Lesson learned from Fienman's Law 101? Constitutional law is as fascinating as contract law is boring.
Lesson learned from the case against Philip Harvey's Adam & Eve company, as chronicled in The Government vs Erotica? Constitutional Law is totally fraking awesome, it makes me feel all and warm and fuzzy and empowered n'stuff. I have this urge to look up a bunch of first amendment lawyers and randomly send them thank you cards.
Finished Silverberg's Valentine Pontifex. An excellent book, but my least favorite of the trilogy. My order of favorites equals the order in which they were written. Each book focuses on something very different, which is nice and refreshing, I just enjoyed most the focus of the first book. Was a little funny, I finished Pontifex the same day my copy of Silverberg's Dying Inside arrived. Silverberg's writing style reminds me a little of the dreamy style of M. John Harrison's, as found in his Viriconium stories, and this is a good thing.
On the recommendation of a friend, I picked up Gordon Dahlquist's The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters at the library. Holy crap is this book heavy! In pure tare weight and prose! Dahlquist sure loves his details, from the laces on green boots and trim on robes to mysterious facial scaring, and the sounds the road makes under a carriage. This Victorian adventure is beautifully rendered, well paced, and loaded with characters both cruel and intriguing. Romantic and sexy in the original senses, it'll be a sad ending if there isn't a single romantic hook up. Weight of prose wise, the novel lands half way between George R R Martin Song of Ice and Fire novels (obscenely long, but so good you don't care) and Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (obscenely, needlessly long and rambling and in dire need of some severe editing). I believe Dahlquist is a playwright for his dayjob, I have to wonder if his plays run 6+ hours?
Showing posts with label Robert Silverberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Silverberg. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
"boring books", good books, and good food
how's that for a vague post title? well, I've been reading what i like to call my "boring books, and been reading "good books", and been eating lots of of good food, so it's perfectly descriptive.
Book review is up for Sergei Lukyanenko's Nightwatch. I'm quite sure there are more books in this series, and now I've got to track them down!
I finished reading Robert Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles, which is the second book in the Lord Valentine series. Chronicles follows Labyrinth urchin Hissune as he gains access to the Record of Souls. Hissune lives a few hours as early colonists of the planet, dreamspeakers, coronals, soldiers, and others. This shapes his education in a way no other experience could, and sets him up to be Valentine's heir apparents, much to the dismay of the princes on the Castle Mount. Lord Valentine's Castle gives the foundation of getting to know the multitude of cultures on Majipoor, and Chronicles gives the history and the details. So now I'm on to Valentine Pontifex, and i'm find that I'm avoiding it for the same reason I was avoiding finished LVC - I don't want it to end!
In the land of boring books (anything non-fiction), I'm still slogging through Fienman's Law 101. I'm picking up a lot of needed terminology, and learning that Contract Law is really, really boring. I couldn't resist a book entitled The Government vs Erotica, by Philip Harvey, the owner of Adam and Eve, a mail order "adult products" company. The government went after him with all it's might for distributing obscene materials, and Harvey and his company fought back. This book is funny, scary, and passionate. I can't put it down. Distorting the Law is going back to the library unfinished, it is too over my head. Never in a million years did I ever believe I'd be reading a book about tort law (other than John Grisham), and at least now I can say that I've never finished one.
Foodwise, i'm already starting to test drive recipes for Passover, which is only a few weeks away! Okay, so this isn't quite kosher, and it isn't quite kosher for passover, but it's only a few easy to substitute ingrediets away from both.
Mushroom & Potato casserole
2 lbs potatoes
olive oil
1 lb mushrooms
2 tbsp lemon juice
a few ounces thinly sliced salami
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
few tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350. slice mushrooms into 1/4" slices. clean and slice mushrooms, and sprinkle them with the lemon juice. in a small bowl, blend parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, and parsley. generously oil a large baking dish, and put a layer of potatoes to cover the bottom. follow this with a layer of mushrooms, a layer of salami, and a layer of the cheese breadcrumbs mixture. season with salt & pepper (go easy on the salt if your salami is salty). keep layering in this manner until you run out of ingredients. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil over the caserole, and bake until potatoes are cooked through, about 60-75 mintues.
