Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I found this call for papers on Octavia Butler's work in nnaloh's blog.

This volume aims to bring together for the first time a comprehensive collection of critical essays on Butler’s writing. The anthology will combine previously published work that was influential in shaping much of feminist and – more recently – queer debates on Butler’s fiction with new scholarship engaging with Butler’s writing. Those approaches may involve readings of any of Butler’s works in terms of e.g. feminist theory, queer theory, science fiction studies, postcolonial theory, lesbian and gay studies, and critical race studies.

E-mail proposals for new articles as attachments to:
Patricia Melzer
Women’s Studies, Temple University
[email protected]
phone: 215.204.6953

Deadline for proposals (ca. 1000 words): March 30, 2007
Deadline for full manuscripts (ca. 8000 words): June 15, 2007

My readers are charming, of course, and lovable and physically attractive, but they are also disputatious. They quarrel with me because they care, I'm sure. They also quarrel with me because I'm wrong a lot.—Jon Carroll

This afternoon, cattitude and I went for a walk in our usual bit at the north end of Inwood Hill Park, around the soccer field, mostly looking for violets. We found two violets, a bit of purple clover, white and pink lady's thumbs, some remnant jewelweed, and a dandelion.

We also found that a piece of retaining wall had collapsed, along the hillside near the south edge of the soccer field: from the looks of it, rain and runoff had been wearing away the mortar for quite a while, and about half of the wall was lying in pieces in the drainage ditch below where it had been standing. There's some wall left, with no obvious damage (it's still basically vertical), but I expect and hope that the Parks Department will inspect it, confirm or refute that fast analysis, and figure out what to do with the pieces of broken wall. (I'm guessing they'll decide that a retaining wall is still a good idea there, and either repair it or build a new one; I have no idea how long such things take, however, in part because I don't know if three or four meters of stone wall less than a meter high have to be treated as a capital expense, or can be handled financially as routine maintenance.)

I wanted to do something different on/with pasta. Hence, rotini and broccoli florets agli e olio, which is to say topped with lightly browned garlic and lots of olive oil. The recipe I found called for sauteeing fresh parsley in the oil along with the garlic, but we didn't have any. (I didn't decide to do this until late afternoon, well after we went out shopping.)

With that, we had little mackerel filets, cooked quickly in more olive oil and topped with fresh ginger. (Also a bit of dill, but I could barely taste that.)

Next time, maybe a bit less garlic, and parsley or maybe fresh basil.

Which reminds me, the three of us had pho for lunch on Friday (at Le in Harvard Square, "formerly Pho Pasteur" as it says on the menu), with lots of fresh basil, and it was very good indeed.