Delia Sherman's Blog, page 16

Naked City

ellen_datlow  has finally posted the cover and TOC for Naked City.

It's coming out in July, and I'm incredibly excited.  This is heady company to be in, and no mistake.

 
Curses                                                              Jim Butcher                         
How the Pooka Came To New York City          Delia Sherman                           
On the Slide                                                     Richard Bowes              
The Duke of Riverside                                     Ellen Kushner                          
Oblivion by Calvin Klein                                   Christopher Fowler                  
Fairy Gifts                                                         Patricia Briggs
Picking up the Pieces                                       Pat Cadigan                               
Underbridge                                                     Peter S. Beagle
Priced To Sell                                                   Naomi Novik                            
The Bricks of Gelecek                                     Matthew Kressel                       
Weston Walks                                                  Kit Reed                                 
The Projected Girl                                            Lavie Tidhar                            
The Way Station                                               Nathan Ballingrud        
Guns for the Dead                                            Melissa Marr     
And Go Like This                                             John Crowley                            
Noble Rot                                                        Holly Black                 
Daddy Long Legs of the Evening                    Jeffrey Ford                               
The Skinny Girl                                                Lucius Shepard              
The Colliers’ Venus                                          Caitlín R. Kiernan                      
King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree               Elizabeth Bear     

What Oft Was Thought, But Ne'er So Well Expressed

Please read kateelliott  's post on bigotry.  It is thoughtful, personal, and makes me proud to call her friend.

Mrs. Warren's Profession

We're back in town, for the nonce, and have celebrated by getting a bunch of theatre tickets.  Our first play was George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession, which I must have read years ago, because I read all of Shaw when I was in college, for a course in Anglo-Irish Drama, but remembered nothing about.  Which put me in the lovely position of going to a production of a brand-new classic play.

I knew there was a reason I loved GBS.  When he's on his game, interested in his actual characters and letting his political opinions serve the drama instead of driving it, there's nothing to touch him.  The man was a genuine feminist, too--at least on paper.  I've seldom seen a better--or more nuanced--portrait of the emotional power plays that can exist between mother and daughter, when the mother is possessive and manipulative and self-centered and the daughter has a self, and the strength to protect it.  As Mrs. Warren, the spectacular Cherry Jones (who I would willingly watch read a phone book, if they still existed), was intelligent, strong, needy, brash, funny, monstrous, and utterly believable (once she got her Cockney accent under control).  I'm glad she's back on the stage after her time in the TV mines, because she's a magnificent stage actress, and they don't grow on trees.

I wish the same could be said of Sally Hawkins, who played Mrs. Warren's daughter Vivie.  She was fine when she was just talking, but when she shouted, she got shrill and incomprehensible, which is Death To Shaw.  And she shouted a lot--rather too much, to our taste--though, given how irritating her mother was, one could hardly blame her.  Perhaps it was the direction rather than her acting decision, but it did undermine the emotional pacing of the plot, which is complex and subtle.  The male characters (with the exception of Vivie's young man Frank, who has done of a lot of TV, not so much theatre), were spot-on the Shavian mark--articulate, walking the thin line between caricature and realism with professionalism and aplomb.  The sets were well-dressed in a high Arts & Crafts meets 15th century lodge country house way, and Mrs. Warren's cherry and scarlet and fushcia costumes were, well, striking.  It's a solid production of a play that is very modern in its politics and its characters and its acceptance of the ambiguities of human and family emotions.  A good beginning to our Theatre Season.

And yes, I'm almost back to normal--although the next few days are rather filled with incident.  I do so want to get my New Zealand Report done and dusted, but that's just going to have to happen when it happens.  Perhaps on the train to Tarrytown. . . .

Wellington-9/19

This is the last of my pre-written posts, done right before the last-minute, omg, we're leaving in 3 days whirlwind set in.

In Sydney and Melbourne, we learned that spending too much time in a city makes us feel as if we haven't seen anything.  So when tyellas , aka Emily, who attended Ellen's alma mater Bryn Mawr and now lives in Wellington, offered (when Ellen met her at WorldCon) to take us on an expedition to the Hutt Valley, where the Rivendell scenes in LOTR were shot, Ellen accepte...

Wellington-9/15-18

Here's my attempt to catch up with all the stuff I couldn't post in Wellington before life takes over and I forget everything.  Given that I hardly know, just now, where or when I am, it seems perfectly reasonable to be posting something what I did 10 days ago.  In a few days, not so much.

We got here Wednesday (Sept 15, that would have been).  In the four days since, we've gone to a play, walked across Wellington situating ourselves, hung out at Joe's Garage and the Library, gone to Te Papa M...

Going Home

Back in Auckland Airport again, waiting for our flight to Los Angeles.  Thanks to miles and Air Canada, we're in the Premium Lounge, where there is not only hot and cold running Four-Bean Salad, Maylasian Chicken Stew and really good champagne, but also a 20 minute complimentary reflexology session.  My piggies are very happy piggies, thank you, and after the hill up to Alan's house, they really needed some attention.

I'm going to catch up with the last few breathless days on the plane, post t...

Wellington--The Guru of Chai

 We're back in the city. It's beautiful and peaceful in our friend's house--which we have pretty much to ourselves, since he works all day. But there are bright lights and restaurants and museums at the bottom of the hill--and a really nice small theatre, where we went to a play last night. I hadn't the first notion, going in, even what the play was called or what it was about or who was in it, just that a friend of our host's had painted the scenery--so long ago that she didn't remember w...

New Zealand--Bay of Islands

Hi.  We're in a cafe in Wellington, which is the only place I can get internet, owing to conditions that are too tedious to relate.  Here is my post about last week.  There's another one in the pipeline, not quite finished, and of course, we're having adventures in Wellington.  Tomorrow being Yom Kippur, there will be a day of rest, and then I'll try and sort it all out.  In the meantime, I present:  The Bay of Islands.

 When last you heard from the intrepid travelers, we were in Rivendell the...

New Zealand--Karikari

To no one's surprise, we didn't get out of Waipoua Lodge until 11:30 this morning.  It was hard to leave.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing, chickens were pecking at the fallen blossoms under the magnolia tree, and there were fresh, perfect poached eggs for breakfast and sauteed mushrooms with thyme.  If you ask me, it's easy to turn out fancy dishes from a fancy professional kitchen with sous-chefs doing all the chopping and prep  It's quite another thing when you've got a four-bu...

New Zealand--Waipoua Forest

We had two treks into the kauri forest--one the first night we were here (as part of our Nature Explorer package at the Lodge), one yesterday in the daylight.  Both were full of delights and surprises and beauty.

The night trek had been billed as a kiwi sighting expedition, and our guide did her level best.  From time to time we stopped on the path, turned off all our flashlights, and stood quietly, listening for a rustle or a kiwi call.  We heard owls in plenty (morporks, and don't you think ...