Having been tagged by camilofan, I present ( Five Things )

What were you doing five years ago?
Treading water in a house-share in Shoreditch, the last I ever had; preparing to move to Ilford and my first single flat.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
Finish a translation job
Complete a rather grim essay I just might post here, titled Things I learned the hard way, which is all about debt and money and time management, inspired by the news this morning that millions of Britons are suffering from debt.
Go to Mass
Wash the dishes.
Make a start on a document that a public authority requires.

What are five snacks you enjoy?
Ice cream
Tramezzino (impossibly caloric Rome snack sandwich, heavy on the mayo)
Corn chips
cashew nuts
pretzels and similar salty snack buscuits

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
Buy annuities for myself, my relations and select friends.
Track down Debbie and see how she is, and make sure that she has anything she needs.
Set up a household so I can work on my comics and my research full-time (a nice house with a live-in servant or two - not for show, but to avoid having to do all the household chores myself)
Set up a comics publisher intended to publish all the dozens of brilliant people who currently get less than their fair chance.
Help anyone I know who needs help.

What are five of your bad habits?
Anger
Sloth
Anger
Sloth
Anger
(what, you mean that's only two? You have no idea how many ways one can be stupidly angry or lazy)

What are five places where you have lived?
Monza
Milan
Rome
Oxford
London

What are five jobs you’ve had?
Soldier
Macdonald's crew member (pretty much the same)
Teaching assistant
Cartoonist
Translator

What five people do you want to tag?
penguinity, sartorias, johncwright, jamesenge, hobsonphile

Oh, looky! I was meme-tagged by LazyGal a couple days ago in this post, but at the time I was still crawling out of the cave of insane, end-of-semester busy-ness and hadn't checked her journal.

Anyhow, here, better late than never, is the "Five Things" meme: ( click )

I think I have got straight, to my satisfaction at least, what makes Italy, and especially Rome, so special. It is not even beauty; it is what beauty points to. Think of Samuel Johnson's famous meditation on the isle of Iona:

We were now treading that illustrious Island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona!

True, noble, and beautiful. But if a man can get so much out of a small, tempest-tossed monastic island in the north seas, what can one get out of Rome? Piety would feed not only on the memory of St.Peter and St.Paul, not even on the succession of Popes and great ecclesiastics, but also on wholly local saints such as St.Frances of Rome or St. Philip Neri. Patriotism? I still remember my grandfather taking me to see the French cannonballs embedded in the walls in the Gianicolo Park, where in 1848 Garibaldi and his volunteers held back an overwhelming French enemy for a month, and Goffredo Mameli, the writer of our national anthem, died of gangrene from a wound at twenty. Art? No city in the world compares. Science? Enrico Fermi, one of the greatest scientists in history, established his group of brilliant researchers in the 1920s in Via Panisperna, and the group was ever since known by the name. Rome has the most ancient Jewish community in the world - and one of the few which is neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardi - the memory of great musicians from Palestrina to Liszt and Respighi, the grief and horror of the Second World War, great parks, buildings from every style and age from pre-classical to twentieth century modern (Palazzo Civilta' del Lavoro, in the EUR quarter, has often been used as the background or inspiration for science fictional or supernatural settings) - everything loaded with grandeur, emotion and significance. And then there is the rest of the country. A person who travels through Italy travels through his or her own life, in every way that is significant.

...is worse than you think. http://carbonelle.livejournal.com/184280.html. Just hold on to something.

"The end of this story will never be known; the Nazis destroyed this entire world. East and West, from the most fully assimilated Jews to the most Orthodox, gone. Ironically, after nearly two thousand years of conflict with their Christian neighbors, when the Holocaust came, it wore a pagan face and spoke the language of race and blut, not faith."

~ Rodney Stark, One True God: the Historical Consequences of Monotheism

The trouble with having a style is that you may produce something that looks finished and polished when it really is nothing of the kind. My attempt at an answer to elskuligr a few days back was one such thing; I was falling asleep on my feet as I wrote, and I managed to miss nearly every point of importance I wanted to make. But my unfortunate facility gave the piece a deceptive air of polish. A less generous opponent than elskuligr might well have asked me what I was really trying to prove, since it is not clear at all.

