Greer Gilman's Blog, page 71
January 30, 2013
Green room
This year’s midwinter movie madness with the CV was most excellent. I hadn't seen her new house in Maine, which is pleasant: all bookshelves and sunlight and hardwood floors, on an acre of land with apple trees and beehives. We kept country hours, and rose to bacon and eggs, the latter warm from the straw. The weather was dazzling and bitter cold; even with a full moon, the stars were glorious.
Among other things, we watched a good deal of English history: all of The Hollow Crown and The Last King, with a blackavised Rufus Sewell as Charles II.
Sunday’s films, I think, were most varied.
The new Tom Hiddleston Henry V might have been truly excellent, if the text hadn't been torn to rags. It wasn’t so much a curate’s egg as a good one boiled with a crack in its shell, and half empty. They cut damn near all of Fluellen—and they had a good one—and MacMorris and Jamy altogether. No salmons in Macedon; no leeks. And more crucially, they axed the best part of the conversation on kingship with Bates and Williams. Bah! As they left out the slaughter of the English baggage-boys, the killing of the French prisoners seemed wantonly vengeful. Thankfully, they didn’t muck up on Mistress Quickly’s elegy for Falstaff. I really liked their Nym, who played the quintessential Cockney fatalist. And they did one lovely thing. The epilogue (“fortune made his sword”) was done as a voice over at the King’s lying-in-state. We saw the Boy (who must have lived) standing by the bier when the court had gone, twisting his ragged armband of a St. George’s cross. As the camera pulls back, he is John Hurt who is the Chorus, England's ageless memory. Run, boy! Run!
Then came dessert—if your taste is for acidulous syllabubs. I’ve just scored a rare disk of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Critic, a BBC bonne bouche which we hadn't laid eyes on since 1982. We both remembered lying on the floor drumming our heels in hysterics, and it did not disappoint. The conceit is that Mr. Puff, an 18th-century Twitter-merchant, has succumbed to the muse, and is anxious to flaunt his cod-Elizabethan tragedy before his friends. Most of the play is a dress rehearsal of The Spanish Armada amid his exultations and bewailings of actorly caprices, and the snark of his dearest friends. This production has cleverly framed the play within another layer of meta: The Critic opens in two days and Mr. Sheridan has not yet provided a last act, so the stage manager lures him to a green room and locks him in to finish it. 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. Oh, yes, and John Gielgud in a silent cameo.
I cannot replicate one layer of the entertainment: the CV’s Icelandic sheepdog was so excited by our mirth—we were laughing too hard to sing “Rule, Britannia”—that he tore madly round the room biting his squeaky toy.
And then—did you know that on Christmas Eve 1950, four students from Glasgow stole the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey? And hid it in a field? And got away with it? I didn't. There's a nice little film about the heist, The Stone of Destiny.
And afterward, we watched the recent Jane Eyre with Mia Wasikowska. Of all the versions I’ve seen, I think this was most Gothic, most uncanny. And most beautifully shot. I wish it had been longer. They stinted Helen Burns, who is brief as a meteor; they stinted Aunt Reed and the Rivers sisters.
Somehow in the distillation, Rochester lost much of his cruelty and Jane her self-pity. He felt less Brontë; she more. (Watch her tell Adèle about the Gytrash.) What is left is purer: her intelligence and her unworldly—almost alien—sense of ethics. I liked her very much: she’s the first Jane Eyre I’ve seen who could be taken for one of the fair folk. She looks (in this) like Tilda Swinton’s half-mortal daughter. She could have played my Margaret.
Rochester—a mere Gothic hero—wasn’t up to her.
Oh, and Thornfield (as played by Haddon Hall) never looked lovelier—it hurt to see it in ashes, with a burnt doll on a blackened chair.
Nine
Among other things, we watched a good deal of English history: all of The Hollow Crown and The Last King, with a blackavised Rufus Sewell as Charles II.
