During the summer, take me sailing out on the Atlantic
I did not spend any of today on or by the sea—I went to a doctor's appointment; it went fine—but it was hot and light-filled and the clouds looked like the kind that form over water, thick and tufted and sail-white. If it doesn't cloud over or rain, I am going to see if I can get some time on the harborwalk tomorrow.
There was an older man on the bus from Sullivan who was loudly and repetitively dah-dah-dah-ing a combination of Handel's "Dead March," the Dies Irae, and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," round and round and round, one in and out of the other. Melodically, I understand how this happened. Aesthetically, it was one of the more unnerving things I have heard on a bus.
A young black man in Harvard Square told me he liked my pin. I believe he meant Radical Dreams' Black Lives Matter rather than the gold-and-purple eldritch sigil from NecronomiCon, because he gave me what looked for all the world like a one-handed, abbreviated Wakandan salute. I didn't think fast enough to return it—I just smiled and said thank you and ducked my head in the way I have evolved as a sort of shorthand acknowledgement—but I love the idea that the gesture has leapt into the wild. Stairwell spirit says if it happens again, the appropriate response should be good luck and many shoelaces.
A young white man who passed me at the bus stop at Powderhouse told me I had awesome hair. Casually, not expectantly, did not break stride. "Thanks!" I said, the same way. This has been your irregularly scheduled reminder that drive-by compliments are not street harassment and it is entirely possible to achieve the first without committing the second.
I finished Charles Todd's A Test of Wills (1996) last night and am now halfway through Wings of Fire (1998). There were some weird class currents in the first novel, but right now they are taking a back seat to the pure astonishing idfic of the series premise: the protagonist is haunted by the Great War in all possible senses, having returned from the Western Front with some first-class shell-shock, but also with a ghost. In 1919, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard shares his head with Hamish MacLeod, the subordinate officer he had to execute for refusing a terrible, direct order that Rutledge himself had faithfully passed down the chain of command despite the lives it would cost; the firing squad made a mess of it, Rutledge had to administer the coup de grâce with his own pistol, and just as he pulled the trigger they were buried in the thick, suffocating wave of mud thrown up by a German shell's direct hit. Eyes locked with Corporal MacLeod at the end, he thought he could hear the other man screaming inside his skull for Rutledge to finish it. When they dug him out of the wreckage, he had Hamish. He's had him ever since, a familiar, uncomfortable, intimate voice that doesn't like him very much but understands him better than anyone else, especially anyone to whom he must present, perpetually and exhaustingly, the mask of a man who came back from the trenches sane. It is of course possible that Hamish is nothing more supernatural than a personification of Rutledge's survivor guilt; the doctors who eventually pronounced him fit to return to his pre-war profession thought so. What he behaves like, however, is a ghost, a lingering personality with opinions and memories and emotional reactions of its own—a dybbuk, though neither of them would know the word—and Rutledge treats him like one, since treating him like a hallucination does not actually make him go away. It is especially inconvenient when Hamish says something needling and Rutledge forgets and responds out loud and no one else in the room knows what the hell he's talking about. I have no idea how this dynamic will develop in future books, but there's like twenty of them, so unless the series totally falls apart I am looking forward to finding out. I am slightly surprised there's no TV series.
There was an older man on the bus from Sullivan who was loudly and repetitively dah-dah-dah-ing a combination of Handel's "Dead March," the Dies Irae, and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," round and round and round, one in and out of the other. Melodically, I understand how this happened. Aesthetically, it was one of the more unnerving things I have heard on a bus.
A young black man in Harvard Square told me he liked my pin. I believe he meant Radical Dreams' Black Lives Matter rather than the gold-and-purple eldritch sigil from NecronomiCon, because he gave me what looked for all the world like a one-handed, abbreviated Wakandan salute. I didn't think fast enough to return it—I just smiled and said thank you and ducked my head in the way I have evolved as a sort of shorthand acknowledgement—but I love the idea that the gesture has leapt into the wild. Stairwell spirit says if it happens again, the appropriate response should be good luck and many shoelaces.
A young white man who passed me at the bus stop at Powderhouse told me I had awesome hair. Casually, not expectantly, did not break stride. "Thanks!" I said, the same way. This has been your irregularly scheduled reminder that drive-by compliments are not street harassment and it is entirely possible to achieve the first without committing the second.
