Lughnasadh '08
Aug. 1st, 2008 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastI slept about ten hours, which is really nothing short of amazing. All day yesterday was spent getting Sirenia Digest #32 out, six or seven hours work after four and a half hours sleep the night before. I will say that I think this issue of the Digest is one of the very best I've done, in terms of content and appearance. My grateful thanks to Sonya, Geoffrey, Vince, Rick, Gordon, and Spooky for making it work. Yesterday, somehow, I managed to proof and edit "Derma Sutra (1891)" (which I really am pleased with, by the way; I think I found a new flavour of me with it), proof Geoffrey's very excellent interview with Richard A. Kirk, and deal with the layout, in a state of consciousness that can best be described as zombiefied. There were a couple of lines from the interview with Rick I wanted to post here, because I just found it brilliant:
Our perception of the universe is like a tiny house floating on an endless sea. We sit inside this thing we have constructed, completely unaware of what lies outside, hoping that whatever is out there never gets curious enough to poke its nose under the door.
And if you'd like to get #32, subscribe sometime in the next week, and you'll get it.
And today is Lughnasadh. Spooky and I had planned to do a ritual out at Beavertail, but I think we're both still pretty exhausted from yesterday's Big Push, so we're playing it by ear. We'll at least bake a loaf of something, at the very least. I so desperately want to find a coven, and one reason is so that we do not have to be solely responsible for the details of ceremony on every sabbat and esabat. But, that brings me back around to either facing the not insignificant problem of finding a group that is comfortable with my unorthodox views (and vice versa) or trying to found my own coven built upon those views (Panthalassa, diminished emphasis on gender polarity, inclusion of a Divine Androgyne aspect as part of the "tripartite" Goddess, a move away from anthropomorphic deities, removal of the distinction between left- and right-hand paths, and so forth).
Anyway, when the work was finally done yesterday, I lay down on the chaise with Dr. Muñoz to try to read a few more pages of Fraser's Triassic book while Spooky fixed dinner (a stirfry of green beans, red bell pepper, zucchini, fresh basil, and ground chicken), but I dozed almost immediately. Spooky woke me for dinner. Later, but not too late, there was a really excellent bit of rp in the "Kingdom of Sand" sim (thank you Badra, Lina, Hela, and Sev), that pretty much exemplified what it is I've come to SL looking for and which sort of renewed my faith in the inherent potential of SL as an interactive story-telling tool, just when that faith was at an all-time low. In fact, I may clean up the transcript from the rp, add a few embellishments here and there, and post it behind a cut in this journal. It was really a splendid little series of scenes, first in the throne room of the palace in Ireem, then, later, in the Tower of Serpents (where the Magi practice). Nothing too profound. No fireworks. No sex. Just simple, good, solid rp/story telling. Anyway, about one a.m., I was falling asleep at the keyboard, and I crawled away to the front parlor and put Danny Boyle's Sunshine in the DVD player, as it has become one of my "comfort films." I dozed while it played, awakening for bits here and there. I remember waking to hear Cassie say, "Only dream I ever have...is the surface of the sun. Every time I shut my eyes, it's always the same." And finally I awoke near the end, as Capa is struggling in the bulky EVA suit to reach the payload, and, half awake, I lay there and marveled at the score and what a beautiful thing this vastly underrated film is (my next Mac will be named Icarus). Then I went to bed. And slept and slept and slept.
I should wrap this up. I've been ignoring email for two days, and I should ignore it no longer. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions (two of which end this afternoon), and please, please do pre-order a copy of the mass-market paperback edition of Daughter of Hounds. The platypus will probably thank you. I know that I shall.
Postcript (2:26 p.m.): It just occurred to me that I neglected to note in the new issue of the Digest that "Derma Sutra (1891)" was written entirely to just one song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds —— "Lovely Creature." I did manage to work the title into the story, but wish I'd remembered to acknowledge the song in the issue itself. I kept count (thank you iPod) of how many times I listened to the song while writing the story —— 104 times in 4 days (that's about seven hours worth of the song).
Our perception of the universe is like a tiny house floating on an endless sea. We sit inside this thing we have constructed, completely unaware of what lies outside, hoping that whatever is out there never gets curious enough to poke its nose under the door.
And if you'd like to get #32, subscribe sometime in the next week, and you'll get it.
And today is Lughnasadh. Spooky and I had planned to do a ritual out at Beavertail, but I think we're both still pretty exhausted from yesterday's Big Push, so we're playing it by ear. We'll at least bake a loaf of something, at the very least. I so desperately want to find a coven, and one reason is so that we do not have to be solely responsible for the details of ceremony on every sabbat and esabat. But, that brings me back around to either facing the not insignificant problem of finding a group that is comfortable with my unorthodox views (and vice versa) or trying to found my own coven built upon those views (Panthalassa, diminished emphasis on gender polarity, inclusion of a Divine Androgyne aspect as part of the "tripartite" Goddess, a move away from anthropomorphic deities, removal of the distinction between left- and right-hand paths, and so forth).
Anyway, when the work was finally done yesterday, I lay down on the chaise with Dr. Muñoz to try to read a few more pages of Fraser's Triassic book while Spooky fixed dinner (a stirfry of green beans, red bell pepper, zucchini, fresh basil, and ground chicken), but I dozed almost immediately. Spooky woke me for dinner. Later, but not too late, there was a really excellent bit of rp in the "Kingdom of Sand" sim (thank you Badra, Lina, Hela, and Sev), that pretty much exemplified what it is I've come to SL looking for and which sort of renewed my faith in the inherent potential of SL as an interactive story-telling tool, just when that faith was at an all-time low. In fact, I may clean up the transcript from the rp, add a few embellishments here and there, and post it behind a cut in this journal. It was really a splendid little series of scenes, first in the throne room of the palace in Ireem, then, later, in the Tower of Serpents (where the Magi practice). Nothing too profound. No fireworks. No sex. Just simple, good, solid rp/story telling. Anyway, about one a.m., I was falling asleep at the keyboard, and I crawled away to the front parlor and put Danny Boyle's Sunshine in the DVD player, as it has become one of my "comfort films." I dozed while it played, awakening for bits here and there. I remember waking to hear Cassie say, "Only dream I ever have...is the surface of the sun. Every time I shut my eyes, it's always the same." And finally I awoke near the end, as Capa is struggling in the bulky EVA suit to reach the payload, and, half awake, I lay there and marveled at the score and what a beautiful thing this vastly underrated film is (my next Mac will be named Icarus). Then I went to bed. And slept and slept and slept.
I should wrap this up. I've been ignoring email for two days, and I should ignore it no longer. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions (two of which end this afternoon), and please, please do pre-order a copy of the mass-market paperback edition of Daughter of Hounds. The platypus will probably thank you. I know that I shall.
Postcript (2:26 p.m.): It just occurred to me that I neglected to note in the new issue of the Digest that "Derma Sutra (1891)" was written entirely to just one song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds —— "Lovely Creature." I did manage to work the title into the story, but wish I'd remembered to acknowledge the song in the issue itself. I kept count (thank you iPod) of how many times I listened to the song while writing the story —— 104 times in 4 days (that's about seven hours worth of the song).
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