Musings from Mâvarin

Tips for the Great AOL-J Migration

2008-10-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

Accidentally posted here (and then cross-posted on Outpost Mâvarin) because I wasn't paying attention:

Foolishly, I've made no attempt to back up my old AOL Journal Musings from Mâvarin since the announcement was made in late September that AOL Journals will cease to exist at the end of October. There were three reasons for this:

I've been too busy obsessing about the election, the dogs, etc.
Past attempts to manually transfer or save my old blog entries have been extremely time-consuming and tedious. I hesitated to renew such efforts, especially because
AOL promised that there would be a way to automatically migrate the entire blog to another service. Rumor had it that the other service in question would be Blogger, which would be both sensible and convenient.

Well, for once, I win! After a week and a half of anxious waiting for further info on how to transfer Musings onto Blogger / BlogSpot, I got the official AOL mail today, containing the all-important link to use to get started. A mere 10 minutes or so later, all 686 entries (or whatever the exact number is) of Musings were posted and published at http://musingsfrommavarin.blogspot.com/. I've done some tweaking since then, but the basic process was remarkably painless.

Since many people are probably still unfamiliar with Blogger and understandably nervous about transferring their beloved journals, I hereby offer some handy tips:

1. What you need. You must have a Google account. If you already use Blogger, iGoogle or gmail, you already have a Google account. If not, signing up is quick and painless, and can be done by following directions from the migration pages or almost any Google-related or Blogger-related screen. Your account name is whatever (real) email address you give them.

2. Don't be afraid to just do it. Copying your journal into BlogSpot using the automated setup AOL and Blogger put together does not affect your AOL Journal itself, which will still be there until October 31, 2008 (but not after). Nor does it affect any other blog you already have on BlogSpot or elsewhere. It creates a new blog, based on almost all the data in your old one. (I'll cover the exceptions further down this list.) Just click on the link in the email you got from AOL and follow the simple directions. (Note: Paul reports that this can get glitchy if you try to use the browser that part of the AOL software. Use an external browser such as Firefox instead.)

If your blog's name was unique, for example Flippy Floppy Flump (http://journals.aol.com/yourscreenname/FlippyFloppyFlump), Blogger will offer to keep that title (http://flippyfloppyflump.blogspot.com). If your title is already in use as a BlogSpot URL, you'll need to tweak the web address, but this is easy to do.

3. Almost any template will do for starters. During the migration process, you will be asked to choose a template from a short list, and will have an opportunity to preview each of the options. A template is a standard set of codes that tell Blogger the basic layout of your blog. If you see something you like, go for it. If not, just pick one you don't actively hate. Chances are excellent that you're going to change it in the next five minutes anyway.

4. Follow the directions, and Publish when offered the chance to do so. If there is a problem, check here for further info. Chances are excellent, however, that it will also go through smoothly in just a few minutes. (If you've been posting more than once a day, or long daily posts for several years, it will probably take a smidge longer.) If you're on dial-up, of course, it could take a lot longer. You may want to get the ball rolling and go do something else for a while. Once you Publish, you will see your blog in all its rescued glory. Taa-dah!

5. Ready for a new template? Your new blog will not look just like the old one, but you have many more options for making it look the way you want it. If you like the way it looks using the template you chose during migration, then great! Congratulations! If not, go to the Blogger dashboard (click on the orange B or the word Customize at the top of your blog) . From the Layout tab, choose "Pick New Template." Again you'll see a graphic list of templates to preview, but this time the selection is much greater. If you are used to posting large photos, or largish photos with text wrapped around them, I recommend Simple II at the very bottom of the list. The advantage of it is that it doesn't have a sidebar, which gives you a much wider area for your blog entries. The disadvantage is that everything you would otherwise put on a sidebar will have to go across the top or bottom of the page, or be dropped altogether. Even better is Minima Stretch, which is the format of this blog as of October 20th.

6. Describe the blog and set your settings. You know the introductory text that you had at the top of your old journal? That didn't transfer over, but it's easy to fix. Open your old AOL Journal in another tab or window, and copy the blog description. Back in the other window, go to the Settings tab of the dashboard. Under Basic is a place to paste in your blog description. Or, if you prefer, you can write a new one, or leave it out entirely.

While you're at it, go through the other settings and make any changes you want. If you don't know what a particular option means, you can always leave it on the default setting for now. One of the tabs has an About Me section, which will display on all your blogs unless you choose otherwise. This can also be copied over from AOL if you so desire. Permissions on who can read your journal (or post to it if it's a group blog), who can comment and whether they need to type in capcha letters to do it can all be managed from the Settings tab.

7. Look at the colors! Even with whatever template you selected, you're not stuck with the default colors for page background, test, borders and links. From the Layout tab, selected Fonts and Colors and make any changes you like.

Layout with sidebar.

Simple II layout with no sidebar.

8. Now, what's missing? If you had a list of links or other stuff on the sidebar, it probably didn't transfer over. This is easily fixed, but may be the most tedious and time-consuming part of the process. From the Layout tab select Page Elements. from here you can "Add a Gadget" to include linking lists, quotes, pictures, weather and other cool widgets on your sidebar, or at the top or bottom of your blog. The bad news is that if you want a list of links, you'll have to type or paste them into the gadget one by one. On the other hand, chances are your old sidebar was full of AOL-J addresses that need to be updated anyway. For Musings, I didn't add the links, on the theory that they're too stale and people can get more current ones from the Outpost. Once you've added your gadgets, use your mouse to drag and drop them in an order that makes sense to you.

9. Explore and troubleshoot. Refresh the page on your blog and look it over. Is it the way you want it? Is anything still missing that matters to you? Do the entries display adequately? Are the photos all there? Chances are that if you uploaded photos directly in AOL Journals, they will now be in Picasa, the Google photo hosting service that stores (among other things) any photos uploaded in Blogger. If something's missing, you may need to upload it again from your computer if it matters to you.

10. Decide what to do about dead links. You've probably linked to friends' AOL Journals quite a few times over the years. Now they all link to something that will no longer exist. You have four options:

Leave them alone as an archive of what used to be. It's unlikely that anyone is going to click through from that 2005 entry about that quiz you found on Sandy's* blog.
Include a sidebar on your blog with the current addresses of your friend's transferred blogs, and trust readers to male the connection.
Post a gadget or other note explaining that AOL links will no longer work, with a hint on what the updated URL probably looks like (see Tip #1 at the top of this entry).
Go through and update any links that really matter to you, such as the ones in that really popular entry from 2006 you still get comments on.

*Name chosen at random.

That's it! That wasn't nearly as bad as you thought it would be, was it? From here there are lots of things you can do to tweak and customize things further, but the tips above should get you up and running, and protect your journal's contents from total oblivion.

Let me know how it goes.

Karen

Weekend Assignment #197: Missing Words

2008-01-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

Oops! I forgot to crosspost this!

Ok, we're going to try this. John Scalzi left off with Weekend Assignment #196,so with his permission and encouragement, let's try to keep it going.Here then is Weekend Assignment #197 (numbering corrected Saturday at4:38 AM):

There's not a lot on tv these days.

Weekend Assignment #197:Now that the WGA strike has had lots of time to affect the prime timetelevision schedules, how is it affecting you as a viewer? What show doyou miss most, aside from reruns? Do you miss your weeklyappointment with that ill-behaved doctor, or your visits to WisteriaLane? Does it bother you not to laugh at fresh jokes on your favoritesitcom? Or are you just as happy watching reality shows, or newepisodes of shows that have been held back until now? We want to know!

Extra Credit: how are you spending the time instead?

Tobe honest, I don't watch much broadcast TV myself. Most of the time Iwatch DVDs instead, if anything. But even I am missing the few shows Inormally do watch. Three of them are--or were--on NBC's Monday night sflineup: Chuck, followed by Heroes, followed by Journeyman.I kind of lost track of Chuck after he fought with his beautiful C.I.A.minder once too often, but I watched the other two every week.

And much as I like Hiro and Peter and Claire, I have to say the show I miss the most that night is Journeyman. I'm a sucker for time travel shows anyway, and this one does it well. Sure, it's essentially a Quantum Leapripoff, but there are worse things to rip off--much worse. And thecharacter dynamics are interesting, as the wife struggles to cope withher frequently time-lost husband, their young son starts to catch on towhat is happening, and the traveler's brother struggles to make senseof what's happening with more mundane explanations. Good stuff!

Then there's Tuesday night. And yes, Julie, I do miss House MD, probably more than Journeyman. I think.

Andwhat do I do on Monday and Tuesday nights? Why, I spend it at thecomputer, of course, with a DVD running on one laptop and ten tabs ofFirefox open on the other!

Your turn: write up what you miss (ordon't miss) on tv these days, and come back here (or to the Outpost) and leave a link incomments. If for some reason you have trouble commenting (although itshould work for everyone, one way or another), feel free to email yourlink to mavarin at aol.com. To give time for word to spread andeveryone to play, I'll do the roundup of your links in one week, nextThursday night. Got it? Good! Thanks, folks! I know I'm no John Scalzi,but we don't have to lose his legacy, as long as some of us care enoughto keep it going!

Edit: Ihave been taken to task for not explaining what the WGA is and why itmatters. I don't want to get into the politics of it (let's just sayI'm pro-WGA and leave it at that), but here's what it's about:

WGA is the Writer's Guild of America,the folks who write the TV shows. As has been widely reported over thelast few months, they're on strike, so networks and productioncompanies are running out of new episodes of comedies and dramas. Whyit matters, aside from inconvenience to the viewer and economic impacton the entertainment industry and the New York and Californiaeconomies, is that it's a battle over writers being compensated fortheir work in new media such as Internet downloads. The result will seta precedent in determining the extent to which new tech is made part ofthe royalty pie.

Karen

*** copying over the first comment from the Outpost:***

John Scalzi said...
Hey! My first time as a participant! And I'm the first to post!

My answer is here.

Thanks for taking these up, Karen. I think you're going to do a great job.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Tags: Weekend Assignment

Your Substitute Monday Photo Shoot: What's New?

2007-12-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin: Your Substitute Monday Photo Shoot: What's New?

As you should all know by now, today (Monday, December 31st, 2007) was John Scalzi's last day blogging for AOL on By the Way.A number of people have said they were going to miss John's MondayPhoto Shoots, and a few have asked me whether anyone will be picking upthe slack, and assigning them in John's stead. MPS addict that I am,I'm willing to give it a shot. How about you?

Here's how thiswill work: I will post an entry every Monday with that week's subject.(After this week, it will be early Monday AM, not Monday night.) If youwant to join in, take your picture, post it to your blog or journal,and leave a link in the comments to the original entry here. OnThursday night, I'll do a follow-up entry just as John did, linkingback to everyone who participated. Simple, no? Then let's get started!

Your Substitute Monday Photo Shoot #1: What's New?In honor of the new year, show us something new. It can be a gift yougot over the holidays, something you gave yourself, or even somethingthat symbolizes the New Year to you. If it's new, it'll do!

Here's mine:

This is the coolest Christmas present I got this year: the 25th Anniversary Illustrated Collector's Edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxyby Douglas Adams. It's one of my favorite books of all time. It's alsoone of my favorite tv shows and spoken word records, several of myfavorite audio tapes, my very favorite radio show and my secondfavorite towel. It's not remotely my favorite film, but one can't haveeverything.

I have the text of the first Hitchhiker'sbook in several editions as it is, but this one is pretty special. It'sfull of visual reproductions of annotated scripts, behind the scenesphotos from the various productions, merchandise, flyers and fanmemorabilia. Love it! (And yes, I realize the above photo isn'tterribly good from a technical standpoint. The glare off glossy papergets me every time!)

Your turn! Take a picture of something new,post it to your blog, and come back here and leave your link. You haveuntil midnight Thursday night, when I will compile the roundup oflinks from both Musings and the Outpost. Remember, your participation or lack thereof will determinewhether there's still a Monday Photo Shoot in the weeks ahead. And ifsomeone else wants to take it over, please let me know so we cancoordinate. Thanks!

Karen

Tags: Monday Photo Shoot, What's New, Scalzi

Celebrate Him Home

2007-12-14T19:38:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin:

As we know, AOL will soon be parting company with John Scalzi, creator of the AOL Journal By the Way, the Weekend Assignments, Monday Photo Shoots, and a handful of nifty Ficlets.This is one of those "by mutual agreement" situations; AOL iscontemplating a change in direction, and Scalzi is contemplating howmuch easier it will be to meet his deadlines for writing books if he'snot busy amusing us with news of phosphorescent cats and fun games andpictures out hotel windows.

I already did my main Scalzi tribute entry, so I'm not going to go on and on about him tonight.

That's where you come in.

Areyou one of John Scalzi's many fans? Was it because of him that youfirst learned how to upload a photo or a video, or had at least onething to write about each weekend? Has By the Way or the Ficlets blogalways been a "must read" for you? As time ticks away to the end of theyear, when Scalzi's AOL contract runs out, would you like to show yourappreciation for his four years of fun and inspiration and communitybuilding, and share your favorite Scalzi memes or moments with otherreaders?

If so, we've got just the journal for you!

It's called

ScalziCelebration

and it just went live Wednesday night. Carly (whose idea this was), Stevenand I have put it together on AOL as a centralized place in which wecan all thank John Scalzi for all his good work, and leave links to ourown tributes, favorite Monday Photo Shoots, Weekend Assignments,Ficlets or other Scalzi-related fun. We've got three entries to getthings started, and we'll be adding more over the next three weeks,featuring YOUR links and tributes, plus several surprises. So click onover and see what you think. Let's gather our scattered journalingcommunity one more time, and give our Blogfather a big send-off!

Karen

Tags: AOL-J, blogging, Scalzi

Pointing at the Past

2007-05-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

Because I'm totally insane sometimes in an OCD sort of way, I've spent an hour or two today updating two Musings entries from 2004:

5/21/04

Las Vegas: The Non-Gamblers' Experience

The Sublime and the Ridiculous: LV as a SF/F Destination

Blame John Scalzi and Joe Loong. John Scalzi wrote about people using moblity scooters to get around the Las Vegas Strip, which reminded me how much fun John (Blocher) and I had walking around the place three years ago taking photos. But when I looked at my two postings about it, I saw something Joe warned us about recently: an old AOL You've Got Pictures album was displayed as a Ken Burns style Woohoo slideshow.

I actually hate the old YPG albums (too small and never worked well for me and my dial-up) and love the Ken Burnsy thing. That's not a problem for me at all. I've even put a Ken Burns Woohoo on my church's main web page. But the tiny, grainy photos in that entry, taken three years ago with a Mavica and edited with whatever I had available at the time, are not improved by scrolling lovingly across an extra-large display of the dark, low-res images. So I've deleted one photo that was especially bad, edited full size versions of eight more shots and added them in. And yes, I left it Ken Burns style. Because I don't quite trust you folks to go take a look at the original entry, here is the revised slideshow:

Hmm. It won't display for me in this entry. Stupid dial-up! I'll be interested to know whether it displays for anyone else. It could be a slow connection issue, or it could simply be the way I copied and pasted it in here. (I did get it to display when I loaded the individual entry, so it's probably a connection speed issue. YGP gets impatient with the wait while the Journals product is still loading the other pictures on the page, not to mention the darn ad.)

But all this is a silly thing to do, isn't it? These are extremely obscure journal entries, virtually unknown to the search engines and remembered only by me. When I posted those musings about our Las Vegas trip in May 2004, I only had about two or three readers. Grainy pictures aside, I wrote what I still think is a really good entry about Las Vegas becoming a viable destination for fans of scence fiction and fantasy, but nobody ever saw it or commented. And this entire journal, Musings from Mâvarin, is virtually abandoned now. So why did I bother fixing up a three year old posting in a disused journal? Um, because I could, I think. And three years later, I still hope someone will read it and leave a comment.

Karen

Tags: Las Vegas, Woohoo, photo editing, AOL-J

Remembrance of Weekend Assignments Past

2007-03-16T02:50:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin because it seems appropriate:

Stories of the Weekend Assignments

Weekend Assignment #156: Repost your favorite Weekend Assignment from the past three years. Or, if you can't choose, post the first Weekend Assignment you ever participated in.

Extra Credit: Should we keep doing the Weekend Assignments? Or after three years, should we give it a rest? Let me know; I'm curious.

When I first saw this assignment this afternoon, I thought it would be quick and easy. All I needed to do was look up Holiday Picnic with Tom and Abby and Friends, repost it, and I'd been "rolling with puppies," or whatever it is that Willow says in that one Buffy episode. Then I though I ought to actually look and see what else I've written at Scalzi's behest since June 2004. I started with a search for Weekend Assignments on Musings from Mâvarin, and never really got beyond that. After all, between the two blogs, I've written over a hundred of these things. It really wasn't possible for me to read (or even skim) all of them tonight.

But I did read or skim a bunch of them, and I found two contradictory patterns emerging:

Despite the occasional overlap, there really has been a huge variety of subject matter in Scalzi's assignments.

Despite #1, I personally tend to write responses that hook in to my own obsessions. Several times I've worked in some kind of time travel story or premise, relating to The Beatles, Disneyland, Doctor Who and certain early U.S. presidents. I've written about my novels, about books by L'Engle and others, and about friends, teachers and relatives of the past and present. And when the assignment was something that didn't interest me, such as pie, I tended to dispose of it as quickly as possible and find a tangent to carry us someplace more interesting.

That last thing under #2 led to the entry I'll be reposting tonight instead of the picnic with Thomas Jefferson. Oddly enough, it involves the same "Scalzi's clone" photo that Scalzi himself reposted today. I don't like it much, and wasn't terribly interested in captioning it, but that was the assignment that night. So I did it, and then I had an interesting conversation about it with my pirate house guest, Black Rose Katie Specks. Enjoy.

Thursday, November 3, 2005
9:17:00 PM MST
The Clone and the House Guest

John Scalzi is finally forced to admit it was a bad idea to crib
his cloning experiment from a Treehouse of Horror episode of
The Simpsons.

Extra Credit: Would you like to see more "explain what's going on in the picture" sort of assignments?

No. Not as such. There's not enough material here for writing one of my patented long entries. Yet somehow I'll manage anyway, especially with my nosy house guest asking questions!

"Tell me again who John Scalzi is," Black Rose Kate orders.

"He's AOL's designated, professional blogger," I tell her. "He's there to encourage and inspire people to post in their AOL Journals, give tips on how it's done, point the way to interesting or amusing stuff online, and generally entertain us."

"Then by what authority can he assign you to do anything?"

"Oh, it's completely voluntary. But it gives me something to write about that I might not have thought of otherwise."

"Is this something you wanted to write about, now that he's thought of it for you?" she asks pointedly.

"Not really, but I'm proud of the caption I came up with for it."

"I do not understand it. What is a clone?"

"A clone is an exact copy of a person, like a twin, but made by science instead of nature. It's been done with a sheep and other animals. Nobody's ever really cloned a human being yet, as far as we know, and a lot of people say we shouldn't even try it."

"But the monster on the left isn't an exact copy," Kate points out.

I decide not to mention that "monster" would not be a politically correct term for a "cloned American," even a wonky-looking one like Scalzi's. "That's because the premise of the photo is that the cloning experiment didn't quite work out," I explain. "It's supposed to be a joke."

"Well, I fail to see the humour in it," says Kate. "What does your caption mean, about The Simpsons? You have DVDs with that name on them. Are there clones in The Simpsons?"

"Not that I recall," I admit. "But the fake clone in the picture looks a little like the drawings of Homer Simpson in the tv show."

"There are drawings in the tv show?"

"It's nothing but drawings. You can watch some of the DVDs tomorrow if you like."

"And the treehouse of horror? What, pray tell, is that?"

"It's a series of Halloween episodes of The Simpsons, in which horrible things happen. If a cloning experiment went wrong on The Simpsons, it would probably be in a Treehouse of Horror episode."

Black Rose Kate shakes her head. "I think I have done very well so far in understanding your century; but this explanation remains unclear to me."

"It's not important," I tell her. "Nothing kills a joke faster than trying to explain it."

Kate nods thoughtfully. Then she hits me with a question that I should have expected but didn't. "Am I a clone?"

I look at her. There is no denying that Katie Specks looks enough like me that she could indeed be my clone. It is also true that she still doesn't know how she got here. I can't blame her for wondering whether she might not be who she thinks she is.

"You're not a clone," I tell her.

"Am I a twin?"

"Not of me, you aren't. Perhaps we're related."

"Aye, perhaps. Were your ancesters from England or Ireland?"

"Some of them. I used to jokingly refer to the Irish ones as Viking Irish royalty, the ones who got tired of returning north and became landed gentry instead."

"Aye, I come from the same hardy stock," says Kate. "Mayhap we are relatives. But stay, I have one more question for ye."

"What's that?"

"Am I fictional? You told people that I was a fictional character."

Uh-oh. "How do you know about that?"

"I read the emails you sent to Paul and Gem."

Poor Kate! I'll have to approach my explanation delicately. "I didn't think you would learn to use my computer so quickly," I admit.

"I find your keyboard difficult to operate, especially the keys with the letters missing. But even I can point and click with the mouse. What is your explanation, Karen?"

"What would you have me tell everyone, Kate? If I post the truth, that you're really here but we don't know why or how, people will either assume that I'm lying, or that I'm crazy, or that I'm telling a story. As a fiction writer, I'd rather they think I'm writing fiction than that I'm lying or crazy."

"You think people will not believe the plain truth?"

"That's right. People just don't turn up from centuries past, alive and well and asking questions."

Kate chuckles. "Fair enough. All right, then. We can pretend that you're spinning a yarn, an it helps you preserve your reputation."

"Thank you."

"But you should have asked me, Karen."

I nod. "Yes. Sorry."

"Aye, well, 'tis unimportant now. Tell me more about The Simpsons. Do these drawings you mention move, like the images in Buffy?"

I think I'll spare you the rest of that conversation.

Karen

Some Fictional and/or Time Travel W.A.'s:
Holiday Picnic with Tom and Abby and Friends
Not Your Usual Subscriptions
With the Beatles

Black Rose Katie Specks
An 18th Century pirate looks at the modern world.

On Halloween and Modern Life

On Technology and Fictional Pirates

On Love and Death...and Life

The Clone and the House Guest

A Pirate Incognito

Kate Weighs In

Absent Friends

Cover Me

2006-10-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of something you've made. Pottery, cookies, a drawing or painting, a poem or a pipe cleaner stick man -- it's all good, it just has to have been made by you. Show off your creativity.

First of all, John Scalzi, Carly, Steven, Pat and I want you to know you've put us in a bit of a pickle with this one. Compare your topic with the one announced this past Thursday for the next Round Robin Photo Challenge, entries to be posted on Wednesday, November 1st:

Pat (Deslily) author of the journal, "Here There And Everywhere 2nd Edition," has chosen "The Creative Side Of You" as our theme for the challenge.... Show off your creative side, by posting photos of anything you have created from scratch.

See? Pretty much the same thing, isn't it? You've kinda stolen our thunder here.

Of course we'll forgive you if you plug the Round Robin Photo Challenges. We've being doing these for a year and a half, and you haven't mentioned them yet, perhaps because we didn't ask! Well, we're asking now - nicely, even. Pretty please, beloved Blogfather? Hey, you can even be a Robin yourself if you want to!

While our favorite Campbell Award winner is mulling that over, let's get on with posting a few pictures of things I made. These are three issues of The Observer, the Quantum Leap fanzine / newsletter I used to edit. I designed all of these covers (and many others), wrote much of the stuff inside and edited the rest.

This first cover doesn't look like much, but it's from the first issue of the zine, back around Christmas 1990. It's also an almost exact replica of the cover of a report issued to members of a Senate Committee deciding the fate of Project Quantum Leap in the second season premiere episode, "Honeymoon Express."

