‘We are Christians first, Americans second’
Aug. 18th, 2025 09:40 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
slacktivist_feedIt's a platitude that American Christians have recited so many times we're bored by it, but it still means something.
slacktivist_feedaaand I’ve been let go
Aug. 18th, 2025 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moon_custaferAfter a week and one day, which isn’t quite my all-time record. As usual, the explanation is “we feel you wouldn’t be a good fit.” I wish I could understand exactly what I did wrong—talk too much? Not enough? Look nervous? Look unserious?
I feel like I go through life with a neon sign hovering above my head that says NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE and no clue how to turn it off.
You know this city like the back of your hand, but deep roots are holding me down
Aug. 18th, 2025 04:02 pmsovayAccording to the checkout card tucked into its back cover, the black-boarded, jacketless first edition of Millard Lampell's The Hero (1949) which I just collected this afternoon through interlibrary loan came originally from the Hatfield branch of the now-dissolved Western Massachusetts Regional Library System, whose bookmobile spatch remembers vividly because it was not the library across the street from one of his childhood homes but the one about a mile up the road. The dates on the card are well within the span of his family's residency. It would be nice to imagine that one of his parents took it out, or at least browsed through it, sometime. The punch line of discovering Lampell as an author is that while I did not in the least recognize his name, I would recognize his voice because along with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Woody Guthrie, he formed the Almanac Singers. It was only later in his career as a screenwriter that he was blacklisted.
spatch remembers vividly because it was not the library across the street from one of his childhood homes but the one about a mile up the road. The dates on the card are well within the span of his family's residency. It would be nice to imagine that one of his parents took it out, or at least browsed through it, sometime. The punch line of discovering Lampell as an author is that while I did not in the least recognize his name, I would recognize his voice because along with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Woody Guthrie, he formed the Almanac Singers. It was only later in his career as a screenwriter that he was blacklisted.The Disaster Days, by Rebecca Behrens
Aug. 18th, 2025 01:08 pmrachelmanija
13-year-old Hannah, who lives on a tiny island off Seattle, is excited for her first babysitting job. Then a giant earthquake hits, cutting the island off from the mainland... and leaving Hannah alone in charge of two kids in a devastated landscape.
Hannah is not having a good day. She was recently diagnosed with asthma, forcing her to drop out of soccer and always carry an inhaler. Her best friend Neha, a soccer star, is now hanging out more with another soccer girl than with Hannah. Hannah forgets to bring her inhaler with her to school, and her mom doesn't turn around the car to get it as Hannah is desperate not to be late. When she arrives for her babysitting job after school, minus her inhaler (no doubt looming ominously on the mantelpiece at home, along with Chekhov's gun), she gets in a huge fight with Neha over text and the girls say they no longer want to be friends...
...just as a giant earthquake hits! Hannah gets her charges, Zoe and Oscar, to huddle under a table (along with their guinea pig) and no one is injured. But the windows break, the house is trashed, and the power, internet, and phones go out. The house is somewhat remote, an all-day walk from the next house. What to do?
Hannah is a pretty realistic 13-year-old. She's generally sensible, but makes some mistakes which are understandable under the circumstances, but have huge repercussions. She enlists the kids to help her search for her phone in the wreckage of the house, and Zoe immediately is severely cut on broken glass. The kids freak out because their mom (along with Hannah's) is on the mainland, and Hannah calms them down by lying that she got a text from their mom saying that she's fine and is coming soon. The next morning, she lets Oscar play on some home playground equipment. Hannah checks the surrounding area, but doesn't check the equipment itself. It's damaged and breaks, and Oscar breaks his leg. So by day one, Hannah is having asthma attacks without her inhaler, Zoe has one arm out of commission, Oscar is totally immobilized, and there's no adults within reach.
Well - this is a HUGE improvement on Trapped. It's well-written and gripping, the events all make sense, and the characterization is fine. It was clearly intended to teach kids what can happen during a big earthquake and how to stay as safe as possible, and the information presented on that is all good.
But - you knew there was a but - as an enjoyable work of children's disaster/survival literature, it falls short of the standards of the old classic Hatchet and the excellent newer series I Survived.
