Kristin Cashore's Blog, page 60

Chime, Outnumbered and Stuff

Kangaroo summoning and socks seem to be going head to head as the best birthday presents in my birthday poll. As I recall, that was the case last time, as well. (I actually voted for the least popular item, the foot-fungus-ridden seven league boots. Because being able to travel seven leagues in one step feels worth the itch right now... ^_^)



In other news, I will spend my whole life trying to write a book as beautiful as Chime , by Franny Billingsley. Seriously, folks, this is one of those books where my post-it flags became so numerous that I started to feel like I was flagging the whole book. The delicacy of these characterizations, the depth of feeling captured, the familiarity of some of our most basic and self-destructive feelings -- guilt for hurting the people we love, turning to self-hatred, then deciding to try to heal -- this book is gorgeous. (Also, randomly -- and referring back to a previous post -- it strikes me that it's a book that Terrence Malick could make into a gorgeous Terrence Malick movie. Just the right mood and feel.)





If TV is more what you're looking for, have you seen Outnumbered?











Finally, a note -- I only just noticed that I never updated my My Books page to reflect that Bitterblue takes place eight years after Graceling, not six. This change occurred somewhere between drafts one and two, for a very specific reason that I'll probably explain in a FAQ someday. Right now, it's too spoilery to explain.



You're probably beginning not to believe me, but I swear that I'll be able to post some info soon about Bitterblue timing!

Birthday Month on the Blog

August is Extreme Birthday Month here on the blog. This month, I turn 35, my father turns a particularly distinguished age, and the babies, if you can believe it, turn TWO -- and that's not even taking into consideration all the friends with birthdays now-ish. I'm sending happy birthday wishes to Switzerland and France this week! :o)

I have to say, I feel bad about how weak my blog posts have been lately. I just... well, remember my blog post with the emoticons? Please refer to that if you're wondering how I am. It's not a permanent state. That's the best that can be said of it.

Because I don't have the juice to create a new birthday poll and because I'm still rather fond of the one I created three years ago, here it is again: What would make the best birthday present? Please vote! If you can't see the poll, check it out on my Blog Actual.


What would make the best birthday present?

Yours in needing some rest,
Kristin

♥♥♥s to Sydney

Can your local performance arts center put together a promotional video like this one?



Email users, if you can't see it, go to my Blog Actual.

It's called The Ship Song Project. The original song is by Australian Nick Cave. It's performed by Neil Finn, Kev Carmody and The Australian Ballet, Sarah Blasko, John Bell, Angus and Julia Stone, Paul Kelly and Bangarra Dance Theatre, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Opera Australia, Martha Wainwright, Katie Noonan and The Sydney Symphony, The Temper Trap, and Daniel Johns and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It's directed by Paul Goldman and arranged by Elliott Wheeler.

You can read about the making of the video, see photos, and learn more about the Sydney Opera House here. Thank you to Brian Ibbott at Coverville for the links.

Sydney, I ♥ you.

La La La La

In the Boston Public Garden, walking on the grass is not allowed. The other day, codename: Isis (nearly two years old) kept trying to climb over the low chain to get onto the grass. Codename: Cordelia said to her, "No, Isis, we're not allowed on the grass." Isis said, "Okay Mommy." Then she threw her hat as far as she could over the chain and said, "I need to go get my hat."

In the meantime, in order to stop codename: Phoenix from trying to climb into the duck pond in an attempt to bring a duck his missing feather, I had to create an elaborate story about how the feather was going to float across the water to the duck all by itself. (Around boats and over waves, dodging the fishies.)

Hey, Cambridge-and-Environs residents! Bob Slate is coming back! YAHOO! Those of you who've been reading my blog for a while may remember how sad I was when the news came out that Bob Slate Stationer was closing.

In other news... for those of you getting tired of me talking about So You Think You Can Dance, don't worry, the season is almost over. :) It's a confluence of things. I have lots of deadlines this summer and no extra energy for in-depth blogging. I have stuff about Bitterblue I want to blog, but am not allowed to yet. And, despite the inevitable copious bullshit, it's an unusually good season of SYTYCD. If things go as I hope they will, I will love all the people in the finale and be happy with any one of them winning.

