Thea Harrison's Blog, page 25

Seven Days of Winter Solstice Giveaways-Day 4

As seen in True Colors, the Elder Races have their own winter holiday celebration called the Masque of the Gods, which culminates in the Festival of the Masque on the winter solstice. For the next week, join us in celebrating the Masque with seven days of winter solstice giveaways. Every day you’ll have a chance to enter to win a gift pack that includes one copy of Lord’s Fall, a bookmark, dragon soap made by Thea Harrison, a coupon for 30% off the Elder Race novellas (including True Colors), and a holiday card from Thea. To enter, just comment on the daily posts and then enter your information via the Rafflecopter form (embedded in the post or click on the link). You can get extra entries by signing up for Thea’s newsletter and tweeting about the giveaway.

Once again, thank you all for your interest in Thea’s novels and happy holidays!

“The Burial of Punchinello,” ca. 1800 by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo.
Tiepolo created a series of drawings illustrating the “life” of Punchinello, a stock character in the commedia dell’arte.
Drawing in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

The Commedia dell’Arte

The commedia dell’arte flourished in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy and France. While the bauta and moretta were Venice’s most common masks, many masks for the Venetian Carnevale were taken from commedia characters. Basically the commedia was a mixture of what we would today call vaudeville and improvisational comedy. The players in a commedia would use stock characters and situations to comment on contemporary events and politics.

There were tons of characters in the commedia, each with their own personality and costume that usually mocked real-life “types”: aristocrats, doctors, immigrants, merchants, and so forth. Some of the more famous characters you’ve probably heard of were Scaramouche, Pierrot, Pulcinella, Innamorati, and Harlequin.

A drawing of Pantalone by Maurice Sand, c. 16th century.
Image c/o wikipedia.

Some characters “belonged” to certain cities and became the symbol for its citizens. Harlequin spoke the dialect of Bergamo, a town in Lombardy. Venice’s stock character, meanwhile, was Pantalone or Pantaloon. Pantaloon dressed like a foolish old merchant in a red costume, black cape, and red Turkish-style slippers. The Pantalone mask had a hooked nose, and the actor playing him usually hunched his shoulders and always spoke in a Venetian dialect. The word Pantaloon is said to be a combination of pianta lione, “to plant the lion,” referencing the symbol of Venice’s patron saint (of course, no one REALLY knows where the name came from). Pantalone is known for being avaricious, paranoid, patriotic, and obsessed with conquering the world through trade. As Peter Ackroyd writes in Venice: Pure City, “He represents Venice’s uneasy conscience.”

If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because the commedia may have passed in popularity, but its characters did not! Mr. Burns on the Simpsons, for example, is a perfect example of Pantalone carrying on in a modern setting, right down to the hunched shoulders.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the beginnings of opera and the music of Venice. Today let us know what stock character you’d invent for the commedia to represent your own city in the comments!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, you must enter using the Rafflecopter form. Winners will be randomly selected and notified by December 23rd. All contest entries close December 22nd at 11:59 MST. This contest is open internationally.

Seven Days of Winter Solstice Giveaways-Day 3

As seen in True Colors, the Elder Races have their own winter holiday celebration called the Masque, which culminates in the Festival of the Masque on the winter solstice. For the next week, join us in celebrating the Masque with seven days of winter solstice giveaways. Every day you’ll have a chance to enter to win a gift pack that includes one copy of Lord’s Fall, a bookmark, dragon soap made by Thea Harrison, a coupon for 30% off the Elder Race novellas (including True Colors), and a holiday card from Thea. To enter, just comment on the daily posts and then enter your information via the Rafflecopter form (embedded in the post or click on the link). You can gain extra entries by signing up for Thea’s newsletter and tweeting about the giveaway.

Once again, thank you all for your interest in Thea’s novels and happy holidays!

“Il Ridotto” by Pietro Longhi, c. 1741. Here you can see both men and women wearing the most common Venetian Carnevale costume, the bauta. Women in the background are wearing the moretta mask.
(Work in the collection of the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo)

Traditional Venetian Masks

A Thursday paper was folded on a Barbie doll-sized dinette table, alongside an open box of holiday decorations with an elegant feathered and sequined half-mask perched on top.

