Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Bird watching special
I wonder what sort of finch this is? I can't find it in my California birds book. First time visitor!
Sunday, June 17, 2018
Review: The City Born Great, by N. K. Jemisin (Old People Read New SFF)
James Nicoll, the SF reviewer extraordinaire, has had a long running web blog series in which young people read old SF and review it. Spoiler: The results were, generally, that young people did not see the restless beauty and godlike mastery in 40s, 50s and 60s science fiction that we oldies, who read it as it came out, were wont to see in it. They often saw Hugo-winning work as sexist, ludicrous and stiff.
So James has initiated a series in which old people read new (online accessible) SFF. I was going to say, to see if older people feel a similar generation gap, but come to think of it, he hasn't actually said that.
I am one of the old people. In this first post, we are reviewing N K Jemisin's The City Born Great.
Read the story at this link (but don't read the website's introduction until afterwards!) and then read our old farty reviews at this link.
If you want to read the older Young People Read Old SF reviews, they are all at the same website. And very informative they are too.
So James has initiated a series in which old people read new (online accessible) SFF. I was going to say, to see if older people feel a similar generation gap, but come to think of it, he hasn't actually said that.
I am one of the old people. In this first post, we are reviewing N K Jemisin's The City Born Great.
Read the story at this link (but don't read the website's introduction until afterwards!) and then read our old farty reviews at this link.
If you want to read the older Young People Read Old SF reviews, they are all at the same website. And very informative they are too.
 |
| Illustration for the Tor website publication by Richie Pope |
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Medusa's Ankles, a short video with Jason Isaacs
The legendary Jason Isaacs, in a short (20 minutes) adaptation of an AS Byatt short story, Medusa's Ankles. As usual, he's great, but as usual he's not the hero so his character falls disappointingly short in morals, ethics and intelligence.
His smarmy hairdresser is certainly miles away from his ruthless, coarse Zhukov in Death of Stalin (which I forgot to review here), but he's just as compelling.
Alas, the last scene (without Isaacs) is disappointing. I checked the original text, and it's what she wrote - basically boils down to "Oh, your new hairdo...you look beautiful. Why didn't you do that before?" I preferred the meek tiger she was before. But we can't blame that on Jason. (Or on Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), who directed it.)
MEDUSA'S ANKLES from MEDUSA'S ANKLES on Vimeo.
For those of you who missed Death of Stalin, here's a taste of Jason Isaacs as Zhukov. It's an odd little film - a lot of moral questions with no answers - but superbly acted and directed.
His smarmy hairdresser is certainly miles away from his ruthless, coarse Zhukov in Death of Stalin (which I forgot to review here), but he's just as compelling.
Alas, the last scene (without Isaacs) is disappointing. I checked the original text, and it's what she wrote - basically boils down to "Oh, your new hairdo...you look beautiful. Why didn't you do that before?" I preferred the meek tiger she was before. But we can't blame that on Jason. (Or on Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley), who directed it.)
MEDUSA'S ANKLES from MEDUSA'S ANKLES on Vimeo.
For those of you who missed Death of Stalin, here's a taste of Jason Isaacs as Zhukov. It's an odd little film - a lot of moral questions with no answers - but superbly acted and directed.
Wednesday, June 06, 2018
Cementgate - the Operation Backyard Brawl Hobo Camp
The latest Qanon-style conspiracy theory: A group of armed men has discovered something that looks, to normies, to be an abandoned hobo camp but is actually a major child-kidnapping and torture site linked to Pizzagate, the Rothschilds, the Clinton foundation, Da Joos, cement (cement? yes, cement) and the spirally-triangular symbol that seems really important to people like this but I've never found out what it is.
The police and a cadaver dog checked it out and, yep, it's a hobo camp. But to the Veterans on Patrol people, that's just evidence that the cover-up goes all the way to the top.
More info (and I don't recommend you doing this unless you have alcohol to hand) at Twitter hashtag #OperationBackyardBrawl
The twitter thread spelling this all out is by JJ McNabb and starts here:
Threadreaderapp doesn't seem to be unrolling for this thread, so you have to actually go to Twitter and read it, how 2015 is that.
This JJ McNab seems to be an interesting twitterer...
The police and a cadaver dog checked it out and, yep, it's a hobo camp. But to the Veterans on Patrol people, that's just evidence that the cover-up goes all the way to the top.
More info (and I don't recommend you doing this unless you have alcohol to hand) at Twitter hashtag #OperationBackyardBrawl
The twitter thread spelling this all out is by JJ McNabb and starts here:
There's a one-sided standoff shaping up in Tucson, Arizona. A group called Veterans on Patrol, headed up by a guy who has never served in the military, found an abandoned homeless camp.— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) June 5, 2018
This JJ McNab seems to be an interesting twitterer...
Walmart and detention camps
Talking of conspiracy theories, remember this one? For years, right wing conspiracy theorists have claimed that various Walmarts, which have been suddenly closing 'for plumbing repairs', are in reality being taken over by FEMA, who are turning them into detention camps for patriots.
FEMA, as we all know, branched out into less existentially threatening disasters, with results that I'm going to characterize as 'mixed', though I'm sure if you lived in New Orleans or Puerto Rico you'd be less polite. It runs a lot of simulations to check how well it would respond in a real emergency, and these simulations themselves lead to conspiracy theories - because in a fake crisis, you obviously have to employ 'crisis actors' and once you've got them on the books, what other things are they going to be used for? (Nudge nudge wink wink.) The military also run training simulations, and nothing makes patriots more suspicious than soldiers running around in America. A combination of a black president and the Jade Helm 15 military exercise led to much outcry that the military was getting ready to round up good old boys and stick them in...Walmarts. They'd be aided and abetted by Chinese troops who would be outfitted with gear and arms stored in...repurposed Walmarts.
Obama, although remaining sinisterly dusky, did not lock up all the patriots and now we have a new president. We also have hundreds of missing refugee children and several hundred newly separated refugee children. This week we have a US senator trying to get into a supposed detention center for the newer refugee children in McAllen, Texas, housed in a... Walmart.
Look at the Jeff Merkley video. Pretty similar to the one above (minus the apocalyptic music), no?
Addendum: The camp admits it is real: http://www.4-traders.com/WAL-MART-STORES-4841/news/Wal-Mart-Stores-Southwest-Key-Programs-regrets-denying-Sen-Merkley-entry-26731183/
1. Project 908 https://bit.ly/2JxBtkE
2. FEMA https://www.wired.com/story/the-secret-history-of-fema/
3. 2015 Jade Helm 15 military training theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Helm_15_conspiracy_theories
4. 2015 Walmart closure theories https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walmartyrs-to-the-cause/
5. 2018 Children's detention center claim https://twitter.com/JeffMerkley/status/1004182037132136449
Friday, June 01, 2018
He say you Blade Runner
I'm back from LA. I forgot to post the last photographs, so here they are.
When I say I'm "back from LA", I live sixty miles away. To many folks, that's *in* LA and I'm one of them Califurnians with the Hollywood and the city with no 'there' there. Before I moved to the US, when I wrote for advice on living here to a Californian writer, lo these 30 years ago, he said he lived in SF and LA was "the eighth circle of hell". Or maybe seventh or tenth but you get the picture. Anyway, sixty miles is a lot. I live in a town of (according to the city limits sign) 35,000-ish people, which is smaller than the town I was born in. It has open spaces, lots of horses, and a community website filled with people who have lost cats and people who are berating them for not taking care of their pets properly.
Person 1: Help! I've lost me cat.
Person 2: You should take more care of your cat.
Person 3: Oh no I've lost muh cat plz find him
Person 4: You useless excuse for a human, how dare you lose your cat!
Person 5: Ma dog's gone missing.
Person 6: Fuck you, subpar dog owner! Don't you know there's coyotes about!
Person 3: I found mah cat,,,thanks every bod
Person 7: Don't lose him again you feckless maroon.
Person 2: I saw a coyote or maybe it was your dog at the end of the street last night.
Person 7: Here's 65 numbers for the police, animal control, agricultural extension, mayor, sheriff, vector control and dogcatcher. I've phoned them all about the rabid coyote attacking dogs at the end of your street and we should all call constantly until something is done about the coyote menace that's causing us to cower in fear in our own homes like prisoners in a world gone mad.
Person 1: I've lost me cat again. Come back little kitty I love you.
Person 2: You should be guillotined and your head displayed on a stake you vicious pet-losing animal. Your kind is worse than Hitler.
And so forth. The topic changed abruptly yesterday because someone saw a girl at one of the communal swimming pools wearing a thong, so she wrote in to tell us that we should stop destroying our children's lives by forcing them to see women's bodies at the pool, in Southern California. Not surprisingly there's been a bit of a backlashette about her opinion. Right now it's up there with the electric company's eminent domain grab of some of our prime real estate, the reactions to the guy who wants to build a farmers market on a plot of unimproved mud near the town center which will increase traffic and no doubt cause poltergeists and werewolves to break out all over town, and the guy who wants to house the town's homeless people in the empty toilet-flush factory that closed down a couple of years ago. Lost cats are temporarily put aside for such momentous matters as these.
Anyway, it's sixty miles from LA. I took a taxi down from LAX once, several years ago, and the taxi driver got increasingly agitated as we entered Orange County, and became almost alarmed as we got to south county. Eventually, he blurted: "Why do you live all the way down here?!"
Silly me, I had thought that LAX was "all the way up there" and where I lived was "right here". Glad he put me straight.
While I was in LA, you may recall, I visited the 3rd Street funicular, Angels Flight. A couple of streets down from there is the Grand Central Market, and next to that, the very much photographed and filmed Bradbury Building.
I know the Bradbury Building best from Blade Runner. At the time of filming it was run-down, and Ridley Scott added creepiness and running rainwater to make it look even more desolate. It's been completely refurbished and looks stunning today. I don't know what the Grand Central Market looked like when Ridley Scott was scouting locations back there in the early eighties, but right now, it looks exactly like the LA street scenes in the movie, except for less Tik and Tok moving through the crowds. The woman who said, "Not fish scale - snake scale!" is definitely there, as is Taffy Lewis and his scummy burlesque. (At least in spirit.)
You may recognize the architectural details at the top of this theater from Blade Runner as well. It's across a full-size street from the Bradbury Building, so I don't think Roy Batty could have jumped it in the rain, however superior he was to us humans.
Inside the market, there's every food known to man.
No, I didn't use the photo of the Pupuseria with you in it, woman who looked aghast that I was taking photos. I might use it later, but I'll blur you out, promise.
Thai guy on the boil at the Sticky Rice shop. I had a great red curry, and STB had a wonderful sea-food soup and a chicken something-or-other. It was too good for us to keep notes.
Thai guy's pots, a lovely still life vista in the bustle of the market.
After that, it was back down south, to whyever the heck we live so far southsville and our exciting neighborhood website. I'll miss you, tenth circle of hell!
When I say I'm "back from LA", I live sixty miles away. To many folks, that's *in* LA and I'm one of them Califurnians with the Hollywood and the city with no 'there' there. Before I moved to the US, when I wrote for advice on living here to a Californian writer, lo these 30 years ago, he said he lived in SF and LA was "the eighth circle of hell". Or maybe seventh or tenth but you get the picture. Anyway, sixty miles is a lot. I live in a town of (according to the city limits sign) 35,000-ish people, which is smaller than the town I was born in. It has open spaces, lots of horses, and a community website filled with people who have lost cats and people who are berating them for not taking care of their pets properly.
Person 1: Help! I've lost me cat.
Person 2: You should take more care of your cat.
Person 3: Oh no I've lost muh cat plz find him
Person 4: You useless excuse for a human, how dare you lose your cat!
Person 5: Ma dog's gone missing.
Person 6: Fuck you, subpar dog owner! Don't you know there's coyotes about!
Person 3: I found mah cat,,,thanks every bod
Person 7: Don't lose him again you feckless maroon.
Person 2: I saw a coyote or maybe it was your dog at the end of the street last night.
Person 7: Here's 65 numbers for the police, animal control, agricultural extension, mayor, sheriff, vector control and dogcatcher. I've phoned them all about the rabid coyote attacking dogs at the end of your street and we should all call constantly until something is done about the coyote menace that's causing us to cower in fear in our own homes like prisoners in a world gone mad.
Person 1: I've lost me cat again. Come back little kitty I love you.
Person 2: You should be guillotined and your head displayed on a stake you vicious pet-losing animal. Your kind is worse than Hitler.
And so forth. The topic changed abruptly yesterday because someone saw a girl at one of the communal swimming pools wearing a thong, so she wrote in to tell us that we should stop destroying our children's lives by forcing them to see women's bodies at the pool, in Southern California. Not surprisingly there's been a bit of a backlashette about her opinion. Right now it's up there with the electric company's eminent domain grab of some of our prime real estate, the reactions to the guy who wants to build a farmers market on a plot of unimproved mud near the town center which will increase traffic and no doubt cause poltergeists and werewolves to break out all over town, and the guy who wants to house the town's homeless people in the empty toilet-flush factory that closed down a couple of years ago. Lost cats are temporarily put aside for such momentous matters as these.
Anyway, it's sixty miles from LA. I took a taxi down from LAX once, several years ago, and the taxi driver got increasingly agitated as we entered Orange County, and became almost alarmed as we got to south county. Eventually, he blurted: "Why do you live all the way down here?!"
Silly me, I had thought that LAX was "all the way up there" and where I lived was "right here". Glad he put me straight.
 |
| Angels Flight on 3rd Street, where we left off |
While I was in LA, you may recall, I visited the 3rd Street funicular, Angels Flight. A couple of streets down from there is the Grand Central Market, and next to that, the very much photographed and filmed Bradbury Building.
 |
| (c) Google |
I know the Bradbury Building best from Blade Runner. At the time of filming it was run-down, and Ridley Scott added creepiness and running rainwater to make it look even more desolate. It's been completely refurbished and looks stunning today. I don't know what the Grand Central Market looked like when Ridley Scott was scouting locations back there in the early eighties, but right now, it looks exactly like the LA street scenes in the movie, except for less Tik and Tok moving through the crowds. The woman who said, "Not fish scale - snake scale!" is definitely there, as is Taffy Lewis and his scummy burlesque. (At least in spirit.)
 |
| Bradbury Building entrance |
 |
| Bradbury Building's superb iconic look |
 |
| STB in the Bradbury hallway |
 |
| Bradbury entrance |
 |
| Bradbury Building's cage elevator |
 |
| The building opposite the Bradbury |
You may recognize the architectural details at the top of this theater from Blade Runner as well. It's across a full-size street from the Bradbury Building, so I don't think Roy Batty could have jumped it in the rain, however superior he was to us humans.
Inside the market, there's every food known to man.
It can be hard finding a spot to sit. I'm not surprised Deckard had to wait in the rain until he was beckoned over by the stall-holder.
No, I didn't use the photo of the Pupuseria with you in it, woman who looked aghast that I was taking photos. I might use it later, but I'll blur you out, promise.
Thai guy on the boil at the Sticky Rice shop. I had a great red curry, and STB had a wonderful sea-food soup and a chicken something-or-other. It was too good for us to keep notes.
Thai guy's pots, a lovely still life vista in the bustle of the market.
After that, it was back down south, to whyever the heck we live so far southsville and our exciting neighborhood website. I'll miss you, tenth circle of hell!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
LinkWithin
