elizabethmccoy | Network

Finished The Ritz of the Bayou by Nancy Lemann, a novelist's-eye nonfiction account of her time as a "girl reporter" covering the 1985 racketeering trial (and 1986 retrial) of the then-sitting Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards on assignment for Vanity Fair,* in airy snapshots with a vivid eye for personality and atmosphere, populated by characters referred to obliquely as "the jazz-crazed assistant prosecutor," "the courtroom existentialist" (distinguishable from "the courtroom philosopher" by his quirk of keeping a diary, since the 1950s, to rate every oyster he'd eaten), "the man from the train", "the Yankee reporter", etc. Truly just 100% vibes rather than any sort of political or legal commentary, but I found myself thinking, throughout, that there were still dots to connect between the attitude that, in the mid-1980s, Lemann credited specifically to "Louisiana politics"— that the public seemed to enjoy charismatic politicians behaving badly, as "the two great enemies of Louisianians are boredom and lack of style"; that, at one point, an "alleged bribe . . . was scoffed at {by the defense} as being an amount too low to constitute a decent bribe, an indication of the moral tenor"— and American Politics These Days; Lemann does in fact connect them in her afterword to this new 40th anniversary edition.

* She turned in her story and the Vanity Fair editor "basically said Huh? What?" and paid her a "kill fee" and then Lemann turned that story into this book.

stonepicnicking_okapi

There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

stonepicnicking_okapi

A is for Agatha Chrstie.
B is for Belladonna.

Here's a fun anecdote from A is for Arsenic: The poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Markup.

In 1977, a Frenchman added eyedrop solution (atropine, the dominant toxic compound in belladonna) to a bottle of wine and gave it to his uncle intending to kill a friend of his uncle's. The intended victim didn't drink the wine, but the uncle and aunt did, much later. Uncle died, aunt in coma. No foul play suspected until a carpenter and the uncle's son-in-law stop by the house to put uncle's body in the coffin and drank some wine (like you do) and ended up going to hospital.

Here's where it gets eye-rolling...police found a copy of Agatha Christie's Thirteen Problems where Miss Marple solves a case of eyedrop solution as poison...and the relevant sections were underlined.

Hey, kids, make sure you tidy up your research when you're trying to top somebody...hmmm?

sholio

I'm reading a book on recent research on dinosaur evolution (The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte - apparently he has a book on bird evolution coming out soon and I'm definitely picking that up when I can) and it is blowing my miiiiiiind.

For example!

Did you know birds don't have hollow bones because they evolved them to fly? Birds have hollow bones because dinosaurs (saurians in particular - like Brontosaurus type creatures - but some of the other lineages as well) evolved them because it gave them an edge on growing large without being overly heavy, cooling themselves, and efficiently extracting oxygen from the air to support their enormous bodies. The super-efficient lungs that birds have were also a dinosaur adaptation to being big in hot climates, not a bird adaptation to flight. So basically, birds have ultralight bones and efficient lungs not because they evolved them to fly, but because dinosaurs needed these things in order to grow huge, and this turned out to be incidentally useful in radiating out into aerial niches when they began to evolve wings.

I also find it a fascinating experience to read this paleontology book when I've done so much reading on archaeology as a hobby interest. Archaeology books go into great depth on careful excavation techniques, sifting all the tiny bits of material and keeping everything in its proper location, and how incredibly tragic it is that so many sites of the past were excavated carelessly and so all of that information on the relative positioning of discoveries and small bits of material is lost ...

Meanwhile, paleontologists: so we took our hammers and started hacking up this rock formation to get the bones out. :D Also a local rancher sold us a dinosaur skeleton he found!!

(I mean I'm exaggerating a bit and the huge time difference is important, but also, lol.)

Another thing I was thinking about in one particular chapter, though the book doesn't address it specifically, is something I've thought about before, which is that we assume some creatures are primitive representations of what their kind used to look like, when in fact they are perfectly well adapted to their current niche, and their ancestors looked nothing like that. Alligators and crocodiles are the thing I was thinking of here - they look primitive, with those sprawling legs and inefficient means of walking, but in fact, early crocodiles hundreds of millions of years ago had their legs under the body and could sprint like a greyhound. (Which is terrifying, by the way.) They look like they do now, not because they could never run - they could! - but because other, more efficient dry-land runners out-competed them and they lost the running ability and retreated into the amphibious predator niche that they currently occupy.

