Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 104

Another home project

I had an extremely hideous, beat-up wooden folding tray table which I keep meaning to get rid of, but don't because it's so handy and I can't seem to find a less ugly similar one. You can sort of see it here - it's the thing the flour is on. It had ugly streaky varnish and was stained and slightly warped.



In my pursuit of making my home awesome, I decided to try making the table I have nicer. I bought some chalk paint and got to work.





And here it is now in its new home:





The tray table was an experiment to see if I could do folk art style furniture painting with results that I liked. Now that the answer is yes, I think rather than buy a new kitchen table and chairs, I'll haunt garage sales until I find a set with a shape I like regardless of how beat up it is, and just clean and paint them.

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The Quantum Love Gene, by Rev. Raymond J Pilon, BGS, ret. CSL

A gift from nenya_kanadka via my request for weird books. I believe she got it for a quarter at a nun shop. Thanks! I think.

As you can tell from the cover, the disclaimer stating that This book is a Fantasy Sci-Fi, and the author’s alphabet soup credentials, this book was self-published; in this case, in print before ebook self-pub became a thing. You’ve seen books like this. They have dolphins and hot pink double helixes on the cover.

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And now, I have read – well, skimmed - one so you don’t have to!

It begins, as they often do, with an explanation of how it all was dictated to the author in a series of dreams by Angelica, a being from the Pleiades, how lots of famous (not really) people agree that this is the truth, and how scientific discoveries/history/the pyramids prove it!!!!

This introduction is notable for the author explaining that he ate six mini-bananas while writing down the first dream; he will return to this later. Rather endearingly, each chapter is punctuated with his reactions to the dreams with comments like “Wow! This is so exciting! I can’t wait to find out more!”

The story (such as it is) begins with David, a prodigy who is telekinetic, telepathic, graduates from Harvard with three PhDs at the age of 16, and invents a universal translator and antigravity, and solves the energy crisis by age 18. This does not play into the plot (such as it is) as much as one might imagine.

The story is interrupted by a pair of full-page black and white diagrams of the Pleiades which prove that this is all totally real.

Special Agent Stafford said to Dr. Reinhardt, a psychiatrist, “I’m with NSA. Mr David Chartrand is a National Security risk. It will be necessary to sedate him heavily and strap him down before you do your doctor thing.

However, the psychiatrist is unable to do his doctor thing because Angelica teleports David to the top of the huge sports dome in Vancouver, Canada with five beautiful female Spiritual Beings from the Star system they call Pleiades!

(Why is it always the Pleiades in these books and manifestos?)

A long stretch of exposition ensues. The Pleiades built Stonehenge and the pyramids, David has the Quantum Love Gene which can turn bad guys into good guys, the Illuminati are after him, etc. Most of the book consists of reiterating and elaborating on this sort of thing.

At the end of this chapter, the author notes, I’m out of bananas this morning. Oh well, at least I have coffee.

We are introduced to Energy King Lucifer from the Planet Diable. There is a big and incoherent battle, which David and the other good guys win. The world has been saved! Everything is perfect! But the book is not quite over:



Angelica turned around to spring this incredible surprise on David. She had a twinkle in her eyes as she said to David, “You see, now that everything is said and done regarding the meeting, David, I have a surprise for you.”

David replied, “Good! I like surprises!”

With this, Angelica uttered the word, “Energize!”

The room began to glow with a bright white light. They heard the song of We are Spirit Light Beings.

We are Spirit Light Beings.
Having a wonderful human experience.

We are Spirit Light Beings.
Here for a moment in time and space.

We are Spirit Light Beings.
Learning to love again.

We are Spirit Light Beings.
Walking each other home.
We are Spirit Light Beings.


In case you were thinking, “But what about the dolphins? The cover promised dolphins!” a pool with two dolphins in it materializes in David’s living room.

As the Rev. Raymond J Pilon, BGS, ret. CSL writes,

THE END

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The joys of the obscure, the weird, the unknown, the surprisingly kind of good

iknowcommawrite reviews a surprisingly kind of good pulp porno novel with an even more surprising author.

We had this exchange in comments:

Me: I love reading reviews of books like this, that are surprisingly interesting, virtually unknown, and not reviewed anywhere else.

iknowcommawrite : I also love finding these virtually unknown books--it's like saving some little piece of history that would otherwise be lost.

Me: Yes, exactly. It's also why I love reviewing them.

Which is why I am still trying to review everything I read and still encourage you to join in, and why I was so delighted with the weird books several of you have sent me and have them on my very large to-read stack. If not for my willingness to pick up random stuff, I would never have experienced the joys of Sit on my face, Miss Lippman, and know the enamel reality of my teeth or the recipe book with instructions for surviving a cobalt bomb.

What weird and unknown books have you read lately, or ever?

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Joyous Things

1. Yesterday Halle and her son and her assistant and her assistant's sister and I went to the beach and threw bread upon the waters, or rather into the gaping maws of seagulls. A strong wind was blowing, enabling the seagulls to hover ominously. The sister had her hair in a bun, and a seagull slowly descended toward it like one of Daenerys' dragons; we shooed it off just in time.



There were a ton of sand crabs feeding; in the clear water, you could easily see their feathery antennae sticking out from the sand. I wonder if they too were there for the bread crumbs?

2. Some wonderful person anonymously sent me the following circus books!

British Circus Life by Lady Eleanor Smith[image error]

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3. I have bid on some vintage lesbian pulp novels; if I win any, I will review.

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Thank you, anonymous circus benefactor!

