Greer Gilman's Blog, page 23
April 8, 2018
Stark mad in white satin
O rapture! An anonymous benefactor has put the legendary 1982 BBC production of Sheridan's The Critic up on YouTube. There is much rejoicing.
Nine
I have rhapsodized before:
"His catastrophe outhenges Spinal Tap; it cannot be described, save that it involves a stately Britannia rising from the waves and sinking, rising and sinking, enmeshed in the rollers; a sexually amphibious singing Druid; Father Thames, with both his banks on one side of him; and a sort of maypole dance of 18th-century chorus boys in allegorical white bloomers and silly hats, entangled in the wreckage of the whole Armada and the ecstatic author of the piece..."
As has the incomparable![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1491408111i/22407843.png)
rushthatspeaks, when they could speak at all:
Nine
March 27, 2018
Owl service
I had no idea that this was a Thing.
"The barn owl was hired as the ring-bearer at the wedding of Jeni Arrowsmith and Mark Wood at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire on Saturday 17 March." With predictably unpredictable results:
"The barn owl was hired as the ring-bearer at the wedding of Jeni Arrowsmith and Mark Wood at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire on Saturday 17 March." With predictably unpredictable results:
"After accosting the best men, the owl perched on the table used for signing the wedding register and glowered at the congregation. The bride said the incident was 'absolutely hilarious', adding: 'It was an amazing day for us both, and has given us great memories we will never forget.'”
For certain definitions of "hilarious";
“'The best man’s reaction, when he fell off the seat and the crowd erupting into laughing was just great. For some reason, the owl just decided he wanted to go for him and he was just terrified. He’s absolutely petrified of anything that flies,' said the wedding photographer, Stacey Oliver."
He's probably curled into a fetal ball under the covers, having flashbacks and gibbering. Poor guy.
Meanwhile, those children in the pews are going to grow up thinking this is part of the wedding service, right between "like brute beasts that have no understanding" and "wilt thou have?" They're going sniffle sentimentally at Hitchcock revivals.
Tu-whit tu-whoo.
Nine
March 25, 2018
After the Ides of March, concluded
The blackboard look was popular:
This baby was eagerly clapping the speeches:
Nitty gritty:
Heh. Let's take an Allen wrench to this one, knock it back to the flat pack.
There were signs encircling the playground like an apotropaic charm (my friend left her daughter's sign there as an offering):
Even the fountain gods were marchers:
Nine
This baby was eagerly clapping the speeches:
Nitty gritty:
Heh. Let's take an Allen wrench to this one, knock it back to the flat pack.
There were signs encircling the playground like an apotropaic charm (my friend left her daughter's sign there as an offering):
Even the fountain gods were marchers:
Nine
After the Ides of March, continued
Volunteers were out there, pre-registering 16 and 17-year-olds as voters. Very sound idea. Joe Kennedy III was out there on the common, listening to the electorate.
Liked the schoolish allusion in this one:
Loved this kid:
Nine
Liked the schoolish allusion in this one:
Loved this kid:
Nine
After the Ides of March
On Thursday, I saw a broadcast of Nicholas Hytner's ferocious Julius Caesar, in which a bunch of idealists who know bugger all about realpolitik get trampled by the rhinoceri of empire. Yesterday I got to march with the unmanipulated. Being Boston, the day began as spring and then snowed, just a little. A nan'easter.
My friend CR and I deeply admired this badass Charity. This picture is hers; the rest are mine.
This is what we looked like from above. On the ground, it was not a mob, but a crowd in harmony: many voices with one end There were lots of dogs, lots of children, lots of good signs.
Nine
My friend CR and I deeply admired this badass Charity. This picture is hers; the rest are mine.
This is what we looked like from above. On the ground, it was not a mob, but a crowd in harmony: many voices with one end There were lots of dogs, lots of children, lots of good signs.
