catvalente

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/wild-community.html

"Time and time again I am astounded by the regularity and repetition of form in this valley and elsewhere in wild nature: basic patterns, sculpted by time and the land, appearing everywhere I look. The twisted branches in the forest that look so much like the forked antlers of the deer and elk. The way the glacier-polished hillside boulders look like the muscular, rounded bodies of the animals -- deer, bear -- that pass among these boulders like loving ghosts. The way the swirling deer hair is the exact shape and size of the larch and pine needles the deer hair lies upon one it is torn loose and comes to rest on the forest floor. As if everything up here is leaning in the same direction, shaped by the same hands, or the same mind; not always agreeing or in harmony, but attentive always to the same rules of logic and in the playing-out, again and again, of the infinite variations of specificity arising from that one shaping system of logic an incredible sense of community develops . . . 

. . . felt at night when you stand beneath the stars and see the shapes and designs of bears and hunters in the sky; felt deep in the cathedral of an old forest, when you stare up at the tops of the swaying giants; felt when you take off your boots and socks and wade across the river, sensing each polished, mossy stone with your bare feet. Felt when you stand at the edge of the marsh and listen to the choral uproar of the frogs, and surrender to their shouting, and allow yourself, too, like those pine needles and that deer hair, like those branches and those antlers, to be remade, refashioned into the shape and the pattern and the rhythm of the land. Surrounded, and then embraced, by a logic so much more powerful and overarching than anything that a man or woman could create or even imagine that all you can do is marvel and laugh at it, and feel compelled to give, in one form or another, thanks and celebration for it, without even really knowing why."  

- Rick Bass ("The Return," Orion Magazine)

“Ethics that focus on human interactions, morals that focus on humanity's relationship to a Creator, fall short of these things we've learned. They fail to encompass the big take-home message, so far, of a century and a half of biology and ecology: life is -- more than anything else -- a process; it creates, and depends on, relationships among energy, land, water, air, time and various living things. It's not just about human-to-human interaction; it's not just about spiritual interaction. It's about all interaction. We're bound with the rest of life in a network, a network including not just all living things but the energy and nonliving matter that flows through the living, making and keeping all of us alive as we make it alive."

― Carl Safina (The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World)

“If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate.”  - Terry Tempest Williams

More art from the woods of Devon: "What He Didn't See" by Brian Froud, , woodland faery sculpture by Wendy Froud, woodland faery drawing by Alan Lee,  "Imbolc" by Marja Lee Kruyt,  "The Gidleigh Goat" by David Wyatt, Tilly among the roots, "Summer Land" by Virginia Lee, and "Bluebell Honeymoon" by Rima Staines.

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/into-the-woods-part-iii.html

"Time and time again I am astounded by the regularity and repetition of form in this valley and elsewhere in wild nature: basic patterns, sculpted by time and the land, appearing everywhere I look. The twisted branches in the forest that look so much like the forked antlers of the deer and elk. The way the glacier-polished hillside boulders look like the muscular, rounded bodies of the animals -- deer, bear -- that pass among these boulders like loving ghosts. The way the swirling deer hair is the exact shape and size of the larch and pine needles the deer hair lies upon one it is torn loose and comes to rest on the forest floor. As if everything up here is leaning in the same direction, shaped by the same hands, or the same mind; not always agreeing or in harmony, but attentive always to the same rules of logic and in the playing-out, again and again, of the infinite variations of specificity arising from that one shaping system of logic an incredible sense of community develops . . . 

. . . felt at night when you stand beneath the stars and see the shapes and designs of bears and hunters in the sky; felt deep in the cathedral of an old forest, when you stare up at the tops of the swaying giants; felt when you take off your boots and socks and wade across the river, sensing each polished, mossy stone with your bare feet. Felt when you stand at the edge of the marsh and listen to the choral uproar of the frogs, and surrender to their shouting, and allow yourself, too, like those pine needles and that deer hair, like those branches and those antlers, to be remade, refashioned into the shape and the pattern and the rhythm of the land. Surrounded, and then embraced, by a logic so much more powerful and overarching than anything that a man or woman could create or even imagine that all you can do is marvel and laugh at it, and feel compelled to give, in one form or another, thanks and celebration for it, without even really knowing why."  

