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I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Ever should be forgot.
=====
Okay, we all know it was the fifth of November.
What year?
Until the Iranian hostage crisis, that's how I told people to remember my birthday; the day before Guy Fawkes.
Lo heere the conspirators.
There is always one moment in a programmers life when the door opens and lets the stupid in.
When Mathematics is criminalized, only criminals will use Mathematics. Please skip the following if you don't like Math or self-parody.
Translation of the Guy Fawkes story for the Math-obsessed:
November is the 11th month of the year. 11 is a repunit prime, consisting of copies of the digit 1 concatenated.
"In 1605, Guy Fawkes (also known as Guido - yes, really) and a group of conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament."
Of course, 1605 = 3 x 5 x 107, which prime factorization uses the odd number 1, 3, 5, and 7. Note that 1605 backwards is 5061 = 3 x 7 x 241.
"After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had had a rough time under her reign had hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. Alas, he was not, and this angered a number of young men who decided that violent action was the answer."
1603 = 7 x 229, making it a semiprime. Note that this year backwards, 3061, is prime. James I of England = James VI of Scotland, by the way. 1603 is also the number of digits in the smallest titanic Woodall prime.
"One young man in particular, Robert Catesby suggested to some close friends that the thing to do was to blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics. Today these conspirators would be known as extremists, or terrorists. To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder - and stored them in a cellar, just under the House of Lords."
36 = 6^2 = 2^2 x 3^2. Backwards, that's
63 = 3^2 x 7. The exact number of ways to partition the integer 36 is prime. And, as Trotter has pointed out, 36 is the smallest square that is the sum of a Twin prime pair
{17, 19}.
"But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that some innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members even sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. Was the letter real?"
Of course it was Real. Imaginary numbers were not well known at the time.
November 5th can be written as either 10/5 or 5/10. The first suggests 105 = 3 x 5 x 7, which is the first number to be the product of 3 odd primes. Backwards, that's the semiprime
501 = 3 x 167.
On the other hand 5/10 becomes 510 = 2 x 3 x 5 x 17, which is the product of the first 3 primes with 17, or of double the product of the first 3 Fermat primes.
5/10/1605 becomes 5101605 = 3^2 x 5 x 73 x 1553, which makes us examine the year 1553 [omitted here for length]. 10/5/1605 becomes
1051605 = 3 ^ 2 x 5 x 23369.
Remember, remember, the primes of November. Class dismissed!
pericat wrote:
only one? can I count on that?
Not really.
Since it's an open thread, maybe someone can help me identify a story fragment that's been bugging me lately.
I read an sf book (or short story in an anthology) years ago, lent to me by a friend of my father's--I'm thinking it might have been a Harlan Ellison story, definitely someone well-known and probably written in the 60's or 70's.
In the bit of the story I remember, cars had become so computerized that people no longer had to take an active role in driving, you just sat back and let the computer & the GPS-equivalent system take care of it. The roads were monitored to prevent pedestrian crashes. But in the story, someone managed to successfully commit suicide by climbing a tree and jumping down to the road without setting off any sensors. The car that plows into him has two passengers, a straight couple who are fooling around in the back seat. And I think the scene ends with the woman getting hysterical, and the man telling the car to make its windows opaque.
Ring any bells for anyone? (And, hello all, I'm a lurker drawn from the links at neilgaiman.com)
Mara:
I have read that same story in the last year or so. I thought it was in an Asimov collection (Robot Dreams jumps to mind), BUT I have so many anthologies it could have been anybody.
So I guess that counts as a completely unhelpful attempt at helpfulness.
Sorry.
It's a Zelazny story. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", and it appears in, at least, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth.
I don't have anything intelligent to add (big surprise) so I will contribute something I think is pretty funny:
Harry - that was most excellent.
pericat: I think "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" is the one where the arrogant yet brilliant poet goes mano a mano with destiny among the dying Martian race....
No, that's the first story in Four For Tomorrow. "Rose" is the third or fourth. I checked because the title of the first sure sounded like a match for the one Mara was asking about.
The guide dog ends up "piloting" one of those fancy cars. I don't know why I remember this stuff. But I've been doing cold meds since early morning.
If you haven't clicked Harry's link, I implore you, do so posthaste. I haven't laughed that hard since Tuesday.
The book with the car that drives itself:
It is Roger Zelazny, and I believe it may have started as the novella "He Who Shapes" and later morphed into something else. Not sure on that, but I remember those cars.
There is also a scene when they mention kids pulling (what we might now refer to as) the GPS chip out of the car and letting it run to random coordinates. Or maybe that's something the main character does at some point...
You should re-read it. Excellent stuff! Now have to go search out my escapism...
Yes. "He Who Shapes," which was then expanded into "The Dream Master." My favorite character is the guide dog, although the Monster from the Kabbalah is also quite good.
But I think among early Zelazny "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" is not quite as good as "For a Breath I Tarry"...
I'm an idiot. I shall blame the cold meds, and trust that everyone else has had occasion to blame the cold meds, or the cat, or both, at one time or another.
My apologies to biff3000, who was right on the money with the correct plot of "Rose".
Liz is entirely correct in the title. "He Who Shapes", and it may have become more, but I have no knowledge of that. Currently can be re-read in The Last Defender of Camelot collection.
"He Who Shapes" is entirely superior to its expansion, The Dream Master. Says the guy who republished "He Who Shapes" in the Tor Doubles. (Backed with Kate Wilhelm's "The Infinity Box." Credit to Deb Notkin for the pairing suggestion.)
I've never read a Zelazny story that didn't kick my ass--and I still remember "He Who Shapes" from my teens ('the ides of Octember' indeed!). Yet I've never had the urge to seek him out and read him and don't own any of his books (except, oddly, The Dream Master--and it was a disappointment compared to my memories of the original).
I suspect that's because I don't want to get sucked into yet another incredibly long series (I don't really like 'em) and because the Amber books don't sound like my cuppa.
Any suggestions?
