flemmings | Reading

I decided before I started out that I wasn't going to take Madame out today. It was a chilly and blustery day, with the leaves whirling in the wind, and long waves of grey cloud rolling over the sun, and in addition to that, I was just tired and didn't feel up to all the ins and outs of getting Madame to a destination. I stopped at a coffee shop and got lattes and a snack of quiche and fruit for both of us before going. When I arrived, she was asleep in her chair. I didn't want to startle her, so I just came in quietly and sat down. When she woke up on her own, she was only mildly surprised to see me. I think she was disappointed not to go out, but cheered up when a staff member offered to bring her lunch on a tray. That seemed like a nice thing to her. I always take such pains not to offer her dishes with meat in them, so I was amused that her lunch included a breaded chicken cutlet that she ate without a second thought. She said it was good, and wondered what it could be. I didn't enlighten her. I just ate my veggie filled quiche. The piece I had meant for Madame stayed in the bag and was ultimately consumed by the Sparrowhawk.

We had a nice chat, and she enjoyed her coffee. We had to have the sad conversation about which family members are still alive, again. This time she was worried about her daughter, who she always refers to as her sister. Her actual sister is in fact dead, so I waited for some more clues before answering the question! As I thought, she meant her daughter, mother of the adorable baby, so I was happy to assure her that Mademoiselle was quite well and would undoubtedly come to see her soon. She is also still put out by not having her phone. Mademoiselle is doing something about that, but hasn't been able to arrange it yet, so every time I'm there I get thinly veiled hints that I should take her out to buy a new phone! This time I wiggled out of it by reminding her that she would have to know which phone service she was using, because you wouldn't want to sign up with more than one and have to pay twice. Being brought up Dutch, she is quite frugal, so that gave her pause. When I got up to go, she said she would walk me down the hall to the door. However, she only made it halfway. Then she said her arms hurt too much, and she would just watch me go. I turned and waved as I went out the door, and she waved back.

I stopped at the pharmacy in the grocery store on the way home, to see if they had the prescription that was supposed to be ready on Monday. They hadn't even started on it yet. I took advantage of the wait time to nip over and get some bok choy, lettuce, a cucumber, and a bunch of leeks. When I came back, the pharmacist noticed my basket and remarked that she loved bok choy. "And what else is that you have? Is that leeks?" I said yes, I was going to put chicken in the stir fry with bok choy, and then boil the bones and make soup with the leeks. "Oh! You are my kind of woman!" she exclaimed. "That is just what I would do. Now I'm feeling so inspired to make soup." I guess it's always good to make a friend of your pharmacist. . . .

lebateleur

I usually have a half-month lull after October, but somehow this week managed to be even busier (how?). That said, I did manage to read a good number of things, namely:

What I Finished Reading This Week

Embers of the Hands – Eleanor Barraclough
In Embers of the Hands, Eleanor Barralough sets out to recount the history of the Viking Age through what the archaeological and written record can tell us about the people history "forgot": commoners versus kings and warriors; women and children versus men; the enslaved versus the free; and about the activities of everyday life: falling in (un)requited love, religious belief, play, and homemaking, among others. She does this very, very well, with clear prose; a commitment to making clear what's fact, what's conjecture, and what's just not known; a wickedly mischievous sense of humor, and a true love for the subject. The section on Omfim the artist (just read it!) is just charming. This book is an absolute treasure and worth multiple reads.

I Will Blossom Anyway – Disha Bose
I Will Blossom Anyway is a strong contender to be the best novel I've read in 2025. Bose is a phenomenal observer of human beings: these are some of the most fully-rounded characters I've encountered in recent memory. They have strengths, flaws, and blind spots; they think and act in believable ways; they grow. Her depictions of the exhilaration, confusion, and immaturity of early 20's independence and interpersonal relationships are spot-on, as are her depictions of Bengali family dynamics and the good and bad of being an immigrant professional far from home. I'm not saying anything specific about the plot and that's deliberate: there are some real emotional gut punches in this book and they should be encountered exactly as the characters do--with no forewarning. Moreover; Bose sets up a lot of the common tropes and beats and then completely subverts them in ways readers will not expect precisely because she avoids the easy character or plot progressions that leave you grousing "But no one would actually say/do/react like that IRL!" and it is so, so, fun.

