Between Science and Politics Lies the Environment.
This BBC story, Survey turns hill into a mountain, about Mynydd Graig Goch in Snowdonia in Wales sounds like the movie that starred Hugh Grant, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.
I’ve worked in the Sierra Nevada at Mountain Home State Forest. I could see Mount Whitney. I now live near the Mayacamas Mountains. The thing is just a big hill.
Sarah Palin gets “Swift iced.”
What guy doesn’t? He’s suave and sophisticated; and he gets to blow stuff up.
Dirda writes,
“007 calls to mind a more sophisticated version of that favorite adventure-movie archetype: the underestimated man. Sooner or later, the long-suffering rancher, mocked and abused by the bad guys, will wearily strap on his six-guns — and reveal a lightning draw and a deadly aim.”
Excuse me now, won’t you? I’m off to read Baccarat for Dummies. I’m told it’s similar to Faro and Basset so it should be a snap.
Time reports that as mayor of Wasilla, Palin tried to ban books from the library. According to John Stein, the former mayor (and the guy Palin defeated), “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving ‘full support’ to the mayor.
By the way when you watch the video, remember a rhetorical question is a “question to which no answer is expected.” It is a rhetorical device used for dramatic effect; you know, “emphasizing style at the expense of thought.”
I think Palin expected an answer.
A Magical Split
“It seems we’ve been carting around in the double-decker deathtrap for months,” said Der Weasel.
Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. “Look, I told you about the ‘bookmark spell’ didn’t I?” she asked exasperatedly. She opened The Year of Magical Thinking at the place that she had bookmarked previously.
“Actually,” Bumblebore interrupted gravely, “I was explaining that the time we’ve been away, which seemed like weeks or months, was rather like the time period that occurs when you put a bookmark between pages and then set it aside. When you return to it, you open it to the bookmark and the characters are right where you left them.”
“Well, technically, but tha’ was ages ago,” cried Der Weasel. “You can’t expect me to remember all that without my magic crib notes on my arms do you?”
Bumblebore’s eyebrows danced like two caterpillars doing the rumba. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “I knew it! I knew you were using some sort of magical device to cheat!”
“It’s not cheating—it’s—”
“Cheating! Tha’s what it is,” gloated Bumblebore triumphantly.
“But you use a pensieve to remember things,” said Harry “What about—”
“Immaterial, to our discussion—”
“What about me arms,” wailed Randolf the Burnt Sierra.
“Shut up about your bleedin arms, you stupid git,” growled Bumbelbore. “Don’t see me complaining about not having any arms, do you?”
Bumblebore moved slightly. “Hermione would you be a love and scratch under me robes?”
Hermione scratched Bumblebore’s back.
“Lower,” he said contentedly. “Lower still, even lower my sweet.”
“Ewwww, you’re a disgusting old goat, you are,” Hermione said resolutely.
“I suppose I am,” said Bumblebore sheepishly.
“What about me arms?” cried Randolf the Wrinkled.
Harry tapped Shun Standpipe on the shoulder. “Shun, could do me a favor?”
“Depends,” said Shun suspiciously.
“Would you open the double-doors to the bus?”
“You called?” asked Bumblebore confusedly.
“Well, for once, that stupid joke works,” Harry said amazedly.
Shun magically opened the doors with a handle attached to the doors. The sound of the evening’s traffic came in.
“Professor Bumblebore, do you see what I see on the street there?” asked Harry with a grin.
Bumblebore bent over to look. “What is it, Har—”
Harry magically removed Bumblebore with a swift kick of Harry’s foot.
“Brilliant!” cried Der Weasel
Harry grabbed Randolf the Warped by the robe. “Weasel, gi’ me a hand would you?”
“Gladly”
“Hey, get your ‘ands off me, you little—”
Harry and Weasel magically threw Randolf the Red off the bus.
They put their arms around Hermione.
“Now,” said Harry satisfactorily, “let’s go find those other Horcruxes.”
“Horcruxii,” yelled Bumblebore and Randolf the Road Rashed.
“Garroff me,” Bumbore yelled just before he and Randolf the Mauve were left behind in the wake of the bus’s magical exhaust.
A Brief Retread, er, Recap
As you may recall (and simply not care, you can be that way, if you like), Harry Splutter and his friends, Hermione and Der Weasel, are on a quest to find and then destroy Horcruxes (or Horcruxii in Latinate) in order to defeat the e-vile Count Wal D’Mart.
