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First, thanks for the virtual flowers, Clark & Lex! And the sweet things from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
svmadelyn's lovefest -- they are much appreciated, so much so that I am going to work on my Lex/Lana story on the Metro and see if I can't get it done soon. In the meantime, I have over 30 books in the hopper, so I'll work on the backlog, starting with some nonfiction: ( Why Do Men Have Nipples, New Media, and Who Owns Culture? (three books) )
ETA: LibraryThing now has a "completist" section on its stats page, so you can see what authors are likely to inspire collections -- that is, if you own one book by that author, you probably own several books by that author. Scroll down to see;coffeeandink in particular might be amused by the results.
svmadelyn's lovefest -- they are much appreciated, so much so that I am going to work on my Lex/Lana story on the Metro and see if I can't get it done soon. In the meantime, I have over 30 books in the hopper, so I'll work on the backlog, starting with some nonfiction: ( Why Do Men Have Nipples, New Media, and Who Owns Culture? (three books) )ETA: LibraryThing now has a "completist" section on its stats page, so you can see what authors are likely to inspire collections -- that is, if you own one book by that author, you probably own several books by that author. Scroll down to see;
coffeeandink in particular might be amused by the results.
Believe it or not, all these are related in one way or another to my academic interests. ( technology and culture, champagne, money and intimate relations, history of marketing, digital libraries )
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I'm finally over my bitterness enough to rewatch the X-Files. Now nearing the end of Season 3, I must say that Teso dos Bichos really doesn't stand out as the fount of badness. I think coming right after Pusher and having no relationship moments at all made fandom bitter about it. The stuffed cat didn't help either, but honestly, it wasn't that much worse than many of S3's monsters of the week.
( nonfiction: gifts, copyright, sociology, sin, candy )
( nonfiction: gifts, copyright, sociology, sin, candy )
Nicholas Abercrombie & Brian Longhurst, Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination: ( I think Cesca might have put me on to this one )
Another extended review of a book of/on academia in the information age. ( Read more... )
In other news, Pseudocipher = closest Depeche Mode knockoff I've heard in a while.
In other news, Pseudocipher = closest Depeche Mode knockoff I've heard in a while.
Unless you really want to read detailed thoughts about three academic books on copying and plagiarism, don't go beyond the cut tag -- though I have put in a few fandom-related things when they seemed relevant. This is really more for my reference than anything else (hey, cesperanza, I think you gave me these titles). ( This is why God invented cut tags. )
cesperanza, I think you gave me these titles). ( This is why God invented cut tags. )Okay, does anybody but me have this issue with Tori Amos's "Pretty Good Year," where the line "and Greg he writes letters and burns his CDs" means something different now than it did when she wrote it? That always jolts me right out of the song.
( An experiment in a lengthier review )
( An experiment in a lengthier review )
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Even if you don't usually read book reviews, if you or anyone you love gardens (or eats meat), read this.
Richard Rhodes, Deadly Feasts: The "Prion" Controversy and the Public's Health: This is possibly the scariest book I've ever read. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which you've probably heard most about in its guise of mad cow disease, is a disease that literally eats holes in the brains of its victims, killing them in a terrible fashion. We know how it spreads: it spreads through cannibalism and through eating animals that have been made into cannibals by modern food production techniques. It gets into the brain and starts converting normal proteins into agents of death, like Vonnegut's ice-9 converting regular water into an unmelting solid, through a process that may be the same as crystallization (which you might have done in high school chemistry, turning a supersaturated solution into a solid by dropping a seed crystal into the liquid). The agents that cause TSE's spread are virtually impervious to heat, radiation, formaldehyde, years of isolation, and freezing. And, even with the example of Britain, which ignored the problem for years until the infection was firmly established – and at what level, we still don't know, because infections began in the early 1980s and the incubation time can be 2-3 decades – America is taking the same ostrich-like stance, refusing to fund testing and even preventing ranchers from testing in some circumstances. Rhodes tells the medical detective story, starting with the epidemic of kuru among New Guinea cannibals in the 1950s and 1960s through modern understandings of TSEs, and along the way delivers a powerful indictment of government unwillingness to act in the face of a profitable production mechanism. I'll leave you with a bit of advice you may want to pass along, a quote from the book:
( other nonfiction )
Richard Rhodes, Deadly Feasts: The "Prion" Controversy and the Public's Health: This is possibly the scariest book I've ever read. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which you've probably heard most about in its guise of mad cow disease, is a disease that literally eats holes in the brains of its victims, killing them in a terrible fashion. We know how it spreads: it spreads through cannibalism and through eating animals that have been made into cannibals by modern food production techniques. It gets into the brain and starts converting normal proteins into agents of death, like Vonnegut's ice-9 converting regular water into an unmelting solid, through a process that may be the same as crystallization (which you might have done in high school chemistry, turning a supersaturated solution into a solid by dropping a seed crystal into the liquid). The agents that cause TSE's spread are virtually impervious to heat, radiation, formaldehyde, years of isolation, and freezing. And, even with the example of Britain, which ignored the problem for years until the infection was firmly established – and at what level, we still don't know, because infections began in the early 1980s and the incubation time can be 2-3 decades – America is taking the same ostrich-like stance, refusing to fund testing and even preventing ranchers from testing in some circumstances. Rhodes tells the medical detective story, starting with the epidemic of kuru among New Guinea cannibals in the 1950s and 1960s through modern understandings of TSEs, and along the way delivers a powerful indictment of government unwillingness to act in the face of a profitable production mechanism. I'll leave you with a bit of advice you may want to pass along, a quote from the book:
"You know the bone meal that people use on their roses?" Gajdusek asked me then. "It's made from downer cattle [cattle that sicken and die for no apparent reason, which sometimes are infected with TSE]. Ground extremely fine. The instructions on the bag warn you not to open it in a closed room. Gets up your nose."
