Gillian Polack's Blog, page 70

Chaim Potok

The Many Shades of Jewish Culture

I need to re-read Chaim Potok.

My first reading of Potok was very positive. I was about seventeen or eighteen and the worlds he described were exotic and alien. I was impressed by his level of invention and the way he described alienation. I couldn't wait to meet the man.

That summer, there was an arts and crafts and literature camp for Australian Jewish university students in hot, dry Bacchus Marsh. Someone had found funding from somewhere and Potok was the international guest of honour. I wasn’t just going to meet him — I was going on camp with him. I walked around in a daze for weeks, wondering what it would be like. I made sure I had My Name is Asher Lev and The Chosen both re-read and packed. I was ready.

Before I talk about the very interesting events of that camp, I need to make my own background clear. On paper, Potok and I had similar backgrounds. What I didn't know was that there were two sheets of paper: they had the same words, but the pieces of paper themselves were quite, quite different. I am (or I was then) 100% wholly Orthodox Jewish. I am (and I was then) umpteenth-generation Australian. We kept kosher, but my father worked on Saturdays. Australian Orthodox was different to US Orthodox (it probably still is, but I haven't compared them recently).

I was a typically privileged Jewish undergraduate. I fitted right in at Melbourne University. My privilege was not US privilege. My privilege worked something like this: when I turned up on the first day of university, I did the duty thing (known as ‘keeping Mum happy’) and went up to the Jewish Students’ stall and paid my membership and respects. The President of the society said “Hi, Gillian. My mother and your mother said you'd turn up. I'm to take care of you.” I was suspicious, and with reason. “Taking care” meant I got put on the committee and did all the lifting and carrying and making things work. It also meant, however, that I got over my shyness quickly and that I was ripe and ready to go on camp.

That camp changed my existence in many ways. It was where an editor asked for my first piece of fiction to go in his magazine. It was where Serge Liberman explained to me how evocative writing could work and how it was perfectly legitimate to stay awake at night wondering about a word. It was where Felix Werder taught me to love Mahler. It was where I found out what a very fine human being John Bluthal is. I did not, however, discover the Chaim Potok I expected to discover.

In defence of Potok, he had a bad case of flu and an even worse case of jet lag. This was at a time when very few people from the US understood Australian culture, which is also important. Additionally, Potok’s sense of privilege was not the same as mine. Nor was his education style. He wanted to talk to us under a tree, him standing and us sitting, cross-legged. He wanted strong listeners and much thought. He wasn’t really comfortable with arguments.

What do you get when you bring a bunch of Aussie students together on camp? Arguments.

We thought it was intellectual discourse, because most of us were eighteen or nineteen and sometimes the level of intellectual discourse must have been phenomenal, but often we just argued, amicably. The notoriously pathetic argument was whether we should rip all the toilet paper up in advance for Shabbat, because some of the participants were very frum and others were missing their bacon for breakfast. In the end, that argument was decided hut by hut. Mine went Ultra-Orthodox and my sister’s didn't.

Argument amongst ourselves was fine. Potok understood the need for us to fret out every small idea within ourselves and find out where we stood. We were Jews who had grown up in a very secular world, after all. And we came from right across the spectrum of the Australian Jewish community, so our horizons had gown just by us mixing with each other. The Progressive Jews didn’t know what hit them the Saturday night someone put on Time Warp (the song from Rocky Horror) and twenty-one young Ultra-Orthodox men, in their Shabbat garb, jumped up and did the dance.

Potok didn’t know what hit him when we argued with him. “Excuse me,” I asked once, standing because sitting at his feet under a tree was just not comfortable in 100 plus degree heat, “Can you tell me what your sources were for your Roman history? It’s just that you contradicted something my lecturer said last year.” He looked puzzled and a little affronted. “Suetonius said . . .” I continued.

He walked away. I think mine was the only conversation he actually walked out on (and he was ill, don’t forget, and we were stroppy) but after day three, Chaim Potok jokes abounded. The jokes were petty, but we were undergraduates and not entirely nice, and we found them funny.

