Wapsi Square Forum

We're back!

Hope everything's okay with Bookworm...

Glad to see the site's back up!

Left for a weekend camping trip on Friday afternoon. Turned off the car radio in Tioga County, when I lost NPR, and left it off for the return trip.

Got back home Sunday afternoon, booted up the computer, and . . . Oh gods.

Been checking Wapsi at intervals since then. Hope everyone near Harvey is okay.

We are asking a favour of a dragon.

Okay, even after doing some searching, I can't seem to find anything that tells me what a "throwaway gesture" looks like. I'd read several books that have had used that phrase at least once, with no more description of what the person actually did than they "gave a throwaway gesture," or the variation "made a throwing away gesture."

Does anyone actually know what this gesture looks like? Is it just some kind of dismissive flip of the hand, lime they're saying "yeah, whatever," or "don't worry too much about it," or is it something else entirely?

So far, I'd found someone else had asked this question, but the response didn't really tell me (or the person who posted the question) what the person who performed the gesture has actually done.

Alkarii wrote: Does anyone actually know what this gesture looks like? Is it just some kind of dismissive flip of the hand, lime they're saying "yeah, whatever," or "don't worry too much about it," or is it something else entirely?

I think you've got it pretty exactly. I think either a sort of backwards flip of the hand, or a casual forward wave as if shooing something away, qualifies as a throwaway gesture.

These are American interpretations, of course, and I doubt that they're anywhere near universal. I'd expect that other cultures have different physical gestures or body language which mean something similar.

Then why not just say they did that, instead of giving a vague description? Yeah, it might take more words to say someone gave a dismissive wave/flip of the hand than "made a throwaway gesture," but part of what an author is supposed to do is make the reader actually "see" what's going on in the scene, what with a picture being worth a thousand words and all.

Very Alfons Mucha, I would think...

(It's about time to post up the picture for Autumn.

Facebook thread:
April: Why is it that my playlist is suddenly playing and posting all the sad songs today?
Me: Sympathy for the passing of Walter Becker, co-founder of Steely Dan. RIP
April: I have no idea who that is Jim O'Malley... I'm sorry

I restrained myself from retorting that I had just told her who he was.

TazManiac wrote:Very Alfons Mucha, I would think...

(It's about time to post up the picture for Autumn.

It's "Magical Girl Neil" fanart, and the title is "Mucha Girl Neil".

AmriloJim wrote:Facebook thread:
April: Why is it that my playlist is suddenly playing and posting all the sad songs today?
Me: Sympathy for the passing of Walter Becker, co-founder of Steely Dan. RIP
April: I have no idea who that is Jim O'Malley... I'm sorry

I restrained myself from retorting that I had just told her who he was.

If it's any consolation, I at least know Steely Dan, and I think I'm the youngest active user here (Yana is tied with me I think but she's not so active here anymore :/ ).

There's hope yet for my generation.

May i recommend this song about a girlfriend who was perfect, except for one thing?

{BTW: That's Vance deGeneres, Ellen's brother, on rhythm guitar. This was in a brief period between when Fred and original rhythm guitar/songwriter Paul Sanchez had a falling-out and when Vance left to produce the Emmys...}

GlytchMeister wrote:

AmriloJim wrote:Facebook thread:
April: Why is it that my playlist is suddenly playing and posting all the sad songs today?
Me: Sympathy for the passing of Walter Becker, co-founder of Steely Dan. RIP
April: I have no idea who that is Jim O'Malley... I'm sorry

I restrained myself from retorting that I had just told her who he was.

If it's any consolation, I at least know Steely Dan, and I think I'm the youngest active user here (Yana is tied with me I think but she's not so active here anymore :/ ).

There's hope yet for my generation.

1) s'OK, were getting you up to speed nicely.

2) Just before I heard about the demise of another iconic musician- I had went and gotten some Steely Dan Greatest Hits, kind of to replace the Vinyl I lost way back when, due to 'she who must no longer be obeyed'...)

Indeed, Glytch... I can see why you might have a warm spot for Fagen and Becker. They were masters of their craft; demanding unheard of precision from the artists who gave their compositions life. They knew which microphone would capture exactly "the" sound, and they went as far as recruiting Pete Christlieb, tenor sax of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson", specifically for "Deacon Blues".

That doesn't mean their live gigs were note-for-note clones of the studio versions... the touring company always included jazz-oriented talent who could bring their own flavor to the music. One of my favorite live tunes is a version of "FM (No Static At All)" where Walter's impeccable bass line fills out the closing vamp to nearly five minutes... peppered with subtle nuances to hold your attention.

Sadly, Walter's passing cuts short a current tour. Donald has other projects, though. He has a secondary group, "The Nightflyers" (named after the single "The Nightfly" from his solo album, "Kamakiriad"), and he's also collaborated with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs as the "Dukes Of September."

Lost a kitty-friend this weekend.

Our neighbors have had a cat (Sherlock) for several years. They adopted him and his brother Watson from a local shelter about five years ago. Both cats were indoor/outdoor cats... and Watson ran away not long after they were adopted, got lost, and was hit by a car on the local expressway.

For the last year or so I've volunteered to be Sherlock's feeder and human contact when the family goes out of town for a few days. He and I have gotten along great... I've been accepted as a trusted family member and provider of kibble. On occasion he's come walking across the cul-de-sac to see me, meowing loudly and demanding to be reassured (and he always sits down just out of reach, making one lean over to give him a gentle headrub).

The family went up to the mountains this weekend to escape the terrible heat, so I went over twice a day to feed him, refresh his water, and spend 10 minutes or so paying attention to him so he's know he wasn't being abandoned. As usual he had the run of the house, and a kitty door out to the yard.

He was fine last night (more interested in attention than food). This morning he wasn't around and didn't respond to a call... unusual for mornings.

Got a call from the owners mid-afternoon. Someone had posted on the neighborhood forum that they'd seen a grey cat lying dead in the parking lot of the office complex on the other side of the street... the owner thought "Uh oh", tried to call me (was away from the phone and missed it) and came back early to check. Sure enough, it was Sherlock. Apparently he'd roamed out of the neighborhood sometime this morning, across the 6' sound wall, maybe not been able to get back across it from the far side, and probably got panicky being away from any place he knew the smell and sight of. He was pretty much a stay-around-home scardy-cat and probably didn't know how to circle the block and come into the neighborhood the other way around.

Somebody hit him on this small street (damn it) and then apparently just drove away and left him there (double damn it, with acute hemorrhoids). He managed to pull himself into the shrubbery... and there he passed.

The family has buried him in the back yard, next to his brother. The lady of the house says she's rethinking her long-standing belief that cats deserve to be able to roam outdoors... they have lost two cats to cars in five years.

All things must pass... but I'm sorry as hell that he had to go alone, in pain, lost, with no one he knew to comfort him. Sure gonna miss the little guy... there's something about the trust of a shy animal that means a whole lot.

Damn... I'm sorry, Dave. That's hard.

...I hope the twisted fiend who hit and ran is forever wracked with guilt.

Shit... Started reading Shotgun Shuffle... This morning? Already caught up...

Now what?

Welcome to the world of archive binge addiction. I reccomend Questionable Content, El Goonish Shive, Zap!, and Between Failures. Those are all pretty big archives. Zap! is finished but it's a great story.

GlytchMeister wrote:Welcome to the world of archive binge addiction. I reccomend Questionable Content, El Goonish Shive, Zap!, and Between Failures. Those are all pretty big archives. Zap! is finished but it's a great story.

Widdershins, Guilded Age, Girl Genius...

Evil DIva - "The story of a little devil girl who just wants to be good", which is being reposted from the beginning, one page a day (usually).

And Magical Girl Neil (from whence comes the current {as of 05 September 2017} avatar - see below} - "The story of a Magical Girl who sincerely hates his life" .
And Shattered Starlight - "Sucks to be you, Magical Girl."

And, ESPECIALLY, Daughter of the Lilies, which is too wonderful to be describable.

Observe, below, as Orrig {an orc, leader of a small band of adventurers-for-hire}, and Thistle the mage, his newest hire, face the ultimate horror: employee tax documents.