This cover is from the fourth issue. I didn't take the photo, and I certainly didn't create or design one of the premiere news magazines of all time. But I did design this parody of their distinctive covers. It refers to a line of dialogue in the pilot episode, in which Al tells amnesiac Sam Beckett that "Time Magazine even called you 'the next Einstein.'" I sent a framed copy of this to the show's production office, back in the day.

Now we come to the best cover I ever did, certainly the most ambitious and labor-intensive. Back in 1993 I did have access to PhotoShop, unlike now, and worked on a Mac. On the other hand, it was 1993, a long time ago in terms of technology. I replaced every face, every object on the cover of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with someone or something Leapish. I had trouble photographing the glossy cover well, but you get the idea. Click on the photos for much larger versions of the Observer 9 (Number nine, number nine) cover.

The four Beatles in the center are QL creator Donald P. Bellisario, stars Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula, and writer/co-executive producer Deborah Pratt. The four waxwork Beatles to the left have been replaced by the four founders of Project Quantum Leap the club. The rest of the cover has guest stars, writers, producers, fans, a crew T-shirt, Dean Stockell's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Panasonic camera. And Look! Teresa Murray's holding a copy of Observer 4 in her waxwork hand!

If you'd like to join in on the Round Robin topic, we'll be delighted to have you! Please see the Round Robin blog for details. The posting date for entries about "The Creative Side Of You" is Wednesday, November 1st.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Photos, memes, Creative, Fanzines, Round Robin Photo, Monday Photo Shoot, Scalzi, Quantum Leap

Classic Spooky Music!

2006-10-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted, as usual, from Outpost Mâvarin (except the pictures here are bigger)....

Weekend Assignment: We're making a Halloween Music Mix! Suggest a song. The song can be scary, spooky or silly, but it should fit into Halloween somehow. All genres are acceptable; indeed, I'd be very interested to know of a country or samba song that would work.

Extra Credit: Are you spooked easily?

You know, I could swear I've written about this before, complete with posted photos of my Haunted Mansion and Buffy Once More With Feeling CDs. But Google says no. AOL Journals search says no. Actually reading titles on the Musings archive pages for 10/05 and 10/04, and looking at any entries that sound as though they might contain what I remember, I still can't find it.

Yes, well, okay, I did find my "Haunted by the Mansion" entry, but that wasn't so much about the music. I don't care. I remember writing about party music involving Disney attraction music and Buffy and Quantum Leap...oh. Okay, that's the problem. It was party music in general, or sf and fantasy party music, not specifically Disney or Halloween. Even if I still haven't found the entry. It was probably on the Outpost, anyway.

So, for the record, I'll just recap the Halloween standards around here before moving on to some other selections:

The Haunted Mansion 30th Anniversary CD. Features the entire Disneyland attraction narration and music and effects, outtakes by Paul Frees and others, a clip from the Florida one, a Vincent Price narration for Phantom Manor, and even a Japanese Ghose Host. But the main drawing card is still that great song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts," with Thurl Ravenscroft as one of the singers.

Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. I don't actually have this on CD, but I used to play the sound effects side of this Disneyland record every year when I was a teenager.

Pirates of the Caribbean CD. Same kind of deal as the Haunted Mansion one. It's not as overtly Halloween, but you gotta love Paul Frees intoning "Dead men tell no tales!" On the CD, several dead men proceed to tell tales in outtakes.

But, as I say, I've already expressed by appreciation for these recordings. Let's change the channel - literally.

The new Frigidaire

This afternoon, as I waited for the refrigerator to arrive, I turned our digital cable on to the music channel labeled "Sounds of the Season," and immediately got to hear "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon. 11 hours later, that channel is still on, on its second run through its surprisingly large Halloween playlist. I've heard three different songs by Bobby "Boris" Pickett (two of which of boringly derivative of his one real hit), soundtrack music by John Carpenter, Elvira sounding a little like Julie Brown, "Bewitched" (the tv theme) by Peggy Lee(!), a parody song called "Drac the Knife," two songs from Rocky Horror Picture Show, songs by the Ramones, the Cramps, Bing Crosby, Andrew Gold, Michael Jackson ("Thriller," of course) and whatever unknowns someone called Drew recorded on surprisingly decent cover versions of songs for Halloween party CDs. Good stuff, some of it, plus a lot of forgettable stuff, and a few clunkers, such as "Dracula's Theme from Swan Lake," in which a silly, badly acted spoken word scenario in a graveyard is combined with Tchaikovsky.

Still, classical music does deserve its rightful place on the Halloween playlist. On the Fantasia soundtrack alone (which I bought on LP back in college, and had to exchange several times due to a bad pressing) has Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the quintessential spooky organ music, plus Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain. (Actually, I was reading today that the Fantasia version of Night on Bald Mountain I know was heavily revised by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Leopold Stokowski.)

But my favorite spooky classical piece (albeit less so now than when I was a kid) has always been Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. (Listen to it here.) It's based on a medieval allegory about dancing skeletal figures from all walks of life - the rich and the poor, the powerful and the peasants - all called by Death. (Hey, these people were dealing with the Plague at the time.) I remember being exposed to this musical masterpiece back in elementary school, and even seeing a cartoon that went with it. But like that blog entry about spooky music, I can't prove that what Iremember ever existed. Yes, there's a great Disney cartoon called The Skeleton Dance, the first Silly Symphony ever made. I've even read claims that the music for that was the Danse Macabre, or, at least, that brilliant cartoon composer-arranger Carl Stalling adapted the Saint-Saens for it. But it just doesn't sound like it to me. Ah, well. Next you'll tell me there is no wooden bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland that depicts the Dance of Death on its wooden panels. But there is. I photographed it when I was 15 years old. And no, I don't have the pictures.

Extra Credit: well, I am a little spooked that I can't prove what I remember, and also that it's past 2:30 AM already!

Karen

Tags: Scalzi, Weekend Assignment, Halloween Music

MPS: Wonderful Worlds of Color

2006-10-17T21:20:00.000-07:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Turn something an unexpected color. Most photo editing software will let you fiddle with the hue of your photos: Use that feature to make your photos subject a color it would be impossible (or at least, very unlikely) for it to be in real life.

Okay. I can do that!

A canal outside Yuma.

Sand dunes near Yuma. Or is it another planet?

Any purple pumpkin eaters around? Disneyland.

Oddly enough, I've had color on my mind today. I did some work on a Wikipedia article called "The Spectrum Song," the lyrics of which begin,

Red, yellow, green, red,
Blue, blue blue,
Pink, green, brown, yellow, orange,
Red, red.

It was sung by Paul Frees as Ludwig Von Drake, in the first-ever episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. It was part of the first Von Drake cartoon, An Adventure in Color. The first half of the episode was all color this, color that, and it was all in aid of promoting the show's new name, new color format, and its move to NBC. But that's okay. It's a cute song by the Sherman Brothers. John had it on a recond as a kid. And Wonderful World of Color was my era of watching that show, back when Uncle Walt was still alive to host it.

This last shot is an experiment and a teaser for the Round Robin Photo Challenge, "Very Scary." More scary pictures tomorrow night!

Karen

Originally posted on Outpost Mâvarin, 10/17/2006 01:01:00 AM (more or less)

Technorati Tags: Monday Photo Shoot, Scalzi, Disney, Color, Photos, Wikipedia

Statistical People

2006-10-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

The people ahead of us at Disneyland, October 8, 2006

John Scalzi mentioned today the heavily-reported fact that the U.S. population officially just hit 300 million. I wrote such a long comment about this that I've decided to post it here:

When this subject comes up it always reminds me of a population counter display I saw at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Back then the count was a little over 200 million, and for years afterward that was my rule of thumb - 210 million, 214 million, 220 million...after that I lost track. I was fascinated at the time by the ticker (I was seven years old), and wanted to know how they knew that someone had been born, someone had died, someone had immigrated, someone had emigrated. The display covered all four of those factors. I think it was my brother Steve (age 14 at the time) who explained about statistics and estimates and the census.

But ever since then I've never quite believed the official count - in general, perhaps, but not specifically. Having gone door to door as an enumerator for R.L. Polk in 1977, I know that people don't always want to be counted. How do they know exactly how many people are evading the census takers? How do they know the degree of fluctuation in the birth and death rates between actual counts? So okay, yes, MAYBE the 300 millionth current American arrived today by birth, boat, plane or on foot. But more likely it's a statistical convention, and only vaguely correct. In terms of real living breathing people, the milestone may have been reached last week or last mont, or could be yet to come - and we'll never know it.

Is this milestone, such as it is, a good thing or a bad thing? Some of each, I expect. There are economic facters involved, and political ones, and sociological ones, and environmental ones. Economically, the country needs an influx of taxpayers to pay for the social security benefits of aging baby boomers. Legal immigration seems likely to fit the bill there. But sociologically, we are still fighting that same old human tendency to label people outside our own tribe as Them, and view Them with suspicion and disdain. 75 years ago it was the Irish and the Italians and the Poles who got such treatment. Now it's Mexicans and Muslims and people from India and Africa (yes, I know those categories aren't mutually exclusive). It was wrong then. It's wrong now. Being "white" is a social construct rather than a genetic one, anyway. We need to get over all these subdivisions, and deal with people as people.

The people behind us at Disneyland, October 8, 2006

Environmentally, we probably don't want to overdo things with a new population boom, but we can probably handle things if we do it right, with strict standards to curb pollution and global warming, and efficient use of land for food and well as living space. There are a number of countries with more people per square acre than we have. It's not pleasant (ask my husband, who just suffered through huge Disneyland crowds), but it can be done.

Hmm. Clearly I needed to blog this. And now I have.

I'll have my Round Robin post after midnight tonight, on the other blog.

Karen

Cross-posted:
http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags: Population, Scalzi, Ethics

E Plebneesta and the Dangerous Writers

2006-10-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

Weekend Assignment #133: Share with us a person or person who you think is a model for free speech in the United States. It can be one of the Founding Fathers, another historical personage, or someone who is living right now. Yes, this is slightly more work than the usual Weekend Assignment, but, you know. Free speech is worth it. For those of you in the UK or Canada, you can nominate someone who represent free speech in your own country, or pick someone from the US.

Extra Credit: A favorite controversial book (it doesn't have to be from an American).

I'm not up for the full-blown rant on this subject, at least not tonight. Tonight I'm just going to toss out some names and a few anecdotes, and call it a night. Maybe over the weekend I'll take the subject and run with it.

When I was in high school, the U.S. Constitution always reminded me of a silly bit in a Gene Roddenberry-penned episode of Star Trek, "The Omega Glory." It still does, really. In the episode, the Yangs would trot out a tattered American flag as their leader chanted a garbled version of the Preamble to the Constitution. "We the People of the United States" became, at least to my ears, "E Plebneesta."

And if you break it down, "E plebneesta" makes a surprising amount of sense. "E" also begins the Latin motto "E pluribus unum": "from many, one." "Plebn" could refer to plebians, or ordinary people. And "eesta" could be "ista," a (usually)plural suffix found in words like "Sandinista" or "fashionista." So "E plebneesta" becomes "From the ordinary people and their proponents." And that's pretty much what the Constitution is, the ordinary people (as represented by wealthy landowners) ceding certain rights to various branches of government, while retaining others for themselves.

Yes, I know the Preamble and the Bill of Rights are two different parts of the Constitution. I'm mentioning the E Plebneesta anyway, because to me the whole Constitution is important and sacred, its priniciples worthy of a lot more respect than certain politicians give it. So there. That's my preamble to this entry.

Thinking about the actual Bill of Rights, though, leads me to an entirely different memory, from a Weekend Assignment two years ago. The actual assignment was about which Founding Father we'd each like to hang out with. It provoked in me an account of a fictional 21st century picnic, to be attended by John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James and Dolley Madison. In my first entry, I merely mentioned the guest list and the two destinations, but the follow-up entry was a vignette in which time traveler Karen invited the Madisons to the 2004 picnic, and mentioned the Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights, image enhanced slightly for visibility

So, now that I've fictionally partied with Tom Jefferson (left), who believed that "half a loaf" of rights secured to the people was better than none, and James Madison, who wrote the Bill of Rights (partly cribbed from the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the writings of John Locke), what proponents of that all-important first amendment right of free speech do I especially admire? Well, those two guys for sure, and Samuel Adams, for starters. I really should learn more about Madison; he didn't say much during that picnic. He did mention, however, that he mostly put the Bill of Rights together to keep the newly-formed Constitutional government from collapsing in the wrangle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

More contemporary outspoken people who made a difference in my lifetime: Martin Luther King, Jr. is probably the most important one. If you're going to say things that people don't want to hear, it's helpful to have a thirst for justice, a substantive message backed up by action, and a gift for oratory. Some of those old speeches still blow me away. At a more personal level, I used to admire the heck out of George Carlin, with his infamous Seven Words. It wasn't that I actually liked or used every one of those words myself, although I did use the two biggies in those days. What I admired was Carlin's ability to satirize the folly of thinking those words, of all the words in the language, were so dangerous and harmful that they must never be broadcast.

I was going to work in a riff about Harlan Ellison here, but let's skip it.

Favorite controversial book? That's got to be A Wrinkle in Time, of course. This classic about love and faith, friendship and family, and individuals fighting evil (including enforced, mindless conformity) rates high (#22 in the 1990s) on banned book lists. It's been slipping down the charts with the advent of new targets for self-appointed censors, but it's still an important and misunderstood book. But I've already ranted that rant, at least once.

Karen

Tags: Scalzi, Weekend Assignment, Ethics, Constitution, Bill of Rights, L'Engle

Minor Exhibits at the Museum of the Weird

2006-10-03T01:35:00.000-07:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Someone in your house you probably have one (or more) bobble-head figurines. Immortalize them in photo. For this, any bobbly toy will do -- bobbly hula girls, toy animals with bobbly tails, it's all good. They just have to be bobbly somewhere along the line.

I wanted to show you our collection of 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks bobbleheads, but they're in a box somewhere. The best I can do on that front is show you this picture from a couple of years ago. Third shelf down on the left, you can just about make out a boxless Gonzo (Luis Gonzales, who just played his last game for he Diamondbacks) in front of some red and white boxes. Those boxes contain boxes of Gonzo, Schilling, Randy Johnson, Craig Counsell and others - even manager Bob Brenly.

But okay, let's try to do better with a new photo or three or four. Here are some shelves on John's side of the bed. Can you tell which of these exhibits in our personal Museum of the Weird is a bobblehead? Do you know exactly what it's supposed to be?

On the right: P-Chan from Ranma 1/2. Not a bobblehead. Neither is the vintage, politically incorrect china figurine in the middle. There it is on the left: Rat Fink! Rat Fink was a character from the 1950s and 1960s, associated with flamboyant hot rod car customizer Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. Frankly, that's about all I know on the subject. This is on John's side of the room, after all!

One more bobblehead. This is a Happy Meal toy of Stitch in his Elvis outfit. Lilo is in my cubicle at work.

Here's Stitch in his usual habitat among some other M.o.W. exhibits: Liddle Kiddles and Kiddle Kolognes, DAM trolls and Wishniks, Remco's Heidi, Jan and Spunky "pocketbook dolls," Britain's Ltd. Knight and Turk. a china poodle from the 1960s, and a china dragon bank (called Dino for obvious reasons) that I've had since seventh grade. Enough. I had less than five hours of sleep last night, and less than three hours the night before. Good night!

Karen

Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Monday Photo Shoot, Bobbleheads, Museum of the Weird

A Seldom-Seen Meme

2006-09-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

Click here for Round Robin info!

I don't mean to say by my subject line that the following meme is rare, or the concept terribly original. It's just an acknowledgment that recently I personally have been avoiding most memes other than the Round Robin Photo Challenges. Most of the time I'm not even reading other people's meme entries, especially the ones that all lists of questions and suchlike.

But I'll do this one that Paul did, partly because I like it, and partly to do the beta journals thing for Editor Jeff and the gang.

Go to your 6th journal entry: Googling for Dollars (sort of)

Write down the 6th sentence: The reporter evidently had Google in front of her also, but couldn't make sense of what she saw.

Now, give 6 links which have something to do with this journal entry and/or sentence:

Pik-Nik Electrik on Ile Ste. Helene « An Idealist’s Downward

falling down is also a gift

Ninja Tune North America Newsletter - August - News - Properly

Making Light: "I also feared she would judge my life and find it

Michelle Malkin: LOST AND FOUND?

I have to say that I'm finding it annoying that I have to do extensive editing in HTML to make Musings entries do what I want them to do. I basically never want a <P> and a bunch of extra font tags. I want to define the font once, without a lot of clutter; and <br> break tags give a lot more control and cleaner coding than the paragraphs. Ah, well.

Also, when I tried to link the name Paul to his meme entry, AOL replaced his name with the raw URL. It didn't do that with the other links, though, so perhaps I accidentally hit "paste" somehow. Phooey.

Speaking of the Round Robin Photo Challenges, the next one, "ABCs of Autumn," has a posting date of Wednesday, October 4th. The idea, courtesy of TJ, is to post Autumn-related pictures based on your first and last initials. For example, this is a Kinetic Bird (KB), a hummingbird that is still in Tucson in September. Click here for info on that particular challenge, and to RSVP if you'd like to participate. Everyone is welcome!

Karen

Tags: memes, Round Robin Photo Challenge, Google

Horsie in the Sky

2006-09-28T01:54:00.000-07:00

Sooner or later, pretty much everything technological lets you down, particularly anything to do with computers. Both AOL and Blogger have been buggy this week. Blogger doesn't want to save entries, AOL Journals for a while refused to recognize a journal's author and show the buttons for adding and editing entries, and now AOL won't show pictures I uploaded to Blogger on Monday night. Sigh. So I just uploaded all of those, plus the pictures for tonight, to http://images.mavarin.com. I used to do that all the time, because I don't much like the AOL photo uploading options, and I've had intermittent trouble uploading photos to Blogger in the past. Since switching to Firefox, I hadn't been having that problem, but now that Blogger's being unreliable again, uploading to mavarin.com seems like the sensible way to go.

End of rant.

So anyway, here are some pictures and explanations.

1. Horsie in the Sky (with Glasses)

On Monday night, I wrote about my disastrous attempt to check whether the animal hospital on 22nd St was the building with a life-sized horse on the second floor. As you may recall, I got stuck in road construction, and no, it wasn't the right building anyway. The one I was thinking of is a tack shop on Speedway near Swan. Here it is. Can you see the horse?

Tonight, shortly after sunset, I drove over to Speedway and Swan. I ended up driving around in circles for a bit, trying to find a back way on streets that don't actually go through to Speedway. Oh, well. When I got there, the store was closed and the upper room wasn't lit. All things considered, it's remarkable I managed to get these two photos to clean up even this well.

2. Natural, Saturated, Autocorrected Surrealism

With my usual obsession for playing around with sunset photos, I've come up with three versions of the exact same picture, taken tonight through the second floor window of Unnamed Largish Company. Let's compare:

The only thing I did to this one was stretch the corner a little to "straighten" the vertical bar, and crop a bit. The color and brightness values are exactly as the camera "saw" them.

Version two. I lightened the shadows a bit, and the midtones a bit less, and boosted the saturation a moderate amount. Does it look better, more natural, or more interesting, or none of the above? I can't decide.

Version Three is just Version Two with an Autocorrect applied in Microsoft Office Photo Manager. It produced colors seldom found in nature, at least in the sky. But isn't it pretty? I like those purple clouds.

Same sunset, about seven minutes later. No, wait. This was tonight. The other was last night. All I did to this shot was crop and resize.

3. Blame it on the Meat

There were a couple of minor but bizarre mishaps today that had nothing to do with technology.

First off, John has a cold - or something. He seldom takes time off when he's sick, but he did it today. Poor Johnny!

Second, Tuffy came to me this morning with one of her rear legs in the air. I knew she must really be uncomfortable, because she refused to eat a dog biscuit. I was on my way out the door to work, so I asked John to check her over. There was an ant between her toes! Poor Tuffy! She was limping even after John removed the ant, so we think the ant must have bit her. She's fine tonight, though.

Third, I was nearly to the bottom of the steps from the second floor of Unnamed Largish Company today, heading out to lunch and to make a car payment, when I fell from the penultimate step and landed flat on my face - well, on my knees and hands, really - on the floor at the bottom. Why? How? I have no idea. I didn't trip over anything, as far as I know; and my knees didn't give way, as far as I know. I'm a bit scraped and sore, but it's no big deal. Except... how the heck did I manage to fall down stairs I take every day? Poor Karen!

4. What Do You Mean, It's a Start?

I was pretty proud last night of all the work I did on the Wikipedia article about A Wind in the Door, until the head of WikiProject Novels‎ bummed me out. He went through all the L'Engle novel articles late last night, and labeled them as follows on their Talk pages:

Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Start Class? Even the one for A Wind in the Door, with all its analysis and seconary sources? I looked up what Start-Class actually means. The guideline reads as follows:

The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element such as a standard infobox. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:

a particularly useful picture or graphic
multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic
a subheading that fully treats an element of the topic
multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article

Useful to some, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers will need to find additional sources of information. The article clearly needs to be expanded.

Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage.

But...but...but...! It has a picture and an infobox, a link or two, and multiple subheadings! Way to be harsh! I thought about asking the guy why this article didn't rate at least the next step up, but it was already 2 AM by them, so I just went to bed. But...but...but...it's not fair!

Karen

Technorati Tags: Photos, Wikipedia, Personal

Why Are Both Blogs Being Mean to Me?

2006-09-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I shouldn't do this from work, but I just wanted to paste in a P.S. to the previous entry. But the Musings page insisted on calling me "Journals" instead of "Mavarin", no matter how or how many times I signed in as myself; and no editing buttons appeared. I finally found a workaround on the People Connection Blogs page, but sheesh! Doesn't AOL want me to resume posting here?

Here's what I wanted to paste in below, aside from fixing all my typos and so on. What can I say? I was tired and didn't proofread properly.

Pasted text follows:

Karen

P.S. You would think that would be the end of the struggle, but the Blogger server that hosts the Outpost was having problems last night and this morning. When I hit the "Publish Post" button, I repeatedly got a white screen that nevertheless said "Done" at the bottom (as in, "Done loading the page"). No confirming email, no entry when I refreshed the blog. Arrow back: the entry was still in the Create Post window, anyway. What a relief! I did a Save as Draft in case that helped, and the page showed a draft of the entry and also the actual entry. But the entry still wasn't there.

Finally, at Carly's suggestion, I opened the edit window in a different browser, and posted from that. There was at least a minute of the looping notice that it was 0% published. Then, oh joy! 40%! Then 100%, and I heart the new email alert sound. Success! But this morning, Betty reported that the photos, which are hosted on that same Blogger server, weren't showing up on my crossposting to Musings from Mâvarin. Darn server! Try again, Betty! They should be showing up now.- KFB

Saving this entry finally gave my editing buttons! Yay! So I got to fix the entry at last.

Karen

My Titanic Struggle to Post a Picture of a Horse

2006-09-26T02:18:00.000-07:00

Yay! I finally got my Edit buttons. See above.

Cross-posted from Outpost Mâvarin:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Horses are nice. Show us a horse picture you've taken. It can be new, or one from your files. It just needs to have a horse in it.

That doesn't sound so hard, does it? After all, at some point in my life, I must have taken at least one picture of a horse. Or I could take a new one. After all, this is Tucson, part of the fabled Old West.

Well...yes. I've taken pictures of horses before. And yes, Tucson has its place in Western history.

But no, it wasn't easy to come up with a horse photo.

Attempt #1: Invisible Horses on Tanque Verde Road

I thought it would be nice to actually take a new photo of a horse. But where could I do that, on a Monday evening in the city of Tucson? Contrary to the history and image of the place, it's been a long time since horses on the street were a common sight around here.

But there's horse property on Tanque Verde Road, between the OK Corral Steakhouse and the Catalina Highway turnoff. So after work I turned right instead of left, and headed north and east. But it was sunset, and I guess the horses were in for the night. I didn't see a single one.