I tend to enjoy a super-cool dance (with super-cool characters, if the dance is a story) more than an emotional dance where everyone is flailing around with agonized looks on their faces and we've been informed beforehand that the subject of the dance is something deep and meaningful. I mentioned a dancer a couple weeks ago who has "it." If you want to see a super-cool dance with the super-cool "it" oozing out all over the place, you should really watch this video (or this video if you're outside the USA or, um, want a better-quality picture and playback than the crap Fox puts online). This is contestant Tadd Gadduang dancing with All-Star Lauren Froderman (last season's winner, who also has "it"), choreographed by Mandy Moore. I love the hand in the pocket -- could he be more cool? I was enjoying this routine so much the first time I saw it that I didn't even register that Tadd had lost his prop (the hat). He didn't need the hat to make the dance work. I did, however, notice Lauren accidentally punching Tadd in the face (at 0:51) and Tadd not even flinching. His mouth was all bloody during the judging section! Tadd is a b-boy (as you might gather from some of the things he does so gracefully in this routine) who isn't trained in other styles, but he seems able to absorb every style of dance the show throws at him. (He was one of the dancers in the vulture routine I linked to a couple weeks ago.) One of the most exciting things that happens on this show from time to time is that you have a b-boy who can do the other kinds of dance, too, which gives you a dancer with an extra (and extra-awesome) skill set that the choreographer can take advantage of. I love when they work breaking into contemporary or jazz routines. Anyway, I think I know which other contestants will end up in the finale (go Melanie!), but I and a few compadres are extremely worried about Tadd. If you watch the show and don't usually vote, think about voting for Tadd on Wednesday. This is extremely important, people! :o)

Okay, on that note, I need to get back to work, sigh...

Wild Turkey Update

Just reporting in on the Cambridge news: the wild turkey that lives in my neighborhood had babies! I just saw her walking along with a little line of babies behind her. At the time, I had two sleeping (human) babies with me as well, and had to keep moving, so I wasn't able to count the turkey babies, but I'm happy to report that Cambridge's population of wild turkeys has as least quadrupled. Funnily enough, just this morning, the girls, codename: Cordelia, and I visited the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture in the Boston Public Garden. I hope the girls will get a chance to see the baby turkeys before they leave. :o)

Twins in the House

Lack of blogging is due to the presence of toddler twins in the house.

This morning, I wasn't wearing my glasses, so everything was a little fuzzy at the edges. I thought I saw codename: Isis, two years old, down the hall. Someone I was pretty sure was codename: Phoenix, also two years old, came marching up to me. (These girls are identical, but the more time you spend with them, the more they just look like themselves. Which isn't to say I don't make mistakes all the time.)

"Hi Phoenix!" I said.

"That's Phoenix!" she said, pointing down the hall to Isis. For a minute, I was EXTREMELY confused. Then she started giggling. It was just a game; she really was Phoenix; I was right all along.

On the day these girls realize fully the power they possess, we're all in trouble. :o)

Some Music and Dance Stuff for a Thursday

It's hot in Massachusetts! Perfect for staying inside and writing a blog post. Especially a lazy one where instead of doing my own work, I point you to the work of others. :o)

So, not having HBO, I don't watch Game of Thrones, but a friend who does shared the spectacular opening credits with me:

(Oh, BTW, this reminds me. If you get my posts as emails, sometimes the videos are attached to the emails and sometimes they aren't. If you ever get an email and I seem to be referring to something that doesn't seem to be there, try going to my Blog Actual, where videos are embedded where they're meant to be and everything is nice and organized.)

Spectacular opening credits for Game of Thrones:



And, if you like that theme music (composed by Ramin Djawadi), here's a beautiful acoustic and electric violin cover of it, arranged and performed by Jason Yang. I love it! (Thanks, JD, for both videos.)



AND, completely unrelated but also recommended to me by a friend (thanks Aimee!), here's a youtube video I've been watching/listening to a lot lately: The Raconteurs performing their song "Old Enough," with special guests Ricky Skaggs and Ashley Monroe. (When you click the link, an annoying ad will start up that you can skip pretty quickly. Thanks, The Raconteurs, for making this video available!) Love this song and love watching them perform it. Is it just me, or is Jack White looking a bit Clockwork Orange?

Finally, there's something about this season of So You Think You Can Dance that I've been trying to get a handle on. It has to do with girls beating up boys, or otherwise being in charge and in control... there have been a LOT of dances with that sort of storyline or theme this season. At first, I enjoyed it, because it was a much-needed tip of the balance (and a blessed relief) after a couple seasons with hardly any dances like this at all and WAY too many dances where the girl played the role of either weak partner, victim, or the boy's personal sex object. Add to that the constant woman-hating comments from choreographer and judge Mia Michaels in the past few seasons (and please note that many of the "Women Are Weak" dances were choreographed by her, too) and my head was just about to explode. It has been SO NICE this season to see that the show is open to moving away from that a bit! But? Too many dances about women kicking the asses of all the men isn't exactly the ticket either! Could we have some balance? Or could we maybe stop killing each other through dance quite so regularly?

