The Bog of Lost Scholars

25 September 2006

Recent Reading and Non-reading

Filed under: The Castiron Reading Journal — Castiron @ 00:18

Sherwood Smith, Crown Duel and Court Duel. A YA fantasy duology about a young woman who first gets involved with a rebellion and then gets involved with the aftermath. Mel is a fun heroine, who makes actual mistakes that catch up with her, and who actually learns and grows over the course of the books..

Niobia Bryant, Let’s Do It Again. I could’ve sworn I’d seen a review of this book on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, but I haven’t been able to find it again. Anyway, it was an entertaining romance, in which a long-divorced couple has to spend a month living in a house together in order to receive a legacy, and in the process realizes that they’ve both grown up.

Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief. When really weird things start happening to Percy Jackson, he learns that his father was a Greek god. This is the first book in a series, but stands alone. I’m wavering between haunting the library for the second book Right Now and waiting until all projected five books in the series are published (sometime in 2009).

Two books that I didn’t finish:

Elizabeth Adler, The King’s Shadow. The last years of non-Norman England as seen through the eyes of Evyn, a mutilated boy who becomes King Harold’s squire. It was interesting and reasonably well-written (though the viewpoint glitches were starting to bug me — it reads like errors in Evyn’s viewpoint instead of like omniscient), but since it was pretty clear that it was all going to end depressingly (and a skim of the end confirmed it), I decided not to finish.

Ann Rinaldi, Amelia’s War. I checked this out because it takes place in Hagerstown, Maryland, where a couple of my ancestors lived. It’s the story of a girl’s life during the Civil War. I got about three chapters in but was too bored to continue.

22 September 2006

ONIX

Filed under: Publishing and Writing — Castiron @ 08:21

Dear small publisher:

ONIX is not that hard.

Really. It isn’t.

Yes, the full ONIX spec looks intimidating. But if you’re just doing a few books a year, you don’t need to worry about 90% of those tags. And the rest is just information that you’d be sending to vendors anyway — ISBN, title, author, page count, etc. You’re just formatting it as, say, AUTHORNAME rather than as Author: AUTHORNAME. And you get to use a consistent format that most of the major vendors will be able to process, so you’re essentially making one data file for everyone.

You might want a database; you’ll definitely want an XML validator. (I finally realized I needed to use one regularly when I discovered that four bad characters, at least two of which I’d removed from my ONIX database but not from the database further back, had gotten into my output.) You want a copy of the ONIX specs, downloadable from www.editeur.org. Once you’ve got that, it’s just some gruntwork — a lot the first time, and not so much later. I’ve found it well worth the trouble.

19 September 2006

Talk like a Pirate Day

Filed under: Music — Castiron @ 10:09

In honor of Talk like a Pirate Day, I plan to play lots of Jolly Rogers at work, but I probably should not sing lyrics from What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor? Unexpurgated Sea Chanties.

(On that latter: I spent fifteen minutes browsing around Amazon.com trying to remember the title…before giving up and walking six feet across the room to the bookshelf where the book lives. Further evidence that I am not John Scalzi.)

18 September 2006

Craft Update: Heel Lesson

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 21:45

I knit half a short row heel, tried the sock on, and learned an important lesson: if I want to do a short row heel rather than a thumb joint heel, I need to knit a longer foot. Since I don’t feel like knitting a longer foot, I’m doing a thumb joint instead.

Meanwhile, the mohair shawl is growing; I went ahead and cast on for the aran sweater, and am about halfway through the bottom ribbing; I’m about halfway through the front of my son’s sweater; and I haven’t touched anything else, though I might try to do a few stints tonight.

16 September 2006

Ed Miller

Filed under: Music — Castiron @ 11:04

For a late birthday present, my boyfriend took me to hear Ed Miller, a local folksinger. Miller is also a DJ on the local public radio station’s folk music show, and I’ve heard recordings of a couple of his songs, but this is the first time I’ve seen him live.

(Clearly I’ve watched Muppets from Space too many times. Every time I hear Miller on the radio, I can’t help thinking, “The cape! The cape for Ed!”)

It was a great show; the songs were enjoyable, and he’s excellent with between-song patter. The CDs were actually a little disappointing after the live show; they’re still good, just not as good. I definitely want to be on his mailing list for future performances.