Another example of this, not from this book - recent research on the human evolutionary tree suggests (at least according to one book I was reading a while back on the Miocene period) that the ancestor of both humans and chimpanzees was a sort of generalist creature, a couple of tens of million years back, that could both climb trees and walk upright. Humans ended up adapting to the walking/striding niche and losing the tree climbing, while chimpanzees did the opposite, adapted to climbing trees and became much less efficient at moving about on the ground. So rather than descending from a chimpanzee-like tree climber, we and chimpanzees are both specialized creatures who do not resemble our common ancestor all that much.

I just love this kind of thing.

oursin

This week's bread: the Collister/Blake My Favourite Loaf, strong white/wholemeal/wholemeal spelt, turned out very nice.

Friday night supper: ven pongal (South Indian khichchari).

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/buckwheat flour.

Today's lunch: Cornish hake fillets rubbed with salt, ground black pepper, lime juice and ginger paste and left for couple of hours then panfried, and sprinkled with the remaining juices on the plate at the end; served with miniature baby potatoes roasted in beef dripping, baked San Marzano tomatoes and stirfried choi sum.

skygiants

It's been several days since I finished Cristina Rivera Garcia's No One Will See Me Cry (translated by Andrew Hurley) and I've still sort of singularly failed to formulate an opinion about it; I just keep sort of mentally picking the book up and turning it over and putting it uneasily down again.

In some ways this book reminds me of A Month in the Country, in that both are historical novels that delicately build up a picture of lives destabilized by and lived in the cracks after an epoch-shaking event, while carefully avoiding -- tracing the parameters of, writing around, turning the camera consistently away from -- the event itself. The difference is that A Month in the Country does in fact feel light, delicate, balanced against the heavy thing at its center, while No One Will See Me Cry isn't in any way a light book; aside from the heaviness of its subject matter, feels laden with symbolism at every turn, although the symbolism itself is often specific and startling.

The premise: in 1920s Mexico City, an aging, morphine-addicted photographer who's been hired to take portraits of asylum inmates meets Matilda, a woman he last photographed many years ago, when she was a prostitute. Joaquin engages in a kind of narrative barter with, first the asylum doctor, then with Matilda herself, in an attempt to understand her story and how it intersects with his own to bring them both to this asylum. Both of them, it turns out, formatively knew and formatively loved the same woman, a revolutionary, in the years before the war -- but neither of them was actually involved in the Revolution, neither of them were active agents for or against the transformation of their livetimes; Joaquin describes himself more than once as the only photographer of his generation who didn't take any photographs of the war, and Matilda was, at the time, involved in an emotional affair with a desert landscape.

There are some tropes that one expects, and is braced for, around Women and Lost Women and Madwomen, especially when insanity is used as a thematic metaphor around national trajectory, especially when all that is inextrictable from questions of poverty and indigineity. Rivera Garcia is definitely deploying some of those tropes with purpose and to a point and I absolutely do not know enough to have a full sense of what she's doing with them. This is one of those situations where I wish I was reading a book in context of a class or a club. As it is, what I'm left with is interest, unease, some beautiful and surprising images, and a sense that I ought to read a lot more about the Mexican Revolution.

oursin

Happy birthday,

ookpik!

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Annie: I have been married for 12 years to a good man whom I love very much, but I dread nearly every holiday, birthday dinner and casual Sunday visit with his family. On the surface, my in-laws are charming, polished and the sort of people everyone else describes as "so nice." But behind that polished exterior is a steady drip of cutting remarks aimed almost entirely at me.

My mother-in-law has a talent for delivering insults with a smile. She will look at a meal I brought and say, "Well, that's certainly ... rustic," or ask whether I am "still doing that little job of yours," even though I work full time and do quite well. My father-in-law joins in with jokes about how their son "used to eat better before marriage" or how I have "modern ideas" whenever I disagree with them about anything from parenting to politics to how often we should visit.

The comments are always subtle enough that if I react, I look oversensitive. But after years of this, I feel like I am being pecked to death by very well-dressed chickens.

What hurts most is that my husband says, "That's just how they are," and urges me to ignore it to keep the peace. But there is no peace for me. I leave these gatherings replaying every jab in my head for days.

