Wait Five Minutes

[omorka]

It was cold enough this morning that there was frost on the cars. There was even a little on the grass, where it was long enough to hold it off the ground.

Now, for those of you who are battling actual snow, I'm sure this is laughable, but this is one of the earliest serious frosts I've seen since I moved to Houston. I hope this doesn't mean a colder-than-usual winter to go with our wetter-than-usual summer; I still don't have an actual winter coat. I compensated by wearing my warmest dress, but I only have one of those.

Oh, and the school climate control was still set to A/C.

Comments

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

There was actual ice on the windshield when I had to take Russ downtown early this morning (jury duty).

My heavy winter coat has finally gotten so tattered that I got rid of it. I'm thinking of checking Goodwill and other thrift stores to see about getting a replacement; would you like to do that this weekend?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

The likelihood of their having anything in my style and size is miniscule, unfortunately.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

Well, up here we've had two snowfalls already, something that hasn't occurred since I've moved here. (And we're set for another Clipper later this week). I wish I could complain but we could use the moisture after our drought-flood-drought pattern we're in.

More of that stuff for us could mean more colder air getting down to you there.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

I remember, within my lifetime, when an October frost here in SE Texas was a 1 in 3 proposition, and one frost before Thanksgiving was even money or better...

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Well, on the one hand, you're far enough north of us, and far enough away from the Gulf, that I think you're in Zone 8, while Houston is Zone 9.

On the other hand, watching the maps of the agricultural zones creep northward is . . . a bit scary.

[teegarden.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you are here at my school. :P

Questions: Have you read the His Dark Materials trilogy? If so, what might be your instant and pro-type-fessional thoughts about teaching it (entire thing) to an 11th grade AP class?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Haven't actually read it yet - bought the first book a while back, intending to zip through it, and never actually picked it up. I suspect, from what I know of other teachers using it in class, that 11th grade might be a little old to be the target audience - most of the folks I've heard who've mentioned using it teach Pre-AP 9th grade.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

Aren't you asking for trouble what with the recent accusations of the series being anti-Catholic and anti-Christian?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I am conflicted: is the proper response to this comment "Um, recent?" or "Um, accusations?"

(Probably the first, as the Church in the books is explicitly Calvinist rather than Papist.)

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

I don't see either response a a proper response, and I just don't get what your smalltype comment means.

Since you aren't hooked into mass media you may not have seen the recent eruption of press in the wake of the forthcoming movie. I didn't know squat about the film or the books until this week. It was religious calls for boycotting the film hat hepped me to the author.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I have noticed, and honestly have been quietly laughing for the mainstream press being so very late to this particular party.

1) The books are very, very, anti-conventional-Christian, and the author, an avowed atheist of the in-your-face type, has been quite upfront about this from the beginning. There's no "controversy" here, no matter of interpretation: these are Gnostic books, atheist books, Satanic books perhaps, but in any case, not friendly to Christianity-as-we-know-it. These Things Are Dangerous. These are the Anti-L'Engle.

2) The library-banning wave for the Dark Materials trilogy hit several years ago, and was widely noted in both the pop-literary world and in the Potterfandom ("Wow, something other than our pet books is getting banned!").

So: the "accusation" of anti-Christianity is not, strictly speaking, such, as the author has long since copped to the guilty plea; and while it may have flared up recently due to the movie, the "controversy" is of quite long standing, pretty much since the last book in the trilogy was published.

The smalltext is meant to point out that anti-Catholicism is probably not supportable as a separate issue, as the repressive and authoritarian Church in the books is not the Catholic church, but a Calvinist replacement. Apparently the Reformation went much farther in this universe (not having read them, I don't remember why - perhaps they didn't have that critical unit of Jesuit ninja in this universe or something). So that might reasonably be called a "controversy" in the pop media sense.

If you really hadn't heard of them previously, I'm surprised - they're sort of the default thing to offer people after the Potterbooks, and I wouldn't have thought you could have crawled around the fandom without stumbling on references (or comparisons) to the Dark Materials trilogy.