12 September 2006

Recent Reading: High Tech, Low Tech, and Fanfic

Filed under: The Castiron Reading Journal — Castiron @ 21:51

Charles Stross, Accelerando. Rapid technological advance to the Singularity and beyond, as seen through the eyes of one family. The worldbuilding is great, and Stross brings across the rapid technology changes very well; I felt swept along but never totally lost. It made me look at Life Balance, del.icio.us, and my USB flash drive in a new way, as a primitive version of Manfred’s goggles.However, while the characters were interesting individuals, I didn’t really like any of them, and I never really got a handle on Pamela’s personality. Also, the very end of the book fell flat for me. It was well worth reading, but it’s not a book I’ll reread often.

Shirley Strum, Almost Human. An anthropologist’s story of her baboon research, what she learned about baboon society, and how her group found a new home for the baboon colony. Fascinating stuff.

Large quantities of fanfic, including Resonant’s Transfigurations (Calligromancy! What a seriously cool idea!) and most of Arsenic’s Harry Potter fics (I’m particularly a fan of Care of Magical Creatures).

11 September 2006

9-11

Filed under: People, Culture, and Society — Castiron @ 21:20

For me, 9-11 was a wake-up call.

Not in the sense of awakening new fear for my safety and the safety of those I love, or of a reminder to wake up and appreciate the beauty and brilliance of life. Rather, as I listened to the reaction of friends on- and offline, I realized that I didn’t feel anything about it other than a mild sorrow for the bereaved; NYC is farther from me than Istanbul is from Brussels, and DC almost as far, so what was there for me to get freaked about?

When your reaction to a major terrorist attack on your country that kills thousands is basically “eh”, that’s a strong suggestion that you’ve got a major problem, whether it’s your brain chemistry or a plethora of troubles sucking up your energy.

Suffice it to say that I got some counselling and dealt with the problems, and by time the tsunami and later Katrina hit, I was able to care. But 9-11 still feels a bit like something that happened to other people. I only emerged in time to see the wreckage.

During the months before and after 9-11, I faced the growing realization that my son wasn’t just speech-delayed; something was wrong. In January 2002, we received our first official confirmation that his behaviors were consistent with those of autistic kids.

It’s been up and down since then. He still rarely uses words; he still isn’t toilet trained. He’s obsessed with shredding paper and grass; he’d rather do those things than play with toys. But he’s able to clean up after himself somewhat, to take his plate to the sink, to put his laundry in the hamper, to sing recognizable tunes, to remember a route through a park, to blow a raspberry on my neck, to occasionally look at me when he wants to know if it’s okay for him to do something.

And today, September 11, 2006, we were watching the Debbie Harry episode of The Muppet Show. In one of the segments, Debbie Harry and Kermit sing “The Rainbow Connection” together. After the song was over, my son got up, went to the video shelf…and selected the DVD of The Muppet Movie, the movie the song originally comes from.

It’s a little thing, that the average three-year-old could do, that even my two-year-old nephew might be able to do. But it means that my son made that cognitive leap, that he realized the two different versions were the same song. And it thrills me to tears.

…above all shadows rides the Sun
and stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.
–J.R.R. Tolkien

3 September 2006

Craft Update

Filed under: Crafts — Castiron @ 11:15

A few weekends ago I got to see the Yarn Harlot. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is a very entertaining speaker, and I enjoyed her talk very much. And when I got my books signed, she touched my shawl!

The Plum Parade socks are done.

Old projects that I’ve worked on:

  • The Regia Provence socks. One’s ready for whatever I decide to do for a heel; the other is almost there.
  • My son’s sweater. The back is done; I’m about a quarter through the front.
  • Fair Isle swatch cap. I’m over halfway through the second pattern.
  • The Fantasy sampler. Just a few stitches.
  • The black shirt jacket. The collar’s on.
  • Crocheted lace top. One square.

Newly started: a shawl in a mohair blend. This one’s a bit of an experiment; we’ll see how it turns out.

Largely untouched: blue lace socks, Kiri shawl, Mesa shawl, crane, pentacle, Flanders map, Ruby.

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