TL;DR--this book is so well-written and satisfying; read it.

The Happiness Files – Arthur Brooks
Per its promotional blurb, "Imagine if your life were a startup. How would you lead it and shape it to be most successful?" is the question that underpins the writing of The Happiness Files. Ironically, this book is at its best when Brooks is writing for a general audience versus the sort of people who found and run start-ups (who are apparently emotional imbeciles judging from how Brooks does write for them; namely, as though he were confronting a toddler having a Big Emotions meltdown in the supermarket.)

Luckily, those sections occur toward the front of the book and are soon out of the way, and the rest is quite readable and enjoyable. Much of what Brooks discusses in the volume's 33 3-to-5 page chapters is common sense (e.g., don't hold pointless meetings; don't give disingenuous compliments; focus on having experiences versus acquiring money, and on making progress toward goals versus having achieved them) but it can be helpful to have these things stated outright, and Brooks has a knack for making the point without belaboring it. There is a Christian bent to some of the examples he uses, but it's not particularly heavy-handed, and far more of the book's content is grounded in scientific studies (thankfully endnoted should readers want to follow up on them).

TL;DR - This is a solid book of grounded advice on how to live in a way that fosters contentedness and satisfaction in your personal and professional life.

What I Am Currently Reading

Shield Maiden - Sharon Emmerichs
As a wish-fulfillment fantasy it's great, but oh god, Emmerichs' attempts at diversity and representation are dire.

What I'm Reading Next

This week I acquired Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo, Swiz by Alex Daniels et al., Shield Maiden by Sharon Emmerichs, and Nimona by Noelle Stevenson.

これで以上です。

sovay

Does anyone know how to remove the floating Copilot button from a version of Microsoft Word on which I disabled all so-called connected experiences the day I bought the new license more than two years ago and which has nonetheless just sneakily updated itself so that I have an AI-inducing rainbow-colored heartworm constantly keeping pace in the down right corner of the document, blocking out text which I am trying to write? I have looked for suggestions online and most of them seem to require preference options not available in my Mac. But what I need in a Word document is words and nothing else and I cannot deal with a planet-killing visual fault in the middle of them, on top of which the fact that this obscenity can be intruded into my software makes me want to headline the news for the disappearance of the Roko's basilisk boys who put it there. If a program is on my computer, the only person who should be able to tinker with it is me. I am not even eloquent, I am so furious. Any actionable suggestions would be appreciated.

Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "Straight Edge (I Liked You Better)"

oursin

What I read

Well, most of the time it was One Clear Call, which had (as had preceding volumes) a certain amount of resonance with contemporary events.

Read The Scribbler Annual no 1, which was a change of pace.

On the go

Dipped a bit more into Some Men in London, 1960-1967.

Started the final book in my review pile, which is pretty good though also raises, I think, some interesting points for discussion. (And as a rather tangential thought, during the heyday of lesbian murder mysteries from feminist presses, were there any set in wymmynz communes?)

Have also started a re-read of The Golden Notebook - given how long it is since I last read it, so much seems very familiar.

Up next

Still haven't got to the latest Literary Review. Otherwise, dunno.

james_davis_nicoll

39 Mythos-history-fringe-weird treatises from Pelgrane Press.

Bundle of Holding: Ken Writes About Stuff

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Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wednesday-reading-125/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=64344

Current
The Great Hunger, by Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Year Before Yesterday, by Brian W. Aldiss

Last books finished
Time Zero, by Justin Richards
Madame Prosecutor, by Carla del Ponte
The Good Wife of Bath, by Karen Brooks (did not finish)
The Spark that Survived, by Myra Lewis Williams
Salvage, by Emily Tesh
Doctor Who: Empire of Death, by Scott Handcock
Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore

Next books
How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, by David DeSteno
Amongst Our Weapons, by Ben Aaronovitch
An Experiment with Time, by J. W Dunne

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wednesday-reading-125/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=64344

james_davis_nicoll

The 1997 Second Edition of Over the Edge, the acclaimed Atlas Games tabletop roleplaying game of surreal danger on the conspiracy-ridden, reality-bending Mediterranean island of Al Amarja, and more.