-from True Colors by Thea Harrison

You can’t have a carnival without masks and today, just as in the heyday of the Venetian Carnevale in the eighteenth century, creating masks is the most profitable business in Venice. Yet the half-masks with glitter and feathers, or masks that imitate animal forms, are not the traditional Venetian masks that were worn during the original Carnevale. These were relatively plain masks whose forms frequently referenced death or mockery.

Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel [i.e Dr. Beak], c. 1656.
Image c/o wikipedia.

The first types of masks that appeared during Carnevale were called medico della peste, masks with long noses that were usually white. These were used all over Europe to protect people from the plague, and typically denoted plague doctors. The noses would be stuffed with herbs that were supposed to filter out the miasmas believed to cause the plague. Perhaps because of Carnevale’s associations with death, or perhaps because the plague struck Venice during a Carnevale, this became a popular mask for revelers. The bauta is a variation on the medico della peste which became the recognizable mask of Venice. It has a square shape, long nose, and no mouth. It’s usually paired with a cape and tricorn and is very effective at hiding the identity of its wearer.

The traditional Carnevale costume of Venice is the bauta: full white mask combined with a tricorn hat and cape.

Both men and women wore bautas, but if you were a woman looking for a little–ahem–adventure, you’d wear the moretta, a black oval mask with no mouth. Unlike the bauta, the moretta masks makes it very difficult for the wearer to speak, and impossible to eat or drink. This wasn’t a mask you’d wear for long stretches of time or for going casually about the city; it was for quick assignations at the casino or a ball.

Traditional Venetian masks, then and now, are made by painstakingly layering strips of paper into a mould with glue (called papier-mâché, although this isn’t the papier-mâché you’re probably familiar with from childhood craft projects). Some masks were also moulded out of leather, although these were less common. Mask makers following the tradition craft of Venetian masks still thrive in Venice and show off their artistry in exhibitions and festivals around the world.

Tomorrow we’ll discuss the characters of the commedia dell’arte, but today let us know which of the traditional Venetian masks you’d wear–the bauta, the medico de peste, or the moretta?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, you must enter using the Rafflecopter form. Winners will be randomly selected and notified on December 23rd. All contest entries close December 22nd at 11:59 MST. This contest is open internationally.

Seven Days of Winter Solstice Giveaways-Day 2

As seen in True Colors, the Elder Races have their own Christmas celebration called the Masque, which culminates in The Festival of the Masque, a masked ball that takes place on the winter solstice. For the next week, join us in celebrating the Masque with seven days of winter solstice giveaways. Every day you’ll have a chance to enter to win a gift pack that includes one copy of Lord’s Fall, a bookmark, dragon soap made by Thea Harrison, a coupon for 30% the Elder Race novellas (including True Colors), and a holiday card from Thea. To enter, just comment on the daily posts and then enter your information via the Rafflecopter form (embedded in the post or click on the link). You can gain extra entries by signing up for Thea’s newsletter and tweeting about the giveaway.

Once again, thank you all for your interest in Thea’s novels and happy holidays!

A masked performer during the modern-day Carnevale in Venice, near the statue of the Tetrachs, St. Mark’s Square.

Life’s a Stage: the World of Carnevale

Today many places in the world are famous for their carnivals, but Venice’s Carnevale was the first, brightest, and most comprehensive. It started as an event officially sponsored by the state in the 12th century, but its roots go back to ancient pagan festivals.

Carnevale in Venice wasn’t strictly scheduled as it is today. It could happen at any time before the start of Lent; and by the the 18th century, it lasted six months out of the entire year. During Carnevale, anyone who appeared in public wore a mask: tourists, beggars, artistocrats, and even the Doge himself. One visitor to Venice described seeing a mother in a mask nursing a masked baby! The play, anonymity, and unreality of Carnevale gradually became part normal life.

To say Carnevale was a world of unreality would be putting it mildly. When people wore masks in Venice, their identities were completely subsumed into the characters they were dressed as. Beneath the Carnevale masks, everyone in Venice was equal: men and women, paupers and princes. It was actually illegal to unmask or even touch someone on the streets (a law that was completely unenforcable), and tourists who donned masks and didn’t act like the characters of the mask (usually borrowed from the commedia dell’arte) were beaten in the streets. Shakespeare may have meant “All the world’s a stage,” as a metaphor, but in Venice during Carnevale, it was the literal truth.

