Float like a matzo ball, sting like a bee

quick random notes

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:06:02 GMT

(1) Zahlova Strycova and Benesova are wearing clothes that look good on them. Caroline Wozniacki, who is ranked about a hundred places ahead of them, is not (scroll down to the blonde girl in the grey knit)). Stella McCartney FAIL.

(2) Be Not Afraid of Growing Slowly - an old DEUCE profile of Rendy Lu that I finally got around to reading. I will be cheering even harder for him now. (Odds are against him ever breaking top 50, but he's nice and so's his conditioning coach, and I got to chat with them in both English and Taiwanese when they practiced with Berdych in Memphis.)

There was more, but gotta head out. Hope this finds all y'all well.

University of Chicago notes

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:24:33 GMT

From the Fall/Winter 2009 College Newsletter - an article on dorm/room names:

...there is the Helens' Suite, a gift from an anonymous alumna in honor of her mother, Helen, as well as her sister and herself (Helen is their middle name). "We were thinking it also has a Greek/Western civ/Common Core ring to it as well," said the donor. In a similar vein, two anonymous alumni named a room in honor of Constantemente Funzionando, meaning "constantly working" in Italian.

And finally, the room the undergrads probably fight over: the Room of Requirement, after a room in the Harry Potter series filled with whatever you need right then. Tonny and Fay Soesanto wanted to name a room to recognize their daughter Charlotte's College graduation in 2009, and that was the name she chose. Since the Room of Requirement is on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, UChicago's is on the seventh floor of the seventh house, Crown House.

[A side note: Aside from lack of time, the main reason I'm no longer interviewing prospective students (a volunteer activity I enjoyed for almost a decade) is that there are now so many new buildings and other developments (including changes to the curricula) that I no longer feel I can speak with authority on what the College is like. (I mean, I could if I made it a priority, but reading up on chemistry and Handel happens to be much higher on my list.) I do still review applications for their internship program, which provides the same boost of entertainment and optimism -- it's very, very cool to see what the smart and ambitious kids are up to, and there's the satisfaction of doing my part to match the opportunities to the candidates who will both give it their best and get the most out of it.]

And, at thewindypixel.com, a photography series tagged "The University of Chicogwarts." Feeling nostalgic for Rockefeller Chapel now. (I lived across the street from the place for two years, and gave its dean at the time a copy of The Compleat Traveller in Black because he shared a name with one of its characters.)

things that made me think of you lot

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:18:54 GMT

First, for snapelike and musigneus and the other science geeks:

From 2010: A Space Oddity

One of the talks I went to last weekend was on whether the LHC was capable of creating microscopic black holes that could lead to the End of the World. (The short answer: no, since we don't operate in four-plus dimensions.)

And then this reminded me of the whole Snupin crowd:

http://ravenousromance.blogspot.com/2010/03/call-for-stories-for-fang-bangers.html

And as long as we're linking to calls for entries:

http://qarrtsiluni.com/2010/03/01/call-for-submissions-new-classics/ (due March 31)

Yes, Greek myth or Roman epic as archetype or inspiration for your own peculiar spin, but also: Sundiata, Pride and Prejudice, Andy Warhol paintings, Basho’s haiku, the Green Man, the VW Bug, Frankenstein, Tiamat, The Dhammapada, rock and roll, Anansi tales, banshees, Sedna, avatars turned online/gaming identity, fox woman, Nero Wolfe, creation stories, 1950’s creature features — surprise us with something we can’t help but recognize, even as we’ve never seen it put to your uses.

Transform, transpose, transgender, trans-border our expectations with your wholly familiar, yet wholly new, take on a classic.

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:27:08 GMT

Note to self:

Do your best. Give others the benefit of the doubt.
Other people's hangups = their loss, not yours.
Good things happen when you encourage others.

(Some of the perennial kerfuffles have got me down. Hence reminding myself what has served me well over the years.)

And on that note, some recent and upcoming pleasures:

I totally have to restructure Day 6 of "The Second One Is Love." This is not a bad thing: it will lead to a better read, my beta rules, and at least I've realized this after sweating a mere 527 drops of blood through my forehead, as opposed to 5,982.

