Robin McKinley's Blog, page 149
November 25, 2010
PRC Weekly Update – Black Bear
Thursday, November 25, 5 pm EST
We had a great weekend of parties last week (reports on Indianapolis and NYC are forthcoming) and we've got more great ones coming up. Check out this awesome* flyer put together by the folks at the Urbana Free Library!
Wow. Just... wow.
This totally knocked my socks off. Click here for a direct link to the library's website. I swear, librarians are a force of nature. :)
****Happening THIS WEEKEND (and early next week)!*****
Burbank/LA — Saturday, November 27, 8:30 am at the Porto's in Burbank. All are welcome! We don't have a thread for this–please contact the organizer via email at winterois [at] hotmail [dot] com if you're interested. Organizer: Alex C., via email.
Anchorage, Alaska – Saturday November 28, 4-6 pm at Title Wave Books. Book club meeting, but others are welcome! Organizer: Corrie
Invercargill, New Zealand–November 28, 7:30 pm. 181 Tay St., Invercargill. This is a writers group meeting, but other book lovers are welcome! Organizer: Zerlina.
Quebec, Canada – November 29, 1 pm, at a private home; more people are welcome!! ***NOTE Email Address for details has changed!**** Please email Bonnie at bonnielynnholmes [at] hotmail [dot] com Organizer: Holmes44
****NEW!!!****
Manhattan, Kansas — November 30, 7pm at the Waldenbooks in Town Center Mall. I am told there will be dense chocolate cookies, hot tea, lemon punch, and all manner of goodies–the store is making this part of their holiday shopping push! Organizer: Victoria L. via email. If you need further info, email me at whiteape [at] whiteape [dot] net and I'll put you in touch with her.
Upcoming Worldwide
Toronto ONT, Canada — December 3, 7 pm at the Select Bakery, 405 Donlands Ave. Organizer: Manga
Denver Metro area – December 4, 2:30 pm at the downtown Tattered Cover. Meet at the entrance on the 16th St. mall side. Organizer: Catlady
Birmingham, England — the Birmingham Waterstones, December 5 at 11 am. Meet, eat, talk books, and then go to the German Market! Organizer: Southdowner
Central NY/Northern PA/Toronto — Proposed for December 5 at the Borders in Syracuse. Organizer: Cmarschner
East-Central Illinois – Saturday, December 11, 1 – 4 pm. Urbana Free Library, Urbana Illinois. Cupcakes will be provided! For more info on the event, you can click here. Organizer: Rhymeswithcarrot
San Francisco Bay area – Saturday, December 11, 3:30 pm at Crixa Cakes in Berkeley. Organizer: Equus_Pedus
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia —December 11, a picnic in Kamesburgh Gardens at 3 pm. There will be loads of delicious food, blankets, chairs, a card table, and there's a service ring in the nearby bell tower at 5:30. Organizer: B-Twin_1
Sacramento — Saturday, December 18. 3pm at the Borders Books on Fair Oaks Blvd. in Sacramento. Organizer: Sarahkp
Chicagoland – probably at a location in Schaumburg, date/time is under discussion. Organizer: Apple
Los Angeles/Orange Co – proposed for late December, no location/time as yet. Organizer: Peanut
Dallas – Proposed in forum for late December, several responses but no firm date/time yet. Organizer: livvispatula
Oslo, Norway — proposed in forum, one response suggesting late December. Organizer: Re Williams
Proposed PRCs
If you're interested in one of these locations, please post in the forum threads or email me and I'll put you in touch!
Edinburgh/St. Andrews, Scotland
Baton Rouge
Phoenix
Boston/Brookline
Florida Panhandle
Rexburg, Idaho
Kent, England
Christchurch, NZ
Barcelona, Spain
* Awesome! AAAAAAAAAWESOME!!!!!
November 24, 2010
Guest blog by Jeanne Marie – Kansas City PRC
Saturday, November 20th, Jeanne Marie, Emory, Rachel and Christin got together at the Country Club Plaza Barnes and Noble in Kansas City to celebrate Pegasus!
right to left: Rachel, Emory, Jeanne Marie, and Christin
The bookstore was amazingly helpful – they had purchased REAMS of copies of Pegasus, and set up two tables, one for books and one for cookies (freshly baked, yum!) and a thermos of hot chocolate.
Look at all the yummy books and yummy cookies!
This particular Barnes and Noble is four stories high, rather than sprawling horizontally over the landscape, and we were set up on the top floor, in the entryway of the Children's Section, around the corner from Fantasy/SciFi, and along the traffic path from the escalator – perfect!! A kind staffer did announcements for us every 20 minutes, inviting folks to come up and have cookies and talk with us, learn more about Robin McKinley and hear some readings from Pegasus. If was really fun to introduce people to Robin's books! We had all brought various personal copies, and also made a point of swiping bookstore copies from the shelves, for easier access. We were able to make suggestions for folks and their kids based on what they already enjoyed, read excerpts, and hand them purchasable copies!
This is Rachel, pitching Pegasus and Sunshine to this couple - they went home with both!
In between schmoozing with bookstore patrons and talking about Robin's books, the four of us chatted about what we did during the day, library science, other favorite authors, and of course, munched the cookies and gulped the hot chocolate!