While trying to get through airport security with a Horcrux locket, the TSA dementor (Now that Count Wal D’Mart and Dick Cheney ran things, the more trustworthy goblin screeners had been replaced by rule-oriented dementors) discovered their secret and they ran away (Harry et. al. ran away, not the dementors). During their search for a hiding place, they ran into Bumblebore, who took them to a dark hiding spot, a Three Broomsticks Express, where magical persons concocted magic potions (such as Long Island Iced teas). There, Bumblebore explained that “Horcruxii” are a portion of a magical person’s sole. “When a wizard does something bad, like jaywalking, a piece of the sole is torn away and placed in a container,” thereby “making the wizard, as it were, immortal…if he, or she, can remember his or her shoe size.”
He might have explained more but, once again, they were discovered. During this run through the concourse, they ran into the formerly “Randolf the Russet,” now “Randolf the Burnt Sierra” (since it’s fire season here in California and 800-plus square miles of vegetative stuff have been scorched).
Bitter enemies (due to a disputed bar bet that neither remembers any more), Randolf and Bumblebore began beating each other with their fists. Harry stopped the fight by disarming the wizards, literally. Before the limbs could be corralled and reattached, Harry’s archrival Drano Fauntleroy burst through the terminal doors along with his henchmen, The Crabs and Boil.
Drano ‘Little Lord’ Fauntleroy, Crabs, and The Boil looked resplendent in their Branchwater Security Agency uniforms. Branchwater (contracted by the Bush Administration’s Transportation Security Administration to provide security at airports) was a subsidiary of KBR (Kookla, Bran, and Rolly), a subsidiary Halliburton, who, in turn, were a subsidiary of Arbusto Energy and Dairy). Resplendent or not, they shot at our plucky band.
Harry and the others in the plucky band ran out to the street. Harry thrust out his thumb to point where he thought they should go. Shun Standpipe and the McClatchy (formerly the Knight-Ridder) bus magically appeared (since Shun couldn’t turn down a cameo on a seldom-read blog).
Presently, the pluckmeisters are in the McClatchy Bus as it hurtles through London at astonishing speeds, magically morphing as it squeezes between or around cars, taxis, lorries, jitneys, and fairies; in search of a plot point.
To be continued in an upcoming episode: The Band Splits
Here’s what’s coming up at
Cover to Cover Books, 1817 Main Street, Vancouver, Washington (not Vancouver, BC a/k/a Vansterdam or Brollywood) :Saturday, October 4, 5:00 – 6:30 PM
Blending the actual and the fictional. Vancouver mystery author Sheila Simonson discusses the problems of setting a fictional tale in a real place and how she solved them in her latest mystery, Buffalo Bill’s Defunct.
Saturday, November 1, 5:00 – 6:30 PM
Saturday, December 6, 5:00-6:30 PM
Editor and writing coach Elizabeth Lyon, author of Manuscript Makeover, returns (with prizes) to play “Stump the Editor.” Bring your questions about story structure, plotting, characterization, what works, what doesn’t, why, and why not.
Two other items of note:
Carolyn Rose’s Creating Complex Characters and Dynamic Description Course
Carolyn’s six-week class, Creating Complex Characters and Dynamic Description for Deeper Fiction starts on Tuesday, September 30 through Clark College Corporate and Continuing Education – 360-992-2939 – http://at-campus.net/clark I’ve taken three of the courses Carolyn gave at Clark College in Vancouver, WA. I took away a lot of good ideas and techniques. To see some of those ideas you might check my post on Carolyn’s list of Top Ten Mistakes Newbie Novelists Make.
(Tentative) Saturday, December 6 Elizabeth Lyon Workshop (Tentative)
If you are interested in Elizabeth Lyon is putting on a four-hour workshop on Saturday 12/6 in a meeting room at the Marshall Center called Revise, Revise, Revise, contact Carolyn Rose and let her know if you are interested in this from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or noon to 4 p.m. on that date.
She estimates it needs about 20 people to make the The workshop is a go and costs to be around $45. The workshop would is expected to cover scene structure, the importance of subtext and movement (not the same as action), characterization, voice, and style.
Nullius in Verba 