Greer Gilman's Blog, page 58
January 14, 2014
Cakes and ale, round two
B. had dinner at the River Styx, which flows through Brooklyn. “Only the dead...” I merely plunged into the underworld and emerged on Grand Street in a deluge. The sidewalks were smears of scarlet, green, and yellow light. Shops spilled fish and fruit and gaudy toys, so that the sea urchins, redrowning in their open crates, seemed like trinkets of another landmark: the Statue of Liberty, the Urchin of Independence...I met my friends Daniel Rabuzzi and Deborah Mills at Sticky Rice; and (having battled from the furthest uptown) Leah Zander arrived with the appetizers, in a stunning scarlet cloche. Eat your heart out, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Fabulous conversation; fabulous food. We all had the duck spring rolls and the mango flower dumplings; several of us sinned further, and tried the home-cured bacon satay. Others had the signature drunken noodles or pad thai; I had the masaman duck. And the talk was terrific. Deborah is carving a sea-bed for a patron, with posts and panels of monsters, mermaids, finny cherubs. Leah is studying historical fiction at Columbia with Simon Schama. All of you should read Daniel’s amazing books: which are histories of an earth and sea and sky that never were.
The rain had ended when I journeyed home. Did you know the Museum of Natural History subway now has mosaics of owls and oceanbeds and galaxies and whales? I didn’t. And upstairs the skyline shone through trees, as if this were a planet with a score of rising moons.
For some reason, I was as tired as if I’d had a transatlantic flight debouching on a worldcon. I fell over.
And woke with a mission: there were at that moment nine Vermeers on public view in the city. I would see them all.
Well, I’d just seen four of them: but I would do five and four.
Being shy of disturbing other absent people’s housekeeping, I had tea and a slice of bread and butter, and a gaze at their admirable view. Then (elevator man! doorman!) I set out. Just across the Park, I thought.
I got lost. Like a fool, I forgot that I had a compass app, and had only to head it east. (The sun was obscured, and the Google dot blotted out the tangle of pathways.) I kept finding myself back at the west gate, as if I were on a quest in a story, and kept asking plaintively of—well, not mysterious crones, but dog walkers. (Runners don’t stop; stalking birders resent disturbances.) I particularly liked the walker with three Miss Lark’s Andrews. (“Come on, boys, you can’t all be carried.”) No matter. It’s a beautiful park in winter, and I did eventually emerge at the east gate, with only about fifteen minutes lost.
Another happy circumstance: the Met waved me in on my MFA membership.
Even on a mission, one gets sidelined, by choice or by chance. I had to pay my respects to Gainsborough’s portrait of my mother as Mrs. Grace Dalrymple. (Yes, she really did look like that, in her statelier moods.) How sorely I wished I could have told her my adventures. She was always an insatiable traveller; and New York, her first beloved city.
There was rediscovery. I’d forgotten the disillusioned Medea and the blithe swimming maidens. "Come on in, girls, the water's fine!”
There was pilgrimage. Bruegel’s Harvesters is one of the great Cloudish paintings (with its sibling Hunters in the Snow).
And at last there was the little jewel box full of Vermeers, guarded by a cheerful young man with round glasses and a beard: “Can’t beat the scenery.”
They have the lustrous tronie of the Girl’s little sister: franker, mischievous and melancholy, harsh and serene. A grey freshwater pearl? Baroque at any rate, with those odd little asymmetric features and that shining great forehead.
They have the Maid Asleep and dreaming; and that unsettling Allegory of the Catholic Faith, redeemed in my eyes by the swag of camera obscura tapestry and the wondrous glass globe.
They have the Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, herself a vessel of the light; and the Woman with a Lute, who meets the light’s gaze as an equal. She is one of the Nine in my mythology: she sets the sky in tune. It is eternally about to be Now.
Holding all of these, their canons and inversions, in mindfulness, I walked down Fifth to the Frick.
