http://wordsmith.org/words/flagitious.html

Extremely wicked or criminal.

We did the tour-thing today ... like many of our trips to compact cities, we walked and walked and walked. I'm astonished at how long I can walk when we're on vacation, given how little I walk when I'm working from home. We did the "extended" Freedom Trail walk, which was pretty much most of the highlights in downtown Boston, and also the Beacon Hill area.

I think the highlight of the trip was the Memorial Day display in Boston Commons, which had a small American flag planted in the ground for every Massachusetts soldier who had been killed in battle since the Civil War. That's 33,000 flags that cover most of a hill, and quite a sight to see.

One of the odd things about Boston is that they're "preserving" their historical buildings by selling them to chains. The old City Hall is now a Ruth's Chris, and the old Court House was recently bought by Restoration Hardware. It's weird, but if that's what you gotta do, that's what you do.

It's funny ... a lot of this town shows some of the best results from creative compromise I've seen. But of course, when they can't compromise, it's revolution.

At the end of a wonderful day full of laughter and seeing historical sites, we went to eat at a restaurant called "Journeyman." It's a frou-frou restaurant with tiny food served on pureed swirls. Everything was absolutely delicious, a little weird, and teensy. Lycangeek panicked halfway through and started snarfing bread. (We'd walked for at least six hours today, and milk foam with six lima beans wasn't going to hold him.) We did eventually get full tummies, but for a while we weren't sure if this was one of the ways Famine was making inroads in his plan to starve the wealthy.

All in all, Boston was wonderful. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to get to know it.

Last week of teaching for the semester coming up. Argh, just let me get through it in one piece..!

So tired.

ETA: One class down; two to go. Still no job ad.

YA author Karen Healey gives her feelings on teen fiction, swearing, and the latest round of censorship pleas. Seriously? The "let's protect all the kiddies by coating the planet in sanitized rubber" movement makes me crazy. I suppose censorship is easier than thinking or actual parenting for that matter.

There's a great interview over at SFSignal on Some Thoughts on Post Colonialism and Politics in SF. And well, here's a link from NPR on baby-naming and political affiliations. (Statistically, it doesn't work out the way you'd think it would.) I thought this article on Why Some Nations Become Wealthy While Others Remain Stuck in Poverty was pretty facinating. Take-away point: "Countries that have what they call “inclusive” political governments — those extending political and property rights as broadly as possible, while enforcing laws and providing some public infrastructure — experience the greatest growth over the long run. By contrast, Acemoglu and Robinson assert, countries with “extractive” political systems — in which power is wielded by a small elite — either fail to grow broadly or wither away after short bursts of economic expansion." I've long felt that extreme conservatism and well as Libertarianism both think short term. "American" corporations certainly do these days.

On a lighter note... and now... McSweeney's "Ultimate Guide to Writing."

Spent entire day yesterday dressed in my jammies, eating aspirin and hanging out on the couch. Watched mostly brainless films* until the very last -- Casino Royal (2006)** -- which told me my brain was finally getting back to normal. Just couldn't bring myself to think. It hurt too much. Am feeling so much better today. Dane says I'm my self again. Which is good. I've two days of slack to make up for today. So much writing to do. Am looking forward to it.
----------------------------------
* Underworld and Days of Thunder. I couldn't watch Underworld all the way through. I usually can't. Days of Thunder was awful, but it featured growly engines. So, I made it all the way through.
** That film was so well written. Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and always will be, I suspect. And Eva Green hits that sweet spot of smart, tough, competent, feminine, and a little bit vulnerable. Come to think of it, Craig's Bond has that vulnerable quality too. I think I prefer characters (either male or female) who are a touch vulnerable. It makes them more realistic and sympathetic.

James and Scops just got back from Gabrielle's, where they met her husband, Nicolas DuLac, who was the son of a French Death Eater (he and Scops bond somewhat over this). Nicolas says that, had he not been old enough to remember, he believes his father--now ashamed--would have lied about his participation. Scops says that Draco has always told him the truth, for which he is grateful. He and James talk about this for a moment, James awkwardly mentioning the subject, and Scops shrugging it off, then challenging him to a race back to the train. They get there at the same time, and Robards lets them in without any further conversation.

Table of Contents So Far

( The Secret of Ville-Sauvage, Chapter Fourteen: Yule Tidings, pt. 3 )

http://wordsmith.org/awad/awadmail517.html

A Compendium of Feedback on the Words featured in A.Word.A.Day

• Actors and Movies: Bonnie Wright at Cannes' Cosmopolis premiere, to film Shakespeare's Daughter in June


• Hot Rec: A Magical Moment in the Life of Petunia Dursley, Née Evans by Anonymous (Petunia/Snape; R)
  
  Innocent and Faithful by Anonymous (Snape/Harry; NC-17)
  
  Aorist by Anonymous (Snape/Harry; PG-13)
  
  Remedial Potions by Anonymous (Snape/Harry; NC-17)
  
  Speaking in Tongues by Anonymous (Snape/Harry; NC-17)


• News: Comprehensive Harry Potter For Kinect game for XBox 360 out this fall


• Nifty: cackling_crone has posted its May issue.

