The ex-laws have been terrific and they're happy parents. :-) I got to witness the first successful grasp and upper torso twist that almost resulted in turning over. Am now expert with a chupeta, not too bad with feedings, attuned to a range of coos and gurgles, and addicted to baby smiles and laughter. Could have been a worse week, eh? :-)
oh...just me: July 2005 Archives
I devoured Absolution Gap on the flight back to Germany from San Antonio. Contemporary physics and intrapersonal recognition hooked me the most. It’s the last book (?) in an epic SF series by Alastair Reynolds; I read the others while in Europe last summer. The characters really grew on me, I have to say (I didn’t find them all that compelling at first, they weren’t very nice). I was a bit unsatisfied with the conclusion though, as it’s given as if the right choice simply takes care of the current (huge) threat. That’s why I wonder if another book might be in the making? For the conclusion to be sensible one had to recall the vast scale of interspecies interaction Reynolds invokes. If I put it in Goffman’s terms, the levels of lamination generated by transformations of the frame are as big as anyone I’ve ever read, including classics like The Foundation Trilogy by Asimov, and you were on your own to keep events in context. (My memory might be improving with age (?) because I was actually able to do so....!)
"They both had that eye thing, the one that pinned you and held you and sank right in, heavy and inert as lead."
~ Virtual Light, William Gibson
Officially, it's Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Gibson presents a possible future transmutation.
It was the widest and deepest river I’ve ever seen. At the foot of craggy cliffs we walked, observing fish larger than whales lazily floating in the depths. I fell. The rip from the other was extreme – panic, loss, fear: a visceral rending. I flailed. The water was clear, I could see the edge. I tried to reach it to no avail, the current was too strong. Fearful of the creatures in the deep I cast about in vain…the current carried me. I was submerged. I realized the edge was not within reach, but the surface I would need. Relax. Let the body float. Don’t resist: drift with the tide.
Away?
Along . . .
~dreamed in the wee hours of July 5, posted 7 July and backdated
I read Jeannette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping on the way from Paris to Toulouse (last week). I marked every 5th page or so, with a quote that seemed personally relevant. “Don’t regret your life, child. It will pass soon enough” (107).
“The true things are too big or too small, or in any case always the wrong size to fit into the template called language” (135). “Memory points…[to the] archives of catastrophe and mistake” (147). “I don’t know how to poultice my heart” (194). “This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in” (133). “I wondered if a gift had been left for me. I had no idea where to look, or what I was looking for, but I know now that all the important journeys start [by chance]” (33).
