Easily Distracted by Shiny Things

I wonder sometimes.

I wonder how it is that even people near and dear to me can doubt we're not only capable, but well on the way to breaking the planet.

I wonder how it is that I can even consider the idea of bringing a child into this world. If there's world enough in the next few decades.

I don't wonder why i write the stories I do. because God, if magic existed, if Finno were real, he'd sure as hell have found some power that could do the trick, and thrown himself and everything he could offer at its feet, and saved the Gulf and Nigeria. And he doesn't live in those places; the people who do would have mustered enough power for it. In Damina-Earth, not this earth, things would have been done to curtail the damage we've been doing all along to our atmosphere. It wouldn't happen all the time, or all at once, very often, because most people can barely muster the interest to work past their circle of dear friends very often at all (Finno certainly doesn't. And most of the time, he has every right not to; one cannot weep for the entire world. One must choose.) But for oil rain and a vast stream like blood pouring out of the ocean? That's too big to ignore.

(And true, the consequence of that sort of outpouring of magic means it wouldn't be quite so blinking obvious that the people in charge are irresponsible sociopaths driven by shareholder and legal demands that force them to behave like even less responsible sociopaths. Because the consequences would be quietly erased, the doomsayers who prove to be speaking truth would seem to be overstating. But you know what? I'd be okay with letting a few people who deserve hanging Not Hang, and a few people who deserve praise be shrugged aside even worse than they are here, where they're proven right, if it meant the rest of the world didn't have to hang with them.)

And I wonder why I'm feeling down this week, when personal things are mostly holding steady or even looking better.

The Ark came to Ararat
Touched the mountaintop
Noah took a rain check
Saw the rain had stopped

Waste and Desolation
Silent as can be
Noah sent a raven
to see what he could see.

"Raven, fly like a black flag unfurled
What did you find going up and down the world?"

"Oil," said the raven. "Oil is what I found
Oil in the water, leaking like a wound
Shining like a rainbow
Like a rainbow drowned."

(John Jones, Ian Telfer, Alan Prosser)

Not many people mentioned they cared about the last one, but if I put it all on LJ, I have it all saved in one place, so to speak. So this is for me as much as anyone.

Tuathea is a hard thing to explain. Its creation and its present state are complex. This is strictly the creation side. the various species, countries, and cultures, in extreme brief, are post number three.

Fortunately, in the background for Gods in Flight, I had Tovay, a demi-god, tell the whole story in a huge and unnecessary infodump. Since the infodump is being cut from the story, and the few bits of it that are relevant are going to be inserted more naturally, I figured I could post it instead, and get a looooong post withut having to type much at all. It contradicts parts of the description of my fictional worlds from before, as to how the fey (Tovay spells it fae; not sure why I made that choice) set up their anchors. I'm not actually sure, as it happens, if my prior description is wrong, or his is, or if the truth is in between (I'm pretty sure that the dragons and sashelskovae are actually native to the original planet, not descended from birds, but that just makes taking the planets apart a more impressive task.) But I like the slight tension of the contradictions.

However, he's talking from the perspective of a few hundred years in the future from where most of my stories are set, right after a major disaster befell the gods (And about fifty years *before* the Armageddon mentioned here.) Just to explain his snarky intro.

Now, I'm off to go back to pottery (No dance after all tonight, sorry). So Here's Tovay.

( Tovay the Bastard on how the gods came to be. )

I mentioned I was thinking about doing this. let me know if you're interested in more.
( Read more... )

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In unrelated news, last night I dreamed I had a perfect plot idea for a book that would be not only salable but good.

This involved taking the plot directly from the My Little Pony movie (Not that i think there is such a thing? Was there and I missed it? If so, thank god I did) but to replace the pastel ponies with nasty, scarred, grizzled old war horses and their pony-friends with various grim veterans. But pit them against the same sort of villains and odds.

I have to say, a story from the point of view of a scarred old warhorse sounds fun, but....

I think my brain is weird.

First, an unrelated and minor gripe. I have currently loaned out all my Heather Dale Cds to three different friends, except for Call the Names, early and rather rough versions of SCA songs, and This Endris Night. And I got a craving. So currently I'm going through Christmas music even though I don't traditionally play Christmas music (at least as Christmas music) before December First.

