a wolf angel is not a good angel

Ozarque wrote an alternative history (future?) poem about how no one voted in the 2008 election and the judges and journalists were angry, to many complaints. The complaints came in two forms:

1. Hey, that means I wouldn’t vote. I would totally vote.
2. No way would all the politicians and their families and these angry judges etc also be not voting.

The second argument was not as much responded to, though I think it’s a much stronger argument (and was my problem with the poem).

But this has turned into an even more interesting discussion of probability in alternative history, and what readers will and won’t accept.

I said:

Well, what do you mean by “history is essentially the same”?

You have, for instance, Farthing, where history is the same until the early 1940s, when England decided to make a truce with Hitler instead of fight.

But then you have Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, where older history is quite different (Raven King), but more recently past (in the book’s time) history is much the same as now (no more magic), and then magic is used to make book-history happen the same way as real-history.

Or you have the Thursday Next books, which shares only that the same authors wrote (”wrote”, in the books’ universe) the same works. The Crimean War never ended, there’s no such thing as an airplane, but there are televisions and game shows.

Now, arguably two of these aren’t alternate history, but that’s alternate history read very narrowly. (It’s more reasonable to say the Thursday Next — and the Nursery Crimes, I think — books aren’t. But I would find it hard to imagine that Jonathan Strange is not — it’s our world, plus magic.)

What about Orson Scott Card’s alternate historyish about Columbus, where our world continues on for a bit, ends in environmental disaster, then plops three people from our future down into our past. Alternate history, or alternate future?

An alternate history story has to be internally consistent, though — and this is what plausible seems to be about: not likely to happen, not even not impossible, just with a set of rules that it obeys. If the rules are “the world is the same except that Quebec separated in 1995″, you can’t also make Quebec a Russian-speaking province/country. Your poem didn’t seem to obey its own rules. You can make more changes — it’s not really important which or how many — as long as you decide which and inform readers somehow that these are the changes you’ve made. (The changes should also be relevant. If in my alternate history about Quebec the Canadian flag was the three leaf one that was proposed, there should be some reason this matters — it should have an impact on why the story turned out different than reality, otherwise you have the gun in the first act that never goes off.)

I think possibly by allowing JS&MN/Thursday Next into alternative history, I’m opening it up too much to anything at all — Harry Potter is, because hey, it’s the same world as ours except magic, Time-Traveler’s Wife is because it’s the same world, plus a disease that displaces you in time, etc. At the same time, I think in some way JS (at least) really is a kind of alternative history fiction. (Incidentally, the OSC is called Pastwatch.)

My other point is that relevant is sort of in the eyes of the beholder. If it’s a mystery, can’t the clues and the red herrings both be changes from our world to the real one? (Are there any books like this? I’d love to read this book.) That doesn’t actually violate gun in the first, but they’re not some standard definition of relevant.

Anyhow. Anyone have good alternate history books to recommend? Or other fantasy? Or anything that’s good, whatever the genre?

Especially because you’re so beautiful when doing that. (Used my friend’s card reader. Still searching for mine.)

Over at Whatever, John Scalzi posted about how Krissy, his wife, attacked a guy who was hitting on her after he tried to touch her. (This could also lead to interesting discussions of sexism which I won’t get involved in.) This apparently led to comments and posts elsewhere about How Dare She Why Did She Start With The Violence? Then there was an update saying that drunk dude’d actually touched Krissy first, and that John was in fact not posting the whole story. Fair enough, and I have no reason to disbelieve this story. I have no opinion about whether it was justified, really — I’m inclined to think so, but mostly I don’t care very much.

What I find interesting is how — and this happens all the time on blogs, just usually not so obviously — the initial post was without context (well, inasmuch as the blog itself isn’t context), and incomplete, people responded as if the story were in fact complete, and then the author got annoyed that they did it, like how could anyone ever assume that was the whole story right there? In part of course it’s always true: don’t ever assume that the blog post (or anything, but specifically blogs right now) is all and everything. On the other hand, people do assume they’ve been given the relevant information, that bloggers are reliable narrators, or reliable *enough*. Especially if there’s a history of someone not leaving out stuff.

I mean, I complain about being depressed and antisocial, but what I don’t say is that actually I’ve been fairly social lately (seeing people a few times a week, not including family).

Not that anyone is wrong. Not that everyone isn’t wrong. You can’t assume you get the whole story, or that the story you get is exactly right. You also have to assume you have the parts that matter. Except when the writer and the reader are trying to get to different points.

Sometimes I wonder if I had a better background in literary theory I’d understand blogging — and by extension, my life — better.

I am thinking about truth on the net, and elsewhere, yes. I have absolutely no conclusions, except maybe, we’re all skilled liars and we don’t know much, mostly make it up, and we might as well ignore and pretend otherwise it because otherwise we’ll all go mad.

