To give you Five Norwegian Chaps Singing a Parody Version of Wham!'s "Last Christmas" in nonsensical German:



(Via justinhowe.)

Happy Glockenspielen' Holidays.

At work we've started making hygiene kits available - toothbrush, paste, deoderant, soap, etc. I was composing a sign to put in the window and started with:

We now have hygiene kits available. Please ask if you need one.

After some consideration and realizing the potential insult ("sniff, sniff - I think you need a hygiene kit"), I rephrased it as:

We now have hygiene kits available. If you need one, please ask.

Ah, English.

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

Apparently this is my month to be grouchy about dog books.

I'd really enjoy a book that was an in-depth survey of the history and current state of canine behavioural/cognitive study, which was what the author promised here, but I couldn't stand to stick around to see if she delivered.

Horowitz starts well by pointing out that one flaw in the science of animal-behaviour study is that scientists tend to generalize from single animals or small groups to the species as a whole, so that if one study subject fails to do x, then it is assumed the rest of the species will also fail to do x.

She then begins her fall in my estimation as she claims that people *don't* do this with other people (hey, stereotypes? Race fail?), and goes onto compound this first by being condescending and then by making factual errors such as explaining that ticks are "[m]embers of the family arachnid, a class that includes spiders and insects..."* (Why should I trust her reporting on less widely known information when she's making mistakes about fairly basic, widely known stuff? All while she's insisting that she's going to be bringing scientific rigour to our flawed understanding of why our dogs do what they do.)

*For the record, arachnids and insects each have their very own classes (arachnida and insecta respectively) within the phylum arthropoda.

Originally posted to http://batwrangler.dreamwidth.org/ -- comments welcome wherever you are reading this.

First, a LOLDOG that looks a LOT like Moose!


see more dog and puppy pictures

Totally right coloring, this dog even has the little black smudge on the top of the head! It's a Moose cousin!

And now, the entertainment portion of our show:

( cut because Moose is gross sometimes, and this is one of them. )

Following standuponit's example.

( Pictures. )

Originally posted to http://batwrangler.dreamwidth.org/ -- comments welcome wherever you are reading this.

Include a long day at work, an 8 to 8 shift, helping to cover for a scheduling snafu. First day back from vaca is going to be a fun one.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
Books 91-100.
Books 101-110.
111. Slaves of Spiegel by Daniel Pinkwater.

112. Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, edited by Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak. Given that I have a story in this anthology, I am certainly biased; overall, though, I enjoyed it more than the first volume. Particular favorites include Carlos Hernandez's "The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria" and Elizabeth Ziemska's "Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken." Do check out the free stories at the Annex, too.

Martin got an early Christmas present. His grandfather, Georg Kauper was a German (Hessian, actually) soldier in WWI, taking part in the Christmas Peace of 1914, somehow surviving through 4+ years of hell, and eventually immigrating with his wife and Martin's then three-year-old father through Ellis Island.  In 1918, shortly before the cease-fire, he was captured by the British, and spent a year as a POW in France.  Half his fellow prisoners died that year. His records in Berlin were destroyed and the family has never had much information about that episode of his life - and he wasn't too eager to share.  Earlier this year, however, the Red Cross in Geneva opened their POW records to people requesting information, and this week we got a letter showing the date Georg was captured, where and when his pertinent numbers.  We googled and found battlefield sketches from that place and day, most hauntingly a burial party, with a long line of head-bent captured soldiers marching off in the background.  Martin's account of it is here.
( Also LJ-cut here for the Facebook-phobic.  )

I sent soap to six people today. Some of them are surprise soaps! Whee! (If I had more soap, I would have sent it to more people, for reals.)

This year, with the help of my awesome friend Sharon, I made 3 flavors of soap: Holiday Peppermint (a blend of peppermint, spearmint, eucalyptus, and tea tree), Citrus Mint (grapefruit, peppermint, and spearmint), and Cinnamon/Vanilla (also known as CoDependent from the regular NewroticGirl aromatherapy line).

I <3 melt-and-pour soaps, they're so dang fun and easy!

Saturday I was shucking pomegranates all day.  At one point Martin entered the kitchen, looked at my hands, and ran away, shrieking "Madame La Guillotine!" Of course, he has been reading Tale of Two Cities to the kids.