The basic problem with this book is that it has a very narrow emotional range. For the entire book, Hannah is miserable, guilty over her friend breakup and the kids getting hurt, worried about her parents, and desperately trying to keep it together. The kids get hurt so seriously so early on that they never have any fun. Even when Hannah tries to feed them S'Mores to cheer them up, nobody actually likes them because they're not melted!
The I Survived books have much more variety of emotional states and incidents, as typically the actual disaster doesn't happen until at least one-third of the way into the book. The kids have highs and lows, fun moments and despairing moments and terrifying moments. This book is all gloom all the time even before the disaster! Hannah eventually saves everyone, is hailed as a hero, and repairs her friendship, but we don't get that from her inner POV - it's in a transcript of a TV interview with her.
The information provided in the book is very solid, but I would have preferred that it didn't have BOTH kids get injured because of something Hannah does wrong. (That is not realistic! ONE, maybe.) It also would have been a lot more fun to read if the kids' injuries were either less serious or occurred later. The situation is desperate and miserable almost immediately, and just stays that way for the entire book.
Still, there's a lot about the book that's good and there should be an entertaining book that provides earthquake knowledge, so I'm keeping it. But I'm not getting her other book about two girls lost in the woods.
Chicken Florentine
Aug. 18th, 2025 09:00 pmcimoreneI posted a few weeks ago about Florentine omelette, a recipe we really liked, after I saw it mentioned in a book (neither of us had heard of it previously).
A Florentine omelette doesn't have Mornay sauce; it's just an omelette with spinach and cheese filling (parmesan and gruyere traditional). However, eggs Florentine is a common café/diner dish from the UK and Australia, a breakfast sandwich with a poached egg, spinach, and sauce on an English muffin. (People seem to expect Hollandaise instead of a Mornay sauce in that case.) Chicken Florentine might be the oldest version: that idea is out there, but it might be apocryphal too. The history of the term and the style is colorful but probably not accurate:
(Quotes from Wikipedia, Florentine (culinary term))
Because Chicken Florentine was trendy in the US in the mid 20th century, the popular English-language versions of the recipe have suffered from simplification. Recipes from the midcentury reportedly used mushroom soup. Modern ones overwhelmingly use cream instead of Mornay sauce; it was necessary to put "Mornay" in the search terms before I found any recipes with it (because 1. it's not hard to make a roux, like what are you talking about? & 2. we wanted to try the more authentic recipe). We looked at three and used this one because the Mornay sauce called for wine, mustard powder, and nutmeg. We didn't use gruyere, though, just parmesan, and served it over white rice and it was sooooooo good. So delicious.
Florentine or à la Florentine is a term from classic French cuisine that refers to dishes that typically include a base of cooked spinach, a protein component and Mornay sauce. Chicken Florentine is the most popular version. Because Mornay sauce is a derivation of béchamel sauce which includes roux and requires time and skill to prepare correctly, many contemporary recipes use simpler cream-based sauces.
A Florentine omelette doesn't have Mornay sauce; it's just an omelette with spinach and cheese filling (parmesan and gruyere traditional). However, eggs Florentine is a common café/diner dish from the UK and Australia, a breakfast sandwich with a poached egg, spinach, and sauce on an English muffin. (People seem to expect Hollandaise instead of a Mornay sauce in that case.) Chicken Florentine might be the oldest version: that idea is out there, but it might be apocryphal too. The history of the term and the style is colorful but probably not accurate:
Culinary lore attributes the term to 1533, when Catherine de Medici of Florence married Henry II of France. She supposedly brought a staff of chefs, lots of kitchen equipment and a love of spinach to Paris, and popularized Florentine-style dishes. Food historians have debunked this story, and Italian influence on French cuisine long predates this marriage.[4] Pierre Franey considered this theory apocryphal, but embraced the term Florentine in 1983.[5] Auguste Escoffier included a recipe for sole Florentine in his 1903 classic Le guide culinaire, translated into English as A Guide to Modern Cookery.
(Quotes from Wikipedia, Florentine (culinary term))
Because Chicken Florentine was trendy in the US in the mid 20th century, the popular English-language versions of the recipe have suffered from simplification. Recipes from the midcentury reportedly used mushroom soup. Modern ones overwhelmingly use cream instead of Mornay sauce; it was necessary to put "Mornay" in the search terms before I found any recipes with it (because 1. it's not hard to make a roux, like what are you talking about? & 2. we wanted to try the more authentic recipe). We looked at three and used this one because the Mornay sauce called for wine, mustard powder, and nutmeg. We didn't use gruyere, though, just parmesan, and served it over white rice and it was sooooooo good. So delicious.