Nine Princes in Amber is, all by itself, just about utterly perfect. Some say you can add its direct sequel The Guns of Avalon to that list. I say okay, but stop there.
Then there's Lord of Light, about which I'm pretty much irrational, the way I am about Tolkien.
Arundhati Roy's recent acceptance speech for the Sydney Peace Prize makes interesting reading. here's a sample that may offer a degree of very cold comfort in the present post-election gloom:
Visitors to Australia like myself, are expected to answer the following question when they fill in the visa form: Have you ever committed or been involved in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity or human rights? Would George Bush and Tony Blair get visas to Australia? Under the tenets of International Law they must surely qualify as war criminals.
However, to imagine that the world would change if they were removed from office is naive. The tragedy is that their political rivals have no real dispute with their policies. The fire and brimstone of the US election campaign was about who would make a better 'Commander-in-Chief' and a more effective manager of the American Empire. Democracy no longer offers voters real choice. Only specious choice.
Does it count as specious choice if they take similar positions because that's what most people believe in and support?
The html in my last post didn't seem to work. the speech is at http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/11/04/1099362264349.html
I discovered today, while Googling the story about how several of the conspirators were injured while trying to dry gunpowder in front of an open fire (I wish I were making this up, but I'm not, honest) that there is a Gunpowder Plot Society. Their website is full of useful information.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love the internet?
Lord of Light is like Viagra for whatever branch of the central nervous system is responsible for wild, uncontrollable glee.
I'm not sure how to evaluate the Cautionary Tale in Particles since the original post has been removed. There really are certain things you just shouldn't say lest you summon the Secret Service to your doorstep. How close was the guy to those? I can't tell whether he's just getting the idea that LJ isn't his livingroom, or whether relatively innocous comments brought unwarrented attention.
I myself once reported a commenter on my blog to the FBI: someone with an IP address in Kuwait posting threats of revenge for a specific incident in Iraq. There are circumstances under which one does that.
Nonetheless, whether he was being an indiot or just exercising his first amendment rights, the Cautionary Tale should probably get wide circulation since emotions are running pretty high. It may save a few people a visit from the SS.
I'm not sure how to evaluate the Cautionary Tale in Particles since the original post has been removed. There really are certain things you just shouldn't say lest you summon the Secret Service to your doorstep. How close was the guy to those? I can't tell whether he's just getting the idea that LJ isn't his livingroom, or whether relatively innocous comments brought unwarrented attention.
I myself once reported a commenter on my blog to the FBI: someone with an IP address in Kuwait posting threats of revenge for a specific incident in Iraq. There are circumstances under which one does that.
Nonetheless, whether he was being an indiot or just exercising his first amendment rights, the Cautionary Tale should probably get wide circulation since emotions are running pretty high. It may save a few people a visit from the SS.
Oh, god.
Teresa, I know you featured a series of items on hoarding behavior a while back; I think this story is just about the most gruesome such incident I've ever heard of:
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/local/states/minnesota/counties/washington_county/10112659.htm
There should be a basic summary on twincities.com... 450 cats, hundreds of them feral and diseased, living in one house with three people. It's that part that gets me... one of the three is an 86-year-old retiree, the sort of individual that crops up again and again in these stories, but the couple living with her were middle-aged, 47 and early 50s, I believe. What was the delusion, the motivation, the reason, and how did it get a hold on all three of them?
According to the article, the house is likely to just be condemned and razed. All the cats have already been euthanized, by sundry and unorthodox means. Anyone thinking of looking further into the article might not want to do so while eating breakfast.
Scott: Wow. That account is just astonishing. Consider, for example the passage Cats living on the main floor of the house on South River Street appeared to be more domesticated than the ones on the second floor. Many of the hundreds of cats were believed to be diseased.
Kathryn,
I gather the original post involved doing what 'publican preachers do all the time--praying for the death of their enemies. There's brief commentary on it by someone I consider reliable here.
Agreed on which Amber books to read, although I thought all of them had enough good things happening to keep me reading. Just as I'd start to lose interest there would be something delicious. But definitely read the first two. (And you can now get all 10 Amber novels in one great fat $16 book. It isn't complete -- there are about a half-dozen Amber short stories that aren't included -- but who could resist?)
By the way, the sixth Amber book, Trumps of Doom, has one of my all-time favourite opening paragraphs:
It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you. But it was April 30, and of course it would happen as it always did. It had taken me a while to catch on, but now I at least knew when it was coming. In the past, I was too busy to do anything about it. But my job was finished now. I'd only stayed around for this. I felt that I really ought to clear the matter up before I departed.
I might want to tighten that up a touch, and I'd definitely make the first two sentences into a separate paragraph, but I think it is a very seductive way to open a book. (Unfortunately, he resolves the tension set up in that first paragraph far too quickly and the book rambles on with a complex, poorly thought out plot.)
I'm not as enthusiastic about Lord of Light as Patrick is, but it is definitely recommended reading.
The book that made me a Zelazny addict was the one he published immediately before Lord of Light -- This Immortal. Science fiction rather than fantasy, but Conrad, the main character, is wonderfully drawn. Too little science fiction of the mid-60s had any decent character development at all. I read it as a young teenager soon after it came out and was totally hooked -- it made me a complete Zelazny devotee for years to come.
He lost me, totally, with Eye of Cat in 1983. I had loved him for his clean, sleek writing. Occasionally he'd get a bit self-indulgent, but mostly kept it in check and just created wonderful characters and brilliant stories. Eye of Cat is completely over the top:
Birdnotes and predawn statis: he was cast up onto the shoals of sleep, into a world where time hung flexed at the edge of light. Frozen. His emerging awareness moved slowly over the preverbal landscapes of thought he had quitted long ago. Or was it yesterday?
Most of it is chunks of pretentious logorrhea like that mixed with truly embarrassingly purple descriptive passages and very pedestrian narrative pieces. Shudder! You can almost see him flipping through the cliches as he uses them. "Ok, I have to write about him waking from unconsciousness. Let's see. Birds? Check. Confused about time? Check. Not sure where he is? Check. Confusion about language? Check." (And throw in "shoals of sleep" for all of those readers who really get off on ugly cliches.)
