The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by JM Kagan:

About those flying dreams---I was fascinated to hear so many of you relate them to swimming. I learned to swim late in life and I'm not (and probably won't ever be) as comfortable in water as you seem. Ricky, however, is related to the porpoise and loves the water and even loves scuba diving, so I asked him about his flying dreams. They weren't what I expected from having read the varied accounts here.

Ricky says his flying dreams are like surfing, by which he means (after much explanation) body-surfing into shore on a wave. His arms are straight out, palms up. (He says if he did Superman position---hands pointed straight forward---he'd go straight to the bottom and get trashed.) Turn hands right or left to steer, but always palms up. He tells me he's ridden waves like this only when he was wearing flippers but in his flying dreams there are no flippers...just ride the wave onto the beach...except he doesn't remember ever having beached (or landed) in a flying dream.

As for me and my flying dreams? Nothing of swimming in them. (Oh, this is embarrassing.) I swoop from side to side and occasionally kick off from a bit of the dream scenery. I kinda tack forward to where I'm going, with great joy and even greater anticipation. There's always a soundtrack that goes with this but it's never (that I remember) Rodgers and Hammerstein's PETER PAN. Yes, I know perfectly well where my flying dreams come from, even though I never got to fly on that kind of wire. As a kid, I rode (home-made) swings and, once, I made the up-and-over-the-branch and lived to tell the tale, and I did the Tarzan vine swing on ropes hung from other branches in the same tree. When I saw Mary Martin fly, I knew what she was feeling.

I love that there are so many ways to fly that I never before thought of!

Some days, I wonder who these people are and why they spam us all this way. Most days I just wish they'd go away and leave us all alone.

eww. gambling porn comment spam all over the board.
Hang tough. They're just trying to wear us all down.

Ulrika, Tom, Mike---
My election run-up mix includes "The Country's in the Very Best of Hands" from L'il Abner (surprising how many of those songs are bright and fresh just now) and "Hey! John Ashcroft [Come and kiss my New York ass!]" from American Ambulance's All Over the Map. Both very danceable, and if you dance free-form like I do, "Hey! John Ashcroft" can get really rude.
Aside to Mike: Oh yeah, lots of Warren Zevon goin' down here too. We loved your playlist and your dedications. What, you haven't got one for Condi or Laura?
Now I feel the need to put L'il Abner on again so I can dance to "Jubilation T. Cornpone"---this one's goin' out to YOU, Dubya!
Hang tough and dance tough,
Janet

Paula---
Once or twice a month, my staunch Republican and I have lively political debates over dinner. We run up one side of an issue and down the other. Neither of us shies from playing devil's advocate. We have a wonderful time having at it, and he's convinced me as many times as I've convinced him to shift positions. Sometimes we both wind up somewhere in the middle. (Ricky and his lady play at keeping score and throwing in the best of the zingers.) Great fun, and we always wind up laughing.
But the last time we had dinner with them, he shook his head wearily and said, "No politics." Then he leaned across the table and said, "Janet, this administration is evil."

You may think that all Republicans toss off the word "evil" with abandon but I assure you I have never heard that word come out of his mouth as long as we've been debating each other. Sometimes being shocked is all in the context.
Since then I've been officially scared spitless.
Janet

Given that certain political black ops have flooded phone banks with hang-up calls to prevent voters who needed rides to the polls from calling in to say they needed that ride and given that all too many of the new voter and get out the vote sites are relying completely on the internet, I can only extrapolate that a lot of the internet is gonna go down shortly.
If you can't just walk next door and ask your neighbor if she needs a ride or a baby-sitter Tues, may I strongly suggest that you get a way to contact your new voter OTHER than the internet by tomorrow? ---And that you give her a way to contact you other than a known Democratic/other phone bank?
(Oh, and take down all those other phone numbers you might need, too, like Election Protection.)

Worst Case Scenario: The internet (or huge chunks of it on the left side of my screen) goes down late night on Nov. 1 and stays down through several weeks of disputed ballots.

