You'd better color up my heart again

[sovay]

I used to read imperviously on all forms of public transit. Increasingly I find myself just watching the world as it goes past, I worry as if I'm afraid it'll disappear or I will. This evening there was a cyclorama sunset just starting as the bus came up over the top of Winter Hill, long sandbars of cloud as precise as pastels in grey and blue and cream-gold. I watched it instead of reading more than the first ten pages of Henry Green's Party Going (1939), which I got from Raven Used Books with the last of the gift certificate from nineweaving.

I think I passed briefly through an M. John Harrison novel on my way out of the bookstore. A youngish white-haired man in a dark coat with a dramatically bright scarf—my memory thinks in the fuchsia range—had been talking to the clerk about existentialist philosophers; he stepped aside and I had to explain the multiply crossed-out and recalculated gift certificate and in the meantime an older woman in a beige raincoat suddenly began talking to the man, very loudly and distinctly. I thought for a moment I was overhearing a play. "No spies," she said. "We have no spies in this country. Haven't you noticed? Nobody whose business—" and then the clerk was handing me change for the dollar extra and I lost her for a moment. I can't describe her accent with any more precision than mostly British; her hair was short and I think not a natural brown. I would have placed her age above my mother's. As I put the book away in my computer bag and moved past the two of them to the door, she was saying to the man, who had not interrupted her, "You're too young to remember, but after the last war . . ." Imagine my brain hitting a record scratch. Which last war? Have we had a last war? I thought we just had a kind of perpetual one going on. What decade was this conversation taking place in anyway? What country that doesn't have spies? I was already out the door of the bookstore. I still don't know.

I was in Harvard Square to meet a_reasonable_man. We went to Café Gato Rojo; he showed me family photographs and told me stories while I drank herbal chai. Afterward I caught up with spatch on his break and we had dinner from the Pokéworks in Davis while listening to various sound effects from Us (2019). The Broadway Bridge is now closed for the Green Line Extension, so the 89 bus detours by way of Highland instead of coming straight through Ball Square. I keep meaning to see what's left of my walking route to the library, but I have been saddened enough by the gutting and dismantling of the old Reid & Murdock warehouse, the concrete lion's face above its lintel long gone. Every time I hear the MBTA-recorded announcement about "bridge work," I hear it as one word and think of dentistry.

For various obscure reasons we are now the owners of a Roku Ultra. Anyone who can tell me how to be sure that I have turned off motion smoothing on it will have my eternal gratitude. I found instructions for a Roku TV, but they do not appear to apply to our box. I miss dumb technology.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I love that conversation.

[alexxkay]

Likewise.

[gwynnega]

Motion smoothing is the worst.

[sovay]

Motion smoothing is the worst.

It's never been a factor in any of our media viewing before, but all of a sudden, thank you, Roku . . .

[sovay]

I love that conversation.

It made me very happy to be on the periphery of.

[moon_custafer]

I don’t know whether it will ultimately go anywhere, even as a subplot to be incorporated in some fic about existing characters, but some characters and a bookstore setting have been taking shape in my mind for the past two or three weeks, and while they do not personally know the young man in the fuchsia scarf and the woman with the mostly-British accent, I think my bookshop proprietress, at least, would recognize them as familiar types. The customer who came in looking for a copy of Wind, Sand and Stars (or possibly a Yeats anthology, I haven’t yet decided), is intelligent and observant, but his skill set is different from hers.

[negothick]

Thank you for the intriguing conversation.
Anyone who thinks of WW II as 'the last war' (as opposed to WW I) would not likely be walking around on her own--would need to have been an adult during WW II, so couldn't be under 95. Even time-slip wouldn't account for it. Perhaps another part of the multiverse.

[bironic]

Weird about motion smoothing. Maybe try System > Advanced Settings > Advanced Display Settings and disable Auto-Adjust Display?

My Roku Ultra didn't change any display settings on my TV, but it did introduce an audio delay that resists settings tweaks and is apparently a known issue, and it has been driving me UP THE WALL.

[sovay]

but some characters and a bookstore setting have been taking shape in my mind for the past two or three weeks, and while they do not personally know the young man in the fuchsia scarf and the woman with the mostly-British accent, I think my bookshop proprietress, at least, would recognize them as familiar types.

Nice.

(They are not part of your existing continuity of the Bureaucracy of the Otherworld?)

[sovay]

Maybe try System > Advanced Settings > Advanced Display Settings and disable Auto-Adjust Display?

Thanks! I will check that out.

My Roku Ultra didn't change any display settings on my TV, but it did introduce an audio delay that resists settings tweaks and is apparently a known issue, and it has been driving me UP THE WALL.

That sounds awful.