Lucie/Vera vs. Tathiana/JJ in doubles. (Translation for non-tennis nerds: high-strung drama queens on deck. I just now realized there's no video coverage until tomorrow, alas, but that means I'll get to whatever I should be doing instead, so win.)

Hit for Haiti - California edition. More beer and popcorn...

Dr. Fujiwara's Several Surprises, a "Women's Battle College, Isle of Skye" flash fic by Kat Beyer

nineveh_uk's Moving On, in which Sylvia and Eiluned help Harriet sort out her possessions before her marriage.

The Other Way of the World by candle_beck, via a rec by schemingreader. I am generally not much for Holmes/Watson slash (nothing against it, just not my thing) but this is beautifully wrought, and by that I mean not only is Watson so much the match for Holmes (in multiple senses of that word), there are exchanges such as this:

Holmes laughed, a crooked humourless thing that smuggled a chill up Watson's spine. "Some hours ago you laid claim to my soul, and now a bump on the head is enough to deter you? O faithless man," and Holmes darted in to steal a kiss off him, a surprise attack.

Heat stained Watson's face, his mouth feeling swollen, and he stared at his hands fisted in Holmes's shirt so he would not have to look at the man himself.

"Any other epithet I will take from you, but there is no justice in that one," Watson said quietly.

I have good coffee and rum-ginger brownies at hand, which should be fortification enough for raga-rehearsing and spreadsheet-wrangling.

WIP meme and mid-con report

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:17:37 GMT

[In a classroom at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, half-listening to a computer science professor and an astrophysicis prof debate at length "virtual" vs. "real" data wrt robotics programming. The sticking point seems to be the term "hardware" and how whether its presence or absence as a goal affects the relevance/importance of the algorithms being developed.]

The WIP meme (seen at marginaliana) where one posts a sentence or two from one's not-yet-finished fics: basically, there are two partially-posted fics at the top of my list to complete once I get clear of the current stuff-to-pay-the-mortgage pileup:

From the next part of Not As Dumb [FAKE]:

"You and your damn secrets," Dee quietly said.

From the next part of "The Second One Is Love" [tennis RPF, currently under comm-lock]:

"Ten minutes later, under my door, note and key from Mirka. Not coincidence, I think."

(I'll post the conference update later -- apparently there's a chess-playing Roomba I need to go take a look at.) (Tentacle icon comes to you courtesy of a "War of the Worlds" clip that included mention of tentacled aliens.)

(Astrophysicist and computer scientist still arguing. Now it's sounding like the age-old argument regarding theoretical vs. applied models.)

SIGNAL BOOST: No Tell Books offer

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:45:57 GMT

Buy a book, receive a tarot reading or dream interpretation

Not sure what to purchase? ...For what it's worth, the two Bedside Guides each contain a poem of mine. Wanton Textiles inspired two of my own poems. And Laurel Snyder's collection includes a poem called "The Truth"; see the end of this Vary the Line entry for why it's a keeper.

(An aside about Snyder: Baxter, the Pig who Wanted to Be Kosher, is definitely going on my shopping list...)

that poetry meme

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:21:54 GMT

Seen first at schemingreader's and most recently at aunty_marion's: When you see this, post a poem in your journal.

"Invisible Work"

( the unseen / unbelievable effort it takes to live )
- Alison Luterman

who shaped you? whom have you shed?

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:07:15 GMT

Reposting from a private conversation:

Q: Who is most to blame for what and how you write?

Ribbons: Off the top of my head: Dorothy L. Sayers, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Conan Doyle, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Craig Claiborne (specifically the New York Times Cookbook: it was practically a work of fiction as far as I was concerned - my mother never cooked from it, but I would copy out the names of dishes onto my calendar and go to bed fantasizing about exotic-to-me dishes such as vichyssoise and strudel).

Q: Who hasn't influenced your writing, in spite of copious consumption of their output?

