Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 147

acorn meats, Halloween faces

After two weeks of leaching, the water wasn't changing color any more from day to day, so I figured my acorns were *done*. I drained them and put them on a cookie sheet and put it in an oven on warm--just enough to dry but not cook them.

on the way into the oven



But quickly they started turning *black*. It couldn't be that they were burning; the oven wasn't on that hot. I suspect it was either somehow remaining tannin--that I hadn't leached them as well as I'd thought--or it was the skins that...

Books with reading lists--plus, my Halloween story

I was saying last post that Frankenstein makes some recommendations for self-learners--Milton, Plutarch, and Goethe, in the monster's case, and Volney's Ruins of Empires for Safie, the Arabian. And that got me thinking of other books that have book recommendations in them-- osprey_archer mentioned Daddy Long-legs, and I know people have mentioned Jo Walton's Among Others in that capacity.

And I thought, what an interesting take on Great Books--books that writers think are great, or formative in...

some thoughts in the midst of reading Frankenstein

The monster, talking to Frankenstein (at great length! with a nested story of cross-cultural love! and a reading list for all auto-didacts out there: Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther) about the cottagers near whom he's been sheltering, says,

The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affectio...

Part one of cafenowhere's great series, Writing Latin@ Characters Well

Originally posted by cafenowhere at Writing Latin@ Characters Well, Part 1. What are you? --comment there!

Are you writing a Latin@ character? Or are you writing a Hispanic character? Maybe both? Or maybe you're writing a Chican@ character? A Mexican-American? "Just" a Mexican?

How do you know?

And, you may be asking, what is up with that @ symbol?

Nota bene: I am not a linguist. This is the quick and dirty version.

I'll start by explaining my use of the @ symbol. In Spanish, no...

Mary Shelley on writing and imagination

I'm reading Frankenstein with the healing angel, and sartorias suggested I read Mary Shelley's own foreword to the 1831 edition. It's fascinating! So gratifying to feel emotional kinship with someone who lived so long ago--which was what happened when I read about the imaginary tales she used to weave for herself as a child:

I did not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me too common-place an affair as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonder...

at the sewing machine repair shop

A while ago, I took my sewing machine to get it repaired. It was quite a drive; not many people do work like this. It was an older guy; he charges very little, and he'll be retiring soon, and then there will be one less place that repairs sewing machines.

Here's his door.



Inside were all the machines he was working on, plus a high shelf where expired irons live.





But best of all were a series of dioramas that his now-deceased mother-in-law had made, all relating to sewing.

Here is a fabric store:



A...

Wednesday reading!

I can do the Wednesday reading meme this week!

I have two ongoing books, which are the same from last week, Ty Nolan's Coyote Still Going and Edwidge Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light.

In Coyote Still Going, Bear just hosted a feast without having oil on hand...

sang his Song and as he sang he rubbed his hands together. Now bears have a lot of fat underneath their skin, and the heat of the fire started to make the fat melt, and it dr...

He walks the line?

I was driving the ninja girl to work in the pre-sunrise dark. At one point, a bright light--weaving a little--appeared up ahead. A bicyclist? A person with a very bright flashlight, crossing the road?

When I got closer, it became clear that it was a person, a man, an older man, in dark, loose clothes, with bright LANTERN in his hand, walking along the double yellow line.

What?

There was no chance to pause; the ninja girl had to get to work on time.

But what was going on?

Was he drunk? Was he suic...

javelina!

I know that javelina is actually the name of a kind of wild pig, but when I first heard the word, I imagined a spearwoman, and something about the word made me think of the southwest, and so I imagined a Hopi spearwoman.

red berries

Some things are so red and inviting that they beg to be tasted. These are fruits of some sort of hawthorn--you should have seen the thorns; it was painful even looking at them.

The fruits were sweet and flavorful, a consistency something like cherries, and there were five tiny seeds in a flower shape in the center.

I checked at home to see what you can do with hawthorn fruits, and it turns out all sorts of things (examples here), but it also turns out the seeds are poisonous, so I'm glad I didn...