Deeds & Words

L16; The Camera of the Future is Not Quite Ready for Prime Time

Posted on January 28, 2018 by Marion

I saw the Light camera L16 profiled on a local news show (it was invented in Silicon Valley after all). I was fascinated. Of course I knew it would be expensive, and of course I thought I wanted one.

Wired’s review has induced a dash of wisdom into my yearning. At $1950, the proof-of-concept camera actually costs less than I had projected… until I factor in that I would need to get a new computer to manipulate the images. In fact, I would probably want a computer dedicated solely to images. Faintly, in the distance, I hear the ka-ching of cash registers.

Also, right now this technology intimidates me. I’m only beginning to learn how to take good pictures with my phone camera, and confronting the limitations of that device. Like the reviewer, I’m more comfortable with a DSLR although I am clearly not at the reviewer’s level. The fact that the camera named Light is not good in low light seems ironic (unless the name refers to what it needs, like a vampire calling itself “Blood” or something). I’m often shooting things in motion; animals, birds, ocean waves, and the current generation of the L16 doesn’t handle that very well.

I have difficult wrapping my head around the technology. (That’s nothing new.) The L16 doesn’t rely on optics, on ground lenses, or anything I kind of do understand. It’s all algorithms. Do I need yet another piece of technology in my life that I don’t understand? On the other hand, the new washing machine is computer driven and I can use it just fine, while I haven’t got the slightest idea what it’s doing while it’s chugging, pausing, “sensing” and so on.

The reviewer gleefully envisions a time when you can take a photo with your paperback-book sized camera, manipulate the image on the screen and “upload to Instagram” without ever looking at it on a big screen. To my that’s a scene straight out of hell, which just proves that I’m old and the tech has passed me by.

But still… you can take such cool photos with it.

Maybe I’ll start saving my pennies and wait for the next generation of the L16. By then, they may have the 600 mm lens done. That would be awesome.

Posted in Ruminations | Tagged Cameras, Hi Tech, Light, phones, Wired | 3 Comments

Counterpart: Checkpoint Charlie Still Leads to the Other Side.

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Marion

Why yes, I do talk to myself. All the time. And your point?

Starz premiered a new speculative fiction series on Sunday. It’s called Counterpart, starring Oscar-winning character actor J.K. Simmons as both nice guy Howard Silk, and lying tough guy Howard (Silk) Prime, in a cold-war-flavored dystopian Berlin, where a secret tunnel leads from our dimension (home of the nice Howard) to another dimension, cleverly called The Other Side.

Howard plays go every morning at a café and then heads off to the job he’s had for thirty years, in a clandestine agency in a monolithic Berlin building. It is not completely clear yet what Howard does, but he is depicted as a drone. Early in the first episode he requests to be considered for a job in Strategy, and is coldly turned down. “You’ve been here thirty years,” the arrogant boyish boss says. “If it were going to happen it would have.”

Well, just hold up there, cowboy, because it is about to happen. Suddenly, Howard’s routine is upended when he is dragged off to a secret meeting with an emissary from The Other Side – himself. Howard Prime, a hardened field operative, brings an incomplete tale of an assassin from his side who is coming over here and killing people from the agency, as part of an attempted militant coup from his side. Suddenly, our Howard and his vulnerable wife Emily, who is in a coma, are at risk, and Howard has to be “read in” to the reality of another reality, with people who are us, but not just like us.

No, he’s not waiting for a toilet stall. Did I mention his job was boring?

There is a lot to like here. The biggest thing to like to J.K. Simmons, playing both a steadfast, nice, “beta” male and a decisive, ruthless rogue one. The cinematography expertly evokes the Cold War (even though the story is supposedly set in our present). In modern-day Berlin, there is still a Checkpoint Charlie, and it still leads to the other side – it’s just that the Other Side is no longer the Eastern Bloc, it’s an entire dimension.

I like the sense of surrealism and paranoia that already swirls through episode one, especially when we find out that Howard Prime has already lied about something important on his side.

The acting is good to great. I love how the one establishing shot we see of Howard Prime’s Berlin gives the sense of great changes while capturing the same city, and I love how the game of go is used as a theme throughout.

In Episode One, there is a sense that Howard and Howard Prime both think – and seem to agree—that they are the same person, which means they share traits even if they are not exercising those traits. We see this when Howard Prime, imitating Howard in Emily’s hospital room, confronts the unlikeable brother-in-law. More importantly, we see it again at the very end, when Howard points out to his boss that they need him… and he’d really like that promotion to Strategy. Just because nice Howard hasn’t been ruthless doesn’t mean he can’t be. Clearly part of the story here is the good old-fashioned, “What makes us a person?” For instance, when Howard is playing go with his café partner, he ruminates that every decision we make in our lives creates our personality (clearly he is thinking of Howard Prime). His opponent says that’s nonsense, that we are the people we are without our decisions. I think that will be debated in action over the course of the show.

