A Day in the Life of a Squirrel: a Photoshoot

Another interesting piece on animals! This time, it's squirrels:

http://www.incrediblethings.com/pets/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-squirrel/

I'm amazed that the photographer managed to get the squirrels into human-like positions, especially since none of the squirrels appear to be specially trained. It's all a matter of clever set and nut placement, apparently! I never would have guessed that squirrels' faces, with their limited range of motion, could be so oddly expressive.

I'm reminded of the Redwall series, which I read religiously as a kid. (I still own every book in that series.) There were essentially two or three plotlines in the entire series, rehashed over and over with different lovable woodland critters, different riddles, and slight changes in scenery -- but as a child, I didn't really notice, and I devoured them all the same. The photo series calls to mind the cover art on those books, which all featured rodents and other small mammals in human-like poses, wearing clothes and brandishing weapons. One wonders if the art department ever considered using photographed rather than illustrated covers -- would they have looked too silly?

Cover-a-Week #37: "Ivory Tower" from Tripod versus the Dragon

This is my favorite song from the musical comedy Tripod versus the Dragon, which I recently watched at the behest of my friend Deb:


http://youtu.be/e_vkU6ZOI9w

It's a clever musical about Dungeons and Dragons, and it has some great songs. What's not to love?

(Also, I look particularly bewildered in the still frame...)

Cover-a-Week #27: "May It Be" by Enya, from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack

It's a week for mourning writers, so in honor of Tolkien's fortieth death-day, here's Enya's "May It Be" from the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings:


http://youtu.be/juwu5tTC0hc

I maxed out the new microphone... again. (It's clearly the deadly combination of high notes, vibrato, and volume.) I tried putting a sweater over the mic -- perhaps next time, I should try sitting a bit farther back?

New York at Dusk

There are times when I walk alone in the streets of New York, when I'm surrounded by looming glass behemoths against the deep blue dusk, when the air is crisp and a fine mist of rain coats the pavement, when the hum of human activity permeates the corners of the city -- times when I'm happy to be alive and grateful to live in such a magnificent, vibrant place. There's nowhere quite like New York.

I took this picture near Rockefeller Center a few weeks ago (the lights of Radio City Music Hall are visible in the lower left). Something about the lone building lit up against a swathe of clouds reminds me of Egypt, of obelisks and monuments erected by long-dead Pharaohs.

This photograph was taken from the High Line. The red-and-white illuminated building in the center is the Empire State Building (I love the way the spire disappears into the clouds). The polyhedral glass rooftop structure, I discovered, contains what appears to be a small library, replete with armchairs, lamps, and a few shelves of books. (That has to be one of the coolest library designs I've seen!)

I took this picture a month or two ago at the piers on the West Side. (The "BEA on a Boat" party happened on that boat, actually.) I was struck by the "halo effect" of the setting sun behind the mast; the boat and the play of light on the water reminds me of the elven ships sailing into the west in The Lord of the Rings.

There's something melancholy and fiercely beautiful about this city when you're alone, spending some quality time with it, just drinking it in.

Discover: How Would Time Travel Actually Work (or, something for all the Whovians)?

A good, cogent article on the physics of time travel:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/02-the-real-rules-for-time-travelers/

I first encountered this explanation of time travel in Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban, where Harry and Hermione use a Time-Turner to save Sirus and Buckbeak. (I trust that I didn't spoil the book for anyone -- and if I did, you're way behind the times!) The detail of the Time Turner chapter that I found most memorable was the thud of the executioner's axe: Harry and Hermione heard it fall in real time and assumed that Buckbeak had been beheaded; however, when they went back in time to rescue the hippogryff, they realized that the sound they'd thought was Buckbeak's decapitation was actually the executioner swinging the axe into a hunk of wood in frustration upon discovering that Buckbeak had escaped. Harry and Hermione, therefore, did not change the timeline using the Time Turner; rather, events incorporated all nonlinear parts and intersections of the timeline.

The concept of free will, as the above article notes, becomes problematic if this framework of time is true. Nature, it would seem, is more like a Greek tragedy than we Americans would like to believe. We are uncomfortable with the idea of external limits on our free will, and time is too nebulous to most of us to think its laws as insurmountable as, say, those of Newtonian physics. If we were told that our free will is limited by gravity (no matter how much we might wish to levitate through the air, we cannot), we do not find it unjust. Told that Oedipus had no choice but to kill his father and marry his mother, despite all of his attempts to escape his fate, we find his situation grossly unfair. The above description of time travel suggests that our universe operates more like Oedipus's than we'd imagined.

I believe in free will. I do. But I'd love to try time travelling -- it sounds fascinating.

St. Valentine's Day Cards from the Seven Kingdoms

This was on George R. R. Martin's blog, and just in time for St. Valentine's:

http://blog.chrisbishop.com/post/17554357179/game-of-thrones-valentine-cards

I thought they were particularly clever. If I had a decent color printer around here, I'd print them out for my fellow A Song of Ice and Fire enthusiasts. :D

Map of Top 100 SciFi & Fantasy Books

Something that Brett sent me a few weeks ago that every scifi/fantasy nerd should appreciate: 

(You'll have to click on it to see everything.)

