Sarah Monette's Blog, page 33
July 17, 2011
5 things, OH MY GOD I'M MELTING edition
1. It is disgustingly hot today. Thank goodness for air-conditioning.
2. Think good thoughts for me tomorrow at 11; I'm interviewing with a temp agency.
3. These caracal kittens are just stunningly beautiful. (Watch the video to see their even more stunning parents.)
4. So I'm behind the curve (as per usual), but I have finally discovered Hyperbole and a Half (origin of "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!"). My favorite entry is probably The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything (it also makes me wonder if alots live in alotments), but The God of Cake is a close runner-up, and the better pain scale made me cry with laughter. (Also, an honorable mention to one of her older posts, "Thing of the Day: Uterus. Rating: NOT AWESOME," for obvious reasons.) But I love the alot. I want to give it cookies, and oh believe me, I will be thinking of it in bad English-usage situations from here on out.
ETA:![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380451598i/2033940.gif)
jenavira
has alertly pointed me toward instructions for making your own alot.
5. And finally, a passage I have had to excise from an essay I'm working on, but which I love so much I have to SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD:
Thank you. I feel better now.
2. Think good thoughts for me tomorrow at 11; I'm interviewing with a temp agency.
3. These caracal kittens are just stunningly beautiful. (Watch the video to see their even more stunning parents.)
4. So I'm behind the curve (as per usual), but I have finally discovered Hyperbole and a Half (origin of "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!"). My favorite entry is probably The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything (it also makes me wonder if alots live in alotments), but The God of Cake is a close runner-up, and the better pain scale made me cry with laughter. (Also, an honorable mention to one of her older posts, "Thing of the Day: Uterus. Rating: NOT AWESOME," for obvious reasons.) But I love the alot. I want to give it cookies, and oh believe me, I will be thinking of it in bad English-usage situations from here on out.
ETA:
jenavira
has alertly pointed me toward instructions for making your own alot.5. And finally, a passage I have had to excise from an essay I'm working on, but which I love so much I have to SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD:
The difference between a murder ballad and a revenge tragedy goes like this. In a murder ballad, Johnny does Frankie wrong and Frankie shoots Johnny; in a revenge tragedy, Johnny does Frankie wrong, and when Frankie goes to shoot Johnny, she misses and kills the brother of Johnny's new girlfriend instead.
And Wacky Hijinks Ensue.
Thank you. I feel better now.
July 12, 2011
real horses, like this nimrod
ME: [rummaging in tack room for ointment to put on a cut on Milo's right foreleg]
MILO: [from the cross-ties] I'm PEEEEEEEEEEing in the aisle, just PEEEEEEEEEEing in the--
ME: [emerging from the tack room like the wrath of god] STOP THAT YOU HORRIBLE HORSE!
MILO: What, me? I would never!
ME: Into your stall with you.
MILO: [plaintively] But I don't have to pee now.
ME: Tough.
[five minutes later]
MILO: I'm PEEEEEEEEing in my stall, just PEEEEEEEEEEing in my stall, what a glorious feeling . . .
ME: [facepalm]
MILO: [from the cross-ties] I'm PEEEEEEEEEEing in the aisle, just PEEEEEEEEEEing in the--
ME: [emerging from the tack room like the wrath of god] STOP THAT YOU HORRIBLE HORSE!
MILO: What, me? I would never!
ME: Into your stall with you.
MILO: [plaintively] But I don't have to pee now.
ME: Tough.
[five minutes later]
MILO: I'm PEEEEEEEEing in my stall, just PEEEEEEEEEEing in my stall, what a glorious feeling . . .