He came back a few years later and was much loved. I’ve often thought back, however, to the dynamics of that first encounter between young Aussie undergraduates and Potok. Since then I’ve had the privilege of meeting Ultra-Orthodox rabbis and I can see where he was coming from. His educational technique was different to the ones we were used to. Almost all of us on that camp belonged to a secular world, because this was Australia thirty years ago. We might have respected him better if we had understood that.

He was very generous with his time (except for that once, with me, obviously — I think the moral of the story is that if you're going to walk away, make very sure that the person you walk away from never turns into a writer). He was also munificent with what he told us. Not many of us were able to appreciate this at the time: I certainly didn’t.

Despite the fact that he and I had obviously not hit it off, he sat down next to me at dinner. I didn’t mention Roman history and I was scrupulously polite. Also very nervous. What if he walked away again?

The thing that struck me the most was how very Observant he was. Like many of his characters, he was scrupulous in his observance of ritual. I come from a different form of Orthodoxy, so I knew the ritual and observed when others did, but wasn’t fretted if I missed a blessing or two. I did the full Grace after Meals with him after most of the others had left, then he talked.

He struck me as a very conflicted man. He wasn’t as confident as he had looked, those first few days. Australia had, somehow, pushed him off-balance.

The thing I’ll never forget is what he said about his religion. This is the man who wrote My Name is Asher Lev — one of the great books about internal conflict within a Jewish family. I asked him why he chose a crucifix for the controversial painting.
“There are Jewish symbols,” I said.

I didn’t know then that so many people have told him that. I’d read his books in a vacuum. Unlike Potok, my Jewish education came almost solely from the home: I’d gone to state schools. Where Potok had spent most of his developmental years in Jewish environments, I’d spent mine outside the borscht belt. I’ve had to fight to be Jewish outside the home since I started pre-school, in fact. Our questions about life were different. Our lives were different. This was obvious when Potok said, impatiently, that no, there were no Jewish symbols that carried nearly as much strength as the crucifix. It was a question of suffering.

I kept my mouth shut. I disagreed with him, vehemently, but I also realised that it was his belief in this that caused the cross to work so very well in the book.

That moment taught me something I needed to know about the power of writing and I’ve carried that with me ever since. There are Jewish symbols that are just as powerful as the cross. But these are symbols that have power for me. I’d used them and clung to them when I’d had to deal with problems of non-acceptance and bigotry. If he didn’t feel their power, if his life hadn’t given them to him in this way, then he couldn’t use them. If he had felt them, he would have written a different novel entirely. The deep conflict in My Name is Asher Lev depends on that symbol being so very wrong for someone Jewish.

The conversation moved on while my brain was still processing. Chaim Potok — who had just finished a set of religious activities to formally conclude dinner — then admitted to me that he was probably an atheist. If not at atheist, then at least an agnostic. He did the rituals as an act of preservation and identity.

I was torn by this. It was not something I was capable of understanding at that point in time.

I didn’t get him to sign the books I had so carefully brought with me. I found I couldn’t. In fact, in a moment of rebellion, I asked John Bluthal to sign them. After all, John Bluthal had told me stories of Spike Milligan.

My excuse now is that I was eighteen then. Now I’m nearly fifty, I think back to how very fortunate I was to have discovered that Potok and I lived on very different planets. How amazing it was that he gave me the key to understanding his writing so quietly, after dinner one night.

I wouldn’t be him, for the world. He was inhabiting a cold universe when I met him. His fiction shows me how he negotiated that chill place. If he were still alive, I’d thank him. He might not have been good with Australian undergraduates in summer camp, but he was without doubt a generous teacher.

gillpolack @ 2014-04-14T09:06:00

Sam Faulkner is one of the guests at the CSFG meeting on Wednesday. She's the friend who checked my time travel novel to make sure my character wasn't a nasty pastiche*. I'm talking big about heckling her and asking difficult questions (to her directly, not in general - if there is a stir that can be stirred then I tend to feel it's incumbent on me to find a spoon), but the truth is that she's wonderfully composed and deals with such things so well that it will be a wasted effort. So I shan't.

