Jul. 12th, 2025 11:29 am
(no subject)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantslest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.
This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.
84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.
Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.
As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.
This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.
84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.
Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.
As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.
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Jul. 10th, 2025 11:33 pm
(no subject)
skygiantsI mentioned that I did in fact read a couple of good books in my late-June travels to counterbalance the bad ones. One of them was The Pushcart War, which I conveniently discovered in my backpack right as I was heading out to stay with the friend who'd loaned it to me a year ago.
I somehow have spent most of my life under the impression that I had already read The Pushcart War, until the plot was actually described to me, at which point it became clear that I'd either read some other Pushcart or some other War but these actual valiant war heroes were actually brand new to me.
The book is science fiction, of a sort, originally published in 1964 and set in 1976 -- Wikipedia tells me that every reprint has moved the date forward to make sure it stays in the future, which I think is very charming -- and purporting to be a work of history for young readers explaining the conflict between Large Truck Corporations and Pugnacious Pushcart Peddlers over the course of one New York City summer. It's a punchy, defiant little book about corporate interest, collective action, and civil disobedience; there's one chapter in particular in which the leaders of the truck companies meet to discuss their master plan of getting everything but trucks off the streets of New York entirely where the metaphor is Quite Dark and Usefully Unsubtle. Also contains charming illustrations! A good read at any time and I'm glad to have finally experienced it.
I somehow have spent most of my life under the impression that I had already read The Pushcart War, until the plot was actually described to me, at which point it became clear that I'd either read some other Pushcart or some other War but these actual valiant war heroes were actually brand new to me.
The book is science fiction, of a sort, originally published in 1964 and set in 1976 -- Wikipedia tells me that every reprint has moved the date forward to make sure it stays in the future, which I think is very charming -- and purporting to be a work of history for young readers explaining the conflict between Large Truck Corporations and Pugnacious Pushcart Peddlers over the course of one New York City summer. It's a punchy, defiant little book about corporate interest, collective action, and civil disobedience; there's one chapter in particular in which the leaders of the truck companies meet to discuss their master plan of getting everything but trucks off the streets of New York entirely where the metaphor is Quite Dark and Usefully Unsubtle. Also contains charming illustrations! A good read at any time and I'm glad to have finally experienced it.
Jul. 9th, 2025 07:20 pm
(no subject)
skygiantsWhen kate_nepveu started doing a real-time readalong for Steven Brust & Emma Bull's epistolary novel Freedom and Necessity in 2023, I read just enough of Kate's posts to realize that this was a book that I probably wanted to read for myself and then stopped clicking on the cut-text links. Now, several years later, I have finally done so!
Freedom and Necessity kicks off in 1849, with British gentleman James Cobham politely writing to his favorite cousin Richard to explain he has just learned that everybody thinks he is dead, he does not remember the last two months or indeed anything since the last party the two of them attended together, he is pretending to be a groom at the stables that found him, and would Richard mind telling him whether he thinks he ought to go on pretending to be dead and doing a little light investigation on his behalf into wtf is going on?
We soon learn that a.) James has been involved in something mysterious and political; b.) Richard thinks that James ought to be more worried about something differently mysterious and supernatural; c.) both Richard and James have a lot of extremely verbose opinions about the exciting new topic of Hegelian logic; and d.) James and Richard are both in respective Its Complicateds with two more cousins, Susan and Kitty, and at this point Susan and Kitty kick in with a correspondence of their own as Susan decides to exorcise her grief about the [fake] death of the cousin she Definitely Was Not In Love With by investigating why James kept disappearing for months at a time before he died.
By a few chapters in, I was describing it togenarti as 'Sorcery and Cecelia if you really muscled it up with nineteenth century radical philosophy' and having a wonderful time.