Attempt #2: Horses as Business Signs

I kind of had the idea that there might at least be a life sized statue of a horse on top of the OK Corral restaurant. I looked as I drove by, on my way back from looking for the real thing. Nope. There was a life-sized steer on the roof. No horse.

Well, then, what about Trail Dust Town? They have a Museum of the Horse Soldier, and lots of Western props and artifacts. But there was a car behind me as I pulled in, and the parking lot near the museum was full. I couldn't even get a good look at the graphic at the museum entrance, let alone take a picture. No horse statue outside, either. I drove around the complex, but although there were plenty of wagons, none of them had even fake horses to pull them. Drat! I went home.

Attempt #3: The Horsie in the Window

There are two buildings in town that remind me so strongly of each other that I don't always remember which one has a full-size statue of a horse in a lit second story window. That would be a neat trick, I think, and a neat picture - a horse on the second floor!

One of the buildings is a saddle supply shop, the other an animal hospital. Both have huge windows and lit rooms on the second floor. One is a couple of lights from my home, on 22nd St. near Swan. The other is farther north, at Speedway and Swan.

So when I went to get dinner for John and myself, I made a side trip to check whether the building on 22nd is the one with the horse. Bad mistake. The road was torn up at Craycroft, with a night construction crew working. One guy was in a hole up to his waist. The only lane open in either direction was the right turn lane. I was trapped for about twenty minutes, trying to drive a few blocks and then turn around. And - you guessed it - it's not the animal hospital on 22nd that has the horse in the window. It's the saddle supply on Speedway. And I'd already delayed dinner too much to go any further out of my way, just to take that picture.

Attempt #4: Rodeo Shots at the Bar

But when I got to Chuey's, which is half sports bar, half Baja-themed mesquite grill, I thought my luck had finally changed. Some of the tv sets happened to be airing a rodeo! So while I waited for the food, I positioned myself by a likely tv set and started taking pictures. But darn it, those cowboys are fast! This was the best horse picture I got out of about eight shots I took. Mostly, I kept ending up with blurry action shots of the cowboy roping a steer on foot.

Attempt #5: Horses by Breyer

I always knew I could resort to a shot like this if I had to. Here are a couple of old, plastic Breyer horses. The mare is the exact model and color of the Breyer horse I had as a kid. The foal turned up at a yard sale years ago, stained and with legs bent out of postition. It cleaned up fairly well, and although it's not perfect I like it. But Scalzi didn't say anything about pictures of toy horses.

Attempt #6: Horses on File

So I went through the photo files on my computer. I actually don't have a lot of horse pictures on it. Not at all.

How about an "Iron Horse"? This is one of several shots I have of the locomotive at Old Tucson.

This is another Old Tucson shot. The rear end of this horse as photographed is terribly lightstruck, and you can't see the head much at all.

Attempt #7: Painting the Pony

As an experiment, I used the cloning tool on my cheap software to recolor the shaggy horse. How do you think I did? I'm not too happy with it, myself.

Attempt #8: A Photo of a Photo

My scanner has apparently died since I unplugged it recently, so that John could clean it and use it (he did neither). When I click on the scanner icon, it crashes the software. So if I want to show you a physical picture taken 20 years ago, I have to find a way to photograph the photograph without the image getting too flashed out or skewed.

It took a while - three mini-photo sessions and about a dozen shots - but with the right arrangement, careful cropping and some photo editing, I finally came up with a picture that's not too, too terrible. I took this a few seconds before I got a much closer, better picture of the dog on the horse. I won second or third place once in a photography contest with that one, but I've used it in a Scalzi assignment at least once before. So we'll settle for the prequel.

And that will have to do. Good night!

Karen

Wednesday night: now the photos aren't showing up for me (except the Breyer one; go figure). AOL and Blogger (the latter is where the photos were uploaded) aren't talking to each other, seemingly. So I just uploaded them to mavarin.com instead. Here's hoping!

Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Monday Photo Shoot, Horses

Orange and Blue...and a Certain Pirate's Flag

2006-09-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

Crossposted from Outpost Mâvarin:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Post a picture that focuses on the contrast between two opposing colors. What colors are opposites? Green and red are opposites, as are blue and yellow, and orange and purple. So a picture that has something purple in front of something orange would work, or a picture that features blue and yellow in alternating stripes. The subject of the pictures could be anything you like -- but there have to be opposing colors in there.

Seems to me that "opposite" colors should be complimentary - two colors that between them contain each of the three primary colors---red, yellow, and blue--exactly once. That means red and (yellow+blue=green), blue and (red+yellow=orange), and yellow and (red+blue=purple).

Then there are the RGB (red/green/blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color systems, but those confuse me, no matter how many times John explains them. So we'll stick with what I learned in school at age 8 or so.

The color combination I chose is blue and orange. Actually, I mostly ended up with turquoise and orange, because we have a lot of turquoise colored items around here. It's a midcentury modern kind of color. Close enough, right?

You probably can't tell, but the orange plastic tumbler here is a tiki cup. I got it for John at K-Mart a year or two ago. The Diet Orange Crush is something I drink a lot of in the evenings, especially in summer.

Here are the tiki tumblers in their native habitat, behind the Fiestaware butter dish in the sideboard.

This is a slightly bluer blue, and an oranger orange. Being an organic Valencia, though, this orange is less orange than many oranges.

And let's finish off with a different color combination: red and green. Aye, I be hoisting the colors of bonny Black Rose Katie Specks, in case the wench turns up for Talk Like a Pirate Day! Mind ye, I've no guarantee she'll sail into landlocked Tucson any time soon. Still, an ye have a question for her, and mayhap I see her, 'tis certain I'll be passing it on!

Karen

Black Rose Katie Specks
An 18th Century pirate looks at the modern world.

Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Monday Photo Shoot, Pirates, Colors

Fake Sunsets, and Words on Hold

2006-09-18T01:30:00.000-07:00

Crossposted from Outpost Mâvarin:

Is this the single dullest sunset photo you've ever seen? It's certainly the dullest one I've posted. This was sunset in Tucson tonight. Granted, sunset was almost over by this point: I came outside too late to catch much color digitally. The main cause, though is the fact that the monsoon is apparently over. See? No clouds. There haven't been any clouds in a few days now. There probably won't be any significant clouds again until January. Without clouds, sunsets in my neighborhood are sure to be dull, dull dull. The only to make Tucson sunsets interesting this time of year is to be somewhere at sunset that offers an interesting horizon, such as mountains, or saguaros, or the airplane graveyard.

Or...

I can show you a leftover image from a past sunset. Such as this one. I think this particular shot is pretty much as photographed, except for an autocorrect, which changed it very little.

Or this one. I did boost the saturation on this one, trying to recreate what my eyes saw. If I didn't tell you this, would the photo be a "lie"?

Or...

What if I stuck with tonight's photos, and played with those?

This one issimply an autocorrect. It didn't give us any color but blue, though.

But how about this one? I cropped it, boosted the heck out of the saturation, and changed the hue.

Too much? Then how about this one?

Ooh. Ahh. Same shot, not cropped, autocorrected, saturated, contrast up, hue changed but not much.

If I didn't tell you all that, would you believe that's what I saw in the Tucson sky tonight? It wasn't. Reality was blue, with just a hint of color down at the bottom of the sky. Dull, dull, dull.

So, is it wrong to take a colorless sky and make it pretty? Is it wrong to take a pretty sky and make it spectacular? Beats me.

*****

What the heck have I done all day? It's over now, and I keep trying to account for all the hours. This morning's church ran into the afternoon, so that's part of it. The Mass itself wasn't much longer, but our church administrator, Alicia, retired, and coffee hour was her party. My friends Kevin and Mary and I stayed until the very very end, as Father Smith was locking up. Then Kevin and I chatted with Mary in the church and in the parking lot, and after that Kevin and I went to Barnes & Noble. Dang! I meant to do something special for him to commemorate his turning 40, but I forgot. I'll have to make it up to him.

Anyway, Alicia was given flowers, and I photographed her and her replacement, and some prayer shawls that were blessed during church, and lots of other stuff. Most of those shots are to be posted on the St. Michael's blog this week, but maybe I'll show you one or two of them another time.

So that took me up to 2 PM. I came home from B&N with a L'Engle paperback of A Wind in the Door so I don't mess up my hardback any further, rereading it. I'm almost halfway through the book now. Other than that, I watched some tv, and went shopping with John, and read a few blogs but not many.

The other thing I did, though, was finish editing Chapter Five and start on Chapter Six of Mages of Mâvarin. Tonight I posed a question to Sara (not Sarah, although I'd like her opinion, too) about whether a scene between Rutana and Talber is essential to the story. It's such a long book that maybe I shouldn't keep this character piece, even though it sets up several things for later. Then shortly after that bit, there's a "stub" of a scene on page 174 that's two paragraphs long, followed by a note in red ink. It reads, in part:

[Darsuma experiments with magic to try to find out what’s wrong. .... Need some big impressive spell, and eventual destruction of the necklace.]

So now I either have to cut the scene or write it. There may be some sitting in restaurants in my future, trying to get that done.

I opened up the fiction blog tonight to write the next entry of The Jace Letters, but I'm just not up to it tonight. I haven't slept well this weekend, and I'm not quite over this cold yet. It's just going to have to wait for Monday night.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Sunsets, Writing, Tucson

Fascinating Tucson, Part Two

2006-08-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

For the other three parts of this (one in Musings, two at the Outpost, click below:

Outpost: Intro, Climate

In Musings: The Desert

Outpost: History and Culture

This is going to be a "fast and dirty" entry so that I can go to bed. Tucson is surrounded by four sets of mountains:

North: The Catalinas.

This is where Mount Lemmon is, with Summerhaven at the top. My very first Round Robin Photo Challenges entry was a series on a trip up Mount Lemmon. (Speaking of which, the next Round Robin topic is "Nostalgia." Click the link for details.)

Here is a shot at Molino Basin, about a quarter of the way up Mt. Lemmon Highway. The habitats at different elevations are called "sky islands," because they represent distinct ecosystems that are separate from surrounding areas. You'll find different species of birds among the aspen pines beyond Summerhaven than what you'll see in the trees at Molino.

Fascinating Tucson, Part One

2006-08-25T03:02:00.000-07:00

Your Weekend Assignment #126: What is the most interesting thing about where you live? "Thing" in this case would be a famous landmark, a famous current celebrity or historical personage from your home town or county, a notable celebration or sports event -- basically, anything that makes where you're from interesting and unique.

Extra Credit: Are there any books that feature your home town (or someplace nearby) in any way?

THE most interesting thing about Tucson? I don't think I can pick one thing. (Big surprise, huh?) I will tell you right off the bat that it's not Flandrau Planetarium, the Diamondback bridge or the statue of Padre Kino. Nor is it the fact that Lee Marvin lived here, John Dillinger was once captured here and Linda McCartney died here. Some Tucsonans might point to the University of Arizona basketball team, but I don't watch basketball. The Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is the largest in the country, but I don't care. No, no. None of the suggested ways for a place to be interesting are even in the running as reasons I find Tucson interesting.

As far as I'm concerned, Tucson is most notable for the following:

The desert, including the critters, the cacti, the washes, etc.
The mountains that surround the city
The climate, so different from the Syracuse weather I grew up with
The history and culture of the place

As an experiment, I'm going to write about two of these at the Outpost, and the other two in Musings. Each of the bullet points above will have its own entry, one per blog per night.

The Desert

When we first came to Tucson in 1986, we fell in love with the desert here. It was full of interesting new birds like pyrrhuloxias and phainopeplas, curve-billed thrashers (like the one shown here) and brown towhees, and fun mammals such as coyotes and javalinas. We learned about rivers that only have visible water when it rains, and riparian habitats where water supports trees and certain kinds of birds. We found out that a palo verde is a tree with green bark and yellow blossoms, and how an ocotillo looks very different during a rainy season (such as the monsoon) than the rest of the year. And we learned that when it starts to rain at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, getting under a ramada may not protect you much. A ramada is basically a roof for providing shade, and sometimes it's made of saguaro ribs (the sticks inside a saguaro cactus that hold it up) laid side by side. That's good for shade, but it doesn't do much to block precipitation, when there is any.

A very green patch of desert in March 2004, across from the Target on Grant Rd.

Yeah, we liked the desert a lot. About two weeks after we got here, we bought a house in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains, where the desert was in our back yard. We had saguaros and sagebrush and palo verde trees, coyotes and tortoises and javalinas and over 50 species of birds. I like the house we're in now, but I really miss having the desert out my door.

Toward the bottom of Mount Lemmon, March 2005

On the Outpost: Climate

Tomorrow night: Mountains.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Weekend Assignment, Desert, Monsoon, Tucson

Silly Self Portraits

2006-08-22T01:10:00.000-07:00

In honor of AOL-J Land's three-year Anniversary (and yes, I know I'm late), I'm going to revive this journal, the first blog I ever had, and post the Monday Photo Shoot here, seeing as how I never did actually leave AOL. I'm still paying for it, and will continue to do so until we get the computers networked to the cable modem. Despite my angry words of nine months ago, I may as well get some use out of poor old Musings. So: here we go! This week it's from Joe instead of John:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a photo that shows you with your camera. A mirror or other reflective surface would probably help here.

Also, tell us a little about your camera, and how you use it.

Self Portrait, Take One

Same photo, crayon effect, color boosted and midtones lightened.

Color saturated, high contrast

Spiral effect

Whirlpool effect

Take Two: no flash

Ghoul effect. A moldy oldie from 2004.

Dalek effect. August 2005.

Since you ask, Joe, I'm pretty hard on my camera, and use it almost daily. The lens cover doesn't close well and I have no case for it, but I put it in my pocket or my purse anyway. I'm sure the motor on the lens and whatever is supposed to open the iris have been messed up since I got the camera in early March, but it's been getting worse. A good cleaning might help - a little. It's a Nikon Coolpix P1, with 8.0 megapixels, a 3.5x zoom (which didn't work as of yesterday), and WiFi, which is more than my computer has. I researched this camera when my Canon broke. It would have been a great deal, had it not been defective. I didn't want to believe there was something wrong with the camera until it was too late to return it. Darn it.

The ghoul shot shows the Sony Mavica, which was our first digital camera. One of the reasons it's so big, aside from the fact that it's a fairly early digital, is that it stores its photos on - wait for it - floppy disks! If I send off the Nikon for servicing, that's what I'll be stuck with for a camera until I get the Nikon back.

The Dalek shot (the Dalek covers up the camera) was taken with the Canon, the one that doesat the end of February. It was a good camera while it lasted, but then it started freezing up, and suddenly it was gone.

Karen

See also: My Year In and Out of J-Land
Tags: monday photo shoot, self portraits

Small Favors

2005-12-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

AOL's "charset" fix has been installed, so I can finally display this word properly again:

Mâvarin

Do I feel better now?

No, not much. I could probably live with the ads, if they stayed above the little line, and if that were the only problem. But it's not. There's always some new annoyance.

I'm thinking seriously about investing the hundreds of hours of work needed to port my home page, my Madeleine L'Engle pages, etc. over to www.mavarin.com, and over 500 Musings entries to Outpost Mâvarin. Then I'd need to prod husband John to get me on his Cox connection. That would enable me to cancel AOL. Heck, I've only been here since 1993. That's a quarter of the time I've been on this planet.

Is it any wonder that leaving AOL is hard for me?

Karen

****Yeah, yeah. I haven't actually left AOL yet, for a number of reasons, but I don't post here anymore. I'm just adding a couple of photos here to make sure I'm giving someone correct directions on how to do it. I'm out of practice!

Journal Reader's Digest

2005-11-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

As usual, the following journal entry is not an endorsement of whatever ad may be shown above it.

Just when you think I've abandoned Musings entirely, here I am with another entry. I just thought I'd bring you up to date with a little promo of what I've been reading and writing this past week.

1. The AOL banners controversy rages on.

Despite my frequent homilies about how this should not be a battle between factions of journalers, those who stay and those who go, there are still rather extreme expressions of anger here and there, many of them directed at the wrong people. This situation is not the fault of any journaler, John or Joe, or even the advertisers. This is a decision that AOL's execs made.

People are legitimately angry for a whole host of reasons, some of them going back months or years; and other people legitimately don't see what all the fuss is about. Some people are so convinced that their point of view is the only one that they feel the need to attack anyone who disagrees. There's probably a fair bit of natural aggressiveness in some cases, seizing on the opportunity to wreak havoc.

The result is that the same little battles between journalers, and factions of journalers, that have always been part of J-Land, now have a new excuse to exist. Is this community? Is this the spirit of J-Land? I don't think so, but that kind of useless, destructive behavior has always existed, and will continue to exist.

It's up to the rest of us to maintain the positive qualities of the J-Land legacy, on and off AOL itself. Remember, as I keep saying, and many others keep saying, it's only a web address. An interesting journal or blog is no less so if it does or does not have .aol or .blogspot (or something else) in the name.

2. AOL's Spin Doctor:

I read three very similar articles this week in the semi-mainstream press (led by The Washington Post) about the journal ads controversy. I'm not going to bother with links; I'm sure you can find them easily, and probably have already done so. What strikes me about all three is that they reported a claim from an AOL press liaison that only "several dozen" people had complained. None of the articles even suggested that this number might be understated. Shame on them! I saw a listing today of nearly 70 ex-AOL blogs, and I know for a fact that the list is incompete. Add to that all the people who complained but did not actually leave, and it adds up to a heck of a lot more than 36 people. I'd love to know what the real numbers are. It still sounds like a tiny number compared to the many thousands of AOL Journals in existence, but there are two mitigating factors: 1) many of those journals, probably at least half, are abandoned or largely inactive, and 2) it is a truism in p.r. generally that for everyone who bothers to complain about anything to a company, there are probably ten others who are griping in private to friends and family.

3. Am I Playing To An Empty House?

This being Saturday night, I've posted my latest fiction entry over on Messages from Mavarin: Heirs of Mavarin, Chapter One, Part Three. (Rats. I just went to the trouble of putting in the accents, only to take them out again because of AOL's nonstandard characters glitch.) Messages has been my fiction-only blog since June, 2004, so it continues to be the logical place to post my fiction entries.

I used to cross-post them here, but I cannot, will not do so while this accent glitch continues. Chances are excellent that I will never post fiction on AOL again. What a sad end to my brief co-reign as the VIVI winner for best fiction/poetry journal! I can't even add the graphic for that to my sidebar here, because to do so would mean losing my last remaining properly-spelled use of the word Mavarin. Drat.

Anyway, the point of this rant is that I would be grateful if you would continue to read my fiction anyway, on the same blog where it's always been--even if it does have blogspot in the URL. And if you do, please leave me a comment, will you? I'm currently serializing the first two chapters of my first novel, my best, most polished piece of fiction to date, thirty years in the making, literally my life's work. If nobody cares enough to even read it, I may just curl up and die. And you don't want that, do you? Well, do you?

Karen

http://outmavarin.blogspot.com - main blog

http://mavarin.blogspot.com - fiction blog.

A Blogger's Pop Quiz

2005-11-20T21:05:00.000-08:00

* This journal does not endorse the advertisements at the top of this page. *

No, wait. This is interesting. The current ad is a drug company pledging matching donations to fight HIV/AIDS. I DO support that, but I don't necessarily endorse the drug the company is advertising at the same time.

Cross-posted from Outpost Mavarin, so that as many people will see it as possible:

Here's a short math quiz for you.

1. You have ten friends in J-Land, each of whom has an AOL Journal. Then AOL places banner ads on those journals without prior notice, and releases a buggy "upgrade" that makes it nearly impossible to post without taking heroic measures. Within the week,

Three of your friends continue to blog on AOL exclusively.

Three more set up Blogger accounts but also keep their AOL Journals going with occasional posts, mostly griping about AOL.

Three switch to Blogspot entirely, either letting their AOL Journals lie fallow or taking them private with no readers.

One is so upset with the diaspora and ongoing technical difficulties that he stops posting entirely.

How many of these people have betrayed you?
a) Six
b) Four
c) Three
d) One
e) Zero

2. You learn that someone has been harrassing the three people who stuck with AOL exclusively, and that someone else is harrassing the three who switched to Blogspot exclusively. Meanwhile, of the three people who had blogs on both services, one decides to go back to AOL for most of her blogging, one decides to keep both blogs going indefinitely, and one decides it's time to make the switch to Blogspot for everything. How many of these people are doing something wrong?

a) Five
b) Four
c) Three
d) Two
e) One

Answers:
1. e) Zero. None of these people are doing anything to you. They are merely trying to make the best of a difficult situation. All anyone has really cost you is the convenience of AOL Alerts. And we all know how buggy those have been lately!

2. d) Two. Nobody should be harrassing anyone. The rest are just trying to get on with their lives and blogs.

I've been reading all weekend of people giving each other grief for leaving AOL or not leaving AOL. I've also read a few reports that some people are feeling betrayed by journalers who left AOL, and refuse to read their new blogs on other services. Come on, people! it's only a web address! There is no need for an Us and Them mentality here. If we continue to read and comment (without rancor) on each other's blogs, write the best entries we can, and post our best pictures, then we still have a community. And that's what we all want, isn't it?

Karen

2005-11-17T23:01:00.000-08:00

A reminder - I do NOT condone or support theadvertisement found above this entry - whatever it is. Nuts to B of A,Quisno's and the rest.

This may be "cheating," but I'm just generating an alert here to tell you I did the Weekend Assignment there. I've been blogging a couple of times a day - are you keeping up?

Karen
Outpost Mavarin - my new main blog
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Messages from Mavarin (for my Saturday fiction entry)
http://mavarin.blogspot.com

Interesting - now I can't even reach the subject line after the fact.

More Ruination

2005-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

Now even the title of thisjournal is ruined, and I can't get to the subject line of thisentry. (I got to it on Edit Entry afterward.)

I'm. Very. Angry.

The heck with this! Come see me at

http://outmavarin.blogspot.com/

where the word Mavarin is still spelled correctly. I'm still posting (at least) daily there.

Karen

Exile to Outpost Mavarin

2005-11-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hey,I had plans for tonight's entry. They weren't great plans, butstill, they were plans. I wanted to do a photo essay aboutSleeping Beauty's Castle and Cinderella's castle, the history of bothand the differences between them. Instead, I'm at the relativelycalm center or a maelstrom of mercantilism, marauders, malfeasance andmishaps.

If you've been on any AOL Journals at all today, you know about the major controversy du jour. AOL added banner ads to the journals of paid subscribersovernight. People are livid about this. There have beenover 100 comments to a By the Way entry asking for feedback,nearly all of them outraged. Becky has gone on strike, Carly hasmade her journals inaccessible, and lots and lots of journalers havechanged their journal names, descriptions and About Me descriptions inprotest. Even AOL's biggest booster, Vivian, after whom the VIVI Awardswere named, has filled her journal with the red of anger and manyrepetitions of a single sentence.

Many journalers are diverting traffic to non-AOL blogs--or will be,once they get them up and running. I'm one of them. UntilAOL relents, if ever, my main blog will be OutpostMavarin at http://outmavarin.blogspot.com. It's not set up just the way I like it, with all the links and stuff,but many of those links are likely to change anyway, because of AOL'spoor business decision. Eventually I'll get it under control - orI'll be back here. Maybe I'm naive, but I think AOLunderestimated the reaction to this, and will step back from theprecipice. If not, well, it's been real, froods. Either way, Musingswill stay live for now, so that you can still follow the links and readthe 500+ back entries. Archiving and reposting all that is gonnabe a heck of a lot of work!