And again I blessed that membership: if anything, the line was longer and more urgent than it was on Saturday, the guards with their flaming swords more rhadamanthine. I just sailed past. Inside, it was thronged to a standstill. (The queue for the ladies’ room was something Homeric.) But with the Met bits of the heavens in my head, I revisited their three fixed-star Vermeers and the planetary girl, their evening star. And their gazes had changed. They looked, one to another, cross-museum; they took hands. Five and four made a constellation of Nine.
Nine
The rain had ended when I journeyed home. Did you know the Museum of Natural History subway now has mosaics of owls and oceanbeds and galaxies and whales? I didn’t. And upstairs the skyline shone through trees, as if this were a planet with a score of rising moons.
For some reason, I was as tired as if I’d had a transatlantic flight debouching on a worldcon. I fell over.
And woke with a mission: there were at that moment nine Vermeers on public view in the city. I would see them all.
Well, I’d just seen four of them: but I would do five and four.
Being shy of disturbing other absent people’s housekeeping, I had tea and a slice of bread and butter, and a gaze at their admirable view. Then (elevator man! doorman!) I set out. Just across the Park, I thought.
I got lost. Like a fool, I forgot that I had a compass app, and had only to head it east. (The sun was obscured, and the Google dot blotted out the tangle of pathways.) I kept finding myself back at the west gate, as if I were on a quest in a story, and kept asking plaintively of—well, not mysterious crones, but dog walkers. (Runners don’t stop; stalking birders resent disturbances.) I particularly liked the walker with three Miss Lark’s Andrews. (“Come on, boys, you can’t all be carried.”) No matter. It’s a beautiful park in winter, and I did eventually emerge at the east gate, with only about fifteen minutes lost.
Another happy circumstance: the Met waved me in on my MFA membership.
Even on a mission, one gets sidelined, by choice or by chance. I had to pay my respects to Gainsborough’s portrait of my mother as Mrs. Grace Dalrymple. (Yes, she really did look like that, in her statelier moods.) How sorely I wished I could have told her my adventures. She was always an insatiable traveller; and New York, her first beloved city.
There was rediscovery. I’d forgotten the disillusioned Medea and the blithe swimming maidens. "Come on in, girls, the water's fine!”
There was pilgrimage. Bruegel’s Harvesters is one of the great Cloudish paintings (with its sibling Hunters in the Snow).
And at last there was the little jewel box full of Vermeers, guarded by a cheerful young man with round glasses and a beard: “Can’t beat the scenery.”
They have the lustrous tronie of the Girl’s little sister: franker, mischievous and melancholy, harsh and serene. A grey freshwater pearl? Baroque at any rate, with those odd little asymmetric features and that shining great forehead.
They have the Maid Asleep and dreaming; and that unsettling Allegory of the Catholic Faith, redeemed in my eyes by the swag of camera obscura tapestry and the wondrous glass globe.
They have the Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, herself a vessel of the light; and the Woman with a Lute, who meets the light’s gaze as an equal. She is one of the Nine in my mythology: she sets the sky in tune. It is eternally about to be Now.
Holding all of these, their canons and inversions, in mindfulness, I walked down Fifth to the Frick.
And again I blessed that membership: if anything, the line was longer and more urgent than it was on Saturday, the guards with their flaming swords more rhadamanthine. I just sailed past. Inside, it was thronged to a standstill. (The queue for the ladies’ room was something Homeric.) But with the Met bits of the heavens in my head, I revisited their three fixed-star Vermeers and the planetary girl, their evening star. And their gazes had changed. They looked, one to another, cross-museum; they took hands. Five and four made a constellation of Nine.
Nine
January 13, 2014
Cakes and ale, round one
Back from an utterly fabulous weekend in New York with my birthday twin B.
