Shel Graves' Sensorium

This is my favorite category: For me, when it comes to books, its frequently the weirder the better and I read some fabulously weird standout books this year including: Memoirs of a Space Woman , Naomi Mitchison (1962) - on my to-read via the Feminist SFF & Utopia recommendations  aka the feminist sf canon at FeministSF.org for some time Planet of the Apes, Pierre Boulle (1963) - I was curious about this classic and yes it deserves the title, classic Doctor Rat , William Kotzwinkle (1976) - a great recommendation via Cat Rambo's blog More straightforward, but a lot of fun was The Martian , by Andy Weir (2014). I was absolutely cheering for the hero Mark Watney and I loved this quote and theme "...every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it's true." I also enjoyed talking about this book with friends since so many of them had read it (fewer had read, say Doctor Rat ) and seeing the movie (al...

I especially appreciated:   "A minimally acceptable ethical life involves using a substantial part of one’s spare resources to make the world a better place." — Ethicist Peter Singer, Boston Review , " The Logic of Effective Altruism ," July 6, 2014   "Eat to your heart's content." — Julieanna Hever, plant-based dietician, U.S. News " Absence of Meat Makes the Heart Grow Fonder ," Sept. 2, 2015  "And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality." — Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running  But the quote of the year comes from HOWL by Allen Ginsberg, which I read for the first time this year. I read the poem, read the graphic novel and watched the movie. As a writer, how can I not love this:  "The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the bearer...

Oh, heaven, how I hated all these things. Last year was the first year I began adding a Worst of the Year post. The standout senses in the Sensorium tend to be pleasant ones, but Molly Tenebaum's poem "Ode to the Ugly Colors," in The Cupboard Artis t out from Floating Bridge Press reminded me that there is art and value in recording some distress and ugliness. The Sensorium strongly favors what delights, but some senses rankle and these get highlighted in my year end review. Here comes the bile — the worst of each sense and the worst sense of the year: Tastes - a multi-win for bad liquor! hmm, note to self:  For whatever reason, I was curious and excited to try this alcohol combination —absinthe and Chambord— and The Lovecraft Bar delivered in a drink fittingly named Unpleasant Dreams; whiskey drinks or whiskey-flavored cider — ew!; and, sorry Iceland, your liqueurs whether made of Icelandic moss, birch, blueberry or crowberry all made the list (Well, we tried!)....

This year a lot of vocabulary made the Sensorium. Themes were compassion, effective altruism, art and space. Viðey island, Iceland meliorism — the belief that through small, generous actions the world can be made better  Áfangar  — to stop and look forward and back — as in an outdoor art sculpture exhibit on Viðey island, Iceland plutonion — a sanctuary post-coital tristesse — sadness after sex, when you want to cry with compassion for the world  hoodoo — aka tent rock, fairy chimney, earth pyramid: a tall, thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of a dry basin or badland from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day xenia — compassion as a characteristic of heroes  syzygy — a conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun i.e. the planets were aligned in syzygy as in Hugo Award Winning novel The Three Body Problem by   Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu A highlight of the year was learning that the Sensorium i...

Always a tough category, this year, I loved seeing:  rainbow carrots purple, white, yellow, orange and now often available at the local grocery and co-op;  the Black Tulip Magnolia which my father bought for me and which we named Uhura, since he was a Star Trek fan, and planted so that it can block the view of my neighbor's house from the window in my writing room;   The Impressionists exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum , which my husband surprised me by saying he particularly wanted to see. I especially remember: Auguste Renoir's "Woman With A Cat" (which inspired me to adopt a cat from our local shelter shortly thereafter - we'd been three months without our sweet Sophie, whose paws have been prominent on the Sensorium); Edouard Manet's"A King Charles Spaniel" (we are not quite ready for another dog - Storm's sister is happy as an only + cat) and Henri Fantin-LaTour, "Still Life With Grapes and a Carnation" and "Three Peaches...

