#Algy and his assistant

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy would like to draw your kind attention to the fact that his assistant, for better or for worse, has today created a new sideblog @photocyclelog… 🚲

Having decided to resume cycling after a gap of a great many more years than she is willing to admit – both for the sake of her health and in order to get out and about without a car – she realised that by taking a pocket camera with her, and posting photos here on tumblr, she would provide herself with an additional incentive to get on her new bike, as the weather in the wild west Highlands of Scotland does not always encourage local residents to rush outside and take exercise… 😀

@photcyclelog will feature only her original photos, mainly taken with a pocket camera, and with minimal text. As it's a sideblog, any comments or replies will therefore come from @adventuresofalgy, which may be confusing…

Algy is of course hoping to accompany his assistant on some of her outings, but his own adventures will always continue to appear here on his own blog.

Algy thanks you very much for your kind indulgence 🚲

[lovefromalgy]

After two days of partying, the guests at Algy's Hogmanay Hootenanny were getting pretty tired… and so was his assistant!

But Algy decided to post this exceptionally clumsy, daft video clip anyway – at least temporarily – because it was a lot of fun and the party is now coming to a close, so that all his guests, friends and assistants can have a wee rest…

(Be sure to turn up the sound…)

Algy's guests came from countries all around the world, and many brought their own traditions and music with them. One couple would insist on dancing the tango, although by that time they were on the point of collapse, so Algy hopes you will forgive their (and his assistant's) excessive clumsiness and many faults. It was made in great haste and is strictly for fun 😀 A very Happy New year to you all! With love and fluffy hugs from Algy @adventuresofalgy 🤗🥂🎆

Featuring an original arrangement of La Cumparsita created by Algy's assistants in Logic Pro.

[sholiofic]

Cuddles4Biggles fill 1

From the Cuddles4Biggles Prompting Fest at Biggles Events on DW.

Team + EvS, sleeping on each other

Originally posted here

[set post-Buries a Hatchet and probably post-Looks Back]

Biggles strode into the Air Police operational office with his mouth open to speak, started to say Algy's name, and then stopped, mouth still half open.

"Do not," Algy said between his teeth, "say a word."

He was sitting on the ragged sofa in one corner of the office. The old sofa was a fixture of the office, drawn out of the way of the desks, where it had provided a soft, if badly sprung, place to nap for more than one tired member of the SAP over the years.

At the moment, it was giving Algy a place to sit, and von Stalhein a place to sleep — slumped on Algy's shoulder.

They'd all had a very long day, in pouring rain, and all of them had been drooping and stumbling with exhaustion when they returned to the SAP office at the aerodrome late that evening. Biggles had seen Ginger and Bertie off first, both of them limping from minor injuries. Algy, for his part, was unhurt, just wet and muddy.

Von Stalhein had said he was completely fine, repeated it several times, in fact, even though Biggles had seen him knocked about and nearly run over by the smugglers they were apprehending. Having him out in the field with the team, in this case to provide translation services, was still a minor miracle that Biggles had not quite adjusted to yet.

Now he gazed at the image in front of him. Algy had one of the scratchy old wool blankets that they kept in the office (for just such occasions as this) wrapped around his shoulders, his hands clutching a heavy old pottery mug of coffee. Von Stalhein had another, similar gray blanket draped over his lap. There was an untouched cup on the spare desk at his end of the couch — well, what had been his end, until he had fallen asleep tilting onto Algy.

"If you might consider providing some assistance," Algy said, low. Still, Biggles couldn't help noticing that he wasn't moving at all, even though his position looked uncomfortable, one elbow on the arm of the sofa and the other resting on his knees.

"Of course," Biggles said quietly. He slipped into the room, straight to Ginger's desk, where Ginger's old box camera sat among a clutter of paperwork, magazines, and stained mugs.

"Do not," Algy said grimly. "Don't—Bigglesworth—don't you dare—I know where you sleep—!"

But he kept his voice low, even as Biggles took his hand off the camera, smiling.

"Would you care for a relief shift, Flying-Officer Lacey?"

"Oh God yes, you have no idea how happy that would make me."

"Of course, if you'd rather have some quiet time to—"

"Biggles," Algy said, teeth almost audibly grinding.

Biggles decided it was a bad idea to wind him up any more, he'd already been a good sport about the entire thing, and slid onto the creaky springs of the sofa in the space between the armrest and von Stalhein's narrow hips. "Erich," he murmured, and putting a light hand on von Stalhein's shoulder, gently moved him a little.

Von Stalhein came awake with a jolt, and Algy, with a swift motion that put Biggles in mind of their long-ago boyish days, ducked out from under the burden and stood up. Von Stalhein blinked, squinting as if the lights in the room were too bright. He raised a hand to his forehead. "I—apologize, I—where am I? Ah," he added, with dazed comprehension, as Biggles steered him carefully to a more or less upright position.

