A matinée, a Pinter play, perhaps a piece of Mahler's

And how did I spend my summer solstice?

Much of the day, I wouldn't write home about. I got up early; I translated four Homeric Hymns (two to Aphrodite, two to Dionysos; three of these are quite short, so it's less impressive than it sounds); I listened to three different cast recordings of Kander and Ebb's Chicago. Also I finished Elizabeth Hand's Winterlong, which either I had previously read so many years ago that I'd forgotten the characters and remembered the myth, or the underpinnings of myth were so strong that all the plot turns in the novel were obvious from a solstitial standpoint, because I couldn't tell what would happen to individual characters, but I knew in what configuration all their mythological avatars would end up. And loved the book. It's like Gene Wolfe with more drugs and better sex. Now does anyone know where to find the sequels?

Toward the evening, things improved immensely. I met up with nineweaving, rushthatspeaks, gaudior, and Thrud at L.A. Burdick's in Harvard Square, where one can purchase iced chocolate. This is the most amazing drink. It comes in tall tapered glasses, very dark, with whipped cream on top, and it tastes exactly like hot chocolate—except that it's full of ice cubes. It shouldn't work at all, and yet it's addictively bitter and theobromish. rushthatspeaks had also brought me back an Ursula Vernon print from Anthrocon, for which I will be in her debt until I can find something of sufficient weirdness value to present to her in turn. It is called "The Fisher," and I place it under the cut for size of image and text.
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Afterward, we repaired to nineweaving's, where we watched the first four episodes of Black Books. The first and third were the most impressive in their absurdism ("Add a dab of lavender to milk . . . leave town with an orange . . . and pretend you're laughing at it"), but I'm still hooked. I strongly suspect Dylan Moran's Bernard Black is the kind of character whom I would wish to murder in person, but onscreen he's terrific. And there was the roof party we halfway crashed, which served salmon and smoked mussels and paté and half a dozen different kinds of foreign cheese and fortunately the melon was mediocre, otherwise the whole spread would have been frankly unbelievable; and there was nineweaving's back, which had better improve soon, because I am tired of dismal health problems in people I know; and there was much excellent conversation. Also, books.

I am now so stumbling tired I can barely see. It's the shortest night of the year, is it? I resolve to spend as much of the remainder as possible in bed. Goodbye, sun. See you in December. Have a nice descent.