I made three kinds of no-knead bread over the weekend:



The top loaf is "100% whole wheat flour", the pale loaf underneath is King Arthur unbleached all-purpose white, the darker loaf on the bottom is a mix of unbleached, whole wheat, and rye (but without caraway in it) with additional wheat gluten; it also could have used more yeast, but was far less brick-like than I feared it might be.

I also made two batches of the unbleached white using a loaf-pan. I under-baked the first (30 minutes at 450F), but the second (40 minutes at 450F) came out quite well.

Originally posted to http://batwrangler.dreamwidth.org/ -- comments welcome wherever you are reading this.

Missing Child in Chicago Brianna Lacey, 15, is missing. She is also known to go by the name of Brianna Wright. She was last seen Friday, December 18, 2009 leaving for school from her home in the vicinity of 80th Street and Eberhart and heading to Longwood Academy located at 95th Street and Throop, according to the Chicago Police Department. Brianna is described as a African-American, 5 ft. 4 inches tall, weighing 110 lbs., with brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. She also has pierced ears. She was last seen wearing a navy blue polo shirt, navy blue sweater, gray pants, and a brown coat. She had on black gym shoes, as well. According to police, she frequents the area near her home, as well as the area near 105th Street and Yates in Chicago, Illinois. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Chicago Police Area Two Detective Division Special Victims Unit at (312) 747-8274.   karnythia says: This is my son's cousin. She may have run away, but we don't know that for sure. The police are treating her as a runaway so there is no Amber Alert. If you have seen this girl and have any information please contact the Chicago police at (312)747-8274. Or if you are just willing to spread the link, please feel free to do so. She's a kid and we're worried about her. Thank you.

UPDATE - She's been found safe! 

Missing Child in Chicago

Brianna Lacey, 15, is missing.

She is also known to go by the name of Brianna Wright. She was last seen Friday, December 18, 2009 leaving for school from her home in the vicinity of 80th Street and Eberhart and heading to Longwood Academy located at 95th Street and Throop, according to the Chicago Police Department. Brianna is described as a African-American, 5 ft. 4 inches tall, weighing 110 lbs., with brown hair, brown eyes, and a fair complexion. She also has pierced ears. She was last seen wearing a navy blue polo shirt, navy blue sweater, gray pants, and a brown coat. She had on black gym shoes, as well. According to police, she frequents the area near her home, as well as the area near 105th Street and Yates in Chicago, Illinois. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Chicago Police Area Two Detective Division Special Victims Unit at (312) 747-8274.
 
karnythia says: This is my son's cousin. She may have run away, but we don't know that for sure. The police are treating her as a runaway so there is no Amber Alert. If you have seen this girl and have any information please contact the Chicago police at (312)747-8274. Or if you are just willing to spread the link, please feel free to do so. She's a kid and we're worried about her. Thank you.

I took a little spin around the neighborhood today to survey what's left of the carnage, and it's not pretty in NOVA. A lot of the back roads are not quite snow but not quite iced over, either. The parking lots, as you would expect, have been transformed into mazes piled high with snow that has nowhere else to go and the odd car that someone left there all weekend. The few stores I visited seem to have restocked successfully, much to my relief. I advise caution if you have to go anywhere for the next day or two.

...

A couple of months ago on my way back from Pennsylvania, a small rock flying at high speed knocked a pit into my windscreen, a few of inches from the bottom of the reinforced glass. It would seem that the low temperatures and possibly the weight of the snow have turned that little chip into a two foot long horizontal crack running parallel to the seal. The crack doesn't seem to have gone all the way through to the other side, if you run your finger along it if you're inside the passenger compartment you can't feel it. I'm a little concerned about what it would take to make it give way, though.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
Books 91-100.
Books 101-110.

111. Slaves of Spiegel by Daniel Pinkwater. Funnier than Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, half as long, and goofier; Sargon the Great, junk food pirate king of the planet Spiegel, concocts a cooking contest in which earthlings Steve and Norman, owner and assistant chef of the Magic Moscow--the most popular restaurant in Hoboken--are among the abductee contestants. There aren't really any twists here, but that's OK because Pinkwater gives planets names like Fred and Schwartz. I mean, that's not the only reason to like this book, but it's a good one.