What I really should have said, then, is something like this. For the impact of Othello on reader and spectator, we do not need to know that Iago is a Spanish type. We do not need to know that Spain was England's enemy as Shakespeare wrote, that every Englishman regarded her as the great perturber of European peace (nor that the Spanish, with more justification, saw Elizabeth's England in the same light); that negative ethnic cliches about intrigue and poison were universally believed. We do not even need to know that Shakespeare was a secret Catholic (the evidence is overwhelming), that his admiration for Italian city states such as Venice was pretty nearly boundless, that he tended to shift on Spain alone the poisoner-intriguer ethnic cliche that other contemporaries tended to spread equally between Spain and Italy (think of Webster's hideous picture of Italy); not even, perhaps, that Turkey was regarded pretty much as what was left of the West looked at Hitler about 1940. We do not need to know any of those things, because Shakespeare has distilled from them all those elements that are universally relevant to human experience rather than merely local. We do not have to resurrect dead slanders against Italians or Spaniards to feel the full force of something like Iago: my God, how many underhanded, ambitious, resentful, destructive persons can be found in the average office, the average workplace? How many of us have seen a popular and admired person admit into his/her company someone wholly unworthy of it, and the ruinous results? We do not need to feel the terror of Turkey to understand that the fall of a personality as full, rounded, beautiful and bold as Othello is a catastrophe that diminishes us all: Shakespeare has brought out his excellence, not only in such magnificent language as "Put up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them!", nor even in the way he masters a violent riot merely by stepping in, but in the memorable romance with Desdemona - if such a woman, everyone understands, falls in love with such a man (and how eloquently he describes their falling in love, in the presence of all the great men in Venice!), he must be worth what he seems. In other words, the central experience afforded us by a great drama such as Othello does not depend on local associations: because it is rooted in universal experiences, it can be understood pretty much across the board.

My third round of revisions on Knife, the Hunter are DONE. It took a phone call to my editor to be sure I understood what the problems were and got some ideas on how to fix them, but once we'd talked that through, making the changes wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd feared.

In case anyone's interested in the process, here's my revision experience so far:

REVISION #1 (December '07-February '08):
Work required: Major structural and plot changes, changed main characters from adults to mid-teens
Length: Reduced from 104K to 94K
Total time to completion: Nine weeks (working 2-3 hours a day)

REVISION #2 (April '08):
Work required: Streamline and clarify plot, full line edit to fix pacing and clarity issues
Length: Reduced from 94K to 74K
Total time to completion: Three weeks (working 2-3 hours a day)

REVISION #3 (May '08):
Work required: Several additions and clarifications, minor line edits
Length: Only slightly reduced to 73K
Total time to completion: Four days (working 3-4 hours a day)

Coming up next should be copyedits, where a new editor looks at the ms. and marks it up for punctuation and grammar, while also noting continuity and fact-checking issues. And once that's done, oh glory, they'll send me galleys and I'll get to see how my story will look in actual typeset, book-quality print!

And also: *wrings hands* OUCH.

So today is the first day of my vacation. We went to Wal-Mart to get paint for the house (we'd checked Menard's after work yesterday to see if it was less, and it wasn't. Spray painters were, and I wish we could have gotten one, but the paint cost enough.) Today DH is washing the house. Sunday I will be painting it. Primer on Sunday, paint on Monday. Mobile homes aren't that big, so hopefully it won't take long to do. Right now it's a terrible streaky beige with ugly brown trim. I'm painting it a light shade of lilac with slightly darker trim. I know, a purple house sounds odd, but my gardens are full of purple iris and I planted lilac bushes - it will look nice. Of course, plain white would look nicer than it does now. But I wanted it pretty, too, or as pretty as a 25 year old mobile home can look.

then we took my brother and sister-in-law out for breakfast to a local restaurant. An expense, but something nice to celebrate start of vacation.

I still haven't figured out what to do with the crabgrass in the irises. I can't pull it out, I've tried. And I'm afraid to poison it, in case it kills the iris and daylily bulbs. But it really doesn't look very good, and it's crowding the garden. last year after several abortive attempts to pull it up, I just trimmed it with scissors and left it. I'd rather not do that again.

Last night I stayed up late doing a BRD run with my guild. (Warcraft stuff, for anyone who doesn't play). I brought my shadow priest up two levels and got some nice gear for her. Still no chestpiece, though; I haven't been able to find anything to replace one she's had for fourteen levels. Oh, well. I'm going to take a nap now. Yay, naps :).

1. Film: Was Jimmy Stewart the greatest (American) movie star ever? Yeah, probably. Here's a decent case for it.

2. Bad girl: I skipped graduation today at my college. Adjuncts don't have to go, though I almost always do anyway. Today, however, I just felt like taking a rest.

