Reading and a Potato
Aug. 19th, 2020 01:10 pmYesterday I decided it was time to turn the compost pile again, so I grabbed my shovel and unhooked the fence and started flipping shovelful after shovelful. I'd noticed a potato plant growing in the compost, but that happens now and again, but nothing usually comes of it. So, I yanked up the spindly plant and discovered...
Image: a potato, granted by the goddess of compost.
... a nice and firm brand-new spud. I have taken it in the house and intend to wash it up and ceremoniously eat it in gratitude to the goddess of compost who is providing dark, rich loam this year and... a singular potato.
Of course, I feel I should mention that I believe "compost happens" is as much of a lie as "sourdough is easy." Yesterday was the second time that I have turned the heap this year--and that is sweaty work. On top of that, I try to water it every day. Compost will happen naturally, of course, but I've had fairly inert compost piles in the past.... the kind where it takes years and years to break down. If you want compost that is actively cooking, you actually have to work at it.
Meanwhile, since it is Wednesday I should probably enumerate some of the things I've been reading and consuming. I am still deep into my Loft class prep, but that's just going to be me for awhile. I am not good at non-fiction writing, and prepping lectures for a asynchronous class is a bit like writing a whole series of non-fiction articles. They're a little more casual than all that, but I do like to add links to terms I'm using (this is an intermediate rather than beginning level class) and, of course, provide examples in short stories for the class to read. Given that I normally walk in the room and start talking, this is very different. I am going to be recording all sorts of other things--short videos, etc., but there's a lot of content to generate before the end of September.
Oh, hey, I should mention that if you want to direct someone to this class (or you want to take it), the information is here: https://loft.org/classes/over-transom-sff-intermediate-writers
But, okay, so some of the short stories I read for class this last week (I'm not going to teach all of these, but I gave students the option of reading any number of stories on various websites that I pointed them to, so I need to make sure I was familiar with most of them):
Then, I re-read:
Also, after talking to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jiawen the other day, I decided to check out some Taiwanese TV shows.
Taiwan News recommended some top 10 TV shows, so I watched the first couple episodes of "Close Your Eyes Before Its Dark," which is a horror show about a reunion of the high school hiking club at a remote mountain inn. They return to dig up their time capsule and maybe finish that game of "Mafia" they started... only who WAS the killer? and why are people dying in the order they died in the game??? I liked that one okay (or at least so far), but I quit after a couple of episodes because I wasn't in a horror mood? I was there for the scenery and once the typhoon causes the landslide that traps everyone at the cabin, I was like, "Meh, interior shots. I'll be back to find out who the killer is later."
Instead I decided to start a different show. It's one that I'm really enjoying which is "A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities." This one is on Netflix and a quarter of it is in English since partly it takes place in San Francisco. The set-up for this is that there are these two women--one living in Taipei and the other in San Francisco--they end up friends after getting caught up in a scam contest for "the best job in the Pacific!" They commiserate together and in a drunken pact, decide to trade lives.
Lee Nien-Nien, who has been obsessed with San Francisco since she heard the story of how her biological mother fell in love there, ends up taking Josephine "Jo" Huang's apartment in SF. Jo stays with Nien-Nien's parents in Taipei. Wacky hijinx ensue.
"A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities," has kind of everything I want? There's a lot of local scenery and some cultural bits here and there and a moderately sappy, but so far satisfying story about coming of age, female friendship, and made families/falling in love. I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories? I've watched a lot of "and I traveled to a far away place to learn a life lesson and fall in love" movies. Things like, "Second Best Marigold Hotel." I am almost always up for that story, probably partly because, like in this one, I get to armchair travel.
That's what I've been consuming, you?
Image: a potato, granted by the goddess of compost.
... a nice and firm brand-new spud. I have taken it in the house and intend to wash it up and ceremoniously eat it in gratitude to the goddess of compost who is providing dark, rich loam this year and... a singular potato.
