Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Following links can be a grand waste of time, particularly if you're randomly jumping from one blog to another. But eavesdropping can learn you all kinds of useful things, like where Victorian Goths shop for perfume. I give you the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Dig the fonts and the illustrations, but the real triumph is the descriptions of the scents, for instance:

GRAND GUIGNOL
In 1897, a new form of entertainment was presented to the people of Montmartre, Paris: the Théâtre du Grand Guignol. During the course of an evening at the theatre, one would watch several small plays, ranging from crime dramas to sexual farces, a violent, throat-ripping, eye-gouging, acid-tossing good time, which always included shock topics such as infanticide, necrophilia, insanity, murder, paranoia, vengeance and death by common household object. Our Grand Guignol perfume is a shot of sweet apricot brandy; just enough to settle your nerves after a ghoulish, gory brush with the macabre.

Now see: that's what I want in a Halloween party.

Among other things, Black Phoenix Alchemy has an entire line called "Mad Tea Party, or, The Dodson Collection"--inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I love it.
Hell, I want one of each.

speaking of genius

I've been having the itch for some time to do some journaling in Sabine's persona. This is partly because I really adore carrying around small fancy overpriced "writing" books like they sell in Barnes & Noble, and I've been looking for an excuse to buy a fountain pen (not really sure what happened to my old ones). Up to this point, however, I haven't known what to say. There hasn't been anything for her to say, except maybe to rehash how Trace keeps giving her a hard time, and that would be just really boring and pointless.

Today on the drive into work, though, I had an idea. I knew eventually I would have to revisit some of Sabine's past, particularly with regard to the Mereck years (months? weeks?). I wasn't sure how I'd work it in, because I didn't want to shift out of Trace's POV. But today it dawned on me, I could have him find her journals of that time. I could write that part of the story in grand old epistolary form, á là Dracula and Frankenstein. How apropos. How frivolous and therefore satisfying. And I have just the useless little leather-bound book for the job.

the age of paleontology

I'd always kind of wondered about the study of paleontology and how it came to be. As with so many other of our modern sciences, I had a vague idea of it rising from the muck of the Industrial Revolution, but I didn't really know how or when. I had a sort of collective image of the late-Victorian Egyptologist grave-robbers and the early fossil-hunters being cut from the same cloth. And perhaps they were; before the turn of the century there still wasn't a lot of differentiation between the sciences or the scientists who studied them--an educated man was supposed to know a little about everything.

Today I found a site that overviews the rise of paleontology in America and Europe and now I'm all excited and discombobulated.

Colonial Americans understood neither the concept of geological time nor the actual process by which fossils were created. Their society was one that still looked largely to scripture for explanations of much of the surrounding natural world. For instance, the fossil fish and seashells found at quarries and construction excavations in the 1700s were widely believed to be residue from the great flood survived by Noah.

In 1841, Dr. Richard Owen, a leading British authority on anatomy, published a report concluding that the individual bones [found up until that time] were from animals that had all been members of a group of large reptiles that had completely died out in some past age. Because of their apparent size, as well as their fangs and claws, Owen called them by a combination of the Greek words for "terrible lizards" -- dino saurs.

The very idea -- that previously unknown species of monstrously large reptiles could have existed outside of the events documented in the Bible -- was a highly controversial one. It also exerted a deliciously exotic pull on the imaginations of nineteenth-century scientists and laymen alike.

I should think it would. And every time I read something like this I'm appalled to realize just how narrow and shaky the platform of science and reasoning is. Barely a hundred years ago we were still living in the dark ages. Most of the world still does. Hell, most of humanity still does. What passes for logic these days is not, by and large, a structured method of thought.

