Another Green World

Today J’s Worldcon experience and mine were much more interconnected. He was up first, of course, and had a proper breakfast for once, then visited the art show, then went to a panel that included two of our favorite authors, Martha Wells and Robert Jackson Bennett. When I woke I found that he’d sent me messages asking about whether he should bid on some art – there were two paintings he liked very much, by an artist who often features both cats and dragons in the same work, but the total for both was seeming too high. I pointed out that the one with the white cat better matched his livingroom color (the white dragon had blue wings), so he bid on that. Then he went and played that starship bridge game again, and then he attended a panel about designing things that don’t exist (and Larry Niven, like last year, really liked holding forth on whatever topics were popping into his head).

I then tried three different panels and ended up really enjoying the one about gender – each of the panelists seemed smart, articulate, enthusiastic, and thoughtful, and I ordered a book by the one I liked the most, Alex Kingsley. I told J and he went to find their booth (where he bought me this book’s sequel) – it turned out to be near our local author Mary Lowd’s booth. He then went and raised his bid on the painting, then rested up in his room until the auction was about to close. Meanwhile, I attended a panel on dragons, which included Marie Brennan. At one point, the other woman panelist said something along the lines of not wanting to give spoilers for her books, because there could be people in the audience who hadn’t read them all yet, and I thought, wow, who would say that? I looked online to see who this was, and it was Robin Hobb, who certainly should use phrasing exactly like she did.

I went off to collect and feed all the cats, and J decided to pass on increasing his bid again, then the auction closed. But when I came back to my laptop I discovered that the artist’s website offered the same images as limited edition prints, which seemed a very satisfactory alternative. I ordered them and a third print, even though the artist’s website said it wasn’t secure… but the process ended up putting some malware on my laptop. I was getting incessant messages from both Chrome and Avast. Thankfully I was able to use my phone to get instructions on how to fix it, since even upgrading my Avast anti-virus software didn’t do it, but it’s apparently fine now.

Then, finally, it was time for what had been my very favorite Worldcon event last year – the dramatic reading of scientific papers that had been nominated for or won the Ig Nobel Prize. Each panelist has two minutes to read choice bits of the actual paper while humans dressed in banana costumes become increasingly menacing, then audience members ask questions about the research as if the panelist was the author, with both the questioner and the panelist doing their best to be witty. I knew J would love it, as he’s very much into puns, and I’d been urging him to go. When I logged into the event, I could see him on camera! The camera later had to point elsewhere, but I knew where he was and could hear his voice the first time he asked a question. He ended up asking three overall. The event was tremendously funny, just as I expected.

J flew to Anaheim with maybe five and a half hours of sleep, then wandered around the con all afternoon and evening. One highlight of his day was meeting a couple named Jonathan and Mandy, who are publishing a cozy fantasy trilogy under the name M.J. Gillbright; he talked with them a while at Barbara Hambly’s birthday tea party. He also saw a friend from N.C. who’s on the Worldcon staff and will be in charge of the Hugo Awards next year. AH, driving from Arizona, arrived in the evening, and they attended some parties.

I had quite a headache today and didn’t much mind that the streaming was just as messed up today as it was on the first day in Seattle. I attended a virtual panel about fairy tales while I waited for some of the normal streams to work. Then I tried one about Murderbot for which the video was fine but the audio was poor, and then I switched to one about “hidden gems of anime.” I wrote down a big list of anime series, but if I really had the time and inclination to watch more these days besides One Piece I would probably start with lovelyangel’s reviews. Then I attended the opening ceremony, which was just as not-exactly-interesting as last year’s, except that I got to see Bjo Trimble accept a special award! She’s the fan who organized other fans in the 1960s to get a third season for Star Trek, which meant enough episodes that it could go into syndication. Without that, the show would have been forgotten. I was surprised that she’s still alive – she is 93.

The moon looked very odd to me this evening. I’d been looking forward to it being full, but when I saw it, there was a shadow that seemed much too regular and stationary to be a cloud, nor were there clouds elsewhere in the sky, but I hadn’t heard anything about an eclipse. I photographed it, then several hours later checked it again and it looked as I’d originally expected. Then I learned from J that there was, in fact, a lunar eclipse tonight, just not one that was publicized as well as they usually are, I guess.

The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield, by Claudia Gray. Mr. Darcy & Miss Tilney Mysteries #5. These mysteries, starring the son of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy and the daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney, might be my favorite Austen fan fiction (although I’m also very fond of the Maria Grace dragon series). This time there’s a murder at Netherfield, and we get to enjoy personal growth by two of Austen’s original characters – and the awkwardness of Darcy having to stay at Longbourn without his wife as a buffer. Of course Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney are very much in love at this point, but even more obstacles appear in their path to happiness. The ending was quite satisfying, and I’m looking forward to the next in the series.

This afternoon, I got to go to a fun concert – my friend Kim was violist for the Delgani String Quartet until she developed long Covid, and now she just does one or two local concerts a year, playing with friends, often with not much notice. We got two weeks’ notice for this one, but about 50 people came. They played two short works and a Haydn string quartet in the first half, and then most of an album by the Danish String Quartet, which arranges Scandinavian folk music. She was playing with my friend Julia and two others I recognize but haven’t met. During the intermission, I got to chat a whole bunch with my friend SDH, whom I haven’t seen for at least a year (she’s been on sabbatical). The concert lasted more than two hours!

Then I came home to work on two big projects with J. He’d been wanting D to help us take down a tree that he’s let grow taller than usual, and I asked him not to pester D for help until after the wedding, so today was the day. It’s an English walnut and quite attractive, this time more than 25 feet tall, but it’s immediately next to the hot tub and only a few feet from the house. We hooked a rope around it, which D pulled to ensure the tree wouldn’t fall into the fence, and J cut wedges with a chain saw, and I made a video recording. Then we lopped off the branches and moved it all onto the main lawn to deal with it later. (Yard debris is only picked up every two weeks, and this will take a while.)

