Brigdh

Food News

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:30:12 GMT

Yesterday's farmer market goodies: a half-gallon of apple cider, a half-gallon of pear cider (from different orchards, so I can compare!), a jar of fresh tomato sauce, a pint of green zebra tomatoes (I am stocking up on them, buying lots and freezing them, before tomatoes disappear from the market for winter), two quarter-pounds of fresh cheese (an Aged Bloomsbury, which sort of tastes like a sharp, nutty piave, and a Dutch Farmstead, very creamy and rich), and a stalk of brussels sprouts (photographic evidence here).

I also have exciting weird beans to try, as I got an order from Rancho Gordo which arrived last week. So far I have tried the Vaquero Beans, which are absolutely gorgeous, mottled black and white and so shiny and bright. They got gray in the cooking, unfortunately, but were delicious, like black beans but more flavorful. I've also had the Scarlet Runner beans which, I swear to God, tasted exactly like baked potatoes with bacon. It was a little eerie.

Today it is warm for the season, but the light is winter light- hazy, dusty and yet too bright, white and glaring. But as much as I disapprove of winter, it does lend itself to strange effects of light: people climbing the subway stairs up into the open always look like they're vanishing into the sun, into light solid and full of dust motes.

Yuletide!

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:29:22 GMT

Yuletide sign-ups are open! In case you somehow missed all of fandom talking about it. Important note: if you have been disqualified from Yuletide before, you can still sign up! That's right, all bans have been erased. So come and play!

Sign-ups are open until Thursday the 12th at 9pm EST. I haven't signed up myself yet, as I'm still looking at my requests and offers and deciding what I want. I usually sign up to write for every fandom I've ever heard of, but this year I've decided to narrow down and only offer things I feel passionate about. Also, True Blood is in Yuletide! I feel like it's probably too big, but it's too late to change now, and so I am excited.

Other neat links: Dark_agenda, a Dreamwidth community for the 'Diversity in Yuletide 2009' challenge. You can read more at the community, but the basic idea is: request and offer fandoms with chromatic (aka PoC) creators and characters.

Things for a Wednesday

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:11:31 GMT

1. Bunnies as biofuel. Oh, man. I don't know if this news story is hilarious or horrifying.

2. It's Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers.

3. Zombie-fighting Velma and Scooby! Awesome.

4. The Very Best Pumpkin-Head Halloween Dance of All Time in the World. Video.

5. Dance of the Sea Dragon. Also video. First time the mating dance of the sea dragon has been captured on film.

Book recs!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:37:01 GMT

I'm going on a cruise in January! Wheeeeeee! It's for ten days in the Caribbean. I find this to be pretty totally exciting; I've been on one cruise before, but this time I get to go in winter (escaping the cold!), with rm, for longer, and it's all just pretty awesome. But what I am coming to you for, O LJ, is book recs. Because, hey, it's a cruise! I need appropriate lounge-type books to read while lying in the sun. I'm looking for any kind of book (novel, short story, non-fiction, travel, poetry, whatever), as long as it makes for interesting, easy reading. Rec me cruise-type books! However, bonus points if:

- the book is set in or about the Caribbean, especially: the Bahamas, Grand Turks, Dominican Republic, Bonaire, Curacao, or Aruba.

- the author is from the Caribbean.

#38, 50 PoC Book Review

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:48:09 GMT

38. Malinda Lo, Ash

A YA novel retelling the Cinderella story, but with a twist: Cinderella falls in love with a woman instead of Prince Charming. I've been excited for this book ever since I first heard about it: retelling of a fairy tale! Chinese-American author! YA lesbians! I love all these things. Also, the book has an absolutely gorgeous cover.

I'd somehow gotten the impression that this was the Chinese version of Cinderella, and so was a bit disappointed to find that instead the setting is a fairly generic Medieval-ish Europe. However, Lo does do some very interesting things with the setting, particularly in changing the Fairy Godmother to an elf (and not a nice elf, the Tam Lin and changelings and Childe Rowland kind of elf). Ash's relationship with the elves and magic- constantly drawn in but never quite able to entirely leave our world- was well-written and fascinating. I also really liked the repeated use of telling fairy tales as a way for characters to communicate.

I do wish that there had been more about Ash's relationship with Kaisa, but for what little there was, it was extremely well-written, subtle but vivid. There's not much detail given of people's reactions to the relationship, but it appears to be set in one of those worlds were being gay or lesbian is unremarkable. Certainly, there's no mention of a backlash to them, and Ash doesn't go through any sort of sexual identity crisis. I also wish the book had been longer! There was a lot more about these characters and world that I would have liked to know. But overall, very recommended.