I finished Charles Todd's A Test of Wills (1996) last night and am now halfway through Wings of Fire (1998). There were some weird class currents in the first novel, but right now they are taking a back seat to the pure astonishing idfic of the series premise: the protagonist is haunted by the Great War in all possible senses, having returned from the Western Front with some first-class shell-shock, but also with a ghost. In 1919, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard shares his head with Hamish MacLeod, the subordinate officer he had to execute for refusing a terrible, direct order that Rutledge himself had faithfully passed down the chain of command despite the lives it would cost; the firing squad made a mess of it, Rutledge had to administer the coup de grâce with his own pistol, and just as he pulled the trigger they were buried in the thick, suffocating wave of mud thrown up by a German shell's direct hit. Eyes locked with Corporal MacLeod at the end, he thought he could hear the other man screaming inside his skull for Rutledge to finish it. When they dug him out of the wreckage, he had Hamish. He's had him ever since, a familiar, uncomfortable, intimate voice that doesn't like him very much but understands him better than anyone else, especially anyone to whom he must present, perpetually and exhaustingly, the mask of a man who came back from the trenches sane. It is of course possible that Hamish is nothing more supernatural than a personification of Rutledge's survivor guilt; the doctors who eventually pronounced him fit to return to his pre-war profession thought so. What he behaves like, however, is a ghost, a lingering personality with opinions and memories and emotional reactions of its own—a dybbuk, though neither of them would know the word—and Rutledge treats him like one, since treating him like a hallucination does not actually make him go away. It is especially inconvenient when Hamish says something needling and Rutledge forgets and responds out loud and no one else in the room knows what the hell he's talking about. I have no idea how this dynamic will develop in future books, but there's like twenty of them, so unless the series totally falls apart I am looking forward to finding out. I am slightly surprised there's no TV series.
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I am glad to live near the Lake, though the weather for the past few weeks has followed a pattern of being sunny on weekdays only. I have made a novelty summer top I’m quite pleased with which is literally two cotton tea towels (printed with a whimsical map of Chesapeake Bay) sewn together.
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I am glad you have a lake. Does it have tides, or just waterfront?
I have made a novelty summer top I’m quite pleased with which is literally two cotton tea towels (printed with a whimsical map of Chesapeake Bay) sewn together.
That's excellent. Is it weird if I ask for a picture?
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It was really quite irresponsible of me to say “I made a top from two tea towels” without posting pictures, so I took some this morning (as usual, apologies for the fuzzy quality): http://mooncustafer.tumblr.com/post/174206437160/summer-top-made-from-two-printed-tea-towels
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It still counts as water. The Charles used to be a tidal river, but not since the dams were built.
It was really quite irresponsible of me to say “I made a top from two tea towels” without posting pictures, so I took some this morning (as usual, apologies for the fuzzy quality)
That's even better in person!
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In a movie, I would have considered it a sign of impending bad news.
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I did not! He was still doing it when I got off the bus. I'm kind of hoping it was performance art as opposed to black magic.
But also, you do have the most awesome hair. We are all harsh on our bodies and what they've become in our implausible old age; you are as striking as you ever were.
You haven't seen me outside of photographs in years! I could just be picking the good ones!
Thank you.
*hugs*
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We also found it strange that the authors chose wills and inheritances for the first book in the series.
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I love that I picked up what looked like a straightforward historical mystery and got a deeply twined metaphor with actual haunting. It reminded me of Nick Murphy and Stephen Volk's The Awakening (2011) and Helen Dunmore's The Lie (2014). Does this series have much of a reputation with genre readers? If not, why not?
As you said, if anything, he's a disadvantage. And he's not a "cute ghost." I fear that any TV adaptation would turn into Topper Inspects.
I agree it would be a danger, but I don't think it would be inevitable; the adaptation would have to throw away its major emotional engine in order to cutesify their relationship.
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It bugs the fuck out of me my DEFAULT RESPONSE to "Smile!" is to actually involuntarily smile/grimace (smilance?), though (and I'm not really a smiley person). We are well trained.
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You've articulated the significant difference, though, which is the same one that registers with me: a real compliment has no strings attached.
It bugs the fuck out of me my DEFAULT RESPONSE to "Smile!" is to actually involuntarily smile/grimace (smilance?), though (and I'm not really a smiley person).
So Season 1 of Jessica Jones landed like a meteorite, huh?
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I think it's just me.
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Do you have a link to the NecronomiCon image? I don't recall if you were wearing it either of the times I happened to see you.
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I can respond positively when it happens, though, which is not nothing. I like having nice interactions with total strangers. It's much better than the alternatives which seem to be more common these days.
Do you have a link to the NecronomiCon image? I don't recall if you were wearing it either of the times I happened to see you.
Sure. It looks like this. I wear it on the opposite lapel from the safety pin and Black Lives Matter.
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Of course! I got it for being on programming. I like it a lot.
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There will be. I have had a miserable day so far and I want water.
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Thank you. I spent a substantial portion of the late afternoon and evening around the harbor. It was good.
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I think it deserves it.