Nine
March 13, 2018
Stephen Hawking
"As with the Delphic oracle of ancient Greece, physical impairment seemed compensated by almost supernatural gifts, which allowed his mind to roam the universe freely, upon occasion enigmatically revealing some of its secrets hidden from ordinary mortal view."
"In his finals, Hawking came borderline between a first and second class degree. Convinced that he was seen as a difficult student, he told his viva examiners that if they gave him a first he would move to Cambridge to pursue his PhD. Award a second and he threatened to stay at Oxford. They opted for a first."
Nine
"In his finals, Hawking came borderline between a first and second class degree. Convinced that he was seen as a difficult student, he told his viva examiners that if they gave him a first he would move to Cambridge to pursue his PhD. Award a second and he threatened to stay at Oxford. They opted for a first."
Nine
March 10, 2018
“Pardon this intrusion”
Well, that was a pleasant jaunt to the city.
I set forth the day before, so that I could visit with an old friend en route, my partner in many a cultural campaign (we’ve been known to watch a dozen Shakespeares over a weekend, or back in her city days, do three museums, a concert and two plays). This time we dialed it back to a season of Upstart Crow and pizza.
Bless her, the CV arose at dawn, and got me to the 6:51 am from Old Saybrook. I managed to execute a fairly complex journey (Shoreline East, Metro North, Times Square Shuttle, IRT) without ending up in the Bronx. Alas, it left no time to stand and wonder at the heavens in Grand Central and think of Little, Big.
First stop, an impeccably green café up by Columbia, and some very pleasant conversation over brunch with the inestimable the_termagant.
Down Broadway to Columbus Circle, and a pleasant amble along the foot of Central Park. It was (that afternoon, at any rate), a fine spring day. The carriages were out—oh, scores of them—lined up along the curb: smart equipages decked with garlands, coachmen and women in caped overcoats and top hats with panaches, horses in plumed harness, vying with the pigeons for their buckets of oats.
And so to the Grolier Club, quite elegant behind the scaffolding—New York is an eternal reconstruction—where I met with HWW: an elegant figure, slightly fantastical, as if John Crowley had written him into a chapbook. There were indeed glass cases, all round a gentleman-like study and its hallway, filled with—
O! Such treasures! And my own chapbooks among them, like the least of the Pleiades. What drew me first across the room was a Doves Press Hamlet (demurely included as “a ghost story”), open to “Who’s there?” with a leaf-green capital W, hand-illuminated . What wouldn’t I give to see The Tempest in that drowned and resurrected font? That was in the (mostly) Gothic case, with such rarities as Thomas Leland’s Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (1762), Burton’s full translation of The Arabian Nights (for Private Subscribers only), and the first American edition of Frankenstein, open to the monster’s first speech: “Pardon this intrusion.” Not perhaps what one expects from an eight-foot-tall congeries of corpses.
But my heavens, moving on: a Kelmscott Morris, The Sundering Flood; a signed Lolly Willowes (be still, my beating heart); Peggy Guggenheim’s copy of the sole edition of Living Alone; a first of The King of Elfland’s Daughter (so beautiful); the collector’s very first Doc Savage, signed at seven, simply as “Wessells”; Blish, Disch, Dick; a Tiptree inscribed to David Hartwell; an autograph letter from Joanna Russ to Tom Disch; Clute, Delany, Crowley; Link, Clarke, Wendy Walker—oh, and everyone.
Really, you must buy the book, and read Wessells’ commentary. He spoke, as he writes, with wit, scholarship worn lightly as a summer straw, and passion. His audience was small, but rapt. There was commentary on Kipling and Cyrano from one older gentleman, clearly a grey eminence. As the gathering dispersed, Henry pointed out my books to him, calling Cry Murder! “the best book of 2013,” telling him of Ben’s scene among the bookstalls in Paul’s Churchyard, in Exit, Pursued by a Bear, and teasing him to guess what titles Ben would have bought in 1610. The gentleman said, “Oh, but I must have this. Where—?“ I’d brought copies of both chapbooks, just in case, so was able to present him with both, I hope gracefully. My zenith was when the past president of the Grolier Club clasped my Ben novellas to his august bosom, crying out, "But this is thrilling!"