- Rick Bass ("The Return," Orion Magazine)

“Ethics that focus on human interactions, morals that focus on humanity's relationship to a Creator, fall short of these things we've learned. They fail to encompass the big take-home message, so far, of a century and a half of biology and ecology: life is -- more than anything else -- a process; it creates, and depends on, relationships among energy, land, water, air, time and various living things. It's not just about human-to-human interaction; it's not just about spiritual interaction. It's about all interaction. We're bound with the rest of life in a network, a network including not just all living things but the energy and nonliving matter that flows through the living, making and keeping all of us alive as we make it alive."

― Carl Safina (The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World)

“If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate.”  - Terry Tempest Williams

More art from the woods of Devon: "What He Didn't See" by Brian Froud, , woodland faery sculpture by Wendy Froud, woodland faery drawing by Alan Lee,  "Imbolc" by Marja Lee Kruyt,  "The Gidleigh Goat" by David Wyatt, Tilly among the roots, "Summer Land" by Virginia Lee, and "Bluebell Honeymoon" by Rima Staines.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/hjega4t_UgM/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/22/recent-tweets-9/

• "Teacher suspended for allegedly touching girl with a banana" http://t.co/q3tMU7don7 21:10:44
• Wut. (EYEROLL) RT @owillis: Drudge's pal Alex Jones thinks a "weather weapon" may have been used in Oklahoma http://t.co/X0aqBIz7NO 21:25:43
• "Drunken moon blamed for car rollover" http://t.co/SsmYzI7IIT 21:32:04
• Woman tweet-brags about hitting cyclist with her car. Discovers that police also use Twitter: http://t.co/AtaYVY5mCs 22:10:36
• Oh CRIPES. "Quarrel with girlfriend caused man to cut off his penis and flush it down toilet" http://t.co/xVfNFfc9OG 22:22:37
• Yay! "Russian space lizards return to earth" http://t.co/kVHOJzyueZ 23:34:38

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130521.html

How was the unusual Red Rectangle nebula created?

/report/article/call-of-duty-will-play-the-same-on-next-generation-consoles-but-will-be-muc

http://penny-arcade.com/2013/05/21/srip-search

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/21/gosh-were-all-really-impressed-down-here-i-can-tell-you/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21900

Me last night at the venue for my reading, which was the Methodist church right across the street from the University Bookstore in Seattle. Here I am looking at the patron of the establishment, hoping he would not strike me down, in my naughtiness.

He did not.

Thanks to Daniel Christensen for the photo.

Seattle was lovely. On to Portland now — or more accurately Beaverton, where I am at Powells, tonight, 7pm. If you’re in the Portland area, I hope to see you there.

http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2013/05/recent-reading-roundup-33.html

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05212013.shtml

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/wild-folklore.html

The Green Man is a pre–Christian symbol found carved into the wood and stone of pagan temples and graves, of medieval churches and cathedrals, and used as a Victorian architectural motif, across an area stretching from Ireland in the west to Russia in the east. Although commonly perceived as an ancient Celtic symbol, in fact its origins and original meaning are shrouded in mystery. The name dates back only to 1939, when folklorist Lady Raglan drew a connection between the foliate faces in English churches and the Green Man (or "Jack of the Green") tales of folklore. The evocative name has been widely adopted, but the legitimacy of the connection still remains controversial, with little real evidence to settle the question one way or the other. Earliest known examples of the foliate head (as it was known prior to Lady Raglan) date back to classical Rome — yet it was not until this pagan symbol was adopted by the Christian church that the form fully developed and proliferated across Europe. Most folklorists conjecture that the foliate head symbolized mythic rebirth and regeneration, and thus became linked to Christian iconography of resurrection. (The Tree of Life, a virtually universal symbol of life, death and regeneration, was adapted to Christian symbolism in a similar manner.)

The Jack in the Green is a figure associated with the new growth of spring, fertility, and May Day celebrations. In a number of English towns (such as Hastings in East Sussex) the Jack pageant is still re-enacted each year. The Jack in the Green is played by a man in a towering eight–foot–tall costume of leaves, topped by a masked face and a crown made out of flowers. He travels through the streets accompanied by men (and now women) dressed and painted all in green, others dressed and painted entirely black, and children bearing flowers. Morris and clog dancers entertain the crowds while the Jack, a trickster figure (and traditionally lecherous) chases pretty girls and plays the fool. When he reaches a certain place, the Morris dancers wield their wooden swords and strike the leaf man dead. A poem is solemnly recited over his body,  and then general merriment breaks out as the crowd plucks Jack's leaves off for luck.

