Just Imagine...

Sun 29 Nov 2009, 14:34 GMT

Thanksgiving 2009 at the American Book Center: the spoils

As I did in 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005, herewith an account of my Thanksgiving shopping spree at the ABC. Since I'm again cross-posting between the message board and the weblog, a short intro for any non-messageboard people who weren't weblog people yet last year either (there's some, according to my feed subscription counts): English science fiction and fantasy books are somewhat scarce in regular bookstores in the Netherlands. Yet there is one place to go to, one place which makes up for it all. The American Book Center imports from both the US and the UK, and as such has a collection that many people from both the US and the UK have mentioned to be larger and more diverse than anything they know. Members of the ABC and students get a 10% discount. And every year at Thanksgiving, they add another 10% discount on top of this. (20% discount is a big deal in the Netherlands, especially with the lack of choice.) And so there's a yearly pilgrimage to stock up on all those books that everyone's been meaning to buy for a long time now... (Plus the atmosphere at the ABC is always great on this day; very welcome as it doesn't seem to permeate the shiny new store as much as it did in the old place.)

This year has been weird where reading time has been concerned. During the first half of the year, I had long daily commutes which allowed me to read nearly two books a week, and make great progress with going through my to-read stacks. But then from July onward, progress pretty much halted due to many changes in my personal life, and so there's still quite a few books left unread from last year's Thanksgiving. Still, I went pretty much all-out with buying new things to read; I'll just have make a point of it this coming year to actually find the time to read them all.