And I just discovered the big scratch on it makes the Huron Carol skip. Waaah! (I do have a copy of it in my Christmas mixed CD, but still.)
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I've been having some wholly navel-related thinking going on about the direction of my life lately. Today, thank God, that's not the fodder I want to talk about.

For various reasons, James Loney ended up speaking at my church yesterday after the service, in a hastily set up replacement for his planned appearance at a Catholic-based human rights conference from which he was disinvited.

James Loney, for those who don't know and don't feel like clicking the link, was one of four members of Project Peacemakers captured and held hostage in Iraq. One of the others, Tom Fox, was murdered before the three survivors were rescued. The survivors then made a point of publicly forgiving their captors, because the only sentence for kidnapping and hostage taking in the Iraqi court would be death, and as pacifists, they opposed this -- even for their immediate enemy.

The first thing about this, for Colin and I, was that this was the first time ever that the balcony has had to be cleared of the boxes and lumber usually stored there, and opened to public use; even with the short notice, so many people from so many different human rights groups and religious groups came to listen. We went up there, naturally, to get the new perspective on our home church. I've only seen the main floor that full on Christmas Eve, or Easter Sunday, and the useable parts of the balconies (Some areas along the side were still full of lumber, old piano parts, etc.) were likewise stuffed to the point where a few people chose to stand.

The talk itself gave me much fodder to think on. For one thing, Jim Loney is very critical of the Just War attitude, which I believe; that there are, in fact, times when one must fight. He's not blindly or stupidly critical of it; he agrees that situations like the Rwandan Genocide, where the fact that military was blocked from action may well have led to the slaughter (or the old Chestnut of World War Two, which wasn't brought up, but which I've heard raised before) are complicated situations, and that thus far, humans haven't come up with a response to such things that isn't violent in its turn. What he refuses to believe is that humans can't *develop* a new response that would work, if they stop looking to violence as the answer and start trying to commit money, time, science, and general thinking to coming up with a new answer.

That being said, I found myself agreeing with him more often than I disagreed; because some basic facts he has right:

- Violence does beget violence. Self-defence and just war may be justifiable, and restrained, but they are violence nonetheless, and violence that happens because of prior violence. And all too easy to turn into violence for its own sake, because there is a justification behind it, and knowing when to quit isn't exactly humanity's strong suit.

- We are as a species too quick to say "There is no answer besides fighting back physically." (Except in those circumstances where we are too quick to say, "I can't do anything at all, so why bother?" But that's another conversation.) We find it too easy to say, "Here, now, I must hit back."

And his prime example of how violence begets violence is exactly how his captors - ordinary, non-evil people - got into a mindset where taking peace-makers and pacifists hostage and murdering one of them seemed eminently justifiable and reasonable a course of action. How it could look like self-defence for them. How before the invasion they were considerably more ordinary people, who had now lost kin, friends, lovers, to various military actions.

Jim showed great sympathy for them. Not Stockholm Syndrome sympathy; he was not won to their cause, nor willing to agree that they were justified in their actions against him and his fellows, or their attitudes of extremism. But he could, in fact, describe them as humans, see their motives, and what made them turn to what he feels is terrible wrong and terrible violence.

And the thing which struck me most was his description of a movie night.

As he tells it, the captors sometimes got bored, sitting and guarding prisoners all day and night. The youngest, called Junior by the captives, would go out and buy whatever movies could be found in the black market. Especially action movies. And sometimes, for a change of pace, or someone new to talk to, they would allow the captives to watch with them.

One such movie was Transporter 2. Which, quick plot summary, involves the Transporter trying to rescue the kidnapped child of a US official from some drug cartel.

What Jim noticed - couldn't help noticing - was that his own captors, the people who had kidnapped him, who hated the US and the rest of North America, were cheering for the hero, the good guy. Against the kidnappers.

