Robin McKinley's Blog, page 155

Yet Another Yarn Post, guest post by Jodi Meadows

A continuing epic adventure of socks and spindles and fanciness

Part three: THE WHEELING

Alternate title: In which I finally regain control of my numbering system.

Previous posts in this series: The Yarning, The Spindling, another The Spindling, another another The Spindling.

About a year and a half ago, I bought a spinning wheel and promised Robin a guest post about it. Upon guest post delivery, she asked a million and a half questions that would require several more posts to explain. And so this series was born.

Finally, I'm getting to the post I offered to write in the first place. :P

Okay, so I mentioned I liked yarn and spinning, right? Well, one day, I finished spinning the singles* of a lovely wool/silk mix called Cottage Rose. With the singles finished, I was ready to ply them together to finish the yarn.

And ply.

And ply.

It took a week. For a long time, it looked like I had the same amount of yarn ready to be plied as I did when I started. And honestly, plying isn't bad, but it's not thrilling. Some have even called it boring, because all the drafting** is over.

So I made sad faces at my husband, Jeff, and he bought me a spinning wheel. Conveniently, I'd already done a ton of research on spinning wheels and decided which features mattered to me, and which ones didn't. When the box of spinning wheel goodness arrived on my doorstep (glee!), I immediately opened it and put it together, instead of waiting for help.

I'm glad I did this, actually. It was tricky, but I learned a lot about how the wheel works and what makes it go. My wheel isn't the most complicated of them all (it's actually very uncomplicated), but doing this myself taught me a lot. (I did get Jeff to tighten a few bolts when he arrived.)

This is Bob the Spinning Wheel the day he was born.

You will notice a few key parts. There's the drive wheel — the big wheel in back — the treadles on the bottom, and the flyer on top, which is shadowed here, but don't worry because I have a zillion more photos of it. These are the things that make the spinning wheel work.

We'll do this "the foot bone's connected to the leg bone" style.

The treadles are what you put your feet on. Sometimes there's one treadle, sometimes there are two. I like two, but it's perfectly acceptable to like one. The treadles are connected to a pair of rods called the footmen.

See the metal rods? There's a green thing just on top of them. That connects to a shaft that goes through the wood into the drive wheel. It turns the wheel.

Glance up at the first shot of the wheel again. You can see a band that wraps around the drive wheel and connects to a set of whorls behind the flyer. This is basically a gear system, like on a bike. Every time the drive wheel turns once, the whorl turns five times. Or nine times. Or eighteen times. (There are several whorls back there and you can select which one to use by moving the band a little.)

So. Treadles turn the wheel. The wheel turns the whorl. The whorl turns…the flyer. It's that horseshoe shaped thing at the top.

This part is a little more complicated. The silvery thing on the very left holds the whorls. Connecting to that, there's a rod that goes through the wooden piece and all the way to the front of the flyer. The bobbin (plastic thing with holes) sits on that shaft, and then the flyer (wood piece with metal arms) sits in front of that. The flyer is locked onto the shaft pretty securely. When the shaft turns, the flyer turns.

In this photo, I've threaded the flyer already. The triangle thing in front is called a delta orifice.*** The yarn goes from there, around the hooks, and sticks to the velcro at the back of the bobbin.

When I treadle, all the turning things turn, including the flyer. It adds twist to the yarn I'm holding.

I can draft out fiber and treadle at the same time. And because of something called a brake band — the white band around the back of the bobbin — the bobbin turns at a slower rate than the flyer. It pulls the newly twisted yarn in through the orifice, around the hooks, and wraps it around the bobbin.

From there, you can move the yarn guide**** to fill up the bobbin evenly.

What happens when you've spun all the singles? Here, I have two bobbins of singles in this yarn. I want to ply them together.

(They're sitting on something called a lazy Kate, which seems more practical than lazy to me. Basically it allows the bobbins to turn without you needing to fuss with them.)

When plying, you will need to turn the wheel (or spindle — whichever you're using) the opposite way you used to spin the singles. (I believe I covered the direction you should spin things in my last post.) So if you spun your singles clockwise, you will ply counter (anti) clockwise. This way, the finished product will be balanced.

The spinning wheel will go whichever direction you tell it to. There's no need to fiddle with that. The only thing different you will need to do is thread the yarn so it will wrap in the other direction.

See how the guide is on the other arm now? And the yarn, which was wrapping clockwise in the other pictures, is now going counter clockwise? (If you do it the wrong way, you will mess up your twist. It won't be pretty. Trust me.)

As for how you get both singles in there at the same time — easily! Remember the bobbins on the lazy Kate? In this photo, I'm holding a piece from each bobbin, and then guiding them together so they feed into the orifice at the same time. The wheel is turning, twisting them together, and the only thing I have to do is treadle at an even rate (so one part isn't super twisty and another part is super not twisty) and remember to move the yarn guide.

Yay! It's yarn!

–

*Reminder: Singles are the single strand of yarn. It's definitely yarn, but often spinners will ply one single with another. (Or more. You can have as many as you can stand.) This helps structure, stability, strength…and maybe some other things that don't start with the letter S.

**Reminder: Drafting is the act of drawing out a little fiber into the twist area.

***Most orifices are holes (as the name implies) and require a hook to thread. This one you can take care of quickly with your fingers, which was one of the things I knew I wanted in a spinning wheel.

****I have a yarn guide. Another thing I required of my spinning wheel. Lots of wheels have a series of hooks along the arms instead of the sliding yarn guide. The reason I like the guide is because it allowed me to fill the bobbin more evenly, rather than getting a bunch of mountains where the hooks are, and valleys where the hooks aren't.

Big Rant

 

I have hit some kind of wall about the aggressive off-lead dog problem, but I don't know what to do about it except stand here and bleed (from excessive head-banging).  I've written about this here frequently.  But we're either in a bad patch or it's getting worse.  I tweeted about this earlier today and there's been quite the little outburst in response.*

            I've been aware for a while now that more and more assho—irresponsible dog owners are using the lovely new footpath across the school grounds to let their drooling unrestrained maniacs—henceforth to be known as caniacs**—charge around and get into any trouble they can create.  The favourite caniac stratagem for mayhem is to find another dog to be belligerent at.  Most of them are no more than ugly bullies, which is quite bad enough, thank you very much.  Because you never know:  occasionally one seriously means it. ***   

            This hasn't happened to the hellhounds yet, but it's what I'm afraid of.   It does happen—Vikkik from the forum here tweeted about it happening to a friend of hers just this past weekend, to the tune of a £900 vet bill,† and several other twitterers have said similar.  Meanwhile I am having an increasingly lousy time on our twice-daily hurtles—and I think the same is true of Darkness, who is the thoughtful worrier.  That not all the world is his friend is even beginning to dawn on Chaos.

            Last night we were walking back to the mews across the school playing grounds toward Warlock Gate.  When you first come off the roadside pavement onto the footpath there's a sharp bend around the start of the school-grounds-bordering hedgerow.  You can't see what's coming at you till you get past the end of the hedgerow.  The second to last time we did this is when we were jumped by the monster Alsatian who turned out to be wearing a muzzle—when the owner's girlfriend thought it was hilarious that I was so freaked out.  Which I wrote about here.  Not only does this make her a first-class cow, it makes her a stupid cow—both hellhounds and I react to the body language of this thug long before any of us recognise the muzzle:  and do dogs understand that the Tyrannosaurus punching them with its chest has its teeth glued together?   

            We haven't been through Warlock Gate in a few days.  Then yesterday evening we went that way again.  Rounded the hedgerow corner . . . and ran smackdab into a couple of Norfolk terriers:  little and nasty.  Fortunately they wasted a second or two being surprised, and their owner dove for them.  We stopped while the owner got leads on them, but as soon as we started again, so did they, snarling and flinging themselves at the ends of their leads.  Now, granted, they may be the kind of grubby sods that make a show when they can't back it up—but in the first place terriers usually mean it, and in the second place the owner's dive looked pretty real.  Why were they off lead in the first place?  And, even if they will stay relatively near their human in open ground, why hadn't she put their leads on them before they reached that blind corner?