3. Refund: Got a manicure Tuesday. Within a couple hours of getting home, despite doing nothing more strenuous during that time than reading a book, I found that the right thumbnail was badly chipped. So if it cost me $10 for the work, am I entitled to a $1 refund? Kidding, of course: the polish is pretty incidental to the main point of the manicure, which is the cuticle work. But still, you'd think the stuff would stay on for a couple of leisurely hours...

4. Books: I have promised myself that this summer I will read a book a week-- so, naturally, this week I have read five. Am I off the hook for the next four weeks, or should I press on? Kidding, of course: this week's books were all short and minimally challenging (three Sherlockian YAs and two pre-Nero Wolfe pulp novels by Rex Stout). Next week, I'll try to up the ante a little.

I just got hold of a .pdf version of Julien Benda's famous denunciation of the intellectuals' surrender to Fascism, La Trahison des Clercs. I only just started reading it, but it sounds like everything that it has been said to be: strong, brave, clear-headed and with the marble-like clarity that the best French prose affords. What is above all significant is its defence of democracy as the proper place for the life of the mind. One passage (translated): Such a posture is a flagrant betrayal of the values of the intellect, since Democracy amounts in its principles (but it is its principles that its opponents call into question, and not, as they pretend to, their misapplication) to a fundamental assertion of those values, especially thorugh its respect for justice, truth and the individual person. Any free mind must recognize that the ideal written in the Declaration of the Rights of Man or the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 is an intellectual ideal. And it is likewise undeniable that democracy, through its grant of individual liberty, implies an element of disorder. "When," says Montesquieu, "you can perceive no noise of conflict throughout a State, you may be sure that there is no freedom there."

I will send a copy to anyone who asks for one.

She certainly has the intellect to make a formidable supervillainess. And the looks. And the code name...
All the same, as a superhero fans since before most of my f-list was born, I just had to do this.

Superhero Team Quiz LiveJournal Username Your Primary Super Power Energy Control (ex. Fire, Cold, Electricity, etc)High Tech Devices / ArmorIntangibilityKung FuMagicMatter Manipulation/TransmutationProbability Control/ LuckPsionics(Mental Powers)Shape shiftingSuper Human Intellect/DeductionSuper SpeedSuperhuman Physical AbilityTantric YogaWeather ControlZapping (eye beams, sonic scream, etc) Cape? CapeHalf CapeCape AND Cowl/HoodFeather BoaNO CAPES!! Identitiy Public, my real identity is commonly known.I have no identity other than my superheroic one.I keep my real identity hidden from most.No one but I knows my real identity. Origin Accident Involving Blowup DollAlien Abduction/ExperimentationAlien HeredityBitten by Radioactive CreatureBlessed by / Champion of Divine Power(s)Constructed (Robot, Replicant, etc)CursedGovernment/Military ProjectGranted Item/Weapon of Cosmic PowerIntense TrainingMassive Amounts of Lethal RadiationMutantSelf ExperimentationSheer Inner Badass NatureToxic Chemical AccidentYou’re just that wealthy/influential Location of Head Quarters “School” For the GiftedArtificial IslandCrystalline Fortress in the ArcticFashionable Hair SalonFloating CitadelGovernment FacilityHippie Co-OpMoonbaseNight ClubNo permanent HQ, We’re organized in cellsOrbiting SatelliteOstentatious Complex DowntownRefurbished House or BrownstoneRental in a Trailer ParkSecret CaveStarshipTempleUndersea ComplexYour Mom’s Basement Primary Costume/Uniform Colors Why are you a Superhero? BoredCommanded/Ordained by the DivineDestinyDutyFlip of the CoinI can get away with beating people upI can get away with wearing this outfitI get sooo much tail being a SuperheroI prefer ‘Vigilante’I’m paid a sh*tload of cashIt beats the hell out of Tech SupportIt’s my fetishIt’s my way of defying my dark destinyIt’s the right thing to doMerchandizingMy deeply messed up backgroundMy friends wouldn’t go for being villainsSuperhero? I’m a spy for the badguys!With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility Your Superheroic Codename The veteran grim member of the team sevenorora The sexist and crass but annoyingly effective one photosynthesis The bright-eyed novice or sidekick mathiasroesel The teammate that will eventually go evil or insan atheneglaukopis The inept yet determined/reoccurring supervillain caladan_dd The sinister Arch-Villain and team's greatest foe helixaspersa The perky civilian that keeps getting kidnapped persephone_kore How often does your team actually 'save the day'? 21% This Fun Quiz created by Shannon at BlogQuiz.Net