("The killing of a tree spirit,"  notes James Frazer in The Golden Bough, "is always associated with a revival or resurrection of him in a more youthful and vigorous form.")

Tree men aren't unique to the British Isles; they can be found in folk pageants all over Europe. In Bavaria, for example, a tree–spirit called the pfingstl roams through rural towns clad in alder and hazel leaves, with a high pointed cap covered by flowers. Two boys with swords accompany him as he knocks on the doors of random houses, asking for presents but often getting thoroughly drenched by water instead. This pageant also ends when the boys draw their wooden swords and kill the green man. In a ritual from Picardy, a member of the Compagnons du Loup Vert (dressed in a green wolf skin and foliage) enters the village church carrying a candle and garlands of flowers. He waits until the Gloria is sung, then he walks to the alter and stands through the mass. At its end, the entire congregation rushes up to strip the green wolf of his leaves.

The Green Man's female counterpart is the Green Woman, or the Sheela-Na-Gig . . .

. . . usually depicted in stone carvings as a primitive female form giving birth to a spray of vegetation. Green Women are far less common than Green Men, being rather harder to adapt to Christian iconography or Victorian decoration -- and yet quite a few them appear in Romaneque churches built before the 16th century. Although Ireland has the greatest number of Sheela-Na-Gigs, they can be found throughout the British Isles, as well as in France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, and the Czech Republic.

Like the sacred "yoni" carvings of India, it was once customary to lick one's finger and touch the Sheela-Na-Gig's vulva for good fortune.

A number of contemporary artists have found inspiration in the ancient lore of the wood, including Brian Froud in Devon (creator of the Green Man painting and Green Woman drawing in this post) and Fidelma Massey in Ireland (creator of mythic sculpture like the magical tree-woman above, "A Shrine to the Mother of All Birds"). There have also been two international art series recently that have drawn their inspiration from the folklore of the wild: Eyes as Big as Plates (originating in Norway) and Wilder Mann (originating in France).

“This blending of figure and ground," explains the artists, "recalls the way in which folk narratives animate the natural world through a personification of nature. The slippage of elderly figures into the landscapes suggests a return to the earth, a celebration of lives lived, reinforcing the link between humanity and the natural world.” 

The images below come from Wilder Mann, a photography series by Charles Fréger (based in Rouen, France), who spent two years traveling around Europe documenting the folk pageants and festivals of what he calls "tribal Europe." The resulting photographic exhibition just moved from New York to Switzerland, and the images have been collected into a stunningly beautiful art book. (You can see more of Fréger's photographs here.)

As Rachel Hartigan Shea explains in an article about the series, "Traditionally the festivals are a rite of passage for young men. Dressing in the garb of a bear or wild man is a way of 'showing your power,' says Fréger. Heavy bells hang from many costumes to signal virility. The question is whether Europeans — civilized Europeans — believe that these rituals must be observed in order for the land, the livestock, and the people to be fertile. Do they really believe that costumes and rituals have the power to banish evil and end winter? 'They all know they shouldn’t believe it,' says Gerald Creed, who has studied mask traditions in Bulgaria. Modern life tells them not to. But they remain open to the possibility that the old ways run deep.'"

Likewise, the mythic scholar Daniel C. Noel is struck by the masculine power of Green Man lore: "Whether the Green Man, is some sort of Jungian archetype 'returning' from a primeval past, a Celtic survival in the psyche, seems not as important to me as the metaphor he constitutes for men, and for the gender-embattled culture, in the present and future.  Whatever the metaphysics of this fascinating figure, it is enough that he is a green ideal and a good idea arriving from wherever to inspire us. We have needed a Father Nature for a long time, and never more urgently than now, when all over the planet, armored men, in or out of uniform, terrorize each other, women and children, and what remains of the wildwood." 

Let's give Henry David Thoreau the last word today on why the wild and the folklore of the wild still matter: "Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?" he asks (in Walden). "Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?"

The art above: A Green Man painting by Brian Froud; a Green Man carving in a church near Birmingham; Jack-in-the-Greens in Oxford and the City of London (photographs from the "In the Company of the Green Man" blog);  a Green Woman drawing by Brian Froud; a Sheela-na-gig carving at a church in County Clare, Ireland; "A Shrine for the Mother of the Birds" by Fidelma Massey; three photographs from Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth's "Eyes as Big as Plates" collaborative art project, the first from Norway, the second two from Finland; and four photographs from Charles Fréger's "Wilder Mann" series: a sauvage in Switerland, three kurkeri in Bulgaria, a careto in Portugal, and a devil in St. Nicholas' retinue in the Czech Republic. All art works are copyright by the artists. 

Recommended reading... Nonfiction: "Gossip from the Forest" by Sara Maitland (published as "From the Forest" in the US), "Forests" by Robert Pogue Harrison, "Green Man" by William Anderson & Clive Hicks, Sheela-Na-Gigs" by Barbara Freitag, and "Meetings With Remarkable Trees" by Thomas Pakenham. Fiction: The Mythago Wood Series by Robert Holstock; "Forests of the Heart," "The Wild Wood," and  "Jack in the Mist" by Charles de Lint; "In the Forests of Serre," "Winter Wood," and "Solstice Wood" by Patricia McKillp;  and "The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest," a Datlow-Windling anthology. For children: "Grumbles from the Forest" by Jane Yolen & Rebecca Kai Dotlich and "Into the Forest" by Anthony Browne. Poetry: "The Forest" by Susan Stewart. Art: "Wood" by Andy Goldsworthy and "Wilder Mann" by Charles Fregér.

Today's post goes out to mythic maskmaker's Shane & Leah Odom; and to Charles de Lint, who brough Green Men to Bordertown.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/Bzbzp49NJJw/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/21/recent-tweets-8/

• It was kind of you to think of me. Thanks for that. :) http://t.co/SFe27IyF4D 06:17:54
• Dairine repeatedly gets her comeuppance later in the series; a big flashy start doesn't necessarily imply that a… http://t.co/waot7SMW6E 06:20:29
• The latest of the New Millennium Editions of the Young Wizards series is out! Extensively revised an http://t.co/vRA3KvS5oV 07:35:26
• Want to send a #haiku to #Mars? Details here: http://t.co/YWkyR1r31I #space 08:01:02

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130520.html

Our Sun is not a giant blueberry.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/20/portland-brace-yourself-for-i-shall-arrive-tomorrow-7pm-powells-in-beaverton/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21897

Yes, Portland! I am returning on Tuesday, May 21st! To feast upon your Voodoo Donuts and other local comestibles! And to read, answer questions and sign books! Largely in that order!

You will find me at Powell’s Beaverton branch at 7pm! Please come and bring everyone you have ever met in your life. Because if I don’t get a good crowd, I’m not allowed to have any Voodoo Donuts. Voodoo Donuts are for closers, you see.

Tell me you’ll come. The donuts, they are calling.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/20/seattle-come-see-me-today-7pm-university-temple-united-methodist-church/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21892

That’s right, Seattleites — as you read this I am lurking about your town, preparing for my event tonight, May 20, at 7pm at the University Temple United Methodist Church — which, in case you don’t know, is located at 1415 NE 43rd St in Seattle.

What will I do there? Read! And talk! And sign books! And maybe play a ukulele if someone brings one! Who knows! What I do know is that it will be fun fun fun. And also, fun.

Please note: This is a ticketed event, and you can get tickets one of two ways:

1. Buy tickets for $5 at the door (cheap!)

2. Buy The Human Division from University Bookstore and get the ticket free with your purchase. Since I will be signing books at the event, this is probably the best possible way to go for this particular (I will sign your other books of course).

I always have an insanely good time in Seattle and I’m looking forward to more of the same tonight. Hope to see you there!

/report/article/shadow-warrior-reboot-keeps-setting-and-katana-ditches-sexism-racism-and-mp

http://penny-arcade.com/2013/05/20/the-shame-hole

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/20/the-big-idea-madeleine-robins/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21890

Anyone who reads fairy tales knows that things happen in the tales for seemingly no reason at all. But just because there’s no reason in then doesn’t mean something interesting can’t happen when reason is added to them. Just ask Madeleine Robins, who mined a classic fairy tale when imagining Sold for Endless Rue.

MADELEINE ROBINS:

It started with a conversation. Or rather, an idea about a conversation.

When my kids were small we read a picture book of Rapunzel, gorgeously illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky.  You know: pregnant wife craves rampion, sends husband out to get it; he steals it from the garden of a witch, who catches him and demands his unborn child in return.  The witch locks the child in a tower, where the girl grows her hair long enough for a passing prince to climb up.  Merriment ensues.

Zelinsky’s art sets the story in an early Renaissance could-be-Italy, and the central spread, chock full of drama, is of the witch taking the baby.  There’s a rumpled bed with the mother, post-partum, lying exhausted among the sheets. There’s the young husband, sitting with his head in his hands, horrified at what he’s given away.  And there’s the black clad sorceress, a classic old hag, stealing from the room with the newborn babe in her arms.