So I only recently started watching Wonderfalls proper and wow, I am so foolish, so very foolish. I need to pay very very close attention to all of Shrinky’s suggestions now (the other was Veronica Mars). This is 2 for 2. (It is so much like Dead Like Me. Which, uh, makes sense what with them having the same writer. Which I never looked up despite missing that show. Why does Ellen Muth not do anything else?)

Alternative answer: I need to not take suggestions from Shrinky because it means I spend all my spare time watching tv. But good tv! And then I get my friend to watch the same shows and soon she’ll hate me for filling up all her spare time with (good) tv.

[1] This is also the name of a square my family makes, with a soft crust covered in melted chocolate and then sprinkled with nuts.

from Postsecret

I have decided to start adding to my wishlist at Chapters. So far I’ve added the entire colour fairy book collection (as separate books), the food substitution bible, a book of poetry, and a book of feminist fairy tales. My plan is to order enough to get me free shipping every month or three. I never can decide on what books to buy and anyways I get annoyed by the huge price difference in Canada vs in the US. I don’t really understand why books cost 50% more here (or 80%). Booksellers: fix this! I would start buying books again if they weren’t 22$ for a freaking trade paperback.

Because I’m in a bad mood and pissed at the world, including — or especially — the people who are now playing their bad music LOUDLY (instead of the usual fairly pleasant music fairly quietly), I am pleased that their landlord is planning on selling the place instead. (I still am not sure it will work, what with what she wants to do being illegal and all. And actually I dislike her, too, so I can’t decide who to root for and see what I said about vengeful?)

I might need to sleep with my window shut, which will super suck. Option 2: listen to something (music, movie) that is loud enough to drown out their music. Why not be just as annoying, except in an antisocial way instead of at the party or whatever it is.

What I really need is to wake up when I’m not so obnoxious, when every little thing doesn’t make me angry or upset. To change myself, or my life, or something. I can’t figure out exactly where my anger is directed, or wants to be, or ought to be. Or if it’s really anger or something else entirely, masquerading as anger.

When I get in a icky mood, these things happen:

• I start to hope that people I feel hurt by have bad things happen to them. (I don’t do things, just hope. But it’s not exactly what I consider a shining example of humanity.)
• I decide that fuck it, I’m tired of calling/emailing/whatevering people and stop getting in touch with people who don’t also initiate things. This regularly gets rid of a handful of people I used to see. And I wonder why I have so few friends.
• On the other hand, I decide I can’t muster the energy to see friends (except maybe my two closest friends) and stop returning calls, etc, because then I’ll have to Do Stuff. These are mostly people I won’t say that I’m in a funk to, and if there is one thing that I am good at lying about, it is this.
• I spend all all all day playing crappy stupid computer games that I don’t even enjoy then berate myself all night for wasting my time with these stupid games I don’t like. Then I feel so guilty the next day that I spend all day playing crappy stupid computer games.
• I get irritated at my cat for minor things, like sleeping on the wrong part of my bed, or snoring. Then I feel guilty and give her all the cat treats I have handy.
• I also stop commenting in all but two or so blogs (which two depends on the week). I berate myself for this and feel guilty and continue to not comment etc.
• I get irritated at everything I do, for no reason. I made coffee? Why did I bother? I didn’t make coffee? What is WRONG with me?

How much longer is it until spring?

Update: I also get annoyed at the weekly party at the place across from me. Normally their music doesn’t bother me — I rather like it. Not today. Turn it off and let me sulk in peace.

I cannot find my card reader and my mother’s isn’t working. So none of the photos I had planned to upload today.

Instead I will talk about music.

I hate the lack of a queuing feature in iTunes.

A comment on last.fm: I feel this weird compulsion to make my listening habits, I don’t know, not stupid sounding. I check out what people on my list are listening to. Ancarett has mostly the stuff I listened to with my parents as I grew up — some show tunes, say, or Peter Paul and Mary — stuff I don’t have now and wish I did. PJM listens to a lot of the folkier stuff that I also like but, again, don’t have much of, but mostly names I heard of or listened to, on and off, for years now. Scrivener[1] listens to the cool stuff that I feel like a total fraud listening to, which other friends introduced me to recently. (Wow, I think I just offended the other people there. Oh well. I actually do like all three sets of music, I’m just bad with descriptions.) I haven’t seen much from SB, and yami, probably just because of the times I’ve happened to look.

So far because I had about one day of listening to music in last week’s tracks, my music is fairly unrepresentative. Also because I’m sort of trying to avoid showing off my obsessional times, when I listen to the same song 27 times in a row. My obsessional times are most of the time, though.

[1] I added Ancarett without bothering to, you know, identify myself at first, though she figured out who it was. I have yet to identify myself to Scrivener. Hi!

A spider was building a web from the light to my bed. My bed! As the edge of a spiderweb!

So I picked up my sleeping cat and used her to swipe the web and set her to attacking the spider. Dinner!