Greer Gilman's Blog, page 48

Jacobean Kindle

What's in here?



Ooh!



A gentleman's classics library, suitable for conveyance on horseback, 1617. Commissioned by William Hakewill MP for a fortunate friend.



The next year he had to have three others made, for three envious friends.




Just the thing for a languid quest, with frequent picnics.





And firelit parlors in half-timbered inns.




Now belonging to the University of Leeds, the lucky devils.  Where's mine?

What books would you put in yours?

Nine

Another op'ning, another show

Out of the hat, it's that big first night!  Here's my 2015 Arisia schedule.  Some lively panels ahead (maps and dialect are so very Nine, and "Unruly Places" will be cool):

The Map and the Story           Fri 7:00 PM                


Maps are a familiar sight in our field, but lately a number of stories have placed maps and cartography at the core of the stories themselves. Maps serve as portals to other worlds, cartographers remake the world in a map’s image, and mapmaking itself becomes a means to discuss the distance between perception and reality, between the map and the territory. Panelists will discuss the ways in which maps and cartography have escaped from the endpapers in recent works of fiction.


Erik Amundsen, Greer Gilman, Walter H. Hunt, N. K. Jemisin, Lee Moyer (m)


Unruly Places:When the Setting Does Not Behave        Sat 1:00 PM


Streets that shift in the night, pathways that change destination, hills that certainly weren’t there yesterday: some places just don’t behave. What works of genre fiction have explored these unruly places? What stories can only happen where our rules just don’t apply?


Erik Amundsen (m), Greer Gilman, Elektra Hammond, Adam Lipkin, Shira Lipkin


Dialect in SF/F                       Sat 7:00 PM


Classic literature and some SF have used dialect successfully, but much of our literature is written in received pronunciation. SFF use of dialect has been criticized as appropriative when done by non-native speakers, or exclusionary when stories in authentic dialect are painted as “too hard to read”. Junot Diaz wrote: “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they think we’re taking over.” What modern authors are making progress here?


John Chu, Greer Gilman, Andrea Hairston (m), Daniel José Older, Nisi Shawl


Untold Tales: Fox Spirits and Golden Slippers      Sun 10:00 AM


Many people are familiar with Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood, but what about Ye Xian, the oldest known “Cinderella” story from China, where a magic fish gives a girl golden slippers and a gown to win over the king? What about the tricky fox spirits that appear in Japanese folklore, the swan maidens in Russian tales, or all the pranks of Anansi from Ghana? What tales remain unfamiliar to Western audiences and where can they be found?


M. L. Brennan, Barbara Chepatis (m), Greer Gilman, Nightwing Whitehead


The Almanac of Dead Guardians,Teachers,& Mothers    Sun 2:30 PM


In numerous fairy tales, Disney films, and superhero back stories, when a character’s parents die, so does a sense of security and safety regarding the world. It can also free up the main character to have adventures. Is killing off a parent (or guardian of any kind, really) helpful cultural shorthand for a story or a thin stab at character motivation? Are there some ways, reasons, and motives to kill off a parent figure that are worse than others?


Greer Gilman, Timothy Goyette, Merav Hoffman (m), Gail Z. Martin, Rebecca Slitt


The Wonderful Panel of Oz                   Mon 1:00 PM


The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 13 sequels constituted a truly American fairy tale, replete with mythology but without the harsh moral lessons that tales such as the Brothers Grimm had become infamous for. To this day, scholars and enthusiasts debate the great world that Baum shaped, from whether he originally intended a metaphor for early twentieth-century American Progressive Party politics, to the role of women in the series, to the seeming predictions of modern technology in its pages.


Greer Gilman, Merav Hoffman, Toni “Leigh Perry” Kelner (m), Daniel Miller, Sonya Taaffe

Reading: Arthen, Gilman, Hunt              Mon 2:30 PM


Authors Inanna Arthen, Greer Gilman, and Walter H. Hunt read selections from their works.


Inanna Arthen, Greer Gilman, Walter H. Hunt


Wait, what?  Monday at 2:30?  Après moi le chien mort.  And I have this lovely new bit with Ben Jonson and John Donne, damn it.

