heliopausa

Exhausted, but eager to see what's new with you all.

Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup Day. If I were in Melbourne I'd be picking a winner - that is, picking a horse that I'd think might be a winner. But I've just looked at the ABC website, and there is a most unappealing presentation of what the jockeys' silks are going to be, so I don't really have anything to go on. And the horses' names are very odd, too, and the ABC hasn't given the sires and dams, which takes half the fun out of it. So without elegant silks or excellent names, I'm unable to offer a tip. Next year, next year.
(They really are strange names: Whoshotthebarman, Heartbreak City, Oceanographer, Excess Knowledge... How could I pick a winner with names like those?)

Well, DW just lost another draft post, but this was was very underdeveloped, so no crankiness ensues.

The busy month of October is almost on me, and is casting its busyness before. I don't expect to be posting much in the next few weeks, and my responses might be slow, and less loquacious than usual, as well, which is probably not a bad thing. :)

But October busyness doesn't fret me, because I've got my Shakespeare story done and ready to post! and am very much looking forward to the opening of the collection, because that'll mean I can finally talk about all the things I found while thinking about what story to write, and can ask other people what they think about the plots and characters Shakespeare wrote, and hear about productions people have been to, or what's coming up that I might be able to see. (There's an Othello I could maybe get to, later this year - but that's one tough night in the theatre. :( )

I've only just seen that art can be entered as prompts for Yuletide - a revelation! Because there's no huge amount of backstory which has to be known with a painting (err... generally); you can just take the image and go!. I don't imagine I'll be in Yuletide - see above about incipient time-stress - but it's a way that would make it more possible for me.

There's too much sadness and madness going on in the world in the world for me to even want to think about political things at the moment, but I did bestir myself up to asking my local representatives (Senate and House of Reps) to take action about the very dangerous (and depressing) Clause 42D of the Border Security Act in my country. I'm not in the swim of what's happening on those lines currently - if any other Australians can fill me in, I'd be grateful.
On the more positive side, several very small Pacific nations have spoken out about human rights abuses in West Papua. Human rights abuses, and also the long-standing trampling over self-determination. I'm very grateful to them for raising the issues.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/61227.html

Starting with the NFE stories - they were great to read through (a stretch, though - I only just got through them all before the Reveal, and didn't get to the Madness) and all good in different ways. Two that were standout for me were:

revisionist history, by underscored - terrifically full-on, powerful AU Last Battle story, with action galore - physical, moral, psychological, emotional and theological, as the Friends work through a lot, and achieve a lot as well. Susan-focussed, but starring everybody (though the aged Polly and Digory heroically elected not to slow down the rescue mission).

Stick In the Mud, by

transposable_element - wonderful story of the great hearts in the Marsh peoples, and how they respond to the coming of Jadis's Winter - utterly Marshwiggle! (Can't say higher than that!)

And to round out the post - some good stories from round the internet. (some of them good news stories, some of them just good stories as stories.)

1. The steep road down from the Bao Loc pass, and truck driver Phan Văn Bắc glanced behind to the passenger coach coming down behind him - travelling far too fast he thought, and looked again into the rear vision mirror - and saw the driver struggling desperately, and the passengers waving, gesturing for help - the brakes had failed! and..
here's the story, but to be brief - he manoeuvred to let the back of his truck take the crashing weight of the coach, and rode them both together, jammed together, down the pass, holding both heavy vehicles on his own screamingly stretched-to-the-limit brakes. And saved the lives of everybody. Phew!

2. Probably most of you have heard this story? But I hadn't and I loved it. Of an eighty-year-old UK man with Alzheimer's - to the extent that he was getting physically and emotionally abusive to his loved wife, and not recognising his son. But his son found (I think he had advice from the local support group) that his father, a former not-terribly-successful singer and entertainer, was a hundred times more relaxed and better cognitively and everything when he drove him round in the car and encouraged him to sing all the old songs he knew. And viral video, and record deal, and all followed, but what I really, really liked was the stunning and very moving obvious love between the son and his father captured in this in-the-car video. Strenuously recommended, even if you don't like that kind of music - Quando, quando, quando - video about three minutes. :)

