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Time stopped by
So Friday at Arisia was great, and Saturday at Arisia was exhausting and difficult, and I was not sure at all how today at Arisia was going to go. Answer: fantastic.
The reading was a three-way split with Gillian Daniels and Adrienne J. Odasso; in the last half-hour it evolved into a panel with audience questions and discussion of everything from fanfiction to market research to different forms of publishing to recommendations. I heard some wonderful poems and a story I want the last few pages of. I sold eight copies of Ghost Signs. (One went in trade to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ajodasso for their new collection The Dishonesty of Dreams.) There was a bunch of disorganized talking in the hall afterward. It was good.
Afterward I was more or less out of con tolerance—I have been so exhausted that I was nearly incapable of getting out of bed in time to eat, take antibiotics, and leave for the reading—butderspatchel and I briefly visited the art show1 and had an amazing experience in the dealer's room2 and then we were both out of blood sugar, so we walked to Penang in Chinatown. We split an order of roti canai; Rob got his traditional beef rendang with Thai iced tea. I had a durian shake, because there are not many places in Boston I can order one, and I decided to try the nasi lemak, primarily because it included pandan-flavored rice. It was the best breakfast for dinner I have eaten in my life. Coconut-pandan rice surrounded by chicken curry, crunchy sweet dried anchovies, halves of hard-boiled egg, and some kind of vegetable pickle. There were onions which I did not eat, but the anchovies very quickly went away. It was warm and complex and filling and a respectable level of spicy without being lacerating and I have always ordered the house special squid when I eat at Penang, but I think it is nasi lemak from now on. Or at least the next several visits. I don't think I can replicate it at home without a lot of grocery shopping.
And after that we walked around Boston until it started raining so hard that there was no point in continuing home on foot and we caught the bus from Lechmere. Tomorrow I have to say intelligent things on a panel at eleven-thirty in the morning, which is the only part I am not looking forward to. In the evening, Rob and I have plans to meet his father and stepmother for dinner in Somerville. I can't fall over and hibernate after that because I have a dentist's appointment, but I'm going to try anyway.
1. Yesterday or the day before, I had seen a painting called "Midnight" by Sarah Clemens: on fossil stone, a long-haired tuxedo cat with brilliant green eyes and wings like soldered glass. I could not afford it and there was already a bid in, but I didn't want to let it get away without Rob seeing it.
2. On the first day of the con, I was browsing the shelves from Somewhere in Time when I found a pristine hardcover of Joan Aiken's A Necklace of Raindrops (1968), which I had loved in elementary school and not read since. Jean warned me that it would be expensive: in thirty-seven years of dealing in used books, he'd seen two copies and this was one. Sure enough, when I came back this evening with Rob, it turned out it was two hundred and fifty dollars and I don't have that kind of money right now. I could afford a small Dell paperback called Invasion from Mars: Interplanetary Stories (1949), edited by Orson Welles. Jean gave it to me as a gift, promising to find me an affordable copy of A Necklace of Raindrops—because I remembered it so fondly, he'd read the story. I got the book home and opened it and discovered that not only does it reprint Ray Bradbury's "Zero Hour" and "The Million Year Picnic," Theodore Sturgeon's "Farewell to Eden," Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth," and a bunch of other stories I haven't read recently or ever, it contains Howard Koch's complete radio script for the Mercury Theatre's War of the Worlds. It's an amazing find. I am going to take a shower and read it now.
The reading was a three-way split with Gillian Daniels and Adrienne J. Odasso; in the last half-hour it evolved into a panel with audience questions and discussion of everything from fanfiction to market research to different forms of publishing to recommendations. I heard some wonderful poems and a story I want the last few pages of. I sold eight copies of Ghost Signs. (One went in trade to
ajodasso for their new collection The Dishonesty of Dreams.) There was a bunch of disorganized talking in the hall afterward. It was good.Afterward I was more or less out of con tolerance—I have been so exhausted that I was nearly incapable of getting out of bed in time to eat, take antibiotics, and leave for the reading—but
derspatchel and I briefly visited the art show1 and had an amazing experience in the dealer's room2 and then we were both out of blood sugar, so we walked to Penang in Chinatown. We split an order of roti canai; Rob got his traditional beef rendang with Thai iced tea. I had a durian shake, because there are not many places in Boston I can order one, and I decided to try the nasi lemak, primarily because it included pandan-flavored rice. It was the best breakfast for dinner I have eaten in my life. Coconut-pandan rice surrounded by chicken curry, crunchy sweet dried anchovies, halves of hard-boiled egg, and some kind of vegetable pickle. There were onions which I did not eat, but the anchovies very quickly went away. It was warm and complex and filling and a respectable level of spicy without being lacerating and I have always ordered the house special squid when I eat at Penang, but I think it is nasi lemak from now on. Or at least the next several visits. I don't think I can replicate it at home without a lot of grocery shopping.And after that we walked around Boston until it started raining so hard that there was no point in continuing home on foot and we caught the bus from Lechmere. Tomorrow I have to say intelligent things on a panel at eleven-thirty in the morning, which is the only part I am not looking forward to. In the evening, Rob and I have plans to meet his father and stepmother for dinner in Somerville. I can't fall over and hibernate after that because I have a dentist's appointment, but I'm going to try anyway.