I was told that the evening was going to be talking about cultural appropriation and sensitivity and I thought "How wonderfully timely, to talk about these things during Pesach." Pesach has nothing to do with it. The evening turns out to be all about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander matters. Which is good and essential and will be totally fascinating, but still leaves Canberra as a place where, if one is a practising Jew, one is an outsider. Which just confirms things.

I shall take matzah latkes along. And I shall return Sam her Christmas pudding basin (for she is the lovely friend who gave me a miniature pudding and thereby made my last not-holiday period so much less fearsome). And I shall learn from Sam and Lisa, both of whom are lucid and thoughtful and have much to teach. And if anyone offers me food, I get to explain that "Chol HaMoed isn't a free pass to eat unPesachtic" which will confuse nice people who just want to feed me and don't really care about my calendar. Which this time is pure stirring.

Things are much nicer than December last year because a bunch of my friends are coming round to celebrate with me. None of them are Jewish, so they're going out of their way, which is lovely of them. Also, I was given a special shopping trip yesterday, so I have matzah. Also... my kitchen bench is half done. My hands are somewhat raw, but I shall reach 3 pm. And I shall have a gorgeous first seder, surrounded by people I love. And... there's a child coming who hasn't seen any of the usual tricks before. Elijah! Afikoman!

Later today, as your Pesach treat, I'll re-post the piece I did on my Chaim Potok encounter.

For friends who celebrate, Chag Sameach in advance. For friends who have a full Easter-tide, may the merry bits be merry and the doleful bits be thoughtful and the whole thing be glorious. For my pagan friends, enjoy the Full Moon. And to all my other friends, have a lovely week. Enjoy the eclipse (which starts, appropriately, with Pesach in my timezone), eat chocolate, etc.





*He wasn't, thank goodness - this means it's entirely possible to write people who come from vastly different backgrounds to myself, as long as I do it with care and affection and sufficient understanding. In other words, one of the types of research I'm writing up into my book in the non-Pesach weeks of the current year (so the research one does to make hsitory work in a novel, also works for people from different cultural backgrounds to oneself, which makes entire sense and next week N and I will create a diagram to express this precise process). If I put out an appeal for more weeks in a year, would that help me get my book done?

gillpolack @ 2014-04-13T23:24:00

I have a long list of things to do tomorrow and it's mostly cleaning or cooking. I'm behind on my cleaning and my cooking. Actually, I'm only behind on cleaning and that's largely because of all the packing and sorting I did last year. It has ramifications, does this sorting and packing and diminishing possessions.

I didn't think so many of the ramifications would be in the kitchen, but they are. I have flat spaces where none have existed for years, and those flat spaces...need cleaning.

I have until 3 pm tomorrow. Wish me luck! Also wish my skin luck, for cleaning is an adventure for the allergy-prone.

Wine fight!

I once did a summary of an old French poem extolling wines. It started off as a full translation. Alas, there was so much typing for so little plot arc that I wimped out. I’ve re-edited and added more notes and I've had some thoughts about it. Originally I was mainly excited by the evidence it gave for the wine varieties that abounded in thirteenth century France. Then I fell in love with some of the images. Right now, however, my interest is rather more mundane. Let me start with the wine fight itself, and then I’ll talk about this oddly mundane interest.

The wine fight

The poem starts off calling the audience to attention.
VOLEZ oïr une grant fable
Qu'il avint l’autrier fus la table
Au bon roi qui ot non Phelippe,
Qui volentiers moilloit fa pipe
Du bon vin qui eftoit du blanc.

King Phillip is thirsty. He needs wine. He’s also fussy. Not just any wine will do him. He wants the best, and he wants the best to be white. The wine must be not too young. The value of wine in Medieval shipping records suggests that old wine was not valued either, so the wine must be neither too young nor too old. Somewhere between a season and a year old, perhaps?