Bundle of Holding: Tiny Dungeon MEGA (from 2023)
Aug. 18th, 2025 02:09 pmjames_davis_nicoll
An assortment of tabletop roleplaying games from Gallant Knight Games that use the streamlined, minimalist TinyD6 rules.
Bundle of Holding: Tiny Dungeon MEGA (from 2023)
(no subject)
Aug. 18th, 2025 01:32 pmskygiantsObviously this is officially old news now but of the novels on the Hugo ballot [that I read], the one I personally would have best like to see win is Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay -- in contrast to The Tainted Cup, which felt to me like a novel of craft but not ideas, Alien Clay felt like a book where the science fiction worldbuilding on display was really skillfully and inventively married to the broader themes and ideas that Tchaikovsky wanted to explore in the book.
Alien Clay is a science fiction gulag novel; the protagonist, Anton Daghdev, is a dissident academic who's been life-sentenced to work on one of the few planets reachable by humans so far discovered to harbor alien life -- and, as Daghdev learns when he arrives, even possible evidence of ancient alien civilizations, though none of the planet's present inhabitants seem particularly sentient.
Pros:
- Daghdev has devoted his life to the alien studies and now he has the opportunity to do the most compelling, cutting-edge work in the field!
- also, unlike the other two options, Kiln's atmosphere will not immediately kill a human experiencing it without protective gear
Cons:
- it's a gulag
- with a correspondingly high fatality field fatality rate
- many of the other people in the gulag, arrested before Daghdev, are suspicious that he might have been the one that sold them out to the regime
- although Kiln's atmosphere will not IMMEDIATELY kill a human without protective gear, Kiln's weird, vibrant and enthusiastic ecosystem is extremely eager to find a foothold inside human biology, and what happens to the human body after it becomes exposed to Kiln's various [diseases? symbionts? parasites? TBD] seems Extremely Unpleasant
- and -- perhaps worst of all -- a major cornerstone of the regime's philosophy is the notion that humanity is the highest form of life in the universe, and all alien life will, eventually, by divine destiny, tend inevitably towards a bipedal humanoid form, which means that all the compelling, cutting-edge scientific research that's being performed on Kiln will inevitably be warped and transformed into a shape that suits the regime before anyone else can ever see it
Through the course of the book, Daghdev's attempts to figure out what's going on with the Kiln aliens and their hypothetical and hypothetically-vanished Civilization-Building Precursors on a planet that seems antithetical to human life intertwines with his attempt to survive and find solidarity in a penal colony that seems, well, antithetical to human life. I think readers will probably vary on how relatively depressing they find this experience.rachelmanija thought it was pretty bleak; meanwhile, genarti was impressed by how fun it was to read, All Things Considered. I'm more of genarti's mind on this one -- for me, Daghdev's own profound intellectual fascination with the world of Kiln counterbalanced the grimness of the gulag and gave even the most depressing parts of the book a needed spark -- but I do think it really depends on personal taste and calibration. Either way, the whole thing ends in a one-two punch of a solution that I found really satisfying on both a speculative-biological and thematic level.
Alien Clay is a science fiction gulag novel; the protagonist, Anton Daghdev, is a dissident academic who's been life-sentenced to work on one of the few planets reachable by humans so far discovered to harbor alien life -- and, as Daghdev learns when he arrives, even possible evidence of ancient alien civilizations, though none of the planet's present inhabitants seem particularly sentient.
Pros:
- Daghdev has devoted his life to the alien studies and now he has the opportunity to do the most compelling, cutting-edge work in the field!