It doesn't come much better than that.
And yes, I have an inscribed copy of HWW’s book, which is marvellous.
I walked in rather a happy daze up 5th Avenue, along the park.
The Strand now has little stalls at the Plaza corner, with rather a Parisian air, like the bouquinistes along the Seine. Of course one must browse: I did, in Ben’s honor. I came away with a book for the little Fox on chameleons who want to be the same colors together, and a book for myself on astronyms.
It was an early-closing day at the MMA, but I did fit in a good hour-and-a-half. The Vermeers, of course, and Brueghel’s haymakers, and some old acquaintances among the quattrecento, cinquecento and the early Netherlandish. I had a lovely conversation with a guard. I said I was visiting old friends in her gallery, and she took me to her most beloved painting, a Gerard David virgin “with angels, one light, and one dark.” She spoke feelingly of the sense of peace and protection it gave her. I told how fortunate she was to watch over it, as it watched over her.
Along the way, I wandered into a little room where the Met keeps deeply desirable things: a Dutch marquetry cabinet with a flight of blue-and-white jars atop; a green glass roemer (wine glass) with a map engraved, the world as bubble; a flower arrangement flickering with dragonflies, all in a mosaic of a hundred shades of mother-of-pearl. And I thought, I want to see things: jars, shards, chalices, intarsia. Let’s just wander. So I found myself on a balcony overlooking the hall of armor, and just kept taking turns. I was rewarded with a tiny Renaissance closet, a trompe l’oeil library with books and instruments (musical and astrological) in inlaid woods: an illusion with real sunlight.
Even as the guards were herding us out (fifteen minutes earlier than early closing), I lingered in the shop (they want you to leave with full bags), admiring Tiffany-inspired scarfs in silk and cashmere, brilliant regiments of Caran d’Ache colored pencils, and O my! wooden architectural models half my height, fantastical, skeletal, with domes and winding stairs. Of course I don’t need one, but I do.
Mine was the last coat hanging.
On my way up, I’d cleverly noted that the bus stop out front said M4, Penn Station, so I caught that, all down 5th Avenue, in the daunt and dazzle of the lights. When did they start having those LED screens, five stories high? In the face of this terminal capitalism, I cowered; but had a moment of pure delight passing the NYPL lions, Patience and Fortitude, keepers of the world I want to live in.
In Penn, I found a reasonable deli, and had a cup of quite passable black tea, and a decent bagel and lox, toasted, with plenty of schmear. The train, by a miracle, was exactly on time, I had two seats to myself, and it got into Boston early, just before the tempest started.
Nine
I set forth the day before, so that I could visit with an old friend en route, my partner in many a cultural campaign (we’ve been known to watch a dozen Shakespeares over a weekend, or back in her city days, do three museums, a concert and two plays). This time we dialed it back to a season of Upstart Crow and pizza.
Bless her, the CV arose at dawn, and got me to the 6:51 am from Old Saybrook. I managed to execute a fairly complex journey (Shoreline East, Metro North, Times Square Shuttle, IRT) without ending up in the Bronx. Alas, it left no time to stand and wonder at the heavens in Grand Central and think of Little, Big.
First stop, an impeccably green café up by Columbia, and some very pleasant conversation over brunch with the inestimable the_termagant.
Down Broadway to Columbus Circle, and a pleasant amble along the foot of Central Park. It was (that afternoon, at any rate), a fine spring day. The carriages were out—oh, scores of them—lined up along the curb: smart equipages decked with garlands, coachmen and women in caped overcoats and top hats with panaches, horses in plumed harness, vying with the pigeons for their buckets of oats.
