Spontaneous Musings

I'm changing the prompt again. The rest of the days are HERE.

Name a book by a black female author.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Cited by Good Reads as the first science fiction novel written by a black woman. I'm not sure that's true. I think published novels before it?

The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given

It is among the very few Time Travel novels that have worked for me.

1. Well, some good news on the COVID front - the red microcluster zone that I'd been in since pretty much October 1, has now migrated south of me to Midwood and Kings Highway (these are the idiots in Brooklyn who voted for DJT), while I'm firmly in the yellow zone along with the rest of Kesington, Borough Park, and Flatbush. To celebrate - all the restaurants had created little seating areas on the sidewalks and on the street wherever possible - for outdoor dining.

I took walk to get groceries after work. Left immediately after - to catch the last shreds of daylight. Got home towards dusk or right after dusk. It was a lovely night. Lots of outdoor diners. And some of the restaurants have gotten rather creative. They have individual stalls with walls. So you sort of have your own private booth. Others split it up with about two tables per enclosure. And a lot of outdoor wine bars - one that spread itself down the sidewalk past the dental office. It was odd to see seating for a tiny wine bar in front of a dental office - they specialize in natural/organic wines (aren't all wines natural and organic? Maybe not?). I picked up a card from them. I'm thinking of trying for deliveries.

They look kind of fun. But I've no interest in trying any of them. Because it doesn't feel safe. People are sitting outside at tables, without masks near other people. And people walking by.

I told mother over the phone about the obstacle course on the way to and from the grocery store. She begged me to stop - I was tiring her out.

2. This amused me. Although I didn't witness it myself - because I'm not really on Twitter or Tumblr for that matter, and my social media friends aren't into Supernatural that much at the moment, if at all. But I do remember the height of the fandom in 2012 - I watched Supernatural in 2012. I stopped in 2015 or thereabouts.

Supernatural Took Over the Internet Last Night.

Also this...

my sense of time has been so thoroughly broken that when i saw tweets about supernatural take over my timeline a real part of me was like “ah, now it’s 2012. so how a year works is you have january, february, 80 years of march, halloween, 800 years of election, and then 2012” - dylan morrison

3. Speaking of the never-ending election from hell...
( Read more... )

4. Our continuing, if somewhat sporadic coverage (because I get tired of it every once and a while) of New York vs. the Corona Virus
( Read more... )

5. Oooh...there's a cool interview with Grant Morrison (television scribe, comics writer, novelist, magician...)

( cool excerpt )

For more go HERE.

I kind of needed to read some of that - it inspires me to go back to my writing and weaving of different worlds.