It is lazy, lazy writing. Fifteen years earlier he would have played with those cliches, made world-weary fun of them. In Eye of Cat he takes all of the cliches seriously and wallows in them.
I think I actually read the whole wretched thing, but never again bought (or read) one of his books.
With Zelazny, I'd say all the short stories, the first two Amber books exactly as Patrick says (though I have to say that the rush of pure joy I experienced on finding _The Sign of the Unicorn_ in Chapter and Verse in Cardiff in April 1980 was the closest I've ever been to Nirvana, and couldn't have been better if I'd been bodily assumed into the Bookstores of Heaven on the spot) _Isle of the Dead_, _This Immortal_, _Lord of Light_ and Walter Jon Williams's _Knight Moves_.
What happened to Zelazny? There's a point in his career--soon after Lord of Light--when his books became more frequent, and often good, but no longer great.
Isle of the Dead is on one side of the line, Jack of Shadows and Today We Choose Faces are on the other.
I presume he took on too many contracts and somehow lowered his water table, so to speak.
(But, anomalously, Dooways in the Sand is also a great book.)
Bill -- he retired from his government job and started writing full time right about then.
My personal favorite novel is _Isle of the Dead_, the best is probably indeed _Lord of Light_, and the first Amber book is one of only two books that I've sat down and re-read immediately after finishing because I just couldn't let go of it.
His short stories remained good long after his novels jumped the shark.
_Creatures of Light and Darkness_ blew me away when I first read it. I was only 11, though, and I'm afraid to revisit it for fear of spoiling that happy memory.
It is a credit to the brilliance of _Lord of Light_ that I didn't immediately tear the book in half and never pick it up again after a certain abysmal, unnecessary, jarring, and thankfully brief interlude. I'm sure everyone who has read it knows what I'm talking about.
In any other book I would have given up on the spot.
Greg Ioannou:
I asked Zelazny about such overdoses of style, after first praising the body of his work (Lord of Light being my favorite of his novels). This was also in the context of my cousin/coauthor Professor Philip Vos Fellman having permission to use certain characters and settings of Zelazny's in stories to be credited to both authors.
Zelazny told me that his original goal as a writer was to be known as a poet, and that, after writing several hundred poems and only getting a handfull published, he burned the lot of them in a fireplace. That turns out to be not entirely true, but it does give a personal reason for his sometimes having more poetry bottled up in him than non-purple prose can sustain.
Since the Election of 2004, can we expect much more Purple Prose in the USA?
Zelazny certainly seems to have something for everyone - although I still count 'Eye of Cat' among my enduring favourites (not for the writing style, but for the mood it evokes in me).
Lord of Light is also my favorite, and one of the books I turn to when I want to reread an old friend. It's followed by Creatures of Light and Darkness, This Immortal ("Feathers or lead?") and one I was pleased Bill Higgins mentioned, Doorways in the Sand ("I am a recording" and one of my favorite coinages, stereoisobooze.) I was very fond of Nine Princes once, but between the sequels and the fundamental, um, perhaps the word is incoherence of the Amber/Shadow/Chaos universe I find it hard to read now.
I'd like to introduce Blendie.
Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own.
The movie is just a little disturbing.
Those of you who -- perfectly understandably -- abandonded Zelazny's in his later work did miss out on A Night in the Lonesome October. It's lighter than most of his stuff, but charming.
"Mince the onions, Blendie."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."
"Why's that, Blendie?"
"Sauce Mornay is too important to be endangered by human error."
Larry, that's just...primal. Kelly can get a job at the Discovery Channel when she graduates.
Kelly can get a job anywhere she wants. 'Primal'. That's a very good description. Thank you, Andy. It's helping to put that entire episode in some kind of verbal context.
Goodness. Whatever would one do in order to communicate with a toaster?
Goodness. Whatever would one do in order to communicate with a toaster?
We all burned down the pumpkin loaf
It died with an awful sound
The sous-chef was runnin' to and fro
Pullin' crumbs outta the ground
Bride of Frankenstein's kitchen
Had the best bread around
Then some appliance with an AI
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the wheat bread
Fire in the pie
Is that what you had in mind?
Aaaiiiieee!!! [quails]
Has anyone else tried the search function on Making Light recently? The result was not comforting to someone [quivers] feeling a bit fragile of late. At least, one using Mozilla 1.3.1 (yes, I should update). Probably a result of Recent Changes.
Was using search to find the last mention of "bonking", where it was in the context of Teresa's hurt head (hoping that's well), rather than the more East Atlantic connotation. The Sunday 7th November Non Sequitur uses "bonk" & "bonking" prominently. (Link expires in 2 weeks, you may have one in your own local comic source).
pericat: I believe problems of toaster-human communication were dealt with in several episodes of one of the series of Red Dwarf (if'n you can find it there).
Is that what you had in mind?
It is now. Clearly toasters require pentagrams and invocations.
Epacris, did Red Dwarf ever touch on coffee makers? I have a sneaking suspicion only abject begging and pleading would result in coffee.
I'll put in a plug for Tom Disch's "The Brave Little Toaster."
Web being web, this has spun off some cute things, such as:
by Shonda Chrissonberry
I have a shiny toaster
He sits upon my shelf
Just waiting for his slice of life
But all I have to offer is myself
He takes me in one piece at a time
Radiating his warmth all around
Then he pops me out so quick it burns
Laughing at what he has found
But in my moments inside him
Surrounded by his glow
I finally felt what I knew to be true
His setting was never too low!
So I place my shiny toaster
Back upon the shelf
Taking him down ever so often
Keeping him all to myself
08/04/2004
Posted on 10/05/2004
Copyright © 2004 Shonda Chrissonberry
The search function seems to work, aside from the fact that the header comes up in 124-point type. I can understanding that being startling.
