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scalziwhatever_feedAnyway, here’s that post.
— JS
scalziwhatever_feed“Sip Happens” At Dozo
Jun. 25th, 2025 08:30 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Let’s revisit December 2o23 for a moment, when I first experienced Dozo: an exceptionally cool underground sushi spot in Dayton that features a pre-fixe tasting menu and sake/wine pairings. After that incredible initial visit, I went about six or seven more times after that. Every time was the bomb dot com.
Today I’m here to tell you about a special event they held last week, called “Sip Happens: Sake Edition.” It was a sake tasting event in partnership with SakeOne, a sake company out of Oregon that not only brews their own craft sake, but has been importing fine sake from Japan since 1992.
It was twenty bucks for a ticket, which got you a 2oz pour of each of the four selected sakes for the evening. When buying your ticket online, you had the choice to add on two different sushi rolls, each for seven dollars. I opted for one of each roll to accompany my sake samplings.
For the most part, the only time I ever have sake is when I’m dining at Dozo and do their sake pairing. I always enjoy getting to try new sakes, so I was really excited to try some new ones at the event and also learn all about them.
When I was seated at my corner bar seat (my favorite seat, really), there was this welcome card:
On the back was a list of the sakes we were going to be trying, as well as the options to purchase another tasting of it or purchase the full bottle to take home:
I didn’t realize until I saw the card that the first sampling was going to be of my favorite sake! I absolutely love the Awa Yuki and it’s one of the first sake I ever tried, and it helped me realize I do really enjoy sake. So I was looking forward to that one even though I had in fact tried it before.
Here was my pours of the Awa Yuki and the Naginata:
For the Awa Yuki, it’s a sparkling sake and I tend to enjoy sparkling sakes and wines more than still. The Awa Yuki is slightly sweet, very light, and has just the right amount of bubbles. I’ve always thought it tastes kind of marshmallowy or vanilla-esque, and apparently both of those are actual tasting notes of it! I feel accomplished. It’s very mellow and I love the pretty blue bottle it comes in. It’s actually about half the size of a regular 750ml sake bottle, which is why the to-go bottle you can purchase is only twelve bucks. It’s also lower in alcohol content than a lot of sakes, at 5.5%. Here’s some extra details on it.
When I was talking to the SakeOne representative, Jack, he was happy to hear Awa Yuki is my long-standing favorite sake.
Then he began telling me all the details of the Naginata. Something that really fascinated me was that the rice used for the Naginata was grown in Arkansas and is actually a super high quality sake rice called yamada nishiki. It is considered the “king” of sake rice, and SakeOne’s goal with the Naginata is “to craft the best sake brewed outside of Japan, period.” If that’s their goal, using the king of sake rice is certainly a good place to start!
The Naginata smelled like crisp apple, and when I tasted it I ended up getting a melon-y flavor. I didn’t know if that was “correct” so I waited until Jack mentioned the tasting notes of it, and I was on the mark again, much to my delight. It was slightly dry but not overly so, honestly very light and fruity. I really enjoyed it.
You may have noticed that this particular sake is considerably more expensive than the other offerings. Not only was there only 1000 bottles produced, but it is 100% handcrafted, and the brewmaster is involved in every step of the process from washing the rice to bottling. It comes in an elegant, simple bottle with an embossed logo. True Sake says on their website that this is a “world-class sake that should not be missed by any sake enthusiasts.”
While I was enjoying these two pours, my sushi was brought out to me:
These rolls were much bigger than I anticipated, each coming with eight pretty large pieces. It was only seven dollars for each so I was pleasantly surprised at the portion. These rolls were extremely tasty, and the salmon was so fresh and tender that I ended up asking the chef about it. He said the salmon was from Canada, and was cold smoked. I think he also mentioned something about a brown sugar marinade, but yeah definitely super yummy. So glad I got to try both rolls.
I got my next two pours:
When the Yuki Tora Nigori was being poured, I got to see the beautiful, frosted glass bottle with the coolest tiger decal on it, which is fitting because its name means “snow tiger.” This sake is cloudy from natural rice sediment, and is more creamy and silkier than other sakes. The snow tiger was certainly packed full of flavor, it was complex and layered and truly unique, with flavors of roasted grain and toasted cereal, but also some slight sweetness. It honestly reminds me of horchata with its warm spice and creaminess. I loved this one! Here’s some extra details on it. Plus I love that you can buy it in a little 200ml can, so cute.
And finally, the Hakutsuru Plum Wine. While it’s not a sake, it’s made by a sake brand, in fact it’s the same one that makes the Awa Yuki, so I had high hopes for this wine. I gave it a sniff and it smelled pleasantly sweet and rather almondy. This wine was seriously out of this world, with a beautifully sweet plum taste, it was the perfect finisher to this tasting experience. Jack told me that it’s especially delicious because it’s actual fermented plum puree, like it isn’t fake or artificial at all. The specific plums are called “ume,” and it’s very popular in Japan to have the plum wine mixed with soda water on the rocks, or for it to be used in plum wine highballs. Here’s some extra details on it.
All four sakes were fantastic, and I hope the next time I’m in Portland I get a chance to check out SakeOne’s Tasting Room. I’m so glad I got to have some delicious, fresh sushi from Dozo while savoring these sakes, and if Tender Mercy decides to do another one of these events in the future, you already know I’m going.
Which sake sounds the best to you? Do you prefer chilled sake like me, or do you like it hot? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day! And be sure to check out SakeOne, Tender Mercy, and Dozo on Instagram!
