from the moon

Some of those photos the Artemis II crew have sent back from the far side of the Moon are really impressive. (Too bad none of the Apollo 8 astronauts, who first explored that region, are still alive to see it.) Too bad, also, that we can't just sit back and enjoy it, but have to deal with a maniac at the same time.

Eatster

Quiet Easter with B's family at her nephew L's house. His sister T, our usual hostess, is recovering from an arm injury and decided to pass. There's only so far that being Super Mom can take you.

That did mean that T's friends who usually enliven our gathering weren't present, so it was just family and their ailing dad's caretaker. Moderate amount of food. I made my cashew broccoli, discovering that it will reheat nicely instead of having to be cooked on the spot. Asparagus soup, made by L's wife E, was the treat I liked the most.

Afterwards B and E, mostly, put together a fairly simple jigsaw puzzle. We got home in time to feed the cats before they began meowing too loudly.

This morning, equally quiet when I went to the grocer's to pick up some blueberries, B's favorite which somehow got left out of our pickup order last week. I guess everybody's still sleeping off their Eastern dinner.

Tolkien Society awards

The finalists for the Tolkien Society awards have come out. I'm not linking because either you're already a TS member and have access, or you're not and it's of no concern to you. I was on the panel for Best Book (scholarly), as I was last year, and this year my choices were rather different from the rest of the panelists'. As a result, only two of the books I voted for made it to the five-item shortlist, and the other three are ones I didn't vote for, two of which I emphatically wouldn't have voted for. Meanwhile, three books I thought as good as the other two didn't make it. It's frustrating: there's not a one among my five that I didn't find flaws in, but they were also all blisteringly insightful, whereas the two I wouldn't have voted for seemed to be scrounging around trying to find something worthwhile to say. I won't identify any of these; if you're a voter read them for yourself and see what you think.

to the moon

So NASA has launched its Artemis II rocket to carry four astronauts on a non-orbital lunar flyby. I was a little startled by the news that this has actually launched, because the news on it has been very subdued. For something that's intended mainly as a publicity stunt, that's doing it wrong. Have there, for instance, been profile articles on the individual astronauts? Not in the news sources I read.

Leaving aside the question of whether this is what we should be spending our money on - a question raised with just as much urgency over the first lunar program - what most concerns me is a point raised by Jared Isaacman, the NASA director. He said it's not a successful mission until they safely splash down. He's right, and the same was said about the first lunar-era missions as well. But it was NASA's extreme operational competence which made those missions run mostly properly, and which saved the astronauts the not once (Apollo 13) but twice (Gemini 8) that equipment failure created potentially deadly situations. It's been over 50 years since we last sent a lunar mission, and since then we've twice lost crews in space, which never happened in the first lunar days. A lunar mission is a proposition of extreme risk requiring precision handling. Has NASA recovered its extreme competence? If the Artemis crew return safely, it probably has: it won't be just luck that gets them back. Let's hope they do.

April the first of summerfilth

Apart from reading a couple pieces about April Fool's, I managed to get through the whole day without experiencing any, for which I was grateful. Of course I spent the entire afternoon plugged in at the medical clinic, so there's that.

It's the first night of Pesach, and I've received some greetings for that, for which I am also grateful. For the occasion, I made matzo ball soup for dinner, and for a wonder the weather was cool enough to make this a seasonally appropriate meal.

And that was the first full day of my new year.

Alan Bostick

I was quite surprised to read from File 770 that Alan Bostick had died a week ago, both because, well, he was younger than I, and because I'd had hoped to have heard such news through the personal grapevine.

Alan was a long-standing member of the Bay Area/Seattle fannish nexus, having lived in both places at various times. He was, as F770 noted, first known for one of the first of a 1980s wave of "ensmalled" fanzines, short and frequent, which he appropriately titled Fast and Loose. In recent years his principal activity was playing poker - Texas Hold 'Em was his variety - at which I gather he became quite skilled.

Alan and I were friendly in our earlier years - I was on the mailing list for the entire run of Fast and Loose - but over time he seems to have found me exasperating, and consequently I felt uncomfortable with him. Nevertheless he could be friendly, waving hello when we came across each other at the eclipse viewing party at Redding's Sundial Bridge in 2012. The last time I saw him was a month ago at Corflu. He greeted me when we passed in the hallway, but alas he was wearing a full-face mask and I didn't realize it was him until too late to respond.

I'd like to offer you a sample of Alan's writing, but all I can dig up are two issues of Fast and Loose, both from 1980 and both numbered 3 for some reason, but both devoted mostly to discussion of procrastination over getting the next issue out. One of them starts like this:

"I can't do it, I can't do it," I said with my mouth. The person to whom I was speaking with the aforementioned orifice was Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who is my roomate, and the subject was her question-- "When are you going to publish another issue of Fast and Loose, 'the Frequent fanzine'?"
"I can't, I tell you!" I shouted. "Russian troops are in Afghanistan, Iran has been holding American hostages for over 100 days, Canada just raised the price of export oil 30%, and they're going to draft my fair young bod to die in Afghanistan!"

Doesn't sound much cheerier than today, does it? It didn't seem so at the time, either. Anyway, Alan's housemates (a more accurate term) eventually convince him that "There are over four billion people living on this planet right now. Statistically speaking, one of them ought to be publishing Fast and Loose."