Well, that musta been a hell of a conversation. Imagine the husband coming home: Honey, I got you your vegetables, but there’s a catch: the witch gets the kid. What would his wife say to him? And why does the witch want the baby? In fairy tales motivations don’t matter: the witch wants the baby because she’s a witch.  But I am contrary and difficult and I want a real motive for taking that child.  Sold for Endless Rue is, among other things, my attempt to do that.

As happens with these sorts of bolt-from-the blue notions, it sat around gathering dust-bunnies and stray factoids while I wrote other things. I began cursorily reading up on daily life in the Renaissance, thinking of ways to rehabilitate the witch. Maybe she’s a midwife?  At least that would give her a reason to be in the room when the baby was born.  But why take the kid?

I had nuthin.

And then I stumbled across a factoid that rewrote my whole idea of the middle ages and, by the way, this story.  The first medical school in Europe, the Scuola Medicina Salernitana, not only had women as students, but women instructors.  One of the most famous, Trotula di Ruggiero (immortalized in the Jack and Jill rhyme as “old Dame Trot”), specialized in women’s medicine–what we’d call OB/GYN.  Her texts on the subject were in use for centuries.  Dame Trot was not a damsel or a peasant.  She was a professional woman. How cool is that?

One of my secret vices: I love medical history, medical mysteries, medical technology.  Now I had an excuse to research the Scuola and dig deeper into medical theory of the time. Boy, did they have theories. Most of them are scary-laughable, but some of them were solidly sensible (for instance, the Scuola recommended a moderate diet, clean living, and lots of sleep).  Pretty quickly it was clear to me my witch wasn’t a witch but a doctor, and that her reason for taking the baby was rooted somehow in her ambition.

I hate the sort of historical fiction where the heroine is a 21st century soul in a 13th century houppelande.  Unless you show me why that character is an outlier from her own culture, you lose me.  How would a peasant girl even think of becoming a physician, a profession overwhelmingly male, occupied by those wealthy enough to have the education required to enter the Scuola?  Where would she get, for lack of a better word, the balls?

Then, among the dust-bunnies and factoids I’d been collecting, I got this image of a child running up a hill, trying to escape someone very scary who is as determined to catch her and beat her to death as she is to escape.  She reaches the top of the hill and is stopped cold by her first sight of the sea, stretching out from the bay of Salerno. It overwhelms her with its vastness and strangeness, the sight of the city spilling down into the harbor, the newness of things she’d never imagined. And then she hears the sound of her pursuer and runs again.

That’s where Laura’s story begins.  Everything she is comes from one moment when even terror can’t stop her curiosity, and when determination is all that keeps her alive.  That’s how she can go against the grain of her time and place.

There are things Laura loses in gaining what she wants.  There are people she loses.  Just like now, devoting yourself to your profession can have very personal cost.  Taking that baby, in Laura’s mind, evens old scores.

But of course, taking the baby is only half the story.  Babies, even babies raised in the towers of academe, grow up, and make plans of their own…

—-

Sold For Endless Rue: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Indiebound|Powell’s

Read an excerpt. Visit the author’s blog. Follow her on Twitter.

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/into-the-woods-tunes.html

I'm running late this morning as I'm a bit under the weather today, but here are the Monday Tunes at last: some music from the woods and wilds in order to keep to our woodlands theme. These songs come from Soundcloud rather than YouTube because I couldn't find video performances of the pieces I particularly wanted to play this morning....

First up, "Home" by the Michigan alt-folk trio Breathe Owl Breathe, gently calling us out of the house and out of doors:

Next, "On Trees and Birds and Fire," a magical little tune from I Am the Oak, the band of the Dutch singer/songwriter Thijs Kuijken, based in Utrecht:

Third is "Furr," a charming story of woods, wolves, and transformation from the Oregon alt-folk band Blitzen Trapper:

Next, "The Wild Hunt," a rather upbeat song about death and the Wild Hunt legends of northern Europe: myth meets Bob Dylan. It comes The Tallest Man On Earth, which is the stage name of the Swedish singer/songwriter Kristian Matsson:

The drawings above are "Tree Nymph" and "Beauty as the Beast" by the always-amazing Virginia Lee, no stranger to the wilds herself.

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/05/20

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/60kmHhx2320/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=3167

Last test. (Just trying to figure out a peculiarity of image (non-)display…

The post Last test. (Just trying to figure out a peculiarity of image… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/jPiuq7yVmgc/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=3166

jenesaispourquoi:

dontblinktheangelshavecamelot:

Look! There was a fan fiction article in today’s  Washington Express (a free daily I newspaper put out by the Washington Post in Washington DC)

Link to the article online

Article credit, Beth Marlowe (Express)

Art credit, Patrick Leger (For Express)

You don’t have to sign up to read stories on ArchiveOfOurOwn though. Just to post them :)

I’m just sitting here chuckling at the illo.

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http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=3162

The post Another test. I’ll be done with these soon, honest. appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/k1gUH_A7YOM/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=3161

Pay this no mind.

The post Just testing an IFTTT recipe here appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/xizorWq0Nps/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=3160

Still Life with Bluespoon Earpiece on Flickr.

The post Still Life with Bluespoon Earpiece on Flickr. appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/20/two-sfwa-presidents/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21894

One is near the end of his term! One’s term has yet to begin! Can you guess which is which?

Photo by Catherine Shaffer.

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05202013.shtml

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130519.html

What on Earth is that?

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015104.html

For here there be SPOILERS!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/4r6_zdr5sfU/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/20/recent-tweets-7/

• Aww! Thank you. :) http://t.co/F5MTOgTctF 12:20:20
• Hmm... RT @PJhaarsma: Evidence of the existence of 'multiverse' revealed for the http://t.co/Md7j9ct1gM via @prismatic 19:21:10

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/19/nebula-award-winners-2/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21885

The winners are in bold. Also noted: The Norton and Bradbury awards, as well as the Solstice and the Kevin J. O’Donnell Service to SFWA Award.

Novel:

• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
• Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor)
• The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

Novella:

• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
• “The Stars Do Not Lie,” Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
• “All the Flavors,” Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12)
• “Katabasis,” Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
• “Barry’s Tale,” Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)

Novelette:

• “Close Encounters,” Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
• “The Pyre of New Day,” Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
• “The Waves,” Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
• “The Finite Canvas,” Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12)
• “Swift, Brutal Retaliation,” Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12)
• “Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia,” Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12)
• “Fade to White,” Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12)

Short Story:

• “Immersion,” Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12)
• “Robot,” Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12)
• “Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12)
• “Nanny’s Day,” Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12)
• “Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12)
• “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species,” Ken Liu (Lightspeed8/12)
• “Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain,” Cat Rambo (Near + Far)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

• Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight)
• The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney)
• The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate)
• The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray (writers), (Lionsgate)
• John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney)
• Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book

• Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
• Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
• Black Heart, Holly Black (McElderry; Gollancz)
• Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
• The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
• Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
• Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
• Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
• Every Day, David Levithan (Knopf)
• Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
• Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
• Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

Solstice Awards were awarded to editor Ginjer Buchanan and astronomer and entertainer Carl Sagan, the latter of which was accepted by his son Nick Sagan.

The Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service Award was awarded to Michael Payne.

(The list above borrowed from this Tor.com posting. You may also see results on SFWA’s own site.)

Also, of course, we formally invested Gene Wolfe with the title of Grand Master. He was gracious and touching in his speech, which is of course no surprise at all.

I am delighted to say that my final Nebula Award ceremony as president went along swimmingly, with Robert Silverberg as our emcee. I got to introduced Bob and give him some good-natured ribbing; he got up and dropped a house on me, which may go down as one of the highlights of my time as SFWA President. If you ever get a chance to get zinged by Grand Master Silverberg, I highly recommend it.

Congratulations to the winners, commiserations to the other most worthy nominees, and many thanks to the volunteers and other who made the Nebula Ceremony, and indeed the entire Nebula Weekend, possible. It was a great time. As a fan, I was thrilled. As the President of SFWA, I was relieved.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/-Dcr-XRk1Dk/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/19/recent-tweets-6/

• Ukraine wood nymph uses up eastern European dry ice quote. Also, big guy in filched plaid. #eurovision 20:45:17
• Whoops, X-men White Queen look. #eurovision 20:51:24
• Think these two may need benefit of clergy shortly. #eurovision 20:57:48
• Ok. Go Ireland! #eurovision 20:58:49
• Visit Ireland. We have Knotwork. :) #eurovision 21:00:37
• Tight pants, oiled tats, fountains of fire. Visit Scenic Ireland. :) #eurovision 21:02:32
• Wait, is Westeros in Europe? - #Eurovision http://t.co/rjSe1VDOe4 21:16:43
• Ah me. Mark Lenard. http://t.co/lwnCkKKr2K 21:27:20
• An outsider's thoughts on #eurovision: http://t.co/vGJoXrtfCd 22:16:32

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130518.html

Once the famous

http://www.postsecret.com/2013/05/sunday-secrets_18.html

 

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/18/a-mind-is-a-terrible-thing-to-taste/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21883

Me and Jay Lake at the Nebula Mass Signing yesterday. I taste of executive power. For another few weeks, anyway.