As cognitive dissonance goes -- actually, I wasn't surprised. It's too human. Too real. That, actually, was the detail that made these captors the most human, and the most frightening to me. That and the phrase where one in fact expressed respect for their mission: "I love a peaceful man." And he didn't, from the context James Loney gave, mean "Because he's easier to cow/destroy/beat up." he meant it as it was said; he liked, and wanted peace.

We writers talk a lot about how "Everyone is the hero of their own story." But this was the real world. A man died because these people were the hero in their own story. Three others were held in captivity, kept chained up, kept in conditions where an empty bottle to urinate in when the captors were disinclined to let one go to the real bathroom, and a rag to clean oneself with were important and desired items. Because they were the heroes in the story. Because their war was just and justified, in their own head. Because the violence they had seen bred violence inside them, and they couldn't stop to look for another, better way.

I still believe in a just war. I still think that as long as someone out there is willing to use force to get their way, regardless of the innocents in the way, then someone, somewhere, must be willing to use enough force to deflect that off the innocents, to put a stop to it. But I also think, and have thought, that there are other things to try first, and that once someone lifts a hand, they must aways, always, before every single shot, decide within themselves if that shot is still justified, or if it's the one that tips them over the edge, turns the protective warrior into the torturer.

Visiting in Edmonton (and up to Plamondon) was indeed fabulous. IN Edmonton we hung out much, mostly with Dad and my step-mom, though we also paid a ngiht's visit to Colin's Best Man and fiancee. (She tried to foist the last Harry potter on me, as we'll be back in October for the Wedding, and she wouldn't be reading it again anytime soon, in her own words.)

We did some shopping on Whyte Ave. and environs - far less than most years, but the Wee Book Inn once again proved its supremacy as my favourite used book store. (After I had blithely said, "well, they don't have the Jo Walton i was looking for *this* time", I realised they had more hardcovers on the very topmost shelf of the wall, and ended up standing there gaping too hard to actually vocalize a SQUEEEE. Er, yes, that is a broken book resolution.)

We also went to the museum, which is good for its size, but slightly better if you are more naturalist-inclined, as I am, and less jaded about modest-sized collections, as Colin is. I think the Manitoba Museum does a better job in how it arranges the human-historic bits; Alberta's is focused exclusively on the First Nations, from origin to present, and is almost certainly a better overall collection, but... it felt like certain elements were missing in bringing the past portions to life, even as the newer segments had their own power, commemorating the present struggles. (Manitoba's is about First Nations and Immigrants alike, and focused on things before the 20th century, or in the earliest decades thereof, and makes you feel the time period more.)

For a completely different bit of culture, we also went to the World Waterpark, almost the only part of the Mall we paid any attention to. much fun, as ever.

We also drove up to Plamondon (Thus Emma Bull's Tarritory getting occasionally overwhelmed by the Athabasca Valley), to my aunt & Uncle's farm (had we planned another day or a longer visit, we might have ended up at their lakeside cabin), where we were fed fresh fish, pickled fish, venison sausage, millions of peas and raspberries -- and mango, which, along with dad's (home-made, but of grocery store beef) hamburgers, was one of the few things not right off the land.

Saw Grandma Dorothy, and also saw a huge pile of photographs of her parents, her relatives, aunts and cousins, Grandpa Wayne, and a very different time and place. I found myself most fascinated by my great grandfather, because the two pictures of him I was first shown didn't look alike at all, until a third picture showed up which was exactly halfway between the other two sets of facial features. Clearly very mobile in spite of the fact that most of the photographs being posed, he was meant to be holding the same mostly-solemn look.

Got rather overwhelmed by my cousins' children on that same visit. (R's boy lives with my aunt right now, and A was over with her 3) Each one individually is a sweetheart, but there were 4 of them between 2 and 4 in the vicinity.

Both dad and the farm have more raspberries than you could possibly shake a stick at, and I *still* forgot to pick myself a container's worth to take with us to the next event!

Quad Wars was a disappointment after the sheer delight of Hidden Treasures. (For those who were thinking about going to Quad Wars, which is far closer of the two, don't let this discourage you: the Viscountess who was Autocrat for Hidden Treasures will be Autocrat for Quad Wars next year, and she was already talking about things she wanted to do better.)