We took the dawn Acela—the espresso milk train—and napped a bit, then (being too courteous to regale the Quiet Car with cakes and ale) repaired to the club car to read each other bits of Twelfth Night in full voice. B. would be staying in Brooklyn, where her son has just moved; I, courtesy of her sister and brother-in-law (who were out of town), would be staying in their place, right by the Museum of Natural History. Lap of luxury. On our way uptown, we stopped at Le Pain Quotidien for a late breakfast: a tartine of prosciutto and fig with slices of pear; slabs of rustic bread with butter and French jams and hazelnut praline. Then having dropped off my light bag, we crossed the Park at a latitude I'd not encountered in my slight experience. (Natives will know it as the Ramble.) It was sheer Giorgione: steep rocks and bent trees, with half-seen towers in the mist. What a city!
We came out on Museum Mile, and parted company: B. to talk with a string of gift shop buyers about stocking or re-stocking her wonderful book, I for the Mauritshuis exhibition at the Frick. There weren't advance tickets to be had for love nor money, so I'd shrewdly bought a membership. Worked like a charm. There was a line around three sides of the building in the rain, waiting for a glimpse of the Girl. I just sailed up and got waved in. Gorgeous.
And the first thing you see is the Girl with the Pearl Earring (in a throng twelve-deep). I just stopped at the threshold and lit up like a candelabra. Yes, I know she's a commonplace now, but she wasn't when I loved her first, forty-some years ago. And I'm not ever likely to get to the Hague. I did work my way slowly to the rope and stood for a long while, watching her thoughts change, light and shadow in a glass.
The Hague had not stinted with the rest of their treasures. I went round very slowly once, and then revisited a handful of favorites: the exquisite little Fabritius goldfinch (about the size of an iPad); the Coorte apricots, glittering with juice, as if an artist of Lud had painted fairy fruit. And I went back and forth between a Jan Steen minx eating oysters alluringly and a Rembrandt Susanna caught bathing, in a misery of shame (even her nose is red with it).
The Frick had thoughfully gathered up their own three (!) Vermeers and hung them side by side in the West Gallery, which works nicely for comparatists as well as twitchers from Japan. (But more on those later: for Sunday was the Day of the Nine Vermeers). Wending my way over, I did bow to several of my old acquaintances: Sir Thomas More (in honor of
derspatchel
's play); that cold elegant thug of a Bronzino; the Brueghel ghost soldiers; Lady Innes. (I found myself in rather a secular mood, merely nodding at saints and angels.) The Whistler lady had retired. My eye was caught by a little statue I'd never noticed before (was it there? It did say "Anonymous Lender"): an ivory Pluto and Prosperina, like a bijou Bernini. The artist was showboating: that imploring hand is translucent.
And now it was time to make my way downtown: dinner in good company awaited. The sky had opened on the patient queue; I put up my red umbrella and splashed over to the underworld. There's a gateway on Lexington.
Nine
We took the dawn Acela—the espresso milk train—and napped a bit, then (being too courteous to regale the Quiet Car with cakes and ale) repaired to the club car to read each other bits of Twelfth Night in full voice. B. would be staying in Brooklyn, where her son has just moved; I, courtesy of her sister and brother-in-law (who were out of town), would be staying in their place, right by the Museum of Natural History. Lap of luxury. On our way uptown, we stopped at Le Pain Quotidien for a late breakfast: a tartine of prosciutto and fig with slices of pear; slabs of rustic bread with butter and French jams and hazelnut praline. Then having dropped off my light bag, we crossed the Park at a latitude I'd not encountered in my slight experience. (Natives will know it as the Ramble.) It was sheer Giorgione: steep rocks and bent trees, with half-seen towers in the mist. What a city!
We came out on Museum Mile, and parted company: B. to talk with a string of gift shop buyers about stocking or re-stocking her wonderful book, I for the Mauritshuis exhibition at the Frick. There weren't advance tickets to be had for love nor money, so I'd shrewdly bought a membership. Worked like a charm. There was a line around three sides of the building in the rain, waiting for a glimpse of the Girl. I just sailed up and got waved in. Gorgeous.
And the first thing you see is the Girl with the Pearl Earring (in a throng twelve-deep). I just stopped at the threshold and lit up like a candelabra. Yes, I know she's a commonplace now, but she wasn't when I loved her first, forty-some years ago. And I'm not ever likely to get to the Hague. I did work my way slowly to the rope and stood for a long while, watching her thoughts change, light and shadow in a glass.