Sunday’s films, I think, were most varied.
The new Tom Hiddleston Henry V might have been truly excellent, if the text hadn't been torn to rags. It wasn’t so much a curate’s egg as a good one boiled with a crack in its shell, and half empty. They cut damn near all of Fluellen—and they had a good one—and MacMorris and Jamy altogether. No salmons in Macedon; no leeks. And more crucially, they axed the best part of the conversation on kingship with Bates and Williams. Bah! As they left out the slaughter of the English baggage-boys, the killing of the French prisoners seemed wantonly vengeful. Thankfully, they didn’t muck up on Mistress Quickly’s elegy for Falstaff. I really liked their Nym, who played the quintessential Cockney fatalist. And they did one lovely thing. The epilogue (“fortune made his sword”) was done as a voice over at the King’s lying-in-state. We saw the Boy (who must have lived) standing by the bier when the court had gone, twisting his ragged armband of a St. George’s cross. As the camera pulls back, he is John Hurt who is the Chorus, England's ageless memory. Run, boy! Run!
Then came dessert—if your taste is for acidulous syllabubs. I’ve just scored a rare disk of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Critic, a BBC bonne bouche which we hadn't laid eyes on since 1982. We both remembered lying on the floor drumming our heels in hysterics, and it did not disappoint. The conceit is that Mr. Puff, an 18th-century Twitter-merchant, has succumbed to the muse, and is anxious to flaunt his cod-Elizabethan tragedy before his friends. Most of the play is a dress rehearsal of The Spanish Armada amid his exultations and bewailings of actorly caprices, and the snark of his dearest friends. This production has cleverly framed the play within another layer of meta: The Critic opens in two days and Mr. Sheridan has not yet provided a last act, so the stage manager lures him to a green room and locks him in to finish it. 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. Oh, yes, and John Gielgud in a silent cameo.
I cannot replicate one layer of the entertainment: the CV’s Icelandic sheepdog was so excited by our mirth—we were laughing too hard to sing “Rule, Britannia”—that he tore madly round the room biting his squeaky toy.
And then—did you know that on Christmas Eve 1950, four students from Glasgow stole the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey? And hid it in a field? And got away with it? I didn't. There's a nice little film about the heist, The Stone of Destiny.
And afterward, we watched the recent Jane Eyre with Mia Wasikowska. Of all the versions I’ve seen, I think this was most Gothic, most uncanny. And most beautifully shot. I wish it had been longer. They stinted Helen Burns, who is brief as a meteor; they stinted Aunt Reed and the Rivers sisters.
Somehow in the distillation, Rochester lost much of his cruelty and Jane her self-pity. He felt less Brontë; she more. (Watch her tell Adèle about the Gytrash.) What is left is purer: her intelligence and her unworldly—almost alien—sense of ethics. I liked her very much: she’s the first Jane Eyre I’ve seen who could be taken for one of the fair folk. She looks (in this) like Tilda Swinton’s half-mortal daughter. She could have played my Margaret.
Rochester—a mere Gothic hero—wasn’t up to her.
Oh, and Thornfield (as played by Haddon Hall) never looked lovelier—it hurt to see it in ashes, with a burnt doll on a blackened chair.
Nine
January 25, 2013
"We've all come to look for America."
So I found myself on a bus from Boston to Bangor in amongst a family of very Plain Amish--broad hats and black bonnets--all speaking softly in their German dialect among themselves, while the fellow with the Airbook next to me turned out to be the grandson of Frances Perkins, and deeply involved in the future of energy. (This is not a dream.) They talked of buggies; we talked of hydrogen cars.* And his first name was Tomlin, and it felt like some alt-ballad time-tangle story. If I were writing it, what happened next?
Nine
* I said, Um, Hindenburg? And he said, No, diesel burns worse, and went on alchemizing water and dung into flight.
9
Nine
* I said, Um, Hindenburg? And he said, No, diesel burns worse, and went on alchemizing water and dung into flight.
