Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Laura's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
1:15 pm	Difference between "How" and "Why". Not that I think anyone on any of my friends lists actually need to be reminded of this - I just haven't been able to yell any religous nutjobs in person today. Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origins of Species". Remember, you don't have to "believe" in evolution. As a natural and scientifically observable process, it happens whether you believe it does or not. No faith involved. It cannot be up for debate, because it is not a matter of opinion. If you want to have a debate about why it happens, go ahead, sit down with your friendly neighborhood theologians or philosophers, be they Christian, or Buddhist, or atheist, or whatever. Hash out amongst yourselves whether life creates itself, or Earth was commissioned by mice for a scientific study, or somebodies "God" started it, or that we were manufactured on Mars and shipped here in bubble wrap (thanks to my brother-in-law for that one). Have a nice dinner and a few drinks while you're at it - it might as well be pleasant, since all you'll be engaging in is an armchair debate. This rant brought to you by the days of old-school journalism, when people understood that Why When Where Who and How, are actually all separate questions. Be seeing you. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
2:31 pm	On Campus Today - File Under Ugh! People are on campus handing out free copies of "The Origin of Species". In front of the Natural History Museum, even. Why is this a bad thing? It is, in fact, the entire text - weighed down by an introduction written by this guy: Ray Comfort. Because he wants us to know, you know, the "truth" about evolution. As he says on his website "In one day, 170,000 future doctors, lawyers and politicians will freely get information about Intelligent Design (and the gospel) placed directly into their hands!" The really scary thing is that they're being so polite about it. *shudder* Current Mood: scared (Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
3:54 pm	Note to self Dear Self - It's the end of the day, your eyes are tired, and the article you just paged is titled "Volume Change Behavior of Dessicated SOILS"...not "Souls". (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
12:14 pm	Clash of what Titans? Watched the trailer for the re-make of the 1981 Clash of the Titans last night. Did not see any sign of a mechanical owl. Boo. Also, as in the original version, where, exactly, are the Titans? Perseus? Not a Titan. A hero, yes, but he was the son of Zeus, who was the first Olympian. Zeus? Not a Titan. Sure, his parents were, but he was a rebel. Probably had something to do with his dad eating all his brothers and sisters - you know, troubled childhood and all that. Calibos? Definitely not a Titan. Not even a figure from Greek myth. Probably a basterdized Caliban. His mother is, after all, a sea witch nymph. And while we're on the subject... Thetis? Possibly a Titan. If they got her name wrong and mixed her up with Tethys. Otherwise, she's just another sea nymph, and Tethys is her mom. The Kraken? Nope, not a Titan. Even if Posiden is his father. Posiden is another Olympian. And kraken is probably Norse in origin, not Greek. The monster in the orginal legend was called "Ceto", as in "Cetacean", as in WHALE. Medusa? Still not a Titan. Maybe possibly originally a snake-goddess from an earlier culture, but not a Titan. Oh, and even if it does make more sense than springing from Medusa's neck juice, Pegasus (also not a Titan), was a magical one of a kind winged horse, not part of a flock. If you're wondering why I put this much thought into a B-picture with special effects by Ray Harryhausen? Especially when I'm willing to forgive the addition of a super-cute mechanical owl? What can I say? I was poisoned by an early classical education. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
9:06 am	I'm channeling Leonard Cohen! Thank you for my awesome birthday present gmskarka! So, I said that I didn't care what Leonard Cohen did on stage as long as I got to see him live. And that it would be totally okay with me if all he did was sit and read his poetry all night. Well, instead, he and his incredible band of accompanying musicians and vocalists did this setlist: Dance Me to the End of Love; The Future; Ain't No Cure for Love; Bird on the Wire; Everybody Knows; In My Secret Life; Who By Fire; Chelsea Hotel #2; Waiting for the Miracle; Anthem. (He introduced his fellow musicians during the wind down.) Intermission. Tower of Song; Suzanne; Sisters of Mercy; The Gypsy's Wife; The Other Blues Song (Feels So Good); The Partisan; Boogie Street; Hallelujah; I'm Your Man; A Thousand Kisses Deep; Take This Waltz. (He introduced the band again during the wind down.) Encores: So Long, Marianne; First We Take Manhattan; Famous Blue Raincoat; If It Be Your Will; Closing Time; I Tried to Leave You. (Where he thanked the audience for the kind welcome and attention. And his lighting director. Who totally deserved it.) The stage set-up was just the band with draped curtains behind them, but the lighting changed the set drastically for every song, from a fairly obvious deep blue for "Famous Blue Raincoat" to lighting the back-drop curtains so they actually resembled a pipe-organ during "Hallelujah". The show was around 3 hours long. And he danced on and off stage between sets. And the "sublime" Webb sisters (2 of his vocal accompanists - on "vocals, harp, and acrobatics") did cartwheels. The best song intro, or at least his funniest, was the lead-in to "Chelsea Hotel #2", where he talked about sitting in a Miami Polynesian-themed bar, drinking rum from a ceramic vessel shaped to resemble a coconut, "taking a vacation from the deeply authentic", and reminiscing about the Sixties, "which, contrary to popular belief, lasted fifteen minutes". I may come back and add some more cool stuff as I remember it, but in short, "What do you get when you put Leonard Cohen and a bunch of fantasic musicians on stage together?" - Answer: A really AWESOME evening of music that never hit a wrong note - literally." And I got my poetry, in "A Thousand Kisses Deep". It gave me chills, I tell you. Chills. Really, good, chills. Back to Rockville review from KC Star here. Their reviewer gets some of the song names a bit wrong, but sums up the experience nicely. And here's one from The Pitch Current Mood: ecstatic (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