The Hague had not stinted with the rest of their treasures. I went round very slowly once, and then revisited a handful of favorites: the exquisite little Fabritius goldfinch (about the size of an iPad); the Coorte apricots, glittering with juice, as if an artist of Lud had painted fairy fruit. And I went back and forth between a Jan Steen minx eating oysters alluringly and a Rembrandt Susanna caught bathing, in a misery of shame (even her nose is red with it).
The Frick had thoughfully gathered up their own three (!) Vermeers and hung them side by side in the West Gallery, which works nicely for comparatists as well as twitchers from Japan. (But more on those later: for Sunday was the Day of the Nine Vermeers). Wending my way over, I did bow to several of my old acquaintances: Sir Thomas More (in honor of
derspatchel
's play); that cold elegant thug of a Bronzino; the Brueghel ghost soldiers; Lady Innes. (I found myself in rather a secular mood, merely nodding at saints and angels.) The Whistler lady had retired. My eye was caught by a little statue I'd never noticed before (was it there? It did say "Anonymous Lender"): an ivory Pluto and Prosperina, like a bijou Bernini. The artist was showboating: that imploring hand is translucent.And now it was time to make my way downtown: dinner in good company awaited. The sky had opened on the patient queue; I put up my red umbrella and splashed over to the underworld. There's a gateway on Lexington.
Nine
January 8, 2014
Convivial
Here's my Arisia schedule: some appealingly crunchy panels in good company. Though alas! I am opposite
rushthatspeaks
' reading and
sovay
and
cucumberseed
on When Poets Write Prose and Vice Versa: two things I would dearly love to hear. And my reading is at 10 am on Monday! If anyone is around and awake, I'll be doing a piece from the new Ben story, Exit, Pursued by a Bear. That's the novella with Inigo Jones, Kit Marlowe's ghost, Queen Mab, and the succession.
The Bards' Tales: Musical Books
Friday 5:30 PM
Andrea Hairston (m), Tanya Huff, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe
Countless authors have woven music into their works. Some like Asaro, Bull, and Huff have featured musicians in their stories, while others like Lackey have even included lyrics in their novels and later recorded tie-in filk albums. This panel will look at some of the best SF/F that has included music in its words.
Read ALL THE THINGS!
Saturday 10:00am
Randee Dawn, Greer Gilman, Adam Lipkin (m), Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert, JoSelle Vanderhooft
Sure, we have limited reading time, but there are some authors whose works clamor to be read in their entirety! Which authors? Come to this panel and find out! Each panelist will discuss the author whose complete works they deem absolutely essential. Come develop your reading list for the next year!
Tell Me a Story (I Couldn't Tell Myself)
Sunday 1:00 PM
Erik Amundsen (m), Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Trisha Wooldrige
Authors sometimes say that they started writing because they were looking for a story to read that they couldn't find. What happens when you can't find the story elsewhere and you can't make it either? What fragments do you have sitting around, ideas you wish someone would write for you and plot bunnies that plain up and died on you? Have you ever found something you wanted in a story in other media?
Theme Circle: Ballads of the Supernatural
Sunday 5:30 PM
Greer Gilman (m), Susan Weiner, Robert Rogow, Sonya Taaffe, Elizabeth Birdsall
Many traditional songs tell stories of the supernatural: ghosts, faeries, shape-changers, and so forth. Come listen or sing in this themed song circle.
Constructing Languages
Sunday 8:30pm
John Chu, Greer Gilman, Justine Graykin, Rose Mambert, James Shapiro (m)
Many SF/F worlds have their own languages, Elvish and Klingon being two of the best known. How do you create languages that make sense? From etymology to grammar to culture, there are many aspects to consider. How does a language reflect the identities of its speakers? How do we make our languages and vocabularies believable?
