megwrites | Reading

I went to listen to the Reading Festival Chorus perform Elgar's Dream of Gerontius tonight. I'm not sure if I'd gone it if had been just them, but they were joined by Johanneskantorei and a youth choir from Düsseldorf (Reading is twinned with Düsseldorf) and Britain Sinfonietta, so I was curious, and the location was convenient. So I booked a ticket. And it was worth hearing, although it seemed to me the ratio of performers to audience was probably at least 2 to 1, if not more. It probably wasn't the best evening for a concert: today has been rather sweltering again and the venue doesn't come with any other method of controlling the temperature apart from opening the doors. It wasn't uncomfortably hot but not still not great.

rachelmanija

While on a commercial expedition, an unexpected accident causes Mai, an engineer, and Juna, an HR person, to crash-land on a pitch-black planet called Shroud. They can't get out of their escape pod because the air is corrosive and unbreathable, and they can't call for help. Their only hope is to use the pod's walker system to trek all the way across the planet... which turns out to be absolutely teeming with extremely weird life, none of which can see, all of which communicates via electromagnetic signals, most of which constructs exoskeletons for itself with organic materials, and some of which is extremely large.

As readers, we learn very early on that at least some of the life on Shroud is intelligent. But Juna and Mai don't know that, the intelligent Shroud beings don't know that humans are intelligent, and human and Shroud life is so different that it makes perfect sense that they can't tell. As Juna and Mai make their probably-doomed expedition across Shroud, they're accompanied by curious Shroud beings, frequently attacked by other Shroud creatures, face some of the most daunting terrain imaginable, and slowly begin to learn the truth about Shroud. But even if they succeed in rescuing themselves, the predatory capitalist company that sent them on their expedition on the first place is determined to strip Shroud for materials, and doesn't care if its indigenous life is intelligent or not.

This is possibly the best first contact novel I've ever read. It's the flip side of Alien Clay, which was 70% depressing capitalist dystopia and 30% cool aliens. Shroud is 10% depressing capitalist dystopia and 90% cool aliens - or rather, 90% cool aliens and humans interacting with cool aliens. It's a marvelous alien travelogue, it has so many jaw-dropping moments, and it's very thematically unified and neatly plotted. The climax is absolutely killer.

The characterization is sketchy but sufficient. The ending is a little abrupt, but you can easily extrapolate what happens from there, and it's VERY satisfying. As far as I know this is a standalone, but I would certainly enjoy a sequel if Tchaikovsky decided to write one.

My absolute favorite moment, which was something you can only do in science fiction, is a great big spoiler. ( Read more... )

torachan

1. They announced the amounts for our biannual bonus and the pre-tax amount is a little higher than last time. Not sure what the take-home amount will be, but I'll find out next Friday. (The day after my birthday, so that's a nice present.)

2. For some reason this week has felt so long. Like every day I've felt like it must be Friday. Even Monday! And now tomorrow is finally Friday! I'm excited about that. Taking next Thursday off for the aforementioned birthday, so it will be a short week, too. (And then the week after that I get that Friday off for 4th of July, so two short weeks in a row!)

3. Tuxie looks so contented.

jesse_the_k

I always enjoy the wide variety of postcards which appear regularly from fflo. Tuesday, fflo posted about the "Best Wrong Answers" to LearnedLeague. These are a series of punchline-worthy responses to Jeopardy!-style questions. For example:

In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the "exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light. This third factor is known as what?

REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

Even though I got online before the WWW, I’d never heard of LearnedLeague, which is a very dedicated group of trivia fiends. Here’s what I found:

Like any tight-knit community, there’s a ton of jargon. Participants are called LLamas (the double L matching Learned League). Membership is by invite only, though there is some public content at
LearnedLeague.com

Some of the world-readable "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season—I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Public, unofficial Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook. More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

queen_ypolita

I did a volunteering day arranged by work's charity foundation with The Conservation Volunteers at Horsenden Hill. I've been there a couple of times before, and on those occasions we'd had a reasonably big group. This time it was only about 12 of us. The number of people signed up was a bit higher only a few days ago, so perhaps people were put off by the very warm weather forecast. And it was warm, but our day was planned accordingly, and we finished earlier than we would have done if it had been less warm. The group I was in cleared out some vegetation off a path next to some pigs, laid down some woodchip on the path (hence the wheelbarrow), and sorted through some pallets and other pieces of wood into re-useable and recyclable. So we got something done, but it was certainly getting uncomfortably warm towards the end. But it was fun to be outside and do something different for a day.

sanguinity

Happy Juneteenth! Just a quick post:

The Black, African, and African-American employee group at work shared this documentary with us for Juneteenth, about the early days of the Pendleton Round-up (a prestigious rodeo located in Pendleton, Oregon), and two cowboys of color who competed in the 1911 bronc-riding finals: George Fletcher and Jackson Sundown.

