Camestros Felapton

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Susan’s Salon: 27/28 February 2022

You can use the comment section to chat about whatever you want. Susan’s Salon is posted early on Monday (Australian Eastern Standard Time, which is still Sunday in most places). It’s fine to be sad, worried, vaccinated, unvaccinated-yet, worried about wars, angry or maybe even happy (or all of those things at once).

Please feel free to post what you like (either troubling news or pleasant distractions) in the comments for this open thread. [However, no cranky conflicts between each other in the comments.] Links, videos, cat pictures 🐈 etc are fine! Whatever you like! 😇

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26 responses to “Susan’s Salon: 27/28 February 2022”

  1. The icy snow is finally melting here in Arkansas. We were trapped in the house for three days, since our (long, long) driveway froze into a sheet of ice.

    I’ve been reading all of Elizabeth Strout, who I somehow have only just discovered.

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    • A family member who fell seriously ill is out of hospital and on meds so … fingers crossed!
      I was on the picket lines earlier this week in the strike over pensions, and will be again tomorrow.

      And this weekend we started Archive 81 on Netflix but it gave us nightmares (!) so we’re leavening it with Inventing Anna (love Julia Garner ever since Ozark) which helps take our minds off the international situation.

      And I’m reading Many Dimensions by Charles Williams of Inklings fame which I’m enjoying more than I expected – its very readable & quite interesting (the central device involves teleportation and time travel)

      Everyone is saying this but it does feel as if we’re at one of those ‘the multiverse branched that way rather than this way’ moments. Stay safe all.

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        • I saw about half (I think) of the first episode, then I went “um, nope, no more”. Not sure exactly why, but I have not gone back to complete it.

          Liked by 1 person

      • I liked Archive 81 a lot – it was very creepy for most of its run – although I don’t think it quite stuck the landing, and like a lot of horror it loses a lot of its creepiness toward the end when it starts explaining everything.

        I’m quite fond of Williams’ The Greater Trumps.

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      • I really enjoyed the show but would have preferred it to end, rather than give us a season-ender cliffhanger.
        The problem for me with the later episodes is also that we get away from the compound and the Visser which loses someething.

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      • Williams is fascinating and he’s also definitely an acquired taste, but Many Dimensions is probably one of his more accessible ones in some ways— in structure and style it’s more like an urban fantasy adventure a Victorian pulp writer might have done, like even though the ideas are way more esoteric, there’s a small set of characters with opposed goals involving a magic thing. The other one that’s kind of like that is War in Heaven, which is a very odd take on a Holy Grail heist, also featuring that very enjoyably-named villain Giles Tumulty. I think there’s a clear influence from these in a lot of James Blaylock’s and Tim Powers’s stuff.

        His others are weirder and denser; I like them all, but I don’t know if you’d be into them based on Many Dimensions. All Hallows Eve is partly a similar kind of supernatural thriller but has much longer passages of philosophical/religious digressions; Descent Into Hell basically drops the thriller part. Shadows of Ecstasy is the most badly dated and is very hard to describe intelligibly, but it’s one of the oddest artifacts of 1930s fantasy I’ve ever seen.

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  2. I sent two new Kurval novelettes out into the world – exactly at the time Putin decided to invade Ukraine.

    Also, my 30 year high school anniversary is coming up, so I’m suddenly back in contact with people I haven’t seen in 30 years.

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      • I guess if they had invited me two or five years ago, I wouldn’t have gone either. But I have several books and stories out, two Hugo nominations and plenty of things to be proud of. And if my old classmates turn out to be the same idiots they always were, I’ll just leave.

        Liked by 3 people

        • You might as well. Get your brag on, and leave after they prove to be less successful and/or boring.

          I haven’t gone to ANY of my hs reunions, even the 5th or 10th. Of course, I moved to another state less than 5 years afterwards, so that was a good excuse.

          I haven’t even found the few I would still care about keeping in touch with on FB.

          Liked by 1 person

    • We haven’t had a reunion since our 20th. The people who are normally the driving force seem to have lost the itch and nobody’s volunteering (including me) to step in. While some of us blame it on FB (we see the alums we want to every day, so to speak) my sister’s class (a year behind ours) managed their 30th.

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    • My 25th school anniversary is coming up in like 4 years and someone is *already* testing the waters and seeing if anyone wants to actually attend it. I’m tempted just to see what people are up to. Especially since by then I should be basically retired or working very occasionally.

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  3. New Zealand’s Omicron wave shows no sign of peaking. Yesterday reported 14,941 new cases; during Delta, we peaked at ~200 new cases a day. Rapid Antigen Test results are now included in official case numbers (previously, case numbers were low enough that they were all done with PCR testing). Deaths are still low but we know that is a lagging statistic. Up to Omicron, NZ had a total of 51 COVID deaths. It’s now 56, so ~10% of COVID deaths in New Zealand have come from Omicron. (Though that is still an extremely low number compared to the rest of the OECD)

    The weekend marked nine months since Fern died. I am struggling with the loneliness, the uncertainty of COVID makes everyone less likely to meet in person, and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine brings back the existential dread of nuclear war. On Saturday, I played Pokemon: there was a special event on, the Johto Tour, and it provided a much needed distraction.

    Currently reading “Bizarre Romance” a collaboration between Eddie Campbell (“From Hell”) and Audrey Niffenegger (“The Time Traveler’s Wife”) who I recently discovered are married to each other after conducting a long-distance romance. It’s quirky & I am enjoying it.

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    • //Currently reading “Bizarre Romance” a collaboration between Eddie Campbell (“From Hell”) and Audrey Niffenegger (“The Time Traveler’s Wife”) who I recently discovered are married to each other after conducting a long-distance romance./

      I didn’t know that. I might seek that out.

      Liked by 2 people

  4. As a decision point comes closer, and this whole COVID thing doesn’t seem to slow down, I have pretty much decided that I will have to give ChiCon a miss. Which, you know, is not what I wanted, but I think on the balance that is the right decision for me.

    Liked by 2 people

      • I’m still at 50/50; depends on Covid and finances. I have a membership.

        I reaaaaaallly want to go since I’ve been to every Chicon since 1982, and I’m certainly not going to China.

        Liked by 1 person

        • I currently have a supporting membership, but (due to the above-mentioned whats-have-you) will not upgrade it to attending, as I was hoping, um, last year-ish.

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  5. So busy at the moment I am eating lunch standing up in the kitchen just so I have an excuse to get out of my desk chair. The only upside is I have no time for doomscrolling.

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  6. EGG and I remain not so good on the treat catching, but at least he’s finding all the ones he doesn’t catch, and I am pleased to announce he hasn’t had one land on him and “get lost” in a week!

    I have been playing casual games, coloring, and not doomscrolling. Jorts the Cat on Twitter is a great comfort, and he’s the only thing I read there regularly. Also been reading ancient history, because I know how it ends.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. After a couple of years, I seem to be an insomniac again. I thought it was gone for good.
    Watched “Year of the Sex Olympics” this weekend and Nigel Kneale, as usual, delivers a great story (very depressing though). Also got to Suicide Squad, which I enjoyed.
    Dizziness is fading away, woot!
    Weather is dank, drizzly and 30s-40s for the past few days and immediate future.
    I took one food writer’s recommendation and tried using buttermilk instead of clabbered milk in my Irish soda bread and it seems it does work better.

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