Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 171

Iridium disappointment--but maybe not

Today sartorias posted a link to this post by an adventurer. I've only glanced through it so far (thinking oooh! rhodolite! oooh! penguin!--yes, I go from picture to picture), but my eyes were caught by this line, from when the author is adventuring in Antactica:

then you can borrow the iridium phone

And I thought, iridium phone? what is? Iridium powered? Made of iridium? (what exactly does iridium do? what are its properties?)

And this being the Internet, it was easy to discover that while irid...

Not everyone who's called a pirate is a pirate, but some are

A moment of cultural sensitivity and then humor in Railsea:

"You know," Caldera said, "here are trainsfolk down south who get called 'pirate' all the time, & all they do is look after their coasts, 'cause for years trains of all the other places just dump junk there. Mum told me that. Loads of the people we call pirates aren't doing anything bad at all."

"These ones ain't them," Dero said, watching the progress of their pursuers.

"No," said Caldera. "These ones seem to be the other ones."

China M...

but it's an essence with two manifestations, right?

First, have a quote from Railsea

What, above all, about wood?

That is the key mystery. Wood makes trees trees. Wood is also what makes ties--those bars crosswise between railsea rails--ties. A thing can have only one essence. How can this, then, be?

Of all the philosophers' answers, three stand out as least unlikely.

--Wood & wood are, in fact, appearances not withstanding, different things.

--Trees are creations of the devil that delights in confusing us.

--Trees are the ghosts of ties, their gnar...

squirrel nest

High and safe



A swaying fortress of leaves and twigs




The squirrel parents are away; the squirrel children are climbing near and in and out. Maybe one of them has befriended you, maybe one of them permits you to scramble up that thin trunk and come to the entrance of the nest, where a sibling eyes you suspiciously. "Do you know the password?" he asks.

"There's no pa--owww!" says your host, cut off by a flying tackle from yet another sibling.

You might hesitate to enter, but you might also be so c...

Is there such a thing as ice? (part 2)

Surprise! Ice storm. "Let me show you how beautiful you are in my embrace," says the ice.



Bridges are extra-icy places. And yet, they provide a lovely view! I crept along far enough to take a picture of the ice-encased world, and then suddenly the ice under my feet felt too too slick, and my situation (between heavy traffic on one side and the wide Connecticut River on the other) too vulnerable, so I crept on back again.



I did also get pictures of the bridge's eyelashes of ice





The sound of the i...

earthly stars

Galaxies and star clusters

Is there such a thing as frost? Is there such a thing as ice?

Frost is a tailor, stitching frail old leaves to the cold ground:



Frost is a tricksie confectioner, sugar-coating thorns:





Frost is a careless fairy jeweler, scattering diamonds and quartz



And ice is a spider-weaver, spinning its web hard and stiff around any floating thing.



Away from my desk for now, my friends, so I will visit your pages later . . . see you round the Internets in other hours!

"Search on something you wouldn't normally search on"

Verizon guy stopped by to help us with our Internet. To test that we were back connected, he said, "Search on something you wouldn't normally search on, like . . . helicopters."

"But I do search on helicopters," I said. "See?" (I showed him this link that I'd saved.)

"Wow, yeah. That's a nice helicopter," he said.

"Yeah. It can carry four passengers," I said.

Something I don't search on. I mean, I think I search on pretty much everything. But we went for ball gowns. (I have searched on ball gown...

Railsea: Manihiki and ampersands

On arriving at the metropolis of Manihiki:

The railsea: a vast & various train ecosystem. They passed under wires, for the few juice-up miles of coastal rails. Here a stubby vehicle of scrubbed steel, its few windows tinted, & turning its wheels were back-curved pistons jutting from its sides. What were these grim faces from Fremlo, from all Sham's crew? This controlled disgust Captain Naphi showed?

Oh. That was a galleytrain. In its hot bowels scores of slaves were strapped in rows, hauling o...

Story Recommendation: "This Is Math" by Joey Comeau

She never got higher than a C- in high school math, and that was good enough for the school boards, and good enough for her. It wasn't math, either. He probably got an A. The first time she ever saw math, real math, was in that used bookstore, when she opened an old book and let her breath catch inside of her. The symbols were a maze on the page, an incantation. It was a coded message that sent electricity through her whole body, and she put her own meaning into it, right there.

--read more: "...