Bundle of Holding: Over the Edge 2E (From 2014)

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2025/11/12/21c-2026/

james_davis_nicoll

Ryudo Konosuke wakes in a fog, covered in wounds whose cause he does not recall and a haunting feeling he forgot something else very important.

Steel of the Celestial Shadows, volume 2 by Daruma Matsuura (Translated by Caleb D. Cook)

sovay

Tragedy: I saw this afternoon a late eighteenth-century frock coat in olive-green broadcloth that I could not heist because it had been tailored for a smaller man than myself. It was in the Concord Museum, where

fleurdelis41 and I had gone specifically for Transformed by Revolution but the TARDIS-like galleries winding inside the externally compact brick and slate-roofed buildings were too compelling to breeze through, especially when filled with items like the Musketaquid-turtle formed of ten thousand stone years or the small brass-foxed mirror that belonged to a man who died free or a collection of objects once in the possession of Thoreau that I had no idea anyone had preserved, like a wooden box for geological specimens or a DIY Aeolian harp. A copper kettle that belonged to Louisa May Alcott. Flints dug up from the lines of battle at the not yet Old North Bridge. Embroidered scenes of the Book of Esther. A musket that was high-tech enough for the militia but not for the Continental Army. A lace-trimmed gown of India cotton in the Empire style. The gallery devoted to the Battles of Lexington and Concord was audiovisual without eliding the tactile artifacts of powder horns and flintlocks and a lantern of the Old North Church. The modern quilt was as resonant as the stone tool island. I liked the display inviting the visitor to guess from their textures the difference between imported and homemade textiles, of which the silk and the superfine were not the latter. I liked, too, Elizabeth Wentworth Roberts' Unloading Boats (1912). By our own estimate, it was our first time hanging out in person in four years. I left the gift shop with Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny by Papa (1851/2003) and a guide to trees by their leaves.

Current Music: The Last Dinner Party, "Woman Is a Tree"

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

taz_39

**Disclaimer** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. DO NOT RESHARE ANY PART OF THIS POST WITHOUT PERMISSION. Thank you.

This post covers Monday and Tuesday.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

MONDAY

Our first Golden Day in quite a while!

I was up early knowing that I wanted to look for a blazer/tux jacket, and that this would take more time than it ought to, lol. After breakfast I Ubered to Snooty Booty Mall where I met with an associate from Nordstrom. Not surprisingly, despite having told her that I needed a black tux jacket for a concert, she had pulled lots of things that were nowhere near that description. Cropped jackets with faux gemstone buttons; grayish or blueish jackets; a few with pinstripes; several with fashionable crumpled 3/4 sleeves. There was I think one jacket that might have worked with significant tailoring, but all of the others I could see at a glance were not what I needed. I felt bad to have wasted her time, but to be fair I had described exactly what I was looking for, plus pictures, well before the appointment.

Anyway, I visited Zara, Macy's, Dillards, and Aritzia. Some things came kinda close, but none close enough to convince me to buy. After two hours of hunting I threw in the towel and Ubered to Verna Cafe.

(stock image of the cafe)

It looks just like a house...it IS a house. But with a cozy little bar and dining room. It was very slow; there was only one family in there and they were finishing up as I came in. There were two gentlemen running the bar and kitchen, and after looking up their pictures later I am 99% sure that they were the owners, Beau and Connor. I had a seat at the corner of the bar and felt welcome and warm. Outside flurries started coming down, and that made my heart flutter in a good way :)

I had wanted the miso pecan overnight oats, but they were out! That's ok, their menu is so intriguing that I'd already planned to come back twice. Today I went with the NOLA Rice Cakes: Crispy Cajun-seasoned rice cakes topped with crab Rangoon, a soft-boiled egg, chili mayo, and Japanese seasonings.

It was very much just as good as it looked. The texture of the rice was SO COOL, crispy on the outside and soft sushi rice on the inside. The crab Rangoon is an extra charge but it is SO worth it. And the molten egg yolk...perfect. I immediately shared a pic to the tour foodie group. Now I can't WAIT to enjoy another meal here later in the week!

When I was finished, bundled up and stepped outside into my first flurries of this winter. How lovely!

