Reading

Nonfiction

Sara E. Wolf, Teaching Copyright: Practical Lesson Ideas and Instructional Resources: ( for non-legal educators who teach about (c) )

How Republics Die: Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond, ed. Frederik Juliaan Vervaet et al.: ( democratic decay: how does it work? )

Michelle Carr, Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind: ( I took a ton of notes )
Noah Feldman, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People: ( Interesting )
Ko-Lin Chin, Counterfeited in China: The Operations of Illicit Businesses: ( also interesting )

Adam Becker, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity: ( depressingly interesting )

Shoshana Walter, Rehab: An American Scandal: ( oh look more depressing )

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: nothing now

Digital communication.

My phone's inability to hold a decent charge is starting to grate on me. I don't use it for a whole lot of things or for many minutes throughout a given day, and based on the stats provided by said phone, the things that I use it for the most - the phone function itself for calls, the CitiBike app, and the home and lock screen - are fairly baffling that they're taking up the most energy. I can't claim to understand the details of the technology involved, but I can claim to be confused that using this phone as a phone is a major drain.

I'm not replacing it, though, not unless I can get the exact same model in the exact same color. I'm holding out until I've got no choice in the matter. Hopefully by then, technology's going to have advanced to the point I can replace the battery myself.

Current Mood: touched
Current Music: Live That Way Forever - Richard Reed Parry

Open the gates.

Coming down the stairs, I arrive at the same time an elevator opens at the other end of the hall: two adults, one stroller, one toddler. The toddler looks my way. I wave. The toddler starts coming my way. I wave again, and one adult tries to stop them, then gives up as they keep going, fast as they can, the adult following just behind as they finally get across the long, long hallway to reach me.

The adult with them advises reaching out a hand for a high-five, and the hand's offered. I give them a handshake, saying it's very nice to meet them.

And we're all on our way, happier for it.

Current Mood: moody
Current Music: nothing now

Tempting suggestions.

It's now been suggested to me that, like job applications, I cast a much wider net in terms of sending out novel queries and pitches. The logic's fairly sound, and I can't recall if there's any specific advice or industry information I've gotten to have me disregard it out of hand. I've heard that it's good to tailor queries to specific agents, but in terms of not sending out plenty of queries, I'm drawing a blank. So maybe there's something to it. To doing something, at least.

In the absence of going anywhere, whether to gigs or the movies or out with friends, it's as good a use of my time as any I can think of.

Fiction, including an unhappy rant at the end

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang: ( Ecoterrorists )

Ben Aaronovitch, Stone and Sky: ( Abigail to the front )

Rachel Hartman, Among Ghosts:( ghosts versus abusive family )

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Bee Speaker: ( Mars to the rescue (?) )

KJ Charles, Death in the Spires: ( murder among the swells )

Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar: ( my favorite book so far this year )

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume One (2018), ed. Neil Clarke: ( the pulse of the moment )

Richard Siken, I Do Know Some Things: ( prose poems )

Scott Carson, Departure 37: ( eerie phone calls )

Charlie Jane Anders, Lessons in Magic and Disaster: ( magic and community )

Melissa Caruso, The Tethered Mage:( palace intrigue and magic )
Chuck Tingle, Lucky Day: ( Not for me, sorry )

Kate Elliott, The Witch Roads:( survival in a dangerous magic world )

KJ Charles, A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel: ( more m/m in rural England )

Ray Nayler, ( Three very interesting books )

Matt Dinniman, Every Grain of Sand: The Shivered Sky - Book 1: ( Nope, need more Donut )

Ada Palmer, Too Like the Lightning( also not for me )

Allie Therin, ( 2/3 of a paranormal m/m trilogy )

Mira Grant, Overgrowth: ( Rant incoming! )

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: nothing now

September the First.

Three weeks to the day of Rosh Hashanah is an auspicious way to start a month. The season as a whole, really. It's not summer right now, no matter what produce I can find in the markets - it hasn't been for a while now, I just haven't admitted it yet. This year it ended for me on the 18th, waking up the morning after a big gullywasher cleaned out the last of the lingering humidity and giving me two weeks of the kind of days that wind up in movies and on postcards. And now it's September, with fall officially beginning.

Yes, that was the day after the Tom Cruise retrospective wrapped.

I've still got some cherries and rhubarb and plums in my fridge, and a quarter of a honeydew melon. The melon and cherries won't last much longer. But I'm not cooking with pumpkin until October, if I can help it.

Current Mood: full
Current Music: august - Taylor Swift

Beneath the sun.

Picking up a new fandom used to mean picking up a new icon. It turns out I already had one. I'd thought it was nice looking and atmospheric with no knowledge whatsoever about the character in it, and to no one's surprise, I managed to pick out my favorite without even trying.

Going from MASH to Top Gun to Friday Night Lights is something where I could easily pull out a through-line beyond that it's a trio of ensemble casts working within and against the rigid structures they're living in, whether or not it's by choice. Something about maintaining a sense of self and self-worth both externally and internally, but I'm only about halfway through the first season. I know that it ends well, but not how it ends, or how it gets there, and I'm enjoying the process quite a bit.

There's no word for the feeling of watching something and being hit with the thought, "So that's where that icon comes from!" Sometimes it's reading and getting to a quote, sometimes it's a fraction of a moment caught up in a 100x100 square. But since the experience isn't unique, simply highly specific, I might a well just call it "fandom."

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: nothing now

Fidelity.

For no reason I'm capable of understanding, starting sometime yesterday, my iPhone and iPad stopped connecting to my home wifi. The network was there, the devices acknowledged it, and my desktop was always able to tap into it through the relevant connecting device. The desktop's too old to have inbuilt wifi capabilities, but the iPhone and iPad were new enough they've got it, except it wasn't in them. They kept saying the password was wrong. I checked on the wifi router provided by the phone and internet company and typed it in, several times, and neither device acknowledged it as correct. I tried the trick of having the devices forget about the network before trying to reconnect, and it didn't work.

Resetting the route managed it, somehow. I'd be better able to understand what happened if the desktop also didn't get it for a while, but it did, so I have to wonder where things got messed up. Because there was a problem that got fixed, and it wasn't a problem for everything.