Gillian Polack's Blog, page 317

gillpolack @ 2010-04-04T19:06:00

I just used the word 'hermeneutics.' It's a nice word, but it's a sure sign that my mind is trending towards places it really ought not go. Mind you, in the process, I've created a lovely big pile of paper for recycling. I don't know why long words produce many small pieces of paper, but they do. Instead of a nice stack next to my working slope, I have a swamp of crumpled white.

I'm not finished yet, either. I need to find some more words. Very long ones are good. Pretentious ones ar...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-03T11:20:00

I'm taking a break from bibliographies for most of today. Some of my friends are taking the day off to watch stuff and I'm joining them.

I have about 60 books to think about on my list of modern fiction that uses the Middle Ages. If I added historical fiction and Arthuriana it would be a lot longer, but I want fantasy and SF, so I'm definitely not adding historical fiction. Arthuriana is the question. Not a hard question, to be honest. My list of Arthuriana is only five years out of date, ...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-02T23:48:00

I seem to have lost my bibliography-fu. I'm driving myself crazy trying to make a list of science fiction that uses Medieval English or French settings. I keep coming up with historical romances and Harry Turtledove. Now, historical romances are wonderful in their own right and Turtledove is a terrific writer, but neither of them fit the bill.

I need to make more bibliographies and get some skills back. But first I need to find science fiction (fantasy would be nice, too) that has French ...

Bibliobuffet

I have news! I know a few of you were upset when my Food History blog became a victim of the US economy. I was going to replace it with more food history, and I said so and I had plans for that and a possible host and everything. Just before Christmas, though (by 'just before Christmas' I mean literally, about 2 hours before Christmas) I was catching up on my online reading because the rest of my world was busy Christmassing. I read a column by an editor. I so wanted to work for that jou...

gillpolack @ 2010-03-31T14:48:00

I've stopped wasting time, honest.

I just had to check to see whether my grandmother and her siblings and parents enrolled to vote and actually voted the moment they were allowed to. From 1903 my family seems to have been entirely legal and voted when they were supposed to.

I could get back to work now. Or I could anxiously check the letterbox. Or I could have a cup of tea. Or maybe I could check to see whether my grandmother's father's family also voted?

Voting is compuslory here, so I didn'...

gillpolack @ 2010-03-30T20:47:00

I haven't done much of anything today. I had great intentions, but cleaning yesterday laid waste to me today. Thank goodness for friends and their anime collections!

Second night Passover consisted of candles and chicken and chocolate and left over charoseth. One does strange things when alone on a festival night. I'm not unhappy about being alone - it's just a little strange. I shall go to bed early and read fiction, I think, so that tomorrow is at least halfway full of beans. Thursday i...

gillpolack @ 2010-03-29T17:07:00

I'm in a strange noplace today, between what will happen (hopefully this week) and what's done and gone. It's Passover, it's a full moon, and all that stands between me and a new world are a picture, a letter and a medical appointment.

Edwina Harvey - The Whale's Tale

When I was in primary school, science fiction was one of my great joys. This was the sixties and the very early seventies. What was round was mostly adult SF (my parents said that if I was old enough to understand it, I was old enough to read it, so I worked on understanding everything from Microcosmic God to Flowers for Algernon, via Heinlein and Engdahl and Norton and goodness knows who else), but I had a special place in my heart for space adventures that included children.

Mostly the ch...

gillpolack @ 2010-03-28T13:16:00

My friendly local farmer (my local farmer who is also my friend?) just gave me some beautiful biodynamic honey for Passover. My first Pesach present!

I just gave away all my stray flour and coconut and open jars and will be donating the last few frozen tubs of sambar to a friend shortly. I've kept just enough food aside for dinner tonight and cups of tea tonight and tomorrow.

From tomorrow lunchtime, my kitchen will be a thing of beauty. That is, until about two hour after lunch, when it wi...

gillpolack @ 2010-03-27T19:35:00

I've just updated the the CSFG bibliography. There's some fine reading on it by a bunch of writers.

I'll update it one more time before Aussiecon, because it seems a good idea.

If there's an image that won't load, don't panic. I don't have time to find out what's wrong and fix it right now, but I know it won't load on some browsers.