Emory, first year violin performance major!
Christin moderates a blog on teen literature, among other fun things!
Rachel works as a Children's Librarian!
Around 8:00pm, we held the drawing for the two posters, won by Emory and Skye, respectively, and the Pegasus copy, won by Luxy.
Emory, proud poster winner!
Skye with her mom, our other proud poster winner!
Lucky Luxy, winner of a copy of Pegasus!
It was a really enjoyable evening , and we were delighted to get together and celebrate Robin and Pegasus!
November 23, 2010
Thanksgiving
Crossing the Atlantic involves the double international date line, didn't you know? So we're forty-eight hours ahead of you Americans really, not five or six or eight. So today is Thanksgiving.
No?
Well, we're having Thanksgiving. Sigh. We're having Thanksgiving today because Peter, who remains somewhat Thanksgiving-challenged, despite twenty years with me, by having been raised in a Thanksgiving-deficient culture, got the duck out to warm up to room temperature before he roasted it, and I said, why have you got the duck out so early? And he said, we're eating it tonight, aren't we? And I said NO, NO, NO, YOU THANKSGIVING-CHALLENGED BRITISH PERSON, THANKSGIVING IS ALWAYS ON A THURSDAY.
So we looked at the duck and we looked at each other, and Peter put the duck back in the refrigerator, and we each surreptitiously counted out on our fingers our best guesses as to the likelihood that a dead duck that had been sitting around at room temperature would then last two more days back in the refrigerator without having gone whiffy by the time it was room temperatured again in prospect of being immediately roasted. Hmmm.
I occupied myself (still slightly distracted by the awful thought of our beautiful duck developing undesirable features by Thursday) foraging for journey routes with the assistance of both the world-wide web and crackly ordnance mappage*. I have to drive somewhere two days in a row. Usually weeks go by and I haven't driven any farther than Ditherington for favourite hellhound hurtles.** Tonight I had to drive to Rumbelow for the tower reps meeting that Vicky managed to manoeuvre me into like prodding a sheep into a squeeze-stall and slamming the gate. Arrgh. All right, a tower rep meeting is to be preferred to a plunge into sheep dip*** but one would have preferred to have been gambolling at the other end of the frelling field.
Tonight's adventure was going to be easy.† I had gaily and carelessly moved on from notating tonight's journey and was staring dubiously at conflicting reports about tomorrow's when my general sense of impending disaster shook itself and settled out into clear separate components, to wit, not only do I have to penetrate deepest Whortleberry tomorrow to take Peter and me to an opera†† but . . . I have a three-hour dentist's appointment on Thursday. My British diary doesn't take note of irrelevancies like foreign holidays, and you seize appointments with the dentist from R'lyeh, who is inexplicably popular, when you can get them. I had to wait two months for this one.
So. We could have the duck tonight, after my frelling meeting, which is not very festive.†††
Tomorrow night we're at the opera. Peter is going to take a sandwich. I'm not sure what I'm doing. I think roasting a duck is probably superfluous.
Or we could have the duck on Thursday, when I can't chew, and it might have gone pathogenically interesting by then anyway. Which is not very festive either.
We had the duck tonight. It was delicious‡.
* * *
* Well, it should be a word
**Especially lately, when I haven't got voice lessons to go to in Mauncester. Whimper.
*** Actually it was pretty interesting, even if there were nine of us out of thirty-odd district towers, and even if I would never have found the place at all if I hadn't stopped at a random house with a light on and asked for directions. KILL GOOGLE MAPS. The woman who answered the door was friendly, and her three dogs loved me, but she didn't know the house I was looking for. What's their name? she asked, reasonably. Uh, I said, staring at the Tower Meeting Agenda. It was signed 'Albert'. Not helpful. It's about bell ringing, I said desperately. Oh! she said, and made a steam-whistle-tooting gesture with one hand. Yes, that's right! I said. Whereupon she gave me excellent directions . . . which included turning down a very long dark driveway which is completely invisible from the main road unless one of the neighbours has told you it's there, and even so you've driven about ten seconds into utter darkness before the hedgerows part and lo, there is a house. Do you know how long ten seconds is when driving into utter darkness down a road you aren't sure is there? Maybe the nice woman is actually procurer for the local evil enchanter and was keeping me talking long enough for her three hairy familiars to check out if I was suitable. Yes! Yes! Yes! they were saying. Yes! This one!
I believe I have blogged about my fearful plan to find some other tower that can teach me Grandsire Triples since we so rarely have a steady Grandsire Triples band at New Arcadia any more. I've already zeroed in on Monkshoodholme as the likeliest candidate. To begin with, this area is overpopulated with six-bell towers, and you need eight to ring triples. Then you need the band to do it with. Then you need a friendly band and an accommodating ringing master to go along with the plan. You need all this within driving distance, in my case after suitable adjustments for hellhounds and ME have been made.^ Monkshoodholme probably meets all these criteria. I've even been telling myself, since Vicky let me out of the squeeze stall on a promise of good behaviour, that I could perhaps further my scheme by chatting up the Monkshoodholme rep at tonight's meeting. I'd be dripping with committed-to-the-future-of-the-Exercise pheromones merely by being at the meeting, how could I not be a desirable pupil?