-AMS
The Big Idea: Chuck Rothman
Jun. 25th, 2025 05:01 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Royalty is by blood. So what if a princess wakes up in a body that isn’t hers? And what if that body was previously a corpse? Author Chuck Rothman has the answers and is here to share them in the Big Idea for his newest novel, Cadaver Princess. Follow along to see if “blue blood” really does run through royals’ veins.
CHUCK ROTHMAN:
Cunningham’s Law states that the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer. The webcomic XKCD created a popular meme where someone is staying up late because someone is wrong on the Internet.
The Cadaver Princess started due to someone being wrong on the Internet.
I am a storyteller. I also like to try to find new ways to do it. No Hero’s Journey for me! No planning, either. I start with a situation and see where it leads.
By the time I began writing The Cadaver Princess, I learned to lean into my strengths: short chapters and many point-of-view characters. I call it a “mosaic novel,” where a bunch of small vignettes slowly reveal the main plot (and subplots). And my goal in all this was to make it all work.
As to how this book began . . .
Matthew Foster is an excellent critic of fantasy and SF films. In his review of Boris Karloff’s The Body Snatcher, he said, “There were more movies about Victorian body snatchers than there were Victorian body snatchers.”
But body snatching was a major concern in 1831. Cadavers were needed to teach doctors. “Resurrectionists” would dig up the freshly buried, and medical schools would pay for them, no questions asked. People went to some lengths to protect the bodies of their loved ones.
I had learned this from a book called The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise, about a group called the “London Burkers,” led by John Bishop. Obscure today, their actions were more important historically than the better-known Burke and Hare, and, like them, Bishop and his crew didn’t just dig up graves at night: they turned to murder.
I decided to start with them. But since I write fantasy, the idea of a cadaver lying on the slab is too mundane, so I had her sit up. And to make the stakes higher, I said she was Princess (later queen) Victoria — in the body of another young woman.
So I had a setting and an incident. I started to write about what happened next.
I spontaneously generate ideas as I write. Most of what I’ve encountered in books about the period (not counting Dickens) dealt with the upper classes. I wanted to write about the lower classes.
I had started with the point of view of the anatomist who received the corpse, but after a few short chapters, I realized there was a better main character: Pablo Mansong, a Black man who had been taken by slavers but was freed before he got to America. The name came from Pablo Fanque. Beatles fans might recognize it; Fanque was a Black circus owner and a major Victorian impresario.
Pablo is quite at home among the poor and the street vendors of London. There are chapters about royalty, but most of the book deals with Pablo and Victoria, including the shock when someone from royalty is face to face with poverty.
I had already dabbled in what I call “hidden history” — fantasy set in a real historical setting, but with fantastic events that are not recorded in history books. I see it as the opposite of alternative history, since it doesn’t change what’s known. But there are plenty of possibilities and ways of dovetailing the events to match the records.
Since I had introduced Victoria, I had to research her. I read about how she was raised, which gave me motivation for her villain, John Conroy. I also learned of how Victoria’s governess, Baroness Lehzen, tried to protect her charge.
As I write, connections come to me. Sometimes, a scene that’s just for background becomes an unplanned but essential plot element by the end. In one scene I’m describing one of the street vendors of the era. Later on, I realize it is important for a key moment.
The real joy of writing this was figuring out how to make the connections, and how to make them dramatic. It was like a puzzle, and I enjoy putting all the pieces together.
But ultimately, the novel originated from Cunningham’s Law: correcting something on the Internet that was wrong. I just turned it into fiction.
Cadaver Princess: Amazon
Briefly, Venice
Jun. 24th, 2025 10:09 pmscalziwhatever_feed
For our 25th anniversary, Krissy and I were planning to go to Iceland and spend a week or so there, getting to know the country. Then the pandemic happened and we ended up spending the anniversary at home. Fine, we would just reschedule Iceland for our 30th anniversary. But then I was invited to do a convention in Iceland last year, and we tacked on an extra five days after the convention to do all the things we planned for our 25th anniversary. This left our 30th anniversary suddenly unscheduled.
Fortunately, I had a backup: I had always wanted to visit Venice, not just for Venice itself, but also, goofily, for the fact there is a Church of the Scalzi there, and a Scalzi Bridge, and, heck, why not, even a Scalzi restaurant. Honestly, how could I not go? Krissy indulged me, and on the week of our anniversary, off we went.
We spent a full week in Venice, which appeared to surprise the people there when we mentioned the fact to them. Apparently Venice is usually a couple-days stop at most, tourists grimly marching themselves from the Doge’s palace to the obligatory gondola ride to wherever else they went before they were hustled back onto a bus or cruise ship and sent off to whatever the next destination was. The fact we were in town for a whole week impressed the locals. They seemed to appreciate that we wanted to take in the city at a leisurely pace.
Which is what we did! We did have two days where we had a private guide to give us a walking tour of the city (including stops at the aforementioned Doge’s palace, St. Mark’s basilica and the Scalzi church) and to take us over to Murano to watch glass being blown. And of course we rode in a gondola, because, hey, we were in fact tourists, and not afraid to do touristy things. But most of the days there we woke up late, wandered around the city and maybe took in a museum or church, and then ate at a bunch of restaurants and hung out in a bunch of bars, mostly on the water, and watched the city go by in various boats. Venice, as it turns out, is a lovely city to just be in. Krissy and I mostly did a lot of not much, and it was pretty great.
