Author: Laura Conrad

Report on the March 31, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

People who aren’t playing the Walk for Hunger should
remember that the rehearsals in April are limited to those who are
playing it. People who are playing should remember that the
Tuesday rehearsals are compulsory, and no longer “Drop in, come
when you feel like it, music will be provided.”

Report on the March 23, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

Next week, March 31, will be a regular dropin meeting, at 7:45 PM at my place.
April meetings will be restricted to people playing the Walk for Hunger on May 2.

Garden pictures

In spite of the unusually warm weather we had most of the last
week, the garden is still only just getting started. Places
with more sun sprang into bloom some time ago, but our back yard
still thinks (correctly) that it’s March.

Here are what I think are going to be daffodils:

[daffodil buds]

Daffodil Buds, March 22, 2010

And here’s a crocus bud that pushed its way through a tough oak
leaf:

[crocus and oak leaf]

Crocus Bud and Oak Leaf, March 22, 2010

Report on the March 16, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

There will be two more dropin meetings before we start formal
rehearsals for the Walk for
Hunger: March 23 and March 30, at 7:45 PM at my place.

In April the Tuesday meetings will be restricted to the people
playing the Walk. Dropin meetings will resume in May.

If you’re not playing with us, come and hear us on May 2,
between 10 and 3, on Greenough Boulevard across from the Cambridge
Cemetery.

Nominating the Hugos

I was surprised when I learned that having joined the
Anticipation SF Convention last year, I not only got the right
to vote on the Hugo Awards last year, but I get to vote for the
nominees this year.

For how organized the voting procedure was (they sent you a
packet of most of the nominees as ebooks), the nomination
process is surprisingly free-form.

I wasn’t able to find a list of eligible works anywhere. Some
of the blogs I read had lists of what their authors had that was
eligible, and a couple of them offered to send voters free
copies. I don’t make any pretense of following the shorter
forms. And although I would like to be aware of good new
science fiction and fantasy novels, I’m not at all sure that
always happens.

So I did my best. I nominated four novels:

  • The Price of Spring, Daniel Abraham
  • Makers, Cory Doctorow
  • Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett
  • The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood

I was cheating a bit on Makers, since I haven’t
finished reading it yet, but it’s clearly a good novel.

I also nominated The God Engines by John Scalzi, in the Best
Novella category.
I probably wouldn’t have read it if he hadn’t sent any
nominator who asked a free copy, but it is well-written,
although I hope there are other good novellas to read before I
have to vote.

I nominated District 9 and Star Trek
in the Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category, and tor.com in the Best Related Work
category. There should probably be some specific online
categories, but there aren’t yet.

New Camera

Lately, every time I wanted a picture for the blog I didn’t
have my camera, and every time I took a picture with the cell
phone, I ended up apologizing for it. So when Woot had a good price on an Casio
Exilim camera, I bought it.

It arrived today. It’s a good size for sticking in your
pocket, and seems to take pretty good pictures:

[Sunny]

Sunny napping

I always use Sunny for my test subject. Then I noticed the
Birthday cards, and took them too:

[cards]

Birthday cards

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District 9

I watched this
movie last night because I’m going to be nominating Hugo awards
and this seemed like a likely candidate for a nomination.

It’s a surprisingly good science fiction movie. I found it
very unpleasant to watch because of all the violence, so I only
gave it two stars at netflix, but really, Hollywood doesn’t
“get” science fiction that well at all often. It’s about first
contact with aliens, who get treated like a “lesser breed” by
the South African government. There’s lots of blowing things
up, and a creepy makup job as the main character gradually turns
into an alien.

You get to nominate 5 movies, and I’m sure this should be one
of them. Whether I’ll vote for it when the time to vote comes
is another question. I would really like there to be a movie
that’s as good that I actually enjoyed watching. The only other
candidate I’ve seen so far is Star
Trek, and it’s certainly not as good Science Fiction,
although I really enjoyed watching it.

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Report on the March 9, 2010, meeting

We played:

Schedule

In March, regular dropin meetings will be held on Tuesdays, at
7:45 PM at my
place.

We now have 8 people signed up for the Walk for Hunger on May
2: Me, Norah, Barney, Aram, Anne, Bea, Dick, and Ishmael. Paul
Ukleja will be playing during our breaks. Anyone is welcome in
the morning for the informal solos and duets.

The April meetings will be limited to the people playing at the
Walk for Hunger. Drop in meetings will resume in May.

The Lacuna

The central character in this
book is the son of a US bureaucrat and a Mexican woman. He
lives in both countries growing up, and in Mexico city ends up
working for Diego Rivera; his wife, Frida Kahlo; and their
houseguest, Leon Trotsky. Later he becomes a best-selling
novelist and is hounded by the House Committee on Un-American
Activities.

For some reason, the reviews I read of it are lukewarm, but
since I’m both a Barbara Kingsolver fan and interested in those
characters, I read it anyway. I think the reviews are what
always happens when someone is famous — it’s easier to say the
book is a falling-off from earlier work than to really describe
how good it is, so they say it’s a falling-off.

I wouldn’t recommend it as the place to start if you haven’t
read Barbara Kingsolver before. That would be
Prodigal
Summer if you like novels,
or Animal,
Vegetable, Miracle if you prefer nonfiction and are interested in eating local,
non-industrial foods. Both of these books are set in the
Appalachian south where Kingsolver grew up.

But I thought it was certainly up to the standard of The
Poisonwood Bible, also about a disfunctional family
in an unfamiliar setting.

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Coco before Chanel

The big disappointment in this
movie was that I didn’t really enjoy looking at the
clothes.

This defect is inherent in one of the good qualities of the
movie — it’s about the period in Coco Chanel’s life when she’s
looking at all the clothes around her and hating them and
thinking she could do better.

But except for the last scene, where she’s wearing a Chanel
jacket and watching her models go down the runway, we don’t
really see any examples of her doing better — the dress she
designs for herself to replace the “feminine” one her
“protector” has bought her seemed fairly pedestrian to me. The
little black dress she designs to go dancing with her new lover
is better, but we don’t really see it very well.

Looking at the movie as either a moralist or a feminist, I
think the script romanticises the demimondaine lifestyle,
although I’m sure the writers would dispute that. The
self-centered lord of the manor whose mistress she becomes is
realistic enough at the beginning, but his conversion to
supporter of her design career is completely unconvincing.

I mentioned a few
weeks ago that I hadn’t yet seen any of the other
candidates for the Best Costume Design Oscar, but I was rooting
for Bright
Star to win it anyway. This is part of the competition, and
having seen it doesn’t change that opinion any.

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