Of the four hot flashy towers in more or less this end of the district, the ones with lots of bells and more than enough hot flashy ringers to ring them, three of said towers, Rumbelow, Mauncester and Fustian, had sent reps to our meeting tonight. The fourth, Monkshoodholme, did not. ARRGH. Virtue is its own punishment.
However. The fellow from Rumbelow—whose tower I have heard cracking out splendid Grandsire Triples, but I've also been warned off Rumbelow as having evil bells and a band with little patience for ringers not up to their exacting standard—mentioned that they are always desperate for ringers for their second Sunday service ring. Desperate. Hmmmm. The indirect approach would be to accumulate some brownie points and then off-handedly ask about practise nights. . . . Dependent on just how evil the bells are.
Like I have time for a regular second Sunday service ring.
^ I want to learn to ring Grandsire Triples, but not badly enough to pay for a dogminder every week, and the ME wouldn't let me drive that far anyway, especially not if I was planning on ringing too. Also, I still need time to earn a living.
† HA HA HA HAVE I SAID KILL GOOGLE MAPS? KILL GOOGLE MAPS. It doesn't look anything like that on the ground, guys, and there's no symbol for 'long invisible driveway'. I was tweeting forlornly about route-finding this morning and had several people tweet back that I should get satnav. Maybe. The main thing is that I really don't drive enough to make it worth the money. But even in my very limited exposure to other people's they get mixed reviews from me. My latest experience with one involved getting significantly lost in Outer West Purgatoria with Fiona, despite Billy Connolly's voice telling us repeatedly where to go.
I'm not feeling at all sanguine about tomorrow night's campaign.
†† Do I really love opera this much? To drive across continents for it? Well, to drive across a bit of large unpredictable offshore island for it?
††† It was also supposed to last an hour, hour and a half, tops, and was still going strong when I left after two and a half. I got home at 10:15.
‡ Even at 10:30^, and cold.
^ I had to feed hellhounds first, didn't I?
November 22, 2010
Barnes & Noble reviews PEGASUS
Diane in MN sent me this link (thank you!), which I hadn't seen:
If you scroll down to the bottom you will find a good, interesting and thoughtful review of PEGASUS. But before we get there . . . okay, the web and the use of the web are still new and evolving, headlines aren't what they used to be and Google is a thing that didn't use to be at all. So maybe glancing over the pages for anything that catches your eye isn't the way people read for web content—maybe most people just subscribe to bnreview.com, or to Paul Di Filippo, or search for 'Robin McKinley' or 'PEGASUS reviews' on Google, and this isn't as confusing to most people as it is to me. But why doesn't B&N, or Di Filippo himself, have a subheading to the piece that says 'Galen Beckett, THE HOUSE ON DURROW STREET, Patricia McKillip, THE BARDS OF BONE PLAIN, Robin McKinley, PEGASUS'? Or am I hopelessly stuck in an ancient paper technology mindset?*
However. I've now given all of you the link, so please read it. And while Pat McKillip is a buy-on-sight with me and I'm delighted she's got a new book, I don't know Galen Beckett—but after reading about HOUSE and its predecessor I will certainly hunt them out.
And now to PEGASUS. In the first place it's just such a pleasure to be reviewed thoughtfully. I acknowledge that taking time to muse over something is a colossal luxury which most reviewers don't have—reviewing at best pays diddly, and most web reviewers do it for love of reading, and still have to fit that annoying day job in somehow. I'm grateful for every READ THIS BOOK tweet or one-paragraph shout for attention . . . but something like what Di Filippo has done here makes me very happy.
I'm also thrilled that he pretty well leads off with the paragraph in which I describe the pegasi in terms that make it very clear that they are not flying horses. In fact, I'm going to reprint it—yes, again—because this is another of those things that keeps coming up and coming up and coming up and while I'm doubtless preaching to the saved, still it makes me feel better:**
Pegasi looked almost like four-legged birds, standing next to horses. Their necks were longer and their bodies shorter in comparison, their ribs tremendously widesprung for lung space and their shoulders broad for wing muscles, but tapering away behind to almost nothing; their bellies tucked up like sighthounds', although there were deep lines of muscles on their hindquarters. Their legs seemed as slender as grass stems, and the place where the head met the neck was so delicate a child's hands could ring it…
Yep. Got that? Memorised it? Tattooed it on the back of your hand so you can refer to it at need? Great. Splendid. And then Di Filippo says: 'Definitely alien, a bit creepy, and almost insectile. Not your off-the-shelf wish-fulfillment cousins to unicorns.' Italics mine.
I'm drily amused that he can see my world-building as SF-y. I see exactly what he means, and I consider it a compliment; I've said many times that for me fantasy only works—as reader as well as writer—when it's grounded in a world that feels solid, and SF is the nuts-and-bolts, how-and-what-then branch of the imaginary real.*** And I probably approach it in a somewhat SF-y way, which I've talked about in recent interviews: I look around the story-world I'm in and take notes–like a lab tech, if you will. And the stuff I can't see or don't hear the characters talk about, I'll try to triangulate from things I do know. †
Di Filippo says: 'One gets the sense almost that Sylvi is a mutant, the first of her kind in eight centuries, another SF riff.' Huh. A perfectly valid observation, but mutant is such an SF word; as I write Sylvi's story, I'm just thinking about the 800 years of the two species bumping into each other—it has to have an effect. Someone like Sylvi was going to have to happen some day, or the Alliance would eventually break down—although an 800-year treaty is pretty good going by human standards—I'd say it would have splintered at the point that either side stopped hoping for or believing in the moment or the person (human or pegasus) when they could talk to each other directly. But there's always someone who's found a way to take advantage of a situation, especially an unsatisfactory, unbalanced situation—and that would be Fthoom and his coterie in this instance. Which is why there's a story.