Watch on YouTube

There was a Buffalo Exchange thrift store just a few blocks away so I walked there and poked around a bit. Walked to a vintage clothing store that turned out to be mostly menswear. It was only two miles to the hotel and normally would have walked, but with the 18mph windchill it was 25°F (-3.8°C) and me without a coat. I didn't want to brave that cold for 40 minutes. Yet another Uber. At least they're relatively cheap here.

Back at the hotel I was pleased to see that they'd serviced my room (I'd taken the Do Not Disturb tag down and forgotten I'd done so, so it was a pleasant surprise.) I warmed up with a half-glass of cheap wine and watched a video on mandolinist Chris Thile that Jameson had sent me. Feeling burnt out about the suit jacket, I ordered one from a band/chorus uniform supply company to arrive in San Antonio. It looks like this:

(image courtesy Southeastern Performance Apparel)

I would probably wear it with a black shirt so that I don't have to get a bow tie. If am lucky it will mostly-fit, then I can get it tailored in San Antonio and bring in to Candlelight rehearsal with me. Alternatively, I've made an appointment for a consult at Indochino's Nashville location later in the week. They do make women's jackets but I still expect them to be out of my price range and/or that they wouldn't be able to have something ready for me in the next 12 days. At least I can say I really did try everything!

One of our Chip kids will be leaving the tour after this city, and there was a nice going away party for them in the rooftop bar. I popped in just to wish them well but didn't stay long. Social circles had already formed, and I've never understood how to break into one of those.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TUESDAY

Slept in (for me that's 8:30am), had breakfast, worked on Dallas Foodie Finds. Dallas is another city where half the musicians are laid off for Union rules, so I am sad to miss out, womp womp. But on the upside, it does give me time to spend with Jameson and enjoy Christmas and New Years with him!! I feel better just thinking about it :)

I considered going to the grocery, or to Music Row, or doing laundry...thought about all these things and did nothing. It was Veterans Day, a lot of places were closed or had reduced hours, and it was still very cold out. And so it became a bed rot day. Watched movies and YouTube videos, read some books, chatted with Jameson, at one point went to the lobby to fetch quarters for laundry. Cancelled my Indochino appointment because upon more careful consideration I'm not willing to pay for another Uber just to get to the store and find out they can't do anything for me.

I packed dinner to bring to the theater because Haley (Hair/Makeup) was giving me a haircut today!
I walked over early to put together my instruments and fill my water bottle, then found Hair/Makeup. Haley was quick and efficient and very good at cutting hair; we chatted while she worked and I got to know her a little better :) She ended up taking off about an inch and a half. It looks about the same as before, this was just a trim.

The evening show went well, and I was startled when what seemed like the whole first row popped up out of their seats to give a standing O after Be Our Guest! Turns out our Belle had something like 30 family and friends in the audience tonight! It was great to see and feel the enthusiasm.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday: Getting up early to go to Verna for breakfast! From there walking to get groceries, back to the hotel to do laundry and watch Hazbin Hotel. One show in the evening.

Thursday: No plans as yet, one show in the evening.

james_davis_nicoll

BEIJING, Nov 5 (Reuters) - China's Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country's human spaceflight agency said on Wednesday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country's space station Tiangong.

nineweaving

I ran up on my roof, and was in time to see this and rejoice. It began with a meteor.

Nine

muckefuck

So I've been anticipating a come-to-Jesus moment with my weekend binge drinking for a while now and it may finally have arrived.

Last Friday night, I ran an errand for AOC (our new nickname for the guy I'm seeing) which put me close to Rogers Park Social, so I popped in for a drink or three. When I started to get hungry, I headed home and made a sandwich. I figured my night out would end there--I had a new novel to get back to after all--but then

clintswan invited me to go to Anvil with him.

After several more drinks there, he suggested a change of locale, so we left together to catch a rideshare. Apparently, while standing at the corner talking to him, I pitched over backwards "like a cartoon character" and slammed into the sidewalk. After maybe 10-20 seconds of unconsciousness, he managed to revive me, bundle me into the car, and get me safely home.