Counterpart rings a lot of bells. There isn’t really new ground in the double/clone/road-not-taken plotline. I was reminded, pleasantly, of China Mieville’s The City and the City although Mieville’s take is original. I was also reminded of Fringe, and spouse said, “This’ll sound weird, but I’m thinking of the original show The Prisoner.” In the sense that a man is expected to provide information when he never knows what’s going on, that’s pretty appropriate too.

The show is violent; it’s a spy thriller, after all. It’s a premium channel, so there is a lot of rough language, and I think we’ll see polite, steadfast Howard begin dropping f-bombs after a while (Prime already can’t get out a sentence without one, almost.)

There are a few things I don’t like. Putting Howard’s wife in a coma looks, at first glance, like the storytelling trait called “fridging.” This term, which comes from superhero comics and the website called Women in Refrigerators, means killing off or injuring the wife/girlfriend/partner so that the male character’s quest for vengeance will be seen sympathetically by the audience. I am warily giving Counterpart a pass here, so far, because there are clues in the story that Emily’s “accident” is related not to her relationship with Howard but to her own work for the agency.

I do not love the showrunner’s decision to casually call the cold, decisive, murderous field operative Howard “Howard Prime,” as if he comes first. On one hand, I do like that our dimension is not the “prime” one (although the other side is called “The Other Side”). On the other hand, rating the killer as automatically better than the caregiver offends me.

My biggest problem with Episode One comes with nothing in the episode itself. Starz always does a little afterword, behind-the-scenes thing, and in this case, showrunner Justin Marks went on and on about how special the scene with Howard talking to Howard was. Marks is apparently hoping that there is no overlap between his viewership and those of us who watched Orphan Black, who pioneered the camera work necessary to film an actor working with herself. A nod to the techniques championed by that groundbreaking show was required. If Marks and his whole crew were ignorant of Orphan Black, and somehow re-created the wheel, then he is incompetent and stupid. I think “arrogant” is more likely. It’s a bad mark against him. I won’t let it ruin my enjoyment in the show.

I’m waiting to see where Counterpart goes. So far, it offers up plenty to keep me watching.

UPDATE: I tweeted Justin Marks to ask if he used Orphan Black techniques in his show. He replied that they used some, “but we had to figure out our own.” Hmmm.

Posted in Television Tuesday | Tagged J.K. Simons, Other Dimensions, Spy Thrillers | Leave a comment

Women’s March, January 20, 2018

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Marion

The Sebastopol Women’s March of 2018 was supposed to start at 12:00 on Saturday, January 20. I thought that meant the march, which was really more of a walk, since we were only to go a block, started then. It didn’t. We didn’t walk until 1:30.

Clearly I am unfamiliar with events.

You tell ’em, sister.

I got to the plaza about 11:40 and there was a small gathering of men and women, mostly wearing pinks, carrying signs. Mr. Music and the Peacetown group (which is also, I think, the Love Choir) were already set up in the pavilion. There were one or two booths, notably a Peacetown booth.

What was not there; voter registration. I thought that was odd, but it might be that most eligible voters in Sebastopol are registered. Wouldn’t you think, though, that it would be the primary thing form our outreach you’d want to make at this kind of event?

They started playing music shortly after I showed up. And people started arriving. And arriving. And arriving.

One view of the plaza.

There was lots of pink. There were lots of signs. There were lots of men, too, many carrying signs or wearing them. It’s nice to live in a town where so many men consider themselves feminists and are willing to give up a Saturday afternoon to support women.

Another crowd view.

When I was in the crowd or on the fringes I couldn’t hear a word being said over the speakers. When I left the crowd and went across the parking lot, every word was as crisp as fresh lettuce.

A speaker from the Graton Day Labor Center talked about the work done by undocumented women and how it is foundational. As she put it, “Without the work they do, the other work would not get done.” That’s a little extreme, isn’t it? Well, if you consider the people who care for your children, fix your meals, make your sandwiches, clean your hotel rooms, wash and bundle the vegetables you buy at the store, pick the vegetables you buy at the store… it’s not far-fetched.

The front was a standard “Vote” sign. But the back…

Another speaker noted that within the Downtown Merchant’s Association in Sebastopol, nearly half the small-businesses are woman-owned. That was inspiring. Later, when I was over at Second Chances, Emma and I made a list, and it is impressive.

On Main Street and within a block in either direction:

At least one of the yoga studios. There are three.

I think but don’t know that Reenie Bird’s has a woman owner, and I don’t know about Kitty Hawk Gallery.

One protester was against reproductive autonomy for women.

There was one anti-reproductive-rights person there, with a friend and her son in a stroller. I don’t know if her sign was a common “sign-making” error, or a clever strategy to lure people in close enough that she could talk to them. Still, I admire her courage. Several times, she was close the “I support the 1 Amendment” person, and that seemed apt.

There were funny signs.

Of the funny signs, the Ikea one is my favorite.

Dumbledore’s Army.

There were serious signs.

There were inspiring signs.

We, the People

There were signs that were bitter and true.

"We are the daughters of the Brujas you didn't burn."

These are the witches that Trump warned you about.

After singing, some speeches, and more singing, then some pep-rally-level chanting, we went on our march.

The Hub-bub Club started us off, including playing over the final speaker who was rousing the crowd, but then I lost track of them. It was a quiet march. The women next to me said we had agreed to be quiet since we had to be on the sidewalk and we didn’t want to disturb the merchants (who supported us). Still, as demonstrators go, we were pretty docile. There were a lot of us, though. I maintain, although there are no numbers provided, that about 1200 people attended.

My favorite moment came as we walked east on Bodega Avenue, a tide of mostly-white, many gray-haired, mostly women, many in pink, most with signs. A family group came out of the ramen restaurant. The two kids had dark skin and shiny black hair. The adult woman had dark skin and long black hair. The man behind her had dark skin and black hair. They stepped right into our group. (They had no other choice.) The man cupped one hand around his mouth and stage-whispered to the woman, “Blend in! Blend in!”

Posted in View from the Road | Tagged events, Sebastopol, Trump, Women's Rights | 2 Comments

Not a Guild War, Just a Guild Spat

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Marion

Ninety percent of what I know about guilds comes from the Wikipedia article I read a few minutes ago. Keep that in mind as I write about a Twitter kerfluffle from this week and what I think about it. Or what I think I think about it.

Stained Glass Window depicting a guild member.

Guilds have a long and eventful history. They date to medieval times, and were the precursors of both universities and, in a way, labor unions. (The Catholic Church disliked them because guild members were required to take an oath swearing loyalty to the guild. Who knew the Church was engaged in union-busting from such an early date?) Their name, “guild” comes from the word for gold; obviously you paid a membership fee and obviously many guilds were wealthy and powerful. Guilds were generally local, and operated with written support of a monarch (letters of patent). They were, pretty much, what we would now call a closed shop. If you wanted to own tools, learn the craft and practice the craft, you better belong to the guild.

A craft guild. Hey, that’s a woman heating up those metal rods. Want to bet she’s not a member?

I don’t know how you got into a guild. I suspect, because there was also the tradition of apprentices, that you didn’t just go down there on a Monday morning and sign up. You were probably sponsored by a journey-level or master-level craftsperson.

If someone starts something they call a “guild” today, what are they envisioning? The word “guild” is very popular in fantasy circles and role-playing circles. “Guild” these days probably doesn’t mean a group of people who are banding together to enhance their collective bargaining power. That would be a union. What would a “guild” provide today?

I ask because there is a guy who wants to start a group that he’s calling the Science Fiction and Fantasy Creators Guild or the SFFCGuild. He sees the guild as a professional organization that includes all SF creators, including game developers (I think). He says the organization is about inviting everybody and getting back to good stories, not political stuff.

The SFFCGuild got off to a rocky start. Guild-guy planned to unveil his website, SFFCguild-dot-com, on February 4, but a zealous supporter put something on Twitter and then there were responses, so he had to respond to those, and it quickly got contentious. As of today, the website has a Home statement and a blog post which are the same, and everything else is “TBD.”

The first, obvious question I have, is why the field needs a “guild” when it already has a robust professional organization in the US. The Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) is strong. They assist writers with contracts, they make policy, they have an emergency medical fund for members, they provide marketing tips and craft tips and they host the Nebula awards every year. Their Writer Beware and Editors and Predators column is available to anyone (even nonmembers) and the SFWA Bulletin, a monthly trade magazine is available to everyone, even nonmembers, as a subscription. They’ve been around quite a while. You have to have made a certain level of professional-rate sales to join, which seems to make sense.

In 2017, SWFA started including game developers in its membership.