ME: [facepalm]
July 10, 2011
UBC: Pretty Boy
Wallis, Michael. Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. [library]
Unfortunately, as a biography of Pretty Boy Floyd, this is a mediocre social history of Oklahoma in the '20s. It suffers from its author's inability to focus,* which one suspects is at least partly due to the fact that there simply isn't enough known of Charles Floyd's short life to make a 350 page book. Wallis is also a poor hand at organizing his narrative, and he never usefully comes to grips with the fact that almost all of his sources are contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews. Many of the interviews, with family members, are retellings of what Floyd told them, and there is no telling how far away from the truth they may wander--no telling in part because, as I said, Wallis makes no attempt to assess them. Also, he does not footnote, so if a piece of information isn't directly attributed in the text--as for example, the information that after he was dead, police officers cut Floyd's suit into swatches to give away as mementos--there's no way to tell where Wallis got it or how reliable it is.
Wallis also drove me nearly to screaming point with his use of "folksy" imagery. I will quote the worst example:
Actually, this paragraph demonstrates both my major complaints about Pretty Boy: the distracting and irritating writing (there's a passage near the end where Wallis gets into an elaborate and pointless Civil War riff) and the assertion of things Floyd "felt" without any explanation of what Wallis is basing his conjecture on.
Given that Floyd, more than almost any other criminal of his day, was surrounded with legends and that more crimes were attributed to him than he could possibly have committed, I would have liked to see a biography that really wrestled with the question of what we know, how we know it, and where we can--and can't--draw the line between truth and falsehood. But aside from the Kansas City Massacre (Wallis thinks Floyd didn't do it, for the very good reason that it involved a circle of criminals in which he did not travel and was completely unlike his M.O.), Wallis doesn't provide that.
There was one detail that caught me, although again, I don't know what Wallis's source is or whether I should believe it's true. After Floyd died in an Ohio field, his body was handcuffed before being carried to a funeral home in the nearest town. They handcuffed his corpse. Otherwise, all this biography gave me was the desire to know more and to know better.
I finished reading this book because it's the only biography of Charles Floyd out there. But unless you're specifically interested in Floyd, I can't recommend it.
---
*E.g., "One of the wildest boomtowns in the Burbank oil field was Denoya, named for a prominant Osage Indian family but better known locally as Whizbang, after Whizbang Red, a notorious Kansas City madam" (126). This is great, but what does it have to do with Floyd?
Unfortunately, as a biography of Pretty Boy Floyd, this is a mediocre social history of Oklahoma in the '20s. It suffers from its author's inability to focus,* which one suspects is at least partly due to the fact that there simply isn't enough known of Charles Floyd's short life to make a 350 page book. Wallis is also a poor hand at organizing his narrative, and he never usefully comes to grips with the fact that almost all of his sources are contemporary newspaper accounts and interviews. Many of the interviews, with family members, are retellings of what Floyd told them, and there is no telling how far away from the truth they may wander--no telling in part because, as I said, Wallis makes no attempt to assess them. Also, he does not footnote, so if a piece of information isn't directly attributed in the text--as for example, the information that after he was dead, police officers cut Floyd's suit into swatches to give away as mementos--there's no way to tell where Wallis got it or how reliable it is.
Wallis also drove me nearly to screaming point with his use of "folksy" imagery. I will quote the worst example:
Choc [Floyd's nickname among friends and family members] spent those dog days in 1931 laid up in the shade like a smart old hound. He was through with pissing in the wind, and wanted to get back to chasing rainbows. Still, the best rainbows appear only after a storm. Choc knew, sure as shooting, he would have to get through more squalls ahead before he would ever lay his hands on a pot of gold.
(215)
Actually, this paragraph demonstrates both my major complaints about Pretty Boy: the distracting and irritating writing (there's a passage near the end where Wallis gets into an elaborate and pointless Civil War riff) and the assertion of things Floyd "felt" without any explanation of what Wallis is basing his conjecture on.
Given that Floyd, more than almost any other criminal of his day, was surrounded with legends and that more crimes were attributed to him than he could possibly have committed, I would have liked to see a biography that really wrestled with the question of what we know, how we know it, and where we can--and can't--draw the line between truth and falsehood. But aside from the Kansas City Massacre (Wallis thinks Floyd didn't do it, for the very good reason that it involved a circle of criminals in which he did not travel and was completely unlike his M.O.), Wallis doesn't provide that.
