Patrice Sarath's Blog, page 26
December 31, 2012
Open letter to Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas
Dear Senator Cruz,
Congratulations on your election to the United States Senate from Texas. As you know sir, there is a lot of work to do, and you must get started.
I mean the proper and responsible control of firearms in this country.
Senator, I know you are have been endorsed by NRA. That is why you and your fellow Republicans are in the perfect position to hold up your hand and say STOP! to an organization that has held this country hostage for decades.
Senator, you are no NRA lackey. You are a Texan, sir. And as a Texan you know what is right. It is time to take a hard look at the NRA and its position on gun ownership and say, Enough. There have been too many gun deaths, too many massacres, too much bloodshed, to support the NRA. You are not beholden to NRA money or votes or their threats to withhold their support. You are a strong, proud Texan and you can fight the tyranny of special interests.
Senator Cruz, the NRA wants to own you. Secretly they are gloating over the politicians they have bought, and they talk about how they know you will bend to their will. But you have to stand firm. You have to be the Senator from Texas who shows the NRA what a Texan is — independent.
No one is asking you to stand up for the repeal of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. But you can introduce a bill with your name on it that will cut back on high-capacity magazines. The Cruz Responsible Gun Ownership Bill of 2013 can put teeth in laws preventing guns from falling into the wrong hands. Your bill can close the gun show loophole and make manufacturers and sellers responsible for the guns they make and sell. Just think — if a retailer knew that he was responsible for the guns he sold, he would make extremely sure that such a gun didn’t end up in the hands of a killer.
Your work in the halls of Congress can help prevent another massacre such as the Newtown tragedy, the Aurora tragedy, or the Columbine tragedy, or the Oregon tragedy, or the Virginia Tech Tragedy…Sadly, I could go on.
But just think — this could be your bill, Senator. You could do it. You, as a member of the NRA, could bring sanity back to the organization. And your work in the Senate will be remembered forever. You could be the most influential member of Congress of the 21st century.
Please, Senator Cruz. Make this your legacy. Texans — and the United States — depend upon your leadership.
Signed,
Patrice Sarath
The post Open letter to Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas appeared first on Author Patrice Sarath.
Open letter to Ted Cruz, Senator fromTexas
Dear Senator Cruz,
Congratulations on your election to the United States Senate from Texas. As you know sir, there is a lot of work to do, and you must get started.
I mean the proper and responsible control of firearms in this country.
Senator, I know you are have been endorsed by NRA. That is why you and your fellow Republicans are in the perfect position to hold up your hand and say STOP! to an organization that has held this country hostage for decades.
Senator, you are no NRA lackey. You are a Texan, sir. And as a Texan you know what is right. It is time to take a hard look at the NRA and its position on gun ownership and say, Enough. There have been too many gun deaths, too many massacres, too much bloodshed, to support the NRA. You are not beholden to NRA money or votes or their threats to withhold their support. You are a strong, proud Texan and you can fight the tyranny of special interests.
Senator Cruz, the NRA wants to own you. Secretly they are gloating over the politicians they have bought, and they talk about how they know you will bend to their will. But you have to stand firm. You have to be the Senator from Texas who shows the NRA what a Texan is — independent.
No one is asking you to stand up for the repeal of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. But you can introduce a bill with your name on it that will cut back on high-capacity magazines. The Cruz Responsible Gun Ownership Bill of 2013 can put teeth in laws preventing guns from falling into the wrong hands. Your bill can close the gun show loophole and make manufacturers and sellers responsible for the guns they make and sell. Just think — if a retailer knew that he was responsible for the guns he sold, he would make extremely sure that such a gun didn’t end up in the hands of a killer.
Your work in the halls of Congress can help prevent another massacre such as the Newtown tragedy, the Aurora tragedy, or the Columbine tragedy, or the Oregon tragedy, or the Virginia Tech Tragedy…Sadly, I could go on.
But just think — this could be your bill, Senator. You could do it. You, as a member of the NRA, could bring sanity back to the organization. And your work in the Senate will be remembered forever. You could be the most influential member of Congress of the 21st century.
Please, Senator Cruz. Make this your legacy. Texans — and the United States — depend upon your leadership.