I'm glad that there's such diversity in this map, including quite a few books that wouldn't conventionally be found in the scifi/fantasy section of the bookstore. It's also wonderful that it doesn't portray The Lord of the Rings as the founding bedrock of the genre (not to understate Tolkien's genius); there were plenty of classic novels that should be recognized as scifi/fantasy (like Frankenstein and Cat's Cradle, by Mary Shelley and Kurt Vonnegut, respectively).

Because I could not stop for Death (by Emily Dickinson)

In addition to the book list, I found time over the summer for some poetry -- both revisiting old favorites and finding some new ones. I haven't posted any poetry in a long while, so I thought I'd share this one. It's pretty well known; I first read it in middle school, I think. One of the really geeky reasons I like it is that Dickinson's characterization of Death reminds me a lot of Terry Pratchett's Death, who is perhaps my favorite Discworld character. 

Because I could not stop for Death
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me –  
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –  
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –  
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –  
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads 
Were toward Eternity – 

 The poem itself aside, there are a few small touches -- word choice, imagery, the like -- that I really enjoy in this piece. The "House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground" is great; it makes me think of hobbit holes. I like how she says that the grain is "gazing" -- not a verb one would normally associate with plants, but it recalls both the grazing of farm animals and the classic imagery of gazing at sunsets, as per the line following. And I love, love the formatting of the last line, which ends, rather than with a period (as is conventional), but with an em-dash, like the rest of the poem. The slightly unsettling, unfinished quality lends so much more power and meaning to the concept of eternity.

The Real Wonder Woman: WWII Hero Nancy Wake Dies at 98

Working with science fiction and fantasy, I see a lot of fictional heroines who kick some serious butt. They seem to be all the rage these days -- women who wield flaming swords, rescue their men from the clutches of fell beasts, and single-handedly take on the entire Dark Lord's army. Sometimes it goes overboard in its eagerness to affirm feminist ideals (culinary ability isn't the first step to subservience, really). But there is some real life precedent for all of this:

http://www.bust.com/blog/2011/08/12/the-real-wonder-woman-wwii-hero-nancy-wake-dies-at-98.html

How's that for female empowerment? (Note, of course, that the premise of her mission's success was at least partially that the enemy would categorically underestimate her based on her gender.)

The Stanford Daily: A Dance with Dragons

The review, as promised:
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/07/28/review-a-dance-with-dragons/

As you can tell, I thought it was wonderful. I've been a fan of Martin's since A Storm of Swords, which was a long time ago. (In other words, being not quite the most objective reviewer, but I expect that critics rarely ever are. That's what makes them interesting to read, half the time.)

Wall Street Journal: How to Undress a Victorian Lady in Your Next Historical Romance

I was directed to this article by a number of people, but I think Nicole sent it first (no, it's not adult content -- it's The Wall Street Journal, after all):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576443871615544338.html

I really appreciate the effort some authors expend to get the details right. Historical fiction has a lot in common with science fiction, where the technology ought to be theoretically plausible, and fantasy, where the imagined world ought to be internally consistent and realistic within its constraints -- which is why we have people like Asimov writing science fiction, people like Tolkien writing fantasy, and a bevy of actual historians writing historical fiction. It's hard to do these genres well if you don't have the background.

I have made my own period costumes, and sporadically partake in historical reenactment (and yes, I do own a corset). I do my research; Stanford's libraries are excellent for this purpose. And as I sometimes mention on this blog, I'm a history major -- but I'm still, compared to film industry costumers, an amateur. Inaccuracies in books, films, etc. bother me quite a bit, because I always find myself thinking, if I, as a hobbyist with limited resources, can get it right (or at least moreso than this film), why can't a professional crew? (Some of my friends apparently enjoy watching bad quasi-medieval action flicks with me just to watch me go off about all the things the studio got wrong. Not sure what that says about me -- or them, for that matter.)

Anyhow. A pet peeve of mine.

Time: A Dance with Dragons!

The long-awaited A Dance with Dragons is out today!

Lev Grossman reviews it for Time, here:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2081774,00.html

I'm really glad to see that it lives up to all the hype. I know a lot of people (myself included) were a bit disappointed with A Feast for Crows, but I think a lot of the problems with it were simply due to its not being a single complete volume unto itself. It and Dance are really two very intertwined halves of the same volume. So this book should make it all better.

I can't wait to start reading it after work! (My own review thereof, for The Stanford Daily, is forthcoming.)

R.I.P. Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones passed away two days ago. She was practically an institution unto herself, at least in the book world (especially in the scifi-fantasy community). She is, among writers, best known for the wonderful The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and among the rest of the world, for Howl's Moving Castle, which was turned into a Miyazaki film of the same name. She was also known for mentoring aspiring and debut writers, of which Neil Gaiman was one, back in the day. He wrote a moving eulogy for her, a much more intimate and eloquent one, which may be found here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/03/being-alive.html

A titan has fallen. She will be missed.