"I think it's time to go home and sleep, for all of us," Biggles said. He kept a hand on von Stalhein's shoulder, steadying him as he swayed in the grip of nearly intractable exhaustion.

"Tell me about it," Algy said loudly, and took his mug off to the kitchenette.

[dotsayers]

18, 20, 21? x

18. What was the hardest fic to title?

they're all always horrible to title but shifting into biggles fandom this year meant my usual mainstay (wordy mountain goats lyrics) felt wrong and so i've started... shudder... Making Up Titles Properly. hardest was probably covert operation, because i wanted SO BADLY to name it after a transgender dysphoria blues lyric but i also wanted it to have cross-appeal with the biggles forumites so 'they just see a faggot' might have ruffled some feathers

20. Share your favorite ending line

my Favourite favourite ending line is (alas!) from one of my yuletide fics, but of ones which are available under my name:

Biggles smiled wider. “True enough.” He put out a hand ready to shake. “James Bigglesworth. You can call me Biggles, if you like.” “I won’t,” said von Stalhein, automatically. Then he caught himself, and took Biggles’ hand.

it's from down on the cards, which i loved writing and was my first attempt at the algy vs evs situation, a perennial favourite.

21. Share your favorite piece of dialogue

this one is long, but: i love writing dialogue, and one of my favourite pieces is from my second the terror fic, in which goodsir is having a not-good time at all.

“Sorry,” said Harry. “I – didn’t mean to.”

A child’s excuse. Harry wanted quite badly to do something equally childish to avoid himself; hide under a blanket or in a cupboard, perhaps, knees to his chest.

John looked at him. Harry tried hard not to squirm like a schoolboy about to be thrashed.

“I know, Harry,” John said, eventually. “I came to find you to ask about your morning, actually. Not to send you into a fit of hysteria.”

“I’m not hysterical,” said Harry. “Leaving aside the strict diagnostic criteria, the etymology alone–”

“I was being facetious,” John replied. He sighed, running a hand through his hair. He’d taken after their mother, hair straight and fine. “Doctor Litefoot sent a telegram. He was not pleased to have his assistant surgeon vanish halfway through an autopsy, let alone one I’d told him would be of great diagnostic help.”

Harry couldn’t speak for a moment. His chest felt tight. “Then I apologise for disappointing you, and him. I thought I would be able to – tolerate it.”

“But not enjoy it,” said John. He looked oddly sad, his forehead creased in a frown. Harry wasn’t sure why.

“Was I supposed to?” He remembered feeling excited about autopsies in the past; his anatomical studies had interested him at the time, of course. He didn’t see how it was relevant.

“You used to enthuse about this,” John replied. “Could hardly keep you away from the museum, or the lecture theatre. Always hearing about some new advancement in surgical practice. And now – Harry, you knew you didn’t have to do this, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” said Harry, automatically. “I have to do what you tell me, or–” He stopped.

“Or what, Harry?” John’s voice was gentle; it scraped against Harry’s nerves.

Harry said nothing. He set down the rag and went to the sitting room, where John’s pet tortoise was busily eating half a head of cabbage. The cat, an ageing Persian that Harry had helped nurse as a kitten, padded over and pawed at his leg until he sat on the chaise longue and lifted her onto his lap.

She purred happily as he scratched her behind the ears. She was warm and soft and very content to curl up and doze.

John came to stand in the doorway. Harry glanced up at him, words drying in his throat.

“I don’t know what happened, that you’re so frightened of us,” said John. “I wish I did.”

“If you did, you’d wish you didn’t,” Harry said, softly. “I’m quite sure of that.”

[forgaeven]

❛ it doesn’t matter who i am. i’m here for you. ❜ { for neville }

neville squints his eyes at the other.

and really, it isn't as though he's had anything against harry. hell, he'd think he owes harry quite a lot, and yet ... there is that bit of resistant and doubt anyway that creeps in him at the offer of the ... help. perhaps one wouldn't even categorise it to that extent - harry's simply offering a shoulder to cry on, and already neville feels like it's too much. he wonders if sometimes harry has ever felt like that too : wanting so badly inside for someone to extend any assistance, but when it comes to the matter realising into reality, whatever request you kept suddenly transformed itself into a burden. one you wish no one would know, because it's yours only to carry, isn't it ?

and neville gets it. they're friends. it's normal for friends to tell the other what's bothering them, but ... these are his parents. for so long, frank and alice longbottom had been– had been neville and gran's, and maybe sometimes uncle algie and aunt enid, to worry about. and neville doesn't mind worrying about them – truthfully, he doesn't – though it's ... it's just hard lately, when mum's health has taken a dip and dad's mood had went along with it. so far the healers told him that there wasn't anything to worry about yet, but gran had stayed at st. mungo's far more than usual. it's–

neville has no word for it.

not for himself, less for harry. he settles for a smile, instead. ❛ i'm just glad you're back, mate. ❜ and that, at least, is the truth too. ❛⠀how- have ye' seen everyone then ? hermione ? ron ? gin ? ❜

@wandworn, ordinary things that feel intimate.