SWFA has issues, like any large organization in this society. Young writers find the emergency medical program, which by necessity is a gate-keeping program, not coverage-for-all, old-fashioned and privileging the olds. The Bulletin had a really embarrassing cover malfunction a couple of years ago. Like almost all of us, they are struggling in a society that seeks to be actively more inclusive and more respectful of everybody – and a society where social media blazons your mistakes across the internet about 1.5 minutes after you make it. They’re not perfect.

There is also Codex, which has a membership requirement too, less strict than SFWA’s. Codex is a marketing and discussion group that is quite robust which also provide information on craft.

And then there is the Locus Foundation, which publishes the trade report Locus and offers periodic intensive workshops on craft with SFF writers like Charlie Jane Anders, Daryl Gregory and Nick Mamatas.

London Guildhall, AKA the Secret SFWA Headquarters

I wasn’t sure what the Guild would have to add. A new group doesn’t have to add anything new, of course. They could differentiate themselves by how they present resources, or elevate a social focus. When I looked at the Home Page for the under-construction website, I realized right away that Guild Guy’s issue is mostly with awards. Here is a quote:

So here we are in 2018 and I find myself thinking the same thing when it comes to the state of science fiction and fantasy and those who have claimed the title of gatekeepers and leaders. For some time now they have led the two genres along a dark path. Science fiction/fantasy used to be about escaping the real world and enjoying well-produced stories of great adventure on the written page as well as the big and small screens and game boards.

Over the past decade or so a certain mind set has insinuated itself into the leadership of science fiction/fantasy – the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association and World Science Fiction Society along with a few other institutions – have steered their organizations toward a more political/social activism bent.

Oh, he doesn’t like SFWA. He dislikes them so much he got their name wrong. Okay. And this is mostly code for, “I haven’t won a Hugo or a Nebula so I’m mad.”

That’s fair. The history of the European colonization of America is largely about people groups having a snit because they couldn’t get what they wanted, and coming here so they could (and taking other people’s stuff, but that’s a different story). We invent new religions all the time here. DragonCon invented a new award recently (Guild Guy hasn’t won one of those yet). There’s no reason the Guild shouldn’t have a Guildie or a Guilda. I think, after doing a smidge of research on Guild Guy, that the contestants would be mostly self-published, and why not?

I qualify as a SWFA member and I joined two years ago. I’m barely a member, but I really like what the group offers. I really enjoy voting for the Nebula awards (and you don’t have to be a SFWA member to be nominated for the finalist list—or even to win the award. You just have to be a member to vote.) I also am dipping my toes into Codex, which is a rich resource too.

It’s probable that the Guild is aimed at indie-published and self-published writers. That would make some sense. This is a growing market. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have their own group. They would have expertise in the self-publishing field. Self-publishing is not my career goal, because it’s too much work and doesn’t play to my strengths. I’m not good at marketing, I’m not good at accounting, and it seems to me when you take on the business side as well as the creative side of the process, you have to be good at those things. So the Guild wouldn’t be for me.

There’s another reason it wouldn’t be for me. Writing and sending work out is hard, thankless work. If I were to be cynical, I would say that it’s about digging as deep and working as hard as you can to create something true and good so it can be rejected. It’s already bad enough that most writers tend to sink into conspiracy-theory whining when they get together… I wouldn’t want to join a group predicated on whining, and the words in that Home Page statement look like whining. Big time.

The lesson I took away from this was that the SFFCGuild is probably not for me, and the really big lesson I learned was that I need to find myself a good book about the history of European trade guilds, and especially the history of the guilds in London. Those guys sound epic.

Posted in Thoughts about Writing | Tagged Codex, Guilds, Hugos, Locus, Nebulas, SFWA | Leave a comment

To Go or Not To Go

Posted on January 11, 2018 by Marion

I haven’t decided if I want to go to WorldCon 76.

This is kind of silly. Last year I took an airplane halfway around the globe to attend. This year, it’s driving distance (San Jose), and I’m hesitating.

The truth is, a lot of people show up at WorldCon, and I’m not always comfortable around a lot of people. Somehow, no matter how diligently I peruse the program or interact with the app on my phone, I miss the really good panels and make bad choices. This doesn’t happen with as much regularity at FOGCon for some reason. Probably that reason is fewer choices.

I will probably go ahead and register as a participating member, with the idea that I can transfer my membership later on if I change my mind. That way I’m covered.

I could also go to the WorldCon weekend, attend the Hugos, and use the hotel as base camp for other day trips in the area. San Jose has some interesting stuff, like the technology museum, and even the Winchester House again.