            So we stalked off down the footpath, I at least in no very good humour.  And we hadn't got fifty feet when I saw another off lead dog and its nincompoop of an owner.  This owner had one of those long flexible plastic arms that throw your tennis ball for you a lot farther than you can, and she was throwing the ball and the dog was fetching it.  Very cute.  I'm not in the mood.  There are dogs who prefer tennis balls to (terrorising) other dogs, but the odds are no better than even.  We turned around and began to skirt round the far side of the field (illegally, just by the way, although lots of people do it).  It's a big field.  Sometimes there are two different lots-of-running-with-balls team games†† going on at the same time.  Last night we had it to ourselves, the off lead dog, the nincompoop, the hellhounds and me.

            I saw the damn dog sprint past his ball toward us . . . and then change his mind and go back for the ball.  Okay, I thought, and breathed a sigh of relief, because the distance between us was now widening. . . . Hellhounds had fallen behind me, and the next thing I knew was a violent jerk on the lead and Chaos was turning around and snapping and snarling back at the caniac who had run the entire length of the field to have a go at us before he lost his chance.  CALL YOUR [un-family-friendly-blog language] DOG! I yelled—nincompoop didn't say or do a thing—I could just about see her in the twilight, wandering aimlessly along the far side of this very big field.

            I particularly don't like it that it was Chaos.  I was only saying the other night that gods help us if my guys start presenting as grown-ups:  one of the reasons we've avoided literal bloodshed so far is because Chaos in particular, who is always the one out in front, still presents as a puppy.  Darkness tends to hedge his bets, stay near me, and bark—and he's mostly sensible enough that if something comes up wagging its tail he relaxes.  He has moments when we've had too many run-ins like last night's when he doesn't trust anyone . . . and, um, once I picked him up because something the size of my hand came dashing up frantically whimpering and wagging its tail and Darkness was having his period or something . . . the little twit shouldn't have been off lead to come running up to other dogs, but I didn't want it scared—possibly into developing defensive aggression itself—either, and it's not like you have a lot of time to plan your strategy in these situations.†††

             That was last night.  This morning we drove out of town.   It's true that some of our paralytically scariest run-ins have been out in the empty countryside, but they don't happen often.  Today we met seven dogs, the first a group of five that we were coming up behind . . . and I couldn't deal with it.  We turned off and went in another direction.‡  And then circling back round, aiming for the gate into the churchyard, some assho—idiot talking on her mobile phone was flinging open the opposite gate from the road without paying any attention, and two great big male Labs came striding purposefully in, saw hellhounds, instantly put their heads, tails, and hair all up and started trotting toward us in the immediately recognisable caniac manner . . . and we made it through the churchyard gate quick as a cat climbing a tree.  Fortunately we had a gate.  GAAAAAH.

             As I've said before, the authorities do not give a damn.  But I'm not the only person this is happening to—I wonder what a few letters to local papers might do to stir up a bit of community feeling?

 * * *

* Which seems to have cost me about 20 followers in a rush.  Ha.  Not dog lovers, then?^ 

^ Just so long as they're not among the dog-owning halfwits I imprecate here.+ 

+ The other possibility is that they're the people who Know What YA Fantasy Is and have dropped me pointedly after last night's blog.  

** I don't care that the Latin is mangled and the coinage fraudulent.  Fooling around with language frequently leads one down paths of unrighteousness.  I like paths of unrighteousness.  The scenery is spectacular. 

*** Most of these do no more than give the odd unaccompanied two-leg a virulent glare—although gods help you if you look back.  Yes, I frelling know that aggressive dogs think that meeting their gaze is a hostile act.  What the hell are dogs like this doing off lead??  And I find it very difficult not to look at something bearing down on me with all its teeth out and its hair standing on end.  Yes, I know to look to one side.  I am looking to one side while recalling that really useful advice to not be frightened because dogs can smell fear.  I had one particularly memorable encounter, during my pre-hellhound post-previous-generation dog-free phase, with some kind of hippo-sized Rottie cross whose owner said that he was a rescue dog and that being off lead built his confidence.  WTF?!?!?  Confidence is not what I'd call it.  Except mine, which is being dranglefabbing destroyed.  

† Yes, the dog is recovering.  Maybe if we ask her nicely she'll tell us more on the not-restricted-to-140-characters forum. 

†† Which ones?  I have no idea which ones.  I can (probably) recognise baseball and cricket because of the specialist kit.  The rest is just running around with balls.  I could (probably) recognise American football, but they don't seem to play it over here.

††† Oof.  (Darkness weighs about five pounds more than Chaos, and Chaos weighs enough.)  But it worked pretty well.  He was very embarrassed.  Know Thy Hellhound.  Picking up Chaos would only be picking up Chaos:  he doesn't do embarrassed.  

‡ I then wasted perfectly good plotting time figuring out which way we were going to go, since our best connecting field is presently full of abominable cows.

Authors and Audiences. And Labels.

 

It starts here: 

http://kierstenwrites.blogspot.com/2010/09/own-it.html

Except that it's not about author self-marketing.  But it was the first of a series of author blog-post links that Jodi* sent me recently, and it is kind of about author self-marketing because it's about being an author and being Out There and Putting Yourself Over and how to manage this.  Or fail to manage it.  Or manage it badly.

            I had also read about Danielle Steele saying that she doesn't write romance and blinked a little.  I don't read Steele and I don't read so-called romance—'so-called' because my take on labels is a little different from White's, which is what I want to talk about—so I thought, oh, okay, well, maybe she's heard it too often as a way to blow her off and she's tired of it, and maybe she was also generally tired when she said what she did because it was her one-billionth interview that week and every reporter had said 'romance' in that way that makes the person something's being said at know they're being patronised.  Maybe she was quoted** badly or out of context, or by a reporter who was so nonplussed (like a lot of the readers of the article/watchers of the interview) by hearing Danielle Steele, Sovereign-Tzarina-Big-Cheese of Romantic Fiction, saying that that's not what she writes that his/her finger slipped on the edit button.  Maybe Steele snapped.  Maybe she'd just had it with being typecast.

            Like, maybe, I've been typecast as a YA fantasy writer.  And like maybe I'm really, really tired of it.  Emphasis on the typecast, okay?   This is the other side of labels.  That they're a box to smush you in, and if you suggest in either word or deed that the box dimensions are not really your dimensions they (a) smush you harder and (b) blame you for not fitting in the box.

            There are kind of a lot of blog posts out there lambasting Steele for what she said.  And let me reiterate that I don't read her*** and haven't managed to watch the interview.   So I can't offer an intelligent opinion of what she said and how she said it.  But I can say I've read a few of the blog posts in response, both good, sharp, funny† ones like White's†† and rather more furious, betraying-her-audience ones that you can find for yourselves, and my response is . . . um.  This is not my experience of being labelled.

            That people read my books is great.  Amazing.  Astonishing.  GREAT.  Over thirty years as a professional writer and I'm still gobsmacked every single frelling day that I'm getting away with it.  That strangers are willing to pay money to read my books.  Is this the best of all possible worlds for a writer or what?  Yes, it is.  And I doubt that Steele or any other writer just stinking lucky enough to earn a living as a writer isn't pretty well constantly and permanently aware of the luck and grateful to the mostly-unknown readers and their money.  I am.  You bet I am.†††  And that (probably) a majority of my faithful, money-paying, spreading-the-word readers originally found me in the YA fantasy section of their library or their bookstore—or jostling with McCaffrey and McKillip on a friend's bookshelf‡—is absolutely fine. 

             Whatever works.  Writers want their books read.

