Just trying not to be washed overboard

[sovay]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless. I met rushthatspeaks this afternoon at the Diesel; they showed me the cheeriest and most cracktastic path through Hatoful Boyfriend, which if I tell you is a pigeon dating game will not really explain anything. It was amazing. I'm still not sleeping. I don't expect any longer to become so tired, I simply fall over into a restorative sleep for hours, but it would be nice.

1. Courtesy of derspatchel: Don't Walk on Fish. "Hey, scatterbrain, don't cripple your friends!" is an endlessly applicable suggestion.

2. The Library of America is reprinting nine classic science fiction novels of the 1950's. I grew up with seven of these in the house, I think—mostly in the original editions. One of them I didn't read and Rush informs me I really need to. There are some terrific essays in here. Will someone just dramatize Leiber's The Big Time (1957) already?

3. Tom Lehrer on The Frost Report (1966) explains the decimal system.

4. The Guardian profiles M. John Harrison. I haven't seen a copy of Empty Space (2012), but it should be on shelves by now. I still need to read Nova Swing (2006).

5. I will dig through the boxes of my books in the garage and re-read Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters (1986). I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

A partner who, I gather, is to be denied benefits, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act. :(

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

One can still dispose of one's estate as one likes, thankfully, and Ms. Ride had been in private business for years; I ardently hope her partner will be well set despite the lack of federal pension. This kind of thing is always so frustrating and sad.

[sovay]

A partner who, I gather, is to be denied benefits, thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act.

This country is not okay.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the Retronaut; I wandered from the safety posters to the Soviet bus stops, and then took myself sternly in hand...

[sovay]

I wandered from the safety posters to the Soviet bus stops, and then took myself sternly in hand...

I hadn't seen the Soviet bus stops.

Thank you.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for that obit of Sally Ride. I found it both moving and informative. What a sympathique person.

[sovay]

What a sympathique person.

She wasn't one of the especial heroes of my childhood, but I knew so much less about her than I would have liked. Like Tam O'Shaughnessy. Like the books they wrote. Someone who isn't me should write them something; until then, link selidor's "Seamstress."

[selidor]

Ooh, there is a new M. John Harrison? Excellent. Might have to wait for reading it until thesis-submission; I do rather need those brain cells a little longer...

May there soon be some knitting-up for your ravelled sleeve of care.

[sovay]

Might have to wait for reading it until thesis-submission; I do rather need those brain cells a little longer...

I love him. I'd bought and read The Pastel City years ago in college or early graduate school, but it wasn't until Light that he suddenly snapped into focus for me; then I found The Course of the Heart and I had an author I'd follow anywhere. His short stories amaze me.

May there soon be some knitting-up for your ravelled sleeve of care.

Thank you.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You went for "Don't walk on fish" over "For God's sake, a statistically unlikely number of you seem to be grabbing live wires" ?

Psh.

[sovay]

You went for "Don't walk on fish" over "For God's sake, a statistically unlikely number of you seem to be grabbing live wires" ?

"Don't walk on fish" is brilliant. If it weren't such good advice, it'd be Dada.

(It also benefits, I think, from being the only instruction in the lot that doesn't threaten messy dismemberment or death if ignored. It's just very straightforward. And therefore a bit like that joke shirei_shibolim tells about surrealists and a lightbulb.)

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

Ditto.

[sovay]

Ditto.

Maybe you could write them something.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless.

Same here.

[sovay]

Same here.

I haven't even been writing about things like films I've been watching. Frankly, I think I was demoralized by spending most of Thursday on a review that almost nobody commented on. Probably it says more about the slow entropy of Livejournal or my timing (nobody's ever online at ten minutes after midnight) than the quality of the content, but the sort of flat state I spent most of the week in, it didn't help. I don't like this mental space; it feels like one I'll never get out of. I have evidence otherwise, but I spent a lot of time here.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

I had known about Sally Ride thanks to the constant Facebook friendslist updates, but didn't find out about Margaret Mahy until very late last night.

The Changeover was tremendously influential on me as a young greenlily, as a writer and a reader and a girl-discovering-boys and a person-considering-becoming-a practicing-neopagan and a teenager-realizing-her-parents-are-human-beings and several other hyphenated things. My copy is packed away with most of my other books until sometime in early September, and now I wish I'd kept it in my Books-Not-To-Be-Packed-Because-I-Might-Need-Them bag instead. :(

[sovay]

I had known about Sally Ride thanks to the constant Facebook friendslist updates, but didn't find out about Margaret Mahy until very late last night.

I saw her first, nearly as soon as I woke up in the morning; Sally Ride was the late, unpleasant surprise.