There was one detail that caught me, although again, I don't know what Wallis's source is or whether I should believe it's true. After Floyd died in an Ohio field, his body was handcuffed before being carried to a funeral home in the nearest town. They handcuffed his corpse. Otherwise, all this biography gave me was the desire to know more and to know better.
I finished reading this book because it's the only biography of Charles Floyd out there. But unless you're specifically interested in Floyd, I can't recommend it.
---
*E.g., "One of the wildest boomtowns in the Burbank oil field was Denoya, named for a prominant Osage Indian family but better known locally as Whizbang, after Whizbang Red, a notorious Kansas City madam" (126). This is great, but what does it have to do with Floyd?
July 8, 2011
When he stands on your foot, you know you're not imagining him.
First of all, go read Kij Johnson's excellent story, "Ponies." It won't take long, and I promise I'll be here when you get back.
Kij's story is not about real horses, as the story itself makes clear. It's about girls and cliques and about what we are and aren't willing to do to fit in. (I love poor doomed Sunny for saying no.) And it's about imaginary horses.
Many little girls love/are obsessed by horses. I was one of them. I went to a summer camp I hated for four years because they had horseback riding lessons. (Where by "lessons," I mean, "Here is a bored pony. He's going to walk in a circle for an hour with a bunch of other bored ponies while you sit on him. Try not to fall off.") I earned the Girl Scout horseback riding badge. I read the Black Stallion books and National Velvet and everything Marguerite Henry ever wrote. One of my early efforts at story-telling was imagining I had a unicorn friend who would run beside the school bus on long field trips. I had Breyer horses and Barbie horses and random model horses (one of whom had jointed legs--he was awesome). And I had My Little Ponies (which are clearly the ponies in Kij's story).
And none of this had a damn thing to do with real horses.
Let me be clear: as an adult, I love horses. I love my horse in particular, even though he's a complete nimrod. I also love the other horses at the barn, and the horses I see at Midwest Horse Fair, and the horses I only meet on the internet. But they're not the horses I dreamed about as a little girl.
Horses are large mammals. They sweat and slobber, and they poop a lot. They are prey animals, which means almost anything can potentially be perceived as a threat. (This week, Milo--who doesn't spook much, and certainly not at the things you would expect--was alarmed by the saddle fitter's parked car on Wednesday and by a pile of sawed up tree stumps on Thursday. To be fair, the car was parked where there usually is no car, but I'm still puzzled about why the tree stumps were a threat. I once saw his pasture mate, who is possibly the most phlegmatic horse on earth, spook at an abandoned tent. There's no rhyme or reason there that a human brain cam make sense of.) Many of them are greedy, many of them are lazy, and all of them are perverse. And while it is true that a horse and rider can work together beautifully and amazingly, this doesn't happen because the horse has a telepathic ability to know what the rider wants, or because the horse loves the rider so much that he'll do anything to please. It happens because the rider has taught the horse to obey her commands.
Dressage is not a girly sport. It is all about convincing an animal five to ten times your size that YOU are the boss mare. It requires muscle and focus and an iron determination to get what you want. It requires a tremendous amount of skill. And it requires a completely unromanticized view of the horse you're working with. No rose-scented breath or cotton-candy blood here.
Little girls dream about horses who understand them perfectly and love them completely and who carry them uncomplainingly on fabulous adventures. I get it. I still feel the draw, if I'm honest. But (and there's a whole parable about growing up here, and possibly in Kij's story as well) I treasure my real horse, and I treasure the work I do with him. It's a lot harder than what I imagined as a child, but I wouldn't trade it.
Kij's story is not about real horses, as the story itself makes clear. It's about girls and cliques and about what we are and aren't willing to do to fit in. (I love poor doomed Sunny for saying no.) And it's about imaginary horses.