3:18 pm	Weekend Update Sorting Win. I knocked back the piles of stuff in the garage by a few feet and consolidated things like the four semi-filled boxes of books and media to get rid of (that have been floating around in various places) into just two that are now easily located and ready to go out the door. Sorting Fail. I opened up one of the boxes of stuffed toys from my parents house, fully intending to sort out just the few that were hand-made by my mother and other relatives and prepare to donate the rest. So I opened the box and looked inside. My under-brain took one look at the toys, said "Bunny!", and promptly had me close the box again. *facepalm* Television Win. The season finale of Mad Men. Yay Joan! Television Fail. Dexter. I'm tired of the unsympathetic wife, his sloppy mistakes, and the overall bad writing of this season. Boo. In Other News: We're going to see Leonard Cohen tonight!!! *bounce* We're taking the dog to the vet tomorrow. She has been making doggie-"Ouch" noises every few days for the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, she was favoring her right hind leg, didn't want to stand up, and yelped in pain every time she moved. Today, she's fine. ??? And finally, I think this might be fun - KC Game Fair. Thanks, gamera_spinning for pointing it out. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
12:46 pm	Non-Spoilery Reviews Dumb The Unborn - Why, why oh why, did I watch this? That's 90 minutes of my life that I can't get back. With what has to be one of the most disjointed plots I've seen since Los Nuevos Extraterrestres a.k.a. Pod People on MST3K. Oh, and Gary Oldman. Not that it helped. Clever The Child Thief, by Brom. Because Brom re-read the original Peter Pan and got a bit freaked out by this quote; "The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two." So, he wrote a book around the idea. And threw in some Celtic mythology for good measure, but not in an obnoxious way. It was a good read, very much in keeping with the recent trend of modern faery tales, and I enjoyed it. And if you like stories about slightly creepy, bloodthirsty faeries, you probably will, too. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
11:28 am	Apples Electric Boogaloo is going to be Snow White for Halloween. I shan't lie, I do have some rather awesome "Wicked Step-Mother" costume ideas. What I don't have, however, is a working sewing machine or the fabric I want for any of them. But I'm still thinking about apples, or at least apple-bearing women, maybe. So far, the front runners are Eris and Idunn. Idunn is currently in the lead, because she's Norse, and therefore dressed for the weather. Also, because I'm just not sure of the wisdom of evoking Eris at Samhain... Current Mood: apathetic (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
12:15 pm	Flash me your pearly white…skin? I guess that could be kind of sparkly. Because this just seemed like an appropriate post for the week before Halloween. Also, I have another dental appointment this afternoon, so I'm thinking about teeth. For all of us who may have forgotten – Anne Rice's vampires may not sparkle, but they certainly are shiny! To quote Lestat in The Vampire Lestat; "My vampire nature reveals itself in extremely white and highly reflective skin that has to be powdered down for cameras of any kind." And also this; "...the only consistent indication that I am not human is my fingernails. It's the same with all vampires. Our fingernails look like glass." By the time we get to Queen of the Damned, it's full-on, full-time glowing. Like here; "...His skin had a gold glow too it, the Dead glow which in the case of white Dead guys made them look like they were standing in a fluorescent light all the time..." And here, about the vamp himself; "My skin had a pearlescent gleam to it; and my eyes were even brighter, gathering all the colours of the spectrum and mingling them with an icy light." So you know, not sparkly, but definitely opalescent. Rice's vamps do, however, torch nicely in sunlight – or tan, at any rate. Also - if the golden age of science fiction is eleven, then when is the golden age of vampires? I’m positing somewhere around fourteen? At least for girls – sometime after we’ve ditched horses and picked up rock bands? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