After a relatively peaceful MidAmeriCon, and smooth-sailing as far as I heard at WorldCon75 in Finland, there has already been an attempt at a dust-up for WorldCon 76. It is tiny and the Con Committee has handled it; the duster-upper is still flailing around trying to get attention and maybe book sales, but that’s a phenomenon localized mostly to the duster-upper’s blog, his supporters’ blogs, with a few comments from the usual folks.

The reason to go to WorldCon is for the Hugos, and the Hugos should be good this year. They should also be competitive. Lots of good books came out, and lots of good short fiction came out. I’m pretty sure that N.K. Jemisin will three-peat for Best Novel, unless as a mass-consciousness, readers make some kind of Oscar-style “she got it last year and the year before; it’s someone else’s turn” decision. The new category, Best Series, gives voters an out. They can vote The Shattered Earth as best series, which will bump my personal favorite for Best Series, The Divine Cities by Robert Jackson Bennett. I care passionately about those books winning a Hugo, but apparently it isn’t a big deal to Bennett.

This is also the year that gave us Daryl Gregory’s Spoonbenders and Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Beautiful Ones and Elena Donnelly’s Le-Carresque Amberlough.

Over at Fantasy Literature, we put together a list of our favorites. Go take a look.

As I write this, I think I’ve talked myself into a full (participating) membership.

It’s an hour later. I just signed up. And booked the hotel.

Posted in Hugos, Thoughts about Writing | Tagged Hugos, San Jose, WorldCon | 3 Comments

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Cancelled.

Posted on January 9, 2018 by Marion

BBC America has cancelled Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The wrap-up episode (with an obligatory cliffhanger regarding the characters of Bart and Ken) of the second season is now the final episode of the show.

I’m not surprised, and I’m not that disappointed, because in most ways, Season Two did not live up to the promise of Season One. The weirdness felt forced, and the alternate dimension was too much of a reflection of better alternate dimensions on TV right now, the most obvious one being Fillory on SyFy’s The Magicians.

Dirk Gently fell into a common TV trap; it counted on a brilliant cast and intentional weirdness to fool its audience into thinking there was more going on than there was. In Season One, where there was more going on, this worked. In Season Two, it almost worked. Scissor-swords worked brilliantly, for instance. The Rowdy Three and Amanda’s evolution worked. Ken’s character arc worked. Overall, though, the villains were under-utilized and in the case of Suzy, under-developed. Once we got the shocking reveal about poor, downtrodden Suzy, she stopped being interesting. Great makeup and an actor who can roll her eyes and act diva-ish couldn’t balance the deficit. John Hannah was completely wasted, which was a shame. In retrospect, it made me like his longer run on Agents of Shield much more.

Bart, the quantum assassin. Is she more than a weapon? Evidence indicates the answer is “Yes.”

The character I feel worst for, and want to follow more, is not Dirk (although Samuel Barnett is brilliant) but Bart, played by Fiona Dourif, the “quantum assassin,” a finely-honed weapon who kills people randomly because “she gets the feeling the universe is telling her to,” only she’s right. She cannot be killed. Point a gun at her and fire, the gun will misfire or the bullet will ricochet. In Season Two, another thing to love is Bart’s tense and strangely mutually respectful scene with Mr. Priest, played by Alan Tudyk. I would love to know what happens to Bart. I’ll also be watching to see what Dourif does next because she is a fascinating actor, who seems to have chosen her father, Brad Dourif’s, path of the quirky and offbeat role.

Amanda, learning to own her power.

I loved Amanda’s growth arc and her bonding with the four Rowdy Three (yes, there are four). Basically, everything associated with Blackwing had potential and was squandered in Season Two, but I liked it while it lasted.

Anyway, happy trails to these excellent actors, and thanks for one wonderful season and a season that had some great moments. Thanks for all the fish. Oh, wait, wrong Douglas Adams reference.

The Rowdy Three, all four of them, and their van.

Posted in Television Tuesday, TV Shows | Tagged BBC America, Dirk Gently, Elijah Wood, Fiona Dourif | Leave a comment

Update: The Rule of Five, the Rule of Four

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Marion

In mid-December I posted a column on my physical health and some possible changes. It was a different kind of post for me, since it’s the kind of thing I don’t usually talk about publicly. Anyway, I think it’s time for an update.

You might remember I had two rules for small behavioral changes; the Rule of Five (walk, even if it was a short walk, five days out of seven) and the Rule of Four (skip the sugary coffee-drink four days out of seven). I had also started medication for the blood pressure.

