I want to say that these are mammatus clouds, but my cloud spotting is not what it used to be. Or ever was. Some contrast enhancement applied because my cell phone camera sucks.

http://floggingbabel.blogspot.com/2010/01/worthy-book-i-wont-be-reviewing.html

Aqueduct Press just sent me a book for possible review which, for all its virtues, I won't be passing judgment on.  The Secret Feminist Cabal, subtitled A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms, by Helen Merrick looks to be a very smart history of feminist thought and activism in science fiction.  But the thought of writing about it makes my heart sink.

The thing is, I vividly remember the feminist upsurge in the 1970s, characterized by some extremely important works of science fiction and a number of passionate essays explaining the thinking behind the fictions.  I also remember the male response to them.  Even at the time, the worst of those responses made me cringe.  Today, looking back, even the best of them makes me . . . is there a comparative verb form of cringe?  Or a superlative?  Cringier?  Cringiest?

Part of the problem, admittedly, was that the sexual revolution was still underway at that time and so to a lot of us it seemed that being outrageously outspoken was virtuous.  (Theodore Sturgeon's "If All Men Were Brothers . . .", a thought experiment defending incest, seemed brilliant then for making its case for the unthinkable, where today it looks wrong-headed and embarrassing.)  Thus, Michael G. Coney's response to Joanna Russ's classic story "When It Changed," was to declare that it showed that the author hated him "because Joanna Russ hasn't got a prick."  SF gadfly Richard Geis titled his review of Russ's The Female Man, "Pardon Me, But Your Vagina Just Bit My Penis."

I'd like to think that even then, when I was young and a fool, I had enough sense not to write crap like that.  But what about the responses to feminism by men like Isaac Asimov or Poul Anderson or Philip K. Dick, who come across today as paternalistic and patronizing?  Back then, I only wished I could write like them.  But Merrick hangs them up to dry simply by quoting them, fairly and in context.

Worst of all (to a potential reviewer) were the men who came out wholeheartedly in favor of the feminists, and proceeded to make total asses of themselves by setting themselves up as spokesmen for the movement and then presenting overstated and condescending rehashes of observations made by women who knew what they were actually talking about.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of Herland, had a name for these guys  -- she called them "women worshippers," and it was clear that she despised the lot of them.

So, no.  I won't be reviewing The Secret Feminist Cabal.  If you're the sort of person who needs to read this book, however -- and by now you should know whether you are or not -- this is a book you really do need to read.


But if I were reviewing the book . . .

I'd point out that the index is unforgivably bad.  All the info above about Russ, Asimov, Dick, Coney, Anderson, and Geis, can be found on pages 59 through 68, which include generous quotes from Dick, Coney, and Anderson.  Asimov and Dick are not mentioned in the index at all, and of the others only Coney has a citation which will send you to this section (though not to a page mentioning him).  The entry for Russ reads:  250, 252, 254, 232.   There must surely be a simply explanation for how this foul-up happened, but damned if I can figure out what it is.

I should be doing any number of things right now, but instead...

Fucking Celebrity Rehab!

Hells Yeah!

I think I speak for all of us when I say we're so sorry for your loss of Greta, Doc.

Our thoughts are with you tonight.

Today there is another cat-shaped hole in my heart. When I die and they autopsy me, they'll surely wonder at the dozens of cat-shaped holes.

This morning we found our Greta dead behind the sofa. She was about 11, but she hadn't been sick, lethargic, anorexic, or any of the other things cats usually do to let you know they're in trouble, so I took her to the vet for a necropsy. It turned out that she had advanced cancer of the spleen, which Dr. Scott said is often asymptomatic and painless. The tumor ruptured her spleen and she bled to death sometime early this morning. I've read that bleeding out isn't a bad way to go; you're weak, then high, then gone. I hope so. At any rate, the necropsy settled my mind that we couldn't have done anything to help her and that her cause of death isn't anything that can affect the other cats.

We're having her cremated, because she always hated the cold. We got Greta from the Southern Animal Foundation, a good animal welfare group/shelter that used to be neighbors with my vet. They knew I loved black cats and asked if I'd consider taking a beautiful black kitten who was semiferal, as they knew I'd be willing to work with him. When we came to get Ivan, the kitten, they said, "Oh, you've just got to take the mother too, she loves her baby, she cries whenever we try to take him away!" So mother and son came home with us. It was winter then too, and we were living in a big old drafty house, and mother immediately abandoned her son in a downstairs closet and plopped herself down directly in front of the bedroom heater. Ever since then, we called her Crack Momma. But she was a sweet girl, jet black and beautiful, if somewhat coffee-table-shaped (she liked her food).

Ivan died after the federal levees failed and we couldn't catch him. He didn't drown, but was exposed to something poisonous, probably water. They're still the only two cats out of all the dozens I've had that I've found dead at home. It's a shock, but in Greta's case, also a little reassuring -- she didn't have to be prodded and needled, and the other cats got to see her and know what happened. They're sticking close tonight.

