In honor of the cool videos we used to post here on Fridays, labeling them The Friday Fight, I give you this dance scene.
The Versatile Blogger Award
Our friend Meg Moseley has tagged us over at her blog with the coveted Versatile Blogger Award. A Major Award of this caliber does not come without a price. Here’s what we’ve been asked to do:
1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Pass on the award to up to fifteen deserving bloggers.
4. Contact the bloggers you chose for the award.
1. Thank you, Meg.
2. Are there seven things about myself I haven’t told you yet? Is there anything left unrevealed that won’t revolt the public and drive what’s left of our readers away? I can but try.
2.1 I weighed 5 lbs., 6 oz. at birth. I was underweight. In the time since then I have remedied that defect in rather magnificent fashion.
2.2 Technically, by the rules of primogeniture, I am the patriarch of my family, oldest son of the oldest reproducing son in the blood line (assuming you disqualify adoptees). This applies only to the Kenyon branch of the Walkers. My relatives Steven and John Book, who read this blog, come from a different branch, and so miss out on the benefits of my benevolent overlordship.
2.3 I do not care for bacon. Or much of anything smoked, really.
2.4 The first book I ever took out of a library was about early American explorers. I think it was called Explorers All, but I may be mistaken about that.
2.5 I like wristwatches with lots of little dials and functions. However I’ve given up wearing them, because they’re such a pain to keep regulated. (I still wear a watch, just not the complicated kind.)
2.6 I once punched a guy who’s dead now. The two facts are not related. Anyway, he deserved it.
2.7 Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever the hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to eat some chocolate.
3. I shall pass this on, as is my wont, to zero deserving bloggers. Why should I dilute such an honor by sharing it with lesser writers?
4. Done.
Cat Eyes Squirrel
This photo has Going Viral written all over it (which is an ugly cliche serious writers should never use).
The photo was shot by Jim Tiller in Ormond Beach Fla., Wednesday morning, September 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Daytona Beach News-Journal, Jim Tiller)
Inspiring Quotes for the Traveler
1. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a hastily uploaded picture of a plane at the departure gate.”
2. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I tweeted my followers to ask which I should take.”
I love these. Read more at 501 Places
Eat like a Viking, regurgitate, repeat
In case you’re wondering how I’m doing on the Virtual Book Tour I’ve been working on for my publisher, I think I can say it’s been going well. I’ve finished one blog post and several interviews for various literature-related blogs. And yes, I’ll let you know where to look for them, once they appear (assuming I find out myself).
I’m nearly finished with the first batch of interviews. I understand more are coming. Today the publicist asked me how I felt about writing a food-related post for a blog that talks to authors about their favorite recipes.
Now on the surface that doesn’t make much sense, me being a certified microwave-dependent bachelor (though I do make a mean scratch chocolate chip cookie when the fit is on me). But the idea of writing about Viking food, and relating it to West Oversea (buy it here) is intriguing. I’ve decided to do it, and I’ve made arrangements to borrow a recipe from a reenactor friend.
(And yes, in case you wondered, I will give her credit for it.)
I feel confident I can produce a post unlike any this particular blog has seen before. A hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners exposé of genuine Viking cuisine, featuring such delights as rotten shark (a delicacy in Iceland which reportedly made that Chef Gordon Ramsey throw up), and sheep’s head (also popular in Iceland. The eyeballs, I’m told, are especially relished). Many is the joke that’s been made about lutefisk over the years, but the Norwegians’ beloved lutefisk is just a pale, ghostly remnant of the true Nightmare On Elm Street mealtime horrors of the Scandinavian past.
Because we’re talking about a marginal economy, where taste places a far distant second to survival.
People sometimes ask me whether I wish I had been born in the Viking Age.
My answer is no, for three reasons.
One, I was a sickly child who would in all probability have been exposed on a hillside for the wolves at birth.
Two, the plumbing was awful.
Three, the food was inedible to the modern palate.
I’ve written a time travel book (still unpublished at this date) in which a father and daughter get the opportunity to go back to Viking Age Norway and stay there. She points out that if they did, they’d never get to eat chocolate again.
I call that an excellent point.
Merry Christmas, Gromit
Britain’s Wallace and Gromit are now stars in Royal Mail stamps. I wonder if I can get some of these.
Interactive Fiction: Is It the Future?
Keith Stuart asks if interactive fiction is the future of books. “For example,” Mr. Stuart writes, “clues could be unlocked by shaking the screen so that most of the words ‘fall off’ revealing hidden codes. Other narrative elements could be unveiled by opening the book while in a specific geographic location.” He goes on to describe what is already online for interactive fiction and why a cool idea may not work for previously published novels.
Writing Contests
Jane Friedman has a list of national writing contests with not entry fee.
Man-Kzin Wars XI, by Hal Colebatch, Matthew Joseph Harrington, and Larry Niven
I reviewed Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War a while back. This is the sequel. My friend Hal Colebatch, who wrote all the stories of the previous volume, contributes the bulk of Man-Kzin Wars XI
The background (these books are set in Larry Niven’s Ringworld
You Can't Say 'Nazi,' But Us?
Political signs with Nazi words, symbols, or overtones showed up a rally during that past week, and the media yawned. Maybe they were tired from all of their outrage a few weeks ago. Larry O’Connor reports, “What is truly scandalous about the traditional media’s apparent obliviousness is the fact that unlike the Tea Parties — which are often spontaneous, unorganized events with no direct affiliation to a politician or a political party — this protest has been directly liked to Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, and her campaign has been caught in a series of misleading statements regarding that involvement.”
Is it worse that such signs appear at an organized rally or at an unorganized one? Is it exhausting to hear outrage about one and not the other, a news cycles about one and nothing about the other?
Of course, the illustration here is not from one of the posters, but it is a curious bit of Nazi propaganda, is it not? Having they been called christians of a sort in your hearing? This isn’t a Christian poster.