The Witching Well

Elizabeth Bear weighs in on the eternal question of fanfic.

Mood: pleased
Music: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Lucky Man

The original Star Wars came out the summer I turned 12. Impressionable young geekling that I was, having been raised on Star Trek and JRR Tolkien, I was mightily smitten by the Force. It was the first movie I ever begged my parents to take me to over and over again. After we got cable TV a few years later (I was in high school), I watched Star Wars over thirty times in one month on The Movie Channel.

Yes, I know how sad that sounds. All I can say is that it was on very high rotation, it was summer, and I was a geek. This was back when geeks weren’t cool. Especially girl geeks.

Anywho… That movie came out 30 years ago this weekend. And it still rocks. (The original version. We will not speak of the tweaked up, Greedo shot first bastardization George made out of it later, will we?)

So here are some bunnies reenacting it.

Courtesy of my dear friend Rabidsamfan.

Mood: nostalgic
Music: Norman Greenbaum: Spirit in the Sky

Just look at these Candybar Dollmaker dolls of the Hereos cast! Mohinder Suresh is especially well-done — or is that just that Sendhil Ramamurthy’s face is particularly well-suited to the doll style?

Mood: amused

The word from MoveOn.org is that we’re likely to get a vote on HR 1252, the gasoline anti-price-gouging bill, this week.

The oil companies are reaping record profits while blaming price increases at the pump on refinery issues.

There’s a petition here, if you’re interested in letting your Rep know that you think they ought to be held responsible for their behavior.

Mood: hopeful

Miss Snark, the anonymous New York literary agent who has spent the last two years expounding upon what the publishing industry looks like from her perspective, is retiring.

Yes, it’s true. No more vicious impalements of nitwits on her stiletto heels. No more Killer Yapp. No more bucketfuls of gin. No more borderline George Clooney stalkerage.

It’s a sad day in the writing blogosphere.

Mood: sad

I love weird, random resources. I love learning about obscure stuff that most people don’t care about, like the fact the the Polish girl’s name “Halina” is derived from the Russian/Bulgarian name “Galina” which is a feminine version of “Galenus.” You know, as in Galen, the famous 2nd century physician?

I got that from Behind the Name.

They also have a random name generator, which you can restrict by ethnicity or choose from such categories as “Goth” or “Fairy” or even (if you’re feeling really really silly) “Transformer.”

Mood: geeky
Music: Voltaire: Shalom

Three years ago today, Massachusetts became the first (and is still the only) state in the US to legalize gay marriage. At the time, huge numbers of bigots and morons predicted that we would descend willy-nilly into chaos. Marriage as an institution would implode. Society would unravel. God would smite us.

Guess what?

It didn’t happen. If it hadn’t been for the media coverage at the time, I doubt most people in the Commonwealth would even have noticed the transition to equal marriage rights. The only real difference it made was to those families whose status in the eyes of the law is no longer second class.

Yes, there is still the campaign to have the Massachusetts Constitution ammended to bring back discrimination, but the longer that takes, the less likely it will be to happen. At least, that’s my fervent hope.

And if we can hold onto it here, in what is often termed the Cradle of Liberty, then it’s only a matter of time before it spreads.

Mood: hopeful

Yes, it’s true. Every day, cuddly toys are abused by those who should love and care for them. They are left psychologically damaged by these atrocities, and they need your help.

Via Elizabeth Bear.

Mood: amused

Cross-genre or sub-genre? Either way, I love it. You can’t go wrong with a Civil War naval romp if you add a heaping side of magic and characters that you can identify with. Extra points if one of the authors is a long-time Navy vet who knows from ships.

Agree with me? Read Land of Mist and Snow by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. Fun stuff.

Next up: a skinwalker mechanic raised by werewolves. Yum.

Mood: satisfied