             What doesn't work so well is when people decide They Know What You Write, or that They Know What YA Fantasy‡‡ Is—or that Because You Write YA Fantasy You Are A Nice Little Person Who Will Never Step Out of Line (in Word or Deed)‡‡‡.  I've been fighting this battle since BEAUTY.  BEAUTY is about as warm and furry and feel-good as a story can get without positively sticking to your fingers, I was 25 when it was published and looked about 16, and dear gods was I patronised.  And—ahem—I was cranky when I was 25 too.  Is every first novelist put into a box that purports to define the trajectory of their future career?  I don't know.  But I was.  That people are going to like one of your books better than another, or that they're going to love this one or that one as top favourite is fine, like being put in the YA fantasy category shelves is fine.  What is not fine is when readers, publishers, book critics and Mrs O'Brien's parakeet tell you that you are this kind of a writer and therefore you should write this kind of book.  And feel free to be angry with you if you don't.

             We will pause now for a moment in which I invite you to imagine the reaction of the patronising, sweet-little-YA-author BEAUTY-lovers to, let's say, DEERSKIN.  Or SUNSHINE.§  To give you a slightly fuller flavour of my experience let me add that some of them are the people who had sent me lists of stylistic errors and scolded me for 'damn' and 'hells' in SWORD and HERO . . . and, oh, my, it never quits, the people who are outraged that Aerin has an affair with Luthe and goes home to Tor in a book that won the Newbery Medal.  The Newbery—and SWORD's Newbery Honor—are why I became an earning-living professional writer.  I would be stupid not to be both aware of this and grateful—but the label 'children's/YA' frelling haunts me.  If I had a dime/shilling for every letter/email I've had telling me sulkily (kids§§) or accusingly (parents and teachers) that HERO is too hard for children I could put a conservatory on Third House.  It could be quite a big conservatory if I also had a dime/shilling for all the protests about Aerin's morals. 

             I could go on.  And on.  And on.  I haven't even got to the 'have you ever written a real book' aspect of being a genre writer.  Labels suck.  They perform a useful function, and we're lumbered with them until we come up with a better system.§§§  And maybe Danielle Steele was being a thoughtless cow.  But she's been around a long time, like me, and maybe she was just tired of being defined by her label.

             And now maybe tomorrow I'll finally get to the self-marketing posts.           

* * *

* Who knows me well.  Possibly too well. 

** or clipped, since the original interview seems to have been on TV:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/21/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main6887539.shtml

I, however, can't watch it, because my computer is presently not merely possessed by demons, but bungful, creaking at the seams stuffed with demons^ and Moving Pictures is not an option. 

^ And Raphael and Gabriel say they have to take it awaaaaaaaaay to exorcise it. 

*** I don't read most writers.  That I don't read her doesn't mean anything.  I'm a very, very slow reader, I read over way too wide a range, I read a lot of nonfiction, I love million-word Victorian novels by Dickens and Trollope and Eliot, I reread my favourites including not only Dickens and Trollope and Eliot but Tolkien and Dickinson and Wynne Jones, and I'm an evil cow with a bad attitude, and I throw more books across the room than I don't.  

† Choose Your Own Adventure Vampire Westerns???? 

†† And yes, I know I have to read her PARANORMALCY, because of the pink rhinestone taser.^  I'm looking forward to it.  

^ Jodi told me about the pink rhinestone taser too.  See?  Knows me too well.    

††† Cranky?  Sure.  I'm also 5'8" and wear glasses.  It's a complete package. 

‡ Are you going to drum me out of the regiment if I say that in my experience the majority of book-hoarding SF&F geeks do alphabetize?  They may not be able to get into their bed for the stacks of books on the floor, but the Hs are holding up the bedside lamp because there's no room for a table and the OPQs are on the windowsill with a black plastic garbage bag backing them so they don't fade in the sun, and the reason you can't get the door open more than a crack is . . . but by golly they're alphabetised. 

‡‡ Or Choose Your Own Adventure Vampire Western 

‡‡‡ I also need to point out that the world was a lot different in 1978 when BEAUTY came out.  Among other things 'YA' had pretty much only recently been invented, and as a category was still erring mostly on the conservative side. 

§ I've told you about the sixth-grade teacher who assigned SUNSHINE to her class, haven't I?  She hadn't read it yet.  Nor had she noticed that it was being published as adult.^  It was just the new book by the author of HERO, and she'd seen in the paper that the author was coming to her town on tour.  She brought her class to my evening at the local bookstore. 

^ And yes, lots of teenagers read SUNSHINE, and there's now a YA-target edition, the new shiny gold one.  But when I wrote it I really really really wanted to make the point that fifth graders and Great-Aunt Gladys who makes you put a pound in the charity box if you say 'damn' should not read SUNSHINE. 

§§ Don't Get Me Started on the School Assignment Letter 

§§§ Actually DNA typing and the plug in the back of your neck don't appeal to me much, even if this would get rid of labels.

Round-up Sunday

 

 You know, like leftovers for supper.  Sometimes it's really good leftovers.

 First.  In response to loud public outcry*, here at last is the paragraph Peter wrote about how he came to write In Defense of Rubbish: 

Following the reference in R's blog I've been reading that stuff I wrote about rubbish.  It was an accident that has haunted me for forty-odd years.  My second, or maybe third book was on the short list for the Carnegie medal.  At that time the medal meant nothing to me, I'd never heard of it, but as a result I was asked to speak at a conference on children's literature in Exeter.  I said I'd talk about science fiction.  Rash.  I'd read very few contemporary children's books (Alan Garner's  Elidor is the only one I remember now, none of them was SF).  The result was unsurprisingly thin.  Anyway, when I got to Exeter I was out of my depth.  The atmosphere was bafflingly intense.  A passing remark of William Mayne's at some previous conference was quoted in a reverent half-whisper.  I felt more and more depressed and irritated and out of place, and almost at the last minute decided to bulk out my feeble essay on SF by saying something about my feelings.  There wasn't time to do anything more than scribble a few notes, and then I had to make it up as I went along.  I got some laughs (that line about Paradise Lost in haiku was part of what I said) and a bit of applause when it was over, and felt nothing but relief that I seemed to have got away with it.  But then teachers and librarians started coming up to me and telling me that it really needed saying and asking for copies, and I had to tell them there weren't any.  That didn't solve anything.  Once home I started getting letters asking for permission to reprint in a collection of kidlit pieces the writer was putting together, some of them explaining that they needed a devil's advocate viewpoint to balance things out, and there wasn't anything else available.** So I had to try and cobble something together, but I couldn't of course reproduce the crazed improvisatory zest of the original talk. I know I had more than one go at it. I can't remember where the version on my website came from.  The copyright date refers to the time when I was compiling the website, so I may have had a final go then.  I'm relieved to see it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Second:  I've been meaning to post this . . . well, since BlueRoseNZ tweeted it.***  http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/09/two-beauties-two-beasts-robin-mckinleys-beauty-and-rose-daughter 

What I find most attractive about it is that it's written with such, ahem, intelligence.  This is more unusual than it should be in book reviewing, it seems to me—this is why I so rarely read my own reviews:  I don't need the kick in the head.†  Maybe it's because Walton is herself a writer.  I think she's dead on about the differences between the two books—and the similarities, although I'd never quite said to myself that the beats fall in the same places.  I suppose I'd say . . . well, of course.  That's the heart of the story.†† 

           I am, however, appalled at the suggestion of Stockholm syndrome:  and can Walton have missed that each Beast takes some pains to tell his Beauty that the threat to kill her father was empty, and that she doesn't have to marry him?  I also hesitate to reiterate the obvious, but these are novels based on a fairy tale:  and the rules are different.   The Beast is (literally) a monster with (literally) a human heart and, as such, desperate:  hence the ugly behaviour and (empty) threats.  To me his age doesn't reflect  how much older he is than Beauty as much as it does the depth of his despair—and how long it took him to learn to be 'human' again.  (The Beauty in ROSE DAUGHTER hasn't only been there a week in a getting-to-know-the-chap manner.  It's, you know, a metaphor.  Jeweltongue even says Beauty's been gone seven months.)

           I've thought about whether or not I noticed the creepy overtones of how girl meets boy [sic].  Erm.  I would have said I did, actually, that that's a lot of where the story comes from:  the horrible with the good.  Is the Beast a good guy or a bad guy?  How do you tell?  Are you betraying yourself if you fall in love with the guy who tricked you?  (How do you tell?)  But where people's creeped-out lines run vary—even within the liberating confines of fairy tale.  My lines run past the heroines who don't talk:  the girl with the twelve swans for brothers, who has to weave shirts out of nettles and can't talk.  And the king marries her anyway.  Ewwww.  A big, a really, really, really big thing for me about Beauty and the Beast is that they talk:  they do get to know each other.