The bulk of the poem is a list of wines that might match the king’s needs. A wine that matches the king’s desires might not be a wine that rhymes easily, however, so occasionally other elements creep into the poem. My personal favourite is the explanation that a wine from Cyprus is not at all the same thing as beer from Ypres. Beer wasn’t one of the wines fighting, but Ypres and Cyprus made a rhyme and got the Henri d’Andeli (the poet) out of a hole.

Henri d’Andeli grouped the wines by region (roughly) which made for a confusing list. Some places had similar names. To me this says loudly that the poem was for listeners who knew their stuff. They knew their wine and where it came from. I’ve alphabeticised the list, but left the names in Old French. The wines, lined up for the fray:
Angouleme
Anjou
Anni
Argences
Argentueil
Ausois
Aussai
Autel de Tauçons
Auxerre (Medieval happiness may well have been a bottle of this)
Aviler
Beauvaisis (two wines!)
Bediers
Betesi (Héron suggests this may be either Béthisy-Saint-Martin or Béthisy-Saint-Pierre)
Biaune (I recollect a Medieval family surname from Beaune; it translated as “Who doesn't drink water.” Imagine signing your documents as Adele Who Doesn’t Drink Water or Raoul Who Doesn’t Drink Water.)
Bordiaus et Saintes
Carcassone
Chablis
Chagni
Chalons
Chambly
Chastel Raoul
Châteauroux
Espernai le Bacheler
Flavigni
Gastinois (either the modern Gâtinais or Gâtine)
Goditouet
Hautvillers
Ile-de-France (3 wines—the king's local brands)
Issoudun
Jargeau
La Rochele
Lassy
Le Mans
Melans (possibly Milan)
Meulan
Montmorillon
Montpellier
Montrichard
Moselle
Mossac
Moussele
Narbonne
Nevers
Orchise
Orleans (a way popular wine at that time, according to a note by Héron)
Palma
Plesence
Poitiers
Provence
Rains
Rennes
Saint-Brice
Saintes
Saint-Jehan d’Angeli
Saint-Melÿon
Saint-Pourçain (this wine also got a lot of Medieval press)
Saint-Yon
Samois
Sancerre
Savigny
Sézanne
Soissons
Spain (note how Spanish wines were generic, but French named according to town)
Tailleborc
Tonnerre
Tors
Treneborc
Trilbardou
Verdelai
Vermendois
Ysoudun

The wine of Argentueil was as clear as tears of sorrow (“Qui fu clers comme lerme d'ueil”), the poet says, which moved a wine-lover to declare it best of all. Naturally, this led to physical rowdiness and some name calling.

This is where I detour to talk (briefly) about the fine art of Medieval insults. It was indeed a fine art. The low ones and the ones that did not appear without base intent were the scatological. Then there are the ones that appear in epic battle scenes. They can be graded according to effect, with the strongest and most powerful being an immediate incitement to fight and focussing on the seven deadly sins and on proper behaviour. It was not a good thing if someone called you a treacherous liar, but it was much worse to be called a glutton or the son of a prostitute. The most appropriate insult in the context of a wine battle was one that included two of the seven deadly sins: “son of a gluttonous prostitute,”—filz a putain glouz!

The French wines fought well. When their alcohol content was put into doubt, they boasted about their flavour. The effects of alcohol were discussed and the battle finally came to an end after three days and three nights with no sleep but with an inordinate amount of drink.

Why I was interested in the wine fight

I was looking at an e-text of life in early Australia today. It was somewhat slow and turgid. Not easy to read aloud. It popped up when I was hunting some astronomical information for the twelfth century (which was research for fiction, so my work was a novel and my not-work is . . . I need to stop dwelling on confusion). Then the wine tale appeared and started muttering in my head and I needed to get it out of my mind so that I could get back to that 1181 supernova. The best way to get something out of my brain is to write about it. I hand it over and let someone else’s brain take the burden for me.