Signed,
Patrice Sarath
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December 17, 2012
A recipe for solace
I have no words to express my sorrow for the loss of 26 lives in Newtown, CT. Those poor children and their brave teachers deserve more than my fitful attempts at meaning or outrage. So instead, because food is love and love is comfort, I leave you with the words of Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker. It is not often that a cookbook makes me cry; in this case, it’s only this cookbook and this particular recipe. I offer it up in hopes that it provides some comfort.
Pecan or Angel Slices
Many a copy of the “Joy” has been sold on the strength of this recipe. One fan says her family is sure these are the cakes St. Peter gives little children at the Gates of Heaven, to get them over their first pangs of homesickness.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Line a pan with dough as for nut bar cookies and bake as directed. Spread with the following mixture:
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 C brown sugar
1 C chopped pecan meats
1/2 C flaked coconut
2 T flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
If preferred, omit the coconut and use 1 1/2 C nut meats instead. Bake for 25 minutes. When cool, ice with:
1 1/2 C sifted confectioners sugar
thinned to a good spreading consistency with
Lemon juice
Cut into bars.
Reprinted from The Joy of Cooking, 1973. (One of the things I love about The Joy of Cooking is that there’s no coddling. Figure out what kind of spreading consistency you want and do that.)
Baking cookies is such a small response in the face of such great evil. And yet, we are not helpless. We can stand together and fight the sickness that has afflicted the US for far too many years; the idea that gun massacres are the price we pay for a “free” society. We are not free. We are collectively held captive by an idea that we can have rights without responsibilities and constraints. This is an adolescent response and we are an adolescent nation. It’s time to grow up.
This is a huge complex problem and it will need a complex, multipart solution. It is not just gun safety, and it’s not just mental health, and it’s not just banning assault rifles, and it’s not just right to carry, and it’s not just the Second Amendment and the NRA. It’s all of these things, and we have to address all of it.
I’m torn between sadness and rage but I am not helpless. I am determined. However long it takes, we must turn the tide and stop this sickness.
The post A recipe for solace appeared first on Author Patrice Sarath.
December 7, 2012
Crow God's Girl Free for Kindle
Here's another offer for fans -- if you would like a signed bookplate for your copy of The Crow God's Girl, message me here, on the Gordath Wood facebook page, or on my blog and I will send you a lovely bookplate. (You could also stick that on your Kindle cover, but that's up to you.)
Here's the link for the Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Crow-Gods-Books...
And here's a link for the trade paperback, which is so lovely and awesome you have no idea.
http://www.amazon.com/Crow-Gods-Girl-...
My contact:
http://www.patricesarath.com/contact-...
December 5, 2012
Christmas in Aeritan – an excerpt
“Merry Christmas, Eri. I have a present for you and your brothers. Let’s go wake ’em up so we can celebrate.”
They bundled up and tiptoed down the hall, Eri practically jumping out of her skin at the new adventure.
Kate had never been in the boys’ bedroom. When the three boys were home they shared a bed, but now it was just Aevin and Yare, and the bedroom smelled of boy funk, and gear, and sweaty socks and dirty boots. Eri jumped on the bed, giggling, shouting,
“Marry Craismus!”
Aevin was shocked, sweeping his brown hair out of his eyes. He pulled the covers up around him and Yare. They both wore long nightshirts.
“What?! Eri, what are you doing? Kett, you shouldn’t be in here.”
Kate jumped on the bed with Eri, sitting at the foot of the bed against the huge bedpost.
“It’s Christmas, Aevin. No rules on Christmas.”
The boys were more receptive to the idea of presents, dumping out the little stockings on the bed while Kate told them the Christmas story, both the secular version that she had grown up with, about Santa Claus and his elves and reindeer, and the religious one about the birth of a king who was also a god. They all tried the whistles and she had to shush them from making too much noise.
“Would you like to learn some Christmas songs?” she said hopefully. They glanced around at one another and shrugged. Kate took that as a yes. She drew in a breath and started on “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”
She didn’t have much of a voice, and she had to sing quietly, but the children listened intently. When she was done, she had to wipe back tears. Gray light trickled in through the shuttered windows, and the fire burned brightly, though no one had brought it back to life. That was weird, but she felt both too good and too homesick to think about it much. The room felt comfortable and peaceful and for a few moments they sat crosslegged in silence on the lumpy, messy bed.