1. Yesterday or the day before, I had seen a painting called "Midnight" by Sarah Clemens: on fossil stone, a long-haired tuxedo cat with brilliant green eyes and wings like soldered glass. I could not afford it and there was already a bid in, but I didn't want to let it get away without Rob seeing it.
2. On the first day of the con, I was browsing the shelves from Somewhere in Time when I found a pristine hardcover of Joan Aiken's A Necklace of Raindrops (1968), which I had loved in elementary school and not read since. Jean warned me that it would be expensive: in thirty-seven years of dealing in used books, he'd seen two copies and this was one. Sure enough, when I came back this evening with Rob, it turned out it was two hundred and fifty dollars and I don't have that kind of money right now. I could afford a small Dell paperback called Invasion from Mars: Interplanetary Stories (1949), edited by Orson Welles. Jean gave it to me as a gift, promising to find me an affordable copy of A Necklace of Raindrops—because I remembered it so fondly, he'd read the story. I got the book home and opened it and discovered that not only does it reprint Ray Bradbury's "Zero Hour" and "The Million Year Picnic," Theodore Sturgeon's "Farewell to Eden," Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth," and a bunch of other stories I haven't read recently or ever, it contains Howard Koch's complete radio script for the Mercury Theatre's War of the Worlds. It's an amazing find. I am going to take a shower and read it now.
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I do understand all about wanting that book though. I went to some trouble to find the right copies of Terrible, Horrible Edie and Mr. Wicker's Window for just that reason.
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Thank you; that is useful to know. Being consumed with Arisia, I hadn't been able to establish whether it was in the world in any other form.
I do understand all about wanting that book though. I went to some trouble to find the right copies of Terrible, Horrible Edie and Mr. Wicker's Window for just that reason.
It was the edition I had read in elementary school; the only one I'd ever seen. It's the one I want if I can get it.
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The book was reprinted not long ago and many inexpensive paperbacks are available, too.
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The corners of its dust jacket were very slightly roughed. That was all.
Alas, I do not have $87.50 to spend on a book at this time, either. Thank you for looking.
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Thank you. Me, too. I like when pushing myself turns out to be worth it!
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I'm not quite sure why I love this line so much, but clearly I do. Except why didn't you eat the onions?
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Thank you.
Except why didn't you eat the onions?
I don't like onions very much; I enjoy them if they have been lengthily cooked into a dish and/or if they are caramelized to the point of candy-crack, but especially since the two people with whom I am involved are both allergic to onions, I really don't cook with them. (For those recipes which require onions and garlic to brown in butter or oil from the start, I substitute shallots.) The only context in which I actively seek them out is French onion soup. These had been, I think, sautéed with the anchovies and were covered in the same sweet chili sauce, but they were still very much recognizable slices of red onion with the acrid taste I don't enjoy. Fortunately, they had not imparted it to the anchovies, which were delicious.
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Absolutely! We can work something out with international postage.
I hope today's panel was easy on you.
My anti-superpower is appearing as though I am not exhausted to the point of decoherence. Both panels were fun, though, which really helped.
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The first edition is the one I imprinted on, therefore the one I'd prefer if I can find it, but thank you for looking!
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Six-step dragon ♥
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I read the scene with the codebreaker. I don't know if Arisia makes recordings of readings. Thank you!
Six-step dragon
It's been in my head for two days . . .
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I really like them; I followed them from Harvard Square to Chinatown when they moved. I recommend at least a second try. Do you have other Malaysian places you like better?
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Nine
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I think we work really well together.
And Ghost Signs is just beautiful.
Thank you.