Personally, I'm not all that upset about the banner ads. Thisshould have been a predictable response to AOL's shrinking subscriberbase. What I resent is that AOL didn't take into account the factthat adding such things, without warning, without an opt-out, withoutsubscriber input, without a choice, would irretrievably damage thecompany's relationship with the active journalers, the very peoplewhose efforts made AOL an attractive venue. Add to that the majorglitches that accompanied this dubious enhancement, and we've got theingredients for wrecking over two years of J-Land community building inless than a day.

But that's not the only bad thing to happen in the last 24 hours. Not by a long shot. Also:

1. My friend and co-worker had her house broken into - in MYneighborhood! There was nothing valuable there except lots ofpapers to go through for identity theft purposes. Judging fromthe fact that the papers had been disturbed, that was indeed thepurpose of the break-in.

2. Another co-worker reported today that her daughter was in a caraccident last night. She wasn't hurt, but the vehicle wasundrivable. She waited four house for the police to show, gave upand went home to her baby--and then the cops complained about this. This isthe same co-worker who is waiting to return to her house after a firein September.

3. On my way back from lunch, I assed a five car pile-up on Wilmot, notfar from the infamous intersection where I take my life in my handsevery day, trying to cross the street between my car and my office.

4. Yet another co-worker had her vehicle stolen today from a parking lot near that same intersection.

Does that give you any perspective, folks? These banner ads inand of themselves are a mere blip, compared to the stuff that reallycounts. The community that's being lost here - now, that counts,but that doesn't seem to be fixable except by AOL.

That's it for me for here for now. Come see me in my new digs.

Karen

P.S. Okay, now I am ticked off. The word Mavarin,with the accent, worked in the Other Journals section - untiltonight! Now it comes out MÃÂ¢varin, both there and in this entry. Aargh!

Main blog: OutpostMavarin

Fiction blog: Messages fromMavarin

LiveJournal:memes, writing process, personal: Mavarinand Other Inspirations

If you have a new non-AOL blog, please leave a link! I'll add you to the Outpost sidebar. And if you're sitting on the sidelines right now, come see an idea I've cooked up to help. - KFB

Happy Anniversary to Two Landmarks!

2005-11-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Display a picture you're taken of a famous man-made landmark. Significant buildings, big statues, great walls (particularly in China) -- it people put it together, it counts.

In my usual overboard way, I'm going to do this twice, with two landmarks. #1 is kind of a picture-taking cliché, but I've got some unusual shots of it. #2 might be a bit of a surprise coming from me.

#1: Hey, it's Sleeping Beauty's Castle! But it looks different, somehow!

Although the Matterhorn, Space Mountain and even the Haunted Mansion are instantly recognizable for Disney fans around the world, Disneyland's most famous landmark is Sleeping Beauty's Castle. This is the castle that Tinker Bell lit with fireworks for many years on tv; real fireworks still go off behind it most nights. All the shots here are from September, 2005, but I could easily have added photos from the 1980s and 1990s.

Sleeping Beauty Castle stands at the end of Main Street USA, just past the park with its bronze statue of Walt and Mickey. Through the archway is Fantasyland. The drawbridge has only been opened twice in the castle's 50-year history: at the park's grand opening in July 1955, and at the rededication of Fantasyland in 1983 after major upgrades to the rides there. On that occasion, according to one source, the drawbridge didn't quite go up all the way.

For the 50th Anniversary, the castle has gotten a major makeover. Banners have been hung, the fresh paint includes gold leaf trim, and seven crowns have been added, each representing one of the Disney Princesses. The coat of arms under the 50th Anniversary Ears logo is the Disney family crest.

Here's another angle - looking up! The castle is only 77 feet tall, but uses tricks of perspective to appear taller.

The castle is photographed almost as often at night as in the daytime. No fireworks at that moment though. Sorry!

Here's a much less celebrated view of the castle, as seen from Fantasyland. The other castle on the right is the entrance to Snow White's Scary Adventure. When the park first opened, this and other Fantasyland "dark rides" had only flat, painted facades. These days, they look like real castles and manor houses, with lots of fun details for those who pay attention to such things.

2. The Gateway Arch, St. Louis, March 1986

When John and I wandered the country in early 1986, one of our stops was in St. Louis for a Star Trek convention and to see the sights. This first photo, which may have been taken by John rather than me, is a little misleading. Although it's in a park, the Arch is not in the middle of nowhere by any means. We have photos of it behind downtown buildings (including our hotel, I think). On the other side of the Arch is the mighty Mississippi itself, with riverboats docked there, including, as of 1986, a riverboat McDonald's. Nevertheless, it's a very cool thing.

This one was definitely taken by me. John gets vertigo looking up at tall structures like this, but I had fun looking at it from different angles, and taking a few pictures. I even took a tram ride inside the thing! I was a little claustrophobic, but it wasn't unbearable. The property includes a museum about westward espansion from St. Louis, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and states added through 1900. I was a little surprised that Arizona wasn't there, but I shouldn't have been. It's the 48th state!

This is my favorite shot. It looks very futuristic from that angle, like something from a World's Fair. This makes sense, because the Arch was completed in 1965, right after the second New York World's Fair. The Gateway Arch celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

*******

Good news: the roofers showed up today to do more work on the roof. They haven't forgotten to finish the job after all!

Karen

Supplemental Reading

2005-11-13T22:23:00.000-08:00

If you don't want to read about issues related to the writing of fantasy novels, you can skip to the pictures at the bottom of this entry. But I hope that you don't!

Becky asks,

Have you thought about writing a forward? A little something to explain the government, religion and political climate of Mâvarin? I've been curious all through the first book and into the second about what things like "Moneldu, 5th Day of Dortem, 896 MMY" really mean. This is just one of many comments and questions I have.

When I was seventeen years old, about the same time I first found Rani up in the beech tree, I loved to pore over the maps, character lists and end notes in Lord of the Rings, the Pern books and whatever else I was reading at the time. I can't say I read every word of Tolkien's 134 pages of appendices at the end of The Return of the King, but I probably came close; and I consulted McCaffrey's maps and lists often.

So as I started work on The Tengrim Sword, as I called my novel back then, I was thoroughly aware how cool it could be - and how useful - to have lots of supplementary material for a book like that. I commissioned my next door neighbor, Susan Keeter, to draw a map of Mâvarin, and I wrote an explanation of the Mâvarinû language, noting in passing that if it looked like a rabbit, I would call it a rabbit in the text, even though the rabbit was green. I later decided that it was stupid to make the rabbits green, and established that with very few exceptions, the flora and fauna of Mâvarin are identical to those of the eastern United States. It is, after all, an alternate universe version of the same place. I myself grew up in Liftlabeth, but in my version of reality it's called Manlius, NY.

Beyond my character list and notes about the language, however, I largely shied away from writing too many appendices and such, largely for the same reason I didn't call a selmûn an elf. (A selmûn is fully human, does not have pointed ears, and does not live for centuries.) I didn't want my Mâvarin book to be an imitation of Tolkien. If I sent off a manuscript with a foreword, a map, and six appendices, I would be sure to look like a fannish copycat with no original ideas of her own.

So for thirty years, I've mostly kept my additional notes to myself. I've posted notes on my web site about the religion and magic of Mâvarin, and my beta readers get my character list, with over 250 named characters. But they don't get my list of inns, my crib sheet of important dates in Fayubi's and the country's history (a file called FabiTime), or the following notes for figuring out the date of any given incident in Mâvarin history:

Nishmudu = Nishmû’s Day ≈ Sunday
Masheldu = Mâshela’s Day ≈ Monday
Thaledu = Thâle’s Day ≈ Tuesday
Umvardu = Trinity Day ≈ Wednesday
Moneldu = Unity Day ≈ Thursday
Comerdu = Market Day ≈ Friday
Sabedu = Rest Day ≈ Saturday

Genorem ≈ January
Fredor ≈ February
Terchem ≈ March
Ranonem ≈ April
Sipadem ≈ May
Bupek ≈ June
Dortem ≈ July
Ogorem ≈ August
Mudelem ≈ September
Aterem ≈ October
Nefilem ≈ November
Celderem ≈ December

Nishmudu, 5th Day of Genorem, 881 MMY = Rani is born
= Sunday, January 5th, 1986
next day: Masheldu, 6th Day of Genorem, 881 MMY

Masheldu, 10th Day of Fredor, 881 MMY = Jor, twins kidnapped.
=Monday, February 10th, 1986

Comerdu, 14th Day of Fredor, 881 MMY = Jamek arrives in Liftlabeth with the twins.

So what's all this Comerdu jazz? Why not just say, Wednesday, June 15th, 1582?

Well, I'll tell you. The single most important event in the history of Mâvarin and Mâton was their founding, 880 years before Rani was born. Shortly after that, all contact with Londer and Parsi was lost. Naturally, the people of the new countries would number their years from the Founding: Mâvarin / Mâton Years, or MMY. (Let's just glide over the fact that their word for year may not begin with a Y, and that their alphabet is probably not our alphabet. I can't write the whole book in Mâvarinû, can I? I've got to draw the line somewhere, so that people, including myself, can read and understand the thing!)

That's the explanation of the year part of the dating. As for the months, they are not going to have a month called July, because their calendar is not a revision of one devised in the reign of Julius Caesar. The ancestors of the Mâvarinû never worshiped Woden (Odin) and Thor, so they won't have a Wednesday (Woden's Day) or Thursday (Thor's Day). No, their weekdays will be largely based on their own religion, and their month names will have to do with seasons and traditions and such.

All that said, I've thought seriously of leaving the date headings out of the novel manuscripts themselves. I retain them mostly to help me keep my continuity straight, as I juggle three or four sets of character pursuing their own storylines. But if an editor says, "Take it out," it's gone.

I just posted a newly-updated version of my notes on the languages on the Mâvarin web site tonight. (Short version: if it's got an accent over it, it's a long vowel.) And psst! Becky! The dominant and splinter religions of Mâvarin are thoroughly explored in Mages of Mâvarin.

Now that I've bored you all - the total lack of comments to last night's Heirs entry, except for faithful Becky, is seriously bumming me out - let me bring you up to date on the saga of the mice.

I released the surviving mouse before church this morning, up at Pantano Wash. John declined to come along, and I had trouble opening the trap on my own. When I finally got it open, mousie immediately poked his head out, leaped three feet from the trap in my gloved hands to the dusty ground, and bounded away, fast, hardly touching the ground between leaps. Getting a good picture proved impossible, but here are the ones I managed:

This is where I released the mousie - Pantano Wash, just south of 22nd St. at Pantano Parkway.

Would you say this is a gray mouse or a brown mouse?

Can you see the mousie? He's little more than a blur - the critter was fast!

If you're having trouble finding him, here's a hint. He's between a rock and some burr sage.

Tonight I told John that there's at least one mouse still in the house. I was pretty sure I'd heard one in my office. John was not pleased with this news. He's been searching the outside of the house for the mousies' way in, but to no avail.

Twenty minutes after that, a mouse and I startled each other in front of the fireplace. So I cleaned out one of the humane traps and added fresh cheese. I guess the story isn't over yet!

Karen

Of Mice and Men

2005-11-13T01:45:00.000-08:00

We caught two mice tonight at Chez Blocher, after days and days of the humane trap being left unsprung, but stripped of its cheese.

I'm sorry to report that having been awakened by a mouse in the bedroom, John felt it necessary to set a conventional trap in there. I went in the bedroom about a half hour after that, just in time to see a gray mousie die. This saddens me. Is this the mouse that repeatedly scurried past me on VIVI night, inspiring my "epic haiku?"

Half an hour after that upset, John had disposed of the dead mouse and was back in bed. I was here in my office, tweaking my sidebar. Yes, my sometimes-wonderful husband managed to restore modem access to my office today, by running a phone line in from outside to replace the one that the roofers probably broke or disconnected or something. In doing so, John discovered a lot of shoddy and unfinished work on the roof: no roof coating at all on the flat part of it, boards not flush, rotten wood left in place at the edges. This is in addition to the fallen debris in the hall closet, and the debris and dripped tar on top of our washing machine, both of which I was prepared to overlook until now. John is upset. So am I. John wanted to be able to talk to the roofers more, and make sure everything was done right. The one time I tried to do this in John's stead, back on Halloween, none of the men on the roof was willing to admit to speaking English, much less willing to talk to the homeowner. Now I find out that those guys didn't finish the job. We still owe $385 or something on our $5,000+ roof. I won't be paying that until we get some answers, at the very least.

Anyway, the computer is now back in my office instead of the kitchen. I was in here, blogging and tweaking, when I heard some mousy scuffling in here, somewhere between me and the outside wall. A few minutes after that, more noises came from the next room, what I call the tv room and John calls the den. I went out and looked. Sure enough, the humane trap was closed. I waited a minute or so, and the box moved as the mouse tried to get out. Is that my intrepid gray mousie? I probably will never know, but I hope it's a gray mouse at least, so I can pretend it's my haiku hero. We'll know when we release it tomorrow. I feel sorry for it in the meantime, flopping around it its little box, but at least it's alive.

I wanted to bring you an uplifting ending to my mousie story, or one last exploit of cheeky Gray Mousie, caught on digital camera, of a capture and release, and all right with the world. The dead gray mouse in the bedroom ruins the story, and makes me sad.

Whimper.

Sorry, Carly. I tried.

Karen

Fiction: Heirs of Mâvarin, Chapter One, Part One

2005-11-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

Here it is: Chapter One, Scene One, Part One of the "final final" draft of Heirs of Mâvarin. Over the next couple of months I'll be posting two full chapters of this first novel of mine, 83 double-spaced pages. I decided to do this for three reasons:

1. I want to give myself a break from writing new fiction every week, so I'll be free to concentrate on Heirs and/or Mages. The first has been almost ready for submission for several years now, and just needs a final tweaking. The second one is a magnificent mess, but I've been making intermittent progress.

2. I want to promote the books themselves, even though I haven't actually sold them to a publisher yet. Hence the need for Reason #1.

3. I want to show you my best work, as opposed to the flawed serials and the cryptic first person entries.

I'm a little nervous about this, to be honest. If you don't care for it, I don't have the excuse, "Well, it's not my best writing!" to fall back on. This is my life's work. I started writing Heirs of Mâvarin nearly half a lifetime ago, under the title The Tengrim Sword [sic]. I have not worked on it every year since then, but I have worked on it every decade. Heirs and I have come a very long way together, from high school student with a potpourri of mostly bad ideas to a mildly insecure writer with, I hope, a publishable manuscript.

I hope you like it. A lot.

Oh, one more thing. Being a novel instead of a serial per se, it has a somewhat leisurely opening, and doesn't necessarily have a cliffhanger every couple of pages. If the ending of a particular installment seems a bit lame, that's why.

Karen

Heirs of Mâvarin
by Karen Funk Blocher
© 2005 by KFB

Chapter One: The Tengrem

Moneldu, 5th Day of Dortem, 896 MMY

Half-hidden among the serrated green leaves of the beech tree, Rani Fost watched and listened as the tanner and the blacksmith rode by on the River Road below.

“We barely get there, and they send us back this way,” Bil Gorben grumbled. “What a waste of time.” Looking down at him, Rani was surprised how small his master looked, compared to the barrel-chested blacksmith. Jord Baret had a taller horse, which made him seem even bigger. The one feature the two men had in common was their scarred, leathery skin, a result of their respective trades.

“What’s a waste of time?” Jord asked. “The backtracking?”

Bil shook his head. “Hunting the tengrem at all is a waste of time. Tengremen have been seen before, although not usually this far north. A few pilfered sheep, and they go away again.”

“You’re crazy, Bil,” Jord said. “The creatures are murderous when they go wild, which is often. My sister lives down south near Gathmak. She’s told me of times when tengremen were spotted, and whole families disappeared.”

“Disappeared, eh? How does she know they didn’t just move away?” Rani couldn’t see Bil’s face any longer, but could well imagine the tanner’s sardonic smile.

“I’m serious. Ameth told me of that time about twelve years back....” Rani listened in silence as Jord Baret’s voice faded beyond the bend in the road downstream. Had they been different villagers, he might have called out to them, but Bil wouldn’t approve of his lurking in trees, only an hour after being sent home from the tannery. Like Rani’s mom, Bil wouldn’t want Rani to be outside at all today, not with a tengrem around.

Rani had come here anyway, because the ancient beech tree seemed like a great place from which to track the progress of the hunt. As a child he had spent many hours here, usually with his friend Del, watching for invaders or marauders or bandits. No such persons had ever appeared, and the days of pretending they might were long behind him. But today, Rani’s old lookout post was an ideal place from which to actually see something. It was the largest of the trees that lined the river, dwarfing the young maples and willows around it; and the long grey branch he sat upon was as sturdy as the day he had first climbed up to it. From here he had a good view over the brambles and black raspberry vines to the broad, quiet waters of the River Misis as it made its way toward Liftlabeth from the great city of Thâlemar. More to the point, he could see a fair distance along the River Road as it followed the Misis through the woods where the hunt was going on.

Rani’s view downstream was not nearly as good, due to a bend in the road around several large trees, but it hardly mattered. That way was the village of Liftlabeth, its market square half empty today as the craftsmen and farmers either joined the hunt or went about their work at home. Nothing interesting was likely to come from that direction.

“Waste of time” or not, Rani wished he could have participated in the hunt. His mother had become distraught at the suggestion, so Rani had reluctantly agreed to be left behind. She had also warned him to stay inside, but Rani had ignored this request. It was bad enough that the hunters faced the tengrem without him. If Rani chose to sit up here out of harm’s way, and watch for passersby, surely at fifteen he was old enough to do so.

His mom wouldn’t agree with that, of course. Rani was still a year and a half away from his sword and his independence. Even then, Rani knew, his mother would keep him safe at home if she could, or at the tannery. Why couldn’t she treat Rani like the adult he almost was?

Rani looked at his arm, nearly a man’s arm after his recent spurt of growth, and fairly well-muscled. Its skin, in stark contrast to his mom’s paleness, was as brown in winter as it was now in midsummer. Rani frequently wondered who his father had been, and what had happened to him that would make his mother attempt such a tight hold on the son that remained. He had asked all the questions in many different ways, but her answer was always the same: “He was a Southerner, and a good man, but he’s gone. That’s all you need to know.”

She never answered his questions about tengremen, either, despite Rani’s suspicion that she had once lived near Gathmak, the forest wheremost tengremen lived. When he asked, she always changed the subject. So Rani sought his information elsewhere. He had memorized both of the selmûn songs about tengremen that Shela knew, and analyzed every detail of tengrem lore his friends Del and Crel had picked up from their uncle. Tengremen had first appeared just a few years before Rani’s birth, probably the result of some mage’s experiments. Now the kingdom held hundreds of the creatures, mostly at the southern end of the country. They were said to be the most dangerous predators alive, heavier than draft horses, more temperamental than half-starved bears. Their lower bodies were horse-like, but a second, almost human torso rose from the equine shoulder. This upper body was furred like a bear, its hands had claws, and its wolflike head bore a single yellow horn centered above the eyes. The strangest thing that Rani had heard about tengremen was that they were more than just animals. They were reputed to be almost as intelligent as human beings, even capable of human speech at times.

The tengrem that the villagers were hunting today was the first one seen this far north in nearly a decade. Suri Pelch had caught it chasing his sheep two days before, and had shot three arrows at it. The tengrem had retreated, but further sightings in and around Liftlabeth had led Jamek Barst—the village mayor, and Del’s uncle—to organize the hunt.

Rani’s brief glimpse of the tengrem that morning had mostly confirmed what he had heard, but provided few additional details. A distant roar, and the sound of people yelling, had told Rani that the hunters and their quarry were passing nearby. He had sneaked out of the leather shop, and joined Del in the pasture behind his uncle’s stable. Even from there, the tengrem was too far away for a good look. Rani saw little more than its general shape, the four equine legs that ended in shiny black hooves, and the two great hairy arms that ended in pink-clawed, five fingered hands. The head and torso were brown and furry, like a mountain man’s coat; the dirty yellow horn in the forehead was long and slightly curved, and the mouth (or perhaps the lupine nose) spouted fire as it ran.

The tengrem had turned once to face its pursuers,and a horse shied as flame touched its legs. Then the tengrem bolted for the woods at the village’s edge, and the hunters plunged in after it.

www.mavarin.com - my website, introducing the world and the characters.

Messages from Mâvarin (BlogSpot: use sidebar to get to individual installments of past fiction).

Related entry:

A Letter from Rithe Fost

Doing It Right, Doing It Wrong

2005-11-11T23:37:00.000-08:00

Let's start off tonight's entry with a few sunset photos, basically 'cause I've lucked into some decent sunset photo opportunities this week as I left work.

The first two shots here are of the view that greeted me when I left the accounting department last night. Sunset from the second floor. Awesome.

The third one was taken in the parking lot itself.

The fourth was taken at Fifth and Wilmot. Sometimes I play with color correction and midtones, but the only thing I did to these was resize them (and crop the first one a bit).

Ooh. Ahh.

Moving on.

Since the VIVI Awards, I've followed a lot of links to many other journals. Some of these links were from congratulatory comments, some from VIVI winners, and some, of course, were from Round Robin participants. Of all of those posted links, two stand out in my memory as a study in contrasts. I'm not going to point to them, because I'm about to be less than enthusiastic about one of the journals involved, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But I'm certain you can figure it out with a little research, if you feel like bothering to do that.

The comments were both posted to the same entry of mine. One of them was very much a "value added" comment. It responded favorably to the content of the entry, added an original and relevant bit of humor, and concluded with a link to the commenter's journal. This person has commented here before, and I've been to the journal before, and liked what I've seen. It's not on my alerts yet, but probably will be soon.

That, my friends, is doing comments right.

The next comment to that entry made no mention whatsoever of the content of my post. Instead, the person mentioned having found a link to my journal, and invited me, in a run-on sentence, to visit hers if I was bored. I was not bored, but out of politeness I went anyway. What I found was exactly the kind of illiterate journal I wrote about the other day, the sort that makes me leave and never come back. This person has no clear understanding what a sentence is, uses punctuation in all the wrong ways and none of the right ones, and has little or no interest in using upper case letters. Feh.

That, my friends, is wrongful and ineffective use of comments. When someone shows no evidence of having read anything in my journal, blatantly pushes her own, and shows me only banal thoughts poorly expressed when I go to see it, she accomplishes nothing - nothing good, anyway. She did manage to annoy me and waste my time. That's something, I suppose, but surely not the desired result!

I did not leave a comment. I did not even read the whole entry. I just left.

Lately I've been seriously tempted to post weekly quizzes about correct English, with humorous examples.

And then I came across another positive example, a nearly miraculous instance of journaling done right.

For some time now, Paul Little has been putting together CarnivAOL, a promotional linkfest that people can get into basically just by asking. The idea is to choose your very best recent entry, so that other people will have the opportunity to follow Paul's link and come see it. Generally speaking, I've shied away from this, partly because most of my best stuff gets linked to by John Scalzi or the Round Robins, and partly because I'm a little uncomfortable with self-promotion. But I recently submitted a link to CarnivAOL for the first time ever, and tonight Paul published that list. My link is to the first of the recent Black Rose Kate entries, because I'm really proud of what Kate wrote (well, dictated) in that.

All of this is beside the point, however.

Y'see, the thing is, so far tonight I've followed two of the other CarnivAOL entries, and will probably get to the rest tomorrow. One of them was interesting, well-written, and horribly, horribly marred by typos. I could not leave a comment, so I left. Ah, but the other! The other was nothing short of wonderful. Here's the link:

Remember When...

This is from a journal by a young high school senior (age 16, I think). The entry is about her last-ever practice session as a goalie for a high school soccer team. Never having been good at sports myself, I normally would have little interest in something like that, but her writing was so superb, so evocative, that she made me care about every word of it. Later entries were full of lively writing, humor, a playful and idiosyncratic use of language, real emotion, interesting incidents, wry observations, and concrete detail. Man, oh man, this girl can write! Go see for yourself.

This, my friends, is blogging done right!

