Bad Menagerie

Still Sweeping Out the Dust — We Appreciate Your Patience!

Sep 27 2014

*licks hankie* *polishes edge of blog*

So, as y’all know, this blog is new. Shiny new!

We made it as pretty as possible before we went live, but things always work a little differently in practice. We’ve had a few users express difficulties in commenting or navigating and we want to assure everyone that we’ve made a list of the issues and we’re looking into them! It might take some time to make the changes — the blog work sadly comes out of our free time — but we are ON IT like bowler hats on Fosse dancers.

So far the issues readers have brought up include:

Difficulty commenting because of third-party cookie or Javascript settings on their browsers. We currently use Jetpack for comments, which connects to WordPress.com and thus works via WordPress.com’s use of cookies (which become third-party through our site). We’re looking into other commenting systems to see if we can find one with the lovely functionality of the Jetpack comments that doesn’t use third-party cookies.
Difficulty in navigating to the comments section. Getting there is a little counter-intuitive from the home page right now — you have to go through the title of the post. We agree with you entirely on this and want to fix it! We are looking into tweaking our theme to make it easier to navigate in and leave a comment straight from the homepage.
Some aesthetic issues that affect the readability of our site on our readers’ computers and mobile devices.

Again, we VERY much appreciate the feedback about these items, your patience while we look into them, and your understanding as we work to find the right balance among functionality, graceful degrading, and aesthetics.

And if you have anything you’d like to weigh in on as a reader regarding our site setup, please do leave us a comment here or contact us!

Today’s Word: Ambivalent

Sep 26 2014

Ambivalent Ears

Ambivalent Tree

Ambivalent tree

Ambivalent Submissive

Ambivalent sub

Ambivalent Gnome.

(Aren’t they all?)

Just Plain Creepy…

Sep 25 2014

In a shop window:

(And the rent isn’t even cheap…)

20 Little Details If You Want to Set a Story in Los Angeles

Sep 24 2014

By Matthew Field, http://www.photography.mattfield.com (Own work) [CC-BY-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

In Southern California, freeways are always prefixed with a definite article. “Take the 101 to the 405 to the 10 to the PCH . . .”
Because of earthquakes and the lack of a frost line, houses with basements are rare. I’ve only ever seen one residential place with a basement here and it was sort of a quasi-basement that was halfway a ground floor because the house was built onto the side of a hill; it wasn’t fully underground. (Underground parking lots are frequent, though.)
Speaking of earthquakes, we get ’em, but they usually aren’t a big deal, and a lot of times you won’t even feel them. But even though they’re usually pretty eh, they’re just rare enough that when one happens everyone goes around saying, “OMG did you feel the earthquake this morning??!!” and posts it to their Facebooks, even when they’re just tremors. I usually feel maybe 1 earthquake a year on average and am aware of 1 or 2 more I didn’t feel but other people did.
That stereotype about every waiter / bartender / barista here being an out-of-work actor / dancer / screenwriter / musician? TRUE. At least in large part, heh. Lots of other people live here with no desire to work in Hollywood, though.
It’s not uncommon for [the raging traffic] to impact where people are willing to do hobbies, where they look for jobs, and even the people they’re willing to date.
There’s a stereotype that everyone in LA is a transplant. Although a lot of people are, I do know a decent number of people here who grew up here.
LA is a very diverse city, to the point where any fiction that shows LA as lily white makes me skeptical on realistic grounds. In particular, we have a lot of Hispanic people. A lot. In general, I can’t think of a minority demographic that isn’t solidly represented among people I know (though unlike in the Midwest or Southwest, most of the people I know with Native American blood — and I have like 6 or 7 friends who do — look white and do not feel connected to the Native culture, only have the genetic background . . . though I also know a few who are very invested in their Native heritage).
Cost of living, like in most cities, is pretty high, but because of the sprawl it’s a little easier to find a part of town where a bigger apartment and/or house might be more affordable. Other parts of town, not so much.
LA is more like a bunch of little cities and regions mashed into one. Most people here consider “LA” to mean “LA County” in the broadest sense, including places that are separate municipalities, like Santa Monica and Pasadena. But every smaller part of LA, even the ones that aren’t their own cities, have “village” names, so if you ask someone in LA where they live, they’re likely to give you the regional name —
Parts of LA are very citified; others [are] very residential.
“Van Nuys” or “Westwood” or “Downtown.” They might also answer more broadly, like by saying “the Westside” or “the Valley,” which are regions that include a lot of different littler regions. All the overlapping regional names, as well as which parts are separate cities (West Hollywood is, North Hollywood is not,^[1] what), are very confusing to newcomers, and even sometimes to people who have lived here a while.
“Hollywood” is both a geographical part of town and a name for the film industry. So if you say you “work in Hollywood,” that could mean your job exists on a street in the geographical region of Hollywood, or that you live nowhere near Hollywood but you work in film. It’s usually clear which is meant by the context.
Mass transit here kinda sucks. The subways don’t go all that many places, and buses cover the rest of the city, but they take forever. Trying to get somewhere on a bus might take three hours.
Because of the sprawl and the raging traffic, it also might take hours to get somewhere in a car at rush hour. Angelenos know every trick in the book to get around traffic, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, and “an hour to go five miles” situations are not uncommon in certain parts of town at certain times of day. Or if there’s an accident. (It’s not uncommon for this to impact where people are willing to do hobbies, where they look for jobs, and even the people they’re willing to date.)
I do know some people without cars, but it’s much, much, much rarer than in other cities — the assumption would be that a person living in Los Angeles has a car. Even most students have cars.
In some parts of town street parking is easy. In other parts it is impossible. Know which part of town you’re in if you want your characters to be able to park.
Parking tickets are a fact of life. I do not know a single person here who has never gotten a parking ticket.^[2] This is partly because parking regulations can be complicated and absurd and are different everywhere you go.
Parts of LA are very citified; others have pockets that are very residential. Once again, this is a product of the sprawl.
It does rain here, but is only likely during part of the year (the wet season, which roughly correlates with winter). When it does rain, it’s the “relentless downpour” type; thunderstorms are almost unheard of. The rest of the year you can go months and months and months in a row with blue skies.
Desert, woods, mountains, beaches, forests — Los Angeles is surrounded by all of them (this is part of why so many films can be set here so easily). You may have to specify a region, however — for instance, pine forests are exceedingly unlikely unless you’re up in the mountains, in which case they’re gorgeous.
Palm trees are all over the place here.
Motorcycles can split lanes in California. (And helmets are required by law.)
Alcohol is sold in grocery stores in California.

Footnotes (↵ returns to text)

For a while I had three different library cards because I frequented two parts of town that did not consider themselves technically Los Angeles.↵
As time in LA increases, probability of getting a parking ticket approaches 1.↵

A Typical Writing Day for the Cow

Sep 23 2014

Heh, this was very true for the first year or so. I’d procrastinate the entire day until I looked at the clock and realized Mr. Cow was due back in five minutes. Then the accumulated guilt of not having done anything productive the whole day would kick me in the throat and force me to write at lightning speed. Over time, I did get better at disciplining myself, and now I am happy to say I only procrastinate like, 50% of the time. Instead of, you know, 95% of the time. Baby steps and all.

Oh, and . . .

Introducing Mr. Cow! He’ll probably be in quite a few of my posts. What in the name of all that is holy is he? My guess is as good as yours. He calls the blue blob I’ve come up with a “ball of panic”. I’m not sure why I’ve chosen to draw him with that panicky expression, since he’s a pretty calm guy most of the time.

Anyway, hulloooos! This is my first post, so whee! Um, and now I am out of things to say. Okay, bye!

Introducing the Menagerie

Sep 22 2014

OMG! It’s a BLOG! WHAT!

Hi. We’re the Menagerie. We’re here to write interesting, insightful brilliance that will propagate through the Internet like glowing dandelion fluff. Failing that, we’ll attempt to entertain you with pictures of cute animals.

Who are we? We’re a group of writers who met online, glommed onto each other, and haven’t let go. We write science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, young adult, middle grade, romance, erotica, women’s fiction, and more.

Oh, and we’re scientists, artists, philosophers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, gunslingers, and adventurers. We like math and sports and rock climbing and cooking and exploring the world and making dirty jokes. We’re single people and spouses and parents, dog owners and cat owners and horse owners. We live in North America and Europe and Asia, and some of us are straight and some of us are queer and some women and some men and we think we’re all pretty rockin’ humans. Er, animals. And a pencil.

We have a lot of opinions. Lots of times we disagree! We think that’s okay. We like listening to each other be smart about things we don’t agree with.

You can find out more about each of us on our About the Menagerie page. You can also check out our FAQ. (These questions have not actually been Frequently Asked yet, but we’re anticipating your needs. Because we’re givers.)

We have a Comment Policy. Basically, don’t be jackasses to each other. Or to us.

Did we mention we’re writers? We’ve got a Fiction page for those of us who aren’t anonymous, if you want to check out what we write. This will probably grow as more of us decide to be less anonymous.

We hope you’ll stick around and hang with us! If not, we’ll continue to roll merrily around in our corner of the Internet, arguing about the meaning of life and picking each others’ noses. Either way, here’s a baby lemur!

#129288833 / gettyimages.com

Still Sweeping Out the Dust — We Appreciate Your Patience!

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