So, herewith, in alphabetical order, the spoils:
* Neal Asher - The Gabble and other stories. (I still haven't read his latest full novel, Line War (though that's currently right at the top of my pile), but I figure that I'll continue liking it well enough, and so some short stories in between that and the next novel will undoubtedly be welcome.)
* Iain M. Banks - Matter. (Banks is pretty much hit-and-miss, but since Matter is a culture novel, and his latest non-Culture novel was a miss, I'm hoping this will be a hit again.)
* Emma Bull - Bone Dance. (The only Emma Bull I've read so far was her collaboration with Steven Brust on one of my all-time favorite books, Freedom & Necessity. I'm still looking to get my hands on a copy of her best known work, War for the Oaks, but meanwhile Bone Dance looked like a thoroughly intriguing book in its own right, so I'll be very interested to see what it'll be like.)
* Brenda Cooper - The Silver Ship and the Sea. (Every year I gamble on some completely unknown (to me) authors; this book is the first of the big gambles from this year. The coverblurb makes me cringe, and although there's a quote from Vernor Vinge inside, it's for a collaboration between this author and Larry Niven, which is pretty much the opposite of a recommendation. And yet...)
* Cory Doctorow - Makers. (Although I highly enjoyed Little Brother, thinking it one of the most important books of last year, I still don't have a very high opinion of Cory's writing ability. As such, I wasn't really planning to look into Makers until it hit paperback. But the hardcover was there, and the coverblurb mentioned "venture capitalists take on a new strategy: backing litigation against companies like Disney", and well, I'm just a sucker for a line like that... *g*)
* Greg van Eekhout - Norse Code. (A horrible generic "babe with sword" cover almost made me put this gamble back on the shelf before even reading the coverblurb, but then I spotted a quote by Steven Brust. Such a quote is rare to such a degree that it became an instant certainty that I'd end up taking it with me, and am even putting it way near the top of the pile.)
* David Louis Edelman - Infoquake. (Yet another gamble, one of many books I picked up this year which had some kind of "the internet of the future, and the daring 'hacker' heroes who're fighting to save/destroy it" angle. What I liked in the coverblurb on this one was that the purpose in this book is to release some new technology to the public in order to keep it safe; that at least makes me hopeful.)
* Steven Erikson - Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. (A long time ago, I bought the first of the Erikson signed limited edition hardcover novellas, Blood Follows, before deciding that I really didn't want to support that exploitative type of publishing (the fans being the ones being exploited here). Now, a mere seven years later, that novella is being joined by The Lees of Laughter's End and The Healthy Dead in this volume, and so I can finally read those other two stories. (Incidentally, I see that my original copy of the PS Publishing edition of Blood Follows (of which I even have two) is now being sold for $250+ on abebooks. Hmm...))
* Michael Flynn - Eifelheim. (Somehow quotes by Orson Scott Card and Jack McDevitt (both authors which I avoid at all cost) weren't quite enough to make me give up on this gamble. I guess the concept of a first contact story set back in the 1300s is original enough that I was willing to overlook it.)
* C.S. Friedman - Feast of Souls. (In the days of yore, I used to be a great fan of C.S. Friedman. Yet then I lost interest in pretty much all "generic" fantasy, and so when she returned to the scene in 2007 with a new fantasy, I picked it up, wavered, and put it down again. But I guess the temptation has remained, and so now I've decided to go and give this one a try anyway.)
* M. John Harrison - Nova Swing. (Last year I picked up M. John Harrison's Light as a gamble. Though darker than I'd hoped for, the universe was rather awesome, and so I didn't have much trouble deciding to see what this next book set in the same universe.)
* Robin Hobb - The Dragon Keeper. (I pretty much stopped being a Robin Hobb fan after the failure which was the Soldier Son trilogy, and then this intended stand-alone Rain Wilds novel was split in two, and so I decided I'd go look at it again when it'd be published in paperback. But, well, y'know, a hardcover at Thanksgiving is almost the same as a paperback, and it is set in the Rain Wilds, after all...)
* David Marusek - Mind Over Ship. (Back in 2007 I gambled on David Marusek's Counting Heads, and pretty much won the jackpot, as the book was totally awesome. So here I am, two years later, picking up the next volume in hardcover.)
* David Marusek - Getting to Know You. (Wanting more, I also picked up this short story collection.)
* Kelly McCullough - WebMage. (Another gamble like Infoquake, I really don't have high hopes of reading the story of this hacker extraordinaire[/i] in a world where [q]magic has gone digital. But still, it's barely 300 pages, so the gamble of reading it probably won't cost me too much.)
* Paul Melko - Singularity's Ring. (Quotes by Charles Stross, Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder, John Barnes and Neal Asher. One can hardly call this a gamble anymore; plus, I'm rather looking forward to seeing how this author writes a character consisting of five individual humans.)
* Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand. (Each year I buy a couple of books which I read way back when during my library days, but am still missing in my personal library. These two books fall in that category.)
* A.E. Van Vogt - The World of Null-A. (Another classic which was missing from my library, and which I'll desperately need to reread in order to be able to fully enjoy John C. Wright's sequel, below.)
* Tad Williams - The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, To Green Angel Tower Part 1 and 2. (More books which were shamefully lacking in my library. I really need to reread these as well, to see if I can gain a proper appreciation for what Tad did in them, which I didn't have the first time I read them as a teenager.)
* Walter Jon Williams - This is Not a Game. (The (Orbit) cover reminded me strongly of the (Orbit) cover of Halting State by Charles Stross. I suspect that's exactly the association Orbit was going for. Either way, it's a near future science fiction, in which an online game plays a big role, so it was an easy choice to gamble on it.)
* John C. Wright - Null-A Continuum. (I had high hopes for John C. Wright, calling his originality reminiscent of Roger Zelazny. So far that's a comparison which hasn't really quite proven to be justified, but I'll still keep following his work with great interest. Here, he's doing a sequel to A.E. Van Vogt's classic Null-A (which I'll have to reread, first), an although I'm generally opposed to authors extending well-loved classics (see Amber, Dune, etc), this one feels like a justified tribute.)

The total clocks in at 25 books, requiring two shiny black ABC bags to carry out. If you're interested in what I think of the books (especially the gambles), keep an eye on the What's everyone reading at the moment? thread.