Book review is up for Sergei Lukyanenko's Nightwatch. I'm quite sure there are more books in this series, and now I've got to track them down!
I finished reading Robert Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles, which is the second book in the Lord Valentine series. Chronicles follows Labyrinth urchin Hissune as he gains access to the Record of Souls. Hissune lives a few hours as early colonists of the planet, dreamspeakers, coronals, soldiers, and others. This shapes his education in a way no other experience could, and sets him up to be Valentine's heir apparents, much to the dismay of the princes on the Castle Mount. Lord Valentine's Castle gives the foundation of getting to know the multitude of cultures on Majipoor, and Chronicles gives the history and the details. So now I'm on to Valentine Pontifex, and i'm find that I'm avoiding it for the same reason I was avoiding finished LVC - I don't want it to end!
In the land of boring books (anything non-fiction), I'm still slogging through Fienman's Law 101. I'm picking up a lot of needed terminology, and learning that Contract Law is really, really boring. I couldn't resist a book entitled The Government vs Erotica, by Philip Harvey, the owner of Adam and Eve, a mail order "adult products" company. The government went after him with all it's might for distributing obscene materials, and Harvey and his company fought back. This book is funny, scary, and passionate. I can't put it down. Distorting the Law is going back to the library unfinished, it is too over my head. Never in a million years did I ever believe I'd be reading a book about tort law (other than John Grisham), and at least now I can say that I've never finished one.
Foodwise, i'm already starting to test drive recipes for Passover, which is only a few weeks away! Okay, so this isn't quite kosher, and it isn't quite kosher for passover, but it's only a few easy to substitute ingrediets away from both.
Mushroom & Potato casserole
2 lbs potatoes
olive oil
1 lb mushrooms
2 tbsp lemon juice
a few ounces thinly sliced salami
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
few tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350. slice mushrooms into 1/4" slices. clean and slice mushrooms, and sprinkle them with the lemon juice. in a small bowl, blend parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, and parsley. generously oil a large baking dish, and put a layer of potatoes to cover the bottom. follow this with a layer of mushrooms, a layer of salami, and a layer of the cheese breadcrumbs mixture. season with salt & pepper (go easy on the salt if your salami is salty). keep layering in this manner until you run out of ingredients. Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil over the caserole, and bake until potatoes are cooked through, about 60-75 mintues.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Lord Valentine & Stranger Tides Reviews up
must write reviews! books are due at the library! and my "books to be read" pile is getting out of control, as usual.
New reviews up:
Lord Valentine's Castle, by Robert Silverberg (he's my new obsession.)
On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers
In boring book news, i picked up something called Distorting the Law, by William Halton and Michael McCann. It's basically about the media sensationalization of tort law, and the need for tort reform. for example, remember the woman who sued because getting a CAT scan took away her psychic powers? yeah, big joke. before the Cat scan, she said she was allergic to the dye they were going to inject her with. They injected it anyway and did the scan. Her allergic reaction causes pain and debilitating headaches. Regardless of her claim of psychic powers before or after the Cat Scan, they injected her with something she was allergic to, and part of her lawsuit was medical malpractice and pain and suffering. the jury awarded her a boatload of money, the judge lowered the amount, and on appeal the whole thing was reversed. medical malpractive or no, "psychic" or no, she never saw a penny and it became a perfect example of how the media has allowed tort cases to be spun out of control. Would people have thought different of the case if she had never mentioned her profession was psychic medium? A dry but interesting book, i'm only understanding about half of it, because of my lack of education in law/tort/media/etc. back to the library for Law 101: Everything you need to know about the American Legal System, by Jay Fienman. Okay, so it's certainly not everything, but it's many steps up from some Law for Dummies type thing. Fienman keeps everything in words I can understand, with real world examples, and a few made up ones. Now everyone at work thinks I'm a law student, which i'm not.
New reviews up:
Lord Valentine's Castle, by Robert Silverberg (he's my new obsession.)
On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers
In boring book news, i picked up something called Distorting the Law, by William Halton and Michael McCann. It's basically about the media sensationalization of tort law, and the need for tort reform. for example, remember the woman who sued because getting a CAT scan took away her psychic powers? yeah, big joke. before the Cat scan, she said she was allergic to the dye they were going to inject her with. They injected it anyway and did the scan. Her allergic reaction causes pain and debilitating headaches. Regardless of her claim of psychic powers before or after the Cat Scan, they injected her with something she was allergic to, and part of her lawsuit was medical malpractice and pain and suffering. the jury awarded her a boatload of money, the judge lowered the amount, and on appeal the whole thing was reversed. medical malpractive or no, "psychic" or no, she never saw a penny and it became a perfect example of how the media has allowed tort cases to be spun out of control. Would people have thought different of the case if she had never mentioned her profession was psychic medium? A dry but interesting book, i'm only understanding about half of it, because of my lack of education in law/tort/media/etc. back to the library for Law 101: Everything you need to know about the American Legal System, by Jay Fienman. Okay, so it's certainly not everything, but it's many steps up from some Law for Dummies type thing. Fienman keeps everything in words I can understand, with real world examples, and a few made up ones. Now everyone at work thinks I'm a law student, which i'm not.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
My compliments to Robert Silverberg
No updates in a while, been busy. More quicky throwing some food together than actual recipes, but thrown together stuff is tasty too. i cringe to call thrown together stuff a "recipe", as there really isn't a list of stuff I used, a specific order in which it was used, or specific quantities. but this creation was mighty tasty, and i'm as my chickpea addiction knows no bounds, I'm craving some of this stuff right now.
Not a recipe for quick chickpeas
One can chickpeas, drained.
one green onion, sliced thin
good splash of olive oil
small splash balsamic vinegar
little squirt dijon mustard
mix all in bowl, let sit a few minutes, eat. is great in a pita.
doesn't get much simpler, quicker, or pantry-easy than that.
bookswise, i have discovered the university library. If Serious Eats is food pr0n, then the university library is info pr0n. and get this: they have "designated food and drink area", and they don't kick you out till 2am! how awesome is that? yes, I'm lame I know, but being surrounded by so much knowledge is just very comforting for me. and parking is free after 8pm. I been lurking around the Law and Political Theory areas, yes, yes, very boring, but surprisingy readable. if they would just have comfier chairs, or maybe some bean bag chairs, that woudl totally rock.
In non boring book news, I've finally discovered Robert Silverberg, Sure, I see his books all over the place, but i never picked one up. My husband thrust Lord Valentine's Castle, along with all it's aweful 70's style high fantasy cover art into my hands, and told me "If you like Michael Moorcock, you'll probably like this", and he was right. Story is pretty simple, Valentine wakes up knowing his name and where he his, other than that, his memory is gone. Needing work, he ends up with a travelling troupe of jugglers while he tries to figure out who he is and what is going on. Revealed through dreams, he learns that he is the Lord Valentine, who rules on high from the Castle Mount. Through trickery and magic, Valentine has been ousted from his body, and the son of the King of Dreams rules in his stead. Silverberg could have easily gone with high fantasy, high drama, high stakes, and more melodrama than you can shake a hobbit at. But he didn't. This book asks for nothing from the reader. That can sound like an insult, so let me explain. High fantasy requires the reader to remember lineages, worldly histories, lots of drama etc, things that for me can get in the way of enjoying myself. Hard scifi requires the reader to put up with and generally enjoy infodumps, interstellar empires of who knows what, and technobabble and the like. I am not knocking any of these things, but they are requirements that an author makes with a reader. I often enjoy the requirements. Sometimes however, I want nothing more than to sit back, relax, and enjoy myself. Lord Valentine's Castle gives me enjoyment. it gives me relaxation. Reading it is like sitting on the beach on a perfect day, listening to the waves lap on the shore, feeling the warm sun on my face. I have not finished the book yet, but so far it has been pure enjoyment. Maybe i'm misjudging it. Maybe there is plenty of melodrama that i'm missing or skipping over. Maybe Silverberg and his fans will be offended by my saying that the book requires nothing of me. Silverbergs prose is elegant, natural, and witty. If I were to have a son one day, i'd bet good money that the name "Valentine" would be on the boy's birth certificate. Mr Silverberg and fans, if that isn't the highest compliment an author could be paid, I don't know what is.
