Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:40 PM

Well, that went much easier than expected.

Ian and I suffer from a severe lack of bookshelf space. We have twelve full-sized bookcases in our living room (plus another 2/3rds height for RPGs, and a half-height in the kitchen with our cookbooks) and we've probably got at least three more bookcases worth of books on the floors around the bookshelves, in the bedroom, and in boxes from when I packed up my office.

We don't want to get rid of anything, but we're clearly suffering from insufficient space. So recently, I got the idea of just boxing up the books we don't think we'll be needing in the next year or so, and finding some space for them in the basement. We decided to start with fiction, because for some reason we feel more confident that we can do without some of our fiction than non-fiction. We bought some translucent plastic boxes from BJ's Wholesale (I believe they were intended for Xmas ornaments or something like that).

My SF magazines and ten years of Fall Preview TV Guides filled three tubs. We just started work on our mass-market paperbacks. Tried to schedule a half-hour for it, and we managed to fill two boxes in that time. Obviously, we've got to get more boxes...

Next step is to take many of the books on the floor and put them on the shelves, so we can start boxing them up. Me, I'm willing to be brutal; at this point, I do most of my reading from libraries, and unless it's something I'm going to be rereading very frequently or will want to look up references in at a moment's notice, I can wait the day or so it will take to get a library copy.

Speaking of libraries and my previous entry, I just checked out a book titled Looking good: a guide to photographing your library. It's more geared towards library staff taking pictures for promotional material, but has some good ideas. We'll just have to see what develops...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:00 PM

Okay, this amuses me...

Google has just added a new Beta service which searches for items on sale, called Froogle. In their About page, they say (emphasis mine):

We always love to hear from our users and we read all the mail we receive. If you have a question, comment, suggestion, complaint, or personal request that we assist in the transfer of funds from a deposed dictator, please send an email to...

Nice to see that they know what their correspondants want...

Didn't get as much done on the job-hunt-front as I had hoped for today. And my reading's been rather schizophrenic, split between Harry Potter fanfic and serious scholarly biography of Christopher Marlowe. But I'm enjoying both.

Meanwhile, I had a hobbyish idea that I'm tempted to attempt. As you may have noticed in reading this journal, I love libraries a great deal. Different libraries, and sometimes even different areas in the same library, have such distinct character. Some spaces are very stiff and formal, while others have huge comfy chairs for lounging. Some are airy and let in a lot of light; others are like claustrophobic dungeons. Floors in the stacks may be translucent or wire mesh, allowing you to look up and down the stories. But they're all temples of books and I adore them. But I just can't come up with the right words to describe them, so I'm thinking about bringing a camera to the various libraries I love so I can start snapping pictures that can capture the spaces that inspire me so.

Of course, I've never been much of a photographer -- most of the pictures on my website were taken by Ian -- he probably shot all of them except the ones he appears in. I feel really insecure about my abilities as a photographer, but as I said earlier, I'm tempted. Ian's encouraging me; thinks I can only get better with practice, and suggests we buy cheap film so I can get a lot of practice. Me, I'm now tempted to go back to the library and pick up some of their books on photographic composition, so I'm not completely winging it. And I also wonder whether the Athenaeum has any restrictions on indoor photography... I wouldn't want to get in trouble, but I'm starting to like this idea...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:52 AM

So, weird stream of consciousness stuff is percolating through my head, probably since I haven't gotten enough sleep. Yawn...

I've noticed that at least three of my friends post their Free Will Astrology horoscopes in their LiveJournals each week. The reason I've noticed is that I, too, check that site regularly for my and Ian's horoscope; and generally one of them will be scarily on target.

Busy dream last night in which Ian and I got together with a bunch of my college friends, primarily to socialize and game. It's already fading, but I know for certain that Jeff & Goljerp were there, as was Jason & Dori. I think many of the denizens and regulars of Monday night gaming at Mystery house. Unfortunately, I managed to cock something up and really piss people off at me. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I feel really bad for offending folks in my dreams. And then, at some point, a cat with needle-sharp claws (there were a lot of cats in whoever's house we were gaming at) took a swipe out of me, leaving nine massive and deep scratches on my hand that I needed to go to a doctor about to get stitches.

My college friend, Jeff, just won the lead role in You're a good man, Charlie Brown! Big armwaving Kermit the Frog "Y-a-a-a-y!" I am so happy for him that I can't keep a grin off my face. I know he's going to be great! I'm sorely tempted to use my frequent flyer miles to go out to Seattle primarily to see him in the play. [Other reasons for heading out there include just getting to see him and spend time with him in general. And, um, because I've never been out to Seattle before. And, um... well, just seeing Jeff would be my main reason for going out there.] I'm all giddy over this, does it show?

In other news... Well, there's not much other news because I only woke up less than an hour ago.

Today's goal, calling people about my job hunt. Oh joy.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:45 PM

Continuing the geekery, I realized as I was looking thru all the library books I've got checked out, that I've forgotten to mention a few that I probably won't be able to complete. I really want to read James Saslow's Ganymede in the Renaissance : homosexuality in art and society, but I'm not making much headway. And I've read over half the essays in Constructing Christopher Marlowe, but because I haven't read all his plays and poems yet (I'm still torn between the A & B texts of Faust), I'll probably return this unfinished as well. [If you're at all interested in Marlowe biography, I recommend reading the free sample chapter available online. It's in Adobe Acrobat format, and has been rendered unprintable, but it is useful in separating fact from fiction.] And remember -- this is my pleasure reading.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering. Am I the only one in my circle of friends who really gets excited about the U.S. Supreme Court? I don't recall when it started, but I really enjoy journalistic reports (and transcripts, to a lesser extent) of the oral arguments, and I've read several decisions (mostly to respond to flame wars) and they're surprisingly lucid. I actually have favorite Supreme Court reporters, who I can identify by name and magazine, and I've even followed one when she moved to a different newspaper. [I even know that the court reporters can't actually see the bench from where they sit, so a strategically placed court officer uses hand signals to indicate which justice is speaking, in case the reporters haven't learned to recognize them by voice.] I think Constitutional law has a similar appeal to me as Talmudic debates -- it's just fun unravelling the tangled semantics and stretching things to their logical conclusion. Like many people I know, I'm attracted to intelligence, and whether or not you like their politics, the Supreme Court is certainly a great place to gawk. Some of the Justices have great senses of humor. I mean, Scalia has actually quoted "West Side Story" in his official decisions:

Tony, a member of the Jets criminal street gang, is standing alongside and chatting with fellow gang members while staking out their turf at Promontory Point on the South Side of Chicago; the group is flashing gang signs and displaying their distinctive tattoos to passersby.
Officer Krupke, applying the Ordinance at issue here, orders the group to disperse.
After some speculative discussion (probably irrelevant here) over whether the Jets are depraved because they are deprived, Tony and the other gang members break off further conversation with the statement not entirely coherent, but evidently intended to be rude "Gee, Officer Krupke, krup you." A tense standoff ensues until Officer Krupke arrests the group for failing to obey his dispersal order.
Even assuming (as the Justices in the majority do, but I do not) that a law requiring obedience to a dispersal order is impermissibly vague unless it is clear to the objects of the order, before its issuance, that their conduct justifies it, I find it hard to believe that the Jets would not have known they had it coming.

-- Chicago v. Morales

I mean, that's funny! And, although this was a long roundabout way of getting to the point, I found Dahlia Lithwick's reporting on the Supreme Court oral arguments regarding cross-burning to be extremely entertaining, and I strongly recommend folks reading my journal open the link and give it a try. Let me know if it amuses you as much as it does me.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:25 PM

<exhausted>Whew! Classes are over for the year.

Now, I'm back to one of my other laments -- repeat after me, IASAG! I now have time for pleasure reading, so what's on my plate? I just started Christopher Marlowe: a Renaissance life. I also got all excited this morning to discover that another book I've been wanting to read -- King James & letters of homoerotic desire -- has finally left cataloging and is on the new book shelves at the Athenaeum. [Yes, I've been keeping an eye on that book's availability. I noticed the library acquired it as I was about to finally submit a purchase recommendation for it.] And I was sorely tempted this morning to detour there after class solely to pick it up.

Meanwhile, I'm still in the middle of Elizabethan progress : the Queen's journey into East Anglia, 1578 and have been browsing through the very funny Indexers and indexes in fact and fiction. And I'd like to find time to read Nicholas Orme's Medieval children... And boy, those books probably sound really boring to anybody who's not inside my skull. As I said before, IASAG.

I don't think I'll actually reach my goal of averaging a book every other day for the year, but these interest me more than trying to cram in a bunch of kids books for the record. [Although I am tempted to end the year on Alison Weir's Henry VIII just for the symmetry, since my first book of the year was her biography of Elizabeth.]

However, that's all for another time. On my way home from class, I stopped at the Melrose Public Library and picked up the video of Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone (why bother paying for a rental; the library is your friend -- particularly when you keep checking the web-based online catalog to ensure they've got a copy on shelf) to watch tonight. And then we can go see the new Harry Potter movie in the theaters tomorrow night. Sounds like a fun plan.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:10 AM

Well, I think I just wrote a pretty lousy paper. I could defend myself by pointing out that I changed topics rather late and I could've/should've spent more time on it, but it all boils down to the same result. I love the class; I love the teacher and the discussion and my classmates, but I'm just feeling burned out. In the last six months (since June) I have taken 16 credits of graduate level courses. [A Master's degree requires 36 credits; full-time courses are worth 4.] Maybe I just need a short break from academia to let my brain recharge (at least until my next class begins in January).

I'll be taking twelve credits in the spring in order to graduate. One course is being taught in one 40-hour workweek schedule, and although I'm not certain, I don't think that class will require much in the way of papers. [I've heard nothing but rave reviews for the class from past students.] And I already know that the other class will have a heavy workload, but the assignments are more in the form of large projects, rather than analysis and paper writing as in my current class.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to rest my brain a little bit. I still think I'm going to try to write and sell a freelance editorial opposing privatization of the Post Office. I'm also going to focus even more sharply on finding a job. And I'll try to relax my mind by reading some less-challenging works... such as the new biography of Christopher Marlowe I got from the library... before trying to get a jump and reading ahead for my spring classes.

I suppose "rest" is a relative term.

At any rate, I don't think I will be posting this paper to my Writing page. However, here's one discovery that really disturbed me (and maybe it was chasing down this fact that sidetracked everything else):

I suppose this falls into line with my opinions on Michael Moore: don't lie on my behalf. When it's exposed, it makes it that much harder to convince people. It also personally bugs me because I've quoted some of the authors who supported Aries, meaning I may have been misled as well.

This also raises a question in my mind about history and historians, and wondering when and whether this was some kind of fad in the field.

Although I haven't read all of Aries, he postulated that parents considered children more akin to smaller adults, and families were much less attached by loving bonds as we are today. Until somehow, something happened in the 16th Century or so to transform households into something closer to our modern experiences. As I say above, Nicholas Orme's new book Medieval children (which looks positively fascinating) debunks that -- blows it out of the water completely.

Alan Bray's Homosexuality in Rennaisance England (which I read back in January) makes a similar postulate. Way back when, everyone (or at least all men)was bisexual, and though sodomy was a big scary bad no-no, folks didn't recognize their own actions or that of their neighbors as vile sodomy. Only by the 17th century, when there were distinct subcultures and gathering-places in big cities, did people actually recognize homosexuality as the other.

Well, Michael B. Young completely discredits that theory in his excellent book King James & the history of homosexuality (which I've read twice this year and really need to own a copy of). Once again, the awareness and subtlety and orientations of Elizabethans were much closer to those of our own time.

But when Young talks about Bray's work, he references another historian (whose name escapes me at the moment) who theorized that marriages in medieval times were loveless and strictly business transactions, and again some miraculous change came about to make them the loving havens we have and/or aspire to today. [I'll look up the name later, because apparently Bray acknowledges gaining inspiration from this other author's work.]

Now, I know it would be foolish and naive to believe that nothing ever changes about human nature. But still... What's with this belief that our ancestors were aliens incapable of loving attachments!? Anybody who's studied history care to explain the rationales behind these theories to me?

Posted by Lis Riba at 3:30 AM

Apparently the Bush administration is now talking about privatizing the Post Office. I don't have time this minute to neaten it all up into a clean essay, but I've written against this issue two years ago. This article and this followup give my reasons why privatizing the Post Office is a bad idea.

Hmm. Maybe after I finish my class, I'll edit these into an editorial and try to sell it to one of the local papers...

