I used to love fandom. I think my old job dimmed my enthusiasm for public displays of obsession, but the BBC Sherlock has brought me back, at least a little, because nothing will ever change my feelings for Sherlock Holmes. So, in the last excruciating hours before the series returns, here is a post containing some original fannish conjectures on( John Watson and sleeping pills )

Which Apparently Tastes a Bit Like Stews They Make in Uganda, According to Jenny, Who is From Uganda
A Recipe I Made And Wrote Up Last Year Around This Time And Just Found Again

1) Have your Irish family's dad bring home ham hocks from Dunnes. With the skin on. With bristles on the skin.

2) Despite -- or because of -- recently having read The ( Read more... )

Three weeks ago, I went up to the woods in Connecticut to attend the Indian Neck Folk Festival. It. Was. Awesome. We sang, like, all the time. We sang in the synagogue, we sang on porches, we sang four to an umbrella when the skies opened up Saturday afternoon. We even sang in a gazebo. Click/scroll for pictures and sound clips!

( brb folk festival )

( Read more... )

Heather says she learned this about fifty years ago, so she's not sure if the Latin is entirely right, but it's amazing anyway. To the tune of "Good King Wenceslas":

Noster Humpodumpitus
Qui in muro fuit
Assidens improvidus
Violenter ruit
Regis equitatium
Et agmen militari
Noster Humpodumpitum
Non nobis restoraure!

Do not read if you're feeling prone to tears! You know who you are.

( The email I just sent Dan Savage. )

Last night was September's Exceedingly Good Song Night -- it's a gathering at Banjo Jim's in the East Village, and it's therapy, it's meditation, it's chicken soup for the trad singer's soul. Thanks to the surprisingly good microphone on the iPhone, I can let you hear for yourself how awesome it is. This is the song we close with every month, but ( Read more... )

Friday 7/9
1:00pm -- Hitch a ride to Readercon with Irene and Greg. Read in the backseat.

6:00pm -- Dinner of Fate with supertailz, blakecharlton, britmandelo, Irene, Greg, Joey, and maybe more!

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Saturday 7/10
10:00am - 10:00pm -- RUN AROUND READERCON MEETING LOTS OF PEOPLE

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Sunday 7/10
2:00pm -- Catch a bus back to NYC. Clear personal inbox.

Because I know Nina is a huge Sandi Toksvig fan, when I saw her YA book HITLER'S CANARY on the free shelf at work, I grabbed it. It looked interesting, NUMBER THE STARSish, so I started reading it on the subway home and finished it, crying, on the train the next morning. The part that got me was the narrator’s wrap-up of the war in the last chapter ( Read more... )

Sometimes I get words stuck in my head the same way I get songs. Lately, the following keeps going around and around:

I am preparing to play Ophelia.

It's scary. I feel Hamlet closing in, whole scenes suddenly cut off from my purview, other characters' relationships slipping away from me. Eventually I'll find myself in a play called Ophelia. We' ( Read more... )