branestawm

LifeStori.es

So I went and made a thing, but the thing needs you, or it'll die, like Tamagotchi.

The thing is http://lifestori.es and here's a story I wrote for it: http://lifestori.es/story/vbFQX91dZ

You can repurpose your old Livejournal posts, if you like. I won't mind a bit.

Ask for an invite by emailing alfred @ lifestori.es.

(Slightly insincere apologies to people who read my Facebook as well for the repeated spamming).
branestawm

What do they call this?

There's a literary tic practised particularly by journalists which I find irritating. It's the one in which a description of someone's personal characteristics are lazily folded into a sentence where they don't really belong. Here's a a couple of examples from THE CHILD SEDUCERS by John Steinbacher, a right-wing rant against sex education in schools:
Sally Williams, overweight, square-jawed and a brilliant foil for Cook's ideas, became the first coordinator of the Anaheim Union High School District Family Life and Sex Education program.
...
Sam Campbell, short, balding, and tough as a tiger in a quiet kind of way, was fed up.

Does this habit annoy you as much as it does me? There must be a name for it, ill-shaved, bespectacled and grumpy Alfred Armstrong asserted.
branestawm

I's wretched, indeed

A recent comment left on one of my sites:
Hey

- Do You privation to differentiate all upon sought-after Russian milieu odnoklassniki.ru for classmates search?
- Are You common to treks to Egypt?
- Do You neediness to require a peregrinate and have a coffee break in Rome?
- Do You like nomadic to Berlin?

- May be you after to remember all about Swine influenza?

- Or may be you unprejudiced be to choose between doing sports or watching it on the TV?

You be enduring to afflict unheard of Falk Public school Blog at falk-school.com

I's wretched if I'm offtopic here.
And a excess aver to Admin, move this post to suited matter!

Thanks as a replacement for your heed!

Falk-School
branestawm

SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA

Originally posted by darkspirited1 at SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA
This comes from an article by rachelmanija entitled, Say Yes to Gay YA.
(click the link for the full article)


Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is
gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in
the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay
character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to
his sexual orientation.

This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.


It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this.

branestawm

Odd Book: The Other Side of the Coin

The Other Side of the Coin is a less than compelling defence of the apartheid-era South Africa by Patience Strong, who I knew only for the queasy Christian sentimental verses she'd written for women's magazines like those my mother favoured.

Strong turns out not only to be a fan of Mary Whitehouse and Enoch Powell; anti-immigration, anti-EU and anti-UN; but also a devotee of that conglomeration of wingnut notions, British-Israelism.

Her South Africa is a land of good Christian white folks and smiling pickaninnies all living happy parallel lives. Opponents of the regime are terrorists.

One of the charming qualities of her writing is its tendency to digress into trivia. She spends several paragraphs expounding the merits of the folding upright calendar, for example, with the same zeal she applies to the myths of apartheid.

[I only found this today and I am about halfway through, so more to follow...]
branestawm

Odd Book: Wartime Messages

With such a title, you might conceivably expect this to be a bit exciting. But it isn't, not by normal standards. It is a collection of newsletters sent by a supplier to funeral directors during the Second World War, explaing why coffin prices are going up and similar matters. Why they thought this material was worth reissuing in book form is a beautiful mystery.

branestawm

Advice wanted

Hello dear lazyweb,

I got rid of my old hi-fi separates because they took up too much room. I was going to shed my vinyl collection as well for much the same reason, but I am reconsidering. Has anyone had any experience of any of these modern compact vinyl players? Recommendations?

Sound quality is a factor, but I am not anal about it.

Cheers!