Tiramisu at Portobello Vegan Trattoria In 2015, I noted repeatedly how my husband and I were "not suffering" as vegan and plant-based diners. 2015 was a rather remarkable remarkable year for good eats and Happy Cow app wins out again finding us amazing food even in Iceland where we least expected it.  We also went to Portland twice and indulged in vegan tourism, eating a few times at the wonderful Portobello Vegan Trattoria where the tiramisu and Vtopian Artisan Cheese plates including Carmelized Onion Camembert with rhubarb compote were delights.  We also went to two prix fixe holiday dinners at Cafe Flora : Valentine's Day  (blood orange coulis) and Thanksgiving (Jerusalem artichoke blini)— amazing. There were flights of cider: ginger, pomegrante, apricot, pumpkin spice, Schilling Cider and Reverend Nat's  sour cherry and ginger tonic ciders. Vegan Toast at The Laundromat Cafe, Reykjavik And indulgences of  blood orange mimosas, jack f...

Oh, be still my heart, VNV Nation came out with the classical version of their songs on Resonance: Music For Orchestra Vol. 1 recorded with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg. And then, in preparation for our trip to Iceland, I listened to Björk's Vulnicura:  Atom Dance, "I am dancing towards transformation." Family, "There is a swarm of sound/Around our heads"  Quicksand, "When she's broken, she is whole/And when she's whole, she's broken Our mother's philosophy/ It feels like quicksand/And if she sinks/I'm going down with her"  Black Lake, "My heart is enormous lake/Black with potion/I am blind/Drowning in this ocean"  Concert of the year:  IAMX came to Seattle again with Metanoia , so much "Happiness." Song of the year: Public Service Broadcasting: The Race for Space , Go! I kept walking down the street fist pumping to this and then had to watch Apollo 13  (duct tape and math wit...

There was the room full of people imitating the pant-hoot of chimpanzees at the Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest auction; an energetic dance to the ever popular “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)," 1936, composed by Louis Prima as part of the performance by the dance company  Shaping Sound (more on this in Sights of the Year); a little girl shouting "Hippety-hop! Hippety-hop, hop, hop!" as she jumped in puddles at the local track as I ran by her; and a number of cheerful "Good morning!"'s shouted by fellow passing runners on Thanksgiving morning. There was also a ship captain reciting poetry in the dark as we looked for the lights of the aurora borealis to emerge above the sea outside of Reykjavik (see also Sights of the Year). However, sound of the year goes to one I will never hear again, the sound of my PARENTS' LAUGHTER with a mention of Lohengrin , a Romantic opera by Richard Wagner, which played at their wedding. Dad died just shy of their 50t...

This year, I loved: soothing peppermint, velvet pants, a geothermal Icelandic water slide, my first hot yoga class, and always holding hands. The was also the warmth and steam of the Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa in Iceland and the heft of the Hugo Award at the World Science Fiction Convention (which was held nearby in Spokane!). At a party in the lovely Davenport Hotel, gracious Hugo winner James Bacon let me hold Journey Planet's rocket — scandalous. Swoon! However, the touch of the year is much closer to home and goes to: MARY SHELLEY'S SOFT SIDES . On November 1, we adopted a thin soft cat from our local shelter. I expect she'll make many more appearances in the Sensorium. Ann Hamilton's "On Touch,"  is also worth remembering here:  "Each extension of a hand or paw is toward contact....When we touch we go from being observers to being included; things seen become things felt. In silence or in speech, reading and being read to are other forms o...

Was it the memory of my father's aftershave Aqua Velva? The patchouli, frankincense and myrrh blend of a magic shop filled with polished stones and gemstones? Perhaps, the sweet basil I grew on my kitchen windowsill and blended into bright green sauces? I did like the phrase, "bramble on the nose," but not as much the wine scent that went with it. No, the scent of the year goes to: WARM PINE AT DUSK that rose from the end of a very steep hiking trail on a long summer day spent in the mountains with friends. What is this? My Year in Review.