[lovefromalgy]

Algy @adventuresofalgy just loves the work of American pavement artist @sluggoonthestreet, as some of his friends will know, and he was especially tickled by this one, as Algy's assistants have a "friend" just like Emile's, who is trying to come in through the bedroom window 😀

Emile's new friend is a little clingy, but evergreen.

[adventuresofalgy]

The wild west Highlands of Scotland were enjoying a period of fine, dry, sunny weather, typical of April in this part of the world, and although it was not particularly warm, and the wind was often strong and cold, the land was full of light and colour once more, at least for the time being.

The white-blossomed cherries in Algy's assistants' garden usually flowered at Easter, but this year the blossom was coming out a wee bit earlier than usual, like many of the flowers in the garden, and Easter happened to be particularly later, so they did not coincide.

Nevertheless, the white cherry blossom always reminded Algy of Housman's poem, and as Algy perched among the beautiful flowers on a bright though chilly spring day, and listened to the bumblebees buzzing about around him, he also recalled the last time he had been photographed in this particular tree at blossom time, and had recited that particular poem, because that was the day, three years ago, when he had last seen his special friend the little green dragon, after which Algy had paused his adventures for over two years…

Algy was hoping very much that as he had resumed his adventures and it was now spring again, the little green dragon might possibly return, but in the meantime he resolved to enjoy the beautiful blossom, for it only came once a year, at most!

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

[Algy is quoting the poem Loveliest of trees from the collection A Shropshire Lad by the late 19th century/early 20th century English poet and classical scholar A E Housman.]

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy @adventuresofalgy thanks his good friend Ludwig (evidently enjoying the long grass!) and companion Bud @bwwhitney very much for their kind thoughts, and sends them both his fluffiest hugs It has indeed been even wilder than usual in the wild west HIghlands of Scotland today, during Storm Floris, with battering wind gusts over 70 mph…

Algy apologises for his absence… He has been having a nice rest with his fluffy friends, after working very hard from the autumn to the spring, while his assistants have continued to labour, but in their large (and hopefully productive) garden rather than on the internet, even though the latter was restored. It has been such a cold, dismal, and constantly wet summer so far in the wild west Highlands of Scotland that adventuring would have been a washout, and even gardening has been a constant and arduous battle with the elements.

Algy is truly delighted to see Ludwig again, and hopes that he will continue to roar for a long time to come 😀

Being a plywood dinosaur, Ludwig doesn't really understand much about the modern world and he certainly doesn't understand about electricity or this "The Internet* he"s heard so much about. He just knows that he hasn't heard from his friend @adventuresofalgy in a very long time. He hopes Algy and Algy's helper Jenny are ok over there in the wilds of northern Scotland.

[equalseleventhirds]

ron @gerrydelano what have you DONE to me i’m FEELINGS and also fanfiction. this is inspired by his new song which murdered me dead and brought me back to write this bcos how can i resist ocean imagery?

---

Eric dreams.

He knows he is dreaming, because dark as it is (and it is dark, moonlight barely filtering through shuttered blinds), he can still see. The pale mass of the wall in front of him. The deeper darkness of an open door. The shifting of light in the waves that lap at his feet.

The ocean in his house might have been another clue.

He smiles, reaching out to touch the wood of the door frame. Past it he can just make out the shape of Gerry’s crib, can just hear his son’s soft breaths. Safe. Even in dreams, always safe.

“Why don’t you go in?” a voice behind him asks. “Or at least open the blinds. Let the light in. See him properly.”

He turns, of course he turns. A figure outlined in moonlight smiles at him, and he can see her far too clearly. “Emma.”

“Mm.”

“Why you? Why not, I don’t know, Gertrude? Wright? Mary would make the most sense, she’s my wife.”

“I don’t know. I’m not the one dreaming.” She shrugs, trailing a toe along the surface of the water. “Maybe you don’t want to see them. Maybe you don’t trust them, in the dark, in the sea, with your son.”

He can’t pretend to argue, but. “And I trust you, do I?”

“I’m your oldest, friendliest colleague; why wouldn’t you trust me?” Emma kicks at the water, splashing at his legs. “Well, maybe you just don’t remember what they look like.”

“I’m not sure I remember what you look like.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter so much with me.”

Eric shakes his head. “Maybe I just know you never stop asking questions.”

“Could be! I was always good at that. And is that what you need right now? Why don’t you look at him?”

His jaw clenches, but he knows he’s going to answer. That was how it went: Emma asked questions, and Emma found her answers. Always.

“I’m afraid,” he says, and the words taste like salt and copper. “I’m scared that even in dreams, I don’t know what he looks like.”