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This is an “I liked it but” review – and really, book, it’s not you, it’s me. I think I’d like this book more if I weren’t so close to it. It’s set in South Philly in the 1950s. That’s my city, and though not my time it’s certainly my family’s. My grandparents grew up in South Philly, my parents in West Philly, my brother and I in the Northeast, as the city’s Jewish neighborhoods shifted. My great-grandfather died of a heart attack while crossing South Street, where he had a candy store. When Nick in the book goes to youth dances on Friday nights, my dad might have been at those dances (he’s Jewish, of course, but he wasn’t above pretending to be Catholic when the nuns were giving out candy; I suspect his principles might also have been elastic enough to dance with Catholic girls. So I feel pretty entrenched in this setting, and as is common when you read a story in your hometown, it doesn’t quite ring true.

The geography is OK as far as I can tell (my knowledge of South Philly is pretty much limited to the airport and the stadiums, though apparently I’m going to a party there in a few weeks. It’s the time that’s out of joint, and to a lesser degree the people. I undertand why it has to be in the 1950s, so that WWII stories can be mentioned, but it wasn’t totally necessary – The stories of the Nazis could as well have been pogrom stories (there’s no shortage, after all). The stories and characters and clothing don’t feel like the 1950s, more like a few decades earlier – it feels more like my grandparents’ city than my parents. The parents of the main characters came to the US as adults, but the big spate of immigration to those neighborhoods was earlier than that – most of my grandparents came over as toddlers in the 1910s. And if the parents in the story came over as adults just before the War, given that they were all Polish immigrants, I’d expect a lot more tension between the Catholics and the Jews. Actually, the relationships between the two communities does seem OK for the ’1950s, given a couple generations to settle in to America; it just feels off because the story so strongly feels like an earlier time. Also, my parents’ generation does not tend to be as fluent in Yiddish as the Jewish kids in the story.

Also, this is a small thing but a couple of the words were wrong. At one point she refers to the family’s “brownstone”. Nope, that’s New york. In Philadelphia it’s rowhouses. And there’s one point where the grandmother uses a Very Bad Word – it’s only a minor insult in Engligh, but in Yiddish I do not think she would have used that word at all, no matter how angry she was – and if she were angry enough with someone for a word that bad (as I thought she was when I read it) then I do not think she’d have been back on friendly terms with that person within a few pages without some explanation.

That aside, I liked it a lot. It’s magical realism complete with cockroaches and Kafka, but it has a flavor a bit more like urban fantasy in the older sense of that term – fantasy and magic set in a city and very much of it. One of the many likeable elements is that it has older people (parents and grandparents) who have agency and interests that aren’t only tied to the kids – they have their own lives and loves. It’s a good book – Philadelphian readers might just need to ignore a few niggles.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

Wow, was yesterday the day from Hell.

It could've been much, much worse. I know that. The whole thing was made less awful because a number of people stepped up to help. They deserve a lot of credit. It started the day before when my car was in the shop due to the slave cylinder on the clutch. Friday morning I woke with an awful headache, and before I had a chance to make coffee my husband called to tell me his car was having problems. He'd barely made it to work. Great. Okay. We'll work it out. I called the mechanic, made arrangements. I found out that my contacts didn't come in yet. I can't go to the eye doctor and get some temporaries. That's okay, I tell myself, I've a couple pairs of blue-tinted lenses left over from my old prescription. I can see to drive. Then Dane calls and tells me he's fixed his car and that he can come pick me up so we could get my car before the mechanic closed for the holiday weekend and long before my reading. No problem. We're on our way up to Round Rock when his car starts acting up again. We cross our fingers and hope to get to the mechanic before the car breaks down again. However, it's 5pm and traffic is stop and go the whole way. His car stretches its resources as far as just north of Pflugerville and dies. We barely made it to the break down lane. This is okay, I think. We've still got time. Automotive Specialists has a courtesy vehicle and a towing service they prefer. I've a phone. I can call the bookstore and warn them that I might be late. I can make this work. Dane and I laugh because sometimes there's nothing left to do but laugh. It'll work out one way or the other.

Except it's the holiday weekend. Everyone is slammed. There are wrecks up and down I-35 due to the sheer numbers of people heading up to DFW for the weekend. We end up waiting for over an hour. I finally pull the "I've got somewhere to be, y'all" card. And that's when things get pretty cool. The towing service sends one of their trucks which already has a wrecked vehicle on it. Tow truck driver says, "It's cool. I've got this." He pulls out some gear from the bumper and attaches Dane's car so that now the truck is pulling the Hyundai along behind. The driver then lets us crowd into the truck cab with him, and he takes us to my mechanic first. (Bless him. He certainly didn't have to.) The Automotive Specialist guys wait for us even though the shop has been closed since 6pm, and it's a holiday. We leave Dane's car, pay for mine and then haul ass to get back to the house, grab my stuff, brush my hair, get a jacket, and go to Bookwoman. I'm thirty minutes late, sweaty, windblown, I still feel like shit, and I can't see to read worth a damn because my old prescription is, in fact, bloody useless even with reading glasses. [sigh] I got through it as best I could. (People waited for me. I didn't want to let them down.) Dane said it wasn't bad. (I hope not.) I feel I've earned a new Professional Writer merit badge. LOL.

Thank goodness for the marvelous folks at Bookwoman and the wonderful, fabulous people who waited around for me. Seriously. Y'all freaking rock my world. (Kit and Sheilagh, we gotta have coffee soon.) Oh, and do drop by Bookwoman soon, if you're in Austin and have the chance. It's a marvelous little independent bookstore. I like it a lot. They deserve lots of business.

1. Bloody head cold.

2. Bloody ad is still not up.

3. Yes, Prime Minister in less than two hours. Philip Quast as Sir Humphrey Appleby, yes!

4. I seem to be starting to plan a fic. This is not the time, brain!

5. Need more tissues.