This dream that was almost a nightmare, if there had not been such beauty and longing to it

[sovay]

1. Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart is now available for preorder from Subterranean Press. Afterword by me, everything else by Caitlín R. Kiernan. It's a magnificent collection; I'm honored to have had anything to do with it. Just remember not to order through Amazon. Apparently there have been shenanigans.

2. The New York Public Library has put the entire archive of the 1939–40 New York World's Fair online. It's been available for some time, I think, but I just discovered it. Goodbye, free time when I have you.

3. Via strange_selkie, I find that I've been io9'd. Not me personally: the entire lineup of Beyond Binary. I count this a win for everybody, Schrödinger included.

4. Even allowing that my knowledge of history is patchy (and frankly, post-classical, almost entirely self-taught), I do not understand how it took me until last night to discover the Jewish Legion. If nothing else, I really feel an all-Jewish, all-volunteer, eventually five-battalion corps who were part-founded by a one-armed Zionist veteran of the Russo-Japanese War and served at Gallipoli under the Anglo-Irish author of The Man-Eaters of Tsavo should have attracted some kind of movie by now, or at least a rating on Badass of the Week. Not to mention details like the Legion's international makeup including Ottoman Jewish prisoners of war who signed up to retake Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. I mean, seriously. Tell me there's a decent book out there.

5. Thank you to everyone who responded to my question about the melodrama shtick! I still have no idea where it came from, but it looks as though there are two overlapping lines of descent: an older routine picked up by children's television and reintroduced to a wider audience while still being transmitted by family. Possibly all pop culture went through The Electric Company and I just didn't notice at the time. The Muppet Show did this to me, too.

I slept five hours. It's not great, but it is better.

Comments

[zdenka]

Jewish Legion

Wow. That is full of awesomeness. Also, they fought a battle at Armegeddon. And also they had a choir. Of course they had a choir. *flails*

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I never heard of them either. I *have* heard that in 1950s London, there was a Jewish vigilante group who got into a lot of streetfights against neo-Nazis; and that one of the vigilantes was a teenaged apprentice hairdresser named Vidal Sassoon. Apparently if costumers asked about his occasional injuries, he'd say wryly, "I tripped on a bobby pin."

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard Sassoon talking about this on radio a few weeks back. Gave me a lot of respect for the man.

[sovay]

a Jewish vigilante group who got into a lot of streetfights against neo-Nazis; and that one of the vigilantes was a teenaged apprentice hairdresser named Vidal Sassoon. Apparently if costumers asked about his occasional injuries, he'd say wryly, "I tripped on a bobby pin."

And I had never heard of this. Thank you.

[sovay]

Also, they fought a battle at Armegeddon.

It is not necessarily that I want a Hollywood blockbuster of this history, because Hollywood blockbusters are prone to problematic elisions of complexity with a dash of casting fail just for fun, but I'm honestly floored it doesn't exist. Spielberg couldn't get the rights?

*flails*

If I find a good book, I'll tell you.