Please note that I'm not complaining about any particular dance. In fact, some of these dances have been my absolute favorites (which I'll get to in a moment). I'm only complaining about the impression that starts to build in one's mind when it happens over and over. Just like all those dances of "women are pathetic and men are destructive and evil" started to send a message, "men are pathetic and women are destructive and evil" is starting to send a message. Find the balance, SYTYCD! (Although, to be fair, it didn't happen on last night's (fabulous) show (with refreshingly honest guest judge Neil Patrick Harris), so maybe I can back off.)

Tui and were watching SYTYCD together last week and actually talked a little bit about the weird "girls beating up on boys" theme this season. The dance that got us talking was my absolute favorite dance of the July 13 episode and one I'll link to below. It was funny, because the dance started, and we were like, "OMG, girl kills boy again!?" And then the dance went in a different direction, and Tui was like, "But I'm not sure that's okay, either!" Watch the (gorgeous and disturbing) dance yourself and see what we mean. It's Jordan Casanova and Tadd Gadduang performing a dance choreographed by Travis Wall, about a man being stalked by a vulture. My apologies for the annoying ad, and also to those of you outside the USA (and Canada? Can Canada see it?) who can't watch the video. Fox, wouldn't you consider putting these vids up on youtube? It'd be good for business, and then fewer people would need to go to youtube and type in "SYTYCD Tadd Jordan Travis contemporary HD" (for example) to see an upload of the dance!

*ahem*

Anyway. Loved this dance, partly because it's the first time I've really watched Jordan closely (no fault of Jordan's that her partner, Tadd, has "it"; Tadd is distracting; whenever Tadd is dancing, my eyes tend to go to him) and I think she's GREAT as the vulture. Also partly because the choreographer worked some fun breakdancing into a contemporary routine for Tadd (who is a b-boy). Partly just because the conflict between the two dancers is so palpable and real. I just love it! If it were last season or the season before, I would hate that I loved it, because it would be Another Dance About the Woman Losing. But it's not, it's this season, and this season can bear a dance like that. It also helps that the choreographer (Travis Wall) has no longstanding record of woman-hating- (or man-hating-) choreography -- his dances are about a refreshing range of things -- so I feel safe with a dance of his.

I'm not trying to say anything profound here; really, I'm just blathering out some words about the things SYTYCD gets me thinking about and talking about. While also sharing a dance with y'all that encapsulates some of the stuff I'm trying to work out. Enjoy.

Notes from a Few Days Off

If you've never seen a movie by Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life (out in theaters now) might not be the best one to start with; I worry that this tale of family relationships in the 1950s and today, starring Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Hunter McCracken, and Sean Penn, might lose you 'round about the time it flashes back to the era of the dinosaurs. :o) Then again, maybe not; my first Malick movie was Days of Heaven (1978), which is also pretty abstract and plot-free, and I loved it from the first frame. Malick's movies are abstract, poetic, musical, beautiful, and always deep character studies. I love them and I loved The Tree of Life, including the dinosaur part; do try watching one at some point, if you never have. It might not be your thing (a guy stormed out of the theater in a huff partway through), but it also might be your favorite thing ever (there was one woman who stayed to watch all the credits, just like me). The other three Malick movies I haven't already mentioned are Badlands (1973), The Thin Red Line (1998), and The New World (2005). It's impossible to rank them. They are all the best.

Season 1 of Community is AMAZING. I love these (HILARIOUS) characters so much, especially Abed, Troy, Annie, Shirley, and Britta. And the nice thing about sitcoms is that there isn't a huge time commitment. If you don't have a lot of time to catch up on all the TV dramas everyone keeps telling you you need to catch up on, maybe catch up on a hilarious sitcom instead.


(This is a picture of Abed, in the episode Physical Education, trying a different version of himself to see if it appeals to girls more than his usual standoffish manner. Abed often tries on different versions of himself, usually with less alarming results. Troy, in the bottom of the frame, is about to pick him up and carry him away, before Abed hurts himself or others. ^_^)

Last week, I read a book for no reason other than that I felt like it. I don't get to do this very often -- like most people in the book industry, I'm usually reading for some specific purpose. The book I chose: The Attenbury Emeralds, by Jill Paton Walsh. Do the Lord Peter Wimsey fans among you know that Dorothy Sayers left an unfinished manuscript when she died? Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it a few years back; the result was the fabulous Thrones, Dominations. Walsh followed this up with the (IMO) even more fabulous A Presumption of Death, which takes place during World War II. And now she's written The Attenbury Emeralds, a post-WWII Lord Peter/Harriet Vane mystery!