Reading: Erishkigal, Gilman, & Silva
Monday 10:00am
Anna Erishkigal, Greer Gilman, Richard A Silva
Authors Anna Erishkigal, Greer Gilman, and Richard A. Silva will read selections from their works.
Stick With It! Complex, Rewarding Literature
Monday 11:30 AM
Lila Garrott (m), Max Gladstone, Greer Gilman, Dennis McCunney, Sonya Taaffe
Most of the time, the SF we read is easy enough to get through; however, at times, we've picked up or been recommended a work of SF only to find it more than we bargained for. Not a tedious read, but rather an epic journey, fraught with trials and tribulations yet eminently Worth It. What favorite works of the panelists' are difficult to get through, but ultimately worth the read? How does one make the reading of one of these diamonds more feasible without losing any of the effect?
From Earthsea to Ekumen
Monday 2:30 PM
Lila Garrott (m), Mark W. Richards, Greer Gilman, Victoria McManus, Sonya Taaffe
Arguably Ursula K. Le Guin's two greatest achievements are the fantasy world of Earthsea and the SF universe of the Ekumen of Known Worlds. Earthsea is a world of natural magic in which the self-knowledge of the adept is the key to effectiveness. The Ekumen is a members-only interstellar organization encompassing numerous cultures. Do we see the same vision in these worlds? Are they different sides of the same coin? And how have these two worlds influenced the fiction of the last four decades?
And I also have my Boskone schedule, coming up on Valentine's Day weekend. I'll repost that closer to the time, but for comparison, it's here:
Writers on Writing: In the Mood
Friday 17:00 - 17:50
Mary Kay Kare (M), Jo Walton, Scott Lynch, Greer Gilman
One of the most elusive qualities a story may possess, mood is also one of the most lasting memories that certain stories evoke. How does a writer accomplish this effect? What are a writer's most important mood-making tools: Word choice? Pace? What the characters themselves feel? Voice? Setting? What works have been most successful at setting a mood and making it memorable?
(Didn't realize Jo was coming down for Boskone. Huzzah!)
Reading -- Greer Gilman
Friday 21:00 - 21:25
Greer Gilman
Writers on Writing: Character Versus Characterization
Saturday 12:00 - 12:50
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Sarah Beth Durst, Steve Miller, Greer Gilman, Steven Sawicki
The success of any story relies upon its characters. But writers can get confused between establishing a character and characterization. What's observable? What's hidden? What do we see on the page, and what do we feel when reading about this character as a whole? Writers discuss ways to more deeply develop characters, and how characterization can either get in the way or be used successfully.
The Evolution of a Hero
Saturday 14:00 - 14:50
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Debra Doyle, Jennifer Pelland , Greer Gilman
Heroes aren't born. They're made through a combination of choices and circumstances that mold them both internally as well as externally into someone powerful enough to represent a challenge to the story's antagonist. Has the once well-defined transition from zero to hero changed with the introduction of modern social structures? What about modern female characters who chafe against preconceived notions of who a hero is, what it means to be a hero, and how a hero is made? Are there differences between the growth of a hero for men and women? And what does this all mean for the antagonist?
Magicians in Society
Saturday 16:00 - 16:50
Tom Shippey (M), Nancy Holder, Sarah Beth Durst, Greer Gilman, Scott Lynch
How do magicians and their magic fit into the political, social, and class structures within an imagined society -- especially in worlds where most people don't possess such powers? What special challenges do magic-wielders face in a culture where magic isn't respected? Or even where it is? Moreover, what roles do science and scientists play in such a system, if any?
Good heavens, Tom Shippey!
Nine
rushthatspeaks
' reading and
sovay
and
cucumberseed
on When Poets Write Prose and Vice Versa: two things I would dearly love to hear. And my reading is at 10 am on Monday! If anyone is around and awake, I'll be doing a piece from the new Ben story, Exit, Pursued by a Bear. That's the novella with Inigo Jones, Kit Marlowe's ghost, Queen Mab, and the succession.The Bards' Tales: Musical Books
Friday 5:30 PM
Andrea Hairston (m), Tanya Huff, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe
Countless authors have woven music into their works. Some like Asaro, Bull, and Huff have featured musicians in their stories, while others like Lackey have even included lyrics in their novels and later recorded tie-in filk albums. This panel will look at some of the best SF/F that has included music in its words.