The meds are doing just what they need to and my blood pressure is down to where the doctor wanted it. I check it (nearly) every day, and I am out of the danger zone. The first three weeks I was on it I felt physically tired nearly all the time, which is a common effect, but I’ve adjusted to that, or something, because I don’t experience the fatigue consistently. I still get calf cramps now and then, which is also an effect of the meds, but they don’t last long.

The Rule of Five. Walking has been easy. Our unseasonably dry – and until recently, unseasonably warm weather made a short walk in the park easy. Failing that, I walk to the grocery store and back, which is about a mile, or walk around in the park and then to the store, which probably clocks in at about one and three-quarter miles. Now that Brandy has opened Second Chances, I walk down there and back a few times a week. That’s a mile down and the same back; a good walk.

One of my self-appointed tasks in the store is shelving books. This is not exercise, but it is movement and it’s probably good for my whole body—except my knees. My knees do not approve of this activity.

Walking isn’t hard. It helps that I like to walk and that I stop and take pictures.I think in the past six weeks I’ve managed to do it six days out of seven for most weeks. No, the Rule of Five isn’t hard.

It’s the Rule of Four that’s kicking my behind.

It’s killing me.

You’ll remember that I ingested a lot a sugary coffee drinks, and I decided to cut back. I took it easy on myself. I cut back to three per week. This should have been the Rule of Three, but I inverted it and made it the Rule of Four; four days a week mocha-free.

I’ve managed to do it, heaven knows how, but I think about it all the time. Part of the flaw in my plan was that I free-formed it. I gave myself three days and I get to pick the days. It might have been easier to just say, “Coffee drinks on weekends only.” But no! I wanted freedom! I’m an adult. I get to choose! Choosing means planning. Planning means thinking about it. In a double-negative, though-experiment kind of way, I have to think about the mocha drinks I won’t be drinking. It becomes tempting to see those four days as some kind of terrible sacrifice. Oh, woe! Wednesday is mocha-free! That sort of thing.

Still, I’ve managed it, except for that one week where I had achieved it, and then on the last day of the week a friend brought me a mocha. Well, I couldn’t refuse, could I? I gratefully accepted. And sure, I could have cut back to two treats the following week to balance it out, right? Do you think I did? You know me, so you know the answer to that question.

This is America, and I’m female, so I will anticipate the question you all have; “Have you lost weight?”

Short answer: Yes. I’ve either lost one pound or two pounds, and I’ll get my doctor be the tie-breaker on that one, later in the month.

Longer answer: That’s fine – it would only be good if I dropped a few pounds – but that is not my goal here. My goal is general wellness, and weight loss… and a bit of toning… is a part of that but I haven’t formulated a weight loss plan, and I may not.

I’m feeling better, and I think I’ve taken a few steps away from having my brain explode. My brain is important to me, and I’ve finally gotten around to showing it.

I’ll keep you informed. Unless it’s boring; then I won’t.

Posted in Ruminations | Tagged Heath, mocha, sacrifice, wellness | 2 Comments

In the Redwoods

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Marion

“Is that crow on the stump?” I said. I stood by the narrow six-paned window next to the wood stove in the sitting room. I had been looking at the cluster of sea-rounded stones, bits of driftwood and one crab claw on the window sill, most of the stones and woods marked by a Sharpie with names and dates, like “Happy 51st Amanda, Love Ron,” and “Kia and Joe, 4th Anniversary, 2016.” There was nothing written on the crab claw. Across the meadow a dark shape stood on an old stump. It was black, but small for a crow. “Is it a stellar jay?” I said, thinking that the diffuse light caused by the blanket of clouds were making the bird look darker, if it were a bird.

Window sill mementos.

Spouse joined me at the window. “I don’t think so,” he said. The black shape was immobile. A crow or a jay would have preened by now, have becked or turned its head. “Maybe if you looked through your camera lens?” I went and got the camera and zoomed the stump. It clearly was not a bird, but I still couldn’t tell, then, what it was. It was hard to distinguish even though it was such a definitive flat black against the grays, greens and tans of the stump, against the trunks of the redwood trees.

I went back to the couch and picked up To the Lighthouse.

I had promised myself that I would reread To the Lighthouse over the holiday weekend and I was keeping that promise. I love the way the book requires the reader to slow down, to sink into each line of prose, and how the book rewards the reader for that. At the same time, I could not read it through in one unbroken sitting. Sometimes the story forced me to get up. I’d go stand on our deck between the two red Adirondack chairs and stare down at the onion-spired lodge and the sparkling sea beyond. I’d listen for the raven. I’d wander our cabin, Rose Cottage, which is one of he early ones, a blend of an old fisherman’s cabin (the bathroom and kitchen) and the 1970s imaginings of Eric, with an octagonal window at each end and two skylights, one beam carved into a bird. At night, with the nearly full moon, the cabin glimmered in silvery light and the line of the ribbed skylight over the sitting room and the octagon window looked like a train terminal, someone’s grand central station, somewhere.

