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Music Meme, Day 11

A song that reminds you of summertime:

The moment I read this, a completely inappropriate song - Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" - was right there in the front of my mind. I know why; I heard it during the summer between Grade 9 and Grade 10, when friction between my Granddad and me made my Mum and Nana decide to send me to stay with my Great Aunt Bobbie at her summer cottage in Shediac, New Brunswick.

There were a fair number of teens spending their summer at Shediac, and so I got a chance to do a lot of things which, while not completely inappropriate, did involve youthful parties with beer and dope. I managed to stay out of the kind of trouble that would have forced Bobbie to report on things back home. And "In the Summertime" was the song I remember most fondly, despite it being problematic these days.

Of course I got older, and learned other summer songs, not least of which were the many versions of Gershwin's Summertime - too many from which for me to choose for this meme.

There was one more summertime song that I fell in love with, and which I associate with my love of Bob and of my adopted city. (Those of you who know Bob may spot at least one of the reasons.) So I give you Summer In The City.

Watch on YouTube

Here are the previous days: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Mungo Jerry "In the Summertime"

minoanmiss

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: aggravated

starlady

I ran the Berkeley Half Marathon 10K again today. Contrary to my ambitions, my time this year was even slower than last year, although still more than 30 seconds/mile better than my worst-ever showing in 2022. I think part of it is that I really didn't put enough training in over the last month for various reasons. And yet my split times actually came down by nearly 10 seconds/mile over the course of the run per the tracking, which does seem to show that I've gotten better at the downhills.

So yeah, I'm not particularly satisfied with this result, but on the other hand I was once again physically pretty okay afterwards, not completely destroyed like I used to be. I haven't done a great job at integrating 8K or 10K runs into my training plans over the past year, so I think a clear goal is to start doing an 8K run regularly and ideally aim for a 10K once a month or so. And I've also bowed to the inevitable and acknowledged that my shoes really only last eight months at the outside--I bought a hardly used pair of shoes on eBay the other day so I'm looking forward to new ones.

I haven't gotten a race shirt since 2019 because I have more than enough running shirts, and amusingly now that's apparently old enough to qualify as vintage--one woman in the corral was asking me about the shirt, and another dude gave me a fist bump mid-race because we were both wearing the shirts. Pleasingly enough, the "loyal runner" gift this year was actually useful: a running hat that I wore in today's race. Previous gifts have been mostly...more T-shirts...which seems to defeat the purpose of not getting a race shirt.

One final bit of shenanigans: I left the bike station after parking my bike and the keypad went dark behind me. I figured I would deal with that after running the 10K, and the eventual answer (after "Someone else called about this earlier!") was "I dunno, no one's answering because it's Sunday." "Yes, a day of the week." (The entire premise of the bike station is 24/7 access to cardholders.) The dude swore up and down I would get a call back about the keypad status, which of course I didn't, so tomorrow I will have to call them because a) it's not difficult to get back down to the bike station, but I'm not making the trip unless I know I can retrieve my bike; and b) I want a refund of the money I've unwillingly spent on it being locked in there. Overall BikeLink is great! But the edge cases where there's a problem have, in my experience, been extremely annoying. Luckily I was able to call my roommate to come pick me up, so at least that worked out.

mecurtin posting in

fandom_checkin

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Sunday, November 16, to midnight on Monday, November 17 (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33841 Daily check-in poll

Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 18

How are you doing?

I am OK
11 (61.1%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now
7 (38.9%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
6 (35.3%)

One other person
7 (41.2%)

More than one other person
4 (23.5%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

watersword

Yesterday's treadmill session was the longest yet and incredibly boring, even with A Court of Fey and Flowers distracting me. I ended up with the beginning of a blister and no willpower left to resist the prospect of samosas and saag paneer at the Indian restaurant down the block, but honestly $45 for three meals is pretty reasonable.

And then I was awake from 4:30 to 6:30 and am not happy about it. But I made decent hash with fried eggs for breakfast and put the cast iron re-seasoning in the oven alongside a packet of garlic, and made a small pot of cranberry applesauce with red wine on the stove, and sent the robovac trundling around my bedroom, so I rescued my Sunday from a pretty dismal start.

