The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by neotoma:

Try finding resole-able shoes. They aren't common at all anymore, especially for women.

I can get my Birkenstock sandals resoled until the cork actually
breaks apart, but I haven't found a way to get my El Naturalista shoes
done. It's frustrating, because they're both good shoe brands, and
expensive, but one lasts up to five years, and the other doesn't.

I have to chime in with a vote for Moleskine notebooks. The sewn binding stands up to be chucked in my backpack and toted everywhere, no matter what else is in there or what orientation it is stuffed in at.

The spiral binding on other notebooks generally are too fragile and tend to catch on things (most annoying when it is my *knitting* that is caught).

I only wish they made Moleskines in larger dimensions. The paper and construction are excellent, but the size limitation is occasionally frustrating.

She's 5'11" and 11 stone... which is 154 pounds. Only anorexics would think that is 'too fat'.

I really hate the fashion industry some times.

That makes me wonder again why English got rid of thorns and eths. They seem like very useful letters to have. Anyone know?

I'm a little miffed that *none* of the Slytherin students joined Neville's rebellion in the Room of Requirement and that none stayed to help fight. And that in the epilogue Harry reinforced his son's belief that being sorted into Slytherin was something to avoid at all cost.

Also, the Lupin-Tonks marriage was a trainwreck from both Watsonian and Doylist viewpoints. JKR really messed up if *that* was supposed to be an adult romance. They'd have had a messy divorce in year or two if they'd both survived.

Xopher 200:

You can knit a corset, but I think you'd have to be fairly small in the bust to get adequate support.

If you *do draw superheroes in corsets, please, PLEASE send the result to Girl-Wonder.org. They'd love it.

In regards to school buses, I seem to recall watching a program on automotive safety (on the Discovery Channel) several years ago that explained as school buses are generally built like tanks, except with more padding and seats.

In fact, nosing around, it seems that school buses rely on compartmentalization for safety, and that adding seat belts does not improve things compared to other methods of improving bus safety.

Perhaps some of the more automative/crash experienced posters could sum things up better?

It's slightly frustrating that I can read the Vulgate better than the Anglo-Saxon or middle English.

But it's wonderful to try...

There are ABC stories. Not rhymes or meter, but they're structured -- the storyteller uses the manual alphabet, in order, to tell a story.

it's not the condo that's dubious. Our housekeeping would be just as sketchy anywhere with the same cubic footage of storage space.

Yeah, when I'm the neatest of the three of us, you know we're in trouble.

I really thought the DC housing market was bad, but NYC is just *insane*.

I have to wonder, is this family buying coutre clothes every month or something? For $1000/month, they darned well better be. With that kind of cash, I'd have personally tailored *everything*, including shoes.

$7000 on RENT? Is that a sane price for a luxury place in NYC?

If I had $500,000 a year, I'd have a fricking house next to the Metro -- one large enough to have my friends live with me instead of the dubious condo they rent.

I think the worse that I would do is let the bibliophilia run mad (like it hasn't already) and maybe buy a dobby loom.

Good lord, could the MisAdministration be any more pathetic in their attempt to fob off the blame onto the city. My neice was a better liar at the age of two than these people.

Hint -- if the city you're claiming filed improperly has written documents that *you* gave them saying that their application was submitted okay, you've got no leg to stand on.

As far as a West African Othello, would that have an all-black cast and a white Othello?

The Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC already did that.

Well, almost. They did a 'photo-negative' run of Othello, with Patrick Stewart in the lead role and the rest of the cast made up of African-American actors, back in 1997.

nerdycellist, you might want to look at what's available from Bravissimo, as they have a range of tops with in-built bras in the D-and-more cup sizes.

They might hav exactly what you're looking for.

Did this fall out of the research for the making of "Gangs of New York"?

Or is this the rise of new Know-Nothings? Hey, if it's that, maybe they'll split the Whigs again, and we'll get a new Lincoln out of it!

Now there's an intriguing reply. Fanfiction abhors a vacuum!
:)

I can understand and respect that impulse, but... I don't share it

Yes, but if you are not curious about how the Jedi work, there are a lot of people who are and will come up with their own theories based on what was seen in the movies. Some of them will write fairly nifty essays telling about how the Jedi might work. Others will write stories showing how the Jedi might work. And some people will cosplay it out at conventions. It really depends on how people express their creativity.

Lots of media fanfic works on the idea of "how does X work is tv series Y?" or "what would character Z from movie W do if stuck in situation v?"

Does anyone know of later books that discuss internet fanfic?

Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture should be out in August. Given what he said at his talk at The Witching Hour con last fall, I think it will be exactly what you're looking for. He knows that Textual Poachers doesn't describe the current state of fandom culture -- it was basically written before the internet explosion, after all.

If fanfiction writing is equally creative as "from scratch"-writing... if fanfic comes with no intellectual/creative limits whatsoever... then how come the following fanfic communities do NOT exist:

Because fanfic thrives in fandoms that are full of holes -- poor plotting, inconsistent characterization, half-realized worlds are the building blocks fanficcers use.

It's the tales where the *story* is good and the execution is iffy that that attract fanficcers. That's why Star Wars, Star Trek, and Harry Potter are big fandoms, and West Wing or Les Miserables fandoms are comparatively *small*. There's a lot of wiggle room in Wizarding Britain because JKR tends to wing her world-building (and can only count to hrair, which makes determining the relative ages of her characters impossible), while it's pretty well known how the White House works, if you look at the real thing.

Also, fanfic about books is a lot rarer than fanfic about television or movies. Focusing on written works, when fanfic is more often about *performed* works, is only going to get you so far.

I'd say fanfic goes back to Sherlock Holmes, at the very least. There is a long history of 'pastiches' among the Doyle fans.

The Good-Parts effect is probably why I prefer to remember the Star Wars movies than watch them.

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