There aren’t that many seriously cool secular entertaining texts that have survived from before the fourteenth century. Compare them to the administrative/legal texts and to religious texts and there hardly seem any at all.

Some of them are particularly loveable. Several of those adorable texts come from the hand of one writer in particular: Henri d’Andeli. “La bataille des vins” by Henri d’Andeli (preserved on folios 21-232 of Bibliothèque Nationale manuscript number fr. 837). What, after all, is sweeter and more charming than a bunch of wines toughing it out and rendering people drunk in the process. It’s like walking into a bar and there’s nothing on this earth more adorable than a bar. Although, I have to admit, it’s not the alcohol that's so very gorgeous: it's the way it talks.

When I first read this small tale, it struck me that it started like a chanson de geste. The precise words that begin the wine fight are: “Volez oïr.” I generally explain them (when someone asks) as “Shut up and listen, you plebs.” It really means “Be pleased to hear,” but that’s far too polite and I can’t deal with too much courtesy at once. However it’s interpreted, those words point to listening. They’re not really the same formula as the one that typically leads into an Old French epic legend, but they’re close. They’re close for an important reason: they instruct the audience to listen.

It’s the notion of hearing and texts that fascinates me. We read the wine fight. We read most books. Even when we have children and it’s bedtime and there’s reading, we often describe it as ‘reading to’ someone. For us, reading is about the eyes.

In Old French stories, it’s about the ears. The first words alert us to this, and the fact that so many stories are in verse just hammer it home. Verse sounds different. When the first V miniseries was written, the writer claims he used iambic pentameter to make it work better for the ear (I like watching the extras on DVD collections—one of my besetting sins). He knew what he was doing. He temporarily switched a massive television audience over from visualising words in their minds’ eyes to listening to them like narrative music.

The wine fight text doesn’t use iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter requires beats, and Old French is not so conducive to that. It mostly measures in syllables. Eight syllables a line. Rhyming couplets. Not a complicated scheme. It’s very good for the ear, though.

It starts off as “Listen to this story” and so we do. We know that it’s going to be easy to follow because eight syllables ending in a rhyme lends itself to simple writing. (I want someone to rewrite Ulysses in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, just to see what happens to it.)

It also lends itself to short sharp sounds and to hurried clashes and to frenzied lists. Another of these Old French poems I love describes the street cries and street vendors of Paris: again, short sharp sounds, but without the hurried clashes and the frenzied lists. It’s a form that carries a surprising number of options.

That’s what I was thinking about today, underneath the wanders from book to book. I like the sound of words. It’s one of the reasons I love books. And all the wonder of modern technology means that our access to that sound is increasing.

I’ve taken to teaching sound as part of the way I teach writing. A poor writer (who was suffering being edited by me) was once forced to undergo a spontaneous exercise in the middle of a big shopping centre. She had a beautiful ear and a rich aural imagination. She had been taught to write for the eye only. She was translating from the ear to the written word and diluting her gift in the process. I made her listen until her words sang the way she dreamed them. Without Medieval poetry I might not have known what was wrong. A simple satirical poem that mostly listed wines helped change how I teach writing.

The question I have is which current writers do what Henri d’Andeli and turn an orderly dinner into a drunken array of half-empty bottles? I shall keep my eyes peeled and my ears aware. When I discover writers who are particularly splendid at drawing us in with the sound of their prose, I might have to report back.

Books mentioned in this column:
Les Dits d'Henri d'Andeli ed. Alain Corbellari (Champion, 2003)
Oeuvres de Henri d'Andeli, trouvère normand du 13e siècle, ed. A. Héron (Imprimerie de Esperance Cagniard, 1880)

gillpolack @ 2014-04-12T16:09:00

My excellent news is that my pelvis is properly engaging now when I walk. I didn't hurt at all for the first half mile and then only in bits for the second. Now I have to rest on my pool noodle, but it took a mile and a half of walking-with-groceries-and-books to achieve this. This means the end of the one-sidedness is close! (And I'll have less to whinge about.)