- also, unlike the other two options, Kiln's atmosphere will not immediately kill a human experiencing it without protective gear
Cons:
- it's a gulag
- with a correspondingly high fatality field fatality rate
- many of the other people in the gulag, arrested before Daghdev, are suspicious that he might have been the one that sold them out to the regime
- although Kiln's atmosphere will not IMMEDIATELY kill a human without protective gear, Kiln's weird, vibrant and enthusiastic ecosystem is extremely eager to find a foothold inside human biology, and what happens to the human body after it becomes exposed to Kiln's various [diseases? symbionts? parasites? TBD] seems Extremely Unpleasant
- and -- perhaps worst of all -- a major cornerstone of the regime's philosophy is the notion that humanity is the highest form of life in the universe, and all alien life will, eventually, by divine destiny, tend inevitably towards a bipedal humanoid form, which means that all the compelling, cutting-edge scientific research that's being performed on Kiln will inevitably be warped and transformed into a shape that suits the regime before anyone else can ever see it
Through the course of the book, Daghdev's attempts to figure out what's going on with the Kiln aliens and their hypothetical and hypothetically-vanished Civilization-Building Precursors on a planet that seems antithetical to human life intertwines with his attempt to survive and find solidarity in a penal colony that seems, well, antithetical to human life. I think readers will probably vary on how relatively depressing they find this experience.
rachelmanija thought it was pretty bleak; meanwhile, genarti was impressed by how fun it was to read, All Things Considered. I'm more of genarti's mind on this one -- for me, Daghdev's own profound intellectual fascination with the world of Kiln counterbalanced the grimness of the gulag and gave even the most depressing parts of the book a needed spark -- but I do think it really depends on personal taste and calibration. Either way, the whole thing ends in a one-two punch of a solution that I found really satisfying on both a speculative-biological and thematic level.Clarke Award Finalists 2010
Aug. 18th, 2025 10:27 amjames_davis_nicoll2010: Cadbury falls into shadow, electoral loss sends the Labour Party off on a delightful journey of reinvention, and millions of travelers spontaneously learn how to spell Eyjafjallajökull.
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2010 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The City & The City by China Miéville
Far North by Marcel Theroux
Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
Spirit or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts
Poll #33506 Clarke Award Finalists 2010
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 20
Which 2010 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
View Answers
The City & The City by China Miéville
20 (100.0%)
Far North by Marcel Theroux
0 (0.0%)
Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
5 (25.0%)
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
2 (10.0%)
Spirit or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones
0 (0.0%)
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts
1 (5.0%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2010 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The City & The City by China Miéville
Far North by Marcel Theroux
Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
Spirit or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts
For people who like this sort of thing, this is what they like?
Aug. 18th, 2025 03:00 pmoursinThe Benson Diary by AC Benson review – musings of an Edwardian elitist:
His outlook is that of an Edwardian clubman; and indeed, the only England Benson knew well, apart from Eton, Cambridge and the court at Windsor Castle, was the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, a world largely without women. Benson did not much like women and was not at ease with them, preferring the company of handsome young men. The editors go to great pains to argue that Benson, while certainly homoerotic, was not actively homosexual. But, really, who cares?
....
In truth, these diaries are a monument of misplaced scholarship.
Okay, I am jumping up and down going BURN! because one of the editors is someone who wrote a ghastly retro piece of work within my own Field of Endeavour which I had occasion to review back in the day.
(The Literary Review was kinder)
But also, while I guess Bensons are a minor fandom of mine, the diaries I would be interested in reading are those of Minnie (Sapphic romps at Lambeth Palace!) and of naughty Fred, EF Benson, author of the camp classics about Mapp and Lucia and the Edwardian bromance David Blaize. Though once attended conference paper claiming that the M&L novels were essentially romans a clef about his circle, so maybe he didn't need to write a bitchy diary as well.
I think we already had as much of AC as anyone would wish to know in that Goldhill volume on the family, which had a bit too much AC for my taste to begin with.
I’m not the kind that likes to tell you
Aug. 18th, 2025 10:46 amslacktivist_feedFeeling scattered and scatter-brained -- even more so than usual. So here are some scattered thoughts and collected scatterings.
Dear FIAB Creator
Aug. 17th, 2025 09:36 pmsnickficThank you so much for making something for me! I'm really looking forward to opening my box in a couple of months and seeing what's inside. <3
( Likes and Dislikes )
( Oasis RPF )
( Re-Animator )
( Kyle Murchison Booth stories )
( Likes and Dislikes )
( Oasis RPF )
( Re-Animator )
( Kyle Murchison Booth stories )
Daily Happiness
Aug. 17th, 2025 08:29 pmtorachan1. We had a nice time at Disneyland this morning (overcast and low temps most of the time and very light crowds) and successfully got the Kuzco sipper! We try not to collect the popcorn buckets and sippers because they don't actually get used and are just decorative, but take up a lot of space, but Kuzco's poison is always a must buy.
