Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:05 PM

Because I'm a little bit bored...

The Blogalyser reveals... Your blog/web page text has an overall readability index of 15. This suggests that your writing style is conventional (to communicate well you should aim for a figure between 10 and 20). Your text contains 236 sentences, which suggests your general message is distinguished by verbosity (writing for the web should be concise). CHARACTER MATRIX male female self world past future Your text shows characteristics which are 60% male and 40% female (for more information see the Gender Genie). Looking at pronoun indicators, you write mainly about yourself, then the world in general and finally your social circle. Also, your writing focuses primarily on the present, next the future and lastly the past. Find out what your blogging style is like!

85%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I Scored a 100%!

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:37 PM

So, we caught Henry IV this afternoon.

It was a perfectly serviceable production. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing particularly inspired, either.

Shakespeare told a good story, and they gave a reasonable showing.

A nice easy afternoon-in-the-park -style Shakespeare. It was worth free. It was even worth the hour-long drive each way.

If you're on the South Shore, it's an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. It will also be playing one show in Sanders Theatre in Harvard Square for those who live farther away.

Afterwards, we took a sidetrip on the way home to Jordan's Reading.

Signs said that all today's showings of Harry Potter were sold out, but when I got to the ticket booth, they said they had four tickets left to the midnight showing.

So, I scooped up 25% of their remaining inventory, and will catch that in just over four hours...

That's been most of my day.

How're you?

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:54 AM

From the front page of this morning's Boston Globe:

  In the past few weeks, Warner's London legal office has sent e-mails to booksellers and party organizers around the country, warning them against unauthorized celebrating, under the threat of legal action. "[Your event] appears to fall outside our guidelines," said one e-mail. "Therefore, HARRY POTTER cannot be used as a theme for your event."
  Warner Bros. says it's only trying to protect young Potter fans from inappropriate, non-family-friendly celebrating. But to many booksellers, it looks like an excessive effort to make sure no one benefits financially from its trademarks.
  "It strikes everybody as heavy-handed," said Steve Fischer, executive director of the New England Independent Booksellers Association. "It seems to me they're missing the good-faith piece of what bookstores are trying to do, which is to sell a lot of copies of a children's book."
     <snip>
  Before they could receive their copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," booksellers had to sign a contract with Scholastic. Besides agreeing to keep the books secure until 12:01 a.m. Saturday, they had to agree to a list of guidelines, mainly focused on keeping them from straying beyond the publisher's rights. One item says, "Please ensure that you keep to our policy: that the book marketing campaign should be separate and distinct from the Warner Bros. film campaign and licensed merchandise programs" -- meaning neither images from the movies nor Harry Potter products can be used to promote the book.
  It's the section about parties that has booksellers grumbling. Most of the points are uncontroversial -- parties must be decent and safe, nonpolitical, held no earlier or later than 24 hours from the release hour. Other conditions have taken some booksellers by surprise: "No fees are charged for admission or any activities at the event . . . no third parties are associated with the event in any way . . . the event is small-scale, local, non commercial, not-for-profit."
     <snip>
  Last week Jennifer Saphier , an event producer running "Potterpalooza" in Brookline's Coolidge Corner, got an e-mail from Warner Bros., objecting that the event was too big and too commercial. The event, a benefit for the Brookline Teen Center Fund, includes sponsorship and participation of 18 local businesses, including Brookline Booksmith . Saphier said the planning committee has discussed the e-mail, and she said the event will not defy the guidelines. She declined to specify the changes, if any.
     <snip>
  Some booksellers [. . .] are taking a "don't ask-don't tell" approach, assuming the corporations can't investigate every party in America. Still others are determined not to let the policing spoil the fun.

No mention of the Harvard Square extravaganza.

I sure as hell hope they don't tone it down, consequences be damned.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:10 AM

FYI, I posted a huge mess of updates to Bard in Boston yesterday, if you're interested in what's going on in the local Shakespeare scene this summer.