The other good news is that a friend is helping with a replacement supermarket trip, which means there should be matzah in my Pesach. Only one supermarket in this city stocks it, and Mum's local was out on Monday and we both forgot to go somewhere else on the way home, for my weather sense was giving messages about impending rain (which is much nicer than impending doom) and Mum had washing on the line.

I still have an impossible amount of work to do this next few weeks, but somehow it seems less impossible with matzah and with so much less pain. And imagine being able to walk down the street jauntily! (Also, my weather sense was handy, for I was able to shop in the peak warmth of the day, which meant t-shirt and sandals - it's getting cool and clammy now, but that's fine, for I'm at home. Someone ought to keep me as a house pet, just for this capacity to say "Two more hours of sunshine - take advantage of it.)

gillpolack @ 2014-04-11T17:30:00

I got the storms early this week. In fact, I predicted them (to my mother) on Monday when I was waiting for her. Then I photographed them while flying over them (for Elizabeth, though she hasn't been told this yet). Then I predicted their arrival in Canberra. Then they came to Canberra and here they've been, swirling in and out and leaving me somewhat the worse for wear. I found my emergency coffee, but am not at all certain how I'm going to get to the library tomorrow and do my Pesach shopping and various bits and pieces. Too many little things to do over the next few days to be encumbered by storms and rain and interesting weather events.

The good news is that I managed to shift my furniture all by myself (which was probably not at all sensible, but demonstrated that I'm significantly more able to do such things), so I can actually feed people inside on Monday night (the weather is a bit colder a bit earlier this year and outside is not going to work, however much I'm tempted to annoy my neighbours). The bad news is that the glass top of the coffee table fell during this process and will be consigned to the rubbish just as soon as I find a friend willing to undertake this job. However, if you know anyone in Canberra who needs a big piece of thick (reasonably heat proof) 1960s black glass, for artistic or other purposes, it is theirs as long as they come round to collect it quite soon. Same goes to anyone who wants a coffee table base. (I had a purchaser, but he kept delaying, and now I have no coffee table - just goes to show one must be decisive in this world.)

Now I have a coffee table that extends upwards and outwards to become a dinner table for six people. It has been hiding under paper for years, because there just wasn't space for two coffee tables. Dinner parties!

In other news, I am now the proud owner of a 1920s (possibly 1930s) cigarette holder. My teaching kit is very grateful for the addition. Me, I want someone with vast technical expertise to scrape the inside and analyse the residue for me.

And now I need to sit in front of the television and write 2400 words. If I can just do that, I'll be able to go to the library tomorrow. They're words that can be done in front of noise, which is good. And then I can deal with the worst of the urgent emails. Yesterday I dealt with more than 200 emails, just to get my inbox down so that I could see the remainder. I'm not allowed to go to sleep until those words are written and until that remainder is done. Tomorrow will be busy, but not impossible if I do this.

And yes, I'm wittering, which is a sign, I think, of work avoidance. Also weather.

Etiquette

Dear Abby

I wouldn't mind a morsel of advice.

Some years ago (2007-8), a senior editor of ParticularPublisher asked for a manuscript from me. I'd been talking about it in public and editor-in-question said "Oh! This sounds like one of ours!" Each year I'd ask him how it was going and we'd talk about it and he'd insist he was really going to read it. His life went pearshaped twice during this time, so I gave him leeway. Also, it's a publisher whose books I love very much, and this editor said, every time we chatted how much he wanted my book*.

He left the publisher last year.

I emailed the address I was given for queries about what was happening with his outstanding work and I explained the situation and asked what I should do. I gave the ParticularPublisher the option of not having to look at my manuscript, because sometimes this is the best option for everyone when things have dragged on.

I got an email back saying "Don't worry, you'll be assigned an editor soon. They will let you know what's happening with your ms and will contact you." After much waiting (and a couple of "How is this going?" queries) I had not heard from an editor. I finally sent an email saying "We've been talking for this for many years now and no-one has actually read the ms yet. This is just to warn you that another publisher is interested." Actually, several other publishers have been interested and I explained to each them that I couldn't let them have the ms in all fairness until I had word back from ParticularPublisher, given they got to see it first. (and yes, I had passed this on to the editor, before he left)

I didn't get a reply to this email. They have no publicly accessible email addresses. I emailed the one single editor who I knew face-to-face (as opposed to by name/chat on the intarwebz) and got no answer from her, either.