No, I am not crushed. The staunch Republicans in my family are so alarmed by Bush's policies that they'll be voting Kerry this year..."so long as you understand this is only gonna happen just this once, Janet, and just because of Bush." One of them called Bush "the Anti-Republican"; I won't tell you what another one called him because it shocked even me.

Hang tough and we'll see ya again when the internet's back up and running (I hope)...
Janet K

gesso: I should know this one because the same story whacked me upside the head when I read it, yeah, in the (late) '60s. The anthropologist, in trying to save his alien friend from what he takes to be a disaster, gets it oh so wrong.... He thinks it's a rescue but it's not. End line (from the narrator telling the story about this mission) was something like, We don't have the heart to tell him [the anthropologist] he's got the wrong bush. Harry Harrison would be my first guess; Robert Sheckley, my second. Maybe that's enough to help somebody else here pin the story down for sure. (Or maybe tomorrow I'll wake up with the title and the author front and center---in which case I'll post it here whenever I can next get to the posting end of a thread.)

Kate---YES! Thank you! I was looking thru the open threads and never thought to check drifting threads.
Do malas look like strings of beads? There are several good Indian groceries in our area, many of which also sell Ganesha(s?) and other similarly evocative sculptures...and what look like strings of beads.... Hmm, sounds like my quest for the weekend.
Much thanks, Janet

I need make appeal to Ganesh(a), but I can't find the thread here where I learned of this need.

Xopher? I think you mentioned a rosary-like counting device for those of us who couldn't reliably count out that many dimes in the first place. Would that be something easily gotten in a goodly sized Indian grocery store?

Niall---I'll see your "Chicken Chaucer" and raise you our local Italian restaurant's "Dover Sol Meaner." In spring, the same restaurant offers "tentelions" as fresh greens.
Wonderful, most wonderful! I *love* typos, except when they're mine. ;)
Thanks all 'round, Janet

Teresa,
My money says those brand new rugs are laid out to be aged by wind and sand and sun so they can later be sold to the tourist trade as antiques.
In some areas, the weavers actually spread the rugs out across a street and let the traffic drive over them for good measure.
As Ricky points out, tires are fine for that well-worn look but cleats are not. Wherever this was taken, it may be the weavers can't risk having tanks drive over their goods.
Cheers, Janet

Best worldcon line I heard was over the phone, while those of us who couldn't make it there were commiserating with each other over the phone. Backstory: Gardner Dozois spent worldcon having an artificial ball-joint put in his right shoulder. Yes, Gardner's right-handed...and Bob Walters offered to make him a t-shirt that read: "I'D GIVE MY RIGHT ARM TO BE AMBIDEXTROUS."

Good opportunity for the alternate t- as well. As left-handed sf fan Asenath used to say back in the early seventies, "Left ON! Get RIGHTY!"

Yay! I made it to the end of a long thread for once!

Teresa, is there any fruit we can substitute for the nectarines? Since you posted this recipe we've been unable to find so much as a single nectarine worth a second bite. The squirrel kits that own our back porch are making out like pirates, so we at least get entertainment value out of the bum nectarines, but we still want to taste this or something close. Anybody ringing any changes on this?

Peaches (they were good ones) didn't seem to work as a substitute. Maybe the lack of crunch?

Any suggestions, anybody? Or do I just keep buying nectarines until we luck out and the squirrel kits have to go back to eating acorns?
Cheers, Janet

Pish-tosh. Murray Leinster invented cyberpunk. Reread "A Logic Named Joe" if you don't believe me.

Happy birthday, Epicris! Happy baby, Randall P. Family!

Mike---Thanks for confirming the Brunner title for me. I've been wanting to reread that. Now I've got a better idea where in the stacks (vertical) to look.

liz---
John Brunner's SHOCKWAVE RIDER?
I'm sure the book you're looking for was one of John's but at this hour I'm not sure of the title. I trust someone here will correct me if I'm wrong.
Cheers, Janet

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