The other disappointment is that in the first draft I was put on one of my first-choice panels, "Religions, Holidays, and Rituals in Your Fiction."  How Cloudish is that?  And then got taken off in the second and final round.  Rats.  I would dearly love to get a chance to do this one, somewhere, sometime.

Hope to see you at the windswept Westin-Way-Out-There!

Nine

Lovejoy!

Saw it!  Not like this, but a smudged star, just where Sky & Telescope said it should be, like so:  **.    And about time:  I've been up there freezing on the roof all week, up and down, hoping for a break in the clouds before moonrise.  Even now, with the waning moon on the hunt, it arrows on toward the Pleiades.

In Old English, a comet is feaxede steorra: a vexed star. "Fax" is hair, as in Shadowfax; but I love the doubleness.

Nine

Twelfth-tide is the last...

Ring in the new!  Rose Lemberg has just announced the ToC for her multivarious anthology, An Alphabet of Embers, in which I am delighted to be a tessera.  It's a Cloudish vignette, "Hieros Gamos."

And looking backward, Janus-wise, here's a lovely review of Exit, Pursued by a Bear.  You should all go at once and read that new Kelly Link story, I Can See Right Through You.  Ghosts!  Nudists!  Baby skunks!

Nine

Returning

They only caught one rabbit; I captured a Bear!

This year has been all about Ben.  Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, the first of my metaphysical noir stories set in Jacobean London, won a Shirley Jackson Award!  What a thrill!  The second, Exit, Pursued by a Bear, came out at that Readercon, with another gorgeous Kathleen Jennings cover.  There was a fabulous celebration at Tosci's in its honor.  And I'm working on a third, a game of chess between Titania and Oberon, played over John Donne.  Three!  Will I do it?  I'm thinking of calling the series The Sirenaiad, in honor of the Mermaid Tavern.

My strange little story, "Down the Wall," was reprinted in Nina Allan's terrific anthology, The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women.  In 2015, a Cloudish vignette, "Hieros Gamos," will appear in Rose Lemberg's An Alphabet of Embers, "an anthology of unclassifiables – lyrical, surreal, magical, experimental pieces that straddle the border between poetry and prose."

And this year, I travelled:  to Paris! (I'll always have Paris), to Normandy, to Norfolk, to London for the Worldcon, and to Buckinghamshire.  I saw The White Devil, and both parts of Henry IV (Anthony Sher was terrific as Falstaff) in Stratford; I saw Antony and Cleopatra at the Globe.  And way back in January, I got to see the Globe's exhilarating Twelfth Night in New York, and nine Vermeers.

The bird flies out above the tranquil, busy, wintry landscape.  Yonder is transcendent.

Where will I journey next?

Nine

"...and all the finches of the grove"

Last night I got to screen the insanely glorious 1982 production of The Critic for new friends.   What a joy!

I adore theatre about theatre, and films about theatre:  above all, about theatrical fiasco.  I so love The Critic (1982), which culimnates in a dementedly bad production of the tatters of a tissue of twaddle.  Unlike the producers in The Producers (1968), Mr. Puff is perfectly assured of his genius. So are the delusionals in Waiting for Guffman (1996).  That's hilarious, but ouch!  There's a strong scent of burning dreams about it, like a bonfire of plastic cups.  In the Bleak Midwinter (otherwise A Midwinter’s Tale, 1995) follows an ad hoc company of misfits, neurotics, and visionaries trying to put on Hamlet in a church at Christmas.  It's a slighter version of the wickedly brilliant Slings & Arrows (2003-2006).  And now we're getting close to the threshing floor, to the great mystery of how theatre happens.

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Never mind the romance in Shakespeare In Love (1998):  it's the company of players that I treasure.  They're all somewhat fantastical--brilliant caricatures of real figures mingled with imaginary ones--but that Romeo and Juliet they put on is a good production.  In Topsy-Turvy (1999), there 's a very real-seeming world of Victorians working to create an transcendently fantastical world on stage.  Both unreal, of course:  it's a film.  But they're all fully there, all these cranky, egotistical people in terribly hot clothes, from the rehearsal pianist and Miss Sixpence Please to Gilbert and Sullivan themselves.  (Mike Leigh does the best 19th century ever.  Can't wait to see Mr. Turner.)