           I was also thinking about my first exposure to fairy tales when I was a little American girl in the '50s.  I don't know how old Walton is, or what it was like over here, or what her first book of fairy tales was, or why one grabbed her rather than another.  I've told this story many times before—Andrew Lang's Beauty and the Beast sank through my skin and became My Story more or less on contact.  Maybe I was built that way anyway—but the other thing, the huge thing, is that as a little American girl in the '50s this was the FIRST fairy tale I'd read where the girl does something.  She chooses to take responsibility for what happened to her father, and goes off to the castle to face the Beast.  She doesn't just passively react, like the swan-brother girl with her blistered hands.  SHE DOES SOMETHING.    Everything else, for me, is kind of by the way.  

And last but not least, in response to my blog last night about semi-attending a music seminar, EMoon posted this to the forum: 

Growing up, we had the piano my mother could almost nearly afford: a Baldwin Acrosonic spinet. Nice little piano, on which I learned what I learned, and faked what I didn't. (I didn't learn to read music well at all, with only a year and a half of instruction, but I played by ear…) We had a lot of fun with it; in the days when people would sing around a piano for fun, friends did so. I had that piano here when we first moved here, and our son started on it (and if he had not developed language might well have become a musical savant–at five he was playing along with a recording of Moussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition.")                                                                                                                           

           Then one evening we'd gone to a nearby town with a mall to eat at the cafeteria (practice in eating out for autistic kid.) Across from the cafeteria was a piano store. Up front was a used Steinway baby grand. I made the mistake of walking up to it. Every rational neuron in my brain screamed "Don't touch it, don't listen to it." Every string in my heart yearned. The salesman said "Would you like to play it?" I did, just a little. Enough to hear its tone. Her tone (her name is The Duchess. She is quite firm with me about some sloppy habits I'd developed on the spinet.) 

           I told myself, firmly, that I wasn't good enough to deserve such a piano. I went home and called two friends and said "Tell me not to buy this piano" (with, no doubt, naked longing in my voice) and they both said "Buy that piano." And one said "And if you need some help…"

            I called the piano store the next morning, and then got organized to drive over to that town. And discovered that to buy a Steinway, I could not wear jeans (in which I live) because this was a Steinway and it deserved respect. I wore a nice skirt. And lady shoes. And wrote the check with trembling hand.

             The Duchess deserves a better pianist (I'm still lousy, though playing little tiny elementary Bach things on her is sheer delight.) The Duchess deserves a better room with better acoustics. The Duchess deserves someone who has time to practice daily. But she sings to me when I do play, and I feel connected to Real Music with her. She gave me courage to try for a better choir.

             Yes, indeed…get the best instrument you can afford, whatever your instrument is, because it will exert moral force to improve your musicianship. †††

 I love this story.  And, EMoon, I'm so glad you have a good piano. ‡

* * *

 * Thank you! 

** Peter and I have just had a ROW about this line.  I keep saying, it's not only that they wanted a devil's advocate.  It's also that they agreed with you.  Peter keeps saying, It doesn't matter if they agreed with me!  There was nothing else available so they had to use it or have nothing on the other side!  I say, They wouldn't care there was nothing on the other side if they didn't think the other side was worth arguing for!  Peter says, It's only that it was the only thing available!  Peter is doing his Disappearing Englishman trick.  It's not that he's a good writer and has a good point to make.  It's that they were stuck with him.  That explains the two Carnegies that he did win too, you know.  There just weren't any other books published those years and the judges had to give the medals to somebody.  Gah. 

*** Thank you! 

† Not that bad reviews can't be intelligent.  But I will remind you of what I have often said on this subject, which is that so few reviewers have got alongside the author before they start in on what the author did wrong that all that is left is the kick in the head:  there isn't anything useful there, and kicks hurt.  I will add that while praise for the wrong thing is a lot easier to handle, it's still very unsettling.  And carries with it the discomfiting possibility that the reader in question will eventually notice that you're not writing the books she thinks she's reading, and then she'll get cross because you aren't writing the books she wants to read.^  And then she'll tell you you did it wrong.^^

^ If I get one more comment on how swoony and sexy Con is I may . . . try to get a place at the Royal Academy and make a late-life career change to piano accompanist.

^^ I say she, because the majority of my readers are female.  I'd say a higher percentage of my fewer male readers complain, but I could be mistaken. 

††If I do it again, as I threatened to in the afterword to ROSE DAUGHTER, the 'beats' will fall in the same places again.  Although I could probably get a blog post out of why I think this isn't the full, hmm, story—about what happens when you sit down and literally tell the same story again.  And she's right of course about SUNSHINE.  That's why one of the stories Sunshine tells the Be—I mean, the vampire, in the beginning, is Beauty and the Beast, and why she wonders if an illustrator has ever made the Beast a vampire.  Yes I know what I'm doing.^  Well, sometimes.  Sort of.^^ 

^ Heavens.  I may have just had a small but perfectly formed revelation on why I like, and like working with, enforced getting-to-know-yous, like Beauty and the Beast—and SUNSHINE—and JANE EYRE.  Stay tuned. 

^^ And no this does not mean that I'm just not telling you that she ends up with Con at the end of the sequel that I haven't written.     

††† I felt a little guilty about my rant last night about buying a good piano.  Even a cheap Steinway—which my 1897 upright is, as Steinways go—is a major chunk of change.  Lots and lots of people flatly don't have the cash.  I'm not totally clueless about this.^  But the principle remains the same:  buy the best instrument you possibly can, because it'll boomerang on you and make you take your music more seriously.  I'm sure EMoon is telling the literal truth when she says her piano inspired her to try for a better choir;  I wonder if I'd be composing if I were still using my faithful old bottom-of-the-range electric keyboard.  I can pretty much guarantee I wouldn't be singing.  And there are sometimes ways to get at good instruments if you're determined enough.  If you take lessons, for example, try to impress the hell out of your teacher with your earnestness if not your talent, and he may, as Oisin did, let you practise on his piano sometimes.  

^ I was so frelling poor for so frelling long.  

‡ Drat.  Still haven't written about author self-promotion.  Tomorrow—!

Surviving a Music Seminar

 

Much as it pains me to admit it, Oisin was right.  Don't teachers realise how demoralising it is for their students for teachers to be right?

            I did go to the seminar today.  It was—just as Oisin said it would be—very low ( . . . ahem . . . ) key and friendly.  Gertrude in her other life is a farmer*, so you drive down a very long knobbly track into what is clearly a farmyard**, complete with large rusty harrows, corrugated-tin sheds of indeterminate provenance, and friendly, muddy dogs.  Then you take a hard left past the kids' bicycles and a lawn mower . . . and find yourself stepping through a door into a large, open, two-storey-with-half-loft music studio embellished with an electric organ, at least one keyboard***, a drum kit, and an eight-foot Steinway.  And a long wall of sheet music on shelves.  Golly.†

            The funny thing is that it was okay.  I didn't want to die or run away.  One of the singers has done a lot of public performance and a lot of different kinds of public performance†† and another of them I recognise from last summer's introduction to Oisin's musical-theatre group.  She's a soloist:  you won't have any trouble hearing her over the footlights.  The rest of them are just, you know, people.  Who sing.  Or play the piano.†††

            Since the point of the exercise was for students to practise on each other, the music for both was the easy end.  And where I almost got myself into a lot of trouble was during the tea-and-cake††† interval.  Gertrude, who was rushing around being hospitable, said, Robin, please feel free to play the piano.  Pianos exist to be played.