Let's close this entry with another photo or two, for no adequately explored reason. I took them with Steven in mind, he of the many extraordinary butterfly-and-flower photos. Yesterday and today--well, all week, really--a flowerbed near my office has been alive with butterflies. There have been Monarchs, and something like Monarchs only smaller, and those little yellow butterflies, and, well, actually, I haven't paid that much attention. I'm really not much of a fan of flowers or insects, to tell you the truth. Flowers especially are something I usually avoid, because I tend to be strongly ambivalent about anything to which I'm allergic.

Nevertheless, there were the flowers and the butterflies, and I was right there with the camera. So I pointed the camera in the general direction of the flowers, failed utterly to find any butterflies in the viewfinder, and snapped a few photos anyway. That was yesterday.

Today I made a bit more of an effort, but not much. This time, I actually saw movement before I snapped the picture. Sure enough, there were at least two butterflies in the photo. Here's a cropped image from the larger picture It can't hold a candle to the least of Steven's shots, but I lack his talent, his patience and his camera. But I did get the photo anyway, lame as it is, so I'm satisfied for now.

That, my friends, is not photography done right. Still, I think I've earned your forgiveness with the sunset photos.

Karen

Not Your Usual Subscriptions

2005-11-11T01:08:00.000-08:00

Weekend Assignment #85: What magazines do you subscribe to and why? This assumes you currently subscribe to a magazine or two, of course, but I'm reasonably confident most of us do. If you don't have any current subscriptions, however, you can list some of your most recent subscriptions or magazines you want to subscribe to.

Extra Credit: What was your first magazine subscription?

All my subscriptions to mass market magazines have lapsed. TV Guide? There's no point any more. On the rare occasions when I watch anything other than House, Bones or a DVD, I can always look stuff up online or on the tv itself. Newsweek? I let Mom's subscription die, a year or two after she did, 'cause I wasn't getting around to reading it. Reader's Digest? Ditto. MacAddict? John would snarf the CD-ROMs and stick them in a desk drawer. I would usually read the Letters section, and that was that. When was the last time I fired up the Mac? It's been a while, that's for sure.

Here are the two magazines I do subscribe to.

Mâvarin Monthly is kind of muckraking and sensationalistic, but its reporters are extremely good at finding out what's really going on at the Palace and elsewhere. Somewhat complicit in the old regime prior to the Restoration, the Monthly has been making the most of its freedom of the press since the Awers' fall from power. I mostly read it for the newsmakers' interviews, but I also enjoy the magazine's lively arts section.

For a different perspective, I also read The Citadel, which is published out of Mâton. It's definitely biased, which isn't too surprising, considering it's government-controlled. Nevertheless, it's interesting, and a good way to understand the politics and culture of the mages' island nation.

The Journal of Contemporary Time Travel is not as fluff-oriented as its cover would indicate. There are some serious articles in here about the Laws of Time (both physical and legislative), dealing with paradox, and other stuff the serious time traveler needs to know. This one, too, I often read for the interviews, especially the ones that are more about theory, and less about "My Lunch with Genghis Khan." The biggest problem with this one is figuring out when the subscription expires.

Extra Credit: I remember that I used to get Jack & Jill magazine back in second grade or so, plus Weekly Reader at school; but that was not something I did for myself, obviously. I think my first subscription that I paid for was TV Guide, but it may have been National Wildlife.

Karen

Tags: Weekend Assignment, Magazines, Fiction, Time Travel, Mâvarin

Absent Friends

2005-11-10T01:32:00.000-08:00

I'm missing Kate tonight, and it occurs to me that I haven't yet told you what little I know about her abrupt departure.

Last week, as you may recall, I expressed concern that if Black Rose Katie Specks didn't somehow make it back to her own time, she would soon be resuming her life of crime, right here in the 21st Century. When I discussed the issue with Kate herself over the weekend, she didn't even bother to deny it. So when I got home on Monday and she wasn't here, my first thought was that she got tired of waiting to be mysteriously returned home, and hitchhiked down to Nogales or Naco to become a smuggler; or else that she'd gotten in trouble trying to rob a bank.

But there was nothing on the news about a bank robbery, or about anyone trying to rob anyone with only a flintlock gun for a weapon, or crossing the border into Mexico in a pirate outfit and with no identification. Furthermore, there was nothing missing from my house, not even the clothes I loaned to Kate. Even the necklace that Kate loaned to me for the VIVI Awards was still here. Had she left on her own, I doubt very much that she would have foregone the chance to steal anything that she might find useful. She was grateful for my hospitality, but not that grateful. All things considered, then, it was starting to look as though my friend the pirate had disappeared the same way she appeared - mysteriously, suddenly and involuntarily.

I hoped that meant that she did return to the late 18th Century, but there didn't seem to be any historical record of her - not online, anyway. Google turned up quite a few results for "pirate Kate," but most of them are either an Internet handle or clearly fictional, including a pirate's daughter in an old novel, a woman who meets a time traveling pirate in a recent novel (!), and one of the daughters in The Pirates of Penzance. Maybe Katie Specks didn't make it home after all, or maybe she did nothing under the name Kate that was noteworthy enough to make the pirate websites.

It wasn't until last night that I noticed a Word file on the desktop of my computer, one I never put there. The file name was "To Karen." Thinking it might be a note of farewell from Black Rose Kate, I opened it up and read:

Karen -

I write this in haste, because, as you might say, "my ride is here," and cannot wait. Her name is Ariel - or so she claims. She is certainly no airy spirit (or mermaid - I did glance through your Disney collection over the weekend). She also claims to be indirectly responsible for my having been beached here in the desert with you. In the final of her three claims, she proposes to take me home. I have decided to put this third claim to the test!

Thank you for your hospitality, patience and friendship.

Regards,

That Disobedient Wench,

Black Rose Katie Specks

*********

Underneath this, in a different color font, was a second, more surprising note:

Dear Karen:

I found out about your "house guest" earlier today while Googling for evidence of disturbances in time in your version of reality. When I read your journal entries about Black Rose Kate, I realized that I ought to "swing by," as you put it, and get her safely home.

Based on similar recent incidents in this part of the Multiverse, I'm pretty sure that Kate's arrival in Tucson was a side effect of what I've been calling a "leak" in my pandimensional sports car. I think you'll agree that a sports car is a much more practical way of traveling than my dad's castle is--if I can get it working properly. I know that you know about Toujours Chez Moi, because I saw it mentioned in your story Mall of Mâvarin. Cathy and Carl are fine, by the way. Your imagination seems to be pretty closely tied in with worlds my dad and I move through on a regular basis. Intriguing! Kate is not from your reality, any more than I am, so in a way you were right to make the contradictory claims that she was both fictional and real.

I'd love to stay and say hello in person, but I have a test in the morning. I'd better get Kate back to her bit of space-time, and then go study. The test is on A Wrinkle in Time, and I haven't finished reading the book yet!

Your Imaginary Friend (LOL!),

Ariel Allegra
(Joshua Wander's daughter)

I don't know why I'm so shocked about this. After all, Joshua Wander himself once bought tickets at Worldwide Travel while I worked there. Why shouldn't his daughter borrow my laptop for a few minutes?

By the way, I also found my notebook, the one in which Black Rose Kate wrote a brief version of her life story. I'll share that with you another time, but for now I'll tell you this much: she was not born with the name Kate or Katherine, or anything like that.

Fair weather and safe harbor, Kate!

********

I saw a mouse again tonight, briefly, but wasn't able to get a picture (of course). Instead, here's a picture of the patch of scrub where we let brown mousie go. Can you spot brown mousie in the photo? Neither can I, but I think he's there somewhere!

The mouse I saw tonight looked a little more brown than gray. How many mousies are in this house right now? One? Two? More? If we do catch gray mousie, and if gray mousie turns out to be female, I'm naming her Kate. Then I'm letting her go, probably in the same place as brown mousie.

Oh, and this big black rat is one of my Halloween props. John added the plastic snake to its mouth the year I was Not Rani.

Karen

Wabi-Sabi and the Shy Hero's Adventures

2005-11-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

This Round Robin Challenge, "wabi-sabi," (as suggested by Coy) threw me at first. Even with Carly's explanation, I was unsure what the concept meant, and what I could photograph to illustrate it. Wikipedia says that the wabi-sabi aesthetic "is sometimes described as one of beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete." The entry goes on to quote Andrew Juniper as saying, "if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi sabi."

Uh, okay. I sorta kinda understand now, and I know what I want to photograph for this. Unfortunately, the subject isn't cooperating!

This entry is supposed to be about one of the mice that periodically invade our house. (Your first reaction may be "eww" or "eek," but the truth is that this is absolutely the cutest little gray mouse you could ever hope to see.) This particular gray mousie got extra rambunctious on the night of the VIVI awards chats, and showed himself repeatedly. I was within two feet of him several times, but I was never able to catch him on camera. So instead you're getting a perversion of the assignment: pictures of where Gray Mousie has been, accompanied by my usual long-winded perversion of Japanese poetry, what I call "epic haiku." Here we go:

The Adventures of Gray Mousie

Gray mousie looks out
Across the darkened room
For signs of movement.

All is static, so
He takes off, runs for the door,
A streak of gray fur.

Gray mousie slips unseen
Beneath dark electronics
And stops to watch again.

Mousie's quick and bold:
Darts past human foot so fast,
Human eye gets lost.

Mousie knows the route:
Up the counter, 'neath the mail,
Then behind the sink.

Human looks at mouse:
Mousie knows she can't catch him.
In a flash, he's gone.

Mousie has found food:
Drying on fresh dinner plates,
Wedged in tines of forks.

Mousie cannot stay.
Tempting food is too exposed.
Mousie scampers on.

Down a power cord,
Mousie finds more hidden food,
Bounty from the stove.

All of this is true,
But gray mousie's more cautious
Since the VIVI night.

Brown mousie was caught,
Trapped in small gray box with cheese,
But gray mousie's free.

Both gray traps were shut,
Yet just brown mousie emerged
When we opened them.

Amid stones and weeds,
We let poor brown mousie go.
He stayed there, trembling.

Ever since the night
Both of the gray traps were sprung
Gray mousie's been scarce.

I hear him in the grate,
Catch a glimpse and whoops! He's gone.
Do I hear him now?

Mousie, I love you.
I wish that we could share this house,
But this must not be.

In the box you'll go,
To be released outside, where
You may yet survive.

Coyotes, cats and birds
Wait to eat you, little mouse.
Hide, gray mousie! Hide!

The story's not ended, obviously. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Heh. Seems to me this is definitely wabi-sabi: it's incomplete (no resolution, and no picture of gray mousie) imperfect (in a perfect world, there would be no hidden way for a mouse to sneak in, and the house would be perfectly clean at all times), AND impermanent (this drama will not last long, and neither will the mouse).

Karen

A J-Land Survey Thingy

2005-11-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

1) What is your name? (what you go by on here or who you are known as)
Karen Funk Blocher, or just Karen.

2) Where are you from?
Originally DeWitt, NY, but grew up in Manlius, NY. I've been in Tucson, AZ since 1986.

3) When did you make your (first) journal, here in J-land?
Tuesday, March 23, 2004. I posted five entries that first day! The Blogger one followed in June 12th, 2004 (one entry that day, three the next), and the LiveJournal began June 19th, 2004 (three entries that day).

4) What was/is the name of your journal? (Meaning your first journal ever on here)
Musings from Mâvarin.

5) What meaning does the title of it have?
The Musings part was supposed to mean that the entries would be 1) whatever I happened to be thinking about and 2) whatever I was inspired to write. (These are two different things.) Too bad the term Musings was already a cliché in blogdom by then. The "from Mâvarin" part was to indicate that a lot of the writing would be related to my Mâvarin books or characters. In fact, the characters would be the ones doing a lot of the musing, in first person fiction entries. And what is Mâvarin? It's "the country in my mind," as my license plate holder says, the fictional country where Rani and Carli and Cathma all live. The name means "Sun-River-Land."

6) What types of things do you share in your journal?
Let's see. I've shared short fiction, serial fiction, poetry, a poll or two, holiday trivia, memes, essays and rants on political and religious and ethical subjects, pure diary stuff, photos, nonsense, entries about Tucson weather, plants and animals, travel, music, science fiction, fantasy, history, midcentury modern furniture and decor, old toys and dolls, my dogs, work, school, movies, books, writing, the creative process, and time travel, and even an HTML tutorial or two. I'm sure I've forgotten a few things, but you get the idea.

7) What do you appreciate most about your readers?
I love reading a comment that someone liked an entry, especially the fiction. That means a lot to me, helps to keep me going. I also appreciate constructive criticism, as long as it's not too crushing, and hearing what elements of a story work for people. I love knowing that I'm not just talking to myself. Most of all, I love that a number of readers have become my friends. Virtual party at Karen's computer!

8) When you are journal browsing, what is it that gets your attention about another's journal?
Positive things that get my attention: good photos, humor, engaging writing. Negative things that get my attention: poor spelling, punctuation or grammar, or saying nasty things about other people, especially other journalers. Even if it's in jest, put-downs, teasing, gripes, accusations or name-calling (except for political satire, in small doses) make me want to click away from a journal, and never come back. I'm a little more tolerant of the mistakes in English, but not much. If mistakes jump out at me in every sentence, or if the person uses all lower case, I won't bother to read any further.

9) What journal gives you the best laugh?
Carly, Tilly, and Mrs. L are all very funny, and Chuck and Paul are amusing. There are others, but I'm less familiar with them.

10) What journal inspires you the most, gets you THINKING about things?
Maryanne's journal does that, as does Michael's, as does Carly's, as does Becky's. I can't pick just one.

11) What journal is most eye appealing to you? (colors, graphics, pics, and set up)
Honestly, I don't notice the set-up that much, especially because I usually go to the new entry rather than the whole journal. I generally prefer a photo rather than art in a sidebar (but either is better than nothing),and a light color in the body of the journal.

12) What J-landers have you connected to as friends as well as readers?
Carly and Becky are the main ones for me, but also Chuck, Paul, Sam, Michael and others.
Any J-Land shout outs you'd like to share?
Cheers to everyone who nominated and voted in the VIVI awards - even if you didn't vote for me personally. (But I'm very glad that some of you did!)

13) What kinda things would you like to see in the J-land community as far as writing styles, subjects, and or topics?
More of the same, really, but with more literacy where that quality is lacking, and fewer personal attacks on people who happen to disagree about religion or politics.

14) What would you like AOL to do to improve its journals?
Spell check would help a lot, not just for people who don't spell well, but also for the typo-prone (like me!). There should be more customizing options for the template, more room in the About Me and journal description areas, and the font size glitch (12 point appearing as 10 point) really should have been fixed by now.

15) Top 5 journals you visit (links included so we can visit them as well if public):
Alphabetically:
Alphawoman's Blog
By the Way
Ellipsis
Jersey Girl
Where Life Takes You
(but there are at least three others I would have crammed onto this list if I could have!)

16) What do you like about keeping a journal?
I love talking to readers, sharing my stories and my rants, good days and bad, whatever is on my mind. I used to do that in fanzines, but this is more immediate, more wide-open in what I can write about, and the feedback is practically instantaneous sometimes. I like that it keeps me writing, and that the schedule I've imposed on myself has forced me to write a bunch of new fiction. Oh, and I've really enjoyed messing around with digital cameras. I don't like that it eats up all my free time, and I don't get anything else done!

Person you got this Survey from their journal name & link if available.
I found the survey in (sometimes)photoblog.

Links to your journals:

Not much point in linking from Musings to Musings, and that's my only AOL-J. But here are the non-AOL ones:

Messages from Mâvarin (fiction entries)

Mâvarin & Other Inspirations (LJ)

St. Michael's blog

St. Michael's Arts blog

I like this survey. If you take it, leave your link here: Journey through J-Land -Survey.

Karen

That Was Then; This Is Now - or- Up on the Roof!

2005-11-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Do "Before and After" photos on any subject you like. The idea is to show change over a bit of time. Some easy ideas would be haircuts, cleaned-up rooms, kittens growing up into cats, and etc. And yes, this means you can dip into your collection of old photos (they certainly qualify as "before").

This was our roof as of 7/19/05. Doesn't look bad, does it? But the monsoon storms, like the one threatening here, proved otherwise. We had leaks! John patched 'em, but the appraiser, a roofer, and the bank said we had to replace the roof.

Lunchtime, 10/31/05. All the old shingles were gone (actually, a lot of them were still on the ground at that point), and the tar was hot and ready to go.

Late afternoon, 10/31/05. The job was half done, seemingly.

Lunchtime, 11/1/05. They left the roof a mess!

Still lunchtime, 11/1/05. It looked exactly the same late that afternoon.
The roofers finished the job Wednesday morning, 11/2/05.

Late afternoon, 11/7/05. Except for the weather, it doesn't look much different from when we started!

But here's one difference. The old, disused roof antenna is now sitting in the back yard. Also, the phone line in to my office doesn't work now, but I don't know whether that was caused by the roofers, the mice, or the fact that it's a thirty-five year-old phone line!

Karen

P.S. In other news, Black Rose Kate is gone. More later.

Past Exploits and Coming Attractions

2005-11-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

"It seems like people I don't even know are glad to see me." - Buffy, "Dead Man's Party," BtVS

Hi, everyone! Thanks for all the congratulations and kind words. If you're frequent visitors to this journal, hooray and three cheers! You guys keep me going. If you've been here before, but haven't commented until now, thanks for making your presence known! And if you're new to this journal, welcome! Feel free to explore. I post daily, usually around midnight MST, give or take a few hours. My posting schedule goes something like this:

Monday night: Monday Photo Shoot. And you know, I never settle for just one photo.
Tuesday night: Could be anything, but might be a follow-up to Monday's entry. Every other week, after midnight, it's the Round Robin Photo Challenge. And I tend to overdo these things....
Wednesday night: Could be anything, but may be a follow-up to Tuesday's RR entry.
Thursday night: Weekend Assignment, usually a bit of an extravaganza.
Friday night: Could be anything. May be a follow-up to something else.
Saturday night: Fiction. Always.
Sunday (day or night): Whatever.

And if I need to, I might have a second entry that day.

With all that's been going on over the last 72 hours - work, writing, awards, friends, email, catching mice, my house guest and more - I've gotten behind in telling you all about a number of things. You know what that means, don't you? It's time for another potpourri entry.

1. Is It Too Much to Say I Saved My Own Life?

I could have died on Friday. Well, maybe. But I lucked out, or did the right thing, or the Lord was looking after me, or all of the above. Here's the story:

There's a Chinese buffet nearby. The food isn't very good, but the people are very nice and it's not expensive. So I went there on Friday. It was lunchtime. I was alone. Perhaps forty feet away, a party of five was laughing over their fortune cookies. Twenty feet to my left, a couple was eating. There may have been another couple just finishing up in a booth between me and the party of five. That was about it for people in my immediate vicinity.

A large piece of pork got caught in my throat. I tried to swallow it. That was a mistake. It didn't work. I tried again. No success.

Oh, I thought. This is interesting. I guess that means I'm choking. I don't really feel the need for air yet, but I'm going to have to do something.

Can I take a breath?

Tried it.

No.

Okay. Definitely a choking situation. Heimlich, then?

I looked around. The couple in the one booth was gone. The people with the fortune cookies were laughing, oblivious. The couple to my left was busy with their own lives. Nobody knew a drama - or comedy? - was unfolding nearby. I was on my own.

Can I do a Heimlich on myself? Maybe, but not sitting here in this booth. Anyway, I don't know how.

Okay. Back to basics. Try coughing.

I coughed. The pork obediently exited my gullet and landed in the napkin I'd held to my mouth.

Okay, great! I did it! Now can I breathe?

No. Not really. I got a little air, but not much.

I coughed again. There was no food left to be expelled, but it seemed to loosen my paralyzed windpipe. I took a noisy, gasping, wheezy breath.

Nobody but me noticed.

The next breath was easier. I was okay.

Nobody in the restaurant ever knew what have happened. But now you know about it. Don't tell them, all right?

2. Kate Weighs In

"I saw what you wrote about me on Friday," Black Rose Kate tells me.

"I thought you might," I acknowledge. "Do you object to anything I said?"

"Nay, your suppositions were quite astute. 'Tis certain that if I'm here much longer, we will have a parting of the ways. You're too honest by half to tolerate me for long. You do not approve of my larcenous heart, and the bindings of your conventional morality chafe me exceedingly."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I tell her. "What did you think about my award last night?"

"Congratulations, I'm sure, but 'tis of no moment to me. You may tell people I'm fictional, but I know better."

"I only said that in a few emails."

"And in your LiveJournal, and in IMs to your friends. Do not lie to me, Karen. You have not the skill for it."

"Oh, that, yes. Are you insulted?"

"Nay, but do not expect me to be wholehearted in approval, either."

"Sorry."

It seems that I'm apologizing to her a lot these days. Why is it never the other way around?

3. The Real Deal

After checking with a certain well-known science fiction writer on the advisability of posting a piece of something I'm actually trying to sell, I've decided that starting next week, my Saturday Night Fiction entry will feature the good stuff: the first two chapters of Heirs of Mâvarin in serial form. This is your chance to find out what I've been talking about all this time. For the rest of the story, well, you'll just have to wait until I find a publisher for the darn thing! The idea here is to free my schedule up a bit, so that I can finally finish the last edit of the first book and start sending it around again.

Aside from five queries to agents three years ago, I haven't submitted Heirs to anyone over over a decade. It was a very different manuscript then, not anywhere near as good as it is now.

The market has changed in the intervening years, too. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia have all made inroads in popular culture. On the other hand, I'm not in that league, and the publishing industry has been consolidated down to a handful of companies with dozens of imprints each. Tough market - and yes, I'm nervous about sending my life's work out again, possibly to be ignored and rejected. It's all very well to tell me how many times L'Engle and King had their most important books turned down by dozens of publishers, but what if there are only five publishers left that take unagented fantasy, and I've tried all five? What then?

Karen

P.S. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the mice. I guess I'll save that story for another time. - KFB

Fiction: Another Letter from Jamek

2005-11-06T00:48:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are just joining us, this is one of a series of first-person accounts ostensibly written by characters from my Mâvarin novels. Tonight's entry is a sort of prequel to Heirs of Mâvarin. The events Jami Baret refers to here happen about fifteen years before the beginning of Heirs. For more information on the books and the characters, please visit www.mavarin.com. - Karen

The following is the letter that the twins' "Uncle Jamek" sends to his sister after the kidnapping of King Jor.

Sabedu, 15th Day of Fredor, 881 MMY

Dear Ameth,

I don't know what's likely to reach you first - the news that King Jor has been kidnapped, or this letter. I'm with Jord now, and the news just reached here this morning. I myself arrived yesterday. You're a lot farther away, so it could be months before you know what's been happening up in Thâlemar.

This letter will have to be cryptic, for reasons I can't really explain now. But I'm fine, and Jord is fine. And oh, yes, the twins are fine. You remember Roji, don't you? Well, his children will be staying with me now. That was their father's idea, not mine, but I'm glad to do it, for his sake and theirs. Unless things go unexpectedly well, they'll be with me for many years to come.

Terrible things happened at the Palace five days ago, but they could have been much worse. King Jor somehow knew that trouble was coming, although I never did manage to get him to tell me exactly what it was that worried him. You know how he's been, especially since Queen Genva died, always so woebegone and vague about things. All I can tell you for now is that there was definitely a plot in the Palace to kidnap him. This wasn't just tengremen or mages, whatever the rumors may say. At least one of the King's ministers was involved, I'm sure of it. There's nothing I can do about that, though, except what I did.

The way things are going, with the Palace intrigues and the kidnappings and my new parental responsibilities, it's best that I disappear. The fact that I'm King Jor's loyal friend makes me a target, and the children are at risk also. So I'm relocating here, and I have a new name. When you write to me, write to "Jamek Barst." The children will be called Del and Crel Merden.