Rose Cottage Interior

I’d walk away from To the Lighthouse because I needed to contemplate. I didn’t want to think about the book. I didn’t want to use the top of my brain, the intellect. I wasn’t mulling over the freshman-paper questions: What is the importance of the lighthouse? Why doesn’t Mr. Carmichael like, or at least admire, Mrs Ramsay? Is it significant that while we quickly learn Mrs. Dalloway’s first name in Mrs. Dalloway, we never seem to hear Mrs. Ramsey’s? What does the animal skull in the children’s room symbolize? No, I needed to walk to way to let the prose, the rolling, looping, swooping sentences, settle, or let my brain settle around them, those repetitions, the lines of poetry, the chorus of women can’t write, women can’t paint, the recollection which moves like a virus from Mr. Bankes to Lily Briscoe of Mrs. Ramsey all in gray. Sometimes I walked up the four stairs to the elevated bedroom. Sometimes I looked out the narrow six-paned window.

Redwoods

We promised we would go to the bookstore on Sunday if it were fine. Actually, if it had been storming like crazy we would have gone. I got a fantasy novella. Then we talked along Highway One to see Red Stella’s new space. Red Stella is a high-end clothing and accessory shop who moved from Cypress Village into the old Post Office building. They have twice as much space and are right on the highway. That’s got to be good.

Red Stella, now in the old Post Office building.

I admired the new roof on the Surf Market, because Spouse was in charge of that project, his final project before retirement.

On our way out, we had taken the drive that loops around the Meadows. Spouse slowed down and pulled in as close to the stump as we could. “Well, there you go,” he said.

A black stone Buddha on a madrone stumps, surrounded by stones.

It’s Buddha in the redwoods.

Posted in View from the Road | 1 Comment

The Trickster Gods Convention; 2017 in Review

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Marion

It’s customary… at least I guess it’s customary… well, some people take the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve to review and reflect on the year that nearly past, and plan for the one that’s coming up.

Oi.

2017 was a year for the history books, certainly. If you believe in trickster gods, they must have been having a convention in our dimension this year, and they got us. They got us good. Globally, nationally and locally it was a year of disappointments and disasters. The politics were mostly bad, with startling sparks of hope and goodness. Natural disasters filled my awareness the second half of the year. Nationalism and “nativism” clawed their bloody way to new heights of prominence and new depths of behavior, egged on by platforms like Twitter. Close friends endured major setbacks in their lives, as did people I don’t even know in places like Puerto Rico, where many citizens still don’t have electricity.

“We totally GOT them! They did not see 2017 coming!” says the three-legged crow.Larry Vienneau, The Three Legged Birds, Etching 2010

We personally emerged from the devastating fires unscathed and for that I am very grateful. On the personal front, I think I dodged, not a bullet but a cannonball, health-wise. It remains to be seen, going into 2018, what kinds of changes I will need to make in my life to keep dodging it.

Personally, much of 2017 was great. My trip to Finland and Iceland was wonderful. WorldCon was the least interesting thing about it, and I still had a good time there. What I learned is that WorldCon is a little too big for me to truly enjoy myself. But I got to see parts of Helisnki, so the whole trip was a plus.

Image from behind the Central Terminal in Helsinki

Reflections of Reykjavik

Iceland, an island of glaciers, waterfalls and volcanoes.

And the eclipse! In the middle of a terrible year, a celestial wonder that brought the nation together in a way that was positive and fun. And… how amazing!

I got to spend some time with our friend Sharon, and that is always a plus.

My September visit to Hawaii meant connecting with Linda, Marta and the writing group, and a writing workshop face to face after several years of Skype was like a breath of fresh mountain air (not an active volcano, some other mountain). It was wonderful. And our newest workshop member, Tania, brings intelligence, originality and humor to the mix.

Marta Randall at HawaiiCon, where we almost all met up.

I tend to think of 2017 as a bad writing year, but I have to analyze that because I am reacting to disappointments that are recent. In 2017, a story of mine won a writing contest. An anthology with a story of mine it in came out. And I got paid a little bit of money. None of that is bad.

Weekly writing sessions with Brandy boosted my productivity and kept me going when disappointment urged me to just stop, just give up and stick to something I’m good at, like book reviews. The Benicia crew continued to be a lifeline of support, acerbic observations about the nature of life, a bubbling spring of creativity and all-round hilariousness.