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The Picolinis, by Anne Graham Estern

Brother and sister Peter and Jessica Blake convince their parents to buy a dollhouse inhabited by five circus dolls at an auction. There they meet Clara Clapshaw, the old woman whose stuff is being sold so she can move into a nice retirement home… which is at risk of going under. Uh-oh. And for added uh-oh, a weird magician bids against them and is angry when he doesn’t win.

Clara tells them that she got the dolls and house from Selena Pico, the last of a circus family, and that the dolls—the Picolinis—were based on the Pico family. She adds that they might be magical and oh yeah, there was possibly a Pico treasure that Selena had meant her to have that could save her retirement home but who knows where it’s gone?

Back at the Blake home, we learn that the Picolinis are alive and eager to get the treasure to Clara, BUT if anyone who doesn’t already believe in them sees them, they will become dolls. (The Picolinis are living replicas of the Picos but not their souls incarnated in dolls, as they were alive when the Picos were alive and mourned their deaths.)

A series of adventures ensues in which the Picolinis send messages to the kids by means of getting around the house in delightful ways like stringing wire between banisters so the tightrope walker can walk across it, the acrobat doing hand-springs down stairs, etc. The kids and their parents, meanwhile, follow the clues, search for the treasure, and evade the evil magician.

Finally, a book about tiny and/or circus people that was actually about tininess and circusness! It is very charming and also has delightful illustrations.

Thank you to everyone who recced this!

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L'shanah tovah!

May this new year be sweet for all of us, and far sweeter than the last.

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My King of Exchanges fic

A Life on the Road, a crossover of The Stand and The Long Walk.

So happy we created King of Exchanges! It was a fantastic experience and I'm already looking forward to doing it again next year.

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Under Siege, by Elisabeth Mace

Sixteen-year-old Morris, upset over his parents' separation, is dumped by his mother on his Uncle Patrick. His uncle has a beautiful model castle with model people, which is part of a video game he bought and/or is testing for the company, I'm not sure which. How the video game and models interact is another matter which I never understood. Morris discovers that the model people, who are enacting a medieval war or rebellion (also very unclear) are alive/intelligent. How this works, you will possibly be unsurprised to learn, is never explained.

With the cooperation of a friend of his uncle's and the alternating cooperation/objections of Uncle Patrick, Morris watches the game unfold while falling in love with a tiny rebel woman who thinks he's God. There are clearly supposed to be parallels between the game and Morris's life, but the only one that I understood was that love is good and Morris should welcome his parents getting back together. Not sure that this parallel really worked as 1) him falling in love with a tiny model medieval woman had no parallel with his parents' relationship other than "heterosexual love," 2) admittedly we only see his parents through his obviously biased eyes but in terms of actual objective behavior, they both suck, 3) having his lady love think he's God was a giant (so to speak) ???WTF??? relevance??? all the way through.

Morris is extremely passive and dislikes everything and everyone (except his tiny lady), but in a kind of detached, vague cloud of unhappiness manner. His uncle's friend tries to befriend him and ends up introducing their mothers to each other; this possibly leads to his parents reconciling. But this doesn't help as much with the parallels as you'd think, as Morris has nothing to do with it, Morris never befriends him himself, and the only relationship with the game is that's how they met. His uncle's characterization was all over the map. It never made sense to me how the game worked even on a very literal level like how the real model was also a computer game, how the magical aspect worked, where the game came from, or why it was magic/an AI.

The model people deactivate and become plastic when they leave the model, so they never interact with a giant modern world (which was why I bought the book!)

On a tiny people level and on all other levels, it disappointed.

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Monday decluttering, with rainbow pegasus, triceratops, and squid

Possibly this entry is more about recluttering. But my goal isn't to reduce my stuff, it's to love and enjoy my home, whether that means getting rid of stuff, acquiring new stuff, or rearranging stuff. Which is what "spark joy" is all about.

If you have moral objections to decluttering or do not wish to declutter your own place, please do not share those sentiments in comments. If you're a paid member, you can blacklist the decluttering tag for my DW and never even see these posts.

I am embarking on a new decluttering/home enjoying campaign, as the project had been sidelined and backslid by 1) me breaking my foot, 2) a whole lot of travel, 3) carpet fleas requiring me to move a ton of stuff around while de-fleaing. (The diatomaceous earth worked, but you need a lot of it and it gets everywhere.)

Photos below cut. ( Read more... )

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King of Exchanges is open!

King of Exchanges, the Stephen King exchange that sholio and iknowcommawrite and I modded, is OPEN! Read and enjoy. It has works in 11/22/63, Carrie, Dark Tower, The Dead Zone, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, IT, The Long Walk, and The Stand.

All the stories I've read so far have been fantastic, and many of the stories focus on rarely-ficced works or unusual crossovers. It's a really awesome and special exchange if I do say so myself.

iknowcommawrite and I had never run a fic exchange before, but we really wanted to make this happen. Enter sholio , who helped us navigate AO3's less-than-intuitively obvious framework for running exchanges. Thank you SO MUCH.

I got two absolutely incredible stories.

The Once and Future Prince - Gerald's Game. I wanted a fix-it for Prince, the abandoned stray dog. I got a story that 100% satisfied on that level, and was beautifully written to boot.

Some Find Solace - Carrie, Dark Tower, Dolores Claiborne, Gerald's Game, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. For my prompt that a different group of characters - in this case, four generations of women and girls - become a ka-tet in Mid-World. This story is epic and wonderful and I can't praise it enough. I felt like I was reading a piece of an alternate Dark Tower itself.

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