Happy birthday, voidmonster! May your birthday be well-supplied with, as Poe would have it, the arabesque and the grotesque, the fanciful and the frightful, the wondrous and the weird!

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
Books 91-100.
101. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman.
102. Brown Harvest by Jay Russell.
103. Dab Neeg Hmoob: Myths, Legends and Folk Tales from the Hmong of Laos, Charles Johnson, editor and Se Yang, associate editor.
104. Summer of '49 by David Halberstam.
105. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter.
106. Black Betty by Walter Mosley.
107. She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett.
108. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater.
109. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock.

110. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. These books, man. Holy crap these goddamn books. I feel pretty incoherent trying to talk about them, because my enthusiasm is at full gallop. (Given that I spent a sizable chunk of my day today reading this entire book today, I should probably wait to cool off before talking about it, but I won't.) Back in September I read the first book in this series back to back with Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go; I loved The Hunger Games but disliked the Ness intensely. At the time I chalked it up to feeling manipulated by Ness's authorial hand, but that doesn't really wash, in the end--storytelling is manipulation, after all, in that we all choose what information to share, and we all try to guide our readers' emotional responses. No, I think that where these books differ (for me) is that, in Ness's work, there's nothing but the vicissitudes of narrative fate to (poorly) conceal the manipulative authorial hand; with Collins, there is the structure of a dictatorship, and the Games themselves, putting the characters through their paces. Collins is actually peeling back the curtain, showing us the people who are manipulating appearances and events both, whether it's composed, heroic Cinna and the rest of Katniss's sheltered but sincere design team, or the blood-and-roses menace of President Snow. The tension here is constantly being ratcheted up, and coming from unexpected directions--in fact, once we're back in the arena much of the urgency of the narrative actually falls away, because we know (at least in part) what we're in store for. But what leads up to that, and what it leads into, is subversive and socially aware in a way that I'm not sure I expected. There are times when Collins's world feels a bit too glossy and unsubtle; but overall, this is a hell of a series, and I can't believe I have to wait until next August for the third book.

See? Incoherent.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
Books 91-100.
101. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman.
102. Brown Harvest by Jay Russell.
103. Dab Neeg Hmoob: Myths, Legends and Folk Tales from the Hmong of Laos, Charles Johnson, editor and Se Yang, associate editor.
104. Summer of '49 by David Halberstam.
105. The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter.
106. Black Betty by Walter Mosley.
107. She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea by Joan Druett.
108. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater.

109. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock (Reread). It's dangerous to revisit books that loom large in one's mind--there is always the danger that a second look will reveal flaws that one had not suspected. For the most part, that isn't true of this book. Just yesterday this post reminded me of something I'm not sure I ever knew--Holdstock was a science fiction writer before he became interested in the concepts that suffuse Mythago Wood and its descendants. It makes perfect sense. This is a fantasy novel with an SFnal approach: in Part 1 a concept is introduced, in Part 2 it is made manifest, and in Part 3 the protagonist and the reader are carried inside it. That it's not science, exactly, but Jungian theory melded with a sort of deeply speculative anthropology--really, the "leaf-mold of the mind" that Tolkien spoke of--is what makes this book feel at once so rigorous and so richly fantastic; Ryhope Wood and the phenomena that surround it begin to seem not just wondrous but somehow enchantingly, horribly plausible.

If there's a caveat, it's that this story is very much out of the boy's-adventure-tale tradition, and while the outsider/conqueror/colonist dynamic is subverted at least in part, the gender dynamic is problematic in a way that's never really explored. Guiwenneth is a construct of Steven's or Christopher's or both, a literal dream girl, and yet the implications of this with regards to her own identity and their relationships are almost entirely ignored. Still, as Justine has recently discussed, it is possible to love something and accept that it's flawed. After all, a perfect novel may well be an impossibility; maybe it shouldn't even be the goal.

It's a bit unsettling for me to think back to when I first encountered this book--somewhere around the mid-'90s--and realize that I remember very little of it, not even why precisely I liked it so much. I was absolutely a less critical and less cognizant reader back then, and yet Mythago Wood hit me at a time when I was slipping out of the grasp of trilogy fantasy, looking for something more substantive and interesting; if I hadn't found this and books like it I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have moved out of the genre entirely, at least for a time. I wish I had had the opportunity to thank Mr. Holdstock for his books while he was still alive.