3. A little while ago, I posted wondering if Sir Nigel Loring had been a model for Reepicheep (no, I decided). Now I've stumbled across another possible. This isn't a good news story, because war and battles are never good, and it's definitely not news, but it's certainly a story, though I only know the slightest scrap of it.
In 1569 the north of England was ablaze with the Northern Rebellion (anti-Elizabeth, pro-Mary Stuart) and 22-year-old George Carey was part of the force fighting for Elizabeth. The fight of course went into Scotland as well (which was in other turmoil for its own reasons at the time) and Dunbar Castle ended up besieged by the English forces, including reckless, gallant (clever?) George Carey , who challenged Lord Fleming , t he commander of the castle to single combat, and won! (and was knighted for it, and it's a great way to get yourself noticed in a war, which is why I said maybe he was being clever, not being Reepicheep, but there you go.)
One of these days, when life's not so busy, I'll look up the full story - I know he won the duel, but I'm afraid I don't know if Lord Fleming then said sportingly "All right, you can have the castle."

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/61014.html

I hope I manage to see it rising tonight - of course (of course!) I'm double-booked with a lecture, but still, one can hope. It's Mid-autumn Festival, which has (I'm told) different meanings in different places, but here is for children, with lanterns, masks, presents and parties. For the last few days there's been a buzz of the excitement approaching, and little children seen unexpectedly in party dresses, or carrying boxes of mooncakes home, or selecting with great care their masks at shops or stalls, and this morning there were signs in the community space - one long paper chain strung all across the yard, and slightly squashy rained-on balloons hanging from it at intervals - that there'd been a party there last night (tonight is more for families).

This is also Narnia Fic Exchange time - twenty-three brand-new stories, all beautifully crafted to fit recipients' prompts, and being eagerly devoured as I write. as always, there's a terrific range of stories-wildly cracky, intricate histories, domestic vignettes,full-blown erotica... is there a detective story in there? I bet there is,somewhere! They range right through the Narnia canon, too, from pre-TMN to well post TLB. I've started reading, and will be having lots of fun catching up with all the stories in scattered bursts over the next few days. Recommended!

Otherwise, life for me is plunging into seasonal busy-ness.The rest of this month, and the two following will probably be pretty flat-out. (Shakespeare still to be shoe-horned in there somehow.) But pretty flat-out doesn't mean only work! Expect reports on concerts, - oh, and travel planned for next full moon! Which I've already arranged to be free for, to see rising! How's that for forethoughtfulness! :D

Late addition: I did see the moon, though not rising, and it was looking like the squashy balloons left after the party. The full moon we were celebrating was a calendar full moon, not an astronomical full moon! Real full moon, any day now!

Dreamwidth just lost an entire draft post. :( Bother. To be fair, it may be related to the internet being out of commission for half the day, and not DW's fault at all. (Is anyone on Dreamwidth reading this, by the way?)

As best I can remember it included talk of:

Doctor Who, Season 18, State of Decay. I thought the plot was too much of a rehash of the old Sevateem idea (which was a good idea in itself), the acting was particularly bad, especially in the main cast (K9 excepted), and the Doctor's strategy for overcoming the resident evil (whose very name I've forgotten) looked awfully haphazard - the writers missed an opportunity for Adric to do ultra-high maths with K9, to ensure accuracy of execution. As it was, Adric was looking more like a liability than an alert and useful companion. I'd feel sorry for the Doctor, except he was a bit annoying, too.

Shakespeare. I'm gradually dragging the words out of my brain for the Stageoffools exchange, though with (of course) many qualms that this isn't what my recipient wants. But I'll finish a first draft and then think again.

Tam Cam, the Untold Story - which was a movie based on a Vietnamese fairy-tale with lots of similarities to Cinderella. (Tam is the "Cinderella"; Cam is the "Ugly Stepsister"). The untold part of the story included lots of fighting - the one-on-one martial arts kind, and the big CGI battles kind - and not one, but two CGI monsters - the bad scorpionesque one and the good leonine one. What startled me most was the final, mid-credits scene of Tam and her wicked stepmother - Tam bringing to the stepmother a brimming bowl of some mixed stew, and saying "Eat, mother." I thought - "oh - noble Tam - even after all the cruelty and wrong she's suffered, she displays filial piety to her father's wife." But it wasn't that at all. Oh dear.