Napoleon outlawed Carnevale when he conquered Venice in 1797 and, having annexed it into his Kingdom of Italy, put a period on the history of the oldest republic in Europe. The Carnevale as we know today was revived in 1979 as a way to attract tourists, and is a low-key imitation of the Carnevale that used to exist in Venice. It’s sponsored by corporate backers, not the state, and is essentially a costume party devoid of the social and political implications Carnevale used to have. Yet in a way, the pure commercialization of Carnevale was inevitable. It’s always been a way to attract tourists to the city and a symbol of the uniqueness of Venice; now more so than ever.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the traditional masks of Carnivale. Today, to enter the contest, leave a comment on this post and fill out the Rafflecopter form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, to enter the giveaway you must use the Rafflecopter form. Winners will be randomly selected and notified December 23rd. All contest entries close December 22nd at 11:59 MST. This contest is open internationally.

Seven Days of Winter Solstice Giveaways-Day 1

Welcome to the first day of Thea Harrison’s seven days of Winter Solstice giveaways! The Elder Races have their own Christmas celebration called the Masque, which culminates in a masked ball on the winter solstice. For the next week, join us in celebrating the Masque with seven days of giveaways. Every day you’ll have a chance to enter to win a gift pack that includes one copy of Lord’s Fall, a bookmark, dragon soap made by Thea Harrison, a coupon for the Elder Race novellas, and a holiday card from Thea. To enter, comment on the daily posts and then input your information via the Rafflecopter form (embedded in the post or click on the link). You can get extra entries by signing up for Thea’s newsletter and tweeting about the giveaway.

Once again, thank you all for your interest in Thea’s novels and happy holidays!

A Christmas tree made out of glass in Venice.

What Happens In Venice Stays in Venice

In True Colors, the first of the four Elder Race novellas, the Festival of the Masque culminates in a masked ball at Cuelebre Tower. If there’s any place and event famous for its masks in the real world, it’s the Venetian Carnevale. In centuries past, the Venice Carnival was similar to our modern-day Las Vegas in more than one way.

Anonymity–During Carnevale, people who went out in public wore masks, and the anonymity the masks afforded extended to everyone from tourists to the lowliest beggar to the Doge himself. People could do things without any social consequences. Peter Ackroyd writes in Venice: Pure City, “There were assignations. There were betrayals… Pleasure is addictive.”
Gambling–It’s said card games were invented in Venice. While that’s probably a legend, it is true that Venice was Europe’s first mecca for gambling, with the first modern casino: the Ridotto.
Tourism–Venice has had a tourist-based economy for centuries, ever since Carnivale started in the 12th century. People from all over Europe and Asia would come to see the event.
Sex–Prostitution was common in Venice; in the 17th century, Thomas Coryat estimated there were twenty thousand prostitutes in Venice. As in Nevada now, prostitution was perfectly legal in Venice and used as a selling point to attract tourists to the city. Prostitutes had their own guild and paid taxes to the state.
Geography–Like Las Vegas, Venice is a city that shouldn’t, geographically speaking, exist. Venetians turned a lagoon into a maze of buildings and bridges by sinking wood posts into the Adriatic and balancing their buildings on top of them.

As you can probably tell, Venice was a place where nearly every vice and sensuous pleasure could be found. It was a city where everything was a commodity, and Carnevale gave people an excuse to behave with impunity.

Stay tuned tomorrow to find out more about the Venetian Carnevale. Today, to enter the giveaway, tell us what first comes to your mind when you think of Venice!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, you MUST enter using the Rafflecopter form. Winners will be randomly selected and notified December 23rd. All contest entries close December 22nd at 11:59 MST. This contest is open internationally.

Blog Post: New Winner from the LORD’S FALL Release Day Contest

Hi folks!  I didn’t hear from the winner I had picked on Tuesday, so as promised, the new winner from today’s LORD’S FALL release day contest is Barbara Elness!

Congratulations, Barbara!  Email me your mailing address (no P. O. Boxes, please) at:  thea@theaharrison.com.

Happy reading, everybody!

Thea

Become an Ambassador for Thea Harrison

Hello, readers! We’re starting a new group for Thea’s fans that we hope you’ll want to be a part of. If you love Thea Harrison’s novels, you can help spread the love by becoming one of her Ambassadors! As an Ambassador, we will ask you to share links about Thea’s new releases, giveaways, and author events online; share your opinions about her novels on sites like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and GoodReads.com; and give out promotional swag items to your favorite readers or local organizations such as libraries and bookstores.

