Marie Brennan's Blog, page 171

A note on the pictures

Since this came up in comments the other day — you should be able to click through on any of the photos from “A Year in Pictures” and get the largest version I have. Actual size varies wildly, since my older photos are often smaller to start with and some of my selections have been massively cropped; some of them will be OMGWTFBBQENORMOUS and others will be not that much larger than what’s posted on my site. But if you want to pull any of them down for private use, feel free. (If you want to use them for some other purpose, drop me a line and we’ll work something out.)

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A Year in Pictures – Cambridge Organ

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I ended up not writing any scenes set in Cambridge for A Star Shall Fall, but I went there during my research trip because I thought I might need to. This organ was in the King’s College Chapel, and as I am a sucker for pretty fan-vaulting, I could not resist this shot.

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Two reminders

1) You have until the end of the month to write a letter to Lady Trent (and get one back)!

2) You also have until next Sunday to bid on these ARCs for Con or Bust. We’re up to $70 for the pair; remember the money goes to a very good cause!

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Proud Member of the Insect Army

“The problem is that the ‘vocal minority’ of insects who make up the new generation of writers don’t scramble for the shadows when outside lights shines on them—they bare their pincers and go for the jugular. Maybe it is a good thing that SFWA keeps them locked up. The newer members who Scalzi et al. brought in are an embarrassment to the genre.” — (name withheld) on SFF.net, during the recent unpleasantness.

I hereby declare myself a proud member of the Insect Army — not a member of SFWA, but certainly part of the “new generation of writers” and unwilling to run for cover when bigotry and stupidity rear their heads in my industry.

And if I’m willing to say that when I am massively phobic of cockroaches and abhor the damn things to the depths of my soul, you know I mean it.

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A Year in Pictures – Random Vatican Tomb

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I don’t even remember what exactly this thing was: a tomb, I think, with a couple of sculptures sitting on top of it, in the Vatican museum. The light on the figure’s side was just really striking.

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A Year in Pictures – Żuraw at Night

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The Żuraw is the old medieval crane of Gdańsk: an enormously tall building with a giant treadmill-driven pulley system inside for lifting cargo from ships. Kyle and I arrived in Gdańsk late at night and discovered our hotel was just across the Motława River from the Żuraw, and so we spent a little while admiring (and photographing) the view. The stillness of the night meant the reflection was absolutely lovely.

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A Year in Pictures – Turtle Seal

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There was a recent Korean exhibit at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Several of the items on display were seals, all of them with turtles on top, and the turtles’ cheerfully grumpy expressions were just adorable to me.

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Books read, January 2014

. . . I forgot to write any of them down.

And now I don’t remember what they were.

Well, so much for that.

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A Year in Pictures – Altar of Sainte-Chapelle

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The upper hall at Sainte-Chapelle is bloody. amazing. Medieval churches used to be painted; this one still is, and its stained glass is an uttery glory. This is the canopy over the altar at one end of the sanctuary.

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A Year in Pictures – Arashiyama Moss

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In addition to the bamboo forest I posted before, the area around Tenryuuji in Arashiyama has some absolutely splendid moss. With the sunlight coming down, it looked utterly like a fairy realm.

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