The Desert Mermaid

What I Learned Since The Summer Solstice

• Kinesthetic Astronomy lessons are great for some people, but they only serve to make me dizzy.


• Longhair cats do have more chance of having litterbox mishaps.


• There was a fascinating woman in New Orleans in the early 19th Century named Marie Laveau, who was a spiritual and community leader, and this is the first time I've really been interested in New Orleans history.


• Managing to find the sun on a helioscope is a surprisingly satisfying experience.


• Pluto is reddish, and it also has a surface made mostly of nitrogen ice.


• The dwarf planet Eris was given the informal designation "Xena" before it got its official name. But even when it was renamed, its discoverer, Mike Brown, named its moon "Dysnomia," which is a lesser entity associated with Eris. It also doesn't hurt that "dysnomia" means "lawless," so he still managed to slide a Xena reference in there.


• Kittens are expensive.


• Saturn's moon Phoebe is constantly spraying another moon, Iapetus, with particles, accounting for Iapetus's weird coloration.


• Sourdough bread needs a starter, which you can make with flour, a tiny bit of sugar, water, and either wild or bread yeast.


• Doing the Super Jump 100 times in a row in Super Mario RPG unlocks a badass bit of armor called the Super Suit. Also, I HAVE A SUPER SUIT NOW.


• The Martian totally lives up to the hype.


• When making fireballs for science demos, don't test your spritz bottle on the carpet because you might wind up having to stomp out some green fire.


• Gnomes have a gestational period of 12 months. For some reason I always thought it was 11.


• Training a parrot to wear a flight harness is not easy.


• Navajo really is that difficult a language.


• There is a theory, put forth by a researcher named Kazunori Asada, that Vincent Van Gogh was color blind, and his unusual pallettes were a result of his inability to distinguish certain colors. Comparing paintings with and without a color blind filter reveals a lot about his work, but I also just like this theory because I kind of love Theories About Artists' Perception.*


• There is a reason the fabric store I go to always looks a bit run-down.


• Jupiter's moons of Europa, Io, and Ganymede have a 1:2:4 resonance, so for every one orbit Europa completes around Jupiter, Io goes around twice and Ganymede four times. Neat!


• Being a grownup is busy.

*Partly this is due to a running gag between me and my siblings about pioneering artists who think they're being realistic. Favorite examples include Claude Monet Was Just Painting What He Saw and Philip K. Dick Was Writing A Memoir.

So I finally got to Chanur's Legacy. I never read it before because honestly Hilfy was insufferable. And I stand by that assessment, though she seems to finally be getting the glimmer of a clue through her thick skull. And I do love getting deep into alien minds.

Definitely going to go on to Cherryh's other stuff, too--the Alliance/Union universe to find out Tully's context, and also I've got Foreigner here. (Tried to get into it once and never got very far.) But I'm wanting other sci-fi, too. Definitely on a kick. You nerds got any recommendations?


PS: LOOK AT THIS FUCKING COVER I FOUND. Suddenly I want to learn French just to find out what the everloving hell the translator who described Pyanfar THAT way to the illustrator was on about.

Rereading the Chanur Saga. This series is still awesome. And I love rereading because I pick up so many details I didn't notice before.

Like most of my contemporary third-grade literati, I was a big fan of Brian Jacques' Redwall books, epic tales of the high adventures of mousies and their fellow woodland critters. They were an entirely new kind of fantasy for my narrow little brain in that they were almost completely devoid of magic--only a little bit of possibly mystical reincarnation, if that--but by god they were full of humor, swashbuckly swordfighting, heroic stunts, dastardly villains, colorful allies, and vivid settings.

And of course there was the food porn.

Oh, GOD, the food porn. I remember reading that Brian Jacques grew up in England during World War II, and if he wasn't exactly starving, there was never quite enough food, and what there was had an uninspiring quality to it. So he took to reading cookbooks like they were porn, and always lingered on feast scenes in the stories he was reading. And when he wrote his own stories, there was always at least one feast, with loving attention paid to describing every single dish on the menu. Holy shit when Mom read those books aloud to us we would get SO DAMN HUNGRY.

And the centerpiece of the food, for me, was always the moles' signature dish, the Turnip'n'Tater'n'Beetroot Deeper'n'Ever Pie. God DAMN that thing sounded good. In those days there was no Redwall Cookbook, and there MIGHT have been Redwall.net but the internet wasn't A Thing yet, so we just had to make up our own recipe. Mom tried many variations, but it wasn't till I came across a different book, Maggie Black's Medieval Cookbook, that it all came together. I combined her recipe for mushroom pasties with my own Deeper'n'Ever Pie recipe and voila! THE GREATEST FOOD EVER.

And I always celebrate Hobbit Day with one, because I think the hobbits and the moles would probably agree on what makes a damn fine savory pie, especially with the addition of mushrooms. So I'm gonna share my recipe with you, and if you want to celebrate a couple of great books with some great pie, be my guest!