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Fri 14 Aug 2009, 00:06 GMT

Photos from Castlefest 2009

Unlike the Elf Fantasy Fair, which I've visited most years since 2001, Castlefest is only a relatively recent discovery for me. Its scale is much smaller, and the atmosphere possibly even better. This year I visited it together with a bunch of crazy friends from Smarch.

Didn't take out my camera very often, but still got a couple of shots worth putting online, so hereby: Castlefest photos.

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Sun 9 Aug 2009, 15:46 GMT

New York-style cheesecake recipe

A long time ago, back when I was barely starting out on my first backpacking adventure, I ate my very first piece of cheesecake while attending a smarchmoot in N'awlins, and became an instant fan. During my travels, I made a point of it to continue looking for this heavenly dish. Yet upon returning home, I discovered that the sad knowledge which had been mine already was in fact true: there was no cheesecake in the Netherlands. (This is no longer true, as more and more cafes and restaurants and people seem to have discovered cheesecake, but it was still true a couple of years ago.) During one particularly long stretch between travels, I finally cracked down and searched the great untamed wilderness of the intertubes for cheesecake recipes. I found many, and cobbled together my own from them all based on feedback from other people on those recipes and trying out things myself. Having baked nearly a score of cheesecakes, I'm getting close to perfecting the result (my own cheesecakes are currently in the top five of best cheesecakes I've ever eaten, if still a long way away from those first places). More and more, the people who visit me (who I seize upon as an excuse for baking cheesecakes) are asking me for my recipe. Since it's a cobbled together recipe, I've disappointed them so far, but last month finally promised to go and write it all out. Herewith the result. (Those who're not interested in a detailed step-by-step guide to baking a cheesecake, written by someone who has otherwise zero experience with baking anything elaborate, can go and read an interview with me about travel, or search the intertubes for funny cat pictures, whichever you prefer.) ;p

There are many cakes, pies and desserts throughout this world which are called "cheesecake" (or a translated form thereof). A lot of them have very little in common with a lot of the other kinds. For me, the one true cheesecake (that is, the yummiest kind) is the incredibly rich and dense "New York-style" baked cheesecake, and so this is what I'll mean when I talk about cheesecake.

I'll use metric units in this recipe. If you're one of those silly people who use imperial units, do your own conversions. :) Since it's mostly Dutch people who're asking me for this recipe, I'll also name the Dutch words for all the ingredients.


Ingredients for the crust:
* 190 gram flour (tarwebloem)
* 60 gram sugar (kristalsuiker)
* 1 egg (ei)
* 125 gram unsalted butter (roomboter)
* 4 gram vanilla sugar or vanilla extract (vanillesuiker)

Ingredients for the filling:
* 1100-1150 gram cream cheese; e.g. Kraft Philadelphia Natural Cream Cheese (Philadelphia Naturel)
* 350 gram sugar (kristalsuiker)
* 25 gram flour (tarwebloem)
* 5 eggs (ei)
* 20-40 milliliters whipping cream (slagroom)
* 4 gram vanilla sugar or vanilla extract (vanillesuiker)
* 2 gram baking powder / corn starch (bakpoeder / maiszetmeel)

Other necessities:
* Large (at least 3 liters, preferably 5 liters or more) mixing bowl
* Medium mixing bowl (for mixing the ingredients for the crust; optional since you could use the large mixing bowl for this as well)
* Springform pan with a 23-25 centimeter diameter (bakvorm)
* Baking pan, large enough to hold the springform pan, with a rim at least 5 centimeters high (ovenschaal)
* Aluminium foil (aluminiumfolie)
* Mixer
* Spray oil (probably optional, if you coat the springform with butter instead) (bakspray)
* Large spoon (pot ladle) for scraping the filling out of the large mixing bowl

Preheat the oven at 200°C. Coat the inside of the springform pan with spray oil. Knead the ingredients for the crust in the medium mixing bowl until they form a ball. Flatten this (with a dough roller if available; coat it lightly in flour first to avoid the batter sticking to it) and transfer to the springform pan, covering the entire bottom, but reaching up only a short way along the rim. (One problem I have here is that it's slightly too much ingredients for the 23cm springform I have, leading to a too thick crust; the sides also keep falling down upon baking if I make them reach too high. I'll probably try using 10-20% less of the butter and flour next time. (The ratio butter/flour needs to stay the same though, otherwise the batter will be too sticky, or not sticky enough.)) Prick little holes with a fork throughout to allow the heat to reach it more uniformly and not be trapped underneath. Bake for 15 minutes at 200°C, then take out of the oven to cool.