9
January 21, 2013
Arisiac
Now that was an absolutely splendid con.
All of my panels went well, but two stood out. Displacement in Literature went down some fascinating paths, through alienation and exile and erasure. Not a showy conversation, but thoughtful: unlike so many panels, it built. If I had to miss
derspatchel
in The Day the Earth Stood Still, I'm glad it was for something so excellent. And Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Literature was glorious, exhilarating—like the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling fire. Sadly,
rushthatspeaks
had fallen ill and was much missed by all. I think if they'd been there, we would have broken altogether with gravity and gone whirling out amid the stars.
gaudior
stepped in for them, and did a beautifuland crucial job as a balance point. I remember talking with Daniel Rabuzzi about the stories in interstices of churches, in the carvings, the window glass–"midrash in misericords" I said. I remember
sovay
talking about burning the Yule Goat, a new custom which seems ancient, and about how Athena is not the goddess of war but of strategy. She and Vikki Ciaffone vowed to learn Lithuanian. And inspired by Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways, I mused that folktales are a web of paths laid out across the whinny moor, the tracklessness of life. Retelling them, we mark the way for others, for ourselves returning, leaving pebbles on the cairns.
Got drunk on that one.
Some of the literary track was pure Readercon. The Turing panel flat-out rocked.
The bookstalls weren't a shadow of a patch on Readercon. The brilliant rabble in the hallways was a constant amusement.
Sassafrass sang! And damned well, despite the poltergeists in the sound system.
And at Ballads of the Supernatural, nearly everyone sang. Though alas, not
sovay
, whose throat was sore. (I hope it's been soothed with tea and honey, and is feeling better.)
teenybuffalo
(elegant in black velvet and an ivory shawl) gave us "The Unquiet Grave"; the irrepressible E.J. Barnes, in a purple coster's coat, did "With 'Er 'Ead Tucked Underneath 'Er Arm." We heard "The Cruel Mother," and a fine demon lover song, "Paper of Pins," and one or two very silly things about faerie. (Blowing raspberries at Elfland is enlivening.) But I think the standout was my old friend
negothick
, who gave us a fierce "Bedlam Boys' and an absolutely stunning "Cruel Ship's Carpenter" (otherwise known as "The Gosport Tragedy" or "Pretty Polly"). Her vengeful ghost—come with fire on the salt cold sea—was bloodchilling.
I got to hang with her, and with other lovely, lively folks:
gaudior
,
rushthatspeaks
,
sovay
,
derspatchel
(too briefly),
tilivenn
,
the_termagant
,
teenybuffalo
,
cucumberseed
,
ckd
, Daniel Rabuzzi and Deborah Mills, with others unknown to blogs, though dear to me.
ookpik
gave me a pretty bead necklace that she'd made, seablue and beech-bronze.
A cluster of good friends and strangers came to my reading. As promised, I did the Jacobean Revenge Procedural—which (as I now can tell you) will come out from Small Beer Press. Huzzah! We're hoping for this summer, and a pretty little chapbook. Thanks to excellent advice, I did a piece of it I'd never read before, an old scene and a new. The first is rather a pet of mine, a conversation in the Mermaid between Robin Armin and Ben, full of high-flown iambics and theatrical gossip, of shadows and snark. The second is brief and unseely. Caffeinated to the eyebrows, I gave it plenty of oomph, and (I was told) put it right across the footlights. A palpable hit!