True, there were more merchants, but not much I felt inclined to buy (The lovely lantern was from a merchant who went to both places. And also comes to the Icelandic Festival here.) Rather the Elizabethan was gorgeous, and fit but for really minor alterations, but stood well out of my budget range (Legitimately; there was some scary hand-sewing in it.), and the used Italian Ren was well within budget, and built for the right rough weight of woman, but with entirely the wrong proportions. Pout.

And the people were just as friendly, the ones we knew and the ones we just met (And we got to camp with Thunderbunny and other Northshielders!)

Th castle looked impressive, and we did get to watch one attack upon it, though we missed most of the heavy fighting.

Archery was the main disappointment. Friday, they didn't get the targets up in place in time for the Royal Rounds, then didn't do an evening shoot. Saturday they did the Champion Shoot, where the Prince/Princess and Tanist/Tanista (Heirs) choose themselves teams of champions. The Viscountess asked Colin specifically to join her on the Heirs' side, so he got to particpate, while I partly watched and cheered, and partly wandered off.

The Populace shoot was fun... but all of two official rounds long. The second of which was a clout - only 80 yards off, but a circle more like 8-10' diameter, not 20. We also got to shoot at the targets again whenever nobody else was about doing the populace shoot.

However, rather than limit the Populace shoot to certain hours, the entire rest of the time was taken up by it, because the point was that *every* member of the populace who wished could shoot it at some point, and the scoring method meant non-scoring arrows on the range would confuse the issue. (They had a *pile* of loaner equipment, mostly provided by Montegarde/Calgary.) Which was all very well, but meant that, by the time we left, they still hadn't managed to add in another shoot or even switch the targets for Royal Rounds (They already had butts up at 20-30-40 yard increments, it shouldn't have been that hard...) We did get a few rounds of for-fun practice in at the long distances, which is good, but then other people would come for the populace shoot, and we'd be done again.

There was almost no music before we crashed on Friday (The Viscountess was disappointed mainly that there was no drummer, as she does a middle-eastern persona and middle-eastern dance, so she usually gets to play around at the tavern.)

Saturday, they closed out the evening by the tavern with something called Wench Wars, where women (And one man trying far too hard to be girly) had to out-sexy each other. Cute, probably horribly sexist, but it was won by the woman whose song has the chorus that starts "I'm really not that pretty, and I'm really rather fat..." (Ed.: Actually, the latter was true, The former patently wasn't.) Which song, by the way, I meant to get the lyrics for, I even got her permission, then I didn't get the lyrics themselves. Arggh! It'd be better to get them before I forget the tune to the verses.

Then they ahd a Bardic competition, run by a slightly nervous 16-year-old - a capable enough singer, just uneasy at running something, and a mite disorganized. They'd split it into four categories; beginner (Where Colin did a rather credible rendition of Rite of Passage -- which is a heck of an ambitious way to introduce yourself as a singer.), Intermediate (Where I got a Wow - but didn't win - for a song part in Finnish and part in English), Expert (Won hands down by the woman with the very cheerful song about murdering her ex-lovers.). The quality of these first three had me greatly looking forward to the free circle afterwards, and more singing.

Then we had the fourth category, "Adult", which is where the whole thing derailed. Up to then, we'd had a (mostly) good mix of music and stories. Adult mostly ended up being bawdy jokes, and bad filks based around an incident described in one of the earlier segments, about an actual out-house that caught on fire at an event. The original story was funny. Some of the responses were funny; a couple were hysterical, or would be if they'd been, say, placed in a contrasting setting, instead of buried in the midst. However, once the contest was done, (and partly encouraged by the bawdy segment's willingness to suspend taste), they would not get off the subject of the burning biffy. A bit of a disadvantage to anyone who wanted an actual, you know, Bardic circle? (several people who disappeared within the first 15 minutes, and several of us who lingered on in hope and occasionally made wistful remarks thereon). We gave up after almost an hour (found out later that they were still on the topic in some form at 4 AM, and became glad we left when we did.)

(Simultaneous with this was a toga party at the Grotto, a low point in the noisy part of the camp. Reports suggested this was not my type of revel, being much drunk and "just a mite" debauched, but those who went had a blast.)

Sunday morning I took a class on hand-building pottery (I'd rather regretted not signing up for any of the Saturday classes, but I'd presumed I would be doing more archery than I did). I only produced one work, and I won't get that back for a while, so I won't be able to show it for ages, but it was a little bird. Much fun.

However, we were packing up that afternoon, and on the road by about 2:00. We'd discussed staying longer (To the point where I'd signed up for an evening class.), but decided not to. (This also meant we missed court, which was Sunday, not Saturday, evening. Something I thought made far more sense for the local groups, at least, as that way the contests could all be completed in time...)

We also learned on our way out, that the next night there would be *two* bardic circles, because at least one person had decided he wanted all the new burning biffy songs and jokes polished and made into a new contest, and the other, supported by the 16 year old again, to be a usual non-competitive circle, and 100% Burning-biffy-free. That might have been fun.

Food also turned out to be an issue through the weekend, though not the fault of the event; we had packed the cooler with an assumption there would be more by way of food vendors than there were, so while we were far from going hungry, we could have used more variety. (We actually had a supper Saturday night of quite acceptable Chinese food at the tiny cafe in Marsden. Bad fried rice, mediocre ginger beef, good everything else.)

Anyhow, we drove on Sunday Afternoon, which meant we were back in Winnipeg by Monday evening.
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My book resolution was broken by 2 books; Jo Walton's The King's Name in hardcover (the fact that I wanted it in hardback to match the first half was the whole reason I hadn't snagged it yet) and the Diaries of Alan Clark, which I was assigned by TNH at Viable Paradise to read, and hadn't found in bookstore or library until now. Guess people in North America now aren't as interested in Thatcherite politicians.* Colin also bought me books 3 and 5 of The Smith/Trowbridge Exordium series (I know *exactly* where to get book 4 in Winnipeg, so he's also pushing me to break my resolution further).

I didn't by the severely battered copy of Martha Wells' The Element of Fire, even though it's on the list, because A) Severely battered, and B) She's re-released a nice new edition herself, with some re-editing.

havign also grabbed a cd when I oughtn't to have, this has caused me to revamp my list of the only books/CDs I may buy until January. Items in bold, I bought. Items struck out, are, well....

CDs:
Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior, 1000 Years of Popular Music.
Heather Alexander - Life's Flame, Midsummer, Arms of the Sea, Ever After.
Maddy Prior and the Girls - Under the Covers
Maddy Prior - Ballads and Candles
Emmylou Harris - Portraits.
Oysterband - Northern Light, Meet You There

Books:
Sherwood Smith - Senrid, the Fox
Elizabeth Bear - New Amsterdam, Whiskey and Water
Emma Bull - Territory
Sarah Monette - The Mirador
Diana Wynne Jones - The Pinhoe Egg
Martha Wells - The Element of Fire
Jo Walton - Ha'Penny
Robin McKinley - Dragonhaven


* Anyone who has to ask who Maggie Thatcher was gets a kick. Even though I'll forever associate her with Yuppie Demons in the Hellblazer comic book first, and with her actual political decisions later.

Thus far:

We have arrived safely at my dad's place, and showered, and ate a fantabulous supper, and did much chatting, then I decided to curl up at the computer and write my last critiquer the e-mail about what she's said so far.

The weekend was the Dragonslayer/Hidden Treasures event in Calgary, which is in fact set on an outdoor archery range/campground to envy - And they have a bloody INDOOR 40-30-20 yard range in the city. So, Castel Rouge, want to take over Medicine Hat so we're in easy driving distance of all this yum?

The people were supremely friendly, and very impressed that we came all the way from Winnipeg. Several made a point of their hospitality, and of seeing us in a week at Quad Wars; we also got to see Alisdair again, the only member of their group who ever came to a Winnipeg event.

We started with a night shoot of a rather entertaining kind; they strapped thin little glow-sticks to arrows at the back between the fletches, and shot at a target illumined by blacklight. (After which, several people chose to fire off arrows into the air for distance just to watch the big arc of glowy things in the sky.) This gives many ideas for feasible night shoots elsewhere...