The Nobel-laureate virologist who knows more than anyone else in the world about transmissible spongiform encephalopathy looked at me meaningfully. "Do you use bone meal on your roses?"
I told him I did.
He nodded. "I wouldn't if I were you."
( other nonfiction )
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I went to two John Kerry events Wednesday night, forcing postponement of SV/Angel watching. Now, the only reason my picture isn't in the dictionary defining "shy" is that I'm too shy to be photographed, so this required serious fortitude in the face of multiple strangers in close quarters. Turns out I could have gone to the sit-down dinner, but by going to the lower-level shindig in the art gallery, featuring Chuck Schumer and Cam Kerry, I ran into an old friend, so that's okay.
Schumer was funny and talked a lot about judicial nominations, in deference to the lawyer-heavy audience at the art gallery. When he introduced Kerry at the dance club (the event for people younger and less generous than the people at the art gallery), he didn't talk about judges. Instead, he talked about the Sopranos, and got Steve Buscemi's first name wrong.
At the dance club, Kerry wasn't particularly inspiring, and he wanted to talk about health care, which didn't much energize the crowd, though they were willing to cheer for it anyway. I understand why Kerry's strategy can't be to say "vote for me because I'm not George W. Bush," but that's really why I was there. I wanted him to talk about Iraq and the economy – he did get around to the deficit, and the best part of his speech was when he got to foreign relations, pointed out that we need to have some support in the other 96% of the world, and then said "America should never go to war because it wants to. It should go to war only because it has to." That was a crowd-pleaser. There were too many jokes about the young folks getting drunk and forgetting what they'd heard, and there was a six-foot tall friendly joint in a sombrero painted on the wall near where we were standing (think Mr. Butts, Doonesbury's talking cigarette, and you'll get the idea), which I didn't think was exactly the right image. Then again, there was a lot of talk about 1968 ... Anyhow, I heard Kerry, even though I didn't quite see him, and that plus finding my old friend was worthwhile.
In the last bit of politics, I thought Tom Shales of the Washington Post had the best line on Bush's news conference: When Bush said "When I say something, I mean it," he said that the reporters were too polite to call out, "Then when are you going to say something?"
Then I watched SV & Angel. Loved them – no spoilers, but if the WB persists in calling new episodes "fresh" episodes, I won't answer for my actions. Not just in the on-screen bug, but every! damn! time! they came back from commercial.
In other news, the best line from last week's viewing of Jeremiah: Rivka: Would you like little marshmallows in your hot chocolate?geekturnedvamp: Is that a trick question?
Good point.
( Westlake, SV tie-in, Macleod, Irresistable Forces, and nonfiction )
Schumer was funny and talked a lot about judicial nominations, in deference to the lawyer-heavy audience at the art gallery. When he introduced Kerry at the dance club (the event for people younger and less generous than the people at the art gallery), he didn't talk about judges. Instead, he talked about the Sopranos, and got Steve Buscemi's first name wrong.
At the dance club, Kerry wasn't particularly inspiring, and he wanted to talk about health care, which didn't much energize the crowd, though they were willing to cheer for it anyway. I understand why Kerry's strategy can't be to say "vote for me because I'm not George W. Bush," but that's really why I was there. I wanted him to talk about Iraq and the economy – he did get around to the deficit, and the best part of his speech was when he got to foreign relations, pointed out that we need to have some support in the other 96% of the world, and then said "America should never go to war because it wants to. It should go to war only because it has to." That was a crowd-pleaser. There were too many jokes about the young folks getting drunk and forgetting what they'd heard, and there was a six-foot tall friendly joint in a sombrero painted on the wall near where we were standing (think Mr. Butts, Doonesbury's talking cigarette, and you'll get the idea), which I didn't think was exactly the right image. Then again, there was a lot of talk about 1968 ... Anyhow, I heard Kerry, even though I didn't quite see him, and that plus finding my old friend was worthwhile.
In the last bit of politics, I thought Tom Shales of the Washington Post had the best line on Bush's news conference: When Bush said "When I say something, I mean it," he said that the reporters were too polite to call out, "Then when are you going to say something?"
Then I watched SV & Angel. Loved them – no spoilers, but if the WB persists in calling new episodes "fresh" episodes, I won't answer for my actions. Not just in the on-screen bug, but every! damn! time! they came back from commercial.
In other news, the best line from last week's viewing of Jeremiah: Rivka: Would you like little marshmallows in your hot chocolate?
geekturnedvamp: Is that a trick question?Good point.
( Westlake, SV tie-in, Macleod, Irresistable Forces, and nonfiction )
What is Scully thinking? Help me caption this, win valuable prizes.
Also, lots of nonfiction reviews.
(For those of you looking for fan stuff, I am writing. I've just been having trouble sitting down with any one story.)
( In the meantime, I read )
Also, lots of nonfiction reviews.
(For those of you looking for fan stuff, I am writing. I've just been having trouble sitting down with any one story.)
( In the meantime, I read )
1. Vidders are even more impressive to me now that I've spent well over fourteen hours making a 3'10 slide show set to music featuring Marlboro, Abercrombie & Fitch, Coca Cola, Al Franken, Tiffany's, Spam, McDonald's, Burger King, Sesame Street, Channel 13, FedEx, Snickers, Harrison Ford, Sting, and Akira Kurosawa. The result is lame but, I hope, entertaining on the first day of class, and anyway the students will probably feel compelled to laugh. Those of you who do this well, I bow in awe to you. At least I'll probably be a bit faster in the future, as I learned a lot about iMovie in the filmmaking process.
2. Short reviews: ( Read more... )
2. Short reviews: ( Read more... )
We went to see The Black Pirate tonight. Douglas Fairbanks was quite charming, though the stylized acting of silent films doesn't generally appeal to me. The film was only slightly gay: there was a great moment when Fairbanks traps his pirate friend – who's about to bring some food in to the beautiful captured princess – against the wall, with one arm on each side, and asks the friend if he believes in love at first sight. The audience reaction was massive, which gives further credence to my theory that, in a couple of decades, this period will be identified as the period in which homosexuality became part of American culture, in the sense that feminism is part of American culture – a major, acknowledged, but not uncontested, force.
In which I ramble about four books: ( Read more... )
In which I ramble about four books: ( Read more... )
Greetings, sportsfans. In an attempt to distract myself from more pressing concerns, I present some books of interest. Authors covered: Sarah Andrews, Maxx Barry, Michael Bronski, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jim Butcher, Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Handler, Dan Savage, and Don Winslow.
( Read more... )
I’m also 60 pages in to John Keegan’s Six Armies in Normandy, picked because I wanted to read about a nobler endeavor, and I’m really enjoying it. Those beautiful, complex, rounded British sentences – I love them, and the subject matter is fascinating. Ooh, and for bedside reading I have a SV novel with Lex on the cover. I’m not exactly a hard sell in matters touching Lex, and it was half off at the Strand (as was the Jim Butcher novel).
In other news, I took the “which Supreme Court Justice are you?” quiz at selectsmart, and got Ginsburg & Breyer before Souter, which shows how much the quizmaker knows. The questions weren’t really designed to sort as between Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter, or between O’Connor and Kennedy, or between Scalia and Thomas. The questions were also infelicitously worded: “Do you support racial gerrymandering?” Um, yeah, I think voting districts ought to be drawn so that minorities have a good chance at proportional representation in the legislature; what about you?
More Martha soon. And then more slash.
( Read more... )
I’m also 60 pages in to John Keegan’s Six Armies in Normandy, picked because I wanted to read about a nobler endeavor, and I’m really enjoying it. Those beautiful, complex, rounded British sentences – I love them, and the subject matter is fascinating. Ooh, and for bedside reading I have a SV novel with Lex on the cover. I’m not exactly a hard sell in matters touching Lex, and it was half off at the Strand (as was the Jim Butcher novel).
In other news, I took the “which Supreme Court Justice are you?” quiz at selectsmart, and got Ginsburg & Breyer before Souter, which shows how much the quizmaker knows. The questions weren’t really designed to sort as between Ginsburg, Breyer, and Souter, or between O’Connor and Kennedy, or between Scalia and Thomas. The questions were also infelicitously worded: “Do you support racial gerrymandering?” Um, yeah, I think voting districts ought to be drawn so that minorities have a good chance at proportional representation in the legislature; what about you?
More Martha soon. And then more slash.
.