Deeper'N'Ever Pie - Hobbit Variation

What You Need:

1-2 potatoes, peeled and small diced
1-2 carrots, peeled and small-diced
1-2 beets
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, chopped
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded (well, to taste. I like cheese)*
extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp. mustard powder
salt
pepper
2 pie crusts (I use Pillsbury because while I am good at some kitchen things, pie crusts are MYSTERIOUS ALCHEMY)

What You Do:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Parboil the beets whole, until they are soft, in one saucepan. When they are done, peel them (they're easier to peel after they've been boiled) and small-dice them, then toss them in a big mixing bowl

While that's going on, parboil the chopped carrots and potatoes in another saucepan. Drain them and dump them into that same mixing bowl

Lightly saute the onions and mushrooms in olive oil. Add them to the bowl

Now toss the vegetables till they're good and mixed. Mix in 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 tsp. mustard powder, and dashes of salt and pepper.

Mix in the shredded cheese.

Now put one of the pie crusts in your pie pan. Then dump the filling in!

Cover with the other pie crust. Pinch the crusts' edges together. Punch a few holes artistically in the top crust with a fork.

Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Ta-da! You have an amazing Deeper'n'Ever Pie to share with your friends. Mom likes it with sour cream (Mom likes EVERYTHING with sour cream), but I like it plain. Maybe with an apple beer or some ginger ale, or some mulled ginger apple cider if you have it on hand. But no matter how you serve it, enjoy--and raise a glass of whatever you're drinking with it to Brian Jacques, who wrote some amazing books. Here's to you, Mr. Jacques.


*I have no idea where the moles got cheese. Only bad guys seem to eat meat in the Redwall universe; the good guys WILL eat fish when it's available, but they're mostly vegetarian. They're only vegan because they have to be, though--I think there's a passing mention of cattle in Redwall itself, but that was the first one published and the continuity got retconned so there is no good source of milk. But by god Jacques wants cheese and cream and butter, so he cheats with something called "greensap milk." I'm cheating right back with "actual milk" products.

She wasn't perfect. "Throw the ball," her tough sports coach yelled at her. "Ahh," she said, and she squeezed her eyes closed, and threw. The ball exploded. Then she fell down the stairs. "Oh NO," she moaned. "How am I supposed to do business at the bottom of the stairs?

Just the beginning of Mallory Ortberg's Flaws Only A Protagonist Could Have. It's hilarious. Go read it.

I have discovered that it's probably a bad idea to start watching the BBC's Sherlock right after rereading the Enola Holmes series.

It's not that Sherlock is bad. I suspect that Holmes himself is going to start getting annoying as I keep watching--as fadethecat pointed out, the Brilliant Asshole character is getting old. But it's also clear that the writers are huge fans of original flavor Holmes, and a lot of the nods to it are pretty fun.

But in my opinion, Nancy Springer managed to get a lot of the original stuff down--including an alternative view of Victorian London, so that you can see things that a white upper-middle-class Victorian doctor might not have focused on. She keeps pretty close to Holmes's original character--that is, he's friendly enough, but he is eccentric, somewhat arrogant, logical, and with his own blind spots. And she also keeps him in the background, focusing on her fascinating original character. Enola's adventures highlight how clever Victorian ladies were at getting around social restrictions--and Enola herself has social savvy, which is really refreshing. Plus, I love that Sherlock's total dismissal of anything feminine can be used against him. All sorts of clever codes and ciphers pass right by him because, y'know, flowers and fans and elaborate undergarments are ladyface nonsense.

Which kind of highlights something else--that while I like some reinterpretations well enough, it's impossible to really dislodge Sherlock Holmes from his natural habitat of Victorian London. Yes, he's fun to put in modern times, and Sherlock does exceedingly well in incorporating updated things like text messages and internetting and cars and how to tackle three-pipe problems when you can't be seen smoking on TV* and such into his stories, but a lot of my joy with the Holmes stories comes from their setting. It's the same reason I read any other sort of story set in a place other than my own modern one--because the setting is FASCINATING. Original Holmes gives us a glimpse at that setting; my favorite Holmes spinoffs are the ones that do the same.**

So yeah, the BBC's new take is interesting. But I think I'll have to watch it when I'm less steeped in Victorian Holmes.


*Okay, yes, the "three-patch problem" made me snort.

**Actually, though, I am not a huge fan of any of the old Masterpiece Theater ones. Didn't like Jeremy Brett or Basil Rathbone. And while I am perfectly okay with Dawson from The Great Mouse Detective (and am perfectly in love with Professor Ratigan even though I fucking HATE the Moriarty nonsense), do not get me STARTED on Jam Watson.

MOM: What are your plans for tonight?

ME: Try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD Got me a new novel to read!

MOM: What's that?

ME: It's called Parasite, it's a science fiction novel, and I will stop there because I suspect that's all you want to know.

MOM: You totally get me.

I keep trying to write up a commentary about one of the most interesting fantasy tropes: the Religion Is True trope. Mostly because I've been fleshing out some of the mythological beliefs of OGYAFElanders,* although it's also because I just read Tamora Pierce's Battle Magic and realized that I've been ... slightly disappointed with the direction the Circleverse has been going in for the last couple of books (this one and Melting Stones) on account of this specific trope.