Of course now I'm brainstorming ways of letting Sabine work a lecture about dinosaurs into casual conversation and wondering if Trace will run across any dinosaur bones while he's out in the desert and musing over whether dead monsters buried in the earth could serve as a metaphor for anything else--or at least provide a horror sequence. The temptation with a character like Miss Fairweather is to give her a miraculous insight into all kinds of things we understand now--germ theory, for instance, which was in its infancy--antibiotics, anesthetics, stuff like that. But I must restrain myself, or I'll come off sounding like Clan of the Cave Bear chick, with cavegirl Ayla feeding digitalis to the mongoloid kid with the heart murmur.

At the same time, part of my interest in creating Miss Fairweather was to explore the collision of science and faith, which I have not done much of to this point because the science keeps taking a back seat to the occult overtones. Maybe something useful will come out of this new bit of knowledge.

update on EOTL, submissions in general

There've been several little flighty writing-marketing type things going on in the past week, which while fascinating and head-spinning to me, are not worth reporting in minutia here, and in some cases are quasi-confidential between me and my editor.

But to recap in general, Raechel at Jintsu has been in contact with me a few times about End of the Line. It's scheduled to come out in February, I may have said that already. She's preparing to send out Advanced Reader Copies to various review sites, none of which I had ever heard of--so much for being market-savvy--and asked if I had any author-friends who could contribute quotes for marketing purposes. Thank you, Rob and Joy.

Raechel's new marketing assistant wrote a "back-copy" blurb for EOTL; which was a relief to me, because I hate writing synopses, and the marketing chick got to the heart of the matter quite nicely. I was also asked to choose an excerpt, which I did--it's the same bit that made y'all squeal when I put it up here. It was a good excerpt, I knew it as soon as I wrote it.

The thought of having ARC's send to reviewers, though--that terrifies me. I keep remembering that Anne Rice debacle on Amazon--not that she wasn't asking for it. I said then, I'll have to be sure not to read any reviews of my work. Maybe I'll bribe someone to read them for me and forward the good ones. Worse, though, would be if no one bothered to review it. I can handle being hated, but ignored? That's cold.

=====

In other news, I sent off "Gretel" to an upcoming anthology I happened to hear about, a collection of rehashed and reimagined fairie tales. Got back a nice email from the editor. He said their list was full, alas, and it was a pity because my story was at least as good as the one they'd already accepted. He said they may do a Volume Two, in which case I was "wholeheartedly invited" to submit again. So that was nice.

I have this curious feeling, and it may just be my ego talking, that I am standing alongside a carousel, watching it whirl past, moving in time to the rhythm and gearing myself up to jump for it, catch hold of one of those gilded posts and get whisked away. Of course I'll probably throw up once I'm on board, and some punk will try to sit beside me and make conversation, but from the ground it looks so bright and exhilarating. I'm eager for the ride.

exhibits C, D, E, F and G*

I'm on a continuous scavenger hunt for other examples of western-horror novels. When I find one, which is seldom, I tend to approach it at an angle and with eyes half-shut, like it's going to spray me with acid or bite or something. Truth be told, I haven't found many, outside of the comic book realm. Here's a brief rundown:

Dead Man's Hand: Five Tales of the Weird West, by Nancy A. Collins. Nancy has a bit of a reputation for her Sonja Blue series, which sadly for her takes a back seat to Laurel Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Dead Man's Hand was apparently published by Two Wolf Press originally, but yesterday in Borders I found a trade paperback copy with Tor's imprint on the spine. I flipped through it; don't care for the style myself, and the stories are definitely horror shorts, as opposed to the dark-fantasy epic thing I'm shooting for.

Fevre Dream, by George R.R. Martin. Martin is probably the best-known of the authors whose works I have found in this genre; however I haven't read anything of his beyond A Game of Thrones, and I suspect few of his fans of that series ever heard of Fevre Dreams, which is a very cool title, by the way. It's the name of a paddleboat, rolling up and down the Mississippi in the 1840's, Huckleberry Finn time. The paddleboat captain unwittingly takes on an aristocratic vampire as a business partner. Lord, I am so sick of aristocratic vampires. My impression is, this is more an Anne Rice-style historical dark fantasy thing than a real western. But that's okay.