Pulses: this weekend just gone - the good old standby Chilli Beans, with red kidney beans, tomato and chilli and much else.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/60605.html

I had hoped to spend some time tonight quietly knitting on a project inspired partly by todayiamadaisy on LJ and partly by having lost a beret somewhere or other, and partly by there being seven small balls of wool and a large one kicking around making an nuisance of themselves in the spare room. For a non-knitter - that is, I can, but I hardly ever do - I'd made a promising start, I thought, but I've just come to the dispiriting realisation that I've misunderstood the instructions and have cast on too few stitches and will have to start all over again - and I loathe casting on. Botherbotherbother.

On the slightly more cheerful side, it's New Moon today - so it's a new lunar month as well as a new solar-calendar one - two new months in one!

Neutral news is that the Year of Pulses continues, but isn't doing so well this week - all I have to show is a mixed vegie curry with chickpeas. Maybe I should get ambitious and try making tempeh.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/60279.html

I've been work-travelling! which involved another hotel, another swimming pool, and the chance to swim at six in the morning, as well as in the afternoon, and then again between the last session and catching the bus back home. Bliss! Because summer's ebbing, but hasn't gone yet.

So what can I post about, before the month finishes, and another two months begin? Well, in the comments on a post by asakiyume, the book Harding's Luck was mentioned, so here's a bit of a ramble about it, and its fellow-travelling book, The House of Arden.

( Read more, if the inclination strikes you. :) )

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/60047.html

There's been more listening than reading happening for me lately. Music, for starters - a terrific Bach concert, and another of unthemed scraps from all over, which began with Octet for Eight Strings (Prelude and Scherzo) by Shostakovich which was new to me, and brilliant.

But I've been listening to literature, too, courtesy of Librivox - to Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company , with Sir Nigel Loring, the most chivalrous of all literary knights - at first I wondered if he was a model for Reepicheep. ( Cut because it rambles, rather. )

I've started reading The Edge of the World, by Michael Pye, about the influence of the North Sea traders in European history, but haven't got far yet, just to Frisians in the Dark Ages. More in a later post. (Has anyone else read it? Or know the period? - roughly 700-1350, I think.)

I've dipped into Maria Edgeworth, thanks to a post by blueinkedpalm on LJ, and found her much more fun than I'd expected - previously I'd only read Castle Rackrent, and hadn't much enjoyed it - they were such very unappealing characters, and I couldn't see or couldn't enjoy the social comedy. But blueinkedpalm gave a link to some easy-going didactic stories, intended as hints for parents on how to raise children - it included the Good Governess who took her charges to the Rational Toyshop (not nearly as horrible as it sounds). There was bucketloads of Lessons to be drawn throughout, but also wry and amusing social observation. Here's a basically decent young man, but vastly full of himself, mansplaining to a polite young woman:

"After he had told her all that he knew concerning the fossils, as they were produced from the cabinet — and he was far from ignorant — he at length perceived that she knew full as much of natural history as he did, and he was surprised that a young lady should know so much, and should not be conceited."

Pow! Take that, all bumptious young men who have ever tediously and instructively wasted Maria Edgeworth's time when she could have been having fun at a party!

(What great days we're living in! Where so much is freely available on the internet.)

And then there was Shakespeare. I'd been playing with the idea of entering the StageofFools fic exchange - but when I came to consider which plays I knew anything like well enough to offer to write from... oh, then I had to scurry to the invaluable internet and find the plays and read them all again. Not them all, no, but to skim from one to another, (reading one for the first time; it was better than I'd thought - good work, Shakespeare! Keep it up.) until I thought I'd read enough to be able to get to the stage of offering some, and prompting some, and hoping for the best - which I now have, recklessly.
So that's the thinking about writing part - just thinking idly at this stage, because the prompts have yet to descend.

(Consumption of pulses, in honour of the Ye ar, continues. Recently: falafel with hummous, and at another meal tofu with peanut sauce - quadruple score!)

