Jaded with walruses
May. 14th, 2026 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oursinHonestly, have we become entirely blase about walruses frolicking in British territorial waters? Because this was the first I had heard about Magnus, who has been making quite the tour of Scotland for the past month before wafting off to Noroway o'er the faem: Magnus the wandering walrus leaves Scotland for Norway.
Goo-goo-ja-{YAWN}.
***
However, much more excitement over Choughs reappear at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall after decades of absence:
Choughs are considered Cornwall’s “national bird” and feature in its coat of arms but vanished as a resident from the far south-west of the UK in the early 1970s, largely because of the decline of their grazed clifftop habitat.
Their disappearance was keenly felt across Cornwall but particularly, perhaps, in and around Tintagel because of the bird’s connections to the legend of King Arthur.
Is this A Sign for Cornish Nationalism? Or does it precurse The Return of Arthur?
***
The bridge itself is a floating patch of nature reserve; its contents were excavated and transplanted from the heathland on either side. Heather, the tough wiry shrub that defines heathland, is already springing up in purples and yellows above the A3’s roar, supporting the area’s insects and reptiles.
“They can feed here, get cover, they can bask, they can breed,” says Herd. Ground-nesting birds, such as nightjars, woodlarks and Dartford warblers, will also benefit from the newly connected landscape.
***
But alas, Camden Highline, London’s answer to New York park, is scrapped. Though it's not entirely clear whether the completed stretch will remain?
One stretch of the Highline has been completed as part of the Coal Drops Yard development, involving a bridge across the Regent’s canal from the Camley Street nature reserve that transforms into a landscaped walkway popular with office workers and tourists.
even if the full Camden Town to King's Cross plan is defunct?
Unquenchable Fire (Unquenchable Fire, volume 1) by Rachel Pollack
May. 14th, 2026 09:01 amjames_davis_nicoll
Chosen One Jennifer Mazdan would prefer to let destiny's call go through to voice mail.
Unquenchable Fire (Unquenchable Fire, volume 1) by Rachel Pollack
Ride into the danger zone
May. 14th, 2026 12:39 pmrmc28I'm off this evening to watch Top Gun 40th anniversary screening in the local IMAX. This is probably the very definition of a problematic fave, even before you get into Tom Cruise's cult membership. But also I watched this film for the first time on my twelfth birthday, on a coach trip with school, and will probably never not love it. I think I've seen it once in the cinema, the summer Armageddon came out[1] and our local cinema did a Bruckheimer retrospective[2] leading up to it - that's when I learned I knew every line.
I probably still know every line, there's a couple of friends where we'll casually greet each other quoting the film, or throw lines back and forth in a conversation. Regrettably both of them were unavailable to come see the film with me, but I'll be thinking of them too, as well as the planes.
I'm wearing my Svaha rainbows+planes dress with a very faded Top Gun hoodie I found in a charity shop some years ago.
[1] 1998, huh. I'd mentally assumed one friend was there for this set of films but we hadn't met yet, and bonded over them later. But that summer had a lot of meaningful stuff going on for me and my friendships, it's when I shifted my career ideas from "scientist" to "software", and of course there was DWCon too. Gosh this is even more nostalgic a post than I'd expected.
[2] Beverley Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, [one or both of The Rock, Con Air] and then Armageddon on release week. Honestly that was a great summer programme.
Cozy fantasy anthology!!!!
May. 14th, 2026 05:03 pmadoreDollshops & Deathmages is about Melna, who crafts dolls and prefers them to people, and Clariel, a deathmage who is isolated because of his profession. They get trapped together in Melna's giant dollhouse, which could be disastrous given they're both (involuntary) habitual loners. But Melna is surprised that Clariel doesn't think dolls are frivolities like other men she's known, and Clariel is surprised that Melna doesn't think he's lame for wanting a doll of his own. And both of them are surprised that sometimes someone specific is nice company, even if you are stuck together.
I got the anthology onto my Kobo and started reading it at once, and of course, found two typos in my own story that I didn't catch before despite my previous editing and proofreading. It's some comfort to me that after the anthology has run its course, I can re-release my story separately, on its own. I'll take the chance to correct these then. If they niggle me in the back of my mind meanwhile, I'll have to live with that :/
I'm especially excited to read Thea Hawthorne's contribution to the anthology, because I've read some of her other work which was atmospherically cozy-spooky and had deep yet unobtrusive worldbuilding. I'm looking forward to the other stories to discover some new-to-me authors, too. Most of the fiction I read these days leans cozy, my nervous system right now prefers it. So I'd like to find more cozy authors. On that note, let me know your cozy fantasy recommendations! I've read the classics like Legends & Lattes, and I have my favourite authors whose backlist I peruse, like Celia Lake and Stephanie Burgis. I'd also love cozy recs without fantasy; I recently read D. E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book and enjoyed that a lot.
I got my hands on JMS's first "Making of Crusade" book
May. 14th, 2026 01:22 amsholio( A few bits and pieces from the book below )
music: Walking Song by McGarrigle Sisters
May. 13th, 2026 06:28 pmjesse_the_kThis is our song for me and MyGuy. When we met in 1977, we both lived right on Lake Mendota. We walked everywhere — fortunately, Madison is a lovely city for strolling.
Listen on YouTube or ( stream it here )
The cool thing is we actually did talk about all the things in these lyrics
Wouldn’t it be nice to walk together
Baring our souls while wearing out the leather
We could talk shop, harmonize a song
Wouldn’t it be nice to walk along
I’ll show you houses of architectural renown
Some are still standing, some have fallen down
Farm houses buried under Canada’s snow
Spanish villas on the Boulevards of Mexico
And I’ll learn to tell the ash from the oak
And if you don’t know I won’t make no joke
We’ll climb to the top to view the world from above
Or carve our initials in the trunk like teenagers in love
And when we get hungry we’ll stop to eat
Gotta think of our stomachs and rest our feet
If we get thirsty we’ll have a drink or two
In a mountain top bar with a mountain top view
And when we get tired we’ll stop to rest
And if you still want to talk you can bare your breast
If it’s Winter and cold we’ll take a rooming-house room
If it’s Summer and warm we’ll sleep under the moon
And we’ll talk about the sports we played
‘Bout the time you got busted or the time I got laid
We’ll talk blood and how we were bred
Talk about the folks both living and dead
This song like this walk I find hard to end
Be my lover or be my friend
In sneakers or boots or regulation shoes
Walking beside you I’ll never get the walking blues.
https://www.mcgarrigles.com/music/dancer-with-bruised-knees/walking-song
more dentistry
May. 13th, 2026 03:37 pmcalimacSo I said OK, and he did. It was uncomfortable but not painful; it's the aftermath which is more difficult, involving some pain, a lot of gauze to staunch the bleeding, and severe restrictions on eating. There's also the cost, since apparently my insurance covered none of this, but I have the money. What I don't have so much of is agreeableness over the physical effects.
The other exciting part is that both appointments required consultation with my physicians over whether there'd be any medical complications to this. Reaching them is challenging, especially as there's three of them, only two have direct office phone numbers, and one is away right now though someone is covering. That required an hour's wait on both days, and a quick visit by me to one of the offices when phone contact proved insufficient.
Goodreads review: ‘Ad Infinitum’ by Nicholas Ostler
May. 13th, 2026 02:18 pmmount_oregano
Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin by Nicholas OstlerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This might be a hard book to appreciate if you don’t understand a little Latin, the way reading a book about the history of algebra might be frustrating if you don’t understand a little algebra. It also might help to know a little about European and world history because this “biography” recounts the development of Latin and how its use and misuse shaped the Roman Empire, then Europe and the world up to the present day. It gets into the details, with plenty of footnotes and appendices. That is, this book is a deep dive, but if you take the plunge, you’ll find pearls.
I was particularly intrigued by the way Latin as a language affected events after Rome fell, eventually giving rise to New Latin. Language shapes human communication, and for a time, it was Europe’s common language. But the rise and fall of Latin depended on who needed to communicate with whom about questions not only of intellectual importance but about political power. This book explains the ways in which the world and its need for Latin changed and keeps changing over the millennia. (Millennia itself is a word combining elements from both Latin and New Latin).
Latin is a language of the past, but we will hear its echoes for a long time to come. We still need it, just not very often.
By the way, I also know Spanish (as well as English, which seems obvious but needs to be said), and I can hear and speak Spanish every day here in Chicago. (And I can hear Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and more — Chicago is a big, wide city.) Latin … is hard to come by. Conversational Latin? Maybe at the Vatican, but not many people there, either. Latin doesn’t live where I do, so studying it takes me elsewhere. Sometimes this feels like a relief.
View all my reviews
Wednesday got caught in a pelting hailstorm
May. 13th, 2026 07:54 pmoursinWhat I read
Finished Platform Decay
Read Jonathan Coe, Bournville (2022), which was a Kobo deal, and I have been vaguely interested in reading something by him since coming across his really rather good intro to that archetypal Sad Girl Novel, Dusty Answer. However, was rather meh and tempted at points to give up on this family saga from VE Day to Covid told as vignettes at various Memorable Dates in History of C20th Britain.
There was a certain amount of picking things up and reading a bit and thinking, no, at least, not now, if ever.
Re-read Sally Smith, A Case of Life and Limb (The Trials of Gabriel Ward, #2) (2025), as there is another one forthcoming shortly.
Kobo deals turned up a new Simon R Green, For Better or Murder (Holy Terrors Mystery #4), alas, this was pretty much phoning it in.
Muriel Spark, The Hothouse by the East River (1973), which is a very very weird novella, absurdist, grotesque, is it about something that happened when they were working for Secret Organisation with German POWs in War and is that why the unheimlich frisson (turns out, no).
After that I just wanted the perhaps too simple and predictable pleasures of Robert B Parker, Silent Night (Spenser #41.5) (2013, unfinished at his death, completed by his agent Helen Brann).
On the go
Persuasion, which I began somewhat behindhand of the daily chapter group read on bluesky.
Up next
Well, there's that new Literary Review, but apart from that.
Am being irked by certain writers whose new ebooks are pretty 2x or more what they used to be. (I might have gone for this I suppose had I not been a bit underwhelmed by some recent offerings.)
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Les adieux - Emily and Duncan edition
May. 13th, 2026 02:22 pmchickenfeethttps://operaramblings.blog/2026/05/13/les-adieux-emily-and-duncan-edition/
Another Fantasy Bundle - The Other Side OSR
May. 13th, 2026 06:36 pmffutureshttps://bundleofholding.com/presents/OtherSide
This isn't something I'm likely to want since I don't play D&D or any of the Old School Revival games, and I suspect that some of this is likely to seriously annoy practitioners of Wicca, druidism, and other traditions. Since I am evidently not the intended market I'm going to give it a hard pass.
There's magic in finding the right words
May. 13th, 2026 12:24 pmbrithistorianThe other day on Facebook I read a post that was a repost of an earlier conversation from Tumblr (I'm sure you've all seen this sort of thing). Anyway, the topic was a discussion of whether or not a vampire policeman (a la Forever Knight) could use a judicial warrant to force you could grant them permission to enter your house. The discussion seemed to divide into two camps:
- Yes, they can.
- No, they can't, because the permission forced from you by the warrant is not a true expression of your will.
Recently I've been reading Seanan McGuire's October Daye series (highly recommend, if you haven't read them), which contain a lot of this sort of verbal jiggery-pokery tied into the magic system. This got me to thinking further about the vampire policeman problem and how, as the person in the house, it seems like there's got to be some combination of words that you can say which will simultaneously keep you out of trouble with human law (by honoring the validity of the warrant) while at the same time protecting yourself from the vampire (by indicating to the vampire that you do not freely give permission for them to enter your house), and which further could be stated in such a way that a bystander who is not aware of the existence of vampires/fairies/etc. would not find anything amiss in what you said. I was mulling this over while doing some chores and listening to some music when the Grateful Dead's "Trucking" came on and (in my opinion) handed me the answer on a silver platter[^1]: "If you've got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in." It simultaneously acknowledges that the warrant grants the power of entry and fails to grant your open personal permission to enter.
[^1] Upon writing it here, I'm wondering if "on a silver platter" has any relevance to faerie. Expect a post on that in the future.
Jigsaw Necklace and Aventurine Tree
May. 13th, 2026 11:46 amyourlibrarian posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
everykindofcraft
I'm not fond of using connectors because my experience is that they tend to tangle. But when I saw these pieces I had to get them because I do jigsaw puzzles. Paired them with some large orange glass and some alternating silver and gold hearts and artificial amber ovals. Then added the roughly hammered toggle because it made me think of papery jigsaw edges.
( Read more... )
Word of Honor Icons
May. 13th, 2026 04:27 pmtarlanx posting in c_entseasons_of_fandom Spring 2026 CH07: SPRING MOOD12 Word of Honor Mood Icons
| amused | annoyed | content | happy |
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| mischievous | refreshed | sad | shocked |
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| thirsty | worried | +1 determined | +1 enraged |
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Lemon Tree, Chores
May. 13th, 2026 07:52 amranunculusIn a few minutes I'm off to hook up the mower to the tractor and mow the side of the road down at the Red Barn. I'll also mow the lower edge of Slides Pasture, as the roadbank is too steep for me to mow with the tractor. Hopefully I'm hitting the exact right timing when the grass is dry enough not to regrow, and wet enough to keep fire danger down. I'll take my backpack sprayer with water in it as a safety measure.
The horses at the Red Barn are eating down the pastures next to the road also as a fire safety measure. It is so dry already now in mid-May, that if a fire started mid-day it would burn readily.