Ribbons: Who hasn't stuck: Dorothy Parker, Sara Teasdale, Molly Ivins, biographies, Cosmopolitan, Cynthia Heimel. Respectively: too tragic; too lofty; not enough fire in my belly or conviction in my soul to joust vs. politicians on a regular basis; still love reading biographies, but my default setting is (at times extreme) courtesy over curiosity, and top biographers generally have to override that; more into Shape and online quizzes/memes these days; plain got bored.

And you?

Christ on a prompter, people, it's called ACTING

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:13:59 GMT

Somewhere across the pond, Xisca Perello and Shakira's fiance are watching outtakes and LAUGHING THEIR ASSES OFF.

"it's especially important to educate girls"

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:53:10 GMT

One of the TennisWorld regulars linked to an article about Federer's charity work in Africa. I especially liked this part (emphasis mine):

Interviewer: How do you go about choosing projects?

RF: We always have a number of requests to discuss at our meetings. We then examine them based on clear guidelines before coming to a decision. To put it very simply, we want to do something to improve education for children in the poorest countries of Africa. As far as we're concerned, it's especially important to educate girls because they're still particularly disadvantaged in these countries. It's also important for us to be helping people to help themselves. If a project is almost entirely dependent on funds from donors, there's always a risk of excessive concentration. We generally support projects lasting three to eight years

I spent the past week in Memphis watching, writing, and thinking about tennis around 18 hours a day (more details and links to photos @ my other journal). Good times. The week ahead: earning money, church chores, and making notecards to sell at 2010: A Space Oddity, where I'll also be reading some of my poetry and participating on a panel. No glamor without the grunt-work, baby. Onward!

Memphis, warmup

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:19:41 GMT

[The second half of this is a cross-post from chrysanthemum.]

In Memphis to watch some tennis (volunteering for the tournament = free pass to the matches I'm not working). I don't expect to do much this week outside tennis and work (I just realized I actually brought along more paperwork and reference materials than clothes); fortunately, the hotel room is clean and spacious as well as cheap.

It also presents a huge distraction in the form of the TV -- at home, I don't have cable, NBC isn't coming through either (so no Olympics), and videos give my netbook seizures, so I have to go out of my way to watch anything. Last night, though, I caught part of a special on the SI swimsuit issue (= soft porn not only for those appreciative of fine, firm flesh, but also for production and marketing geeks -- I love "behind the scenes" shows), and also the tail end of

Granada's interpretation of "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," which was rebroadcast last night - an episode I saw when it first aired back in 1984, when the late Jeremy Brett was in his prime as Sherlock Holmes. I caught the last third of it and then, thanks to YouTube, looked up the scene that's stuck with me all these years: when Holmes and Watson decipher an especially critical message.

...It's even better than I remembered. At the time, what caught my fancy was Holmes and Watson locking eyes for a second as they both realized what the message said, and then both bolting out the room. For some reason (probably conflation with another episode), the scene ending with Holmes vaulting over a sofa and shouting for a servant or hansom -- that's not here, but what is -- what I didn't have time or wit to notice 26 (!) years ago -- is how beautifully the scene is constructed and acted. Replaying it several times, watching the incremental changes in Burke and Brett's expressions as the meaning of the message dawns on them -- and then the camera's similarly paced, section-by-section reveal of the message to the viewer -- oh, such craft!

Lucille Clifton died this past weekend. I laughed out loud when I first read Wishes for Sons. And I love the closing lines of cutting greens:

i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.

RIP Ian Carmichael (1920-2010)

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:50:34 GMT

You'll always be the voice of Lord Peter Wimsey to me.

from the Department of Tennis Canon Slashes Itself Liek Whoa

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:37:32 GMT

Technically work-safe, but...: the Bryan twins celebrating their AO title

People, I write tree- and tentacle-smut. I like to think that I'm not easily fazed. But to quote the original poster: "I'm all for gay porn, but even I'm blushing." (To which one of her readers responded, "Gay incest porn? You should be blushing.")