12:25 pm	Coughtober Film Fest Reviews Thanks to a friend of gmskarka's, Coughtober is my new favorite word. As we arrived here from Sicktember, we've generally felt too tired and run-down to do much of anything except watch movies. Here's a sample. Push - Lots of people complained about this one, and while we were watching it, I didn't really understand why - then we got to the "end". It seemed like a decent, Heroes-esque action/superhero flick, including this pretty cool "puppet-mook" scene during the climax. I just didn't realize that it was scripted by Scheherazade. Ghost Story - A 1981 film featuring the Queen of the Borg killing little old famous actors. It had Fred Astaire! It was okay - I probably would have enjoyed it more if I were a fan of Peter Straub. If Mr. Astaire had had a dance number that would have helped, too. Duplicity - Hey look kids, a caper flick with Clive Owen! Sadly, I consider the ending a definite downer on what is an otherwise decent romantic comedy. (Edited to remove the super spoilery bit.) Drag Me to Hell is a fairy tale about how you should always be nice to creepy, disgusting old ladies...and kittens. As seen through a Sam Rami filter. It was fun, and mildly creepy, although I still don't buy the premise that any self-respecting gypsy would actually own, much less live in, a house. Knowing - I liked this one better than the reviewers told me I would. The numbers thing was a nifty hook. It did however remind me quite a bit of the recent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, with a marginally more depressing ending. Also, the dénouement scene was way heavy-handed, and breaks one of the long-time tenants of "Things to Avoid when writing science fiction". Bah! The Informers - This is very much a re-hashing of Less than Zero. Which isn't be much of a surprise, since they're both based on the works of Bret Easton Ellis. Would have been far better, and more interesting, if they had left the vampire plot in the film. Trick 'r Treat - This movie is awesome! And creepy! And thoroughly cute! Kind of like Disney's Halloweentown with loads of violent death added. If you have not seen it and you love Halloween (the holiday, not the film), do so as soon as possible! It is the only film on this whole list on which I will bestow a full five-tit-monkey rating! And lots of exclamation points! Done now. Be seeing you. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
10:50 am	Madness Got a spare grand? Dress like Don Draper. Mmmmmm... Mad Men Edition Brooks Brothers suit. Now that's advertising. Current Music: A Beautiful Mine - RJD2 (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
9:44 am	Anniversary Day After 12 years as a couple, we're on our THIRD official anniversary. :) Three years ago it was freezing, rainy and awful outside, and our friends and family still gathered around us - outdoors! - to freeze off their extremities and celebrate. That gives me a warm feeling that lasted way longer than the cold. And I married my best friend. What could be better than that? Love you, Gareth! Current Mood: happy (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
12:40 pm	Thoughts for the Day The trouble with wearing easily recognizable clothing that people have been complimenting all day is that it makes knocking down the delivery guy and running away with the brand new desktop Mac he's carrying a bit too complicated. Curse you, Superman jersey, for keeping me honest! ... When my reality gets in my Renaissance Festival, these are not two great things that taste great together. We're missing the last weekend for a variety of real-life reasons that cannot be denied. Among the work deadlines and family obligations that have come up over the last week for this weekend that can't be put off, there is also the matter of an Electric Boogaloo who is really sick, poor kid. And running off to faire when she's sick, can't go, and really wants to be there just seems a bit, well, mean. It would earn me a few points in the Wicked Step-Mother's Union, though... ... We just found out that EB's Winter Choir concert selections will all be in Latin. Obviously, this calls for her father and I to attend in full Victorian-era dress. Most other teens would be horrified by this thought. Electric Boogaloo, of course, is all for it. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
8:53 am	Monsters Day Out in London Because I needed something sweet this morning, here is a video featuring one of the participants from Anthony Gormley's One & Other project. Over 100 days, 2400 people each had an hour to fill the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. This guy elected to do it in a Godzilla-esque suit, complete with a smashable mini-London. Current Mood: sad (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
2:24 pm	Confessions of a Hoarder - An ongoing saga Knowing what I should do about this and doing it are two vastly different things. I'm posting about it so I can get the anxious feeling out of my system. Bah! to you, anxiety! I have classic hoarding issues. Not about everything. The internet age has thankfully freed me from the need to hang on to obscure reference materials just in case that knowledge comes in handy again one day. I can happily digitize pretty much any piece of paper I own and send the original into a recycling bin if I do want to keep the info handy. And I don't have to own every book I have ever read anymore. I know where to find them if I want them again. I do, after all, work in a library. I'm even pretty good about handing off or otherwise disposing of objects that are no longer useful to me. Kitchen utensils, old electronic equipment, the papasan destroyed by years of children throwing themselves into it with elephantine grace, old magazines, even old clothes and shoes. But if it's something to which I can assign sentimental value? Or something I don't want that I think can be turned into something I do want? I'm screwed. Today's example: This morning, I set a fanback wicker "Morticia" chair out on the curb. If no one has helped themselves to it by tomorrow morning, it goes to the dump. It isn't in the best of shape due to the cats using it as a scratching post, and I've had it sitting in the garage, unused and largely unusable, for AGES. But I couldn't throw it out until today. And there is still a part of my brain that is nagging me about pitching it. Because I loved it, and because a friend gave it to me. - See? What my brain finally - finally allowed me to see is that the important thing is that I still have the friend - not the chair. Out it went. Sentiment. It's just like sediment. Useful in small amounts, and destructive when it builds up over time. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 12th, 2009