Mind you, Venice is one of the most overtouristed cities in the world, and as a visitor you can certainly feel that, especially on the weekends, in the space between the Rialto Bridge and the Piazza San Marco. It’s Disneyland-level crowded there. I can’t complain overmuch about that fact without being a full-blown hypocrite, but we did understand that our role in town was to drop a lot of money into the local economy in order to balance out our presence. We were happy to do that, and, you know, to be respectful of the people who were helping to give us a delightful vacation. By and large the Venetians were perfectly nice, did not seem to dislike us merely for being Americans, and in any event we got out of town before Jeff Bezos could show up and make everyone genuinely angry. No one blamed us for Jeff Bezos, either.
One of the things I personally genuinely enjoyed about Venice was just how utterly unlike anywhere in the United States. Yes, I know there are places in the US where they have canals; heck, the Venice in California was once meant to have them all over the place. But it’s not only about the canals. It’s about the fact that no matter what street you’re going down, what bridge you’re crossing or what side canal you’re looking down into, parts of everything you’re looking at have been there longer than the US has been a country, and none of it accommodates anything that the US would require. There are no cars in Venice, no Vespas, not even any bikes. If you’re going anywhere, you’re walking or going by boat. It’s very weird to have no road noise anywhere. You don’t realize how much you get used that noise, even in a rural area like the one I live in, until you go some place without it. I mean, there are boats with engines. The sounds of internal combustion are not entirely gone. But it’s dramatically reduced.
As mentioned, we stayed in Venice for a week, which I think is probably the right amount of time to be in the city. We didn’t see everything it had to offer, but then we weren’t trying to; if and when we go back there will still be new things to explore. But I did get to check off visiting the Scalzi Bridge, Church and restaurant, and the last of these was where Krissy and I had our actual 30th anniversary dinner. It’s was pretty good. I did not get a discount because of my last name. Alas. Here’s picture of the interior of the Church of the Scalzi:
Slightly more ornate than the one in Bradford, Ohio, I admit. But in defense of the one in Ohio, it’s much easier to dust.
Would I recommend Venice to others? Definitely. Spend more than a couple of days. Be respectful. Spend a decent amount of money. Have an Aperol Spritz. If you’re from the US, enjoy the fact there is nothing like it in the American experience. Maybe avoid the Rialto Bridge on the weekend. And there you have it: an excellent Venetian vacation. I hope you’ll enjoy yours as much as we enjoyed ours.
— JS
The Big Idea: Travis Kennedy
Jun. 24th, 2025 03:20 pmscalziwhatever_feed
We’re gettin’ the band back together! And this time, they’re gonna rock the political climate in foreign countries. Author Travis Kennedy is bringing you the best of hair metal bands with espionage on the side in his debut novel, The Whyte Python World Tour. Follow along to see how his Big Idea will shred… your expectations of 80s bands!
TRAVIS KENNEDY:
In my debut novel, The Whyte Python World Tour, the CIA recruits a hair band to foment regime change in the Eastern Bloc at the end of the Cold War.
That’s not the big idea I want to write about here, though, and I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t dream it up on my own. There’s nearly a century of evidence that the CIA has meddled with popular music to influence public sentiment all over the world. More specifically for my purposes, there’s a longstanding rumor – made popular by the fantastic podcast “Wind of Change” by Patrick Radden Keefe (2020) – that the CIA wrote the hit Scorpions song “Wind of Change” after the Berlin Wall fell, to rally Eastern Europeans into harmony with the Western world through the power of soft metal.
By the time I heard the podcast, I had been thinking about writing a book in the world of glam metal for almost twenty years – and even earlier on some level, since I was a little kid in the 80s watching MTV even though I wasn’t supposed to. Eight-year-old Travis saw metal guys as zany party animals without a care in the world. The cool kids in the back of the bus. In more recent years, I read autobiographies and biographies and watched documentaries from the era, believing all along that there was a story to be told there that could be bigger than the standard “Behind the Music” drama about how everything was great until it all came crashing down.
I didn’t entirely know why the genre captivated me so much. The entertainment factor never let me down, of course; a lot of their adventures are objectively funny. These borderline-feral Muppets were suddenly swimming in fame and fortune, and they didn’t have any of the tools to handle either. That was a good place to start. But I did learn quickly that my childhood impression of the glam metal bands was all wrong.
Because more often than not, these guys were not the cool kids in the back of the bus. They were misfits. Outcasts. They had abusive and tragic childhoods.
They usually weren’t popular. They did badly in school. People had no expectations for them. And they didn’t have much expectations for themselves. But they had this one thing they loved and were good at.
Music.
And while they were misfits on their own, when they found each other and played together, they unlocked these superpowers. The castaways and dropouts – with their massive hair, and makeup, and spandex – dominated the zeitgeist of the back half of the 1980s. It was one underdog story after another, like the Mighty Ducks or the Bad News Bears.
There it was: that simple but true BIG IDEA, proven over and over: that when misfits and outcasts find their communities, they can accomplish really big things together.
By the time I listened to “Wind of Change,” I knew already that metal dudes shared a lot of hidden traits. They were resourceful. They were adaptable. They were willing to live in circumstances that most other people weren’t. And they were constantly underestimated.
Those are actually really good qualities for spies!
So, while the concept was still hilarious to me, it was also weirdly kind of plausible. Now I was off and running, and a fascinating thing happened – the big idea kept finding different ways of telling itself in the story. Without spoiling too much, the band Whyte Python is not the only group of underdogs in this book; and whether it’s their Agency handlers or the people living under dictatorships a world away, the spark of music becomes a pretty powerful connector for disparate outcasts who go on to accomplish big things together.
Make no mistake, The Whyte Python World Tour is a satire. But always present is the belief that art – even if that art is party metal, played by feral Muppets – has immeasurable power when it’s shared. When it means something to people, and helps them find other people who have the same feelings about it. You’re doing that now as fans of this website, and every time you give a recommendation for a book or an album or a movie you loved. Participating in culture means that you’re a part of a thousand little movements, inspiring others to seek new ideas and talk about them with each other and maybe build something amazing out of it.
So on behalf of the band, let me be the first to say: welcome to the revolution.
Tell your friends.
The Whyte Python World Tour: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop
Author Socials: Website|Band Website|Facebook|Twitter|Rikki Thunder’s Facebook|Davy Bones Facebook|Spencer Dooley Facebook|Buck Sweet Facebook
Pride Book Bundles
Jun. 24th, 2025 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oracneThe Big Bundle of Queer Awesomeness is 100 books for $100 - you can also scroll down on this page for the smaller bundles, sorted by genre.
Itch.io gives authors a larger portion of the royalties, which is why I've been giving them some promotion. My lesbian erotica reprint collection, "Spicy Sapphic Treats," is in the Contemporary and Historical bundle as well as the big one.
Itch.io gives authors a larger portion of the royalties, which is why I've been giving them some promotion. My lesbian erotica reprint collection, "Spicy Sapphic Treats," is in the Contemporary and Historical bundle as well as the big one.
Back in the Day and Here and Now
Jun. 23rd, 2025 09:39 pmscalziwhatever_feed
My friend George sent me this picture of me and Krissy — which I had been literally trying to find for years! — where she and I were at the wedding of my friend Clete. I was a groomsman, which is why I’m dressed up; Krissy is dressed up because, you know, wedding, you’re supposed to look nice. I seem to remember the wedding taking place in 1995, although I might be off by a year; either way, this is us, roughly 30 years ago.
And here we are now!
30 years is a lot of time and also, not nearly enough time with someone if you love them a lot. Fortunately for us we get to keep going. Not gonna lie, though, I miss my hair. Krissy’s still looks spectacular, of course. That’ll have to be enough for the both of us.
Also, hello, we’re back in the United States now. Venice was lovely. I’ll post some more pictures of it soon.
— JS
Music For Your Monday: 6arelyhuman
Jun. 23rd, 2025 05:16 pmscalziwhatever_feedFeeling the Monday Blues? Have I got the cure for you. Introducing one of my recent favorite artists, 6arelyhuman (pronounced barely human)!
Imagine the most hype, energizing club music that makes you want to take shots and dance till the sun comes up. No, not Kesha, but pretty close in vibes.
I came across 6arelyhuman on TikTok last year, and their song “Faster N Harder” ended up becoming my number one song on Spotify for 2024. I listened to 6arelyhuman’s songs on repeat daily for months last year, and I’m still loving them. They self identify as a freaky alien here to create absolute bops.
Here’s the song that started my obsession:
Don’t you just wanna dance your pants off?! Well let’s keep the party going with some others I really love from them:
And technically on this next one they’re only featured and it’s actually Odetari’s song, but I still really like it:
So, are you feeling amped? You simply can’t be in a bad mood after you listen to this music, trust me, I’ve tried.
Don’t forget to check 6arelyhuman out on Spotify, and let me know which song was your favorite in the comments. Have a great day!
-AMS
The Big Idea: Jane Mondrup
Jun. 20th, 2025 02:20 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Sometimes when you look in the mirror, it can feel like you don’t even recognize yourself. This might be doubly true if you’re looking at a perfect copy of yourself that thinks you’re the copy, not them. Author Jane Mondrup brings us such a conundrum in her new novel, Zoi. Follow along in her Big Idea to see how evolution is just the beginning.
JANE MONDRUP:
An endosymbiosis involving humans and set in space—that is, in very few words, the big idea of my science fiction novel Zoi.
Symbiosis is a close relationship between two life forms, often (though not necessarily) to the degree of mutual dependency. Endosymbiosis is when one of those life forms gets integrated into the other, living inside it.
One very important endosymbiosis, which happened around two billion years ago, provided the conditions for the evolutionary jump from the simple life forms—the procaryotes (bacteria and archaea)—to the much more complex eucaryotic cell, of which we and our multi-cellular relatives are made. This is a whole little world in itself, full of internal structures and mobile elements, all with specific functions.
To furnish its lavish lifestyle, the eucaryotic cell needs energy—lots of energy—and that energy is provided by an organelle called the mitochondrion. And the really interesting thing is that this extremely important element didn’t develop inside the cell but was originally an independent organism; a small procaryote that somehow ended up inside a larger procaryote, managing to survive in there and become an integrated part of its host and all its descendants. These proto-mitochondrial lodgers were the kind who not only pay the rent and keep their room in order but start refurbishing the whole place, in this case developing a small hut into a veritable castle.
Not being a biologist, I heard about the origin of the mitochondrion on a podcast, the 2016 episode of Radiolab titled Cellmates, and found it endlessly fascinating. My subconscious started working on it, until it surfaced again in the shape of a dream vision of two identical women drifting apart. I knew it was a cell division, happening in space. Like proto-mitochondria, the women (originally one person) had become part of a larger organism and was now included in its procreation.
There was a story here, but what story exactly? And how could I tell it?