Libra Horoscope at DailyHoroscopes.Biz

And quite possibly saved the Republican Party from defeat. As the nationwide results of their usurpation of legislative power become clear (for gay activists intend to use the details of California law to start a series of cases across the nation - a crazed strategy, but they cannot admit to themselves just how unpopular their case is) the anger of the values voters at Republican corruption and contempt for them will be overwhelmed by their concern at this development. If millions of values voters were quite likely convinced to vote Shrub four years ago by the example of Massachussets (which had no nationwide significance, because Mass. law did not allow outsiders to marry against their home state laws) and of Canada, what will happen if the whole presidential campaign is dotted by assaults on state law across the country? These people ought to have waited until Obama was elected and a Democratic majority safely returned to Congress. If this decision had been passed one year hence, they would probably have Obama in the White House to turn his handsome smile on it, and a filibuster-crushing majority in both Houses. Instead, they have given any Republican who wants to seize it (I cannot speak for the Specters of this world) an opportunity to fight like a junkyard dog. They just never seem to have any sense.

( Read more... )

I have a cold.

That is all.

Okay, so I have learned my lesson about using fresh pineapple rings on my cooked ham, because if you leave the rings on overnight to let the juices soak in and then warm the whole thing up again, the ham tastes like it's been partially pre-digested.

EWWWWWW.

In other news, I cannot get this week's House out of my head. I mean, I could have DEFINITELY done without certain parts of it (those of you who've seen the episode will probably have no difficulty guessing what those parts are, and most of them, alas, belong to Lisa Edelstein), and there were the inevitable bits of plot that were far-fetched to the point of absurdity. But Hugh Laurie was brilliant as always, there were some Good Chase Bits, and the foreshadowing was a thing of beauty. ( Spoilers )

On the other hand, my edits on Knife are going well, the pain in my arms is much better today, and I found some great pictures and made a new Paul icon out of one of them. (And no, I didn't use the mouse. This is what my pen and tablet are for, even though the pen is going wonky and doesn't always behave as it should, thanks to my toddler DROOLING IN IT.)

Proof positive that the wankers actually spend their time looking at my blog for something to wank about.
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1153597.html
note the reference to an anonymouse who apparently makes it its business to signal any time there is something here that it disapproves of.

Just how sad can you get? This is three steps below stalking Uma Thurman - at least she's beautiful.

EDITED IN: I just noticed that in the wanker's confused mind, it actually counts against me that my f-list disagrees with me AND that I allow the people I criticize and their friends to reply. Of course, since I am banned in their domain, I can see their point. They probably imagine that only losers allow anyone to disagree with or criticize them.

It has struck me that a few of my f-list are sailing proudly towards mortarboard hats and (one hopes) Latin phrases. Here is a link for you: it is the archetypal student song through most European universities. If you want to hear it sung as it ought to be, press the mp3 button.
http://ingeb.org/Lieder/gaudeamu.html
And good luck to you all!

Attention fox_sejant:

Rare Viking Sword Fragments Unearth on Isle of Man

The article doesn't say where exactly they were unearthed, just in the north-west part of the island. However, Andreas is in the north-west ... :)

And it's a very pretty pommel.

Guess what I've got -- again?

Sigh.

The first time I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, it was 1995 and I was working as a secretary. I went through eight weeks of physiotherapy, but what really helped most was quitting my job, making my computer setup at home more ergonomic, and buying a split keyboard.

Since then I've had two more relapses, one very bad (with an extra helping of DeQuervain's Syndrome!) and one that I managed to fend off by putting on braces and cutting well back on my Internet activity.

I am hoping this fourth round will be manageable without going back to physio, but right now the pain is bad enough that it's making it hard for me to sleep, and I feel a constant burn in my forearms and radiating all the way up to my shoulder.

Meanwhile, I have a third round of edits on Knife to get through in the next week or so.

So no more mousing for me -- or at least, as little mousing as I can get away with. Which means cutting back on my reading of forums and web pages and everything else of a clicky nature, until Iyyyyyiiii am myself again [/Blue Rodeo].

I'll still be around, answering e-mails and comments and so on... just not quite as much. And Wayfarer is on hold until I can get through these edits on Knife. S'aright?

S'aright.