Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 113

Happy New Year

I spent most of my free time in December working on the two books due to come out next year. One project is pretty much complete, though I keep having second thoughts about it -- not the fiction, but the essay and the interview. I really prefer to speak behind the mask of fiction, rather than directly with my own face visible.

Patrick says the essay and interview are both good. Maybe I should trust his opinion.

Now I have to go back to the other book and give that manuscript a final look.

Oth...

Deadlines

I have two deadlines in December. One is for a chapbook collection of some of my writing, part of series of chapbooks being done by a small press in the Bay Area. A darn fine small press. Thus far, they have published chapbooks by Terry Bisson and Kim Stanley Robinson.

The chapbook editor apparently likes my fiction contribution as is. I just finished updating my 2004 Guest of Honor speech at Wiscon ("Writing Science Fiction during the Third World War"). The editor likes the new version of the...

Quote for the Day

This from Viggo Mortensen, with whom I fell in love while watching The Lord of the Rings:

As Howard Zinn has often pointed out, history told from above -- from the standpoint of generals and kings and presidents -- encourages passivity, a sense of helplessness. In this version of history, "great men" make history, not ordinary people. But looked at from below, history has another lesson. Whenever change as happened, it has been through protest, dissent, struggle, social movements, ordinary...

Two Quotes for the Day

From the progressive webzine Common Dreams:

Tales of the recession (by Abby Zimet): After Princess, as her father calls her, got laid off, she applied for hundreds of jobs, to no avail. Then she turned, not altogether unhappily, to the streets.

"Don't tell daddy this, but he's really the reason I'm doing this," she says. "We could almost squeak by on my unemployment and his Social Security, but Medicare don't pay all his medications anymore. I can't let him die because I couldn't afford his...

More Thankfulness

In the interests of not being a churl and grouch, I am going to continue being thankful --
for the sunlight on the red brick buildings across the street,
the National Geographic photo of the day,
the astronomy photo of the day,
a picture of a feathered dinosaur which I saw on Daily Kos this morning,
for the essay I have almost finished, and the other writing I am working on,
for Patrick and our home, full of lovely things to look at,
for friends and relatives,
...

Thanksgiving II

Pat just gave thanks for the Internet and flash drives, because he has a lot of videos by the South African musician Johnny Clegg, which we can play later. According to Pat, Clegg is an accomplished Zulu dancer. Petty good for a white guy born in England.

I don't know anything about Zulu dance styles, but I will enjoy the Clegg videos.

Clegg's bands are interracial, which was illegal when he first began playing. His music combines Western and Africa musical forms and instruments, English and Z...

Thanksgiving

Patrick and I just got up at 10 a.m. We are fiddling around the kitchen, heating English muffins and making coffee. Patrick began to make a list of things to be give thanks for: our health and having a home and lovely things to look at. He then put on an Albany River Rats baseball cap and gave thanks for American Hockey League teams with great team logos. He said he'd put on a Hersey Bears cap later.

The coffee's hot and tastes pretty good. A cd by Madeleine Peyroux is on our new Bose radio/c...

National Geographic Photo of the Day

The photo today is labeled Blue Lagoon. The steam rising suggests this is the famous Blue Lagoon in Iceland. So here the photo is, since I love most things Icelandic, though not the bankers and politicians who did so much damage to the Icelandic economy.

Morning in November

I got up late today, at eight. It's a gray, misty morning. We had no coffee in the house, so I went to a local coffee shop to buy half a pound of beans. Now I'm back home, listening to classicial music on the new radio.

I will check the usual websites for jobs, then think about what to do next.

Meteors

Two comments from a thread on FireDogLake discussing hunger in America and the Leonid meteor shower currently taking place:

Crystal clear here in central Texas. Much ambient light makes it about 2 visible meteors every 5 minutes. Still very cool...

For us household income is down by more than half in the last 5 years. Both of us are under-employed and now, because of age, that is irreversible. Health insurance costs forced a choice late this year and now one of us is uninsured. Both of us are w...