Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 162

Do you have a story for this badger?

Can you tell me a brief story about this badger?

Two other Things from the trip

These come in different mood flavors, so you can take your pick. Humorous good-natured, or oooh, get your mad on.


We were at the McDonald's at the Blandford rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and I was waiting to pick up food, which is to say, I was lingering at one end of the counter, enjoying the people going up to order and the people so patiently and efficiently filling their orders (it was a good day all around for that: the McDonalds was fully staffed, the people who were working a...

solar array

A nearby town capped its landfill some years ago. It's sat there, an ominous, unusable green plain, with ominous-looking ventilation pipes (like this--they always make me think of rearing snakes) sticking out of it.

Recently, though, it's been transformed. Now its surface is covered by shiny scales, designed to capture sunlight and store it for later use generating energy. Super cool.



Living in the future here...

mango feasting

We practice the Zeno's paradox approach to chores, whereby any chore is divided into an infinite number of subchores and therefore never gets done. Take emptying the compost pot from under the sink. We have a compost bin in the backyard, but rather than take the compost pot directly to the bin, we often (okay, I often) just stick it on the deck when it's full. "I'll take it down later," I say. Sometimes a couple of compost pots end up sitting on the deck accusing me, before finally I ferry th...

from the rooftops to the ground beneath our feet

There is an aerial on this roof, an antenna, and on it are hanging, invisible to the eye, the laundry of thoughts those beneath the roof have hung out to dry. Those thoughts, fluttering and snapping like the flag the next yard over. The transmissions the aerial receives bleed into them, stain them, dye them. When will the householders take down their thoughts and hang up new ones?



Behind things
The fronts of buildings are designed for show, but not the backs. The behind-world is an interesting...

Not One of Us and Glass Seed Annual

One's an announcement of publication and the other is a call for submissions.

Not One of Us no. 49 is out now. It has a story of mine, "Tithe of Days," which comes with its own song (shhhh.... I'm not much of a singer and don't usually make up songs).

Here is the table of contents--very pleased to be in such fine company!

We Were Real, by Josh Eure
Delenda (poem), by Sonya Taaffe
Little Bell, the Beasley Boys, and a Long Road Home, by Tim L. Williams
Shipwrecked (poem), by Adrienne J. Odasso
Tithe...

Songs in the Shade of the Flamboyant Tree

I've always loved nursery rhymes and lullabies--they're one of the most evident examples of living folk traditions, wherever you go. I was looking for lullabies from Martinique the other day (because of a Mermaid's Hands folktale I'm writing up), and came across this lovely album:



It has traditional songs and nursery rhymes from Martinique, Guadaloupe, Haiti, and Reunion, and you can listen to them all here at the Secret Mountain website page here --just click on any of the song titles on the l...

Golden-brown world

I think I'm going to make many posts today--well, maybe three, anyway. This is the first. Welcome the sun at 6:45 am:



And here, from yesterday, are last year's cattails



Doesn't this look like a spinning wheel distaff, with a pile of roving on it, waiting to be spun?

Clockwork Phoenix 4--a partisan review

Clockwork Phoenix 4 is nearly out, and oh my goodness, the stories. There’s not a single bad one, and there are some amazing gems. I know whereof I speak; as the anthology’s proofreader, I read each one very carefully. (I apologize in advance if any typos got by me!) So, this is not a disinterested review, it’s a partisan recommendation.

I’m going to focus on just four stories, the stories I found myself thinking about for the longest time after reading them, but I‘ll have shoutouts for a hand...

Friday miscellany

How to be an authority figure: Carry a clipboard

After a band concert at the high school the other day, I was waiting with all the other parents for my child to emerge from the band room. It was a real confusion of people, families waiting, meeting their performer and leaving, kids talking to one another, adults talking . . . And in that, a kid came up to me and said, "Do you know where we pick up the butter bread? I ordered four loaves."

I was really puzzled--then realized I happened to (a) b...