book recs - stuff I haven't read

...but that sound interesting enough to share:

Albion's Seed: recommended to me years ago, but this review and this series over at Orcinus have convinced me I probably oughta pick it up at some point - when I have time for a ~900 page tome.

Alternative Femininities: Body, Age, and Identity - the preview is plenty juicy enough for me to set this on my mental shelf for sooner rather than later.

Tiny Nibbles' round up of sex podcasts, included because a couple of them are erotica podcasts. Given the dearth of good erotica audio books I've added some them to my podcast manager thingy (I lurves my Sansa, I do) to see if they are indeed any good.

PSA: Historic fencing clearinghouses

ViaHup.com, the Italian Swordplay Wiki - yes, Wikis are rightly suspect as primary sources but ViaHup's editors are the cream of the crop (they even explain about the odd name right up front). Very new but I'll be very interested to see how it turns out, because sharing knowledge in a sortable/searchable format warms the cockles of my little collaborative-coveting heart :)

Spanish Destreza Translation and Research Project - I don't know enough about this style of fencing to be a good judge, but it appears that their contributors are fairly serious. Should be interesting, as the Spanish style was supposed to have been very scientific and turned out chillingly precise fencers (jlsjlsjls, the "Narváez" mentioned on the site is also invoked in the Alatriste novels). Contains translations from the Spanish (thank doG, says the monolingualist) and illustrated footwork drills (PDF).

a gentle observation

No one ever died from admitting "I don't know" or "I was wrong/changed my mind/made a mistake".

I would also put forth that having the last word doesn't help you be more right.

It would do well to remember this (and yes, this note is for myself as much as it is for anyone else).

(no subject)

Happy birthday vree! May your birthday be filled with brainy wenches!