Nine
All of my panels went well, but two stood out. Displacement in Literature went down some fascinating paths, through alienation and exile and erasure. Not a showy conversation, but thoughtful: unlike so many panels, it built. If I had to miss
derspatchel
in The Day the Earth Stood Still, I'm glad it was for something so excellent. And Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Literature was glorious, exhilarating—like the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggling fire. Sadly,
rushthatspeaks
had fallen ill and was much missed by all. I think if they'd been there, we would have broken altogether with gravity and gone whirling out amid the stars.
gaudior
stepped in for them, and did a beautifuland crucial job as a balance point. I remember talking with Daniel Rabuzzi about the stories in interstices of churches, in the carvings, the window glass–"midrash in misericords" I said. I remember
sovay
talking about burning the Yule Goat, a new custom which seems ancient, and about how Athena is not the goddess of war but of strategy. She and Vikki Ciaffone vowed to learn Lithuanian. And inspired by Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways, I mused that folktales are a web of paths laid out across the whinny moor, the tracklessness of life. Retelling them, we mark the way for others, for ourselves returning, leaving pebbles on the cairns.Got drunk on that one.
Some of the literary track was pure Readercon. The Turing panel flat-out rocked.
The bookstalls weren't a shadow of a patch on Readercon. The brilliant rabble in the hallways was a constant amusement.
Sassafrass sang! And damned well, despite the poltergeists in the sound system.
And at Ballads of the Supernatural, nearly everyone sang. Though alas, not
sovay
, whose throat was sore. (I hope it's been soothed with tea and honey, and is feeling better.)
teenybuffalo
(elegant in black velvet and an ivory shawl) gave us "The Unquiet Grave"; the irrepressible E.J. Barnes, in a purple coster's coat, did "With 'Er 'Ead Tucked Underneath 'Er Arm." We heard "The Cruel Mother," and a fine demon lover song, "Paper of Pins," and one or two very silly things about faerie. (Blowing raspberries at Elfland is enlivening.) But I think the standout was my old friend
negothick
, who gave us a fierce "Bedlam Boys' and an absolutely stunning "Cruel Ship's Carpenter" (otherwise known as "The Gosport Tragedy" or "Pretty Polly"). Her vengeful ghost—come with fire on the salt cold sea—was bloodchilling.I got to hang with her, and with other lovely, lively folks:
gaudior
,
rushthatspeaks
,
sovay
,
derspatchel
(too briefly),
tilivenn
,
the_termagant
,
teenybuffalo
,
cucumberseed
,
ckd
, Daniel Rabuzzi and Deborah Mills, with others unknown to blogs, though dear to me.
ookpik
gave me a pretty bead necklace that she'd made, seablue and beech-bronze.A cluster of good friends and strangers came to my reading. As promised, I did the Jacobean Revenge Procedural—which (as I now can tell you) will come out from Small Beer Press. Huzzah! We're hoping for this summer, and a pretty little chapbook. Thanks to excellent advice, I did a piece of it I'd never read before, an old scene and a new. The first is rather a pet of mine, a conversation in the Mermaid between Robin Armin and Ben, full of high-flown iambics and theatrical gossip, of shadows and snark. The second is brief and unseely. Caffeinated to the eyebrows, I gave it plenty of oomph, and (I was told) put it right across the footlights. A palpable hit!
Nine
January 18, 2013
On C.S. Lewis
For
rushthatspeaks
:
I dreamed once that I was in my attic room, with all the books heaped under tarpaulins & a sad snarl of picture wire. I was painting the walls a sort of duck’s egg blue. C.S. Lewis was there himself, in tweeds: burly & blustery, beefred. He was supposed to be helping, but was clumsily entangled. We are arguing about women’s rights, blood rights, and I was furious & he was hectoring. Then I looked out and saw the sky. It was a clear bluegreen, ethereal: the colour of the walls, transcended. We were trying to paint transcendence. There was a gold moon on its keel, quite thin; I saw it was a ship. Delicate, illumined, it was sailing, with a little crowd of players, all of moongold, of itself. A ship of fools. Then I woke.
rushthatspeaks
:I dreamed once that I was in my attic room, with all the books heaped under tarpaulins & a sad snarl of picture wire. I was painting the walls a sort of duck’s egg blue. C.S. Lewis was there himself, in tweeds: burly & blustery, beefred. He was supposed to be helping, but was clumsily entangled. We are arguing about women’s rights, blood rights, and I was furious & he was hectoring. Then I looked out and saw the sky. It was a clear bluegreen, ethereal: the colour of the walls, transcended. We were trying to paint transcendence. There was a gold moon on its keel, quite thin; I saw it was a ship. Delicate, illumined, it was sailing, with a little crowd of players, all of moongold, of itself. A ship of fools. Then I woke.