Many little girls love/are obsessed by horses. I was one of them. I went to a summer camp I hated for four years because they had horseback riding lessons. (Where by "lessons," I mean, "Here is a bored pony. He's going to walk in a circle for an hour with a bunch of other bored ponies while you sit on him. Try not to fall off.") I earned the Girl Scout horseback riding badge. I read the Black Stallion books and National Velvet and everything Marguerite Henry ever wrote. One of my early efforts at story-telling was imagining I had a unicorn friend who would run beside the school bus on long field trips. I had Breyer horses and Barbie horses and random model horses (one of whom had jointed legs--he was awesome). And I had My Little Ponies (which are clearly the ponies in Kij's story).
And none of this had a damn thing to do with real horses.
Let me be clear: as an adult, I love horses. I love my horse in particular, even though he's a complete nimrod. I also love the other horses at the barn, and the horses I see at Midwest Horse Fair, and the horses I only meet on the internet. But they're not the horses I dreamed about as a little girl.
Horses are large mammals. They sweat and slobber, and they poop a lot. They are prey animals, which means almost anything can potentially be perceived as a threat. (This week, Milo--who doesn't spook much, and certainly not at the things you would expect--was alarmed by the saddle fitter's parked car on Wednesday and by a pile of sawed up tree stumps on Thursday. To be fair, the car was parked where there usually is no car, but I'm still puzzled about why the tree stumps were a threat. I once saw his pasture mate, who is possibly the most phlegmatic horse on earth, spook at an abandoned tent. There's no rhyme or reason there that a human brain cam make sense of.) Many of them are greedy, many of them are lazy, and all of them are perverse. And while it is true that a horse and rider can work together beautifully and amazingly, this doesn't happen because the horse has a telepathic ability to know what the rider wants, or because the horse loves the rider so much that he'll do anything to please. It happens because the rider has taught the horse to obey her commands.
Dressage is not a girly sport. It is all about convincing an animal five to ten times your size that YOU are the boss mare. It requires muscle and focus and an iron determination to get what you want. It requires a tremendous amount of skill. And it requires a completely unromanticized view of the horse you're working with. No rose-scented breath or cotton-candy blood here.
Little girls dream about horses who understand them perfectly and love them completely and who carry them uncomplainingly on fabulous adventures. I get it. I still feel the draw, if I'm honest. But (and there's a whole parable about growing up here, and possibly in Kij's story as well) I treasure my real horse, and I treasure the work I do with him. It's a lot harder than what I imagined as a child, but I wouldn't trade it.
July 4, 2011
5 things, miscellaneous brain dump edition
1. Happy Fourth of July! Also, belatedly, happy Canada Day!
2. I was very sad to discover that
Rest in peace, Mr. Hardwicke. And thank you.
3. And a quote from Jeremy Brett on playing Sherlock Holmes: "I'm so miscast; I'm a romantic-heroic actor. So I was terribly aware that I had to hide an awful lot of me, and in so doing I think I look quite often brusque, or maybe sometimes even slightly rude. In fact Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Doyle's daughter, who's a great personal friend of mine, did once say to me, 'I don't think my father meant You-Know-Who to be quite so rude', and I said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Dame Jean, I'm just trying to hide me'."
4. So, after fifteen years of living in this piece of the Upper Midwest,
mirrorthaw
and I have finally started exploring its natural wonders, starting with the state parks. The bit of it I want to blog about is, in one of the state parks, there's a pine plantation--i.e., planted by someone who intended to harvest the trees for lumber. (The park information is very carefully passive voice, so it's hard to tell quite how we ended up with a pine plantation in a state park.) Walking from the mostly oak forest into the pine plantation was one of the more eerie experiences I've had recently. Because, you see, the thing about pine plantations is that they kill all the other vegetation. No smaller trees, no bushes. No Virginia creeper, no grape vines, no mayflowers or ferns. No animals. No birds. Just these tall, straight trees, and a carpet of dead pine needles. And the mosquitoes who followed us in.
It'll probably get into a story eventually, but in the meantime, it's this odd lump of experience like an inclusion in quartz.
