page 239

first official tears-from-laughing

Page 192

Page 192 - Connie Willis wrung her first tears out of me. Damn you Willis! So while I write this I'll play Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." It happened to be playing on my stereo when I was at My Most Balling Point of Willis' Doomsday Book, so now the song always depresses me.

Here's a funny passage from Blackout (not the teary part.) One of our heroines, who knows that a certain department store will be bombed that night, wonders if the other stores will open the next day:

Of course they'll be open, she thought. Think of all those window signs the Blitz was famous for: "Hitler can smash our windows, but he can't match our prices," and "It's bomb marché in Oxford Street this week." And that photograph of a woman reaching through a broken display window to feel the fabric of a frock.

(Sounds like the kind of sign I'd put up if my store was in a similar situation. ...And then get in trouble for my inappropriate humour.)



One of the best things about Connie Willis is the way she sees people. In Doomsday Book she did such a good job of writing about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and Blackout is all about that. I can also see how part of her inspiration from the book came from 9-11. Hmm... on my computer here I've got something about the people holding hands before jumping from the building, that's very similar in tone to Connie Willis' books:

MARGOT ADLER, NPR Correspondent: I think that the power of that image is it doesn't give an answer. It takes us in two opposing directions. On the one hand, we are all alone at the end. Life is fleeting. There's no one to help us when we face the abyss. And there wasn't. No one came for them. And on the other hand, they reached for each other. They said that in that moment when they're facing the absolute ultimate, there are other human beings to reach out, to be there, to help them, to help us.

Sometimes I stop reading and google up info or pictures about things - Dunkirk, the Blitz, etc. I can't help but think about Haiti all the time, though. As awful as the pictures and stories are of the London blitzkrieg, or the bombing of Berlin, more people have died so far in Haiti than in those two city bombings combined. Which probably says a lot for how much richer and secure people were in 1940s London and Berlin than they were/are in 2010s Port au Prince. You could apparently see such differences in London too:

Those who lived in the poor areas such as the East End suffered particularly badly. Houses in these areas were in a bad state of repair to begin with and were destroyed easily by the bombs. By 11th November 1940, 4 out of 10 houses in Stepney had been damaged. (Holnet)

I'm sure there are innumerable heroic Haitian stories taking place every minute, and will be captured by Haitian writers like Evelyne Trouillot--whose description of the aftermath of the earthquake sounds very much like the descriptions of the blitzed out Londoners:

Après la stupeur des premiers moments, l'instant d'immense désolation qui déclencha les plaintes, provoqua la démence et la peur, l'humour reprit le dessus. Un humour souvent salvateur, porteur de courage et de dérision vis-à-vis du malheur. Le courage de regarder la mort et de continuer avec dans les yeux une tristesse incommensurable mais une détermination qui s'installe sous la plante des pieds pour en soulever un, puis l'autre, et initier la marche.

J'entends l'humanité survivre dans les voix autour de moi, railleuses envers le malheur, envers soi-même, comme pour dire à quoi ça sert de pleurer, tu es vivant, oui ou non ? Des voix pleines de compassion pour soulager un autre et l'aider à porter sa peine. Des voix qui protestent et réclament plus de justice, plus d'efficacité dans la distribution de l'aide. Des voix pleines de dignité qui disent que la vie ne peut être accueillie à genoux, mais debout, toujours debout, il faut vite se relever et lui faire face.

me n' connie

spending the day reading in bed

then in the bath

and then back in bed

Lights please!

Did some freshening up of my web site, added some more content. I sent out 7 queries tonight, and query-sending always makes me think about my web site.

Not to mention... I like playing with blogs and web sites. Satisfies some part of my brain... the part that likes to sort and organize things I guess. It's like reorganizing a collection into a new formation, but without the mess.

You see why this scene from High Fidelity speaks to me.


The question remains... am I ready to buy a domain yet?


By the way, if you want to see another example of how a weebly site can look, this is my brother's.


His main page is a blog, and then he has tabs for his various artistic endeavors.

My vair vair creative brother has never been able to settle on one preferred art form to express himself because his soul needs to be heard IN SONG! IN COMIC STRIP! IN BOOK! IN SCRIPT! IN FLASH CARTOON! IN MUSICAL INSTRUMENT! IN HUMOUR! IN MOVIE! IN ACTING! It just cannot be contained by one measly medium.

Luckily the internet--that specialist at multi-tasking--has come along to free him from the confines of having to be One Thing. Every day he comes closer to that Perfect Form... like a flash humorous cartoon movie ukulele video with voice acting. (Okay he hasn't combined voice acting and song yet. But he will. ... ... RUSHTY!)

Zoos? Evils?

The internets... such a strange place.

I was researching the next agency to send a query to, which means I was looking at the authored represented, and recognized one book--Monkey Love by Brenda Scott Royce--which I bought but haven't yet read. So I read the first chapters, and then went to look up her web site, and discovered she's done primate conservation work, and she writes articles on animal issues for the Huffington Post, which led me to a debate between animal activists and a zoo over an elephant, and her interesting argument for zoos.

As she's worked both for sanctuaries and zoos I think her arguments are interesting. That (a) when activists talk about "Free the elephant!" we have to investigate what they mean by free. And (b) free usually means a sanctuary rather than a zoo, but sanctuaries receive less income/funding than zoos and don't have to go through the same strict accreditation process, so animal treatment can be worse than at a zoo. And (c) that while anyone who loves animals would prefer them to be free in the wild, there are fewer and fewer safe wilds left for animals to live in. Which is just depressing.

I'm queery for queries!

I've been slowly putting together and sending out queries this evening, in between bits of cooking, bathing the cat, reading Connie, listening to music, and internetsing.

I've sent out three. Want to do about... 8. Then if they're all rejected I should take a look at my query letter before continuing with the next batch. Or so someone somewhere in something I read suggested.

"If you start me up--if you start me up I'll never stop!"

And once that's done I'll be set free to follow Henry V with a clear conscience. Weee!

I'm using Query Tracker, a free web site for keeping track of who and when you've queried. Nice site.

Diane Birch "Fire Escape"

Heard her on Q one day this winter. Apparently Prince once saw her performing and invited her to come and jam with him.