I know that it would be a hardship for you to travel all the way north, especially this time of year. If you do come, though, I'll be able to explain everything properly. If not, please at least send me a note so that I know you received this letter.

May the blessings of Mâshela and Thâle be yours.

Love,

J.

Messages from Mâvarin (BlogSpot: use sidebar to get to individual installments of past fiction).

Related entries:

A Letter from Uncle Jamek

A Letter from Fayubi to Harisi

From the Memoirs of King Jor

A Letter from Rithe Fost

I'm ready!

2005-11-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Live from Journals Café chat room #2!

Turns out I had an actual dress to wear, and I actually wore it! Kate loaned me the necklace to go with it. Here's another look:

But this afternoon I went shopping anyway:

I wanted this one, but it was too long and the wrong size. Drat! Maybe if I lose weight and wear my boots, and if it goes on sale, and if nobody else buys it...!

LATER:

I won iwoniwon! And so did Vince. Yay!

BEST FICTION/POETRY JOURNAL
TIE!

Musings from Mâvarin - mavarin
TO GROW IS TO BE ANXIOUS - deabvt

The other nominees are great, too, so check them out.

Also, congrats to Tilly in the category I didn't win!

BEST ENTRY/SERIES OF ENTRIES "The Wedding From Hell"
Adventures of a desperately fat housewife - tillysweetchops

The full list of winners is here:

http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/VIVIAwards/entries/428

But see also the other nominees in every category, if you haven't already. There are a few that I don't enjoy, but overall there's a lot of talent and good work going on in J-Land.

THE OFFICIAL NOMINEES -- PART ONE

THE OFFICIAL NOMINEES -- PART TWO

Ironically, now I need to go write my Saturday night fiction entry.

Karen

A Pirate Incognito

2005-11-05T01:29:00.000-08:00

Black Rose Katie Specks is getting restless.

Much as I like my piratical house guest, I fervently hope that whatever deus ex machina brought her to my doorstep last week will swing by soon to take her home. I'm convinced that if she's here much longer, she'll return to her life of crime - 21st Century style. At the rate she's been learning to use my computer, I can see her getting into the identity theft racket before the year is out, just in time for Christmas. Or she might relocate to Nogales or Douglas, and smuggle drugs or people or both across the border from Mexico. Even armed robbery wouldn't be beyond her, once she upgrades from her flintlock pistol to something semi-automatic. She might opt for the relatively easy money and better odds of the border and tech crimes, but, well, I'm not sure. It probably depends on how bored she gets.

In any case, I don't want to be around when she starts getting in trouble with the law here in Arizona. I already had to do some fast talking at LensCrafters the day she got her new glasses. It wasn't enough that I spent $214.87 on her anachronistic glasses; she had to get light-fingered on me, too. I managed to convince them that she simply "forgot" to put the sunglasses back, but I may have to shop elsewhere from now on. Incidentally, Becky, Kate deliberately chose glasses that were as different as possible from the spectacles she was used to. In fact, she went for ones that looked a lot like mine! When I asked her why, she explained that the old wire rims were inadequate to her lifestyle, and that she wanted to take advantage of our modern technology. "I cannot tell you how many of the heavy glass lenses have popped out of my spectacles during a fight or a storm, and landed in the sea," she said. "Also, I see much better through these new ones."

Other than Halloween at the office and a few other shopping expeditions, Kate has mostly stayed in my house while she's been here - or so she claims. I'm fairly certain she sneaks out, though. I've seen food around here that I didn't buy, and that John probably didn't buy, either.

I've done my best to distract Kate with tv and computers, but it's clear that my DVD collection won't keep her cooped up and entertained much longer. Kate said when I got home tonight that she can't sit on our old orange couch for another day of watching video - not even for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her favorite.

So I took her to the gym with me tonight. That was interesting. I left Kate upstairs on the treadmill while I went downstairs to meet with my trainer. As it turned out, though my trainer wasn't even there! He'd gone out of town (again), and hadn't given me a head's up. So instead I showed Kate some of the machines downstairs. She wasn't kidding about being in better shape than I am. She uses a lot more weight on both the upper and lower body exercises. I didn't get much work in myself - I was too busy watching her!

After that we went to Wing Factory, where she ordered the three-alarm chicken wings. I got barbeque ones as usual for myself, and garlic parmesian for John. While we were waiting, Kate trounced me on the Hook pinball game (based on the Robin Williams / Dustin Hoffman movie), even though she'd never played it before. Figures! It is a pirate game after all, and I'm no Peter Pan.

Tomorrow I plan to take her up Mount Lemmon, so she can get the heck out of the house and into nature, and I can keep an eye on her. Kate agreed to leave her hat and pistol home, and go incognito, in more of my borrowed clothes. I would consider this is major concession if I didn't think she was doing it for her own purposes rather than mine. She's probably trying to blend in enough to learn what she can without arousing suspicion. As for the weapon issue, well, I strongly suspect that she's already gotten her hands on a knife at least, or possibly a handgun.

Meanwhile, Kate has gotten some work done on the story of her life, writing in longhand in one of my newer Mâvarin notebooks. It would be nice if I could get her interested in writing for a living instead of crime, but that's not going to happen. "You've been writing for thirty years, and you still don't make a living at it," she told me today in that forthright way of hers. "What chance have I of doing so? Better to stick to what I know."

And that's the problem, isn't it? For all of her charm and eloquence and candor, Kate is still a criminal at heart. Whether she dresses like one or not, she'll always be a pirate.

Karen

Now, this post is literally true.

2005-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

Just in case anyone is starting to question my sanity....

Once upon a time, no more than a year before the advent of AOL itself, there was an online service called Prodigy. As I recall, it mostly consisted of text-only message boards and email to other Prodigy members (for $.25 each!). The only way to write text offline and upload it, or to copy text from P* (as it was abbreviated) into a file was with a pair of third party utilities. At least, that was true with Prodigy for Macintosh at the time. I doubt that the DOS version was any better.

In those days, I spent most of my P* time on the Quantum Leap and Hitchhiker's Guide message boards. Because there were always "newbies" asking questions, and because messages typically aged off the boards after a week or less, I developed a set of Quantum Leap posts that I would upload weekly as a public service. Most of these were FAQ answers to questions about the show's premise, characters and fictional continuity. Others were about the real world aspects of the show, most notably the actors.

One of these weekly postings was information about the fan club, Project Quantum Leap. Among the items members would receive for their $12 (the cost at the time) was a customized membership card that doubled as a "pass" to the "real" Project Quantum Leap in New Mexico. Some of our listings put the word "pass" in quotes, and didn't use the word "real" at all. Others had the word "real" in quotes. In either case, the quotes were there as a nod and a wink, saying, in effect, "Yes, we know this stuff isn't real, but let's have some fun with it."

[As an aside here: once when I was on my way to or from a Quantum Leap convention, I happened to be wearing my pass as an ID badge during a long layover at some airport or other. I had added a photo, laminated it, and attached a clip. It looked so authentic that someone who worked security at that airport assumed I was an airline or airport employee, and told me I didn't have to go through the metal detector. I told him to take a closer look at the badge!]

Well, anyway. The point is that PQL (the club) offered this fun pass thingy to the imaginary Project, and this fact was frequently mentioned on the Prodigy Quantum Leap message boards. Many of our members entered into the spirit of the thing, and really seemed to enjoy choosing a department and title for their passes.

Imagine my surprise when a guy turned up on P* one night, claiming that he read somewhere that there was a real, literal Project Quantum Leap, a secret government installation hidden away in New Mexico somewhere, possibly to conduct time travel experiments. I could not imagine how this kid (probably a young adult) had glommed onto this obviously false information, and actually believed it!

But when the time came to post the club info again, I saw that I was the source of the kid's misinformation. The notice I had posted had indeed mentioned "a custom pass to the 'real' Project Quantum Leap in New Mexico." I then had to explain to the guy, and even work to convince him, that there was no real Project Quantum Leap.

Years later, I took a pilgrimage to New Mexico, and photographed Quantum Leap-related landmarks. I was able to "prove" that if Project Quantum Leap existed, which it didn't, it would be near the Trinity site, not near Los Alamos. This finally settled an old controversy among Quantum Leap continuity buffs.

I wonder what the literalist kid on P* would have thought of that!

Karen

The Clone and the House Guest

2005-11-03T20:17:00.000-08:00

Weekend Assignment #84: Take a look at the picture below. Tell us what you think is going on in the picture. You can write as long as you want, or as short as you like -- even a photo caption works. Now, it's a fairly weird picture, but I thought that would just give you more to work with. Ready? Here you go:

John Scalzi is finally forced to admit it was a bad idea to crib
his cloning experiment from a Treehouse of Horror episode of
The Simpsons.

Extra Credit: Would you like to see more "explain what's going on in the picture" sort of assignments?

No. Not as such. There's not enough material here for writing one of my patented long entries. Yet somehow I'll manage anyway, especially with my nosy house guest asking questions!

"Tell me again who John Scalzi is," Black Rose Kate orders.

"He's AOL's designated, professional blogger," I tell her. "He's there to encourage and inspire people to post in their AOL Journals, give tips on how it's done, point the way to interesting or amusing stuff online, and generally entertain us."

"Then by what authority can he assign you to do anything?"

"Oh, it's completely voluntary. But it gives me something to write about that I might not have thought of otherwise."

"Is this something you wanted to write about, now that he's thought of it for you?" she asks pointedly.

"Not really, but I'm proud of the caption I came up with for it."

"I do not understand it. What is a clone?"

"A clone is an exact copy of a person, like a twin, but made by science instead of nature. It's been done with a sheep and other animals. Nobody's ever really cloned a human being yet, as far as we know, and a lot of people say we shouldn't even try it."

"But the monster on the left isn't an exact copy," Kate points out.

I decide not to mention that "monster" would not be a politically correct term for a "cloned American," even a wonky-looking one like Scalzi's. "That's because the premise of the photo is that the cloning experiment didn't quite work out," I explain. "It's supposed to be a joke."

"Well, I fail to see the humour in it," says Kate. "What does your caption mean, about The Simpsons? You have DVDs with that name on them. Are there clones in The Simpsons?"

"Not that I recall," I admit. "But the fake clone in the picture looks a little like the drawings of Homer Simpson in the tv show."

"There are drawings in the tv show?"

"It's nothing but drawings. You can watch some of the DVDs tomorrow if you like."

"And the treehouse of horror? What, pray tell, is that?"

"It's a series of Halloween episodes of The Simpsons, in which horrible things happen. If a cloning experiment went wrong on The Simpsons, it would probably be in a Treehouse of Horror episode."

Black Rose Kate shakes her head. "I think I have done very well so far in understanding your century; but this explanation remains unclear to me."

"It's not important," I tell her. "Nothing kills a joke faster than trying to explain it."

Kate nods thoughtfully. Then she hits me with a question that I should have expected but didn't. "Am I a clone?"

I look at her. There is no denying that Katie Specks looks enough like me that she could indeed be my clone. It is also true that she still doesn't know how she got here. I can't blame her for wondering whether she might not be who she thinks she is.

"You're not a clone," I tell her.

"Am I a twin?"

"Not of me, you aren't. Perhaps we're related."

"Aye, perhaps. Were your ancesters from England or Ireland?"

"Some of them. I used to jokingly refer to the Irish ones as Viking Irish royalty, the ones who got tired of returning north and became landed gentry instead."

"Aye, I come from the same hardy stock," says Kate. "Mayhap we are relatives. But stay, I have one more question for ye."

"What's that?"

"Am I fictional? You told people that I was a fictional character."

Uh-oh. "How do you know about that?"

"I read the emails you sent to Paul and Gem."

Poor Kate! I'll have to approach my explanation delicately.

"I didn't think you would learn to use my computer so quickly," I admit.

"I find your keyboard difficult to operate, especially the keys with the letters missing. But even I can point and click with the mouse. What is your explanation, Karen?"

"What would you have me tell everyone, Kate? If I post the truth, that you're really here but we don't know why or how, people will either assume that I'm lying, or that I'm crazy, or that I'm telling a story. As a fiction writer, I'd rather they think I'm writing fiction than that I'm lying or crazy."

"You think people will not believe the plain truth?"

"That's right. People just don't turn up from centuries past, alive and well and asking questions."

Kate chuckles. "Fair enough. All right, then. We can pretend that you're spinning a yarn, an it helps you preserve your reputation."

"Thank you."

"But you should have asked me, Karen."

I nod. "Yes. Sorry."

"Aye, well, 'tis unimportant now. Tell me more about The Simpsons. Do these drawings you mention move, like the images in Buffy?"

I think I'll spare you the rest of that conversation.

Karen

*********THIS JUST IN**************

The date, time and format for announcing the winners of the VIVI Awards has been, um, announced! Click below for details!

<---click here for the announcement

Thanks to Gregg (Golden Child NC) for the category nominee graphics!

Tags: Weekend Assignment, Clones, Black Rose Kate, Pirates, Fiction

Black Rose Kate On Love and Death...and Life

2005-11-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Black Rose Kate has several questions to answer tonight, so we'll get right to them:

Dear Black Rose Kate...
In all your years as a pirate, what would you say was your most challenging interaction? Was it with fellow pirates? With the sea itself? Inquiring minds want to know! :)

Always, The Mermaid Ondine
Comment from ondinemonet - 11/1/05 1:42 PM

Aye, I remember this question from yester eve, but I lack enough time to tell the whole tale tonight as I had planned. I shall instead give you my plain, honest answer, and write the story behind it tomorrow for Karen to transcribe at her leisure.

'Tis certain that it takes years to learn the sea's many moods, from unnatural calm to full hurricane, and everything in between. Aye, I've seen the sea at her worst, and at her best. Luck and good seamanship - with an able captain to give the orders - have helped me survive many a storm that sent other ships to Davy Jones with all hands. Yet none of the captains under whom I've served can truly claim to be the sea's master. We do the best we can, and we survive or we don't. 'Tis dangerous, true, but not difficult.

No, 'tis the human animal that outdoes storm, sea or shark in challenging interactions. One can develop a weather eye, and predict the future seas with fair accuracy. Sharks are even more predictable, which makes them easy to deal with in most situations. Ah, but people! The most genteel face may hide a black heart, and even the scurviest pirate may do you a good turn for no reason, an it suits him to do so. There be questions of class, of manners, of drink, of desperation, even of sanity, that help to sway a person to do or say this or that; but when you deal with any man, woman or child, one on one, ye can do no more than guess at possible reactions, and try to be prepared for all of them.

I was not prepared for my father's death, nor to be confined and ignored by his heir, my elder brother. Aye, that was a challenging interaction, true enow; and I failed the challenge. So I left, slipping down my knotted sheets like Juliet without a Romeo. That led to the next challenge: finding a ship that would take me. I was well known down at the docks in those days, but as my father's daughter, traveling short distances on business, not as a sailor in my own right. None of the captains wished to cross my brother, and none took seriously my desire to go to sea, and do the same work as any other crew member. In the end I had to disguise myself as a man, until we were well away from England and I had proved "Pete" to be a valuable part of Captain Bose's staff. Sometimes, the only way to survive a challenging interaction is to cheat! It was not until my third voyage that I was able to go to sea as Kate instead of Pete - and even then, I had to be good with gun and dagger and a closed fist to be sure of keeping the respect of randy crewmates! Aye, I proved myself, but it took a long time - years, in fact.

Well, Katie, m'girl, welcome and well met. A boon, now that you've spent more than a few minutes in this time and that place. What can you tell us of death and what may come after, having "lived it" and all.

Fair winds, and blue skies,

Windlass Wil Stormunddrang
Comment from hewasolddog299 - 11/2/05 1:30 AM

You seem to be under the impression that I am dead, or, at the least, that I was dead at one time. 'Tis natural enough that you would think so, given that I was born just over 250 years ago. I suppose it is even technically true. Somewhere, my bones have been moldering for well over a century. 'Tis a grave thought!

But I haven't died yet. I fully intend to get home to my own time, and live out the rest of my "nasty, brutish, and short" life. I have no real hope of living into my dotage, unless I manage to retire to some island, rich and anonymous; but I have never taken a bullet or a knife wound where it really mattered, never had a fever from which I did not recover, and my neck has never felt the noose.

Nay, what I know of death comes from handing it out to others. I am not especially proud of this, nor especially ashamed. If it is any consolation to you, I have only shot or stabbed someone in "kill or be killed" situations. To the best of my knowledge, none of the dozen men and one woman I dispatched ever returned as ghosts. Life after death? I guess I won't know the truth of it until I get there.

Dear Black Rose Kate:

We all (all four of us) want to know how a bold pirate of a woman like you approaches romance. I would imagine a woman in your position would have a hard time getting a man of high regards to notice you lest you be takin' his gold or his horse (or both).

I also want to say that you are an inspiration to all of us 21st century pirate maidens.

I lift my glass to ye!
Invisible Jess of Skull and Cross Bone Local 1220 GA Chapter
http://journals.aol.com/aurielalata/CIWTheOtherInvisible
Comment from aurielalata - 11/2/05 2:16 PM

and

Dear Black Rose Kate,
Have you ever been in love pray tell?
And what do you think of the wenches of October 2005 Year of our Lord that you have seen on Karen's various gizmos? Think they that they are too forthright amongst the menfolk or must they become bolder in their charms to dazzle a lover's fancy?
Thank-you for taking the time to answer me!
Maryanne
http://journals.aol.com/globetrotter2u/Myfeelingsarereal/
Comment from globetrotter2u - 11/2/05 5:38 PM

Hmm. Yes, I have been in love - and yes, it is difficult. But surely this is true of everyone, is it not?

Relationships between lady pirates and their male counterparts tend to be a matter of convenience rather than romance. Trust is always an issue, but occasionally love blooms even in the rockiest gardens.

I have never loved a pirate.

There was a man once who was not a pirate. I met him when I was thirty years old, and he was forty. I was recuperating in the Bahamas from a fever, and toying with the idea of giving up the sea. He was in Nassau on the King's business. We met. I pursued him, aye, and boldly as it happens. We loved. I gave him a daughter.

It ended badly.

I went back to the sea.

As you may readily deduce, I am no role model for true love and hearts won. Any advice I may give on the subject is therefore suspect.

Are you modern ladies too bold, or not bold enough? You ask me this, and I hardly have the wit to answer. In Karen's video collection, lovers are together as the story ends, save for Buffy and Angel. A happy ending is a more satisfactory result than in, let us say, Romeo and Juliet, especially for the lovers involved; but hardly different from As You Like It and other comedies. Shall I judge your modern romances by Buffy, by When Harry Met Sally, by You've Got Mail? Nay, for those are mere fiction. If ye men and women who live in the real world this century have your husbands, your wives, your lovers, and if you are happy in their embrace, then that is answer enough.

I do think that yours is a timid century, though, for all its bloodshed. You send your sons and daughters to fight, and do not quite know why; but you are not forthright in your dealings with others, day to day and face to face. It has nothing to do with relationships between the sexes. Men and women alike are guilty of keeping quiet in public, wearing your masks of meek politeness, never speaking your minds when you see folly or injustice. Then you gone home and blog about it. Well, 'tis better than not speaking out at all!

That Disobedient Wench,

Black Rose Katie Specks

(all photos by KFB)

Black Rose Kate: On Technology, Fictional Pirates and More

2005-11-01T23:36:00.000-08:00

All things being equal, it seemed best to leave Black Rose Katie Specks back at the house today while I went in to work as usual. Yesterday, people in the building accepted her as just another employee in costume, but that would not have worked on the first of November. So Kate stayed home and watched some of my DVDs - Pirates of the Caribbean, of course, and I think about two discs' worth of Buffy Season One. Afterward, I asked her about her day.

Karen: So, what did you think of the video?

Kate: I think I like that best of all the wonders you've shown me, except for the digital camera.

Karen: Why do you prefer the camera?

Kate: 'Tis participatory. With a camera like that to point at sea and land, at ship and shipmates, I could produce as many pictures in a single day as a painter could produce in a lifetime. I'll warrant that my sea pictures could best your Disneyland ones, by anyone's reckoning.

Karen: That would not be hard, considering that many of the photos from our last Disneyland trip were dismal failures. But Kate, if you took a digital camera back to the late 18th Century, it would do you no good. The flash memory would fill up, the battery would wear down, and you would have no way to print or view the photos.

Kate: So you admit that your modern devices have limitations.

Karen: Of course they have limitations. They're great, but they're designed to work together. You need all the related technologies, not just the one invention.

Kate: Aye, I've noticed how dependent you are on your vaunted technology. You live but a few miles from your workplace, and yet you drive as close to it as you can before using your feet. You own a stove that produces flame with the turn of a wrist, and yet you use your microwave oven, or eat food cold from the refrigerator. You have thousands of books, and yet you do nearly all of your reading on that computer of yours. You live within a few miles of a theater, and yet you watch DVDs.

Karen: What theater do I live close to?

Kate: The Gaslight Theater. I do like that name. I saw the place when you purchased that terrible red Jolly Roger.

Karen: The Gaslight Theater is a very different medium than tv and movies on DVD. They don't exactly play Shakespeare there. They do silly musicals, parodies, mostly.

Kate: Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn't Shakespeare, either. And yet it takes as much time as the longest of plays. I imagine that you sit all day and watch episode after episode. Small wonder you've developed such girth.

Karen: That's hardly a fair thing to say. You're as fat as I am.

Kate: Aye, but I'm fitter. 'Tis no sin for a pirate to be fat, so long as she can wield a weapon and climb the mast and handle sails and rudder in rough seas. For us, girth is a sign of wealth. Most successful pirates look more like Barbossa than Jack Sparrow.

Karen: We'll get to Pirates of the Caribbean in a moment. I'm wondering what you thought of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Did you like it?

Kate: Aye, I did. In some ways it seemed very natural, more true to your world than The Merchant of Venice is to mine. I liked that the heroine did not need a man to rescue her, and that the villains were often funny and eloquent. I've never heard of a vampire turning to dust, however.

Karen: That's because Joss Whedon made them do that for the convenience of the writers. Do you believe in vampires?

Kate: My inclination is to say no. Old maps may say "Here be Monsters," but in my experience there are no monsters. When you reach that spot on the map it's just more ocean, more land, more people--and perhaps an elephant or a tyger. I've never seen a vampire or a zombie, or a mummy that walked.

Karen: What did you think of Pirates of the Caribbean? Was that realistic?

Kate (laughs): Some of it was true to life, certainly more so than that Pirates of the Caribbean CD from Disneyland that you played for three hours on All Hallow's Eve. Those Disneyland pirates are almost entirely harmless. Even your movie pirates are less dangerous than most of the freebooters I know. I liked Jack Sparrow very much, but he was more wily and better looking than the captains I've met. That curse was very interesting, and in keeping with tales told around a fire. 'Twould never happen in real life, however.

Karen: Of course not. Speaking of pirates who aren't harmless, Carly has a question for you--

Kate: Yes, I saw her question. I must say that I'm less impressed with your World Wide Web than I was last night.

Karen: Why is that?

Kate: If the whole world saw my words, then why did no one but Carly ask me a question? By your own admission, she lives less than a thousand miles from this spot. There should be questions from England and Australia and Africa.

Karen: I said that the words could be read anywhere in the world, by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. I did not say that everyone with the means of reading my blog actually does it. Most people have never even heard of me or my blogs. And not all who do read them leave comments behind.

Kate: You've misrepresented yourself, then, or at least your blog. How many actual readers do you have for Musings? Four?

Karen: Dozens, at least. Can we get to Carly's question?

Kate: Aye.

Kate: What is the meaning of the colon and parenthesis?

Karen: It's a smile. Look at it sideways.

Kate: Aye. I see. Well, Carly, your question seems to me a very modern one. In my time, we do not think in terms of interactions. We judge the likelihood of attaining the prize without a fight, the strengths and weaknesses of friends and foes, and what tactics will bring us the victory.