            I actually did.  This in itself is a first.  But one of the books they'd been using during the first half was one of these 'community singalong' collections.  I have my own, and they're comfort music:  when whatever I'm trying to play, sing or write‡‡ is making me crazy, I will get out Men of Harlech and Annie Laurie and Early One Morning.  I play all of it badly, but I get through. ‡‡   As it happens this book fell open at Drink to Me only with Thine Eyes which is the first thing I memorised, two or three years ago, at the beginning of my Memorisation Phase, partly because I like the tune, partly because it makes me laugh§, and partly because you've only got two short lines to learn, because one of them is repeated three times.  There is no frelling way I was going to try to play it from memory today—I was doing well to sit down at the piano and arrange my fingers over the keys§§—but to my disgust this version was in a whole different key than the one I know so my possible advantage was scorched flat.  Sigh.  I played it anyway.  Badly.  And very, very quietly.  And everybody was standing around talking and eating cake, which helped—so did the fact that by then I'd heard everybody else produce some wrong notes.§§§  Perhaps not as many.  But yeah.  I stumbled through quite a few of ye olde favourites, the Steinway helping as it could.  And when it turned out that one of the singers had been given Drink to Me Only as her never-seen-before challenge for the second half, Oisin gave me a very hairy eyeball. 

            I gave him a very hairy eyeball right back.

            But . . . yeah.  If they do it again, I'll sign up properly.  If Oisin and Gertrude promise that it'll be at this same relatively nonthreatening level.  Several of you—including one or two on Twitter and FB—in response to mine last night have said that the nice thing about accompanying is that you're not the centre of attention.  Yes.  What appeals to me about accompanying—the reason why it's been a secret fantasy as far back as my short spurt of piano lessons in college—is that you're crucial to the performance# but almost no one notices.  I like the idea of being invisible to all but the cognoscenti.## 

            Which would be a lead-in to the post I keep putting off writing about author self-promotion—in response to some blog posts Jodi has sent me links to—except this one is already long enough and there's always tomorrow.  Also Peter has written me a paragraph about How He Came to Write 'In Defense of Rubbish', so clamour for it, okay?  Then I'll have to remember to hang it. 

* * *

* I know her sheep well.  Hellhounds, Wolfgang and I regularly meet them on the road outside Ditherington, on their way to see the world.  I know some breeds of sheep are more escape-minded than others;  these clearly are Houdini sheep, or possibly Batsheep or MisterMiraclesheep.  

** Looking out over fields of thoughtful sheep 

*** I may have lost count 

† I assume the rest of the orchestra is in boxes under the loft stairs. 

††  Including stuff like casually swotting up a solo song at the last minute when she was on tour with some choir or other and one of the venues sprung it on them that they wanted a song as part of some local celebration or other.  Okay, not talking to you any more. 

††† Or, in one case, do both.  Hmmm.  A precedent. 

‡ Really excellent cake.  I suffered the doubtless unworthy thought that some of the attendees may have been bribed by the prospect of Gertrude's cakes.  

‡‡ In any medium 

‡‡‡  One of today's revelations^ was the business of getting through:  the First Rule is Keep Going.  I know this—of course I know this—from bell ringing.   Beginners always want to slow down and think when they get confused, whereupon every other ringer in the tower will start shouting, Keep going!  Keep going!  You or your conductor has a chance of sorting you out if there is something to sort out:  if someone just stops, you've had it.  I nonetheless remember being surprised when, having lurched horribly through one of the little duets with Oisin a long time ago, he said, good:^^  You understand that the First Rule is Keep Going.  And here it was all over again:  the First Rule for either singer or accompanist is KEEP GOING.  Those notes you just missed or murdered are over.  Get on with the next ones!  Parallel with this of course, and making it that much harder, is all those instincts from hours of practise:  you bobble something, you want to stop and do it again till you get it right.  Performance is different!  KEEP GOING! 

^ Or re-revelations, if one can have re-revelations.  Well, one can, if one is I.  

^^ No!  Wrong!  Bad!   

§ I sent thee late a rosy wreath/ Not so much honouring thee/ As giving it the hope/ That there it could not withered be/ But thou thereon didst only breathe/ And sen'st it back to me/ Since when it grows and smells, I swear/ Not of itself but thee.  —Italics mine.  Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee. 

§§ I think it's something to do with the Steinway part.  Must.  Play.  Steinways.  Oisin has a Steinway.  I, for pity's sake, have a Steinway.  And I still haven't told you How I Found My Piano, have I?  I wasn't going to buy a Steinway.  I was going to buy a Bosendorfer.  Hey, aim high.  This is a rant for some other day, but you really should buy the best piano you can afford.  This business of a piano being 'good enough for a beginner', as seen every day in the 'for sale' column of your local paper, is so counterproductive.  One of the things that nails you is the sound.  And you're not going to get sound to die for on a £50 and-you-have-to-move-it piano, poor thing.  Obviously you're not going to buy a Steinway before you start lessons—unless you have more money than sense—but if you notice that playing is getting under your skin BUY YOURSELF A GOOD PIANO. 

§§§ With the possible exception of Oisin.  Who, not that I'm prejudiced or anything, was the star of the show.  Accompanying is one of the things he does.  He not only knows what he's doing, he's funny about it.  He also has that good-teacher ability to find something good to say about ANY performance, no matter how dire.  I have been grateful for this skill once or twice myself.  

# As Oisin says, be nice to your accompanist.  He or she can destroy you. 

## Of course I'd rather be invisible to the cognoscenti too but . . .

How Not to Recover from Dental Surgery in an Efficient and Timely Manner

 

Zero energy.  Zeeeeeeeeeerooooooooo.  Ugh.  Adrenaline spikes optional.  Will get to that in a minute.

            Meanwhile, it's raining.  There's nothing like teeming rain not to encourage me to stop being a total wimp and get those poor sad time-short-from-yesterday hellhounds outdoors.  Poor sad hellhounds agree about this for just long enough to get outdoors, and then they stare at me, through the teeming wet stuff, with disbelief and, when I don't show any signs of doing something about it, start clamouring to get back indoors again.  No, no, we have to go march around the (soggy) landscape for a while.  Develops character.* 

            But zero energy and the mood-oppressive qualities of rain did mean that I tottered off to my so-called piano lesson this afternoon looking forward to a cup of tea and listening to Oisin play—I've told you he's now got this TOTALLY FABULOUS organ computer programme?  And over the last few months the bits of kit to go with it keep appearing and getting plugged in.**  His music room isn't that big, so when he starts doing his Phantom of the Opera act it pretty well pastes your hair back.  The funny thing is how glorious it is. 

            In hindsight I realise that it is a measure of Oisin's profound self-restraint as a music teacher that when I told him I didn't like recorded organ music he didn't throw me out and tell me never to darken his door again.  (Slightly in my defense this was before I realised he loved the pipe organ above all things.)  He let me stay long enough to explain that it's what I call the bullying of it:  it seems to me to come out of standard stereo speakers like that third grader who used to wipe the pavement with me every day after school, let me see, fifty-two years ago, when I was in first grade.  Heavy, hard, noisy, and mean.  Although (as Oisin likes to point out) his new paragon runs on two stereo speakers . . . trust me.  It's different.  A Friday afternoon without Oisin playing his electronic monster and pasting my hair back is now a melancholy shadow of what it should be.

            Last week he'd given me a print-out of the information page for a seminar he's running with a local voice teacher,*** for voice students and piano students to learn a little more about the art of singing with accompaniment.  Did I know anyone who might be interested in playing the piano?  It's easier to find nascent singers than nascent accompanists, and they're short piano players.  No, I don't, not in this country anyway.  Well, take it with you, he said, flapping the page at me.  In case you think of anyone.

            I didn't think of anyone.  And the page has apparently already entered its second life as scratch paper, because when I looked for it today I couldn't find it.  Not like this is a big deal—although I did ask Oisin last week if this was the sort of seminar where someone, ie me, could come along just to listen.  I'm interested in both sides of this particular architectural divide and would like hearing some of the nuts and bolts of it discussed.

            I now forget exactly how it came up, since the blood started coming out of my ears shortly thereafter, but today I asked if he'd found out if tomorrow's seminar was permitting rogue audience members and he looked slitty-eyed for a minute and then told me . . . that I should be taking the seminar as an accompanist.

