Fire and Silk

http://lostfort.blogspot.com/2012/05/towns-and-nature-along-baltic-sea_25.html

I'm back, as usual with a truckload of photos. So here's the traditional overview post of the places I've visited.

Visby

A Medieaval town that belonged to the Hansa League and to the Gotland Trade League before, with some well conserved town fortifications, a cathedral, nice old houses (trade made for rich merchants who in turn built pretty houses to show off), and a few ruins.

Visby, the town walls
Gotland's west coast

I took a bus tour along part of the west coast of Gotland so I could catch bits of the landscape, too. We had some interesting stops. The flip side to guided tours are the other people in the group, but I managed to keep their appearance on photos to a minimum.

Bronze Age ship burial
Stockholm, and Stockholm Archipelago

I've lived there back in the 80ies. It was nice to revisit the place. The sun played along, too, as it did most of the tour. No grey and stormy Baltic Sea photos, I'm afraid. Well, we got some of those along the Norwegian coast last year.

Stockholm, the town hall
One place was new to me; the Vasa Museum where Gustav Adolf's flagship, which had sunk in Stockholm harbour in 1628 and was resurrected in the 1950ies, is now displayed in full splendour after years of conservation and reconstruction work.

Vasa Museum
Our ship, the Albatros, cruised the archipelago in the evening which made for some great motives There are about 2400 islands of all sizes from several square miles to 'just a boulder with a fir tree', and on the larger ones, many Swedes have summer houses.

Romantic islands in the evening sun
Helsinki and Porvoo

Helsinki is a rather young town, compared to places like Visby, but there was a tour to nearby Porvoo, a small Mediaeval town with pretty timber houses which, albeit not exactly Mediaeval (those had a habit of burning down during history), give the place an old fashioned, charming flair.

Helsinki Cathedral
St.Petersburg

We stayed in St.Petersburg for two days. It's the time of the white nights now when it doesn't get fully dark but a twiliight remains. It was unusually warm, too. Petersburg is a town of golden-cupolaed cathedrals, splendid palaces, and cars. London has nothing to the chaos on the roads in St.Petersburg.

Church of Christ's Resurrection
The town is also bascially built on a swamp (by Peter the Great) and it's a place with a history of assassinations. The above church was erected on the spot where Tsar Alexander I got killed, and Tsar Paul wasn't safe in his pretty palace below, either.

Palace of Tsar Paul
I took an evening cruise on the many canals that cut through Petersburg which was a nice change to the road traffic.

(More in the post below)

http://lostfort.blogspot.com/2012/05/towns-and-nature-along-baltic-sea.html

Back west from the easternmost stop in st.Petersburg, we visited some more places in the Baltic States and Poland.

Tallinn

This one's in Estonia. Another Hansa town, known as Reval when most of the territory of todays Baltic States was in the hands of the German Hansa and the Teutonic Knights.

Tallinn, view from the Upper Town to the Old Town
Riga

And on to Latvia. It is amazing how fast those towns managed to repair their historical sites that often had been damaged or destroyed during WW2 and neglected during the Sovjet area. Tallinn, Riga and Gdansk all have World Heritage status today. And the beer is still cheaper than in Germany. *grin*

Riga, House of the Black Brotherhood
Curonian Spit and Nida

The Curonian Spit (Kurische Nehrung) is a 98 km long dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. To prevent the dunes from covering everything, a reforesting program had been established in the 19th century, and today there are birch and fir woods, but still a lot of sand, too.

The Geat Dune
And some pretty villages like Nida (formerly Nidden) which had been a summer residence of rich Germans post WW2. The writer Thomas Mann spent some time there, and it would still make a good writer's retreat today; the place is very quiet, with the lagoon on one side and only a mile or so to the Baltic Sea.

A fisherman's hut in Nida
Gdansk and Marienburg Castle

Gdansk is another town with a great Hansa tradition and lots of beuatiful old houses as well as an interesting cathedral. It's also a centre of amber working and amber trade, in good Medieaval tradition when amber was one of its main export articles. Yes, I got me a bracelet.

Gabled houses in Gdansk
Amber trade was in the hands of the Teutonic Knights, and boy, did they build a whopping big castle a bit inland. Sorry, Edward I, but your Welsh castles have nothing to the Marienburg. I was lucky to be able to spend several hours there, exploring at least part of it.

Marienburg castle, middle and inner bailey
Kiel Canal

Better know as Nord-Ostsee-Kanal in Germany. Since the Albatros sailed off from Bremerhaven at the North Sea, we had to cross the canal to get to the Baltic Sea (it's much shorter than rounding the entire peninsula), and on the way back it took place mostly during daylight. It was alomost like a river cruise.

Traffic on the Kiel Canal
Bremen

On the way back, I stopped in Bremen for a few hours, to add another Hansa town to my collection. Its Renaissance town hall is one of the most beautiful in Europe, and there's a cathedral and some narrow streets with old houses as well.

Bremen, the town hall
Blog fodder for months to come, and I haven't even finished all posts about the Welsh castles from 2008. *sigh*

I’ve said, in my previous post, that ASD children are afraid to make mistakes; they’re afraid to be wrong. They speak of the things that interest them because, in some ways, they feel secure in their knowledge - secure enough to talk. If they become comfortable enough about speaking - even if it is about their current obsession - they then develop confidence in the act of conversing, and since conversation itself is now familiar, it becomes a second comfort-zone from which they can then begin to tackle topics which are not as relevant to them.

I think this is true, on a vastly smaller scale, of anyone. Hold that point for a moment.

Two days ago, I wrote about communication, and this post, although it’s in theory about my son at age seven, ties in with comments made on that post, which was about two adults who were both working toward a goal of mutual understanding - when words alone were not enough of a bridge. The right words for me, in that post, were not the words that worked for my husband. He wanted to understand what I was saying, but the first several times, it didn’t happen.

I felt that I understood my son as well as - or better than - a raft of experts could. I lived with him. I observed him daily. But I’m also myself, and I come at things from the paradigm of my interests. Even the things I observe are coloured by me.

My son had a successful, if trying, grade one year. His teacher was a godsend. More. I can’t emphasize how much of a difference she made to my six year old. She had him for five and a half hours a day for ten months of the year - and everything she did during that time laid foundations for all of his school life thereafter. In my universe, she would be paid more than most CEOs. Sorry, that was a digression.

( Grade Two and the educational aid )

Trillian found this darling house spider and her eggs in one of the cabinets working hard to guard our food! She is part of our army. I did a few macro shots of her egg basket too -- looks like we're about to have 50 babies!!! Cigars for everyone!

She's about the size of a lentil, her eggs might be the size of pinheads.

( behind this cut to avoid the freaking out of the people who would freak out if there was a spider in front of this cut )

Thanks to whafford for being the voice activated light stand.

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[Roller Derby Portraits]

Apparently my life is sufficently boring that I can’t think of anything to blog about. I have to draw winners for the BYD contest, but since I already blew my first deadline on that and there’s a long weekend coming up in America, I think I’ll wait until next week.

In the meantime, random things:

I believe this is very much the sort of thing the phrase “Oh, snap!” was invented for: Back to back questions presented to Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett Johansson.

*laughs* My wallet died, so I found an old one I knew I had lying around. It has Sarah/shadowhwk‘s work phone # ca 2001, a 1999 bank receipt, a photo of me & Ted from 1997, a 1994 pic of my sister, & the crowning glory, the thing that made me actually laugh out loud because it was so unexpected, an early 90s photo of the unrequited high school Love Of My Life. *laughs & laughs*

Speaking of pictures, this is probably the most awesome one I’ve seen this week. MIB-Avengers mashup FTW!

I believe I have got all the ducks in a row for launching ORIGINS next Friday. Having re-read the stories, I feel that the ORSSP patrons got their money’s worth, and that so too will the people buying it as an e-book. *waits impatiently for Friday next*

(x-posted from the essential kit)

I promised to get back to these posts, and I had a specific request for the differences among high fantasy, epic fantasy, and low fantasy. When I talked about fantasy, I discussed the various tropes and methods that can be used to categorize fantasy into different sub-genres without actually spelling out definitions for any of them.

This was deliberate. ( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120525-spacex-dragon-robot-arm-international-space-station-nation/

We just watched the latest (I think) episode of Legend of Korra, “The Aftermath.” I’m continuing to really enjoy this show for a number of reasons.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Pacing: One of the things that bugged me was the love triangle between Korra, Mako, and Asami. It felt, not necessarily cliche, but easy. It’s an oft-repeated trope, one that could push characters into more cardboard, stereotypical roles and — if other shows are any example — drag out for far too long.

Instead, Asami’s character quickly developed more depth and conflict. The plot moved along, changing her role in the story. The conflict between Korra and Asami progressed through conflict into understanding and sympathy. I loved the quiet moment at the end where Korra tells Mako, “She’s going to need you.”

I’ve seen that pacing elsewhere, and I appreciate that the show doesn’t seem to get bogged down. There’s always a sense of movement.

Lin Beifong continues to be awesome. In many ways, I think she’s my favorite character. Partly because she’s an older woman kicking all sorts of ass. Partly because she, more than anyone else I’ve seen, seems to take full advantage of her bending abilities. The firebenders throw fire. Earthbenders throw rocks. Beifong, on the other hand, manipulates metal cables like Spider-Man, grows blades from her armor to punch through mechs, and seems to push the “What else can I do with this?” angle.

Complexity: The scene with Tahno’s character really jumped out at me. This is a character who’s introduced as a full-on asshole. He’s arrogant, he cheats, and you really wanted Korra to kick his butt in the tournament. Instead, the White Falls Wolfbats won … and thus became the targets of an Equalist attack.

In the next episode, you see Tahno without his powers, and he’s utterly broken. Korra feels for him. She knows what he lost and how close she came to losing her own bending. It was a fairly short scene, but that’s all it took.

The relationship between Tenzin and Lin Beifong is another interesting example. Their history, the contrast of their apparent discomfort with how well they work together in a crisis … I have no idea where that’s going, but I like the dynamic, and at this point I’m trusting the show not to go somewhere overly cliche with it.

While there are certainly characters who seem flat-out Evil, at least at first, I appreciate that things generally aren’t presented in a simplistic black-and-white way. Neither people nor power are simple, and this show respects that fact.

The Animation: This is a very pretty show, particularly in the way it portrays movement and the grace of the different benders. I get done watching, and other cartoons suddenly seem clunkier.

Trusting the Viewers: I was trying to figure out how to phrase this last bit, and “trust” is the closest I can come. I’ve never seen a single episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it hasn’t stopped me from enjoying Korra. It doesn’t surprise me that they wanted a show that could welcome new viewers as well as old, but it struck me that there just isn’t a lot of exposition or hand-holding, period. There’s no talking down, no assuming that things will be too complicated or difficult to understand. Elements are explained as they become relevant to the story.

I know there are things I’m missing from Avatar, but I can catch up on my own, and I like that they don’t slow down the story to spoon-feed information.

In Conclusion: Okay, I get it. I’m officially a fan, and I have added Avatar: TLA to my list of things to catch up on (when I find the time).

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Here’s my selection of interesting (and sometimes amusing) posts about writing from the last week:

What Happens After Writing 3 or 4 Books a Year (Elizabeth Spann Craig)

Traditional vs. Self-publishing is a False Dichotomy (Nathan Bransford)

The Art of Pacing in a Novel (Elissa Cruz) [Jon’s Pick of the week]

Why I'm A Writer & Not a Fighter Pilot (Maggie Stiefvater aka m_stiefvater)

Sounds Great, No Substance (Mary Kole)

Do We Need An Authors Code for Online Conduct? (Jannette Johnson aka darke_conteur)

Who's helping who in the cover blurb game? (Anthony Horowitz)
by way of April Henry (aka aprilhenry)

How to Win a Writing Competition (Dr. John Yeoman)

All About Advances (Rachelle Gardner)

Damn Yankees, and Other Ways Self-Publishing Holds Itself Back (Sarah LaPolla)

The Highs and the Lows of Becoming an Author (Cassie Alexander)

The scariest question: "Why should I care about this story?" (Juliette Wade)


If you have a particular favorite among these, please let the author know (and me too, if you have time).  Also, if you've a link to a great post that isn't here, feel free to share.

If you found these useful, you may also like my personal selection of the most interesting blog posts from 2011, and last week’s list.

Yesterday at around 6:30 in the morning there was a giant boom, followed by more giant booms. A 17-story building (an old Ramada Inn built in the 60s) had been demolished by implosion a couple of miles away from our house. It was a crappy building almost from the beginning (they had to close the top two floors not long after it was opened because they were structurally unsound) and no one liked it, so this was a big occasion in town. Here's a link to a blog with a video clip of the implosion.

In garden news, our tomatoes are out of control:



( garden pictures )

Question answer:

tex_maam asked Just one question: what do you think there desperately needs to be more of on the bookshelves?

To clarify: we all know that great characters and riveting stories are always in high demand, but like, for example... what kinds of protagonists do you feel are under-represented on the shelves? What kinds of settings or story ideas have you wanted to read about and not found much of?

In some ways this is always kind of a hard question to answer, because the SF/F genre is so large and our views of it tend to be so limited and so subjective. We see the books we read, the books our friends talk about online, and the rest tend to fade into the background. (This is how you get people confidently asserting that women don't write fantasy, or that all fantasy is a young beardy guy with a sword fighting orcs and dragons in faux England. People say that because those are the books they read and the books they pay attention to and the books they see mentioned and reviewed. They assume nothing else exists.)

That's why surveys like this I have numbers! Stats on LGBT Young Adult Books Published in the U.S. – Updated 9/15/11 with actual hard figures are important. I also think thematic lists are helpful. (Which is one of the reasons we did the List of Non-European Fantasy by Women Writers -- when you know you want to read more of certain types of fantasy, it's helpful to see lists of what's already out there.)

I know I want more settings that are not based on western Europe, more stories that use non-Western mythology and folklore and historical events, more characters who aren't white, more characters who are LGBT. I also want characters who are older women, in their 40s or 50s, and I want more books that are blends of science fiction and fantasy, like I grew up reading. I know there are already books out there that have those elements and characters, but I want more. I want more weird stuff, too.