Read ALL THE THINGS!
Saturday 10:00am
Randee Dawn, Greer Gilman, Adam Lipkin (m), Suzanne Reynolds-Alpert, JoSelle Vanderhooft
Sure, we have limited reading time, but there are some authors whose works clamor to be read in their entirety! Which authors? Come to this panel and find out! Each panelist will discuss the author whose complete works they deem absolutely essential. Come develop your reading list for the next year!
Tell Me a Story (I Couldn't Tell Myself)
Sunday 1:00 PM
Erik Amundsen (m), Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Trisha Wooldrige
Authors sometimes say that they started writing because they were looking for a story to read that they couldn't find. What happens when you can't find the story elsewhere and you can't make it either? What fragments do you have sitting around, ideas you wish someone would write for you and plot bunnies that plain up and died on you? Have you ever found something you wanted in a story in other media?
Theme Circle: Ballads of the Supernatural
Sunday 5:30 PM
Greer Gilman (m), Susan Weiner, Robert Rogow, Sonya Taaffe, Elizabeth Birdsall
Many traditional songs tell stories of the supernatural: ghosts, faeries, shape-changers, and so forth. Come listen or sing in this themed song circle.
Constructing Languages
Sunday 8:30pm
John Chu, Greer Gilman, Justine Graykin, Rose Mambert, James Shapiro (m)
Many SF/F worlds have their own languages, Elvish and Klingon being two of the best known. How do you create languages that make sense? From etymology to grammar to culture, there are many aspects to consider. How does a language reflect the identities of its speakers? How do we make our languages and vocabularies believable?
Reading: Erishkigal, Gilman, & Silva
Monday 10:00am
Anna Erishkigal, Greer Gilman, Richard A Silva
Authors Anna Erishkigal, Greer Gilman, and Richard A. Silva will read selections from their works.
Stick With It! Complex, Rewarding Literature
Monday 11:30 AM
Lila Garrott (m), Max Gladstone, Greer Gilman, Dennis McCunney, Sonya Taaffe
Most of the time, the SF we read is easy enough to get through; however, at times, we've picked up or been recommended a work of SF only to find it more than we bargained for. Not a tedious read, but rather an epic journey, fraught with trials and tribulations yet eminently Worth It. What favorite works of the panelists' are difficult to get through, but ultimately worth the read? How does one make the reading of one of these diamonds more feasible without losing any of the effect?
From Earthsea to Ekumen
Monday 2:30 PM
Lila Garrott (m), Mark W. Richards, Greer Gilman, Victoria McManus, Sonya Taaffe
Arguably Ursula K. Le Guin's two greatest achievements are the fantasy world of Earthsea and the SF universe of the Ekumen of Known Worlds. Earthsea is a world of natural magic in which the self-knowledge of the adept is the key to effectiveness. The Ekumen is a members-only interstellar organization encompassing numerous cultures. Do we see the same vision in these worlds? Are they different sides of the same coin? And how have these two worlds influenced the fiction of the last four decades?
And I also have my Boskone schedule, coming up on Valentine's Day weekend. I'll repost that closer to the time, but for comparison, it's here:
Writers on Writing: In the Mood
Friday 17:00 - 17:50
Mary Kay Kare (M), Jo Walton, Scott Lynch, Greer Gilman
One of the most elusive qualities a story may possess, mood is also one of the most lasting memories that certain stories evoke. How does a writer accomplish this effect? What are a writer's most important mood-making tools: Word choice? Pace? What the characters themselves feel? Voice? Setting? What works have been most successful at setting a mood and making it memorable?
(Didn't realize Jo was coming down for Boskone. Huzzah!)