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/59681.html

The weekend was crammed full of things, so I didn't get around to reading or posting much - and the week is also looking pretty full-on - but yes! there's still time for self-indulgence and various cultural excitements. Not the terrific free lecture with excerpts and explanations of the puppetry of Bao Ha village, though - it was crammed full by the time we got there. But never mind, there was a very nice indeed new (to me) patisserie nearby (cue: tarte framboise and iced coffee) and I was also able to spend some time in a bookshop buying delayed birthday presents for a quasi-godchild plus bonus treat of a new big Vietnamese-English dictionary for me.

and later that night culture reigned! in that I continued the Season Eighteen Old Who project,and saw the story titled "Full Circle", with the introduction of the mysterious adric ( Read more... )

There's a Shakespeare story exchange happening! on both LJ and DW - I'm pondering it as a possible way to help rejig my story-writing zest. :) I'd have to find four plays (excluding histories) that I'd feel capable of writing a thousand words on, to an unknown prompt, sometime in September. Hhhmmm...

and as mentioned previously, an ongoing salute to International Year of Pulses - this time, courtesy of

asakiyume , Spicy Roasted Chickpeas, a pleasingly spicy snack, involving cayenne pepper and chickpeas. Thank you,

asakiyume ! I snacked on them through the weekend, and ate them all up!

Of interest mostly to australians: ( about the census. )

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/59023.html

Something I read: I finished the book The Just City - I've already tipped my main reactions to the book, but in sum, I do feel positively about it - I found myself putting off finishing it because I was enjoying the ride - but not stunningly so. I liked the idea of it more than the execution, I guess. Minor point: ( behind a cut, in case spoilery. )

Something I began to read: I saw on

oursin 's blog a mention of The Last Man, a story by Mary Shelley set in 2073 (there's so much around that I've never heard of!) and dashed off to find it, because fascinating thought, the view of 2073, from1826. ( Read more... )

Something I won't get to see: I like the sound of this exhibition in Cambridge about illuminated manuscripts.

Something I did actually see: I saw another episode in the eighteenth season of <i>Doctor Who</i>! I'm seeing them in order, very slowly, as life permits. This was the one about Meglos, ( Read more... )

On Sunday, there were signs of great weariness from my laptop - it's been just about two years since I was told it could go at any minute. ( Not exciting, really... ) So - a happy ending. :)

Current Mood: cheerful

Literature! Theatre! Music! and a swimming pool!! It was a brilliant, brilliant weekend. Oh, and on Friday night, a spectacular and silent lightning storm. amazing!

The theatre wasn't really on the weekend - it was on Thursday night, but near enough, near enough - and it was terrific. Sombre in places, and theatre-of-ideas in places (difficult, because I don't have enough language to follow the debates) and romance in places (pah, humbug!) and obligatory funny bits in places (ummm) but still - exciting production, and I loved the sets and the acting, and the ideas, very much.

The lightning storm - how far away does lightning have to be, to be completely silent? It was amazing and beautiful, a huge storm around a whole quarter of the sky.

I started, and read most of, The Just City - which I'm enjoying, though not without niggles; it feels a bit two-bob-each-way between a novel and a fable, as if in all fairness (because it's a fable,a thought experiment) one shouldn't fret too much about characters or history or finicky pedantic points. (Not every number, Apollo! You mean every number up to twelve!) But it's fun watching the experiment work out (doomed to fail! - at least, it seems to me that it has been, but I see there's sequels, which suggests the experiment doesn't end in this volume, anyway) - and in general it's very enjoyable, and a huge step up from Hild. (I bought them both in the same bookshop swoop, last March.) It reminds me of how Martin Gardner used to wrap up his mathematical/logic problems in very appealing and amusing mini-stories.

The music was - still is - the Sydney Piano Competition, available via internet for a limited number of days - I think it's four weeks from when they were broadcast. Here's the first set of three finalists, in the 19th/20th Century concerto section, playing Saint-Saens (an odd choice for competition playing), Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. So there were swathes of music throughout the weekend.

and swimming for hours! This is a rare treat, and the opportunity was not wasted, not for a minute, in this hot weather! I say, swimming, but a good bit of the time - nearly all the time - was also just splashing about, or standing chatting in the watery shade. ahhhhh... :)

So, all up, a great weekend. :)

Current Mood: calm
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/58263.html

The wind blows, and the sand-grains scatter; the dune remains.

I've been writing Calormene proverbs. :) and, some days later than I said I would, I've posted a new story in the Atrementus collection. This one (which is a Calormene-proverbs-for-foreigners book) isn't one of the ones whose title Lucy noticed on Tumnus's shelves, but then she only noted four - or is only recorded as having noted four - and I want to have at least seven items in the Collection, and maybe eight. I enjoyed writing it, anyway - I could have gone on for ages! (It's okay - I didn't. If anyone ever asks, though, in some dim, far-off future time... ;) )

In other Narnian news, a few of us are reading through Prince Caspian, over here. Other voices welcome!

and in domestic news, the International Year of Pulses continues to be celebrated here, most recently with a Tom Kha Tofu soup, which was highly delicious!