This afternoon at 2pm, we're going to see the first performance of Henry IV by Industrial Theatre down in Taunton.

I've also got to look at the list of other plays and figure out which I'm going to see and when, and arrange to get tickets...

Play	by	Company	Opens	in	Location
A Midsummer Night's Dream	by	Commonwealth Shakespeare Company	July 24	in	Boston
Romeo & Juliet	by	Publick Theatre	July 26	in	Brighton
Anthony & Cleopatra	by	Shakespeare & Company	July 27	in	Lenox
Richard III	by	Redfeather Theatre	August 1	in	Worcester

For tonight, I think I'm going to catch the midnight showing of the Harry Potter movie at the nearby IMAX 3D (in Reading), because all more reasonably-timed showings have been sold out, because I want to see it before reading Book Seven next weekend, and because I've had to skip over too many friends' blog entries to avoid spoilers.

How 'bout you? What are you doing this weekend?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 PM

[I'm hoping I've gotten my DNS kinks worked out, but I'm nervous about making a post to that effect in case I'm wrong...]

Will you be purchasing Harry Potter: Book 7 at one of the midnight book sales?

If so, which bookstore will you be going to?

When Book 6 came out, we were in Lenox to see Shakespeare.

Books 4 and 5 we bought at Curious George Goes to Wordsworth in Harvard Square.

A recent Boston Herald article lists a few other local options, and the leading contenders appear to be:

Potterpalooza: 8 p.m., 279 Harvard St. (at Beacon Street), Coolidge Corner, Brookline; 617-566-6660. Coolidge Corner's indoor and outdoor street festival will raise more of a ruckus than the Quidditch World Cup. Dance at a Hogwarts' Yule Ball, feast on Potter-themed menus at local restaurants and speculate with fellow fans about Harry's fate before picking up your copy of the book at midnight at Brookline Booksmith. Muggle clothes allowed, wizard robes encouraged.

and

The Best Harry Potter Party EVER!: 5 p.m., Harvard Square, Cambridge; harvardsquare.com. Before their careers become footnotes in "Hogwarts: A History," local bands Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys and the Hungarian Horntails will rock Harvard Yard, rechristened Hogwarts Yard for the occasion. The square will be transformed into Diagon Alley, where wizards will queue up for the latest Nimbus brooms, batches of butter beer, copies of "Deathly Hallows" from the Harvard Book Store, Harvard COOP and Curious George Goes to Wordsworth.

And a Boston.com events search shows other area events, including The Book Rack in Arlington (Ooh! "The first chapter read aloud before midnight"), and even Guard Up! fencing school...

I know Pandemonium is doing a 16+ special event (which really should be listed on these sites and on their homepage!), but there's something heartening about seeing so many small kids so excited over a book.

I definitely prefer supporting locally owned stores over the big chains, whereever possible.

Anyway, are you going to a Harry Potter release party?

If so, where? Also, did you pre-order your book, or will you buy it that night?

PS: Ooh, special menu @ Upstairs on the Square, and Grendels and Graftons will have more adult-oriented drinks... That sounds promising...

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:35 AM

Via Suburban Guerrilla:

Telling Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor not to testify is an apparent felony, according to a TPM reader:

Invoking a privilege is one thing, but telling a person not to show up in response to a subpoena -- if only to actually invoke the privilege -- is quite another. It's not just worse, it's a felony under federal criminal law. See for yourself.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : ... Whoever corruptly ... influences, obstructs, or impedes ... the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress ... [s]hall be fined under this title, [or] imprisoned not more than 5 years ... or both.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1515(b): As used in section 1505, the term "corruptly" means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including ... withholding, [or] concealing ... information.

At what point does felonious behavior rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors?

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:15 PM

This really does sum up the fundamental unAmerican nature of the Bush administration:

Somebody needs to forcibly remind everyone associated with this administration that they are public servants, and not above the law.

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:50 PM

The social sciences look at Facebook:

• The Psychology of Social Computing: What Best Explains the Success of Facebook?
• danah boyd's Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace
  • for further comments, see her blog entry,
  • also, Henry Jenkins' observations

Two comic strips skewering Wikipedia, by Wondermark and xkcd:

Meanwhile, Charlie Stross tries unpacking the zeitgeist, trying to translate a news item that (he feels) encapsulates "thirty years' worth of future shock."
The comment thread is worth reading, as not everyone agrees...

Finally (catching up on some of the links I've been accumulating while my server was down) via Wil Wheaton, Patton Oswalt makes an interesting distinction:

Wired: There's a great line on your new album, Werewolves: "My geekiness is getting in the way of my nerdiness." What's the distinction?

Oswalt: A lot of nerds aren't aware they're nerds. A geek has thrown his hands up to the universe and gone, "I speak Klingon — who am I fooling? You win! I'm just gonna openly like what I like." Geeks tend to be a little happier with themselves.

I can go with that...

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:30 PM

Just over two years ago, I heard the rumors of this film project, but then silence.

Hitting the big screens October 12:

A sequel to the 1998 Oscar-nominated film.

This one focuses on her relationships with Walter Raleigh and with the Spanish and will include the Armada battle!

The official website is up, and you can even watch the 2.5 minute trailer there (very teeny) or on Yahoo! Movies or YouTube (embedded below).

Yes, yes, I know the original movie's history is eminently sporkable, and I can already see [I hope the trailer is just compressing audio and images for dramatic effect, and the film doesn't actually suggest that the Armada intended to put Mary Stewart on the throne, since her execution was what precipitated the Armada.] On the other hand, I'm fairly certain I recognize John Dee in the trailer.

And since Ian started griping over the naval tactics in POTC, I've been thinking that the Armada battle would be well-suited to the current state of movie visual effects.

Speaking of forthcoming films, the trailer for the new Get Smart is making the rounds and looks promising.

And how about a remake of Sleuth by Kenneth Branagh to star Michael Caine and Jude Law? [trailer]

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:31 AM

Arachnophobes may wish to skip the rest of this entry.

Heading for the door this morning, I happened to pick up a moderately-intriguing looking junk-mail flier. And it was a good thing I did.

Because, as I walked towards the car, I spotted a small spider sitting about chest-high in the center of the sidewalk, midway between the hedges. I couldn't see any support, but assumed (s)he had spun a web somewhere between the bushes.

I pulled out the junkmail and made slicing motions above and to the right of the spider, and it swung away out-of-sight.

Then, before getting into the car, I noticed another spider -- this one tiny like a red pinprick -- building a web between the steering wheel and the headlight/cruise-control [photo].

Again, I used the flier to extract the spider and remove the web, depositing both on the driveway.

Still, busy little... bees... last night.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:18 PM

In the pile of mail awaiting our return was Brattle Theatre's forthcoming schedule, and they've got a few flicks I think I might want to see.

To tie into a recent documentary about summer camp, they're holding a late night Camp Camp! series, which will include Meatballs at 9:30 pm on Sunday August 12th. I haven't seen the movie in decades -- and then, only on the small screen -- and Ian's never seen it at all. Anyone else interested?

Also catching my eye is their Tuesday night series, Barbara Stanwyck: Maybe I Am Just A Dame, particularly these:

Tuesday, July 17

Ball of Fire at 7:15, 9:30:
(1941) dir Howard Hawks w/Stanwyck, Gary Cooper; Screenplay by Charles Bracket & Billy Wilder [111 min]

"I love him because he doesn't know how to kiss, the jerk!" A gangster's mistress goes on the lam and winds up in the care of seven professors who are working on an encyclopedia entry about modern slang. The film is a veritable showcase for Stanwyck, who uses her rapid-fire delivery and streetwise smolder to play off the befuddled Cooper in this uproarious screwball comedy. — BAM Cinematek

Tuesday, August 14

The Lady Eve at 3:30, 7:30:
(1941) dir Preston Sturges w/Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn [97 min]

"I need him like the axe needs the turkey." In Preston Sturges's masterpiece of screwball comedy, boyish herpetologist/brewery heir Henry Fonda seems like an easy mark for father-and-daughter con artists Charles Coburn and Barbara Stanwyck. But Stanwyck wasn't supposed to fall in love with Fonda after fleecing him. Spurned by the burned Fonda, Stanwyck takes on the persona of "Lady Eve Sidwich" to win his heart again. — AFI Silver Theatre

The Mad Miss Manton at 5:30, 9:30:
(1938) dir Leigh Jason w/Stanwyck, Henry Fonda [80 min]

Flighty heirous Melsa Manton's discovery of a dead body is decried as a prank by newspaperman Peter Ames (Fonda) and the police don't believe her. What else is a girl to do but gather a crack team of other debutantes to investigate the murder! This delicious screwball mystery pits Stanwyck vs Fonda in their first comedic match up.

Sound like fun?

I can't make the earlier showings (a girl's gotta earn a living) but I hope to catch these, if time and memory permit.

PS: Here's the rest of the series, if anyone wants to know:

1. Jul 17: Ball of Fire
2. Jul 24: Ladies of Leisure & Ten Cents a Dance
3. Jul 31: Sorry, Wrong Number
4. Aug 7: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers & The File on Thelma Jordon
5. Aug 14: The Lady Eve & The Mad Miss Manton
6. Aug 21: All I Desire & There's Always Tomorrow
7. Aug 28: Walk on the Wild Side & The Night Walker

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:54 PM

Facebook is clearly geared towards a younger audience.

In the "Friend Details" which describe how you know the other person, the closest possible relationship with someone you dated is "Practically married."

What about people who are actually married?

Individual Profiles allow a status of "Married" and you can even describe another Facebook user as your spouse. So why isn't this also applied to the Friend List?

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 AM

Who spent probably twenty hours on the phone with Microsoft tech support this weekend, without yet resolving the problem.

[Isn't that one of the circles of hell?]

[This is an abbreviated version of the song; I'm still looking for a complete copy.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:59 PM

Read only two books cover-to-cover while I was abroad: Susan Dunant's In the company of the courtesan, and Innocent traitor, the first novel by historian Alison Weir, about Lady Jane Grey.

The latter's made me hungry for more nonfiction about Grey, to separate the facts from the myths.

Thru his comments in Jane's Wikipedia entry, I stumbled upon J. Stephan Edwards:

His 2006 dissertation is entitled: "Jane the Quene": New Evidence and New Perspectives on Lady Jane Grey, England's Nine-Days Queen. That dissertation is being re-written as a book and shopped around among academic and scholarly publishers. Publication will not occur before the summer or autumn of 2007.
     ...
His forthcoming biographical study of Jane Grey questions the legend or myth of Jane Grey as it has been presented by such recent authors as Hester Chapman, Mary Luke, Alison Plowden, and Faith Cook. The study sets the legend aside and begins anew using only primary source materials. It situates Jane Grey in her own historical context: an aristocratic young woman living in a patriarchal society undergoing sweeping social, political, cultural, and religious change. Some of the conclusions reached directly contradict the "received wisdom" about Jane Grey. It is expected that the work will be controversial among Jane fans, as it presents a "new" Jane Grey who is somewhat less saint-like than popular, non-academic historians would have her be.

[source]

Dammit! I want to read that now!

Oh, I also started reading Michael Chabon's latest, The Yiddish policemen's union, but it hasn't grabbed me the way it did Ian, so I'm setting it down for the moment.
Given the similar outline of standard genre mysteries warped thru an AU lens, focusing on alternate Jewry, I think there's an essay (or at least blog post) comparing and contrasting YPU with Jo Walton's Farthing.