            IS HE OUT OF HIS TINY UNGLEBLARGING MIND?

            Has he forgotten that I can barely play for him?  Because I'm so preoccupied with the nervous breakdown attendant on anything remotely resembling public performance, ie that anyone else can hear me?  That when I bring him something I've written I make him play it?  IS HE JUST CRAZY OR IS HE DANGEROUS?

            A! D! R! E! N! A! L! I! N! E!   S! P! I! K! E!

            So.  Anyway.  I'm flattered silly, but as totally appalling compliments go, this is about as grotesque and horrifying as it gets.  BLEAGH BLAH URGH AAAURP, I said, or words to that effect.†  He did acknowledge—and I am grateful for small favours—that if he were going to try to make me do this—It would be good for you! he kept saying.  Being a New York Times bestseller would be better for me! is my response—he should have got me in a necklock several weeks back and held my head under water till I agreed to sign up.††  But . . . [bad language here].  One of the things that is probably going on is that he has remembered, in that really annoying way of good teachers, that in a weak moment I've admitted that I have a secret fantasy of being an accompanist.  It's the old practical thing again.  For someone who has fatal stage fright it's a bit weird, but there's an upper limit to my desire to polish up my performance of anything for the hellhounds.†††   I was never going to be Mitsuko Uchida or Susan Gritton‡ but third-string back-up accompanist to the school chorus or back row of the chorus for the local amateur theatre group . . . that sounds like fun.  Well, sort of.  If I could find the 'off' button to the Freaking Out.

            I should stay at home and read more.

 * * *

 * I also have a strange desire to demonstrate in public the art of picking up after your dog, so that the dog-free will see that it happens.  I like—well, sometimes I like—watching the faces of people walking toward us.  The friendly are friendly:  they're fine, except when there are small leaping children involved, because Chaos, not unnaturally, immediately wants to leap too.  The indifferent don't trouble me:  not everyone understands the marvellous furry excellence of dogs.^  It's the ones whose faces tell me that if it were up to them, dogs would be banned, or at least not allowed on public ground, that worry me.  And I always wonder if this may have something to do with indiscriminate piles of dog crap about the place.  

^ Poor sad deprived things.  I do just about understand that not everyone wants a dog.  I am staggered by people who have no interest in companion animals at all.  I don't mean people who can't have them, due to landlords or allergies or other luckless circumstances.  I mean people who are just not interested.  It's like missing a limb or not being able to feel pain or something.  Not to them, presumably.  

** At present he's moaning about keyboards.  He wants to upgrade.  About time, I say, crisply.  He has a pedalboard that is a creature of ash-and-ebony beauty aside from mere function, and he should have keyboards to match, rather than these leftover things from his little attic recording studio.  He keeps trying to be restrained and sensible.  I keep trying to stop him being restrained and sensible.  He really shouldn't talk to me about it.  I am a bad influence.^

^ I'm trying. 

*** No.  She's serious.  I think she'd make me cry.^

^ No, I haven't rung the Cherub yet.  Hate me.  Go on, I know you want to.

† I may have said something about how if they do it again next year, I might think about it if I were given enough advance warning.  I hope I didn't say this.  

†† A few weeks ago wouldn't have been enough:  I've been booked for yesterday's frelling dental surgery for a long time.  And—barring adrenaline spikes, which, frankly, put my recovery back—if I'm zero today I'll be about 50% tomorrow if I'm lucky.   

††† Note that Oisin still hasn't heard me sing.  Here I have this experienced, professional accompanist available at the drop of a Friday afternoon . . . and I keep chickening out.^

^ I rest my case.

‡ Besides, being a world-famous pianist or soprano would mean touring.  I already don't tour as a very-small-time-semi-world-famous author.

Ow, comprehensively revisited

 

Got an email from a friend a little while ago:  Dentist bad, worse, or unspeakably horrible?

            Um . . .

            The 'unspeakable' part might only be functional, ie can't/don't want to open my mouth, except that I managed to oversleep this morning* and it was an early appointment**.  From this a long cascade of unfortunateness descends.  When I finally woke up I looked at the clock, gave a someone-is-standing-on-my-tail hellhound yelp, banged into the first seven articles of clothing*** I could find, tore downstairs, scooped hellhounds out of their crate†, added All Stars†† to the array and hit the road running.  The hellhounds are better at this last part than I am.†††

            But by the time we got back from our truncated hurtle I was well into Panic Mode, so I had the cup of very, very, very strong tea but couldn't really face lunch.  And I hadn't had time for my breakfast apple(s).‡   So I leaped into the Wolfmobile and shot off to Mauncester on zero food and a megakick of caffeine and sugar.  I am a sane, responsible grown up.  I am. 

            They scraped me off the ceiling at the dentist's and pumped me full of anaesthesia.  The kind with adrenaline, so I wouldn't bleed so much.  Have I mentioned that this was the first stage of my first implant?  They're going to slash open my gum and drill a hole in my jawbone.  I was really looking forward to this experience.  So the adrenaline-laced junk is a perfectly reasonable choice, and the 'not bleeding so much' part appealed to me.  Except for the fact that after they filled me up like a swimming pool I started shaking so badly it was hard to read the magazine‡‡ I was holding, or perhaps that was my eyeballs vibrating in my skull.  I was, you see, sent out to read in the hall while they turned the office into an operating theatre.  Jeezum Crow.  I'd have been terrified when I was finally waved back in if it hadn't looked so much like a TV set.

            LOUD NOISES.  BLOOD.  FISH ON THE CEILING.‡‡‡

            Looks really good, said the dentist from R'yleh jovially.

            I am instructed in rolled-handkerchief biting, the correct application of packets of frozen peas, and how much ibuprofen I can take before I become the Incredible Hulk.  And sent on my way.  There's a funny little peg sticking up in the middle of what used to be a gap in my teeth, and four extremely neat little stitches around the edges. 

            I got back to the mews, looked queasily at my rejected salad, and made another cup of tea.  I put a cosy on my cup and took hounds out for a hurtle.  And did I mention handbells?  Thursday is handbells.  I got back from hurtling, drank the extremely well steeped tea, and bolted back to the cottage to repel boarders, I mean, welcome my fellow ringers.  Fernanda is still struggling with the basics of bob minor, and Niall, who is like this, kept me on the 3-4 which forced me to concentrate.  Unfortunately Colin was there today too so then we had to ring major.  Eight bells!  I don't ring major!  And I have no brain!  It's all burnt up with adrenaline and caffeine and PAIN!§  And a certain lack of calories.  I still haven't had anything to eat.  Food.  Ewww.  There's got to be a better way.

            Handbell ringers left.  I hurtled hounds again.  They're still time-short, but they'll just have to be time short today.  I staggered down to the mews. 

            I am eating.§§  I may live.  You can check in again tomorrow.

* * *

*How . . . not unusual

**Okay, as I count early.

*** Bra, knickers, two socks, jeans, tshirt, little hot pink cardigan with white polka dots

† Oooooh!  An adventure!  We like adventures!  Will there be things to chase? 

†† hot pink 

††† I haaaaaaaaaate other dog owners!  Hate!  Hate!  Hate!  Hate!   The rec ground beyond Warlock Gate has been discovered by way too many of the Exacerbated Fathead subheading of this generally unlovable^ clan.  There's one dog we've now met several times, always off-lead, always borderline aggressive—if my guys ever grow up and stop presenting as puppies, I'm going to be in the middle of canine gang warfare several times a frelling week.  And yesterday we got jumped by an Alsatian about the size of Peter.  Turned out he was wearing a muzzle, but I'd already had my heart attack at that point, you know?  The owner's girlfriend thought this was hysterical.  If my hands hadn't been full of leads I might have hit her, so what a good thing my hands were full of leads.

            And today . . . those of a sensitive disposition might want to look away now . . . My Best Beloved Hot Pink All Stars are very old.  Here's a photo:   Old.  They were the driving force behind my desire to find waterproof shoe liners, okay?  There are HOLES in the bottom of both soles.  Waterproof shoe liners are so I can go on wearing them a little longer, especially on days of high trauma, like this one. 