In other domestic news, a centipede crawled out of the plughole in the bath (over which is the shower) yesterday. I do not care for such happenings at all. :(

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/57974.html

The Narnia Fic Exchange is back. This exchange has produced some absolutely wonderful stories in past years - wonderful in many ways, of many sorts. (I'm smiling right now thinking back to some of them!)

I'm trying to think through whether to be part of it this year. For one thing, this year has been so full of sadness and confusion that I'm not sure that I could come up with a story to meet expectations. (Which is pretty much why my current meandering Narnia story/collection is set in the time when the land is going down into the Winter.) I have enjoyed it a lot in the past, but there've also been disappointments; putting them together with my own doubts re: whether I could meet a recipient's hopes - I don't know whether to give it one more try or not.

So... to try to jump-start my Narnia feelings:

1. I'm off to see what stories have been posted recently on ao3 or ffnet. (I wonder what's waiting! :) )
2. I'm joining anyone who wants to be in it in reading through Prince Caspian, over at this site.
3. I'm going to post (in a few days' time) another in the Atrementus collection - a fairly light diversion-style one, I hope, which I've had in mind for sometime. I might post them all on ffnet, too, to see how they go.

I'd love to hear from others thinking about this.

Current Mood: drained
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/57582.html

It's been a long week, for one reason and another, including personally.

In Australia, the election is still not quite settled. ( Read more... )

Thursday night a couple of us sat up, following with fear and horror #whereisLavishReynolds. ( Read more... )

Oh, heavens. Something by way of relief. It's NAIDOC week in australia - i.e. celebrating indigenous people, culture, heritage. Here's an article from the abc about the billabongs of the Top End, and the people who know them and love them and keep them best. (Comes with a lovely picture of Cherry Daniels with waterlilies. :) Recommended for the picture alone, let alone the rest. and there's lots of other articles linkable from there.)

Well. Saturday morning, and I'd better start the day.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/57112.html

as every election night of my adult night, this one's being spent watching the results roll in. The voting's still going on in W.a. - I think it's bad practice to have any results made public before all the polling booths are closed, but of course, since the results are being made visible (still only a few percent of the votes counted) I'm watching.

The brilliant Senator Penny Wong is one of the commenting team on the abc - http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/ - and old hand Barrie Cassidy giving running commentary - and quiet number-cruncher anthony Green. (Go, Penny Wong!)

Oh, so much at stake. Tonight the tense watching, tomorrow... exhaustion, probably. Relief and some celebration, I hope. Much analysis, either way.

Current Mood: tense
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/56895.html

So... stopping to think of some mildly cheerful things happening.

For one thing, some old (fifteenth century) wooden panels which had been stolen from a church in Devon, have been recovered and restored and returned to their home church.
I hold no brief for Margaret of antioch, or Victor of Marseilles, (I know nothing at all about either of them) but I hate it when something which is out in the world, publicly visible, being part of our general human heritage, is ripped away from all of us, whether from theft or destructiveness - so I was glad to see this one loss undone.

and it's good news that in the US there's been an overhaul and extension of the regulation of toxic substances. US readers will understand the political implication of this better than I would, but it's meant co-operation between Democrats and Republicans and commercial interests and the Environmental Protection agency, which all sounds good - and the safer environment at ordinary-citizen level is definitely good. :)

I think it's even good news that a man in australia can have fun making silly hats. I would actually wear the pancakes one, in the unlikely circumstance of the artist giving it to me. :)

Three mildly cheerful things closer to home:

The commitment to honouring the Year of the Pulse with a weekly meal continues: this week, a simple carrot and lentil dhal, with cumin and plum accents. :)

I managed another Sunday evening Old Who catch-up, this time going back to the beginning of the season I last week saw the end of, with "The Leisure Hive". ( Read more... )

The white bougainvillea in the front yard is in flower. :)

Current Mood: working
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/56658.html

I've finished reading W&P, and was actually full of thoughts about it, but yesterday's news of the UK referendum has overwhelmed that, or made it seem not the time for that post. (If anyone does want to talk W&P, let me know.)

The next bit is about the UK referendum, behind a cut because it's not my country, and I feel I haven't really got the right to comment, other than to reiterate my previously-expressed good wishes for the future of all countries involved. So "read more" means "read more but only if you want to".
( Read more... )

Current Mood: gloomy
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/56492.html

As promised, I've posted the next in the Atrementus series, Nymphs and their Ways, here, on AO3. (Maybe later on ffnet.). I'm really pleased that I managed to do it, and feel more confident that I'll actually buckle down to writing the whole series. Maybe I can manage the third by the end of next week. (It should be quickish, since that one won't be illustrated.)

adaese.livejournal.com has suggested a reread of Prince Caspian, over here. I don't know when, but I suppose starting pretty soon. :)

On Sunday evening in between cooking up a storm I watched a whole story's worth of 1980s Doctor Who episodes. (I said tenuously! They're both popular fantasy series. :D) It was 'Logopolis', with the Fourth Doctor, ( Read more... )

I was with a friend in a bookshop on the weekend - one which theoretically specialised in architecture books, but it also had some art books - and was having a sale! The friend I was with bought this beautiful book at a knock-down price. (Tenuous connection: lots of the pictures look very Narnian, which is to say very Pauline Baynes.
Medieval battle scene, King Louis Bible, c.1250

Medieval battle scene, King Louis Bible, c.1250

Though that's a good deal more violent than hers. Still, if I do have to attempt art again, I'll know where to turn for inspiration. :)

Current Mood: accomplished
Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/56137.html

There's so much stinking, stinking sad news out there. :(

Well... to some better news, or cheerful things, if not exactly news:

Scotland has achieved its emissions reduction target six years early! :) Go, Scotland!

The 50,000 hectares of Yarralin Cattle Station (which had been held under leasehold from the Crown, most recently by the Hooker Corporation) has been formally handed back to its traditional Aboriginal owners.

Is a comedy sketch art? If it is, then here's art protecting nature, in an ad made by two well-known comedians for an NGO in Vietnam, to campaign for tiger protection (youtube, one minute)

Where nature starts to look like art:
I really liked these eggs, all from the same species of bird - the tawny-flanked prinia, in Africa. So beautiful, like marbled silk!

The photo is by evolutionary ecologist Martin Stevens, and I found it and the info in this Guardian article.

Beautiful, and sneaky, too! The origin of these lovely patterns lies in the habit of the Zambian cuckoo finch, doing what cuckoo finches do, i.e. laying eggs which mimicked typical prinia eggs in prinia nests - but the tawny-flanked prinia has been - and still is - fighting back, by each individual hen now laying her own special signature style of egg! The egg-forging finches can't keep up! Go, wonderful tawny-flanked prinias!

Writing news: What with one thing and another, I haven't written a thing all year, apart from some three-sentence fiction, so I've been trying to kickstart my writing by launching back into a Narnia project I started last year. ( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/55986.html

Who does the internet think I am? Why have I been bombarded for weeks with an ad for bunk beds? and one for a military-grade torch? (Should it be banned? the ad asks.) and today, $99 sports shoes. I think the internet thinks I'm running a kids adventure camp, with exciting night activities, which I'm so not!

I don't have any great news stories to link to, but I enjoyed this metafilter discussion about who rules canon, or whose canon rules, beginning with Harry Potter, but taking off from there to discuss more widely.

In other non-news, it's Year of the Pulse! This weekend's celebratory pulse-focused meal at my place: Chickpea patties, served with yoghurt and the mango chutney I made a little while ago, and lettuce etc. Huge success. :)

More about W&P:
It's getting better and better! (Not to say it's flawless, though). ( Read more... )

I'm a little anxious about the coming election at home, especially about how the changes to the Senate voting will play out. (More than a little, actually.) But not to end on a morose note, here's a campaign ad (30-second youtube, not haranguing) put out by the classical music arm of our national broadcaster.

Crossposts: http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/55585.html

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Recent Entries

Back, exhausted

On the verge of hiatus, of sorts

Good stories!

Full moon - eighth month. :)

Remnants of a lost post

An unexciting post

Two E. Nesbit books

Listening and reading and thinking about writing.

Busy days :)

Reading, viewing, computer excitement!

The weekend went swimmingly

Calormene Proverbs

Narnia?

End of a long week

Election night

Mildly cheerful things

Not the time :(

2 Narnian things, and 2 things tenuously related

Mostly nature and art (of a sort)

Mostly Tolstoy