Yet as I look at your question again, I realise that you are asking for an especially troublesome difficulty in my own life. To answer that, I think I need to tell the story of how I went to sea, and how I had to work to be taken seriously by seafaring men.

Karen: Do you want to tell that story tonight?

Kate: Nay! 'Tis likely to be longer than this entire conversation you've been typing, and I happen to know that you're two days behind on updating your church's schedule page. Tell Carly that she'll have her answer tomorrow night.

Karen: Why not tell her yourself?

Kate: Aye, I'll just do that. Carly, ye have my solemn word that tomorrow, assuming I am still in this city and century, I will tell you of a difficult interaction from the time I first went to sea. Meanwhile, I bid thee good night!

Good night from me too, folks! Remember, you still have time to get in a question to Black Rose Kate. Heck, she may even answer it! - Karen

MPS: Only 'Cause Kate Says I Haveta.

2005-11-01T00:12:00.000-08:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Get a picture of yourself or a loved one making a truly goofy face. Because why not? We could all use a chuckle. This is not unlike the previous Photo Shoot where I asked folks to show a good cathartic yell; maybe one day we'll collect them in a coffee table book called "Emotional AOL." Yeah, that's it. We'll sell a million!

I was going to skip this Monday Photo Shoot, for the first time ever since John Scalzi instituted them. My decision was partly because Kate and I already had plans for tonight's other entry, and partly because I didn't want to post any more overtly unflattering pictures of myself.

Unfortunately, Kate insisted that rather than blemish this attendance record, I should overcome my embarrassment and find an appropriate photo in my archives. Since I've recently had to initiate a policy about never arguing with a gun-wielding lady pirate, I am complying with Kate's request. Here's the picture. I hate it very much.

Let us never speak of this again.

Karen

Black Rose Kate: On Halloween and Modern Life

2005-10-31T23:52:00.000-08:00

Before I turn this forum over to my guest (I have already temporarily changed the About Me section of the sidebar at her insistence), I should explain that I am typing this at the kitchen counter. The roofers came today, and there's a good chance that in their tearing down of all things roofy (the tv antenna is on the ground in the back yard now), they may have somehow messed up the phone jack in my office. In any case, I was unable to get a dial tone there, no matter how many times I checked the modem cord. Between that, my guest, and my 106 trick or treaters, all given toys and candy by me or Kate, I've been a little busy. This chair is not very comfortable, either. Hmm. I think I'll go grab my office chair before taking down what Black Rose Katie Specks wishes to say to you tonight.

Karen

Marry, but 'tis certain that my hostess has more capacity than cause for complaint! As I understand it, this flat box, marked with letters and numbers, on which she is pounding away at this moment, is a means of communicating from one end of this old world to the other, very nearly at the speed of thought. Yes, I do know that though we often speak of "the ends of the earth," in truth there is no end to it, unless it is to go into the sky itself, and seek out the moon and stars. The rest is all connected - sea and shore, lake and river, mountains and sand. But in the life I know, charting blue-green courses from one bit of land to another may take weeks or months, sometimes even years. Posting a message across all that distance and more, to the interior of a country, and putting it in the hands of the intended recipient - this, too, is a lengthy and uncertain process, and often dangerous as well. I therefore have little sympathy for a woman who sits in a well-lit room, far from danger or any real discomfort, and sends my words spinning gaily through the world, mere moments after I utter them. I am convinced that Karen has never suffered any real hardship - troubles, yes, as do we all; but no true privation.

Who am I? My name - at least, the name by which I am known, from Brazil to the Bering Sea - is Black Rose Katie Specks. The name exists in several variant forms as well. Those who focus primarily on my fondness for roses drained of color call me Black Rose Kate. Those who find it odd that a pirate would be female and bespectacled prefer the name Katie Specks. Some choose to add a title to my name: "the Pirate Scribe," due to my uncommon literacy. Whichever name they call me, however, 'tis all one to me. My birth name was quite different. So long as I hear neither that hated moniker nor any insult, ye can call me as ye wish. (And I shall put you on notice right now that I seldom display more than a hint of the coarse dialect of the common pirate. No amount of sea spray will e'er wash away my education or my intelligence.)

Despite the best schooling ever afforded a woman of my generation, I must confess I have little idea what magic or science brought me to Karen's house, far from the sea and farther still from my own time. 'Tis my hope that whatever unnatural tide bore me to the Arizona desert in the Year of Our Lord 2005, 'twill soon wash me back where I belong. In the meantime, however, I have enjoyed marveling at the modern wonders of computers and automobiles, digital cameras and more, at the strange landscape and stranger customs.

Your All Hallow's Eve, for example, is much changed since my day. You have eroded the words into Halloween, and the fear and awe that suffused the date in times past exists now only in caricature, in fun and games (save for the practices of a few older cultures - or so Karen tells me). You play at fear, but seldom feel it. You dress as a ghost or a pirate, a witch or a vampyre, but you know not what is is to be any of these in reality. Chidren pretend to be angels and princesses, heroes and villains and monsters, primarily for the chance to eat sweets proferred by strangers. And people like Karen, decades past the age for this "trick or treat" custom, nevertheless plan their costumes with as much enthusiasm as the most wide-eyed child. At her place of business today, I saw several green-faced witches and a woman in pyjamas, a living scarecrow, an ersatz vampyre and a pretend pirate, and even a woman dressed as a male ghost in a striped suit, apparently named Beetlejuice. 'Tis odd behavior, to my mind, but these people seem to enjoy it. Perhaps in your modern world, with its dearth of real adventure and onus against mayhem, you must create such things vicariously.

Karen claims that she is tired of typing this, and begs me to allow her to stop for this night. And in truth, I am a bit weary myself, after an evening of mutual exploration of our respective lives and times, all in between the giving of toys and candy and pretend coins to the children of strangers. If I remain in your century another day or more, I shall continue my dictations tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I remain

That Disobedient Wench,

Black Rose Katie Specks

P.S. If you have any questions for Black Rose Kate, either about her life as a lady-turned-pirate or about her reactions to the modern world, please post them in comments. Thanks! - Karen

*****

Kate's story continues:

11/2/05: Black Rose Kate: On Technology, Fictional Pirates and More

11/2/05: Black Rose Kate On Love and Death...and Life

11/3/05: The Clone and the House Guest

11/5/05: A Pirate Incognito

11/6/05: Past Exploits and Coming Attractions

11/10/05: Absent Friends

There May Or May Not Be a Poem Here Later

2005-10-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

I promised you a poem, didn't I? Well, I may or may not deliver before the night is out, but I'm beginning to suspect not. Meanwhile, there are few other things I need to write in this nice white box:

1. I've researched; I've voted; I'm done! With two hours to spare! Can you say squeeeek? If you have an AOL or AIM account, and if you haven't already done so, you can vote in the VIVIs--but only if you hurry! [No, you can't. It's over now.]

Remember, Musings from Mâvarin has been nominated for the following:

Go! Vote! I'll still be here when you get back. You know me; I'll be up for hours and hours yet. Of course, most of that time will be spent putting candy and toys in Ziploc bags.

For me, there were only a few unpleasant moments in the whole VIVI voting process. First there was that attack of insecurity I had the other night. Thanks, folks, for helping me through it. Then there were a few less-than-wonderful moments when I was researching certain categories. Either I was annoyed because certain journalers were saying mean things about each other "in good fun" (or for other reasons), or I was torn between two or more excellent choices for that particular award.

The third and final unpleasantness was when I posted a comment in some stranger's journal, in response to a rather negative entry. The gist of my comment was, "Yes, I don't comment that much either, but surely things aren't as bad as you seem to think they are." I got two nasty emails back from this person in rapid succession, with a semi-apology in between. If this is how that journaler reacts to a well-meaning stranger, I can just imagine the flames that must erupt when more volatile and combative correspondents are involved. Me, I want no part of that junk. There are too many nice people in J-Land to waste time and emotions on people who upset me. And yes, I am still a little upset. I'll get over it.

2. Mall of Mâvarin Post Mortem - after 33 weeks, mysecond serial is finally over. Here's what I've learned from writing it:

a. It's almost impossible to handle a large cast adequately in a confined setting. When there are ten or twenty named characters "on stage" at once, it's difficult to remember all of them individually, let alone give each of them a chance to say and so interesting things. Instead it was almost a matter of holding up lines of dialogue like fish before trained porpoises: "I've got a line here about The Wizard of Oz! Who wants it?" Snap! It's not that big a problem in the books, because usually there aren't that many characters in a given scene. Next time I do a serial, though, I'm going to try for a smaller cast list!

b. Being entirely unable to plot ahead (I almost never know what's gonna happen in a story until it happens) is dangerous in a serial posted week by week. If I had known in the early weeks of writing Mall of that Li would be important to the plot, I would have mentioned him sooner. Had I known that Ariel Allegra would figure in the resolution, Josh would have mentioned his daughter five months ago. And so on. In the novels, I can go back and lay in something that needs to happen in Chapter 3 to justify what happens in Chapter 13. I can't do that in these serials, so the verisimilitude suffers a bit.

c. Speaking of verisimilitude, Mall of confirms what I've suspected for years - suspension of disbelief for Mâvarin suffers if there's too much interplay with the "real" world. Mâvarin isn't Narnia, and opening it up to kids from DeWitt does not keep us grounded in the reality of the world of my characters. Therefore, Mall of Mâvarin will almost certainly never be considered a "canonical" Mâvarin story.

3. I have a visitor here. She's far from her normal climes, and has yet to get her bearings, but she promises to speak to you tomorrow. Meanwhile, she's going to help me decorate for Halloween. Now, if we can just affix these rosesto the cloth-covered cardboard, we'll be in ship-shape!

Karen

Fiction: Mall of Mâvarin, Part Thirty-Three

2005-10-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I wanted to finish this tonight, and yee-haw! I've done it! Finally! It's long, but that just makes up for the short ones. Can I have that VIVI Award now? ;) - Karen

The easiest way to catch up on past installments of this serial is on Messages from Mâvarin at http://mavarin.blogspot.com. However, all links in this entry are to AOL unless otherwise labeled.

Synopses to Parts One through Six can be found at the top of Part Seven. Synopses to Parts Eight through Thirteen can be found at the top of Part Fourteen. Synopses to Parts Fourteen through Eighteen are at the top of Part Nineteen. Synopses to Parts Nineteen through Twenty-Five can be found at the top of Part Twenty-Six. The installments themselves can be read in order on Blogspot using the sidebar, or on AOL from the links at the bottom of this entry.

Part Twenty-Six: Cathma and Cathy wonder why they haven't lost consciousness with everyone else.

Part Twenty-Seven: Cathy and Cathma belatedly collapse and faint, much as the others did. They find themselves in a place without physical bodies, surrounded by a thousand versions of themselves. The only person present who doesn't have their face is Joshua Wander.

Part Twenty-Eight: Cathma is pretty sure they're in something called the subjective plane. Joshua Wander is pretty sure he's meant to be their guide. The other versions of Cathy and Cathma disappear, leaving just the two of them to work out the answer to Josh's question: which one of them will be the one to return home?

Part Twenty-Nine: Joshua Wander explains that there is an imbalance in magic between the worlds, which can only be solved by someone relocating to the other person's world - permanently. However, the explanation makes no sense, and Cathy doesn't believe it.

Part Thirty: Cathy refuses to sacrifice her normal life on the basis of what she's hearing. Angered by the lack of cooperation, "Joshua Wander" disappears, replaced by Cathma's self-proclaimed "oldest enemy" - Imuselti, former royal mage to a family of usurpers.

Part Thirty-One: Based on her secondhand memories of who Imuselti is, Cathy realizes that the man in this no-place knows things that the real Imuselti would not know, such as who the Beatles were. She begins to suspect that of all she sees and hears around her, "nothing is real," and nothing to get hung about.

Part Thirty-Two: Although the identity of the man making the offer remains in doubt, Cathy becomes convinced that unless she signs a blood oath agreeing to give up any chance of going home, she may never even leave this no-place in which she's trapped. She signs the oath, but only in exchange for a promise that everyone else "who wants to go home, will go home." Shortly afterward, shefinds herself back in the mall in Mâvarin, surrounded by family, friends and cold pizza.

Part Thirty-Three: Croatoan

Cathy’s reaction to what Cathma had said must have showed on her face, because Carl frowned. “Thanks for doing what? What is she talking about, Cath?”

“She’s thanking me for sacrificing my chance to go home, so that other people can get there, and so that I wouldn’t be trapped nowhere at all,” Cathy said, a little bitterly. She pushed the pizza plate away.

Carl stared at her. “You did that, too?”

“What?”

“I was just in this weird dreamland place, all dark, just me and, well, more of me, and King Carli, and this other guy. Were you really there with me, Your Majesty?”

King Carli nodded. “That’s what I remember. Yes.”

“And I agreed to stay behind, too, just as you say you did. I even signed something called a blood oath.”

“Okay, so we were both maneuvered into giving up our lives in the real world,” Cathy said. “But we did it under duress. Isn’t there a way out of it?”

“Not if you took a blood oath, no,” said Fayubi. “Violating one of those has lethal consequences. Fabian and I had a similar experience, but we didn’t agree to anything.” He looked around. “Oh, and I’m myself again. For whatever reason.”

Jamie Barrett nodded. “Whatever that was, a dream or weird astral plane or something else, it straightened the two of us out, too. But nothing was said about giving up on going home. How could you two do that? I thought I raised you better than that. What about high school, your friends, your college plans, to say nothing of my feelings in the matter? What about the rest of your lives?”

“It looked as though I wasn’t going to get a chance to go home, regardless,” Cathy said. “I thought if I did this, at least you and Carl, Randy, the two teachers and everyone else could go home, even if I couldn’t.” She turned to Carl. “But no, you had to be all self-sacrificing too,didn’t you?”

“What, am I not allowed to do something heroic, and try to help my family, too?” Carl asked. “Are you sorry that we’re in this fix together?”

“Well, no,” Cathy admitted. “I think I’m grateful.”

“So what do we do now?” Jamie asked.

Jami Baret pointed to the other end of the food court, where Lee and Li and Josh Wander had just appeared around a corner, followed by Randy and Rani. “I think we’re about to find out,” Jami said.

The new arrivals looked around, apparently spotted the twins and their friends, waved, and hurried over. “I think we’ve got the portal working the way it’s supposed to work,” Li said.

Josh was all smiles. “It seems to be working great, in fact. Some of the Americans have gone home already, feeling almost completely like their old selves again. Are you folks ready to go?”

Cathy stood up. She was shaking with anger. “How dare you even ask me that? Where do you expect me to go?”

“Why, home to DeWitt, of course.” The itinerant magician looked around at all the angry faces directed at him. His smile fell away. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What’s happened here?”

Cathy told him.

“Well, that wasn’t I,” Josh told her. “I suppose it could have been a different Joshua Wander.”

Carl frowned. “A different one? How many are there?”

“At least two others that I know about,” said JW. “One of them is a pretty nasty character, much more insane than I ever was. He seems to think he can only get home if he can deprive other people of the same opportunity.” His lips parted. “Oh, my. I should have thought of this before. He could have caused this whole mess.”

Li shook his head. “I really don’t think so. This was at least mostly my fault.”

“He took advantage of the situation then, at the very least,” Josh said. “As I told you, he’s insane. He even tried to steal my daughter from me once. Fortunately, Ariel was too smart to fall for his tricks.”

“You have a daughter?” Cathy asked. “You didn’t mention that before. Where is she?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you about her? I thought I had. She’s in school, most of the time, but she’s inherited her dad’s tendency to wander the multiverse as well.”

“Where does she go to school, then?”

“Croatoan College. It’s a wonderful place, sort of an educational Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, except with fewer puns.” He looked at Cathy and Carl in turn. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “you two would probably fit right in there.”

There were a number of discussions that followed Joshua Wander’s idea, an argument or two over whether Jami or Randy or both would accompany Cathy and Carl into their new life, and more than a few tears when it was decided that both would return to DeWitt instead. Then it was time for everyone to say their goodbyes. Large portions of the mall had already vanished, presumably back to DeWitt, by the time Jamie, Randy and the two teachers walked away through the portal’s nexus point and disappeared.

“You know, despite all the trouble it caused, I like this shopping mall,” Fayubi said. “I’m rather sorry to see it go.”

Cathma chuckled. “Well, perhaps you and Mera can open your own little outlet mall. But not tonight. It’s been a long day, and Carli and I really need to get back to the Palace. Will we ever see you again, Cathy?”

Cathy shrugged, but Fayubi said, “I’m pretty sure Cathy and Carl will make a return appearance here – but probably not for quite a while. In my vision, they’re at least ten years older than they are now.”

“Really? What else can you tell us?” Carl asked eagerly.

Fayubi shook his head. “Nothing. What little I’ve seen would not help you now. But at least you know you will survive your adventures, for the next decade at the very least.”

This was not exactly encouraging, but Cathma reassured Cathy that Fayubi meant well. There was one more round of goodbyes, and then the Mâvarinû were gone, leaving behind only Cathy, Carl and Joshua Wander. Even the last of the mall had disappeared.

“Now what?” Carl said.

“I’ll take you in my castle,” Josh said. “Ariel will be pleased to meet someone from her dad’s home town—I hope!”

Hand in hand, the twins followed Joshua Wander into the blue castle, now restored to its full size. Joshua fiddled with what looked like a box of rocks, and said words that sounded like Lopartin, the vaguely Latinesque spell-tongue used in Mâvarin and Mâton. Cathy was pretty sure she heard the name Ariel mentioned. This time there was little sensation of movement, but in a few minutes the castle’s front hall was suddenly filled with a pleasant green light. “Ah! Here we are,” Josh said happily. “Are you ready for your new lives?”

“I guess we have to be,” Carl said. He didn’t sound too upset about it, though.

Josh opened the castle’s front door into Technicolor sunshine – and an entirely new adventure.

The End

Welcome to Mâvarin

Messages from Mâvarin (BlogSpot: use sidebar to get to the individual installments).

This serial on AOL:

Part One    Part Two   Part Three   Part Four   Part Five
Part Six   Part Seven   Part Eight   Part Nine   Part Ten
Part Eleven   Part Twelve   Part Thirteen   Part Fourteen
Part Fifteen   Part Sixteen   Part Seventeen   Part Eighteen
Part Nineteen Part Twenty   Part Twenty-One   Part Twenty-Two
Part Twenty-Three   Part Twenty-Four   Part Twenty-Five   Part Twenty-Six
Part Twenty-Seven   Part Twenty-Eight
Part Twenty-Nine   Part Thirty   Part Thirty-One   Part Thirty-Two

Next week: New Adventure! Or something.

Trick or Treat Thru J-Land

2005-10-29T17:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the drill.

The idea behind this meme is to go "trick or treating" around the Land, leaving comments and links as treats. The full explanation can be found here:

Oh My Word

So. Trick or treat!

Here's your treat for now: a different view of the Catalinas on a hot October afternoon, as seen from the Costco parking lot.

The other picture is the stuff I'll be using this year - another clue!

I'm off to face the party supply - turns out we're out of treat bags after all.

[Later] I managed to avoid the party supply on the Saturday before Halloween - by going to Walgreen's, three times. Here's what the bin looks like now:

And here's the craft project on my desk!

Karen

(Back tonight with Mall of Mâvarin!)

My Weird Response to a Generally Icky Day

2005-10-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of tired and depressed tonight, and that's not good for de blogging.

It wasn't a bad day, exactly, but it was a frustrating one. I couldn't quite get anything done at work, because everything was interrupted by everything else. A little after 3 PM, I was trying to finish the biggest interruption, so that I could take care of two other interruptions, and then get back to the main task of the day. That's when my phone rang. The roofer - the one that two people recommended, the one that's had money sitting in escrow from our refi for over a month, the one that never responds to my phone calls, and couldn't give me a time frame more specific than a Monday or Thursday in November - THAT roofer! - called. They'll be out Monday - Halloween! - to replace our roof. Great! I thought, until I called John. He was upset with the extremely short notice. John reminded me that we were told to get a solar company to remove the solar panel that runs down to our water heater before the roofers arrive. How could we possibly get that done between 3:30 Friday and 6 AM Monday? The solar place initially said the same, but they took pity on me and came out late this afternoon. The cost was $250 plus tax, not including the price of reinstalling it afterward. Great, more money down the figurative drain. We have not done one thing we wanted to do with the dwindling cash we took from the refi - and John's worried that we'll never get the chance to do anything much.

I had hoped to have my big new Halloween poem ready for you tonight. I was even compelled to take a break at work today and email a stanza to myself before I forgot it. But by the time I looked at my notes after work, the words barely made sense to my tired brain. Maybe I'll have it for you Sunday. I just can't work on it tonight.

The nasty, negative part of my brain, the part that seems to be in control tonight, says that it doesn't matter anyway. I expected to get more readers and more comments from the two VIVI nominations, but since the initial flurry I've been getting fewer comments than I usually get during a normal week. Wah! Nobody loves me any more! Entries I was really proud of got one comment each. I've taken to thinking that posting two entries in a day actually decreases the readership for each, and that most people won't check out the fiction and poetry nominees anyway, because they think they don't like poetry. With all those categories to vote for, maybe they'll spend their limited time before voting ends looking at the major categories, the fun categories, the "Part One" categories. Maybe I annoyed people by saying that I wasn't going to try to comment in every single nominated journal. Maybe I violated the Unwritten Law of Blogging - whatever that might be!

Now, I know as well as anyone that this kind of negative thinking is foolish and destructive. "Remember the lurker factor!" Carly tells me. People are spread thin right now, sampling as many nominated journals as possible, I tell myself. Alerts are wonky, so we may be missing each other. But I still feel rejected and neglected. Pout.

So what am I going to do about all this - the bad monetary/logistic news and the defeatist head trips, the poem that evades me, sleep deprivation and general depression?

I'm going to write a few limericks and show you some sunset pictures. What else?

Gruesome Limericks
by Karen Funk Blocher

A young ghost who haunted New York,
Met this fate being stabbed with a fork.
The fork it was pitch-
And the victim, a witch,
Was accused of inventing the "spork!"

A mystery writer was proud
He with such great ideas was endowed.
'Til his play about murder
Involving a birder
Was restaged by "Kill Willie" O'Dowd!

There was a young zombie named Clyde,
Who once gave a black cat a ride.
But the cat it kept clawing,
And Clyde's innards kept falling,
So he'd stop and stuff parts back inside!

Pirates, searching for wealth beyond measure,
Found a map once that promised rare treasure.
But as they were digging,
A fire to their rigging
Was set, for their rivals' great pleasure!

Madeleine Millicent Blair
Was a vampire extraordinaire,
'Til she met a young slayer
With a headache (no Bayer),
And ended as dust in her hair.

And somewhere in there is another clue to this year's Halloween costume.

The one good thing that happened today was that I left work at exactly the right time to get lots and lots of good sunset pictures. You know it's a great sunset when the sky is pink with clouds, and there's color in every direction you look. (The shot of the Catalina Mountains, for example, faces north.) Enjoy! And comment, darn yuhs!

Karen

P.S. A nice person commented before I even finished fixing the typos in this entry. Hooray! I feel better already. But do say hello anyway, won't you? Thanks!

P.P.S. Well, I've looked at all the nominated journals in the first ten categories, with more of the same planned for Saturday and Sunday. I already have one category in which I could not narrow it down to one choice, so I'll have to look again later. Several other categories were really tough also, with two or more journals I'd like to vote for. There really are a lot of great journals out there. I just wish I had time to keep up with them all. [Yawn] Good night!

Would You Approach This Character on a Dark Night?

2005-10-27T23:15:00.000-07:00

Weekend Assignment #83: Tell us a scary Halloween story... that happened to you. What I'm looking for here is a story where you were spooked or scared by someone or... something... in or around Halloween (or, alternately, a story where you spooked the heck out of someone else). Please note I don't want stories in which you or others were genuinely in danger -- I'm talk about you getting one big BOO! moment, which, after you were able to get your heart back into your chest, resulted in you saying something along the lines of "Don't do that!" to whomever was giving you a spook. A fun frightening, in other words.

Extra Credit: The song "Monster Mash": Fun or lame?

If this journal seems to be turning into all Halloween, all the time, that's only because it pretty much is. Don't worry; it's temporary. Heck, this is nothing. Last year I gave the mostly-oblivious public two weeks of graveyards and coffins, costumes and treats, toys and decor. This year, we're talking about just over a week, interrupted from time to time with other stuff.

First off, let's dispose of the being "spooked" part of John Scalzi's assignment. I honestly don't remember ever being particularly scared on Halloween. Being shy, I probably didn't like to approach a house alone, but since I always went trick-or-treating with one friend of another, that usually wasn't a problem. We admired the artists' skull and Hamlet record next door, stuck to familiar neighborhoods, skipped the houses that weren't lit, and never got as far as the haunted house at the fork in the road between F-M Road and High Street. (We often peeked in the windows of this dilapidated, abandoned but still-furnished old house by daylight, but we never broke in or anything. We were good kids. At least, I was.)

So I have to turn instead to more recent times, with me doing the scaring. "Not Rani" plays a major role in this little story, so I'd better explain about him.

You probably recognize this picture. I used it as my sidebar photo for much of 2004, and it's back again this month for Halloween. A different version of it is one of my LiveJournal icons.

This is probably my favorite of my recent Halloween costumes. I call it "Not Rani" because it's about as close as I can come to impersonating a tengrem, short of modifying a pantomime horse costume or gluing a horn on my head. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that probably means you haven't been reading Mall of Mâvarin, or browsing www.mavarin.com. How can you vote for me in the VIVIs if you haven't read any of my fiction, hmm?

Okay, for the sake of expedience, here's the short version. In my first novel, Heirs of Mâvarin, Rani Fost is a 15-year-old apprentice tanner who is suddenly transformed into a monster, and then hunted as his own presumed murderer. He seeks help from his best friend, who is the Prince of Mâvarin but doesn't know it yet.

A tengrem looks like a nightmare combination of several other mythological creatures. It has four legs, a somewhat bear-like upper torso, a horn on its wolfish head and dragon-like breath, the latter only when it's really angry. That's not important right now. The point is that this mask looks a lot like a tengrem head (but without the dirty yellow horn), which is why I bought it.

The photo of me in my Not Rani costume dates to October 31st, 2002, six weeks before my mom died. I remember this because I stopped at her adult care home on my way from Walgreen's, where I'd bought fake black nails as claws. They didn't work well, and I ended up mostly doing without them. By the time this picture was taken, after the hundred or so trick-or-treaters had been and gone, I'd long since given up on the claws, but the fur was still hanging in here, and the black makeup was still giving my fingers pretty much the effect I wanted. And after all that, I watched a tv special about coffins and cemeteries, even though it made me feel a little creepy. This was a few weeks after I chose my still-living mom's grave marker style, and designed the text for it.

I don't get to Halloween parties since the Doctor Who club drifted into oblivion, but I dress up anyway, often for work and always to hand out the treats. In 2002, the year of Not Rani, I affected a growly voice, but dropped it in a hurry when I noticed that the kids were genuinely scared of me. The little children wouldn't even approach without a lot of encouragement from me and from their parents or older siblings. More than once, I pulled off the mask to reassure them.

Okay, little kids are one thing, but what about the older ones? I did the growly voice thing for kids in their teens, and even they were scared, some of them! About 9:30 that night, a couple of teenagers got out of a car, started up our driveway, and stopped when they saw me standing there, watching for stragglers and trying to cool off in the night air.

"Hello," one of them called out, a little tentatively.

"Hello!" I growled.

"Are you really a monster?" asked one of the nervous teens.

"No," I said loudly, in a more normal voice.

"Are you going to eat us?"

"Nooo," I said, in the tone one uses when faced with a really stupid question.

Now, I would have assumed that this was all a joke, just a couple of teenagers from another neighborhood cruising around, mooching for candy and having fun. I don't think they were even wearing costumes, or else they were in lame "we're too cool and grown-up to do it right" costumes. But even after all that, these kids - I can't remember whether there were two or three of them - were extremely reluctant to approach me for their bags o' toys and candy.

Left: The ghoul's self-portrait.

Right: Queen Cathma, later in life. (Why, yes, I am obsessed with my Mâvarin characters. Why do you ask?)

The next year I bought this ghoul mask at Walgreen's on the night of October 30th, because it was only $8 and I liked it a lot. Remembering the way the kids had reacted to Not Rani, I dressed in my 2001 Queen Cathma costume for the early arrivals, and switched to the ghoul at about 8 PM. Normally I like to change costumes every year, but for 2004 I ended up doing the same thing as in 2003, except that I switched to the ghoul a little earlier. (The reason is a long, uninteresting story, so I'll spare you.)

And yes, the kids were scared of the ghoul, too. I can't really blame them!

And this year? Well, if you're playing along at home, you already know that it involves a skull, and that I'll be wearing boots. Your third clue is that it's not a rerun from 2001-2004, but it is a rerun of...something else.

Extra Credit: The song "Monster Mash": Fun or lame? Hey, I like the Monster Mash. I like pretty much all Halloween songs, andwish there were more of them. The one that stick in my had this year is one I learned in elementary school, The Wobblin' Goblin:

The wobblin' goblin with the broken broom
Could never fly too high
'Cause right after take-off,
Another piece would break off,
And soon he would be dangling in the sky....

I've never known where this song came from, whether a teacher wrote it or it was published somewhere. Other than myself, I haven't heard anyone sing it in about 40 years now. Maybe I'll Google it tonight, and see if anything turns up.

Tomorrow night: a Halloween poem - I hope! How do you feel about AABB rhyme schemes? Yeah, I hate them, too, but we may be stuck with one this time.

Karen

From last year: The Wolf at the Door and Ghoulish Fun

Update: The Wobblin' Goblin was the B-side to a 78 RPM record by Rosemary Clooney in 1950. (Some kind of aircraft also got that nickname.) The full lyrics to the song can be seen on a rather interesting thread about Halloween songs at http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=3113&page=2

Tags: Halloween, Weekend Assignment, Scary

More Clandestine Photos

2005-10-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

[If you're here to check out this journal in connection with the VIVI Awards, welcome! Fiction and poetry are only part of what I do here. Feel free to browse, but if you're in a hurry to find the VIVI-nominated stuff, click here for a handy list of links. Tonight, though, I'm doing the photo essay thing.]

This is Part Two of my entry in the Round Robin Photo Challenge, subject "Halloween Happenings." Scroll down if you haven't see Part One yet, because without it you'll be wondering what I'm talking about!

Yes, I snuck in a few more pictures at work today, both in my cubicle and on my way out the door. Here's a picture of the rubber spiderweb I mentioned last night:

When I opened this photo, there was something about it - the angle, probably - that made me think it was a good candidate for filters and effects. I don't have Photoshop (not on this computer, anyway), but PhotoStudio 2000, which came free with my scanner, has fun stuff to play with. Here are the fruits of my "fun!"

Crayon, I think.

High contrast.

High contrast, followed by fisheye and cone, which almost cancel each other out. So I went back and did the fisheye again. I like the way it gave the wall an "eye."

High contrast and magic mirror produced this spooky face!

I also took a few more pictures in the break room. Concentrating on a single element of the display seemed to work out better.

The folky, witchy guy.

Electric jack-o'-lantern, with flash.

The same electric jack-o'-lantern, without flash.

Karen

Please visit the journals of all of this week's Round Robin Participants:

Alan...F-Stop - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/botdotdotdot/F-Stop

Karen...Musings from Mavarin - POSTED x2!

http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/

Carly...Ellipsis - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/ondinemonet/Ellipsis/

Mary...Alphawoman's Blog

http://journals.aol.com/alphawoman1/Alphawomansblog/

Sara...Photographic Memories - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/shedrawsanime/PhotographicMemories

Dorn...Through the Eyes of the Beholder - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/dornbrau/ThroughtheEyesoftheBeholder/

rRose...WAIT NOTYET - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/rrveh1/WAIT-NOTYET-/

Steven...sometimes photoblog - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/sepintx/sometimesphotoblog/

Renee...wwwTimelessCalligraphyStudiocom - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/acyrlicstains/publish/

Kat...From Every Angle

http://journals.aol.com/mskatdabrat/FromEveryAngle/

Robin...These are the days of our lives POSTED EARLY! (x2!)

http://journals.aol.com/robinngabster/Thesearethedaysofourlives/entries/1155

Tess...First Digital Photos - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/tc01hm/FirstDigitalPhotos/

Gem...Journally Yours - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/libragem007/JournallyYours/

Marie...Photographs & Memories - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/mariebm56/PhotographsMemories

Maryanne...My feelings are real - POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/globetrotter2u/Myfeelingsarereal/

AND

Sassy...Sassy'sEYE - ADDED! POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/sassydee50/SassysEYE/entries/732/

Cosette... Pandora's Bazaar - POSTED EARLY (sort of)! Just as well, because she's in Florida without power now.

http://journals.aol.com/pandorasbazaar/PandorasJournal/entries/520

Corporate Halloween Happenings

2005-10-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

This flyer first appeared in a corridor of Unnamed Largish Company about a day after Carly announced her husband Alan's idea for this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge: Halloween Happenings! Spooky, huh?

At the risk of giving away company secrets, I'm going to admit to you here and now that the company that employs me has Halloween decorations up. Since I make a point of never naming the firm in my blogs, or mentioning what kind of business it is, or revealing exactly what I do all day at work, I think I can get away with telling you this.

Maybe not, though. When these balloons arrived in our department a week ago, I waited until nearly everyone had left for the day, and then took some pictures of the balloons. I say nearly everyone, because at the sound of the first photo being taken (my digital camera has a sound effect turned on so I know it took a picture), one of my co-workers popped up to jokingly ask whether I was photographing company secrets. I said that I was photographing the company balloons. I went on to reveal for the first time that I have "a significant online presence." My co-worker went home that night, Googled the word "mavarin" and found this blog. He was disappointed, though, because I hadn't posted any balloon pictures. Well, here's one of them, D.!

As you can probably guess, there are definite drawbacks to filling a room with helium balloons nearly two weeks before the holiday you're celebrating. Within two days, a couple of the black balloons, including mine, were hanging instead of floating. It was so sad! I felt as though I had a defective balloon. By now, of course, all the balloons are like that. At least they were, until people started taping them to the tops of cubicles, as I soon did, or removed them entirely.

It doesn't really matter, though. The balloons (the orange ones, anyway) still add color to the drab, cubicle-filled room, and the fact that they're "hanging" like that adds a macabre touch. One side of the room got cobwebs, too, which I like a lot. We didn't get them on our side, probably because our part of the room isn't visible from the door. But I brought in my own little rubber spider web, and strung it between my black balloon and my hanging baskets.

The Halloween Happenings flyer is for a different department, I'm sorry to say, but it looks as though we'll have a pot luck anyway. I'm bringing the apples. Should I bring caramel for them or leave the appled au naturel?

Meanwhile, I get to enjoy the decorations throughout the building. My favorite is this display in the break room. I admire it every day, almost. It was really hard to get a good picture of it, though, because of the contrast between the lit jack-o'-lantern and the dark figure. This photo was about the fifth attempt.

I'll be writing more about Halloween at home as we get closer to the day, but don't expect to see "the reveal" of my costume for this year until October 31st. I've been very busy at home and around town, shopping for Halloween Happenings of a personal nature. I initially put this year's costume together without spending a penny, but I find myself enhancing it with new accessories and additional items of clothing. John has accused me of purchasing "my stylish yet affordable boots" (Quick! What's that quote from?) just for the sake of the costume. Well, yeah, I will wear them on Halloween. But I fully intend to wear them on other occasions, too. Like Rodeo Days (a local holiday here). Or when it rains. And when it snows here, any year now, I'll be ready!

Karen

All photos by KFB

Please visit the journals of all of this week's Round Robin Participants:

Alan...F-Stop

http://journals.aol.com/botdotdotdot/F-Stop

Karen...Musings from Mavarin

http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/

Carly...Ellipsis

http://journals.aol.com/ondinemonet/Ellipsis/

Mary...Alphawoman's Blog

http://journals.aol.com/alphawoman1/Alphawomansblog/

Sara...Photographic Memories

http://journals.aol.com/shedrawsanime/PhotographicMemories

Dorn...Through the Eyes of the Beholder

http://journals.aol.com/dornbrau/ThroughtheEyesoftheBeholder/

rRose...WAIT NOTYET

http://journals.aol.com/rrveh1/WAIT-NOTYET-/

Steven...sometimes photoblog

http://journals.aol.com/sepintx/sometimesphotoblog/

Renee...wwwTimelessCalligraphyStudiocom

http://journals.aol.com/acyrlicstains/publish/

Kat...From Every Angle

http://journals.aol.com/mskatdabrat/FromEveryAngle/

Robin...These are the days of our lives POSTED EARLY!

http://journals.aol.com/robinngabster/Thesearethedaysofourlives/entries/1155

Tess...First Digital Photos

http://journals.aol.com/tc01hm/FirstDigitalPhotos/

Gem...Journally Yours

http://journals.aol.com/libragem007/JournallyYours/

Marie...Photographs & Memories

http://journals.aol.com/mariebm56/PhotographsMemories

Maryanne...My feelings are real

http://journals.aol.com/globetrotter2u/Myfeelingsarereal/

AND

Sassy...Sassy'sEYE - ADDED! POSTED!

http://journals.aol.com/sassydee50/SassysEYE/entries/732/

Cosette... Pandora's Bazaar - POSTED EARLY (sort of)! Just as well, because she's in Florida without power now.

http://journals.aol.com/pandorasbazaar/PandorasJournal/entries/520

"Plant" your journal in the Journal Graveyard, courtesy of (sometimes) photoblog's Steven

From last year: Cauldron of Plenty

Today's Lunchtime Confection

2005-10-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

The title of this journal entry refers to the fact that I wrote this poem today at lunch. Yes, I know I pushed my luck on both the rhyme and the meter in a few places.

It's tough to get a good picture of Tuffy after sunset, with or without flash, but here are the two best attempts. With flash, she's got those annoying greenish-white circles in her eyes, which can't really be filled in well. Without flash, the picture comes out pretty dark. Brightening the image only does so much, and results in wonky colors.

Oh, and by the way, Tuffy is standing up in the poem. - Karen

The Mooch

Don't forget the dog! she begs,
With her anxious doggie eyes.
Her tail's almost behind her legs;
She'll flee from any loud surprise.

She knows exactly where she stands:
Next to her desired reward.
She gazes at my empty hands,
So close to the admired cupboard.

Her tail waves slowly side to side.
She smiles her anxious doggie smile.
I reach in, give her hopes a ride,
So she'll be happy for awhile.

"A while" is measured by the time
She's taking her small prize away,
Because she fears the doggie crime
Of theft should she just eat and stay.

She chews and swallows, and looks around
For any still-uneaten crumbs;
And when there are none to be found,
Then back to me my Tuffy comes.

More, please! my greedy doggie pleads.
Can't you see I'm starving here?
I sigh, and give her one more treat,
Because she is my doggie dear!

KFB, 10/24/05

I'm running on fumes tonight. Last night I drove back to the office at 10 PM, and stayed so late that I surprised a night watchman. Then I blogged some more. Am I insane? When I look at the clock and realize that four hours of sleep is no longer possible, that's beyond the pale, even for me!

Voting for the VIVI awards begins Tuesday morning, so instead of going to bed early I've started to make the rounds of the nominees in categories other than my own. I've definitely seen some good journals with which I was previously unfamiliar, some of which I'll probably add to my alerts - later, when I'm feeling less overwhelmed. So far, nothing has displaced one of my faves as the one I'll vote for, but it's early yet. That may well happen, especially in categories in which I don't have a strong favorite.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by and posted congratulations, especially those of you who have started reading Meet Joshua Wander. That means a lot to me. If I don't post congratulatory comments in every nominated blog myself, I hope you'll all forgive me. I'm not ignoring you, truly! I'm happy for us all. It's just that I really, really need to avoid taking on any more obligations right now, even the "obligation" to comment. But I will look at every nominated journal, and give it a fair read.

Karen

Click here for links to more of my fiction and poetry.

Halloween Previews

2005-10-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Halloween is just a week away! Display your current decorations and preparations, or show off a favorite from years past. Pumpkins, holiday cards, decorations from Halloween parties and porch displays -- it's all good.

Gee, John! Spoil our fun, why doncha? This Wednesday, October 26th, is the day of the newest Round Robin Photo Challenge, and the theme is "Halloween Happenings!" So now I have to figure out which photos are of preparations and decorastions, and which are of "happenings." What to do, what to do...!

Well, I have to admit that Halloween is too much fun to be exclusive about. It's a great blogging subject. Why, I spent almost all of October 2004 blogging about Halloween, and graveyards, and costumes, and coffins, and treats, and decorations, and death, death, death. And no, I was neither a Goth nor particularly depressed!

Okay, then, just for you, John, here are two bags of Sunday's Halloween purchases:

This is the stuff that will be given away to trick-or-treaters, aside from a bit of candy. There are spider rings and Martian fingers in here, compasses and spyglasses, snakes and lizards, whistles and vampire fangs, stickers and trading cards and more.

Here's another view of the same bag, Monday night:

And now we're on to the other bag:

Cool, huh? This stuff isn't necessarily to be given away. And that's all I'm saying for now about the contents of this bag.

The rest of the Halloween pictures can wait for Tuesday night - after midnight, of course!

Karen

(I know the first two photos I posted here had captions this morning, but tonight they didn't. I had to retype them from memory. Weird.)

That Unforgettable Trip

2005-10-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

Just a slight exaggeration here....

Oh, that day?
Yes, I remember!
It was in August
(Perhaps November).
We went to Norco
(Perhaps Pomona),
And while at Denny's,
We used the phone, uh...
Who was the guy
That gave us the tip,
Who helped us to make
Our unauthorized trip?
We called him Deep Tram,
But was his name Mike?
Then we drove out and found
Scott's car (and his bike?);
He was just coming in
(Or going on break?);
I remember that moment
Quite well - no mistake!
The nicest tv star
I ever had met.
Yes, that was a day
I'll never forget!

KFB, 10/24/05

Links to more poetry and fiction

Mysteries of Memory

2005-10-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have a book called Seven Sins of Memory by Daniel L. Schacter. I haven't done more than skim it so far, but I fully intend to read it eventually. It's about the seven ways in which the memory can get things wrong:

1. Transience - a weakening or loss of memory over time. One example Schacter uses is that many people have forgotten by now how they learned of the O.J. verdict.

2. Absent-mindedess - the failure to record a memory because one is distracted or not paying attention. (e.g. "Where did I leave my keys?")

3. Blocking - the failure to remember some bit of information when you need it, even though you normally know it well. ("What was the name of that guy...?")

4. Misattribution - misremembering the source of a memory. Did it really happen, did you only dream it, or did you see it on tv?

5. Suggestibility - the implanting of false memories through leading questions, hypnosis, etc.

6. Bias - the distortion of a memory, based on our current beliefs.

7. Persistence - remembering something we'd rather forget.

I'm not going to try to go into any more detail for now on Schacter's ideas. Suffice it to say that memory is more subject to error, even in healthy adults, than we generally like to believe.

Take, for example, the story I told a couple of weeks ago about the time I met Harry Nilsson. I said that John asked Nilsson several questions, and Harry signed this photo for him. But John is certain that he never met the man. He thinks that Kal and I went to that Beatlefest without him, and we asked questions and got the autograph on John's behalf. Could be, could well be! That's not how I remember it, but when I tried to tell the story after 23 1/2 years, I was aware that my memory of the incident was a bit vague.

But what about when the memory gets it right? How does that come about?

When I wrote that entry about kids' books the other night, I remembered at least four different passages from the story of Billy making a lumpy cake and an ugly hat for his mother. ("Then you will see and understand, that I am making something grand!") I also remember that the cover was yellow. And yet, I have no idea what the title could be, or who the author was. Why is that?

Well, I have a theory. (You're not surprised, are you?) One aspect the the book that made an impression was the visual cues - the yellow cover, the illustration of the mother with the hat on her head, and another one of Billy dropping 20 eggs into the mixing bowl, shells and all. ("Hmm. Three eggs. I'll use twenty for a bigger cake.") More important, though, was the rhyme and the meter. They tickled my memory, making a deep enough impression for the thing to stick. Maybe there was no rhyming or wordplay in the title, so I didn't remember that. Another book from the same publisher is the opposite case. I remember the rhyming title, Mr. Pine's Mixed-Up Signs, but I don't remember the story at all.

Other things I remember after 40 years on the basis of rhyme and meter include:

The Syracuse Savings Bank jingle, Save More, Earn More.
A Halloween song, The Wobblin' Goblin
A kids' parody of the Byrne Dairy jingle: "Byrne Dairy Milk is mighty fine/Makes you look like Frankenstein!"
The first two lines from the Alphabet book I had when I was three. And really, isn't that the point of a rhyming alphabet book, to make the letters and their sounds easy to remember?

Another memory is only half as old as the others, but still worth mentioning. In one episode of Moonlighting, Dave and Maddy are trying to prevent an assassination at a diplomatic dinner. Dave's rapid-fire exchange with the maitre d' quickly takes on Seussian features, including this line: "What kind of clothes do I suppose would be worn by a man with a mole on his nose?"

I could probably find more examples, but you getthe idea.

Other trivial memories that have stuck with me seem to be based on my having learned from my mistakes. No, I don't mean big, life-changing epiphanies. I mean stuff like this:

The third time the Cat in the Hat wants the kids to watch him juggle, he's added another book to the act, so that he's now juggling three books instead of two or (originally) one. This can be clearly seen in the illustration. For months, perhaps years, I read him saying, "I can hold up three books!" before someone (my brother Steve, probably) pointed out that the actual words on the page were, "I can hold up these books!" I've long since forgotten the text of the rest of the book, but I still remember that the Cat really said, "I can hold up these books!"
From a seventh-grade Social Studies True or False quiz: "The Iroquois used nearly every part of the corn plant." False. The Iroquois used every part of the corn plant. I got this wrong on the test, but I've remembered it ever since.
I've mentioned this one before, but I'll throw it in anyway. From 8th grade Home Ec: "Lettuce should be ______, not ___, into bite-sized pieces." I put the word "cut" in the first blank, and had nothing to put in the second one. But ever since I got the test back, I've remembered that lettuce should be torn, not cut.

There are other ways odd trivia can get recorded, of course. We studied memory in a unit with my high school AP Psychology teacher, Mr. Smith. He showed a film in which an expert introduced himself as Bornstein, and gave a mnemonic to remember his name: the image of a baby in a beer mug. 30 years later, I still remember that. I also remember that Jerry Bonerz of The Bob Newhart Show appeared in the same film, as a guy at a party who is trying desperately to remember a pretty girl's phone number long enough to track down a way to write it down.

And I remember one more thing from that class, aside from Mr. Smith claiming to drink 30 cups of coffee a day (or was it 20?). A student walked in during class one day with a sheet from the principal's office, listing the day's absences. This was a routine event, not worthy of notice - exceptthat on this particular occasion, the paper slid off the desk. Mr. Smith pointed out that it was only the unusual circumstance of the paper leaving the desk that caused us to even notice the student had been in the room at all. I would not now remember that there were sheets of paper delivered to teachers like that had the student not lost control of that one sheet on that one day. Had Mr. Smith not mentioned it afterward, I still would have forgotten it - if I ever formed a memory of it at all.

"Have I told you this before? Am I going to tell it to you again?" - Merlin in The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White.

Actually, I think I have, but I can't quite remember...!

Karen