A very cool thing ...

The Arcade Fire have done a very cool thing: an interactive film about the place where you grew up. It needs Google Chrome and is pretty processor-intensive, but it's gorgeous.
Go! Now!

The Wilderness Downtown

via New Zealand

2010/71: Cards of Grief -- Jane Yolen

Cards of Grief -- Jane Yolen

The specification is that you, Aaron Spenser, did wilfully and unlawfully violate the Cultural Contamination Act in regards to your relationship with an inhabitant or inhabitants of the newly opened planet Henderson's IV in such a way that you have influenced -- to the good or to the bad -- all culture within their closed system forever. How say you to the specification, guilty or not guilty?
I have been more changed than they by the contact, Lieutenant Malkin.
Guilty or not guilty to the specification?
Guilty -- and not guilty, Lieutenant. (p.93)

( slightly spoilery review )

2010/72: Margarettown -- Gabrielle Zevin

Margarettown -- Gabrielle Zevin

She was born Margaret. As a girl, she was May; as a teenager, Mia; as an adult, Marge. When she dies, she was Margaret once again. There were other iterations along the way: Old Margaret with the grey hair, the sexy and impossible Maggie whom I adored, the manic depressive Greta, and others, so many others. There were so many Margaret Townes. Sometimes I ask myself, how could Margaret have been so many women at once? And the answer is, Jane, that your mother was either a most extraordinary woman or a most ordinary one. (p. 32)

( slightly spoilery review )

Allende to Zevin

Have read my way through the alphabet, female writers only. (Apart from Ali Shaw, who for some reason I thought was female: I made up for him with Jane Stevenson.)

- Some could be labelled 'feminist': some were typically 'feminine': some were neither.

- Some were good, some were bad.

- Quite a few were in translation or by writers who aren't English/American.

It didn't feel very different to my usual reading. I probably haven't read this many books by women consecutively for a long time: but the books I read had as wide a range as when I'm reading without attention to the gender of the writer.

You can see 'em all here on LibraryThing, where there are links to my reviews and stars out of five. (About which I often change my mind later.)

[advertisement] More fishy things!

Have listed some more items on Folksy (though am concerned that a parcel sent last week hasn't yet shown up ...) Some of them are quite wholesome*. And for the very first time, there is a matching pendant / earring set (sold separately. Contents may settle in transit.) Also some lovely glimpses of my NEW VICE.

http://www.folksy.com/shops/tamaranth

- Commissions accepted! [insert kudos from darkamber]

- Things can be fiddled and fettled to your needs. I enjoy challenges (like, 'one of those beach thingies! but with no metal anywhere!' -- WIP).

- if I know you personally, I'll waive postage.

*some. Not all.