Crossposted to 50books_poc

Fic: Ladies of War (The Whose War Anyway Remix) [Merlin, Guinevere, Morgana]

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:35:11 GMT

Title: Ladies of War (The Whose War Anyway Remix)
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: PG, spoilers for episode 1x12
Notes: Written for remixthedrabble. veleda_k wrote the original story, Ladies of War.
100 words exactly.

The chain-mail looks like jewelry on Morgana, gleaming in the sunlight against her pale, easily bruised skin. She reminds Gwen of warrior queens in the legends they've read: honourable, aristocratic, willful- unrealistic.

Gwen agreed to the sword-practice because Morgana thinks they'll be safer. Gwen thinks swords and armour won't defeat the dreams that steal Morgana's peace, nor Gaius and his potions, nor Uther who had Tom killed.

Gwen understands the heft of metal, the sharpness of a blade, and she knows that neither will protect her. But she remembers her father's hands guiding hers, and appreciates the comfort of swords.

Things

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:48:20 GMT

1. I have finally, finally finished The Mists of Avalon. I was beginning to think that might never happen. I thought perhaps the end of the book would keep receding, always and forever, and all my life I would only ever read about Morgaine being emo and Guinevere whining. But now I am free again, free! I cannot emphasize this enough.

2. It is Halloween-week! Or Halloweek, as friend christened it. I am thus attempting to wear related clothes all week: Monday was the skeleton t-shirt, Tuesday the shirt that says "Boo", today was layers of orange and black. I have two more days, but I may be running low on Halloween-themed clothes. I used to have a Dracula t-shirt, but I seem to have lost that...

3. I had a meeting with one of my professors today, about a paper due next week! She decided that the topic I had chosen, which we had talked about multiple times and which I had already done the majority of the research for, you know, she just doesn't feel like it's a very good idea, so why don't I do this other topic instead? SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. DUE. NEXT WEEK. TALKED. MULTIPLE TIMES. But why do I seem upset?

4. My favorite coffee shop now has ginger cookies, and they are amazing: huge and soft and ginger-er than gingerbread, plus with something dark like molasses, and all covered in sparkly sugar. I love them so much. Also, I have chocolate-covered candied ginger. Basically, I'm saying, ginger: NOM NOM NOM.

Fic: Portrait of a Voyeur (the Melon Overdub) [Yami no Matsuei, Muraki, Tsuzuki, Hisoka]

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:08:58 GMT

Title: Portrait of a Voyeur (the Melon Overdub)
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, I guess.
Notes: Written for remixthedrabble. p_zeigeist wrote the original story, Portrait of the Empath as an Involuntary Voyeur. This is almost certainly one of those remixers where you do need to read the original story first.
100 words exactly.

The sorcerer creates the melon with both beauty and flavor, but also more, a one-way conduit for sensation. He neglects to mention this in the accompanying note.

The first hands to touch it are brief. They are, perhaps, curious, but for now no more than that.

But other hands come, lifting, stroking. This one enjoys pleasure and is quick to lose himself. The melon fills his mouth with cool, fragrant liquid. His knife grows slick, his fingers sticky. He scrapes soft flesh from the rind. Juice runs. He sighs extravagantly.

And when nothing remains of melon or spell, Muraki smiles.

#37, 50 PoC Book Review

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:22:52 GMT

37. John McWhorter, The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language

A popular non-fiction book about linguistics, particularly how languages change. This book doesn't try to tell the story of any particular language and its history, although it uses plenty of examples (mostly English, though McWhorter seems to speak an enormous number of languages, and knows details about even more), nor does it try to reconstruct the "original language". Instead it is about the way languages change: how words change their meanings, slang, how sounds change, how grammar changes, how creoles and pidgins arise, why people change the languages they use, and so on. This book is compulsively readable, with lots of funny pop-culture references, and the sort of facts and tid-bits that make you want to turn to anyone nearby and say, "OMG! Did you know...".

A great book. Highly recommended, and I'll be checking out McWhorter's new book, about English, soon.

I've been really interested in reading popular-style non-fiction lately. I'm particularly interested in history, but biology, linguistics, astronomy- anything easy to read and interesting would be great. Does anyone have some recs by PoC authors?