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:50 AM

Well, it looks like the Trent Lott story is finally making headway in the mainstream press -- after Lott's non-apologetic apology, that is. The top of the latest Drudge Report has the exclamation "LOTT SAID IT BEFORE" in <font size="+7"> above the page title. Somehow, I think this story may finally start to snowball, even if it did take nearly a week for the mainstream press to notice.

Meanwhile, I'm rather amused by today's New York Times letter column. To wit:

Mr. Lott apologized "to anyone who was offended" by his statement. Should we presume that he sees no reason to disavow the beliefs of those people who heartily agree with his endorsement of Mr. Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign?

I really hate those non-apology apologies: 'I'm sorry if anyone was offended by my remarks.' Yeah, usually I am too, but that kind of statement doesn't show any regret for what you did, just sorrow that you were caught.

In other news, today's Salon Premium has an interview with Bill Maher. [Available to subscribers or for one day access through this special offer.] Though I don't always agree with him, I do admire his willingness to take an unpopular stand. And he's generally honest about it, too, unlike Michael Moore who's too casual about facts and has demonstrated a willingness to lie and distort to make his political points. Even though I agree with Moore on some issues, I've begun to think of him as the boy who cried wolf and no longer trust his pronouncements until I can get independent verification from more reliable sources. He may not be as bad as Ann Coulter, but I find the imperfect truth to be much more compelling than perfect deceptions.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:55 AM

My college friend Goljerp made an interesting point in his journal this morning. Paraphrasing, he asks "What is this journal for?" And it's a question I've been asking myself as well. I don't have time to address it here and now, but it's something I'm thinking about and hope to write more on later. [I did post a spur-of-the-moment response to Goljerp's journal, which you can read here.]

Meanwhile, my paper is going okay. I've changed my topic to Censoring cyberspace for children, and I find some of it rather disturbing. Neither side is basing their arguments on good science or good history. I find easily refutable (or already refuted) facts on both sides, and sometimes the same experiment is used to justify opposite conclusions. Very frustrating, when everything comes down to one's personal bias. I find it particularly disturbing to dig into arguments that I've used in the past to discover their basis is suspect. In the end, it all seems to boil down to anecdotal evidence as shaped by personal bias. And (in a quote that I can't find original authorship for) "The plural of anecdote is not data."

I'm still having intermittent trouble with my broadband connection (no links to earlier entries which elaborate because I can't connect to my journal at the moment -- suffice it to say, I keep getting this page). Meanwhile, because AT&T Broadband is increasing its prices, I've got until the end of the month to decide what to do about that. I really don't like paying more for sucky service. In the end, it may boil down to whether Earthlink's technical support is more technically competent and willing to help with firewalls.

But more on this, too, later...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:35 AM

It seems like the entire Democratic party is asleep at the switch.

For those who don't follow the news blogs, last week Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead we wouldn't of had all these problems over all these years, either." Strom Thurmond ran on a segregationist ticket, meaning that Lott was saying that most problems over the last fifty years can be traced back to racial integration.

The blogosphere has been all over this. Joshua Micah Marshall has written countless pieces on this. So has the normally conservative Glenn Reynolds. And both point out countless other Republican bloggers who have spoken out on the issue. But the mainstream press has been competely silent on the issue. Even supposedly liberal outlets like NPR and CNN haven't spoken out on the issue. And the Democratic party has also been silent on this. This is really sad, and seems indicative of why the Democratic party has lost the Congressional races. Where's the fire? Where's the vitriol. The fact that the right wing echo chamber can fill the airwaves with rumors about how much Kerry spent on a haircut, without covering the fact that incoming Senate Majority Leader spoke against civil rights... It's just pitiful.

In an editorial in today's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne points out the lessons that Landrieu's victory in Louisiana gives to other Democrats: "The first lesson is that if you're a Democrat in the House or Senate, it doesn't matter how you vote or what you say or how patriotic you try to be. The Bush machine will try to smash you anyway. Consequently there is no percentage in making nice with this administration, especially after it showed its willingness this fall to politicize security issues. ... But Landrieu didn't just play the victim. She struck back hard. ... Losers allow their opponents to set the terms of the competition. Winners change the terms -- and, yes, fight back. That's Mary Landrieu's lesson to her party."

PS: With that in mind, a word to "Depressed Responder" who replied to my earlier political entry with such despair. I found this article by Geov Parrish to be rather helpful.

PPS: I really love my husband. I don't think I say that often enough.