Saw signs in UK bookstores for a fifth Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde: First among sequels. Unfortunately, the bookstores we visited had no copies, given our timing between the hardcover and paperback releases. However, it looks like the US edition is coming out in the next two weeks.

Just remembered that Elizabeth Bear's Whiskey & water (sequel to Blood & iron) hit shelves while I was out. Have to pick that up...

And, of course, the big book news on my reading list is the imminent release of the final Harry Potter novel.

This is it; end of the line, what everything's been building towards.

Have to figure out from which local bookstore I'll purchase it. [Will any other books I read inspire midnight line-around-the-block opening nights?]

And for anybody interested in the original-language British edition, the UK publisher offers children's editions and adult editions.

BTW, two nights before I dreamed I obtained the book and read it. If these are spoilers, I may need to reconsider lottery tickets, but the story concluded with a schmoopy Harry/Draco romance. Somehow, I don't think JKR is going there.

Mind you, last night's dreams were inspired by this Harry/Draco fic (which has a really cool premise) which I'd read just before bed...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:30 PM

Now that my travels are over, I can stop reading travel planning books geared towards providing context to what I might be seeing. [See my books read list for an idea of what this entails.]

Instead, my interest has shifted to books that will elaborate upon what it is I've actually seen. :}

At any rate, I stopped at the library over lunch Friday, and picked up three novels:

• The Birth of Venus by Susan Dunant. I found a Bookcrossing copy of her In the company of the courtesan in Trieste (which I finished on the plane home) and was curious to read more of her work. Both seem to be of the genre "behind-the-scenes of famous paintings" but I'm interested in the particular periods and locales, so that's not such a bad thing if the research is decent.
   
• Artemisia by Alexandra Lapierre, translated by Liz Heron: this wasn't a loan, but a purchase, from the library's $2 booksale.
   
• Also, The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. Given the possible differing interpretations of fictionalized biographies, I thought it might be a good idea to pick up two to compare.
  Don't know which I'll read first, but I want more than a single source... Recommendations on either would be appreciated.

On a related note, I caught a couple stills from the film of Philippa Gregory's novel, The Other Boleyn Girl and am wondering whether the book's worth reading.

Several summaries have noted that the book erroneously chose to make Mary Boleyn younger than her sister Anne.

Can anybody who's read (or attempted) the book let me know if it's worth reading, or if historical inaccuracies will make me want to spork my eyes out?

Thanks!

PS: After writing the above, and before I was able to post it, I discovered Tina Olsin Lent's essay in the latest issue of Literature Film Quarterly, titled "My Heart Belongs to Daddy: the fictionalization of Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi in contemporary film and novels."

An excerpt:

"Artemisia fictions" go even further in conflating her art and life. Combining the narrative conventions of the fictional Kunstlerroman, the fictionalized autobiography, and the non-fictional artist monograph, the "Artemisia fictions" center their narratives on the rape and trial, defining these as the causal events of her life story, thereby accommodating contemporary tastes for sensationalized historical subjects whose lives are embedded in narrative. In fact, the popularity of fictionalizing Artemisia Gentileschi's life may rest on the ease by which it could be molded to popular conventions. By exaggerating the emotional aspects of her life they reinforce familiar ties between creativity and passion, reiterate women's creativity as exceptional and the result of male influence, as well as resonate with contemporary desires for emotional relevance and accessibility. The dominant thematic by which the "Artemisia fictions" intensify the already charged emotions of her story and move beyond a "mere" tale of rape is by their separation of sex (associated with Tassi) from the scandalous, "real" love story -- that of Orazio and Artemisia Gentilcschi, father and daughter, master and student.

And prior to Vreeland's novel, Laura Benedetti's Reconstructing Artemisia: Twentieth-Century Images of a Woman Artist.

Hmm.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:15 PM

Does anybody have a copy of "The Gates" by Da Vinci's Notebook?

I feel a need to play it for someone.