(The graph-paper shorts don't help. They're just ugly enough for me to consider slashing them with Rafa's -- ACK. Brain bleach NOW, please?)

bears and werewolves and shout-outs to Colin Firth

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:05:18 GMT

Oh, tennis. The sheer amount of nonsense posted about both Andy Murray and Roger Federer over the past week has been through the roof, and the one that has made me laugh the hardest is Barney Ronay's essay in the Guardian, which begins, "Why are we tense about Andy Murray's grand slam? There is an accepted narrative to this: we start from an assumption of lurking emotional frigidity." The whole thing has to be read to be believed (although that's not the phrase juste, because I still can't quite believe what I was reading). ( Smouldering, submerged desires on the verge of coming into alarmingly priapic bloom...you think I'm kidding? )

good things

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:20:34 GMT

This morning's church service was on gender - Beyond Male and Female - and the main speaker will be teaching a free three-session course on "Understanding the 'T' in LGBT." The sanctuary was packed - in part because there was a congregational meeting afterwards, but also with a number of visitors from the wider community. Good to see.

I made turkey-and-zucchini fried rice for dinner, and am roasting chicken tenders & onions for weekday noshing. I also have turkey bao, salmon with couscous, and a mess of noodles left over from last week's meals.

Catching some of the Australian Open doubles action on espn360.com. (Sadly, not tonight, as Other Things Need To Get Done, but it's been lovely having the option.) (On the other hand, the dogfight between Kohlmann-Nieminen and Bolelli - Seppi is seriously tempting me. Maybe for the last handful of games... Also, word is that Henri Leconte was imitating Nadal during a Legends match a couple nights ago (after the crowd chant morphed from "C'mon Rafter" to "C'mon Rafa!"). Hee!)

Current Fic of Doom is at 3300 words and about 4.1/7 done. There's a sentence that I've been beached on all day, but I think I'm about to shove past it now.

Jewels and Jill Elmore's The Family Chef, which happened to be on the library New Book shelf when I stopped by to pick up some manga last week. (And have I mentioned lately how cool it is that my library has a decent selection of manga?) Apparently they're celebrity chefs, but what I've read so far is pleasantly down-to-earth and the recipes look very doable. I'll be getting my own copy of this (I'm a messy cook).

Speaking of messy, there are dishes to wash. Onwards!

from the Department of Adorkable Tennis Player Quotes

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:04:39 GMT

From Kolya's presser:

I want to keep this level, like PlayStation. Like Del Potro tell me now I am like PlayStation 3 in London. Now I try to come level PlayStation 4, to be faster and faster.

[ETA: There seem to be about four or five variations of this quote going around; FWIW, it doesn't quite match the transcript at the AO site, but captures the gist.]

From the Department of When Fandoms Collide

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:37:29 GMT

From Gael Monfils's Twitter: "watching naruto..."

Singing and praying with my mind stayed on freedom

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 20:07:59 GMT

Yes, I nailed that high F. (All three times I was supposed to, too.) Notes about the rest of the service here.

A sign that one has been discussing Roger Federer far too much the past week: the Gmail ad marquee links to a recipe for "Spam Swiss Pie."

Then again, that exho was one of the funniest things I've watched in weeks. I understand that it's archived at espn360 and on YouTube, and if I didn't have two fics still kicking my ass (never mind the perennial List of Doom), I'd be replaying the thing over and over. (Especially since Roger whistling at Rafa's tush is now canon. As is both Nole and Kim Clijsters massaging Rafa's right thigh. You folks who don't follow tennis are missing out. *g*)

Mainly to geri_chan (whose fics make me hungry), marginaliana and valis2 (partners in crime and dining in Chicago) and amanuensis1 (who IIRC is also a Wow Bao fan): I was craving steamed buns last week. I was not in the mood to drive across town. Hence:

( pictures under the cut )

Quoted in my other journal as well, but worth repeating:

It is better to concentrate on what can be done than to despair about what cannot be done.
- Ella Baker, civil rights activist (1903 - 1986)

Haiti: direct donations need to be monetary

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 01:37:58 GMT

David Case: After every major disaster, misguided donations actually worsen the suffering. (Via lifehacker, via maribella008.)

On a happier, fandom-related note, the turnout for Hit for Haiti is already looking good (photo was taken c. 9 a.m. Australian time; event's at 2). (And Rafa's mentioning it was Roger's idea twice on his FaceBook wall = Fedal shippers worldwide alight with glee.)

notes and tropes

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:56:04 GMT

Notes:
• I had no idea that Nashville was in the running as a potential World Cup site. Sweet!
• There be plastinated corpses at a mall a few miles from my house. Coolness…
• Writing: nothing but false starts and I-don't-know-enough-to-continue-these-right-now on the things I'm supposed to be working on. Bah!
• Homemade cinnamon red-bean paste: disgusting-looking, but also tasty and filling
• I am going to nail that damn high F this Sunday

So, that "tropes I've written" meme I've seen at Rowan's and schemingreader's?

First reaction: "Mpreg: would my drabbles with Squillows count? No? Hmph."

Second reaction: "Curtain fic: do my drabbles with kitchen sinks and dining-room-table sex count? No? Hmph."

Follow-up reaction: "Self, if you really want to be able to answer 'yes' to all these, you just need to write yourself some new fic. Like, now."

So, here goes:
( starring the Whomping Willow )
;-)

lesbian exhibitionist koalas FTW!

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:31:03 GMT

Journalism it ain't, and it shouldn't even be news, but I'm nonetheless tickled by this update on Sprite and Saffron, the koalas who got frisky on-camera last week during an Andy Roddick interview.

Flavia Pennetta beats Sam Stosur 63 61 in spite of landing only 33% of her first serves in the first set. Li Na beats Caroline Wozniacki in spite of 67 UFEs. Ye goddesses and fishes.

On the bright side, Kimiko Date Krumm beat Nadia Petrova 63 57 64. As Doots put it, Petrova got "outplayed, outrun, and out-thought by a 39 year old" (in a sport where the majority of elite players are under 30). Woot!

New poem up at Strange Horizons: By Way of Sorrow

tennis and tea and other pleasures

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:20:00 GMT

Drinking Kusmi's St. Pétersbourg tea in honor of Kolya's win over Rafa today in the final of the Qatar Open. I caught the last few games of today's match and most of the semifinal against Roger. Kolya's shot placement is a joy to watch, and yesterday his first serve was unreal (100% in the first set).

Brisbane has been amusing me in how it has unfolded exactly according to seeding - top four seeds made SFs, top two seeds made F.

Chennai: Rendy Lu is in a final. In doubles (with Tipsy), admittedly, but still. Yay Rendy!

Not a sentence you see everyday: "The first Kusmi tea store in America has opened in Montreal." Hee!

Went dancing last night at Tribe. Minuses: not a real dance club (apparently the hardcover folk go to Play, which charges $10) and I was ready to go home before the others. Pluses: good people-watching, working up a sweat (especially to "Jai Ho" (Pussycat Dolls version), Lady Gaga, Jay Sean, and a surprising amount of Whitney Houston), more diverse crowd than I'd expected (a half-dozen other Asians, a guy in a yarmulke, full range of body types and (lack of) fashion), and excuse to wear cute shoes.

Writing mojo completely not in the house at the moment (and receiving two sets of rejections this week didn't help); however, I also received a photography acceptance, a thank-you call for a thank-you card (no, I don't expect that level of reciprocation, but it was a custom card I'd created for being treated to a really nice night out, so the extra acknowledgment was nice), and assorted leads for future possibilities, so yay me and onward. (But first, laundry and ironing.) :-)

Yuletide reveal

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:09:07 GMT

Due to various quantities of mishegoss in various areas of my life, I'd fully intended to sit out Yuletide this year. Didn't nominate, didn't sign up, didn't even bother reading many of the pinch-hit requests.

Didn't unsubscribe from the list, though. Too much entertainment to be had when I do read the prompts, in part from never having heard of 95% of the fandoms (which are nonetheless snapped up right away by someone else, which seriously, truly makes me marvel at the sheer glorious breadth and abundance of fandom) and in part from sheer voyeuristic curiosity (which characters - especially secondary ones - are compelling enough for fans to plea for more stories? what kinds of stories are being asked for?).

This, of course, is like a sushi junkie sitting in Masu for hours and thinking she'll just drink tea. Final tally: two pinch-hits and two Treats. To wit:

[Haru wo Daiteita] No Life Save When the Swords Clash, for Snapelike [Yuletide letter]. Mochimune/Miysaka, Kikuchi/Onozuka, Sawa/Yukihito, Iwaki/Katou. Probably too much swearing and smooching to be worksafe. 7937 words.

Writing this was a typical Ribbons fest experience in many respects. Day 1: "It's only a 1000 word minimum, so if I get stuck, I'll just write ten drabbles so that S. gets something." Day 2: "WAHHHH!" The fic pretty much ended up eating my head every spare moment and then some for eleven days, took 27+ drafts, and required an all-nighter to finish, but it was also fun as hell. Most important, it made S. laugh, and two other readers enthusiastically rec'd it.

[Dar Williams - "Alleluia"] The Cafeteria's Got Everything, for Wasuremono [letter]. Magenta-haired angel/Narrator. 1888 words.

Pinch-hit #314, posted the afternoon before pinch-hits were due. I claimed it before dinner, worked out the logistics in my head during choir rehearsal, and wrote the whole thing overnight, in-between bouts of wrestling with the Haru fic.

[RPF - 18th/19th-century politics] Every Thing Necessary to Procure, for twtd [letter]. Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens. 342 words.

So, it's around 6 a.m., and I'm thinking of grabbing a couple hours of sleep before starting prep for the birthday dinner I'm hosting that night, but first I need to come down from the high of finishing two stories, and the list of unfilled prompts has gone up, and - What!? Someone else has heard of John Laurens? SOMEONE ASKED FOR JOHN LAURENS FIC FOR YULETIDE???EEEEEEEEE!!!!

(Ultimately, Kevin Conroy is to blame: he played Laurens in a 1980s miniseries about George Washington, and that was enough for me to trawl through dozens of books on the American Revolution, gathering up every shred of info I could on the guy, about whom I wrote one grade-school paper and one not-yet-ready-for-prime-time professional essay. Conroy's current claim to fame is as the voice of the animated Batman, and yes, now I really want a Dark Knight/Founding Fathers crossover in the worst way.)

[Springsteen - "Thunder Road"] In Rags At Their Feet, for strangecobwebs [letter]. Mary and the guy with a guitar. 882 words.

Back in grade school, a friend gave me a cassette with "Thunder Road" on it, and I danced across my bedroom countless times while it played on the boom box. From my window, I could see the huge Pentecostal church at the center of the subdivision. A couple hundred feet to the north, cattle farm. A couple hundred feet north of that, the road to my old school, so narrow and bumpy that riding the bus on it was like an amusement park ride (especially when the janitor subbed for the regular driver, a lady with a foot-high beehive who lived maybe six or eight houses away from mine).

In short, it wasn't New Jersey (although I eventually dated someone from there, whose father's history students included Jon Bon Jovi), but I sure knew "stranded." Boy, did I know "stranded." Another friend told me I had the hugest smile out of everyone in the yearbook graduation group photo. And while all of this is way more background than anyone needs for "In Rags At Their Feet," it wouldn't be a stretch to say the years of feeling stranded has informed a good deal of what I write. And do.

Hee!

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:52:45 GMT

Today's Google logo features an apple falling from a tree, in honor of Sir Isaac Newton's birthday.

[The "Gravity" icon accompanying this post on DW and IJ was made for me by jen_deben several years ago.]

Coincidentally, I spent part of this morning reading aloud another forty-odd pages of Albert Einstein for the Talking Library, and a good deal of it had to do with Einstein's theoretical perception of gravity eventually superseding Newton's.

(Side reminder to self: need to get mitts on the DVD of Einstein and Eddington (narrative liberties notwithstanding), which happens to have Andy Serkis and David Tennant as the two leads, and is directly related to the solar eclipses that dominated a good part of today's recording sessions...)

(ETA: Bah. It's UK-format only. *pouts*)

the fandoms, they keep colliding....

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:35:05 GMT

Salon's takecomments on Rafa Nadal's fashion (non)sense in 2009: "We even liked those riotous neon tennis togs he sported, though they made him seem less the comic superhero Nike intended than an adorably musclebound friend of Hello Kitty."