(Note: contains discussion of genocide, namely the US govt's war against the Nez Perce. Also, predictably, discussions of racism. Also archival rodeo footage, including bronc-riding and calf-roping.)

Watch on YouTube

numb3r_5ev3n posting in

style_system

I'd like to use an otf font file type that doesn't appear to be hosted on google fonts or other font sites (Dalelands.) I have some experience tweaking things via css and linking to fonts, but I've never added a font. If I have to host it offsite, where would be a good place to do this? Thanks!

spiralsheep

- Reading: 72 books to 19 June 2025. Finished 70 + 2 in progress.

Quote: "Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! Didn't they use anything else in Ancient Greece?"

66. Bland generic novel with fish knives joke.

67. Intermittently mildly amusing novel, with a clunky attempted fish forks joke, admiring references to the father's fascism ("senatorial" gold "Roman" armbands = fascist brassards), and a whole shoal of red salted codfish.

68. Casual authorial antisemitism (not as characterisation or a plot point). :-(

69. Aurora Australis, by members of the Nimrod Expedition to Antarctica, 1908, anthology, 3.5/5
Variable quality but worth reading the whole to give context for the best. Readalong ongoing:
https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/662515.html

70. Book published in the 1920s, read for a reading challenge. Not a great choice for me, apart from the fact it's short, but I've read most of the usual suspects from that decade. I probably should've asked for recs of less well-known books, or re-read something I already know I like.

71. When the Earth was Green, by Riley Black, 2025, non-fiction popular palaeontology, ?/5
Numerical typos are very fashionable in 2025, example the first: "425 million years ago [...] during human history more than 440 million years after our beachside scene" [so 15 million years in the future... yeah, no. Also humans gonna be extinct by then, bb ;-P ].

72. Inventing the Renaissance, by Ada Palmer, 2025, non-fiction history historiography, ?/5
Numerical typos are very fashionable in 2025, example the second: "Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1987)" [No, but needs more fanfic, lol]. Palmer does produce the bestest quotes though, and if you're not prepared for 650 pages of historiography then there are shorter fun posts on her blog, or just read this:
"Lorenzo de Medici had Marsilio Ficino, the first true Platonist in Europe since antiquity, but he also had the first giraffe in Europe since antiquity (a gift from the Sultan of Egypt), and both of them wandered the streets of Florence making people smile and advertising Medici wealth and power (though only the giraffe used to stick its head through people's second-floor windows to get snacks; the Platonist came inside). Which of these two living novelties did Lorenzo value more?" [I mean, joking aside, Ficino because his works could be left to and benefit Medici heirs....]

juneghost posting in

style_system

hi! anyone know how i add header and background image for this layout --> https://shinemagic.dreamwidth.org/2821.html?style=mine#cutid1

torachan

1. Tonight was Pride Nite! Had a lot of fun. Pics and post to come tomorrow as it is much too late to do tonight.

2. Special delivery!

azurelunatic

* Shelves are fairly well stuffed. The other brackets have arrived, so we can go get more boards and tiny hardware at our convenience.
* There is now Shelf in the living room. Things are going in it.
* Household tidying progresses.
* Today I filled boxes for 13 weeks of my morning and evening pills. It feels like it took less time than usual, but I think that's a trick of the light. I think I usually start later in the day, and keep going until it's dark. It took about four and a half hours; I try to allocate at least 5.
* This means that I've got pills packed until sometime in September. Go, me?
* Juneteenth is tomorrow!
* Turns out that being a director at a certain kind of non-technical organization means that you spend evenings face-down in the user interface level of a misbehaving database. I am chockablock with sympathy.
* Yellface is adorable, and likes to spend the part of the day when I'm awake but still in bed sitting on my legs.
* Had games and pizza with friends last week; they've got a young-ish teeneager placed with them right now. She wasn't up for games but she did appear to fill her water bottle. Luna-cat is very curious about new people and apparently charged her, which was off-putting. I faded early.
* I got some new bras; I'll have to add pockets but the test wear was promising!
* Nobody told me about the dragons in The Priory of the Orange Tree, everyone just mentioned the lesbians.
* There's a new serial at

the_comfortable_courtesan!!!

jesse_the_k

I’m up near Rhinelander staying on Flannery Lake. I’ll be reveling in 15:45 hours of daylight on the summer solstice. Today there’s zero wind, while the second-growth white, yellow, and red pine trees are pumping out their jizz with enthusiasm. The lime-yellow grains appear darker as they overlay almost every square inch of the water, with wild swirls and eddies that extend many feet off shore until eventually the black surface reflects many puffy cumulus clouds in a light blue sky.

Lovely to look at, but not so great to breathe. At least we're not bedeviled by wildfire smoke.

( click for pic )

queen_ypolita

Finished since the last reading post
Nothing. I didn't expect to read much while my mum and sister were around and I didn't.