Reading -- Greer Gilman
Friday 21:00 - 21:25
Greer Gilman
Writers on Writing: Character Versus Characterization
Saturday 12:00 - 12:50
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Sarah Beth Durst, Steve Miller, Greer Gilman, Steven Sawicki
The success of any story relies upon its characters. But writers can get confused between establishing a character and characterization. What's observable? What's hidden? What do we see on the page, and what do we feel when reading about this character as a whole? Writers discuss ways to more deeply develop characters, and how characterization can either get in the way or be used successfully.
The Evolution of a Hero
Saturday 14:00 - 14:50
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Debra Doyle, Jennifer Pelland , Greer Gilman
Heroes aren't born. They're made through a combination of choices and circumstances that mold them both internally as well as externally into someone powerful enough to represent a challenge to the story's antagonist. Has the once well-defined transition from zero to hero changed with the introduction of modern social structures? What about modern female characters who chafe against preconceived notions of who a hero is, what it means to be a hero, and how a hero is made? Are there differences between the growth of a hero for men and women? And what does this all mean for the antagonist?
Magicians in Society
Saturday 16:00 - 16:50
Tom Shippey (M), Nancy Holder, Sarah Beth Durst, Greer Gilman, Scott Lynch
How do magicians and their magic fit into the political, social, and class structures within an imagined society -- especially in worlds where most people don't possess such powers? What special challenges do magic-wielders face in a culture where magic isn't respected? Or even where it is? Moreover, what roles do science and scientists play in such a system, if any?
Good heavens, Tom Shippey!
Nine
January 7, 2014
Quadrantids
Sparks still falling, as the chapbook sails on.
Marissa Lingen writes:
"Entirely diverting murder mystery both set among and steeped in Elizabethan dramatists. ... [I]t typified a favorite concept of mine: that fun and smart are not at all opposites in fiction."
And this just came in from Lisa Goldstein:
"Most of all, though, I love Gilman's style. Yes, it's complex, but in the way that a Celtic knot or a lute rose is complex, beautiful and intricate. ... Above all, this is a story of transitions, of the place between life and death, masks and faces, child and adult, male and female. It repays several readings, and each reading brings something new. "
Nine
Marissa Lingen writes:
"Entirely diverting murder mystery both set among and steeped in Elizabethan dramatists. ... [I]t typified a favorite concept of mine: that fun and smart are not at all opposites in fiction."
And this just came in from Lisa Goldstein:
"Most of all, though, I love Gilman's style. Yes, it's complex, but in the way that a Celtic knot or a lute rose is complex, beautiful and intricate. ... Above all, this is a story of transitions, of the place between life and death, masks and faces, child and adult, male and female. It repays several readings, and each reading brings something new. "
Nine
Heavens!
O my.
The candles will be "pure beeswax, costing up to £500 per show. ... 'It takes three hours to get the theatre ready.'"
"The team have made other intriguing discoveries about low light. One is that the Jacobean fad for huge lace ruffs around the neck and wrists may have been as much practical as fashion-driven: they acted as reflectors, enhancing the face and making hands seem elegantly slender. Research also shows that women wore makeup containing crushed pearl."
"The Jacobeans also adored lustrous fabrics set off by jewels and sparkling accessories. Audiences for Malfi should keep their eyes peeled for a dress worn by Gemma Arterton, who plays the Duchess. 'It's gold' says Fensom. 'Absolutely wonderful. The folds in the fabric bring out all the contrasts.'"
Whimper.
Nine
January 6, 2014
January 5, 2014
Or but a wand'ring voice?
Way back in July, I was packed for Readercon and rather pleased to be on time. My ride was round the corner. I did a last-second pat-down. Glasses. Wallet. Keys. Cell-phone? I knew it had just been in my pocket. I rang it from the landline. Not a peep. I rang again, and listened at my suitcase--maybe I'd packed it? Silence. I hunted down cushions on the chairs, on likely bookshelves, in drawers, ransacked all sorts of crazy places. But by now my ride was waiting, and I hurried down, all fluster and apologies.
It never did turn up.
At very long last (for I resented the thing, always a bringer of bad news), I gave in and got an iPhone, which has reconciled me somewhat to carrying around a pocket Sophoclean messenger.
Jump forward to Christmas Eve. I was dressed up for a lovely dinner, and thought I'd wear my state-occasion black suede shoes to go with my black velvet skirt. So I hauled them out from under the blanket chest, way at the back; dusted them; sat down to put them on. And there was something in the left toe....
Yup. The old cell-phone.
"How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."
Nine
It never did turn up.
At very long last (for I resented the thing, always a bringer of bad news), I gave in and got an iPhone, which has reconciled me somewhat to carrying around a pocket Sophoclean messenger.
Jump forward to Christmas Eve. I was dressed up for a lovely dinner, and thought I'd wear my state-occasion black suede shoes to go with my black velvet skirt. So I hauled them out from under the blanket chest, way at the back; dusted them; sat down to put them on. And there was something in the left toe....
Yup. The old cell-phone.
"How he got in my pajamas, I don't know."
Nine
January 4, 2014
Twelfthtide is the last
Some Christmassy linguistic finds:
Incipit gestis Rudolphi rangifer tarandus
Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor --
Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas!
Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele.
Ða hofberendas mid huscwordum hine gehefigodon;
Nolden þa geneatas Hrodulf næftig
To gomene hraniscum geador ætsomne.
Þa in Cristesmæsseæfne stormigum clommum,
Halga Claus þæt gemunde to him maðelode:
"Neahfreond nihteage nosubeorhtende!
Min hroden hrædwæn gelæd ðu, Hrodulf!"
Ða gelufodon hira laddeor þa lyftflogan --
Wæs glædnes and gliwdream; hornede sum gegieddode
"Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor,
Brad springð þin blæd: breme eart þu!"
Explicit
The Anglo-Saxon version is by Philip Craig Chapman-Bell.
Rendered literally into modern English:
Here begins the deeds of Rudolph, Tundra-Wanderer
Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer --
That beast didn't have unshiny nostrils!
The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed.
The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words;
The comrades wouldn't allow wretched Hrodulf
To join the reindeer games.
Then, on Christmas Eve bound in storms
Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him:
"Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one!
You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!"
Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer --
There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang
"Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer,
Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!"
More on Cervus rhinorubeus
A story-telling of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" in ASL. This child is an amazing actress.
Nine
Incipit gestis Rudolphi rangifer tarandus
Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor --
Næfde þæt nieten unsciende næsðyrlas!
Glitenode and gladode godlice nosgrisele.
Ða hofberendas mid huscwordum hine gehefigodon;
Nolden þa geneatas Hrodulf næftig
To gomene hraniscum geador ætsomne.
Þa in Cristesmæsseæfne stormigum clommum,
Halga Claus þæt gemunde to him maðelode:
"Neahfreond nihteage nosubeorhtende!
Min hroden hrædwæn gelæd ðu, Hrodulf!"
Ða gelufodon hira laddeor þa lyftflogan --
Wæs glædnes and gliwdream; hornede sum gegieddode
"Hwæt, Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor,
Brad springð þin blæd: breme eart þu!"
Explicit
The Anglo-Saxon version is by Philip Craig Chapman-Bell.
Rendered literally into modern English:
Here begins the deeds of Rudolph, Tundra-Wanderer
Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer --
That beast didn't have unshiny nostrils!
The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed.
The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words;
The comrades wouldn't allow wretched Hrodulf
To join the reindeer games.
Then, on Christmas Eve bound in storms
Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him:
"Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one!
You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!"
Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer --
There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang
"Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer,
Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!"
More on Cervus rhinorubeus
A story-telling of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" in ASL. This child is an amazing actress.
Nine
January 3, 2014
January 2, 2014
"Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow..."
It squawks underfoot. I thought it was cold out there; when I came in from a walk at midnight, it was 0º F, with a windchill of -22º F (in Celsius, that's -17º and -30º).
Nine
Nine
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