Of course, I feel I should mention that I believe "compost happens" is as much of a lie as "sourdough is easy." Yesterday was the second time that I have turned the heap this year--and that is sweaty work. On top of that, I try to water it every day. Compost will happen naturally, of course, but I've had fairly inert compost piles in the past.... the kind where it takes years and years to break down. If you want compost that is actively cooking, you actually have to work at it.
Meanwhile, since it is Wednesday I should probably enumerate some of the things I've been reading and consuming. I am still deep into my Loft class prep, but that's just going to be me for awhile. I am not good at non-fiction writing, and prepping lectures for a asynchronous class is a bit like writing a whole series of non-fiction articles. They're a little more casual than all that, but I do like to add links to terms I'm using (this is an intermediate rather than beginning level class) and, of course, provide examples in short stories for the class to read. Given that I normally walk in the room and start talking, this is very different. I am going to be recording all sorts of other things--short videos, etc., but there's a lot of content to generate before the end of September.
Oh, hey, I should mention that if you want to direct someone to this class (or you want to take it), the information is here: https://loft.org/classes/over-transom-sff-intermediate-writers
But, okay, so some of the short stories I read for class this last week (I'm not going to teach all of these, but I gave students the option of reading any number of stories on various websites that I pointed them to, so I need to make sure I was familiar with most of them):
- “The Key” by Nnedi Okorafor (Enkore Review, November 2016)
- “Afrofuturist 419” by Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld, November 2016)
- “Rusties” by Nnedi Okorafor and Wanuri Kahiu (Clarkesworld, October 2016)
- “The Frequency of Compassion” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Uncanny, September/October 2018.)
- “The Shape of my Name” by Nino Cipri (Tor.com, 2015)
- “Four-Point Affective Calibration,” by Bogi Takacs (Lightspeed, February 2018.)
- “Nothing is Pixels Here” by K. M. Szpara (Lightspeed, June 2015)
- “Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island” by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare, May 2019)
- “Give the Family My Love,” by A. T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld, Feb. 2019)
- “And Now HIs Lordship is Laughing,” by Shiv Ramadas (Strange Horizons, Sept. 2019)
- “Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, October 2017)
- “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)
Then, I re-read:
- “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, March 2016)
- “Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies,” by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny, 2016)
Also, after talking to
jiawen the other day, I decided to check out some Taiwanese TV shows. Taiwan News recommended some top 10 TV shows, so I watched the first couple episodes of "Close Your Eyes Before Its Dark," which is a horror show about a reunion of the high school hiking club at a remote mountain inn. They return to dig up their time capsule and maybe finish that game of "Mafia" they started... only who WAS the killer? and why are people dying in the order they died in the game??? I liked that one okay (or at least so far), but I quit after a couple of episodes because I wasn't in a horror mood? I was there for the scenery and once the typhoon causes the landslide that traps everyone at the cabin, I was like, "Meh, interior shots. I'll be back to find out who the killer is later."
Instead I decided to start a different show. It's one that I'm really enjoying which is "A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities." This one is on Netflix and a quarter of it is in English since partly it takes place in San Francisco. The set-up for this is that there are these two women--one living in Taipei and the other in San Francisco--they end up friends after getting caught up in a scam contest for "the best job in the Pacific!" They commiserate together and in a drunken pact, decide to trade lives.
Lee Nien-Nien, who has been obsessed with San Francisco since she heard the story of how her biological mother fell in love there, ends up taking Josephine "Jo" Huang's apartment in SF. Jo stays with Nien-Nien's parents in Taipei. Wacky hijinx ensue.
"A Taiwanese Tale of Two Cities," has kind of everything I want? There's a lot of local scenery and some cultural bits here and there and a moderately sappy, but so far satisfying story about coming of age, female friendship, and made families/falling in love. I'm a sucker for these kinds of stories? I've watched a lot of "and I traveled to a far away place to learn a life lesson and fall in love" movies. Things like, "Second Best Marigold Hotel." I am almost always up for that story, probably partly because, like in this one, I get to armchair travel.
That's what I've been consuming, you?