Picture borrowed from jay’s site, here.

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/into-the-woods-3-the-dogs-tale.html

I've been asked to give my thoughts on woods and wilderness from a furry, four-footed perspective. It's simple. We should spend more time there.

My People are intelligent People, and so I don't understand how they have gotten this matter precisely backwards. We spend some time each day outdoors, but many more hours in the House or Studio. Surely it is obvious that this is the reverse of what life ought to be?

My People like poetry, and so I present this poem by Mary Oliver to make my case. This poet belongs to a dog named Percy. Percy is very wise.

Percy and Books

Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it, and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was not enough. Let's go.

Photograph above: "Tilly Windling-Gayton Coming Down From Nattadon Hill" by Stu Jenks.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/TRyu65K5UWc/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/18/recent-tweets-5/

• Ow. "Too many pickles prompted woman to punch sandwich maker" http://t.co/H3Pf97W3YG #emotional #issues 16:49:40
• (chortle) RT @evanier: The Powerball jackpot has climbed over $600 million. Okay, now we're talking serious money... 20:02:46

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/18/rt-book-reviews-video-interview-igms-review-of-thd/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21880

Welcome to Saturday. 

First: Look! A video interview with me from RT Book Reviews, taken during the Booklover’s Convention a couple of weeks ago in Kansas City. I talk about The Human Division, the RT convention and some SFWA matters:

Second: Jamie Todd Rubin reviews The Human Division in Intergalactic Medicine Show, and has nice things to say about the book. For example:

The Human Division is not just John Scalzi at its best, it is science fiction at its best.

Yup, that’s a jacket blurb right there.

Third: Nebula Weekend fabulous so far. Wish you were here.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130517.html

The Waterfall and the World at Night

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05172013.shtml

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015099.html

As Andrew asks: if this has been going on, with (up until today) no consequences to its perpetrator, what else don't we know about?

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=971

buy this print
Or share on: facebook reddit

http://penny-arcade.com/2013/05/17/video-content

http://penny-arcade.com/2013/05/17/increasingly-damn-late

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-house-of-savoy.html

"The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule—through its branch Savoy-Carignano—the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II. The House of Savoy ruled unified Italy for 85 years with Victor Emmanuel II [..&c..] as monarchs. The last monarch ruled for a few weeks before being overthrown by a Constitutional Referendum, and a new republic was then proclaimed. [..]

The House of Savoy emerged, along with the free communes of Switzerland, in what is now called Switzerland. The name derives from the historical region Savoy in what is now France and Italy. Over time the house expanded from that region to rule almost all of the Italian Peninsula. Yet their growth and survival over the centuries was not based on spectacular conquests, but on gradual territorial expansion through marriage and methodical and highly manipulative political acquisitions." [source]

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015098.html

Urban light rail -- and a construction site that's been allowed to eliminate a whole block's sidewalk, not even building a protected detour for pedestrians.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/05/17/view-from-a-hotel-window-san-jose/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=21877

And to answer the age-old question, no, I don’t know the way to San Jose, on account that for the last two days I was driven around by other people and have no idea, navigationally, how I got here. Thank God for GPS.

Nevertheless I am here, in San Jose, and about to formally embark on my last ever Nebula Weekend as president of SFWA. It’ll be fun. Those of you who are in or near San Jose, remember that there is the mass signing today at 5:30, with me and dozens of your favorite science fiction and fantasy writers; here are the details. See you there!

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/05/17

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/05/the-woods-part-ii.html

From Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairy Tales by Sara Maitland (which I'm reading now and highly recommend):

"Forests to the [early] Northern European peoples were dangerous and  generous, domestic and wild, beautiful and terrible. And the forests were the terrain out of which fairy stories, one of our earliest and most vital cultural forms, evolved. The mysterious secrets and silences, gifts and perils of the forest are both the background to and source of these tales....