9:01 am	To Faire on a cold-ass weekend... The cold seeps in around my bones. It creeps right in and aches my toes. It makes me think I've lost my nose, and wish that I had worn more clothes. Brrrrrr! fuck. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
9:10 am	Dizzy Dizzy Lizzy We are giving the BBC a giggle this morning. The announcers on BBC America were nearly laughing aloud during their broadcast. Because seriously, how many other countries can have a news day like this? President Barack Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize On the same day that NASA bombs the moon? In local news, I had a really nice time last night. (And Hooray for everflame and her awesome accomplishment!) This morning I am strangely dizzy. Not feverish, or with a sore throat, or anything else that feels wrong. Just mildly dizzy. I think perhaps my ears are stuffed up? (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
9:54 am	Skipped the Weekend That's what it feels like, anyway. I seem to have a great many germs embedded in my gums. Every time I go in for a cleaning, I end up sick the next day. Last time it was intensely ill but only for a day. This time it was more of a run-down, on-and-off feverish sort of thing that lasted most of the weekend. Consequently, I ended up not attending my 20th High School Reunion. And missing our front gate shift at faire. And mostly sitting around the house feeling very "bleh". Except when I cleaned the kitchen and made a new hooded half-cloak for Teenager 2. Because I would have gone crazy if I hadn't accomplished anything all weekend. The cloak turned out very pretty, and should be super-warm, since I lined it with polar fleece. I think I want one now. Being a bit stressed by our current house hunt probably doesn't help... *fingers crossed for good news* Current Mood: stressed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 5th, 2009
9:14 am	Hooray Comics! Hey look! One of my favorite comics is touting one of my favorite authors! Unshelved on "The City and the City" (Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
9:24 am	If an author falls in the forest, do they leave a sequel? Two highly touted OFFICIAL SEQUELS have made the news recently. Dracula: The Un-Dead is due to be released next October. It was written by Dacre Stoker, a *gasp* genuine descendent of Bram Stoker, and Ian Holt, a Dracula Historian. It largely appears to be Mr. Holt's idea, as the current Mr. Stoker was previously known for being an Olympic Pentathalon coach, and not a writer. But what really got to me was this quote from the article: "Dacre Stoker delved into his ancestor's handwritten notes on the original Dracula novel to pen his sequel, Dracula: The Un-Dead - the original name for Dracula before an editor changed the title. The novel, out next October, draws on excised characters, existing character back-stories and plot threads that were cut from Stoker's original novel, first published 111 years ago." Original notes or not, if these threads were cut from the novel, doesn't that indicate that the author discarded them? I thought that was part of the writing process - coming up with a lot of ideas and then streamlining them to create your story. I would actually be far more interested in seeing the notes themselves published in as complete a form as possible. (Unless they have been before, and I've just missed it?) At any rate, I just can't accept that this particular version of a Dracula sequel has any more literary legitimacy than any of the dozens of others that have been penned over the years, even with the Stoker family stamp of approval. And then, a sequel to "The House at Pooh Corner" is due to be released later this year. An act which seems to be largely driven by money. The new author has plans to deal with an "older Christopher", as Milne "dropped hints in the 1928 book, which followed Winnie the Pooh (1924), that Christopher Robin was growing up." Isn't part of the point of the books that each child reading them gets to decide for themselves what happens as Christopher Robin grows up? In "The House at Pooh Corner", A.A. Milne wrote this: "Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing." Those seem like pretty telling last words on the subject. Among many other works, H. Beam Piper wrote and published two novels in his "Little Fuzzy" series before committing suicide in 1964. Some years after his death, other authors (Fuzzy Bones (1981) by William Tuning and Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey (1982) by Ardath Mayhar) tried to fill in the gaps and "complete" the series, only to be totally contradicted by Piper's own third complete manuscript, which was discovered and published in 1984. In Tuning's case, I don't even think that he wrote a bad book - it's just that he was proven not to have written the book that Piper would have. Which is pretty much my entire point. There are huge debates in the art world about whether or not paintings and other artworks can ever be "restored" to their original appearance as envisioned by the artist. But how many people have picked up da Vinci's notebooks, or Van Gogh's sketches, or Andy Warhol's scribbles, and claimed that they have now produced new works that should be regarded as the next in a series of paintings, just as the artist intended? Seems a bit daft, really. Why should it be different for authors? (2 Comments |Comment on this)