The week in mini-review
Aug. 16th, 2024 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kathleen_dailey1. I visited the downtown Hudson's Bay store this week. At the height of the lunch hour, the store was virtually empty. I know that's partly due to the work-at-home thing, but even so--the Bay is at one of the busiest corners in T.O., and it has entrances to the subway, the Eaton Centre, and the PATH. The store used to be crowded with tourists and office-tower comers and goers who, even if they didn't all stop to shop, gave the place an air of bustle and prosperity.
On the day I was there, bathrooms, elevators, and escalators were mostly closed and unusable, and sales staff were invisible. The whole place seemed like a disused, deserted set for a dystopian feature film. I have a bit of a nostalgic thing for vanished department stores (as I've said elsewhere, I'd been away from Chicago for almost two decades before I finally cut up my Marshall Field's and Carson Pirie Scott charge cards), but it's pretty sad to see The Bay dying in real time.
Full disclosure: I spent $0 during my visit, thus contributing to the store's decline.
2. Hoping for some new fic to read, I recently clicked on a promising-looking WIP. First thing I saw was an author's note saying, in essence, that if the author didn't receive kudos or comments, then no more chapters would be posted. That was enough to make me nope out immediately. I've seen statements like this before, and I haven't yet been able to make sense of them. I always assume that writers are driven to tell a story--that they won't rest until they finish telling it and release it into the world. If that's the case, why would any writer hold a story hostage unless and until scritches and head-pats are bestowed on them?
3. The 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style is now available, and UCP has has provided some highlights of the changes and updates. For non-editors, the most important changes are probably those in Part II of the list (Style and Usage). I'm glad that I no longer have to internalize all this knowledge, but it's still interesting to read about.
On the day I was there, bathrooms, elevators, and escalators were mostly closed and unusable, and sales staff were invisible. The whole place seemed like a disused, deserted set for a dystopian feature film. I have a bit of a nostalgic thing for vanished department stores (as I've said elsewhere, I'd been away from Chicago for almost two decades before I finally cut up my Marshall Field's and Carson Pirie Scott charge cards), but it's pretty sad to see The Bay dying in real time.
Full disclosure: I spent $0 during my visit, thus contributing to the store's decline.
2. Hoping for some new fic to read, I recently clicked on a promising-looking WIP. First thing I saw was an author's note saying, in essence, that if the author didn't receive kudos or comments, then no more chapters would be posted. That was enough to make me nope out immediately. I've seen statements like this before, and I haven't yet been able to make sense of them. I always assume that writers are driven to tell a story--that they won't rest until they finish telling it and release it into the world. If that's the case, why would any writer hold a story hostage unless and until scritches and head-pats are bestowed on them?
3. The 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style is now available, and UCP has has provided some highlights of the changes and updates. For non-editors, the most important changes are probably those in Part II of the list (Style and Usage). I'm glad that I no longer have to internalize all this knowledge, but it's still interesting to read about.