"Forests are places where a person can get lost and also hide -- and losing and hiding, of things and people, are central to European fairy stories in ways that are not true of similar stories in different geographies. Landscape informs the collective imagination as much as or more than it forms the individual psyche and its imagination, but this dimension is not something to which we always pay enough attention.

"I believe that the great stretches of forests in northern Europe, with their constant seasonal changes, their restricted views, their astonish biological diversity, their secret gifts and perils and the knowledge that you have to go through them to get anywhere else, created the themes and ethics of the fairy tales we know best. There are secrets, hidden identities, cunning disguises; there are rhythms of change like the changes of the seasons; there are characters, both human and animal, whose assistance can be earned or spurned; and there is -- over and over again -- the journey or quest, which leads first to knowledge and then to happiness. The forest is the place of trial in fairy stories, both dangerous and exciting. Coming to terms with the forest, surviving its terrors, utilising its gifts and gaining its help is the way to 'happy ever after.'

"Now fairy stories are at risk too, like the forests. Padraic Column has suggested that artificial lighting dealt them a mortal wound: when people could read and be productive after dark, something fundamental changed, and there was no longer need or space for the ancient oral tradition. The stories were often confined to books, which makes the text static, and they were handed over to children.

"The whole tradition of [oral] story telling is endangered by modern technology. Although telling stories is a very fundamental human attribute, to the extent that psychiatry now often treats 'narrative loss' -- the inability to construct a story of one's own life -- as a loss of identity or 'personhood,' it is not natural but an art form -- you have to learn to tell stories. The well-meaning mother is constantly frustrated by the inability of her child to answer questions like 'What did you do today?' (to which the answer is usually a muttered 'nothing' -- but the 'nothing' is cover for 'I don't know how to tell a good story about it, how to impose a story shape on the events'). To tell stories, you have to hear stories and you have to have an audience to hear the stories you tell. Oral story telling is economically unproductive -- there is no marketable product; it is out with the laws of patents and copyright; it cannot easily be commodified; it is a skill without monetary value. And above all, it is an activity requiring leisure -- the oral tradition stands squarely against a modern work ethic....Traditional fairy stories, like all oral traditions, need the sort of time that isn't money.

"The deep connect between the forests and the core stories has been lost; fairy stories and forests have been moved into different catagories and, isolated, both are at risk of disappearing, misunderstood and culturally undervalued, 'useless' in the sense of 'financially unprofitable.' "

From "Turning Our Fairy Tales Feral Again" by Sylvia Linsteadt:

From Wild: An Elemental Journey by Jay Griffiths:

"What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakeable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quitessence, pure spirit, resolving into no contituents. Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary.”

Fairy tale illustrations above: "The Princess in the Forest" by John Bauer (Norway), "He Too Saw the Image in the Water" by Kay Nielsen (Denmark), "Lost in the Woods" by Charles Robinson (England),"Thumbelina" by Adrienne Segur (France), "The Frog Prince" by Warwick Goble (England), and "Catskin" by Arthur Rackham (England).

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/vkPBfqZOhrM/

http://dianeduane.com/outofambit/2013/05/17/recent-tweets-4/

• Did #StarTrek Give Rise to #NASA's 'Space Shuttle'? http://t.co/br6SvorNHM #space 16:38:45
• Booked into the Dublin Savoy for #StarTrekIntoDarkness tomorrow. SO buzzed. :) #stid #startrek 16:53:31
• "'Smart guns' could be next step in gun control": http://t.co/nCqUQjN1vg #skyfall 17:03:33
• Egad. RT @BoxOfficeFacts: IRON MAN 3 is on track to gross $1 billion dollars worldwide by Friday. 17:33:13
• A certain amusing resonance in the way they removed him, too. RT @ryanfarrr: I hope someone filmed this http://t.co/P2luQ6x0nA 17:49:10
• :) RT @ChrisDunne29: Reckon we should do a compromise with the eurosceptics whereby we stay in Europe but leave #Eurovision... 19:15:35
• Oh, crap. "#NASA’s #Kepler #space telescope malfunction may end hunt for planets": http://t.co/ppMIzaqWGS 20:00:27
• It's out now! The revised New Millennium Edition of A #WIZARD ALONE: http://t.co/YJBlshjvig #YA #fantasy #youngadult #sf #wizards 22:35:03

The post Recent tweets… appeared first on Out of Ambit.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap130516.html

Swinging around the Sun's eastern limb on Monday,