How do I tell my in-laws to stop without blowing up the family? And how do I get my husband to understand that "just ignore it" is not a strategy, it is surrender? -- Bruised by Politeness

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: I'm struggling with what to do about my first job out of college. I've been here for four months, and while I expected a learning curve, I didn't expect the environment to feel so hostile. My boss yells at me across the office for small, easily fixable mistakes. The latest incident involved her slamming her hands on the table several times and shouting, "What are you talking about?" while I was trying to clarify a question. I couldn't even get my words out.

I'm in the second round of interviews for another job with a different company, and I'm torn about what to do. My parents think I should stick it out to avoid being seen as a job hopper. But I feel anxious going into work every day. This environment is eroding my confidence.

Furthermore, I will be moving to a new town with my fiance next year, so I'm wondering if it's smarter to stay for another several months or take the new job (which will be remote, if I get it) even though I'm worried I might not like that one either.

Am I too sensitive? Should I leave a job this quickly, or push through until my move? How do I make the right decision when I feel guilty no matter what I choose? -- CONFLICTED IN NEBRASKA

( Read more... )

sovay

I made no sea creatures in marzipan for my father's birthday observed, but he still liked his strawberry-variant marmalade cake. My brother told stories about driving the Nürburgring with a minivan. I curled up with my husbands.

Current Music: Alice Merton, "No Roots"

stonepicnicking_okapi

This series of entries is commentary on my lifelong quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order. It was begun in January 2021.

So for 3 Weeks for Dreamwidth, my working theme is Arsenic, Belladona, Cyanide, the ABCs of Murder.

Day 1: A is for Agatha, specially my All of Agatha series. Can you believe that after 5+ years, I am finally nearing the end. I have 3 more works to go.

Elephants Can Remember [1972] is not new or particularly interesting. We see themes that have appeared again and again (but she has been doing this now for 50 years and they are tropes because she did them and did them well for many of those fifty years). There is a cold case which has a bearing on a young couple who want to marry. There is Ariadne Oliver as Aggie's stand-in and Poirot. There are really unhealthy views of adoption vs. biological motherhood as well as marriage. There is a repetition of a phrase (in earlier works it was nursery rhymes but now it is the title). The key clue is that a woman had four wigs. It is available in two parts on Youtube narrated by Hugh Fraser. That is the version I listened to and it was okay. I did a collage. For newcomers, this is a scan of a physical collage with paper, washi tape, stickers, etc.

stonepicnicking_okapi

Tree by Jane Hirshfield

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.

oursin

Janet Fordham died in crash after travelling to see man who claimed he would help to recover money from earlier scams.

Woman in question was clearly the despair of her family and the local police who failed to discourage her from sending £££ to a series of romance scammers.

The family even spoke to her doctor, who said she was of sound mind, merely 'brainwashed'.

Eventually she

was contacted by a man in Ghana known as Kofi. He claimed he was a doctor and had found out she was being scammed when he came across her details while working part-time in a phone shop. Kofi told her he would help her get her money back and she flew to Accra in October 2022.... The relationship with the man appeared to develop into a romance and Fordham agreed to marry him, the inquest heard.

I am now wondering if there is a whole further layer of scams which are 'HAVE YOU BEEN SCAMMED? I/WE WILL HELP YOU GET YOUR MONEY BACK'. Meta-scamming?

This also makes me think of a possible historical sort of parallel, whereby in the days of belief in witchcraft if you got cursed, there was also - well, perhaps not quite a profession - a class of individuals whose job it was to lift curses, cunningfolk. (Am not going to rush off and delve into the fairly numerous works on the subject around here.)

And more generally on the topic of spam, that conference in Kyoto is still anxiously asking for my response on whether I will be joining them.

kaylarudbek

I still miss the gray and silver Cross pen with my name engraved on it that was an award for being a National Merit Scholar, and the blue rosary that I had as a kid with the smooth sky blue sort of oval beads. I lost both I think back in college and I suspect that they were stolen (I had a lot of things go missing freshman year). Also my Advent wreath/candle holder which I haven’t seen since I moved to Virginia over a decade ago, and my Electricity and Magnetism textbook which was lost in my move to Virginia.

I bought myself a very nice blue and silver rosary this last week, and it has smooth beads that look like silvery blue pearls, Oddly enough the Our Father beads are miniature Miraculous Medal style (missing the text on front) and the joining piece aka the Memorare piece is a Miraculous Medal with front text in Latin.