I always liked the Circleverse because the religion, while a central part of the story, was not indisputably, unambiguously true. You had the temple dedicates praying to and swearing by and honoring the gods, but unlike, say, Tortall or Lord of the Rings or David Eddings' books or the Young Wizards or even goddamn Zelda,** in this world they don't do it because the gods regularly drop by the local waffle house for a short stack or leave helpful voicemails for the heroes or bequeath Our Heroes with Mystical Crysticals. Hell, it's entirely possible that the Circle gods don't even exist, and it's just humans ascribing random occurrences to them.

Y'know, like this world.

And don't get me wrong. I fuckin' like all the Religion Is True examples I listed up there. You can tell some great stories with a premise like that. Hell, I'm even working on a Scatterstone installment featuring some True Animism. But even then, making folklore True actually removes an important aspect from the people in your story: their unbridled creativity.

Now, y'all may know I'm an atheist. I grew up an atheist. My big adolescent revelation wasn't so much that I was an atheist as it was the realization that other people weren't. And while that did lead to a good bit of WTFing on my part--wait, you all BELIEVE this?!--and I do think there is a lot of harm to be gotten out of religion, I also think that religious mythology is fascinating. You can learn a lot about people by the myths they come up with. The stories teach important ideals. You can see the way the mind works in magical thinking, anthropomorphism, spiritism, and just-so explanations. And of course, they're really damn inventive. It takes a lot more cognition to make up a story than to report it.***

I don't think I'm the only one who finds this a bit of a gap. Terry Pratchett (of course) explores it a lot. Discworld's got a sort of symbiotic nature of folklore and humanity--like in Hogfather or Small Gods, where the fairies and gods and Anthropomorphic Personifications are real and concrete, but were born of and fueled by collective human imagination. And even Tortall suggests that the Immortals have a similar backstory, though it seems once they're dreamed up they become independent of humans. But those all still have concrete representations of those concepts. The Circle books were the first time it felt like it really was like our world, where it really was all abstract.

And that was the model I used for OGYAFEland, where there are a bunch of different religions/folklores/mythos ... es ... that are not objectively True, but that influence the thoughts and actions of the humans. It looks like how I see the world. And while it's cool for Pierce to change that around, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was a little disappointed when the Circle Religions started to leak into reality.


*And I just recently had a FABULOUS idea for a short story set in OGYAFEland, god DAMMIT who turned on the Inspiration Fire Hose?

**Or even His Dark Materials--weird, if you've read the book, but while the point is that religion is a construction, it's still not a human construction: angels are a Thing, and they are Messing With Us.

***When I was a kid, it frustrated the hell out of me that everyone was trying to figure out what might have inspired fantastical artworks. "Where could the idea of mermaids come from? Could it have been sailors seeing manatees?" I couldn't figure out why it never crossed their minds that maybe somebody just thought it'd be cool to give a human woman a fish tail. Yes, I know people had frames of reference to work with, but hell, they had fish and women. All it takes is one weirdo with a bit of abstract thinking.

Still here. I haven't the energy for much, though. Even when I'm awake, all I can do is watch movies or listen to audio books.

Thank goodness I've got Bruce Coville and Tamora Pierce around to read me to sleep this time. And thank even MORE goodness that I bought that sand thing in the Tetons. If you want to give someone something that'll help them heal, consider a sand frame. I think I'll go watch mine now.

Hey, congratulations, ursulav! That's pretty awesome.

Also, she has a few interesting words about Narnia, and one that made me laugh:

If I didn’t still care so much about Talking Beasts, I wouldn’t want to scream “Why do you need a Son of Adam to rule you? One Beast, one vote! Trumpkin for President!”

Mostly because I just reread the Lord of the Rings, and earlier this year I plowed through the Belgariad, and I have to say I am getting a little annoyed with the King Hath Returned trope.

I suppose if your king disappears or something, you might start out with some hope, appoint a steward, and sit around waiting for the king. But I am not going to buy that it would last for one hundred years, much less a thousand--later generations wouldn't have an emotional attachment to some long-ago king, and they'd probably find some OTHER form of government, because dammit they have things to do NOW, and after a thousand years just waiting for The King to get back, you're going to get bored.

Which means that, decades or centuries later, if some clown came in proclaiming--and PROVING!--he was the Heir to the Ancient Throne, I would not expect the citizenry to really give a shit. "An unbroken line of firstborn males back to King Fabulous IV? Good for you! Anyway, it was nice to meet you, but I'm off to vote for our senators/watch the gladiatorial melee where the last man standing becomes Supreme Ruler/see who the astrologers picked to be in Parliament/pay homage to the third royal dynasty we've had since your ancestor fucked off to wherever. No, your kingly services are not needed. Thanks anyway!" Patrilineal divine right is not the only way to run a government.

Once again, Pratchett gets it more right than the ones he's parodying. Just goes to show.