Movable Type's upgrade instructions included a warning that if you'd customized the search template, you should keep it and not overwrite it with the new version. We had, so I didn't. Obviously this has side-effects. We'll look into it.
I need a background question answered for the SF episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Monsters are Due/On Maple Street." I recently went to a live presentation of the script with some friends, and the later discussion wandered over the obvious comparisons with the blacklisting in the entertainment industry, which Serling obviously knew of.
I repeated something I recalled (from an early Starlog article?) about Serling having also drawn upon what the Germans did to themselves twenty years before and found myself in one of those "And what is your authority for that statement?" conversations. I'm not that much of a Twilight Zone fan and my Starlog issues are either in storage or lost--does anyone know if Serling really said this, or do I need to go apologize?
Bruce E. Durocher II:
You refer to episode 22. The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street (3/4/1960).
I can't find my book on Twilight Zone by Mark Scott Zicree. I think your story is plausible, given what I know of Serling, and my conversations with editors of the short-lived magazine of the same name, but you do need an expert...
References:
Twilight Zone Books:
The Twilight Zone Companion
The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories
Twilight Zone Scripts And Stories
Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts
Journeys To The Twilight Zone
Return To The Twilight Zone
Adventures In The Twilight Zone
In the Zone: The Twilight World Of Rod Serling.
Online: look for the Rutgers' FTP Episode Guide
Excerpt from:
Jonathan Vos Post's Science Fiction TV pages
The Twilight Zone, CBS, 2 Oct 1959-31 July 1987
One of the greatest TV shows in history, due to the genius of Rod
Serling and the superb writing of genuine science fiction authors,
all backed by excellent casting of the varied teleplays. I've got
plenty to say about this show, but will defer for now to the listed
hotlinks and the excellent reference book "The Twilight Zone
Companion" by Mark Scott Zichree.
Host -- Rod Serling (1959-1965)
Narrator -- Charles Aidman (1985-1987)
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.
It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity.
It is the middle ground between light and shadow,
between science and superstition, and it lies between
the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge.
This is the dimension of imagination.
It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone."
JvP: You know editors of the Twilight Zone magazine? Wow, now I'm really impressed.
Patrick Nielsen Hayden:
Knowing and name dropping does not cut the mustard, as you've told me before. Fact is, I submitted and submitted and have nought but rejection letters, plus hearsay from the widow Serling that she liked my TZ poem but it was not right for her magazine. Similarly, although I knew essentially all the Omni editors, I only sold nonfiction (for good fees) but never once could sell fiction or poetry. I have great respect for the judgment of editors, even those who reject my work. I've been an editor, and can not imagine the agony of doing it full time. Honest!
Jonathan: thanks for the info. I took a look at your page--the link http://home.ptd.net/~jseward/ is dead, by the way--and was very impressed. Sadly I think I'm going to have to find something more detailed to cite at my friend besides what you think and I vaguely remember, so your reference list may be needed: she'd never heard about the Armenians, or Hitler's comments about them, and was a bit incredulous that there had been any pre-Holocaust Genocides in Europe in the 20th Century.
In the discussion after the play, she seemed to feel that American broadcast TV in 1960 was too far away in time and space for what the Germans had done to be a factor...it's actually a year or two shorter interval than the one between the Armenian massacres and Hitler's line about "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Once again, I exhibit the curse of the History/English Double Degree. Clearly, I need Mental Floss.
Gee Cripes . . .
Prominent Saudi religious scholars urge the people of Iraq to unite against the American invaders:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6424031/
I know, let's all stop buying their oil until they behave! That'll teach them!
Larry, that blender movie was priceless....
Now, mind you, I am a trained scientist, and therefore very sceptical about the faith-based stuff encouraged by the Theocratic Emperor Bush II, such as the utterly faulty Randolph Byrd Study on the purported efficacy of prayer on patients in Intensive Care. Yet, by the same token, I am sceptical of scepticism.
I was intrigued a few minutes ago by a broadcast on NPR's "Speaking of Faith," in particular, the part of the show:
The MANTRA Trial:
Mitchell Krucoff, director of interventional clinical trials at Duke Clinical Research Institute, conducted the second phase of the MANTRA (Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Trainings) Study (read "Can Prayer Heal?" in Hippocrates), which ended in late 2003. The study enrolled 1,500 patients in myriad regions of the United States, including California and Washington, DC. Study patients are assigned to a control group; to a group receiving prayer only; to a group receiving a combination of music, imagery, and touch; or to a group receiving prayer plus music, imagery, and touch.
The part that fascinated me about this thread of the story was a cited Korean Christian study of 2-stage prayer, where people in Korea prayed for patients' health, and people in the US prayed for the people in Korea who prayed for patients' health. They claimed measured benefits. Mehmet Oz was very dubious, but observed that a replicated study elsewhere showed the ame thing.
If I was writing this as a story, I would have a 3-stage prayer system show even better results, and a 4-stage or 5-stage prayer battery works a complete miracle.
Then Bush cites this, money is thrown at it, and a 6-stage or 7-stage prayer battery saved thousands of AIDS patients in Africa.
By the end of the story, millions of malnourished babies are saved, and Mehmet Oz and Mitchell Krucoff split a Nobel prize in Medicine.
Naahhhhh. Just can't yet get my mind around the hypothesis that the Bush re-election can be good for the world.
For what it's worth, this year's Reporters Without Borders worldwide index of press freedom is out since Nov 26.
The numbers are striking (US ranking lower than france, in turn lower than... Estonia), but more interesting are the detailled reports, available from the same page (PDF).
I'm a long-time reader, first-time caller, or whatever the local variant is. I'm an English major at NYU, and I'm very interested in publishing or copyediting (or both) as a career. Unfortunately, this comment has no relevance to any of those topics. Sorry.
This comment also has no relevance to the fifth of November. Sorry 'bout that, too.
I've been waiting awhile for a open thread, though, and can't bear to wait any longer -- my question is extremely pressing. So here goes: Where do you get your yarn?
