Multicultural Steampunk
The Victorian era was a time of unprecedented global interaction (yes, usually with unfortunate results). Miss Kagashi has devoted herself to exploring some of the wonderful (and usually non-British) dress, customs, and rituals of the time. If you need inspiration, go there!
For example, here is a wedding dress from the Magnes Collection:
The dreaded semicolon. . . of DOOOOOOOM!!!
The semicolon has been known to divide loving families into shouting melees, and to send careers down in flames. It is the most contentious and passion-inducing piece of punctuation – and the most addictive.
How NOT to use a semicolon:
1. Frequently. I once had an editor add more than a dozen semicolons to a single page of a story (and there weren’t any lists). When I politely pointed out that he’d let his punctuation run away with him, he took another look and soon apologised profusely. My peeps, don’t let over-semicoloning happen to you!
2. To show off. This is particularly true in academia, where the person marking you has been scarred by both #1 and #3. Between Year 11 and the end of university (which was heavy on English courses) I discovered that a significant number of teachers and lecturers were so passionately opposed to semicolons – any semicolons – that they would mark essays more harshly if a single semicolon was spotted lurking (correctly or otherwise) in the text. For this reason, I did not use semicolons in essays for six years. I honestly recommend you do the same.
3. Incorrectly. If in doubt, use a comma. It will be correct.
Moving on, here is a simple tutorial on semicolons, with pretty pretty pictures to help you through the strain of intellectual effort on a Saturday morning. Enjoy.
And here is Ana. . . lurking like a semicolon gone bad:
Philip Pullman month
Judging by some of the things he says in interviews, Philip Pullman can be quite unpleasant. His books – every single one – are brilliant.
“His Dark Materials” is the trilogy he’s best known for. I can’t actually write the kind of epic work that this is, and I rarely read it – but some people do it extremely well. Philip Pullman is unmistakably a master writer.
The rest of this review has been moved to Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
New chocolate bar: A review
Several weeks ago now, I heard of a brilliant new product from Kit Kat:
It is a chunky Kit Kat with three different sections – each one filled with a different type of caramel. There’s caramel fudge, crunchy caramel, and flowing caramel. Since I love caramel, chocolate, and chunky Kit Kats, I was intrigued at once. After a wait of several weeks, I finally acquired a bar and tried it out.
Sadly, although the concept is brilliant, the execution is lacking. The smooth flowing caramel is perfect (hard to get that wrong) but the fudge is very ordinary, and the “crunchy caramel” is clearly just the fudge again, but with crunchy bits put in (the crunchy bits are nice).
Frankly, I don’t think the fudge is actually fudge. It’s just filler. I suspect real fudge is too expensive to produce.
Kit Kat is currently advertising at least two other riffs on the three-in-one theme, but I tried the chocolate version and was equally unimpressed by the amount of effort put in to the fillings.
Verdict: Genius plan; poor follow through.
Pets = children?
Today marks seventeen weeks, and (thanks to medication) I feel okay most of the time. I gained just over a kilo this week due to eating almost exactly like a normal person.
Last Friday I met my primary midwife (I will be giving birth at a birthing centre attached to a hospital). We got on very well, and I now have an idea of how the rest of the pregnancy will go (in terms of how many times I’ll see her, when birthing classes are, etc). I have also booked my twenty-week ultrasound for early September. . . and yes, I’ll be telling everyone the gender here the following Wednesday (if I can resist sharing for that long).
Here is a list of what my cats have taught me about parenthood:
1. Life = cleaning up a variety of bodily fluids from both expected and unexpected locations.
2. Injuries in small creatures cost a lot of money, usually at 2am.
3. Biting and scratching is cute when they’re young, but if you don’t train them they will injure you regularly for the rest of your life.
4. Never forget: you are not the only one who needs food and bathroom supplies from the grocery shop.
5. Looks of scathing hatred from your dependents are part of being a parent.
The last Harry Potter film: Spoiler-free review
For those not familiar with J. K. Rowlings’ iron will: Yes it really is the last film. In a world brimming with reboots and poor-quality sequels, that alone makes the Harry Potter film series unique. And in case you’re wondering – yes, oh definitely yes. It ends.