One of my writer's group informed me that an alumi of our number, William F. Wu, had written a supernatural western, but in reading the description of Hong on the Range I remain skeptical. It's more a pseudo-futuristic cyberpunk western. The reviewers were not kind, and neither is the $0.72 price tag. Bill is great fun to hang around with, but I personally don't go for broad humor and puns in fiction.

Then there are some contributions from the minor leagues:

Over at Yard Dog Press there are a couple of books by a guy named Ken Rand, whose name is vaguely familiar to me. Look at "The Golems of Laramie County" and "Tales of the Lucky Nickel Saloon."

I'm sure there are others--Joe Lansdale I know has a western-zombie thing out there called Dead in the West-- but I'm tired of looking.

For further reading, and a little listening pleasure, some guy named "Ruthven" over at Amazon compiled a handy list. I can't personally recommend any of it. What I find curious, though, is there's a fairly established subgenre of western horror in gaming--both live and video--and in comics. I wonder why not in fiction? Too hard to market, maybe?

*Exhibits A and B, in case you were wondering, were King's Dark Tower series and the comic series Desperadoes.

insomnia back from abroad

Back in June I sent "Insomnia" (that's the story of Seth Ladron losing his mind in Flenning's lab) off to Writers of the Future. Got it back today. Another quarter finalist also-ran. This time I rated a hand-written note letting me know I was in the top "10-15%" Yawn.

Should be getting a rejection from Asimov's any day, too, on Bridgeport. Guess I'll wrap up Insomnia and send it to Scifiction.com. Been meaning to do that for a year, now.

My writer's meeting is Saturday and they'll get the end of Parlor Games. After that I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I still think it's too long and suffering from continuity syndrome to make a viable stand-alone, but I do like the beginning and ending of it. Perhaps I'll try to carve a shorter short out of it and send it off to F&SF. I don't even necessarily want F&SF to publish it anymore, but they have a quick turnaround time, and I have a perverse desire to torture that assistant editor who said EOTL "didn't capture his interest" by forcing him to read every single story as I finish it. He may hate my guts, but I won't let him forget me.

Parlor Games is done

I'm as amazed as you are. It feels a little like one of those Family Circus maps where Billy wanders all over the neighborhood--I got from start to finish okay, but I'm not sure I hit all the points I needed to cover.

Ah well. Hindsight is clearest, and at least my writer's group will have something to crit next week. Now I get to go play with the werewolves.

Oh... by-the-by, when you leave comments now you'll have to do a "word verification" as an extra step---to keep the spammers out.

yummy

From The Prairie Traveler, by Randolph B. Marcy (pub. 1859), the chapter "Stores and Provisions":

The pemmican, which constitutes almost the entire diet of the Fur Company's men in the Northwest, is prepared as follows: The buffalo meat is cut into thin flakes, and hung up to dry in the sun or before a slow fire; it is then pounded between two stones and reduced to a powder; this powder is placed in a bag of the animal's hide, with the hair on the outside; melted grease is then poured into it, and the bag sewn up. It can be eaten raw, and many prefer it so. Mixed with a little flour and boiled, it is a very wholesome and exceedingly nutritious food, and will keep fresh for a long time.

I've seen several "receits" for pemmican, and that has got to be the worst. Although I've been known to eat raw cured bacon fat, so maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Also of interest: the word "antiscorbutics," i.e. "something to prevent scurvy."

“Hi servi invivi quos quaeris non sunt.”*

At one point in Parlor Games I needed someone to speak an incantation to get rid of an unwelcome guest, and as everyone knows, the appropriate language for issuing either Priestly or Arcane orders is, appropriately, a Dead Language. Unfortunately, my parents persuaded me to take French instead of Latin in high school (I now think we were both mistaken and I should have studied Spanish, instead). Luckily for me, however, one of the lovely women in my writer's group is apparently quite proficient in Latin. I didn't realize to what degree until I asked her to translate this line for me:

Locate the intruder, follow him to his abode. Let not darkness nor mysteries cloud his flight. Show him to me.

