Here I schal biginnen a rym

I am now officially turning off my laptop, so I can direct my full attention to packing for Kalamazoo tomorrow. I will have sporadic email access, but I'm leaving the computer behind, so I probably won't be checking LJ, and email checks will be brief.

If you're at Kalamazoo and looking for me, and you don't have my contact information, email me and I'll get back to you when I can. If you're not at Kalamazoo, I'll talk to you on or after Monday. Have a good week, everyone.

I'm no actor, and my enunciation is awful, so I'm not going to volunteer for the following opportunity. Some of you, however, (wickedtrue and adiva_calandia, I'm looking at you) may want to participate in the podcast of ellen_fremedon's spectacular Yuletide 2007 play, Yule Morning, or Malvolio's Revenge. (Via ellen_fremedon.)

In other news, spring break is almost over and I have not gotten nearly as far in my K'zoo paper as I would have liked to. I should remember, whenever I plan a project, that I have to budget at least a week of blankly staring at the computer screen before the actual writing begins. I always take the week, so I might as well expect to take it.

Tomorrow I am voting for Barack Obama. When viridian asked who I supported and why, I gave her the following list of reasons:

1. I can't forgive Hillary Clinton for voting to approve the war in Iraq.
2. I am seriously frightened of making dynastic succession a traditional way to choose a president. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton would be a worrying string of family members in the White House. What if it continues further?
3. I love listening to Obama talk. (This is not a reason to choose a president, I know, but it does affect my gut reactions.)
4. I think Obama's got a better chance against McCain in the general election than Clinton.

Other people, wiser and better at expressing themselves than I, have provided reasons to vote for Obama. (Read the comments and follow the links.)

Finally, if you have time, watch the interview Obama gave at Google on November 14, 2007 (on YouTube in two parts, 22 and 24 minutes long respectively). Obama articulates his positions at length, clearly and with conviction. It's worth seeing.

This Newsweek piece on the "pending extinction of American Judaism" is more than a bit overdramatic, don't you all think? I find it difficult to believe that the sky is breaking into small plaster pieces and falling on us. Help, people. Are the holes in Rabbi Gellman's argument as large and gaping as I think they are?

In other news, the Washington Post has interviewed likely voters at the Berkeley Bowl.

Is anyone else having trouble getting into Gmail, or is that just me?

ETA: All was well after I reset my computer.

As at least half of my friendslist knows, the stories for the Yuletide annual fanfiction challenge appeared this week. Of the 2042 stories in seven-hundred-plus fandoms, I can't claim to have read more than eighty or so*, but there are some mind-bogglingly good stories among those eighty. Go ye and browse the archive. For now, since I'm short on time, I'll only recommend one story which had me staring in jaw-dropped awe for quite a while:

Yule Morning, or Malvolio's Revenge (Shakespeare's Twelfth Night).

This, right here, is the best of the fanfiction world. In five acts of note-perfect Elizabethan verse and prose, Yule Morning explores what comes after Twelfth Night. Toby Belch is still drunk, Malvolio is still furious, and Olivia and Orsino are beginning to realize that neither Sebastian nor Viola adequately substitutes for Cesario. Feste, that irrepressible fount of double entendres, has every opportunity to deliver lines like these (which may be more comprehensible if you know that 'nothing' is Shakespearean slang for 'vagina'):

( Why, it is the fashion for lords to change their coats and be ladyships... )

*No, actually, I haven't been getting much dissertation work done this week. How did you guess?

I expect that everyone here who might be interested has already seen ajodasso's Great Medieval Studies Friending Meme, but I'll advertise it anyway.

In other news, I have finished and submitted my grading for the semester, which means all I have to do this week is study for my Welsh final, finish my prospectus conference report, and clean my disastrous bedroom. Hurrah.

( The Golden Compass (or: Lyra, Lyra, Lyra) )

Does anyone local with cable intend to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor tonight? If so, may I join you? Email me at rymenhild at yahoo dot com or at whatever address you generally use to communicate with me.

Thank you!

I just removed an eldritch horror from the bathroom sink, using only a pine branch, a chopstick, and two rubber gloves.

( Cut in case you don't want to hear about the Nameless Things that reside in pipes )

So, how's your pre-Thanksgiving cleaning going?

When I have thirteen papers left to grade by tomorrow, why am I spending my morning reading old makinglight threads about zombies?

I shall shamble off and grade now, I think.

Nostre Chaucer is back, and he senses an opportunity in the writers' strike! Check out the shows he's planning to pitch, like Sectes in the Borough (This hot and explicit showe wil handle religious dissent yn a more free and open way than evere bifor) and Doctor Hwaet (Thys showe doth chronicle the aventures of a solitarye one who must wander the wayes of water on the rime-cold waves, mindful of miseries, yn a large device ycleped the TOWAERDES...)

Chaucer, if you write the shows, I swear I'll watch them.

I've been reading about the WGA writers' strike and completely support the WGA aims. I have been known to buy TV seasons on DVD and watch shows online, and quality writing is more important to me than quality acting. If I'm paying for a show, I'd prefer to support the writers involved. (If I thought anyone but the studios would benefit from my buying shows off of iTunes, I would be much more likely to buy them there than I am now!)

There's nothing I can really add to the more knowledgeable and well-written posts out there about the strike -- Diane Duane has some excellent links-- so I'll link to one article that isn't about the strike.

Tim Kring admits that the second season of Heroes isn't quite working. "In retrospect," he says, "I don't think romance is a natural fit for us." No surprise there.

I just finished The Orphan's Tales: In the City of Coin and Spice. An actual review will come later, once I've figured out what I think about it, but in the meantime, I'm posting this as a starter for a discussion thread. When you people are done, come back here and talk about the book with me.

Warning: When there are comments, there may be spoilers in comments.

In May, whan every harte floryshyth and burgenyth (for, as the season ys lusty to beholde and comfortable, so man and woman rejoysyth and gladith of somer commynge with his freyshe floures, for wynter wyth hys rowghe wyndis and blastis causyth lusty men and women to cowre and to syt by fyres), so thys season hit befelle in the moneth of May a grete angur and unhapp that stynted nat tylle the floure of chyvalry of [alle] the worlde was destroyed and slayne.

Sir Thomas Malory, The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthur, ed. by Eugène Vinaver from the Winchester MS

Via indy_go:

J.K. Rowling: DUMBLEDORE/GRINDELWALD IS CANON. (Er. That is, for those of you who don't spend all your time reading fanfiction, Dumbledore is gay and was in love with Grindelwald.)

The world is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place.

( Heroes 2.01 and 2.02 ramblings and spoilers )

I need a good Heroes icon.

An easy and meaningful fast (or other observance, as fitting) to all of you who observe Yom Kippur.

Via Boing Boing: Information Policy for the Library of Babel.

In a very real sense, Madeleine L'Engle helped raise me. She taught me about faith in God and the benevolence of the universe. She taught me how to see the world around me with a clear, loving gaze. She introduced me to allegory and The Tempest and angels and Patrick's Rune and Athens and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. I never met her, but I loved her like a member of my family, and I can't believe she's gone.

--

Charles Wallace had once again been contemplating the intricate model of the tesseract. He spoke softly to his sister. "Meg, no matter what happens, even if Dennys is right about her heart, remember that it was herself she placed, for the baby's sake, and yours, and Calvin's, and all of us--"

Meg looked at him questioningly.

Charles Wallace's eyes as he returned her gaze were the blue of light as it glances off a unicorn's horn, pure and clear and infinitely deep. "In this fateful hour, it was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness."

~from A Swiftly Tilting Planet