This one was a bit jarring in places, partly because the cultural references were to movies, paintings, and books I myself grew up with (Hitchcock, for example), whereas I'm used to not getting Lord Peter's and Harriet's references. But also because this was possibly the most self-conscious mystery I've ever read. Any mystery with Harriet Vane as a character lends itself to metafictive stuff, because Harriet is herself a mystery writer -- hence, there tends to be some dialogue or reflection about the difference between mysteries in books, like the novels Harriet writes, and mysteries "in real life," like the ones Lord Peter and Harriet solve. But dialogue like the following is particularly common in this book (spoken by Harriet to Lord Peter and Bunter, who are telling her the story of a mystery that happened decades ago): "I observe that you have a problem familiar to novelists. A large cast list to be introduced to the audience, and no reason why they should wish to know or remember any of it until the story starts." (16) The dialogue draws attention not just to Lord Peter and Bunter's problem as they tell Harriet their story, but to Jill Paton Walsh's problem as she tells us hers.

That sort of thing can start to get distracting if it happens too much and doesn't build on itself in some sort of new way. Please note, I'm not making a judgment about whether it happens too much in this book. I've read, and LOVED, a fair amount of Jill Paton Walsh, and have gotten to the point where I trust whatever she does; I trust and respect her reasons and decisions; I leave myself in her hands. Here's one moment where her hands threw me right out of the book -- this is Harriet Vane talking about her own prowess as a mystery writer: "'I don't compare with Conan Doyle, or Agatha Christie, or Dorothy Sayers,' she said reproachfully."

What! Harriet Vane saying the words "Dorothy Sayers"!? And saying them to LORD PETER WIMSEY?!? No worries; I got up, brushed myself off, and climbed back into the book again. It was a fun read. Not my favorite of the JPW Lord Peter/Harriet Vane books, but just what I needed last week.

This sunny Sunday afternoon is passing me by and that's not okay, so I guess I'll have to save my latest SYTYCD exegesis for next time. :o)

Bleary Photo Essay

Let's start with a new cover that I LOVE. Here's Graceling in Japanese, published by Hayakawa:


Can I have that outfit? At least the boots? Next, here's one of my favorite things.


Let me help you parse that picture: an orchid sits in a leather chair. (No, that's not where I normally keep it. The sunlight was streaming through the window where it normally sits, plus, it was being encroached upon by an aloe plant on one side and a zebra plant on the other, so I moved it to someplace dignified for the sake of the picture.) A stake protrudes from the soil and a small red monster sits atop the stake. A stem with a few buds is growing its way up the stake. BUT! BUT! Guess what? A few weeks ago, that stem didn't exist. It was an orchid with a pot, big green leaves, a stake, a monster, and NO STEM. Then I went to Australia and left my orchids in the sunny window of a hot apartment for two weeks. A friend watered them for me. When I got back, they ALL made it very clear to me how much they'd loved my absence, but this orchid in particular had been busy, growing a whole new stem. This is the first time I've ever gotten a stemless orchid to start all over with a new stem. I feel very proud. And it's been so long since it bloomed that I can't remember what color it is, so that will be an exciting discovery.

In case you're curious, here is the monster close up. The monster was given to me by a lovely friend at my publisher in Germany, who will remain nameless for the sake of her anonymity :o):


One of the cutest things about the monster is that his back is yellowish orange.


As long as I'm showing you things in my house, here's the portion of my world map that is no longer accurate because it doesn't show the new nation of South Sudan.


Congratulations, South Sudan! Thanks to my friend D for this link to a Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres article about the humanitarian emergency in South Sudan. This brand new country needs a lot of help, and DWB/MSF is an awesome organization. Please consider donating, if you're able!

Finally, here's one more thing lying around my house these days.


Some of you can probably guess what that is. Here's the view from the other side.

There should be more news about this big fella soon. :o)

Nancy Drew Retraction

Everyone, I've now gotten a bit further into The Hidden Staircase and need to retract my claim that it's awesome. Turns out that what it is is appallingly racist. Wow. No wonder they rewrote these books. My apologies for expressing ecstasies on my blog before I'd actually read the entire book.