(and yes I have my great-grandmother’s rosary in its Notre Dame case, two olive wood ones my brother from a visit to Jerusalem, two gifted from my mother and one of those is dark blue spike crystals and one is green St. Patrick’s themed, one from Padua that my dad gave me, two plastic ones from my grandparents which I think we had up at the cabin, but I wanted to replace that lost blue one as I like different textures at different times)

I suspect that autistic people tend to gravitate towards having prayer beads as they are a great fidget and meditation tool. Bead textures and sizes and overall feel and sound are important (everyone likes looking at the flashy crystal beads but they aren’t always the most comfortable in actual use, although they are good for meditation before falling asleep as they are spiky enough to keep me awake for a while longer before falling asleep)

Also, apparently some people made/make rosaries with uranium glass beads which glow very nicely in the dark (but I would test them with a Geiger counter first and I probably wouldn’t give one to a kid or a cancer survivor).

yeah, reverting back to folk Catholicism in order to spite the MAGA heresy and make the chaplain blow a gasket (I’m halfway tempted to start a collection of challenge coins with saints and pagan deities and display it at work). I have also bought various saints’ medals and I need to put more charms and medals onto my silver bracelet..

(And why have I had mild to severe nausea for the last couple of months? If I was 5-10 years younger I’d be taking a pregnancy test)

Current Mood: nauseated

sovay

I am frantically cleaning in expectation of niece, but my mother just called to let me know of the fossil discovery of octopods larger than a school bus. It feels apropros that my niece requested sushi for dinner. It makes me almost as happy as the news itself that everyone involved seems to have thought instantly of kraken.

Current Music: Hen Ogledd, "Nell's prologue"

sartorias

There's been a situation that has been making life stressful for the past year, and yesterday the stress doubled. My way of dealing with this kind of cosmic ass kick is to bury myself in writing, where I feel I have a pretence at control. I only say this because I might not be as responsive to posts as usual, and if anyone even notices a dearth of commentary from me (very small chance I realize) it's not you, it's me. Not gone, just coping and scribbling away.

oursin

Reform UK will tell Welsh museums how to present history, manifesto says - and I am getting out a whole school of, er, perhaps not codfish, something more sustainable and perhaps with nasty spines, for Reform UK, who prate on

Reform leader Dan Thomas told BBC Wales there were "some museums that take a very niche view on our past that may talk about slavery, without the whole picture of the fact that the British empire was the first to abolish slavery, and that other countries have done it for, you know, millennia".

I am pretty sure that back in the early C19th the ancestors, whether actual or in general leanings, of Reform UK, would have been screaming loudly at the very thought of abolishing slavery and denouncing Wilberforce as WOKE. But now they are able to claim abolition as Great Achievement of the British Nation.

***

I do wonder whether fellow Esperantists actually read these, it sounds niche to the point of eccentricity, not that that was exactly uncommon in those circles: Why Was the Discovery of the Jet Stream Mostly Ignored? Maybe because it was published in Esperanto:

The somewhat eccentric Ooishi was not only the director of Japan’s Tateno atmospheric observatory but also the head of the Japan Esperanto Society, proponents of the artificially constructed language, created in the 1870s as a means of international communication. Ooishi announced his discovery of the swift, high-altitude river of air in the Tateno observatory’s annual reports, which he published in Esperanto. Not surprisingly, his research was ignored[.}

On the other hand, would they have gained much traction beyond Japan anyway - observatory annual reports hardly usual scientific journals mode of dissemination.

***

Urban life: The LCC and the Arts I: The Open-Air Sculpture Exhibitions - do wonder if there is a slightly condescension of posterity going on in the assumption of 'the elite aesthetics and values of its ‘natural’ middle-class constituency'.

At least two of the cities where Waymo operates have not experienced declines in traffic-related injuries and deaths.

The Disappearance of the Public Bench

***

Tourist finds rare chunk of oldest sea crocodile - actually turns out she was an amateur fossil hunter on a guided walk along the Lyme Regis shore, although she had no idea just how rare a find she'd made (She Was No Mary Anning...)