Nine
January 14, 2013
Oh, my ears and whiskers!
Here's my Arisia schedule—hope to see many of you there!
ETA: now with commentary.
Displacement in Literature
Friday 10:00 PM
Greer Gilman, Dennis McCunney, Daniel Rabuzzi, Robert V.S. Redick, Kiini Ibura Salaam (m)
Displacement is an essential element of great literature. The main character is physically displaced from social standing due to external events, due to someone who refuses to obey the social rules entering their world, or at some point in the past and has come to exact revenge or find answers. What are the different ways displacement shows up in literature? How is it used to its best effect? Why is displacement so central to literature and the human experience?
Sadly, Daniel Rabuzzi has written his regrets: he won't be able arrive until that evening. We will soldier on, beyond the fields we know.
Inspired By
Saturday 5:30 PM
Vikki Ciaffone, C.S.E. Cooney, Tananarive Due, Greer Gilman, Walter Hunt (m)
Our panelists will discuss the authors and stories that most inspired them to become authors themselves, as well as other influences on their work.
This will be sheer pleasure. I'd love to talk about my spring pilgrimage to Green Knowe.
Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Literature
Sunday 11:30 AM
Vikki Ciaffone (m), Lila Garrott, Greer Gilman, Daniel Rabuzzi, Sonya Taaffe
Fantasy and, to a lesser degree, SF are infused with the fairy tales and folklore we grew up with. A story need not be a straight-up retelling of a fairy tale in order to use the elements of one—everyone knows the red hood and the foam on the sea. How are these elements being used in today's fiction? Where else can we go from here?
And this will be amazing. Yours truly aside, it's like BBC casting. Sirs and Dames of fantasy.
Beyond Binary: Exploring Gender Via SF/Fantasy
Sunday 4:00 PM
Dash, Greer Gilman, Julia Rios (m), David Sklar, Cecilia Tan
When words can take you to the outer limits of space and far-flung fantastic lands, why should so many cultures share the same gender definitions (and oppressions) as we have in the present-day US? How has SF/F given us a different (and hopefully better) perspective on defining gender, and where is it falling short? What are some examples of literature that do a good job in exploring or addressing gender issues of our real world? What are some things we haven't seen yet but would like to?
I confess, the Tiptree took me absolutely by surprise; but I think I'm still part of the conversation.
Reading: Feinman, G. Gilman, & Lidell
Sunday 5:30 PM
Alex Feinman, Greer Gilman, Alex Lidell
Authors Alexander Feinman, Greer Gilman, and Alex Lidell will read selections from their works.
So, should I give them a scene or two of the Jacobean Revenge Procedural?
Weird Worlds
Monday 11:30 AM
Mary Catelli (m), Greer Gilman, Sarah Smith
Sure, you can write a fantasy novel with carefully configured continents and everyday human characters. Or you can write one where the characters are a deck of playing cards, chess figures, or where everyone lives on clouds. What are some of the weirdest worlds out there? What does it take to convince the reader to suspend their disbelief with such worlds? How does world-building change with some of the odder ideas?
We'll all be a bit punchy by Monday morning--which is the right condition for talking about the surreal.
Theme Circle: Ballads of the Supernatural
Monday 1:00 PM
Greer Gilman (m), Daniel Marsh, Sonya Taaffe
Many traditional songs tell stories of the supernatural: ghosts, faeries, shape-changers, and so forth. Come listen or sing in this themed song circle.
This will be lovely.
Nine
ETA: now with commentary.