Today I got back the most giggle-inducing post. I can't help it; I love linguistics. If I were incurably rich I'd do nothing but study languages all day. When I wasn't writing or practicing tai chi, of course. Below are the most relevant portions of the text Alysen sent me (the comments in italics are mine):

Ave salveque Holly!

A. Nouns

invasor = invader
speculator = spy, scout
emissarius = emissary, spy

Oddly enough, there’s no single Latin word which means, precisely, intruder. There are a couple of awkward two- and three-word phrases which I dismissed, not wanting to open up the grammatical and metrical cans of worms they entailed.

Is the intruder intruding on his own recognizance? Invasor. Or has he been sent as a minion by a nefarious secret master? Emissarius or speculator.

domicilium = abode, dwelling-place
domus = home, house
latibulum = hiding-place, retreat, subterfuge
latebra = hiding-place, den, lair

Domicilium is colorsell and metrically annoying. Domum, in addition to being the generic term for house, home, household, also refers to a specific type of building, an atrium townhouse, and carries a connotation of middle-class comfort--hardly what you had in mind.

Latibulum is okay, but I hope you like latebra, lair, as much as I do. (oh, yes!)

obscuritas = darkness, meanness, obscurity (by an amazing coincidence)
opacittas = darkness, shadiness, opacity (another amazing coincidence)
arcanum = mystery, secret
occultum = hidden thing, secret (adj. used as substantive)
tenebrae = darkness, obscurity, night, mysteries (I thought of you, Joy!)

Why not let tenebrae suffice alone, since it means both darkness and mysteries?

fuga = flight, fleeing, exile
effugium = flight, way of escape

Either is fine, leaving meter the only criterion.

B. Verbs

invenio, invenire = invent, contrive, find, discover, procure
rescisco, resciscere = ascertain, find out, learn
reperio, reperire = find, meet with, find out, descover, invent

I recommend reperio, reperire; it seems closest to your intended meaning. Oddly, again, there seems to be no single Latin word meaning precisely “locate”, “find the location of”.

It would be a clause like “locum invasoris rescisce”, ascertain the place of.

sequor, sequi = follow, go after, attend, pursue
investigo, investigare = track
venor, venari = hunt

Which of these you choose depends on whether the counterintelligence agent being ordered on this spychase is singular or plural. Solo minion or squad? I’ll get to the reason in a moment.

sino, sinere = allow, permit
patior, pati (?) = bear, undergo, suffer, allow
permitto, permittere = let go through, let fly, give up, entrust, allow, permit (am. coinc.)

This one’s complicated by the fact that the negative imperative (your “Let not”) is conveyed by noli / nolite plus the infinitive, literally meaning “Do not will to [verb].” So there are going to be two infinitives in this sentence, potentially confusing but unavoidable.

nubibus velo, velare = envelop, veil, conceal by/within clouds; becloud
caligine velo, velare = ditto by mist
nebula (long A) velo, velare = ditto by fog

I’d recommend caligus, fog, if you insist on atmospheric phenomena; but velo, velare conveys your meaning without assistance.

retego, retegere = uncover, bare, open, reveal
recludo, recludere = open, disclose, reveal
revelo, revelare = unveil, bare, show, discover
patefacio, patefacere = disclose, expose, bring to light

Here again the choice depends on whether you’re sending a single operator or a team on this mission.

C. Esthetics

Any magical incantation ought to have some poesy about it. Lain poetry doesn’t have to rhyme--although it often does, almost inadvertently, due to the inherent structure of the language--but rhyme and rhythm must inevitably improve the potency of any magic spell! ;-)

Aha, you say. Comes the dawn.