5. There's nothing like disgusting humid sweltering heat to make Catzilla feel snuggly.
2. I was very sad to discover that
Rest in peace, Mr. Hardwicke. And thank you.
3. And a quote from Jeremy Brett on playing Sherlock Holmes: "I'm so miscast; I'm a romantic-heroic actor. So I was terribly aware that I had to hide an awful lot of me, and in so doing I think I look quite often brusque, or maybe sometimes even slightly rude. In fact Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Doyle's daughter, who's a great personal friend of mine, did once say to me, 'I don't think my father meant You-Know-Who to be quite so rude', and I said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Dame Jean, I'm just trying to hide me'."
4. So, after fifteen years of living in this piece of the Upper Midwest,
mirrorthaw
and I have finally started exploring its natural wonders, starting with the state parks. The bit of it I want to blog about is, in one of the state parks, there's a pine plantation--i.e., planted by someone who intended to harvest the trees for lumber. (The park information is very carefully passive voice, so it's hard to tell quite how we ended up with a pine plantation in a state park.) Walking from the mostly oak forest into the pine plantation was one of the more eerie experiences I've had recently. Because, you see, the thing about pine plantations is that they kill all the other vegetation. No smaller trees, no bushes. No Virginia creeper, no grape vines, no mayflowers or ferns. No animals. No birds. Just these tall, straight trees, and a carpet of dead pine needles. And the mosquitoes who followed us in.It'll probably get into a story eventually, but in the meantime, it's this odd lump of experience like an inclusion in quartz.
5. There's nothing like disgusting humid sweltering heat to make Catzilla feel snuggly.
Shadow Unit e-books!!!
June 26, 2011
spam spam spam spam
I hate to do this, but I have had enough of the freaking endless spam that now infests LiveJournal. I have turned off anonymous comments.
To all of you who do not have a LiveJournal and who have commented on my blog, I'm sorry. Please believe, this is not about you and not caused by anything you did. It's about the bloody spam.
To all of you who do not have a LiveJournal and who have commented on my blog, I'm sorry. Please believe, this is not about you and not caused by anything you did. It's about the bloody spam.
June 24, 2011
5 things
1. Not to be gross, but the snotbergs in my head are calving.
2. Milo <3 June
3. Since a couple people have asked, Somewhere Beneath Those Waves is a short story collection. It will be published by Prime in November, and will collect all the non-Booth stories I've published up until 2010. (I.e., "After the Dragon" will be in it; "The Devil in Gaylord's Creek" will not.)
4. There is no number four.
5. Bat-eared fox kits! They're going to grow up to look like this, so you can see that it takes a while after birth before the ears deploy. In honor of my love for critters who can use their ears for drag chutes, have some more pictures. (Plus a bonus fennec fox.)
2. Milo <3 June
3. Since a couple people have asked, Somewhere Beneath Those Waves is a short story collection. It will be published by Prime in November, and will collect all the non-Booth stories I've published up until 2010. (I.e., "After the Dragon" will be in it; "The Devil in Gaylord's Creek" will not.)
4. There is no number four.
5. Bat-eared fox kits! They're going to grow up to look like this, so you can see that it takes a while after birth before the ears deploy. In honor of my love for critters who can use their ears for drag chutes, have some more pictures. (Plus a bonus fennec fox.)
June 23, 2011
Putting the iron in irony
Fourth Street is this weekend.
I am not going.
And yet, I have the con crud.
On the one hand, this makes me doubly glad I chose the better part of valor. But on the other, wtf, man?
I hope everyone who is going to Fourth Street has a wonderful time. And I hope I'm an effective sacrificial lamb, and nobody gets sick.
I am not going.
And yet, I have the con crud.
On the one hand, this makes me doubly glad I chose the better part of valor. But on the other, wtf, man?
I hope everyone who is going to Fourth Street has a wonderful time. And I hope I'm an effective sacrificial lamb, and nobody gets sick.