Two archery tournaments; the Dragonblinder was a basic fun one on a standard outdoor range, shooting the various body parts of a dragon at various ranges, ending with the eye. I did passably, Colin did better.

The other was an outdoor woods-walk type shoot, starting with a whackamole type target (Three heads of villains poopping up at semi-random from behind a wall) then going through the extended forested part of the range, and shooting various members of their group, and a stained glass window (Or painting thereof) - to the tune of 24 targets, ranging from 15 yards to 50, some over the streams or in tight woods.

We were quoted a time of 2 hours or more; our group took 3 1/2, and ended footsore and starving, though i admit that up to about the 20th target I was still raring in spite of starting to get sore feet, and it was only at the last 2 I started to really feel the exhaustion. We drank much water and I was grateful for the shade, as this was 30 degree plus weather. (And they had two coolers of more water strategically placed along the way as well.)

The food was excellent, though modern; the owners of the range were providing prime rib, beans and corn and the like.

The bardic circle was also much fun; they have many excellent singers, and many of them hadn't heard either of Mistress Wyndreth's most popular songs. I hit all parts of my range, too, from actually pushing my high notes due to mis-keying a song, right to singing Shield My Kinsman in the lower part of Colin's range. They were polite sometimes and sometimes impressed.

Overall, a very good group and very good event.

Next, we visit friends in town, visit the Edmonton waterpark with abacchus and _aura_, who are traverlling alberta simultaneously, but, except for dropping our brother off at dad's and spending last night (before we arrived here), will only br crossing our route that one other time (They can't make either SCA event, which is a pity, as they both love archery and music, and there was rapier at Hidden Treasures, too.) And visit Grandma and other relatives up north.

Mom, how are the cats?

So: in spite of stopping Fringing yesterday, I still managed to aqueeze in 14 shows, ending with Rainer Hersch (Mozart:Ze Komplete Hystery), who just about killed us with too much laughing; (Colin was one of his two victims in the audience). I saw a review that griped that he did less actual music in the show, but it seemed to me like about as much as he ever does.

Going to see coffeeem and willshetterly reading tonight.

Tomorrow, we travel. Wish me luck on archery! Also, I hope my stepmother doesn't drag me out to do much clothes shopping (Though I could use sandals, actually. And dress pants.)

I am miles behind on reading LJ (I've skimmed a lot), and it will only get worse.

And all three critiques are in for Raising the Storm - well, the last I will almost certainly do a lengthy e-mail rundown to get more details, but the initial gist is in! The other good news is that all three seem to agree the base story is good, and ditto the characters. The first two pointed to one problem, the first gave me an idea where and with whom I needed to add a scene, the second (without meaning to or directly suggesting anything) filled in what has to happen in the scene. The third; will depend on what I have to say when I again have access to a computer; which, soon as I post this, probably won't be until Monday.

Storms are happening outside, oh joy! We so need the rain and the cool-down and a breeze sure doesn't hurt (Though yes, this is well beyond breeze an into gusting). Plus, thunder, yum.

So see you all again in a bit, and as a farewell I'll quote, "I love you all but I don't know why."

I will, however, let Finno continue to eat my brain for a while. I've been handwriting through the Fringe, so I don't think it will be a problem, unless I forget to pack the second notebook.

So, since my brain is suffering from a surfeit of Henries*, I opted to poke about online a while instead (A smart me would be rereading Utopia for the other exam.)

Mom (eleanore_c) recently put up some old folk festival pictures, including two of me (A dreadful one face on and a not bad profile). She asked me if I could make icons of them, so I went to look again and see whether anything looked promising...

... and decided promptly that I *really* miss my brother.

Jeff, if I'm too busy on your birthday with the exam and all, happy pre-lated Birthday. And get back up here soon, would you?




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*Medieval history. English Henries I-VIII. Several in France. And at least V in the Holy Roman Empire. And that's just the Kings. There are also all the other less royal Henries. The Phillips and Richards aren't quite so bad. And while Italian rulers have no consistency whatsoever, keeping track of which Leos were Emperor and which Pope... It's nice to get to the Turks and their Bayezids, Mehmeds and Selim and Suleiman.