trying to track an idea

I just sent the following email to a guy I don't know,m because he has a website about another guy I don't know, because another guy I don't know mentioned a book by the guy who is the subject of the guy who is the recipient of my email. My actions may not go any further than that, although I ought to really go back and thoroughly read the post in thinkbuddha.org that triggered this whole thing. My brain is weird.

Dear Mr. (Dr.) Friesen,

This note is one of those lines cast into cyberspace. I don't know what it will catch. However....

....I was reading Thinkbuddha.org and the most recent post mentions Biophilia by Edward O. Wilson and The Troubadour of Knowlege by Michel Serres. They sounded interesting, so I logged in to the public catalog of my university library (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) where I am a Senior Library Specialist in the Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. As I had never heard of M. Serres, I googled him and found your website (i'll spend more time on that later) and googled you and found your assorted interests, including your Explore Ideas blog, which apparently didn't last very long, but seems to be related to teaching classes in history/theology. Do you still teach? Did you find that your students didn't like interacting via blogs?

(One of my passions is to explore cyberspace and find stuff that I didn't learn in college...I still might not learn it, simply because it is much harder to be a school of one and there is too much...I would have to throw all of my ideas into a big can, stick my hand in and grab one idea, and then have someone take the can away, so I couldn't go on to another idea until I have satisfied my curiousity about the idea at hand. (That could be a good way to homeschool my grandchildren if my daughter decides to pull her kids out of public school.)

Why did you pick Michel Serres as your choice of a person of ideas to share with the world?

Thanks for giving me some things to think about.

hugs,

barbara 'kitten' trumpinski-roberts

welcome home, roger

I'm a Roger Erbert fan...I have been for a long time. He's here in Shampoo-banana for his world famous film festival. Today's column is about his home town (coincidentally, the hometown of HAL 9000). It's my town, too (although, I live on the pushy side of Wright Street and not the Tree Hugger side.)

Leonard Cohen

Salon this morning has a very interesting article about Leonard Cohen's first tour in 15 years.

I didn't know much about music when I was younger (except what I heard on top 40 radio) and I am still no expert, but Cohen's music has drifted in and out of my life since I first heard 'Suzanne.'

It's been called "slitting you wrist music." Tom Smith, bless him, wrote a song about that.

In the article it mentioned a book by Cohen called Beautiful Losers and I just requested it from the Undergrad library. Since I'm trying to figure out why I request and read what I do I figured I'd make a note here.

P.S. I just finished Mesuline (re-read) and started The Virtu (re-read) because I bought Corambis.

I have The Mirador as well, but I can't find it. May have to get it from the library.

The above series, for those not in the know, is by the lovely and talented Sarah Monette.

whine

It's quiet and I have been messing with various brain bending things at work so I went surfing and discovered this. Janis Ian is toastmistress for the Nebula Awards...I want to go.

Here is a list of the nominees for this year:

Novels

Little Brother - Cory Doctorow (Tor, Apr08)
Powers - Ursula K. Le Guin (Harcourt, Sep07)
Cauldron - Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov07)
Brasyl - Ian McDonald (Pyr, May07)
Making Money - Terry Pratchett (Harper, Sep07)
Superpowers - David J. Schwartz (Three Rivers Press, Jun08)

Novellas

“The Spacetime Pool” - Catherine Asaro (Analog, Mar08)
“Dark Heaven” - Gregory Benford (Alien Crimes, ed. Mike Resnick, SFBC, Jan07)
“Dangerous Space” - Kelley Eskridge (Dangerous Space, Aqueduct Press, Jun07)
“The Political Prisoner” - Charles Coleman Finlay (F&SF, Aug08)
“The Duke in His Castle” - Vera Nazarian (Norilana Books, Jun08)

Novelettes

“If Angels Fight” - Richard Bowes (F&SF, Feb08)
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” - James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s, Feb08)
“Dark Rooms” - Lisa Goldstein (Asimov’s, Oct/Nov 07)
“Pride and Prometheus” - John Kessel (F&SF, Jan08)
“Night Wind” - Mary Rosenblum (Lace and Blade, ed. Deborah J. Ross, Norilana Books, Feb08)
“Baby Doll” - Johanna Sinisalo (The SFWA European Hall of Fame, ed. James Morrow & Kathryn Morrow, Tor, Jun07 [trans. from the Finnish by David Hackston])
“Kaleidoscope” - K.D. Wentworth (F&SF, May07)

Short Stories

“The Button Bin” - Mike Allen (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, Oct07)
“The Dreaming Wind” - Jeffrey Ford (The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales, ed. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Viking, Jul07)
“Trophy Wives” - Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Fellowship Fantastic, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, DAW Books, Jan08)
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”- Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, Jul08)
“The Tomb Wife”- Gwyneth Jones (F&SF, Aug07)
“Don’t Stop” - James Patrick Kelly(Asimov’s, Jun07)
“Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” - Ruth Nestvold (F&SF, Jan08)

Scripts

The Dark Knight - Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer (Warner Bros., Jul08)
WALL-E” Screenplay - Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter (Walt Disney June 2008)
The Shrine - Brad Wright (Stargate Atlantis, Aug08)

Norton

Graceling - Kristin Cashore (Harcourt, Oct08)
Lamplighter - D.M. Cornish (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 2, Putnam Juvenile, May08)
Savvy - Ingrid Law (Dial, May08)
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson (Henry Holt and Company, Apr08)
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) - Ysabeau S. Wilce (Harcourt, Sep08)

Amazon just lost my business

unless they change their new policy.

from live journal group Metawriter:

If you write books with homosexual characters, read books with homosexual characters, please look at this:

http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

Mark, Erastes, and Alex (among others) had their Amazon sales rankings removed over the last few days for The Filly, Transgressions and False Colours respectively. On enquiring about this, Mark was told the following:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Please note that just before this, Erastes' Transgressions and Alex's False Colours were topping out the rankings. Also note that "The Filly" is a YA Books, and therefore I would suggest one of the more important books to have out there for kids questioning their identity, and Transgressions and False Colours are being shelved with the Romance section of Barnes and Noble. Though as Mark points out, that is of no fucking importance because this is homophobic bias pure and simple.

I have no idea what to do about this except spread the message. If anyone has any ideas on what to do, tell me. Because I am not letting this lie. As vashtan said, they are happy to take the money, but not happy to give these books the recognition they rightly deserve.

I don't know what to do about this either...but I am not spending any more money at Amazon until they get their shit together.

oots: made me cry

This made me cry. I hope Dave and Gary are rolling dice together and enjoying the Game.

Heinlein home for sale

Courtesy of John Scalzi. Robert A Heinlein's home in Colorado Springs, Co is for sale. $650,000 can get you a Freehold of your own:

http://www.mcginnis.com/listings/detail.php?lid=41846127&limit=0&offset=0&aid=005900204&oid=005900002&temp=1057&aname=Sharon+Roland&aimg=1&chome=1&agent_hasfeat=2&&posc=6&post=10&cfq=elegant%3Dyes%26property_category%3D1%26county%3D41%26aid%3D005900204%26oid%3D005900002%26temp%3D1057%26aname%3DSharon%2BRoland%26aimg%3D1%26chome%3D1%26agent_hasfeat%3D2%26SRSearchDate%3D1238781456%26SRRecordCount%3D10%26SRPage%3D1%26SRPageCount%3D1%26SRPageLinks%3D6