What I was doing: In the world of Aeritan, people’s lives are connected to various gods. There are the soldier’s god, the grass god’s daughter (the god of women), the crow god, and the high god (the god of the ruling class). People believe in deities in Aeritan, but there’s not an organized religion, though everyone acknowledges the presence of deities. But what happens when a human from our world crosses over to Aeritan? In Gordath Wood, the Judeo-Christian God makes His presence felt, in a small quiet scene, and again in Red Gold Bridge, and now here in The Crow God’s Girl.
Even though I’m the author of this series, there are mysteries I don’t have the answer to. (That’s why I write, I suppose.) Maybe I will come back to this question of God and gods and see if I can discover more. In the meantime, enjoy Christmas in Aeritan.
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November 27, 2012
Cutting words on Bandit Girls
So much of writing is a wordage game that it always kills me to cut in the first draft. Dammit, Jim! I’m a writer, not a … word-destroyer person…
Anyway, so that hurt, but what ended up happening is that though I cut out an 11000-word sequence, I had always been dubious about it, and as soon as it was pasted into the cut file (always always always keep a cut file) it was like my novel just sort of billowed and filled with air and became light and easy to write again. All that unwieldy ballast was sinking the ship.
Why did I keep going even though I knew that sequence was a wrong turn and had dire pacing consequences? Well, duh. I’m an idiot. (Okay, and also that section was cool. But it just didn’t fit for this novel.)
It took my writers group the Mighty Cryptopolis to set me straight. Now I’m aloft again.
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November 17, 2012
Heinlein as feminist — no, really
When a person rereads Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky as an adult in the 21st century, a couple of things stand out. First, there’s the Old Man motif — the wise old mentor who plays as stand-in for Heinlein himself. It’s done well or badly in all of Heinlein’s books (excruciatingly so in Stranger in a Strange Land). In Tunnel, it’s perfectly fine.
Secondly, I kinda wish that YA could still be like this. Maybe because it’s “boy” YA, but wouldn’t it be nice if YA didn’t have to rely so heavily on the love story? I am as into romance as much as the next person (who is into romance), but it is disturbing that even in action adventure books for girls, there has to be a love story.
Finally, this is one of the most feminist books I’ve ever read, possibly even more feminist than some modern SF, except where it falls back into some 1950s gender role stuff that make you go, whaaa? After all that competency and well-roundedness, and being valued by comrades, you still — they still — they what?
If you haven’t read the book, the following will be spoilers, but so what. Jeez, it was written in the 1950s and you should have read it, and anyway, spoilers only count for current books, movies, and TV episodes. So here goes:
Jack is a girl. And she hides her figure in an entirely realistic way — with body armor. Jack is such a competent girl that she survives by herself on a dangerous planet for a couple of weeks, does not need Rod to rescue her, and in fact is much smarter than Rod who takes a leadership position even though he makes stupid and dangerous assumptions about everyone and everything around him, including what planet he’s on. He’s so wrong constantly, that it’s both infuriating (they’re letting this kid lead?) and amusing (Heinlein is doing this to create an everyman character for his readers.)
And it’s not just Jack. All of the girls on the planet and Rod’s sister* on Earth are amazingly competent. Caroline is a “Zulu” girl (really, Heinlein? really?) who is as big and aggressive as the boys, a better hunter than most (and by the way, as far as I can tell, this is NOT because she’s a native or black or a Magical Negro(TM) who is closer to nature, so kudos to Heinlein there), and cheerful and funny and sweet too.
Then it goes wonky. So for instance, as soon as Jack reveals that she is Jacqueline, she becomes hyper feminine. Caroline** is essentially described as undesirable, and whether it’s because she’s black or because she’s aggressive, the reader is left to infer. She has crushes on all the boys, but none — including Rod, who is her best friend (they are drawn as equals whether Heinlein meant that or not) — ever crushes back.
None of the girls take charge. Whenever there is a question of leadership, it’s always between the boys (keep in mind everyone is between sixteen and twenty-three, or thereabouts). When they are stranded on this planet, some of the kids pair off into couples and have children. At that point, the girls — none of whom have any experience in midwifery — shoo out the fathers and make them wait outside for the baby to be born, a la 1950s popular culture. Okay, I don’t know about you, but: If I were sixteen and having a baby, I would not have trusted any of my sixteen-year-old girlfriends to know what to do. I certainly wouldn’t have expected any of the boys to know either, but man.
So it was a very interesting re-read. The last time I read it was back in the 1970s, I am pretty sure. I’ve read some Heinlein juveniles since (oh Starman Jones and Space Cadet, how much do I love your cheerful and unrepentant misogyny?) so Tunnel was a pleasant surprise.