Other films are about the unmaking of the mystery.  The Dresser (1983) follows a touring company during World War II, made up of Shakespeareans too old or too fragile to fight, who can only gallantly distract.  Their great tragedian, Sir, is off somewhere in the marches of dementia; his dresser, who loves him devotedly, tries hold him together, to get him through one more performance, and one more.

Stage Beauty (2004) is about the cisgendering of the theatre in the Restoration.  Edward Kynaston, the last of the boy players, whom Pepys called "the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life," is about to be replaced by an actress. (Farewell!  Desdemona's occupation's gone.)  A woman playing a woman!  Where's the artistry in that?  This movie actually thinks, just a bit, about gender performance.  It also has that scene of Charles II with terrible wig hair, in bed with Nell Gwyn and about a zillion spaniels that cracks me up when I remember it.  Sadly, it also has the invention of method acting in the 1660's.  Sigh.

So what are your favorites films about the theatre?  I'd love to find new delights.

Nine

Immortelles

The nice guys from Symmetry Tile Works were back at the corner crafts fair, so I treated myself to two more tiles in their Queen Anne's lace series.  The weeds come from a local horse farm.  The artists press them into the clay with a rolling pin--those are all real silhouettes--pick them out again, sprinkle the slab thickly with pulverized bottle glass, and fire at 2350º F.  If you like, you can bring them flowers from your own garden, and do your bathroom up in lost summers.  They also do sea-themes (shells, sea-horses), and animals--they joke that the pygmy elephants from off the coast of Madagascar put up a tremendous fight.

Nine

Entelechy

Tosci's (bless 'em) writes:  "We had an event at the store for fantasy superstar Greer Gilman, and her new book,"Exit Pursued by a Bear I love this photo because it looks like a renaissance painting of Aristotle explaining something. Puppeteer Dan Butterworth is seated at the left with one of his characters. Entirely wonderful evening."

It was!

Nine

Bear Party!

"...yet if the Puppets will please any body, they shall be entreated to come in."--Ben Jonson

This evening was a threefold celebration, of my birthday, of my dear friend B's birthday, and (belatedly) of the entrance on this world's stage of Exit, Pursued by a Bear.  It was fabulous!




We gathered at that Cambridge icon of ice cream, Toscanini's, where Gus and Adam had outdone themselves.  Among the flavors on offer were:  their signature Burnt Caramel, Belgian Chocolate, 60% Dark Chocolate, a dazzling new Citrus Chocolate (with Grand Marnier and lemon essence), a stunning Sour Cherry Sorbet, Basil, Hazelnut, Salty Caramel, Butter Chocolate Chip, Cherries and Chips--and that's just what I tasted.  I got a roll of red tickets for my friends, who could have as much of everything as they wished.  Dispensing them, I felt like the man on the merry-ground, with brass rings for all.  Let joy and waistbands be unconfined!

And we talked, talked, talked.  If heaven is anything like this, I am there.

Tosci's decorated for us, bless them.







And B, the great Mistress of Revels, had arranged the most glorious, hilarious, bewitching show for us.  On came a little baroque trumpeter, sleeves flapping, and played his heart out for himself.




He is the creation of B.'s childhood friend, the marvellous Dan Butterworth (whose father wrote the children's science fantasy classic, The Enormous Egg).  At the back of the picture is Gus, behind my Small Beer bear shirt.

=

Butterworth is the carver and choreographer of his little theatre, and an exquisite puller of strings.  This terrific blues harlequin danced next, moving like a serpent's tongue:  insinuating, louche, and light.





And third came a bit with a dog:  a ridiculously friendly pooch, a leaper on laps and a licker of ears.  As well as a piddler on shoes.

Hard to follow that act, but I read a little teaser--just four pages--from the next Ben story.  April in Paris, 1612:  Donne and Jonson on the Left Bank, on a book and boîte crawl.  They were both really truly in Paris in that spring, and I just had to do something with that.

I loved having so many dear and amazing friends around me, eating ice cream in the winter.  Bliss.

Now we are Nine Times Seven.

Nine

Blue

Happy birthday, papersky !  Here's to another annus mirabilis.

Nine