pomes, and other

[jazzfish]

Some must employ the scythe, a paean to testing (among other things). I had no idea that Abi, in addition to being a bookbinder, poet, ML frontpager, and possessor of a cool name, was a software tester. My formerly boundless respect for her has extended into new dimensions. (Especially after this comment.)

Especially for mikailborg (although if she's gotten around to reading Bridge of Birds yet, darkfyre_muse may be interested as well): The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, soon to be reissued by Subterranean Press. The link includes the text of the jacket copy, written by Mr Hughart for the new omnibus edition.

It's National Poetry Month. So here's a happy poem and a less happy one. Both are true. (I'm not sure how to identify the emotion in the second. Recognition? Resignation? It's one I run across in myself on occasion, and it generally evokes a confused "Huh. That's odd.")

Comments

[shadowsong.livejournal.com]

But with het Abiveld, how could she NOT be a tester? :D

[jazzfish]

*googles*
*laughs* So very true.

(The one problem I have with Making Light is how much of the awesome is buried in the comment threads.)

[shadowsong.livejournal.com]

I tend to leave each post open in tabs on my computer at home, and I just keep reading the comment threads until they fall silent for 24 hours. I definitely spend a lot more time on the comments than the posts. :)

[dasphios.livejournal.com]

How can boundless respect expand?

[jazzfish]

In new directions. An unbounded line is no less unbounded than an unbounded plane.

[dasphios.livejournal.com]

A boundless line can't exist. If you have boundaries, you aren't boundless. If you exist only in one dimension, you by definition have boundaries.
Besides, your respect is no longer boundless, which implies that you've managed to transcend the traditional implications about the finite being larger than the infinite. I'll admit I don't know squat about programming, but it seems to me that threatening to poke holes in the nature of reality is going to anger some very powerful people.

[jazzfish]

From the line's perspective it's boundless. It can't even conceive of the plane. Likewise, I didn't imagine Abi to be a) a tester, or b) a damn fine one.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the link - I'd have hated to miss that - but I caught the mention on Scalzi's blog, and have already placed my order :)

I couldn't miss it, especially since a few months after I finally replaced my missing "Bridge of Birds", "Story of the Stone" vanished from my collection. Now I can keep an eye on all three at once!

[jazzfish]

Ah, cool. Didn't realise you read the Whatever. Although in retrospect that makes sense, you're definitely someone who'd really appreciate Old Man's War et al.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Hey, is that you leaving all those comments over on Slacktivist's Left Behind sporking? (Just wondering.)

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's me! I almost started reading the books once; kinda glad now I didn't.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

I had no idea anything could be that bad and get published. I think I'd rather read the Eye of Argon.

[jazzfish]

Argon's at least shorter . . .

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

Awesome! Bridge of Birds is one of those books that I keep around because I like it but afterwards I can never remember what it was about, so then I reread it a while later.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness someone else does this too! I love Zelazny but pretty much anything other than The Chronicles of Amber slip right out of my head a month after I'm done reading it.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Heck, that's what I did with Lord of the Rings about every year for over 10 years; it just wouldn't stick in my head.

[jazzfish]

Exactly! I'm like that with all three of those. I remember that they're really awesome but I don't remember much about them other than that.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of the others. I keep thinking I should look for them or order them and then I go off and do something else.

[jazzfish]

Only the first one's in print. Eight Skilled Gentlemen (the third) can be ordered new from Amazon somehow, but Story of the Stone's hard to find. But, hey, omnibus in October!

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Yay omnibus! What is the plural of that? Omnibi? Been a while since college Latin. I vote "omnibodes". Just bought the Narnia one and promptly wrote the correct book numbers on the edge of the pages so I could read them in the right order more easily.
Is there a Mars/Barsoom/John Carter etc omnibus yet?

[jazzfish]

It's already plural. :7 It means "with all." I like "omnibodes," though.

When I worked at Waldens I would occasionally disturb customers purchasing the Narnia books by muttering under my breath "2-4-5-6-3-1-7!"

Mars: I have no idea. It looks like you can buy them in six volumes, though.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

...Wait, that would put LWW next to last...

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

Nevermind, I see.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

Very nice poem in the first, very thoughtful poem in the second. I like both rather a lot.

Also, that first link is most excellent.

wow

[isolde-deely.livejournal.com]

that second one hits me hard. I've not been there -but have, in its own way.

Re: wow

[jazzfish]

Just because your fire wasn't literal doesn't mean it didn't burn.

You may be interested in these posts. Then again, you may prefer to not spend the rest of the day wading through bad emotions. (The keyword "brittle" comes from a, exchange in _The Lion in Winter_: "I'm a broken old man." "If you're broken, it's because you're brittle.")

Re: wow

[isolde-deely.livejournal.com]

thank you :)

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

As for that second poem... I've been there. Going into more detail would hijack your lj and you've heard it before probably.

[jazzfish]

That's an interesting point. On the one hand, everyone says (frex) "yeah junior high was hell" and we nod and assume that we know what we're all talking about. Everyone's hell is individualized, though, everyone's scars at different angles, or from serrated blades or teeth or cold bone knives.

I do myself a disservice when I write off my trauma as 'just like everyone else's.' That carries with it the mindset that 'they got over it, why can't i.'

Which is to say: I may have heard some of it before, but I appreciate that you said it again. (And in your own journal, which, yeah, this thread is not really the place.)