I've tried a lot of Manhattan yarn shops, and they all seem to be ridiculously overpriced, or unbearably condescending, or not interested in stocking anything I'd like. I know you're crazy about knitting, so I presume you must have some way of getting your yarn. Are there any Manhattan shops you can recommend?
Hmm, Fallujah...Dresden...
I smell parallels here.
And when the fatwa is "Bush lied, so fight back"?
Especially when from what I've heard on CNN every male 14-45 who tries to leave Fallujah before the bombing will be arrested, and there's still an estimated 50,000 civilians left in the city?
Forget Dresden. I see even stronger parallels to Atlanta.
Books and libretti: Oh, lord. No. I'm sorry, but there really aren't any I can wholeheartedly recommend. Manhattan is dreadful for yarn. It used to be better -- I was especially fond of a shop up on Broadway near the 86th St. subway shop -- but the swift rise in real estate prices in the later 80s killed off all the practical, reasonable yarn shops.
As you'll doubtless have noticed, most of the survivors, what few there are, tend to be in wealthier neighborhoods, and cater to well-heeled matrons who want sumptuous yarns for simple projects that knit up in a jiffy. Have you been to the one up by Zabar's? Their stock starts at ten dollars the skein and four and a half stitches to the inch, and goes up from there; and if you're not one of their regulars, they have a positive talent for making you feel as though you just walked uninvited into someone else's living-room kaffeeklatsch.
For a while, School Products at 28th and Broadway was an oasis of interesting cheap yarn and helpfully techie staff, but then they lost two-thirds of their space. That vanished and much-lamented territory was their back room, where you could find rows and rows of cardboard bins full of cones of all kinds of stuff, from cashmere to weird never-before-seen synthetics. Bin-diving was a full-body contact sport. Alas, alas.
The surviving School Products operation is a shadow of its former self, though you can sometimes find cool stuff there. I think a lot of its business is in specialties for specialists -- they sell a lot of technical weaving supplies.
So, we're left with a big gap between pure Orlon baby yarn sold in shops where they don't speak English, and precious little balls of Laines Anny Blatt in shops where they'll scarcely speak to you at all. The two remaining options I know of are Deborah Green and Kate ("I am not The Thing") Salter. Deborah sells yarn in Brooklyn, and Kate's my main pusher even though she lives in Massachusetts. There's also Nancy Hanger, but she and I mostly swap.
I'm serious. The last time I made a substantial yarn buy in NYC was at a stoop sale. The time before that, I was sitting at my computer and sending money to eBay.
Have Deborah tell you where to go. Deborah? You here?
Yarn, yarn, yarn.
My wife's rather fond of crocheting...
I'm somewhat boggled by the amount of yarn she's accumulated--- and I shudder to think what shall happen if she starts knitting...
I forgot to mention that there is a direct genetic relationship between an executed conspirator of the Gunpowder Plot and the greatest American Science Fiction/Fantasy Poet.
"...He was born Friday the 13th of January, 1893 in Long Valley, California.
His family had descended from Norman-French counts (including the Hugunot
Gaillards or Gaylords, who came to New England in 1630), barons, and
Crusaders, from Lancashire baronets, and (on his maternal grandmother's side)
Scottish and French Canadian."
" His father's father was an iron-master who made himself rich and married
into the old Ashton family, one of whom had been beheaded in the Gunpowder
Plot. His father, Timeus, squandered a fortune by world-wide gambling."
" Though often ill, Clark Ashton Smith had an idyllically happy childhood
(altogether unlike that of Howard or Lovecraft). He taught himself Latin
well enough to enjoy Latin poets, and was so consistently autodidactic as
to later refuse a Guggenheim Scholarship to the University of California."
See for more:
and
SF Site: Review of The Last Oblivion: The Best Fantastic Poems of Clark Ashton Smith
edited by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, eds.
Hippocampus Press, 194 pages
I was heartened by the quick response, but much more disheartened by uts contents. Thanks anyway -- and it's a shame there's nowhere that's excellent, isn't there? Two shops I tried that are noteworthy, and pretty representative of the other shops I've seen, are the Yarn Co. and Gotta Knit!
The Yarn Co. was deplorable; they recently published a book, and seem more interested in pushing that than in being at all helpful. I think some of this had to do with the fact that I am young (and therefore not likely to spend in the amounts that the fifty-something facelifted socialites also in the store can afford). They offered a pretty good selection, although very overpriced; I wound up buying from them, although after a fifteen-minute wait at the counter ("Please, someone, take my money! Allow me the honor of purchasing from you!"), I was about ready to reconsider.
Gotta Knit!, on the other hand, was almost empty, and one of the staff members was very helpful. She helped me redefine one of my projects, tried to explain how to cope with those double-pointeds that scare me so much, and generally made herself available and helpful. Unfortunately, she had a much smaller selection than Yarn Co., and her wares cost more (is $22 for fifty grams of not-that-great Orlon really reasonable?). I didn't purchase anything from there, since I had no money on me, and while I'd be willing to return for help, I'm not sure I can buy there. I would, for the moral victory, but I have to swing into the woe-is-me-the-starving-student song and dance.
I will investigate School Products, since I love finding unexpected, interesting yarn -- it often gives me an idea for a completely different project. I'm sorry I missed its heyday, but it does sound interesting (as do those stoop sales). I'm not so interested in eBay, because texture is always the really big selling point for me. I don't feel I've looked at yarn until I've been able to touch it, to get some sense of how it'll knit up.
Also, I sounded particularly exclusive in my first post. I have no problem with going to another borough, as long as the shop there is subway-convenient. I'm taking the subway whenever I go out of the Village, so why not take it all the way up? A Brooklyn store would be fine, as long as they offer what I'm interested in (in terms of stock, price, and attitude -- not demanding or anything, am I?).
For now I'm having my family (out of state) go to Jo-Ann Fabrics or similar chain stores, to ship me Lion Brand. Still, I'd like to be able to branch out a little more, and I'd really love to go on those idea-searching missions.