That’s often how a story begins for me, with a situation I either have to work from or get to. Making up what feels like a plausible background for this (usually quite strange) situation will send me in all kinds of interesting directions. In this case, I had to invent a creature fitting the picture, a cell-like, space-dwelling species that I decided to call zoi, based on the Greek word zoion (living being).
The zois, I figured, had not developed an immune defense, but the opposite. In space, life would be very rare. You wouldn’t have to defend yourself against parasitic intruders, and the chance encounters with other organisms would represent an evolutionary opportunity.
Whenever the zois came across another life form, they would invite it in, immediately discern its basic needs and start to accommodate them. Some needs would either be impossible or very costly to meet, and it would be more rational to solve the problem the other way around, helping the life forms it had engulfed with adapting to their new environment. Changing them.
This was the unsettling situation the woman (I named her Amira) was in—residing inside a living creature, experiencing changes to her body, and then starting to grow a double. It seemed very scary indeed, and my story could easily be a classic SF horror, ending in some terrible conclusion. But that wasn’t what interested me.
The horror elements were there, and I absolutely planned to harness them for emotional impact, but the horror ending didn’t fit my dream vision. The women in it had looked desperately sad. They obviously had a very close relationship which was now broken up. There was regret too, a hint of unsettled conflicts. But no enmity.
When a cell divides, the two resulting cells aren’t parent and offspring, but equally newborn. I saw the two Amiras in the same way, not as a human being with an inhuman clone, but a set of identical twins—one person becoming two. While the double grew, there was only one consciousness. Then, the two woke up with identical memories, both convinced of being the original. That would be a difficult situation, and very interesting to explore.
Amira would be part of a small crew of astronauts, the first to leave the solar system inside a zoi. They would know some but not all of the consequences, and they would react to them in different ways. The impact of these differences on their relationships to each other would be another backbone of the story.
Even before the cloning began, the astronauts were undergoing physical changes, starting with adaptation to the lack of gravity. In zero g, humans quickly start to lose bone and muscle mass, which is why astronauts on space stations have to do a lot of exercise. The zoi would recognize the deterioration as something that needed correction. This would be the first of many adjustments helping the mutual adaptation along.
Just like the bodily transitions and upheavals of a normal human life, such changes would have consequences for mood and physical well-being. This parallel allowed me to draw on concrete experiences with puberty, pregnancy, illness, menopause, and aging. These are all processes involving bodily reactions outside our control, influencing or even determining our thoughts and actions.
I have a lot of themes in Zoi, but they are all related to the big idea: becoming part of another life form, and what that would entail. My aim has been to write something both visionary and tangible, based in science but easily understandable, equally comprising ideas and emotions. If you find this essay concepts interesting, there’s a good probability that you will like the story. I hope you will read it.
Zoi: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s|Indigo|Kobo
Author socials: Website|Instagram|Facebook|Bluesky
Read an excerpt.
We’re Seeing Art
Jun. 20th, 2025 12:28 pmscalziwhatever_feed
And it’s giving us a lot to think about.
Venice continues to be lovely and also at this moment rather warm and sweaty. After a morning of seeing art we’ve retreated back to the air conditioning of our hotel room. We’ll go back out again when we’re not so darn sticky.
— JS
When Life Looks Like a Movie Set
Jun. 19th, 2025 08:57 pmscalziwhatever_feed
The little island town of Burano, which for all the world looks just like someone set designed the place. Cute tiny colorful homes set next to a canal? Check! You half expect Popeye to show up, singing a sea shanty. But it is, indeed, real. And apparently it’s against the law to change the house colors without permission. The things you learn.
We’re still on vacation. It’s still lovely.
— JS
I'm back.
Jun. 19th, 2025 01:13 pmsartoriasPlease forgive mush-mindedness; I'm three days out of the hospital and it's taking time for the simplest thoughts to come back on line.
Scintillation was wonderful, as always. And so was Fourth Street Fantasy Convention--what little I saw of it. No fault whatsoever to the con. All fault is due to the trash human in front of me in a very crowded assisted seating area, who coughed and hacked for the entire eight hour ride, refusing to put on a mask. "It's not a rule! And masks are all political anyway!"
By the next night I had a high temp, joints with ice picks stabbing them, skin like the worst sunburn ever. So I missed a lot, but managed to get to some programming including my panels. And I almost made it, tho by then I hadn't eaten for four days, and drunk only sips of water, which tasted terrible, like rusty pipes.
I was moderating my last panel, and I thought it was going okay when we opened to Qs from the audience and I realized that everyone was curiously black-and-white, then the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, surrounded by voices.
Here's where perceptions get kind of surreal. I slowly became aware that someone was stroking my arm. I've always known that Marissa L has an infinite capacity for genuine empathy, but I understood it was real. That empathy convey through the slow, reassuring touch, even though when she murmured "non-responsive."
Oh dear. I was not doing my bit! Worse, I'd totally spoiled the panel, yet here I was having somehow floated gently to the ground. I had to get up! Return to my room. Rest! Apologize to everyone for my dumbass move! Yet it felt so much better to lie there, and let trusted voices do whatever they were doing. So reassuring.