Then I got a few more chapters in and learned more about WTF indeed was up with James and texted Kate like 'WAIT IS THIS A LYMONDALIKE?' to which she responded 'I thought it was obvious!' And I was still having a wonderful time, and continued doing so all through, but could not stop myself from bursting into laughter every time the narrative lovingly described James' pale and delicate-looking yet surprisingly athletic figure or his venomous light voice etc. etc. ( mid-book spoilers )
Anyway, if you've read a Lymond, you know that there's often One Worthy Man in a Lymond book who is genuinely wise and can penetrate Lymond's self-loathing to gently explain to him that he should use his many poisoned gifts for the better. Freedom and Necessity dares to ask the question: what if that man? were Dreamy Friedrich Engels. Which is, frankly, an amazing choice.
Now even as I write this, I know thatgenarti is glaring at me for the fact that I am allowing Francis Crawford of Lymond to take over this booklog just as the spectre of Francis Crawford of Lymond takes over any book in which he appears -- and I do think that James takes over the book a bit more from Richard and Kitty than I would strictly like (I love Kitty and her cheerful opium visions and her endless run-on sentences as she staunchly holds down the home front). But to give Brust and Bull their credit, Susan staunchly holds her own as co-protagonist in agency, page space and character development despite the fact that James is pulling all the book's actual plot (revolutionary politics chaotically colliding with Gothic occult family drama) around after him like a dramatic black cloak.
And what about the radical politics, anyway? Brust and Bull have absolutely done their reading and research, and I very much enjoy and appreciate the point of view that they're writing from. I do think it's quite funny when Engels is like "James, your first duty is to your class," and James is like "well, I am a British aristocrat, so that's depressing," and Engels is like "you don't have to be! you can just decide to be of the proletariat! any day you can decide that! and then your first duty will be to the proletariat!" which like .... not that you can't decide to be in solidarity with the working class ..... but this is sort of a telling stance in an epistolary novel that does not actually center a single working-class POV. How pleasant to keep writing exclusively about verbose and erudite members of the British gentry who have conveniently chosen to be of the proletariat! James does of course have working-class comrades, and he respects them very much, and is tremendously angsty about their off-page deaths. So it goes.
On the other hand, at this present moment, I honestly found it quite comforting to be reading a political adventure novel set in 1849, in the crashing reactionary aftermath to the various revolutions of 1848. One of the major political themes of the book is concerned with how to keep on going through the low point -- how to keep on working and believing for the better future in the long term, even while knowing that unfortunately it hasn't come yet and given the givens probably won't for some time. Acknowledging the low point and the long game is a challenging thing for fiction to do, and I appreciate it a lot when I see it. I'd like to see more of it.
kate_nepveu started doing a real-time readalong for Steven Brust & Emma Bull's epistolary novel Freedom and Necessity in 2023, I read just enough of Kate's posts to realize that this was a book that I probably wanted to read for myself and then stopped clicking on the cut-text links. Now, several years later, I have finally done so!Freedom and Necessity kicks off in 1849, with British gentleman James Cobham politely writing to his favorite cousin Richard to explain he has just learned that everybody thinks he is dead, he does not remember the last two months or indeed anything since the last party the two of them attended together, he is pretending to be a groom at the stables that found him, and would Richard mind telling him whether he thinks he ought to go on pretending to be dead and doing a little light investigation on his behalf into wtf is going on?
We soon learn that a.) James has been involved in something mysterious and political; b.) Richard thinks that James ought to be more worried about something differently mysterious and supernatural; c.) both Richard and James have a lot of extremely verbose opinions about the exciting new topic of Hegelian logic; and d.) James and Richard are both in respective Its Complicateds with two more cousins, Susan and Kitty, and at this point Susan and Kitty kick in with a correspondence of their own as Susan decides to exorcise her grief about the [fake] death of the cousin she Definitely Was Not In Love With by investigating why James kept disappearing for months at a time before he died.