Di Filippo says: 'McKinley is explicit that her tale is a parable of race relations. (Did I mention that Ebon is a rare black pegasus?)' Depends on what you mean by explicit: Ebon arrived very much a complete package, and black was part of the package. I didn't mean to do this, and in fact worried about it, worried that Ebon's blackness could be interpreted as a thumping great piece of moralising twaddle—but, those of you who have read PEGASUS, can you imagine trying to convince Ebon to disguise himself as brown or grey or flaxen? Not on. So black he remained. At the same time, De Filippo's point is again valid and while as I keep saying the story is the story and I'm just†† writing it down, I'm aware of the parallels between one mixed lot of folks in Sylvi's world having trouble communicating across a complicated barrier and another mixed lot of folks in our world having similar problems.
And finally he says: 'Another subtext that is acknowledged glancingly, but is just as vital, is that of Sylvi's adolescent sexual awakening—and interracial sexual awakening at that.' Yes. Well. Ahem. Yes, I do think Sylvi and Ebon's relationship is hellishly sexually charged . . . and a week or something ago THE FRELLING ENDING OF PEG II JUST BLEW UP IN MY FACE AGAIN so I am right back to not being sure what happens.††† Di Filippo is not the first person to comment on the romantic subtext, although he may be the first to do it without snickering and suggesting I've painted myself into a corner. I keep telling you it's not up to me. The story's not worried. So I'm not worried either. Much.
* * *
* And while I'm complaining, why is there only a single featured title from the essay in the right-hand column? Why aren't BARDS and PEGASUS included?
** I was at least half-resigned to fighting the PEGASI ARE NOT FLYING HORSES battle, but I was—and am—not at all resigned to the continuing tide of will there be a PEG II queries. Every time I get another clutch of them I ask Blogmom, who is also my webperson, to hang yet another banner saying PEGASUS II COMING IN 2012 somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. The queries are still coming in. WTF? There's now one of those banners immediately above the contact email button on the web site . . . but the emails are still coming. It would take less time to look around either the blog or the web site than it takes to write me the email. Arrgh. And I'm still amazed that so many people don't recognise a broken-off story when they see one. Of course that's not the end! Good grief. However, there will be a line or a paragraph in reprints of PEG I that PEG II is on its way which should finally stem that tide.
But for those of you who want to abuse and berate me for doing something so inexpressibly horrible as to write a cliffhanger and inflict it upon my audience . . . pffft. I'm not impressed. Life is what happens while you're making other plans. Stories are what happen when the writer loses control. You want safe and predictable, there are plenty of cereal-box backs out there.
*** When I was a mere slip of a young thing—and still went to SF&F cons regularly—there was often a fair amount of needle between the SF camp and the F: they thought we were fey and feckless, and we thought they were dour and dull. Perhaps this is inevitable, and rivalry is supposed to be healthy and inspirational and all, but I'd personally much rather it went away. There are better things to strive over—and certainly some of the old boundaries are blurring; there's a lot of urban 'fantasy' that could just as well be urban SF, alternate history, eh, it's often both, and the steampunk I like usually has some fantasy feel to it.
† Mind you I have a slight sense of 'what other way is there?' but I'm probably suffering tunnel vision.
†† 'JUST.' AAAAAAAAUGH.
††† You guys don't really have to worry. This is not the first time this has happened to me. It won't be the last. I may be dangling from the ceiling and throwing oatmeal at the walls by the time I turn PEG II in, but I will turn it in, and it will have the ending it's supposed to have. Gah. Be glad for your nice job as a bricklayer or maths tutor or microbiologist. You don't want to be a writer. There's way too much screaming involved in being a writer.
Postscript: If, however, you're hanging on for the graphic interspecies love scene, don't bother. While the nearest I've got to graphic sex was some pretty kinky semi-trans-species^ stuff in SUNSHINE, thus clearly indicating that I'm a deviant, it's not going to happen this time, okay? Please leave quietly.
^ Okay, what's a vampire? Homo sanguinis potor?
November 21, 2010
The End of the Birthday, Part l
So I was going to write you a closely reasoned, deeply perceptive, fabulously illuminating essay on the origins of the universe and the evolution of human consciousness.*
And then I got sidetracked into writing a series of emails about bell ringing. Some fiend** emailed several of us who are varying degrees ahead of her on the path to surprise royal***, seeking advice . . . and of course there was the most awful bottleneck as we all rushed to respond. And then respond to each other's responses. And then . . .
But wait . . . I am saved. You're all waiting for the End of the Birthday photos!
. . . Although it may yet explode in tears and bitter recriminations when I can't make the new rules for foiling WordPress' nasty little text-wrapping habits work. But we gird our key-pressing fingers for battle and . . .