            Now—do I have to remind you delicate flowers to look away?—contemplate stepping in dog crap with a hole in the bottom of your shoe (even when covered by a waterproof liner). 

^ A few of our forum members excepted.  And the owner of an adorable Pomeranian+ we meet occasionally around here.

+ No, really!  She is my Pomeranian Conversion experience like my very-ex-British editor's stud Pekinese was my Pekinese Conversion experience.  Unfortunately I don't dare tell you about my very-ex-British editor because he just might concievably know about this blog.  He and his wife bred and raised wolfhounds . . . and Pekinese.  And he introduced me to Eva Ibbotson's books, so he is a Force for Good.  Nobody's perfect.

‡ Hot off the tree.  This is really appalling timing for having to eat soft food for a few days.

‡‡ Kew, as in the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Usually one of my favourite journals, but I may have just imprinted it with today's events.

‡‡‡ He needs a new DVD.  I've seen this one kind of a lot.

§ The anaesthesia has worn off.  And I'm going through the arnica pretty much with both hands.  Arnica works surprisingly well for most things for most people^, but you do kind of have to keep your nerve to begin with.  I started off taking it about every five minutes and am now down to . . . um.   Over an hour.   I'll take the ibuprofen if I have to to get through the night—fumbling for tiny white pills gets old when you're trying to sleep—but at this rate of improvement I won't have to.

^ And for incised wounds, like this one, you might throw in a staphysagria. 

§§ Broccoli (somewhat overdone in the circs) and fish salad.  I like broccoli.  Get used to it.^  And the fish salad features Peter's mayonnaise. 

^ Actually . . . broccoli is a comfort food for me.  Okay, I admit it.  That's sick.

Tir nan Og

 

From out of nowhere I had a pretty good day today.*  Hellhounds had a proper hurtle, much to their surprise**.  This way! I say cheerily as they look over their shoulders at the short option, and then dubiously back at me.  PEG II even failed to resemble the Dumbarton Rhapsody*** today.†

            So I decided to have a Bell Adventure.  Twit. 

            Years ago, I think before I started writing this thing, Niall and I rang at Tir nan Og a few times, and I went back once or twice by myself.  It's a little too far away, and in those days there was Ditherington and Wild Robert on Wednesdays.††  Did I say a little too far away? †††   Dear hinterlands and seven league boots.  You wouldn't think you could get so far from anywhere else in Hampshire.‡  But (contrary to myth) the people there are friendly and so are the bells, and the good thing about the middle of nowhere is there are no motorways involved, so me behind the wheel of a car becomes a possibility.   Therefore when an irresistible craving to ring bells tonight‡‡ began sweeping over me this afternoon I thought of Tir nan Og. 

            It's a good idea to phone the tower secretary if you're planning on going to a tower you don't know:  in the first place you want to make sure they're having practise.  The Handbook for your local districts only comes out once a year and things change.  In the second place, unless you're a Wild Robert or a Niall, you want to be sure they have a happy, positive attitude toward visitors.

             I started trying to ring the tower secretary at 4 pm.  No answer.  Oh, she's probably at work.  4:30.  5.  5:15.  5:30.  Hmmm.  It's raining and I need to hurtle hellhounds again.  I phone Colin, whom I would have said knows every bell ringer south of London and at least two-thirds of them east, west and north.  But he doesn't know anyone in Tir nan Og.  I phone Niall, who is about to sprint off to ring handbells with James and Darcy.  I phone Vicky, who isn't home.  I phone Wild Robert, who is in London (according to his housemate), ringing bells.  My blood is up by now however . . . I ring Boadicea.  She was in a good mood, and supported my idea of ringing at a new(ish) tower‡‡‡—but she didn't know anyone in Tir nan Og.  At this point Vicky rings back and suggests I ring the district secretary—Tir nan Og isn't even in our district.§

            I ring the district secretary.  She sounds tired and discouraged till I say 'bell ringer' and suddenly she's a hellhound that's caught sight of a rabbit.  I identify myself and she says, I know you.  You used to ring at Kilimanjaro.  Eeep! I say.  That was over ten years ago!  (I have no idea who she is.  She's a name in a handbook under 'district secretary'.)   I had to give up ringing when I fell ill, I say.  Yes, I know, she says.  Oh, I say, erm.  I'm so glad you started again, she says.  And gives me a phone number for the ringing master at Tir nan Og.

            Who answers her phone.  Who also remembers me.  Note to self:  maybe I should do something about this American accent after all.  Yes, they're having practise.  Yes, they'd be delighted to see me.

            So my fate is sealed.  Hellhounds and I go out into the teeming rain, and they are glad to come back indoors again after a mere token hurtle.  This is a good thing, since I then spend about half an hour staring at an assortment of maps and thinking about how it would be nice to stay at home, go to bed early, and read a good book.  Too late:  I have the honour of a foreigner with a funny accent to maintain.

            The first thing that happened is that the road I was planning to take, on the other side of Ditherington, is closed.§§  Oh.  Usually Tir nan Og doesn't stoop to this kind of tactic.  It doesn't need to.  It just retreats ever farther just over the horizon from wherever you're coming from . . . teasing you down long dark tracks only one car wide where the trees have closed over your head and through . . . what is that unusually dark patch on the road ahead?  That looks like WAAAAA—splaaash . . . fords. 

            When I got, as I fondly thought, somewhere near it, I rolled windows down to listen—since I was late—for the sound of bells.  No sound of bells.  But I hit a 30 mph zone, which is a good sign . . . except that I found myself passing back into a 60 mph again.  One of my favourite things:  a one-car-wide two-way sort-of road with trees shouldering closely along both sides, where the speed limit is 60.  And, of course, nowhere to turn around.  I turned around.  I got back to the 30 mph zone.  Still no bells, but there are faint lights from a new direction.  At this point even will o' the wisps would be company. . . . I figured out there was a church in the vicinity when I saw the lych-gate gleaming at me through the fog.  Of course there was fog.  I was trying to find Tir nan Og, wasn't I?

            And I was welcome.  I was not only the sainted sixth ringer so they could ring doubles methods, I am an inside ringer so they could grapple with the complexities of plain bob and Grandsire.  Sigh.  Crash barrier all the way tonight.  Never mind.  The people (and the bells) are friendly and the ringing master is lovely.

            I'll spare you the details of the return journey. . . .     

* * *

* Looks around warily for whatever is waiting to take it away from me.  Shoo!  Go on, shoo!   

** Darkness has been lame which is breaking all our hearts, because here we are in stubble-field season and I don't dare let them off lead because he'll just strain whatever it is again—or Chaos will full-body-ram him which I half-suspect may be where the trouble started.  Darkness is the tense, responsible one:  Chaos is the loose-limbed thug.  Furthermore, when I'm having a tottery spell it would be very nice to let them off lead and let them hurtle each other.  

*** http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/3343966/The-10-minute-climb-that-took-two-years.html  Occasionally I like reminding myself that there are much worse obsessives out there. 

† I'm still fabulously behind on . . . almost everything, if there's anyone reading this and muttering to themselves about failing to hear from me about x, y, z or all three. 

†† Sob  

††† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%ADr_na_n%C3%93g  I actually do have the symbol for the Ó —Tir na n Óg—but I don't think I can face what WordPress will do to it.  Which is to say I'm using it in this footnote, and we'll see.  

‡ Cornwall, yes.  There's a series of tourist-attracting semi-guidebooks called 'Haunted . . .'  Haunted Hampshire:  um.^  Haunted Cornwall means it.  I think Tir nan Og is in Cornwall really.  Which would help to explain why it seems so far away. 

^ But I have told you about Gnomehenge, haven't I?  Hampshire's finest landmark.  And much older than SPINAL TAP. 

‡‡ Especially since Gotterdammerung is still . . . twilit and sulky.  And I didn't hear from Gabriel today.  Siiiigh.  I did finally hear from my builder.  After I rang again and screamed.  

‡‡‡ You should want to ring at other towers.  But you aren't allowed to express any self interest in doing so while at the same time you need to arrange to ring with bands better than you are if you are ever going to improve.  But you mustn't waste better bands' time which is selfish of you, towers shouldn't be expected to teach other towers' small fry and lower their own standard to give you time on a rope.  But you are failing to support your own tower (which is also selfish of you) if you just slack around ringing stuff you can already ring by choosing the wrong towers to visit, because when you improve your entire (home) band improves.  But you should support towers with bands less good than you are by ringing with them and helping them improve.  The world according to Boadicea.    

§ Well, of course.  It's off the edge of the map.  Any map. 

§§ I'm almost sure I recognised some of the camouflaged signage from Mauncester last week.  But this is out in the mountains of the moon with a waste of lightless emptiness all around:  they don't waste their six-legged diggers here.

Another Day Bites the Big One

 

In the first place, the ME has been an utter ratbag for about ten days now, and I'm running out of places to hide.*  And in fact I went bell ringing last night (stubbornly) on the grounds that it would do more for morale** than it would do against everything else, which is probably true, but it still meant I got up today . . . and might have made a u-turn and gone straight back to bed again if the hellhounds hadn't heard me moaning and running into things*** and set up a little counterpoint melody and bass line of their own.

            Just as well.  I had to get hurtled and down to the mews in time for Raphael and Gabriel to show up with the laptop's new memory which was going to fix all our problems, right?  Okay, even I'm not that naïve, but I did think it would do something.  And no doubt it has done something† but whatever it is is not visible to the naked eye†† or the tapping fingers.

            The main thing is that Finale still won't work.  Waaaaah.†††  

            So Computer Men loaded a Diagnostic Programme and went away, leaving it running, and telling me kindly that it would take about an hour, and I could ring Gabriel with the results, and they would decide what to do then.

            It took three hours.

            And the laptop failed.  Well, of course.   But when I rang Gabriel with the gh&^

Banned Books Week. Sigh.

 

It's National Banned Books Week in America and there's a lot of heavy, depressing stuff going down:  I'm particularly thinking of the blow-up about this disgusting little toerag Wesley Scroggins who thinks Laurie Halse Anderson's terrific novel SPEAK is 'soft porn' and should be taken off library shelves.  Many other people have pointed this out, but the first person I saw doing so is Joanne Harris on Twitter:  that the accusation itself tells us all we need to know about Scroggins, who manifestly finds rape sexually arousing.

            There's plenty out there on both Scroggins and the wider remit of Banned Books, and I'm not even going to try to post a judicious selection of links about it.  Here's one:  http://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?cat=9  , which is the blog of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association.  There's a lot of interesting stuff on it, and it'll certainly get you going—in more ways than one—if you need or want a place to start.  It also includes Scroggins' original complaint, Halse Anderson's response on her blog, and various other links to excellent if dispiriting further reading.  I particularly recommend the old essay by Kurt Vonnegut Jr in response to the news that his SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE was not merely banned off library shelves but thrown into the school furnace.  He writes:  'It was so cowardly, too—to make a great show of attacking artifacts. It was like St. George attacking bedspreads and cuckoo clocks.'

            And then there's the don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry division.  I follow HuffPostBooks, and they posted this on Twitter: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-steinberg/banned-books-week-flashlightworthy_b_734097.html?ref=twitter#slide_image

which is an annotated list of the 2010 top ten most often 'challenged' books, which is to say the books people most often want to ban.  I can't remember if TANGO made it into Days in the Life proper, but I remember there was a lively forum discussion about it a year ago because at that point I hadn't heard of it, and my reaction was, What?

            I particularly like flashlightworthy's* comment on this one: 

Tango the baby penguin and his two dads must be sad to have slipped from the #1 slot to #2 over the last year. The reason for requested removal? Homosexuality. Yes, apparently gay flightless waterfowl pose a serious threat to the moral fiber of our nation. On the other hand, it's good to know that our society has become more tolerant of non-traditional penguin families.

             And then there's this I retweeted from @thebookslut: Shel Silverstein "encourages children to break dishes so won't have to dry them." Banned Book Week http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=18205

              This one presents us with The Top Ten Ludicrous Reasons to Ban a Book (and unsurprisingly if somewhat solipsistically gives us a link back to the American Library Association web site:  http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm ).  These are if anything more stunning than the previous list**.  The one thebookslut quotes is first, and it gets even more deranged and other-worldly as you go on.  I remember this one:  'If there is a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?' which was used to recommend against BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, by Dee Brown.  I apologise for repeating myself but, WHAT?

            I also remember the accusation that Garth Williams' THE RABBITS' WEDDING is an incitement to miscegenation.  This is beyond WHAT? and into gibblegibblegibble territory.  You all know Garth Williams, right?  Illustrator of CHARLOTTE'S WEBB?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams  Little furry friendly critters?  Yeah.  WEDDING is little furry friendly critters too.  Here's the cover:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/images/0060264950/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=266239&s=books

I'm like yo, you folks there, whoever you were, can it get any more warm and fuzzy?***  The Wiki article quotes Williams as saying that he had no idea that fur equated with race and he just liked the colours.  But, you know, what if it was a secret text promoting miscegenation?  You know, so?  And your point would be?  We've got a president (who I for one still believe in) who's the result of whatsit, although probably not among rabbits.

             Both these lists, however, take the same cheap shot at TWILIGHT:  go on, ban it, please.  I'm afraid I thought this was funny, at least the first time, and @radmilibrarian wrote:  'I know he's trying to be funny about Twilight, but I actually have a BIG problem with people suggesting it's OK to ban "bad" books.'

            Sigh.  Yes.  Okay.  True.  I tweeted back that I reserved the right to feel that certain bad books cause actual harm, and I would include TWILIGHT in this category† . . . but book banning isn't really much of a joke.  Fair point.

            But @radmilibrarian tweeted me once more:  Also, http://www.peterdickinson.com/DefenseOfRubbish.html

            Yes.  This is one of my Favourite Things.  I feel I must have known Peter'd got it up on his web site, but I didn't remember it.  And it's wonderful.  And it's a good place to end even a lightweight, glancing discussion of the sad and thorny problem of banning books. ††  It'll make you laugh, cheer, and go to bed with a favourite trashy novel.  On my way. . . . 

* * *

* I've bookmarked http://www.flashlightworthybooks.com/ which is where the Huffington Post picked it up, and which describes itself as 'Lists of Great Book Recommendations'—397 of them at present, but more all the time—'books so good, they'll keep you up past your bedtime.'  I'm drooling at just the idea of 387 lists of books.

** Although the lead-in claims:  'It is easy to become a little cynical of old disputes like the ones that thwarted Ulysses and The Catcher In The Rye. Those books are canonized now and their scandals seem removed by the passage of time and cultural norms.'  Well, CATCHER IN THE RYE is still on 2010's most challenged list (as is TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE COLOR PURPLE), so I guess I'd say you're only allowed to be cynical if it doesn't make you complacent. 

*** And the person or persons unknown who objected to FLICKA because 'a female dog is called a bitch' we hope will never come in contact with LADY:  MY LIFE AS A BITCH by Melvin Burgess.  Or, then again, maybe we do hope. 

† For all the reasons you would expect of a hellgoddess who has made a career out of writing stories about girls and women who do stuff themselves.  

†† And, just in case you're wondering, yes, I've been banned.  You're all nodding wisely and saying DEERSKIN.  Yes, DEERSKIN—but HERO and SWORD too.^  Really.  I've also been more comprehensively condemned for writing fantasy 'which teaches lies'.  Good, huh?   There's some really dismal and pitiful stuff out there. 

^ I can't believe SUNSHINE hasn't been banned somewhere, but I don't think I've heard about it.  I've heard from people who want to ban it, but that's something else.  Maybe now with the flashy new YA-target SUNSHINE edition—that's the shiny gold one—some outraged parent or school board member will notice it.  It was published as adult, as DEERSKIN was, not because I don't want teenagers to read it, but as some warning that the subject matter, or any way the manner of telling, isn't really suitable to kids, however precocious their vocabularies.