Tag: general geekery

A beautiful and storied ship, part one

As many of you already know, I am a lover of history.  Maritime history is especially one of my favorite sub-fields of history, and I love to see historic ships or reproductions of historic ships at any opportunity.  I am lucky enough to live in a state (and a region) that has many.

So I went to the old Navy Yard in Charlestown on Saturday, since my back was feeling a bit better and I was feeling up to doing some walking around.  And I am so very glad I did, because for the first time ever I got to take a tour of the inside of the USS Cassin Young, one of the museum ships kept there by the National Park Service.

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So a book came out this week, you may have heard…

I may have mentioned in this space that Amanda Palmer had a book publishing this week.  Geoff and I were lucky that we were able to go to the midnight book release party of of her first literary offering, The Art of Asking.  The party was on Monday night, the books were sold/picked up at midnight, and fun was had by all.  Because Geoff’s back was Behaving Badly, we weren’t able to join everyone in the concert/parade from Harvard Square to Porter Square, but we did get to meet some very cool people while we waited at Porter Square Books and sampled the hot cider.

Oh, and as Geoff mentioned here, he also got his picture taken with Neil Gaiman.

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Requiem for a Bookstore

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that independent bookstores are a bit hard to come by these days.  We’re lucky here in the People’s Republic, because we still have a lot of them.  But on Friday one of them went the way of the Dodo and the world is a little less fun for it.  So long, Lorem Ipsum.

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Autumn in New England

It has been kind of strange that we had such a dry, warm September, and there have been some warm days in October too.  But I think you can’t deny that fall has finally arrived in Greater Boston.

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Congratulations, #AlisonBechdel !

One of my favorite cartoonists (whom Kelly and I had the privilege of meeting a few years ago) has won a MacArthur “Genius Grant“.  ThinkProgress also has this interview with her.

I am so excited for her.   I literally cheered when I read the news.

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So… about that whole Syrio Forel thing

OK I have been avoiding talking about Syrio Forel, because it is one of those ASOIAF/GoT topics that just brings out the crazy in so many people.  There are a lot of fan theories about things that may or may not be going on in the books and show.  And there are all sorts of theories about Syrio, mostly about him still being alive, and many of those being about he and Jaqen H’Ghar being the same person.

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Missing characters in ASOIAF/GoT

While writing about Jaqen H’Ghar and Syrio Forel the other day, it occurred to me that there are a number of characters whose fate is uncertain.  Of course, Syrio Forel is one of the most famous and most popular, but there are definitely a few others I have been thinking about.

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The Faceless Men in ASOIAF/GoT

So I haven’t written much lately, and I have been meaning to do something about that.

I have had this idea in my mind about some stuff from the books (and some on TV too, but mostly the books) concerning the mysterious assassins from Braavos: the Faceless Men.

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Language, words, power, and Game of Thrones

I’ve been thinking a lot ever since I first cracked the books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire and watched the HBO show Game of Thrones about the language in the world GRRM has created.  Aside from the fact that most all of the actors speak British English (bravo, Peter Dinklage), there are a lot of interesting accents (bravo, Pedro Pascal), dialects, languages, and such to contend with on screen.

Off screen, in the written word, there’s a lot going on as well.  There’s a great essay here taking apart what’s happening, what GRRM has done and hasn’t done, and things like the necessity of having professional linguists create Dothraki and Valyrian, etc.  Click through, it is absolutely worth a read.

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GRRM, Neil Gaiman, Paul & Storm… so much geek awesomeness concentrated in one spot…

I think there may have actually been danger of having some sort of geek singularity of awesomeness form on stage.

But before I tell you what I am talking about, some context.

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