Currently reading
The Blunders of Our Governments by Anthony King and Iwor Crewe. It's now over 10 years old and I think that shows, which is not unexpected—some of these kinds of things will take time to clearly display themselves as blunders. I don't think anyone reading about the state of Thames Water today would consider the privatisation as successful as it might have seemed even ten years ago.

Reading next
Not sure

Current Mood: hot

spiralsheep

Aurora Australis readalong 9 / 10, Life under Difficulties by James Murray, post for comment, reaction, discussion, fanworks, links, and whatever obliquely related matters your heart desires. You can join the readalong at any time or skip sections or go back to earlier posts. It's all good. :-)

Text of Life under Difficulties by James Murray:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/Life_under_Difficulties

The "plate" illustrations mentioned can be found in Murray's scientific paper on this research:
https://www.quekett.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/murray-antarctic-rotifera.pdf

Note that this is a scientific essay about extremophile organisms, using Rotifers as the main example, and some of the science is out of date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotifer
Also mentioned, "Water Bears":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade
General: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile

Reminder for next week, the dream fantasy Bathybia by Douglas Mawson:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/Bathybia

Readalong intro and reaction post links:
https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/662515.html

torachan

1. The curfew was fully lifted downtown.

2. Long meeting day ended a couple hours earlier than scheduled. (So rare.)

3. Jasper is the cutest* and he knows it.

*All cats are the cutest.

torachan

Last night was just a quick after-work trip while waiting to pick up Carla at the airport, so I didn't do a whole lot but I did have a nice dinner!

( Read more... )

jesse_the_k

I’ve been a Karine Polwart fan for decades, which led me to her recent collaboration with Julie Fowlis and Mary Chapin Carpenter. "Looking for the Thread" mixes Scots Gaelic and US country and a little bit of rock’n’roll.

I was moved by this farewell from the POV of a dying satellite—can you tell me if this matches an actual satellite that circled our planet?

( Stream here on YouTube )

Or on SoundCloud or on Spotify.

( Lyrics in the cut )

spiralsheep

Poll #33262 Two colonial powers fighting each other or four colonial powers fighting each other

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

View Respondents

Largest battle, by number of combatants and/or dead + wounded, in the American Revolutionary War?

View Answers

Long Island / Brooklyn
0 (0.0%)

Gibralter
1 (16.7%)

Gibralter, but I had to look it up
1 (16.7%)

Is this a t(r)ick question?
4 (66.7%)

I have a flag!
3 (50.0%)

torachan

1. It seems like there was a lot more foot traffic in Little Tokyo today, so hopefully our sales will pick up this week. And this afternoon they announced the curfew has been pushed back to 10pm from 8pm, so we can keep the store open till nine.

2. Carla is home safe and sound.

3. I had a nice dinner at DCA tonight before picking her up from the airport. Very warm and muggy this evening, though, which I could have done without!

4. Neighborhood Watch! Gemma is on top of it.

queen_ypolita

After finishing work on Thursday, I then spent a couple of hours hoovering, making beds, and dealing with a mountain of washing up before I headed out to the airport to meet my mum and sister. It was quite late when we all got back to my place and I don't think any of us slept particularly well. I had guessed as much and hadn't planned anything except chatting and unpacking for the morning. We had lunch at home and then we travelled to Oxford for the afternoon. The main event I'd planned was having afternoon tea at the Ashmolean rooftop restaurant, as afternoon tea had been one of my mum's requests for this trip. It was gorgeously sunny and the afternoon tea was delicious. We also did a little bit of browsing in the shops afterwards but it was just about too warm for that to be enjoyable.

On Saturday, we went to Windsor and visited the castle. None of us have any major interest in the royal family, but it was something to see and do somewhere that was relatively easy to get to. We also had lunch and did some little shopping.

Yesterday, we walked over to the university campus and spent some time wandering around in the Harris garden there, before taking the bus to town, doing a little bit of shopping and having lunch. Mum was initially a bit wary about the walking plans—her operated knee isn't always that co-operative—but she found it OK.

This morning, I saw them to the bus stop for the coach to the airport and then made my way to the office. Apparently, the coach journey and the first flight went fine, but checking up on things from afar, it seems their second flight ended up being a little delayed, so it'll be late before they're at home tonight.

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

a library of souls

reading

Reading

Music tonight

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Daily Happiness

infinite punchlines from LearnedLeague's Best Worst Answers

Spent some time on wheelbarrow duty

Juneteenth: American Cowboys

Adding a otf font to a pre-existing theme.

In which I read therefore I am

(no subject)

Daily Happiness

More tiny excitements

Things I Can Only See Up North

Wednesday reading

Aurora Australis readalong 9 / 10, Life under Difficulties

Daily Happiness

2025 Disneyland Trip #41 (6/16/25)

music: A Wistful Satellite Song

In which all the main combatants were colonial powers, actually

Daily Happiness

Weekend with visitors

Expand Cut Tags