 

In return, you’ll receive:

Access to an exclusive Thea Harrison Ambassadors FB Group and Twitter account.
An Ambassadors-only newsletter.
Access to exclusive giveaways.
Book swag
Exclusive web badges, banners, and desktop wallpaper.
First opportunity to be part of new release blog tours, including giveaways and interviews (bloggers only).

 

To become an Ambassador, please fill out the form here. There are limited spaces available, so if you’re interested, don’t hesitate to sign up.

 

Also, don’t forget that whether or not you want to be an ambassador, you can start signing up for Thea’s newsletter to receive exclusive excerpts, photos, giveaways, and news. Just click on this link to go to the sign-up form, or use the embedded form on the contact page.

 

Thank you all again for your interest in Thea’s novels! We’re hoping to make the Ambassadors a fun and rewarding group for Thea’s fans. Let me know if you have any questions. (Tasha, Thea Harrison’s assistant)

 

FAQ

Do I have to be a blogger to sign-up?

No, but you do have to have at least 3 social media accounts where you’d be willing to help spread the word about Thea’s books.

Are Thea Harrison’s Ambassadors an international group?

Yes!

How many times will I be asked to share links?

Not very often–mostly we’ll want you to post about new releases.

 

Any other questions or concerns, please e-mail info@theaharrison.com!

Blog Post: Winner from Today’s Contest

The winner from today’s LORD’S FALL release day contest is Patricia!

(In case there are other Patricias who entered, the winner’s email starts with:  “missp…”)

Congratulations, Patricia!  Email me your mailing address (no P. O. Boxes, please) at:  thea@theaharrison.com.

If I don’t hear from the winner by the end of the day on Friday November 9th, I will give the prize to someone else.

Happy reading, everybody!

Thea

Blog Post: LORD’S FALL Release Day Giveaway, Please RT

Hi folks!

I’m going to keep this blog post short, simple and sweet.  You can help me celebrate the release day for LORD’S FALL tomorrow!

I’m going to give away one complete set of the Elder Races novels to someone.  It’s that simple.  Comment here for a chance to win ONE copy of ALL five Elder Races novels.

WHEEEE!!

Yes, this contest is international.  Yes, I’ll sign the books.  As I always do, I’ll pick the winner with random.org, and announce it tomorrow, Tuesday, at 12 noon MDT, which is 2 pm EST.  I’ll announce the winner here on my blog, and if I don’t hear from him/her by 5:00 pm on Friday the 9th, I’ll give the prize to someone else.

Easy-peasy!  Oh, and one more thing:  only comments here on my website blog will be accepted as contest entries.

That’s it!  Have fun, folks!  And a big thank you to readers for making this giveaway possible.

Love,

Thea

Blog post: I’m starting a newsletter!

Some fun news – I’m starting up a newsletter!  You can find the sign up form on the Contacts page, the Blog page and all blog posts.

Currently we have plans for putting out a newsletter about six weeks or so before each new release.  Perhaps we’ll end up putting out a newsletter more frequently, but this is a new venture, so we don’t want to overreach.

You can sign up to get access to exclusive photos, contests and excerpts, and the first look at things like extras, flash fiction and other content that will eventually end up on the website!

LORD’S FALL giveaway winners

Here are the twenty winners of the LORD’S FALL giveaway!  CONGRATULATIONS, WINNERS!!!

If the winner’s name was a common name, I’ve added the first digits or numbers of the winner’s email address to clarify.  This was to protest people’s privacy while still being specific about who won.

Remember, I am going to the post office tomorrow morning.  I need to have your address in my inbox BY 9 am MDT / 11 am EST, or I will give the book to someone else.

Winners please send your mailing addresses to:  thea@theaharrison.com.  No post office boxes, please.

My heart goes out to those currently in the hurricane Sandy’s path.  I hope people have been able to enjoy the giveaway in spite of the storm.

~~~

WINNERS

Lynette Obermeyer

ErickaS – ericka10….

Teresa (teresamead)

Cheryl Anderson – whitd….

Stacy – chamel….

Mary – mbear….

Natasha H – Tasha_……

Linda Trzaskoma

Jeannie – Jamaxy….

Tasha – Tashady….

Angela – nynian….

HellyBelly

Samantha B

Naomi Lindsey

Mary Ann Wright

Sharonda – mslo….

Julie Szabo – htej….

Deanna Brady

Milly Taiden

Cheryl Sanders