Emma is quiet for long moments, her silver-lined frame swaying gently with the tide. And then not so gently; the waves are growing, speeding up, choppy, loud. It looks like a storm. It sounds like someone sharpening a knife.

“I think,” she says finally, sea foam splashing at her waist, “and I might be wrong--do tell me if I’m wrong, Eric, tell me everything--but I think this might be your last chance.”

He wants to ask what she means, even if he doesn’t think she can tell him, even if he might already know, but a wave arcs over her and she reaches out, out, her hand leading the water until both hit his chest.

Eric Delano opens his eyes, and he sees nothing. But he hears Mary breathing, slow and steady and focused.

[staff]

tumblr tuesday: the adventures of algy

Hello! Happy solstice. What's this, you ask? Well, it's a Tuesday. It's also the end of one of Algy's adventures in Patadragonia. Who's Algy? Algy is a friend-shaped accidental adventurer. In this particular part of his story, he helps a dragon with some mad dance moves join the circus. In Patadragonia. (Sound on for total immersion.)

On the morning of the solstice...

...in the faraway land of Patadragonia, dawn broke with a beautiful deep pink glow over the mountains, and ethereal mists shimmered up from the frosty plains. Algy was still dozing after his long, sleepless night under the full moon when suddenly he heard a most extraordinary sound, and at the same time, he felt the special cherry blossom which he had brought all the way from the magical Easter island begin to vibrate and sparkle on the cold, bare rock behind him...

There was no doubt about it: the moment had arrived…Algy knew that his little dragon friend was about to realize its lifelong dream at last, and although he was sure that he would miss the funny wee creature, he could not have been happier for his very special friend, especially as he felt certain that—so long as he kept the magical cherry blossom safe—they would be bound to meet again in adventures yet to come…

[The circus band is playing the "National Emblem March," composed in 1902 by Edwin Eugene Bagley, in a version created by Algy’s assistants.]

Need more context? Take this cherry blossom back to the beginning or the very beginning. And if you just want to listen to the sounds of Scottish seas, then this one's for you.

[bwwhitney]

@adventuresofalgy When Algy and his assistant come to visit, Algy and his American cousins can fly around the countryside while Algy's assistant and the other humans sit in comfort on our new deck.

(Which is actually our old deck transported from the house down to the river.)

[lovefromalgy]

Algy thought that perhaps @bwwhitney's special party guest Ludwig might appreciate another unusual creature to keep him company at Algy's Hogmanay Hootenanny… but he thinks that perhaps he will have to find room for these very special guests in the garden, rather than in his assistant's house 😀

Algy wishes his longstanding friend @mostlythemarsh and all his family in Nova Scotia a very Happy New Year from old Scotia, and hopes that the new year will bring them health, peace and happiness.

No Return

[allthingsfern]

In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the  term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen​ said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

[blackkudos]

Samuel R. Delany

Samuel R. Delany (born April 1, 1942), Chip Delany to his friends, is an American author and literary critic. His work includes fiction (especially science fiction), memoir, criticism and essays on science fiction, literature, sexuality, and society.

His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. His nonfiction includes Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, About Writing, and eight books of essays. After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo Awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2002. From January 1975 until his retirement in May 2015, he was a professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Albany, and Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1997 he won the Kessler Award, and in 2010 he won the third J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction from the academic Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UCR Libraries. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him its 30th SFWA Grand Master in 2013.

Early life

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. was born on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany (1916–1995), was a clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906–1960), ran the Levy & Delany Funeral Home on 7th Avenue in Harlem, from 1938 until his death in 1960. The civil rights pioneers Sadie and Bessie Delany were his aunts. He used their adventures as the basis for Elsie and Corry in "Atlantis: Model 1924", the opening novella in his semi-autobiographical collection Atlantis: Three Tales. His grandfather, Henry Beard Delany, was the first black bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The family lived in the top two floors of a three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany envied children with nicknames and took one for himself on the first day of a new summer camp, Camp Woodland, at about the age of 12, by answering "Everybody calls me Chip" when asked his name. Decades later, Frederik Pohl called him "a person who is never addressed by his friends as Sam, Samuel or any other variant of the name his parents gave him."

Delany attended the Dalton School and from 1951 through 1956, spent summers at Camp Woodland in Phoenicia, New York, followed by the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program.

Delany has identified as gay since adolescence, though his complicated marriage with Marilyn Hacker (who was aware of Delany's orientation and has identified as a lesbian since their divorce) has led some authors to classify him as bisexual.

Upon the death of Delany's father from lung cancer in October, 1960 and his marriage in August 1961, he and Hacker settled in New York's East Village neighborhood at 629 East 5th Street. Hacker's intervention (while employed as an assistant editor at Ace Books), helped Delany become a published science fiction author by the age of 20, though he actually finished writing that first novel (The Jewels of Aptor) while at 19, shortly after dropping out of the City College of New York after one semester.