Displacement in Literature
Friday 10:00 PM
Greer Gilman, Dennis McCunney, Daniel Rabuzzi, Robert V.S. Redick, Kiini Ibura Salaam (m)
Displacement is an essential element of great literature. The main character is physically displaced from social standing due to external events, due to someone who refuses to obey the social rules entering their world, or at some point in the past and has come to exact revenge or find answers. What are the different ways displacement shows up in literature? How is it used to its best effect? Why is displacement so central to literature and the human experience?
Sadly, Daniel Rabuzzi has written his regrets: he won't be able arrive until that evening. We will soldier on, beyond the fields we know.
Inspired By
Saturday 5:30 PM
Vikki Ciaffone, C.S.E. Cooney, Tananarive Due, Greer Gilman, Walter Hunt (m)
Our panelists will discuss the authors and stories that most inspired them to become authors themselves, as well as other influences on their work.
This will be sheer pleasure. I'd love to talk about my spring pilgrimage to Green Knowe.
Fairy Tales and Folklore in Modern Literature
Sunday 11:30 AM
Vikki Ciaffone (m), Lila Garrott, Greer Gilman, Daniel Rabuzzi, Sonya Taaffe
Fantasy and, to a lesser degree, SF are infused with the fairy tales and folklore we grew up with. A story need not be a straight-up retelling of a fairy tale in order to use the elements of one—everyone knows the red hood and the foam on the sea. How are these elements being used in today's fiction? Where else can we go from here?
And this will be amazing. Yours truly aside, it's like BBC casting. Sirs and Dames of fantasy.
Beyond Binary: Exploring Gender Via SF/Fantasy
Sunday 4:00 PM
Dash, Greer Gilman, Julia Rios (m), David Sklar, Cecilia Tan
When words can take you to the outer limits of space and far-flung fantastic lands, why should so many cultures share the same gender definitions (and oppressions) as we have in the present-day US? How has SF/F given us a different (and hopefully better) perspective on defining gender, and where is it falling short? What are some examples of literature that do a good job in exploring or addressing gender issues of our real world? What are some things we haven't seen yet but would like to?
I confess, the Tiptree took me absolutely by surprise; but I think I'm still part of the conversation.
Reading: Feinman, G. Gilman, & Lidell
Sunday 5:30 PM
Alex Feinman, Greer Gilman, Alex Lidell
Authors Alexander Feinman, Greer Gilman, and Alex Lidell will read selections from their works.
So, should I give them a scene or two of the Jacobean Revenge Procedural?
Weird Worlds
Monday 11:30 AM
Mary Catelli (m), Greer Gilman, Sarah Smith
Sure, you can write a fantasy novel with carefully configured continents and everyday human characters. Or you can write one where the characters are a deck of playing cards, chess figures, or where everyone lives on clouds. What are some of the weirdest worlds out there? What does it take to convince the reader to suspend their disbelief with such worlds? How does world-building change with some of the odder ideas?
We'll all be a bit punchy by Monday morning--which is the right condition for talking about the surreal.
Theme Circle: Ballads of the Supernatural
Monday 1:00 PM
Greer Gilman (m), Daniel Marsh, Sonya Taaffe
Many traditional songs tell stories of the supernatural: ghosts, faeries, shape-changers, and so forth. Come listen or sing in this themed song circle.
This will be lovely.
Nine
January 13, 2013
In the pink
I wonder if Martin Carthy's mother knew Diana Wynne Jones's?
That penny has been rolling round and round the chutes and ramps for years now, and has finally dropped. I stayed up appallingly late this morning to hear Martin on Desert Island Discs. (Thanks,
steepholm
!) Even when I realized you could download his appearance, I quixotically wanted the sense of liveness.* Real radio. And Martin, speaking of his mother's politics, of her "network of troublesome priests," said she used to hang out with the Red Vicar of Thaxted, with Conrad Noel. Thaxted! Diana remembered it as a Bedlam of incest and hanky-waving; Martin spoke fondly and soberly of Morris revival and high socialism. One village, worlds apart: did they intersect?
