Sunday 7 August 2005
Recently Read: Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
Completed 08.07.05. I try not to be jealous, honest, but Gaiman tells the kinds of stories I wish I could tell with the kind of writing I wish I could achieve. If I didn't enjoy them so much it would be downright depressing.
Recently Read: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling.
My suspicion proved correct. Pretty much had to be from the standpoint of the hero's journey. Still, she came through, and I look forward to her resolution.
Recently Completed: Garden of Daggers Bracelet (07.31.05).
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This time I matted half of the daggers, used only one per side per square, added a second row of right-angle weave beneath the first to prevent the daggers from flopping and embellished the top. I like the feel of the first one better because the daggers feel more like fringe, but this one is easier to put on and remove and the fringe keeps the center portion from looking so sparse.
Monday 18 July 2005
Recently Completed: Blue Hot Poppers Bracelet (07.16.05).
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A few weeks ago, a storm swept through Baton Rouge and took out a major BellSouth node, leaving us without phones and modems for several days. I did what any beader worth her stash would do when presented with a few days of legitimate down-time.
It amazes me how beads for which I've lost my taste can be combined with others to produce a piece I really like. The seedbeads in this piece are from a variegated hank (which reminds me very much of candy corn) which I bought for a specific project. When I subsequently found a hank better suited to the project, these became a thorn in my stash.
In the lull after the storm, I made a pass through my beads, looking for inspiration, when I ran across the 4mm cubes, leftovers from one of my published projects. The color scheme of Linda Fifield's gorgeous "Earth Ablaze" and "Fire on the Mountainside" beaded vessels (500 Beaded Objects, Lark Books, 2004, p. 37) flashed in my mind's eye, and I knew I was going to like it.
Currently Reading: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling.
As is our custom when we find books we both enjoy, Phil is reading it to me a couple of chapters at a time each evening. He has a good reading voice, and it allows us to savor it for a while. (So please don't tell me who dies, though I already have my suspicions from a writer's point of view.)
Currently Reading: XML for Dummies by Lucinda Dykes and Ed Tittel.
For my own edification as well as for an Amazon review. Enlivened with the trademark "for Dummies" humor, it's 200% better than the suggested text for my XML class. But then, I expected it would be: I took both of Lucinda's JavaScript classes and knew how well she explained things.
Currently Re-reading: Dune by Frank Herbert.
Brought on by a marathon of the two Dune visual productions seen back-to-back. (We bought the DVD of the Sci-Fi channel version, watched the extended version of the 1984 movie from a decrepit but functional tape.) It's been a while since I'd read the book, and I wanted to see where the movies coincided with and diverged from and the book (other than the obvious things like Irulan's role in the Sci-Fi Channel version).
Recently Read: The Honor of the Queen by David Weber.
Completed 07.11.05. The second of the Honor Harrington series. Fast read, a roller-coaster ride like the first. Honor gains a duchy.
Monday 4 July 2005
Recently Completed: Dagger of the Mind Bracelet (07.02.05).
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Although I really like working on complex projects, sometimes I need to rest by doing something quick. After two weeks of writing a PHP form mail tutorial, I was ready for some down time, so I reached for this pattern by Linda Gettings (Beadwork, December 2003/January 2004, p. 34).
I call it "Dagger of the Mind" after the Star Trek episode because it nearly drove me crazy trying to keep my thread from wrapping around those daggers.
I modified it slightly from the pattern by adding a second diagonal of beads in the center. It seemed to balance the daggers better. I wish now that I had matted half the daggers to knock off some of the shine, but it's a little late for that.
Friday 24 June 2005
Recently Reread: The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters (06.18.05).
Recently Reread: Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters (06.14.05).
Recently Read: Grass by Sheri S. Tepper (06.07.05).
The first book I read by Sheri S. Tepper was her first novel, After Long Silence. While there were no major flaws in it, I didn't find it particularly compelling. That one acquaintence with the author left me unprepared for Grass.
Grass is lyrical, intriguing, difficult to categorize: A sci-fi story that by the cadences of its language and future-gothic social structures sits on the edge of the fantastic. It's an interesting juxtaposition. Focal characters embroiled in mundane marital problems and personality conflicts are caught between a quasi-religious, crystal Gormenghast of a power structure known as Sanctity and the dark secrets that enmesh Grassian aristocracy with some of the local fauna.
It's difficult to write a synopsis without giving away the plot, difficult even to mention a thematic recurrence from an earlier novel without giving away something of the plot. About the only thing I can comment on without giving away the ending (which some have called surprising, though I can only assume that they hadn't read her first novel if they found it so), is her religious theme.
There, I simply disagree. Oh, I agree that we are Very Small Creatures by comparison to our Creator, but not only is putting one's own words in the Creator's mouth ironically arrogant for a Very Small Author, how can any author or artist not see the fallacy of the argument that a creator wouldn't care about the specificities of his/her creation?
Has this woman never anguished over a lyrical piece of her writing that had to go because it didn't fit the story? Does she not remember and treasure what she has created? Can she not recite whole pieces in her head? Sorry. If Very Small Creatures are capable of loving their creations—and the individual aspects thereof—surely the God who created an entire universe and us in His image can not only tell us apart, but care about us as well.
That said, Grass is well worth reading, and the author joins Willis, Gaiman and Bujold on my must-read list.
Monday 30 May 2005
Recently Read: On Basilisk Station by David Weber.
Completed 05.30.05. The first of the Honor Harrington series, On Basilisk Station proved an interesting counterpoint to a discussion I was having about Lucas's lack of political detail in his Revenge of the Sith.
I'd heard people mention the Honor Harrington series before, though unfortunately not in any detail until recently. I say "unfortunately" because the character's name suggested some sort of Harlequin-Romace-cum-space-opera to me. When the last discussion I read disabused me of that, I thought it might be something I'd enjoy—and it was.
Admittedly, long, technical descriptions of hyperdrives and space weaponry systems aren't my cup of tea and the book is rife with them, but the author also manages to include an intricate and realistic political structure and an understanding of military tradition, protocol and mindset that lends verisimilitude to Manticore and her Navy.
Even more surprising, he has created in Honor Harrington and some of her officers believable women in command. These aren't politically correct constructs or over-compensating Amazons, but women who think and act the way one expects a person of either sex in a command position to think and act.
While I did enjoy the situational humor which dotted the book and took great pleasure in knowing exactly what mistake Coglin was about to make before he made it, I appreciated, too, the realism with which Weber treats war. This isn't a clean Star Trek war. Likable characters are killed and the cost is high, and neither Weber nor Honor let you forget that. A fitting reminder on Memorial Day.
Sunday 22 May 2005
Recently Read: The Child Goddess by Louise Marley.
Completed today (05.22.05). Hmmm. Where to start? I may be too fresh from the reading at this point, but here are some nitpicks:
First, while the writer is at least tolerant of religion and religious practictioners—her protagonist, a female Catholic priest, is a sane, caring, intelligent person—she simply assumes that certain issues (the ordination of women and Christ's claim to exclusive truth among them) are settled in her future. Settled in accord with feminist and postmodern philosophy, of course, so don't expect a serious treatment of theology or much mention of Christ. This is faith neutered by political, philosophical and personal preference.
Second, though her scientist (doctor) character is supposed to be brilliant, he makes what seems to me an unscientific assumption: If patient X has a tumor, would a doctor automatically assume that it was caused by a pathogen as opposed to genetic or environmental factors? I don't know any that would, yet two of them make that leap in the book.
Third, when was the last time you saw a woman faint at the revelation of an astonishing but otherwise relatively benign fact? Someone fetch me my smelling salts. The protagonist did.
Finally—and without spoilers, this is hard to explain—but fairly early on, I began to realize that this book could have only one outcome. Two people in love, one married to the church, the other to a wife, both trying to do the right thing . . . There are only one or two ways out of that one without violating your characters, you know?
Having said all of that, the characters were likable, and despite guessing the ending about halfway through, I still finished reading the book, so I'll probably give Marley another try.
Queued:
- Grass by Sherry S. Tepper
- On Basilisk Station by David Weber
- Beauty by Sherry S. Tepper
Sunday 1 May 2005
This was our second gorgeous Sunday in a row and probably one of the last before summer turns up the heat. Last week, the station had its annual crawfish boil at Hemingbough. I love the St. Francisville area anyway, but the weather and scenery was rich with blue sky and green leaves, the crawfish (by Tony's) were huge and perfectly seasoned and it was a wonderful afternoon. We drove back with the sunroof and windows down, reminiscing about (and missing!) Phil's little Fiat.
This weeked was Fest For All. It rained most of yesterday, so the crowd had to make up for lost time today, but as usual, it was a polite and pleasant throng bent on enjoying the weather, art, food and music.
We took the opportunity to stroll down to the Shaw Center, enjoyed its gallery and the LSU MOA store and rode up to the River Terrace on the 4th floor. Baton Rouge is truly blessed to have families like the Shaws, the Manships and the Penningtons who are willing to invest in building and rebuilding the community. I had expected to see a nice build, and it is, but as I watched the children running up and down through fountains that spring directly from the sidewalk in its front courtyard, I realized that it is, and was intended to be, much more than that. They have built a place for people to work, enjoy the arts and, yes, to play together as a community. Pretty cool.
We saw at least three artists of note on the way: Nancy Blades, a fine art photographer, showed some interesting work using two different manual (as opposed to computer) photo manipulation techniques. A local potter, Linda Ladner, had some vessels that she had exposed to horsehair immediately after firing. The horsehair burned away, leaving black organic patterns in the glaze. Finally, Bruce Odell (horrid site design, but scroll down for pics) topped everything off with a wonderful demonstration of his raku technique, kilns, torch and all. I knew (theoretically) how raku was produced, but I'd never seen a demonstration. It adds something to the two pieces of his that I have, having watched him do the work. (I say work, though he seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.)
Recently Read: The Green and the Gray by Timothy Zahn.
Completed 04.17.05. Quick read. Not my cup of tea, but chaçun a son gout.
Queued:
- The Child Goddess by Louise Marley
- Grass by Sherry S. Tepper
- Beauty by Sherry S. Tepper
Recently Begun: IWA's Beginning XML
I can already tell that I'm going to like this. It makes an inherent sort of sense to any OOP-brain.
Friday 15 April 2005
Currently Reading:
The Green and the Gray by Timothy Zahn.
Queued:
- The Child Goddess by Louise Marley (I had never heard of her, but she managed to get no less than Connie Willis to give her a favorable blurb for the jacket. I've gone through all of Willis, Bujold and Gaiman (except for one) in print, so I have to find someone else, right? At least until one of them releases a new book.)
- Grass by Sherry S. Tepper
- Beauty by Sherry S. Tepper
Recently Completed:
IWA's Intermediate JavaScript course. This class is where the DOM, CSS and JavaScript all come together to produce some truly functional, and even fun, applications. Lucinda Dykes is an enthusiastic and responsive instructor, too, who provides excellent thought-provoking resources for those who want to pursue the cool stuff.
Queued:
- Beginning XML
- Intermediate XML
- MySQL (Gotta learn to tune that thing.)
Recently Read:
TheTombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin. As with the first book, I wanted to see how much Sci-Fi channel had departed from the original. Unlike its treatment of A Wizard of Earthsea, which stuck fairly close to the original characters and plot, they fairly shredded Tombs.
Kristen Kruek's blithe and wide-eyed Tenar bore no resemblance to LeGuin's Tenar, who is by turns arrogant, afraid, desperate for human touch and cruel. This makes for a much more complex and interesting character than the Sci-Fi version.
In the same way, Isabella Rossellini's wise and motherly Thar was a far cry from the book's austere character. Of the three priestesses, only Kossil came close to LeGuin's characterization, though physically she was miles away from the heavy older woman of the book.
On the whole, while Sci-Fi did justice to the first book, it fell flat on the second.
Recently Read:
Write Away by Elizabeth George. I have a shelf full of books on writing, but fewer than a handful are must-haves. Write Away is one of them.
George's book takes the cleanest, clearest approach to writing I've read as the author explains her work process step by step. She doesn't insist that everyone should work her way, but it seemed such a natural fit to me that I know that from now on I will.
Oddly enough, the process George describes is very similar to the way I used to write, before every book and author I read or heard began insisting that one should "just get something down on paper (screen)" and grow it from there. I assumed I was doing something wrong, then—these people were published, after all!—and tried it their way. The result was a directory full of story fragments and lots of frustration.
Obviously, I am no better a gardener of stories than I am of green things. Fortunately, Write Away isn't written for gardeners, but for those of us who need a coherent, top-down approach. I'm going back to my roots, thanks to Ms. George.
On a related note: Not long after I finished reading Write Away I received Randy Ingermanson's first Advanced Fiction Writing newsletter and discovered that his Snowflake Process takes an approach that is very similar to George's. Talk about confluence . . .
Tuesday 8 March 2005
Recently Completed:
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Glyph Necklace
This was my "something new" for January/February, and it lives up to that, reflecting a new direction in my clay technique and the first rendering of one of a "glyph."
My initial polymer clay work was based in precision geometric caning, but I've come to admire the work of people like Jody Bishel and Christi Friesen, artists who allow the clay to be clay, empasizing its native look rather than pushing it to look like glass. Serendipitously, this look works well in the ethnic-inspired and faux-primitive pieces that I love.
The glyph in the center of the pendant is the result of playing with fonts, exploring the idea of hidden or obscured meanings and the point at which letters become abstracted into pure form. The glyph is my nickname (Triche) spelled out vertically. I catenated the letters, copied and mirrored the result, then pulled the reflections in toward each other until I found an overlap that I liked.
View a close-up of the focal area.
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Wednesday 10 February 2005
Review: Shivering World by Kathy Tyers
In the 22
Graysha has another, private reason for accepting the position: She has a genetic disorder that will kill her by late mid-life, and rumor has it that the colonists of Goddard practice genetic engineering. She doesn't expect a cure for herself. All she wants is a gene therapy which will allow her to bear normal children, a therapy which, if it exists, is illegal. Gaining the colonists' trust is an uphill battle—most suspect her of spying for her mother and the Eugenics Board, and at least one of them would be happy to help her to her demise so long as it looks like an accident.
As Gaea Consortium continues to deny obvious signs of catastrophic atmostpheric cooling, Graysha joins the colonists' search for the truth and a remedy. The search yields more than she bargained for: attempted murder, corporate fraud and corruption, betrayal and love.
There were no equations in this book, but it's plain that Kathy Tyers did some homework on terraforming. Although I don't care much about the details of lab work, many readers will appreciate her attention to the specifics.
What I did appreciate was her attention to plot. It didn't overrun the characters, but it did move at a nice pace and kept me reading "just one more chapter" before I could put it down. I also appreciated her ending. I won't give it away, but it was a nice balance—as with Pandora, everything isn't perfect, but Hope remains in the box.
It was nice, too, to read a science fiction book which treated Christianity with respect. So many SF writers ignore faith altogether or, if they deign to include it, turn it into some sort of humanistic ritual which has nothing to do with God. Given the author's own faith, I was not surprised to find a thoughtful Christian character in her writing, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much dialogue about that faith made it into the book, given its secular publishing house. It's nice to know they're not all allergic to Christianity.
Queued:
- Grass by Sherry S. Tepper
- Beauty by Sherry S. Tepper
- The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin
- The Farthest Shore by Ursula LeGuin
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Tuesday 1 February 2005
Recently Read:
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin. Wanted to see how much Sci-Fi channel had departed from the original. Except for the parts which conflated this story with its sequal (The Tombs of Atuan), not much. LeGuin's spritual worldview is rather disappointing, but the story itself was, as one would expect of her, well-written.
Queued:
- Shivering World by Kathy Tyers
- Grass by Sherry S. Tepper
- Beauty by Sherry S. Tepper
- The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin
- The Farthest Shore by Ursula LeGuin
Recently Completed:
Like all beaders I have a stash, but unlike my beading friends who have a knack for hoarding (dragons have nothing on them), I don't. The ghosts of beads past haunted me; I wasn't making anything new.
In hopes of a cure, I decided to take a "something old, something new" approach: Make two items every two months, one using old beads, one using new. This was my first "something old" piece.
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Frostblossom Necklace
Whatever love affair I had with these colors ended long ago. Despite that, I was surprised at how elegant this necklace looks on the skin.
Tuesday 18 January 2005
Pulchritude. Now there's a word that sounds the antithesis of its definition. I don't like words that give me mental whiplash.
Friday 14 January 2005
Recently Completed:
Ending the old year and opening the new:
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Berries-n-Ice Necklace
I bought this string of cranberry colored potato pearls a couple of years ago, and every time I've looked at them since I've wondered "what was I thinking?" When I needed to make something to wear with a navy dinner suit to a Christmas party, I finally knew what to do with them. The cranberry color was festive, and AB crystals added the necessary glitz.
View a close-up of the focal area.
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Constellation 47: The Sleeper Has Awakened
An article on birthday dolls in the most recent issue of Art Doll Quarterly prompted this first attempt at dollmaking. (Yeah, like I need another hobby.)
She's a long way from real art. She isn't embellished much, though I did change the face, hands and feet from the fabric ones in the pattern. Yet she served her purpose: She got me started—always the most difficult step for me—and she expresses my impressions of last year and my hopes for this one.
And what would those be? Long story. Short version: It takes years to recover from burn-out. Six, by my count. This last year was my sixth, and I finally felt as if I was recovering some of my old energy. The Sleeper is still in her PJs, but the stars represent the neurons that started firing again as I took five classes throughout the year. Her brain is awake now even if her hands (dollmaking skills) are still in bud form. Yes, her feet are still in bunny slippers (couldn't resist making those!), but at least she's not comatose any more. I finished her by my birthday, too, which made her the first New Year's resolution I could tick off my list for 2005.