While the crust is baking and then cooling down, mix together the ingredients for the filling in the large mixing bowl. (If you were stubborn and didn't get a really large mixing bowl here, you'll now have a kitchen covered in bits of cream cheese.) :) Only add the eggs and whipping cream at the last as they trap air. As soon as the mix has a consistent texture (ideally slightly runny, but not completely liquid), stop mixing. (You could probably leave out the baking powder and/or whipping cream without noticing much of any difference in the end result. Also, the number of eggs and amount of sugar is up for experimentation; some people think this particular mix is too sweet, while others think it could stand to be a bit sweeter still. I'd be interested in hearing opinions and results of experimentation. I've also been pondering adding significantly more vanilla sugar to see what this would do to the taste.)

When the crust comes out of the oven, increase oven temperature to 250°C. Boil 1-1.5 liters of water.

Wrap aluminium foil around the bottom and sides of the springform pan (once it's cooled off enough that you can touch it). Place it in the baking pan and pour the boiling water around it (up to half the height of the rim of the baking pan). (This makes a Bain-marie, which prevents the cheesecake from cracking.) Having the pot ladle at hand, pour and scrape the cream cheese mix into the springform pan. Place the baking pan (with springform pan holding the cheesecake) in the oven, and bake for 15-18 minutes at 250°C. (Make certain you're not using a circulating "hot air" mode, as this will blacken the top of the cheesecake within a minute. Instead, after 15-18 minutes the top of the cheesecake should just start to get very faintly brown.) As soon as you notice the top of the cheesecake getting faintly brown (if you're still doubting if it's really happening, that's already good enough), but no later than at 18 minutes, reduce the temperature of the oven to 100°C. Bake at 100°C for 75 minutes. (These times and temperatures matter a lot for the solidity of the cheesecake; they're correct for my oven, but if your cheesecake comes out not solid enough, experiment with increasing them slightly.) Turn off the oven, but don't open it. Leave the cheesecake standing in the still warm oven for another 60 minutes, then open the oven and let the cheesecake cool down to room temperature. Once the cheesecake is at room temperature, take it out of the oven, remove the aluminium foil from around the springform pan, dry off the underside of the springform pan (careful not to drop it or hold it sideways) :) and place it in the fridge. Leave the cheesecake standing in the fridge for at least 48 hours; 72 hours would be better, 24 hours is an absolute minimum (but really, you'll want to go for the 72 hours: this is what allows the taste to be as good as it is (it reaches its absolute best after roughly a week in the fridge, but is already at 95% after 72 hours)).



Be careful not to serve too large slices; this cheesecake in incredibly filling, and can easily serve 16 people.



Enjoy!