Commanding a Single Minion:

Invasorem reperi.
Eum ad latebram [suam] venare.
Tenebras effugium [suum] velare
caligine noli sinere.
Eum mihi retege.

Literally:
Invader discover.
Him to lair [his] hunt.
Darkness/mysteries flight [his] to veil
by mist do not let.
Him to me reveal.

(The suums/suams are metrically annoying and can be deleted, taken as
understood.)

I am confident that either of the above, chanted sonorously, will suffice to send any spook skeddadlin’ with its ectoplasmic tail between its legs.

Vale!

*(These are not the droids you’re looking for.)

Trace No. 2 1/2

I went to my writer's meeting today. Love those guys. I finally feel as if I've started to bond with them, after--what, five years? It ain't their fault, though. I'm hard to get to know, and they are all twenty years older than I am. Hard to find common ground, outside of the writing, and I'm the only one doing that these days--and y'all know how little of that I've been doing of late.

Although, Rob (Chilson) just sold a story to Analog. It's called "Space Farmers" or something like that. We critted it in-house, and there's some interesting material in there--it's very solid speculation about how to raise produce and grains in zero-gee and zero-atmo. Stan Schmidt told him he liked it and wanted it, but they didn't have any money to pay him right now. That's terrifying, in my opinion. I don't know when it will be coming out, but I'll keep you posted.

I was the only one with any material today. I've been feeding them Trace stories in installments--they see rougher versions than I let leak to you guys. I've been writing frantically for the last few days, trying to get some material on paper so they'd have more to read, so they got to see about two-thirds, or 20 pages, of "Parlor Games." They were very approving, which is a relief because I hadn't had a chance to look back over the text I pretty much just regurgitated onto the page. The dialogue was a little rough, especially the German accent of one character, and there were some anachronisms of vocabulary, but that's what I keep them around for. We had a lovely little discussion about language and character development. They all really seem to get it and be on board with it. Jan is always first to laugh at the funny bits. Lynette said she really enjoyed how I've balanced Trace's dilemma: how he may have learned to cope with his curse but he's never really dealt with it.

Alison is a little disatisfied with Trace's reticence and wimpiness. She wants him to suck it up and tell Fairweather off--or at least ask more questions, take steps to control his own destiny. I just smile and tell her not to rush me.

By the way, can anybody provide me with a few nineteenth-century substitutions for "bitch"? And "kraut'? What was the common derogatory term for a German back then? I've found a nifty dictionary of 19th century slang, but it's a bit limited. And my "Cowboy Lingo" book has been sanitized for someone's protection.

Anyway, I will probably have this done, at least in rough form, in another three or four days.

meditation and dim sum

I did pretty much nothing all weekend, and it was lovely. Saturday I lay around and read. I baked an apple crisp for breakfast, and while it was in the oven I meditated for about 15 minutes.

I have been taught to do standing meditation, yes, and Tony pointed out, after reading the "WANT CAKE" entry despite instructions to the contrary, that Sit did offer to teach the deeper meditation, so it's not that Sit is a sexist boor or anything, but I was feeling sorry for myself and resentful for reasons that I don't want to go into here, thus it was easier to imply that the obstructions were external, rather than internal.

More to the point, I have always been slightly scornful of meditation. I respected its use as a mind-cleaning tool, and put prayer in the same category, although my mother would be appalled to hear it. I never felt the need for prayer or meditation, because my writing served the same purpose. But I have not been writing lately, and I have become addicted to the Internet. Furthermore, my husband is one of those people who constantly has to have the TV on when at home--sometimes both of them, on different channels, in different rooms. I can't escape. Because of those factors and other things, plus no quality input, I have been severely frazzled lately. So I'm trying the meditation. There are some other reasons for doing it as well, but they have to do with kung fu training and are too complicated to explain here. If you want to know, go buy Yang Yang's book on Taiji.

Sit had to miss class on Sunday because of work--possibly the second time he's done that in my memory of almost four years--so we had a small class on Sunday. Tony led the kung fu exercises, I led the fan form review, then Mary Ann came at eleven and led the tai chi class. Afterward, we all went out for dim sum. This was the second time I've eaten dim sum. It's best to go with someone who speaks Chinese and knows what to order. I ate some strange things yesterday: beef tendon, shark's-fin dumplings, a sweet pastry roll with "barbeque" pork inside. It was all pretty good but you can't think too much about what you're eating. Tony kept taking things off the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table and putting them on my plate. "Here, try this." "I'm full!" "No no, you just gotta try this." Karen said, "Is he trying to fatten you up?" What's really funny is, Mary's younger son Charlie was there with us, home from college for a visit. And Mary kept doing the same thing--taking stuff off the serving dishes and putting it on Charlie's plate until he snarled at her and we all started laughing. "Gee, Mom, let the kid cut his own meat!"

The meal was good but rather starchy for my palate. I have also been instructed to learn how the "Lazy Susan" got its name. Tony tells me this is my function in the group--to define obscure words, just as Matt's speciality is math (we had a terrible time dividing up the lunch ticket without him) and Tony's is carpentry.

I started feeding Scott green tea this weekend. He likes it; says it cuts the phlegm. I have to agree. Actually what he said was, "Now this is going to make me immortal, thin, cancer-free and make my dick three inches longer, right?" And I say hey, if you believe in it enough, it just may.

enlightenment in the Whole Foods produce aisle

Blueberries. Blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. Blueberries.

Strawberries.

Black and rasp(berries).

Kiwi.

Fish! Spices! Sole with Northwoods Seasoning! Salmon with parsley and lemon!

Vindaloo, for naked chicken legs.

Brown rice, to temper the Vindaloo.

Garlic (granulated).

Greek seasoning. Romaine, iceburg, onion, tomato, Kalamatas, cucumber, feta.

BlueBERries. And sometimes cream.

haiku therapy

Sifu says, "Practice tai chi
with less emotion."
I burst into tears.

Five lanes compressed to two,
with a stoplight.
Sixty-five minutes to work.

My mind clamours with voices,
sensations, emotions.
Where are the words?

how to be beautiful, 1889

I find this to be quite droll, as well as common-sensical. Particularly read the chapter on Corsets, from which comes the following:

This unending war against corsets that has been raging for about two score years and ten is certainly as good an advertisement as the most enterprising manufacturers can wish for. It proves conclusively that the corset wins all of the battles. If, in the fight, it has even wiped off from the face of the earth a few brainless women it is difficult to understand why the corset should be held responsible.

This is the point the femi-nazis are missing. Beauty can be a weapon. You just have to know how to wield it.

I give you expert testimony:

MEN condemn and criticize the very things in their own wives and sisters that they run after and admire in the sisters and wives of other men. One of their great "hobbies" is "common-sense" shoes. They advocate them and insist upon their wives and sisters wearing them, yet were they ever known to say a lady had a pretty foot that was seen in a commonsense shoe? Never! The nearest they get to it is : "What a lovely foot that woman has! if she would only take off that French heel and wear a common-sense shoe! " Poor things, they don't know that only the French shoe can show the outlines of a pretty foot. Men are so peculiar. They talk of their admiration for sensible girls, condemn paint, powder, small waists and French heels, and at the same time their most serious attentions are given to girls de voted to all of the frivolities known to the fair sex. Just as long as men go on--but I digress.

And I rest my case.

realignment

Had my writer's meeting yesterday. I took them the first nine-ish pages of "Parlor Games," an excerpt which ended with a tantalizing revelation about Miss Fairweather.

Choice comments were as follows:

Where is the rest of it? More! I want MORE! (soon.)

