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Jun. 26th, 2008
a somewhat secret garden
Jun. 26th, 2008 08:54 pmBeing graduate students, most of the attendees of the garden party were more excited about free food and champagne than about Princess Anne. She was awfully nice, and the flute-and-string trio (flautist: my roommate) played a Haydn piece I'd never heard, but more importantly there were salmon sandwiches and I ate a lot of them. This endeared me to the people who carried around the food trays, because they knew I would take something if they passed by and would thus make the tray lighter. They passed me frequently.
Notably, all of the food was round. Round tarts, round strawberry slices, round scones - even round sandwiches. I thought triangular sandwiches were fancy - or, fancier, irregularly shaped sandwiches on artisan bread not meant for sandwiches, leading to structural weakesses and complications of oral diameter. This clearly reveals my class origins, for in fact circular = posh.
Serving trays, however, were rectangular.
And napkins were square.
As it was extremely windy, I wore my hair in a tucked-under French braid, which charmed all the Armenians at the party because it reminded them of the Soviets. (I couldn't work out why this was pleasant, but it gave them warm and nostalgic feelings.) After this, I was swiftly adopted by the Brazillians, and their Tibetan hangers on, although I'm not sure why. I was glad, though. I am very fond of Brazillians.
Some years ago, I reviewed a book called Mindscan, and I remember having mixed feelings about it; I thought the writing and the characters were so-so, and the story was better handled in Beggars in Spain (a favorite) - but I liked the data about theories of consciousness. I have not touched the book since, but I find myself using the scientific ideas all the time, either as a basis for speculation or as an explanation for what I observe. I recommend it as often as I recommend books I truly love, like Beggars in Spain, A Canticle for Liebowitz, and Cryptonomicon. It's strange to find something so high on my "you must read" list which never made any of my top tens.
(A similar thing has happened with Pattern Recognition, a book which I both like and find frustrating, but this is largely because I suspect people will understand me better after they have read the description of the main character, and partly because I am fascinated by contemporary Moscow.)
Notably, all of the food was round. Round tarts, round strawberry slices, round scones - even round sandwiches. I thought triangular sandwiches were fancy - or, fancier, irregularly shaped sandwiches on artisan bread not meant for sandwiches, leading to structural weakesses and complications of oral diameter. This clearly reveals my class origins, for in fact circular = posh.
Serving trays, however, were rectangular.
And napkins were square.
As it was extremely windy, I wore my hair in a tucked-under French braid, which charmed all the Armenians at the party because it reminded them of the Soviets. (I couldn't work out why this was pleasant, but it gave them warm and nostalgic feelings.) After this, I was swiftly adopted by the Brazillians, and their Tibetan hangers on, although I'm not sure why. I was glad, though. I am very fond of Brazillians.
Some years ago, I reviewed a book called Mindscan, and I remember having mixed feelings about it; I thought the writing and the characters were so-so, and the story was better handled in Beggars in Spain (a favorite) - but I liked the data about theories of consciousness. I have not touched the book since, but I find myself using the scientific ideas all the time, either as a basis for speculation or as an explanation for what I observe. I recommend it as often as I recommend books I truly love, like Beggars in Spain, A Canticle for Liebowitz, and Cryptonomicon. It's strange to find something so high on my "you must read" list which never made any of my top tens.
(A similar thing has happened with Pattern Recognition, a book which I both like and find frustrating, but this is largely because I suspect people will understand me better after they have read the description of the main character, and partly because I am fascinated by contemporary Moscow.)