Meanwhile, there’s a section of the fence on the west side of J’s yard (near this tree, in fact) that’s in very poor condition, but the owner of the house on the other side is absent so we’ve procrastinated dealing with it. One 8’ section was starting to fall over recently, though, and this week our resident male deer knocked it down and trod on it some. Yesterday we assessed the situation, measured it, and tied a tarp over the opening, and today while I was at the concert J went and bought some boards to see about holding the section in place if we could stand it back up. So D helped with that too. There was much clambering about and hammering – I even got to do some hammering, though mostly I was just handing people nails when wanted. So now the section of fence is mostly in place again, which we hope will deter the deer. I’ve told J we should have a fence company come and replace the fence in a few weeks, but he expects we’ll procrastinate until next year. I guess we’ll see.

My porch is currently something of a battlefield – two raccoons both feel entitled to the outdoor cats’ food, and there’s much growling and snarling, and three of the dishes just went flying. I hope eventually the cats can return and eat.

We watched a strange and creative movie today for Friday movie night: Fantastic Planet. It’s a French film with Czech animation. On a bizarre planet, very large and long-lived aliens live with their collection of species from other worlds, including humans, whom they treat as pets (but occasionally feel a need to exterminate the wild ones). Our main character is raised from infancy by one of these aliens, and he gets the same education she does, which gives his fellow humans some hope to escape.

I’ve decided to change my New Year’s resolution about sorting boxes, since I’ve made no progress in six months. I think it will be more meaningful if I assign myself a zone to organize instead, including whatever boxes are there. So this year I’ll clear out the space in J’s garage that I filled with boxes and bins last year for my heat pump replacement – he’d like to be able to park in there again. I’m also going to locate the external hard drive I bought years ago (or buy another) and start collecting the files from all of my ancient retired computers.

I got a phone call out of the blue today from LL, who used to be an employee of the youth orchestras and is now the board president – I’ve known her for maybe 12 years now? She’s feeling a bit over her head with a board issue, and even though I haven’t been on the board for a year and a half (or more? I’ve lost track), I am the right person to help her. Or rather, there are at least three other people better qualified than I am, but none of them seems to be willing. Also she’s good friends and work colleagues with my close friend Z, so I definitely want to help! I hope it won’t take lots and lots of my time, though…

I’ve started by digging out whatever documents seem relevant, then I think I’ll probably be writing up my understanding of the relevant procedures, and probably meeting with her too. I might even have to go to more meetings and do more stuff, we’ll see.

A Trade of Blood, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Ana & Din #3. I was surprised by this book. The plot was interesting, and the characters – new and old – were great, and the political lessons for our own times were quite pertinent, but I have to say, I never expected to read a fantasy novel about the Texas cattle industry! It’s not actually set in Texas, of course, but it’s similar enough that I didn’t enjoy my time there as much as I had in the places the first two books took us. Other readers, who either like large-scale agricultural lands more than I do, or who are indifferent to the places stories are set, may be entirely contented, however.

A Drop of Corruption, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Ana & Din #2. Since I now have the third book in the series, I wanted to reread this one to remind myself about the background issues before I go on. These books are among my very most favorites in the last few years, so it was definitely fun to reread. And since it’s a detective story (although in a very strange world), it was great to notice the clues early too.

I also appreciate his two-page Afterward in which he talks about the interplay between fiction and world politics, starting with the sentence, “The more I think of it, the more I feel there is perhaps no other genre of fiction more enamored of autocracies than fantasy.” He hopes that recent trends in fantasy literature are echoing a broader dissatisfaction with autocracies in the United States and elsewhere.

The Orphans of Raspay, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Penric & Desdemona #8. Penric is traveling from one land to another, when his ship is overtaken by pirates, and he finds himself confined with two young girls – their mother recently died, and they were en route to find their merchant father. (He loves them dearly, but his wife doesn’t know of their existence.) Now Penric has to save all three of them from being sold into slavery.

Many of the other stories have Penric learning new things about himself, or making new social connections, or, you know, solving problems like stories so often do. This time I think the point was to show Penric trying to solve problems while having an unusual handicap. I hope the later stories will eventually mention these girls again.

When I got to chat with my friend T a couple of weeks ago, I also got to chat with her neighbor KS, and she gave me an update on the very cool thing one of her twins is doing in grad school. In their project, they’re setting up sensors that are explicitly NOT networked, so the system can’t be hacked, and these sensors collect remote data, like whether there’s any smoke in the air; then they use AI tools to manage the sensors. The idea is that they could in theory identify wildfires while they’re still in the small and manageable stage and get people or equipment out to deal with them. Oregon alone has almost 50,000 square miles of forest (121,400 sq km), and the forests are much more dry than they used to be – wildfire smoke is now a regular part of summer life. It would be great if they could do something about it.

The related thing that came to mind today was that we’re always told how the Kalapuya people used controlled burns that reduced the risk of wildfires by getting rid of the dry debris around the trees – but I’d only ever heard of examples for the oak prairie type of landscape. Today that’s almost all farmland or cities – my own house is in that ecosystem. The wildfires, though, are in our douglas-fir forests on the mountainsides. So I wondered, did Native people manage those forests the same way? I think there were far fewer people actually living in those forests, compared with the oak prairies. But the internet says… yes! Evidence has been found of controlled burns in those forests as well, on the slopes and in the higher elevations. The idea was to encourage more huckleberries, etc., and keep hunting routes open, but in general the stewardship practices that removed brush for these purposes would also help control wildfires.

I hope they’ll be able to practice both of these methods soon – so many people will benefit, as well as the forests themselves.