(no subject)

Dear Madeleine L'Engle:

I loved your books as a kid. Still do. But I would like to raise a complaint about A Wind In The Door. Namely, when I started learning about cell biology on a modern level as opposed to the info in the teacher edition textbooks my aunt let me read when I was seven, I got very excited because mitochondria! Were a real thing! Mitochondrial diseases existed that sounded like what almost killed Charles Wallace, albeit without Echthroi involvement! It was what you said in... the.. in the book you... the textbook didn't mention farandolae at all. It had stuff about the internal layout and workings of other organelles but there wasn't a single thing about... you made them up entirely from scratch. It made me sad.

That wasn't the problem. The thing I am complaining about is that only now, decades after the fact, do I find out that 'farandola', or rather 'farandole', is a real word and that it has nothing to do with adorable little talking sentient mouselike creatures that live in the teeniest parts of human cells and turn into palm tree thingies*. It is a French word for a kind of multiperson dance, or more commonly a medley or assortment of small foods, usually on the order of a cheese plate or dessert cart or a display of a whole bunch of teeny little desserts.

I am now saddled with the image of the battle for Charles Wallace's life requiring Meg and Mr. Jenkins and everybody else to make impassioned pleas with what amounts to a French-accented dessert-themed dim sum wagon.

*I have only a vague memory but I am almost positive that this is what the farandolae in the book did

(no subject)

I don't normally post about political things here and I try to keep fundraisery to a minimum, but if anyone looking this way is interested, there are a few organizations taking action to help families affected by the raids in Jackson the other night.

( Linkage back here. )

I take suggestions if there's other organizations you want to put forward.

Thanks. Sorry to have inflicted that here; I generally try to keep this journal a safe haven from the lunacy that is modern American existence but Jesus, Mary and Buddha, sometimes that's not the way to go.