Dancing Around the Four Sides

Calm and mostly sunny right now, but we had an exciting morning with thunder, lightning, rain blowing sideways, and some light hail. And it's supposed to do it all over again after midnight tonight.

Watched a tremendously silly movie last night -- Lucy -- that for all its silliness was actually (I thought) much better than the 6.4 score IMDB gives it. It's a Luc Besson film, and while it's not nearly as good as his The Fifth Element, it was good enough and fast-paced enough to draw me in. I especially liked the Egyptian actor Amr Waked as a French cop named Pierre Del Rio (what), and Min-Sik Choi as the Big Bad, Mr. Jang. Two thumbs up, would definitely watch again, even with its goofy storyline.

The Housefic that Blackmare and I are working on is up to three chapters. :-)

ETA that I almost forgot! Here's a very strange fish, caught off the deep waters of Newfoundland! No, seriously, look at this weird fish. :D

1) Saw another fox last night. It was sitting calmly in someone's back yard, very close to their house, and at first I thought it was a puppy because I could see the rounded ears and white chest. We all looked at each other for at least a minute, and then Layla couldn't contain herself anymore and barked. The fox bounded away, then stopped and looked back. Its eyes shone golden in my flashlight beam, and then it was really gone, dashing behind the other side of the house, giving me a last glimpse of its bushy tail. It amazes me the way they are so calm and curious -- the first one, a few weeks ago, and now this one, must have heard us coming a mile away, and yet they waited for us to get there. Wat.

2) After the fox, I think I saw a Perseid meteor. It was just out of the corner of my eye, but again it was that thin pen-scratch across the night sky.

3) Finished reading Janice Nimura's non-fiction Daughters of the Samurai and REALLY liked it. This was just a great read for me -- young women (one of them only a child) sent to America in the 1870s to learn the ways of the "advanced West" and then bring those lessons back to Japan. And it's a true story! The young women were interesting, their Western mentors were interesting, life in the 1870s in both Japan and the U.S. was interesting, Nimura's writing was clear and direct -- seriously, two thumbs up and a strong recommendation for this forgotten chapter of history.

4) Started reading Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312. I loved his Mars Trilogy and so far I am liking this.

5) I have watched the movie Snowpiercer twice now, and I LOVE IT, except omg why did Chris Evans have to make that Exposition Speech near the end and just drive the narrative into a goddamn WALL? Oh my god. Cut five minutes -- maybe ten -- from this film and it would be perfect. :D

Five things make a post.