Along with that revelation, Martin gave a lovely interview. His childhood, thankfully, was nothing like Diana's—"tranquil and repressed"—and his travels have been his living. He said that the harder a gig is to get to, the better he plays. Imagine the performance he'd give, rowed to the Outer Hebrides in thunderstorm in a coracle! He reminisced cheerfully, told a few of his best party-pieces: how one cold January, he and Bob Dylan chopped up a piano with a samurai sword—it can't have been a real one—for firewood.
I was briefly surprised at his first two choices—Maria Callas and Edith Piaf—but of course, I thought, he'd love Women with Pipes. And naturally, he followed them with Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy. He had two of his old touchstones on the playlist, Sam Larner and Libba Cotten, a Basque madman and some staggering Genoese longshoremen collected by Alan Lomax.
Being assured of his canonical Bible (he was anxious that it be King James) and Shakespeare, Martin asked for a set of Dickens in one volume. His luxury? Necessity: his old guitar.
Nine
*Yes, I realize it was (almost certainly) pre-recorded, but I did enjoy the occasion. Besides, while I was waiting, I found Edmund de Waal's turn. He came with an ivory rat in his pockets, and the woman in her bath. A lovely playlist, as well. Tangibles? He wanted Wallace Stevens and coffee. He'd leave the netsuke to his children, to go on.
That penny has been rolling round and round the chutes and ramps for years now, and has finally dropped. I stayed up appallingly late this morning to hear Martin on Desert Island Discs. (Thanks,
steepholm
!) Even when I realized you could download his appearance, I quixotically wanted the sense of liveness.* Real radio. And Martin, speaking of his mother's politics, of her "network of troublesome priests," said she used to hang out with the Red Vicar of Thaxted, with Conrad Noel. Thaxted! Diana remembered it as a Bedlam of incest and hanky-waving; Martin spoke fondly and soberly of Morris revival and high socialism. One village, worlds apart: did they intersect? Along with that revelation, Martin gave a lovely interview. His childhood, thankfully, was nothing like Diana's—"tranquil and repressed"—and his travels have been his living. He said that the harder a gig is to get to, the better he plays. Imagine the performance he'd give, rowed to the Outer Hebrides in thunderstorm in a coracle! He reminisced cheerfully, told a few of his best party-pieces: how one cold January, he and Bob Dylan chopped up a piano with a samurai sword—it can't have been a real one—for firewood.
I was briefly surprised at his first two choices—Maria Callas and Edith Piaf—but of course, I thought, he'd love Women with Pipes. And naturally, he followed them with Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy. He had two of his old touchstones on the playlist, Sam Larner and Libba Cotten, a Basque madman and some staggering Genoese longshoremen collected by Alan Lomax.
Being assured of his canonical Bible (he was anxious that it be King James) and Shakespeare, Martin asked for a set of Dickens in one volume. His luxury? Necessity: his old guitar.
Nine
*Yes, I realize it was (almost certainly) pre-recorded, but I did enjoy the occasion. Besides, while I was waiting, I found Edmund de Waal's turn. He came with an ivory rat in his pockets, and the woman in her bath. A lovely playlist, as well. Tangibles? He wanted Wallace Stevens and coffee. He'd leave the netsuke to his children, to go on.
18 down of the 19
Damn. Araucaria—John Galbraith Graham—has made a cipher of his own mortality, encoded it for us to solve. Since 1958, he's set the crosswords for The Guardian, and I'd hoped he was immortal. His puzzles are a thing of beauty, elegant and witty, with a sort of Mozartian, Twelfth Nightian cross-dressing playfulness. (Azed, heir to Ximenes and Torquemeda, is a fiend.) And what a lovely chap!