***

I like this: The Destructive Myth of “Getting Outside Your Comfort Zone”.

pegkerr

In a lot of ways, this is my favorite time of year. Taxes are done! Porch season has begun, so I can start eating my breakfast outside. It's not too hot, and it's not too cold. There's no need to shovel, there's no need to rake leaves, and it's a little early to start mowing.

So all you have to do is to relax and enjoy the flowers that are starting to spring up. Forsythia blooms in April, and my tulip bed is making a splendid show. Pretty soon the lilacs and apple blossoms will be blooming.

It's too early to garden (the frost date is usually assumed to be around Mother's Day), but not early to start garden dreaming. Everything is potential, and you don't have to weed yet!

Image description:Background: a chart showing high and low temperatures for April and May. The chart is bordered by orange tulips (bottom), forsythia (left side), pansies (right side) and pink bleeding hearts (top).

Spring

16 Spring

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

stonepicnicking_okapi

FYI: Three Weeks for Dreamwidth starts tomorrow! (I know! It snuck up on me, too) Ideas for things folks are doing/might be doing: https://3weeks4dreamwidth.dreamwidth.org/17014.html

3weeks4dreamwidth is celebrating Dreamwidth's anniversary!
Come join in for fun, memes, activities, and more ♥

I was thinking of doing the theme: Arsenic, Belladona, Cyanide, the ABCs of Murder--because why not?

Here's a collage I did with some of my new stuff. The theme is PINK! Which is also an indirect poison reference--they poison themselves, John!

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: I have conflicting feelings regarding Valentine's Day. I believe it is a celebration for couples rather than co-workers. My husband's office staff (eight young women under the age of 30) insist on celebrating Valentine's Day with decorations on all office doors, complete with hearts and cupids. They have a catered lunch with specialty treats of chocolate-covered strawberries, fudge hearts and the customary heart candies that read "Be Mine," "I Love You", etc.

My husband has been with this company for 30 years, and we've been together for 15 of them, but this Valentine's Day celebration began only four years ago. I am 65 and have worked 20-plus years for a Fortune 500 corporate office and NEVER has Valentine's Day been celebrated in the office. Christmas, yes. Fourth of July, yes. But Valentine's Day? Am I just old and cranky? This has been a source of contention between my husband and me since it began. -- NOT LOVIN' THAT IN TEXAS

( Read more... )

Profile (About Me)

elizabethmccoy

July 2019

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

Page Summary

troisoiseaux - The Ritz of the Bayou - Nancy Lemann
stonepicnicking_okapi - Poet's Corner: There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale
stonepicnicking_okapi - 3Weeks4Dreamwidth: B is for Belladonna
sholio - Dinosaurs!!
oursin - Culinary
skygiants - (no subject)
oursin - (no subject)
conuly in agonyaunt - LW does not have an inlaw problem, she has a husband problem
conuly in agonyaunt - LW should've sent this one to Ask a Manager
sovay - I've got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
stonepicnicking_okapi - All of Agatha: Book Review: Elephants Can Remember (1972)
stonepicnicking_okapi - Poet's Corner: Tree by Jane Hirshfield
oursin - Would this count as meta-scamming?
kaylarudbek - Memories of missing things
sovay - And the fisherman collects, yes, they collect the sounds from their nest above
sartorias - Here and There
oursin - Friday er several, things noted
pegkerr - 2026 52 Card Project: Week 16: Spring
stonepicnicking_okapi - Signal Boost
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)

Style Credit

Style: Wisteria for Nouveau Oleanders by branchandroot
Resources: OpenClipart and Siren

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 27th, 2026 12:43 am

Elizabeth McCoy

Network

The Ritz of the Bayou - Nancy Lemann

Poet's Corner: There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale

3Weeks4Dreamwidth: B is for Belladonna

Dinosaurs!!

Culinary

(no subject)

(no subject)

LW does not have an inlaw problem, she has a husband problem

LW should've sent this one to Ask a Manager

I've got no roots, but my home was never on the ground

All of Agatha: Book Review: Elephants Can Remember (1972)

Poet's Corner: Tree by Jane Hirshfield

Would this count as meta-scamming?

Memories of missing things

And the fisherman collects, yes, they collect the sounds from their nest above

Here and There

Friday er several, things noted

2026 52 Card Project: Week 16: Spring

Signal Boost

(no subject)

Profile (About Me)

July 2019

Links

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags