An Estimated 33 lbs. of Kitties Enjoying Dracula

Dracula was a YOBC selection from last year, and I finally got around to it. When it first went on the list, I had my doubts about how good it would be.

It was great. I can now see why this classic has survived the ages. The characters are real people – ladies, gents, and monsters. There are no sparklers, day-walkers, huggable vampires in this novel. As the tension builds, the reader gents a true feeling that souls are at stake. The ending was very satisfactory.

And from this book, I have expanded my repertoire in the kitchen. In the earliest chapters, Jonathan Harker is traveling from England to Transylvania and he samples the local food at all the inns he stays at. I chose these three dishes mentioned: paprika hendl, impletata, and mamalgia.

Paprika hendle: paprika chicken cooked in a tomato sauce with sour cream.

Impletata: Sausage-mix stuffed eggplant.

Mamalgia: I went with the sausage-stuffed polenta balls recipe. It can also just be a morning porridge (think southern grits).

“Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable if contriving to give one an utterly unabiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but tgey never lie. Perish the thought.

–from Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

Farpoint, as you might guess from the name, was created to be a celebration of Star Trek and all of its glory. Trek might be long gone from TV and the films trickle out painfully slow, but last week the con was still shoulder to shoulder with 700-ish proud fans. Fans accepting of Farpoint’s transition from balls out Trek into a more general media con.

Media con? What’s that?

Well, some cons are all about comics, gaming, anime, writing, or Sir Terry Pratchett. Media cons blend all that stuff together in the hopes of creating a potion that everyone likes. For me though, such variety gave me a sort of whiplash. There were always a lot of events (six panel rooms, plus the dealer room, con suite, gaming room, and atrium) giving it an inclusive feel. A little something for everyone.

This years actor guests were Kristen Bauer from True Blood, and from Battlestar we had Kate Vernon and Michael Hogan. I had three brushes with Michael Hogan – twice passing him in the halls and once when he sat down next to me at the Insane Ian concert. I’m not sure what I expected from him (probably grumpy) but just these few moments really impressed me. Each time he made eye contact with me and said “hello” or “how ya doin”. He seemed genuinely happy, maybe even gleeful simply to be here.

I was able to catch a performance by Gentleman Jim, an acoustic singer/songwriter with a steampunk bent. He actually doesn’t live that far from me so I hope to catch him out in the wild.

One of my favorite dealer room vendors was back. Lady Heather made me a custom guitar strap last year and this time around her booth was hopping with custom steampunk orders. If you need anything leathery, steampunky, or whatever, check her out.

I finally got my own copy of Insane Ian’s Weezard, Wezer parodies about Harry Potter and hey! This is solid. Perhaps Ian’s most consistent release. It’s good and quite reasonably priced.

And how did I do? Well, my concert drew some good friends and new friends. The highlight of the show was when a guy in the audience stopped me just as I started The Problem With Math. He yelled out “I have to leave but I want to buy all of your stuff right now!” My friends Zan and Mary took over my sales and made the deal as I watched from the stage. Moments like that make me think I’m doing something right.

So, was it worth it? Coming home with the sniffles after a Farpoint weekend? Well, right now the anti-congestion drugs are in full swing so, yes.  If you like a little bit of everything with your Star Trek, Farpoint might just be for you.

Should I be looking for some other grain in my corn tostadas?

Basically, try to eat food that is local. Set yourself a mile-radius limit. 250 miles is recommended for drier, harsher climates and usually 100 miles for more lush climates. Think about it. Where does your cheese come from? Your cereal and milk? How about that chicken and asparagus you had last week? And in eating local organic, you are automatically going to be eating by the seasons. Contemplate that. Go ahead – take the David-the-Thinker pose. No strawberries in December, no peas in deep summer.

Traveling Grapes

This generation of Americans are unusual – an not just for the sloppy pants dress and thrash metal music. We are unusual because we don’t know specifically where your food comes from. For many folks they don’t know the farmer, or where the farm is. Many city dwellers have no place to grow their own food. This is a new turn for our species. Some would say that’s OK. It’s the future. Everything comes in a square or rectangle shape and is heavily processed for our safety, digestibility, and palatability.

Isn't it suppose to be a few nuts and all grains already?

I grew up in this culture. I grew up quite OK with it, not giving it any thought. But the past few years, I have started thinking about it. I like thinking (though don’t try to picture me in the naked-man David Thinker pose). So once I finished this book, I started looking at my food. Oranges in February – How many people handled these? How much oil was needed to get them to my table? Was the plastic and cardboard packaging used to transport it recycled/reused?

Just food for thought. What has your food thought for you lately?

Pure means 1 ingredient, right?

“Yeah,” I heard, the man said, stepping back to look at the Homomdan. He appeared surprised, and Kabe formed the impression that he had been mistaken for a sculpture or an article of monumental furniture. This happened fairly often. A function of scale and stillness, basically. It was one hazard of being a glisteningly black three-and-a-bit meter tall pyramidal triped in a society of slim, matte-skinned two-meter tall bipeds.

–from Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

The Matthew Shardlake series, by C. J. Sansom, is a series of mysteries set in Henry VIII’s England.

The hubs and I have listened to all that are available on audio, and the reader, Steven Crossley *is* Matthew Shardlake–well done! Audible link to the series– and hey! Book 1 is just recently become available! Score!

• Dissolution
• Dark Fire
• Sovereign
• Revelation
• Heartstone

I’ve enjoyed listening to/reading these because I find both the story and the reader totally immersive. I put the headphones on and I am in Tudor England, minus the stench. I am very skeptical about historical fiction because so often the author has to pose ridiculous situations or create truly far-fetched characters. For me, C. J. Sansom sets the bar by which I judge all other historical fiction. As much historical fiction as I enjoy, I only have ever found one equal to this series.

Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer, and as such is often roped into Royal politics. He’s also a hunchback, unmarried, and not very religious–the combination of which in religiously tormented England of the mid 1500s, was a difficult thing to be.

The stories encompass and utilize an Oddfellows cast of characters. Shardlake’s best bud is a Moorish doctor. A woman interred in the Bedlam becomes a major player in the second portion of the story-arc.  Sir Richard Rich is a shit-faced asshole.

I love this series because the stories, more than anything else, explore the average Joe at this time. Sansom doesn’t focus on the wealthy and reknown, but rather what it was like to be an Innkeeper, a medic, a soldier, a drunk, a guard. Through the narration, I learn about how people just got along with their lives, dealing with politics and religion and the changes that swept England. How they paid their debts, how food was distributed, what one type of person might of thought of another, how they avoided the draft, how orphaned children and widows get along.

I learned, among other things, about the Law system, about the Dissolution of the monasteries in England, about religious fanaticism, about medical knowledge and practices, about how that society dealt with its clinically insane, about crime, about debt, about money, about water and food, about raising an army, about what average folks would have thought of Henry VIII’s wife-o-matic, about perception and treatment of animals, about the orphan-system, about small-town politics, about travel, about alchemy/chemistry, about warfare, about hygiene…

Through it all, we get to know Matthew, get angry at his humiliations, anxious over his troubles, heartbroken with his tragedies. We get to know him as he gets to know himself, while he is going through his own spiritual definitions, has troubles and arguments with his friends, learns to navigate social and political life.

There are very violent, very disturbing scenes in this series, and yet, they are not so very different from headlines and criminal motivations of today.

Pop over HERE to read Lady Darkcargo’s comments on how Moby Dick was initially edited for a Puritan public.

HERE is nrlymrtl’s take on the exciting Jules Verne adventure.

And don’t forget to check out HERE how modern-day works reference these classics.

And below is a gratuitous cat photo.

Chupa's belly balanced over the center of the earth.

The barges lay on the darkness of the still canal, their lines softened by the snow heaped in pillows and hummocks on their decks. The horizontal surfaces of the canal’s paths, piers, bollards, and lifting barges bore the same full billowed weight of snow, and the tall buildings set back from the quaysides loomed over all, their windows, balconies, and gutters each a line edged with white.

It was a quiet area of the city at almost any time, Kabe knew, but tonight it both seemed and was quieter still. He could hear his own footsteps as they sank into the untouched whiteness…. He had never known the city so silent.

–from Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks

I will be ElseWhere tomorrow.

I’ve been waiting for these for a long time. What a great treat for me. It’s kinda too bad that I haven’t met anyone else who likes these, but Nyah, whatevs. Party of one.

The first two in Kristen Britain’s Green Rider series are up and ready in Audible, and the next two will be ready shortly.

Commence re-read number, uh, four, I think.

Not sure what to do with your March? Then we have plans for you. Join us for The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Read-Along. We promise to be snarky and insightful at the same time. Click HERE for the original announcement post.

And who is this ‘we’ you ask?

Well, Darkcargo will be playing, nicely, with these other fine bloggers and Lynch fans:

Little Red Reviewer

MyAwfulReviews

SF Signal – posts by ohthatashley (Intro Post HERE)

Darkcargo Explorer (who will be doing a slow-along-read for those who have real lives with real people in them)
Let me know in the comments if you would like to subscribe to updates and fascinating questions by our hosting blogs.  “If I subscribe to Darkcargo already, won’t I get all the Read-Along fun?” To enjoy the whole discussion, I plan to email to you the links to the discussions taking place on these other blogs. Plus, as an added bonus, I will forward the discussion questions to you before they are posted on these participating blogs, so that you can prep and post them on your own blog, if you so choose. Or just to be fanatically prepared for a fun discussion on Darkcargo.