It is possible to enjoy this film without seeing the rest – but you’ll never lose the sense that you arrived late at a party.
As the ending to an eight-film series, it is a masterpiece. We finally understand Snape, Dumbledore, and even Harry himself. Every thread is tied up, and there is no wiggle room left for further mayhem. I particularly enjoyed the epilogue.
Characterisation is done, and done just right, in just a few seconds (not just for the major characters, but for several other favourites as well). The pacing allows space for fear, despair, building tension – and even grief and laughter. Visually it is beautiful (although very dark); the effects are flawless. The acting, now that the cast is completely grown up, is great.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a children’s film. It most certainly is not. There is a LOT of darkness and a lot of death – and some of the deaths are absolutely nightmare-inducing. I had my eyes closed more than once.
In my opinion, the films are better than the later books, because Harry Potter spends too much time being miserable in print (which gets irritating), and that is cut from the films. The plots do tend to be rather squashed, but oh well. The one flaw I could find in this film was one I was expecting from having read the book. In my opinion, although it has several functions, the “white room” scene is just. . . a bit silly. Everything that it does could be done elsewhere.
It did give Harry some great heroic moments, though.
Speaking of which, that is a particular strength of the film: badass moments. There are lots of them, and they are all done very, very well.
Do see the film on the big screen if you can (like I even need to tell you). There will never again be an eight-film series done this well.
Kitten on Fire
Ana, the younger (and longer-haired) of my two cats, is definitely not the intellect of the family. She also loves extreme heat. The other cat, Indah, finds this heater too hot to touch. Not so with Ana:
We also have a single fan heater, which is highly inefficient but great for spending thirty seconds warming just your feet. Since it glows prettily, this is a favourite for the beautiful Ana (we all look best under the gentle glow of firelight, real or simulated). And so it was that I turned on the fan heater and rather pointedly put my feet very close to it, so Ana could not lie down and block the warm air.
No problem for a cat, of course: she simply squeezed herself, snake-like, into the miniscule gap. Her fur tickled my feet pleasantly, so I didn’t stop her.
Not until I saw the smoke.
My first thought was that the heater, effectively smothered, was malfunctioning. I grabbed Ana away, and that’s when I realised the truth: Her far side was hot. Not merely “I’ve just been pressed up against a heater” hot, but “I’m on fire” hot. The pressure of my hand on her side put out the fire, and Ana looked at me reproachfully – as if to say, “Excuse me? That’s MY heater, and everything was going just FINE.”
We no longer leave her alone in a room if that heater is on.
Tomorrow: Spoiler-free review of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
Steampunk Rat
One of the special things about steampunk is that it covers literature, music, dress/jewellery, and art.
Here‘s an impressively intricate steampunk rat built by an artist. Deviant art has a lot of great steampunk art.
Thank you to the reader who emailed this to me.
Turtle Publishing
No, it’s not a hip new publishing company – it’s a comment on the industry. Now sometimes publishers are slow because they simply can’t make up their minds (one of my books has been with a major Australian publisher for two and a half years, and that’s way beyond normal). But most of the time there is a complicated process from slushpile to (hopefully) acquisitions meeting to (hopefully) bookshops.
American agent Rachelle Gardner talks about it a little here.
Personally, I’d consider six months a normal wait for a yes/no response (for either the opening chapters or the full book), and one year a standard acceptance-to-publication schedule.
While you wait to hear back, here’s a picture of a cat:
Dance like THIS
Back when I was talking about the Tour de France, someone mentioned the Midnight Oil song “King of the Mountain”. CJ showed me the clip. This clip.
Watch it, my peeps – not for the song, but for the seizure-like rock moves of the lead singer. In my opinion, he and Freddie Mercury both have the gene of sheer attractiveness-defying rock and roll awesome.
The best part? That man now holds a prominent position in the Australian Federal Government.
Felicity Banks 