Sarah Monette's Blog, page 66

UBC: Knights of the Green Cloth

DeArment, Robert K. Knights of the Green Cloth: The Saga of the Frontier Gamblers. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.


Essentially, this book is a compendium of anecdotes about frontier gamblers, ranging from Luke Short to Soapy Smith. It is not in any sense academic, but it's fun and gossipy, and it does give a sense of the milieu. My major complaint is that, aside from the rules of faro, DeArment explains almost none of the arcana of nineteenth century gambling (and cheating), but th...

Storytellers Unplugged for May

This month's Storytellers Unplugged column is "Little Red Riding Hood and the Hospital."

I for one welcome our new rodent overlords.

Found via Alex Bledsoe:

World's largest beaver dam visible from space.

My favorite part of the article:

Thie said he also found evidence that beavers were repopulating old habitats after being hunted extensively for pelts in past centuries.

"They're invading their old territories in a remarkable way in Canada," he said. "I found huge dams throughout Canada, and beaver colonies with up to 100 of them in a square kilometer."

"They're re-engineering the landscape," he said.

Castor canadensis...

We've come for your liver.

Over at debsliverlovers , I have put a complete paperback set of the Doctrine of Labyrinths up for auction. If you haven't had this cross your path yet, debsliverlovers is a fandom auction raising funds for Deb Mensinger, wife of Laurie J. Marks, who needs a liver transplant (live donor lined up, but he has no insurance and lives on the wrong coast--the community profile has the full details). There are lots of other REALLY COOL items in the auction, so I encourage you to check it out.

animal kingdom geek-out

So between my job and my friends, I've spent most of today looking at weird creatures.

Researching for Shadow Unit (with a big assist from matociquala ), I learned about the Chinese bird spider, which rejoices in the appellation of "earth tiger," and the katipo, whose name is a Maori word meaning "night-stinger." I also learned the difference between neurotoxin and hemotoxin venoms, and that the species of black widow indigenous to the American southeast, Latrodectus mactans , is the only specie...

waiting under the waves

cmpriest has an excellent post about the Tennessee floods.

As you all may or may not know, I'm from eastern Tennessee. Like Cherie, I miss my home state. (And I do still think of it as home, even though I've been living in Wisconsin for almost fourteen years.) And like Cherie, I encourage you to help in any way you can. Even if it's just by passing on the word.

notes on some things

1. The new bread pans work very nicely. They're a little shorter (length-wise rather than depth-wise) than my old ones, so I get these very tall majestic loaves. They do, however, definitely need greasing, at least around the top.

2. Also, the new bread pans are deep red. My bread mixing bowl is golden-yellow. Our counters are bright blue (so not our choice). As I said to matociquala yesterday, I feel like I've wandered into some trendy yupster magazine article on baking your own bread.

3. Stu...

Akhal-Tekes

So one of the other things I did while I was in Michigan was visit Freedom Run Farm to meet some Akhal-Tekes. Anne-Marie Rasch very kindly showed me around and answered my questions. Thank you, Anne-Marie! The pictures I took--before my camera batteries died--are here, with annotations.

My interest in Akhal-Tekes is mostly matociquala 's fault, but they are lovely, friendly horses with a fascinating history. (You can learn more about Akhal-Tekes at the Akhal-Teke Association of America. Argamak...

we break radio silence for this message

Back from Penguicon. V. tired. The list of people with whom I did not get to hang out enough seems to be pretty much infinite. Did I mention the tired part?

If you have to wear two sports bras in order to keep your...

If you have to wear two sports bras in order to keep your bosom under control while riding, do NOT try to remove both of them at the same time.