Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 119

cloud cat

Last week, on a stretch of highway between my town and the next, I hit a cat :(
I stopped and ran back to him, but though he looked completely whole, there was no life in him. He had a coat like dark clouds.

Yesterday, I was coming home in the evening on that same stretch of road, and the sky looked something like this:


(Not my photo; a manipulation of the first photo here)

--watercolor dark and light, as if last week's cat was stretched out there, relaxed, just dozing.

November bouquet

It's a bouquet of shades and textures. The old-man's-beard and the milkweed are so soft; the amaranth-like stuff is prickly, some of the others are scratchy.



Come closer

You cannot change the direction

I've been paying attention to the leisurely flow of Kilauea's lava toward the village of Pahoa, and over the weekend, they had a story on NPR about the possibility of diverting the lava. They had on John Lockwood, Volcanologist and Lava Diverter, to talk about it.

But, as the report noted, not everyone thinks the lava should be diverted. One woman said,

You cannot change the direction. It's Mother Nature. It's like me telling you, "Move the moon because it's too bright."

The photo of twin rive...

Jack-o'-lantern

... I was trying for Mona Lisa but didn't pull it off, so now it's just a face.



and with candle flame visible:

LJ info: want to get rid of that annoying strip at the bottom of your LJ?

One reason I pay for LJ is to be spared advertising, which is why I was pretty angry to see the info-ad about Stan Lee at the bottom of *all* my LJ screens, with no apparent way to turn it off (no handy little X mark to click on).

I put in an LJ request and was told this:

Thank you for your report. Your feedback regarding this menu has been forwarded to appropriate personnel for consideration. The banner appearing at the bottom of the page can be disabled at http://www.livejournal.com/manage/se...

Seven Bridges

A while ago I was writing short vignettes about bridges. I ended up writing seven--and now they're live, at The Future Fire. You can read them here (and enjoy a different bridge illustration for each vignette), and the rest of the issue here.

But let me just give you some pictures of the referent for the final bridge. Here is the natural feature that is the original inspiration:



And here is the allusion to it that the bridge in the story is copying:


I love the way in the illustration, Carmen has...

Irom Sharmila in court in Delhi

Yearly, Irom Sharmila is called before the court in Imphal, the capital of the state of Manipur in northeastern India. Today is different, however: today she is in court in Delhi--again for the spurious charge of attempting suicide, when really what she's doing is protesting, through hunger strike, a deeply unjust law, the Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA), which gives the Indian military (and before that, the British colonial military--that's how old the law is) the right to act wi...

The mundane made magical

From steepholm 's essay on enchanting places, over at Strange Horizons.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that a child "does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted" [32]. He proved his point by writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, since the publication of which wardrobes have ceased to be utilitarian pieces of bedroom furniture and have been invested with magical potential, as many thousands of Narnia-seeking children can...

Seen and heard in transit

backpack for a pillow
Walking early, first on the rails, balancing. It's one of my favorite things. Later, past kids waiting for the bus. One girl had made her backpack into a pillow and was lying on the cold ground, knees bent. Other kids were standing around. One of the kids, his eyes and mine met. I smiled and looked away.

red leaves
Driving to the dentist, past maples whose leaves are still bright red. I keep meaning to gather some bright-red leaves and make a leaf wreath. I daydream about d...

three good things from last week

Last week I engaged in *three* cultural experiences, which is three more than I usually do--and *all* of them I want to share about. . . but somehow I suspect that won't happen, or it may be some time in coming. So here's a Cliff Notes version. If you read this, you will probably pass the pop quiz.

Lois Ahrens on the real cost of prisons

Lois Ahrens is a long-time activist against the prison industrial complex, who spoke a little about her experience documenting the cost of prisons. Her talk ab...