My copy is packed away with most of my other books until sometime in early September, and now I wish I'd kept it in my Books-Not-To-Be-Packed-Because-I-Might-Need-Them bag instead.

Libraries!

I read The Changeover so young, I had no idea who'd written it or what most of it was about and discovered it again in middle or early high school with the image of the stamp and the smell of peppermint. It's on my shelf. The Tricksters is the one that haunted me; it reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones, the way identities kept shifting out from underneath the characters at every turn and something about the protagonist's family. I haven't read it in years. I couldn't reconstruct the plot if you paid me. I just hope I can find my copy.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon. My head has been full of fragments for days. I am not writing anything substantive; it makes me feel fidgety and pointless.

*gives you a tiny zap gun for taking pot shots at TW who seems to be working overtime lately*

[sovay]

*gives you a tiny zap gun for taking pot shots at TW who seems to be working overtime lately*

Dammit, I was hoping Tiny Richardson had him distracted!

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Damn, sorry to hear you're not yet recovered. Here's to you being unknackered soon.

I think my favourite poster is "Look out for buffers", but the designers really seem to have had it in for bricklayers.

Sadly, I'd not even heard of Mahy before her death. Both The Tricksters and Haunting sound very good. I felt like banging my head against a wall reading about the treatment of Ride's partner.

[sovay]

Here's to you being unknackered soon.

Thanks. I have theater planned this weekend—the Post-Meridian Radio Players' Summer Radio Mystery Theatre and Apollinaire in the Park's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead—and rushthatspeaks and I are trying for Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) on Thursday, which may or may not help me sleep, but should be good for my brain anyway.

I think my favourite poster is "Look out for buffers", but the designers really seem to have had it in for bricklayers.

I am also impressed by the guy with his head caught between two boxcars. What was he even doing?

Sadly, I'd not even heard of Mahy before her death.

Looking over her Wikipedia page, I realized just how few of her books I'd read—she was incredibly prolific. A visit to the library is definitely in order.

I felt like banging my head against a wall reading about the treatment of Ride's partner.

I didn't know until steepholm told me. So much for the families of heroes.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Empty Space looks good. I can't find anything on a US release date, though.

[sovay]

I can't find anything on a US release date, though.

Amazon thinks it exists? I don't know if that means anything?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for the lack of sleep and fidgetyness and feeling of pointlessness. Tiny W, is there any bribe I could offer you to leave her alone for a while?

A pigeon dating game? Even in Japan, that's got to be unusual.

I hope you can sleep soon.

"Hey, scatterbrain, don't cripple your friends!" is an endlessly applicable suggestion.

Indeed it is. In the unlikely event I ever run a dig again, I might have to put some of these up.

2.

Excellent. Some classics there, some of which I need to read as well. Should/may I ask which one you did not read?

4.

Interesting. Bookmarking for reading later, I am.

I wish I had known Sally Ride had a partner of twenty-seven years before she was a widow.

I as well.

[sovay]

A pigeon dating game? Even in Japan, that's got to be unusual.

It's a lot weirder than that makes it sound.

Some classics there, some of which I need to read as well. Should/may I ask which one you did not read?

I haven't read Heinlein's Double Star (1956), which is the one rushthatspeaks recommends. I've read A Case of Conscience (1958), but remember almost nothing about it; I can't remember if I read The Space Merchants (1952) or The Long Tomorrow (1955) or if I only saw them around the house. I don't think I read The Shrinking Man (1956), but I might be confusing it with memories of not seeing the movie.

The one I really want to re-read is Budrys' Who? (1958), because I remember it as the kind of science fiction which could very easily not be: the central character's identity is in question because he has been rebuilt as a nuclear-powered cyborg following—supposedly—a terrible accident, but if you shifted its Cold War politics back about fifty years and gave him plastic surgery, you'd have the same knot of paranoia and spycraft. I remember liking it, but I suspect I was too young to pick up most of the nuances. Fortunately, it seems it won't be hard for me to find a copy at all.

[gwynnega]

Sally Ride went to my high school--and when I was a student there, she gave a speech to the school. It must've been before her first flight. That photo at the top of the obit is just how I remember her.

[sovay]

That photo at the top of the obit is just how I remember her.

I am glad you have that memory of her.

[rosefox]

I'm still not entirely sure I'm over Readercon.

Ah, not just me, then.

(Admittedly, part of not being over Readercon appears to have been incubating a cold.)

[sovay]

(Admittedly, part of not being over Readercon appears to have been incubating a cold.)

I don't even seem to have con crud! I might feel better if I did!

(Not just you, no.)