*
Very good--I particularly like the pace & the balance between Trace's viewpoint narration & the dialogue
*
Cool! The plot--or the relationship, rather--thickens apace. I thought you were going to tease us with their relationship as shown in the first two stories for a couple more stories yet. I'm happy to see him establishing some turf to stand up on his hind legs on, at last.

Kung fu? Scheduling conflicts? Divided loyalties? Pshaw.

no technology is ever totally obsolete

Horse-and-Plow Farming Making a Comeback

... a farmer with horses can earn triple or more the earnings per acre than one farmed by agribusiness.

Ron VanGrunsven farms about 50 acres with horses near Council, Idaho, and has used horses for years there and in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

"They're more economical," he said. "They raise their own replacements, you can train them yourself and raise their feed."

I find that cool.

for love, no money. yet.

I had a premonition this morning, while in the shower. I sensed something had happened with End of the Line. So I dried my hair, put in my contact lenses, and fired up the 'Net. Yes, our internet service has been restored. No one is saying for certain why it was off; Scott insisted it had nothing to do with being behind on the bills and he made the rep tell me so over the phone.

Anyway. I had an email waiting from Raechel Henderson Moon.

Dear Holly Messinger --

Thank you for submitting "End of the Line" to Jintsu. I loved this
story and would like to publish it as a Jintsu e-book.

(deleted second paragraph full of business/contract stuff)

Sincerely,

Raechel Henderson Moon
Publisher

Still no advance, but the royalties are a generous deal. I'm a bit flattered. Mostly I feel very... unsettled. Don't know the publication date as yet.

still more news

Jeez, busy day. Okay, first I find this Livejournal rant about the declining state of SF magazines. Looks like I'm not the only one who's bored with the post-modernist LeBrea pits.

Secondly, Greg "The Source" Araujo sent me this link. Want one now.

feeding my brain

I bought two books today at lunchtime. There's a Borders three blocks away from my office, which cost me a great deal of paycheck, the first couple years I worked here. It's a great place to pass a lunch hour--especially in the summer, among the cool, quiet stacks that smell of bleached paper and soy-based inks.

I went in there semi-seriously looking for a tome on Catholicism in nineteenth-century America. I know such a work exists: I've seen some on Amazon, but today I just wanted to do some skimming, not buying.

Instead I got sidetracked by the African-American studies. I saw the endcap, with a new compilation of slave narratives, and figured I could pick up some anecdotes. I found a thin bound copy of Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, for the whopping price of $2. I knew who Booker T. was, but I never had heard of this book. Maybe I read an excerpt and forgot about it. We didn't even cover him in Minority Lit, in college. Still, for $2, every kid in America ought to be made to read this. It's not a man with an ax to grind or a scholar trying to build a reputation. He's just a guy telling it like it was.

The other book I got is way more fun: Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in America. It's a hoot. Beautifully bound and printed on glossy paper, with a number of proofreading errors that set my teeth on edge, it's both informative and entertaining. The first half is anecdotal and expository; the back half is an encyclopedia.

Applying vinegar mildly pickled the top layers of the skin. Regardless of the smell, and the desire to bite oneself, vinegar helped relieve sunburn and similar skin irritations. When applied to irritated skin, vinegar makes skin sting before it feels better. That is perhaps why it found little favor in treating minor hemorrhoid flare-ups or burning bottoms caused from improper wipings with pine straw or leaves.

I kid you not. The author also relates how his Grandma doctored everybody with coal tar and veterinary medicines, fried her chicken in lard, ate eggs and bacon for breakfast every day, dipped snuff and still lived to be ninety-four. My kind of woman. I figure with modern advances in medicine--and less chance of contracting parasites--I can make it to a hundred and four.

from a review of Batman Begins

The film works as a commentary on not only Osama Bin Laden's crusade against the West, but also Bush Jr.'s crusade against the Middle East. It's all about fear and loathing, this high profile, big-budget product of a post-millennial United States...

I give up. I absolutely freaking give up.