Cross-posted to 50books_poc

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:10:29 GMT

Downsides of TA'ing a class not in your field, and then using every single class period to read LJ rather than, you know, pay attention or anything silly like that:

oh my god I am grading these midterms and I have no idea what the answers are and google is not helping and I keep googling and googling but I cannot find the right search terms to answer the question and these tests have to be done tomorrow morning and I don't even know what astronomical forcing iiiiiiiiiisssss!!!!

Boring Sunday Linkblogging

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:23:11 GMT

1.A Regency Romance in 2 Minutes by Sirenofthestorm. Hahahaha. It is so true.

2. Sexy Halloween Costumes for Dogs. Because, yes, civilization has sunk that low. But this post is still funny.

3. Steampunk map of Europe in 1914. Totally awesome.

4. The Anthropology Song! I love this.

5. Tim Gunn is Tired of Your Bullshit: a picture recap of last week's episode. So accurate.

6. Take a number for health care.

Farmers Market Haul

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:12:08 GMT

I love my farmers market. I haven't managed to get to it for the last week or two (being out of town last Saturday), so there were many things I needed to buy today. It's raining slightly, off and on, so all the piles of vegetables were glazed with water, and looking supernaturally shiny and colorful, almost glowing.

My haul: two quarts of juice (one of grape-apple and one of raspberry-apple), half a dozen large brown eggs, fresh butter, four bosc pears, a bunch of broccoli rabe, a bunch of celery, a half-pound of crimini mushrooms, and a stalk of brussels sprouts. I have never had brussels sprouts before (a combination of my parents never having cooked them and the cultural meme that says they are yucky), so they are my culinary experiment for the week. I read somewhere that it's better if you can get them still on the stalk, and so I have something that looks like a giant, green, spiky tree branch, with tiny green balls on it, in my bag. I do have to say they smell delicious. I'm extremely fond of broccoli, so I think I will like these.

Full of rage!

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:48:34 GMT

A friend of mine is working to set up an archaeology blog, a sort of vaguely professional thing, but readable to anyone interested. Today we had a meeting with anyone thinking about contributing. My thoughts:

First, we had the regular problem of meetings, which are solid evidence of how it is never, ever productive to talk about anything in large groups. In this particular instance, it took the form of spending half an hour arguing about whether it was appropriate for the mission statement to include the word "provide", or if that was setting up too much of a dichotomy between the writers of the blog and potential readers.

Again, WHARRGARBL.

Then, we proceeded to spend essentially the entire rest of the time arguing over using real names versus screen names. The argument included gems such as "real names are self-serving!" "Screen names are friendlier, while people will be off-put by real names!" "How about we use real names on half the site and screen names on the other half? This is somehow a logical compromise!" "If we use real names, the university will be responsible for all content, even if we don't mention it!" "Real names are elitist!" "Having some people use real names and some screen names is unorganized!"

WHARRGARBL.

WHARRGARBL. WHARRGARBL. WHARRGARBL.

I... Seriously. I think I was perhaps the only person in the room who had ever heard of that new-fangled, complicated world, the internet. Which kind of makes me want to kill things. Why would you come to a meeting about the internet when your sole function is to ask stupid question, get into debates you know nothing about, cause difficulties, change topics randomly whenever a new questions occurs you, and go on and on with your personal opinions which have never met so much as a Angelfire homepage from 1998?

WHARRGARBL!

Thoughts on last night's Project Runway

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:36:52 GMT

The judges made decisions I agreed with! This is shocking, and yet awesome.

Remix The Drabble, hooooray!

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:32:13 GMT

remixthedrabble entries have been going up since Monday (and every day I have been recounting to rm in anguish about how no, they have not yet posted my fandoms); though not all drabbles have been posted yet, I've already received three wonderful stories.

Discretion (The Trouble in Paradise Remix)
Shameless (The No Trouble in Paradise Remix)
Both of these are Saiyuki Gaiden, Tenpou/Kenren/Konzen, rated R, 100 words each. They're also both remixes of my Lips Not For Scorn. And I adore them both! They are hot and sweet, and I love how they intersect with each other as well as the original story. It's such a cool example of the different ways a remix can go.

Friends (The Serendipity Remix) - Yami no Matsuei, Watari/Tsuzuki, PG, 100 words. A sort of sequel to Friends. This is so funny. As well as scarily accurate, I think. I am absolutely in love with it. I had to try very hard not to giggle while I was (surreptitiously) reading it in class this morning.

All of these stories have made me tremendously happy. Thank you, remixers!