And here’s the thing: I don’t think we have necessarily improved the portrayal of girls in YA since, especially with the current focus on romance. I may be curmudgeonly (well, yeah) but I honestly think we are doing a disservice to young women readers. In the 19th century, publishers cultivated authors to write books for young readers that would transmit cultural virtues — hence Louisa May Alcott’s career. In those books, girls have more agency and optimism than in many of the dark, apocalyptic YA novels of today. There was also friendship — friendship among girls and friendship between boys and girls. Anyone who has been to a high school or middle school recently knows that there is still friendship without romantic entanglement. We don’t see this in modern YA and I think it’s the final missing piece for feminist literature for young people. That is, we can honor and write about strong girls and also write about their friendships and connections, without saying, “you must have a boyfriend or you are not complete.”
I mean, if Heinlein can do it in his weird, head-scratching yet ultimately successful way, then so can we, right?
~~
*Rod’s sister Helen is a tough Marine and leads an elite assault group of Amazons. In an essay on feminist SF from the 1970s, her portrayal is criticized because after she finishes her tour she wants to get married and retire and have children, which she does at the end of Tunnel. I can see that point –why can’t Helen remain a career officer? Certainly nowadays modern soldiers can. However, after more than 10 years of war, I am sympathetic to a description of a soldier who wants to become a civilian instead. So I was more open to Helen’s portrayal, because I could see any soldier, male or female, having the same desire.
** At the end of the book, Caroline becomes an Amazon Marine, and I thought that was awesome because she is off doing more adventuring. She and Rod are still friends and — this is why people write fanfic — I could see them having drinks and reminiscing whenever they meet up over the next twenty years.
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November 13, 2012
Pagliacci – opera as meditation on life and art
The Austin Lyric Opera‘s production of Pagliacci was a beautiful and heartbreaking performance and reminds me once again how lucky Austin is to be a small city with big-city artistic drive. I am an opera neophyte and freely admit it, so if someone has a more informed criticism of the performances I am sure they will be more useful than mine, but you know what — I still think the singers were extraordinary. Danielle Pastin was fantastic as Nedda and Carl Tanner as Canio was amazing as well. Check out Carl Tanner’s blog — just a good ol’ boy who liked to sing in the shower and became a world-acclaimed tenor.
And oh, the set! I think the audience gasped when the curtain rose. And ALO must have an arrangement with the Austin children’s choir. The last opera I went to see was La Boheme and they had many kids from the choir as extras as well. Way to get kids involved in classical music!
The Long Center is perfect too — my friend and I took in the Austin skyline from the Long Center along with the other show-goers and the view is gorgeous.
I sort of knew the story of Pagliacci before I saw the opera, but was not prepared for the nuances. The opera is a commentary on art and commedia dell’arte. We laugh at the infidelity portrayed in the stories of Columbine and Harlequin. Oh those silly clowns! But the infidelity is real in the framing story, and the heartbreak and betrayal is real too. And since this is opera, this doesn’t end well.
Opera is so stylized, it’s hard to create an intimate connection between characters and story and audience — the gestures are large, the singing is big, and stories are oversized. But Pagliacci achieves nuance. In the scene in which the actors are acting in the comedy, the real infidelity looms over them, and Canio breaks out his role as clown and addresses his unfaithful wife directly. The audience on the stage reacts with confusion; the audience in the theater gets to react too, and see all the pain and unhappiness and resulting bloodshed.
I wonder if this is the first (possibly only) time that opera was used as a way to comment on theater itself. After all, what is commmedia del arte but opera writ small, so small that it fits in a single wagon for a one night show? And what does it say about us that we are willing to laugh about heartbreak in one venue but not in another?
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November 10, 2012
NaNoWriMo one more time
I wasn’t going to mention NaNo this year. I swear. But TIME started it, by referencing my No No NaNoWriMo sentiments of previous years, so I guess you can blame the mainstream media.
NaNoWriMo: Is National Novel Writing Month a Literary Threat or Menace?
I’m not the only one who views NaNo with trepidation or a jaundiced eye. Check out some of the quotes from the other naysayers. Author Graeme McMillan comes out on the side of NaNo, despite it all. He’s wrong, of course. While I’ve mellowed and no longer think NaNo is a scourge upon the face of literature, I still think it’s a bad way to try to write a novel. And if you are doing NaNo, just stop it. Don’t kid yourself. Write your novel but don’t gimmick it up. Take it seriously, take joy in the work, create — you don’t need the NaNo hype.