For a few years, like so many English scholars, he taught thankless boys. I love this tribute by his former Principal: Graham "squandered his sensitive taste and knowledge of Classics on 1B Greek with unfailing patience enlivened by rare expressions of nausea."
Nine
For a few years, like so many English scholars, he taught thankless boys. I love this tribute by his former Principal: Graham "squandered his sensitive taste and knowledge of Classics on 1B Greek with unfailing patience enlivened by rare expressions of nausea."
Nine
January 11, 2013
Serendipity!
Thank you,
sovay
, for recommending Robert MacFarlane's The Old Ways. It's a lovely book, and reawakening all sorts of neural pathways in my head, half remembered leys of thought.
Having gone to the library to get his earlier book, The Wild Places, I passed a dullish shelf with one new spine: D. J. Taylor's Bright Young People. I hooked it out and flipped it open on a poem by Brian Howard—a model for Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited—written on "an undated sheet of Gargoyle Club notepaper":
I began it at Eton, but never was beaten
They met my misdeeds with applause
I loathed every game, but they knew, all the same
I was terribly sporting indoors
I was sacked in the spring for the usual thing
So I went up to Oxford, of course
Where they grew rather red, when I laughingly said
That my seat wasn't meant for a horse
So I took no more chances, but gave lots of dances
—And said every goodnight in my bed
Though they all think I'm funny, they're all easy money
After six, at the bar of the Troc
So I've no use for hearties, or debutante parties
I can get SO much tighter in tights
I can shave as I sin, I'm the scourge of Berlin
I'm the boy that was blackballed for White's.
And thank you,
rushthatspeaks
, for recommending Margery Allingham. I've been having a mystery fit lately, and having worked my way through Tey and Sayers, I was seeking what I might devour. Thank you, great university library, for keeping light fiction in cold storage. Having failed to find her first titles on the shelves, I went looking online for ebooks and found this amazing site. All the Campion books for $16.50! All Ngaio Marsh likewise! And Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot! With other classics and oddities. And yes, they're real: at least, I've downloaded the Allingham package (they send epub, mobi, and pdf versions of each book), and it looks swell.
Nine
sovay
, for recommending Robert MacFarlane's The Old Ways. It's a lovely book, and reawakening all sorts of neural pathways in my head, half remembered leys of thought.Having gone to the library to get his earlier book, The Wild Places, I passed a dullish shelf with one new spine: D. J. Taylor's Bright Young People. I hooked it out and flipped it open on a poem by Brian Howard—a model for Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited—written on "an undated sheet of Gargoyle Club notepaper":
I began it at Eton, but never was beaten
They met my misdeeds with applause
I loathed every game, but they knew, all the same
I was terribly sporting indoors
I was sacked in the spring for the usual thing
So I went up to Oxford, of course
Where they grew rather red, when I laughingly said
That my seat wasn't meant for a horse
So I took no more chances, but gave lots of dances
—And said every goodnight in my bed
Though they all think I'm funny, they're all easy money
After six, at the bar of the Troc
So I've no use for hearties, or debutante parties
I can get SO much tighter in tights
I can shave as I sin, I'm the scourge of Berlin
I'm the boy that was blackballed for White's.
And thank you,
rushthatspeaks
, for recommending Margery Allingham. I've been having a mystery fit lately, and having worked my way through Tey and Sayers, I was seeking what I might devour. Thank you, great university library, for keeping light fiction in cold storage. Having failed to find her first titles on the shelves, I went looking online for ebooks and found this amazing site. All the Campion books for $16.50! All Ngaio Marsh likewise! And Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot! With other classics and oddities. And yes, they're real: at least, I've downloaded the Allingham package (they send epub, mobi, and pdf versions of each book), and it looks swell.Nine
January 10, 2013
January 9, 2013
Betrothal
I felt like drawing this week, for the first time in nearly three years. So I worked on Master Corbet, whose face had been the merest sketch, unfinished until now. I'm rather pleased with him. His child bride was not.
Nine
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