Saw the new Harry Potter

Draco Malfoy is growing up quite nicely. Quite nicely.


Today's earrings: owls, wishbones

Bedtime reading: The Ozark Trilogy, Suzette Haden Elgin

Been staying up too late, reading

Elgin's Ozark Trilogy.

I got halfway through the third book before I put into words that Responsible of Brightwater is the horseshoe nail on which the world (as well as the story) depends. I got the horseshoe nail concept from Lafferty's Annals of Klepsis:

The humanly inhabited universe, according to the best — or at least the newest — mathematical theory, does have a tertiary focus, and it is there that it is vulnerable. The humanly inhabited universe, with its four suns and its seventeen planets, is an unstable closed system of human orientation and precarious balance, a kinetic three-dimensional ellipse in form, with its third focus always approaching extinction. As with any similar unstable premise-system, the entire construct must follow its third focus into extinction. This is known as the ‘Doomsday Equation’. [. . . ] The third focus of the humanly inhabited universe has been determined to be both a point and a person on the Planet Klepsis, on the surface of the planet, which is extraordinary in itself. Of the person, the human element of the anthropo-mathematical function, little is known except the code name the ‘Horseshoe Nail’, and the fact that the person is more than two hundred years old. This is an added precarious element. Actuary figures show that only one in a hundred billion humans will reach the age of two hundred years, and none will go far beyond it.

Turns out that The Ozark Trilogy (1981) predates Annals of Klepsis (1983), which dashes my initial presumptions. Just because I read the Lafferty first doesn't mean he wrote it first; I roll my eyes at myself.
I wonder if they knew each other. I should go ask her, while I still can.

Also in The Ozark Trilogy: into each generation is born one girl who is Responsible, and the world is on her shoulders. Sound familiar?


So I went looking for horseshoe nail earrings. The results were disappointing. Seems no one can bring themselves to just hang a pair of horseshoe nails from French hooks and be done with it. No, they've got to electroplate them or twist them into patterns or gussy them up with beads. I suppose that's more fun for the jeweler, but not what I was looking for.


Today's earrings: racing camels, peppers

Bedtime reading: And Then There'll Be Fireworks, Suzette Haden Elgin

Happy Summer

Today's earrings: sapphires, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: The Grand Jubilee, Suzette Haden Elgin

Jupiter in Retrograde 6/15 - 10/13

...As the planet of the future, retrograde Jupiter will prompt you to examine your goals and how you'll get there. Heeding your intuition can keep your goals on track - or help you find a new path altogether. Be open to receiving messages from unexpected (unseen?) sources that can guide your direction - signs from the universe, if you will. A sign may come from meeting a long-lost friend who works in a field you've been considering, which propels you toward a new job. Or perhaps you'll suddenly hear a song on the radio that offers a clue about what you need to do.

During this time, be introspective and let the Universe guide you. Then you'll have a clearer perspective about your life, both spiritually and materially, after Jupiter turns direct.

- - Cortney Litwin, California Astrologers

Today's earrings: ants, planets

Bedtime reading: Twelve Fair Kingdoms, Suzette Haden Elgin

Critique

I've been reading Elgin's Native Tongue trilogy. The first book was depressing - it's set in a near-future distopia where women are legally minors - but pretty darn good, I thought. The second book was longer, more scattered. It felt like the middle book of a trilogy. Then I got to the third book, in which the author loses her mind. Books one and two are about women fighting the power as best they can in a world almost like our own. The third book opens with a new character having a visionquest vision of the now-dead lead character of book one, followed by the revelation that human beings don't need food, but can live on music. No, seriously. There's a middle section that goes skipping about through the next few centuries, and reads like sketches for a bunch of short stories that don't quite all belong in the same universe. Then a denoument in which it is finally brought to the attention of the men "in charge" that a significant portion of the population has stopped consuming food. I am strongly reminded of Margaret Murray's theory that many if not most people in medieval Europe weren't actually Catholics. If there were that many not-Catholics, why did they let the Church run everything? Makes no sense.

It's like she couldn't figure out how to end the trilogy she'd started, so she swapped in the end of some other saga and hoped readers wouldn't notice.


Today's earrings: flies, crows

Bedtime reading: Earthsong, Suzette Haden Elgin

Bunny

1690, dim. of Scottish dialectal bun, pet name for "rabbit," previously (1587) for "squirrel," and also a term of endearment for a young attractive woman or child (1606). Ultimately could be from Scottish bun "tail of a hare" (1538), or from Fr. bon, or from a Scand. source. The Playboy Club hostess sense is from 1960. The Bunny Hug (1912), along with the foxtrot and the Wilson glide, were among the popular/scandalous dances of the ragtime era.
- - http://www.etymonline.com/

Today's earrings: rabbits, other rabbits

Bedtime reading: Earth Song, Suzette Haden Elgin

One fish, two fish

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.
Black fish, blue fish, old fish, new fish.
This one has a little star.
This one has a little car.
Say! What a lot of fish there are.
Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.
Some are old. And some are new.
Some are sad. And some are glad.
And some are very, very bad.
Why are they sad and glad and bad?
I do not know. Go ask your dad.
Some are thin. And some are fat.
The fat one has a yellow hat.
From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.

- - Theodore Geisel

Today's earrings: fish, other fish

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

France has won!

July 3rd, 2006, I was at the meat counter at Whole Foods and realized that Hubert Keller(!) was standing next to me. He caught me gawping at him. I told him he was wonderful on camera. He thanked me and went back to choosing sausages. Such a gracious man.

I'm glad he won the first round.


Today's earrings: suns, other suns

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

Flowering Judas

Today's earrings: flowers, other flowers

Bedtime reading: The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin

Talked to TL and got the address for Maggie's memorial. Poor guy.

Rally point is M's @ 10am Monday.


Today's earrings: flies, amber

Bedtime reading: Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin

Lest Levitation Come Upon Us

She learned a lot in the theology stacks. She learned that women are the gateway to Hell. She learned that despite claiming that what they had seen and experienced could not possibly be expressed in words, the mystics went right on and expressed it at extraordinary length. She learned that the Vatican had curious problems, and that it was possible to commit a crime called "fishing in Papal waters." She learned vast amounts about things that not only did not interest her but clearly had not interested those who wrote about them, and it became obvious to her that if all theology were written in Latin it would be no great loss.

- - Suzette Haden Elgin


Today's earrings: spiders, estrogen molecules

Bedtime reading: Perpetual Light, Alan Ryan, ed.