side note: also started reading S.M. Stirlings The Protector's War, the sequel to Dies the Fire. Either I'm just not in the mood for this right now, or this second book is no where near as good as the first.
Not a recipe for quick chickpeas
One can chickpeas, drained.
one green onion, sliced thin
good splash of olive oil
small splash balsamic vinegar
little squirt dijon mustard
mix all in bowl, let sit a few minutes, eat. is great in a pita.
doesn't get much simpler, quicker, or pantry-easy than that.
bookswise, i have discovered the university library. If Serious Eats is food pr0n, then the university library is info pr0n. and get this: they have "designated food and drink area", and they don't kick you out till 2am! how awesome is that? yes, I'm lame I know, but being surrounded by so much knowledge is just very comforting for me. and parking is free after 8pm. I been lurking around the Law and Political Theory areas, yes, yes, very boring, but surprisingy readable. if they would just have comfier chairs, or maybe some bean bag chairs, that woudl totally rock.
In non boring book news, I've finally discovered Robert Silverberg, Sure, I see his books all over the place, but i never picked one up. My husband thrust Lord Valentine's Castle, along with all it's aweful 70's style high fantasy cover art into my hands, and told me "If you like Michael Moorcock, you'll probably like this", and he was right. Story is pretty simple, Valentine wakes up knowing his name and where he his, other than that, his memory is gone. Needing work, he ends up with a travelling troupe of jugglers while he tries to figure out who he is and what is going on. Revealed through dreams, he learns that he is the Lord Valentine, who rules on high from the Castle Mount. Through trickery and magic, Valentine has been ousted from his body, and the son of the King of Dreams rules in his stead. Silverberg could have easily gone with high fantasy, high drama, high stakes, and more melodrama than you can shake a hobbit at. But he didn't. This book asks for nothing from the reader. That can sound like an insult, so let me explain. High fantasy requires the reader to remember lineages, worldly histories, lots of drama etc, things that for me can get in the way of enjoying myself. Hard scifi requires the reader to put up with and generally enjoy infodumps, interstellar empires of who knows what, and technobabble and the like. I am not knocking any of these things, but they are requirements that an author makes with a reader. I often enjoy the requirements. Sometimes however, I want nothing more than to sit back, relax, and enjoy myself. Lord Valentine's Castle gives me enjoyment. it gives me relaxation. Reading it is like sitting on the beach on a perfect day, listening to the waves lap on the shore, feeling the warm sun on my face. I have not finished the book yet, but so far it has been pure enjoyment. Maybe i'm misjudging it. Maybe there is plenty of melodrama that i'm missing or skipping over. Maybe Silverberg and his fans will be offended by my saying that the book requires nothing of me. Silverbergs prose is elegant, natural, and witty. If I were to have a son one day, i'd bet good money that the name "Valentine" would be on the boy's birth certificate. Mr Silverberg and fans, if that isn't the highest compliment an author could be paid, I don't know what is.
side note: also started reading S.M. Stirlings The Protector's War, the sequel to Dies the Fire. Either I'm just not in the mood for this right now, or this second book is no where near as good as the first.
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