The first half of 2017 I spent finished the first draft of a novel. So it’s done. I guess that’s some kind of a milestone.

I thought I had a good book, but the reaction of my writers group was flat. One person didn’t even finish it. When you don’t finish a book after you’ve made a writers-group commitment to finish, it’s got to be pretty bad. She hasn’t told me when or why she stopped, or what threw her out. I should ask, but to my surprise, I was pretty wounded by the responses in general and hers specifically – too hurt to ask, actually.

So, one of those “plans” for 2018 is to reread it, take stock and start in on a revision.

On the other hand, I did get an invitation to submit to another anthology. That’s good.

I think my writing is improving. My attempts to stretch my storytelling style, which was one of my 2017 goals, have had some success. It’s left me in a place where it’s difficult to get feedback. Sometimes people who have known you, and your work, for a long time have trouble helping you change direction. I spent the last half of the year feeling betwixt and between.

Events like FOGCon, in Walnut Creek (a literary SF convention) and canvassing in Manteca (political activism) expanded my horizons a bit. I never would have expected to spend 2017 calling my elected representatives on a nearly-weekly basis, but I did. And I will in 2018, too, if I need to.

I didn’t get a new car. It’s part of the plan for 2018.

So is a trip to Florida, in May, just for fun.

In 2016 I gave myself an informal slogan; “2016 is the year I write for money.” And I earned about $600. I did not give myself the same slogan in 2017, and I earned $150. Maybe 2018 will be another year that I will write for money, and I will be more assertive about sending short work out. And I’ll spruce up that novel that nobody likes.

The year ended with two good things. Spouse retired! Really! He’s home, like, most of the time. This will prove interesting. And Brandy opened a used bookstore in the same location as Mockingbird. When Mark and Geronimo moved Mockingbird to Tracy, I felt the loss, and I am thrilled to drive by and see the cheery yellow Second Chances Used Books sign over the window. It’s a joy to get to shelve books and help people find just the right read again.

2018 is all about second chances.

2017? Politically baffling. Economically awful. Physically devastating. Travel-wise, delightful. Creatively mixed. Healthwise, responsible (somewhat belatedly). Family and friendwise, one of the best years in a while. I hated about half of it. And I loved about half of it. Given what we had to work with in 2017, I’ll take that and call it good.

I’d like to say, “We survived the Tricksters Convention!” but I have the feeling they’re not done with us yet. Have a safe and joyous 2018, and take care of yourselves and each other in the new year.

Posted in Ruminations | Leave a comment

2017: The Books We Got for Christmas

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Marion

Here’s my report on Christmas, 2017, and the books we got.

Spouse:

Two Kinds of Truth, the latest Michael Connelly mystery. This is a Harry Bosch book, not a Mickey Haller, so I think it’ll satisfy.

Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane. This is crime fiction with an interesting female main character. And we love Lehane’s prose.

The Big Burn, Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, by Timothy Egan. Published in 2010, this nonfiction work looks at Roosevelt’s legislation to create national parks, and the devastating forest fires in the Pacific Northwest in 1910 that swayed public opinion in his direction.

Me:

City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I am looking forward to dipping into this newly released fantasy novel. Of course it’s Book One of a trilogy!

Mixed Up, edited by Molly Tanzen and Nick Mamatas. This slim book contains cocktail-themed flash fiction and cocktail recipes for the drinks references. I don’t know which came first here; were the invited writers given a list of drinks to choose from, or did they pick the drink for which the editors then added the recipe? Whichever way it went, it is good fun. Like any anthology, the stories are not all to my taste, and the short word count exacerbates the problem in a couple of cases, but there are several I loved, and the cocktail lore is delightful. A perfect New Year’s Eve book.

In The Wake of the Plague, by Norman Cantor. Published in 2002, this upbeat little number looks at the spread of bubonic plague in 14^th century Europe. It is interesting but disappointing on several levels. Cantor introduces the concept that there were two diseases, not one, sweeping Britain and Europe during the period in question. His theory is that the other disease was anthrax, which does fit the facts. So far, though (I’m on page 60) he’s said very little about that. He also dwells on the fact that the 14^th century mindset was different from the 21^st century mindset, and has no difficulty judging them from his lofty perch in the ever so much more enlightened 21^st. My immediate reaction is to quote an old aphorism about glass houses and throwing rocks. His prose is also somewhat less than elegant. I will continue to read it though, because his descriptions of life during the time period is interesting.

Of course we got gift cards, so more books are coming!

Have a Happy 2018, everyone!