So there you have it — the NaNo continues.
In other news, I was away last week and sick-ish* this week, hence the blog silence. I used my time away to get some quality writing time in along the Frio River in the Texas Hill Country. Let me tell you, there is something about writing on a porch overlooking the beautiful Frio, the trees changing color as faintly as they do here in Texas (it’s more subdued than in the north but is still lovely, like Lothlorien, all gold and fading green).
This trip is an annual one — one of my friends organizes it and calls it Mommy Camp. There is a “bad mommy” cabin and a “quiet” cabin. I had the best of both worlds. I roomed in the quiet cabin (and wrote on the porch there) and hung out at the bad mommy cabin, and all in all, it worked out well.
Now I’m feeling well, going to see Pagliacci tonight and so looking forward to it, you have no idea. This is Austin Lyric Opera‘s production.
*Not enough to keep from going to work, just enough to sap my energy
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October 21, 2012
The special magic of the orphan girl
Emily of New Moon
Sarah Crewe
Mary Lennox
What do all of these famous orphans have in common? They all bring redemption to the families that bring them into their homes. The trope of orphan as redeemer seems to have been a late Victorian sentiment, and it seems to be specifically attributed to girls. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, in large part because the role of girls in YA and children’s literature has definitely changed. In modern-day YA, the protagonist is often the hero and the love interest, but bringing redemption to a family is no longer one of her roles.
Take a look at the most famous orphan in the world — Anne of Green Gables. Adopted by mistake by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, she is almost returned to the orphanage but Marilla has a change of heart, and Anne stays. She softens Marilla’s heart and brings shy Matthew out of his shell. She makes a bosom friend of the pragmatic Diana, and over the course of several books she enlivens the small town of Avonlea as it embraces her for her romantic and generous nature and her good sense. Even crusty Mrs. Lynde, who warns Marilla that an orphan will poison the well or set fire to the house, warms so thoroughly to Anne that they become good friends, and Mrs. Lynde becomes one of her staunchest supporters.
Anne is not alone; L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon has a similar arc. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s famous novels, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, feature Sarah Crewe and Mary Lennox, who save everyone around them. Mary even helps a crippled boy walk. The Secret Garden is interesting in that the character of Dickon is actually quite a redeemer himself. He is almost a magical creature and he helps bring about Mary’s transformation from a spoiled brat to an open, happy child. What? A boy in a helper role? Astounding.
Contrast that with the orphan boy; Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, Oliver Twist, and more recently Harry Potter have adventures but don’t have the same softening effect on the characters around them. Harry Potter saves the world, but he doesn’t redeem it. In Oliver Twist, Fagin remains Fagin, the Artful Dodger remains the Dodger, Bill Sykes will never not kill Nancy, and Nancy herself is sweet and good without Oliver Twist to do anything to bring it out. Even when Oliver Twist finds his family, they are ready made to accept him.
As for Huck, he lights out for the territory, the eternal boy. (Hmmm. I wonder what ever happened to Huck Finn?)
Part of what made me think about the orphan girl is a conversation on Facebook with author Beth Bernobich about Fanny Price of Mansfield Park. Fanny isn’t an orphan, though she has been sent to live with relatives. As was commonly done in Jane Austen’s era, in the event a family had many children and too few resources, a child might be sent to live with wealthier relatives, and even adopted by them, as was the case with Austen’s own brother.
Does Fanny redeem her wealthy relatives? Hardly. She follows that other orphan trope, that of Cinderella (or Cinderjack, in the case of boy orphans). I wonder what would have happened to a Fanny Price in the hands of L.M. Montgomery or Frances Hodgson Burnett? For one thing, she would have been less of a drip and more assertive and positive, surely. But Austen was doing something different with Mansfield Park. I believe that novel is not really about Fanny at all, and more about a sharp-eyed novelist’s look at the hypocrisies of her society.
While this is just a brief overview about the redeemer character, I think it’s very interesting that this particular character doesn’t tend to show up as much in modern YA. It’s always fun to play around with and invert stereotypes; will modern readers accept a boy orphan as redeemer?
Help me out here; can anyone think of other characters in the “orphan girl (or boy) as redeemer” vein?
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