A Dance with Dragons Release Date Confirmed!

I just checked George R. R. Martin's blog; it comes out on July 12th -- four months away! The announcement is here:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/198534.html

I've been waiting for this book since my sophomore year of high school (when its prequel, A Feast for Crows, came out). I am now in my junior year of college -- gosh, that's a long time! I anticipate rereading all four of them in June, because I've probably forgotten so many of the details! (I'll probably do a marathon A Song of Ice and Fire reading some weekend in June.)

They're really, really awesome. They're basically the War of the Roses for scifi/fantasy nerds (a double win for medieval history buffs like me!). Although it's only fair to warn potential readers that it's brutal (one of the reasons it's so good). None of that fluffy-bunny-and-rainbows fantasy stuff. People die. In scads. Especially people we care about.

I'm excited -- and you should be too!

NYTimes: Blog Gives Superheroes and Supervillains Their Day in Court

This is a really cool concept:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/books/21lawyers.html?ref=books

I'm a fan of both urban fantasy and political theory (not as unlikely a combination as one might believe, as evidenced above), so this is awesome. I'd say, any science fiction writer, even those not operating in pseudo-real world conditions, should keep an eye on this; it should aid in creating realistic political systems, not to mention, yielding a plot bunny or two...

Also, Dr. Horrible. Need I say more?

R.I.P. Brian Jacques

He passed away three days ago. He was a bestselling children's author most famous for his iconic Redwall series, a formative part of my childhood. I've read pretty much every Redwall book that came out before 2004, and I'm sure my sister has read all the ones published afterwards. Sure, they got repetitive after a while, but I didn't notice that back then. I thought they were cute and swashbuckling and absolutely magical.

A short obituary from Locus Magazine:
http://www.locusmag.com/News/2011/02/brian-jacques-1939-2011/

In addition to his stories, he was known for his work with blind children. Indeed, he wrote many of his stories to entertain the students at Royal Wavertree School for the Blind (in Britain). Writing for the blind is said to have influenced his descriptive style.

He will be missed.

The Onion: Historians Admit to Inventing Ancient Greeks

My thanks to Lewis for sending this to me; The Onion is great!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks,18209/?utm_source=recentnews

I'm a huge fan of classical history, so I find this especially funny. I can't imagine the actual undertaking of creating this sort of cultural richness; it would be like Tolkien x 100!

I wouldn't be surprised if some people got it in their heads to actually believe all this was fabricated though, like the people who think that dinosaur fossils were planted by God or something.

Looking for McGonagall, Perhaps?

The average LOLcat is pretty inane, but occasionally, they come up with really clever ones. I thought this one was quite good:


The surprised expression on the cat's face is just perfect. And it's a black cat! You know what they say about black cats!

The Problem with World-Hopping Fantasy Novels

I've always wondered about this, actually, in the back of my mind:


http://xkcd.com/693

(Click on the image; it's a little small to read.)

Neil Gaiman's story "The Problem of Susan" addressed this in the Narnia-verse (Lewis himself touches upon the problem in the later books), but few of the subsequent Narnia-inspired world-hopping fantasy novels really deal with the problem of post-return adjustment, especially since the protagonists often spend years of their lives in these otherworlds, only to come back the same age as when they left. One would think that there would be some period of time immediately afterwards where the protagonists couldn't help acting oddly, out of habit, and were shipped off to a psychiatrist or something. (That would make an interesting story, come to think of it.)

This is a problem often found in the work of inexperienced fantasy writers; I see this sort of thing every day in the slush pile (which is, for the uninitiated, the flood of unsolicited submissions we get in the submissions inbox). Advice/food for thought for aspiring fantasy writers, from someone who reads (and judges) your submissions:

(a) What the deuce would a magical world need from some kid (it's invariably a teenager) from Earth that a native couldn't do better (and don't give me any of that "prophecy" drivel)?

(b) Why would you ever leave your admittedly ordinary life on Earth on the request of some elf-guy who randomly appears in your bedroom? How do you know they won't just bash you over the head and eat you? I've been told I'm entirely too trusting, but even I know better than to trust strangers who break into my house.

(c) What makes you think that someone didn't just slip something into your drink? If someone tells me I'm the savior of the world and makes some pretty sparkling lights, I'd assume I ate something funny, not that I needed to travel to another dimension and face the legions of the Dark Lord, or something equally preposterous.

I'd caveat that all of this can be done well. But generally, most of the people who think they can do it well really, really can't (and the ones who can and know they can are generally pretty modest about such things).

They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard

I'm a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings, but even if you're not, as long as you've seen the films, you'll find this very funny:



It's been around the internets for a while, so a lot of you have probably seen it. Still, it's worth revisiting. I watched it for probably the thousandth time tonight!