Career

He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as two prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and later in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). In 1966, with Hacker remaining in New York, Delany took a five-month trip to Europe, writing The Einstein Intersection while in France, England, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. These locales found their way into several pieces of his work at that time, including the novel Nova and the short stories "Aye, and Gomorrah" and "Dog in a Fisherman's Net".

Weeks after returning, Delany and Hacker began to live separately; Delany played and lived communally for five months on the Lower East Side with the Heavenly Breakfast, a folk-rock band, one of whose members, Bert Lee, was later a founding member of the Central Park Sheiks (the other two members of the quartet were Susan Schweers and Steven Greenbaum [aka Wiseman]); a memoir of his experiences with the band and communal life was eventually published as Heavenly Breakfast (1979). After a very brief time together again, Hacker moved to San Francisco and then England. Delany published his first eight novels with Ace Books from 1962 to 1967, culminating in Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, and Nova, which were consecutively recognized as the year's best novel by the Science Fiction Writers of America (Nebula Awards). Calling him a genius and poet, Algis Budrys listed Delany with J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, and Roger Zelazny as "an earthshaking new kind" of writer,and Judith Merril labelling him "TNT (The New Thing)."

Delany's first short story was published by Pohl in the February 1967 issue of Worlds of Tomorrow, and he placed three more in other magazines that year. After four short stories (including the critically lauded "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones") and Nova were published to wide acclaim (the latter by Doubleday, marking Delany's departure from Ace) in 1968 alone, an extended interregnum in publication commenced until the release of Dhalgren (1975), abated only by two short stories, two comic book scripts, and an erotic novel, The Tides of Lust (1973), reissued in 1994 under Delany's preferred title, Equinox.

On New Year's Eve in 1968, Delany moved to San Francisco to join Hacker, who was already there, and again to London in the interim, before Delany returned to New York in the summer of 1971 as a resident of the Albert Hotel in Greenwich Village. In 1972, Delany directed a short film entitled The Orchid (originally titled The Science Fiction Film in the Latter Twentieth Century, produced by Barbara Wise. Shot in 16mm with color and sound, the production also employed David Wise, Adolfas Mekas, and was scored by John Herbert McDowell. In November 1972, Delany was a visiting writer at Wesleyan University's Center for the Humanities. From December 1972 to December 1974, Delany and Hacker lived in Marylebone, London. During this period, he began working with sexual themes in earnest and wrote two pornographic works, one of which (Hogg) was unpublishable due to its transgressive content. Twenty years later, it found print.

Delany wrote two issues of the comic book Wonder Woman in 1972, during a controversial period in the publication's history when the lead character abandoned her superpowers and became a secret agent. Delany scripted issues #202 and #203 of the series. He was initially supposed to write a six-issue story arc that would culminate in a battle over an abortion clinic, but the story arc was canceled after Gloria Steinem complained that Wonder Woman was no longer wearing her traditional costume, a change predating Delany's involvement. Scholar Ann Matsuuchi concluded that Steinem's feedback was "conveniently used as an excuse" by DC management.

Delany's eleventh and most popular novel, the million-plus-selling Dhalgren, was published in 1975 to both literary acclaim (from both inside and outside the science fiction community) and derision (mostly from within the community). Upon its publication, Delany returned to the United States at the behest of Leslie Fiedler to teach at the University at Buffalo as Butler Professor of English in the spring of 1975, preceding his return to New York City that summer. Though he wrote two more major science fiction novels (Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand) in the decade following Dhalgren, Delany began to work in fantasy and science fiction criticism for several years. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was Return to Nevèrÿon, the overall title of the four-volume series and also the title of the fourth and final book. Following the publication of Return to Nevèrÿon, Delany published one more fantasy novel. Released in 1993, They Fly at Çiron is a re-written and expanded version of an unpublished short story Delany wrote in 1962. This would be Delany's last novel in either the science fiction or fantasy genres for many years. Among the works that appeared during this time was his novel The Mad Man and a number of his essay collections.

Delany became a professor in 1988. Following visiting fellowships at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (1977), the University at Albany (1978) and Cornell University (1987), he spent 11 years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo, then, after an invited stay at Yaddo, moved to the English Department of Temple University in January 2001, where he taught until his retirement in April 2015. He served as Critical Inquiry Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago during the winter quarter of 2014.

Beginning with The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (1977), a collection of critical essays that applied then-nascent literary theory to science fiction studies, he published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In the memoir Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), Delany drew on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men in New York City.

He received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 1993.

In 2007, his novel Dark Reflections was a winner of the Stonewall Book Award. That same year Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, directed by Fred Barney Taylor. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The following year, 2008, it tied for Jury Award for Best Documentary at the International Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Also in 2007, Delany was the April "calendar boy" in the "Legends of the Village" calendar put out by Village Care of New York.