When I was 23 myself, it amazed me that T.S. Eliot had written "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" at 23. Now it makes more sense to me, because of the refrain "There will be time ... " Only a young person really believes that, I think.

R.I.P., Greta, 1998 (?) - 2010. We love you.

here are some pictures from the first roll of film i took with my "new" Canon AE-1 Program <3

I'm pretty sure it has a light leak :(

let me know what you think! And if you know anything about film/ film cameras...how hard is it to fix up this camera?



( more behind the cut )

Stones from the River
Ursula Hegi
Historical fiction
525 pages

Returning to Burgdorf, the small German community she memorably depicted in Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi captures the events and atmosphere in the country prior, during and after WW II. Again she has produced a powerful novel whose chilling candor and resonant moral vision serve a dramatic story. With a sure hand, Hegi evokes the patterns of small-town life, individualized here in dozens of ordinary people who display the German passion for order, obedience and conformity, enforced for centuries by rigid class differences and the strictures of the Catholic church. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, the Zwerg (dwarf) who becomes the town's librarian; (she and most of the other characters figured in the earlier book). A perennial outsider because of her deformity, Trudi exploits her gift for eliciting peoples' secrets--and often maliciously reveals them in suspenseful gossip. But when Hitler ascends to power, she protects those who have been kind to her, including two Jewish families who, despite the efforts of Trudi, her father and a few others, are fated to perish in the Holocaust. Trudi is a complex character, as damaged by her mother's madness and early death as she is by the later circumstances of her life, and she is sometimes cruel, vindictive and vengeful. It is fascinating to watch her mature, as she experiences love and loss and finds wisdom, eventually learning to live with the vast amnesia that grips formerly ardent Nazis after the war. One hopes that Hegi will continue to depict the residents of Burgdorf--Germany in microcosm--thus deepening our understanding of a time and place.

I am so glad that we picked this one for our first book club read of the new year! The only reason that I did not give this book five stars is because it seemed to drag and lag on at the beginning and end of the book. There were times that I found Trudi to be annoying, honestly. However, I do not know how it is to grow up in that time period and to be like her, so I cannot say if her reactions to people/things is wrong, but I don't think she had a heathly outlook on things all of the time. If you are into pre-WWII and holocaust survival stories, then I highly recommend this book. I am now reading another book by Hegi, Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which Trudi plays a minor role.

I normally don't remember my dreams. But this morning I had a fragment stuck in my head...

I was sitting at a table with a bunch of guys - all males, friends but I can't see them in my head - in something like a large bar, or bowling alley, or maybe (although it just occurred to me) a club - but I think a bowling alley fits the vibe better. This really short guy walks by the table, and he's got these long, huge simian/Popeye arms. He grabs me from behind with one arm, and I'm trying to pry his arm off me while he says, in a flat yet oddly urgent voice, "Robert Goldstein is coming. Robert Goldstein is coming." over and over again. I'm struggling and saying 'get your hands off me, you idiot' while he keeps saying this. I don't know a Robert Goldstein; to my (conscious) knowledge I've never heard of anyone with that name before. If I were smart, I'd google it. Odd.

Anyway, that's how I started my day.

We're supposed to be under a winter storm advisory - 3-6 inches with freezing rain. Good thing I gave in to my inner packrat and stocked up at the grocery store on Tuesday. The only thing I worry about is losing electricity, since everything is based on it. Why my mother wanted an electric stove, I'll never know... oh, that's right. She didn't like to cook. But hey, I even have the old-fashioned, non-microwave popcorn - a pot, a lid, some oil and a fire and I'm all set. Again, my biggest worry is the plants.

So, since we may lose power in a few hours, I'd better get the pot roast going and do my laundry. At least I can email from my phone if the wireless goes out ;-). And I have enough candles to read by: I'm almost done with Greg Bear's City At the End of Time, which reminds me of his Eon and Eternity (not a bad thing), then I've put a book Seamus sent me for research next into the queue; then Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint, which is like that special candy you want to hold off on until last. All de Lint books are my special treats for when I've been good... Not to mention the 347+ OTHER books on the list for first time reads... and I've a hankering to re-read some Tim Powers, too.

And I've come up with more Goals and Objectives for 2010: read more, mend more to go with moisturize more and take my vitamins (which last I'm not doing so well at. I'm going to take one right now.). There are more, of course. Percolating away.

Right. Procrastination done with.

Over by the light Rail platform.

Maude was crouched in the back of the cage again this morning, but I went for it and tried to pet her and OhMyGodThatFeelsGreat! she started making happy feet and we decided to have breakfast on my lap.

This cat's not feral.  She's currently weighing her hissy approach to life against the pleasures of human company and I think I'm winning. 

Go Me.  Go Maude.