The unglamorous restaurant photo. Aren't you sorry you asked. However please note signs of festive debauchery.
You noticed the bouquet, right? Just in case you didn't notice it enough.
It's all about the necklace really. The only reason you're even getting the unglamorous restaurant photo is because I wanted to show you the necklace. One of Peter's more amazing presents from some years back. One of the few pieces of jewelry I can't really bring myself to wear with jeans, but I get it out and fondle it pretty regularly.
Golly, is this central with caption thing really going to work??? It can't be this easy. I'm sure something with fangs and a bad attitude is lurking in a corner somewhere.
* * *
* You know. The usual thing for Days in the Life.
** You Know Who You Are
*** Don't ask. It's enough to know that it's scary.
The End of the Birthday, ll
Herewith a brief sprint through highlights of the non-Peter part of my birthday.
Favourite birthday card. I'd like to know who has the patent on those 90 degree angle turns however. I assume there are some hydraulics involved in getting something out of the bottom of ths stack??
Mitts. Ahem. Of a profoundly satisfying magenta pink.
More ahem. Roses.
You noticed it was roses, right? Just in case you missed that it was ROSES.
Hee hee hee hee hee hee.
Sometimes words fail even me.
And yes. It works.
PS: I have no idea how to correct typos in captions after I've already stuck the photo in the blog post. So we'll just have to live with a little additional irregularity.
November 20, 2010
Ghostly handbells and public blogging
The Saturday Radio 3 opera* is finally drowning out the sound of ghostly handbells. I seem to have rung an awful lot of handbells this week and since I only know bob minor on handbells I have a bob minor tune groove in my brain that is threatening to bifurcate me.** The really annoying thing about this is that yes, you can ring by the tune . . . if you're good enough. EVERYTHING about handbells is if you're good enough. I will never be good enough. All that happens with me is that I think, uh, the tune doesn't sound right, and while I'm wondering if it's just that I've rolled down the wrong fork in the tune-groove*** . . . I go wrong. Again.
I went to bed at what should have been an acceptable hour toward being awake, coherent and post-hurtle at 10 am this morning for Niall to pick me up and whisk me off to Jericho or thereabouts, but it hasn't worked out quite as planned. Furthermore Niall got all despotic and exigent and made me ring not merely the tenors, which is bad enough, but the three-four—the middle pair. I wasn't allowed on the trebles even once. Granted that Titus, who has to ring with only one hand, has the right to prefer the lightest pair of bells—but—waaah.
However. I am somewhat mollified by wearing my splendid new pink pullover.† And Peter says I'm dragging this birthday thing out way too long and when am I going to post the glamorous restaurant photo? Well . . . if there were a glamorous restaurant photo . . . but maybe tomorrow. Maybe. If I can't think of anything else.
* * *
* Handel's Radamisto, since you ask. Very twiddly.^
^ Radawho? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vkp5t
** One of the resulting twain is going to be handbell FREE.^
^ What a good thing Niall doesn't read the blog. He wouldn't like even a fantasy of a handbell ringer not ringing handbells. However I'm starting to get a trifle jumpy about the number of times my bell friends who know about my secret alternative life as a professional story-teller mention that my blog has turned up again in one or another of the various bell threads. Yes of course there's a lot of method-ringer activity on the web. We're all geeks, remember? It goes with the territory. I mean: um. But it wouldn't be any fun, writing about bells or anything else if I were serious all the time.
Aaron responded to this line from yesterday's blog:
I'm mostly used to the weirdness of yakking away about my life on line and in public and I haven't (yet) woken up sweating at 3 am and thought Why did I tell them that?
I grapple with this even as a forum poster. From the other, more public end, it must be materially more strange. I try to approach my posts as if I were talking to a couple of friends. . . . The idea of invisible (imaginary?) friends is in any case a bit slippery . . . [forum] readers include people with whom I have had no return contact at all. In the real world it is usually possible to have some idea of how far your voice is carrying. . . . I can't decide if seeing some of the local folk in the flesh at a PRC would reassure me as to the reality of situation or emphasize the difference between half a dozen of us talking over cake . . . and the echoless space of the forum.
Yep. That nails it pretty well—from both sides of the forum, yours and mine.^ I have the additional weirdness of private emails from people who read the blog who, having praised/lambasted me for whatever, tell me about their ocelot farm or their mother's recipe for chocolate kebobs as if I had a clue^^, and sign off saying that they hope the hellhounds are doing well and I finally got the new door for Third House.^^^ What? To some extent this sort of thing starts happening as soon as your first novel is published—or your first symphony is performed, or your first art show goes public, or anything else that has a bio of the creator attached—and the hellhounds appear thusly named on my book jackets. But the intimacies of Third House require someone read the blog. And a blog does raise your public profile to an order of magnitude roughly approximate to the leap between your pocket torch and Eta Carinae—which is what it's for if you're something like a professional writer. But . . . gah. I'm an introvert, you know? I'm hyperventilating about this tower rep meeting Vicky seems to have inveigled me into—represent my tower? Are you kidding?