Um, yeah. That was originally an "its," I swear. No "uts"s around.
JvP: I wouldn't worry about your prayer-healing story showing Bush in too good a light. If I wrote it, it would end with God turning up and presenting His Bill. What form this would take, though, is for the moment beyond me...
For those interested, you can purchase a Talkie Toaster here for just twenty dollarpounds, apparently.
books and libretti - have you been talking with Kiwis (New Zealanders) recently?
Or perhaps you were thinking of the University of Technology, Sydney on Broadway :) www.uts.edu.au
Epacris - One would think that if B&L were in touch with a flock of Kiwis, they'd have solved her yarn problems by now. Assuming they actually process some of the wool they generate, that is.
About yarn.
Come to Minicon in March, and stay for the yarn. You have Lion and similiar c/h/e/a/p inexpensive at Target. You have Depth of Field on the West Bank, Cliticky Sticks near Lake Nokomis, the Yarnery in St Paul, and a half dozen others. I don't think I've ever seen yarn as expensive as your describe except imported wools.
I get a lot of mine at yard sales anyway. People get yarn for porjects and either have leftovers, or never finish the project and sell it for cheap. Or do you have yard or garage sales in NYC? Maybe not.
Jonathan Vos Post:
I've been thinking about what you said about Zelazny's ambitions as a poet. So RZ was a very successful and popular novelist, and a very unsuccessful, mostly unpublished, poet. You'd think that would tell him that he was very good at writing novels and less so at writing poetry, no? So his response to this information on his strengths as a writer was ... to make the novels more poetical? That is, to take the stuff that was working and partially transmogrify it into the stuff that wasn't working? That makes so little sense that it makes my head hurt.
Greg Ioannou:
I calls 'em as I sees 'em.
How about Herman Melville, who wrote The Great American Novel, but was depressed (personally and financially) over bad reviews. The rest of his life, he basically wrote nothing but poetry. I've read some. I think it's very good. Ahead of its time. Fabulously gory poems about the Civil War, making the modernist point that war is a machine that grinds up humans. But nobody read those poems, then or now. Go figure...
It's surprising how often authors get attached to their poetry (or sometimes other genres) and lament the fact that people only want to read their novels. Very much "I am really a poet! Why does no one understand that?"
Robert Graves is the first example that comes to mind. From now on I will always think of Zelazny in that category too.
Just wanted to note that the "Possibly the best submission guidelines I've ever seen" link in the sidebar is, factually, the greatest submission guidelines ever. Also, it is a brilliant project.
Particularly brilliant is the pay scale. Look at the pay scale. My god! The brilliance!
yrs--
--Ben
Jules, that was just cruel!
(Oh...the urge to do an elsewhere-in-thread pun is difficult to overcome! The strain!)
Apropos of not much in particular, but I thought Teresa and Patrick might be interested to know that their website is blocked by the nanny/censoring software at the Junior High my wife teaches at.
Which, IMNSHO, sucks.
I read Melville's poetry. Couldn't do without it. Wouldn't be prudent. Look for the slim, out-of-print Frasconi-illustrated volume of On the Slain Collegians
I'm not in NYC, but I get inexpensive yarn from Hancock Fabrics (Lion Brand, cheaper than ordering from them directly or online), and very expensive yarn from the local yarn shop. I don't buy much from her, but I've used a lot of the new ribbon yarns in jewelry.
If you'd like to buy Lion Brand online:
http://www.lionbrand.com/
Herrschners is also pretty good:
http://www.herrschners.com/default.aspx
and they frequently have large economy batches of yarn.
I'm still plowing my way through the yarn the very generous Julia gave me to make things for the local charity. I took two bags over last week, mostly baby & toddler stuff, but also an adult scarf from aran/gray-silver chunky yarn.
$22 for 50gr of Orlon? You're kidding.
You should come to Minicon anyway, even if you don't need yarn.
adamsj:
good choice.
On the Slain Collegians
by Herman Melville
Youth is the time when hearts are large,
And stirring wars
Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn
To the blade it draws...
Speaking of knitting, did anyone else notice that on the episode of Sex and the City where Charlotte learned to knit, she was using a Bernat acrylic yarn? I tried to explain to my husband why I was laughing so hard. Not to diss acrylic knitters, but to imagine Charlotte in a shop selling it was just too much.
Thanks for all the Zelazny info, I'll be adding those titles to my wishlist.
Jim, the friend of my father's who lent me the book, passed away a few years ago. He was a voracious reader, and a book-hoarder. When I did a high school term paper on Lincoln, he lent me his set of the collected letters & speeches. Most endearing thing in there was Lincoln's letter to the King of Siam, where he politely thanks him for his gifts--including a sword, a portrait of his Highness & his daughter, and the kind offer of "elephant stock" for the Union Army. Lincoln said something like wonderfully polite like "But I regret that our latitude does not yet extend to such a clime as would further the propagation of said stock."
If you go to American City
In future you'll find it quite $hitty,
Because George Bush made President,
Put the country up for rent
Stagflation, stagflation
For sale to KBR,
Just watch all those dollars,
Whoever you are.
There are lots of millionaires
And billonaires are not that rare,
But then it's down to you and me,
We've been dumped in poverty
Stagflation, stagflation
Bush's net worth has grown,
But as for the rest,
We cannot afford loans!
See Bush enriched by high-priced oil
Might be because he looks like a gargoyle,
The rapture he expects to come,
Those who disagree are scum
Stagflation, stagflation
The Neocons run the world,
They're flying in their flag,
But it ought to stay furled.
See Bush play king in Iraq,
Thousands dead aren't coming back,
But good Christians will return,
The others all in hell will burn,
So get on a plane and head to this country,
You're pushing your luck there,
Ashcroft's calling you queer,
You're deported elsewhere,
In broke poverty!
=============
Hmm, it really needs some more material, about Family Values and how he changed booze'n'sex'n'drugs for religiosity, and mercury in the air and ground, and how bad that is for fetus, but no induced abortion etc. But....