In 2015, my word of the year was EASE . It was anything but easeful. In November 2014, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He died in June 2015. I lost two companion animals this year as well. If not for the Sensorium, my remembered word for this year may have been loss. Looking back though, I see, thanks to the senses I recorded, that there was much bounty enjoyed in 2015 as well. I'm reminded of the resurrected corpses in Susan Palwick's story "Beautiful Stuff," (in the outstanding collection The Fate of Mice)  who lock on to simple wonderful objects — butterflies, bandanas, paperweights — and love them for all they are worth for as long as they have left to live. "Dying hurts," said Ari. "It won't make your happy. It won't make anybody happy." "So please do the right thing," said Rusty. "Don't kill anybody else."  "Look at this! Look at the shiny glass. Look at the flower. It's beautiful. You ...

Taste: pumpkin seed and basil pesto Sight: friends awaiting round a gaming table Sound: "Ha, ha ha, ha, ha! Cool!"; his beating heart; the squee of the track bat Smell: burnt tortilla eau de burnt toast all day long; cucumber salad Touch: warm and naked; the bottom of his foot pressed pad to pad Extra: sympathy for outdoor cats and people; peace, love and purgatory; avowed carnivores; a lab testing cures for nuclear radiation on mice, rabbits, monkeys and pigs; as women, we are too young until we are too old.; Ursula K. Le Guin's four line poems in Late in the the Day ;  "We answer rage with wisdom. We answer fear with imagination. We answer war with hope. We, are each of us, important." — Princess Leia, Marvel Comics  Grateful for: hunger - for soon one won't have it

Taste: homemade almond milk - almonds, water, blend Sight: a bright orange burning ember-the end of an incense stick; craters of Pluto; Charonshine; nebulae Sound: "a symphony of grotesquerie" Smell: gingerbread incense Touch: wispy fur Extra: dreams of cats; dreams of long swimming pools; the lunar crescent actually occulted, when Venus winked out behind the bright lunar limb; “The human family has invaluable friends and irreplaceable allies in the plant and animal worlds. We cannot continue to tug at the web of life without tearing a hole in the very fabric of our earthly existence — and eventually falling through that hole ourselves.” ―Van Jones via Whidbey Institute  Grateful for: making progress on a project; animal rights "And animals weren't created by humans to be useful as humans, which is why we can't use them like machines." — Susan Palwick, Shelter   "And animal rights are important because we all share the earth; we'...

Why it springs to mind: A hauntingly beautiful horror story about what happens when a woman relinquishes her power. A unique werewolf story with commentary on aging. Where read: First in Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology  ( 2015, PM Press edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) and then in Palwick's collection The Fate of Mice ( 2007, Tachyon Publications ) — both outstanding! These presses won't steer you wrong. Summary: A young woman werewolf allows herself to be dominated by a lover who takes control of her fate. Memorable: The powerful ending! The word: sportfuck. A new take on lycanthropy. Written in second person — you. Quote:  "You know that your growing wisdom is the benefit of aging, the compensation for your wrinkles and your fading—although fading slowly as yet—beauty. You also know that Jonathan didn't marry you for wisdom."  Personal connection: Some of my favorite stories seem to be the ones that address t...

Taste: homemade almond milk; sweet fresh window side basil Sight: wet cat's tail and spinning; wearing black and cherry red; green pumpkin seed and basil pesto Sound: blender; "most people can't'" Smell: cherry cough drops, menthol Touch: full cat belly Extra: What gives you strength? routine, habit, daily willpower; Best blurb ever: "Piercy writes w/ high intelligence, love for the world, ethical passion and innate feminism." Adrienne Rich on My Life, My Body ; "Skill in living, awareness of belonging in the world, delight in being part of the world, always tends to involve knowing our kinship as animals with animals." — Ursula K. Le Guin  Grateful for:  Imaging the future; safety; defiance; becoming the tidy woman who cooks with fresh whole foods and homegrown herbs; PM Press and their Outspoken Authors series, outspoken authors: "It is by imagining what we truly desire that we begin to go there. That is the kind of thinki...