And so to the Grolier Club, quite elegant behind the scaffolding—New York is an eternal reconstruction—where I met with HWW: an elegant figure, slightly fantastical, as if John Crowley had written him into a chapbook. There were indeed glass cases, all round a gentleman-like study and its hallway, filled with—
O! Such treasures! And my own chapbooks among them, like the least of the Pleiades. What drew me first across the room was a Doves Press Hamlet (demurely included as “a ghost story”), open to “Who’s there?” with a leaf-green capital W, hand-illuminated . What wouldn’t I give to see The Tempest in that drowned and resurrected font? That was in the (mostly) Gothic case, with such rarities as Thomas Leland’s Longsword, Earl of Salisbury (1762), Burton’s full translation of The Arabian Nights (for Private Subscribers only), and the first American edition of Frankenstein, open to the monster’s first speech: “Pardon this intrusion.” Not perhaps what one expects from an eight-foot-tall congeries of corpses.
But my heavens, moving on: a Kelmscott Morris, The Sundering Flood; a signed Lolly Willowes (be still, my beating heart); Peggy Guggenheim’s copy of the sole edition of Living Alone; a first of The King of Elfland’s Daughter (so beautiful); the collector’s very first Doc Savage, signed at seven, simply as “Wessells”; Blish, Disch, Dick; a Tiptree inscribed to David Hartwell; an autograph letter from Joanna Russ to Tom Disch; Clute, Delany, Crowley; Link, Clarke, Wendy Walker—oh, and everyone.
Really, you must buy the book, and read Wessells’ commentary. He spoke, as he writes, with wit, scholarship worn lightly as a summer straw, and passion. His audience was small, but rapt. There was commentary on Kipling and Cyrano from one older gentleman, clearly a grey eminence. As the gathering dispersed, Henry pointed out my books to him, calling Cry Murder! “the best book of 2013,” telling him of Ben’s scene among the bookstalls in Paul’s Churchyard, in Exit, Pursued by a Bear, and teasing him to guess what titles Ben would have bought in 1610. The gentleman said, “Oh, but I must have this. Where—?“ I’d brought copies of both chapbooks, just in case, so was able to present him with both, I hope gracefully. My zenith was when the past president of the Grolier Club clasped my Ben novellas to his august bosom, crying out, "But this is thrilling!"
It doesn't come much better than that.
And yes, I have an inscribed copy of HWW’s book, which is marvellous.
I walked in rather a happy daze up 5th Avenue, along the park.
The Strand now has little stalls at the Plaza corner, with rather a Parisian air, like the bouquinistes along the Seine. Of course one must browse: I did, in Ben’s honor. I came away with a book for the little Fox on chameleons who want to be the same colors together, and a book for myself on astronyms.
It was an early-closing day at the MMA, but I did fit in a good hour-and-a-half. The Vermeers, of course, and Brueghel’s haymakers, and some old acquaintances among the quattrecento, cinquecento and the early Netherlandish. I had a lovely conversation with a guard. I said I was visiting old friends in her gallery, and she took me to her most beloved painting, a Gerard David virgin “with angels, one light, and one dark.” She spoke feelingly of the sense of peace and protection it gave her. I told how fortunate she was to watch over it, as it watched over her.
Along the way, I wandered into a little room where the Met keeps deeply desirable things: a Dutch marquetry cabinet with a flight of blue-and-white jars atop; a green glass roemer (wine glass) with a map engraved, the world as bubble; a flower arrangement flickering with dragonflies, all in a mosaic of a hundred shades of mother-of-pearl. And I thought, I want to see things: jars, shards, chalices, intarsia. Let’s just wander. So I found myself on a balcony overlooking the hall of armor, and just kept taking turns. I was rewarded with a tiny Renaissance closet, a trompe l’oeil library with books and instruments (musical and astrological) in inlaid woods: an illusion with real sunlight.
Even as the guards were herding us out (fifteen minutes earlier than early closing), I lingered in the shop (they want you to leave with full bags), admiring Tiffany-inspired scarfs in silk and cashmere, brilliant regiments of Caran d’Ache colored pencils, and O my! wooden architectural models half my height, fantastical, skeletal, with domes and winding stairs. Of course I don’t need one, but I do.
Mine was the last coat hanging.
On my way up, I’d cleverly noted that the bus stop out front said M4, Penn Station, so I caught that, all down 5th Avenue, in the daunt and dazzle of the lights. When did they start having those LED screens, five stories high? In the face of this terminal capitalism, I cowered; but had a moment of pure delight passing the NYPL lions, Patience and Fortitude, keepers of the world I want to live in.
In Penn, I found a reasonable deli, and had a cup of quite passable black tea, and a decent bagel and lox, toasted, with plenty of schmear. The train, by a miracle, was exactly on time, I had two seats to myself, and it got into Boston early, just before the tempest started.
Nine
February 27, 2018
Glass shelves
I wrote Henry Wessells to say that I am coming up to the Grolier Club on Thursday, to see myself In a glass case, like a faience hippopotamus, among his books and hear his curatorial tour. I hope he will inscribe my catalogue.
He replied:
I suppose my artisanal animal-object would be a great blue heron in
weathered copper (removed from a small garden fountain).
And he quoted a Japanese winter poem:
In a snowfall
that obscures the winter grasses,
a white heron —
using his own form
to hide himself away.
What would your artisanal animal-object be?
A netsuke hedgepig? A Delft owl?
Nine
February 18, 2018
I'm just a dandelion
What a pleasant Boskone! There was just an inch or two of snow, enough to look pretty, in place of the traditional fierce blizzard.
![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1519045705i/25086787.png)
negothick
and I had a comfy room (with complementary wifi), so I didn't have to slog back and forth on the T, getting up way too early and heading back in the cold, and could slip upstairs when I felt like a bit of quiet. The art show, as ever at Boskone, was terrific, with a beautifully curated collection of historic covers—this year's theme was aliens—and fine new work. I fell in love with the mediaeval manuscript pages done as felted fiber art: musicians with a lute and rebec, and a series of bestiary pages (a gawky hatchling dragon, a griffin bearing off a sad horse on the worst date ever, a stunning phoenix in gold thread, a basketwork bear). As ever, there was good bread in the con suite, and an apotropaic slushy machine for making sno-kones. As ever, there was a solid hucksters' room, and weird free books left out along the hallways, with a scattering of finds. The ever-saturnine Michael Swanwick gave me an advance uncorrected bound manuscript of The Iron Dragon's Mother, not due out until May 2019. Oddest activity ever, on Sunday afternoon: dissecting a dead accordion.
All my program went well, especially the Shakespeare panel (thank you, Gillian Daniels, for excellent moderating), and my reading, to a small group of people who laughed at my jokes. O bliss! And Suford Lewis gave me a great big Oz-like medal for Hall Costume—for the best and most vivid presentation of Nine.
Nine
negothick
and I had a comfy room (with complementary wifi), so I didn't have to slog back and forth on the T, getting up way too early and heading back in the cold, and could slip upstairs when I felt like a bit of quiet. The art show, as ever at Boskone, was terrific, with a beautifully curated collection of historic covers—this year's theme was aliens—and fine new work. I fell in love with the mediaeval manuscript pages done as felted fiber art: musicians with a lute and rebec, and a series of bestiary pages (a gawky hatchling dragon, a griffin bearing off a sad horse on the worst date ever, a stunning phoenix in gold thread, a basketwork bear). As ever, there was good bread in the con suite, and an apotropaic slushy machine for making sno-kones. As ever, there was a solid hucksters' room, and weird free books left out along the hallways, with a scattering of finds. The ever-saturnine Michael Swanwick gave me an advance uncorrected bound manuscript of The Iron Dragon's Mother, not due out until May 2019. Oddest activity ever, on Sunday afternoon: dissecting a dead accordion.All my program went well, especially the Shakespeare panel (thank you, Gillian Daniels, for excellent moderating), and my reading, to a small group of people who laughed at my jokes. O bliss! And Suford Lewis gave me a great big Oz-like medal for Hall Costume—for the best and most vivid presentation of Nine.
Nine
February 14, 2018
"...and other kinds of pottery"
Boskone is coming up this weekend, and I have a perfectly delicious little schedule, a quartet of petits fours.
One-Book Wonders
16 Feb 2018, Friday 15:00 - 16:00, Marina 2 (Westin)
Beth Meacham, Michael Stearns (M), Bob Devney, Greer Gilman, John R. Douglas
Publishers (and authors) love the continuing sales and predictable incomes of a good series. But not all readers feel happy committing to a 10-volume epic fantasy saga with 500+ pages per book. The works we cherish most may be a tale well told between a single pair of covers. Let’s share and discuss our favorite stand-alone stories.
Reading by Greer Gilman
16 Feb 2018, Friday 17:30 - 18:00, Independence (Westin)
Fantasy in Gilbert & Sullivan
16 Feb 2018, Friday 20:00 - 21:00, Marina 3 (Westin)
Ellen Asher, Greer Gilman, Timothy Liebe, Faye Ringel (M), Daniel P. Dern
Fandom and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan go back a long way. Isaac Asimov was an avid Savoyard (G&S fan), as have been many other SF/F writers. The operas themselves exemplify — and parody — the tropes of fantasy (Iolanthe), medievalism (Patience), and Gothic horror (Ruddigore, The Sorcerer). Boskone also has special connections with G&S. Why are these Victorian masterpieces still so popular in (and out of) fannish culture?
Fantasy and Folklore in Shakespeare
18 Feb 2018, Sunday 11:00 - 12:00, Burroughs (Westin)
Greer Gilman, Jeanne Beckwith PhD, Gillian Daniels, Debra Doyle (M)
Shakespeare didn't just write histories, romances, and comedies. He was also a master at drawing on folk sources, and creating compelling fantasy fictions. Let's consider the fantastic side of Shakespeare: his characters, his stories, and the magic within his writing.
Hope to see some of you there!
Nine
One-Book Wonders
16 Feb 2018, Friday 15:00 - 16:00, Marina 2 (Westin)
Beth Meacham, Michael Stearns (M), Bob Devney, Greer Gilman, John R. Douglas
Publishers (and authors) love the continuing sales and predictable incomes of a good series. But not all readers feel happy committing to a 10-volume epic fantasy saga with 500+ pages per book. The works we cherish most may be a tale well told between a single pair of covers. Let’s share and discuss our favorite stand-alone stories.
Reading by Greer Gilman
16 Feb 2018, Friday 17:30 - 18:00, Independence (Westin)
Fantasy in Gilbert & Sullivan
16 Feb 2018, Friday 20:00 - 21:00, Marina 3 (Westin)
Ellen Asher, Greer Gilman, Timothy Liebe, Faye Ringel (M), Daniel P. Dern
Fandom and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan go back a long way. Isaac Asimov was an avid Savoyard (G&S fan), as have been many other SF/F writers. The operas themselves exemplify — and parody — the tropes of fantasy (Iolanthe), medievalism (Patience), and Gothic horror (Ruddigore, The Sorcerer). Boskone also has special connections with G&S. Why are these Victorian masterpieces still so popular in (and out of) fannish culture?
Fantasy and Folklore in Shakespeare
18 Feb 2018, Sunday 11:00 - 12:00, Burroughs (Westin)
Greer Gilman, Jeanne Beckwith PhD, Gillian Daniels, Debra Doyle (M)
Shakespeare didn't just write histories, romances, and comedies. He was also a master at drawing on folk sources, and creating compelling fantasy fictions. Let's consider the fantastic side of Shakespeare: his characters, his stories, and the magic within his writing.
Hope to see some of you there!
Nine
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