So you have to get your head around the public blog/web presence boondoggle somehow that means you aren't saying ouch all the time. And while the obvious basic principle is some form of the Golden Rule: Do unto yourself worse than you do unto anyone else^^^^, the really really weird thing is that a public blog can actually help with the pathological privacy fetish, if you're a little careful and a little lucky. Take my loathing of the author photo, which I've arrghed about here. What I've always hated about author photos is they lie. They freeze some tiny misleading aspect of you and go forth into the world giving everyone who's curious—and anyone who isn't curious wouldn't be turning to the author photo—the idea that the tiny misleading aspect they represent is you. With something like a blog not only are your personal words getting out there^^^^^ as well as your professional ones, but you can frelling photo bomb till any of the curious are sick to death of you and aren't curious any more. I'd hang more photos of me if I could ever remember to ask people to take them (ugh) and/or Peter didn't panic as soon as I hand him the camera (sigh).
Really it all comes back to my obsession about Othering. You can't Other someone, for example, an author, if you recognise that they're a human being too. Not that this is an insert tab A into slot B situation; this blog is still only one cranky cow's mooings, and even when I'm getting it right I can only do what I can do. I still get a lot of the wrong kind of weird mail, including from blog readers—but it's a start. And it's a permanently open door—both from the forum side and the post side. And I like that. Yes. For all the grind—and the terror—of a blog, I like the door, and the sound of the Othering monolith crumbling a little around the edges.
^ I am going to tell you, oh go on, go to your PRC. I'm scarier than most of my readers+, okay? If you're fearlessly posting to my forum—which you are—you will find a mere three-dimensional cake party a . . . er . . . cakewalk. You can put a bag over your head for the group picture if you want.
+ Mooooo
^^ Although I'd probably be pretty interested in the chocolate kebob recipe
^^^ No.
^^^^ which still leaves you slightly worried about whether your lesser victims will get your somewhat twisted sense of humour. It's not like I'm good at being teased. Ask Peter or any of my friends. So my judgement here may be unreliable. Something to worry about at 3 am.
^^^^^ Some of them, carefully selected
*** Because every one of those nasty 'bob' and 'single' calls changes the tune because it changes the order of the bells. I can ring a plain course by the tune. Unless of course I zone out and forget which pair of bells I'm ringing. You can't win, you know. Handbells are a nightmare. Either you're struggling from split-second DING to split-second DING to remember what the hell you're doing and where the seventy-four snaky bell-pattern lines you're trying to keep track of have got to now^ or your mind wanders for a third of an instant because you do know what you're doing . . . and you have just time to think the tune's wrong and then you crash and burn.
^A bell in each hand is far more than merely two bells, and this has nothing to do with any nonstandard anatomy of handbell ringers+
+ I wonder if Hindu tradition has ever invented some form of change-method ringing? British change ringing is British, and (I believe) full-circle tower-bell change-ringing was invented here, and everyone else who's picked it up has picked it up from a Brit. But Kali/Lakshmi/Ganga/anybody in six-arm mode could ring handbell minor all by herself.~ Fancy Kali bearing down on you, blue-black, red-eyed, and scary as frell . . . brandishing handbells instead of severed heads, glittering blades, and flaming chainsaws. There are days when I'd find the handbells more threatening.
~ And in ten-arm mode, royal.
† Even if I did have to point out to my husband that I was wearing it.
November 19, 2010
A Double Arrgh Day
No, triple arrgh.
But first. 16 November is retreating fast into the twilight of history. And I know at least one person is going to come
after me with a harpoon if I don't tell you what was in those fancy parcels. Allow me a digression first however.* I've been doing the daily blog thing now for three and a bit years. I'm mostly used to the weirdness of yakking away about my life on line and in public and I haven't (yet) woken up sweating at 3 am and thought Why did I tell them that?** But every now and then the extremeness of the weird clonks me one. It was one of those clonk moments when I realised that while I will blither on about my presents, because blithering is what I do, there's no need to explain any of them, because regular readers will recognise them all instantly as familiar manifestations of McKinley's personality.*** Starting with the posy of white roses sitting beside my computer.†
And moving on briskly to the revelation of contents. The only thing even faintly in need of elucidation is ASHES TO DUST . . . but it's a book, isn't it?††
For the rest, eh. The one Peter called a mistake is the pink one. Is the man mad? But, he said feebly, you already have a pink jumper. What does that have to do with anything? I replied.
The black cardigan with the banner of flowers thrown diagonally across its front is one of the divineliest pretty things I have ever seen. When Peter said he needed something to give me for my birthday I handed him the catalogue immediately. This one, I said. I've wasted a lot of digital whatever trying to get a good close-up of it; the flowers are embroidered, so they're tactile as well as . . . pink. But the black background is that really shiny pima yarn which reflects like anything so my photos keep coming out with a grey haze over them.††† This one isn't too bad.
And then . . . Stephen Sondheim. I've been mooning tragically over the complete score to SWEENEY TODD for 
years, for no good reason. Complete scores are grotesquely expensive but I could have afforded one. ‡ I think I thought it would be cheek in an odd sort of way: I like to include, say, Messiaen and Benjamin Britten in my composing influences, but that's manifestly absurd and therefore harmless. Sondheim, for better or worse, is pretty much hands-on literally an influence, and getting my hands on a Sondheim score would be too much like taking myself seriously. But Sondheim turned 80 this year and is all over the place being feted and celebed‡‡—and has published FINISHING THE HAT‡‡‡, which has the delightfully explanatory subtitle: Collected lyrics (1954-1981), with attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.§ For that I would want to read it even if I didn't want to read it.§§ Peter asked me if I'd like HAT for my birthday and I said yes, and then I inhaled sharply and added: WouldyouliketobuymethecompletescoretoSWEENEYTODDtoo?
Which has had totally the expected effect§§§ of making me pull out some of my Finale [music software] files and start making terrible noises.# Which brings me to my triple-arrgh day.
Arrgh No. 1: Frelling Niall rang me this morning## and somehow managed to convince me to ring handbells tomorrow morning with Titus. Arrrrrgh. He's pumping this 'all my regular ringers are in Lapland chasing reindeer/ Somalia chasing gerenuk' pretty dranglefabbing hard. He could have got Theophrastus together with Titus, it seems to me. Hmmph. Anyway. He is a bad man and I have no will power (which was the gist of my reply). This will be the third time I've rung handbells this week.
Arrgh No. 2: We were suddenly, unexpectedly, and somewhat dismayingly awash with good ringers tonight at tower practise . . . and it's been months since I had a chance to ring Grandsire Triples and I totally frelled the freller. Totally. Frelled. Kill me now. Arrrrrgh. The second try was slightly better. A little. I also screwed up calling my siimple-minded touch of bob doubles. ARRRRRRRGH. But I was probably a little distracted tonight, because . . .
Arrgh No. 3: I took one of my longer and knottier terrible noises, washed, brushed and revised to make it more fearful, to Oisin today and he screamed a lot as he tried to play it.### He then fixed me with a large, glittering, Ancient-Mariner sort of eye~ and said, This needs to be orchestrated, you know. No! I didn't know! I don't know anything of the kind! Orchestrated! AAAAAAARRGH.
* * *
* You will allow me a digression, won't you?
** That 'waking up at 3 am' is an oxymoron is beside the point.
*** And how weird is it to be hanging photos of your birthday presents on line at all?
† Well, why not white? We'll get to something pink soon enough.
†† I used to read armsful of murder mysteries; not so much any more.^ But I like the ordinary-people-rising-to-extraordinary-circumstances thing, right? I've been talking about it in various of the recent spate of interviews. Which to my eye all mysteries are, pretty much by definition, even police procedurals (which I like, especially when the crack detective is a single mum with three kids or similar). And this book has had some very flashy reviews. We'll see.
^ A digression for another evening.
††† Okay, a four arrgh day
‡ If I simply didn't buy any books for a few months I'd recoup.
‡‡ Should that be 'celebbed' do you think?
‡‡‡ Which is a line from his SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, George being George Seurat, the Impressionist painter. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. Or you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_in_the_Park_with_George
§ Another big gloppy Sondheim fan reviews it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111903355.html
§§ And here's an eyecatcher from a first browse. He's talking about the song Anyone Can Whistle, which includes the lyric: What's hard is simple,/ What's natural comes hard./ Maybe you could show me/How to let go,/ Lower my guard . . . and he writes: ' . . . musical-theater rhapsodists have appropriated it as my personal statement. . . . To believe that "Anyone Can Whistle" is my credo is to believe that I'm the prototypical Repressed Intellectual and that explains everything about me. Perhaps being tagged with a cliché shouldn't bother me, but it does, and to my chagrin I realize it means that I care more about how I'm perceived than I wish I did. . . .' Yep. I know about this. And he gets a lot of points in my account-book for saying so.
§§§ No, not practising my Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett imitation in the mirror
# Almost as terrible as my Angela Lansbury imitation
## Almost late enough. I wasn't very asleep.
### I only do it to annoy because I know it teases. Actually, I don't, but I do enjoy the screaming.
~ Unhand me, greybeard loon!
November 18, 2010
Chocolate and Cheddar (Black Bear)
I know you're all dying for a post about the Pegasus Release Celebrations of November 13-14! Luckily, I am at your service in this regard. Behold, wonders galore!
Our Knoxville event went very well, boddhi_d tells me, but she's having a busy week so pictures will have to wait. We did however get some great pics from Kim A. in Vancouver. You can read her lovely blog post about it here, and below are her photos! They managed to go with both the letter and spirit of Robin's blog, meeting at a pie shop to talk about books and opera, then repairing to a classy chocolatier, and ending the event at a bookstore.
Last but not least, our Lowell, Mass. folks got together for a visit to the Quilt Museum (I'm wildly jealous) and then repaired to cgbookcat1′s place for a feast of epic proportions. While I've not got photos as yet, Skating Librarian has kindly provided us with her recipe for cheddar tarts from the event! Enjoy–and I look forward to providing you with accounts of this coming weekend's PRC's (including my own hometown) sometime next week!
PRC Vermont Cheddar tarts. an improvisation
Filling:
8 oz. (or more )Cabot Extra sharp cheddar, or other good sharp Vermont Cheddar, grated
2 large eggs
1 c. half and half
2 tsp. Herbes de Provence (more or less)
Tart shells:
1 1/2 c. flour ( I used 1 c. King Arthur whole wheat and 1/2 C. King Arthur
unbleached white, but Bob's Red Mill gluten free Baking Mix is cool too)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. shortening (your choice, I used Crisco)
1/2 c. shredded cheddar
Ice water and a tablespoon
Mix your dry ingredients, then cut in the shortening and cheese until you
have a crumbly mix. Start sprinkling on the ice water … I would begin with about 4 tbsp. water and mix with a fork until the dough begins to hang together, using more water if needed.
Decision time …. roll it out as you would a pie crust and cut into small circles to line muffin tins or tart pans OR press a thin layer onto the bottom and sides of said tins.
I prefer to roll it, thinking it's flakier that way. Chill for an hour or so for flakier / more tender crust (or not).
Mix the filling ingrdients and scoop into the prepared unbaked crusts.
Bake at 350 degrees until the filling is firm. The amount of time will depend on the size of your tins. I would start checking after 20 min.
A mashed potato/cheddar crust is also nice … and gluten free … or just mashed potato to lower the fat. I also use fat free half and half and Cabot's low fat cheddar for the filling when I'm in that way of thinking … onions are nice if no one objects … or diced tomatoes … or crumbled bacon .
Pegasus Party Update 8 (Black Bear)
Thursday, November 18, 8 am EST
We've slowed down the update schedule a bit, as things are changing a bit less fast-and-furiously than they were at the start. But here you'll find a schedule of what's coming up! Remember, you can always email me at whiteape [at] whiteape [dot] net to be put in touch with a PRC organizer from the list below, or you can contact them via our forum. Please note we've got a Friday evening event going on in Manhattan this week; also note that the time of the Anchorage, Alaska PRC has moved back one week.
PRC Organizers, remember once you've set a date and time you need to email me with your shipping info so I can get the Amazing Anna to send you some goodies!
****Happening THIS WEEKEND!*****
Manhattan – Friday, November 19, 6pm. Irving Place Coffee in Manhattan. Organizer: Kathy L., via email.
Central Indiana –Saturday November 20, 1:30 –3:30 pm in the cafe at the Clearwater Crossing Barnes and Noble. They're having a book fair that day–extra added incentive to come! Cupcakes from The Flying Cupcake may possibly make an appearance. Organizer: Black Bear
Kansas City – Saturday, November 20, 6-8 pm at the Country Club Plaza Barnes and Noble. The store will be providing snacks! Organizer: Jeanne Marie
Upcoming Worldwide
Burbank/LA — Saturday, November 27, 8:30 am at the Porto's in Burbank. All are welcome! We don't have a thread for this–please contact the organizer via email at winterois [at] hotmail [dot] com if you're interested. Organizer: Alex C., via email.
Anchorage, Alaska – Saturday November 28, 4-6 pm at Title Wave Books. Book club meeting, but others are welcome! Organizer: Corrie
Invercargill, New Zealand–November 28, 7:30 pm. 181 Tay St., Invercargill. This is a writers group meeting, but other book lovers are welcome! Organizer: Zerlina.
Quebec, Canada – November 29, 1 pm, at a private home; more people are welcome!! For details, please email Bonnie at b_dmccallum [at] hotmail [dot]com Organizer: Holmes44
Toronto ONT, Canada — December 3, 7 pm at the Select Bakery, 405 Donlands Ave. Organizer: Manga
Denver Metro area – December 4, 2:30 pm at the downtown Tattered Cover. Meet at the entrance on the 16th St. mall side. Organizer: Catlady
Central NY/Northern PA/Toronto — Proposed for December 5 at the Borders in Syracuse. Organizer: Cmarschner
East-Central Illinois – Saturday, December 11, 1 – 4 pm. Urbana Free Library, Urbana Illinois. Cupcakes will be provided! For more info on the event, you can click here. Organizer: Rhymeswithcarrot
San Francisco Bay area – Saturday, December 11, 3:30 pm at Crixa Cakes in Berkeley. Organizer: Equus_Pedus
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia —December 11, a picnic in Kamesburgh Gardens at 3 pm. There will be loads of delicious food, blankets, chairs, a card table, and there's a service ring in the nearby bell tower at 5:30. Organizer: B-Twin_1
Sacramento — Saturday, December 18. 3pm at the Borders Books on Fair Oaks Blvd. in Sacramento. Organizer: Sarahkp
Chicagoland – probably at a location in Schaumburg, date/time is under discussion. Organizer: Apple
Los Angeles/Orange Co – proposed for late December, no location/time as yet. Organizer: Peanut
Dallas – Proposed in forum for late December, several responses but no firm date/time yet. Organizer: livvispatula
Birmingham, England — the Birmingham Waterstones, time/date TBD. Organizer: Southdowner
Oslo, Norway — proposed in forum, one response suggesting late December. Organizer: Re Williams
Proposed PRCs
I'm condensing the ones that haven't had recent activity on the forum, just to get these blog entries a little less lengthy. If you're interested in one of these locations, please post in the forum threads or email me and I'll put you in touch!
Edinburgh/St. Andrews, Scotland
Baton Rouge
Phoenix
Boston/Brookline
Florida Panhandle
Rexburg, Idaho
Kent, England
Christchurch, NZ
Barcelona, Spain
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