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Tue 2 Jun 2009, 23:15 GMT

Meandering thoughts on Balloon Man

I attended a show by Richard Shindell tonight, which was absolutely marvelous (and the opening act Confoundry was wonderful as well; I loved their version of "She Moved Through the Fair", and they had an original song, "Watching Swans" which was just wow). The final song of Richard's regular set was "Balloon Man", from his latest album "Not Far Now". He'd nearly forgotten to play it, due to him talking about Buenos Aires turning into him singing the only Spanish song he's ever written, but luckily a member of the audience reminded him.
All kinds of wonderful songs got played this evening, and the breadth of this guy's song writing reminds me a bit of Jane Siberry (where a song like "Get Up Clara" would be the equivalent of "Bessie" (and sorry, it's okay if you don't know either song, I'm just getting sidetracked here)), but it was Balloon Man which really struck a chord, and has been playing through my mind for the last hour and a bit (*gulps and looks at the time and just *knows* he's going to regret taking the time to write this come tomorrow early morning*).
Balloon Man is a song about a local character living in Buenos Aires, selling balloons with the help of an elaborately constructed rig, who has been doing this for at least a decade and a half, and is thus pretty much a fixture of the place (I'm thinking the same scale as "the wizard" in Christchurch and similar characters). Richard, living in Buenos Aires, and having this amazing songwriting capability, has immortalized him, painting a wonderfully distinct picture with just a few carefully placed strokes of words. And so in the song he describes balloon man's raggedness, and his rig ("a marvel of equipoise"), and his perseverance. And interspersed with that is the refrain...

quote:

and you're so far away
on the other side of the world
I just thought you should know
that balloon man lives in it too

...and I just love that. This, this right here is what it's all about. This is why I love travel so much, and keep doing it (well, this and two score other things, but for now let's just focus on this). We're all living these mundane (frequently wonderful) lives of everyday small worries and cares (and sunshine and friendship and things which make one laugh in pure delight), with horizons which most days barely cover the distance from home to work. And then you're reminded of just how vast this world stretches beyond that horizon, and how many more totally mundane wonders it holds, just waiting for us to discover by travelling through it and paying attention.

Argentina was already on my list of countries to visit and explore in depth, but I shall now have to make a point of it to linger for a week or two in Buenos Aires when I'm there, and see if I might not spot balloon man for myself. I also know, though, that it matters not if I never make it to Buenos Aires after all. Balloon Man has an infinite number of cousins, and I know I'll get to recognize many of them in the months and years to come. And I know that from now on, I'll always think "balloon man" to myself, and smile.

So, yeah... I just thought you should know. This world you're living in? Balloon Man lives in it too.

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Sun 17 May 2009, 11:02 GMT

Photos from the Elf Fantasy Fair 2009

As I do most years when I'm in the country for it, I visited the Elf Fantasy Fair this year, and due to a leeetle bit of prompting from certain parties, I actually got around to sorting through my photos from it reasonably swiftly (my photos from last year are still languishing in the dusty corners of my harddisk).

I didn't end up with all that many photos, either, but enough decent shots that I figure it's worth putting up this here post to tell you about it.

Had a lot of fun during the Fair again this year, although I didn't see nearly as many friends as usual (I guess 25k visitors is really getting a bit much for being able to rely on just randomly bumping into people you know), and really felt the lack of any big name authors visiting (their readings and signings usually help me structure my day). But on the positive side, I got to wander the terrain in the company of my friend xavie, who'd come over from Germany for this, so I had someone there to marvel at costumes with (including all the adorable pink princesses) :D and with whom I could share laughter at such things as the group of children who were engaged in throwing stuffed dragons ever higher into a tree until their mother's sword wasn't long enough anymore to poke them back out.

Anyhoo, wasn't intending to make this a complete report, so here for your approval: Picshures!

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Mon 9 Mar 2009, 00:37 GMT

Busy Days: FOSDEM, MozCamp, Vienna, Stockholm and Sevilla

Just a short (hopefully) update on what all has been keeping me busy lately, in no particular order, and containing far too much rambling, as I'm tired and really shouldn't be taking out the time to try writing here. First the most recent event: last Friday I attended MozCamp Utrecht, the first of a series of Mozilla organized events on "the open web". I was asked to give a presentation on HTML 5, preparing for which gobbled up the last of the free time I already didn't have during this last week. I found it hard to envision my audience for this talk, and I still didn't succeed in getting my Ubuntu laptop to send output to the beamer (I hate how hard that is; the only consolation being that the backup Windows laptop had exactly as many problems with being set up; why do beamers have to be so difficult, while an external monitor on the laptop just works out of the box?), but I still think the talk went reasonably well. It ended up generating some good discussion and questions at the end, and I think I managed to convey the important parts about why HTML 5 exists, while dispelling some common misconceptions about it; if that impression is correct, I'd even call it a success.
Beyond this selfish focus on my own presentation, I found the day to be highly inspiring and worthwhile; the Netherlands is running far behind in various ways wrt promoting the open web (just look at the abysmal Firefox market share in the Netherlands, way behind any other country in Europe), but this is not due to the people who were here. Had some very interesting talks with various people, got to meet some new Mozilla people who I knew by nickname but had never met in person before, and generally had a good time. (And upon arriving home, I collapsed into bed, slept for a solid 13 hours, and still had to fight off tiredness throughout the rest of the weekend as I enjoyed the company of friends at a birthday party and a boardgames day.

About a month before MozCamp I attended my third FOSDEM in Brussels, where I ate yummy Belgian waffle, and at the conference spent most of my time in the Mozilla devroom, also being heavily inspired and getting to touch base again with various fellow Mozillians (plus scoring various Mozilla-related laptop stickers, and my third Mozilla t-shirt). :D

City tripping was my modus operandi for pretty much the entire month, as besides Brussels, I also visited Stockholm, Sevilla and Vienna. Stockholm was visited as part of the SwedeMeet reunion. Some of you might remember me going there back in February 2003 before, just because the insanity of going to Scandinavia in February appealed. The appeal still held, and so a large part of that previous meet was reunited this time around, while we even managed to lure teh Sam over from the USA. I finally got to meet the Minxie, catch up with Addy, and once more wander the SF Bokhandeln (somehow I picked a hostel within crawling distance of this most magnificent store; Books Before Breakfast should become a tradition!) :) The best part of Stockholm was sitting in several of its awesome basement cafes, where lazy chairs and couches were the perfect accompaniment to huge mugs of hot chocolate and tea. We also did some wandering through the lightly drifting snow, snapping pictures of the lantern-lit winding cobblestone streets of Gamla Stan. After freezing half to death in Stockholm, the next stop for me, Sam and Nevman was Sevilla, where the 20 degree temperatures of our first day were bettered on the second day with 25 degree temperatures. We sat outside under the blue sky eating tapas, visiting the Roman ruins at Italica, spent just a wee bit too much time taking photos at the Plaza de España (which is pretty on the entire range of scales from tile to building), and generally relearned what it means to be warm. A lesson well learned, as back home in the Netherlands last week (on Friday the 27th of February) I saw the first spring flowers popping up out of the ground, and by now most stretches of grass are covered by a carpet of color. I do so very much love spring!
And what a contrast this with the freezing temperatures we experienced in Vienna a few weeks ago; the actual temperature probably wasn't much colder than in Stockholm, but a strong wind made it all feel much colder, and so the group of friends I met up with there was constantly retreating inside to warm up. Sadly enough we then invariably lost grip of our sanity, and proceeded to go outside again, and this pattern repeated throughout our entire stay in Vienna. I can't help but grinning broadly as I think back upon those days there, though. It's been entirely and far too long since I've laughed that frequently. Get the right group of people together, and anything and anywhere is enjoyable. How come so many of my friends live so far apart anyway? It's totally not fair!

The coming weeks will probably see me mostly staying at home. The days will be no less busy, I suspect (have been busy penciling in events already), but hopefully they'll still end up being slightly less tiring. I really should be more rested so I can focus on work a bit more; I've been feeling like I haven't been able to give it as much of my attention as I'd like - while I really love the environment where I work now, and they deserve more from me than me "just doing my job".

I also need to start plotting a 'vacation' for some point in this year, and maybe do some more city tripping. If anyone has suggestions (especially friends in places that are good for visiting during a long weekend), I'd love to hear them. For the moment, I'm pondering each of Ireland, Croatia, Southern Germany and Estonia/Latvia for a trip of 2-3 weeks, and Prague, Budapest and Rome for shorter city breaks.

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