[sovay]

Thank you for the intriguing conversation.

You're welcome. I have no idea what it was.

Even time-slip wouldn't account for it. Perhaps another part of the multiverse.

I don't see why a time-slip wouldn't. It would have been a perfectly reasonable conversation (barring the part about the spies) for 1975.

[moon_custafer]

I don’t know. They feel as though they’re from a story slightly different from Lohmann’s and Skuld’s, but one with enough points of resemblance there might be duplication issues if I tried to merge the two. Also, Andrew rewatched Buckaroo Banzai on the weekend, and I’m think that’s where I need to send my agents next. Only not to the Hong Kong Cavaliers in 1984 – to Drs. Lizardo and Hikita in 1938. Someone’s got to put Lord John Whorfin in check for forty-six years. Also, Orson Welles. Except that’ll screw up the continuity where Lohmann doesn’t visit the US until the early ‘50s. OK, maybe they do work with Buckaroo in ’84, with flashbacks to Skuld’s solo mission in ’38.

As for the bookstore people-- sometimes I end up writing fanfic purely so my OCs and story ideas can exist someplace that might actually get some eyeballs; but in cases like that it’s usually best to drop them into something like a Doctor Who casefic (since DW is essentially an anthology show with a handful of recurring characters as an entry point for the viewer). These two might be better off in something with a more intimate and strange atmosphere; but I don’t quite think they belong in a S&S story. Another thing is that the bookstore setting reminds me of a story I was working on a few years back, and I went to check if I could rewrite it with them, but no. I do need to finish that one too, though. Damn zombie plot-bunnies. Aaugh. Sorry for thread-jacking.

[lauradi7dw]

I still mostly read or do crosswords on the T, but if I have no reading material, I look at people's shoes. It says something about global capitalism, or individual quirkiness, or something, that however many people I see in a Red Line car, it is extremely rare to have a matching pair (of pairs). There might be a lot of Nikes, for example, but almost never the exact same model on more than one person.

[sovay]

It says something about global capitalism, or individual quirkiness, or something, that however many people I see in a Red Line car, it is extremely rare to have a matching pair (of pairs).

That is interesting. I don't think about shoes much; I have worn the same two kinds for at least ten years now, and prior to that I wore the same kind of sneaker for ages.

[sovay]

Aaugh. Sorry for thread-jacking.

Is okay. I'm now curious whether you ever write purely original fiction.

[moon_custafer]

Occasionally. The trouble is I do want to show them to people, and it’s easier to do that with fanfic, partly because it’s a universe people already know and want to see, and partly because I can post it on AO3 instead of trying to get people to go over to Wattpad or someplace.

I have put a couple of other things up; I once won a short-story contest; years ago, I published a novella as a series of chapbooks through a local small press, and they keep trying to get me to expand it into a full-length novel.

[sovay]

years ago, I published a novella as a series of chapbooks through a local small press, and they keep trying to get me to expand it into a full-length novel.

I don't know if I knew that, but I think that's great.

[asakiyume]

That scene *does* seem scripted.

I one time overheard what I guess were in situ play auditions. The set-up was a supposed job interview, and the location was a café, so it seemed quite plausible as Real Life Just Happening, but something about the cadence the interviewee was speaking in seemed off for real life, and afterward the interviewer offered critique, and then another interviewee came in and the scene repeated itself.

[sovay]

The set-up was a supposed job interview, and the location was a café, so it seemed quite plausible as Real Life Just Happening, but something about the cadence the interviewee was speaking in seemed off for real life, and afterward the interviewer offered critique, and then another interviewee came in and the scene repeated itself.

That sounds incredibly surreal to overhear. You would start to wonder if your timeline was all right.

[jesse_the_k]

Have we had a last war? I thought we just had a kind of perpetual one going on. What decade was this conversation taking place in anyway?

Oh! I find myself saying after the war (meaning post 1945) and then verbally tripping.

Thank you for your detailed descriptions of a city I wish I could enjoy, and now whole-heartedly can, through your eyes.

[sovay]

I find myself saying after the war (meaning post 1945) and then verbally tripping.

It is true that when I say postwar, that's the war I mean.

Thank you for your detailed descriptions of a city I wish I could enjoy, and now whole-heartedly can, through your eyes.

You're very welcome!

[brigdh]

What an amazing overheard conversation!

while listening to various sound effects from Us (2019)
Oooh, have you seen Us yet? I just managed to see it a few days ago and adored it, and I'd love to read your thoughts.

[sovay]

What an amazing overheard conversation!

I was not in any way expecting it!

Oooh, have you seen Us yet? I just managed to see it a few days ago and adored it, and I'd love to read your thoughts.

I have not yet! I have heard nothing but good things.