What can I do? I don't like to just let it sit and find someone else, just in case it *is* in their system and they have reassigned tasks and my email address has gone to the wrong whoever. I think it more likely (to be honest) that they've just forgotten or deleted emails as spam or not wanted to follow up and that no-one sent me a courtesy email.

I don't know, though. If I knew that they were reading my email then, at this point, I'd send them a polite note saying "Thanks for your earlier interest, but..." for I would very much like this book to be published, sometime.

Signed

Bewildered




*One of the reasons I couldn't be as tough-minded as I ought to have been was all this happened when I was seriously ill. I am no longer seriously ill (in fact, I'm reaching the stage where I'm doing perfectly normal everything on those fronts - the back/hip is just a temporary nuisance and doesn't stop me working) and look back and think "I should have just..." but I couldn't, then. Debilitating illness brings with it a peculiar emotional burden, especially when it's carried for more than a few months.

gillpolack @ 2014-04-10T17:03:00

I have a list to end all lists... or maybe just to end me. I have to be caught up on everything I've fallen behind on, and if I don't do it by Monday midday then Passover will be less happy and relaxed than it ought to be. This year I'm doing most of the cooking, too, which means I need shopping trips and all kinds of excitement. So... my list just covers today and tomorrow and only part of my catching up, but it helps. Between now and bedtime tomorrow, I shall have done 20 substantial things. Or else. And then I get to nod politely to myself and start another list.

This is the price of wellness. The price of weather is that I work under a cloud. It's sad, weepy weather, with low-level migraines hovering. Perfect for writing fiction, in fact, despite the fact that fiction is not on my list and that the weather will clear by the time it is.

My life is a serial conundrum. Or maybe just a serial.

For my next trick, I shall do a literature search, and for my one after that, I shall meet on Beastly matters. All going well, both will be finished before dinner.

gillpolack @ 2014-04-10T10:59:00

I had a thought. I know, this is dangerous and I should stop doing dangerous things, but the thought has come and doesn't want to go away.

I was thinking that most of you didn't get to the stuff I wrote for Bibliobuffet (though some of you did) and that it might be nice to put my favorites up here for your delectation. Or maybe your favourites, if you half-remember one and wouldn't mind seeing it again. Three years of essays... I could add the two years of Food History to that and the several hundred book reviews I did for various sites, except they've dated far more. So, just the Bibliobuffet pieces. Not all of them, either. Just the cool ones. Once or twice a week...

This was brought to you by the stiffness of my spine. It's a good stiffness, for it is occurring on both sides (not quite evenly, but close). My body hurts healthily from having had to carry a heavy load of books for a half mile yesterday. Three weeks ago, the half mile would have included a lot of limping and stopping and starting and wailing in pain, and there would have been hurt the next day but the muscles would not actually have been stiff. And they certainly wouldn't have been stiff on both sides of the body. This officially means that I'm over the worst. (Just as well, given I have no more treatment options without being significantly richer than I actually am.)

I never thought I'd be so pleased to hurt so much from simple exercise! For my next trick, I might have a bath full of epsom salts...

gillpolack @ 2014-04-09T17:36:00

Today is wildly contradictory. Some very good things (like my work experience student and I designing diagrams to illustrate conceptual arguments, all the while eating Spanish chocolate and drinking chai) and some really annoying things. I won't go into the annoying things. I shall just deal with them, one at a time.

Tonight I'm back in the Middle Ages for a bit, and also writing about Abercrombie. My book for today is Joy's New Adventure - the latest in the Abbey Girl reprints.

I had other stuff to say and it was witty and intelligent and all kinds of interesting, but I've just discovered my brain is to rent...