Truth or Dare at the CN Tower

I loved my visit to Canada, I mean, the one where I was actually a tourist and did allegedly touristy things, including visiting the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto [ohmigod!] and the CN Tower.

Of course, this was a few years and a quasi-spouse ago, that is, all of oh, 6 years now, or thereabouts.

I will never forget the CN Tower, because my "significant other" [the aforementioned quasi-spouse] didn't want to walk on the glass. His dad and brother [my hemi-demi-semi-in-laws as I used to refer to them, though non-musicians never seem to get that joke] may have done a little wincing, but walked out onto the glass with aplomb.

Well, here I am years later doing the geeky fan thing and reading some stuff at Sean Biggerstaff's website [a charming fellow by all accounts], including a recent Q&A with SB where one question was:

Did you stand on the glass floor at the CN Tower?

Sean's answer was:

I danced on the glass floor at the CN tower.

Well, I gotcha beat, Sean, hands down. Quite literally. No photographic evidence [that I'm aware of, though I do seem to appear in total stranger's vacation snapshots with some regularity], but when I say hands down, I'm not kidding.

I did handstands on the glass, and walked on my hands.

Kid. You. Not.

So, if you were in the tower sometime in the mid 90's, and remember a short woman with ash brown hair, kinda wavy, doing a handstand on the glass, things flying every which way out of her pockets, with a somewhat horrified blond man in red flannel holding her foot up to help balance -- well, that was me.

Making Beautiful Music

I just read the hands-down best short story I've come across this year. There I was, minding my own business, thinking about double knitting [which I believe I've also seen as "thermal knitting", somewhere, somewhen] as I trotted out to the mailbox to see what might be lying in wait for me.

And what did I spy with my little blue eye? The most recent edition of Weird Tales, Issue 328. (The website's not up to date yet over at DNA Publications, if you go there and follow the current issue link for WT, you'll find an older issue than that upon which I expound.)

And (cue dramatic music), just the best little gem of a story, "The Little Nightmusic That Could", by Stephen Woodworth. I had to stop reading the mag after I finished that story. A sheer delight, though I felt it should have ended 2 paragraphs earlier than it did. [Upon re-reading this morning, I might be talked into taking that back. Might.]

What if...Eine Kleine Nachtmusik [y'know, Mozart, dead composer, famous divertissement music] came to life?

What if?

Go subscribe to Weird Tales right now. Any safe harbor for stories that delicious deserves your attention.

Just a Quote, Ma'am

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and God help the devil if that woman is a cross-dresser. "

--Janis Ian, "Harlow"

Cinematic Mediocrity

Or, when do women get to be average on film?

I was expostulating on the film "The Peacemaker" on the way back from lunch yesterday and realized after I sat down at my desk that I hadn't actually gotten to my Big Final Point before we got out of the car. This happens a lot, by the way.

The Film -- Nicole Kidman plays a nuclear specialist in charge of something governmental, George Clooney plays her military liaison who's fond of breaking rules now and then. Mostly now. They have to work together to find and disarm a terrorist. As thrillers go, it was okay. Nothing to write home to mom about. I spent the first part of it thinking that it was a buddy flick between the Military Hero and the Driven Thinker, and that after Clooney's character had its chance to shine, Kidman's character would, too. I mean, sure, they save the world together by the end [oh, did I ruin it for you? So sorry], but the woman in charge [Dr. Kelly, Kidman's character] is pretty consistently being put in her place as an ivory-tower intellectual, and it's Clooney's character that is the real star. Well, okay, I guess, I just thought it was a more equitable partnership between the two, based on the advertising when the film came out. And, well, okay, again, at least it's getting put in her place as an ivory tower intellectual, and not As A Woman(tm).

So, around about the middle of the film, I figured it was potentially a good thing that the ivory-tower intellectual was a woman, because in terms of the story, there was no reason for it to be that way. No reason for that character to be female at all! yaaaaay! This *is* a good thing.

And I realized that as a feminist, when we get more girl schlemiels on film [not that this character was one], I'm going to be pissed off because of having grown up in a world with so few female cinematic role models I feel we can't really afford to have images buttress the idea of female inferiority in any way -- well, at some point I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal. But, then, I'm pissed off when all the imagery of women is either SuperGirl or a prostitute, too. So, whatever.

Now, by the end of the movie I realized what I really wanted to see: I want the president in the movie to be female, 75% of the joint chiefs to be women, the Military Hero to be female, the Driven Thinker to be female, the terrorists to be women, the strike force that goes after them to be women, the doctor who survives the drop off the side of the bridge to be female, the soldiers on the border, the Russian Mafia to be female, the German with the broken nose to be female, the cops, the cabbies, the traitorous officer who gets stabbed, the one doing the stabbing -- all of them, dammit, I want all of them to be women.

Dumas

The ashes of Alexandre Dumas ["The Three Musekeeters", "The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Man In the Iron Mask"] are being moved from Villers-Cotterets, where Dumas requested he be buried, to the Pantheon, which houses the remains of many of France's great figures -- Voltaire, Curie.

On the one hand, a great honor, on the other, direct defiance of a last wish. Who should win arguments like that, the state or the individual?

DNA, RNA, Everybody Rhumba!

OH, this is just neat. America's not the only melting pot, y'know. A recent BBC news story presents information supporting the theory that the indigenous Britons are the Welsh, after comparing genetic markers between Friesian and Norse populations, and UK volunteers.

What's with the Frisians? Well, that's probably a topic for another Today's Geography Lesson, but Friesland is an identifiable cultural/geo/linguistic region now part of The Netherlands, and part of an area where Anglo-Saxons are thought to have originated.

So, the English and the Friesians matched up great, and the English and the Welsh were noticeably different, thus supporting the idea that a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion, though destroying much of the Celtic population, did not reach Wales.

Research released last year has drawn strong connections between the Welsh and Irish Celts and the Basque populations of Northern Spain and Southern France. [Ah, the Basques, probably another Today's Geography Lesson.]

Well, Gosh, Who Would've?

Re: WorldCom, from BBC News:

...according to US investment bank Robertson Stephens - which advised clients to sell on Wednesday... "Our estimates did not assume massive fraud".

You're Kidding. You're Not Kidding.

Well, I think I'm appalled, but I'm not sure. According to my latest issue of SF Chronicle, someone somewhere [you can tell I left my copy at home, right?] is planning a remake of -- a live-action remake of -- of -- oh, dear. "Akira".

The mind boggles.

News from the Paramecia Department

Perceptive Americans may note the stunning lack of this kind of information in our normal news channels.

((http://www.who.int/disease-outbreak-news/)

Disease Outbreaks
Reported
21 June 2002
Dengue/dengue haemorrhagic fever in El Salvador

WHO has reported an increase in endemic dengue disease in the country. As of 15 June, 1200 cases of dengue and 101 cases of dengue haemorrhagic fever have been laboratory confirmed. Children between the ages of 5 and 9 years are most affected. Dengue virus serotype 1 has been detected in this outbreak. The President of El Salvador has declared a state of emergency in the departments of San Salvador, Libertad, Santa Ana, and Cabanas and an alert in the rest of the country. The government has established a Command Post incorporating ministries of health, education, government, national police and representatives of municipalities.

Control activities include day and night spraying of larva breeding sites and increased dissemination of public health information and education.

Mexico has offered support for these measures.

For more details on the outbreak, visit the web site of the WHO Regional Office for the Americas

New Do

All CSS, no tables. Visit glish.com/css to learn more.

Tres cool.

From Shakespeare to Synth-Pop

Moonlife, SF pop band extraordinaire, played in San Diego at Club Xanth on Sunday June 16th. If you ever get a chance to see them perform live, take it. Catchiest tunes this side of the planet, and a great live show. Leave your socks at home, they'll get blown off anyway.

The Moor Of Venice

I went to see a production of "Othello" on Friday night by the Women's Repertory Theater. It ruled. Iago is this wonderful villain you just love to hate.

