Category: Blog Page 24 of 141
Last night, thatcrazycajun made a post about his mixed feelings on the holiday season. I’ve been giving this some thought since I read it last night, because I’ve lately been of two minds about Christmas.
I love Christmas. I love the atmosphere it creates. I love winter. I love the lights, and the music, and the sheer joy that permeates every part of it. People are friendlier, and more giving, and more outwardly focused at Christmastime, and I love that.
I should note that I was raised agnostic. I’ve never had a deep, personal, spiritual relationship with the Christmas season, so my love for the holiday doesn’t have to get tangled up with how I feel about the actual implications of Christological mythology.
At the same time, I feel a little empty at Christmas, because Christmas is so very much about family, and mine isn’t here. It seems I never have the luxury of time to go and visit mine during the holidays, and even if I could, it’s been over a decade since my grandfather, the axis around which my entire family world revolved when I was a child, passed away. My cousins all have children, and have begun to spin their own family worlds, and having been absent the last 20 years, I’m not really a part of it.
Some years ago, I went to pick khaosworks up from bedlamhouse and ladyat‘s home on Christmas Day. I arrived as the family gift exchange was in full swing, and so I stood and watched a while waiting for Terence to be done. And watching it made me feel…not bad, really…but somehow that while I was certainly welcome to be there, I wasn’t really a part of what was going on. I was an observer, not a participant. And I realised at that moment what I deeply, truly, achingly missed from my own life — that sense of total belonging. I’m not entirely sure I feel it anywhere, any more.
kitanzi and I have our own little Christmas traditions. We’re low-key people, and we do low-key things. But there’s a part of me that really misses the noisy, warm, chaotic love of Christmas morning with the whole family gathered for food and gifts and running around the yard.
That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.
Our Super Secret Guest is…
Patrick Nielsen Hayden!
Patrick Nielsen Hayden is a World Fantasy and Hugo Award-winning fiction editor at TOR Books. He’s brought to our shelves amazing books by Emma Bull, John Scalzi, Charles de Lint, Ben Bova, George Alec Effinger, Cory Doctorow, Jo Walton, Susanna Clarke, Christopher Priest, Adam Stemple, Glen Cook, David Weber, David Langford, John Barnes, Robert Holdstock, George R. R. Martin, and Arthur C. Clarke. He’s also an essayist and reviewer who teaches workshops in places like Viable Paradise and both Clarions.
And…he’s also a very talented musician. Patrick plays two guitars. A Taylor acoustic (“I’m much more of a lifelong acoustic guitar player than electric.”) and a year-2000 Fender-made reproduction of a classic 1952 Telecaster. (“Faithful to a fault, it’s a commemorative edition that I bought used. The varnish on the body is nitro-cellulose, not acetylene; it’s all 1952 ingredients. The pickups are wrapped in waxed string. The biggest downside to this is the authentic 1952 sucky tuning mechanism. Otherwise it’s a gorgeous guitar, and it has that great authentic American twangy sound that all Telecasters have — in spades. The first time I played that guitar it had opinions about what kind of music it should be playing.”) He plays the electric with the Americana rock quartet, Whisperado. If we’re lucky he’ll be playing both of them here at GAFilk, and singing along with his wife, the talented editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
When considering GAFilk’s criteria of characteristics that make for a good Super Secret Guest, Patrick really stands out. He’s genial, personable, and musical. He has interesting opinions about the stories we read and the world we share, and he loves to talk about them. Plus, he’s contributed to the sf and fantasy community in ways that some people may never appreciate…but we all should. We think GAFilk will be an eye- (and ear) opener for all of us.
- Read Making Light, the Nielsen Hayden’s weblog, with contributions from James D. Macdonald, Avram Grumer, and Abi Sutherland.
- Check out his band Whisperado.
this is officially the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a month.
Yearbook Blacks Out Kids’ Eyes for Fear of Porn Potential – ParentDish
What would you do if you got your kids’ yearbook and all the eyes had been blacked out with magic marker?
Personally, I’d try to wake up. But at a school in England, the principal is very much awake and behind this whole thing. Apparently, she was so worried someone might cut out the kids’ faces, paste them on child porn pictures and post them on the Internet — yes, that’s really her concern — that she ordered the teachers to manually black out all the children’ eyes.
Let’s pause for a second to consider how lovely an illustration this is of what I call “Worst-First” thinking. That is, thinking up the worst, most perverse explanation for something first, instead of assuming a less dramatic, but far more likely, rationale.
I love stuff like this. It serves no purpose other than to make you bend your mind around the world in interesting new ways. And that’s kinda cool all by itself.
490 – Map of the World’s Countries Rearranged by Population | Strange Maps | Big Think
What if the world were rearranged so that the inhabitants of the country with the largest population would move to the country with the largest area? And the second-largest population would migrate to the second-largest country, and so on?
The result would be this disconcerting, disorienting map. In the world described by it, the differences in population density between countries would be less extreme than they are today. The world’s most densely populated country currently is Monaco, with 43,830 inhabitants/mi² (16,923 per km²) (1). On the other end of the scale is Mongolia, which is less densely populated by a factor of almost exactly 10,000, with a mere 4.4 inhabitants/mi² (1.7 per km²).
The averages per country would more closely resemble the global average of 34 per mi² (13 per km²). But those evened-out statistics would describe a very strange world indeed. The global population realignment would involve massive migrations, lead to a heap of painful demotions and triumphant promotions, and produce a few very weird new neighbourhoods.
I’d be hestiant to generalise this to all people (or even any other people) with Asperger’s , but it’s certainly a fascinating look at one individual.
What it’s like to have sex with someone with Asperger’s | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist
You think it would be really fun to have sex with me. Because, I think you can tell from my posts, I’ll do anything. But maybe you can also tell from my posts that it’s a little bit weird. Because you know that I’ll say anything, too, but sometimes, I make you cringe.
I think I’m that way in bed, too.
This post is about work. And sex, which are two of the essential areas of life one needs to be able to function in before you can feel like a normal adult. And both sex and work are governed by a set of rules that many people are able to learn just by being in the world.
It’s the Georgia Filk Convention, happening 7-9 January 2011 at the Crown Plaza Airport in Atlanta, GA.
Guest Of Honour: Seanan McGuire
Toastmaster: Matt Leger
Interfilk Guest: Howard Scrimgeour
PLUS another Super Secret Guest!
Come celebrate the fannish New Year with three days of fun, music, and friendship! We’ll have great concerts, the annual dinner dance banquet featuring Play It With Moxie, and, of course, singing until the early hours.
Membership is only $40 through November 30, 2010. (That’s tomorrow, so send in your registration today! We will announce the Super Secret Guest on Wednesday!
You can get more information about Gafilk, including online registration, at :
http://www.gafilk.org/
Hope to see you there!
(Please feel free to repost this to other appropriate communities and lists you think might be interested.)
There’s nothing shocking in this, but its nice to have some numbers.
There Is More To The Local Movement Than Just Food : TreeHugger
According to a study commissioned by Michigan’s Local First, “when West Michigan consumers choose a locally owned business over a non-local alternative, $73 of every $100 spent stays in the community. By contrast, only $43 of every $100 spent at a non-locally owned business remains in the community.” This year, a coalition of groups is promoting a holiday challenge to shop downtown and support local businesses.