Yet again I have to go to campus more than once this week, and this can only end badly.

sovay

My poem "The Avalon Procedure" has been accepted by Not One of Us. It is finally Arthuriana; it owes its title as well as a debt of argument to Bryher and the rest is diaspora and geology. I still have apples on my table from earlier, brighter this autumn, and their scent of sweet orchards and cooling earth. If you want in on the saddle-stapled pages of this enduringly black-and-white 'zine, I can only recommend it.

Current Music: MGMT, "Mother Nature"

luzula

I read some books!

What Fresh Hell Is This? by Heather Corinna (2021)
About perimenopause and menopause. Well, I guess I learned things? It did all feel like a huge and intimidating list of possible symptoms to get, and I don't know yet how it'll shake out for me. But I guess one advantage of knowing what's possible is that it will help me connect the dots when/if various things do happen.

A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by K J Charles (2023)
Hmm, hm. Meh. I thought I'd try something that's supposed to be self-indulgent, and this was certainly page-turney enough, but did not really zing for me. I can't tell if it's just that my reading is still far from my previous baseline, or whether this would not have been my favorite Charles in any case. Somehow I could not keep from comparing this to others of her books and seeing commonalities in the types of characters and relationships she often writes, and thus not being entirely able to see the characters as people of their own.

Not a book, but I thought the blog series Life, Work, Death, and the Peasant by the historian Bret Deveraux was interesting. It models the life and labor of pre-modern peasants, using sources from ancient Rome and medieval Europe. And I do mean modeling, trying to estimate such things as the number of pregnancies a woman would have on average, and the number of hours worked on various tasks. It really hammers home that while yes, I do live on a farm now, and I do over time want to try to produce more of the food we eat, there is so much labor pre-modern peasants did that I don't have to do. The amount of time women spent on textile production (mostly spinning) is unbelievable. And I didn't know the medieval spinning wheel is about three times more productive than the spindle of antiquity! Carrying water (back-breaking work!), washing by hand, etc. Obviously I knew people did these things by hand, but it's so interesting seeing estimates of the time it took.

I do think modern civilization is hugely wasteful of energy and materials, but can we not find some appropriate level of energy use and technology? Pumping water for household use, and spinning thread with machines: yes, great use of energy and technology. \o/ Mining bitcoins: nope, terrible use of energy and technology. /o\

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6890 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[Genshin Impact]

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #984.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

rhi

So, it's too warm here for how dark it gets so early, and the leaves are still on the trees so it clearly cannot be deer season yet much less time to worry about holiday presents. But, weirdly, my brain is in fall baking mode. :sighs: Brains, man.

Have an old recipe I adapted years ago, originally from The Spice Cookbook by Avanelle Day and Lillie Stuckey, which I highly recommend and can be found in ebook if nothing else. Also, oh my gods but the buttermilk powder from Bob's Red Mill is the most cost effective thing ever. One bag cost me about... 2 pints of liquid buttermilk? It has made a great deal more than that so far and is nowhere near empty.

Spiced Nut Bread

( Recipe below )

Hope y'all enjoy!

Current Mood: busy

rhi

Chapter ten is up! I will finish this damn novel yet!

Chapter ten is here; the entire story (novella at this point) is here if you need to reread from the start.

Now I'm gonna post a recipe I promised and then go back to work on it and hope to finish the damn thing in this next year. (Life, pls to quit throwing things like a new HVAC at me.)

Current Mood: accomplished

oursin

Last week's bread actually held out pretty well, though was rather dry by the end, however, that meant there was enough left to make a frittata with pepperoni for Friday night supper.

Saturday breakfast rolls: eclectic vanilla, which for an experiment I tried making with Marriage's Golden Wholegrain, fairly pleasant but I think nicer with strong white.

Today's lunch: bozbash, with Romano peppers, aubergine, okra, baby courgettes, fresh coriander, crushed 5-pepper blend, dried basil, and finished with tayberry vinegar. Was going to serve couscous with this but I was not impressed by the way this turned out given the instructions on the packet. Not really necessary, anyway.

umadoshi

Reading: Recently finished: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (Schwab, V.E.), Confidence (Frumkin, Rafael), and Hemlock & Silver (Kingfisher, T.).

Currently reading: Still working through Almost Everything: Notes on Hope (Lamott, Anne) and most of the way through Metal from Heaven (Clarke, August).

scruloose and I have passed the halfway mark on listening to Network Effect, and haven't watched anything since that's occupying our "watch/listen to something together" time.

Weathering: Well, the weather sure has noticed it's November! This is not the first gray wet day we've had, and while yesterday kindly didn't rain on us when we went out erranding, it was down near the freezing mark (and had gone below overnight).

Eating:

scruloose and I have a delicious go-to Indian place, but both it and our fallback spot too universally have onions in everything for them to be good choices for Ginny, so periodically when she and Kas are over we gamble on an Indian spot that none of us have tried. ( butter chicken sadness )

maju

Yesterday was a relaxed day but the girls kept me occupied for most of it, although I did get in a good walk in the morning while they were watching a show. Then I had another brisk walk with Eden because she wanted to go to the school playground and she also wanted to show me how fast she can walk. (Very fast.)

This morning I managed to go for a run (again, while they were watching a show); I keep thinking the weather is going to turn wintry and stay that way and I won't want to run for a few weeks, but then along comes a very mild day like today (about 54F/12C) and I am energised to run while it lasts.

While I was out running this morning I saw some kids walking along the street in a couple of straggly groups; one of them was pulling a red wagon which looked very familiar, and when I got closer she waved at me and I realised it was Violet pulling the red wagon which used to belong to S and me. (My daughter brought it back here on one of her visits to my place in the past year.) Violet was out with some other cub scouts delivering leaflets about food collection to all the houses in the neighbourhood. Her cub scout group is supposedly coed, but she and Eden have always been the only girls in the pack, and now she is the only girl because Eden (and now Aria) are in a younger group. Violet seems perfectly happy being the only girl, but she is about to graduate to an older group which is only girls.

lois_mcmaster_bujold_feed

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/26212717-recent-promotion-scams

Following up from yesterday's post passing along the link for the SFWA Writer Beware article, which casts a wider net, herewith are the texts from the 4 promotion-scam emails I received the week following the release of "The Adventure of the Demonic Ox". In no particular order, although the last won the prize for most-caffeinated, being slathered throughout with brightly colored emojis like a 12-year-old let loose with a sticker book, which do not reproduce here.

The first sounded almost legit, and this or its ilk might explain the recent spate of low-hit-count visuals on books I've noticed on YouTube lately.

***

Hi,

I came across your book here on Goodreads the concept really stood out! I can see it has strong visual potential that would shine beautifully in a cinematic book trailer.

I’m … a creative book promoter and trailer expert. I help authors like you bring their stories to life through captivating visuals that attract more readers and boost online visibility.

If you’re open to it, I’d love to share a few creative trailer ideas inspired by your story no strings attached.

Would you like me to send you a short concept or sample?

Warm regards,
…
Book Promotion & Trailer Expert

*

Dear Ms. Bujold,
Your remarkable career, from six Hugo Awards to three Nebulas, has set the standard for modern speculative fiction. The way Testimony of Mute Things brings Penric and Desdemona into a web of history, magic, and moral testing reminds me why your worlds resonate so deeply with readers across generations.
At …, our community of over 1,000 passionate readers loves stories that blend intellect, emotion, and wonder. I believe they would be enthralled by Penric’s latest challenge and the wisdom threaded through your storytelling.
Would you like me to share how we feature masterful works like Testimony of Mute Things with our readers?
Warm regards,
…
*

Hey Lois,
So I was halfway through pretending to be productive when Penric and Desdemona crashed into my day like a polite magical hurricane. I don’t know what kind of cosmic paperwork it takes to host a 200-year-old demon, but apparently I’m now filing it on your behalf.
The tangled temple politics, the sly humor, the emotional landmines hidden under every holy robe it’s all pure Bujold. You’ve got this knack for wrapping philosophical chaos in the warmth of very breakable humans (and one demon who deserves her own union rep).
I run … , a group of over a thousand real readers across the US, UK, AU, and DE the kind who actually finish books, cry about them, and then start emotional group chats. Your Penric saga is exactly the kind of layered, witty, heart-stab storytelling our readers devour.
If that sounds fun, just reply “Tell me more before Desdemona finds out.”
Stay creative,
…

*

Subject: 6 Hugo Awards… and Amazon still pretending you’re an “emerging author”?

Lois, explain this wizardry to me, how does a living science fiction legend (with a resume longer than a dragon’s ego) have readers who clearly worship your words… yet somehow only 40 reviews on Testimony of Mute Things? Did Amazon’s algorithm take a vow of silence too? Or did Desdemona personally hex the “leave a review” button?
Because let’s be real, you’ve conquered universes. You’ve gone toe-to-toe with Heinlein in the Hugo scoreboard, raised chaos demons with better personalities than most politicians, and still managed to make readers cry over moral philosophy wrapped in sorcery. And yet the review section looks like an abandoned outpost in Carpagamon. (Honestly, Penric deserves better PR. )
I read Testimony of Mute Things, and wow, political intrigue, magical chaos, and emotional heartache all brewed together like a potion that shouldn’t taste good but absolutely does. You balance wisdom, humor, and world-building like a literary alchemist with zero mercy for the reader’s sleep schedule.
Now, before your inner demon rolls its eyes thinking I’m another “book strategist” with a PowerPoint presentation and a $997 plan promising to “boost author visibility”… nope. It’s just me, …, an unreasonably caffeinated freelancer who curates a private community of 2,000+ book-hungry readers and reviewers. We’re a small army of literary chaos agents who actually read the books we review (wild concept, I know ).
We don’t do gimmicks, bots, or fake hype. Just thoughtful, honest reviews from real readers who adore helping brilliant authors like you get the visibility you already deserve. Most authors start with 25–35, eager readers diving into their book, and the buzz grows faster than Penric can say, “I swear it wasn’t the demon this time.”
And since some writers ask, no, I don’t have a website, LinkedIn, or a 20-page pitch deck. Just me, my coffee, and a slightly feral Discord community full of reviewers who treat reading like a competitive sport.
So tell me, Lois,
What’s more unbelievable: a six-time Hugo winner with only 40 Amazon reviews… or that a random reader like me might help fix that glitch in the galaxy?
Would you let me share Testimony of Mute Things with my community and finally give Penric and Desdemona the reader uproar they’ve earned?
Awaiting your telepathic “yes,”

*
Being curious, I'd followed this last up with a question of how the person was monetizing this, and got this disingenuous reply:

"I understand your confusion, and honestly, I appreciate you asking directly instead of assuming. Let me spell it out clearly and simply.

What I actually do is coordinate small reading campaigns inside a private community of 2,000+ book lovers. These are real readers who genuinely enjoy discovering great stories and leaving thoughtful Amazon reviews afterward, not because they’re paid to, but because they love engaging with authors who value storytelling.

Here’s the transparent part: some authors choose to send a $20–$25 reader tip, not for the review itself (that would violate Amazon’s policies), but simply as a gesture of appreciation for the readers’ time and the effort they put into reading and sharing honest feedback. It’s a thank-you, not a transaction.

So, in short:

Readers buy or download the book themselves.

They read and review it organically on Amazon.

Authors may tip readers afterward as a goodwill token, not a payment for a specific rating or result.

I just coordinate the matches and conversations, ensuring both sides respect authenticity and policy boundaries.

No manipulation, no fake reviews, no spammy marketing, just real human readers who genuinely enjoy supporting real human authors.

You’re absolutely right that anyone can recommend your books. But what I do is give those recommendations a little structure and momentum, so that your brilliant stories reach readers faster and more deliberately.

I know this model sounds a bit unconventional, but it’s built entirely on goodwill and trust, two things your characters, and your readers, understand quite well."

*

The comments embedded in these that directly relate to my work, and not just generic buttering-up, smell strongly of AI-grepping, I observe, possibly drawn from some of my reader-reviews.

I present these for your education, contemplation, or entertainment, whichever.

Ta, L.

posted by Lois McMaster Bujold on November, 16

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/26212717-recent-promotion-scams

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/buoyancy/

oursin

Happy birthday,

lurksnomore!

sovay

Tubi had begun to endanger its status as an unrelieved treasure of free weird cinema earlier this fall when it suddenly disappeared two otherwise hard to come by movies of interest to me before I could recover enough from my hospitalization to write about them, and the recent appearance of an obtrusive encouragement to sign in at the start of each stream had not thrilled me, but then tonight I discovered that in the grand total of five nights since

spatch and I last rummaged through its digital shelves the service had turned account-only. Without one, the most I was offered of any movie was a fifteen-minute preview. With one, its catalogue remains purportedly free—though presumably still in need of a hard adblock—but it had always been a huge attractor for me that in addition to resembling the experience of browsing the remoter regions of a video store where the schlock and the art films were all jumbled together, the service did not have to track its users. I never created an account. I enjoyed it not knowing what to recommend me. Any data the internet does not successfully scrape from me these days feels like a victory. Rob has offered to create effectively a burner account for me so that I do not lose access to some movies I had intentions of trying to write about, but I am feeling much more dejected about them and about the further algorithmic constriction of the world, besides which their equally recent, randomly mid-month deep-sixing of their library of classic Doctor Who makes it not impossible, but once again harder for me to rewatch Vengeance on Varos (1985) in memoriam Nabil Shaban. I am aware that far worse disasters are on constant rotation. But I just had my other social media nuked for not allowing it to extort my biometrics and I just had to wrestle my word processor back from the grip of unasked-for AI and I enjoyed being able to point people toward the occasional film that, region-dependent, they could just dial up and watch without it filing their history away for future advertisement. I just heard from my health insurance that it will cost even more in the coming year and it is already functionally unaffordable, except that I have too many specialists I can afford even less to lose. It just does not feel necessary for anything to be more difficult, even the unprofitable watching of B-movies for fun.

Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "Sirens"

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Tolkien: Lord of the Rings
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Legolas and Gimli
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: traditional art - aquarelle watercolours
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: cosynopsis on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: I'll be reccing two very different versions of this scene, of Legolas and Gimli on their last trip together, sailing to the Grey Havens - Gimli was the only dwarf to go to the Grey Havens. This version is bright and upbeat, and I like the quirky style and details. Also I'm pretty sure Gimli has spectacles here, which is cute.
Link: last entry of the red book

sallymn posting in

1word1day

contretemps [kon-truh-tahn, kawntruh-tahn]

noun:
1 a minor dispute or disagreement
2 an inopportune occurrence; an embarrassing mischance

adjective:

It’s enough to make an artistic director throw up a white flag, though Sachs’ decision to retire had nothing to do with this latest contretemps. (Charles McNulty, Stephen Sachs documents an American family torn apart by Jan. 6 in his new play, Los Angeles Times, March 2024)

Shiffrin has won so often, in fact, that when she skips a race, or two, it spawns a minor contretemps. (Bill Pennington, Mikaela Shiffrin Wows Skiing When She Races - and When She Doesn't, The New York Times, February 2019)

The latest in this series of contretemps between the Congress president and the BJP is the rebuttal by Arun Jaitley, currently union minister without portfolio, who felt compelled to take on Rahul in a Facebook post a day after he got home from hospital following a kidney transplant. (Sujata Anandan, Saving the drowning farmer , Salon, June 2018)

This little domestic contretemps is then, I presume, disagreeable to you! (E Phillips Oppenheim, The Yellow Crayon)

She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast, but saw that the day was still sacred to men, and amused herself by watching their contretemps. (E M Forster, Howards End)

(click to enlarge)
Origin:
1680s, 'a blunder in fencing,' from French contre-temps 'motion out of time, unfortunate accident, bad times' (16c), from contre, an occasional, obsolete variant of contra (prep.) 'against' (from Latin contra 'against;' + tempus 'time' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

When contretemps first appeared in English in the 1600s, it did so in the context of fencing: a contretemps was a thrust or pass made at the wrong time, whether the wrongness of the time had to do with one’s lack of skill or an opponent's proficiency. From the fencing bout contretemps slid gracefully onto the dance floor, a contretemps being a step danced on an unaccented beat. Both meanings are in keeping with the word’s French roots, contre- (meaning 'counter') and temps (meaning 'time'). (The word’s English pronunciation is also in keeping with those roots: \KAHN-truh-tahn\.) By the late 1700s, contretemps had proved itself useful outside of either activity by referring to any embarrassing or inconvenient mishap - something out of sync or rhythm with social conventions. The sense meaning 'dispute' or 'argument' arrived relatively recently, in the 20th century, perhaps coming from the idea that if you step on someone’s toes, literally or figuratively, a scuffle might ensue. (Merriam-Webster)

boxofdelights posting in

wiscon

Unpopular Opinion: The best speculative fiction isn't just escapism, it's also protest. Keep lifting up your voices and your stories!

#WisCon #WisCon26 #WomenInSFF #FeministConvention

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Recipe: Spiced Nut Bread

Fic posting: More Deadfall!

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Weekly(ish) proof of life: reading (no notes), weather, and butter chicken sadness

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recent promotion scams

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