James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Phillips. Non-fiction. Julie Phillips has taken an enormous wealth of material (letters to and from Tiptree and Sheldon, Sheldon's journals, friends' and colleagues' reminiscences, and photographs) and used it to present an image of the pseudonymous author and his creator. It's a fairly heart-breaking image, and I can't help wondering what she might have been like born fifty—or even forty—years later, into a society with a somewhat better attitude toward gayfolk, and with access to serotonin reuptake inhibitors. We might have lost a great deal of excellent (though almost uniformly draining) fiction; but a lovely, talented woman might not have spent quite so much of her life miserable. As it was, between her mother's shadow, her frustration with the powerlessness of women, and the absence of a relationship that was emotionally and sexually satisfying to her, she doesn't seem to have enjoyed what was to outside appearances an extremely successful life.
Soon I Will Be Invincible, Grossman. Yes. I expect I'm not familiar enough with the field to have noticed everything Grossman did here, but it was clearly a labor of love, and I did catch a few things here and there. I saw the seams only a couple times, as Grossman really did a remarkable job of sustaining good writing with what is fundamentally a stunt premise.
Another take on alternative "treatments" in the UK, a professor of complementary medicine says that if pharmacists don't point out that homeopathic remedies have never been show to work, EVER, then they are in breach of ethics. Boots' frantic statement in defense of selling the products is interesting: do they feel that disabusing their clientele of their illusions (or the illusions being busily pushed upon them in the aisles) will cut into the profit margin?
I've been getting librarian spam for a while (buy my poorly-written self-published book that has been reviewed by no-one!), but this one is even better (extra spaces removed):
Dear fellow-servant of the blind,
This is to inform you of [web address]'s newest music course "Intro to the Harmonica for the Visually Impaired." This course is one among over a dozen others that are taught in an all-audio format and that are specifically designed for those who are blind or who have visual impairments. These courses DO NOT require any Braille skills so they are quick and easy to use.
To find out more about complete courses and song-based lessons for piano, guitar, violin, flute and others go to:
[web address]
Thanks and blessings!
[name]
[email address]
Possible alternate titles for the historical romance novel Wicked as Sin, which seems a bit wan for a saucy bare-chested aristocrat:
Wicked As a Bag of Hammers
Wicked As All Get Out
Toot! Toot! All Aboard the Wicked Train!
If You Looked Up Wicked in the Newly Invented Dictionary, There He'd Be
Wicked by Appointment to the Queen (Purveyors of Fine Wicked Since 1689)
10 Pounds of Wicked in a 5 pound bag
Wicked like Wombats
In a BBC story about a woman left with brain damage from a detox diet not based on any medical mechanism balances the two sides of the story:
Side one:
* the nutritionist (training unregulated) who recommended the detox and said that vomiting was a normal part of the process.
* the reflexologist (training unregulated) who mentions that you can tell that it's working when you feel like crap.
Side two, the "critics" in the story:
* the head dietician at a hospital (training regulated) who mentions that she often has to deal with the medical consequences of people following the advice of nutritionists.
* a doctor (training regulated) at the national Food Standards Agency who points out the actually testable point that your liver is what detoxifies you.
Wow! Two people on each side! I guess that means the issue is not yet settled! How could we possibly find out how the human body eliminates toxic substances?
A small girl, attempting the "guess the character contest" at the library:
"Is it Green Eggs and Ham?"
me: "Yes! What is the name of the character?"
her: "I don't remember, I read it when I was 6."
me: "Do you remember how the book goes?"
her: "I do not like it on a train, I do not like it on a boat..."
me: "The part with the name?"
her: "..."
me: "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them...."
her: "..."
me: "Rhymes with ham."
her: "Sam!!!!"
(runner up title: "Pam I Am")
An interesting and interestingly horrible story of door-to-door magazine sales companies. Makes me want to never buy a magazine again.
My employer just switched to those bio-degradable bags made out of corn instead of petroleum based plastic bags. They are so popular with the patrons that they *take extra bags home* in addition to the ones they use for their books. This says something about something.
Read (and see photos of!) the touching story of bank employees assisting ducks.
Victoria, B.C. yet again demonstrates that they need to be pressured to deal with their waste: they've made an even bigger (accidental) attempt to poison Puget Sound, this time with fish pathogens. Way to go!
Keep your (admittedly weak) tourist dollars away from those poop-where-we-eat-ers.
An article on how the keyboards at 2 University of Washington computer labs are super disgusting mentions that "At the [Seattle Public] library's Central Branch, all 378 public keyboards are wiped daily, cleaned thoroughly once a week and put through the dishwasher once a month on a rotating schedule."
At my library, no keyboard cleaning is done whatsoever. Now wash your hands.
CORRECTION! Apparently there is keyboard cleaning. Now lick your hands.
Driving to work this morning, passed 2 cops at the end of my street, one wearing blue nitrile gloves, maybe for evidence collecting? Also a big City of Redmond Police SUV. What terrible crime has occurred???
Outside the Ipanema Grill in Manhattan, we saw a sign reading “[n] kinds of meat”. I think n was eight or ten. Here's what we could reconstruct of the several sword-borne meat options they brought by:
I'm so glad I don't have to deal directly with these people:
We found big differences in transactions registered .... [Your] platform report about 103,105 [items], while [our] platform indicates that deliver [items] about 112,547. As indeed we have a difference of 9,445 [items] in favors of [us]. You know because this difference is so great?(the answer is, of course, that we're counting [items] differently; fortunately, the people who ask me understand the answers I give them)
From a review of a currently EU/Japan only DS product (not really a game) Cooking Guide:
We'd recommend putting your swanky new red DS in a Ziploc or something if you're going to fry pork next to it.
From a Kirkus review of Baker's The Numerati:
The propellerheads with whom Baker converses seem a pretty benign bunch, far from the Panopticon-loving Dr. Evils the conspiracy-evoking title suggests.
It occurred to me after Craig's post about tipping milk that he should be worried about Nominative Determinism, since my name is Sarah TheMostDangerousGame.
In other news, happy birthday, Mom TheMostDangerousGame!
Nominative determinism is a recurring theme on the BBC News Magazine Monitor (which also has a Twitter presence), so I am perhaps primed to see it in this story about the new blocky milk jugs:
“Just tilt it slowly and pour slowly,” Ms. Tilton said…But then, she would, wouldn't she?