Also, it's time for the anonymous ficathon guessing game! I've written two remixes of my own (though I'm not saying if they have or have not yet been posted). Guess either and I will write you a drabble.

Thoughts on Reading 'The Mists of Avalon' for the first time

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:06:55 GMT

1. I'm about 350 pages in, and currently very afraid that I'm in for another 500 pages of Gwen and Morgaine emo-ing about wanting to sleep with Lancelet. Intellectually, I know that at some point Modred must show up to be a plot point, but it does not feel like that. It feels like all that will ever happen EVER AGAIN is people whining about how pretty Lancelet is, and why doesn't he like meeeeee? Also, for something advertised as a feminist book, I feel like I should not be longing for male characters to show up so that something interesting will happen.

2. I also could do with a lot less of the obsessing over female virginity/hating on women who have sex.

3. Speaking of hating, why do all Arthurian legends hate the Saxons so very, very much? Well, at least all of the legends which mention the Saxons; I don't remember them being in Malory (or BBC's Merlin). It's not like the Saxons pillaged and raided more than anyone else at the time. I might be sensitive to Saxon-mistreatment, since I have a couple of friends who study them, but it still seems odd. Particularly since I feel that the "real" Arthur (I personally don't think there was one, but in terms of when the story started) was more likely to be a Saxon than one of the Roman-descended-and-influenced guys starring in most of the retellings I've read recently. (And definitely not the medieval guy of Malory. Okay, the story's most likely older than any of those choices, but I still feel Saxons are closer than Romans.) So why hate the Saxons? They brought you English! Shouldn't they get a little love for that?

Linkblogging

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:53:46 GMT

1. After viewing last night's Project Runway, I want to say that this season the judges have never once sent home who I thought they should. EVERYONE I LIKE IS LEAVING.

2. Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, is possibly involved in a cover-up over executing an innocent man. So, yeah. There is nothing I can say to this.

3. However, October is apparently Fair Trade month. Wheeee!

4. On that thought, I have just discovered the Rancho Gordo website, a company devoted to finding and preserving food plants indigenous to the Americas. Their heirloom bean varieties, most of which I've never heard of, look particularly amazing. I can't decide which I want to try most.

5. The Tomato Nation blog is trying to raise $150,000 for Donors Choice by the end of the month. They're up to $69,000 so far. Help them out! You could win prizes.

6. Why is it winter all of the sudden? Having essentially not experienced the cold since early 2008 (which was a fairly mild winter anyway) I have suddenly remembered my great loathing for it.

#36, 50 PoC Book Review

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:32:09 GMT

36. Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country. Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

A classic novel of Japanese literature, this book was cited as one of the reasons the author won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1968. The plot concerns a small hot-spring town in the mountains. A rich, lazy young man comes to visit several times over the course of a year or two, carrying on a relationship with a local geisha who is in love with him. The book has lots of very beautiful descriptions of landscapes- mountains in snow, fall leaves on the trees, bugs dying against a window in the summer; the translator even compares the novel to haiku- but not much plot. There are a lot of conversations where no one quite says what they mean, and most of the important developments take place in the subtext. That's interesting in some ways, but it's also very distancing, and I never felt very attached to the characters. On the other hand, this is a very short book, so if you want to try out a famous Japanese novel, it's definitely an easy read.

Crossposted to 50books_poc

Yuletide yuletide yuletide!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:10:43 GMT

Nominations for Yuletide are open, in case you have somehow managed to not hear. Here's my nominations:

Yami no Matsuei (So. Excited.)
Swordspoint (Also. Pretty. Awesome.)
Michael Chabon - Gentlemen of the Road (I need to post about this book to encourage y'all to read it. Basically, it's the best thing ever. It's what would happen if Swordspoint were written by Fritz Leiber, Richard was a big black Jewish guy, and Alec was a ~~tall skinny long-haired student~~ tall skinny long-haired surgeon. But do not worry, there is still swordfighting and cross-dressing girls and so much slash! Also, there are elephants. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. It even comes with pictures.)
Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (Maud and Sue are so fucked up, I adore it.)
RPF - Heian Japan (To quote daegaer: "Of all the fic exchanges in all the world, Yuletide is surely the one that could provide a story made up of snidely exquisite poems fired off between Lady Murasaki and Sei Shonagon". And the world needs that story.)
Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel series (So much awesome world-building in these books, so few characters I care about.)