By a few chapters in, I was describing it to
genarti as 'Sorcery and Cecelia if you really muscled it up with nineteenth century radical philosophy' and having a wonderful time. Then I got a few more chapters in and learned more about WTF indeed was up with James and texted Kate like 'WAIT IS THIS A LYMONDALIKE?' to which she responded 'I thought it was obvious!' And I was still having a wonderful time, and continued doing so all through, but could not stop myself from bursting into laughter every time the narrative lovingly described James' pale and delicate-looking yet surprisingly athletic figure or his venomous light voice etc. etc. ( mid-book spoilers )
Anyway, if you've read a Lymond, you know that there's often One Worthy Man in a Lymond book who is genuinely wise and can penetrate Lymond's self-loathing to gently explain to him that he should use his many poisoned gifts for the better. Freedom and Necessity dares to ask the question: what if that man? were Dreamy Friedrich Engels. Which is, frankly, an amazing choice.
Now even as I write this, I know that
genarti is glaring at me for the fact that I am allowing Francis Crawford of Lymond to take over this booklog just as the spectre of Francis Crawford of Lymond takes over any book in which he appears -- and I do think that James takes over the book a bit more from Richard and Kitty than I would strictly like (I love Kitty and her cheerful opium visions and her endless run-on sentences as she staunchly holds down the home front). But to give Brust and Bull their credit, Susan staunchly holds her own as co-protagonist in agency, page space and character development despite the fact that James is pulling all the book's actual plot (revolutionary politics chaotically colliding with Gothic occult family drama) around after him like a dramatic black cloak. And what about the radical politics, anyway? Brust and Bull have absolutely done their reading and research, and I very much enjoy and appreciate the point of view that they're writing from. I do think it's quite funny when Engels is like "James, your first duty is to your class," and James is like "well, I am a British aristocrat, so that's depressing," and Engels is like "you don't have to be! you can just decide to be of the proletariat! any day you can decide that! and then your first duty will be to the proletariat!" which like .... not that you can't decide to be in solidarity with the working class ..... but this is sort of a telling stance in an epistolary novel that does not actually center a single working-class POV. How pleasant to keep writing exclusively about verbose and erudite members of the British gentry who have conveniently chosen to be of the proletariat! James does of course have working-class comrades, and he respects them very much, and is tremendously angsty about their off-page deaths. So it goes.
On the other hand, at this present moment, I honestly found it quite comforting to be reading a political adventure novel set in 1849, in the crashing reactionary aftermath to the various revolutions of 1848. One of the major political themes of the book is concerned with how to keep on going through the low point -- how to keep on working and believing for the better future in the long term, even while knowing that unfortunately it hasn't come yet and given the givens probably won't for some time. Acknowledging the low point and the long game is a challenging thing for fiction to do, and I appreciate it a lot when I see it. I'd like to see more of it.
Tags:
Jul. 9th, 2025 03:06 pm
Buy yourself the motivation
cupcake_gothRemember how I said the Wegovy has cut down on the impulse shopping noise in my brain? It still has, but when a bunch of things on my "to buy someday Real Soon Now" all have sales over the 4th of July weekend? Yeah, I spent a lot of money. But this means that a dress, jacket, pendant, and art book were less than they had been, so yay?
... and this will certainly keep me from buying ALL THE MERCH at the MCR concert. Yes, it will.
:: shifty eyes ::
... and this will certainly keep me from buying ALL THE MERCH at the MCR concert. Yes, it will.
:: shifty eyes ::
Jul. 9th, 2025 11:54 am
weary of considerations
silveraspen(N.B. - Sometimes you encounter a poem by random chance and it speaks to you.)
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
--Robert Frost
(Poetry Foundation dot org.
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
--Robert Frost
(Poetry Foundation dot org.
Tags:
Jul. 8th, 2025 08:26 pm
(no subject)
twistedchickIn the category of continuing COVID side effects, add the inability to taste strawberries properly.
I realize the berries available locally or in the non-chain market where we shop aren't going to be the ones I used to eat up north, but the ones this year were so acidic and unsweet that I couldn't eat an entire bowl. They were making my stomach turn over. They weren't that way last year, so I can only assume it's another COVID side effect.
I used to eat a quart a day when I grew my own, up north.
This is just disappointing.
I realize the berries available locally or in the non-chain market where we shop aren't going to be the ones I used to eat up north, but the ones this year were so acidic and unsweet that I couldn't eat an entire bowl. They were making my stomach turn over. They weren't that way last year, so I can only assume it's another COVID side effect.
I used to eat a quart a day when I grew my own, up north.
This is just disappointing.
Jul. 8th, 2025 02:25 pm
Betrayed by deliciousness
cupcake_gothOn Sunday night I ordered pork spring rolls from my favorite place with the idea of having one for dinner, and one for lunch the following day. As I was taking the second bite of my dinner, the Stroppy One turned to me and said that it had way more garlic than usual. He was right, because as he was saying that, I noticed my mouth and lips were burning and felt like welts were rising. I got a refund from DoorDash, and gave the Madwoman in the Attic the second spring roll. Sooooo apparently I'm even more sensitive to garlic than I thought, and I'm really mad about it.
---
My Chemical Romance alert! There's a post on Tumblr that's about the runup to the show with details being constantly added. Apparently setup for the concert has already started, which is unusual. I wonder if that's why there's more time between concert dates; I'd assumed it was because the band finally learned they need to rest between shows, but maybe not. The band has been hinting on social media that these concerts are "so much more than just playing The Black Parade". Needless to say, the fandom has collectively been losing our minds.
(THE CONCERT IS THIS FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!)
Yes, looking forward to this concert is one of the few things helping me cling to sanity right now.
---
My Chemical Romance alert! There's a post on Tumblr that's about the runup to the show with details being constantly added. Apparently setup for the concert has already started, which is unusual. I wonder if that's why there's more time between concert dates; I'd assumed it was because the band finally learned they need to rest between shows, but maybe not. The band has been hinting on social media that these concerts are "so much more than just playing The Black Parade". Needless to say, the fandom has collectively been losing our minds.
(THE CONCERT IS THIS FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY!!!)
Yes, looking forward to this concert is one of the few things helping me cling to sanity right now.
Jul. 4th, 2025 01:12 pm
thoughts in a changing world
silveraspenI went back and checked, and it's been five years since I wrote here with anything approaching regularity. I guess the pandemic did more of a number on my creative voice than I realized.
So there's that. Anyway.
Today is July the 4th. The current administration in the U.S.A. is not something to celebrate. Yesterday the deadly budget bill passed the House (again), having somehow become worse than before in its little trip through the Senate.
(Oh, wait. I know how. We all do, really.)
These are dark times and I'm pretty sure they're going to get worse before they get better. That said, I'm not giving up. I may not be able to change the world as a whole, but I can make a difference for people around me, or at least I can try. Or keep trying, actually; there's that, too.
(My team's been hit hard by what's going on at the NIH. I'm doing the best I can to keep everyone employed. It's something.)
For today, I'm going to take a little time for myself to do personal things rather than work things, and then J. and I are going to grill burgers on the terrace and drag toys around for the cat and enjoy the evening.
For the occasion, I'm wearing a T-shirt from Bruce Springsteen's Land of Hope and Dreams tour, which we saw last Friday in Gelsenkirchen (and which was absolutely amazing in many ways).
It seems appropriate.
So there's that. Anyway.
Today is July the 4th. The current administration in the U.S.A. is not something to celebrate. Yesterday the deadly budget bill passed the House (again), having somehow become worse than before in its little trip through the Senate.
(Oh, wait. I know how. We all do, really.)
These are dark times and I'm pretty sure they're going to get worse before they get better. That said, I'm not giving up. I may not be able to change the world as a whole, but I can make a difference for people around me, or at least I can try. Or keep trying, actually; there's that, too.
(My team's been hit hard by what's going on at the NIH. I'm doing the best I can to keep everyone employed. It's something.)
For today, I'm going to take a little time for myself to do personal things rather than work things, and then J. and I are going to grill burgers on the terrace and drag toys around for the cat and enjoy the evening.
For the occasion, I'm wearing a T-shirt from Bruce Springsteen's Land of Hope and Dreams tour, which we saw last Friday in Gelsenkirchen (and which was absolutely amazing in many ways).
It seems appropriate.
Tags: