Miscellany

[stoutfellow]

1. I brought this up on the LMB list, but got no responses. Is anyone reading this going to be at NASFIC this year? So far, the only people I know who will be there are filkferengi and her husband, and mbernardi (who will be my houseguest during the con). Anybody else?

2. My current bus book is Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe. I was struck by the following passage:

It is because of this mania for rebuilding, for regarding buildings of fifty years before as hopelessly out of date, that so few complete medieval palaces survive.

The period under discussion is the late thirteenth century. Plus ça change....

3. I just received a four-CD set from the Britannica, apparently containing the complete encyclopedia plus some extra material. Each of the four discs has installation instructions. On each disc, step 2 reads, "When prompted, enter the 16-digit SERIAL NUMBER above". Three of the discs have serial numbers. The fourth does not. (Instead, it has a three-digit Product ID.) We shall see what happens.

4. I'm rereading Greg Bear's Queen of Angels. I remain convinced that it's his masterpiece; I have a dozen or more of his books, but this is the one I return to most often. Sadly, he seems to have retreated artistically after QoA; none of what he's written since - Slant, Moving Mars, Darwin's Radio, Darwin's Children, and the execrable Vitals - has appealed to me much.

Comments

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I've been inactive on the list lately; I'm not going to Archon because I'm splurging and going to Yokohama. I haven't been to Japan in almost seventeen years.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

Well, have a good time. I'll have to go to a WorldCon one of these years. Not soon, though, I'm afraid.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I take it that means you're not going to Denver next year?

You could practically take Amtrak to Denver... (she says persuasively)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

It's not in my plans, no. A lot depends on how Murphy's doing.

I do love long train rides. When I was a grad student at U. of Chicago, I often took the train to California for the holidays.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, here's hoping Murphy is doing more than well enough for you to get away for a few days.

I love the train, too. When I was living in Ohio, I once took a month-long trip that included trains from Ohio to Chicago to Los Angeles, then up the coast to San Francisco, then to Oregon, then Seattle, then back to Ohio by way of Chicago again. It was great fun.