2. I don't have to go to Irvine at all this week, which is nice. I do have meetings in Gardena every day, but that's like less than half the drive.
3. Jasper looks so solemn!
2. I don't have to go to Irvine at all this week, which is nice. I do have meetings in Gardena every day, but that's like less than half the drive.
3. Jasper looks so solemn!
2025 Disneyland Trip #56 (8/17/25)
Aug. 17th, 2025 04:56 pmtorachanWe made sure to get to the park right when they opened today because the Kuzco sipper goes on sale today and based on how fast the glow cubes sold out last year, we knew we had to act fast.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
some people call me maurice
Aug. 17th, 2025 05:58 pmmusesfoolI finally saw the new Superman this afternoon and I enjoyed it a lot! The casting was exceptionally good - Nicholas Hoult was the best Lex Luthor since Rosenbaum, and I thought Fillion was just the right amount of bumptious asshole as Guy Gardner. (Do I wish we could get John Stewart in a live action movie? Yes. But I'm still so glad they didn't go with boring Hal Jordan.)
The writing for Clark was great and he and Lois had fantastic chemistry. Mr. Terrific was indeed terrific! Plus KRYPTO!!! ( spoilers )
*
The writing for Clark was great and he and Lois had fantastic chemistry. Mr. Terrific was indeed terrific! Plus KRYPTO!!! ( spoilers )
*
vital functions
Aug. 17th, 2025 11:02 pmkaberettCooking. One more thing from East (kimchi pancakes, mildly disappointing) plus a gooseberry oat crisp I have been meaning to get to since I started picking the pink gooseberries [mumble] ago.
Eating. Ruby Violet (hazelnut + hazelnut brittle, blueberry + lemon curd). buns from home (cardamom, cinnamon, garlic + rosemary focaccia).
My first granadilla, courtesy of a whim in a supermarket!
Allotment apples and tomatoes.
Exploring. Spent a chunk of Monday afternoon poking around the Camley Street Natural Park!
Growing. There are TOMATOES. There are BEANS. I harvested some PEPPERS. I'm still not doing great at, like, efficiency or yield, but hey, I'm eating some things from the plot, which is better than none.
"I Transmigrated Into Cordelia Naismith!" (Vorkosigan Saga) G
Aug. 17th, 2025 03:26 pmlannamichaelsTitle: I Transmigrated Into Cordelia Naismith!
Author:
lannamichaelsFandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Rating: G
A/N: I love reading fics about an OC transmigrating and fixing everything. I've wanted to write one of my own and here it is. For those seeing this plot for the first time: the narrator is an OC who has transmigrated into the character of Cordelia Naismith. There is no other Cordelia Naismith running around, it's just her.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Summary: What was I supposed to do? Not fix everything?
( So this was fun. )
Fic: Better Late Than Never
Aug. 17th, 2025 10:30 pmrodoTitle: Better Late Than Never
Fandom: Knight Flower
Author:rodo
Length: 7639 words
Rating: 12+
Genre: romance, humor
Pairing: Cho Yeo-hwa/Park Soo-ho
Disclaimer: everything belongs to MBC
A/N: written for kaitou during 2025’s![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandom5k
Summary: Yeo-hwa is back in Hanyang, but getting together with Soo-ho turns out to be a bit more complicated than she had imagined. But then again, when has their relationship ever been simple?
( Mischievous banter, a hand on her wrist, an elegant twirl like a practised dance move, and Cho Yeo-hwa found herself in Park Soo-ho’s arms. )
Fandom: Knight Flower
Author:
rodoLength: 7639 words
Rating: 12+
Genre: romance, humor
Pairing: Cho Yeo-hwa/Park Soo-ho
Disclaimer: everything belongs to MBC
A/N: written for kaitou during 2025’s
fandom5kSummary: Yeo-hwa is back in Hanyang, but getting together with Soo-ho turns out to be a bit more complicated than she had imagined. But then again, when has their relationship ever been simple?
( Mischievous banter, a hand on her wrist, an elegant twirl like a practised dance move, and Cho Yeo-hwa found herself in Park Soo-ho’s arms. )