I know this only from his account. I remember leaving the bar, throwing up at the corner, and getting in the car. But it gained a lot of plausibility the next morning when I realised I couldn't take a step without feeling like my brain was bouncing around in my skull. Any rapid change of direction was accompanied by a feeling of motion sickness and my neck was sore as hell. (Strangely, not my head, not was there a goose egg to be found on the back of it.)

I took a couple Tylenol and laid in bed until I heard AOC buzz at the front door. He had to leave about an hour later for work and not too long after BDDLD showed up to take his place. The rest of the day was spent in quiet recovery and reflection.

The dizziness hasn't entirely gone, but it's much less than it was, as is the pain (chiefly in my neck and pelvis). I think maybe relying on vibes to pace myself is not working and I may need to start picking some arbitrary markers, like no more than one drink an hour or four in a night.

mallorys_camera

Watch on YouTube

HIDEOUS WHITE STUFF FROM THE SKY!!!!!

Plus Icky is being an absolute dick, telling me I can't hire someone from Rover to look out for the cats while I'm gone over Thanksgiving because "I don't want strangers in the house."

I mean, like really, Icky?

What do you think they're going to steal?

Your "Burning Man" t-shirt? Your priceless collection of aging hipster metal ratchet jewelry? Your Viagra stash?

If I'm going away for five days or less, I will typically load the kiskas up with food, water, litter boxes, and toys, and just depart.

They are not the world's most interactive cats.

I mean, they interact with me, but it took them a long time to become interactive with me. They certainly won't yearn for the calming presence of other humans in my absence.

But I'm going away over Thanksgiving for a week, which is too long to leave them unchaperoned and their litter boxes uncleaned.

Anyway, I called Christine, the spawns' mother, & she said she would be very happy to do it.

"I'll pay you!" I said.

"No, no," she said.

If she won't take cash, I'll get her a gift card!

Win/win situation!!! 'Cause nothing pisses Icky off quite as much as anyone having positive interactions with his X.

###

In other news, the gym yesterday was an absolute delight. I had to force myself not to go in today! At the age of 73, I am thinking one-day-on, the next day-off is the right schedule for the gym.

I may force myself to go tromping today.

May.

It is currently only a single degree over freezing here, so the idea of spending time outside is not very enticing.

sovay

Some have lost a hand, some a leg—everyone is asking for water. And still men continue to speak about the glory of war and try to prove its advantages. In the name of patriotism and nationalism, they go on to cut each other's throats. There is nothing as narrow-minded as nationalism in this world . . . If the word 'patriotism' (or 'nationalism') did not exist in the European dictionary, there would have been far less bloodshed.

In our country, too, in the name of patriotism, many leaders are teaching small schoolchildren how to kill. Murder, the greatest sin, becomes morally acceptable when committed in the name of patriotism. If a person, by guile or force, takes away another's property, it is burglary or dacoity—again a sin. But when a nation snatches away another's land—then it is celebrated as empire. Well, there's little point in discussing all this now—just hope that the war ends soon.

—Kalyan Mukherji, 4 October 1915 (trans. Santanu Das)

Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "The Vultures Circle High (feat. Al Barr)"

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Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/shroud-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=64182

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Its lamps lit very little. The colourless sheen of the arching, segmented stems, that looked more like plastic than wood or anything living. The faint flurries of the feeding fans or gills or whatever their function actually was. The limited range of the lamps the drone could mount barely cut through the sheer gloom, the curdled soup of what passed for air on Shroud. All was in shades of brown-grey, light and dark. Nothing had invested the energy into manufacturing pigments, because why put on an art show if nobody can see the pictures? Light and dark, and some yellowish tones, like old bone or diseased teeth or mustard gas. The brown of mud or excrement.

Adrian Tchaikovsky keeps doing it; this is yet another gripping story of the encounter between human explorers and a new form of alien life. The human protagonists trek across the hostile surface of a dangerous moon, and we also get viewpoint snippets from the perspective of the globe-spanning alien entity itself, as the two sides gradually come to understand more of each other, and the humans’ masterplan of converting Shroud into a hob of exploitation becomes less and less realistic. It’s really vivid, and Tchaivkovsky plays fair with the reader, with a coherent and credibly built world. Good stuff. You can get Shroud here.