#35, 50 PoC Book Review

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:48:41 GMT

35. Diana Abu-Jaber, Crescent

Oh, this book. I wish I could quote the entire thing at you; the language is gorgeous and perfect and there are so many bits of it floating in my head. This is the most wonderful thing I've read in ages. Okay, just a few quotes:

Describing Sir Richard Burton: He did, however, like so many Victorians, have an aptitude for ownership, an attachment to things material and personal, like colonies and slaves- he especially enjoyed owning slaves while living in someone else's house.

Two people discussing a fairy tale: I didn't know that business about the Queen of Sheba. That she was so beautiful. That it could make you go crazy.
It was one of her more salient characteristics.

Describing food: The potatoes are soft as velvet, the gravy satiny. It is as if she can taste the life inside all those ingredients: the stem that the cranberries grew on, the earth inside the bread, even the warm blood that was once inside the turkey.

The food porn in this book is amazing. I was left with a deep craving for hummus with olive oil, mjaddarah, lamb with garlic... all the amazing Middle Eastern food Abu-Jaber describes.

I suppose I should actually describe what this book is about. Sirine is a mixed-race woman, her father Iraqi and her mother European-American, who was born and has never left Los Angeles. She works as the chef at a Lebanese restaurant in the Iranian section of LA, and lives with her uncle, who is a professor at a nearby college. When she meets Han, a writer in exile from Iraq, they start a relationship and she has to deal with questions of exile, home, secrets, and so on. Interspersed with and weaving through the main plot is a long-running story told by Sirine's uncle, supposedly about his cousin, but which reads more like a fairy tale or a Sufi parable (though the uncle insists that it has no moral), full of mermaids, djinns, the Mother of the Nile, and lost tribes of Bedouin. The book is set in 1999, which means the political situation is a bit different from today; I kept being confused until I figured out when it was set.

But a description of the plot doesn't do much to capture the book, since, really, relatively little happens in it. It's full of beautifully described ordinary moments, lush cooking scenes, vivid evocations of both LA and Iraq (having only been to LA once, I can't say how accurate those scenes are, though they're amazing to read. The Iraq scenes, though, captured exactly my memories of Syria and made me long to go for a visit). It can be hilariously funny at points (I loved the mythical Hal'Awud), though it's a fairly serious book overall. The language is so poetic that reading it made me feel dreamy and content.

This post is getting long, so let me just say that I highly, highly recommend this book. I'll be seeking out other things by the author.

Cross-posted to 50books_poc

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:30:13 GMT

I have finished my second remixthedrabble drabble! I did not think I was going to manage to come up with something for this one, so I feel very accomplished.

Other people who are participating, how are you doing?

Also, the internet in our house has gone out, so rm and I are sitting in a Barnes and Noble. It's very shiny.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:09:30 GMT

Having now seen someone carry a mirror on the subway, I feel strongly that there should be rules against it. Not laws, mind you, but 'rules' in the sense of superstitions: don't open an umbrella in the house, don't walk under a ladder, don't let a black cat cross your path. Don't carry large reflecting objects on the subway! What do you think is going to reflect in it? I will tell you: horrible eldritch monstrosities, the likes of which man was not meant to see, that's what.

Some people are just asking for malevolent creatures to appear in their lives.

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:46:55 GMT

One remixthedrabble drabble finished! Now to poke at the other...

Project Runway

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:11:53 GMT

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK *FLAIL*

In other news, I am glad Gordana finally won. I always like her stuff, and could not understand why the judges kept putting her in the bottom three.

BUT. SERIOUSLY. They sent Epperson home? The talented, mature, calm, cool guy? There is no way on earth that anyone could perceive his dress as worse than the 'trash bag tied in the middle' (which was perhaps the Platonic ideal of ugly-ass as portrayed in wearable form that I have ever seen) or the crotch-dropped trouser and ruffled, pot-bellied vest combo.

You guys! I am quite upset. I would have happily seen Epperson win the season. I hate the judges this season.

News and Links

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:57:04 GMT

1. My father has deleted his Facebook entry! I remained weirded out by the whole experience, and sort of afraid to inquire into the details of it.

2. Most of you have probably seen this by now, but: Conservatizing the Bible: Conservapedia's attempt to rewrite the Bible.

3. Sandra Lee's 10 Worst Desserts. It's horrifying!

4. The only existing film footage of Anne Frank. There's only 20 seconds of it, but it's pretty fascinating.

5. Teenage boy steals book from library, librarian changes his life. Very sweet news story.

6. Uh, so the exhibit I went to see at the Met today had already left. Last month. Go me!

7. remixthedrabble drabbles are due next week! I guess I should do that.