Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:05 AM

No photos this week, but here are a couple links and a poem:

First, I've read several entertaining accounts about close encounters between cats and Roombas (robotic vacuums) Two of the wittier come from Takhisis and Tomato Nation (here's the second part). Google on cat+Roomba for other people's stories. [If you find any particular gems, please share them with me.]

BTW, the corporation that makes Roomba (iRobot -- I love their name!) will be releasing a "Scooba" this Xmas for mopping and vacuuming hardwood floors...

Secondly, I fell in love with this poem when I first read it, and simply feel impelled to share it:

"To My Cat with an Eating Disorder"
by Alice N. Persons

You were thrown out of a moving vehicle
on a dirt road
in chilly winder downeast Maine,
little fur scrap, and I hope you don't
carry that memory with you,
but the hunger, the deep fear
that you'll never see food again
is still there five years later
when you are huge and sleek,
a sumo Buddha of a cat.

I've seen you, after a big meal,
heave yourself from a sound sleep,
pad into the kitchen, launch your bulk
onto the counter, and check the food supply,
then crouch there chewing and chewing,
green eyes empty, concentrating
on your burden, your compulsion,
doggedly eating, whether you want to or not.

There are stories about Holocaust or
Depression survivors whose refrigerators
and pantries are always full, just in case,
how some of them still wake in the night
and check their abundant supplies,
run their hands over the packages,
or eat without hunger, just because they can.

Cat, I stand in the dark kitchen
stroking your broad back,
wishing I could banish the fears
of one small, common creature,
those bad dreams that awaken you,
that hollow place in your memory
which can never be filled.

Boopsie was found on a suburban sidewalk, and has developed a healthier relationship with food over the last few years, but otherwise it's a quite evocative and accurate description.

Hope you enjoy these as much as I have. Have a pleasant Friday and a great weekend!

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:45 PM

The third and final production of the Actors' Shakespeare Project is underway in Central Square, Cambridge and runs through Friday. Though I can partly blame a housefire and computer problems, I feel horribly negligent in not getting my review posted until now.

Owen Doyle as Shakespeare

Like many Americans, I read Julius Caesar in high school, but I don't think I've ever seen it performed before. And as with most of Shakespeare's plays, it is so much better on stage than read...

As you walk in to find your seat, you will notice Shakespeare himself (or a reasonable facsimile) in the center of the room busily writing away. As showtime nears, other castmembers wander out to join him. They begin riffing on the more famous lines of the play, including some preliminary identifications of the major characters ("Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look") and repetition of the word "blood" in all its myriad appearances. It's playful and fun and strips away some of the fear and formality associated with the text. It's so engaging that it's hard to tell when the freeform ends and Act I begins.

Of the fourteen cast members, all but four actors portray multiple roles.

In a most interesting directorial choice, the soothsayer and Artemidorus are played by Owen Doyle as Shakespeare (picture), giving the audience a sense of otherworldly veracity to their warnings, even if the other characters are blind to their significance.

As the title character, Greg Steres straddled power and weakness, making it clear why he was a good ruler and why he shouldn't retain the crown. Benjamin Evett as Cassius pushed the play along, deftly playing his fellow Senators into his conspiracy.

Dorian Christian Baucum plays a Marc Antony I can (and hope to) see pairing off with Cleopatra a few years down the road. The combination of charm and ruthlessness felt almost fey.

Robert Walsh is the highlight of the show. His Brutus is truly "the noblest Roman" of the play. I was particularly touched by the scene between Brutus and his wife (Act II, Scene 1). I found a similar domestic scene between Caesar and Calpurnia (Act II, Scene 2) also quite affecting.

Coming into the theater, I was most curious how they would handle two particular scenes: the assassination and the famous "Friends, Romans, countrymen." The assassination was disturbingly effective, mostly staged in slow motion. Kudos to the fight choreographer, Ted Hewlett. Antony's speech was discomfiting in a different way, watching expert demagoguery sway the mobs this way and that.

Following that scene, the director gives a tantalising glimpse of Gus Kelley as a classically handsome Octavius, before raising the lights on intermission.

I have few criticisms of the performance itself. My biggest problem was the thunder effects during the storm were too loud. Not only did they drown out some of the dialog, but it sometimes was almost painful. Still, I saw an early performance, so they may have worked that out since.

I'll confess, I wasn't expecting to enjoy Julius Caesar, not due to any weakness in this company (who have a uniformly great track record), but from grim memories of English class. After all, one reason Caesar is such a standard in the schools is because it lacks much of the bawdy fun humor that I enjoy most about the Bard, but teachers and parents find uncomfortable in the classroom.

As this review describes, I did enjoy it, but I feel increasingly convinced that it's less than suitable for the schools. It may have been more appropriate when kids studied more classical history, so it could tie into other lessons, but Julius Caesar is a play about mature adults coping with the problems and issues adults must wrestle with. As an adult, I'm enthralled by it, but aside from the lesson in avoiding demagoguery, I don't see it as relevant or interesting for kids.

Playing until Friday at the Cambridge YMCA. Running time: slightly over two and a half hours, with one fifteen minute intermission. Showtimes and ticket information at ActorsShakespeareProject.org. I strongly recommend it.

I prithee, boy, run to the Cambridge Y;
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone

By the way, ASP has already announced next season's schedule: King Lear, Twelfth Night, and All's Well that Ends Well. I can hardly wait.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:20 PM

Speaking of Firefly, if new episodes were created straight for DVD, would you buy them?

FireflyMovie.com/DirectDVD.html is taking names:

  Very shortly after Firefly was canceled and before the sets were torn down, my company visited with both Mutant Enemy and Fox Home Entertainment and proposed a way to save the show via a direct to DVD subscription model. In spite of having multiple plausible solutions, the capability to execute them, and a subscriber list numbering in the thousands, we received a lukewarm response to the idea. Mutant Enemy (Joss's company), was more interested than Fox, but Fox owned the rights, so ME's hands were tied.
  Several months after our meetings, the producers of the hit Fox television show '24' announced an 8 episode spin-off of '24' that will be produced exclusively to be sold on DVD. This is exciting news and once proven successful could very easily lead to bringing our favorite show back to the small screen.
[...]
  If anybody at Fox or Mutant Enemy is reading this, our company is still very interested in dealing with all of the details and headaches of a direct to DVD model. All we need is a green light. We will find up front investors/advertisers, build and maintain the mailing list, and create/replicate/distribute the DVDs. I'm certainly not saying we are the only company that can do all this, but we are ready and willing.
[...]
  If you would be interested in purchasing NEW episodes of Firefly direct on DVD please fill out the following form.

And, if anybody influential happens to be reading this, don't forget my modest proposal for a pilot-only DVD as a low-cost way to attract new viewers...

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:15 PM

The Hogwarts sorting hat makes a fun personality tool, as demonstrated by the number of quizzes floating around the web.

Sometimes just for fun, I like to try my hand at sorting historical figures or fictional characters from other universes.

It works to varying degrees (I gave up on sorting the Bartimaeus trilogy because everyone was Slytherin), but occasionally offers surprising insight.

So, without further ado:

The Firefly crew sorted into Hogwarts houses:

Mal:	Hufflepuff	He's all about the loyalty and just mindin' his business.
Zoe:	Hufflepuff	One of her primary motivations is loyalty towards Mal.
Jayne:	Slytherin	Along the lines of Crabbe and Goyle.
Kaylee:	Hufflepuff	She's devoted to the ship and to the crew as "family."
Wash:	???	Was more interested in finding an opening on the Quidditch team than any other house traits.
Inara:	Ravenclaw	[Though she might've gone to Beauxbatons.]
Book:	Don't know.	Too much the man of mystery to determine. Could be any.
Simon:	Ravenclaw...	...but he was nearly sorted into Gryffindor.*
River:	originally Ravenclaw, but forcibly re-sorted into Sparklypoo before the first episode.

Most of the recurring background characters -- Badger, YoSaffBridg, Niska -- are Slytherin. Maybe that's one element that makes the series so interesting: a shipful of Hufflepuffs trying to get by in a Slytherin universe.

^* Minor Serenity spoiler hidden behind the grey-on-grey text: In the movie, Simon is a Gryffindor.

So, that's where I'd put 'em.

Feel free to disagree and add your own opinions.

The Harry Potter Lexicon is an excellent resource on the four Hogwarts houses and Sorting hat (please read the song lyrics about Hufflepuff before jumping down my throat!).

PS: Ian says the next step is sorting the characters into the houses of Steven Brust's Dragaeran Empire, but I'll leave that as an exercise for readers better versed in those works.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:30 AM

It's Wednesday, so time to check my Free Will Astrology horoscope.

I don't like the sound of this at all:

The state of New Hampshire's symbol used to be the Old Man of the Mountain. Carved from rock by a glacier 30,000 years ago, it was a series of granite ledges that jutted out of a mountain in the shape of an old man's face. It was a top tourist attraction, and its image appeared on numerous state souvenirs. But in May 2003, it collapsed overnight, weakened by millennia of freezing and thawing. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Cancerian, this event has resemblances to an imminent disintegration in your own life. Like the original, your experience might be sad, but mostly for nostalgic reasons. No one will get hurt, and ultimately you'll feel exhilarated as you pick a new symbol to inspire you.

Lovely. Just what I need right now...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:00 PM

Since I've been writing about fanfic (and since Ian's very generously granted me use of his computer this evening), I've updated my fanfic page and posted the first sequel vignette to last month's (NC-17 slash) Taken by surprise, which I've titled Tipping point.

Chronologically, it's about the fifth or sixth scene that follows "Taken" but it just happened to be the first one written. I'm quite satisfied with it and hate to keep it hidden away because I can't get my act together on the intervening scenes.

I think it manages to be comprehensible without them anyway.

The vignette is about 600 words long, primarily a dialog between Lucius Malfoy and Percy Weasley.

Anyway, without further ado: Tipping point

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:30 PM

Thirteen months ago, I had a dream set in the Harry Potter universe. The images and implications were so compelling, I eventually turned it into a work of fanfic: Taken by surprise (Warning: NC-17 slash).

Sunday night, I had another Harry Potter dream. I've promised myself I wouldn't start any new fanfics in the months leading up to Half-Blood Prince (only 45 days away!), to avoid having something so immediately invalidated by new canon.

Still, it's a nifty idea to noodle with, and I feel like sharing the outlines of it, (a) in case anybody knows of a similar story already in existance that I could read, (b) for people to step forward and say they'd like to read it (a useful incentive), and/or (c) if anybody wishes to adopt this plot bunny.

Here goes:

It's September 1st (Harry's 6th or 7th year), and Hogwarts has a surprising new ghost on the school grounds: Draco Malfoy. He died over the summer (not terribly forthcoming as to how) and has returned to haunt the school and his former classmates.

Moaning Myrtle is delighted to have another ghost close to her age, but Draco refuses to socialize with the other castle spirits, preferring to hang around (and pester) fellow students and staff.

This goes from disconcerting to problematic when Dumbledore begins to suspect that Draco is spying for Voldemort.

The Bloody Baron can generally keep his fellow ghosts in line, but Draco treats his death as only a temporary inconvenience. Can Voldemort can restore his body, or did Draco sacrifice his life under false pretenses?

Draco could be facing a long and disappointing afterlife if he was wrong.

What do you think?

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:25 PM

I originally gathered these links as a private followup to a recent conversation. But they were interesting enough (and posting has been so sparse) that I'm going to share them more widely:

Farah Mendlesohn is conducting a questionaire on SF reading habits and early influences to provide material for a book. I still haven't gotten around to filling out my own answers yet (I'll probably blog it when I do), but I think some of you have histories that I think would be interesting and helpful. If you want to share them with me, that would be fascinating, but sharing them with Farah would probably be better.

Meanwhile, the OED SF citations project proceeds apace in its effort to seek out the etymology and earliest citations of words related to science fiction with the intent of adding them to the Oxford English Dictionary. [I'd often wondered about semiprozine...]

For more mainstream linguaphiles, the OED also has their own Word of the Day, also available through e-mail, though surprisingly not on RSS yet. The word choices I've seen so far may not be as exotic or unfamiliar as Dictionary.com's, but they do give you etymologies and obscure historical definitions...

The latest additions to the OED were made March 10 and make a fascinating view of the evolution of the English language. New words include such diverse terms as Beantown (I hope they mean Boston!), davening (noun and adjective), grandkid, shroom, unibrow and uploading, along with lots of Indian dishes.

Officially unrelated to the Oxford English Dictionary is the online Limerictionary, otherwise known as The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form (OEDILF). For you Blackadder fans, they have 21 limerick definitions for aardvark.
But for sheer impressiveness, GrandfatherTrout takes the cake, with limericks for honorificabilitudinity and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Read 'em and weep!

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:01 AM

Margery Eagan's Thursday column began:

Yesterday we called around asking for the bright side of bad-weather stories. No one had any.

Well, we've got one.

We've also got a contractor working on our house, and making good time. [Don't want to say too much out of superstitious fear of jinxing things.]

Now this crew has a boatload of outdoor work that should be keeping them busy. But they can't do any of that when it's raining: they can only do indoor work in rainy weather, which, for them, means our house. The longer it rains, the more time and people devoted to making our house livable again.

So, I know all my fellow New Englanders are sick and tired of the rainy weather, but maybe if you think of it as speeding Ian and I back to our home (and to a good night's rest -- gd I hate hotel beds!) that will put a slightly rosier sheen to your outlook.

[So, does anyone have Margery Eagan's contact information?]