You may note the name "Women's Repertory Theater". Why yes, since you asked, this was an all-women production. And you know what? That is not the most important fact of the production. The most important fact is that Gayle Feldman-Avery (Iago) was a sheer delight, and Sylvia M'Lafi Thompson (Othello) was a beautiful, tragic figure. Second to that, the staging was minimal, and the dress was modern - 1950's/60's, so Desdemona looked alot like Jackie Kennedy, 'twas aptly played by Jo Glover, who really made it work with her demure and restrained gestures. In retrospect, I am reminded of Gemma Jones in pretty much any period film.

MSusan Niemann as Roderigo, Iago's fool, Gina Alvarado as Cassio (whom I adored), Wendy Waddell (Emilia), Helen Marquardt (Brabantio/Gratiano), Morgan Trent (Bianca), Kim Strassburger (various, including the Duke), and Natalie Sentz (various, Montano) rounded out the players.

A well done show, and after about -- what? 5 minutes? -- you don't notice it's women in all the roles. I mean, a few hundred years ago, some youth whose 'nads hadn't dropped yet would have been playing Desdemona. Turn about's fair play, donchaknow.

And just because it's Shakespeare, don't go running around like a chicken with your head cut off (it makes you look silly). Shakespeare is nothing to be frightened of. You'll get it. The story is a simple one -- Iago decides to destroy Othello and Desdemona. He uses Roderigo, Cassio, and Emilia to do it. There, see? Doesn't it sound like a 2-hour long episode of "Dallas"? Hate, love, death -- don't tell me these are unfamiliar themes. You'll do fine.

"Othello" is playing through July 20, 2002 at Actor's Asylum

6663 El Cajon Blvd [*]
San Diego, CA

Thu, Fri, Sat at 8pm, Sun at 7pm, Monday, July 1 at 8pm, and Saturday July 20 2pm matinee. If you are in the SD area, go see it.

619 282 3277
[*] in the Music Trader shopping complex, http://www.actorsasylum.org/

Red Sprites & Blue Jets

Interesting for the meteorologically inclined, if you didn't already know: red sprites and blue jets are upper atmospheric discharges associated with thunderstorms. Like the lightning you're used to seeing, that lights up a cloud from within, or snakes down to touch the ground, sprites and jets are electrical discharges -- just way up high.

Sprites are predominantly red, enormous but weak flashes appearing directly above an acitve thunderstorm system and tend to coincide with the more familiar lightning flashes. They appear to prefer areas of a thunderstorm that are starting to decay. Sprites tend to cluster, don't last very long, and are damn hard to see. So, don't waste your time unless you happen to be hanging around the Earth's atmosphere at around 65-75 km in altitude, over a thunderstorm actively discharging lightning, and you've got some serious low light level equipment on you.

Now, blue jets stream from the top of the electrically active core regions of thunderstorms -- so where red sprites are observed in decaying areas, blue jets like it where the action is still hot. They appear at lower altitudes, hanging around at 40-50km, and flow up and out in a cone-like shape.

Interestingly enough, gamma-ray bursts have been observed over thunderstorm regions at altitudes of greater than 30km. Related? Maybe.

Learn more at

http://elf.gi.alaska.edu
http://www.fma-research.com/spriteres.htm

The Yawn of Doom


Hey, is that like the amulet of Yendor? No, probably not.

So, according to a co-worker, I have a yawn alike unto the sound of a squirrel dying in the jaws of a fox, in the wee hours of the morn. Not a simile he just made up, btw.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled lack-of-posting.

My What?

I don't plan to make a habit of this, but I was intrigued by my results in a "Which D&D Character are You" survey I found via Marshmallows and Bile.

I don't enjoy filling this kinds of surveys out because, well, I find them boring, okay? I just do. But now and then one of 'em catches my eye. The result on this one was just too true I couldn't let it pass without posting it somewhere for posterity. So, here it is, posterity.

I Am A: True Neutral Elf Fighter

True Neutral characters are very rare. They believe that balance is the most important thing, and will not side with any other force. They will do whatever is necessary to preserve that balance, even if it means switching allegiances suddenly.

Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Fighters are the warriors. They use weapons to accomplish their goals. This isn't to say that they aren't intelligent, but that they do, in fact, believe that violence is frequently the answer.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan!