linaewen | Reading

My latest science fiction narration is up on the new episode of Escape Pod: the beautiful story “That Game We Played During the War” by Carrie Vaughn. If you listen, I hope you enjoy!

EP581: That Game We Played During the War: Escape Pod

Happy birthday to Octavia Butler (22 June, 1947 – 24 February, 2006)!

“Beware:
Ignorance
Protects itself.
Ignorance
Promotes suspicion.
Suspicion
Engenders fear.
Fear quails,
Irrational and blind,
Or fear looms,
Defiant and closed.
Blind, closed,
Suspicious, afraid,
Ignorance
Protects itself,
And protected,
Ignorance grows.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (1998)

Happy Birthday,

nessrealta! Celebrate your day!

bilbofrodo

Crossposts: http://shirebound.livejournal.com/2504623.html

I have now finished creating a 3-page, single-spaced list of things I need to get accomplished before (and after) our move at the end of July. It's a massive, massive list. I have one quote from a moving company, and will have two more by tomorrow. It's EXPENSIVE to move 'stuff' across the country! But Shiremom will be very anxious (more than she is already) not to be surrounded by familiar furniture and possessions in our new home. Her quality of life is my main concern.

We're planning to drive across the country with Pippin, if we can get Shiremom's car in good enough shape for the journey. Good thing Pip is such a good car traveler. :)

Crossposts: http://shirebound.livejournal.com/2504059.html

Happy Birthday,

linaewen! Cheers!

My mother is the best.

Look who she just made for me!

(Rey’s hair beneath her removable cap is the the cutest thing ever, but I love the goggles so much I had to leave it on for this photo.)

Now they can join the rest of the gang!

May the Force be with you!

My latest “Looking Back at Genre History” is up on the new episode of the StarShipSofa podcast. It’s a standalone piece, but it also serves as a follow up to my recent interview on the My Star Wars Story podcast. If you listen, I hope you enjoy!

( exciting buffalo delivery )

Crossposts: http://shirebound.livejournal.com/2503236.html

Hello, my friends. I wanted to let you all know that Shiremom, Pippin, and I will be moving across the country (to New Jersey) in the next 6-8 weeks, and it's going to be quite a hectic time since i didn't know this until yesterday! It's good news, or will be when the 1001 things I need to do and take care of pre- and post-move, including figuring out how to get there with Pippin, and finding new doctors and health insurance for Shiremom and myself when we do, have been completed. During my recent visit back east, my brother and sister-in-law and I had some long discussions about the future. We agreed that it's a good idea for the family to gather together in one place now, instead of separated by 3000 miles from one coast to the other, to make sure that together we can take care of Shiremom (age 85) and Shiredad (age 89) with the least stress when it becomes necessary. There are other reasons, as well, including financial ones, but 'circling the wagons' as a family is the main one. I want to move while Shiremom is still agile and able to adapt to a new life.

I have pages and pages of lists of phone calls, tasks, emails, plans, and deadlines to take care of in the next weeks, but I'll try to be here every day. When the dust settles, probably late September, we should be able to exhale a bit and start our new life after nearly 40 years in California.

So... I need to get to the day's tasks and phone calls and scramblings! More news as I get it, including a new address.

Many ♥ ♥

Crossposts: http://shirebound.livejournal.com/2502779.html

I'm back from the east coast (Pennsylvania and New Jersey). This was the best visit yet with my dad and brother, but it's great to be home again. I was joyously greeted by Shiremom and Pippin, and it's a pleasure to leave the east coast heatwave behind. It hit 97F/36C in Philadelphia on Sunday! Whew.

I didn't have much internet access, so I've missed a lot here. Please point me to any posts you feel I should read!

My sister-in-law feeds nine wild cats (which she had neutered), three wild turkeys, and a myriad of birds every day. I neglected to get pictures of the turkeys, alas! They stride around the land behind my brother's house like they own every inch of it. Here's my brother's back porch.

0610170846

My brother bought a drone, and we had a great time playing around with it. Here's a short video I took, with my father and brother. I *never* remember that I can talk during these videos, so it's silent except for the noisy little drone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So11h5E_vy4

Crossposts: http://shirebound.livejournal.com/2502337.html

I can’t believe it’s been forty years.

On June 13, 1977, a terrible crime rocked the world that I knew. Three young Girl Scouts from my hometown area were found murdered outside of their tent at the Girl Scout property Camp Scott near Locust Grove, Oklahoma.

It hit very close to home for me not only geographically, but for a variety of reasons, and it continues to be an unsolved case and an unhealed wound in my home state. I didn’t want to let this anniversary pass without observing it.

I didn’t want today to go by without saying the names of these beloved girls:
Lori Lee Farmer (age 8), Doris Denise Milner (age 10), and Michelle Heather Guse (age 9).

The case was complicated by racial/ethnic tensions, because the victims were white and black, and the only official suspect, Gene Leroy Hart, was Cherokee. After a complicated and dramatic manhunt, Hart was tried but eventually found innocent. (Recent DNA tests proved inconclusive.) Since then, the case has remained unsolved, the fodder for local legends, suggestions of bizarre occult and ritual connections, and various conspiracy theories. The Girl Scout camp remains closed to this day.

For more information:

* The Tulsa World just published a six-part series on the murders here: “40 years ago, the murders of three Girl Scouts in Oklahoma stunned the nation, created shockwaves still being felt.”

There’s also an audio version here.* Episode 169 of the Generation Why Podcast offers a thoughtful and detailed discussion of the murders and the subsequent investigation.

* The most famous book on the case remains Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Girl Scout Murders of Oklahoma and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart by Michael and Dick Wilkerson.

* Photos of the abandoned site are posted here at AbandonedOK.

* The long-rumored movie supposedly designed to name an alternative murder suspect, Candles, is currently listed at IMDB as filming for 2017 release, but I remain skeptical that it will happen. It’s been listed as in pre-production/production for six years now, and each year the release date is updated.

Never forgotten.

I just finished watching the 2015 documentary Mifune: The Last Samurai by Oscar-winning director Steven Okazaki (streaming on Netflix). It’s very, very much worth watching. Two thumbs up.

I’m a fan of both Toshiro Mifune’s and Akira Kurosawa’s – I’ve just pulled Throne of Blood, Sanjuro, and Yojimbo from my DVD collection for rewatching – and I got a lot out of this film. But even if you’re unfamiliar with this incomparable, iconic actor, I’d recommend the documentary. It’s very accessible, and it provides great context. Without Mifune, there would have been no Magnificent Seven, no Clint Eastwood as a Man with No Name, no Star Wars.

As you may know, Mifune was George Lucas’s first choice to portray Obi-Wan Kenobi. As much as I dearly love Alec Guinness, I still ask myself, “What if?”

One of the dancers in our troupe showed up recently with a custom outfit - a blue ghawazee coat done up to be the TARDIS, matching earrings, harem pants made from cotton with the pattern of the "Vincent" swirl artwork featuring same - and a homemade Four scarf. Now she bounced over to me to lend me three Big Finish eps with Ten and Donna (with commentary on how she despises Rose Tyler). Hee! Another one has a Star Trek costume and dance routine including producing tribbles from a concealed pocket and using them like hand candles. The geekery apparently permeates every part of life it you wait long enough.

Current Mood: amused

We had our last graduation event for my youngest's school chums, the ones who were Freshmen when she was a Senior so we worked with them in drama, etc. and got to know them. End of an era with her school in a way as most of the amazing older teachers she had that were so influential are all retiring as well now. Good people, the kind that pour their lives into those kids and it really shows, the kind the kids still talk about when they are old themselves.

The roses are all so tall and abundant this year! My yard is going crazy with blooming things so I cut back two big bouquets of miniature roses to give away to people at church this morning. Now I've dragged out my dehydrator and loaded it up with rose petals for a friend who adds them to her homemade soaps, the house smells heavenly with drying roses.

Hoping all is well for everyone as we all wade into another summer together.

Current Mood: nostalgic

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Page generated Jun. 24th, 2017 08:42 pm

Linaewen's Lake of Small Birds

Reading

New Escape Pod Narration

Happy Birthday, Octavia Butler!

It's a birthday!

Mooooving..... sigh

It's a birthday!

Look Who We Have Here!

"Looking Back at Genre History"

Pippin got a buffalo delivery!

Shirebound is moving 3000 miles away!

I'm back!

40th Anniversary of the Camp Scott Girl Scout Murders

Documentary Film Rec: Mifune

Dancing Geeks

Roses for the start of Summer

Profile

April 2017

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