"I said with my mouth," by the way, is I think a Burbeeism - or if not, it falls in the same category - one of a number of verbal mannerisms introduced into fannish discourse by Charles Burbee in the late 1940s, and used by subsequent acolytes to communicate that they were faanish [sic] fans, fans into fandom for fandom's sake, and not bound to discuss science fiction or anything serious and constructive like that. Instead, they'd write about whatever came to their minds, such as - in this case - not writing anything. Typical of this breed of fannish writing. Anyway, that was a bit of Alan vintage 1980: light, attempted humorous, a bit self-indulgent, but enjoyable if you were his friend or regular reader.

dining from Trader Joe's

What I like Trader Joe's best for is their frozen skillet dinners. The ones I like B. mostly wouldn't, so I have them for lunch, typically half of it and save the rest for zapping the next day. I have had success with B. with some side dishes, especially a dynamite asparagus risotto.

I've for some time been happy with the Kung Pao Chicken, to which I add just one of the two sauce packets: that's enough, and it saves on carbs. But I've added others. They have a Spicy Thai Shrimp Fried Rice which I find addictively tasty, especially after I dig out the peas which are the one thing I don't like. You're supposed to cook the shrimp first, and the packet of shrimp is deeply buried in the package, so I empty the rice out into a large bowl first so I can grab the shrimp. This also makes it easier to get at the peas.

Some time ago - I think it's no longer still there - they had a paella which was also pretty good (again, except for the peas). I told them at the time that if they got a jambalaya of the same kind, I'd buy it. Well, guess what, now they have. It's intensely popular; the second time I went to buy it, a whole double-bin in the frozen food section that was labeled with it was completely empty. I went to another TJ's where I had gotten it before and couldn't find it; I enquired and confirmed they were out, but they said they'd be getting in more with that night's shipments. So I came back the next morning and grabbed some.

The jambalaya has a few veggies - tiny pieces of onion and bell pepper - and a fair offering of andouille sausage slices. If you want chicken or shrimp, you'll have to add it yourself, and I've been doing that. A quarter pound of tiny salad shrimp is enough.

I've also bought a bulgogi rice package, but haven't tried it yet.

misc

1. Sorry I wasn't one of the 8 million protesting for "no kings" on Saturday, but standing around for hours in the sun is no longer in my repertoire. My heart, and more importantly my vote, is with you.

2. Went to see Sullivan's last operetta, The Emerald Isle (yes it's set in Ireland). Not sure why; I'd seen it before. Very sketchy production: no sets, formal dress for costumes. Couldn't make out most of the words, sung or spoken, and the supertitles were nearly invisible.

3. The Lord of the Rings: toughest quiz ever. It's by John Garth, who knows his Tolkien better than almost anyone else active today. I got 25 out of 30, not including the one I would have gotten if I hadn't had a mental glitch, but it does include one that I don't think anyone would get unless they'd already independently noticed this (I had). Some pretty knowledgeable people got as low as 14, so don't feel bad.

arriving at a concert review of the South Bay Philharmonic

So I'm reading all these books of Tolkien scholarship as part of the jury establishing the finalists for an award, and I'm not sure what to do when an otherwise admirable book makes a boneheaded error. Here's a detailed exploration of Tolkien's methodology in making his sub-creation which repeatedly uses Valar and Ainur as synonyms. The Valar are actually a subset of the Ainur, as is perfectly clear from Tolkien's writings on the subject, the most relevant of which this scholar examines in detail, but how closely did he read it? Then there's the book on Tolkien's religious philosophy which defines Methodists as a subset of Anglicans. I don't know what to do with things like this, I really don't.

I thought of that when I got the program leaflet for yesterday's concert of the orchestra in which B. plays viola, and found that it featured works by Ludwig von Beethoven. No such person, though people in Beethoven's time made the same mistake.

Anyway, they made it fairly crisply through the abrupt opening chords of the Coriolan Overture. The Eighth Symphony was extremely hairy, full of sloppy playing and a few big clams, but fun to listen to - more than it was to play, B. says, as m.d. George Yefchak took it very fast. Also on the program, a gentle early string suite by John Rutter and a lively arrangement of that song from K-pop Demon Hunters, much more attractive than the original. Additional pieces for solo piano, string quartet, and bassoon duo made it into something of a variety show rather than an orchestral concert.

concert review: Brentano Quartet

The icon on the DW and LJ versions of this post is a caricature of Haydn, and for once that's really appropriate, for this concert consisted of 3.5 Haydn string quartets. The 0.5 was his final quartet, which he was only able to half-finish. This turned out to be about 1.0 more Haydn quartets than I wanted to hear in one concert, and I grew itchy during the last one. This was a gentle and dignified interpretation of Haydn, without much that was witty - though Haydn often demands a witty approach - and not much more that was energetic, though there was some zip in a few places, notably the finale of Op. 20/4. And that's about all I have to say about a pleasant but unexciting concert. I wonder if I'd have been able to come up with more if I'd been assigned to review it and had my close-listening ears on, though that would require that I have taken a caffeine pill to be more alert, and those are off the menu for me right now for physical pill-swallowing reasons. I fear my fine discernment may be atrophying, or at least I'm experiencing fewer opportunities to exercise it.