actually dedicated to him.

Back in 2018, I did a lot of canvassing and campaigning for a Congressional candidate called Jeff Beals.

Beals lost—but in the tradition of such things, his "victory" party went on, and I somehow managed to talk BB into accompanying me to it. BB absolutely hated parties! I wouldn't say I love them—love or hate depends on my mood—but I am generally pretty good at them since it doesn't trouble me in the least to walk up to perfect strangers & begin chattering away at them.

The party was in Woodstock.

And BB lived ostensibly in Kerhonksen but really in a remote settlement deep within the Catskills Park that was once called Riggsville—presumably after a 19th century tannery owner.

To get from Woodstock to Riggsville, you have to drive across the Ashokan Reservoir, which supplies New York City with its drinking water.

Twelve towns were drowned to create the Ashokan Reservoir!

Cottages, stores, church steeples, everything!

I suppose they relocated the cemeteries—or at least the ones they knew about.

We drove under a full moon. The reservoir tried to drown that, too! But the weirdest thing was the deer that had lined up along practically every section of the road! I kid you not! Like every single deer in the Catskill Mountains. It was like they had all come out to watch us, and, of course, we had to drive very, v-e-r-y slowly in case one came charging across the road.

Anyway, it gave me an idea for a story...

Suppose the deer were the metamorphosed inhabitants of the drowned villages?

And every four years they turn out to exercise their rights as American citizens to vote?

That would be the story backdrop. Not sure what the actual plot would be.

Except that the story would be called Neversink. There is also a Neversink Reservoir that supplies water to NYC, though we didn't drive along it that night, and what could be a better title about the enchanted inhabitants of a drowned village than Neversink?
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Four books new to me.Two are SF, one is fantasy, one is a mix of both. I don't see anything unambiguously labelled as series works.

Books Received, July 5 — July 11

Poll #33350 Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate by Marisa Churchill (December 2025)
3 (20.0%)

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey (September 2025)
6 (40.0%)

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride (February 2026)
6 (40.0%)

The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick (February 2026)
6 (40.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (6.7%)

Cats!
12 (80.0%)

Eh

Jul. 12th, 2025 09:14 pm
contrary_cal: (Default)
[personal profile] contrary_cal
So, it turns out I am not a fan of Murderbot short stories that don't have Murderbot in them. Oh, well.
beanside: (Default)
[personal profile] beanside
It's Saturday! We decided to switch Superman to today, since we were both still a little hung over from the concert yesterday, and neither of us was excited about being out late. Today, I work from 8-12, and then we have the movie at 1:30, then the MD German Festival for dinner. It should be a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to it.

Yesterday, the person who normally makes calls for the team was out, so I was kept jumping. At any given time, I'd have four or five emails of people to call. I got all of them done, so that's something. Scheduled a lot of people for STAT tests.

At about eleven, my boss thanked me again for helping out. He said he'd depleted his balance of points for our in house recognition system, but when they replenished, he was sending some my way, but he also wanted to do something else. He's trying to decide what. (Money is always a good thing. lol)

Cut for some mental health thoughts )

Tomorrow, I have my Strixhaven game, which is always fun. It's a game light weekend, but that's okay. We're going to actually go. out and do things! Movie! German festival! It's going to be a good weekend, I think.

On that note, I'm going to go forth and get myself together. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

Connexions (27)

Jul. 12th, 2025 10:06 am
the_comfortable_courtesan: image of a fan c. 1810 (Default)
[personal profile] the_comfortable_courtesan
Other hands that might undertake these burdens

Clorinda looked up from the letter she was perusing as Sandy entered the parlour. La, my dear, you are a late riser the morn – or, indeed, might I suppose you did not sleep at home last night? She picked up the little bell upon the breakfast table to ring for fresh coffee.

Sandy scowled at her as he went sit in the chair opposite and helped himself to a muffin.

I will not attempt, she said, to engage you in conversation until you have been fortified.

He scowled but said nothing.

Shortly afterwards came Hector with coffee and hotter muffins as well as a platter of bacon and grilled kidneys.

Clorinda continued to read her correspondence – oh, fie, here are the orphanage ladies go be troublesome yet again, I must go call on Lady Jane betimes so that we may devize some plan to rout 'em – sure I have no engagements this very afternoon –

Most unwonted! Sandy remarked, as he poured himself a third cup of coffee.

– though I go dine at the Wallaces this e’en, to bid farewell to dear Polly Fendersham and Mr Enderby. But my dear, are you now restored to waking consciousness once more, had a thought while reading a letter from Barbara Collins –

They are all well, I hope?

O, entirely, business flourishes, &C, though she misses young Una. But thinking of how well they are doing out of horseflesh over there, wondered if that young groom that fell foul of Blatchett had any notion to seeking his fortune in the colonies?

Sand raised his eyebrows and took a drink of coffee. 'Tis indeed a thought, he agreed. For quite apart from our concerns over Lady Isabella, I have come to consider that Blatchett may come to wonder what else young Oxton might have seen – even he might find a guilty conscience preying upon him from time to time – and take further measures.

La, Mr MacDonald, did you ever essay the Gothic mode? But that is a point well taken.

Let us not dilly-dally, then: I must to the godless institution this morn, but may take myself into Berkshire and Offerton’s stables to sound Oxton out later. 'Tis no great journey.

Clorinda nodded. 'Tis the wisest course. And you may mention that there is a philanthropic scheme for aiding such deserving young persons to emigrate

There is? – Clorinda smiled – Ah.

So that was one piece of good work dispatched, or at least, well in hand, so early in the day, very gratifying!

But she must look into the matter of the orphanage – alas, dear Dumpling Dora Pockinford had been sadly distracted of late – even had the Honble Simon pulled round from those shocking ways of which the Pockinfords did not speak but of which Clorinda had heard from Josh, that had prevented the boy from laying violent hands upon himself, it must fret a mother that he was now going so distant, and doubtless she imagined all sorts of perils. 'Twixt that, and first Aggie and now Thea showing religious leanings that were anathema to Lord Pockinford’s Evangelicalism, that family was not at its most harmonious. And her deputy, her daughter-in-law Lady Demington, only very lately returned from recovering her heath in Harrogate.

'Twas no wonder matters were somewhat awry!

So Clorinda gathered up the necessary papers – the Matron at least was a good businesslike woman! – and had the horses put to the carriage to take her to that quiet and unfashionable but perfectly respectable neighbourhood where Lady Jane had her apartments, adjacent to those of Amelia Addington. Looking out of the carriage window, Clorinda saw signs that these streets were coming up, 'twas no wonder, were convenient for a deal of matters.

Nick Jupp handed her down, and said he would take the carriage round to the King’s Head and tend to the cattle there –

And I hope you will tend to yourself and take a mug of ale or so!

She was rather surprized, on entering Lady Jane’s sanctum, to find the place in a considerable bustle of company – there was Janey Merrett, and Amelia, and, why, Viola Mulcaster – 'twas quite the family gathering –

But also, over at the pianoforte, that Lady Jane was finding her fingers rather too stiff to play herself these days, but that Janey came to play to her quite frequent, Zipsie Rondegate and Thea Saxorby.

Lady Bexbury! cried Lady Jane, beginning to rise, as Clorinda besought her not to do so. I have a rare treat brought to me the day. Lady Rondegate has been rehearsing Lady Theodora in dear Grace’s settings of Sappho’s lyrics – lately turned 'em up among some papers sent from Nitherholme – Miss McKeown had copies –

But how charming! said Clorinda, taking a chair. One must suppose that dear Viola must have had somewhat to do with this – showed very well in her, when one recalled her own disastrous history with those songs, as a very young woman just out in Society.

Zipsie waxed very effusive about the songs, to Lady Jane’s perceptible gratification. O, she said, I must have been in some concern that they would be considered sadly old-fashioned – not to mention the work of an amateur hand

Not in the least, declared Zipsie, showed 'em to Uncle Casimir and he wondered was there any other compositions of hers surviving.

That was praise indeed!

So after some preliminary exercizes, Zipsie and Thea commenced upon the recital.

O, though Clorinda, that one might prevail upon Thea to perform at one’s drawing-room meetings, if not at a soirée. Such a voice. Not, perchance, these songs – mayhap somewhat unsuited to the taste of the present day? – one supposed Thea was ignorant of the life of the poet –

Tears were running down Lady Jane’s face, a most unwonted event.

Amelia Addington was an actress, and capable of keeping in character whatever disasters were going forward on stage or in the wings or even was there a riot in the audience – yet to Clorinda’s eye of old acquaintance, there seemed an air of – of distress?

The song became silent.

O my dears, said Lady Jane, blowing her nose, you have given me a great gift. I never thought to hear those songs again, and you performed them exquisitely.

Clorinda stood up and said, did not wish to be uncivil, but saw that they were about to engage in deep musical converse, and collected that she needed to talk to Miss Addington about a drawing-room meeting, might they step aside for that?

She drew Amelia out into the corridor, where the actress sank her head onto Clorinda’s shoulder and burst into tears.

Dearest Amelia, she said as she put an arm about her, you should not think that she loved who His Grace always refers to as that jealous Billston hag more than you – she remembers, doubtless, happy times of youth but that is very much about those years –

O, sobbed Amelia, it is not that. It is that I think of how ephemeral my own art is. I strut and fret an hour upon the stage –

Things were very bad was she quoting the Scottish play! Clorinda made certain gestures learnt in her youth backstage.

– and 'tis gone. Mayhap a critic will remark upon me in a newspaper, that will then wrap fish.

And you have taught a deal of generations of other actors. I daresay in Sydney there is Orlando Richardson saying, Addington did thus and so – I remember how Addington directed this scene – you will never come up to Addington in that role –

She gave a weak giggle.

– in New York I daresay Charlie Darcy reminisces, though careful to add that of course, his wife is in a very different style – would that one might see the pair of you together on stage –

Amelia mopped her eyes and blew her nose. 

– And one dares imagine that in heaven the great dramatists gather round and debate the rival virtues of your performance and that of Mrs Siddons in their great roles.

You flattering weasel! she exclaimed.

Is it not a vocation to bring those works to life?

The two women embraced and Amelia said sure she was being very foolish. And mayhap the late Miss Billston had had a pretty talent but she had led poor Lady Jane a sad dance – jealous scenes, and then getting up flirtations herself when they went into Society – and making a deal of her poor health –

Clorinda stroked her hair and said that Lady Jane had been young – only just coming into the understanding of her nature – in maturer years she had made a wiser choice –

She will even say as much, Amelia admitted. Let us go in, and make sober compliments to the performers.

They discovered Lady Jane quite exhorting Lady Theodora to consider upon the Parable of the Talents – and what is that fine passage from the Bard that you are wont to quote, Lady Bexbury, about not concealing our virtues but letting them shine forth?

Thea was blushing, and murmuring that mayhap she should think upon that.

So Clorinda went away, having agreed upon a further rencontre to talk orphanage, feeling that that had been an agreeable occasion and that mayhap Thea would come about to let her virtues go forth of her.

And now there was going to dine with the Wallaces, that had been wont to be an entire pleasure but had been constrained for many months by the louring presence of Lord Fendersham.

However, on her arrival she was greeted with positively giddy glee by Sir Barton and Susannah Wallace, as well as Bobbie and Scilla, conveying the very happy news that Fendersham was finally ceasing to be the prodigal father and returning home to take up his responsibilities.

Has been all day about settling various of his affairs – his valet about packing – takes a morning train –

So even though we are saddened to have dear Lady Fendersham going away for who knows how long, said Susannah, flourishing her lorgnette, we cannot be other than merry at this prospect.

Well indeed, thought Clorinda, wondering how it had come about. Had been quite unable to fathom how she herself might contrive such an end!

Later that night, darling Leda giggled and said, la, did Clorinda take a pet that some other hand had wrought this?

At which she laughed herself and said, was heartily glad that there were other hands that might undertake these burdens.


(no subject)

Jul. 12th, 2025 08:34 am
scifirenegade: Wheat Field with Cypresses (van gogh)
[personal profile] scifirenegade
Finished reading Gay Berlin yesterday yay!

I'm just gonna say, one does not need to time travel there. Or travel to Berlin point. What happened there in the late 19th century-early 1930s is the same that's happening everywhere today. History is a circle, for better or for worse (mostly worse).

And speaking of circles, I never fully read Conrad Veidt's Wikipedia article because some sources seemed iffy. But good to know that, thanks to unpublished correspondence, some of Connie's belongings (cigarette case and lighter) are at the Margaret Herrick Library, plus the notebooks a fan gave to Lili. Hopefully they won't be burned.
sholio: heart in a cup of tea (Heart)
[personal profile] sholio
I wrote another Murderbot 1x10 episode missing scene.

Echoes (gen, 2500 words, Gurathin-centric)
Summary redacted because of spoilers; basically Gurathin's POV on some of the events of the finale.

A few notes on the fic (spoilery for both fic and episode):
under here• I kept tweaking Gura's final line to Murderbot, so it might be a bit different if you read an earlier version. (I felt like I needed to soften it from how it originally was. They are hard to write! Especially keeping their edge when they're so soft in the final scene.)

• We know Murderbot has trouble figuring out what it's feeling, but I also think it's very plausible that Gurathin has the same problem, if not as badly. He's repressed so much for so long. Asking himself to identify exactly what emotions he's feeling is something that some therapist or other taught him to do.

• This is not necessary context for the fic and it's entirely subject to interpretation, but what I was thinking when it wrote it is that Murderbot using "its" for augmented humans in its last line of dialogue to Gurathin is actually MB doing roughly the same thing (except more emotionally positive) that Gurathin is doing in the episode of the show where he's arguing with Mensah and calls it "he" and then corrects himself to "it." It's over-identifying and doesn't even realize that it's doing so; I mean, it's worried about Gurathin, obviously, and that's why it's here, but there's also a certain amount of "we are the same kind of creature" going on here, even though it doesn't realize it's relating to him on that level. It knows that he might have damaged himself with the data overload because it also knows that it might damage itself in a similar way, and he has much less storage to handle it. And it's just kind of subconsciously being concerned about him as it might be concerned about a fellow construct, or itself, having taken damage. Of course neither of them parses all of that consciously.


In other events, Terrible Temperature Troubles Flash Exchange revealed gifts tonight! I got two absolutely delightful gifts - An Official Complaint Against the Universe (Babylon 5, Vir & Londo, hypothermia and h/c) and Consequences of Cold (Biggles, Biggles/EvS, snuggling when chilled). I loved them!

And finally, [community profile] hurtcomfortex author reveals were tonight. I wrote Sleepover (MASH, 1700 words, Margaret POV) with huddling for warmth and light comfort after nightmares.
veronyxk84: (Vero#s11spuffy)
[personal profile] veronyxk84 posting in [community profile] 100words
Title: Evil Lightbulb
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing: Spuffy
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some coarse language
Word count: 200 (Google Docs)
Setting/Spoilers: Set post-S11 (comics) in an alternate reality where Buffy and Spike are an established couple.
Summary: Spike wants to fix a flickering light in the basement.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Prompt: #047 Shadow + #283 Piece of Cake + #356 Double/Triple Drabbles [Amnesty XLV]

Crossposted: [community profile] sweetandshort, My journal, Sunnydale After Dark


READ: Evil Lightbulb/Double drabble )

choir stuff

Jul. 12th, 2025 12:58 am
kareila: Ariel in human form, regaining her voice (ariel)
[personal profile] kareila
Got an update from our chorus manager today.

The search for a new chorus director is still getting organized and won't be done until late in the calendar year. They've decided to let the orchestra's associate conductor act as the interim director for our fall performances (B9 & Messiah). He was already going to be conducting the Messiah anyway.

Turns out the reason Carmina Burana wasn't included on the symphony's concert schedule is because we're inexplicably doing it with the local ballet organization instead. Interesting.

We've also been told to pencil in a possible one-night performance in late February, but not what it might be. So there's at least a slim chance we might still do something this season that I haven't already done at least 3 times before. We had earlier been told that we would be involved with The Polar Express, but then they decided to do Muppet Christmas Carol instead.

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