Sarah A. Hoyt's Blog, page 324

FIRST WE HAVE NAMING OF NAMES – by Margaret Ball

FIRST WE HAVE NAMING OF NAMES – by Margaret Ball

So many aspects of language can overlap with science fiction and fantasy that it’s hard to know where to start. Even if you have absolutely no desire to be J.R.R. Tolkien and design your own language, you can’t get away from all issues. Take characters. Characters generally have to have names. And as soon as they have names, you’re setting up expectations about the kind of world they live in. So let’s think about that for a bit.

“For he said un...

The Rag Time Kid

I wasn’t yet married to my husband when I found out his favorite kind of music to play was ragtime.

Eventually I could afford to buy Dan a piano (he used to play whenever we were near a piano. In hotel lobbies, in piano stores, at friends’ homes. He missed it desperately. ) He had a synthesizer, but it’s not the same. I bought him a piano with the first paycheck from my translating job. It was … Those of you who have read the third Furniture Refinishing Mysteries know EXACTLY what it looked l...

More Sunday Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

*Inexplicably I can’t find the Ambulatory Molusc’s post. Actually this might not be inexplicable, as since about Wednesday our household has been in a tail spin. We won’t bore you with details of our grief, but I think we’ve reached a point we can function again. And while I normally use Sunday for indie work and sometimes even a few hours off, today I need to work, to compensate for the days I missed. So, I’ll be by now and then. – SAH*

Sunday Vignettes!

So what’s a vignette? You might know...

Tasty Tasty Pottage

I am dry-eyed and awake in what feels like the wee hours in the morning. It is not. For me it is close to eight am and for you guys on the east coast most of the morning has passed. I have a distracting tendency to keep east coast hours, which means going to bed with the chickens and getting up at first light.

Today is that special kind of hell that comes after a day like yesterday, where I manage to torture myself both ways: for not noticing how much she was suffering earlier; and for puttin...

Requiem for a Princess – Robert A. Hoyt

It’s a commonly stated trope among medical students that medical school doesn’t leave adequate time for real life. That’s not the only thing it doesn’t leave time for.

So I’d like to write, for a few words, on the human language most attuned to capturing emotion, music. At times like these, dirges and sad songs are… I suppose popular isn’t the word, but you know what I mean. But to me, there is something inadequate about these. A funerary song, I feel, ought to have three traits. First, it o...

I Will Try For Another Post Later

I will try to write another post later, but it might be very late.

Miranda cat has grown very thin and for the last two weeks has diarrhea and can’t seem to control it at all. I thought it was hyperthyroidism, which hits every cat who lives long enough, sooner or later.

Marshall is moving out this weekend, so we asked him to take her in to the vet, so he could take medication with him (she’s very attached to him and if he moved out, of course she’d need to go or she’d stop eating) and she cou...

Solar, Space, and Geomagnetic Weather, Part VII: The Carrington Event By Stephanie Osborn

Solar, Space, and Geomagnetic Weather, Part VII: The Carrington Event By Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com

“Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

Rocket Scientist and Novelist

In August of 1859, during historic Solar Cycle 10, something very strange began to happen. The Sun, as it neared solar max, grew unusually active. It produced prolific numbers of sunspots and flares, some of which were visible to the naked eye. This continued through the end of the month, until, just before noo...

We Aren’t (Even) Mostly Dead – A Blast From the Past from March 2013

*I was going to write about how you shouldn’t be depressed at our appalling candidates, because they’re all appalling, and we ain’t dead yet, then I remembered I had written about it before. Isn’t that lucky? I’m working on Darkship Revenge and rather not take my head out of fiction just now.- SAH*

We Aren’t (Even) Mostly Dead – A Blast From the Past from March 2013

I am, by nature, a depressive. This means that left to its own devices, what passes for my mind (it’s not much of one, but it su...

Those Ineffective Agitprops by Nicki Kenyon

Those Ineffective Agitprops

By Nicki Kenyon

A few days ago, Sarah discussed the effectiveness of Soviet psychological warfare. I discussed it myself in September on this blog, when I recalled my experiences in Soviet Russia, brainwashed from nursery school to worship Lenin and Marx and the almighty Soviet State. I recalled that all the privations, including the lack of food and hot water, getting beaten up as a child for being a Jew, and even having surgery without anesthesia were all conside...

A Vast Wasteland of Prosperity

Yesterday my husband threatened to drown himself in the shower, if I didn’t stop ranting about the stupid things people believe about history. It’s not that he disagreed, mind you, but that he thought it was too much to endure a graduate-level lecture with side-excursions into various examples he’d never heard about before even getting his pants on in the morning.

I sympathize. It’s been a long time since I became aware that when that darn, mobile soap box finds me and gets under my feet, I g...