I have this eight pound raw wool fleece from a registered Corriedale ram in the back of my car, some of the staple is six inches long... I've been meaning to try to wash it out for days...
Paula Lieberman:
That was brilliant! If only JibJab or someone with recording artists and animation could properly produce it and put it on the web!
Excerpt from:
Liberals Dismayed by 'Moral Values' Claims
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer
8 Nov 2004
"We need to work really hard at reclaiming some language," said the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the liberal-leaning National Council of Churches.
"The religious right has successfully gotten out there shaping personal piety issues — civil unions, abortion — as almost the total content of 'moral values,'" Edgar said. "And yet you can't read the Old Testament without knowing God was concerned about the environment, war and peace, poverty. God doesn't want 45 million Americans without health care."
Paula - that fleece must be a leftover from the Pixar short they're playing before The Incredibles. (Nifty movie, BTW.)
But seriously, do you card and spin your own wool? That would be too much even for the likes of Martha Stewart!
I make attempts at it. I think some of them people in here have actually seen me use a drop spindle.
Occasionally I start to knit something, or crochet something, or weave something, and mislay it, or...
I actually did wear a skirt I knitted, when I was in high school. It was, however, a very -short- skirt...
Until someone observes him more directly to verify his state, should we refer to him as Schroedinger's Arafat?
[Books and libretti asked about yarn stores further up the thread, and since I mention my own yarn store in my response, I ran it by our hostess for her approval before posting it here.]
Yarn! Having done extensive research over the last year and a half before opening my own yarn store in Brooklyn, I have lots of thoughts on the topic.
In Manhattan, I send people to Yarn Connection, on Madison between 36th and 37th, and to Downtown Yarns, on Ave. A near the corner with E. 3rd. Yarn Connection is very crowded, but has a good selection of yarn at various price points, and has wonderful sale bins. Downtown Yarns is friendly and carries a good variety of natural-fiber yarns, as well as some fluffy things.
In Brooklyn there is the Yarn Tree, on Bedford Avenue near S. 4th Street. Linda LaBelle, who's a terrific fiber artist, sells an astonishing array of stuff you haven't seen elsewhere (including spinning and weaving supplies), and has a extensive list of classes.
I've just opened my own entry in the market, Yarnivore, in downtown Brooklyn, near the intersection of Flatbush and Myrtle. I'm bootstrapping the business into existence, so my stock is small to start out, but I'm making an attempt to carry yarn that isn't in all the other shops in town. Towards that end I had a productive visit to the Sheep and Wool Festival
in Rhinebeck last month.
Happy yarn hunting!
The Great Southwest Salt Saga
How an accidental oasis in the Mexican desert sank Arizona's $250 million desalination plant. A case study in the law of unintended consequences. By Jeff Howe from Wired magazine. [Wired News]
Thought this might be of interest.
Poetrty-in-sf/f novels is almost always to be avoided. That being said, I may almost like _Creatures of Light and Darkness_ better than Zelazny's _Lord of Light_, despite understanding rather less of it, because of the fun crazy language. That, and those lines--"Some say her name is Mercy..." Someday I will acquire my own copy (I borrowed a friend's).
I just checked out the "Possibly the best submission guidelines I've ever seen" link. You're right, those are astoundingly cool guidelines.
Shame that I'd just spent much of the last week putting together an agent synopsis for a brick-thick fantasy novel sitting at Tor. I guess I'll have to write something new for them. >8-> Thanks for the heads-up.
I just checked out the "Possibly the best submission guidelines I've ever seen" link. You're right, those are astoundingly cool guidelines.
Thanks, everybody! Teresa, I learned it all from watching you.
Greg Ioannou, Laura Roberts, Yoon Ha Lee:
Sometimes you don't even notice Poetrty-in-sf/f novels.
Poul Anderson told me that he often smuggled in paragraphs and whole pages that are perfect iambic pentameter in his novels, and even longer in "Shakespeare's World," but not visibly so because of lack of stanzaic line breaks. Why? Because, he said, the payment per word is so much higher for his novels than for his poems. Marvin Minsky, after we'd argued about poetry for years, with him attacking it as "people who have nothing to say, and so disguise that with metaphors and rhymes," proceeded to have two entire chapters of poetry in his book "Society of Mind" concealed by non-linebreaks, a la Anderson. He announced that to me as a triumphant punchline. Then he coauthored a pretty good first SF novel with Harry Harrison.
On a more disturbing note:
9/11 disaster payout set record, study says
$38 billion compensation provided by government, insurers and charities
By Maggie Farley
Los Angeles Times
November 9, 2004
"NEW YORK - Victims of the Sept. 11 attacks received more than $38 billion in compensation - a figure 30 times the size of the largest previous disaster payout and one that is unlikely to be matched, according to a Rand Corp. study released yesterday."
First reaction: "unlikely to be matched" because a terrorist attack an order or magnitude more damaging would bankrupt the country attacked? That seems to be what Bin Laden says he intends to do...
I noticed. If "premillennial dispensationalism" hadn't tipped me off, the Shelby Foote would have.
I have read Volume 1, but at the time I didn't have Volumes 2 and 3 handy. Now that I've blown through The Wizard and The Algebraist, maybe it's time to have another go.
So you're only up through Perryville?
I might actually have got as far as Fredericksburg, but it's been a couple of years and I don't really remember. Realistically, at this point I'd have to start at the beginning.
So John Ashcroft has turned in his letter of resignation.
Would it be considered unseemly to dance gaily about, singing "Ding, dong, the witch is dead?"
To cap off years of tragedy with a dollop of farce, the resignation letter includes the following words: "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."
Ah, so we're now all safe from crime and terror. It must be true, the Attorney General said so.
As good an illustration as any of the gap between the Bush Administration and the "reality-based" world.
Jimcat rejoices:
So John Ashcroft has turned in his letter of resignation.
We've been wondering elsewhere if he wrote 5 pages by hand because he couldn't figure out how to use a word processor...
xeger said: We've been wondering elsewhere if he wrote 5 pages by hand because he couldn't figure out how to use a word processor...