In 2010, Delany was one of the five judges (along with Andrei Codrescu, Sabina Murray, Joanna Scott and Carolyn See) for the National Book Awards fiction category. In 2015, the Caribbean Philosophical Association named Delany the recipient of its Nicolás Guillén Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 he received the Brudner Award from Yale University, for his contributions to gay literature. Since 2018, his archive has been housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale where it is currently being organized. Till then, his papers were housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.

In 1991, Delany entered a committed, nonexclusive relationship with Dennis Rickett, previously a homeless book vendor; their courtship is chronicled in the graphic memoir Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), a collaboration with the writer and artist Mia Wolff. After fourteen years, he retired from teaching at Temple University.

Delany is an atheist.

Themes

Recurring themes in Delany's work include mythology, memory, language, sexuality, and perception. Class, position in society, and the ability to move from one social stratum to another are motifs that were touched on in his earlier work and became more significant in his later fiction and non-fiction, both. Many of Delany's later (mid-1980s and beyond) works have bodies of water (mostly oceans and rivers) as a common theme, as mentioned by Delany in The Polymath. Though not a theme, coffee, more than any other beverage, is mentioned significantly and often in many of Delany's fictions.

Writing itself (both prose and poetry) is also a repeated theme: several of his characters — Geo in The Jewels of Aptor, Vol Nonik in The Fall of the Towers, Rydra Wong in Babel-17, Ni Ty Lee in Empire Star, Katin Crawford in Nova, the Kid, Ernest Newboy, and William in Dhalgren, Arnold Hawley in Dark Reflections, John Marr and Timothy Hasler in The Mad Man, and Osudh in Phallos – are writers or poets of some sort.

Delany also makes use of repeated imagery: several characters (Hogg, the Kid, and the sensory-syrynx player, the Mouse, in Nova; Roger in "We .. move on a rigorous line") are known for wearing only one shoe; and nail biting along with rough, calloused (and sometimes veiny) hands are characteristics given to individuals in a number of his fictions. Names are sometimes reused: "Bellona" is the name of a city in both Dhalgren and Triton, "Denny" is a character in both Dhalgren and Hogg (which were written almost concurrently despite being published two decades apart; and there is a Danny in "We ... move on a rigorous line"), and the name "Hawk" is used for five different characters in four separate stories – Hogg, the story "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and the novella "The Einstein Intersection", and the short story "Cage of Brass", where a character called Pig also appears.

Jewels, reflection, and refraction – not just the imagery but reflection and refraction of text and concepts – are also strong themes and metaphors in Delany's work. Titles such as The Jewels of Aptor, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", Driftglass, and Dark Reflections, along with the optic chain of prisms, mirrors, and lenses worn by several characters in Dhalgren, are a few examples of this; as in "We (...) move on a rigorous line" a ring is nearly obsessively described at every twist and turn of the plot. Reflection and refraction in narrative are explored in Dhalgren and take center stage in his Return to Nevèrÿon series.

Following the 1968 publication of Nova, there was not only a large gap in Delany's published work (after releasing eight novels and a novella between 1962 and 1968, his published output virtually stopped until 1973), there was also a notable addition to the themes found in the stories published after that time. It was at this point that Delany began dealing with sexual themes to an extent rarely equaled in serious writing. Dhalgren and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand include several sexually explicit passages, and several of his books such as Equinox (originally published as The Tides of Lust, a title that Delany does not endorse), The Mad Man, Hogg and, Phallos can be considered pornography, a label Delany himself endorses.

Novels such as Triton and the thousand-plus pages making up his four-volume Return to Nevèrÿon series explored in detail how sexuality and sexual attitudes relate to the socioeconomic underpinnings of a primitive – or, in Triton's case, futuristic – society.Even in works with no science fiction or fantasy content to speak of, such as Atlantis: Three Tales, The Mad Man, and Hogg, Delany pursued these questions by creating vivid pictures of New York and other American cities, now in the Jazz Age, now in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, New York private schools in the 1950s, as well as Greece and Europe in the 1960s, and – in Hogg – generalized small-town America. Phallos details the quest for happiness and security by a gay man from the island of Syracuse in the second-century reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Dark Reflections is a contemporary novel, dealing with themes of repression, old age, and the writer's unrewarded life.

Writer and academic C. Riley Snorton has addressed Triton's thematic engagement with gender, sexual, and racial difference and how their accommodations are instrumentalized in the state and institutional maintenance of social relations. Despite the novel's infinite number subject positions and identities available through technological intervention, Snorton argues that Delany's proliferation of identities "take place within the context of increasing technologically determined biocentrism, where bodies are shaped into categories-cum-cartographies of (human) life, as determined by socially agreed-upon and scientifically mapped genetic routes." Triton questions social and political imperatives towards anti-normativity insofar that these projects do not challenge but actually reify the constrictive categories of the human. In his book Afro-Fabulations, Tavia Nyong'o makes a similar argument in his analysis of "The Einstein Intersection." Citing Delany as a queer theorist, Nyong'o highlights the novella's "extended study of the enduring power of norms, written during the precise moment—'the 1960s'—when antinormative, anti-systemic movements in the United States and worldwide were at their peak." Like Triton, "The Einstein Intersection" features characters that exist across a range of differences across gender, sexuality, and ability. This proliferation of identities "takes place within a concerted effort to sustain a gendered social order and to deliver a stable reproductive futurity through language" in the Lo society's caging of the non-functional "kages" who are denied language and care. Both Nyong'o and Snorton connect Delany's work with Sylvia Wynter's "genres of being human," underscoring Delany's sustained thematic engagement with difference, normativity, and their potential subversions or reifications, and placing him as an important interlocutor in the fields of queer theory and black studies.

The Mad Man, Phallos, and Dark Reflections are linked in minor ways. The beast mentioned at the beginning of The Mad Man graces the cover of Phallos.

Delany has also published seven books of literary criticism, with an emphasis on issues in science fiction and other paraliterary genres, comparative literature, and queer studies. He has commented that he believes that to omit the sexual practices that he portrays in his writing would limit the dialogue children and adults can have about it themselves, and that this lack of knowledge can kill people.

Works

FictionNovelsReturn to Nevèrÿon seriesShort storiesComics

Wonder Woman, 1972

Anthologies

Quark/1 (1970, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/2 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/3 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Quark/4 (1971, science fiction) (edited with Marilyn Hacker)

Nebula Winners 13 (1980, science fiction)

NonfictionCritical works

The Jewel-hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1977; Wesleyan University Press revised edition 2009, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

The American Shore: Meditations on a Tale of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1978; Wesleyan University Press 2014, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (Dragon Press, 1984; Wesleyan University Press, 2012, with an introduction by Matthew Cheney)

Wagner/Artaud: A Play of 19th and 20th Century Critical Fictions (Ansatz Press, 1988) 0-945195-01-X

The Straits of Messina (1989), 0-934933-04-9

Silent Interviews (1995), 0-8195-6280-7

Longer Views (1996) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-8195-6293-9

Shorter Views (1999), 0-8195-6369-2

About Writing (2005), 0-8195-6716-7

Conversations with Samuel R. Delany (2009), edited by Carl Freedman, University of Mississippi Press.

"Racism and Science Fiction" (1998), New York Review of Science Fiction, Issue 120.

Memoirs and letters

Heavenly Breakfast (1979), a memoir of a New York City commune during the so-called Summer of Love, 0-553-12796-9

The Motion of Light in Water (1988), a memoir of his experiences as a young gay science fiction writer; winner of the Hugo Award, 0-87795-947-1

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (NYU Press, 1999; 2019, 20th anniversary edition with foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr), a discussion of changes in social and sexual interaction in New York's Times Square, 0-8147-1919-8; 978-1-4798-2777-0

Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (1999), an autobiographical comic drawn by Mia Wolff with an introduction by Alan Moore, 1-890451-02-9

1984: Selected Letters (2000) with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 0-9665998-1-0

In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany. Volume 1, 1957-1969 (2017), edited and with an introduction by Kenneth R. James, 978-0-8195-7089-5. 2018 Locus Award Finalist (non-fiction)

Letters from Amherst: Five Narrative Letters (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), with foreword by Nalo Hopkinson, 9780819578204

Introductions

The Adventures of Alyx, by Joanna Russ

We Who Are About To..., by Joanna Russ

Black Gay Man by Robert Reid-Pharr

Burning Sky, Selected Stories, by Rachel Pollack

Conjuring Black Funk: Notes on Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality, Volume 1 by Herukhuti

The Cosmic Rape, by Theodore Sturgeon

Glory Road, by Robert A. Heinlein

Microcosmic God, by Theodore Sturgeon

The Magic: (October 1961-October 1967) Ten Tales by Roger Zelazny, selected and introduced by Samuel R. Delany

Masters of the Pit, by Michael Moorcock

Nebula Winners 13, edited by Samuel R. Delany

A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, by Baird Searles, Martin Last, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin; foreword by Samuel R. Delany

The Sandman: A Game of You, by Neil Gaiman

Shade: An Anthology of Fiction by Gay Men of African Descent, edited by Charles Rowell and Bruce Morrow

Interviews

Sci-Fi Legend Samuel R. Delany Doesn't Play Favorites (2017)

[emiline-northeto]

Gwen/Algie in the kitten room with the ball of string!

It was a difficult adjustment, getting used to the familiars again. Algie knew he was a person again, but sometimes he’d catch one of the familiars staring at him with an odd expression and he’d wonder if theyknew that.  

He’d finally confessed as much to Gwen, feeling rather ridiculous.

“My dear,” Gwen said fondly, “they know the difference, between you and a frog, I promise you.”

“But what if there’s some sort of residual…” he waved his hands. “You know I’m not quite the man I was before.”

“No,” she agreed. “But in all the ways the matter, in all the ways I love, you are the same as you’ve ever been. I loved you as you were then, and I love you as you are now.”

“Gwen,” he choked out, his throat tight. “Oh, how I have missed you.”

She kissed him then. “And I you. Every day, my dearest beloved.” She kissed him again. “And,” she continued briskly. “you have nothing to fear from the familiars, I promise you. They can tell you’re not a common wizard – although you were of course never common, my dear,” she grinned mischievously, “but they don’t think you’re a frog.”

“Not even the kittens?”

“Especially not the kittens, you daft man,” Gwen said fondly. “They’re very open-minded, you know.”

“Are they?”

“Yes. I’ll show you,” she added with sudden decision.

—

“Gwen, you know you need only ask and I will follow, but are you certain this is going to work?”

“Do you trust me, Algie?” Gwen asked, looking over the tops of her glasses at him.

“To beyond the end of magic, my dear.”

Gwen smiled at him, put her hand on his arm and pushed herself up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his mouth.

“Then trust me, dearest,” she said. “It will work.”

She slid her hand into his and laced their fingers together.

—

They slipped as quickly and as quietly as they could into the kitten room.

“Mrow?” inquired one of the kittens, cocking its head at the two of them.

“Come on, dear,” Gwen coaxed, and the kitten padded over and sniffed her hand. “Yes,” she laughed, “you are going to make someone a lovely familiar.” The kitten submitted to being petted.

A couple of other small, dark, fuzzy smudges wandered their way.

“Gwen…” Algernon shifted nervously. “They’re so young, what if they can’t tell properly what I am?”

The kitten in question bumped into Algie’s leg.

“Dearest, of course she can tell. She’s curious about you, that’s all. Why don’t you sit down?” Gwen summoned a few cushions for them next to the wall. “Well, are you going to help me or not? I’m too old to sit on the floor without assistance.”

Algie offered her his arm. “Shall we my dear?”

It was not entirely graceful, and Algie had to gently remove several kittens (and one of them twice) that had made a beeline for the soft cushions.

One of the kittens promptly climbed into Algie’s lap and batted at his beard.

“Hello there young miss,” Algie said softly, stroking the kitten’s head with one finger.

“Mrow?” inquired the kitten with a gleam in its eye, and he offered her his hand. The kitten nipped his finger lightly.

Algie started, inadvertently causing the kitten to tumble out of his lap and into another one that had come over.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Do you think she’s alright?” he asked Gwen anxiously, scooping the kitten up.

“She’s fine. Are you alright?”

“I think so. It’s been a long time since I played with a kitten like this.”

“Here,” Gwen rummaged in the pocket of her robe and produced a ball of string. “Try this.”

Algie took it and rolled it in front of him. Three kittens launched themselves at it, shoving each other playfully.

Algie watched them, and then started laughing.

“What is it?”

“I don’t think,” he said, wiping his eyes, “I’ve ever been passed over for a bit of string before. Rather puts me in my place, don’t you think?”

Gwen started chuckling too. “Are you feeling better then, my dear?”

“Immeasurably so. Thank you, love.” He leaned over, gently removed an intrepid kitten who was attempting to scale the front of Gwen’s robes, and kissed Gwen softly.

A small, furry body pressed itself insistently into the space between them.

“Mrow!” it demanded.

Cackle’s Academy Prompt Game

[lovefromalgy]

Correction: That's Achmothogair, not Athmothogair! (Algy's assistant missing those typos again…)

Algy @adventuresofalgy considers that in fact this may not even be the optimum time for the residents of Sunnyville (more properly known as Achmothogair) to attempt repairs, with or without the correct windows, in view of the massive storm forecast for the area this coming Friday, with wind gusts currently expected to reach 96mph…

And he invites any of his friends who would like to know more about Sunnyville and its inhabitants, as well as other novel topics, to follow his assistants' blog @novelties-and-notions 😊

Like most of the remaining houses in Sunnyville (formery known as Athmothogair), Sunnyville House, the headquarters of Novelties and Notions, is in a dilapidated state and in need of fairly extensive renovation. Not one of the few residents of this tiny hamlet have any money to spare – indeed most folk here have no money at all – and the state of the properties, if you could call them that, is more or less deplorable. It is not an exaggeration to say that in some cases dislodged roofing slates are held in place by glue, and the parts of buildings that threaten to fall are secured with rope.

Anyone who lives in such a remote and isolated community is necessarily resourceful, but despite their willingness to make do and mend, problems do arise when, for example, having finally managed to source some replacements from a scrap yard, the householders discover, in the last gleam of light at the end of a tedious day working on repairs, that they have been supplied with the wrong windows.