I knew those voices. I trusted them. Marissa, who seemed genuinely pleased that I was responsive after all, but she kept up her reassuring touch. (I do know the difference. I've had to drop my head between my knees a few times at distressing moments, and this one specific time, a person I'd known since college kept pawing me, the angle changing in the direction of their voice, as if they were busy looking around the room)
Then E Bear asked for my phone code, and I knew that voice, it's Bear, of course she must need my phone. I trust Bear. Then came the questions as I began to rouse a bit. Scott L, long-serving firefighter and fully trained EMP started what my spouse (who was a volunteer fireman for 20 years, and worked alongside EMTs) called the litany. Scott's strong, clear voice foghorned something much like, "Sherwood, I hate to do this to you, but what asshole is currently infesting the White House?"
And I laughed. I don't know if the laughter got past my lips, but it's strange how humor--laughter--can rouse one. I muttered, "Yesterday was NO KINGS DAY."
Then it seemed they wanted to send me off to emergency services; there was talk, then a fourth trusted voice, belonging to Beth F, insisted that it was not a good idea to be sending me off without anyone knowing where. She informed the company that she was a Registered Nurse and this was SOP, or the like. Beth's on the team, I thought.
Shortly thereafter they got my wreck of a bod onto the conveyance and I was in for an ambulance ride. It was beautiful teamwork--cons these days have security teams, and here I was proof that their protocols were functioning swiftly and smoothly, which would permit them to pivot straight back to con stuff.
While I was in for a wad of tests. So many tests. I soon had two IVS going, one in each elbow.
Presently the doc came in and said that I had an acute case of influenza, compounded by severe dehydration. Beth F heroically came to spring me, and saw me to my room, promising me a backup call the following morning.
Another perceptual eddy: I thought, wrongly, I'd wafted quietly and softly to the floor. Maybe even discreetly. Ha Ha. When I stripped out of my influenza clothes I discovered gigantic bruises in weird places--the entire top of one foot is discolored, another baseball-sized bruise on one calf, and so one. I began to suspect that I had catapulted myself whammo-flat with all the grace of a stevedore hauling a sack of spuds.
The following days I slept and slept, forcing a few bites of salad and oatmeal. I have zero stamina, must work on that, but at least I am home, and I guess all that unwanted experience can sink into the subconscious quagmire.
Scintillation was wonderful, as always. And so was Fourth Street Fantasy Convention--what little I saw of it. No fault whatsoever to the con. All fault is due to the trash human in front of me in a very crowded assisted seating area, who coughed and hacked for the entire eight hour ride, refusing to put on a mask. "It's not a rule! And masks are all political anyway!"
By the next night I had a high temp, joints with ice picks stabbing them, skin like the worst sunburn ever. So I missed a lot, but managed to get to some programming including my panels. And I almost made it, tho by then I hadn't eaten for four days, and drunk only sips of water, which tasted terrible, like rusty pipes.
I was moderating my last panel, and I thought it was going okay when we opened to Qs from the audience and I realized that everyone was curiously black-and-white, then the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, surrounded by voices.
Here's where perceptions get kind of surreal. I slowly became aware that someone was stroking my arm. I've always known that Marissa L has an infinite capacity for genuine empathy, but I understood it was real. That empathy convey through the slow, reassuring touch, even though when she murmured "non-responsive."
Oh dear. I was not doing my bit! Worse, I'd totally spoiled the panel, yet here I was having somehow floated gently to the ground. I had to get up! Return to my room. Rest! Apologize to everyone for my dumbass move! Yet it felt so much better to lie there, and let trusted voices do whatever they were doing. So reassuring.
I knew those voices. I trusted them. Marissa, who seemed genuinely pleased that I was responsive after all, but she kept up her reassuring touch. (I do know the difference. I've had to drop my head between my knees a few times at distressing moments, and this one specific time, a person I'd known since college kept pawing me, the angle changing in the direction of their voice, as if they were busy looking around the room)
Then E Bear asked for my phone code, and I knew that voice, it's Bear, of course she must need my phone. I trust Bear. Then came the questions as I began to rouse a bit. Scott L, long-serving firefighter and fully trained EMP started what my spouse (who was a volunteer fireman for 20 years, and worked alongside EMTs) called the litany. Scott's strong, clear voice foghorned something much like, "Sherwood, I hate to do this to you, but what asshole is currently infesting the White House?"
And I laughed. I don't know if the laughter got past my lips, but it's strange how humor--laughter--can rouse one. I muttered, "Yesterday was NO KINGS DAY."
Then it seemed they wanted to send me off to emergency services; there was talk, then a fourth trusted voice, belonging to Beth F, insisted that it was not a good idea to be sending me off without anyone knowing where. She informed the company that she was a Registered Nurse and this was SOP, or the like. Beth's on the team, I thought.
Shortly thereafter they got my wreck of a bod onto the conveyance and I was in for an ambulance ride. It was beautiful teamwork--cons these days have security teams, and here I was proof that their protocols were functioning swiftly and smoothly, which would permit them to pivot straight back to con stuff.
While I was in for a wad of tests. So many tests. I soon had two IVS going, one in each elbow.
Presently the doc came in and said that I had an acute case of influenza, compounded by severe dehydration. Beth F heroically came to spring me, and saw me to my room, promising me a backup call the following morning.
Another perceptual eddy: I thought, wrongly, I'd wafted quietly and softly to the floor. Maybe even discreetly. Ha Ha. When I stripped out of my influenza clothes I discovered gigantic bruises in weird places--the entire top of one foot is discolored, another baseball-sized bruise on one calf, and so one. I began to suspect that I had catapulted myself whammo-flat with all the grace of a stevedore hauling a sack of spuds.
The following days I slept and slept, forcing a few bites of salad and oatmeal. I have zero stamina, must work on that, but at least I am home, and I guess all that unwanted experience can sink into the subconscious quagmire.
The Big Idea: Auston Habershaw
Jun. 19th, 2025 06:19 pmscalziwhatever_feed
There’s magic to be found everywhere you look, even in a mall! At least, such is the case in author Auston Habershaw’s newest novel, If Wishes Were Retail. Come along in his Big Idea to see how this idea initially set up shop in his brain.
AUSTON HABERSHAW:
When I graduated from college, I had a really clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to be a novelist. I’d already written a novel during college (I will never inflict it upon anyone, I promise) and I figured, if I worked hard and focused on my goals, I’d be a professional author making a comfortable salary by the time I was 25.
I’ll pause here for your peals of laughter.
…
Done yet? No?
…(checks watch)…
Okay, okay—the point here is that I needed to get a job in order to pursue my dreams. For that period of time (my early-mid twenties), the idea was to get a job that wouldn’t occupy much of my attention so that I could focus the balance of my efforts towards writing. That’s how I wound up doing a lot of odd jobs and minimum wage gigs. I was a coffee barista, a restaurant server, a lifeguard, a swim instructor, a theme park performer (I dressed as a pirate), an SAT tutor, a hotel bellhop, and so on and so forth. I spent most of my time broke and barely able to pay rent and in the evenings I bashed my head against a keyboard until words came out and I published exactly nothing. I was exhausted, usually hungry, but still chasing that dream.
And that, right there, is where If Wishes Were Retail comes from. Everybody’s got a dream, right? And the world just gets in the way, you know? Money, opportunity, luck, health, family—the list of obstacles to “making it” are endless, or so it seems. Enter the genie.
I mean, everybody’s thought about it, right? If you could get 3 wishes, what would they be? We ask ourselves that, over and over, because just about no one is content with the state of their lives. There’s always some mountaintop we have yet to reach, and the only way we feel we’ll ever get there is, essentially, an act of God. A lottery ticket. A mysterious stranger, offering us a deal for our soul. A genie in a lamp. Rare, mythical things; unheard of strokes of fortune. We all recognize that is never going to happen to us. The world just doesn’t work that way.
But what if it did? Say we have a genie and he’s just there, you know? In public, doing his thing. Anyone can just walk up and make a wish. Now, of course, the genie has goals of his own and dreams he’d like to see realized, so he’s charging money for wishes. Cash. Walk up to him with a stack of twenties and plonk it down and BAM, you could have the life you’ve always wanted. What would you wish for? How much would you spend?
When preparing to write this book, I asked people I met those two questions. I would say “what if you could make a wish, but it cost money? What’s the wish? What would you pay?” This was a fascinating experiment. First off, a lot of people wouldn’t wish at all. They assumed the genie was malevolent and they wouldn’t get what they paid for. Second, people would make outrageously powerful wishes (World peace! A cure for all cancers! My own private moon!) and then offer some piddling sum, like ten bucks or something. “What’s it matter,” they’d say. “It doesn’t require any effort on the part of the genie! What does he care?” Everyone agreed, though, that the money—having to pay for a wish—sort of ruined the “magic” of it all. Money got in the way of their dreams.
I wanna repeat that last bit: money got in the way of their dreams. Ya THINK? Could, possibly, money and the way our economic system works interfere with people’s ability to achieve happiness and satisfaction in their lives? NO, SURELY NOT. Everyone, we live in capitalism, the fairest and most beautiful-est system ever, where the only thing that stands between you and complete material and spiritual satisfaction is hard work! Just work hard, and everything will work out! I have been informed by my lawyers that this is entirely 100% accurate with no loopholes or conditions whatsoever.
Hang on, someone is handing me a note…
…oh.
Oh no.
And, not only, does our capitalist system make it difficult to achieve our dreams, it also just so happens that we, fallible mortal creatures that we are, are incorrect about what we want! We wish for stupid, selfish things! We seek self-destructive ends! So, like, even assuming you manage to run the gauntlet of 21st century late-stage capitalism to somehow, maybe hack your way to the top of the artisanal bagel shop market only to realize you hate it and are miserable anyway. And that, friends, is a super-common problem that not even a genie can fix! How’s the genie supposed to know that you would hate being a fashion mogul? And even if he knew, would you listen to him if he told you?
I wrote this book to reflect upon the ways in which our grind-mentality, sleep-when-you’re-dead, coffee-is-for-closers culture has led us astray. Our society has created essentially infinite obstacles in an unending labyrinth that we have been told leads to happiness and fulfillment and we expend such massive amounts of energy seeking these things only to miss sight of all the things we could have that are right in front of us. It’s tragic sometimes, but it’s also funny and absurd and just, like, life you know? What are you gonna do, not be human?
Anyway, I wrote a book about this. It’s funny and it has a genie in a failing mall seen from the point of view of a teenager with big dreams, just like I was. Just like maybe you were or even are. Here’s hoping it’s exactly what you want and exactly what you’re willing to pay.
If Wishes Were Retail: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
Author socials: Website|Bluesky|Facebook
Read an excerpt.
Mixology Monday At Salar
Jun. 18th, 2025 08:24 pmscalziwhatever_feedIf you’ve been reading my posts for a bit, you may remember me doing a piece or two over my favorite restaurant, Salar. The posts I’ve done have been featuring their wonderful monthly wine dinners they host, but today I’m here to talk about one of their other monthly events I enjoy: Salar’s Mixology Monday!
This was the second Mixology Monday I’ve attended, the theme of this one being “Blended Beverages.” Listen, I’m a basic white girl, you already know I love a fun, blended bevvie. What I dislike, though, is the sound of a blender, especially if I’m dining at a fine establishment. It totally ruins the vibes and detracts from the classy aura of a really nice restaurant.
Fortunately, our lovely mixologist for the evening feels the exact same way, and the event was held on the secluded back patio of the restaurant so we wouldn’t disturb other guests. Salar’s back patio is my favorite patio in Dayton. It has a beautiful pergola, pretty string lights, and tons of plants that make it feel vibrant and lush.
Check out the mixologist’s setup:
I thought it was odd there was a dish of poppyseeds, but upon closer inspection it was black lava salt for rimming the glass. My (silly) mistake!
Since Salar is a Peruvian restaurant, I started off with a blended Pisco Sour, which I was informed is the national drink of Peru.
This was so light and refreshing, the fact it was all icy and frozen only added to that refreshing-ness. She actually let me mix this myself, which was fun.
One of my favorite things about Salar is that when you dine here, their version of “bread for the table” is housemade pita and hummus, which was served at this event, as well:
Their hummus is so unique, it’s super herbaceous and fresh tasting, and their pita is perfectly golden brown and crisp. I love that they start you off with something so fun compared to just regular bread and butter (not that I don’t also love good bread and butter).
Unlike their monthly wine dinners, where everyone is served their own plate per course, the Mixology Mondays have a smaller crowd (only about ten people) and are more casual in tone, so the food is served family style on larger platters that get passed around, and you just take however much you want and put it on your own plate.
Here’s some roasted veggies we were served:
There was also a salad with grilled chicken, elote, and some kind of really yummy green dressing over top, but I failed to get a picture of that one. I do, however, have a picture of the tofu dish the kitchen made for someone with dietary restrictions, and that looked tasty:
Actually, I now notice that the salad the tofu is sitting on top of is definitely the same salad mix that the one with chicken had, so just imagine that salad but with chicken on top instead and that’s what I had.
Of course, gotta get our second bev going:
I absolutely love this pineapple glass it was served it, plus the pineapple toothpick and pineapple frond decoration was so cute. This drink was made with blackberries, raspberries, I honestly don’t remember what else but it was so fruity and totes delish! I felt transported to a hammock on a beach.
Even though I came alone, everyone was sat at one long table and I ended up having some great conversations with my tablemates. It was so fun chatting, sharing food, sipping our drinks, it was definitely more friendly and chill than I was expecting. Good vibes all around.
And to finish the evening, a strawberry margarita made with Mezcal, with a tajin covered lime for optimal enjoyment:
As you can probably tell, it was pretty warm out so the drinks did tend to melt kind of quickly, but they tasted just as good in liquid form as frozen form, so I can’t complain too much.
All in all, both the food and the drinks were super summery and tasty, the conversation was easy-going and fun, and it was just a pleasant way to spend a Monday evening. I look forward to the next one of these I attend.
What’s the best complimentary bread and butter you’ve had at a restaurant? Do you like pisco sours? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
The Big Idea: Aimee Ogden
Jun. 18th, 2025 02:25 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Coming back to ideas with fresh eyes is always a good idea. For author Aimee Ogden, it was eight years before she revisited the story that would come to be her newest novella, Starstruck. Check out her Big Idea to see how she made this story shine.
AIMEE OGDEN:
Ten years ago, I had the Big Idea that would become Starstruck: a world where each falling star held a soul that would animate whatever plant or animal it fell on. What would happen if those stars stopped falling? And what about when something got a soul that was never supposed to have one?
I wrote a book I loved about that idea—a fantasy for YA readers—and queried it with around a hundred different agents. And I got an equivalently hundred-adjacent number of rejections. C’est la vie écrivaine; I cried, presumably ate a cookie or two about it, and buried it in my trunk of failed stories, never to be seen again.
It turned out that out of sight did not mean out of mind. Starstruck haunted me (the book itself embodied, occasionally, in the person of a friend who also cared about it a lot), until two years ago, I exhumed the story’s corpse, and I was happy to find it still had good bones. They just needed to be arranged into a different order; and there was a fair bit of carrion flesh to strip away, too, to pare it down to a novella.
I still had a magical world of falling stars. I still had the same main characters: an abandoned human child, a gentle fox, her pragmatic radish wife, and a rock with delusions of destiny. Even the climactic moment stayed almost unchanged from the original version, except for the paring back of some elements that had proved extraneous to the story.
But the original version was YA, and the story had centered around the human boy. I hadn’t read widely enough yet to expand my conception of what a lead character could or should be. Coming back to it, I knew right away that I only wanted to write about a middle-aged radish. A magical middle-aged radish with a soul, and her enormous love, and her silent, squashed-aside regrets, and her utter inability to cope with a chunk of granite that told her it had a name and a birthday and a favorite color.
If I’d been paying more attention, I probably should have known where the story’s emotional heart lay the first time around—in the original version, the final scenes take place from the radish perspective. Even before I understood this was her story, I must have sensed that the needed closure could only come from her.
Or maybe I couldn’t have known yet. Eight years is a big gap to develop and change as a writer, and to accrue emotional baggage besides. Without that time, and without the double regret of failing with and then abandoning Starstruck, it couldn’t have been the same book. And as pleased as I was with it the first time around, it’s better now for its chance for maturation, and I have more room in my well-used, middle-aged heart with which to love it. Maybe you do, too. How do you feel about radishes?
Starstruck: Publisher website