Either that, or he couldn't figure out how to get the blood of innocents into the inkjet cartridge.
This just means that he's available for a Supreme Court opening.
The "nuanced view" is pretty good, but I feel humbled by the sheer obnoxious brilliance of this screed:
http://www.theregister.com/2004/11/07/blue_state_to_reds/print.html
Bush is insane?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
"Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressur Sharon except the Americans.
"According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said, "God told me to strike at Al-Qaida and I struck thm, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
An Early Remembrance; pre-dawn 11/11/2004
Some poems of some wars (Casualty figures 1914-1918; 1939-1945)
Extracts from a small thing for Armistice/Remembrance Day, which I thought had a few aspects people may find good to think upon.
A life in three centuries November 11, 2004, by Jonathon King
Age shall not weary Peter Casserly. And, rather than being condemned by the years, time has made him a record breaker. He is Australia's oldest known man for one. Next, of the 331,000 Australians who fought overseas in World War I he is the sole surviving serviceman from the Western Front. For good measure, he appears to have notched up the country's longest running marriage - lasting 80 years and 10 months before his wife Monica died at 102 in August ...
"The passing time never changed the loveliness of my wife for me. She remained a beautiful blessing throughout our long marriage. But you know what my secret is ... Rum!
"I tell you they gave every soldier two issues of rum each day on the Western Front, but I knew my way around and used to get three and I've been drinking rum ever since - I'm still drinking it. It's a sure cure for the flu. If you feel it coming on, take some rum and in two days it's gone."...
Casserly was born just north of Perth on January 28, 1898, and has the birth certificate to prove [at 106] he's the oldest man in Australia.
A man of three centuries, the world into which Casserly was born is now long gone. Also born in 1898 were one of the discoverers of penicillin, Howard Florey; Charles Kingsford Smith's co-pilot Charles Ulm; billiards champion Walter Lindrum and the artist Sali Herman. There were only 3 million people living in the Australian colonies over which Queen Victoria ruled ...
After the war, Casserly helped with clean-up operations until his discharge on September 11, 1919. On his return he worked as a wharf labourer, timber cutter, sailor and fisherman before establishing a wood yard and then cray fishing business. He won a bravery award for saving the life of a swimmer who had got into difficulties...
Although Casserly returned to the Western Front with veterans for the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993, he always opposed subsequent wars and has only marched twice on Anzac Day - in 1917 and again this year.
Early Remembrance (1); pre-dawn 11/11/2004
Extracts from a small thing for Armistice/Remembrance Day, which I thought had a few aspects people may find good to think upon.
A life in three centuries November 11, 2004, by Jonathon King
Age shall not weary Peter Casserly. And, rather than being condemned by the years, time has made him a record breaker. He is Australia's oldest known man for one. Next, of the 331,000 Australians who fought overseas in World War I he is the sole surviving serviceman from the Western Front. For good measure, he appears to have notched up the country's longest running marriage - lasting 80 years and 10 months before his wife Monica died at 102 in August ...
"The passing time never changed the loveliness of my wife for me. She remained a beautiful blessing throughout our long marriage. But you know what my secret is ... Rum!
"I tell you they gave every soldier two issues of rum each day on the Western Front, but I knew my way around and used to get three and I've been drinking rum ever since - I'm still drinking it. It's a sure cure for the flu. If you feel it coming on, take some rum and in two days it's gone."...
Casserly was born just north of Perth on January 28, 1898, and has the birth certificate to prove [at 106] he's the oldest man in Australia.
A man of three centuries, the world into which Casserly was born is now long gone. Also born in 1898 were one of the discoverers of penicillin, Howard Florey; Charles Kingsford Smith's co-pilot Charles Ulm; billiards champion Walter Lindrum and the artist Sali Herman. There were only 3 million people living in the Australian colonies over which Queen Victoria ruled ...
After the war, Casserly helped with clean-up operations until his discharge on September 11, 1919. On his return he worked as a wharf labourer, timber cutter, sailor and fisherman before establishing a wood yard and then cray fishing business. He won a bravery award for saving the life of a swimmer who had got into difficulties...
Although Casserly returned to the Western Front with veterans for the 75th anniversary of the armistice in 1993, he always opposed subsequent wars and has only marched twice on Anzac Day - in 1917 and again this year.
Early Remembrance (2); pre-dawn 11/11/2004
Some poems of two wars
World War One Poets on the Battlefields: Blunden; Brooke; Owen; Sassoon; St Quentin; Ypres
Wilfred Owen
"Damn all war mongers who lie to the young so they volunteer to kill + to be killed"
Links:
http://www.1914-18.co.uk/owen/ (Wilfred Owen Association)
http://www.pitt.edu/~pugachev/greatwar/owen.html
http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_contents.htm
Paul Eluard
Not so much, perhaps, of war; but in war. Others may have suggestions for later wars.
Early Remembrance (2); pre-dawn 11/11/2004
Some poems of two wars
World War One Poets on the Battlefields: Blunden; Brooke; Owen; Sassoon; St Quentin; Ypres
Wilfred Owen
"Damn all war mongers who lie to the young so they volunteer to kill + to be killed"
Links:
www.1914-18.co.uk/owen (Wilfred Owen Association)
www.pitt.edu/~pugachev/greatwar/owen.html
www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_contents.htm
Paul Eluard
Not so much, perhaps, of war; but in war. Others may have suggestions for later wars.
Early Remembrance (3); pre-dawn 11/11/2004
Some non-poetry of two wars: Article (for members); Article (for members)
(Casualty figures 1914-1918; 1939-1945)
Until I can work out something grand & good -- this puts it into millenial vistas -- it looks like the only way you can look at these latter two is to download them. Any suggestions for simple conversions of complex Excel spreadsheets to, say, HTML tables?
I will try to write the piece on War Memorials I have in mind to put some flesh on the figures. This link
Comments on Open thread 31: